Back in BC (Before Change) times I used to help a number of Aus designers with their prototypes knowing they were keen on my views because of my gaming experience. I’d do my best to help because we like seeing Aussies succeed, plus they’re friends. I’d tailor my feedback based on the emotional maturity of the designer in as constructive way as possible but without holding punches. The usual questions were have you done the math, what types of decisions are you after, how is risk/reward balanced and adjusted thru the game, how does it build tension, where’s the story arc, and so on. I was comfortable doing that because guys are in the judging business and are rewarded for that in their relationships with other guys.

It’s one of our unfortunate societal constructs that when males criticise, it’s usually seen as a sign of asserting strength and it’s listened to, but when women criticise it’s easily labelled as bitching and then disregarded. It’s one of the great barriers to equality for woman, how the exact same response to a situation can be seen so differently and unfairly. Additionally, these tones can be thought privately in any adversarial situation, even if only subconsciously. You can understand why women may shy away from these types of situations. So, as a woman, I’m now in the business of being judged. Appearance, femininity, maintaining traditional roles. And I’ll be judged in adversarial situations, like assessing prototypes.

When guys profess how willing they are to rip into prototypes because it’s helpful, that comes from a place of guy privilege because they’re in the business of judging, not being judged. So why don’t I want to criticise a prototype now? I don’t want to be judged (in yet another way) and I don’t want to be ignored. Let me give an example of what happened in a recent prototype test at the Gathering. After finishing, the table of 5 guys were actively, loudly, and vociferously prosecuting their cases for changes required. I tried to add something and within 2 seconds was talked over so I gave up. I don’t want or need that conflict, even if friendly, in my life. So I sat and quietly listened. Eventually one of the guys created a safe space for me to talk – he shut the other guys down, asked them to listen, and handed me the conch. And within that conflict-free space I quietly outlined (based on my gaming experience) what I felt needed fixing, why, and a number of suggestions to get the game the right length and with the decision tension that the primary mechanic warranted. They then defended the game and their design decisions and I washed my hands of it but, by the end of the week, I noticed that they had implemented a ton of change that I’d suggested and were happy with how much it had improved. They just had to get to it in their own way.

So I wonder if this male-centric cut-and-thrust prototype process is one of the reasons that female designers are few and far between. That perhaps the process is too conflict driven. That they don’t want more judgement in their lives. If we want more equality and representation for women, how do we create safe non-judgemental spaces for women to contribute?

Moving on to new-to-me games I‘ve played recently. Note that there are no 7’s in this article. It’s a 7-free zone. Diversity is being encouraged. And even if it’s only for one article, hey, that’s still something.

BOITAS (2025): Rank 20985, Rating 7.8

Weird trick-taker where the top 2 in each trick win a points tile, the rest earn compensation which can be used to buy better cards. You know ahead of time what tiles are up for offer for each trick (ie their type and points value) and as you want sets of different or similar tiles, it allows you to target the tricks you want/need to win and play accordingly. It was all over rather quickly and my overriding takeaway was that drawing good cards certainly made it easier given the low number of tricks played.

Rating: 6

HASHI (2021): Rank 7434, Rating 6.7 – Allers

Clever flip-and-write where the revealed card shows a number, which you write on one of your islands, plus how many bridges you can build between the islands on your sheet. An island’s number indicates how many bridges can touch it. You’re racing to build a path between defined islands for points but also aiming to complete as many islands with its bridges as possible. It rewards a ton of look-ahead option planning, and then the order the cards get revealed will lead you down a path that requires new planning. The downside is that it’s totally abstract and while the challenge was interesting, it felt more like a puzzle that once solved you don’t need to go back to – and I know it’s not (due to the card order of course) but it’s how I felt afterwards.

Rating: 6

KABUKI TRICKS (2024): Rank 13131, Rating 6.9

Arguably my least liked trick-taker of all time. Suits are ranked, with each higher rank being a higher trump. Which makes for chaos, right? But that’s not enough. Let’s change the ranking between tricks, and also let’s allow changing from high-to-low to low-to-high within a trick. It was just so stupid, your planning and play so meaningless, that I don’t want to think about it anymore.

