Playing Card Information

Designer Diary: Octocube

I started with five items of increasing rarity in four background colors, giving me two axes to play with the scoring, in addition to coins creating a different path with which players could score.The actions players could take — roll, pivot, score — never changed throughout the design, although the scoring went through multiple iterations.To ensure there was an arc as the game progressed, I came up with multiple layers of scoring both mid- and endgame.In the first prototype, midgame scoring had

Horrible Guild Asks: Can Carnivores Tell the Truth?

by <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1?bloggerid=17" >W. Eric Martin</a> <div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/5012384"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/paXQROzHb5WpiSrYz7LPGQ__small/img/ZnbAcbavSgztN3Y7Zh2trDCXkAc=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic5012384.png" border=0></a></div>For the most part, I'm spending my time at Gen Con 2025 looking at upcoming games, primarily for SPIEL Essen 25, but also for 2026. Today, for example, among other publishers, with still more coming later in the day, I met with <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/26623/horrible-guild" >Horrible Guild</a>. This Italian company doesn't have a specific style from one year to the next, so you never know what to expect. One of its new releases for the second half of 2025 is <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/451594/a-carnivore-did-it" >A Carnivore Did It!</a>, a co-operative game from <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/111626/urtis-sulinskas" >Urtis Šulinskas</a> (<a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/252929/planet" >Planet</a>, <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/259830/hedgehog-roll" >Hedgehog Roll</a>) and first-timer <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/170206/daumilas-ardickas" >Daumilas Ardickas</a>. Here's what awaits: <div class='quote'><div class='quotebody'>A Carnivore Did It! promises a guilty meat-eater, but you will have to determine the culprit for yourself. Maybe an herbivore was actually behind the crime, or perhaps you're searching for two culprits — or even three? For each case in this co-operative game, you're given a number of suspects, with each suspect being assigned a statement. You know how many culprits you're looking for, and you have some idea of how truthful everyone is being. Perhaps only one suspect is lying, or perhaps 3-4 of them are telling the truth. Putting all of this information together, can you determine who did the crime? <center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/9021993"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/VNXIHBJyyPzV-yvvXpntfw__small/img/oprZ60JWZMc-ppVx3HZ4ot56x78=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic9021993.jpg" border=0></a></div></center> A Carnivore Did It! includes two thousand cases, each with a single solution, with the difficulty increasing to have up to seven suspects, conditional statements, and varying levels of truthiness. Also included is a campaign mode that links several cases together, with you scoring in them based on the amount of time it takes to find each solution...if you find them at all.</div></div> In the example case above, you have five suspects, two culprits, and only one lie. Who committed the crime? (To clarify one of the statements, in a game with multiple culprits "A herbivore did it" means that at least one of the culprits is an herbivore.) Horrible Guild lists a player count of 1-5, but you could have any number of players at the table...although you'd probably be talking over one another constantly, which wouldn't be helpful. Me, I'd probably solve cases on my own, with this being an ideal "airport tray" puzzle in which you don't need much space and can run through multiple challenges in however much time you have. <div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/9022031"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/FQfkl0bXpF1bpD6lNMo_jQ__small/img/gTi5x1P0qUq9jNFGcB7WvIQ8_oc=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic9022031.jpg" border=0></a></div><center>Kooky house numbers spotted</center><center>while walking Indianapolis</center>▪️ Two other titles coming in late 2025 from Horrible Guild both fall under the header My Murder Mystery, with one of the subtitles being The Final Protocol. Each title is for 5-7 players and will undoubtedly bring to mind <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/4983/series-how-to-host" >How to Host a Murder</a> titles from the 1980s. Each player takes a character, and each character has story cards and objectives that you read silently to determine your background and what's important to you. As you might expect, one character is secretly the killer, and as you play you're trying to determine who that killer is. Maybe. In fact, outing that person is not as important as you might think. All of you have secrets — aside from one of you being a murderer — and you don't want those secrets to be revealed. The game lasts five rounds, and in each round one player will be the leader, determining which of the eight locations you will visit. The leader will read information about that location out loud, while also learning secret information that they are not required to share — even though they will undoubtedly look suspicious if they say nothing! Each player has two tokens that they can use during play either to veto a chosen location or to look at the secret information that only the round's leader has seen. Ideally the leader will have talked about this information beforehand to allow you a check their honesty. The game lasts only five rounds, while having eight locations, and you want to ensure that certain locations stay off limits so that your secrets won't be uncovered. After five rounds, you vote on who the murderer is, and more importantly from a game perspective, you see how many of your objectives you have achieved. Anyone who scores at least three points wins, regardless of whether the murderer got away. You're all very selfish people, after all. Each My Murder Mystery case will last 90-120 minutes and can be played only once — unless you have a terrible memory, of course, and wouldn't recall a murderer's face even if it were your own. <center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/9022059"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/4TsO5hE_PsqbLjTJl3Mqgw__small/img/h3SjpyCPEhvXaK5clAttoX-jfzI=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic9022059.jpg" border=0></a></div></center><center>Does a murderer lurk among the hydrangeas?</center>

