Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 8)

Posted on May 5, 2025 by Dale Yu

Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 8)

There are a few in my gaming group who really enjoy It’s A Wonderful World. Which is unfortunate – they’re now only able to play it if I’m playing something else as it’s drawn my permanent veto. It starts as a simple card drafting game 7 Wonders style. Draft 7 cards, chuck some for their insta-resource to help build other cards which will boost production, which at end of round should allow you to build yet more card if you’ve planned properly and got lucky with the draft. Repeat for 4 rounds. As the rounds progress it gets more challenging to keep track of how all the production chain reactions are going to work out, and exactly how many resources you’re going to get at each stage. That’s the challenge. It slows the game down. The other problem is you either draw into the big-scoring cards that match your engine or you lose – which becomes more obvious and more irritating with each play. It’s now a 6 and dropping.

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Solo Gaming 2025: The First Four Months

Posted on May 2, 2025 by Mark Jackson

I’ve been writing these solo gaming reports since March of 2020… yes, early on in the pandemic. This new era of well-designed automata and solo modes for multiplayer games, coupled with excellent new solo game designs, is actually quite heartening to someone (me!) who finds something really satisfying about physically playing a game: shuffling cards, moving pieces, seeing it all spread out in front of you.

Solo gaming is now a decent-sized chunk of my gaming experiences – while I still play a lot of games with friends and family, 33% of my gaming in the first four months of 2025 was solo. For comparison, the yearly total for 2024 was 31%, 2023 was 20%, 2022 was 22%, 2021 was 33%, 2020 was 19%, and 2019 was 6%. With both of my sons well-established in new locations (UT Chattanooga for the younger, Huntsville AL for the older) as well as the crazy pace of my work schedule each spring, it certainly looks like this nearly 1/3 of my gaming is likely to settle in as solo play.

So, what follows are my thoughts on the twenty-five (25) different solo games I’ve played so far in 2025 – ordered by the number of times I’ve played them. (Note: this is not necessarily how much I like a particular game for solo play – for example, I think Voidfall is an excellent solo game design but I haven’t played it [yet!] in 2025.)

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Heroscape News: Zed Nesbitt Soars into View Whilst The Good Folks At Renegade Deal With Tariffs

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Mark Jackson

Welcome, Heroscape friends (and those who don’t play/collect the game but actually like reading my oddball takes on board games laced with pop culture references and other nonsense)! We’ve got two items to deal with today.

First, I’ll give a quick review/recommendation about Air Marshall Zed Nesbitt, the newest BIG figure that releases this month. Second, we’ll talk a little bit about tariffs and the workaround (of sorts) for summer 2025 Herospace releases from our friends at Renegade Game Studios. It’s a distinct possibility that I may insert a bit of personal political opinion into the second discussion. 

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Dale Yu: Review of Azul Duel

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Dale Yu

Azul Duel

  • Designer:  Michael Kiesling
  • Publisher: Next Move
  • Players: 2
  • Age: 10+
  • Time: 45
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4jnZiZA
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

Decorate the magnificent ceilings of the palace. Will the vaults look more beautiful by day or by night? Azul Duel invites you to play with light and pit opposites against each other.

This competitive strategic game for two players retains the purity and elegance of the original Azul while adding an extra tactical dimension in which you determine the pattern in which tiles will be placed, in addition to drafting tiles to complete that pattern.

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Dale Yu: Review of Air, Land & Sea: Critters at War

Posted on April 29, 2025 by Dale Yu

Air, Land & Sea: Critters at War

  • Designer: Jon Perry
  • Publisher: Arcane Wonders
  • Players: 2
  • Age: 14+
  • Time: 20 minutes
  • Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/41ZK9ql
  • Amazon affiliate link: (expansion)  https://amzn.to/4l2xDyV
  • Played with review copy provided by publisher

As Supreme Commander of your country’s military forces in Air, Land, & Sea, you must carefully deploy your forces across three theaters of war: air, land, and sea. At the start of each battle, you’re dealt a hand of six cards. Players take turns playing cards one at a time, until all cards have been played — or one player decides to withdraw. The order in which you play your cards is critical, as is whether you play them face up or face down. Playing a card face up triggers its tactical ability, but the card must be played in its corresponding theater. Face-down cards can be played to any theater, but have a strength of only 2 and do not grant tactical abilities.

Sometimes, it may be best to withdraw in order to deny your opponent complete victory as points are awarded at the end of each battle based on the results. The first player to 12 points wins!  Air, Land, & Sea: Critters at War features the same gameplay as in Air, Land, & Sea, but with 100% critters and more vibrant colors.

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Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 7)

Posted on April 28, 2025 by Dale Yu

I’ve read a number of rule sets recently that used ‘he’ instead of ‘they’ when referring to what a player can do. It wasn’t in the context of examples, nor referring to male characters; they were rules. ’1989: Dawn Of Freedom’ was particularly egregious, even having card text using “he” when referring to a player. (The friend I was playing with was so embarrassed they started translating them to ‘she’ on the fly whenever reading card text that applied to me as the player in question.)

When chatting about it with girlfriends, there’s recognition of the casual misogyny (perpetuated by how English language is structured eg ‘mankind’) and a sense of exclusion, as you’d expect, but it’s laced with an undercurrent of “is this the hill we want to die on” given everything else going on in the world and wanting their gaming experiences (which is largely with guys) to be positive.

 

To be fair, most new rule sets coming out now are actually great in this respect. (Thank you!) For anyone out there working on or providing feedback on rules or card-text though, can we please continue being mindful, and give way on any dogmatic insistence that “they” should only be used as a plural form. Language changes with the times. I’m hoping the times are changing. Thanks for listening.

 

New-to-me games played recently include …

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