When a game wins the Kennerspiel Des Jahres award, it has to be taken seriously. This prestigious prize has been awarded annually for eleven years now, but it was spawned from the original Spiel Des Jahre award which has now ran for more than forty years. The purpose of the Kennerspiel award is to identify […]
I might be wrong, but I bet that when Dominion was released in 2008, designer Donald X. Vaccarino would have no idea that his creation would still be as popular as it is in 2022. Whilst not usually regarded as a gateway game in any sense of the word, there’s no doubt that Dominion remains […]
Abstract Academy is a small (or very small really) box experience which caters for two or four players, but is best played as a two-person, head-to-head duel. The players each fill the role of students at the titular academy, which specialises in helping its pupils reach their artistic potential using minimalist colours and abstract shapes […]
The original Azul has to be one of the most popular board games of the last five years – having sold over a million copies. Despite this success, the first pair of Azul sequels (Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra and Azul: Summer Pavillion) haven’t been quite as successful. Undeterred, publisher Plan B Games has still […]
Not all remakes are good, but sometimes a modern take on a classic movie, game or story can bring a vast improvement. For me, the new Dune movie is far, far better than the original (which was just a bit before my time) and as such, it deserves only the best when it comes to […]
Just over two years ago, I remember reviewing Jerry Hawthorne’s Aftermath and wondering how storybook games could get any better. In Aftermath, the players had access to four diverse anamorphic characters, a narrative-driven campaign and a method for saving both characters and the finer details of the enclave that the players were looking to defend […]
Almost anyone who watches popular movies, reads comics or engages with fiction of any kind has surely made comparisons between their favourite characters – and in some cases crossover stories have become more popular than the fiction that started them. Without focussing on any particular theme, and by picking up a mixture of royalty-free and […]
Whilst many sports are considered to be a “game of two halves” I don’t find myself referring to board games in that way especially often. Where Fjords is concerned though, I need to make an exception. This 2022 reprint from Grail Games takes the original two-player game, extends it to three and four players, adds […]
The original Pandemic is one of the four pillars that support modern board gaming (alongside Settlers of Catan, Carcassonne and Ticket to Ride) but for fans who have played the game over and over again, it can be a little bit easy and dare I say it, lacking in variety. There have been numerous spin-offs […]
Cards are perhaps the single most amazing and important component in board games. Yes, chess and checkers pieces have played their part, as do modern miniatures – but cards offer so much flexibility. A card can have an objective, a power, a monster or a treasure on it – it can have two or three […]
If you were asked by someone to head down to your local game store to buy a Marvel-themed board game, you would have literally hundreds to choose from – and sadly, most would be rubbish. With that said, I’m delighted to be able to write about a Marvel game that has two things going for […]
It’s fair to say that Risk isn’t a game we play often in our house, although I do have a fond memory of the first time I played it around thirty years ago; back then it was the first “truly impressive” game that I had played, and the plastic soldiers and cannons along with the […]
One of my fondest memories of videogaming in the early 1990’s was playing Sid Meier’s Pirates! on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The idea that Nintendo’s basic 8-bit console could offer such depth and variety was astonishing to me – I could sail the length and breadth of the Caribbean, trade, build a fleet, engage in […]
It takes more than just an iconic intellectual property to elevate a board game these days, especially when that game is essentially a dungeon-crawler. Games like Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion have revolutionised the genre, bringing innovation and variation to their worlds, in addition to fantastic core gameplay. Resident Evil 3: The Board Game definitely […]
It’s no surprise to hear that we are huge fans of Quacks of Quedlinburg here at Nerdly. We’ve already reviewed both the base game and the prior expansion; The Herb Witches. In the latest expansion, Quacks of Quedlinburg – The Alchemists, the game is lifted from being the relatively straightforward experience that is accessible to […]
Here at Nerdly, we were a bit late to the party when it came to our review of the original Great Western Trail back in mid-2019. By then, the game had already been out for around 3 years, and it was already well inside the BoardGameGeek top ten rated board games. The thing is, the […]
It’s been thirteen years since Plaid Hat Games debuted with the original Summoner Wars. An expandable system, rather than a completely standalone game, Summoner Wars sought to capitalise on the success of Magic: The Gathering and other, similar competitive card games, whilst simultaneously offering players a more spatial, chess-like challenge, and offering a fixed price […]
Some three and a half years ago I had the pleasure of reviewing Mark Herman’s Fort Sumter. A two-player wargame simulating the onset of the American Civil War, Fort Sumter was a delight thanks to its light mechanics and deep, head-to-head gameplay. Even though my wife and I enjoyed it (and I rated it four […]
The original Terraforming Mars remains one of the most popular and highly rated games of all time, and currently occupies the fourth space on BoardGameGeek’s all-time ranking list. For me, it is one of the most complete integrations of mechanics and theme in a game, and even though I am not traditionally a sci-fi fan, […]
No Spoilers Here! Please note that Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is a campaign-based experience that takes place over approximately 25 scenarios. This review includes photos of the first scenario and a few of the other components, but nothing beyond the first scenario. I’ve also kept my descriptions of gameplay beyond this first scenario to […]
The board game industry has a problem that videogames don’t seem to have. When a videogame goes out of print (or more likely these days, gets withdrawn from the respective marketplace) people who have bought it tend to benefit on an evergreen basis. Digital games never degrade, and even a retail game pressed onto a […]
Even though Phoenix Point has been out on PC for a couple of years now (more or less, anyway) it has only just landed on consoles. Thankfully, it appears on both PS4 and Xbox One (with next gen upgrades apparently due in the future) in the form of the Phoenix Point: Behemoth Edition. This version […]
