Skip navigation

Author Archives: The Professor

Happy Labor Day!

Get out there and play some games!

Terraforming Mars: Player Board Overlays


NOTE: This is a review of a product I found on Etsy and purchased. No discount was given in exchange for this review.

As I mentioned previously, Terraforming Mars needs a 3rd party supplement for the player boards. I found several options on Etsy and after some deliberation with Chubby Unicorn, I purchased a set of 5. They work great!

I looked at “overlays” which sit on top of the existing “boards” (which are in fact just paper). The seller I used (and others) offered overlays with a back board which sandwich the player board, but those were much more expensive (1 with a backboard was almost as much as 5 without). Since the main problem had to do with table bumps and accidentally touching the board, and not needing to pick up the player boards, I opted for just the overlays.

Read More »

Terraforming Mars

Terraforming Mars is a recent (2016) game developed by Fryxgames which is a family run gaming company (“FryxGames consists of 4 brothers out of a family of 10 brothers, 6 sisters, and 2 game-passionate parents.“). I first heard about it when it was nominated for some 2016 Golden Geek Awards (Game of the Year, Strategy Board Game, and Solo Board Game). It was later nominated for even more awards (2016 Swiss Gamers Award, 2017 Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, 2017 Jogo do Ano, and 2017 Kennerspiel des Jahres). Given all the hubbub, I decided to take a look.

Read More »

The Professor’s Favorite Games 2017 Edition

As Chubby Unicorn mentioned in her post, tastes change. My original profile listed 7 Wonders, Flash Point, and Velociraptor Cannibalism as my top 3 games.

A while back I swapped in Lords of Waterdeep for Velociraptor Cannibalism due to not getting to play much of the latter and then not being nearly as excited when we did play it.

As of today, my choices are:
Read More »

The Pillars of the Earth

A while back we attended a gaming convention (shocking, I know). There were some door and raffle prizes. We entered and won a Board Game that was in German. We weren’t especially enthused (not being German readers/speakers), and set it on a shelf where it gathered dust for a couple months. While we were cleaning house (and getting rid of some games), Chubby Unicorn suggested we toss it, since we didn’t plan to learn German. I told her that we should play it at least once; that the folks on BoardGameGeek probably had a translation and that I would download it and learn the rules.
So I did. I found out that it is an early Worker Placement game with 6 rounds and based on a book. Each round is divided into 3 parts:

  1. Draft resources and/or craftsmen
  2. Master Build Assignment
  3. Board Actions

Read More »

How do you find out about new games?

Chubby Unicorn and I were talking about games recently (shocking, I know). The topic of where we find out about games came up. We’ve mentioned that we’ve backed a few games through Kickstarter (as evidenced by the Kickstarter tag), but how did we find out about those games?

Some of those came from just browsing Kickstarter itself, specifically the Tabletop Games section, but in general the basis is BoardGameGeek.com. The site is a wealth of information, and there are many folks who delight in posting about upcoming games. One source I enjoy is the BoardGameGeek News blog. I also “subscribe” to many games on the site, which means when a new forum post is made I’ll get a notification on the site. Often this will just be folks asking rules questions, but you will also find rumors of a new expansion or new game from the same publisher.

The better source of information is usually direct emails from the Publisher/Designer/Game Company. Most of these folks have a mailing list you can join and they do NOT abuse it (at least not the ones I have been on), generally only sending emails out when they are working on a new game, prepping for a kickstarter, or the like. These emails are often the first time I hear about a new game or expansion.

Lately, the news updates from the Tabletopia on Steam have also been showing me some new games and piquing my interest.

To summarize, I find out about my new games through:

  1. Newsletter Emails from publishers/designers/game companies
  2. BoardGameGeek News on BoardGameGeek.com and subscriptions
  3. Tabletopia Announcements through Steam
  4. Browsing Tabletop Games on Kickstarter.com

What about you?
Where do you find out about new games?
Let us know in the comments.

The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game is another game we backed on Kickstarter (Kickstarter campaign).

It is a quick (< 30 minutes) co-op game where Harry Dresden (the protagonist of the Dresden Files book series, by Jim Butcher) and his friends/allies defeat various fiends, overcome obstacles, take advantages, and solve cases.

In game play terms, one person is Harry Dresden, and then everyone else picks who they like. However, in a 2 player game, each player takes 2 characters, but then shuffles those 2 decks together (a la Smash Up). Harry decides who goes first, at which point the game is afoot!

Read More »

The Game Anywhere Table

A while back we backed the Game Anywhere Table on by Transforming Designs. Like most kickstarters, it did not make its anticipated delivery date (Dec 2016). There were a few delays, during which they made some upgrades and tweaks (all of which were VERY well communicated); they are on target to have delivery complete for the tables by end of July (accessories are a different story) and are working on a larger one.

I’ll cut right to the chase: this table is great for gaming on. Being able to fold it up and put it away when not in use is also great. It means we have a designated table for games, without it taking up a lot of space.

Read More »

The Broken Token Organizer for 7 Wonders

Our board game collection takes up a serious amount of space. Most game boxes have an excessive amount of empty space inside (aka “slack fill”). Regardless of the reason (plastic/cardboard trays are the usual culprit), the wasted space makes the boxes bigger. It is also rare that the publisher leaves room for expansions, which means that you have your original game box, and each expansion. For our 7 wonders collection, this was a large stack of boxes. It also meant that when we wanted to play 7 Wonders, we had to get all the boxes, open each up and collect the various cards and extra bits from each one, creating a lengthy setup (and tear down) process.

Enter the The Broken Token Organizer for 7 Wonders (aka the Wondrous Organizer).

Read More »

Terra Mystica Platforms

This is the final entry in a four part series on Terra Mystica. In today’s entry I’ll talk about playing Terra Mystica on the various platforms (Android, Tabletopia, and the board).

There are definitely advantages and disadvantages to each platform. These are our personal pros and cons.

Read More »