Tabletop Game Review: On Tour

Published on March 31, 2025March 31, 2025 by Kyra1 Comment

On Tour puts you in a rock band. You’re living the dream. You must schedule the band’s stops over your 100-day tour, visiting as many states (or countries depending on the map you choose) as possible. Roll the dice and chart a course with the most concerts.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Today’s tabletop game review is the roll-and-write game by All Play (BoardGameTables.com at the time of its original print) On Tour. We’ll set off on our tour soon, but first, let’s handle some of On Tour’s behind-the-scenes details.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Chad DeShon
Publisher: BoardGameTables.com
Date Released: 2019
Number of Players: 1-8
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: Less than a minute
Play Time: 20 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Bingo
Dice Rolling
Line Drawing
Network and Route Building
Push Your Luck
Simultaneous Action Selection
Solo/Solitaire Game

Game Setup

1) Give each player their own player board and a dry-erase marker.

2) Shuffle the cards and place them in the center of the table.

3) Roll the dice (2 large 10-sided dice). For setup only, re-roll doubles.

4) Combine the results to form two different 2-digit numbers (i.e. 1 & 4 combine to form 14 & 41).

5) One player draws a card. All players write the lower dice combination on that state.

6) Draw another card and all players write the higher dice combination on that state.

7) Each player circles both numbers.

8) Repeat steps 3-7.

9) Remove the four cards from the game.

Choose a player to begin the game by rolling the dice first.

Game Flow

With each turn, the rolling player draws 3 cards and reveals the cards for all players. If the deck ever empties, reshuffle the deck to form a new deck.

The rolling player rolls both dice. Combine the results to form two different 2-digit numbers (i.3. 5 & 6 combine to form 56 & 65). All players simultaneously write each of those numbers in two empty states (or countries) on their board.

When writing numbers, players choose two of the three cards. The numbers must be written in one of the regions on the displayed cards (like North and Central). If you write a number on the same state displayed on the card, circle it. When writing numbers, a different card must be used for each number.

If all three cards display the same region OR if doubles are rolled, each player draws one star in any one empty state on their board instead of writing numbers. The state must be in the same region as shown on the card. You may still circle the star if you use an exact state from a card.

When all players have written their two numbers, discard the revealed cards and pass the dice to the next person clockwise.

When only one or two empty states remain, do not flip cards, instead roll dice. Players may freely write numbers in any remaining states, following the usual rules.

When all states are filled, the game ends. Beginning in any state, draw a continuous route for your tour. The line must continue to any adjacent state with a number equal to or greater than the previous state you started in. Stars are wild and count as any number.

You can never return to a state that you have already visited. You can never go to a state with a lower number.

Score one point for each state you visit and an additional point for each circled star or number on your route. The highest score is the winner.

Review

First, I didn’t change much from the rulebook in the game setup and game flow sections. I always use a game’s rulebook as a point of reference when writing these sections. Typically, I need to reword or condense multiple passages in a board game’s rulebook to make it easier to read or to get the gist of how a game is played. On Tour’s rulebook, like many other All Play (formerly boardgametables.com) rulebooks, is easy to read. The company has a mission of making board games accessible to more people. Their well-written rulebooks go a long way toward that end.

I like On Tour’s twist on the roll-and-write or flip-and-write mechanism. Note: roll-and-writes have Yahtzee as a basis, where players roll dice and then fill in the results on their player boards, while flip-and-writes typically replace dice with cards. On Tour combines both mechanisms flawlessly and that leads to each game playing differently. I’ve played plenty of On Tour, mostly solo, and each game presents a different challenge. I may get the card I need, but not the right numbers or I may get the numbers I need, but not the right card. Some combination of this will happen in every game but each game feels fresh.

I enjoy On Tour’s solo mode, but the game plays better with multiple players. Like most roll-and-writes, players fill in their maps at the same time and this accommodates larger player counts. Playing with a full complement of eight players may only add ten or so gameplay minutes. Knowing the map helps make decisions easier. I don’t take long to fill in my map, but a new player would take a hot second to make their decision. But I wouldn’t say that knowing a map gives a player an unfair advantage. It’s an advantage but not a huge one. I’ve lost plenty of times to noobs. That may say more about my inability to play On Tour well.

The player boards are two-sided. One side depicts the United States, while the other is a map of Europe. New players should start with the United States. The regions are easier to spot (North, South, East, West, and Central). The straight boundaries of Colorado, Wyoming, and other mid-western and western states help.

I add a rules variant and allow players to chart their route as they fill in states (countries). You can always erase a route if you choose to go in a different direction. The end game (of figuring out which route you’ll take) can take almost as long as the game itself. Filling in a tentative route as you go shortens the time you need for final scoring. It also leads to table talk where someone undoubtedly says, “Well, I guess I’m cut off from Washington (or some other state).” Since you’re using a dry-erase marker, these tentative routes can be altered.

I often bring On Tour while on vacation. While On Tour is one of All Play’s standard box-size games, these boxes are still roughly 7 x 11 inches, making it easy to pack in a suitcase. And its price of $40 is nice. All Play games skew toward wider appeal (code for lighter games), but one can’t question the company’s quality of games and its commitment to cheaper price points.

Too Long, Didn’t Read

On Tour blends roll-and-write and flip-and-write mechanisms for a fresh take on both game mechanisms. While knowing one of the maps can help with making faster decisions, veteran players don’t gain too much of an advantage over newer players. The game plays well as a solo game but sings at large player counts. On Tour continues All Play games’ mission of making board games accessible to a wider audience.

Tabletop Game Review: Comic Hunters

Published on March 24, 2025April 22, 2025 by Kyra3 Comments

Comic Hunters casts players as comic book collectors trying to collect the most impressive comic book collection over a single weekend. Comic Hunters also marks the first of several games I picked up over Christmas. I’ve had enough time to play these games for a review so be on the lookout for more games I picked up over the holidays.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. We’re taking a break from playing as superheroes to collecting the works in which they appear. Comic Hunters has an intriguing premise. It also features a heap of iconic Marvel comic book covers. I can’t want to get into the review, but before we get any further, let’s look at Comic Hunters’ fine print.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Robert Coelho
Publisher: Arcane Wonders and Spin Master Ltd.
Date Released: 2020
Number of Players: 1-4
Age Range: 10 and up
Setup Time: 5-10 minutes
Play Time: 45 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Auction: Turn Order Until Pass
Closed Drafting
Hand Management
Open Drafting
Set Collection

Game Setup

Comic Hunters has special setup rules for games with fewer than four players. It even has a solo game variant. These rules aren’t too difficult (mostly removing cards and other bits from play that relate to the removed cards). We won’t include those special rules here. We’ll continue the game setup section as if you’re playing with four players.

Comic Hunters has three card types that represent different comic book eras: level 1 (2000-present), level 2 (1980s and 1990s), and level 3 (1960s and 1970s). Each of these card types (with unique card backings) also represents locations: level 1 (comic book stores), level 2 (flea markets), and level 3 (auction websites). Shuffle each one of these three decks separately. Without looking at the cards, take ten cards from each of these decks to make a fourth deck. Shuffle this fourth deck. This will be the convention deck.

Place the checkmark token in the first Schedule box of the first round. You will play rounds according to the Schedule.

Assemble and organize the 8 Hero Tokens on the Hero Tracker Table. In a 4-player game, draw and place 1 Hero token for the first row, 3 Hero Tokens for the second row, and 4 Hero Tokens for the third row. The value of these heroes’ comic books will vary with the top row being the most valuable and the bottom the least valuable.

Each player takes their Player Token of their chosen color and places it on the “15” space of the Secret Stash track. This will be your money with which to buy lots during auctions. Any of your remaining stash becomes victory points at the end of the game.

Next, setup the Highlights section. Draw one of the Highlight Tokens and place it on the leftmost space of the top row. Do the same for the next two rows. Each of these Highlight Tokens denotes something special about a comic book. They can be a character’s first appearance, the first issue of a series, an epic battle, a new look (for a character), or a special edition. Players will score points depending on who has the most comic books that match the in-play highlights. Since there are five tokens and you’ll only play with three Highlight tokens, scoring changes from game to game.

