Winning Eleven

Designer Kimmo Sorsamo sent me a copy of his latest game Tori. I still haven’t tried his previous game, Epäillyt, which is a murder mystery in 1930’s Helsinki. Let’s just say that one didn’t get a very good reception among board game hobbyists and I doubt I could convince my friends to give it a go anymore. Well, it’s a family game and probably works well as one.

Anyway, I was talking about Tori… Tori will get better response from gamers, as it’s definitely more of a thinking game. Players try to succeed on the Helsinki Kauppatori market place during the Summer Olympics of 1952, building different kinds of market stalls, attracting customers to them and expanding the … Read More…

Mindwarrior Games is a new Finnish board game development house and Atlantic Triangle is their first game, done in cooperation with Tactic. It’s a sleek-looking game on the topic of triangular trade, which means the players are actually slave traders! Not a very politically correct theme, but it’s fairly abstract. However, there are actual slave tokens, and no talk about colonists or anything… Finnish folks might want to read my Atlantic Triangle review at Lautapeliopas.

Looks good, with usability issues

The game looks pretty good, but has some usability issues. I’d say the designer hasn’t done lots of board games. At certain points form has won over function. Nothing dramatic and the game is fairly easy to play, but some … Read More…

I missed the original Age of Scheme. Thus I was rather glad it got reprinted by Queen Games as Samarkand: Routes to Riches. It’s not just a pretty reprint like Chicago Express was, but rather a conversion of a demanding auction game to a German family game. Gone are the auctions, say hello to randomly distributed cards!

The physical production is beautiful, as can be expected from Queen Games. The main components are pleasant to handle and include pretty wooden camels in lovely colours. Colour-blind players might have some issues, though. The game’s also labeled as Queen Green Game, meaning extra steps have been taken to make sure the game is produced in a sustainable way. The art … Read More…

I’ve been playing WYPS recently. It’s a new abstract game that combines word game with a connection game. It’s like The Game of Y, except the pieces have letters on them and must form words. The goal is the same: connect all three sides of the triangular board with a chain of your pieces.

While in Y you can only place one piece per turn, in WYPS you can play several — as long as they create a valid word. You can use pieces already on board, your own or your opponent’s, but must place at least one new letter. If you use an opponent’s letter, you can flip the tile to show your colour (if you use several, … Read More…

We’ve been moving and I’ve been otherwise busy, so I’ve had to skip each board game club meeting in November. Now I was finally able to make it and we got to play the game that’s been right on top of my “want to play” list.

Age of Steam — The Zombie Apocalypse. Even the name is amazing. I mean, the dead are raising from the graves, but who cares? There’s profit to be made on the railways. After all, people still need to travel from A to B, and preferably quickly, so they’re willing to pay premium — especially if you have armed guys on the train ready to blast the zombies to tiny bits.

The base of … Read More…