Also known as the GamezMama, I’m a professional board game teacher and designer. Black Bear Creation is my new publishing company and we’re looking to publish our first game, DEER! in 2026.
Irish Gauge is a train style game published in 2014, designed by Amabel Holland, with art by Ian O’Toole. Capstone Games is the publisher of the game. The game plays 3 to 5 players, with a community preference towards 4 player games, in about an hour.
The Iron Rail series from Capstone comes in currently has 4 titles from a couple of deisgners, and is set up to introduce people to the concept of bigger train games through bite-sized chunks.
Irish Gauge is the first, and focuses on introducing the concept of stocks, paying dividends, and route building in train games.
In Irish Gauge, players will bid in auctions at the start, when the game auctions off the first share of each of the five railways in the game. After that initial step, play goes in turns, with players choosing one of four actions each turn: building railroads, bidding for additional shares, special interest projects, or calling for dividends.
At the start of the game, each railroad is located in a single city, so playing additional railroads out and connecting that specific rail line to different towns, minor cities, and major cities will increase the value of that particular rail company. Certain cities will have cubes on them, in one of three colors. In order to benefit the most from collecting dividends, players will want to spread out across the colors.
Special interest projects will let you place a specific colored cube on a town, growing it into a city. While bidding for additional shares will allow players to be involved in more rail lines or secure ownership over a specific company.
Finally, when players call for dividends, they will pull three cubes out of the bag, those colors coordinating with which rail companies will pay out that turn. The game ends when all the cubes in the bag have been pulled or assigned to cities. At the end of the game, the player with the most combined value or shares plus their money are the winner.
Irish Gauge was added to Board Game Arena on December 7th, as part of the Winter of Games event. This game has a tutorial created by the prolific Nekonyancer. The tutorial was well laid out and provided me quickly and easily with an understanding of the core concepts and how to play the game. I had no problems jumping right into a game right after the tutorial and knowing everything I needed to be successful.
I have been tempted and interested by train games and bigger 18XX style games for a long time, but typically they play at minimum 3 players, but best at 4+ players. The bidding and auctioning of shares across players is just not viable as a mechanic at 2 players, so I haven’t had the opportunity to play many train games.
This was a fun and thinky puzzle of manipulating the rail lines, competing for shares, and knowing when to call for dividends and start driving towards the end of the game. The more shares of railroads you own, the more control you have over where to build out routes and which cities to connect, then the more railroads that you potentially profit from. I really enjoyed this one.
I will definitely be revisiting this game on Board Game Arena, as it is a good platform for me to be able to delve into these kinds of games, with a larger player base to potentially pull from.
I’m rating this an 8/10 on Board Game Geek and looking forward to getting more plays in.
This year, November was quite the crazy month for me with two trips back to back because of the change in dates for Pax Unplugged this year. On November 12th, I flew drove down from the Colorado Rocky Mountains, to fly to Nashville, rent a car, and then drive into the Smoky Mountains to Gatlinburg for my second Friendsgiving.
Friendsgiving in Gatlinburg is easily one of my most anticipated events each year now. This is essentially a private gaming event that gives me an opportunity to hang out with and play games with amazing people that I’ve met from within the board gaming industry as awesome people that are adjacent to the industry and have a passion for gaming just like me. It highlights one of my favorite things about board gaming, that despite being from different walks of life with different experiences and brings us all together with these amazing experiences.
Check out this awesome video from Grant Lyon for a closer look!
This event starts on Wednesday evening and ends Sunday morning. For 5 days, we lived and breathed board games. I got to play an experience a wide range of both familiar and new games!
On Day 1, after arrival, dinner, and saying hello and greeting old friends, I go to sit down a play a few games. I brought out my game, DEER! and ran it a few times with different people, getting feedback and showing it off. I am aiming to have DEER! on crowdfunding later this year, so I pulled it out as often as I could. We also played a prototype that a friend was working on, as this is a gathering from all walks within the industry from straight consumer, content creators, designers, publishers and everything in between!
Following that, I got to jump in for a few plays of The Gang, from Thames & Kosmos, which is cooperative Texas Holdem. While I’m not always the biggest fan of cooperative games, this is such a fun and easy one to get into. Honestly, everything I know about Texas Holdem I’ve learned from The Gang. Which admittedly, still isn’t much, as I learn more about ranking hands each time I play.
This is such a great game for both gamers and non-gamers. I’ve introduced this to so many family members. And it’s easily one of the most popular small box games that comes out at cons regularly.
The Gang rates as a 8/10 for me on Board Game Geek.
