Beastro

• Designers: Matteo Uguzzoni, Jason Corace 
• Publisher: Hello Mountain Games
• Players: 3-6
• Age: 8+
• Time: 30 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Welcome to Beastro, where mythical beast chefs compete to make the best dishes! Beastro is a team-based trick-taking game with hidden roles where you have to figure out who is in your team and outsmart the others, collecting as many tricks as possible for your team.  Each round you: (1) wager to become the Head Chef and select your Secret Chef teammate, (2) Cook crazy dishes in order to win the most tricks for your team, (3) Play special cards to ruin dishes and get bonuses at unique Restaurants!  Every game you will play as of the mythical Chef and use their beastly power only once to turn the odds in your favour.  Beastro is played over a series of three round and the player with most point at the end will be the winner.

Continue reading →

Carnuta

• Designers: Yohan Goh, Hope S. Hwang, Gary Kim 
• Publisher: Repos Production
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 25 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Welcome to the annual ceremony that brings together druids from distant lands! Eight secret ingredients have been selected, and your task in Carnuta is to combine them carefully and assemble your runes to create an exceptional potion.

Continue reading →

EXIT: Adventures on Catan

• Designers: Inka and Markus Brand
• Publisher: KOSMOS
• Players: 1-4
• Age: 10+
• Time: 1-2 hours on the box (92 minutes IRL with our group of 4)
• Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4rEcP3j
• Played with review copy provided by Thames&Kosmos

The EXIT series was one of the original puzzle-game franchises to hit the market when the escape room game craze took off a few years ago. To date, my family and I have been able to play all of the ones released here in the US, and this is a series that we continue to look forward to future installments. While there are many worthy competitors in the genre, the EXIT series is possibly the best known of the bunch – due in part to the initial set of games being awarded the 2017 Kennerspiel des Jahres award.

I received this EXIT adventure right near the end of 2025, and it had been awhile since our last experience with this franchise.   We did have to wait a week to make sure that everyone in our regular group was available because these escape room games (like all their other EXIT predecessors) can only be played once. Once you know the puzzle solutions, you really can’t play the game again. Additionally, the game may require you to destroy or deface some of the components, and that also makes it hard for someone else to play with a copy which has already been used.

Continue reading →