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SOTD Game of spades Double Bonus

Fragrance of the Day Game of Spades Double Bonus is fresh, smooth, and quietly confident. No noise. No chasing. Just clean ...

Dale Yu: Review of Point Galaxy

Point Galaxy Designers: Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, Shawn Stankewich Publisher: AEG Players: 1-5 Age: 10+ Time: 15-30 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4ofH7qY Played with review copy provided by publisher Point Galaxy takes the same simple concept of drafting cards and … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/30/dale-yu-review-of-point-galaxy/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diaries: Even More Trivia (Part 2)

As an opportunity to rest during the long read, you can answer trivia questions after each diary...in the style of the respective game, of course.Today I'll write about:▪️ Lost in Translation — a game about idioms for anyone interested in language(s)▪️ Quiz Challenge Europa — the questions change, but the answers stay the same▪️ Quiz-o-Meter — giving answers with a toy factor, inspired by graphs and baby booksLet's start.•••Lost in TranslationThis is a favorite among my own games! I have always

Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 33)

Last one from me for the year so let’s cover some 2025 stats: – 310 new-to-me titles – 424 different titles – 818 plays – … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/29/alison-brennan-game-snapshots-2025-part-33/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diary: TacTile

by <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1?bloggerid=19297" >Joseph Bugbee</a> <div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8520589"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/BT5qItDLt3csuIwE_p_3_g__small/img/nJZUEfvDq8IlS6ogUFRSylcAXCo=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8520589.png" border=0></a></div>Hey, everyone, With <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/415808/tactile" >TacTile</a> blowing up on BGA, a lot of people have been asking about the creative process and where the idea for TacTile came from, so I've written this post to shed a little light on the game's backstory and share a few tips for aspiring designers along the way. Joe's take on game design: With TacTile and all my current designs, I start every process by asking myself the same question: How can I design the most fun game possible? I think it's important to ground yourself with this statement because I see too many designers (myself included) falling into the same trap of having a game idea and trying to "make it work". You end up spending forever adding more and more junk to overcompensate for a core game that just isn't that fun to begin with. One thing I've learned from studying start-ups is that generally the best way to create a strong product is to start with something already popular, improve it, then test! test! test! During testing, I try to uncover how players want to play the game, then I try to create game incentives that reinforce how my players already want to play, creating a positive feedback loop. A fun, unique, core mechanism with a solid positive feedback structure usually ends up being a fun game. Designing TacTile Step 1: Find a fun core mechanism TacTile was actually my second project. I developed my first game, <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/412762/widgets-n-digit-dollar" >Widgets n' Digit$</a>, with <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/159337/alexander-cheng" >Alex Cheng</a> and like every first game design we tried a million mechanisms. One of the key learnings from WnD was how much everyone enjoyed card abilities and card combos. This inspired me to begin work on a game focused entirely on card abilities and card combos. <center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8671335"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/RsBpfVrGxDDgsjpMoaDVqg__small/img/IMDeqaETj7FaoWSwNz5i4g-HDog=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8671335.png" border=0></a></div></center> Step 2: Improve the mechanism When it comes to how card combos are typically done in games, I think about games like <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266192/wingspan" >Wingspan</a> or <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167791/terraforming-mars" >Terraforming Mars</a>. In these games, you have this huge stack of cards and tons of abilities, and the fun comes from finding the best cards and trying to set up combos. My problem with this approach is that it disproportionally adds complexity over strategy. Each card adds to the rules complexity of the game, but you don't use every card. This results in a player experience in which you've got to read a lot of cards, you're always going to the rulebook for edge cases and weird situations, and ultimately you'll end up using few of the cards in a game, so all that reading and figuring out rules time is wasted, or you'll spend a lot of time setting up a combo that you can perform only a few times before game's end. <center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8671337"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/5wdvfPdjSNhrTOAHrtGWhg__small/img/1WNAYXz59tuCST35FhphDKmNyjc=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8671337.png" border=0></a></div></center> Step 3: Bringing it all together I decided that instead of a bunch of cards with a few possible combos I would create few cards but they would all combo. Instead of one big payoff at the end of the game, cards would be cheap and easy to acquire. Combos would happen early and often, leading to massive combos at game's end. The result is TacTile, which features the world's simplest objective: Get to the other side. The design uses only three cards — move a tile, push an opponent one tile, gain a resource — yet it is by no means a simple game. A few simple building blocks turn the game into a sandbox where the burden is on the player to visualize their path, anticipate their opponent's actions, and devise the most efficient engine. Early and often combos create a powerful snowballing effect, leading to early tension that escalates rapidly. I discovered that by removing fluff I had opened the door to deep emergent strategy. The barrier to players was no longer the rules, but their ability to adapt to new situations and out-vision their opponents. Strategy, not memorization, was king. <center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8671340"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/MwLPWR2bZygEqodl-pYTRw__small/img/wFOzhl5sBvJv6_E_t0XHPaqaEP4=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8671340.png" border=0></a></div></center> Final Thoughts Personally, I don't feel that I created TacTile as much as I defined the parameters for a fun game, then by iterative process TacTile came into existence. I feel this is the only way a highly emergent strategy game like TacTile can be made. It's difficult to design for emergent strategy, but when you discover an elegant system emergent strategy arises naturally. <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/159336/joseph-bugbee" >Joe Bugbee</a>

