Australian Boardgame Creators – Brooke Penrose

I wanted to start to shine a light on some more Australian creators in the boardgame sphere and I have started with polymath Brooke Penrose designer of the Valka card game (through Terrible Games). Brooke is a designer, musician, creator, father, illustrator and artist from Naarm (Melbourne, Australia).   I asked Brooke about his inspirations […]

micro macro crime city

Micro Macro Crime City Review

Micro Macro Crime City is a little different when it comes to calling it a ‘game’, is it really a game or is it more of an activity? Do I care? After playing it, not really. I hear ‘x is not a game, it’s an experience’ but isn’t that what this hobby is about? Micro […]

Azul: Queen's Garden

How much Azul is too much? Azul: Queens Garden Review

Let’s start off here, there is never too much Azul and that is confirmed by this new release of the (few year old) classic. I was drawn to Azul: Queen’s Garden primarily because I loved the original Azul and hadn’t had a chance to play any of the other releases as yet. In addition, I […]

best boardgame kickstarters

When to avoid a Kickstarter

I wrote an article a while back on “How to avoid a Kickstarter scam” and thought maybe I would revisit some of the concepts and why I wouldn’t back a Kickstarter. This article focusses not necessarily on ‘scams’ per se, but moreso looks at the issues which may turn me personally off a boardgame Kickstarter […]

cytress kickstarter

Cytress Kickstarter First Impressions

This post will coincide with the commencement of the Cytress Kickstarter, which you can find here. I was approached by Sean Lee, designer of Cytress to preview the game for him and I said yes for 2 reasons – 1. It is an Australian design and I love to support local, 2. I have tried […]

Boardgames at Christmas with the family

Christmas is upon us once again! I thought a combined ‘gift guide/what to play’ might be a good idea for anyone who wants to game or gift games to family and friends. Boardgames at Christmas can be a bit of a difficult affair – balancing time with the family against chilling out, so you aren’t […]

Free boardgames online!

The global pandemic has been pretty rough on us here in Australia and overseas. With the rising cost of freight and logistics I thought that I would put together a bunch of places where you can play boardgames online for free. This is a living document, so I will update it as I find more! […]

orchard review

Orchard – a lesson in humility

We all have those little quirks in our gaming preferences. Mine happens to be the belief that the more components a game has, the better it will be overall. So when I went looking for a good chilled out solo game for an evening, I figured games more like Nusfjord. So when Orchard by was […]

counterfeit board games

What can we do about counterfeit board games

Following on from the piece on how counterfeits impact the hobby, today we are looking at what can be done about the problem. This time I also spoke to Kevin Chu, a consumer with an interest in tracking counterfeit products, in addition to industry professionals. What are companies doing? As you can imagine there is […]

Little Plastic Train Kickstarter

Little Plastic Train Kickstarter

The Little Plastic Train Company has released their Kickstarter for, well, Little Plastic Trains.The trains are ABS plastic and come in a tiny tin, ready for transport or safe keeping. The team at Little Plastic Train company sent me some of their Mercury set (the trains with a completed copy) and I have to say […]