Convention Report: Gulf Games 54

Posted on August 1, 2025 by Mark Jackson

Yes, I realize that there are a LOT of gamers at a convention right now – and that the little invitational event my sons & I just attended is roughly the same size as a small tournament at GenCon. But part of the joy of our hobby is the wild variety of ways you can engage in enjoying board and card games with family and friends.

I was there at the (nearly) beginning of Gulf Games… my wife & I were one of nine families who made up the attendees of Gulf Games 2 in the fall of 1998. For the next 5 years, I was a pretty regular fixture – then we moved across the country and I only managed to make two Gulf Games events between 2004 and 2014. Beginning in 2015, I began bringing my sons (first the oldest, then both of them) to enjoy one of my favorite family-friendly gaming events.

What that means is that Braeden is celebrating a decade of attending Gulf Games while I’m at the 27 year milestone. Collin (the younger son) has been doing this for eight years. (Parental aside: I love that my boys share my hobby & enthusiasm for games; even more, I love that we enjoy traveling and playing together.)

With the preliminaries out of the way, let me dive into a recap of our Gulf Games experience!

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Whirlwind one-day Gen Con 2025 thoughts

Posted on August 1, 2025 by Dale Yu

If it’s summertime, it must be time for Gen con. I made my annual pilgrimage to Indianapolis to this largest of American game conventions. Traffic today seemed a little bit worse than usual between a pop-up thunderstorm and a huge number of streets closed in Downtown indianapolis. After taking an extra half an hour to get to where I was going, I managed to get into the convention hall.

My first stop was at Surfin Meeple. They have a number of new games including a very nice new line of mini games from Grail.  Two of these are trick taking games while the other is a smaller version of Fjords.

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Gen Con 2025 Preview – Dale Yu: First Impressions of Star Wars: Battle of Hoth

Posted on July 31, 2025 by Dale Yu

Star Wars: Battle of Hoth

  • Designers:  Richard Borg, Adrien Martinot
  • Publisher: Days of Wonder
  • Players: 2-4
  • Age: 8+
  • Time: 30 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: 
  • Played with a review copy provided by publisher

Star Wars: Battle of Hoth is a game of heroic and fast-paced battles of miniatures that’s set on the ice planet Hoth and reenacts one of the most famous scenes of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.  Using the popular Command and Colors system, players take turns choosing command cards each turn to activate units and decide how to move and attack, across seventeen scenarios included in the box.  For a deeper gaming experience, players have the option to add leader cards to their battle for support from six iconic Star Wars characters, or they try the two multi-scenario campaigns in which successes and failures shape the next battles.

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Gen Con 2025 Preview – Dale Yu: First Impressions of Sanctuary

Posted on July 30, 2025 by Dale Yu

Sanctuary

  • Designer: Matthias Wigge
  • Publisher: Capstone / Feuerland
  • Players: 1-5
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 40-100 mins
  • Played twice with pre-production copy provided by publisher
  • Please note that all pictures are from a pre-production copy

In Sanctuary, you will plan and design a modern, scientifically-managed zoo for animals and visitors. A supply of 135 unique zoo tiles provides you with animals, buildings, and projects. In every game, you want to find the best mix from those available to build the most successful zoological establishment. Different effects on the tiles will help you to achieve conservation goals and to increase the attraction of your zoo.

Each player has a set of four action cards to manage their gameplay, and the power of an action is determined by the slot the card currently occupies. One of those cards will let you play projects, and the other three cards will let you play animals of a specific habitat: forest, rock, or water.

Sanctuary is based on its predecessor Ark Nova, but modifies and simplifies many of the mechanisms of that game in an elegant and surprising manner. Your goal to find the best way to puzzle together your animals, buildings, and projects on your zoo map is an ongoing pleasure!

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Heroscape: Well-Armed Crabs and a Serious Boost to Revna’s Army

Posted on July 29, 2025 by Mark Jackson

The release of the Boiling Tension figures for Heroscape covered May through July… with everything coming in ahead of schedule! That means that the releases I’ll be reviewing here have actually been available at retail since last Monday. The Air Marshall dropped back in May – and he was a cool enough figure to get his own review!

A quick reminder for those of you living under a (virtual) rock when it comes to board games: Heroscape is a miniatures skirmish combat game played on a board constructed out of (incredibly cool) plastic terrain pieces. (Seriously: folks who play with other minis systems have used this 3D terrain because it works so well.) Since the theme is a battle for dominance in world where the Valkyrie Generals can recruit warriors from multiple times & dimensions, there is a wild mixture of heroes & squads – aliens & Matrix guys & Braveheart & dragons & robots & kung fu monks & gorillas with guns, to name a few. More recently, the good folks at Renegade have added polar bears & space pirates, to name a few more. And it’s one of my favorite games…

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Dale Yu: Review  of Typewriter

Posted on July 28, 2025 by Dale Yu

Typewriter

  • Designers: Tim Fowers, Jeff Beck, Skye Larsen
  • Publisher: Fowers Games
  • Players: 2-5
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 30 minutes
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Spell words, flip your typewriter keys, and build combos in this new game in the Paperback series. This travel-ready game comes in a small box, and can even be stored in the included zipper bag. Acrylic tiles instead of cards mean even a bit of rain or ocean spray won’t dampen your fun.

Every turn, you will spell a word with the tiles in front of you. Use all your starting tiles in the word to send a tile to your scoring stack. And at the end of each round you’ll grab a shiny new tile for yourself from the offer. Since you can only take a tile from the offer after your turn, you can start spelling out your next word while the other players take their turns.  Sounds simple enough. But there’s one more twist: every time you spell a word, you’ll flip all the tiles in that word, revealing new letters and a completely new puzzle.

The tiles you take might have potent abilities that can be recharged by using a letter in your word to flip them back over, or you might grab tiles that help you score set collection points at the end of the game. Other tiles are bigrams that let you claim common vowels, and sometimes a tile just has a real tough letter that can score for real big points.

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