We also played You Gotta Be Kitten Me!, a variant on Liar’s Dice, using cards with different images of kittens (and dogs in the deluxe edition) that have a certain number of hats, glasses, and bow-ties in different colors. Players will declare how many of a color or an item that they believe is in everyone’s hands until someone calls a player’s bluff. As you are correct or incorrect, plays will lose cards, resulting in less and less cards, thus less icons and colors, in play. This also adds in a handful of action cards that allow players to manipulate the game further.
I rated You Gotta Be Kitten Me! as a 5/10. I’m very meh on most Liar’s Dice style games.
Since my day had started around 2am, I called it a night after that game, which was a little after midnight.
Thursday morning, I got up and went to the main room to hang out. My first scheduled game wasn’t until the afternoon, so I was just going to hang out and play some smaller games. I also was using the time to get a little bit of prototyping work in.
However, a friend was setting up a game of Luthier to play and teach and they only had two players, so I got called over to join.
I am a huge fan of Luthier, by Paverson Games and was able to participate in pre-production playtesting of the game. However, though I have my own copy at home from the recent fulfillment, I hadn’t gotten that physical copy of the table, so I was happy to jump in and play. I’m just going to say, man the deluxe components are amazing in this game. It is so incredibly over the top and ridiculous, but in absolutely the best way.
In our three player game, we had one new player, who took quickly to the teach and the flow of the game. Luthier is played in several rounds, each divided into two phases, the placement phase and the activation phase. During the placement phase, players will place out their workers, which a discs that have a secret value on the bottom, in the different locations across the board. Each player starts with their 1, 3, and 5 value workers. Locations can allow players to do a wide variety of things, from gaining patrons and instruments to build, to performing repair or perform actions to work towards achieving objectives for your patrons. It was a really solid and enjoyable games.
Luthier is easily a 10/10 for me on Board Game Geek.
It did push right up against my next game however, so I was rushing from one house the other other house (we were 80ish people occupying both a 18-bedroom and 16-bedroom houses, so games were split between the two as we occupied every flat, playable surface with games. I made it over there while they were still working on set-up, so it was all good.
The game I signed up to learn and play was Shackleton Base. Now, space games have been super hot lately. The big three during 2025 with the most popularity have seemed to be SETI, Galactic Cruise, and Shackleton Base. I love Galactic Cruise and it is one that I had the pleasure to playtest quite a bit before the production. SETI is solidly in my current top 5 games, and frequently holes the #1 spot, but that depends on the day. My husband and I both love SETI a ton and typically play it several days in a row, even occasionally back to back. We’re both excited for the expansion to be available.
So, with two other such awesome games in the category, and lots of people raving about how awesome Shackleton Base is, I figured I should get a play in.
Shackleton Base is a space euro-strategic style game in which players are working as different space agencies building on the moon in Shackleton Crater, while helping pursue the agendas of a range of corporation – three of which are in play each game. Each of three rounds in the game are broken up into three phases. During the shuttle phase, players will draft a shuttle tile, that will provide players with resources and the selection of astronauts that they will be able to play that round.
Astronauts come in three specialties (colors): Engineers (yellow), Technicians (red), and Scientists (blue). Each is used in different ways, selecting actions during the action phase, where each player will get 6 actions. Based on where players place their workers, they can do a range of actions, such as gaining resources, building, or working with the corporations. The player with the most points at the end of 3 rounds wins.
We played at 3 players and I really enjoyed my play of this game. However, this isn’t one that I’m rushing to add to my collection. The game is fun and solid and I had a lot of fun with it. I’m also sure that there is a ton more to explore with just the base game, not even considering the coming expansion, as we only played with 3 out of 7 available corporations. My concerns with this one are how it would play at 2 players. At 3 players, we had enough going on with competition for the difference spaces in the crater that you got the solid area control experience. I worry that at 2 players, there won’t be enough going on in that regard to feel engaging in the same way.
I’m also not super excited about the possibility of playing it at 4 players, as it felt a touch long during our 3 player game, though that did include a teach. I would definitely play this one again if someone brought it to the table. I’d love to explore more of it. However, side by side with SETI and Galactic Cruise, with my normal player count being 2 people, I don’t need this one. And it definitely ranks 3rd place out of the three for me. I’m glad I got the chance to play though.
On Board Game Geek, both SETI and Galactic Cruise rate at a 10/10 for me. I put Shackleton Base at a 7/10.
Following Shackleton Base, I got to play an early copy of Pinched, from Mighty Board. This is expected to be available in January, with pre-orders available on their website.
