Reiner Knizia is one of the most prolific game designers around. His author page over at BoardGameGeek has a Top Games section with 717 entries as of this writing. Obviously, with such a long list of games written, some hit amazing highs (e.g., Ingenious, Ra), while others fall flat (e.g., At the Office,  Into the Blue). Regardless of the level of fun and engagement, some have called his games “an interesting scoring system and mechanics draped lightly with a paper-thin theme” (thanks KMortis!). Even as a fan of his work, I have to say that this is a decent description of many of his games.

There are a few of his games that, honestly, define what I love about board gaming. Blue Moon is one such game. But before we delve into the plight of the Holy City of Psi, let’s take a quick trip through the history of how the game was released.

Releases

Blue Moon is a two-player card game. It was initially released as a base game with two factions: the Hoax (wise scholars and librarians) and the Vulca (magicians of fire and passion). This box contained a pre-constructed deck for each faction, a game board, three dragon figurines used for scoring, and a rulebook.

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I can remember several days in my personal history with Apples to Apples, such as the first time I played it and discovered that party games do not have to feel devoid of intellectual stimulation; the first time someone had some serious unintended innuendo come about with a play of a card. There was the time one of my best friends made a ten minute argument as to why Michael Jackson was the trump card in this game (i.e., he fits any nearly any adjective that can be played, and he fits them better than just about any other card could). But the one that I remember most was the day Apples to Apples started to wane in my game group’s rotation. More on that last date later; for now, let’s talk about what makes Apples to Apples tick.

The Game

Apples to Apples is, quite honestly, as simple as a game can get.

Players are dealt seven ‘red’ apple cards which have nouns printed on them (i.e., a person, place, thing, or event).

[caption id="attachment_296781" align="aligncenter" width="600"] A noun is a person, place, or thing.[/caption]

Players rotate being the judge, who will draw one ‘green’ apple card which has an adjective printed on it (i.e., a characteristic of a person,…

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Not long ago, I discovered Doomlings. The game has all the hallmarks of a winner: easy to learn, quick to play, a constant sound of giggling by the players. The game is a lot of fun!

Playing Doomlings

Doomlings is a card game. Although you can get/use community play mats, individual player mats, first player tokens, and the like, all that is needed to play are the cards. The base game of Doomlings has three types of cards: Ages, Traits, and Gene Pools.

[caption id="attachment_296769" align="aligncenter" width="600"] The various types of cards in Doomlings.[/caption]

Setup

Ages are the game’s timer. There are three types of ages: the Birth of Life card, the standard ages and the catastrophes.

[caption id="attachment_296771" align="aligncenter" width="600"] The Birth of Life, the ages, and the catastrophes.[/caption]

You start by shuffling the standard ages together and then dealing them face-down into three piles of three (nine cards); put the rest of the standard ages back in the box. Then shuffle the catastrophes together and deal one onto each of the three piles of standard ages (three cards); put the rest of the catastrophes back into the box. Each of these three piles of four cards is shuffled individually, then stacked.…

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When I find a game I enjoy, or better yet, one my family enjoys, I try to build on that experience. It’s not always as simple as perusing the “Fans Also Like” portion of a game’s listing on BGG. After all, the fact that I like Shakespeare is in no way predictive of the fact that I like Altiplano (which appears on that list), nor does the mechanical composition of either build an effective bridge connecting the two. It just so happens that I like both, as do others, enough so to warrant being connected via BGG’s algorithm. 

BGG also offers title lists sorted by mechanics, but, to quote the great Patches O’Houlihan, that’s about as useful as a poopy-flavored lollipop. A list of 6,365 Area Majority games is not the most efficient path to finding a game that I will enjoy like I enjoy Petrichor. 

I’m grateful that we try here at Meeple Mountain to build bridges. Our step-ladders link games that seem to have a natural progression. Our topics aim to find games that are thematically linked. But the lists are hardly exhaustive at this point—they take time and experience to develop. 

My family’s unexpected love of The Flow of History left us looking for a sequel, or a prequel, or…

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After going hard on heavy strategy games in 2023, I need to loosen up a bit.