Josiah’s Monthly Board Game Round-Up – July 2025

July 2025 Games I played for the first time this month, from worst to best, along with my ratings and comments. Bosk – 5/10 Two years before Bosk was released, a game called Photosynthesis saw players placing cardboard trees onto a … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/08/02/josiahs-monthly-board-game-round-up-july-2025/">Continue reading →</a>

President Donald Trump calls out state of college football, says athletes are ‘being traded like playing cards’

As he signed an executive order calling for the return of the Presidential Fitness Test on Thursday, President Donald Trump ...

Convention Report: Gulf Games 54

Yes, I realize that there are a LOT of gamers at a convention right now – and that the little invitational event my sons & I just attended is roughly the same size as a small tournament at GenCon. But … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/08/01/convention-report-gulf-games-54/">Continue reading →</a>

Whirlwind one-day Gen Con 2025 thoughts

If it’s summertime, it must be time for Gen con. I made my annual pilgrimage to Indianapolis to this largest of American game conventions. Traffic today seemed a little bit worse than usual between a pop-up thunderstorm and a huge … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/08/01/whirlwind-one-day-gen-con-2025-thoughts/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diary: Pirate O-Zone, or Turning a Simple Game into a Mostly Simple Battle at Sea

I still get a couple of royalty checks each year from the Korean version of that game, so I keep at it.My latest production has been O-Zone and its various spin-offs, one being the subject of this design diary.Building on Recent SuccessSince even the original O-Zone is mostly unknown, and it is so closely related to Pirate O-Zone, please allow me a few paragraphs about that game and its recent history.In August 2024, I redesigned the graphics for O-Zone, a dice dexterity game I made a decade pri

Gen Con 2025 Preview – Dale Yu: First Impressions of Star Wars: Battle of Hoth

Star Wars: Battle of Hoth Designers: Richard Borg, Adrien Martinot Publisher: Days of Wonder Players: 2-4 Age: 8+ Time: 30 minutes Amazon affiliate link: Played with a review copy provided by publisher Star Wars: Battle of Hoth is a game … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/07/31/gen-con-2025-preview-dale-yu-first-impressions-of-star-wars-battle-of-hoth/">Continue reading →</a>

Cultivate the Countryside, Hunt in the Bermuda Triangle, and Place Polymaths

Now dlp games has released those tiles separately as Orléans: Neue Ortskarten N°6 should you have already owned everything and didn't want to spend €200 just for those tiles...which seems reasonable.▪️ And speaking of the Orléans: Anniversary Box, dlp games says that due to continued demand it will release this collection on the market again in October 2025 as Orléans: Big Box, with only the box and the revised sixty-page rulebook differing from the 2024 edition.Capstone Games will release Orléa

Navigate the Scenery on a Quest for Antiques in a Candy Utopia

Eric Martin With Gen Con 2025 on the verge of opening, let's skip ahead to a quartet of games that will be featured at the SPIEL Essen 25 convention in late October:▪️ Candy Utopia is a 2-5 player game from Federico Marcucci and Giochi Uniti that looks like you were dropped straight into a pool of Willy Wonka's gastric juices:Welcome to Chocoland, a world made entirely of sweets! Its capital, Candy Utopia, is a lively and colorful city with chocolate streets, caramel pavement, and houses made of

