Board Game Blogger, Reviewer, Playtester, Demonstrator, Con Junkie

So, Kashgar is one of those things we all hate - a card game in a big box! But believe, me this deserves a big box (plus, there are quite a lot of cards!) This is one of those games I played then ran away to find my own copy of. In theory, it’s simple, you only ever have a choice of three actions, but that can be a really tough decision at times - don’t let this ‘card game’ fool you!

‘OK, this is strange!’, I hear you cry, ‘Kat is talking about a co-operative game.’ Well, let me assure you lovely people I haven’t been body-snatched or anything sinister, it does happen occasionally. There are a few great games that are co-ops (and I mean just a few!!) but this one caught my eye because of….. Theme (let me assure you again this is not an alien in Kat form) Universal Studio Monsters, there, I said it, that’s the only reason I HAD to track down this game!

We love a good train game here and Traintopia certainly fits that category! Train games can vary wildly in complexity but Traintopia is a great family game that has us puzzling over our moves at times. Build routes for tourists, commuters and goods, building up your routes to become the best rail network.

We all know that games are not the work of one person, it takes a team of play-testers, developers, marketers and artists to get a game on a shelf. However, usually all we really see is the one name on the box. Today we look at some of the best partnerships out there.

So, last year I played just over 200 games total. (BGG says just under 200 but I know I forget to log sometimes!) At least 82 of them were ‘new to me’ games, either games from our shelf of opportunity or new releases. I don’t want to do a ‘top ten of 2019’ or even of the decade as I haven’t played ALL the games and know there will be stuff I’m missing out that deserve to be on there

At this time of year, I used to sit and work out a gaming challenge for the following year. Usually a ten by ten challenge, sometimes something crazy - one year we attempted a hundred train games in the year. The ten by ten is a great thing, it allows you to deep dive strategies for games and sometimes it determines that you really don’t need to play that one game anymore and it can make room on the shelf for something else!

Today we're looking at one of last year's most unappreciated games The Magnificent. Spoiler alert. Yes, it is.

One of my favourite games of all time is Russian Railroads and it was time to dig out our dusty copy.