Finally, hand one player the First-Player Token. The rules suggest that the player who’s last seen a Marvel Movie or read a Marvel Comic should go first, but you can choose the first player randomly.

Game Flow

Comic Hunters is divided into 3 rounds. Each round has 2 stages: Treasure Hunting and Assemble Your Collections. During the Treasure Hunting stage, players will visit 3 of the 4 possible locations to acquire comic book cards. All you must do is follow the rules of the location indicated by the schedule. Once the first location is played move the schedule to the next location. Each location plays differently from the next.

Treasure Hunting

Comic Book Store

The comic book store plays with classic closed drafting rules (like Sushi Go). Players get dealt four cards from the level 1 deck. They select one card and pass the cards they didn’t choose to the player to their left. This continues until there are no more cards left to pass.

Flea Market

In this location, players take turns, clockwise, starting with the player holding the “First-Player” token. To set up the Flea Market, make a column from the level 2 deck equal to the number of players. Reveal a card from the level 2 deck to place in the first position of each Row. When it’s your turn, you must perform one of two possible actions: reveal a card from the deck and place it to the right of the rightmost, available space in one of the rows, or pick up all the cards from one Row of your choice. Rows can have up to four cards.

Auction Website

To set up the auction website, lay out four rows of the level 3 cards. The first row must contain 5 cards. The last row must contain 3 cards. The middle two rows contain 4 cards. These rows are Lots up for auction. The player with the First Player Token selects which Lot to bid during the round. They open the bidding with at least 1 (of their secret stash). The auction website plays like a traditional “bid or pass auction.” On their turn, a player either bids higher than the current bid or passes (and they’re out for the rest of the auction). Highest bid wins. Whenever one lot remains, the player who hasn’t obtained a lot gains the last lot. They must spend three of their secret stash if they can.

Convention

To set up the Convention, take 24 cards from the top of the Convention deck and arrange them into a grid with 5 columns and 5 rows, leaving the center position empty. Starting with the first player and then going clockwise, each player will take turns doing the following in order: slide one card left, right, up, or down in the grid, moving it through the empty spaces to a new position, and then select all the cards in a column or row that contain the same hero you name. So, you could select all the Spider-Man comics in a row or all the Black Panther comics in a column and so forth. Each player will have two opportunities to perform this action. The catch is that the player who selects last will select twice in a row and the second selection will occur in reverse turn order.

Assemble Your Collections

In this selection, player put cards from their hands down on the table, starting comic book collections for a specific hero or adding comic book cards to existing collections. Player will pay the market value for each card (1 for level 1 cards, 2 for level 2 cards, etc.) with an equal number of cards of that same value. So, you could pay for 3 level 1 cards by discarding 1 level 3 cards. Any cards that you discard or choose not to buy will be added and then shuffled into the Convention deck. Cards in your hand do not carry over to the next round, only cards in collections remain.

Final Scoring

After the final “Assemble Your Collections” action on the schedule, players score their collections. There are several ways to score: collection size (and value of specific heroes), varied collections (collections of different heroes), highlights, and secret stash. I won’t go into detail for each of these here, but there are plenty of ways to score a bucket of points. The person with the most buckets of points wins.

Review

Comic Hunters uses a lot of ways to accrue cards and just as many ways to score those cards after you obtain them. For the most part, the various locations work well enough to simulate the experience of their locations. An auction mechanism is a no-brainer for an auction website. The flea market feels right. And comic book conventions can be the wild, wild west when it comes to what kind of comics are on offer. So, the random comic book cards found during the Convention phases track. I enjoy all of that, but it comes at a cost. The various ways of acquiring cards can get clunky.

I struggle to shift from one mode to the next. While I like the variety, I focused means of acquiring cards could’ve worked better. I would’ve gotten into a better flow state faster with Comic Hunters. These various means with which to obtain cards also made setup and explaining the rules more difficult. Each ruleset is easy enough to explain, but the best way I found for teaching the game was giving a quick rules explanation before each location like I’m the “about the game” page before a Mario Party minigame. And these disparate mechanisms made Comic Hunters feel like a collection of minigames instead of a cohesive experience.

You may have gathered by how I explained the rules above, but the comic book store and auction website locations are lackluster. I like them from the standpoint that I could point to other games that use those same mechanisms, but those mechanisms are old hat. The flea market and convention locations are a lot more interesting and fun. I would’ve loved to play those two locations multiple times (lowering the number of minigames from four to two). I also like the idea that you must spend card values to play cards into a collection. This was a clever touch and lowers the number of bits needed. Despite any of its shortcomings, I enjoyed Comic Hunters. When it tries new things, those new things are fun.

But I can’t move to the verdict without mentioning the quality, or lack of quality, of Comic Hunters’ components. I’ve seen board game manufacturers’ sample products, and most of these companies don’t offer punch board as thin as the tokens found in Comic Hunters. Furthermore, the cards are off-center so you can see the white space between cards, and they slant at odd angles. The card material feels cheap. I don’t usually care about component quality, I’ve played my fair share of prototypes with ripped pieces of paper as chits, but I was shocked by the shoddiness of Comic Hunters’ production value.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Comic Hunters has a fun premise and contains some interesting game mechanisms. Unfortunately, the game also deploys some tired game mechanisms that feel clunky, and the production value leaves much to be desired. Still, its low price point ($20-$25) means that Comic Hunters packs a lot of game per penny.

Ten Common Board Game Mechanisms

Published on March 22, 2025January 5, 2025 by Kyra1 Comment

Board gamers tend to see the same game mechanisms from one game to another, so it made us wonder which board game mechanisms are the most common. Knowing this will allow new players (and older players) the kinds of game mechanisms they can expect to find in board games. Fortunately, the data required for this list is a lot easier to obtain and compile than our most common fantasy creatures post last year. Thank you, Board Game Geek.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. I checked the hundreds—and I mean hundreds—of game mechanisms listed on Board Game Geek and ran quick searches to see how many games are listed on the site with each mechanism. At the time of this post (early 2025), Board Game Geek caps its search results to the top 5,000 games that fit a search’s criteria. Almost thirty of the hundreds of game mechanisms searched yielded 5,000 results, which means each of these mechanisms could be in hundreds, if not thousands, of more games. Yikes!

Some mechanisms found in at least 5,000 games are movement-based or mundane, like “it uses paper and pencil” or “dice rolling,” which means that the game includes dice. We won’t bother covering those game mechanisms. But that still leaves dozens of interesting game mechanisms for multiple posts like this. We’ll cap this first post to ten of the most used game mechanisms. This doesn’t include mechanisms with over 3500 games like worker placement. I think this means that we need more worker placement games. I like worker placement games, so it’ll probably make the next list. But which board game mechanisms made this list? Let’s find out.

Action Points

Board games that use action points grant players a supply of action points each turn. Players may choose to use these action points in a variety of ways, typically there’s a list of options. Usually, players can spend their points any way they please. You could take the same action multiple times (or even take the same action for their entire turn) or mix and match actions from the player’s options. The options may cost the same number of action points, or their point value can differ.

Thoughts

Action points give players agency. Your turn can look completely different than your opponent/teammate. I mention “teammate” here because I’ve seen several cooperative board games use action points. The agency (giving players a meaningful choice, which affords those players power) granted by the action points game mechanism is why this game mechanism is so popular in board games. Everyone likes to feel as if they have some control.

Games that use this mechanism

Pandemic, Takenoko, Horrified, Dinosaur Island, and Sleeping Gods

Deck, Bag, and Pool Building

Usually, games that include deck/bag/pool building begin with each player owning a similar deck of cards (if the game uses cards) or a similar number and type of chits or dice (if the game uses a bag or pool). Over time, players will acquire new cards (or the like) and add them to their deck, bag, or pool. Eventually, each player will own a deck or bag unique to them. Each player will use their deck to pursue their path toward victory.

Deck building differs from deck construction (another popular game mechanism) because players build their deck during the game, while decks within a deck construction game have players build their decks before playing.