Gen Con 2025 Preview – Dale Yu: First Impressions of Sanctuary

Sanctuary Designer: Matthias Wigge Publisher: Capstone / Feuerland Players: 1-5 Age: 12+ Time: 40-100 mins Played twice with pre-production copy provided by publisher Please note that all pictures are from a pre-production copy In Sanctuary, you will plan and design … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/07/30/dale-yu-first-impressions-of-sanctuary/">Continue reading →</a>

Ask Ms. Meeple: All Hands Off Deck

Meeple: You could say, "Please don't damage my pieces and cards, thanks." Perhaps next time you could bring some dice along for them to fidget with instead.Jennifer Schlickbernd: You would say, "What the f*** are you doing with my cards and pieces? These games cost me money, damn!" and never play with those people again.For me, deliberately damaging pieces or cards of a game is a core violation that I would not tolerate. However, this woman wants to keep playing with this group, so being polite

Heroscape: Well-Armed Crabs and a Serious Boost to Revna’s Army

The release of the Boiling Tension figures for Heroscape covered May through July… with everything coming in ahead of schedule! That means that the releases I’ll be reviewing here have actually been available at retail since last Monday. The Air … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/07/29/heroscape-well-armed-crabs-and-a-serious-boost-to-revnas-army/">Continue reading →</a>

My Picks for Gen Con 2025

— and tagged all of the items as Must Have, Interested, Undecided, and Not Interested, with 52 items falling into the first three categories.Yes, here are my picks of Gen Con 2025, with this being a misleading phrase given that I tagged many items as "Not Interested" only because I've already covered them, already bought them, or have a review copy in hand.Technically I'm not interested in researching these games further or trying them out at the show because I already have access to them — wher

Dale Yu: Review of Typewriter

Typewriter Designers: Tim Fowers, Jeff Beck, Skye Larsen Publisher: Fowers Games Players: 2-5 Age: 10+ Time: 30 minutes Played with review copy provided by publisher Spell words, flip your typewriter keys, and build combos in this new game in the … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/07/28/dale-yu-review-of-typewriter/">Continue reading →</a>

Take Tricks to Collect Leaves, Wrestle Opponents, and Restructure the Economic Strata in the Social Hierarchy

Play tricks following standard rules, with hearts as the trump suit; after seven tricks, pick up your remaining cards and play six more.Your score is the difference between the number of tricks won in each half of the game, and after three rounds, whoever has the fewest points wins.▪️ Rowdy Partners from Jason Hager and Darren Reckner is listed as a 2-4 player game, but from the description it's clear that you want four people at the table for the optimum experience:Howdy, partners! In the sun-b

Unmatched: Battle of Legends Volume III

The good folks at Restoration Games keep churning out new boxes of Unmatched: Battle of Legends heroes – and continue to try new and interesting ways to echo the myths & stories that inspire the various characters. Whether it’s the … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/07/25/unmatched-battle-of-legends-volume-iii/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diary: Trinket Trove

I was able to finish designs in a few BGG contests: a single deck of cards contest (Barbarian Vince), small solo design, etc.Shortly after, around 2012, a publisher put out a call for game submissions on spec, specifically, "Design us Zombie Dice, but make it different enough that we won't get in trouble." I changed a few things in that design I didn't like, then I hit on an idea of using dice position after rolling as a mechanism, finished the design, and sent it to them...but they rejected it

Gen Con 2025 Preview: Jungo, or Making Monkeys Move

The overriding principle seems to be: Don't hand opponents the tools they need to defeat you...yet you need to empty your hand to win, so good luck with that.Interestingly, nearly all of the gameplay changes that originating publisher Cocktail Games made from Hachi Train to Jungo have eased the burden on players, making the design more suited for a mainstream audience of casual game players — which is primarily the audience that both Cocktail Games and Happy Camper seeks, so that's not surprisin

Dale Yu: Review of Burger Master

Burger Master Designer: Jeppe Norsker Publisher: Korea Boardgames Players: 1-6 Age: 8+ Time: 20 minutes Played with review copy provided by publisher Test your mettle in this competition to be the greatest burger chef of them all! Compete with other … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/07/24/dale-yu-review-of-burger-master/">Continue reading →</a>