Lucky for me, there are lighter games hitting shelves every five minutes these days, and no category is getting more love than the trick-taking genre. All over the world, people are finding ways to tweak an age-old formula with games that take mere minutes to learn and play, and I have two friends in one gaming group who are constantly buying new games from Japan and Europe, hunting for the next great trick taker.

I recently had the chance to try a couple trick takers during my trip to TantrumCon, and the folks at Bezier Games were kind enough to hook me up with two 2024 releases that will hit later this year. (Another benefit of trick takers—they take up almost no space in carry-on luggage.) The first of those was Sandbag, and the second of those is Xylotar, an updated take on the 2023 trick taker Magic Trick, designed by Chris Wray.

In Magic Trick, players are dealt cards that are placed in numerical order, then passed to the player on their left. Here’s the twist: once passed, the cards can’t be looked at, so the player “holding” their new cards doesn’t know exactly what cards they…

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Trains and board games. Peanut butter and jelly. High living costs and Canada. Me and bad jokes. For whatever divine reason, these subjects cannot be separated. What’s quite interesting about train board games is they are often associated with complexity and mind melting sessions. Here comes Isle of Trains: All Aboard to show the world that you can have some train conductor fun with a deck of cards in only an hour of your time. With a concept like this, you can see why this one wrangled more than a few pairs of eyeballs.

The story driving this one is quite barebones. There is an island where train conductors throughout the world attend a competition to see who is the best. This involves delivering passengers, fulfilling cargo contracts, and showing off your sweet ride that rewards you with victory points. Think of it as the Isle of Man TT except replace motorcycles with trains and without a body count.

Since this is a card game, it’s time I talk a bit about them. Isle of Trains: All Aboard is one of the few card games that consists almost entirely of multi-use cards. For those who don’t know the terminology, it means that cards can be used in a variety of ways, depending on the context. In Isle…

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During my recent trip to TantrumCon, I ran into Jay Bernardo, the marketing manager with Bezier Games. We hit it off, and that led to a six-hour binge featuring games all night and lots of smack talk. (If you have not spent time with Jay, you need to get on that stat…the guy is hilarious.)

Jay also took the time to show me Sandbag, designer and Bezier CEO Ted Alspach’s latest game and what I think is his first trick-taking release. (Bezier has dabbled in trick takers before thanks to the release of the deluxe edition of Cat in the Box.) Jay was kind enough to provide a review copy after our first play, so I got the game in front of my Chicago game groups to see how the game played with other audiences.

During my first play of Sandbag, we got a single rule wrong, so correcting that did make a difference in successive plays. Still, I was surprised that this one was more of a curiosity than an outright hoot like the game’s rules seem to suggest. I don’t think that is a flaw, but the game does have a high rules overhead for such a simple concept and I wonder how this will play with broader audiences when it hits the market…

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Doing another series for Final Girl was a no-brainer. The first set of modules in this endlessly customizable survival horror game was a massive success, taking the world of solo board gaming by storm. Our own Justin Bell had nothing but glowing praise when he reviewed the Final Girl base set, and I’m no different.

But a second series brings with it risks. There’s the dreaded sophomore slump, buckling under the pressures of expectations. Could Final Girl add extensions to the house without creating cracks in the foundations?

The Root of All Evil

If you’re looking for a more exhaustive description of Final Girl, I’ll direct you to Justin’s review, but here’s the quick pitch: the entire series is premised around the horror trope of the Final Girl, a female protagonist who manages to survive everything and lead the baddie to their ultimate demise. The roots of the Final Girl can be traced at least as far back as Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960), but the trope wasn’t identified until the late 1980’s.

Final Girl the game puts you in…

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Logic & Lore is a game that I knew right from the beginning my wife would love. She is someone who can sit for hours working on sudoku puzzles. So when asked if I would like to delve into this little game, it was an enthusiastic yes!

This small-box game only has a few components. Each player has a set of 12 star cards with ranks from 1 through 9, plus three black holes. There are nine alignment cards, also ranked from 1 through 9. Beyond that, there is a pool of memory tokens (36) with various symbols on them, some meeples for each player (7 per player), and reference cards (3). In the basic game, called the Star Light version, the black holes and the meeples are not used.

