Podcasts – Tabletop Games Blog

The longer we enjoy our hobby and the more games we play, the more our taste in games is likely to change. As a reviewer, I can only write about a game as I feel about it at the time, but even if my taste in games changes, the review will remain on the blog. So the question is whether a review should stay frozen in time or if it should be revisited with a fresh perspective. Let me try and answer those questions in this article. (Inspired by questions from Gavin Jones of Jones Family Games Night which he posted on our Discord. Thank you, Gavin.) I think there are a number of things at play, when it comes to how our taste in games changes, and I want to talk about those first, before looking at how a reviewer's change of taste should, or should not, affect a review. The biggest thing is the so-called “cult of the new” or the “hotness”. Even if you're not the sort of person who always wants to own the latest game before everyone else, most games will still eventually feel old and dated. Mechanisms that were once new and exciting, at some point become standard and commonplace. That doesn't necessarily mean that games will eventually be boring and some games will be evergreens that you can play years later and still have as much fun as you used to have. Yet, even with evergreens, the first few games will pretty much always feel different than subsequent games. So I think there is always a change of how a game feels to us, as we play it more and more. First, we learn how to play it, then we get better at it and as we continue with it, our experience changes. A game might feel confusing to start with, then become more interesting as we get to grips with it, then change into really exciting as we have finally formulated a winning strategy and eventually become boring, because every game feels the same and we've explored the game space fully. Of course, another game may go from confusing to exciting and then stay at the exciting level forever. It really depends on the game. However, there are games that have an ending. Basically any game with some sort of campaign mechanism or storyline will be like that. As you play the game, you will hear the story being told and when you get to the end, that'll be it. You won't be able to start again and rediscover the world you've just wandered through. It's a one-off experience, be it that some games literally offer months' worth of gameplay. What I have talked about so far might not have much influence on the taste in games as such, because even if you've played worker placement game A so many times, that you don't want to play it again, you may still very much enjoy playing worker placement game B. Or just because you finished legacy game C doesn't mean you don't want to start legacy game D. It may actually be that our taste in games has been re-affirmed and strengthened – but it's also possible that we have finally decided that the days of worker placement or legacy games are over for us. What probably has a bigger impact on our taste in games is that we learn new things, and I sort of alluded to at the beginning of the article. It is no surprise that we have the terms “gateway game”, “next step game” and similar. Whether you love or hate those terms, I believe it's a fact that when we compare the games we played when we first started in the hobby to the ones we play now, there is a progression. It's no surprise. If you've never played a game with card drafting, the mechanism will seem confusing, especially if the game you're learning has a number of other mechanisms you've never come across before. Yet, the more we play games, the more mechanisms we learn and the more comfortable we are with them. I clearly remember Lords of Waterdeep feeling like a relatively heavy game, but now it seems more of a relatively simple worker placement game, with some resource management and hand management thrown in. So even though I still love Lords of Waterdeep, my taste in games has changed in so far that I'm comfortable looking for games with different mechanisms and possibly more mechanisms overall. I'm sure there are more things that affect how our taste in games changes, such as who we play with, the mood we're in and others, but let me finally address how all of this affects reviews. As I mentioned at the beginning, when writing a review you can only talk about the experience you have with the game at the time. However, to be able to present a meaningful review, it's very important that as a reviewer you play a game multiple times. The first game or two will be learning games. After that, it will depend on the game as to how many more times you play it. Some games only need an additional two games or so to get a very good feeling of what the game is about, what the experience is like when playing it and how much it changes from game to game. Other games will need many more plays, because every game is different or you need to try different strategies to explore the game better. Sometimes you need to play it a dozen more times to get a good enough impression. It really depends. The other thing a reviewer should do, is to explore the game at different player counts. The solo experience is often very different to the 2-player experience, which is often also very different to the 3 or 4-player experience. Even higher player counts can create yet more difference in the experience. Also, to get a really thorough idea of how the game feels, you need to play it at various player counts multiple times. For most reviewers, that is pretty much impossible though. It would require maybe 24 plays of a game to play it six times at four different player counts. I think that's unrealistic. Yet, most reviewers will aim to play a game at a specific player count several times and then maybe try to play it a handful of times at other player counts. In theory, a reviewer should play a game with different people, because quite often the people you play with will affect your game experience, and different people will have different experiences of the same game. In fact, as a reviewer it is always useful to find out what others thought about the game, as it informs your view and helps you decide if there is anything you may have missed or understood differently. Anyway, ultimately a review is likely to be fairly thorough and meaningful when it is published and the game experience is likely to have changed since the first time the reviewer played the game. Yet, it's still the experience the reviewer had of the game at the time of writing. Assuming a reviewer continues to play a game they have previously reviewed, and I must say, that's not often the case, given the number of games reviewers tend to cover, their experience may change further, either because they are getting to the end of what's there to explore in the game, or because their taste in