Pandemic is widely considered a modern classic and deservedly so. When it emerged on the scene in 2008 there was very little like it. Its triple threat of social puzzle solving, clever mechanisms, and fresh theming were, to forgive the pun, infectious. Melding co-operative hand management, variable player powers, point-to-point movement, and set collection to create a fast-paced game of disaster mitigation was a truly groundbreaking accomplishment. There had been co-operative games before, sure, but none that presented its players with such an immediately accessible and tantalizing scenario to overcome. That an entire game of Pandemic took less than a single hour was but the period at the end of the sentence declaring Pandemic a bona fide smash hit, an achievement that would be foolish to claim it did not deserve. But looking past its reputation, influence, and accessibility, is it truly a great game? A game that immerses its players in its system, that forges an intoxicating social contract around the table that demands to be returned to again and again? No, I regret to say that it is not. For every mechanical innovation or brilliant idea it brings to the table, there is another aspect of it that is overly random, clumsy, or tedious. And though Pandemic is undoubtedly an important work in the pantheon of tabletop games, it is also one that is hard to muster up the desire to play very often due to its multitude of issues. Pandemic is a game about treating and containing the simultaneous outbreaks of 4…
I pre-orded the 2018 reprint of Stone Age the minute I was able to. A medium-light worker placement classic that heavily involves dice? I was sold years before I ever played it. And I was still sold after I bought it. And still yet after I read the rules. But then I played it. Never before had a game fallen from my esteem so precipitously, and for so many reasons. Its pace is glacial, its structure shallow and repetitive, and one of its core mechanics is 3rd grade division. Yeah, I really don’t get praise for this one. Production-wise, I have no complaints. The card and tile stocks are hefty and satisfying, and the game comes with a dope faux-leather dice rolling cup. Even the art is attractive (except for the character faces, but maybe that’s just what people looked like back then). Sure, its primitive human tribal theme isn’t the most creative, but it’s certainly not played out either. All in all, the first impression the game gives off is one of quality. Unfortunately, actually playing the game feels less like developing a tribe of primitive peoples and more like repeating half a dozen unrelated tasks over and over until 60-90 minutes have passed. A game of Stone Age plays over a series of rounds in which players take turns selecting actions with their tribespeople, then take turns performing their selected actions all at once. And of course, in true worker placement fashion, you must feed your ravenous multitudes at the end of each round or face a…
Say Anything‘s rule book is fourteen pages and only two have rules on them. The first five are a picture book about the designer leaving his oppressive New York City hedge fund job to make board games, which is super cringey and really rubs me the wrong way. There’s also a two-page ad for Say Anything. Yes, two pages of Say Anything‘s rule book is an ad for itself. Even more, there’s an additional two-page ad for the family version of Say Anything. Ridiculous. Anyway, this is a review of the game and not its rulebook, so I suppose I should get to it. Okay. You ready? It’s terrible. One of the worst party games I’ve played. I genuinely like Cards Against Humanity more than this game, and I hate Cards Against Humanity. Say Anything is an awkward, useless party game that reduces the simple act of asking people questions into a stilted mélange of embarrassment. Here’s how the game is played: on a player’s turn, they draw a question card and read it aloud to the other players. Here are some sample questions: Which celebrity would be the most fun to hang out with for a day? What would I want most for my next birthday? What TV theme song is the most fun to sing with friends? If you’re not already running for the hills to avoid playing this game you and I are very different people. Next, whichever players can tolerate being asked something so asinine write their answers on small dry-erase boards and…