Pinched is a game about robbing the wealthy. Players take turns being the Mastermind behind grand schemes, trying to pull off the perfect heist, while trying to avoid lesser burglars also trying to steal what they can.
Players have a hand of cards that match the 5 possible locations players can try and rob. The goal of the Mastermind is to be the only one at a particular location, so they can take all the valuables. The other burglars are trying to match the Masterminds location, so that they can share in the loot, otherwise, they just gain one item from the river.
In your stash, in front of you, each player is trying to get goods of different values, then selling when the time is right, in a mechanism similar to Bohnanza for those that are familiar. For those that aren’t, a group of rugs might be worth $1 for 2 matching cards, but $5 if you can get 5 matching cards before you sell. However, you are limited to 3 spots in your stash. And once it’s your time to be the Mastermind, you will have to be able to play all of the cards you’ve collected in your hand, into your stash, sell stacks to make room for different valuable types, or discard them.
The game ends after everyone has been the Mastermind twice. The player with the most money at the end of the game wins. This was a fun one to play, especially with people that you maybe don’t necessarily know well enough to be able to fully get into their head. This also was a lot of fun at the full 5 player count. I’m not sure how well it would play at 2 or 3 players.
It was fun and if someone pulled it out, I’d be game to play, but probably won’t own it. My husband hates playing these kinds of games with me because I can get into his head really well. We stopped playing Not Alone, which had a similar concept of one player trying to be in a unique location and another player trying to be in the same location, because I could catch him out most times, until he started completely randomizing the location that he went to. It just takes a lot of fun out of the game if one person can easily dominate like that because they know the people they are playing with too well.
I’m rating this one at a 7/10 on Board Game Geek.
Following dinner on Thursday, it was Tichu & Tiara time! Tichu is a 4 player team based, trick taking game that I got to learn this year. My friend Steff taught me at Dice Tower East in July, then I promptly went home and played it 30+ times on Board Game Arena. Having played a ton of Spades on Yahoo Games during High School, I took to Tichu quickly.
Am I any good at it? It really depends on the game. Sometimes I feel like I’m doing well. Sometimes I feel like I suck at this game. So, the answer is just continue to play and continue to learn.
At this event, they had party tiaras, with rubber bands to put on your head, that could be decorated with sticker rhinestones. Last year, I remember the event had been pretty small with one group of 4 playing that I saw. However, it was opened up to learners this year, and we had 5 or 6 tables going with people of all proficiency levels! It was awesome to see brand new players next to very experienced players, with different levels in between. My partner (a new player) and I got stomped by some experienced players, but it was still a lot of fun and a really good time.
I rate Tichu as a 9/10 on Board Game Geek and I’ll keep playing and hopefully getting better.
Following the first game, my partner dropped out to watch the football game, which was fine as I grabbed some time to keep working on prototypes. After Tichu, was scheduled a broader Trick Taking event to learn and play a few different trick taking games, so I was hanging out for that.
I was able to get a two player playtest of my dice programing game Dingbats, playing with a new set of skill cards that I had been working on adding to the game. It was a good playtest and I got some good feedback from it, so I was glad to get it played.
Tichu went quite late though, so the trick taker event was pushed and so I called it a night and headed to bed, sometime about midnight.
I’m going to call that good for this post. The remainder of Friendsgiving was just as game packed and full of awesome experiences, so I’ll follow up with the next couple of days soon. I’ve also got a Pax Unplugged recap coming up in the near future as well.
Thanks for reading. If you’ve played these as well, I’d love to know what you’d think.
Nature is a 2025 release game from NorthStar Games and a re-implementation of their title Evolution. It is designed by Dominic Crapuchettes, with art in the base game by Catherine Hamilton. The game also has 7 follow-up modules in the works, done by a range of different artists. Nature plays up to 4 players, with a solo mode.
From my understanding, Nature was designed to take the older game – Evolution – revitalize it, and make it a more approachable experience for family and gamers alike.
In Nature, players use cards in their hand to manipulate their animal species. Each player starts with one species and a handful of cards. Each card has a specific trait on it that can be played to an animal species, each animal able to have up to 3 traits. Additionally cards can be played to increase the population of one of your species or increase the size.
The more population you have, the more food you have to provide from the watering hole to feed them all. The bigger the size of your animal, the more food they can take from the watering hole at one time. The different traits of your animals will allow you to manipulate the standard rules of the game and make it a more effective animal at surviving. Players can also turn their species into hunters, that gain their food from preying on other animals.
Each animal you have and all their population must be fed at the end of the round to survive or they will starve and die off. Hunters can eat other animals, but if your opponents animals are too strong, you might end up eating your own animals or starving.
