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Posted by Steve Darlington on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010

Does setting matter? Many of our tactical, abstracted Euro-gamer friends would disagree. They have a point: Settlers of Catan would be the same if it was about settling a new planet, but had exactly the same mechanics. But on the other hand, would chess be as popular today if instead of imitating warfare, the pieces [...]

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Archive for the ‘Board Game’ Category

Middle-Earth Quest

Sunday, March 7th, 2010

Middle-Earth Quest is the latest in a long line of games that let fans participate in Tolkien-based adventures, though this is a little different. There’s still a Sauron player intent on conquering everything, but everyone else portrays second-string heroes, cinematic extras who fill in the setting’s historical blanks by forestalling the villain’s ascendancy until the [...]

Tara

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Tara, developed by Murray Heasman and distributed by Tailten Games, is an abstract strategy game inspired by the Book of Kells. Players place red and blue “ring forts” onto the board, and link them together with bridges. By the end of any given game, the board looks more like a piece of Celtic [...]

EVE: Conquests

Saturday, February 27th, 2010

As anyone who’s read a banner ad on a geek site probably knows, EVE Online is a grass-roots Massively Multiplayer Online RPG where players save their pennies to outfit starships and conquer the galaxy, though they do the latter more through trade and mercenary dealings than blowing things up. It’s more Traveller than Star Wars, [...]

Ra

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

Ra is an auction board game designed by Reiner Knizia and published by Rio Grande Games. It is nominally about proto-dynasties competing to earn rewards from the eponymous sun god so they can rule ancient Nile Valley. This theme is beautifully reinforced by the artwork of Hans Vohwinkel, but when you get down to it, [...]