Thoughts

When done well, deck, bag, and pool building games offer endless replays, due to the countless ways players can build their decks. The best players are the ones who can adapt. They’re the ones who can see patterns form with the cards and what may counter an opponent’s deck. Because of this, veteran players of specific deck building games can exploit their knowledge to gain an edge, but there is a hint of randomness. You must draw into what you need. This randomness evens the playing field a touch.

Games that use this mechanism

Dominion, Orleans, Challengers!, Thunderstone, and Aeon’s End

Hand Management

Games that use hand management reward players for playing their cards in certain sequences or groups. The optimal sequence may vary depending on board position, cards held, and cards played by opponents. Managing your hand means that you gain the most value out of available cards given your current circumstance. Often, these cards have multiple purposes, so this further complicates an “optimal” sequence.

Thoughts

Hand management could’ve been dismissed as a mundane game mechanism. Any game that includes a hand of cards will innately have hand management. But hand management is unique from this subset of board game mechanisms. Other mechanisms like dice rolling and paper and pencil mean that these physical elements exist within a game. Hand management suggests that players must take an active role in this game mechanism. And as the description says, this game mechanism is rewarding when players find the perfect sequence for their circumstances. Hand management also happens to show up the most on Board Game Geek’s Top 10-ranked games.

Games that use this mechanism

Brass: Birmingham, Ark Nova, Gloomhaven, Terraforming Mars, and Twilight Struggle

Open Drafting

Board games using open drafting have players pick (or purchase) cards (or tiles, dice, etc.) from a common pool to gain an advantage or assemble collections that meet objectives. Since the drafting occurs in the open, the identity of these cards (or other similar item) is known to other players. Drafting gives players a choice and the ability to gain a card another player may want, denying them something they wanted.

Open drafting differs from closed drafting, which is also known as “select and pass.” Everyone can see the item you gain as you obtain it.

Thoughts

Open drafting provides an immediate back-and-forth between players. Since you know what your opponents select each turn, and your opponents know what you select, a meta-game (or game within the game) takes shape. Like the two previous game mechanisms, players must adapt to what options are available during their turns and what they believe their opponents are planning to do. This back-and-forth can lead to table talk (talking between players at the table about the game they’re playing) and builds tension.

Games that use this mechanism

The Castle of Burgundy, Everdell, Wingspan, Blood Rage, and Splendor

Pattern Building

Games that use pattern building task players with configuring game components to achieve sophisticated patterns. These patterns can score points or trigger actions. Unlike most other game mechanisms on this list, pattern building is synonymous with another game mechanism on this list (tile placement), which we’ll cover later. Often, players want to link similar component types together or as mentioned above, create elaborate patterns.

Thoughts

Pattern building is the most puzzle-based mechanism on this list. The shifting tiles (and sometimes cards) lead to tasty combinations. So many games that fall into this category can be visually stunning. If you must build a pattern, the pattern should be easy on the eyes. This leads to why a lot of modern games use pattern building. Puzzle + Beautiful Patterns = Popular Game.

Games that use this mechanism

Azul, Cascadia, The Isle of Cats, Harmonies, and Welcome To…

Push Your Luck

With push your luck games, players decide between settling for existing gains or risking them all for further rewards. Games of this type feature an amount of output randomness or luck. We mention the two types of luck in a previous post (link to the two types of luck, input and output luck here). Players focus on progressing and maximizing their results. But typically, the stakes rise. If things go wrong, you lose it all.

Thoughts

Push your luck can add spice to an otherwise dull series of mechanisms. Double or quit, keep going or stop, cash your gains or bet them. This isn’t a new idea. Plenty of gambling games, like Blackjack, make use of the push your luck mechanism. Heck. Many of you may have read the description and immediately thought of Blackjack. Gambling games aren’t the only games that use the push your luck mechanisms. In fact, board games that use the push your luck mechanism can be good for gamers who want the feeling of gambling without involving any real-world money. These games can create a similar rush.

Games that use this mechanism

Heat: Pedal to the Metal, King of Tokyo, The Quacks of Quedlinburg, Lost Cities, and Return to Dark Tower

Roll/Spin and Move

Roll/spin and move games deploy the use of dice (rolling) or spinners (spin) and then move in some capacity. Historically, players roll or spin and move their playing pieces per the number (or other result) rolled (or spun). Countless classic board games have used the roll/spin and move mechanism as a key ingredient. Most people outside the board game community may expect roll/spin and move within all board games. A roll/spin and move game is what most people outside the board game community think of when they think of board games. Board games like Monopoly and The Game of Life popularized roll/spin and move.

Thoughts

People within the board game community often use “roll/spin and move” as a derogatory term. People who do this imply that there is no thought involved with this mechanism. While this is the case for a lot of older games (there are some exceptions like Backgammon), modern board games have taken the roll/spin and move mechanism into new territory. I agree that players lose their agency (power and ability to make meaningful choices) if they must roll or spin and move the spaces indicated on a die (or spinner) with no additional input. But some newer games add other forms of movement to this formula. Other newer games allow players to manipulate the results. Even more modern board games have players roll dice ahead of a turn and then assign the dice results to an array of actions.

Roll/spin and move isn’t an inherently poor mechanism. How a designer uses roll/spin and move makes all the difference. The key to making roll/spin and move work is maintaining a player’s agency.

Games that use this mechanism (well)

Jamaica, Camel Up, Formula D, Stuffed Fables, and Colosseum

Set Collection

Board games that use the set collection mechanism often make the set worth points. The value of the items is dependent on being part of a set. These sets can either be the quantity of a specific item type or a type’s variety. In some cases, board games can use contracts that urge players to pick up certain items to fulfill the contract.

Thoughts

The set collection mechanism breeds external tension between players. One may pick up a resource or item to prevent an opponent from fulfilling a contract or gaining more points by having more of a resource (or item) than anyone else. Or two players may fight each other for the ability to pick up these items because they both want to accomplish the same goal.

The set collection mechanism by itself may fall flat, but set collection seldom shows up on its own. Set collection complements a host of other board game mechanisms. It can give a built-in reason for players to choose a course of action or a sudden gain of a lot of one item or an array (variety) of items can tempt players to change their strategy or tactics. Board gamers often overlook the value of the set collection mechanism, but several popular games use set collection.

Games that use this mechanism

Great Western Trail, Ticket to Ride, 7 Wonders, Lords of Waterdeep, and Tokaido

Tile Placement

Tile placement games feature placing a piece (or tile) to score victory points or trigger actions. Usually, adjacent pieces or pieces in the same group/cluster or keying off non-spatial properties like color, a feature’s completion, and cluster size trigger the action or scoring. Pattern building often accompanies tile placement, but there are some notable exceptions, specifically, games that use modular boards and exploration.

Thoughts

While some tile placement games (like 1986’s Labyrinth and Dominos) existed before the modern board game boom (the mid-1990s and beyond), tile placement (and a few other mechanisms like worker placement and deck building) have taken the place of the roll/spin and move mechanism as modern board games’ dominant game mechanism. Just because the tile placement mechanism can be found in countless modern board games doesn’t mean that each game uses the mechanism the same way. Some games have a shared space for players to place tiles. Other games give each player a private building space. And several games do a little bit of both. Despite tile placement’s explosion after Carcassonne popularized it as a central game mechanism in 2000, tile placement remains a vibrant board game mechanism.

Games that use this mechanism

Carcassonne, A Feast for Odin, Galaxy Trucker, Betrayal on House on the Hill, and Castles of Mad King Ludwig

Variable Player Powers

The variable player powers game mechanism grants different abilities or paths to victory to each player. Each player has a unique power. Games that use variable player powers reward players who exploit their unique abilities while compensating for their abilities’ shortcomings.

Thoughts

The variable player powers game mechanism is perfect for any player who wants to stand out from their opponents. Because each character (or faction) within the game plays differently from each other, games that use variable player powers have a lot of replay opportunities. On a similar note, players may gel with a specific power over another one so playing a second game and trying a different player power could lead to better results.

Unlike other game mechanisms on this list (except for deck building and Dominion), variable player powers haven’t been around as long. Games that use the variable player powers mechanism also dominate Board Game Geek’s Top 10 ranked board games.