If you’ve played Evolution, the teach on this one is super straightforward and easy. Even if you haven’t played the previous game, this one is a fairly light lift in regards to cognitive load of the learning process.
On Board Game Arena, the tutorial was created by contig. Now, if you’ve been following along, I’ve mentioned that one of the other tutorial designers occasionally has bugs in the process that can freeze up the tutorial, and one of my reasons why they seem to have more issues than other tutorials is that they don’t just push the player through the tutorial, they allow for interaction with that tutorial. Well, this is an example of a tutorial that just pushes you through the steps and pushes the buttons for you. That doesn’t mean the tutorial is bad, it does what it needs to do and provides the necessary information for players to learn how to play the game. I just personally feel that tutorials are more effective when the player can actually click and interact with the game, so they get a feel for how the game will play on this platform. So, tutorial okay and functional, but not the best it could be.
The game is enjoyable in it’s easy of play and simplicity, compared to the meatier Evolution. I like the way that turns are quick with meaningful decisions, but also easy choices to make. This version is also a little nicer. If one of your species goes extinct, by it’s last population being killed or starving, the killed population and size dial are set to the side and are added to your new species on the next round, making that species stronger at the start.
However, this game falls into that weird space for me where it is both light and bigger than just a card game. I can see Nature being the kind of games that I pick up for my 8 year old, as I think that he would be able to pick up the concepts and play the game at his age. This could also be a good entry level game for many adults that are not gamers.
As is, it just doesn’t hit the same level of complexity that I’d regularly play with my husband or is small enough to be travel friendly. So, while I enjoy the play and it’s a solid game, it likely won’t see much play from me.
I’m rating this one a 7/10 on Board Game Geek. If someone has it and suggests it, I’m game to play, but probably wouldn’t suggest it myself much.
Carson City is a game designed by Xavier Georges, with art by Alexander Roche, published by Quined Games. The original game was published back in 2009, with a big box edition published in 2015.
The game is played over the course of 4 rounds, in which players will select a character that gives them a special bonus for the round, as well dictated player order based on an initiative number.
Players will then assign their cowboy workers to different actions on the board, such as purchasing ownership of parcels in the city, buying buildings, gaining money, or gaining victory points. Players can place as many of their cowboys as they would like each round, or pass at any time.
This is the first game in the Winter of Games that didn’t have a tutorial built for it, so if you want to learn this one, you’ll need to read the rulebook or watch a how to play video. I went in an read the rulebook, but I found the rulebook to be poorly organized for giving the information needed to play the game, or it simply could just be my ADHD kicking in. If I have the rulebook and the physical game in front of me, I learn better than just straight reading the rulebook and then trying to play the game, because being able to move and manipulate pieces as I learn the concepts is huge for me. So, I struggled through this one.
The digital implementation from Board Game Arena is fine. The information and the game board is easy to view and interact with. It’s easy to figure out where to put things and how progress through the game.
I have played roughly 3 games (BGA says 4, but the first game my opponent disappeared during the game and I had to cancel it). I think that I am starting to get the hang of it, as I only lost by 5 points on the 3rd game, instead of 15+ points.
I find the character selection, the actions, the city building, and the point scoring to be interesting and engaging in the game. However, I am not keen on the dueling aspect of the game. Your strategy for the game can go quite sideways because another player wants the same actions as you, then the duel is a die roll plus any firepower you have. There is an action slot that allows you to gain firepower, but players can also duel over that slot. So, a poor roll on the die, even with greater firepower than your opponent can lose you the extra firepower slot, almost assuring that you’ll also lose whichever building or other location you’re also competing for.
Additionally, there are certain buildings that easily seem superior to other buildings, so they quickly become contentious, then see the notes on dueling in the prior paragraph.
I owned the physical version of this back around 2015, when the big box was released. At that point in time, my husband and I learned and played it exactly once, then it was a Covid Sale casualty. But I strongly believe we didn’t return to this particular title because it just didn’t inspire us at 2 players, which is our main player count. I originally rated this one at a 7/10 on Board Game Geek.
However, these additional plays have not doing anything to endear it to me. I am changing my rating down to a 4/10. If someone put it on the table and said, we’re going to play this and my options were to play the game or not play a game, I’d play it. But I won’t be revisiting this one on BGA on my own or adding it back to my collection.
Published in 2023, Belladone Bluff is a small box card game designed by Konstantinos Karagiannis with art by Martin Maigret. It plays 2-4 players in a playtime of roughly 15 to 30 minutes, by publisher Lubee Edition, a Belgian publisher.
