2024 IGA Nominations Announced

Posted on August 5, 2024 by huzonfirst

The International Gamers Awards (IGA) have announced their nominated games for 2024.  The IGA nominates games in three categories:  Best Multiplayer Experience, Best Two-Player Experience, and Best Solo Experience.  Here are the nominated games in each category, along with their designers and publishers:

Multiplayer

  • Daybreak (Matt Leacock, Matteo Menapace) – CMYK
  • Nucleum (Simone Luciani, David Turczi) – Board&Dice
  • The White Castle (Israel Cendrero, Sheila Santos) – Devir
  • Ticket to Ride Legacy (Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock, Alan Moon) – Days of Wonder
  • Voidfall (David Turczi, Nigel Buckle) – Mindclash Games

2-Player

  • General Orders: World War II (Trevor Benjamin, David Thompson) – Osprey Games
  • Lacuna (Mark Gerrits) – CMYK
  • Match of the Century (Paolo Mori) – Deep Print Games
  • Sky Team (Luc Remond) – Scorpion Masque
  • Voidfall (David Turczi, Nigel Buckle) – Mindclash Games

Solo

  • For Northwood! (Wilhelm Su) – Side Room Games
  • Imperium: Horizons (David Turczi, Nigel Buckle) – Osprey Games
  • Voidfall (David Turczi, Nigel Buckle) – Mindclash Games
  • Witchcraft (Trevor Benjamin, David Thompson, Roger Tankersley) – Salt & Pepper Games

In addition, the IGA recommends the following four games:

  • Age of Innovation (Helge Ostertag) – Feuerland Spiele/Capstone Games
  • Great Western Trail: New Zealand (Alexander Pfister) – eggertspiele
  • Hegemony (Vangelis Bagiartakis, Varnavas Timotheou) – Hegemonic Project Games
  • Rats of Wistar (Simone Luciani, Danilo Sabia) – Cranio Creations

Among the designers, David Turczi did particularly well, with three separate listed games earning five nominations.  Other designers with multiple listed games include Matt Leacock, Simone Luciani, Nigel Buckle, Trevor Benjamin, and David Thompson.

The nominated games and a good deal of other information can be found at the IGA website (International Gamers Awards).  The winning games will be announced in early September.

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Dale Yu: Review of Horrified: World of Monsters

Posted on August 5, 2024 by Dale Yu

Horrified: World of Monsters

  • Designer: Prospero Hall
  • Publisher: Ravensburger
  • Players: 1-5
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 60 mins
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

You’re one of Earth’s premier monster experts, and you’ve come to a mysterious arcane-punk town centered around the Void, a doorway between worlds from which terrors of all ilk might erupt.

Horrified: World of Monsters is a standalone game that features gameplay similar to 2019’s Horrified, and in this co-operative game, you’ll face off against the riddling Sphinx, the reclusive Yeti, the ravenous Jiangshi, and the Great Old One itself, Cthulhu. Each monster presents a unique challenge, and you can face them individually or in combination, with players pooling their unique skills to overcome puzzle-like obstacles inspired by monstrous legends and lore to gather item tokens, protect citizens, and avoid attacks.

The inclusion of Cthulhu brings the Horrified line its first multi-phase puzzle, with one puzzle in the realm of World of Monsters and one in Cthulhu’s realm.

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Patrick Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2024 (Part 2)

Posted on August 4, 2024 by Dale Yu

Some things haven’t changed in this new year’s series, like the proclivity to find games that should come with an ‘approach with caution’ warning over the rarer halo’d games we jump at. 

If every game was a halo’d game though, halos would be meaningless. 

AFTER US (2023): Rank 2353, Rating 6.8

Draw 4 cards from your personal deck and arrange them left to right to complete as many useful icon boxes as possible (they’re down the left and right edges of the cards). These give you the resources to buy better cards, trade in for VPs, etc. Keep playing rounds, keep improving your deck, aim to hit 80 points before everyone else. You’d get decent enough play out of it if you owned it but we also haven’t felt the need to go back to the well when we don’t.  (Dale’s review here)

Rating: 6

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Dale Yu: First Impressions of The Gang

Posted on August 3, 2024 by Dale Yu

The Gang

  • Designer: John Cooper and Kory Heath
  • Publisher: Kosmos
  • Players: 3-6
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 20 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Round up your gang and get ready to pull off a series of bank heists using the power of poker! In The Gang, a co-operative version of Texas Hold’em, players bet on how good they think their hand of cards will be relative to the other players, then try to make their predictions a reality. Early in a round, without talking to each other, each player chooses a chip indicating how good they think their hand is. Then they begin dealing cards into the middle of the table and have a chance to reassess their hands as more cards are revealed. At the end of the round, players see whether they correctly evaluated their hand. If all players did, you get to open one of the bank vaults! If not, you trip the alarm! If you manage to open three vaults before you trip the alarm three times, your gang wins!

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Gen Con Promo Reviews: Cat Plushie from Cat in the Box and Cartographer’s Hot Sauce

Posted on August 2, 2024 by Dale Yu

One of the wonderful things of being a board game reviewer are the fun non-game things that sometimes end up in the house as well.  I thought I’d take a minute to show off some of these other promotional items.

Bezier Games Plushie Cat

First up is the regular sized Cat from Cat in the Box Deluxe Edition; this one has been named “Pooh”.  This sturdy plushie has huge unblinking eyes, which admittedly can be super creepy at times.  I have two of these wonderful toys, and they have made a home on the headboard of my bed.  As my wife and I get ready for bed, we often toss the stuffed animals at each other, and being the super-adult person that I am, I named this one Pooh.  Just so I could cackle with glee as I fling Pooh at my wife.

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A short report from Gen Con 2024

Posted on August 2, 2024 by Dale Yu

[Matt C usually writes our Gen Con recap, and I will defer the bulk of the coverage to him… But, here are some thoughts from my 26 hours in Indianapolis this year. Look for the more detailed reports from Matt C in the coming weeks!]

Well I finally arrived here in indianapolis, found my parking garage, and of course the first thing that happens is.. I get to wait in a line. No matter what people say, the most common thing to see at Gen Con is a line.   This year, I think lines are going to be a big thing – there are signs all over the sidewalk proclaiming that Gen Con is completely sold out this year…

Luckily my first line was pretty short, and seven or eight minutes later, I’m the proud owner of my press badge. It couldn’t happen too soon, as I now have 15 minutes to hoof it across downtown to my first event, the Asmodee new release event. 

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