Games that use this mechanism

Gloomhaven, Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition, Dune: Imperium, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1, and Cosmic Encounter

Closing Thoughts

This was a longer list than I expected. It would be even longer if I didn’t cut the list of common board game mechanisms in half or into thirds. Let me know if you’d like to see more lists like this in the future.

Looking at the board game mechanisms listed on Board Game Geek allows for a macro view of the board game hobby. We can see trends. We can examine what makes a board game mechanism popular. A lot of these board game mechanisms grant some form of player choice or player empowerment. But that’s what I think. What do you think? Let us know in the comments.

Geekly may have another series in the offing. We’ll craft another set of surveys and reach out to board game designers to discover their thoughts about each of these game mechanisms (and game mechanisms that may find themselves on a future list like this one). I hope you found something useful in the post. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Tabletop Game Review: Marvel United, Enter the Spider-Verse

Published on March 8, 2025March 23, 2025 by KyraLeave a comment

Marvel United has copious amounts of expansions. It’s a CMON Games Kickstarter using the Marvel intellectual property. That’s bound to happen. Geekly won’t be covering every Marvel United expansion, but we will review the ones worth your time or the ones we believe people will most likely purchase. So, you could consider the Marvel United expansions we cover as ones you may want on your radar.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. In Marvel United, players act as iconic Marvel heroes who work together to stop the master plan of a powerful villain controlled by the game. Each villain has a unique master plan, cards that trigger various effects, and threats that make clearing locations difficult. Heroes clear missions, making the villain vulnerable, and finally take on the big bad villain before they complete their dastardly plan. Can you save the day in time? Enter the Spider-Verse puts players in the spandex of famous characters of the Spider-Man universe.

Before we get any further, we’ll take a side quest and discuss Enter the Spider-Verse’s less heroic details.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Andrea Chiarvesio and Eric M. Lang
Publisher: CMON Global Limited and Spin Master Ltd.
Date Released: 2021
Number of Players: 1-4
Age Range: 8 and up
Setup Time: 5-10 minutes
Play Time: 30-40 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Cooperative Play
Hand Management
Modular Board
Solo / Solitaire Game
Variable Player Powers

Game Setup

We already covered the Game Setup and Game Flow in our Marvel United review (here’s a link to that review), so we’ll go over the basics in the following two sections. Let’s cover an abbreviated review of the game setup and rules.

Marvel United’s setup can change depending on which Villain and Heroes you choose to play. Each game consists of six locations. Typically, core sets have eight locations. Since Enter the Spider-Verse is an expansion, it only has six. You may choose your locations or shuffle them and choose six at random. Each Location card has spaces at the top for civilians and thugs and a rectangle with a block of text that will state “End of Turn” at the top of the box.

Place civilian/thug tokens on their matching spaces. Shuffle the Villain’s Threat deck and deal out each Threat face-up so that it covers the rectangle at the bottom of each location. You must clear this threat before gaining the “End of Turn” effect printed on a Location. Place health tokens where signified on threat cards and on the Villain dashboard. Place the three mission cards (Defeat Thugs, Rescue Civilians, and Clear Threats) face up under the villain dashboard where the text reads “Unlocked.”

Each player shuffles their hero decks and then draws three cards to form their hands. Shuffle the Villain’s Master Plan deck. Leave the Master Plan deck face down. This will be the villain’s draw pile.

Players place their miniatures on one of the six location cards, usually the centralmost location for each player (easy access). Then, they place the villain on the location card opposing the heroes.

Game Flow

The villain(s) play first. Draw the top card of their master plan deck. The villain moves the number of spaces indicated. Resolve any BAM! Effects and these effects will be printed on a space within the villain’s dashboard. Then, place the civilian/thug tokens (if any) indicated at the bottom of the card. After all these effects are resolved, the heroes get their turn.

Heroes pick who goes first, and hero turns will continue around the table clockwise. At the beginning of each game, Heroes will get three turns before the villain receives another turn. During their turn, heroes play one card from their hand.

Resolve actions and the symbols printed at the bottom of the hero’s card in any order. The symbols at the bottom of a hero’s card will be shared with the next player, but any printed action will not be shared. Heroes will use these actions to complete missions. The game begins with three missions in play: Defeat Thugs, Rescue Civilians, and Clear Threats. Each mission card will have spaces for the tokens they require to complete. As soon as these spaces are filled, the card is discarded, and the mission is considered complete. Mission cards can be completed in any order.

After the heroes complete the first mission, the villain panics and will act (play a card) every two hero cards instead of every three hero cards. After the heroes complete the second mission, the villain becomes vulnerable to damage. The heroes can complete the third mission, but it isn’t necessary. If the heroes do complete the third mission, each hero immediately draws 1 card, increasing each player’s hand size by one.

Play continues back and forth until either the villain wins (by completing their unique master plan or anyone, heroes or villains, runs out of cards) or the heroes win by dealing enough damage to the villain after the villain becomes vulnerable to damage.

Review

Enter the Spider-Verse features a lot of fan-favorite characters (Spider-Man, Green Goblin, and Miles Morales). Since that’s the case, it’ll be one of the first expansions players will purchase. And it’s a great choice.

Let’s begin with the heroes. Spider-Man has a lot of potential token gain. I don’t know how many times I saved the day by playing Spider-Man. Seriously, I may have completed most of the games in my guides (here’s a link to Geekly’s Marvel United guides) with Spider-Man. Frankly, he’s a broken character. Broken in the best possible way. I’ve easily played Spider-Man more than any other character in Marvel United. He’s Spider-Man. It’s great that Marvel United made him a character you can return to again and again.

Ghost-Spider and Miles Morales may have more niche abilities, but given the right circumstances, they can be deadly. Ghost-Spider can swap in-play Threat cards (which could be nice for an ongoing ability), and she can defeat all Thugs in her location. Miles Morales’ strongest ability “Web” allows him to delay the Villain Turn by one card. “Web” is a more universal use. Miles may be my second-most played character. Then, there’s Spider-Ham. He’s a Kickstarter Exclusive and that’s okay. He stinks. Good news though. It’s okay if you purchase the retail version over the Kickstarter version. Spider-Ham’s inclusion is the only difference between the two versions, and you’re not missing much with Spider-Ham. Unless you’re a completist or you like Spider-Ham, buy the retail version of Enter the Spider-Verse.

Enter the Spider-Verse’s sole villain Green Goblin is notoriously difficult to beat. I’ve only ever beaten Green Goblin by playing heroes and locations from the Enter the Spider-Verse expansion. Green Goblin has a special setup than the one above. Players don’t begin the game with threat cards in play on locations. Green Goblin will add them as he goes along, and he wins if each location has a threat card. This can lead to players clearing a particularly nasty threat card, like “Electro” or “Using Civilians as Shield,” and Green Goblin putting those cards back in play.

Even though Green Goblin wants to flood the field with threats, he’s just as comfortable throwing obstacles in the way to wait out the clock. “Using Civilians as Shield’s” ability is that Green Goblin will not take any damage as long as there are any Civilians at its location. “Corporate Thugs” make thugs more difficult to defeat. Green Goblin is a classic case of a villain who has multiple ways to defeat his enemies. The best way to stop Green Goblin is to load up on tokens, manipulate the villain deck, and delay the villain’s turn if you can. Fortunately, there are two heroes, and one location included in Enter the Spider-Verse expansion that do just that. Green Goblin earns his reputation as one of the initial Marvel United’s most difficult villains.

The new locations are classic Marvel New York ones. Brooklyn Bridge, Queens, the Daily Bugle, Oscorp Tower. These locations focus on extra tokens. This can be crucial in defeating certain Marvel United villains. Enter the Spider-Verse’s Green Goblin is one of these villains. The other three locations have healing (always appreciated), potentially rescuing a Civilian for free (always good for completing mission cards), and manipulating the villain deck. Couple these abilities with the heroes included in Enter the Spider-Verse, and you can see why this expansion tilts the playing field toward the heroes.

Each expansion adds a challenge card. Challenge cards add an extra layer of complexity to the game. Challenge cards may be small additions, but they can keep the game fresh with an extra rule or two added to the base game. Enter the Spider-Verse introduces the “Secret Identity Challenge.” This is a classic challenge to add to any Marvel United game. Players must balance their crime-fighting life with their lives spent outside of spandex. This challenge is thematic, easy to understand, and adds just enough additional difficulty.