In this game, players will play cards to three different medical preparations (rows), with the card values ranging from -6 to +6 as well as special cards, across five color suits, each preparation being complete upon a player having placed a 7th ingredient card a preparation.
Once completed, each preparation is resolved for its total value, whether that ends up being positive (a cure) or negative (a poison). The player who completed the preparation either gains or loses points based on the end value. Special cards can be used to do things like, alternating the positive and negative values in cards, allow players to peek at face-down cards, force players to pay in a specific preparation, or even giving a preparation to another player.
The game ends when the deck of cards runs out and one final preparation has been completed, the game ends and the player with the most points wins.
This game was launched on Board Game Arena on December 4th, with a tutorial, so if you don’t know how to play, it is quick and easy to learn. The tutorial was done by Nekonyancer and is a well done and informative tutorial. It gives you a solid foundation for playing the game.
As some some BGA tutorials, you can occasionally get misaligned with the tutorial itself by not clicking things at the proper time, so just be careful to read the instructions that are given for the tutorial. I have warnings and these problems more in Nekonyancers tutorials than others, but that could be one of two reasons. One, because they produce a significant number of tutorials for BGA and it’s just a numbers thing. Or two, because they are not as heavy handed with ‘pushing’ the player through the tutorial and giving the player more directions to click and activate things, whereas other tutorials will ‘do it for you’.
I have been enjoying this game. It’s light, easy to learn, and fairly quick to play. It is definitely a take-that style of game, which I can find fun in small doses. This game does it well. There are a handful of small rules that you lean when playing the game, that make the playing more strategic:
Being able to play multiple cards of the same color to a preparation in one play
Each slot in a preparation alternates face up or face down cards – the specials only trigger if they are face up.
The card backs show what color is on the front of the card, providing some information.
And, the last card of a preparation, must be the same color as the previous card.
These specifics in regards to how the different cards play with each other, players are able to hide or reveal information, creates an interesting interaction and interplay between the cards and the players that is fun, engaging, and smart.
I’m rating this one an 7 / 10 on Board Game Geek. Its fun, but I do find that I reach a limit to my enjoyment of take that games after a time, which is the only thing that decreases my rating.
Cities is a 2-4 player game by publisher Devir, put out in 2024. The designers of the game are Steve Finn and Phil Walker-Harding, with art by Jorge Tabanera Redondo. And despite only being published last year, it looks like it has a re-implementation coming in 2026 called Cities USA. Which indicates that we could be looking at a series of games.
This is one of the games I already knew how to play, as I already own the physical copy. Through Double Exposure, a board game promotions company, I get a copy of Cities and ran demos for it at one of my local games stores (and by local I mean 2+ hour drive away, but this is what I get for living in the middle of nowhere).
In Cities, players are going to be creating a 3×3 grid of city tiles (each with 4 sections of terrain: either building, park, or water). Players will be drafting these tiles in conjunction with three other aspects: scoring cards, feature tiles, and building pieces. Additionally, the game will start with a specific location and shared objective goals for a city location, including places like New York, Barcelona, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires.
Each turn, over the course of 8 rounds – in a 3-4 player game – each player will draft one of each of the four (city tiles, building, scoring cards, and features). The game board is set up with four slots in each section, some that are hidden information or other sections that are ‘better’ than other slots by virtue of the number of building tiles or features. In turn order, players will place one of their 4 workers, taking an action in one of the four zones. Once they have taken an action in a zone, they cannot take another action in that zone until the next round.
A two player game is played in 4 rounds, with each player getting two of each action each round. Players will have 8 workers and will have the option to place up to two of their workers in each of the four zones.
At the end of the set rounds, players will score for city objectives, their own scoring cards, as well as the variability of features in their city, parks, and water. The player with the most points wins the game.
Despite already knowing how to play this one, I did go ahead and play through the tutorial on Board Game Arena, created by Dettonator11. The tutorial was well done and covered many of the important aspects of the game, giving players a solid starting point before joining their first game. The only thing I would have liked to see in addition to the tutorial would have been an example on how to rotate your city tiles as you place them, since many goals include creating large groups or smaller groups of water and park sections. But if you read the text when you draft a city tile in the game, it does tell you that you can rotate your tiles before confirming placement.
I enjoy the spacial puzzle that is Cities. The variability of the different benefits and how the different cards, tiles, features, and building color combinations creates an interesting decision space on regards to which zone to draft from first or second in order to get a ‘priority pick’ or which zone you can safely wait on until your third or fourth worker.
