Board Games Categories

When I was at Canada Plays 2025, one of the games I got to play was Come Sail Away, a really fun, puzzly game about placing passengers on a cruise ship. I was originally excited about this after Mike Delisio from The Dice Tower talked about it again and again, putting it on Top 10 lists, and more. I had requested a review opportunity for this one a few weeks ago, and was pleasantly surprised when it was waiting for…

Getting a mystery box at an event is one of the most fun things you can do. Generally, though, it’s a well known fact that mystery boxes are just full of things that a company wasn’t able to sell through regular channels, so they create some mystery around what you might get and entice you to make a purchase. That is essentially what Ravensburger is doing here with their latest Lilo and Stitch inspired ox, but there are a few…

Roxley released a brand new expansion for Santorini that we will hopefully be reviewing soon, but with that printing they decided to reprint the original game in a Second Edition and Pantheon Edition. Roxley was nice enough to send us a Second Edition printing of the game, so let’s take a peak at what the Second Edition brings, and whether Santorini is still worth purchasing / upgrading in 2025! In Santorini, players will be moving around with workers, building structure,…

It’s been a while since we tackled a Leder Games title, but today we are playing what I like to refer to as Root-Lite! Ahoy uses unique player objectives and powers as players sail across open seas visiting islands, sinking ships, smuggling treasure, and so much more. If you want an experience that is lighter than Root, but still heavier than your average board game experience, look no further than Ahoy! Ahoy is a game for up to four players,…

Heat is one of the more popular racing games currently available at retail and for good reason – the game is great fun and really simple to play. There is some strategy in how your deck gets built out and when you risk those stress cards, but overall the game is pretty accessible to a wide variety of ages and folks with varying degrees of board game knowledge. We missed out on the Heat: Heavy Rain expansion which added a…

It’s not often that Walt Disney Studios – including Pixar Studios – doesn’t win the Oscar for the best animated feature, but that is exactly what happened at the 2025 Academy Awards. Instead, a unique film about animals escaping rising water won the award, and understandably it has spun off a number of new toys and games. One of those games is, understandably, called Flow and will be launching later this year. In Flow, players work cooperatively to draw and…

Each night of Canada Plays 2025, a trade show put on by Asmodee Canada that a few media members were invited to, featured an open games night. A ton of already released, and pre-release, games were available for attendees to try out with friends and colleagues. The room was always full of folks having a great time, trying out some of the greatest games coming from Asmodee Canada, their partners, and others in the board game space! Let’s look at…

Over the past few days I had the privilege of attending Canada Plays 2025 in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. The event, while primarily aimed at retailers and distributors, was attended by a few media members as well. Over the two days that I was in attendance, I had the chance to see upcoming games, walk the show floor, play in a tournament, and so much more. Over the next week or two, we will be publishing articles around our time at the…

Settlers of Catan is a classic in the board game space at this point, and while you might not lump it into the likes of Monopoly, The Game of Life, and CLUE, it’s almost in that spot for me. It’s a game that almost everyone in the industry has played, and the game people share with their “non-board game friends.” Over the years, the Catan experience has stayed relatively the same, with new expansions bringing about new ideas and concepts.…

A few weeks ago, we wrote about the components of Shelfie Stacker and praised Arkus games for a splendid package. Like with Dreadful Meadows that we just reviewed, there isn’t a ton of rules to think about when playing Shelfie Stacker. Despite the simplicity of play, the game felt a bit too random for a few folks, and wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea. That being said, what I love about doing board game reviews is that I’ll almost never say…