games has started to change. Chances are, that's probably months down the line, at which point the original review will be out of date. I think that's unavoidable. Anyone reading a review a long time after it has been published, will have to accept that new games have come out, new mechanisms will have been developed and the hobby as a whole has moved on. So in that sense, all reviews are indeed artefacts frozen in time. However, I, and some other reviewers too, do sometimes go back to a review and update it. In my case, I actually publish a new review, linking it back to the original, which I put under the heading “Takebacks“. I have done it for three games (at time of writing) so far, but will write more for games that I keep playing long after I originally reviewed them. In those articles, I do look at the game again and I consider how the game has changed in my estimation since the original review. I even look at any errata, addendums or new editions a publisher might have issued since I first reviewed the game. That second review is usually a more thorough view of the game experience, because I will have had time to explore it more and probably with different players at different player counts. So, yes, I do think reviewers should review their own reviews when possible, but I think for many of us the reality is that we don't have time to go back, because we'd rather review a new (or new-to-us) game instead. That means, like a news story, a review is probably out of date by the time it is published, but it's probably the best we can do. So, how do you feel about reviews? Do you think they should be kept up-to-date? Have you noticed a change in your taste of games? How have you evolved over time since you first started in the hobby? As always, I'd love to hear from you. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. If you enjoyed this article, please tell your friends about it. If you like this blog, my videos, podcasts or my other work, please also consider supporting me on Patreon. Even the smallest pledge is highly appreciated: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog If you prefer, you can buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. I'll post a photo of it on my Twitter feed so you can share it with your friends: https://ko-fi.com/tabletopgamesblog Thank you! Links Takebacks articles: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/category/takebacks/ Audio Version Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)Music: Quantum Computer Love by MusicLFiles (https://filmmusic.io/song/6943-quantum-computer-love)License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Release Date: 2020Players: 1-2Designer: Michał Jagodziński, Kamil LangieLength: 15-30 minutesArtist: Paweł Niziołek, Jarosław WajsAge: 10+Publisher: Thistroy GamesComplexity: 1.5 / 5 We had all the plans ready, planning permissions had been sought and approved, contractors had been signed up, the project manager was ready and a rough schedule had been put together. We also knew what building materials we needed and where to get them, so it was time to build our Micro City by Thistroy Games. In this review, I'm actually referring to the 2nd edition of the game, which was published this year and apparently has some small differences to the 1st edition. Here is another city building game that I have recently acquired. It's also a small box game and is basically a deck of cards, some dice and some tokens. The game box is stuffed to the hilt with the components, but is still small enough to fit into a jacket pocket, your handbag or a rucksack. The footprint for the game itself is also relatively small and the rulebook says that you can play it on a plane, which I haven't tried myself, and am unlikely to try for some time to come, but I can see that it would be possible. Already there are a lot of positives here for me. Also, the games can be played in a number of ways: solo, 2-player co-operatively or 2-player competitively. I've played it in all three modes and I think they work equally well, but of course create slightly different game experiences. So here is another reason why you might want to have the game with you while you're out and about. Ultimately, the game is all about rolling dice and assigning them wisely. That sounds rather random, but you do have a great amount of control over the dice results. You can change the pip value of the dice as much as you like by spending the relevant amount of resources, which you can aquire during the game. The problem is, you also need those resources to complete your goals. So it's the usual push and pull between spending resources to get the dice values you need to get more resources or otherwise a bigger benefit than the cost of the resources you spent in the first place. Of course, if the dice rolls go your way, then achieving your goals is a lot easier – and I must say, there were times during the games I played, where it did feel that I was just lucky and didn't have to do any work. However, Micro City isn't proclaiming to be a difficult game and I think it works. You will still find it hard to win in co-operative mode, even if all the dice roll in your favour. You still have to make some decisions and if you get those wrong, you will still lose. I think it's a good balance and makes the game feel puzzly enough to keep you wanting to keep trying until you're able to build your city before you run out of turns. There really isn't much more to say about Micro City. It's a small-box game, brim-full with good quality components, which is pretty quick to play and will keep you entertained for a while. If you enjoyed this article, please tell your friends about it. If you like this blog, my videos, podcasts or my other work, please also consider supporting me on Patreon. Even the smallest pledge is highly appreciated: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog If you prefer, you can buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. I'll post a photo of it on my Twitter feed so you can share it with your friends: https://ko-fi.com/tabletopgamesblog Thank you! Useful Links Micro City: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thistroygames/micro-city-pocket-sized-citybuilding-gameThistroy Games: https://www.facebook.com/thistroygames/ Transparency Facts I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way. I backed this game on Kickstarter and paid for it myself.At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind. Audio Version Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)Music: Corporate Culture by WinnieTheMoog (https://filmmusic.io/song/6156-corporate-culture-)License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Sound Effects: BBC Sound Effects (http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/) YouTube Podcast You can also listen to this review on YouTube.

