The Year of Awesome

Greetings, dear readers, to a brief celebration in honor of Dice Hate Me’s anniversary! It’s been an amazing, wonderfully awesome year, and we are so thankful to our many supporters, peers, and companies for making it possible to live the Dice Hate Me dream. One year ago today, the first game review was posted – an extremely brief look at Red November from Fantasy Flight Games. Seriously, it was so succinct that many of those first few who read it wondered if it qualified as an actual review! Now, a year later, many of you are probably wishing that the reviews around here were half as short as that first one. For better or worse,... Read More

Unearthing Treasure: A Pergamon Review

“You call this archaeology?” – Dr. Henry Jones Mention the word archaeology to someone and they are as likely to think of a certain whip-cracking, fedora-wearing hero as they are of long, drudging digs and museums full of dusty tomes and broken trinkets. Pergamon – set in the late 1800s during the height of the Pergamon excavation in Turkey – is less about whip-cracking and much more about all that digging and dust. However, for a game that’s all about unearthing artifacts from long-dead civilizations, Pergamon’s play exudes a surprising amount of life. Read More  Read More

Strokes of Art: Fresco and Pastiche

Time to paint in some happy little trees... As Big Daddy Kane once said: “Reviewing ain’t easy.” Ok, so I’m taking some artistic license with his lyrics, but I figure that’s ok since today’s boardgaming topic is art – or, more specifically, games about art. Many of us reviewers could be content with just playing a few games and then sharing our thoughts, but that can get boring – both for us, and you, dear readers. And so, it was with great internal fanfare that I came up with the bright idea of pitting two art-themed boardgames against each other: Fresco and Pastiche. I soon found out after playing them both that choosing... Read More

Inside the Big Top: An Interview with Artipia Games

I would bet that when most people think of board games, the circus is not exactly the first image that pops to mind. Artipia Games is setting out to change that with their upcoming fall release, Drum Roll. After watching the progression of game design and art direction on BoardGameGeek for several months, I felt that it was time to have a chat with game co-designer Konstantinos Kokkinis and find out the big deal under the big top. Just to give us all a better understanding of Drum Roll, can you provide a brief summary of gameplay and key mechanics? During the game, the players give 3 shows. For each of these shows they have 5-7 turns of preparation.... Read More

Diamond in the Rough – A Jaipur Review

The winding streets of the bustling center of goods and commerce in India are filled with row upon row of merchants selling, bartering and trading untold riches, from fine cloth to glittering gold. You quickly make your way around the stalls, dodging advances from a smug rug merchant, but are soon cornered by a shifty, rather persistent man, dressed all in white. With a gleam in his eye, he produces a large, rather garish diamond from his sleeve. “Rumor has it that this stone once fell from the heavens and into the lap of a young prince; it is priceless, but it is yours for a mere 200 rupees.” You wave him off with a hasty harumph; you’ve... Read More

Of Vice and Dice – A Lords of Vegas Review

The game so nice, they reviewed it twice! Some of you dear readers (and listeners) may find this review of Lords of Vegas familiar or redundant – that’s because Monkey238 and I mentioned it as something awesome in our recent State of Games podcast. Since that podcast had a mighty spoiler warning, we thought a few of you might have missed out on a great game. So here, for you enjoyment, is the full Dice Hate Me treatment for Lords of Vegas. Everyone remembers their first time in Vegas. The heat. The smoke. The free drinks. The ever-present and exciting ding-ding-ding of a slots payout drifting from three rows over. And that’s... Read More

Citizens of Princes of the Dragon Throne

But wait, there’s more Princes of the Dragon Throne! Artist Don Aguillo has been burning the midnight oil, creating card art for two human elders, Lord Mark and Lady Lillian. They look pretty realistic, and they should – they’re modelled from the relatives of a certain Clever Mojo Games compatriot! The human elders will join the ranks of the Citizen Deck, which contains several races. Players can look forward to filling their decks with humans, elves, dwarves, trolls, kobolds and goblins in addition to all the cool dragons. Keep watching Dice Hate Me for more card art and news as the game progresses through development.  Read More

High Stakes Trivia – A Wits & Wagers Review

Math may sometimes confound me and dice certainly hate me, but there has always been one gaming staple that I could fall back on: trivia. Yes, I’m that guy that used to play in weekly trivia leagues, and the one that sometimes ruins Trivial Pursuit for the rest of the group. I’m not sure if someone at North Star Games was aware of all this when they offered to send me a review copy of Wits & Wagers, but after playing, I’m pretty sure that it was designed by someone that hated playing Trivial Pursuit with the likes of me. Wits & Wagers is truly the cure for the perfect know-it-all. The game consists of seven rounds. Each round, players... Read More

The Amazing Race – A Travel Blog review

I have a confession: I am a Vlaada Chvatil groupie. Galaxy Trucker is in my top 5 games of all time, and I rabidly wait for his new releases like some people stalk Ticketmaster for Lady Gaga tickets. And so it was with great excitement that I awaited the announcement of his newest game at Essen Spiel – the biggest show in gaming. Would it be another hilarious romp through outer space? A funky dungeon? A sequel to Bunny Bunny Moose Moose? No, it was to be a game about travel. And geography. And blogging. Huh. Never let it be said that the guy gets stuck in a rut. Travel Blog has some intriguing mechanics, but overall, gameplay is fairly simple.... Read More

Enter the Rabbit – A Cookie Fu Review

HAPPY NEW YEAR! No, not that new year, Westerners – today is the day for celebrating Chinese New Year. This will be the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac, which typically portends a peaceful time and a thankful respite between the tumultuous years of the Tiger and Dragon, which come before and after. Since I don’t have a true Chinese game to review – particularly since Go has been around for thousands of years, with thousands of reviews – I thought I’d celebrate here on Dice Hate Me with a little something… different. So grab your firecrackers and some Fu dice – it’s time to kick some cookie! On the surface,... Read More