Dale Yu: Review of Four Corner Detective

Four Corner Detective Designer: Yoshihisa Itsubaki Publisher: itten Players: 1-5 Age: 6+ Time: 15 mins Played with review copy provided by publisher Guess the four-digit number with your fingertips. Four Corner Detective is a new tactile card game in which … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/26/dale-yu-review-of-four-corner-detective/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diary: Sidekick Saga

One of my favorite of her pieces is the army of snowmen — so creepy and so what I wanted!I also had William Liberto help out, mostly with the heroic items as I wanted them to have a similar and consistent vibe, and he did a great job.Final ThoughtsI am proud of Sidekick Saga as it's the game I wanted to make, a superhero game with an overarching story! It has exploration, co-operative drafting, every card being useful in one way or another, and ways for the sidekicks to be clever in their combin

Opinionated Gamers Quick Takes 2025 – Part 2

Happy Holidays to everyone! As the year comes to a close, another Quick Takes column We’ve started a tradition of writing a group document with very short takes on the games that we play. Of course, you’ll not … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/25/opinionated-gamers-quick-takes-2025-part-2/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diary: Yin Yang

Players will arrange the same six coins across phases in different combinations to provide different effects, and these game actions are also subtly based on actual divination results listed in "I Ching”.Yin Yang uses Zhou Dynasty as the historical background because "I Ching" was so popular at that time. More specifically, the game uses the seven regions of the Warring States Period as the background for regional control, and also uses the four most valuable goods of this period as the resource

Dale Yu: Review of Formidable Farm

Formidable Farm Designer: Friedemann Friese Publisher: 2F Players: 1-4 Age: 10+ Time: 30-45 min Played with review copy provided by publisher In Formidable Farm, you tirelessly try to fulfill the wishes of the village population for field crops. At the … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/24/dale-yu-review-of-formidable-farm/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diary: The Development of Eastern Empires

The "Civilization Advances" are balanced for the current system of calamities.Most importantly, the trade system requires sufficient cards in rotation each round, so that enough wealth is inserted into the player's hand in order to be able to acquire the advances they need to keep the game going.Testing Eastern EmpiresCreating a 3-4 player ScenarioWhile testing games on the map board, it became clear soon that an equal balance of neighbors is very much required to provide both interaction and co

Thanksgaming 2025

I’m thankful for a lot of things – for example, I’ve been married 35 years to a wonderful non-gamer wife who encourages my board game hobby/obsession despite her near-complete lack of interest in playing board games. For a guy in … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/23/thanksgaming-2025/">Continue reading →</a>

Doug G: Review of Covenant

Covenant Designer: German Millan Publisher: Devir Players: 1-4 Age: 14+ Time: 100 minutes Played with review copy provided by publisher Heavy games…require effort. They command our attention and patience as we attempt to digest the rules. They demand our time … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/23/doug-g-review-of-covenant/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diaries: One Quiz Game After Another (Part 1)

To give you a chance to rest during the long read, you can answer trivia questions after each diary...in the style of the respective game, of course.In this first part I'll talk about:▪️ Scope — geography trivia with a cool gadget to show the solution▪️ Quiziko — if you just wait, random wrong answers go away▪️ Fake Check — half the statements are facts, half are fakesLet's start...•••Scope — with Arno SteinwenderIn 2018, a few months before my first visit to Spielwarenmesse, the annual toy and

SETI Adds Portugal’s Jogo do Ano to Its Win Total

As we prepare to ring out the gaming year of 2025, it’s obvious which title dominated the Game of the Year awards. Tomas Holek’s SETI, published by CGE, swept through the awards like E.T. on a flying bicycle. It recently … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/22/seti-adds-portugals-jogo-do-ano-to-its-win-total/">Continue reading →</a>

Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 32)

I recently lifted my rating of Forest Shuffle to a 9. It’s now at 40+ plays and it continues to be requested on BGA on a lot of game nights. I’m noting this here because we tried out Forest Shuffle: … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/22/alison-brennan-game-snapshots-2025-part-32/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diary: Dice Duelo in Six Bullet Points

by Felix Sonne Dice Duelo is a semi-abstract, two-player dice-placement game set in the Wild West. You are playing as a gambler-duelist — it's the Wild West, what do you expect? — who will duel to the death on a poker table...with dice.The premise of the game is that each duelist's revolver has six bullets, which are their dice. They take turns loading their bullets, one by one into the cylinders, then they "shoot" their opponent by forming a poker combination on the game board. The catch? You w

Two Different Takes on Splendor: Splendor Kids and Splendor Silk Road Expansion

Splendor Kids Designer: Marc André, Catherine André Publisher: Space Cowboys Players: 2-4 Age: 6+ Time: 30 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4q9AO9S Played with review copy provided by publisher Play travelers that deliver food across the kingdom. Splendor is a game … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/21/two-different-takes-on-splendor-splendor-kids-and-splendor-silk-road-expansion/">Continue reading →</a>

Dale Yu: Review of Marvel Skirmish in New York

Marvel Skirmish in New York Designer: Matthias Cramer Publisher: Lookout Games Players: 2 Age: 10+ Time: 30 mins Amazon affiliate link: Played with review copy provided by publisher Old friends and enemies meet in the streets of New York, and … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/20/dale-yu-review-of-marvel-skirmish-in-new-york/">Continue reading →</a>

Pub punter stunned as she spots Oscar-nominated actor and his huge popstar girlfriend playing cards in busy boozer

A PUB punter has been left stunned after spotting an Oscar-nominated actor alongside his huge popstar girlfriend in a London boozer. The pair...