Natalia Rojas is a self-taught artist and illustrator from Colombia living in Tampa, Florida. She specializes in highly detailed and realistic graphite and coloured pencil drawings and loves to create portraits of people, pets and wildlife, as well as meaningful pieces that could be anything from a portrait of a loved one to a special item or a still life. She has worked on the board game Wingspan by Stonemaier Games, as well as all its expansions. Website: https://nataliarojasart.com/ Audio Transcript “My name is Natalia Rojas. I have been a board game artist since 2017, but it's hard to think about myself as a board game artist since I've only worked on one game. I prefer to think I am in the process of becoming a board game artist. “I became a board game artist because a once in a lifetime opportunity presented itself when I met the co-founder of Stonemaier Games right when they were looking for a new artist. “The art style I am best known for is realism and scientific illustration. “The first board game I was an artist for was Wingspan. I am very proud of all the work I've done for Wingspan and every expansion has taught me something. From the base game, I learned a lot about research and scientific illustration. With the European expansion I tried to find a good balance between size and detail, but the most challenging one has been the Oceania expansion due to the very intricate birds in Australia and New Zealand. “I like creating artwork that has a meaning behind it, that tells a story of something special. I work from photo references so I am attracted to just simple beautiful images. “I get my inspiration from nature of course, but also from meaningful moments or objects. I like to draw simple things that will tell a story or bring back a memory. “I think one of the most important parts of making artwork for a board game is precision, because you have to make sure the art aligns with the theme of the board game. “I think the most challenging part of making artwork for a board game is timing, because there can be tight deadlines to meet. An illustration is not a speedy process. It can take me from 8 to 36 hours to draw the art for just one card. “The longest I worked on art for a board game was for the Oceania expansion. It took me around 10 months to complete my part, because I decided to work on a larger scale to include more detail. “In my view, more board game artwork should continue to embrace different art styles but also be more inclusive to women and people of colour in the industry. “The artists whose style I admire the most are Ana Maria Martinez and Beth Sobel, but I like many other artists that don't work on board games art, like Jono Dry and Ileana Hunter. “My favourite colours are red, white and black. “What very few people know about me is that I often, if not always, imagine my memories and thoughts in some form of childish cartoons. “If you wanted to become a board game artist yourself, I would tell you to reach out to board game creators and work on your portfolio. “If you want to get in touch, you can reach me at my website nataliarojasart.com and also my social media as NataliaRojasArt as well.” Transcript by Make My Game Travel (https://makemygametravel.com) If you enjoyed this article, please tell your friends about it. If you like this blog, my videos, podcasts or my other work, please also consider supporting me on Patreon. Even the smallest pledge is highly appreciated: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog If you prefer, you can buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. I'll post a photo of it on my Twitter feed so you can share it with your friends: https://ko-fi.com/tabletopgamesblog Thank you!

