Author: Jason

Muse is a party game for 2 to 12 players, designed by Jordan Sorenson and published by Quick Simple Fun Games. Original art contributed by Apoline Etienne, Andre Garcia, and Kristen Plescow In 2008, Dixit began what I like to call the “beautiful Rorschach” movement in board games. The secret sauce of Dixit’s mega-success lied not only in the amazing art, but also in that the art intentionally evoked and encouraged multiple interpretations. The cards were, in a sense, lovely ink blots that offered interesting windows into what you saw and how you thought. Mysterium (not even going to try…

V-Commandos is a cooperative game set in World War II, designed by Thibauld de la Touanne and published by Triton Noir. What’s the difference between V-Commandoes and other World War II, mission-driven games? Rather than tell you, I will illustrate with scenes from the Rambo movie franchise. A lot of folks conjure this type of image when they think of Rambo: V-Commandos goes another route. Instead, it offers gameplay much more similar to some of the action in the original Rambo movie, First Blood: In a similar manner to John Rambo surgically dismantling Sheriff Teasle’s search party, the heroes in…

Darkest Night is a cooperative game in a fantasy setting for 1-4 players, designed by Jeremy Lennert and published by Victory Point Games. For quite a long time, gamers knew Victory Point Games for two things: fun gameplay from their games, and for a level of print quality that could charitably be described as… not so excellent. VPG printed and packaged their games in-house, often resulting in sooty token sheets, substandard paper quality, and game boxes that looked like they were borrowed from a pizza shop. While some gamers looked past the component issues to focus on the games themselves,…

I’m not really one to put out a lot of Top Ten Lists. I will probably explain why in a future episode of Every Night is Game Night. But the people like lists! Especially around this time of year. So, without further ado, here are my top games of 2017. 10) Century: Spice Road I can’t think of a single thing this game does that’s different, or better, than so many other games out there. Start with cubes, change them in for different cubes, build up certain cube combos for cash-in, repeat. However, Century: Spice Road does this in such…

One Deck Dungeon is a card and dice driven game of dungeon exploration and survival for 1-2 players. It was designed by Chris Cieslik and published by Asmadi Games. I think at this point, I can safely skip the usual rules explanation since One Deck Dungeon has become very popular. Rules explanations on YouTube and elsewhere are plentiful. So, before I get into the review of Forest of Shadows, I’d like to share some of my pros and cons for the original One Deck Dungeon, while also touching upon some of the changes in v. 1.5. What I Liked and…

Shadowscape is a card-based, small box, dungeon crawling adventure game for 1-4 players that can be played competitively or cooperatively. It was designed by Blazej Kubacki and published by NSKN Games. I love a good adventure board game. I grew up on D&D, but I’ve also come to love games like Descent/ Imperial Assault, Gloomhaven, Mistfall, and lots more. However, I have a hard time getting them to the table as often as I want because of their size. Between setup/ teardown, reading scenario rules, and actually playing the thing, I could probably have used that time on 2-3 other…

Untold: Adventures Await is an open-ended, cooperative story-telling game for 1 – 4 players, designed by John Fiore and Rory O’Connor, published by Creativity Hub. Over the past few years, more and more publishers have pursued the ideal of a “board game that tells stories” (to steal the title of Ignacy Trzewiecek’s BGG blog). As as result, many modern board games weave narrative into their mechanisms in ways that make them more than mere flavor text. Tales of the Arabian Nights set the standard for ‘wacky adventures on a board’ in 2009. Ryan Laukat’s Above and Below and Near and…

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the first annual Every Night is Game Night Solo awards! Anthony and I would like to look back and reward the best in solo gaming over the past year. Also, because so many of the games on this list are cooperative, we figured we’d throw a little love that way, as well. We are going to finalize our nominees and make a final determination for awards sometimes in January. Some very key games will come out at the end of the year (i.e., Charterstone, Gaia Project, Fallout, and more), so we want to hold off…

Finished! is a solitaire card game designed by Friedmann Friese and published by Stronghold Games in the United States. If you are a hobby gamer who likes solitaire card games, you are almost certainly familiar with Onirim by Shadi Torbey and Friday by Friedmann Friese. You can get MANY other excellent solitaire card games, but these two have deservedly risen above the pack. Yet, while Shadi Torbey has continued to design in the solitaire space via his Oniverse series, Friedmann Friese has unleashed his mad design genius in all sorts of different directions… Until now! Finished! represents Friedmann Friese’s first…

Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Card Game is a thematic deckbuilding card game for 1-4 players, designed by Keith Baker and published by Renegade Game Studios*. *[I will be working for Renegade Game Studios during PAX Unplugged 2017 and demoing this game. Therefore, in the interest of transparency, I will refrain from giving this game a final score. I hope that my written pros and cons will stand on their own and prove useful to you.] I’m probably a bit old to go gaga at the prospect of a Scott Pilgrim game. I was born in 1977, so I’m more likely…