Now, I’ve mostly played in is the two player mode and can honestly say that I prefer it in two player. It ends up working out to the same amount of actions, but often, there is more than one good option in the display, so it’s nice to be able to go back for a second draft in a zone. However, in a three or four player game, players will see more of the available tiles over the 6 rounds, giving the opportunity for the correct tiles, buildings, scoring cards, or attractions to come out.
I give this one a 7/10 stars on Board Game Geek. It’s fun. I like the decisions you get to make, and it’s easy to teach and quick. Only reason it’s not rated higher is that it’s a little on the lighter side for my overall preferences, but also too big to easily fit in my convention bag.
Matchstick Tycoon is a card shedding game from Japanese publisher, Hey!. This card game plays 2 to 8 players, in about 20 minutes, designed by Unamu Hizuki, with art by Takuya Iwamura.
Based off a Japanese card game, Tycoon, played with a standard 52 card deck, Matchstick Tycoon, creates it’s own unique experience for gamers. In Matchstick Tycoon, players start with a hand of cards with values ranging from 0 (the lowest) to 8, and then A to F (the highest), as well as a single matchstick. On each card, the numbers are created with matchsticks. In addition to the matchstick images making up the cards value, each card has shadow lines, essentially creating the block 8 shape, showing where matchsticks can be added to change the value of the card.
On their turn, players will either start a trick of between 1 and 5 cards of a single value, or follow the leaders play, by playing their own cards. At any point that you are playing a card, the card can be rotated and matchsticks can be added to change the value based on the available patterns.
A trick is a small round of cards within the bigger game, starting with the number of cards and value of the starting player, and going until all but one player either cannot play or passes. Singles or groupings of the same card value are valid plays. In this games, runs (1,2,3) are not playable.
When following the leaders play, you must both match the number of cards played, but also play cards of a greater value than the previous player. If you cannot or do not wish to play, you can pass and take a matchstick. However, passing is not the end of the round for the player if they have a valid card play, they can jump back in and play if it comes back around to them, or pass again for another matchstick. The trick ends when all other players pass because they either cannot or choose not to play.
While standard card ranking is low 0 to the high F, if at any point in time a player is able to group of 5 of the same value of a card, they will cause a Revolution, in which the strength of the cards changes, making the 0 the highest and the F the lowest until either the end of the game or another Revolution takes place.
The game ends when one player has not only played all of the cards from their hand, but also has no more matchsticks. If a persons last card has been played, but they still have matchsticks, they will play a single matchstick on their turn. This continues until one person is out of both cards and matchsticks, ending the game. The winner if the player that successfully emptied their hand and match supply first.
Matchstick Tycoon is the Winter of Games 2025, December 2nd offering. The game has a tutorial done by the prolific Nekonyancer. The tutorial goes a good job of walking you through a 3 player game and showing you all the intricacies of play and is very easy to walk through.
The Board Game Arena implementation works well in the several plays of the game that Ive run through. I haven’t noticed any sticky points or had issues with the program.
Mostly through BGA, I’ve played 2 player games and while they play fine, I think that this game will play better at a higher player count, the play pattern feeling difference even during the 3 player tutorial.
I have had fun playing this one and this is easily the type of games that I would keep in my convention game backpack. I’m a big fan of light, simple but strategic card games, that play larger player counts.
The play pattern of the game is easy to pick up, but the accumulation and decision space on how and when to use the matchsticks adds a level of depth that keeps me engaged. I also like the complete flip of the Revolution effect. The first time it happened, I was confused what had happened, as it wasn’t shown in the tutorial, but as soon as it did, and I caught on, it opened up another decision space to the aspect of waiting, building that 5 card set, then turning the game on its head.
It is a Japanese 2025 release, so it could be difficult to get in other regions, but hopefully with the BGA implementation, we’ll see some localization and easier availability.
I’m rating Matchstick Tycoon on Board Game Geek as a 8/10 stars.
Welcome to Mystling Academy! Mystling Academy is a standalone game in the world of Dragon Eclipse, by Awaken Realms. It is a player vs player solo or two player with the focus on battling tamed Mystlings. This first set includes Peare (a fire mystling) and Arboro (earth mystling).
Players can play 1vs1 against each other, so select a mystling to play solo against. In the 2 player game, each player is using their mystling, a special power card, and a deck of ability cards in order to try and do damage equal to the opponents health. In the solo game, you can either win by doing damage equal to the enemies health, or by taming the mystling through a series of three steps.
On a players turn, they will activate one of the cards in their display and optionally use power markers to manipulate themselves around the map, as well as attack your opponent. Power markers are acquired through the use of cards, as well as playing cards in different slots. As cards are played, the slide to the right, increasing the value of power markers that it will award when playing the card.
