Quest for El Dorado

Welcome to the jungle we’ve got fun and games. It’s a little known fact that Guns N’ Roses recorded this song in just one take, with no written music or lyrics, after trying an early prototype of Reiner Knizia’s The Quest for El Dorado. Yeah, those guys are gamers, too.

The Quest for El Dorado packs everything the lyrics promise. There’s quite a lot of jungle, because that’s where the fabled city of El Dorado happens to be. And there’s a lot of fun and games for the whole family, because El Dorado is a family deck building game with enough fun in the box to earn a nomination for the 2017 Spiel des Jahres.

Read more

Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg

The Quedlinburg Quacks are not the east German town’s hockey team. Neither are the Quacks of Quedlinburg a family of celebrity ducks living in the area. I would love if they were, though. No, The Quacks of Quedlinburg (original title: Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg, no official English title yet) is one of Wolfgang Warsch’s games on this year’s Spiel des Jahres shortlists. We already reviewed the others (Ganz Schön Clever and The Mind), so today we’ll talk about quacks and snake oil salesmen.

The players in Die Quacksalber von Quedlinburg are charlatans selling their potions and tinctures at the annual fair in Quedlinburg. At least, they will sell them if they manage to make them without blowing up their kettle. Spoiler: they won’t. Not reliably. The possibility of your kettle exploding is the fun. And the best part: when it does explode you have no one to blame but yourself.

Read more
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!

Read more
Heroes

Heroes

Wizards never live in peace. Wherever they meet, they fight. Heroes is another game to prove this simple fact, and it packs the excitement of a real-time game into the wizard duel, because players roll at the same time, trying to collect the energy to cast a spell before their opponent does.

Read more
Valley of the Kings

Valley of the Kings

Death is when your life really starts. That, at least, was the belief of the ancient Egyptians, and they prepared for the afterlife by taking everything with them, plus the kitchen sink. If you thought the way your mother packed for a three week vacation was over the top, then you haven’t seen an Egyptian burial chamber. In Valley of the Kings, your goal is to stuff your tomb with more things than the other players, meaning that you’ll be richer than they are in the afterlife. And that’s all that counts, isn’t it?

Read more
Orleans

Orleans

Thing-building games are still going strong. Deck-building games are the most popular of the bunch, but dice-building games and bag-building games have lots of fans, too. With Orleans one bag-building game has made the Kennerspiel des Jahres nominations this year and it really represents the cream of the genre. To become the most successful leader in medieval France, you need tight management of the followers in your bag.

Read more

Lewis & Clark – The Expedition

In 1804, shortly after president Jefferson purchased half the North American continent from Napoleon, the Lewis and Clark expedition set out to survey just what the president had acquired. Or should that be “the Lewis and Clark expeditions”? As it turns out, up to five expeditions may have competed to get to the Pacific coast first, and only the first to arrive, cleverly recruiting expedition members and managing their resources, will be remembered by history.

Read more

Rococo

Games about making dresses are a tough sell. Between games about conquest, economic success and survival, tailoring just doesn’t compare. So to stand out, a game about making ballroom gowns needs to excel in other areas. Having well linked games mechanics and a new take on deck-building might do the trick for Rococo.

Read more

Concordia

The Roman Empire has always been a popular setting for games, so Concordia is not innovative in that respect. But it is a game by Mac Gerdts, so you know it will not be a run-of-the-mill, nothing-new-to-see-here game. Gerdts’s games are special. But even by the high standards he set with Antike, among others, he has outdone himself with Concordia.

Read more

Thunderstone Advance: Numenera

Fantasy, in board games, often means “inspired by Dungeons & Dragons”. Until now, that was true for Thunderstone as well. But the Numenera RPG, and the Thunderstone box based on it, offers a very, very different brand of fantasy. You’d be happy to find something as simple as a dragon here.

Read more