As we all know, different people play games for different reasons and with different goals. Even the heaviest of games can be played in all sorts of different ways, and I don't mean with different strategies in mind. Sure, in an 18xx game, you probably want to do everything to win and it's unlikely that people will play it who just want to build scenic routes going through cities that they like – but it is a possibility. In this article, I want to look at the different motivations players have and how different games accommodate them to a larger or smaller extent. So, going back to 18xx, as I said, it's unlikely that you play because you like the map and just want to build pretty routes, but there is nothing to stop you from doing so. You probably won't win, but that might not be your motivation. Your aim might be to just make it from east to west, taking in major cities along the way, and when other players lay their track in the wrong direction, you will do what you can to bring it back to where you want it to go. As I say, it's an unlikely scenario for an 18xx game, but generally speaking, I really don't think there is anything wrong with people playing games without even the slightest intention of winning, but instead having completely different goals in mind. Carcassonne is one of the best examples in my view. Sure, a lot of people play it fiercely competitively, placing tiles to intentionally block other players and stop them from completing cities for example, but there are also many people who just want to create a beautiful landscape, trying to make sure there are no gaps for example, or maybe placing monasteries evenly around the country to allow the congregation easier access to Sunday service. As I say, I don't think there is anything wrong with that. Of course, people are less likely to win the game if they put monasteries at the edge of maps, rather than somewhere central, but if they enjoy the game more, then there is no reason why they shouldn't play like that. In fact, you will probably still get a decent score if you play for beauty rather than victory. Wingspan is another game that people play in different ways. Sometimes it's just nice to collect certain birds that you like, even if they don't necessarily help you to victory. Yet, Wingspan is also a game that guides players to victory. Whatever bird you choose, you will (almost) always have to pay a certain food cost and pay eggs, if you play a bird further along in a row. So you have to get food and eggs, which you will soon realise is easier if you have more birds in the relevant rows – and to draw the birds you like in the first place, you benefit from having more birds in the wetlands. That's why I think Wingspan is actually quite easy to learn. The game guides you along as you play it. Choose a bird you like, then try and get the resources you need to put it into your nature reserve. You will quickly know what to do next and you can play the game a turn at a time and get a good score. Then, when you've played it a few more times, you can start formulating strategies and plan a few steps ahead, making you more efficient at getting what you need. Quite often, tile laying, deck building, set collection and tableau-building games are more flexible in how they can be played. You don't necessarily need to play to win to have a good time. Sometimes you just want to play Star Realms to get a lot of attack for example and fire off a lot of pew-pews, which can be very satisfying, even though chances are that you will be outgunned in the end and lose the game. I think there are other games that make it harder for people to play them in different ways or rather with different motivations. I suppose you could just try to produce the most oil in Scythe, have the most distilleries in Clans of Caledonia or get the most white cubes in Lords of Waterdeep, but I don't think many people would want to do that. These games do tend to force you down a certain route. If you don't at least try to win, you're only going to be a mild annoyance to other players at worst, or have no impact on the game at best. You're unlikely to get anywhere near a decent score at the end and I don't think you'll enjoy playing the game much either. Ultimately though, we all want to have fun when we play board games. That's the real motivation, at least for most of us. So playing a game in such a way that allows others to win, whose main motivation is to win, isn't a bad thing. If it allows everyone to have fun, then that's a good thing. I think we all should play games in such a way that we, as a group, enjoy the most. That's what playing board games should be all about. So, have you ever tried to play a game with a different motivation other than winning? What game was it and what were you trying to achieve in it? Please share your thoughts in the comments below. I'd love to hear your experiences. If you enjoyed this article, please tell your friends about it. If you like this blog, my videos, podcasts or my other work, please also consider supporting me on Patreon. Even the smallest pledge is highly appreciated: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog If you prefer, you can buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. I'll post a photo of it on my Twitter feed so you can share it with your friends: https://ko-fi.com/tabletopgamesblog Thank you! Links Wingspan review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2019/03/16/wingspan/Scythe review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2019/01/19/scythe/Clans of Caledonia review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2019/03/02/clans-of-caledonia/ Audio Version Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)Music: Inspiring Acoustic by AShamaluevMusic (https://www.ashamaluevmusic.com/)

