When the Sheriff has a bow out hunting you down, there’s a constant tug-of-war: looting for the poor versus staying alive. That’s at the heart of any Robin Hood campaign. And most gamers is all about the gold. Each pouch found are a win. But at the end of each chapter, it doesn’t matter what … Read more

Eventually, after playing through a few game in 51st State, you hit the end and your head starts splitting between what to do next. Should I spend my fuel? Should I spend my bricks? What’s the score getting towards? Can I afford to take an action? But knowing what to do is not enough; you … Read more

Imperial Settlers has one last round where everything comes down to a nail biter of an ending, often won or lost by a margin so thin it feels like luck. You’ll be sitting there with piles of cards all over the board, glancing back and forth at your opponent’s engine and yours. What matters isn’t … Read more

When you sit down to play a round of My City, you think you’re getting an easygoing city planning sim. Place some nice houses, see the score tick upward. That’s when the bottom drops out: The last number shows that your score has plummeted well below what you anticipated. Why? You missed a rock poking … Read more

Isle of Cats, especially the final round, combines tedium and triumph. Three rounds of haggling over tiles, juggling basket size, caging up fish, squirreling away cats. Now it’s time to tally up the score. In a game with as many moving parts as Isle of Cats, there are more variables involved than even most gamers … Read more

That last round of *Between Two Castles*, though, gets in there and makes you panic in a special way. It’s forty-five minutes spent carefully arranging rooms and lining up royal attendants just so. And then it’s time to score. And you’re doing math and it doesn’t feel like math, it feels like a trap. Which … Read more

Between Two Cities is a game where you must build two cities simultaneousy. Each side have a score, and only the lesser of those two totals matter towards your final score. As such, the point of the game isn’t to construct amazing buildings; it’s to maintain mediocre scores across both board as closely as possible. … Read more