Board Games Reviews

For the longest time, my family (mostly for my kids) were obsessed with Celestia, a game where players hopped on a hot air balloon and traveled from location to location attempting to earn points. Cards were played to move, and at some point people either decided to get off the balloon or crashed with it and earned no points. MLEM is doing a similar thing, but with cats in space. Does it do enough different stuff to replace a family…

Coffee Rush was one of my most anticipated games – I originally saw it demoed at an event sponsored by Asmodee Canada and Lion Rampant Imports last year, and was instantly mesmerized by the interesting looking gameplay, but mostly the fantastic production of the game. Fantastic components only gets you so far, though, so let’s take a look at the game itself and whether it deserves a spot on your shelf! Coffee Rush can be played at 2-4 players, and…

Raising Robots arrived in late 2023 but joins my top 5 games of the year for many reasons. First, the components included in the deluxe version of the game are phenomenal , and the artwork might be the best art I’ve seen in a board game ever. But there is another more important reason it’s in my top 5 – it’s a phenomenal game that I cannot wait to play again and again! Let’s take a look! The best comparable…

GraviTrax has been a very popular toy in my household for the last few years. In fact, when I compare this toy to others that we have purchased and reviewed over the past few years, this is one that continues to get taken out of the closet, even a few years down the road. My youngest son Lincoln always had issues making all the pieces in standard GraviTrax work, and always felt a bit left out when the rest of…

There is something great about taking a game off the shelf and knowing you aren’t in for a multi-hour experience. Don’t get me wrong, I love longer games, and obviously have plenty to choose from. But every once in a while, you just want a nice short game that can be fun for all ages, and easy enough to understand that you can even teach it to someone new in just a few minutes. At GenCon 2023, I had the…

Nature, mushrooms, animals. These all seem to be the rage right now when it comes to board game themes, and for the most part, they all work really well. Many games, however, are beginning to blend together, as companies share concepts and ideas and just reskin them and mix of the mechanics to make something “new.” Mycelia is partially doing that, but includes a really cool dew drop system that is actually a lot of fun, albeit potentially gimmick. Either…

Video games adapted into board games are not always the best, but over the past year we’ve been enjoying a long list of great board games inspired and built upon the video game IPs. Age of Wonders: Planetfall is a fantastic 4x Strategy Game on PC and console, but it’s also a fantastic card game on your kitchen table! We took this game for a spin ahead of its release in North America, and had a blast! Here are our…

There are few games as unique as Apiary – who else but Stonemaier Games would publish a game about space bees! I love worker placement games, and Stonemaier does them just about as good as anyone else. Viticulture is one of my favorite games of all time! I had really high hopes for Apiary when I saw Jamey Stagemier showing off some of the components and systems in some of his videos, and honestly, the game did not disappoint. I…

It’s not often I dip my toes into a really heavy euro style game, but as a lifetime Zoo Tycoon fan, I didn’t feel like I could pass up on this board game version. GamesReviews purchased this copy for me via the Kickstarter campaign, and it was recently delivered to my doorstep. After a quick 2-Player game, I thought I’d push some of my first impressions out to you, so let’s get going! So Much to Understand Listen, this is…

Set collection games come in a myriad of different forms. Most are small box games, and only include a deck of cards. This makes sense as set collection games are, for the most part, a more complex card game! Still, every once in a while a game comes around that changes up the formula a bit, and Archeos Society is that game. Let’s take a look at this fantastic game from Space Cowboys! How to Play In Archeos Society, players…