The Kobold Guide to Board Game Design
Ever fancied creating your own board game? Or just want to understand some of the underlying concepts?
Board Games
SHAKE N’ TAKE
Shake n’ Take is a quick, manic game from Out Of The Box Games. The game is pretty simple. Each player has a dry-erase board sheet containing a multitude of different-shaped aliens. One player takes the role of Alien Hunter and is armed with a rather funky pen topped with a great green alien head.
Review – Earth Reborn from Z-Man Games
Yep, another game with dice and miniatures hit the table. This one is a heavily SciFi themed beast called Earth Reborn from Z-Man Games. There are quite a few SciFi themed games out there and it can be tough to stand out. This is another set in the post-apocalyptic Earth (hence the name…) and is basically a miniatures skirmish game between 2 factions – NORAD and SALEMITES. The closest game in style that I have played is Space Hulk so that should give you an idea of the scale. Having said that, Earth Reborn is a very different game.
Review – Command & Colors Napoleonics from GMT Games
Richard Borg has designed a series of games based on a similar system – Battle Cry, Memoir 44, Battlelore, Command & Colors Ancients and more latest incarnation of the system is Command & Colors Napoleonics. I’ve played them all and have a pretty good sense of how the core system works. Now just a couple pf points…
Review – Command & Colors Napoleonics from GMT Games Read Post »
Zooloretto Review
This game is about stabbing your buddies in the back as best you can while trying to create your own personal menagerie of critters to take over the world. Well, the zoo world, anyhow.
Target Earth Review
After my last experience with a GenX game, Luna Llena, I was desperate to like this game. As a Spaniard, I am keen to see good products coming out of my country. After playing Dos de Mayo and Total Rumble, I know for a fact that GenX can produce terrific games, so my hopes were very high.
The Pocket at Falaise
Ted Raicer is a well-known designer of a number of popular and respected war games, mostly set in WWI and I was very pleased to receive a copy of his game, The Pocket at Falaise, which looks at the allies’ attempt to cut off and destroy the German forces in Normandy. Historically, much destruction rained down upon Hitler’s forces from the Allied armies but enough of the German forces escaped through the unclosed pocket to fight on and prolong the war. Could things have been different?
War of Honor
I’d heard bits and pieces over the years about the Legend of the 5 Rings RPG and CCG’s and was always somewhat fascinated with the theme – fantasy, ancient Japan, Samurai, Ninjas and all that. Trouble is, I’ve never had the inclination to really invest time or money in either genre of game so I just let it pass. Lo and behold, AEG comes along with War of Honor, an entry into the world of L5R and my interested increased. After all, it was supposed to have 4 fixed CCG decks, and simpler rules to get stuck in.
Monsters Menace America
I don’t care who you are, unless you’ve been under a rock or living in sub-saharan Africa for the last 50 years, chances are that you know who Godzilla is. And if you know what he is, you know what he does: break shit and kill people on an epic scale. While the 1954 release of Gojira in Japan spawned countless other “big monster terrorizing a city” flicks, the most recent notable one being Cloverfield, it did not spawn all that many board games of the genre.
Dragon Rage
Hex and counter, counter and hex. However you call it, to “some” gamers it smacks of old school games. Well, I’m here to tell you that its nothing of the sort. I prefer to call it a classic approach which can work very very well.