There’s something strange about how tense the last few minutes are during a game of Gugong. Four days ago, you were moving envoys through Silk Road and swapping silk for tea. And now? It’s time for some math. Scoring doesn’t happen all at once, though; it happens as a series of events triggered by one … Read more

The last few rounds of Fjords are just about a certain type of panic. You’ve claimed your fields, you’ve put down your longhouses, there’s a tangle of wood fences and disputed territory on map. Whoever has the most obvious piece of real estate might win… or they might be the person who best counted all … Read more

In the final round of Clans of Caledonia there’s a bit of both terror and triumph. For five rounds, you’ve shuffled worker. You’ve traded milk for cheese. You’ve argued about the most efficient route to move hops from port to port. Now it’s done. There on the board sits all those settlements in scattered groups, … Read more

In many games of Carcassonne, the final turn feels less like strategy and more like geometry class gone wrong, just a lot of math at the end. Maybe it’s that big meadow that touches three or four cities and wraps around two more? Or maybe it’s corner counting which could change your adjacency and field … Read more

Every Catan game hits this tension point when the table falls silent. Someone has constructed yet another road, and players stare at the board, wondering who’s got longest road card. It’s a seemingly straightforward question, except the colored wooden pieces criss-crossed on the hexes make for some visual noise. You spot a long line and … Read more

With the Expedition Leaders expansion, the end game in Lost Ruins of Arnak feels more weighty. Every choice have more consequence. You are not just collecting victory points anymore. Instead, it’s about building a story across several tracks, and you must also try to keep deck efficient enough to survive until the very end. Trying … Read more

Heat in most racing games are simply another resource bar that depletes while playing aggressively, but out on-track it’s much less forgiving. Overspeeding into a corner or flooring it during a race generate immediate heat. Poor handling of your stress cards wont help either. You’ll need to plan the correct distance between you and car … Read more