Bailey Dunn – Board Game Quest

Bot Factory Review

Bailey Dunn — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 13:04:11 +0000

Board gaming has matured over the last five years. The hobby is now at a point where it’s getting spin-offs of popular, heavier titles into more bite-sized, palatable experiences. One of the more popular titles that comes to mind is Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, the small-box, Target-appropriate version of its big brother, Gloomhaven. In […]

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Printing Press Review

Bailey Dunn — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 14:05:00 +0000

Publisher Granna’s 2022 Gutenberg was a surprise hit. Taking the history of the printing press and turning it into a bidding/rondel Euro title struck a chord with players around the world. Now in 2024, the smaller spin-off title Printing Press has arrived from Portal Games. Now, though, instead of competing with medium-heavy Euros, this new […]

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Ingenious Review

Bailey Dunn — Fri, 26 Jan 2024 14:12:23 +0000

Reiner Knizia has 712 (and counting) design credits. Ingenious is just one out of that bunch. What makes it special is that it has been in print for a large part of the nearly twenty years since it was first released. So why has it been in print that long? And is it more special […]

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Haggis Review

Bailey Dunn — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 16:00:18 +0000

Describing the coalescence of features that come together to create a board game is often a futile affair: the secret ingredient, the “Wow Factor”, the “Chemical X” of it all just seems to get lost. Sometimes a game’s pure existence feels like magic, or, and I say this with full respect to the designers out […]

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Faeries and Magical Creatures Review

Bailey Dunn — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 14:02:22 +0000

Glenn Drover and Forbidden Games go together like peanut and jelly: Racoon Tycoon, Railroad Rivals, Lizard Wizard, and Mosaic: A Story of Civilization have all had varying amounts of success. Now this dynamic duo have teamed up again to bring us Faeries & Magical Creatures. Can this reach the heights of their strongest pairings, or […]

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Zhanguo: The First Empire Review

Bailey Dunn — Tue, 12 Dec 2023 13:57:30 +0000

Reinventing and reimagining a game that others deem as a classic must be one of the hardest tasks a developer/designer could undertake. And yet, even so, this monstrous feat has been successfully achieved many times recently. In my opinion, the most notable return of a game was tweaking Brass and turning it into Brass: Birmingham. […]

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3000 Scoundrels: Double or Nothing Expansion Review

Bailey Dunn — Wed, 06 Dec 2023 14:15:10 +0000

Board games that I find average, but with great potential, that get an expansion always grab my attention. 3000 Scoundrels is no exception. Our very own Andrew Smith reviewed the base game in August of 2023, and I couldn’t agree more with his overall conclusion: “Generally, I’d say 3000 Scoundrels is a well-produced game with […]

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Machinate Review

Bailey Dunn — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 14:09:20 +0000

Auction games and race games are two of my absolute favorite types of games, so when Mahraan Qadir & Zach Johnson reached out to offer up their title Machinate for review, I knew I had to jump at the chance. Advertising itself as both an auction and race game at once grabbed my attention immediately. […]

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Sushi Go!: Spin Some for Dim Sum Review

Bailey Dunn — Fri, 03 Nov 2023 12:54:33 +0000

It seems there’s an inevitability that games that get to a certain level of popularity and saturation will eventually get spin-offs. Sushi Go! is no exception. The 2013 Phil Walker-Harding classic has seen itself get bigger and better with Sushi Go! Party, and saw itself get converted into a dice drafter in Sushi Roll. The […]

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Sunny Day Sardines Review

Bailey Dunn — Mon, 30 Oct 2023 15:19:04 +0000

I grew up playing whatever simple little card games I could get my hand on. Skip-Bo, Uno, Phase 10, etc… are all the types of titles I played with my grandparents nearly every weekend. So when a new title in the quadrant of the hobby pops up, it certainly catches my eye, as was the […]

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