Tabletop Reviews

Making beautiful cakes is a great pastime, especially if you do it without making the entire kitchen a mess. In Frenemy Pastry Party, you and your friends are working together to make pastries, while also trying to get the most points that…

Cities: Skylines is probably the most comprehensive and perhaps even the most popular city planning simulator of the current era. Whilst Sim City is possibly still a more famous brand, its last few haphazard releases have resulted in…

An icy wind rushes into the cavern where you and your companions huddle around a meagre campfire. The flames rush upwards in the gust, throwing their light onto the glistening, icy walls. As the flames die down, you notice that there are…

Tile placement games are always interesting to play through, especially when people ignore the name of the game and instead just want to build a beautiful world. Small Islands is indeed a beautiful game, about creating small islands — not…

I can’t remember where I first read it, but one line from the lore surrounding Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 has always stuck with me; “in the grim darkness of the future, there is only war” it forecasts. From the moment I laid eyes on…

Ecos: First Continent is the second of John D. Clair’s designs that we’ve reviewed here at B3, with the first one, Mystic Vale, being a game that we enjoyed immensely thanks to its unique gameplay. Ecos, whilst having a completely…

In Symphony No. 9, players compete to sponsor their favourite composers over several rounds of gameplay, putting on exquisite royal concerto's periodically, which must match the mood of the people in terms of both how lavish they are, and…

Gloom: Second Edition is a card game I have heard talked about over and over. It’s something people always seem to have in their collections if they have been playing board games for a while. I’ve never played Gloom before, but have…

If Atelier: The Painters Studio is to be believed, painting a great masterpiece was more about the cutthroat world of securing the right paints and pleasing your benefactors than it was about actually striving towards an artistic vision.…

Even though you might not realise it, Vindication is actually a mid to heavyweight eurogame. I open with this line because if all you looked at was the box, the marketing material and some of the supporting collateral, you’d be forgiven…

Born to Serve follows a bunch of superheroes, with no funding and no way to save the world, each now looking at the lonely job of being a table waiter or waitress at the local restaurant. With ten heroes all fighting over the same job, you…

Here at B3, a number of members of our team are parents and love playing board games with our kids, and it’s always good to combine educational properties and learning with fun, as well as teaching the fundamentals of more complex games.…

In space no one can hear you scream. Or, as the side panel of the Lifeform box puts it, “in the vast, forbidden seas of space… Terror awaits.” Not quite as catchy, is it? Regardless of its cheesy strapline, Lifeform, from Hall or Nothing…

With an existing history of linking mobile games, augmented reality and board games together in innovative ways, Lucky Duck Games is the ideal publisher for a game like Jetpack Joyride. This real time game is a direct adaptation of the…

Throw Throw Burrito is a unique combination of a card game mixed with dodgeball, from the minds behind Exploding Kittens and Bears Vs Babies, where your ball is actually a squishy burrito. Throw Throw Burrito is made for two to six…

With just over 300 cards provided and the way in which cards are mixed, matched and then returned to the table; there are enough cards provided to deliver an extremely extensive mix of insults with it being very rare for delivering the…

I've always been a big fan of one versus one card games, the most famous of which is probably Magic: The Gathering. There's little time or money in my life to keep up with expansive and costly trading card games nowadays though, so I'm…

When it comes to six player games, you’ll usually need to invest in an expansion (or two) — or look to your collection of party games — in order to satisfy your guests. Extraordinary Adventures: Pirates is that rare and special gem that is…

Rocket Squad is a hand management game with take-that elements for two to four players, in which you try to build the biggest cardboard rocket you can in order to earn the most points and claim the title of king of the backyard!

Enjoyed by both the adults in our house and loved by the kids, ColourBrain Disney Edition is the type of game that brings families together around the table, it’s fast enough to set up that kids don’t get bored waiting and it’s interesting…