Verdict

Even though I wouldn’t bother with finding the Kickstarter version unless you’re a completionist or a Spider-Ham fan, Enter the Spider-Verse is worth including in your Marvel United collection. The heroes and villain are some of the most powerful. The locations are iconic and pack a punch. And the Challenge Card adds a much-needed twist.

Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1990-1991

Published on March 1, 2025March 23, 2025 by Kyra15 Comments

Plenty of top-notch board games were released in the nineties. This decade is the first where I could list a Top 5 Board Games for each year, and that will happen—closer to 1992 or 1994. But we will keep to 1990 and 1991 for this list of Top Tabletop Games.

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Back with another Top 5 Tabletop Games. Board games begin heating up in 1990 and 1991. We’ll talk about board games soon, but first, if you’ve forgotten our criteria for the Top 5 Tabletop Games, let’s reiterate the ground rules before we start.

1: Cultural relevance plays as much of a factor as overall quality. A game might make a list that doesn’t hold up to others of its type, but you must admit the game is everywhere.

2: Only one game from a franchise makes the list. This will become more of an issue the closer we get to games with expansions.

3: Longevity plays a role, too. A game doesn’t have to fly off the shelves today, but it had to have some widespread appeal for a decent time.

**5: Crocodile Dentist (1990)**

Crocodile Dentist was on and off this list. Ultimately, it makes this list of top board games of 1990 and 1991 because it was the best-selling toy of the 1991 Christmas season. Not just a bestselling game, but a bestselling toy. The toy factor for Crocodile Dentist is overwhelming.

The toy factor makes sense. Crocodile Dentist is a children’s game. In early versions of Crocodile Dentist, players take turns removing a crocodile’s teeth and eventually, the crocodile would snap its jaw shut. Whoever made the titular crocodile shut its jaw was the loser. Crocodile Dentist has a simple premise that makes serious adults groan or guffaw. The York Daily Record’s Mike Argento included Crocodile Dentist in his 1992 Bizarre Toy Awards. However, twelve years later, Argento admitted that the game had “passed into classic status.” And that’s what Crocodile Dentist is, a classic.

**4: Tichu (1991)**

Real talk. I’ve never played Tichu. It’s the one game on this last that I’ve never played. I would like to; Tichu makes this list because so many board gamers swear by this game. Tichu has a cult following if you will. What I know of Tichu is that it’s a shedding game, meaning that you’re trying to rid your hand of its cards. But Tichu is also a team-based game, so you and your partner are trying to shed your hands before your opponents.

I’ve never had the chance to play Tichu. Tichu is a four-player-only game. If you don’t have four players, you can’t play. And from what I’ve heard, a veteran Tichu player will destroy a noob, and since Tichu is a cult card game, it becomes one of those games where people either don’t play or they’ll only find enjoyment with other accomplished Tichu players. Still, Tichu remains one of the most endearing games on this list, and this list has nothing but endearing games. I’d like to play at least one game of Tichu before long. If anyone plays and you’re going to a board game convention that I’m going to, I’d be happy to learn Tichu.

**3: Vampire: The Masquerade (1991)**

I can’t remember if I included Dungeons & Dragons in an earlier list. If I didn’t, that was an oversight. But while D&D dominated early tabletop roleplaying games (and still does), the Nineties saw a ton of worthy competitors. Tabletop Roleplaying games saw a boom in the Nineties. The early Nineties only had ten major TTRPG releases. Vampire: The Masquerade is the most famed of these Dungeons & Dragons competitors. In short, Vampire: The Masquerade simulates the afterlife of a vampire.

The developers deliberately didn’t read Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles until late in their development process but admit that Rice most likely influenced the vampire films that inspire the game. Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and Vampire: The Masquerade ushered in a new era for vampire fiction and the vampire mythos. The Underworld film series borrows a lot from Vampire: The Masquerade. And the game’s influence was felt in the Nineties. The Goth underground scene flourished with the help of Vampire: The Masquerade and Rice’s Vampire Chronicles.

I still have my original copy and will often pour over the full-page artwork. Artist Tim Bradstreet’s artwork from Vampire: The Masquerade was the concept art for the Blade film series. Vampire: The Masquerade was the height of cool in the early Nineties.

**2: Formula D (1991)**

Formula D is a strong second on this list. Until some recent games (games from the 2010s and 2020), Formula D does the best job of simulating a race. Heck, Formula D measures up well against newer racing games. It uses specialized dice (d4, d6, d8, d12, d20, and d30) that represent different gears of a vehicle. Formula D uses an additional d20 for collisions and other course events (like weather). With each turn, players must roll a die that simulates which gear their car is in and must move the number of spaces they roll on that die. The core concept is simple. You’re trying to reach the finish line before anyone else. It would make sense to stay in the highest gear you can. The problem comes when calculating car damage.

Each player takes a “dashboard” for their car. This dashboard will track damage to the various parts of their car. Each track—and there are plenty of bonus tracks you can use for Formula D—will have twists and turns that you must navigate. Taking a turn at a higher speed will most likely cause players to accept damage. A little damage is no big deal. But you could take so much damage that your vehicle crashes.

I like Formula D’s addition of “Rules for Beginners.” It allows players to learn the basics of the game and only when they get accustomed to the base rules, can they then take on more complex rules. Formula D—like the game that claims our top spot—continues to see play, even though it’s over thirty years old.

**1: Hoity Toity (1990)**

Hoity Toity has gone by several names. Originally, it was released in Germany by the name Adel Verpflichtet or Noblesse Oblige. It was distributed in the United Kingdom under the name Fair Means or Foul and in the United States as By Hook or Crook. It wasn’t until its 2008 reprint that it became Hoity Toity. I’ll refer to it as Hoity Toity from this point forward. Hoity Toity tasks players as members of a pretentious Antique Club who wager which one of them can acquire—by purchase or theft—the most expensive collection of objets d’art in one day.

Hoity Toity deploys a nice combination of bluffing and silent auction. The game’s movement (there is a track players must navigate) feels unique, especially for the time it was released. There shouldn’t be any wonder that Hoity Toity won the 1990 Spiel des Jahres. Klaus Teuber had a dominant early Nineties. I earned another Spiel des Jahres in 1991—back-to-back awards—for Drunter und Drüber, which just missed this list and another Spiel des Jahres in 1995 for Catan. We haven’t gotten to 1995’s list yet, but Catan will make that list. Hoity Toity gets the nod over Drunter und Drüber because it stands the test of time. Most gamers would place Hoity Toity as the second-best board game of Teuber’s career. Hoity Toity earns that distinction.

Did we get the list right, for the most part? Let us know which games you’d add in the comments. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Check out the other lists in this series:
Top 5 Tabletop Games Prior to the 1930s
Top 5 Tabletop Games of the 1930s
Top 5 Tabletop Games of the 1940s-50s
Top 5 Tabletop Games from the Early 1960s
Top 5 Tabletop Games from the Late 1960s
Top 5 Tabletop Games from the Early 1970s
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1980-1981
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1982-1983
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1984-1985
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1986-1987
Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1988-1989

5 Great Word Board Games

Published on February 22, 2025March 23, 2025 by KyraLeave a comment

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. We’re going to do something a little different with this board game list. It’s not a list of starter board games of a specific type. If you want us to continue the starter board game series, let us know. It’s not a top 5 or top 10. Nope. This is a list of 5 great board games with a specific style. Today’s list is 5 Great Word Board Games.

Seeing as this isn’t a top 5 list, the games won’t be in any order. We’re also going to try and stick to different kinds of games within the same style, so this list of great word board games won’t be five different versions of Scrabble…hopefully. Without any further ado, here are the games.

Paperback

Paperback combines the idea of a traditional word board game (like Scrabble) with a deck-building game. Players must make words with the letter cards they draw (or a combination of letters on a card like “Th” or “Qu”) and they earn money with which to purchase victory point cards or more letter cards to add to their deck for future turns. Paperback balances its two elements well. A player who can slay at word games can dominate that section, but a player who has more experience and can shift their strategy to the cards present in the deck-building array (you’ll have different cards most turns) can use that to their advantage.

