The Big Book of Madness

The Big Book of Madness

You didn’t get your Hogwarts letter, did you? Yeah, me neither. I heard good things about the Elementary College, though. They have the Book of Madness in the library. Yes, THE Book of Madness. I have heard really, really bad things about their health and safety procedures, but they teach their students how to really work together and deal with a crisis. I’ll apply there right now!

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Pandemic Legacy

Pandemic Legacy

Legacy games, games where every time you play you make permanent changes to the game, are the big, new thing. Ever since I heard about Risk Legacy, the founder of the genre, I’ve been thinking what other games would work with the addition of Legacy mechanics, and Pandemic was at the top of that list. Now there is Pandemic Legacy, and we all finally get to find out if I was right.

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Welcome to the Dungeon

Welcome to the Dungeon

Some games are huge and take a long time to play. Others are smaller and quicker. And then there are some games that advertise themselves as mini games: small box, small rules, short play time – all the fun. Iello have their own product line of such games, and Welcome to the Dungeon is one of them. A quick and simple bluffing game that has little in common with dungeon crawling style games, you will try to get the hero killed more often than you help him succeed.

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Council of Four

Council of Four

Some countries just don’t manage to form a stable government, but the unnamed kingdom of Council of Four is ridiculous even by those standards. Influential merchants, the players, exchange councilmen in any way that best serves their interest. If the current council can’t be bullied into writing a business permit, they just replace them. And whoever does that best wins the game.

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Codenames

Codenames

I still think Vlaada Chvátil has this little check list on his desk where he goes “Oh, here’s a genre I didn’t make a game in yet” and then just sets out to design a game for that genre. And whatever genre he picks, he’s good at it. The latest example of that is Codenames, a word association game. And if you think that word games are boring, like I did, then maybe Vlaada can change your mind.

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7 Wonders: Duel

7 Wonders: Duel

Mighty empires are fighting for supremacy over the ancient world. But where once up to seven empires where in contest, now there are only two. 7 Wonders: Duel condenses the action of 7 Wonders into a two player game, playing in two being the one weak spot 7 Wonders always had. To make that happen, many things had to change, but the game remains the same.

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Black Hat

Black Hat

There have been many different ideas to spice up trick-taking games over the years. Black Hat’s way to do that is to add a game board where you move your pawns when you take a trick. A lot then depends on proper timing, you want to take a trick when moving on the board is the most beneficial for you.

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