Dale Yu: Review of A Message From the Stars

A Message From the Stars

  • Designer: Clarence Simpson
  • Publisher: allplay
  • Players: 2-8
  • Age: 11+
  • Time: 45 minutes 
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4kdMCFs
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

In A Message From The Stars, a team of scientists seeks to decipher cryptic messages from an extraterrestrial civilization.

Set against a backdrop of cosmic mystery, players take on the roles of brilliant scientists tasked with decoding a series of perplexing satellite transmissions. These transmissions are believed to contain vital messages from an alien race that could hold the key to the destiny of Earth. The catch? The messages are incomprehensible, written in an entirely unknown alien language.

Using engrossing deduction mechanics, players will collaborate with their fellow scientists to send messages back to the extraterrestrial senders. By exchanging these messages, you hope to unravel the intricate linguistic code that conceals the true intentions of the alien entity. Each interaction yields a numerical value, a piece of the puzzle that you’ll need to solve the riddle of the alien language.

Players can engage in cooperative gameplay, where all scientists pool their collective intellect to crack the alien code and unveil the hidden message. Alternatively, delve into team play, with two alien players sending messages across the galaxy.  The future of interstellar relations lies in your hands!

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Dale Yu: Review of Zenith

Zenith

  • Designers: Gregory Grard, Mathieu Roussel
  • Publisher: PlayPunk
  • Players: 2 or 4
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 30 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/44KxnyW
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

In the far-off future, the solar system is inhabited by 3 races: Humans, Robots, and Animods.
Civilization runs off of Zenithium, a clean and renewable energy source, but coexistence is a struggle.
Your goal: unite the planets to gain control of the senate!

Players will struggle to gain Influence on the 5 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter. This Influence is represented by discs in different colors.

In Zenith, there are 3 victory conditions:

  • Absolute victory: Gain 3 Influence discs from the same planet.
  • Democratic victory: Gain 4 Influence discs from strictly different planets.
  • Popular victory: Gain 5 Influence discs (from any planets).

The game ends immediately as soon as one player meets 1 of these three conditions.

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Dale Yu: Review of Square One

Square One

  • Designers: Jan Soukal and Patrik Chleboun
  • Publisher: boardcubator
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 9+
  • Time: 30-60 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/43owCsV
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Square One is an engine-building strategy game, similar to its predecessor Project L. Its easy-to-learn yet hard-to-master mechanics offer high replayability for the whole family.

In Square One,  players match tiles with patterns to pattern cards on the board. Build more patterns and make more combos to earn points. The person who completes all their patterns first, wins the game.

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Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 13)

Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 13)

Carrying on from the last article, Mistwind (which I write up below) became a 3-bathroomer as well. Everyone started with one air-whale and most bought the extra two, making turns more and more complicated, hindered by not being able to plan what to do with all those air-whales until you see what public goods and contracts other players have left you when your turn starts. I’ll admit, when my turns are 10 seconds, wait for 3 minutes, take turn 10 seconds, wait for 3 minutes … well, I start checking out my nails to pass the time. One is only human after all.

What I value are games where plantime = tweenturntime, the corollary being perceived downtime = 0. Which is why Civ and similar games at a 4 player count isn’t recommended – it’s not the overall game length that’s the issue (for me anyway), it’s that plantime < tweenturntime at that point, whereas at 2p and 3p it’s mostly equal enough.

 

If adjusting player count doesn’t get to a point where perceived downtime = 0, I gradually lose engagement. No matter how interesting other player turns might be. And then I find I gradually care less. And then my turns get even faster. And then it’s going to be tough getting it back to the table. And then … dude, where’s my car!

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Heroscape: Embers of War

Well, fellow Heroscapers (and those who are fascinated by my obsession with this crazy miniatures combat system), it’s time once again to recap Renegade Games virtual “convention” (RenegadeCon) and the new information they revealed about the next wave of armies and terrain (due to be released in October 2025).

I’ll be covering both the reveals (thanks to Anais Morgan & Lee Houff) as well as the Heroscape Designer Roundtable (thanks to Anais, S. Rowan, Dyllan Fernandez, and Alex Davy) that were a part of the stream yesterday. (If you’d like to watch it for yourself – including a live playthrough, a paint clinic, and a short feature on Heroscape miniature design – head on over to the Renegade Game Studios YouTube channel.)

New Heroes & Squads

The good folks at Renegade call these ‘Army Expansions’ – and we’re looking forward to four boxes worth of figures this fall. This new story arc (following up on this summer’s Boiling Tension arc) introduces us to completely new areas of development as well as paying homage to classic Heroscape.

An aside: Heroscape originally was published by Hasbro from 2004-2010… and that era of figures is designated as “classic Heroscape”. A serious amount of development was put into reviving Heroscape by Avalon Hill (Hasbro) in 2022 that created all of the currently released figures in what is called “contemporary Heroscape”. When that effort did not crowdfund at a high enough level, it looked like my beloved game was truly done – but along came Renegade Game Studios to license the game from Hasbro… and the release in 2024 of the first big box of Heroscape stuff since 2010. Almost a year later, the contemporary is roaring along.

An aside to the aside: for those of you old ‘Scapers who’ve just crawled out from under a rock, the new stuff has excellent backward compatibility with the scads of “classic” figures we already have on our shelves.

OK, enough asiding – let’s get to the new stuff!

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Dale Yu: First Impressions of The Mandalorian: Clan of Two expansion

The Mandalorian: Clan of Two expansion

  • Designer: Corey Konieczka and Josh Beppler
  • Publisher: Unexpected Games
  • Players: 1-4
  • Age: 12+
  • Time: 30-60 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link (base game): https://amzn.to/43Hvxhc
  • Amazon affiliate link (expansion):  https://amzn.to/43JnFuw 
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

The Mandalorian is tasked with reuniting The Child with its own kind, but danger lurks everywhere. Will he find the Jedi, or will Moff Gideon get what he seeks? In The Mandalorian: Adventures – Clan of Two Expansion, you work together to complete thrilling missions inspired by Season 2 of The Mandalorian. Play as four new characters, each with wildly different play styles, skills, and tricks. Put your skills to the test with four story missions on four new locations in a new mission book — doubling the number of maps in the game — and four diverse mercenary missions. The expansion also introduces new enemy types, ongoing events, a duel deck, and more that can be integrated with the base game for more variety.

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