Trains

Deck-building was a big game genre the last few years. But pure deck-building is exhausted, every major publisher has a couple of deck.-building games already. But deck-building as a mechanic still has a lot to offer, and incorporating it into a larger game offers many options yet to explore. Trains is one such game that takes deck-building and builds a wider game around it. So build your decks to build your tracks and lay rails across Japan.

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Guildhall: Job Faire

Guildhall was a surprise release by Alderac in 2012, there were no announcements or anything, the game was just there. Now the expansion/sequel Job Faire is out and was much less secretive. I guess we could all see the expansion coming. Just like its predecessor, its better if you don’t think about the game to thematically, if the medieval guild system had really worked like this game we’d still only have five bricklayers in the world, and where would we be then, as a civilisation? We probably wouldn’t be hating our fellow man over a card game, that’s where. And that would mean we’re not playing Guildhall.

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Love Letter

Love Letter

Very few board and card games come out of Japan. It’s not because they don’t exist there, they just don’t make it to Europe or the US. Alderac Entertainment is working on changing that with their Big in Japan series, games by Japanese designers, first published in Japan and for the first time translated to English. That’s why we get to play Love Letter.

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Thunderstone: Starter Set

Thunderstone: Starter Set

How often has this happened to you? You are peacefully tending to your farm, and suddenly a hole in the ground opens up and monsters come streaming out. Next you know, a bunch of heroes are charging you a ridiculous fee to take care of the problem and then make off with the monsters’ treasures as well. Being a Villager in Thunderstone is little fun. But you, you’re one of those heroes.

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