NPI has the scoop on perhaps the hottest game of the summer, and what better way to avoid the plague than by staying inside and moving fantasy heroes around a map for hours on end in an expansive story driven campaign with cool combat mechanisms. Can Descent: Legends of the Dark deliver on all of that? You’ve come to the right place to find out.
Ever wondered what Chess would look like as a card game? Find out in our review of Summoner Wars: 2nd Ed Master Set.
Heavy eurogames! What are they good for? Telling a complex narrative via the medium of interlocking mechanisms. In this video I explore how Kanban EV, a seemingly benign efficiency puzzle about making cars simulates work enviroments and what can we learn from it. Join me on an elaborate ride of factory hell.
I need to stop going into a big project after another big project with no little project to fill the gap in between. So expect something small and cute for our next video - but right now we have big, scary, moody, dark and expensive. Is it good? No. Is it interesting? Heck yes.
Bloodborne: The Board Game is not a fantastic game but it gets close. If you’re tickled by near greatness, this review delves into the whys and hows.
Today I’d like to invite you to take a journey through the history of narrative choice games. All the way from their earnest beginnings in the seventies, leading up to modern implementations in board games, and one of the finest examples in Sleeping Gods.
What could possibly go wrong with cats? They’re just cute animals and this is a cute board game about those cute animals. Look at that art - there’s nothing untoward going on here. By all means, do not worry about opening this box and unleashing the most devastating card board creation known to humans.
Our new favourite “solve a detective case” game is here and we can’t wait to tell you more about it.
To quote a popular space film - “space has never felt so good.” Today we’ll be taking a look at Beyond the Sun from first time designer Dennis K. Chan and nothing makes us stand up and pay attention as much knocking it out of the park on your first attempt. And to carry the baseball analogy further - Denis doesn’t just knock it out of the park, he knocks it out of the solar system. Kinda wish I wrote that line for the video rather than the blurb but I promise you, there’s a lot more goodness in this video.
Hello, it’s our game of the year video. Since there’s nothing more to say about this video without spoiling what our game of the year is, let’s just say that this is a video about our game of the year where we reveal our game of the year. If you ever wanted to know what board game was the game that gamed better than any other board game - you clicked on the right game of the year video. For 2020.
It’s nearly the holidays which can mean only one thing - Efka getting disappointed with all the toys he got. And in this video, the toys are really wow and everything else is really not.
Etherfields is a campaign game where you’ll trundle through dreams to find meaning - a quest as noble as finding wisdom in a circus. But in the true spirit of the holidays, Etherfields is more a sales pitch than a game, with so many buzzwords to entice you to play, and so many disappointments that will leave you as deflated as a dad stuffed with turkey.
Legends are not always what they’re cracked up to be. With that in mind, No Pun Included takes a crack at Catan and instead of unsnarling everything that by now makes it feel lackluster - we offer three other fantastic games that will be a perfect alternative to Catan to anyone.
There’s a point in this video where the music stops and the swearing begins and I think this sumps up our experience with Horizon Zero Dawn the board game pretty well. Never ever have we been so excited by the promise and so dismayed by our time with a game. But hey, why not take this journey together with us and see all the ins and outs for yourself.
Holy Toledo tornado Batman! If it isn’t the world’s premiere super-hero collectible card game - Marvel Champions - replete with vigillantes you always dreamed of becoming for a mere mere price of $59.95.
Marvel Champions is a co-operative card game where you and up to three other friends will colaborate to punch, kick and magic-blast your foes in the face or other protruding parts of their body. And now that this baby is one year old, it’s time to see how this game is holding up and whether it’s worth investing your time (and a minimum of $59.95) into.
Tokyo Tsukiji Market is the only board game in the world based on German 90s techno sensastion Scooter’s hit single - How Much is the Fish. In TTM you will fish fish, sell fish, buy fish, and most importantly - fish. Get ready to rub yourself with money, because we all know that in physics fish = $.
Tokyo Tsukiji Market is an economic simulator that is squeezed into the tiniest box imaginable for it’s component count. Get ready for tiny bits, smart minimalist presentation and clever plays.
No Pun Included talks a lot of nonsense but this time it’s for a reason. Today we’re reviewing the Shut Up and Sit Down Nonsense Box and it’s sequel, the Serious Nonsense box, which both are standalone expansions to the party game Monikers, which is a variant to a parlour game commonly called The Celebrity Game.
That’s a lot of words to say this is a party game where you draw cards with silly words and then charade them. Is that it? Sort of. But sometimes there’s brilliance in simplicity and this game has a lot of the former and the latter.
Announcement! For the next six weeks we’ll be celebrating the best that small board games have to offer. Tune in for this first episode where we feature Sprawlopolis - one of the best city building games out there fitting into a demure 18 cards, a rulebook and a wallet to fit it all in. What could be more pocket than that? Answers on a pocket postcard.
Let’s face it, we’re not the target audience for this game. NPI has always been a staunch resistor of “Big Kickstarter,” and upon initial glance, this is one of the genre’s naffer offerings. Generic theme? Check. Generic minis? Check check check check check. But any ol’ cardboard doesn’t just get featured in an NPI review so maybe there’s something hiding behind the plastic.
Project: Elite is a real time dice chucking madness simulator where every second you feel like you’re on fire - and trust me, you won’t have time to check whether that fire’s coming from an alien’s mouth or your own gun accidentally pointed at you. Appropriately, Project: Elite isn’t a game of high stakes action - it’s a game of foibles and a comedy of errors.
So let your guard down for a moment and let this plastic wash over you as we tell you why exactly is it that maybe, against all odds, this game won over our hearts.
You might have never heard about them, but let me tell you, pirates are cool! Well, not real pirates. Real pirates are… boy this suddenly turned. Fantasy magical pirates are cool. You know, the ones more about adventure and ridiculous consequences? Sign me up for some of those non-real life magical pirates, PLEASE. And do it quickly because this intro has gone really awkward.
Forgotten Waters is by far not the first pirate game to hit the… waters but so very rarely do they float. Which is why I’m incredibly delighted to tell you that in a rare occasion, this one doesn’t just float - it paddles! Watch our review for more.
This video was sponsored by Skillshare.
Combos are empowering. We get to engage in creation whilst we play, even though that creation might have been an illusion carefully crafted by the designer. And we’ve all felt the desire to share our combo stories, but it’s never a story that lands well. Here’s why.
This might be the longest video we ever made and it might be about a series of some of the most complicated games in the world, but don’t let that scare you. In fact, I hope you take this video as an opportunity to disocver something that you’ve heard spoken about in card board shadows but never dared tip your toes. So dip your toes, my friend. Dip your toes.