Paperback allows multiple paths to victory and that sets it apart from a lot of other board games centered around words.

SiXeS

We recently reviewed SiXeS. (If you want to see that review, follow this link.) So, there’s a high probability that SiXeS would make this list. If you don’t want to read the review, that’s okay. We’ll break down the gameplay. SiXeS plays a lot like Scattergories with a twist. Players alternate turns where they want to match the answers to specific questions with their opponents with turns where they want to give unique answers. Unlike other games like Scattergories, SiXeS keeps the gameplay fresh by varying its gameplay each round.

Letter Go!

Like Paperback, Letter Go! combines a word game with another game type. But Letter Go! goes in a completely different direction. It combines a word game with a pseudo-dexterity game. While Paperback’s turns can be slow and methodical, Letter Go! is a real-time race to see who can spell a word using the cards at their disposal while following a rule on their dry-erase board. Some of these rules dictate that you must use your non-dominant hand. Others may say the word’s letters need to be wavy or look like flowers. Even more say that you must repeat all consonants you use but not the vowels.

Letter Go! shakes up the common word game. Just because you can think of a word quickly doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to also obey whatever rule card you draw. Talk about leveling the playing field.

Codenames

I know. I know. Codenames was everywhere for a few years. It’s the gamer’s word game, but there’s a good reason for that. Codenames melds several elements in a fun way. It combines the lateral thinking of TriBond. As the clue-giver, a series of cards with words printed on them stand before you. You can only give a single-word clue accompanied by a number (the number of the cards that match the clue you gave). Your teammates must guess which cards they believe match the clue you gave. But beware, there’s an assassin card. If your teammates choose that card, your team automatically loses.

Codenames has a nice push-your-luck element. As the clue-giver, do you add an extra word or two and make your clue broader? As the guessers, do you continue picking words you think fit the clue or stop after getting one correct? The other team is racing against yours to guess their words. Ultimately, the choice is yours. Choose wisely.

Say Anything

Say Anything is for those who like games like Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity. I don’t care for Cards Against Humanity that much, and I got as much out of Apples to Apples without needing to play it any longer. Both Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity use pre-printed question and answer cards. There are only so many word combinations you can come up with, but what if you could fill in the blank and provide your own answers? That’s exactly what Say Anything does. You no longer need to find the perfect joke answer for a question. You can write your own joke.

When you’re tired of the same old answers or you don’t want to buy expansion decks for Cards Against Humanity, try buying one copy of Say Anything. The only downside is that you may need to be sober—or at least coherent—to answer the questions.

Say Anything wraps up our collection of great word board games. I’m sure that there are plenty of your favorites that didn’t make the list. Be sure to let us know about them in the comments. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1988-1989

Published on February 8, 2025March 23, 2025 by Kyra15 Comments

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Back with another Top 5 Tabletop Games. 1988 and 1989 may not have as many top-notch games as our previous list, but there are plenty of culturally relevant games from these two years. We’ll talk about board games soon, but first, if you’ve forgotten our criteria for the Top 5 Tabletop Games, let’s reiterate the ground rules before we start.

1: Cultural relevance plays as much of a factor as overall quality. A game might make a list that doesn’t hold up to others of its type, but you must admit the game is everywhere.

2: Only one game from a franchise makes the list. This will become more of an issue the closer we get to games with expansions.

3: Longevity plays a role, too. A game doesn’t have to fly off the shelves today, but it had to have some widespread appeal for a decent time.

**5: Merchant of Venus (1988)**

Merchant of Venus is a pun on the Shakespeare play Merchant of Venice. Despite the name, the planet Venus doesn’t appear in the game. Merchant of Venus is set in an unexplored part of the galaxy. Players take on the roles of galactic traders. They move around the board, buying and selling goods. The game begins with players discovering the identity of the cultures in fourteen solar systems available for trade. They often find valuable artifacts from an earlier period of civilization. Once the board has been revealed, the game focuses on moving goods from cultures that build to other races that demand goods.

Merchant of Venus’s turn from exploration to commerce can be a satisfying volta. It reminds me of other games like 2004’s Betrayal on House on the Hill and 2007’s Galaxy Trucker. Both games might also make their year’s respective lists. While it can run a little long (2 to 6 hours), Merchant of Venus can be a lot of fun.

**4: Taboo (1989)**

Taboo works a lot like a team-based version of the Ten Thousand Dollar Pyramid game show. It’s played by two even-numbered teams from four to ten. Players sit in alternating teams, forming a circle. One player takes the role of “giver,” who gives their teammates clue words. The “giver” attempts to get their teammates to guess the word printed on the card, but there are “taboo” words. These are words the “giver” can’t say.

While the “giver” can’t say those taboo words, their teammates can make as many guesses as they want with no penalties for wrong guesses. Once the team correctly guesses the word exactly as written on the card, the “giver” moves on to the next word. Teams try to get as many words on a card before time runs out. The playing team gets one point for each correct guess and loses a point each time the “giver” says a “taboo” word. I never liked the buzzer for Taboo. The other team hovers over the “giver” with the buzzer in hand and the obnoxious buzzer they wielded gives me nightmares. Nightmares!

**3: Mall Madness (1988)**

Mall Madness has a simple but fun concept: finish your shopping spree before anyone else. It doesn’t hurt that the game has a 3D board, and the original (back in 1988) had a computer that would dole out player movement and could even keep track of money. The 80s game even came with four different credit cards in addition to traditional paper money.

Players didn’t have to move by exact count to enter each shop, and once you bought something from a shop, you couldn’t reenter the same shop. Mark off the items on our list using plastic pegs in a punch board, and as soon as you’ve bought your six items, race to your parking space. I didn’t play too much of Mall Madness when it was first released. My parents didn’t care for the premise (they didn’t want us kids learning too soon about credit cards), but Mall Madness has left an indelible mark on the board game industry. It’s been in print steadily since its release and has had plenty of themed variants like Hannah Montana and Littlest Pet Shop.

**2: TriBond (1989)**

We have a second word game for this list, TriBond. But TriBond does something a little different. The game’s main feature is the TriBond “Threezer,” an invented word by the producer to describe the three-word clues players must analyze and determine what all three clues have in common. So, you may get a set of three clues like “Olive, Forest, and Kelly.” They’re all shades of green. Or you may get another set of clues like “Tootsie, Hook, and Rain Man.” All Dustin Hoffman movies.

TriBond adds a little bit of lateral thinking to the classic word game. While I think the word “Threezer” is a bit much, the concept is a great one. And I like the idea that a player can “challenge” another player ahead of them in one of the board’s three tracks. TriBond uses dice, one to determine how far you’ll move on one of three tracks and another to determine your questions category (Entertainment, Sports and Recreation, Academics, and Miscellaneous). The “challenge” allows players to take some of the random luck out of the classic rolls, spin, and move.

**1: HeroQuest (1989)**

I have so many fond memories of HeroQuest. HeroQuest plays like a stripped-down version of Dungeons & Dragons. One player assumes the role of the evil wizard Zargon/Morcar. They use the map taken from the game’s quest book to run the game. The remaining players select their character from the four available.

I was a tween when HeroQuest was first released, and since I read the rules, I ran the game as Zargon. That was my first taste of being a dungeon master and D&D. Even though I have great memories of HeroQuest, it is a game for newcomers. Its adventures are pre-programmed and lack the creative impulses of a D&D game, but HeroQuest has a massive toy factor and does an amazing job of distilling the essence of D&D into a digestible, approachable game for younger players. HeroQuest serves as a great gateway into tabletop role-playing games. Fortunately, it’s received a received a reprint.

Did we get the list right, for the most part? Let us know which games you’d add in the comments. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.

Tabletop Game Review: Don’t Mess with Cthulhu

Published on February 1, 2025April 22, 2025 by Kyra1 Comment

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. I didn’t realize that I hadn’t reviewed today’s game, so we’ll fix that. Today’s review is another party game: Don’t Mess with Cthulhu.