Release Date: 2018Players: 2 (only)Designer: Corry DameyLength: 15-30 minutesArtist: Jerome Damey, Corry DameyAge: 8+Publisher: Button ShyComplexity: 1.5 / 5 The seasons began again. We had to build our rice paddies, fill them with water, plough them with our buffalos, plant our rice and wait for it to grow. We had to be clever about how we divided the land to make the best use of the most fertile soil. We also had to have enough help to get the harvest in, but overall, we had to be patient and wait for the end of the Seasons of Rice by Button Shy. It's the first wallet game I've ever played, but I already knew that Button Shy‘s series of 18-card games was going to be something special. Games that come in a small form factor are pretty much always of special interest to me, in particular, if they come with very limited components, in this case just 18 cards and a rulebook. It's always exciting to see how much game can fit into these very tight restrictions and how hard every component was made to work. In the case of Seasons of Rice, every card is different and both sides perform a different function. The paddy field side shows the edges of fields as well as either rice farmers, buffalos, farm houses, trees or a combination of them all, while the other side shows an ancestor, which is basically another and unique way of scoring additional points, as well as having a point tracker along two edges. You do need to provide your own tokens to keep score, but small coins, paperclips or even matchsticks all work well. Of course, you can keep score on your smartphone, if you prefer. What makes the game so interesting are two things. First of all, the game consists of two phases. During the first you choose two cards from your hand, one to play, the other to go into a card offer row, and then pass your hand to the other player. It's the classic form of card drafting we all know. In the second phase, players take turns and chose one of the cards that were put into the offer row in phase one. It's a lovely way of using these quite simple mechanisms in an interesting way. It's never easy to decide which card to play into your paddy field and which to put out for the next phase. You almost want to keep them all or at least you don't necessarily want cards to be accessible by the other player. You do have to sort of plan ahead a little and hope that the cards you put out in phase one will still be there for you in phase two. The other part that makes Seasons of Rice so interesting and fun, is how you play cards. It's a bit hard to describe, but you can play cards in portrait or landscape mode and you have to line them up edge to edge. So if you place a portrait card next to one you played in landscape orientation, only half the edge of one will be lined up with the other card. Also, you need to ensure that the paddy field boundaries are lined up with each other, when you play cards. The thing is, boundaries are actually printed on the card diagonally, creating a sort of isometric view of your paddy fields, which looks lovely, but does mess with your head a bit. You're constantly trying to rotate your card 45 degrees to make the boundaries look straight. However, once you've played a few rounds, it gets easier. The main aim of the game is to create fully enclosed paddy fields, that is, fields that have a boundary around them on all sides, while at the same time trying to make the fields as large as possible. You also want to get rice farmers, buffalos and houses into your enclosed fields too, if possible, to get even more points. It's a bit like playing Carcassonne, except that there are only 18 cards, two of which are your ancestors, which give you additional ways of scoring, leaving 16, only 8 of which will make up your paddy fields. So you do have to work quite hard to create lots of paddy fields with only eight cards. The game is over very quickly, but you do want to play it again and again. It's actually quite thinky, because of the limited amount of cards that you have to play, but not too taxing to tire you out. It's actually an ideal game to play while you're out and about. It does use up a fair amount of table space, but if you're in a pub or restaurant, you should have enough room. It also plays quickly enough, so can be played while you're waiting for your food to arrive. If you want a two-player game that you can easily take with you, then Seasons of Rice is definitely worth checking out. If you enjoyed this article, please tell your friends about it. If you like this blog, my videos, podcasts or my other work, please also consider supporting me on Patreon. Even the smallest pledge is highly appreciated: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog If you prefer, you can buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. I'll post a photo of it on my Twitter feed so you can share it with your friends: https://ko-fi.com/tabletopgamesblog Thank you! Useful Links Seasons of Rice: https://buttonshygames.com/products/seasons-of-riceButton Shy: https://buttonshygames.com/ Transparency Facts I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way. I bought and paid for the game myself.At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind. Audio Version Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)Music: Follow That Dream by Luca Fraula (https://filmmusic.io/song/5156-follow-that-dream)License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Sound Effects: BBC Sound Effects (http://bbcsfx.acropolis.org.uk/) YouTube Podcast You can also listen to this review on YouTube.