Star Light

To set up the basic game, the alignment cards are placed between the players ranked in order from 1 through 9 with the moon-phases face-up. Each player shuffles their star cards and deals them out face-down so that each of their cards is associated with one of the alignment cards. Make sure that the reference cards are on the Star Light side and that the memory tokens are within reach. Randomly choose a player to go first, and you are ready to begin.

Side note: there is…

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I was alarmed by the text on the back of the game box for Tanuki (2024, Synapses Games): “Do you have what it takes to win in this no holds barred take that game?”

The front of the box features a cute, furry tanuki (raccoon dog, per the box) running away from other characters towards the viewer. I’m not sure what the cover image is trying to convey—should I run away from this game??—but I like a good take that game. However, I was afraid to see if this would work with my kids, particularly my son, who abhors competitive games where players can be robbed (see exhibit 147: Berried Treasure).

I opened my review copy and quickly read the rulesheet. In Tanuki, designed by Cole Smith, players begin the game with a face-up Gardener card and a face-up Samurai card in their Garden (play area). A second Gardener card is also in the Garden, face down, waiting for the game’s second half to open before being revealed by an event card buried in the draw deck.

The Gardener cards score bamboo (points) each turn they remain in a player’s Garden. Samurai protect all Gardener cards, an important distinction because Tanuki is all about stealing cards and…

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My first play of Mori was one of the least impressive gaming experiences of recent memory. Not for one moment did it work. All four of us were miserable. The rules were impermeable and the experience was entirely flat.

“I can’t believe I have to play this again,” I grumbled as I took the subway home.

So I Played It Again

The next night, I brought it out for a different group. “This is Mori. I played it last night, and it wasn’t particularly good, but if there’s a group that can find the beauty in a trick-taker, it’s this one.”

Mori is a bit of an odd bird, welding about as much onto a “simple” trick-taker as I think the genre can withstand. We start in familiar territory. There are four suits, each with cards from 0-10. It’s a must-follow game. The highest card in the led suit wins, unless someone has managed to play a trump card.

This brings us to the first wrinkle: the trump suit depends on the led suit. Each suit corresponds to a season, and each season is trumped by the season that comes next. Winter always loses to Spring, which always loses to Summer, and so on.

The winner adds all the cards from the trick to their score pile, then takes…

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I love old paintings and illustrations of fruit, like the kind you find in botany textbooks from the  late 1800s. The attention to detail is astonishing, the gradations of shade and form, the imperfections. The card art for Pies drew me right in, lovingly rendered in an identical style. I found myself falling into the cards as I rifled through them. These cards build a world with a distinct pastoral feel, a book spine covered in dust.

Then I came to the dog, and the pie tokens with Pi carved into them, and I started to worry. They didn’t feel aesthetically consistent. I found myself thinking about the old writing maxim, “You don’t put a hat on a hat.”

Pies is allegedly a trick-taking game, and it’s marketed as such, but that is categorically incorrect. There are no suits, there is no pressure to follow, there are no trumps. It shows none of the defining characteristics of the genre. This is an auction game, themed around gathering fruits and recipes to turn into pies.

Each player, one at a time, puts a card from their hand into the middle of the table. Then, from highest card to lowest, each gets to pick any one…

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I love an archival project. Publisher Eagle-Gryphon Games went through the notes of legendary designer Sid Sackson, creator of Acquire and Can’t Stop amongst others, and selected four of what he considered his best unpublished games. The results are here, in the two volumes of The Sackson Legacy Collection, which combine those four unpublished games with new printings of two Sackson obscurities.

There is no publisher I would rather have do a project like this. Eagle-Gryphon’s production is always exemplary, luxuriant without being fussy. With Eagle-Gryphon’s typical thick box stock and vibrant colors, these are games that would look good on a bookshelf. I suspect that’s exactly what the team had in mind. All they’re missing, as far as I’m concerned, is a spine number.

I love a spine number.

Blue

The blue volume includes three previously unpublished titles: I’m the Boss!: The Dice Game, Banana Blitz, and Scope.

I’m the Boss!: The Dice Game is a negotiation game inspired by Sackson’s own I’m the Boss!. Players take turns rolling dice, attempting to move to the top of various Expertise tracks while jockeying to negotiate different deals. Any time a player earns enough stars to be the Boss, they…

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