Don’t Mess with Cthulhu is a social deduction game with secret identities. Players assume the role of investigators or cultists. The investigators must uncover all the Elder Signs to win, while the Cultists win when Cthulhu is revealed or if the game ends before all the Elder Signs are discovered.

Before we venture further into madness, let’s discuss Don’t Mess with Cthulhu’s details.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Yusuke Sato
Publisher: Indie Boards & Cards
Date Released: 2014
Number of Players: 4-6
Age Range: 10 and up
Setup Time: Less than a minute
Play Time: 1-30 minutes

Game Mechanisms

Bluffing
Card Game
Deduction
Party Game
Negotiation

Game Setup

You’ll have a different number of investigators and cultists, and various numbers of futile investigation and Elder Sign cards based on the number of players. Consult the charts in the rulebook to determine how many of each needs to be in the game.

Shuffle the appropriate number of Character tokens, dealing one to each player face down. Each player secretly looks at the role assigned to them on the Character token. Place any unused tokens out of play without revealing them.

Then, shuffle the appropriate number of Investigation cards, dealing five to each player face down. Beginning with the starting player (who will have the starter player token, which is a flashlight), each player secretly looks at their Investigation cards and declares (truthfully or not) the number of Elder Sign and Cthulhu cards they were dealt. (Note: there’s only one Cthulhu card in the deck, but that doesn’t mean that more than one player can “claim” to have a Cthulhu card.)

Everyone shuffles their Investigation cards and places them in front of themselves, face down.

Game Flow

Each turn consists of the Active player selecting any Investigation card in front of any player other than themselves. They place the flashlight token on the card they wish to reveal. Other players should feed the player information, keeping in mind that players with the Investigator role want to find Elder Signs, while Cultists want to reveal Cthulhu.

The chosen card is revealed and placed in the center of the play area so everyone can see it. Check to see if the game ends (all the Elder Signs are revealed or if Cthulhu makes an appearance). Play continues with the player whose card was just revealed. They take their turn the same way and this continues until the round comes to an end.

The round ends after the number of actions taken in that round equals the number of players in the game. After the round ends, the remaining Investigation cards are shuffled together and dealt evenly between the players. Again, the players secretly look at their Investigation cards and place them in front of themselves face down.

The game ends immediately if the Cthulhu card is revealed or if all Elder Sign cards are revealed. If neither condition is met, the game ends after four rounds.

If all Elder Sign cards are revealed, the Investigators win. If Cthulhu is revealed or four rounds are played without all Elder Sign cards being revealed, the Cultists win.

Review

Like most party games, Don’t Mess with Cthulhu has a quick setup and playtime. I’ve played this game quite a bit over the years and found that you don’t always need to bluff when playing—but it helps. And it’s fun when more than one person claims that they have Cthulhu. I’ve played a round where three people at the table said they had Cthulhu and then the next round, everyone said they had Cthulhu. It’s a goofy game that doesn’t take long.

And the reason why I say that you don’t have to bluff if you don’t want to is that chance plays a huge role in Don’t Mess with Cthulhu. Even if everyone tells the truth, you still must select the right card, or the game ends and the game can end in the way you don’t want. My family struggles with bluffing in games. Don’t Mess with Cthulhu gives players an option to bluff or not bluff. This leads to some great metagaming. I’ve heard many players say, you never tend to bluff but you did this time and fooled everyone. I’ve also seen the opposite. Don’t Mess with Cthulhu may get better the more games you play with a group.

The stakes are low with Don’t Mess with Cthulhu. Most games last about fifteen minutes with some games going as short as less than one minute. I’ve seen plenty of games where the first or second card the active player chooses is the Cthulhu card. It doesn’t matter. Laugh it off, shuffle the cards, and play again.

Too Long; Didn’t Read

Don’t Mess with Cthulhu is a great change-of-pace game for most gaming groups. It won’t be a group’s main game, but I’ve seen many game nights where this game caps off the session. It’s endlessly replayable and has low stakes. Don’t Mess with Cthulhu’s goofy fun doesn’t force you to bluff—but bluffing doesn’t hurt.

Tabletop Game Review: Sushi Boat

Published on January 11, 2025March 23, 2025 by KyraLeave a comment

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. It might be a little early for another tabletop game review, but we’re catching up on some of the backlog. Today’s review is one with a high toy factor (a board game with plenty of toy-like features): Sushi Boat.

Sushi Boat leans into its theme; the board is a sushi conveyor belt. Each turn, players perform their choice of actions, including taking plates of sushi off the revolving belt on the board, paying staff tiles for special effects, or buying side dishes. As they eat, players stack plates in front of them. Players score points by eating off matching (color) plates and for eating a variety of sushi types (set collection). The Wasabi Challenge shakes things up by adding a memory component that can swing the victory.

Before we get any further, we’ll set the table and discuss Sushi Boat details.

The Fiddly Bits

Designer: Dario Massarenti, Francesco Testini
Publisher: Japanime Games
Date Released: 2023
Number of Players: 2-5
Age Range: 9 and up
Setup Time: 15-20 minutes
Play Time: 30-75 minutes

Game Mechanisms
Memory
Set Collection
Worker Placement

Game Setup

Place the wooden sushi boat board (with a built-in “conveyor belt”); this board is the central visual element and will draw a crowd when placed on the board.

Mix the Staff tiles and randomly place 1 on each Staff space (these are pictured in the rulebook). Place all of the Wasabi cubes in the Wasabi Bowl (Sushi Boat includes ceramic bowls; the production value is insane). Each player chooses a color and takes the matching pawn and player mat. Place all of the Yen in the change tray (again, a ceramic tray), this is the bank. Give each player 2 Yen; players place their Yen on their player mats.

Put all the colored Plates in the bag and mix them well, leaving the white plates to the side for now. Then, randomly draw Plates and add them to the conveyor belt area of the board one at a time until the board is full. Then, draw 3 more plates and add them to the Trash beside the board. After filling the game board, add the white Sushi Plates to the bag and mix them in.

Separate the 4 Wasabi cards from the Side Dish cards and set them aside for the moment. Shuffle the Side cards. Then, depending on the number of players in the game, you will discard cards at random from this deck. Then, set aside a number of Side Dish cards equal to the number of players. Add the Wasabi cards to the Side Dish cards and shuffle them well. Create a face-down draw deck near the game board, and finally, place the Side Dish cards you set aside (not the discarded ones) and add them to the top of the face-down draw deck.

Game Flow

Beginning with the starting player, you’ll take turns going to the left. On your turn, you do the following steps in order:

1) You must turn over the top card of the Side Dish deck and refill the Sushi Boat
2) You must move your pawn to an empty seat
3) You may perform one action (from a selection of 3)
4) You must eat sushi

Let’s talk about the different steps in detail.

1) “You must turn over the top card of the Side Dish deck and refill the Sushi Boat.”

We’ll set the Wasabi card aside for the time being; they’re their own beast. Every other Side Dish card will have a symbol in the top right-hand corner. This will tell you how many sushi plates you’ll need to add to the belt. At the bottom, you’ll find effect text; this will give you a special ability if you choose to purchase the card (in a later step) and then use the card.

Wasabi Challenge:
The game stops temporarily. Each player tries to guess the color of the 2 plates hidden in the tunnel at the back of the Sushi Boat. First, take all of the Plates in the Trash and return them to the bag, mixing them well.

Then, each player takes 2 Wasabi Cubes from the bowl and secretly places them on their player mat to mark the colors they think match the hidden Plates. You may place both Wasabi Cubes on the same color if you think both Plates are that color. Finally, add Plates to the board until the two hidden Plates are fully revealed (this will most likely push some Plates into the Trash).

Each player compares their guess to the 2 Plates that were revealed. For each color you guessed correctly, you keep that Wasabi Cube. Any Wasabi Cubes on incorrect guesses get returned to the Wasabi Bowl.

2) “You must move your pawn to an empty seat”

You must move your pawn every turn. You can move it to any seat on the board that isn’t already occupied. But you could pay another player 1 Yen to return their pawn to their player board, so you can claim their seat.

