Dale Yu: Review of Tag Team

Posted on September 3, 2025 by Dale Yu

Tag Team

  • Designers: Gricha German, Corentin Lebrat 
  • Publisher: Scorpion Masque
  • Players: 2
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 15 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Inspired by classic arcade-fighting games, Tag Team is an auto battler combined with a deck-building game. Make your team of two fighters from the twelve available — each with their own techniques and special moves — and build an unbeatable synergy by combining their two unique decks!

In more detail, you start with a deck of only two cards, and the fight unfolds automatically: Flip your cards one at a time and apply their effects. At the end of each round, you get to turn up the heat on the opposing team by strategically adding new cards to program your deck — but without reordering the cards already present. Determine what makes your tag team tick, play devastating combos, and dominate your opponent by deftly blocking their attacks. Timing is everything if you want to emerge victorious and knock out your foe!

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Gen Con 2025 – Northstar, MOCO

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Matt J Carlson

The NorthStar Games booth was dominated by their new rework of Evolution, Nature. It’s a streamlined version of the original game that can be mixed and matched with (five so far) expansions to add in more complexity and/or chaos. The base game is available but a digital version of the game will have an earlier release of expansions. It’s hoped to provide additional data for checking the balance of some of the later expansions. The digital version gets the full treatment of multiplayer, campaign modes, achievements, and lots of fun facts and photos. The MOCO Games booth was showing off their Sabobatage card game of cutthroat drink-making along with their newer titles. Danger Hugs is a sort of reverse slapjack where the matching animal determines the correct response action. Finally, there is Starleap where players play cards from (nearly) identical hands to race their frogs through space to get home first, hopefully picking up some bugs along the way. Upgrades to your frog-ship and asymmetric powers also play a part.

NorthStar Games

Nature

After a long development, the successor to Evolution is finally here. Once again, players are trying to shepherd their own sets of species through their life cycle, trying to gain a food advantage at the local watering hole while avoiding those meddlesome predators.

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Dale Yu: Review of The Four Doors

Posted on September 2, 2025 by Dale Yu

The Four Doors

  • Designer: Matt Leacock, Matthew Riddle, Ben Pinchback
  • Publisher: Happy Camper
  • Players: 1-5
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 30 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Beneath a mystical light tower, an ancient Hollow has re-opened, releasing a horde of evil spirits known as the Shadow Veil, who threaten to cover the land in everlasting darkness.  Your challenge in The Four Doors is to collect the relic from behind each door, then gather everyone at the beacon in order to light it.

Join a band of daring adventurers on a quest to retrieve the four sacred relics hidden beyond the doors of a mystical light tower.  Work together to unite the relics and ignite the beacon – before the sinister Shadow Veil engulfs the tower and the doors are sealed forever!

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Codenames Duet Refresh

Posted on September 1, 2025 by Dale Yu

 

The summer of 2025 is clearly the season for refreshed versions of classic games.  Earlier this month, I looked at the new versions of classics such as Ticket to Ride and Catan.  Now, CGE have release their new versions of Codenames and Codenames Duet.

Codenames is one of my favorite word/party games, especially because I can play it on their wonderful phone app.  Getting a daily dose of wordplay has reignited my interest in the physical game.  The app works great for solo play, and Codenames works great for 4… But what if you only have 2 players?  Well, Codenames Duet fills in this gap nicely.

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Habitats (2024)

Posted on August 31, 2025 by Dale Yu

Designer: Corné van Moorsel
Publisher: Allplay
Players: 1-5
Ages: 11+
Playing Time: 40 minutes

Amazon Affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4fRSfYD


Times Played: 15+ with all versions, 3 with review copy of 2024 Allplay version provided by publisher

So, as readers of the blog have seen this week, there is a huge trend in releasing refreshed or reskinned titles.  From a business perspective, this makes sense – if you can sell something that is already proven to be a winner, it’s an easy decision to make a reprint. 

For new gamers, this movement is great because it gives them a chance to add a classic game to their game collection – often with updated art and/or rules.

Habitats is one of those games which recently received a new version, and I was more than happy to look at the new Allplay version.  This updated version keeps most of the rules from the original, but now also includes an official solo version.  

The components are also upgraded, with a nice colorful draw bag included in the game.  Also, if you have chosen to bling up your game, you can have a great set of 90+ Animeeples in all sorts of different colors.

Another addition that I really appreciate is the dry-erase score board that Allplay includes. They have done this with a number of their newer games, and I find this to be a much nicer solution than a pad of score sheets.

Below is an exerpted previous review of Habitats from our blog:

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Codenames Refresh (2025)

Posted on August 30, 2025 by Dale Yu

The summer of 2025 is clearly the season for refreshed versions of classic games.  Earlier this month, I looked at the new versions of classics such as Ticket to Ride and Catan.  Now, CGE have release their new versions of Codenames and Codenames Duet.

Codenames is one of my favorite word/party games, especially because I can play it on their wonderful phone app.  Getting a daily dose of wordplay has reignited my interest in the physical game.

Continue reading →

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