This Roll and Write is HUGE (and strange) | TEND Review

Our hobby is different now. There used to be this concept of a showpiece component. One standout feature to make you feel like there’s something special in your board game. Something to get punters to punt and players to play.

It is no great exaggeration to say that every component in TEND is a showpiece component (forcing the question: what is the point then?). With more bling than a nail salon, TEND would be easy to dismiss, but… there is something to this game.

A compulsive appeal to push, try and strategize. It is by no means bad. But board games don’t play in isolation, especially when their price tag begs you to find an alternative. More on that in our review.

Railroad Ink Challenge - A Love Letter

What’s green and yellow and dicey all over? That’s right, it’s a sweetcorn salad, but also Railroad Ink Challenge. In this voluptuous follow-up to the roll-and-write genre’s darling superhit, publishing house Horrible Guild crams every idea under the sun. How in the world can it still be great? Well, it is, and I’m here to tell you why Railroad Ink Challenge is the followup that the original more than deserved.

Rather than an exhaustive review of all the little variants and expansions crammed into Railroad Ink Challenge, we decided instead to strip it down and expose the things that really do make it shine. If you’re hoping for grandiose comparison between Lush Green and Shining Yellow, then sadly, we don’t deliver. If you want to know just what makes Railroad Ink Challenge so nifty, you’ve come to the right place.

Welcome to Dino World Review

Roll and writes! Today we’re reviewing Welcome to Dino World, a new entry into a genre so notorious that it developed its own in-joke entry called Rolland Wright the Roll and Write board game. We’ve certainly fallen head over heels for quite a few of these such as Gans Schon Clever, Welcome To and Railroad Ink. But with the dawning of a new year come innovations and like a hungry Tyrannosaurus, Welcome to Dino World barges into your living room and demands attention because it is different. How different? Only one way to find out.