The following article was written by Michael Fox of Hub Games. So, the convention season for 2020 has drawn to a close, and it’s obviously been a very different set of experiences compared to The Before Times. The last show I actually physically attended was AireCon back in spring, and even that was under the shadow of the then-upcoming nationwide lockdown in the UK, a last hurrah before we all spent the summer indoors. Since then, many and various show organisers have done their damnedest to pivot and transform their events into an online format, all with varying degrees of success. And frankly, despite their best efforts, no single event has managed to get close to the real deal. Lessons have been learned, of course, and if things continue as they seem to be on track to do, Year Two of the Online Convention will invariably be better – but what would I like to see from them? I get to experience conventions from the other side of the table. The team arrives early, sets up the booth, works long hours over the event, get fleeting moments to catch up with other folks in the industry, and – probably most important – show off the games we’re involved in to people from all around the world. These face to face events are incredibly useful for game companies of any size, a way to catch the attention of someone just wandering around a show floor and potentially spread the word of your games a little bit further. Sadly, the flip to online has kind of killed that whole thing, but before we dig into the bad stuff, I’d like to celebrate the things that were done well by the three Big Shows that ran this year. When it comes to pushing the vibe that we get around shows, UK Games Expo definitely did the best at emulating the hustle and bustle. A vibrant set of Discord channels were full of people over the entire weekend, with helpful mods and volunteers directing people to where they needed to go, and attendees seemingly had a great time chasing the Xbox-style Achievement Badges that were set up in order to encourage people to explore what was on offer. On top of that, their virtual trade hall was simple and straightforward to navigate, meaning that games were relatively easy to discover. Gen Con‘s best point was definitely organisation. Their years of experience in having exhibitors and gamers setting up events well in advance means that the attendees are pretty used to searching through the listings for things to do and games to play. Also, having demos being booked well in advance meant that publishers could work out which games were seemingly going to be in demand, so could shift demo teams around where required.  Meanwhile, Spiel.Digital felt like a win for the content creators, with busy livestreams covering the games being ‘released' at the show. With many of them having early access to the new titles, they were our virtual eyes and ears, showing off things that most folks would normally be playing in the booths around the Essen Messe.  And so, onto the bad stuff – and with it still pretty fresh in the mind, I should probably keep on with Spiel.Digital. In planning since spring, it felt like a huge letdown. Essen is normally the best and brightest show of the year, but that shine was very much dulled in their online event. A confusing map of their virtual halls (in space, for some reason) kept changing regularly. Clicking links to already set-up playing areas on Tabletopia meant that demo staff had no clue if people were actually there – only if the players also joined the temporary Discord servers would you even have an idea someone wanted to try your game. On the subject of Discord, companies seemed to have been split across four (potentially more?) official Spiel servers, meaning that you couldn’t jump from booth to booth easily. They were also deathly quiet – the entire population of the Discord server I was in never exceeded more than 100 across the whole four days. Also, with no central Discord server, there was no real place for attendees to converge and organise games, or enthuse about the latest things they’d seen and were excited about.  It felt muted, and only got worse after the initial technical issues that saw the site going offline for an hour at launch were dealt with. There was a real lack of discovery, a lack of buzz – and that really hurt the show. With no real central way to bump into something and get hyped about it, then spread that hype to others, there were no surprises. The vast majority of publisher representatives that I’ve spoken with mentioned a sense of distance. Where normally there’s a feeling of camaraderie, that we’re all in this together (whether we’re working, playing, buying, visiting, whatever) – and that was sadly lacking, not just with Spiel.Digital, but with all online events this year. Sales, too, were through the floor – there’s just no competition for being able to have people pick up a game in the here and now. If we’re to continue running virtual conventions, either as a full-on alternative or an accompanying side-event for a real-life show, things need to improve. Putting the focus on the games rather than a list of publishers would help. Give us simply presented systems that work rather than each one building their own for users to puzzle out anew. Hell, have conventions work together and run their shows in a standardised system – is co-operation between rival events really too much to ask? Consulting companies and attendees about what they want from a show would be a big step, rather than just unleashing what organisers think will work, clapping their hands together and saying “well, that'll do!”.  I realise that a lot of folks worked hard to pull events together in 2020, and while there were plenty of things to criticise, there are also things to celebrate. As we’re in something of a break before we head into the 2021 season, now is the time to think about making next year’s shows better for everyone, building on those positives and pushing online events even further. Written by: Michael Fox, Hub Games Links Michael Fox: https://twitter.com/idlemichaelAireCon: https://www.airecon.co.uk/UK Games Expo: https://www.ukgamesexpo.co.uk/Gen Con: https://www.gencon.com/Spiel.Digital: https://spiel.digital/enTabletopia: https://tabletopia.com/ Audio Version Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/) Voice: Michael Fox, Hub Games

