Matthew Smail 447 posts 43 comments

Everdell is a game of worker placement, resource collection and tableau building in a woodland realm populated by numerous species of animal, and now featuring up to three expansion sets.

While I am always willing to tackle a pre-production board game with an open mind, I will admit to being sceptical when games turn up with little or no fanfare. I don’t know why, but board game news travels fast usually — and with…

Dr Reiner Knizia is without doubt one of the most prolific and talented board game designers that has ever lived. Perhaps one of the best things about the sheer number of games Knizia has produced is that his back catalogue is just as good…

For anyone who follows my writing, you would be forgiven for thinking that Imagine Earth should be right up my street. Attractive, clever and rammed with content, this global-scale economic and environmental strategy simulator tasks players…

Known for the iteratively popular big box games The City of Kings and The Isle of Cats, designer Frank West and his team at The City of Games decided to try their hand at something a little more portable. Vadoran Gardens comes in perhaps…

If you look at the back catalogue of Inka and Markus Brand, the couple behind games as diverse and award-winning as Rajas of the Ganges, Village and several games in the Exit series, then you’d be forgiven for wondering how on Earth they…

When I last reviewed a game from designer Tristan Hall, I remember suggesting that Gloom of Kilforth was a must have for fans of solo games. Since then, Covid-19 has prevented multiplayer and face to face gaming in almost all its forms, and…

I like to think that reviewers such as myself keep an open mind. After all, games are very rarely made by people who don’t care about the subject matter — especially not when you’re talking about independent games that are created outside…

For Suleiman The Magnificent — leader of the Ottoman Empire for more than fifty years, the siege of Malta was the beginning of the end. With 30,000 men at his disposal, Suleiman had calculated that the 500 Knights Hospitaller defending…

If I have said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times — real time board games are really not my thing. Do you know what is even more not my thing? Relatively complex real time games. As you’ll recall from my review of Pendulum, I sometimes…