Rating: 3

MAN-EATING HOUSE (2016): Rank 16789, Rating 6.5

This trick-taker plays in pairs, wanting to win the VP earning cards. In an attempt to mesh with the weird theming, ranks had different rules. This wins but only if this isn’t played. This has an effect but only if that isn’t played. Do a few more of these and it gets head-spinning, for seemingly little game-play benefit and at the cost of slowing the game and making it difficult to know (as a partner) what to play and when. We gave it up as non-enjoyable after one hand.

Rating: 4

TEA WITCHES (2025): Rank N/a, Rating N/a

For the love of all that is holy, don’t play this with AP prone players. The fact that it was designed to allow and reward AP soured me on it completely. You don’t get too many turns, each of them are multi-stepped long, there are many available options, each is incrementally different so it’s unclear which is best, and there are many building and card effects with lots of text scattered around the board to digest. It’s worker placement, get items that allow you to store/grow resources, get resources, spend resources to satisfy a contract, build things that will allow you to keep on satisfying that contract each round. Rather than continually offering new paths, it just felt like busy-work to keep things you’d already built alive. One of the least enjoyable recently released heavy-weight Euros I’ve tried.

Rating: 5

TERRAFORMING MARS: THE DICE GAME (2023): Rank 1118, Rating 7.3

Each round get a die in the colour you want, roll it to get the icon you want. When you have dice icons matching tags on a card in your hand, build it. Cards are what you expect – income, actions, effects, points. You only really need to spend a turn running your income engine once you have enough cards to make it worthwhile and have actions needing untapping. There are other wibbles (spend a die to re-set a die, or get cards, etc) but most turns are just getting a die you need and hoping you roll well because that’ll make life easier. Also hope to draw into cards that match the dice you’ve got and the effect strategy you’ve built. Now I love the TM franchise but this repetitive grind of taking a handful of turns to get each card out, and then do it again, for too long, fell flat for me. I was looking forward to it finishing which is never a good sign.

Rating: 6

TESSERACT (2023): Rank 2883, Rating 7.5

A co-op of removing dice from a constructed cube of dice that sits on an elevated platform that has no function known to me other than to look cool. On a turn you remove available dice from the top of the cube to complete colour/number sets (being mindful to free up dice the next player will find useful). Enough sets allow the win but also provide you powers to stay ahead of the clock along the way – being that each turn a die is auto-removed from the cube with possible painful effects. It all felt rather soul-less, laboured, too long, and had no theme to generate interest. I was happy to move on rather quickly.

Rating: 4

WATERGATE (2019): Rank 173, Rating 7.7

I was afraid after reading the rules that this 2p was just going to be a pushme-pullyou game, and even though one of the core mechanics is to get the score and initiative markers to your side by the end of each hand, it feels like so much more. You can easily lose by ignoring the need to get enough pieces on the board. Each round you analyse your hand, determine for each whether you’d like to play them as an event or for ops (channelling Twilight Struggle et al) and then adjust as you go based on what your opponent does. By mid-game both sides feel like they’re staving off imminent defeat in one sphere only to be so close to winning in another. The rules are simple once you get going, the game feels tight and challenging, timeframe is great for its weight, it exuded rich theming, and there are different strategies to explore. So much to like.

Rating: 8

Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:

Mark Jackson: A hearty “amen” for your lukewarm reception to T.Mars: Dice… I love the original game and enjoy Ares Expedition, but the Dice Game left me cold. Too much grind, not enough fun.

Larry:  Watergate is a 2-dimensional tug of war between the investigators and the Nixon player, with thematic cards being used much as they would be in a stripped down CDW (card-driven wargame).  So you get the deliciously hard decisions of a CDW without all that nasty death and atrocities.  You could argue that the Watergate years (which I lived through) were just as horrific, but the well-chronicled investigation had an undeniable fascination and the game does a good job of relating the history of the events and the individuals involved.  A very good 2-player game which I’d love to play some more.  I really like it.

Ben: I quite liked Tesseract as a coop (1 play). We narrowly won our game and the player powers and cooperation moved it away from a dominant one player arc. My son had great ideas and the snowballing at the end helped us win in a convincing manner. I wouldn’t sleep on it.

Talia: I had the pleasure of being in these games of Watergate, Hashi, and Man-Eating House, which I wrote a bit about recently here.  Watergate is phenomenal, Hashi is solid, and Man-Eating House is… something.  I think I agree completely with Alison on each of these, which is wild.  I hope we get a Watergate rematch next year so I can avenge the journalists!