Release Date: 2019Players: 3-5Designer: Gavin BirnbaumLength: 30-45 minutesArtist: Anca GavrilAge: 8+Publisher: BoardGameTables.comComplexity: 1.5 / 5 “…crisis on Wall Street as Lehman totters towards…” – “…worries could wreak havoc on markets…” – “…banking giants rush to raise capital…” – “…markets in disarray as lending locks up…” – “…sweeping plan to fight crisis…” – “…vast bailout…” – I switched off the television. The news wasn't good and it was clear what we had to do to stop the world markets from collapse. It was time for some Q.E. by BoardGameTables.com. Set against the background of the 2008 banking crisis, in Q.E. you take on the role of a national government trying to avoid the collapse of global markets. You try to inject money into the economy by bidding for companies from around the world. There are no limits as your central bank can print as much money as you need. You basically have a blank cheque to pay as much as you want for the most valuable companies that come up for auction. Of course, the theme is really only secondary here. The bids are not for specific companies, but for tokens that represent a combination of country, industry type and a victory point value. When you win a token, you decide which of the three to score. If a token is for the country you represent, then you get a certain number of victory points, while industry types give you more points the more you have of each or the more different ones you have, and the victory point values themselves range from 1 to 4, where 4 is a fairly decent amount of points, but 1 probably not worth very much. The scoring part itself is actually relatively straightforward. It's usually obvious which of the three different properties of a token you want to use for scoring. It's rare that you struggle to decide what to tick off on your dry-erase board. It's the bidding that makes this game so interesting and fun. Every round a different player is the auctioneer, which basically goes clockwise around the table. The auctioneer draws the next token and reveals it to everyone, then openly writes down a starting bid. The other players now have to decide how much the token is worth for themselves, writing down their bid secretly and passing it to the auctioneer. Once all bids have been submitted, the auctioneer reveals who made the highest bid, but doesn't say what the highest bid actually is, unless nobody bid higher than the auctioneer themselves of course. The highest bidder gets the token to add to their score. Now, as I mentioned at the beginning, there are no limits in the game. Everyone can bid whatever they want. If you really want a certain token, or really want to prevent someone else from getting that token, you can bid an incredibly high amount to ensure you win the bid. The problem is, at the end of the game, the person who bid the most in total is out of the game. So you do have to keep track of what's been bid so far by everyone to decide how high you can go without pushing yourself over the edge. It becomes an interesting tool in the game actually. You can intentionally bid a stupidly high amount to get a valuable token, which can open up the floor for others to also bid high, creating a sudden spike in bids from everyone, as long as you're the auctioneer, so people can see how high you've gone. Q.E. is a really exciting blind bidding game, with a small element of social deduction, as you're trying to work out how much others have bid to win the company token. You're never exactly sure how high you can go, but you also know that you can really push others into bidding higher and get away with a low bid. The more you play Q.E. with the same people, the more the game will change. If you enjoyed this article, please tell your friends about it. If you like this blog, my videos, podcasts or my other work, please also consider supporting me on Patreon. Even the smallest pledge is highly appreciated: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog If you prefer, you can buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. I'll post a photo of it on my Twitter feed so you can share it with your friends: https://ko-fi.com/tabletopgamesblog Thank you! Useful Links Q.E.: https://www.boardgametables.com/products/qe-quantitative-easing-board-gameBoardGameTables.com: https://www.boardgametables.com/ Transparency Facts I feel that this review reflects my own, independent and honest opinion, but the facts below allow you to decide whether you think that I was influenced in any way. I backed this game on Kickstarter and paid for it myself.At the time of writing, neither the designers, nor the publisher, nor anyone linked to the game supported me financially or by payment in kind. Audio Version Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)Music: Will to Achieve by Purple Planet Music (https://www.purple-planet.com/)Sound Effects: Freesound (https://freesound.org/) YouTube Podcast You can also listen to this review on YouTube.

