by Ambie Valdés

Action Cats is a story driven party game for 3-6 players currently on Kickstarter. I was sent a prototype copy to review, and I was able to play it a couple times at 5 players. Note that I have the prototype version, which has fewer cards (the game doesn’t last as long) and no box, but the gameplay should be similar.

by Ambie Valdés

I just got back from my 4th Dice Tower Con ever! It was my first time as a Dice Tower contributor, but I was still able to play a bunch of games, as well as meet a lot of people and go to different events. I had a lot of fun!

Over the course of the 5 days (really 4 and a half, since we left after lunch on Sunday), I had 65 plays of 46 different games, 32 of which were new to me! Granted, a couple of those were demos or incomplete games, but I still got to get the feel of them. I also participated in my first megagame ever, Future Tense!

We were in line early for registration, a little before 9 am on Wednesday (Registration opened at 10). There were already quite a few people in line, but there were so many more that showed up afterwards. The hotel had free breakfast and coffee for us, which was pretty awesome. Also, the Dice Tower crew were giving out promos, and there was a table full of promos. I got a couple BattleCON promos, which is pretty exciting. Usually I don't own the games they have promos for, so I'm happy that these ones will get some use!

Ambie, Cassadi, and Crystal discuss some games they've played recently, including Fourth Age, 1817, Kitten Klash, and Barenpark. We then talk about playing games while traveling or on vacation. In this week's "Board Game Etymology" segment, Crystal discusses the origins of the word "score."

by Ambie Valdés

Toby and I got to go to an 18xx convention for the first time! Since we live on the west coast, we decided to go to the Portland 18xx Tournament (there are other ones further away) last weekend. Although it's called a tournament, it's not really a tournament - everyone records the scores of the games they played and get ranked based on that, but most of the people didn't care about the tournament and were just there to play 18xx games and have fun. We were there Thursday through Saturday, and we played 6 total 18xx games.

Ambie, Cassadi, and Crystal discuss some games they've played recently, including 1817, 1880: China, 1857, Between Two Cities, and Mint Works. We then talk about being a good sport in board games both in winning and losing. In this week's "Board Game Etymology" segment, Crystal discusses the origins of the word "tie."

Ambie, Cassadi, and Crystal discuss some games they've played recently, including Brass: Lancashire, Paperback, and Clank!: Sunken Treasures. We then talk about board games that trap you or you have to escape. In this week's "Board Game Etymology" segment, Crystal discusses the origins of the word "escape."