Dale Yu: First Impressions of Why You Lying!

Posted on September 29, 2020 by Dale Yu
  • Designer: X-Multiverse, Jin C.
  • Publisher: X-Multiverse/Taiwan Boardgame Design
  • Players: 2-6 (with available expansions)
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 20 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by Taiwan Boardgame Design

From the box- “Why You Lying” is a tabletop card game that combines dice bluffing game mechanics (similar to Liar’s Dice) and complex math concepts… It’s a great bluffing game to allow children to learn probability concepts while practicing addition and multiplication during game play”.  Whew.  That is all true, and I’ll admit – if this is the sort of game that Taiwanese children can handle, color me super impressed!

As the box claims, the game is indeed similar to Liar’s Dice or Perudo, a game that many of our readers are likely familiar with.  However, there are plenty of differences as well that will set this one apart.  To start, there are no dice in the game. Instead, each player gets their own identical 30 card deck of cards – having 5 each of crickets, spiders, fish, chicken, rabbits, and “mascot workers”.  In each round, the deck is shuffled and players draw a hand of 5 cards from the deck.

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Talia Rosen: Player Count Cubes

Posted on September 28, 2020 by Talia Rosen

I’ve long been focused on (some might say obsessed with) figuring out my favorite number of players for each game that I own.  My goal is to own games that are good at every player count and for every duration, so that I have the perfect game for any opportunity.  This goes all the way back to my HTML spreadsheet creating days in 2007, when I wrote about Picking the Perfect Game.  At the time, I tried to categorize most of my games along a “player count” X-axis and a “duration” Y-axis.  A couple years later, I doubled down when I wrote Six is a Crowd, in which I infuriated many by declaring that you should just about always split your group of six into two tables to play three-player games of approximately the same length.  I proposed game pairs that could be played side-by-side for this endeavor, but many folks still prefer to cram six players into a single game.  De gustibus non disputandum est.  The height of my focus on ideal player counts was in 2012 when I put together Best for any Crowd, in which I decided it was impossible to have a favorite game without first dividing games by player count.

But then in 2020, I moved into a larger apartment, and I was able to organize and display my board games in an all-new approach… by player count!  The famous Ikea Kallax shelves have worked perfectly for accomplishing my goal of designing and organizing “Player Count Cubes” that embody the pinnacle of two-player, three-player, four-player, and five-player gaming.  Here, I’ll share some of my favorite parts of this new organization scheme, and you’ll get an even fuller picture of my idiosyncrasies in the process.

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Dale Yu: Review of Metro X

Posted on September 27, 2020 by Dale Yu
  • Designer: Hisashi Hayashi
  • Publisher: Gamewright
  • Players: 1-6
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 20 minutes
  • Times played: 5, with review copy provided by Gamewright

I just received a box of games from Gamewright, and I’ll admit that I am very impressed with their newest selection of games.  In the past, I had always thought of Gamewright as more of a family-oriented company (Slamwich, etc) – but this year’s selection of games looks to be turning a new corner.  Sure, the games are still perfectly suited for families, but two of the three games come from distinguished designers in the genre.  These games are the sort that I’d be happy to pull out when I have non-gamer guests over, but they also have the pedigree behind them to work for the usual gamenight.

The original version of Metro X came out in 2018, in a Japanese-only production, and while I was pretty interested in it at the time (seeing as that was the height of the XXX-and-write craze), import costs and a bit of ennui kept me from getting a copy.  The designer is one of my favorites – Yokohoma, Trains, String Railway, Sail to India, Okey Dokey, Rolling Japan, and Minerva all have gotten good play here in the past. Continue reading →

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Dale Yu: First Impressions of Embarcadero

Posted on September 26, 2020 by Dale Yu

So, 2020 is the year where I finally learned to conquer my fear of online gaming.  Well, sort of.  I’ll admit, I still don’t like it very much; but the pandemic has made it such that this is the only way to see some of the new games!  I was invited to meet with one of the press folks from Renegade to discuss their new game, and after a short demo, I was enticed enough by the description to go ahead and play a game online!  I’m normally not a fan of playing games online, but I’m trying to get ready for SPIEL2020.digital, so it’s high time that I figure out all this new fangled technology.

In Embarcadero, players are business moguls in the growing city of San Francisco.  Around the wharves, players will park their boats and build buildings upon them – all trying to be the most successful mogul. Continue reading →

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Dale Yu: Review of Abandon All Artichokes

Posted on September 26, 2020 by Dale Yu
  • Designer: Emma Larkins
  • Publisher: Gamewright
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 15-20 minutes
  • 4 Plays with review copy provided by Gamewright 

I just received a box of games from Gamewright, and I’ll admit that I am very impressed with their newest selection of games.  In the past, I had always thought of Gamewright as more of a family-oriented company (Slamwich, etc) – but this year’s selection of games looks to be turning a new corner.  Sure, the games are still perfectly suited for families, but two of the three games come from distinguished designers in the genre.  These games are the sort that I’d be happy to pull out when I have non-gamer guests over, but they also have the pedigree behind them to work for the usual gamenight. Continue reading →

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Nibbling on the Hand That Has Fed Me (My Musings on Hasbro & the HeroQuest reprint)

Posted on September 25, 2020 by Mark Jackson

I have to come to realize that many of the things I write about board gaming now start with a decent chunk of personal history. This opinion piece (from, no surprise, an Opinionated Gamer) is no exception.

Some of that I credit to how long I’ve been in the hobby: 

And some of that I credit to just being old. Well, older. OK, old.

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