Dragon Eclipse is still on my shelf, awaiting painting and playing, but my understanding of Mystling Academy is that it is designed to get players into the combat aspect of Dragon Eclipse and learning parts of the game at a cheaper entry point. Each set provides two additional unique mystlings, that can be incorporated into the larger Dragon Eclipse game. Currently, there are the fire and earth mystlings, but the expectation is that there will be a mystling from each element, and the game is designed to account for the future mystlings.
Currently, the game is only available on Board Game Arena as a pre-release to the physical game launch. It was provided as the December 1st offering in the Winter of Games 2025 Board Game Arena activity. The retail release is roughly expected in 2026 from my understanding.
If you’re unfamiliar, a couple times a year, Board Game Arena, will create an activity in which they release a new game each day and you can earn badges and awards for stopping into the website and opening the next ‘gift’ to see what the newest game is. The longer your opening streak, the more awards.
Mystling Academy has a tutorial for it on Board Game Arena, done by Scribal. The tutorial provides a good step by step process through the game, and a good overall understanding of how to play. It also points out where the game is set up for additional content from the beginning, as well as the differences between the two mystlings. The tutorial is played in the solo mode, showing you the gameplay, as well as the card based action selection for the solo opponent and the taming activity as a secondary win condition in the solo mode.
Not exactly sure how much I would play this one on its own, or if I’d be inspired to purchase the physical retail edition. It does get me excited to keep painting and then playing my copy of Dragon Eclipse. In larger games like Dragon Eclipse, I am more interested in the story and the exploration of the game, than the combat. Whereas this standalone variant is entirely combat based.
This kind of product plays not only toward new players, but the competitions in the hobby that have already sunk hundreds of dollars into a larger game, by making the new mystling characters compatible with the bigger game. Many will argue that it’s ‘just’ a cash grab, which isn’t necessarily wrong, but it’s a business, their goal is not only to make great games, but also make money so they can continue to make great games. It’s smart business practices and I won’t begrudge a business attempting to be successful.
I also like the idea of creating a more cost friendly way to get people interested in the bigger product, or allowing them to sample at a reasonable investment.
Overall, I’m rating this a 6/10 for me. It’s probably not a game I’d go back to on BGA, but does inspire my to get my Dragon Eclipse game closer to the table.
If you’re a player that likes tactical grid combat though, this might be a better fit for you!
The 5th entry into my Board Game Arena Challenge to play all the games on the site is Pergola. Pergola(Board Game Geek Link), published in 2025 by Rebel Studios and designed by Michal Golebiowski and Przemek Wojtkowiak, plays 1 to 4 player, ages 10+, with a playtime of 45 to 60 minutes.
In Pergola(Board Game Arena Link), each player is developing their garden by selecting a tool each of the 15 turns, which will gives you different types of flowers, bugs, and lanterns, while also providing the player with one of four unique actions based on the location the tool is taken from.
The first thing I can tell is that this game has major table presence in its physical form. Each of the tools, you select gets slotted into your own upright garden pot, marking each of the 15 turns. You’re also building a stunning personal garden. With each player is building out their garden board, adding the different flower types to score in specific ways, as well as bugs that prefer a certain type of flowers, but scores in a contrasting way to how the flowers themselves score.
However, I also enjoyed it quite a bit on BGA. The tutorial was once again done by Nekonyancer and is well down from a game rules standpoint. It does a really excellent job of teaching the game. Unfortunately, this one also has problems with the way that the tutorials works within the Board Game Arena, with easy ways to break the tutorial if you’re not careful, and certain parts of the tutorial not working correctly.
Within the actual game itself, the various actions and pieces work well in the interface. I enjoyed the play of the digital implementation on Board Game Arena, despite knowing that I’m lacking the table presence and physicality of the game.
My major concern with the physical version over the digital is the potential fiddly-ness of the building of the garden. While I have not touched a physical version at all, so I cannot say definitively, but in the game, you are placing and layering tiles in your garden where they can slide around. As I haven’t played the physical, I am not sure if there is anything they have done to mitigate that, so take this as it is.
I rated this as a 7/10 on Board Game Geek. I enjoyed the game, probably would seek it out again or wouldn’t object to playing it, but it’s definitely on the lighter side of what I typical play and enjoy. There is the potential that I would get this one if I could grab it on sale, as the theme and gameplay is something my 7 year old would like.
This year, my now 3 year old has started half-day preschool. So, I finally have kid free time in the mornings to stream, which is something I’ve been interested in doing for a couple of years now. My goal is to stream mornings on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday when I’m home, playing a range of solo physical board games, as well as digital games. You can check me out on Twitch as GamezMama.
