Boardgamer

Casual

Barbecubes

Carefully place the pixellated meat on the grill, but don't let it fall!

“Love this tin box games by Alley Cat. Bought this to play with my niece and other family members and they love it so far. It is nice that it can be played literally anywhere!”

matt

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Regular

Compile

Competing AIs stack themed ideas to compile three protocols quickly.

“

Confession: we're both reformed TCG players. Yes, we're repentant of our past sins and we're moving on with life. But sometimes, at the back of your mind, you feel the pull: a new Pokemon set got released, a new Lorcana card looks awesome - it wouldn't be so bad if I just bought a few packs and cobbled together a deck to play casually, right? Wrong. Playing a TCG is a time sink that takes up the majority of your free time. Don't let the cute characters and gorgeous artwork lure you in.

So when we played Compile, we were pleasantly surprised that this scratched that eternal TCG itch. You draft 3 themes of 6 cards each, and shuffle them together to make your 18-card deck for that game. No more endless text to read, remember and work out how to combo off each other. Simply play a card, follow a straightforward effect, and occasionally put a lingering effect into play.

Where the rules are simple, the strategy has space to take centre stage. Each theme has a play style, and if you can get those play styles to synergise, the serotonin runs freely. We've got the first two base games that each contain 12 themes to be mixed and matched in hundreds of ways. I doubt we'll ever see two games of Compile play the same.

”

boardgamesandwich

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Regular

Red Rising

Craft a hand of powerful characters from the dystopian world of Red Rising.

“

This game translates the IP to the game mechanics quite well. Gold cards are worth the most points and have the best abilities, but there lies the catch: do you keep them in hand to gain their points, or deploy them to use their powerful effects?

Despite there being over 100 character cards in the deck, you rarely see more than about 25 in a game. On one hand, that's annoying - I need a specific card in order to pull off a busted combo! But on the other hand, it makes you look closely at what you've got around you and make the most of it. True, you can use Green cards to draw more from the deck and place them on the board, but then your opponents get first dibs. It's a good balancing act of necessity versus over-extending.

Overall, I personally love the game and would play it at any opportunity. However, I don't love the collector's edition components: the red and purple cubes and gnome/Larvitar/Disney castle from Wish/fleet token look similar, as do the blue and green, and the yellow and gold. So in a game of 4+ players, I imagine it could get a little visually confusing. For a deluxe edition with metal pieces, it is a let-down.

”

boardgamesandwich

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