3) “You may perform one action” (from a selection of 3)

A) Visit the Staff: If you’re on a space with a staff member, you can pay 1 Yen to perform their special ability.
B) Buy the top Side Dish: Pay 1 Yen to buy the top card of the Side Dish deck; this will most likely be the card you revealed at the beginning of your turn. Note: Players cannot buy Wasabi Challenge cards.
C) Take 1 Yen from the bank.

4) “You must eat sushi”

Take the Plate from the conveyor belt space that is next to the seat your pawn is on. Typically, you will add these plates to the top of your stack of Sushi Plates. (Some Side Dish Cards allow you to break this rule.)

Play continues like this until the Side Dish Deck runs out. When this happens, the game ends. Players score points for the number of consecutive-colored plates in a row, minus 1. So, a stack of 4 red plates would be worth 3 points. You may have multiple stacks of colored plates. (White plates don’t count for or against a consecutive-colored plate stack.) Then, you add up the sets of sushi you claimed (the unique sushi dishes depicted on the plate; there are 7 sushi types). After that, players get bonuses for playing the most Side Dish cards and some Side Dish cards add a victory point. Finally, each Wasabi Cube is worth 1 point each.

Whoever has the most points wins.

Review

Sushi Boat is a great game with an immense toy factor. This game’s production value is over the top. It may even be too nice—if there is such a thing. Ceramic bowls? Are you kidding me? My oldest daughter just returned from Japan and had plenty of real Yen to replace the punchboard Yen included with the game. Even without that, Sushi Boat has fantastic components.

Sushi Boat balances its elements well. I didn’t think memory and worker placement would work, but it does. I’ve found that younger players (ahem, children, ahem) have an advantage during Wasabi Challenges. I tend to focus on the mechanical aspects of the game like special abilities (through the staff and Side Dish cards) and forget to keep track of which plates have slid under the tunnel. This is the one aspect I’ve found most children gravitating toward. This typically gives a child player an extra three or four points.

Speaking of the tunnel and the titular sushi boat, the sushi boat looks fantastic. Sliding Sushi Plates across the “conveyor belt” feels great. I’ve even visited a sushi boat restaurant since playing this game. They use colored plates to tally your bill. Ingenious. And that’s what Sushi Boat’s central board is, too. Ingenious.

The one negative I’ve found is the setup and rules explanation. I’m not lying when I cited the setup time in “Fiddly Bits” as “15-20 minutes.” That’s a little long for Sushi Boat’s weight and game length. I almost feel compelled to play more than one game at a time. The rules explanation for new players can also take a little extra time than what I’d like for a game of Sushi Boat’s length, too. But retaining the rules from one play to the next is easy. Barely an inconvenience. The actions that players perform in Sushi Boat are so thematic that it makes it easier to relearn the game, even if you haven’t played in months.

Verdict

Setup and initial rules explanation can be on the long side, but the effort is well worth it for a game this thematic. While an odd combination, the game’s mechanisms work well together and level the playing field for children. And the board. Look at the board!

Top 5 Tabletop Games from 1986-1987

Published on January 6, 2025March 23, 2025 by Kyra15 Comments

Hey, hey! Kyra Kyle here. Back with another Top 5 Tabletop Games. 1986 and 1987 have a lot more games for us to choose from. These two years may have too many games to talk about. Why couldn’t some of these games be released over the previous two years? Ugh! This is a good problem to have. I may have at least one honorable mention this year. Let’s talk board games.

But first, in case you’ve forgotten our criteria for the Top 5 Tabletop Games, let’s reiterate the ground rules again before we get started.

1: Cultural relevance plays as much of a factor as overall quality. A game might make a list that doesn’t hold up to others of its type, but you must admit the game is everywhere.

2: Only one game from a franchise makes the list. This will become more of an issue the closer we get to games with expansions.

3: Longevity plays a role, too. A game doesn’t have to fly off the shelves today, but it had to have some widespread appeal for a decent time.

**5: Outburst (1986)**

Outburst plays a bit like Family Feud. Two teams compete over multiple rounds to reach 60 points by guessing items listed on a Topic Card within a time limit. Outburst’s simple concept puts it firmly in the party game category, and games like this bring people into the hobby of tabletop games. And they can just be fun.

Outburst was featured in Games magazine’s Best Games of 1988. Scott Marley praised Outburst for its clever topics and team-based gameplay. Marley concluded that “Though Outburst is easy to learn, many topics are too hard—and occasionally too spicy—for children.” This may have prompted 1989’s Outburst Junior.

**4: Fireball Island (1986)**

I remember getting the original Fireball Island for Christmas in 1986. The box is ginormous. The plastic game board had undulating paths where the titular fireballs (marbles) would travel down and knock players down, causing the player to lose any items. The object of Fireball Island is to escape the island with the jewel, which players must steal from the top of the Vul-Kar’s mountain. Fireball Island only has one jewel, so once a player grabs it, they become the target of others. And boy, do they become a target.

Players are incentivized to knock the jewel out of the hands of the player who possesses it. The reimagining of Fireball Island by Restoration Games in 2018 doesn’t place as much emphasis on the jewel. Players can win by other means. Unsponsored quick plug: Restoration Games does great work. They’ve brought back many games on this list and even a couple of honorable mentions like Dark Tower (from the 1980-1981 list) and Thunder Road (which just missed this list).

**3: The Fury of Dracula (1987)**

I mentioned a few lists ago (1983-1984) that Scotland Yard inspired many asymmetric games with hidden movement; The Fury of Dracula is one of the most prominent. I like the theme, but the name “Fury” is a bit of a misnomer. Dracula travels on a hidden board while the hunters move across the game board openly and try to deduce where Dracula is, all the while collecting the means with which to slay Dracula (stakes, garlic, and holy water). The Fury of Dracula ends with an epic showdown.

The Fury of Dracula has been updated multiple times. The second edition changes a lot of the gameplay, while the third edition streamlines the rules to make it easier to play and get into. 2019’s Fourth Edition of The Fury of Dracula gave the game a facelift; it didn’t change much in the way of gameplay. I recommend either the third or fourth editions.

**2: Labyrinth (1986)**

Not to be confused with the 1946 marble game, Labyrinth, which was originally stylized as THE aMAZEing LABYRINTH, uses a 7×7 grid where tiles get placed on one end of a column or row and displaces the tile on the opposite side of the column or row, hence the German name for the game Das verrückte Labyrinth, which is a pun on the German words “ errücken” (displace) and “verrückt” (crazy).

Players move their pieces along the ever-shifting path. Many of the tiles will have treasures printed on them. These treasures will match the cards dealt to players at the beginning of the game. The first player to obtain all the treasures in their deck wins. Labyrinth looks simple at first, but it gets puzzlely real fast. It’s a great problem-solving game for children, but when played by adults, the game can become more strategic and cutthroat. Labyrinth’s shifting tiles is one of the most unique game mechanisms from this era.

Returning to the naming, I wonder if Labyrinth avoided calling itself that in 1986 to avoid a lawsuit or confusion with Jim Henson’s Labyrinth movie that was released the same year. I remember a Labyrinth marble game variant tying into the movie that year.

**1: Arkham Horror (1987)**

I didn’t realize how old Arkham Horror was until I started compiling this list. Designer Richard Launius originally submitted the concept as Call of Cthulhu: The Board Game. This won’t be the first time Launius will make a game based on H.P. Lovecraft. He made a faster-pace, dice version of Arkham Horror in Elder Sign. Launius may be the person most responsible for making H.P. Lovecraft so popular in tabletop gaming. Arkham Horror is an early, thematic cooperative board game. Before Arkham Horror, I don’t recall seeing too many popular cooperative board games.

Because of this, Arkham Horror introduced a lot of staple cooperative board game concepts. Not the least of which is a “Doom Track.” Players work against the clock before the Ancient One breaks through its plane and into Arkham. Come to think of it, a game clock—of one persuasion or another—exists in most cooperative board games. Launius reinvented Arkham Horror into a Living Card Game in 2005.

Did we get the list right, for the most part? I didn’t mention Blood Bowl (1987); I’ll mention it here as another honorable mention. Let us know which games you’d add in the comments. And wherever you are, I hope you’re having a great day.