Now, why is this relevant to the game? Because The Hobbit: There & Back Again(Board Game Geek Link) is the first game that I streamed as a solo game.
In The Hobbit: There & Back Again(Amazon Link), you are playing a roll and write adventure through 8 different parts that make up the story of the Hobbit as a whole.
For those not familiar with the term “roll-and-write”, this is a category in the hobby board game space where players use a randomizer, in this case rolling dice, the selecting from the randomized element and writing something in on their play sheet. The category has expanded to more of an ‘X-and-write’ as the randomized element can be card flips, drafting, or other ways to great the random element.
The box says that the game plays 1-4 players, ages 10+, in about 30 minutes, and I found that to be fairly accurate. While played the game solo on stream in the morning, I got it to the table with my almost 8 year old and my husband in the evening. My child is a gamer kid and has been playing from a young age, so he typically plays at a 10-11 year old age level, and he really enjoyed the game, and I only had to ‘explain’ strategic choices a couple of time, then he made his own decisions on which move to make.
Published by Office Dog and designed by Reiner Knizia, in this game, you select one of the 8 story parts. Each story is it’s own contained game experience and can be played in any order desired or progressing the story from Part 1 to Part 8. Additionally, each of the parts feels like a unique experience (I’ve played to Part 5 so far). There is enough difference between say, Part 1 and Part 2, that even though I’m using the same components, it feels like it’s own experience.
The core loop of the game is to take a set of dice – the white D6’s, the black D12, or the combined group – and roll the dice, creating a pool of potential resources or actions to take. The white dice have resources – bread, swords, hats – or difficult variations on draw-able pathways that extend over one, two, or three spaces. Many of the scenarios have you drawing paths from one point to another, moving forward along your journey and balancing efficiency with danger aversion and resource gathering. The D12 will randomize an enemy element or provide a its own selection of options.
In most of the parts so far, it has been the 5 white dice to determine actions. In the solo mode, the player will have a set number of round to play through the scenario (completion is not necessary to end, but will provide bonus points of you can meet the scenario goals). When rolling the 5 dice, you will group them into 2 sets of 2 and 1 single die, based on which dice are closest to each other. Of each of those groups, you’ll choose to activate one die, leaving two unused. I feel like it’s a unique and challenging way to still add in that random element while playing the solo.
In multiplayer, the first player will roll the dice, then make their selection. Players draft dice around the table, until there are no more dice to draft. The next person to take a die would grab all 5 dice and roll them again, starting the play pattern again. Unlike in solo, in Multiplayer, each scenario has an end game condition. The first player to meet that scenario goal will immediately trigger the end of the game.
So far, I’ve enjoyed both the solo and multiplayer modes, but the game definitely shines in multiplayer competitive. In the solo, the limited number of turns in which you have to complete the scenario is quite difficult in my experience. I’ve only gotten kind of close to completing the scenario goals once, otherwise I feel quite far off. It makes for a very tight game where every decision is critical for success, which is not a bad thing.
However, playing the game in multiplayer mode where the timer is both myself and my opponents felt like the more natural way to play. We got the chance to explore the range of the scenario without feeling like one misplay sinks the ship.
Compared to other roll and write style games, I feel like this one gives off Railroad Ink vibes the most. Much of the game is selecting paths from dice and drawing them onto your board. The first part for example, you’re trying to get each of the dwarves to Bag End, by drawing paths from the dwarves to the hobbit hole, but also trying to be most effective and linking paths so that multiple dwarves can arrive at the same time.
While I enjoyed Railroad Ink, I found this game to be much tighter and have more easily defined goals, which made it more enjoyable. Railroad Ink is quite free-form with a lot of different options, space, and paths. However, if combo-tactic roll-and-writes are your jam, this doesn’t really scratch that itch. There are points where you can chain paths with resources, or use resources to gain paths, but it’s pretty minimal. The beauty though is that each part feels different, so there is one that I’ve played in which you are using polyomino shapes and spaces where you can get bonus shapes. So while it’s not patched with combo-y goodness, it has its moments.
Overall, I’m rating this one as an 8 on the Board Game Geek scale. I’m honestly feeling more 7ish about it, but I wouldn’t turn it down if someone wanted to play it and would suggest it to others.
If you’ve played it already or get a chance to play it, I’d love to hear your thoughts as well. 🙂
And go check out my Twitch channel! If you’re a morning person, I’ll be tackling more solo games.
(The Amazon link in the post is my affiliate link.)
