Game Overboard – A Hagoth: Builder of Ships Review

Game selection can be a curious thing. Quite often I’ll spend a good half hour or so in my local game store, pulling boxes from shelves and seeing what interests me. Quite likely I’ll bring a game up to the counter that was referred by a friend, or mentioned in a recent review, or it’s just the new hotness. And then there are the quirky ones – you know, the ones that inexplicably call to you from the shelf. You have no idea what might lurk inside, but suddenly there’s a cute panda, or a zeppelin, or a buff, shirtless man hauling lumber by the seashore. Yeah, that’s Hagoth: Builder of Ships. I bought the quirk. And now you get the... 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

The Quick and the Undead: A Nightfall Review

One thing about living in Santa Carla I never could stomach; all the damn vampires. For those gamers not in the know, Nightfall is the new horror-themed,“direct conflict” deck-building game from AEG that feels a bit like the love child of Dominion, Magic: The Gathering and the old, classic Killer Instinct video game. Just as in Dominion, each player starts the game with a small collection of cards in their personal decks and can later augment those decks by drafting cards from stacks of other cards during their turn. Unlike Dominion, players are able – through the use of carefully played orders and minions – to deal direct damage... Read More

MACE Convention Wrap-up

As many of you dear readers know, I attended a local gaming convention this weekend in Hickory, NC – MACE West, the sister convention to the somewhat-larger MACE held in High Point in November each year. Smaller in no way means that there was less fun to be had, as I and my gaming companions – Michael, Shawn, Scott and Matt – proceeded to play the holy heck out of 11 different games over two and a half days. I was also lucky enough to walk away from the convention with a smorgasboard of gaming goodness; after winning a silent auction, I got great deals on two tickets to Origins Game Fair, as well as the games Infinite City, Mystery... Read More

Great Odin’s Goat! A Trollhalla Review

Ahh, island life. Sipping coconut cocktails by the shore, dreaming of that cheeseburger in paradise, not a care in the world. The skies are a pearlescent blue, and the sea is cascading against the golden sands, while farther out dolphins frolic in the surf, the mammals a beautiful blur of grey that are suddenly driven away by hulking behemoths of wood and metal, pounding through the drink like drunken golems. And carrying trolls! Trolls, of all things! They’ll soon be running off with the women and pigs! If only we had more of their mortal enemy to fling at the approaching juggernauts, those cantankerous billy goats… Intrigued? You should... Read More

Lunchgames! The Inside Scoop

Those loyal and stalwart few who follow the Dice Hate Me Twitter feed regularly know all about #lunchgames – my semi-daily tweet around lunch time that summarizes my office’s epic battles over burgers and baked goods in 140 characters or less. Sometimes I can claim victory, but more often than not I end up spiraling to my oblivion, leaving one of my coworkers – or, typically, the luckiest player on the planet, Clover Leaf – to stand victorious. Michael Fox is one such reader of #lunchgames. Michael (@idlemichael on Twitter) also happens to write reviews and produce an extremely swell podcast for The Little Metal Dog Show... Read More

Launch Pad: In Space, No One Can Hear You Whimper

From 1957 until the early 70s, the national super powers of the United States and the Soviet Union were pitted together in a heated head-to-head race for space. In their quest to reach the cosmos, each nation recruited top technicians and harvested vast resources, all while trying their best to protect their budding rockets from spies and saboteurs. Launch Pad is a lot like that, except this time imagine that JFK strapped on a rocket pack, flew over to Kruschev’s pad and booted him right in the kremlins. In Launch Pad the objective is simple: use resource cards to build cool spaceships, send them through quality control, and then roll ’em... Read More

Monopoly Deal – Like Landing on Free Parking

Say the word “Monopoly” to most die-hard gamers and they are likely to run screaming from the room as if their face is engulfed in flames. To some gamers, that very flaming fate would be preferable to the tedious, near-death experience of another game of Monopoly. To those of you who cringe at the thought of Passing Go; to those who abhor little metal Scotties; to the dear few who pray you Go to Jail so you don’t have to sweat bullets trying to get past your cousin’s stupid Skid Row with hotels on them – I’m here to tell you that it’s safe to come out from behind your stack of Eurogames. I’m going... Read More