If you have played a number of games, you will have noticed how the pace in some games changes over time. A game might start slow and then speed up towards the end, or it keeps an even pace throughout. Some games even slow right down in the last round. In this article, I want to look at this more closely and see what affects the pace of a game. I think a good example to start with are tableau and deck building games, like Wingspan or Mystic Vale. In these games, you start with a small number of options, but as your tableau increases or your deck gets better and thinner, you have more and more choices and usually more actions. The game starts slowly and eventually everything races along as one card procs another, setting off huge chains or combos, and suddenly, in one turn, you win the game and it's all over. Engine building games work in exactly the same way, because tableau and deck building games really are a certain type of engine builder, except maybe that in engine building games you produce resources and convert them into other resource and turn those into victory points, by completing objectives for example. Ultimately, it has the same effect though, because resources allow you to add to your engine and make it more efficient, effectively speeding things up. Mind you, sometimes a game actually slows down when players get more options and more choices, especially when the game is limited by the number of rounds. As it heads towards the last round, everyone carefully considers what they need to do to get the most points, and if players have more choices later on, everything takes a lot longer to consider and think through. The game starts to drag, because nobody wants to miss a single point that could mean the difference between winning and losing. I know how in Brass: Birmingham, everyone carefully considers their last few actions at the end of each era, or how in Terra Mystica every last action counts and can turn the game around. So everyone takes longer to decide what they want to do, bringing the pace of the game down to a crawl. I think that's often frustrating for everyone around the table and leads to discussions about analysis paralysis or introducing a Chess clock. That's really a shame, but can't really be changed, because while at the beginning of a game, it's very hard to plan too far ahead and therefore it's very hard to decide what actions are actually the best, when the game is nearly over, you can suddenly plan everything out and you can compare every option with each other to find the one that brings the most victory points. That's why I prefer games where you don't know when they end. You have to do your best on every turn, but you can never fully plan everything out. In Scythe for example, where the game ends immediately when someone places their last star, nobody knows if they get another turn, and even though you do get a feeling for when the game is going to end, the game only slows down a little near the end. Sure, as it becomes clear that someone will end the game shortly, everyone will have to decide whether to do something on this turn or if they get another turn and do something else now, and those decisions will take longer to make. However, Scythe is different in that your first few turns are much faster, because your engine isn't running yet, but then the game seems to level out at a slower pace and only slow marginally near the end, which is quite an interesting behaviour actually. There are also games where the pace doesn't seem to change at all or very, very slightly. That's often the case in games where every turn is basically the same. You don't get more choices and you don't even have to make your last turn count. To me, Chai is an example of this type of game. You basically do the same sort of things throughout the game. You don't build an engine or tableau. You don't get more abilities or powers. Every turn you just have to decide between the same three choices: get flavours from the market, get items from the pantry or reserve a customer order and use a special ability. What you do depends on what you need at the time and to some degree what other players are doing. However, your actions don't get better over time, even though timing is very important in Chai. It sounds like the game is really boring, because it's the same throughout, but there are other things, like the market mechanism, that make Chai interesting and exciting. The steady pace makes for a peaceful and calm game. You're still happy when you win, but because the pace doesn't change, you don't feel quite as competitive as you otherwise would. I think that's why games with an even pace throughout are great for when you just want to have a calm evening with your partner or friends, while games where the pace increases and/or decreases as you play create a more stimulating experience. So it seems that the pace of a game is an important part of the experience players get. I don't think it's something many of us are conscious of, except maybe when some games slow right down at the end, but I do think that it affects us more than we realise. Have you noticed the pace in a game? How did it make you feel? Are there games that have a good pace? What about games where the pace just doesn't feel right? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. I'd love to hear what you think. If you enjoyed this article, please tell your friends about it. If you like this blog, my videos, podcasts or my other work, please also consider supporting me on Patreon. Even the smallest pledge is highly appreciated: https://www.patreon.com/tabletopgamesblog If you prefer, you can buy me a coffee via Ko-Fi. I'll post a photo of it on my Twitter feed so you can share it with your friends: https://ko-fi.com/tabletopgamesblog Thank you! Links Wingspan review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2019/03/16/wingspan/Mystic Vale review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2018/12/08/mystic-vale/Brass: Birmingham review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/10/03/brass-birmingham-saturday-review/Terra Mystica review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2019/06/01/terra-mystica/Scythe review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2019/01/19/scythe/Chai review: https://tabletopgamesblog.com/2020/06/27/chai-takebacks/ Audio Version Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.youtube.com/audiolibrary/)Music: Special Place by Ketsa (https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Ketsa/Above_and_Below/Special_Place_1026)