Matthew Smail

There’s an old Erasmus saying that I sometimes like to refer to when I feel that I might be among a group of people who are all about as helpless as each other: “in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king!” I am reminded of this…

We are yet to cover The King's Dilemma in board game form here at B3, but I have had the pleasure of playing a few games of it — and what stood out for me was without doubt the off-board interactions between players. With that in mind, the…

It’s been almost six years since we reviewed Dark Souls: The Board Game and a lot has changed. Hobby board games have changed massively in that time, and so too have our expectations as gamers. Thankfully, the tools and mechanisms available…

I love games like Mr Prepper. Sheltered, for example, is one of my favourite survival games, and only recently I reviewed Endzone (which shares a post-apocalyptic theme) and found it to be broadly fantastic. Mr Prepper has some really…

When it comes to family games, most people know and reach for the classics — those games like Monopoly or Scrabble that almost anyone over the age of twenty will know well enough to play without being taught. However, without getting into a…

For anyone who has read our exhaustive review or Top 50 Games We’ve Ever Reviewed, you’ll already know that Everdell is one of our very favorite games. The only downside? Everdell is a relatively complex game with lots of engine-building…

There have been some fantastic board game adaptations of video games over the years, with Devil May Cry and Dark Souls from Steamforged Games being just a couple of examples. In both these examples, however, only a slice of the videogame…

Anyone who has a pet cat will know that even though our feline friends can be cute and cuddly, most cats are absolute b**tards. A cat will always put its own interests ahead of anyone else, and that’s pretty much what CATastrophe: a Game of…

I've already sung the praises of 7 Wonders Second Edition over in our separate review, and I am certainly guilty of considering it to be among the "very best" games that you could have in your collection. But, if 7 Wonders Second Edition …

7 Wonders Second Edition is one of the most iconic and well-loved board games of the modern era, currently occupying a space well inside the BoardGameGeek Top 100 games of all time list - and just outside the Top 10 of specific,…