board games

About 6 months ago, I blogged about a new-to-me online service I’d come across: Board Game Arena. At the time, I’d just started using it for a while. It was a great way to connect with friends across the country and play any number of games with them. I felt it had a wide variety of games, even if some of their implementations could be a little clunky from time to time. There’s a free version that lets anyone play a selection of free games or any of the games, as long as one member of the group is a

It’s not too often I actually play a new game in real life these days. I’ve played more than a few on Board Game Arena, but the opportunities to get together with friends and learn a wholly new game have been limited to say the least. Usually it’s been more about playing old familiar games that we haven’t played in a while. Yesterday a friend from high school came by (yay vaccines!) and introduced me to a game he’s been hyping for the last while: Wingspan. I’m pleased to report it lived up to the hype. At its heart, Wingspan

I bought the original Gloomhaven shortly after it was released a few years ago. It’s a mammoth of a game: tons of components with a sprawling storyline, designed for a playgroup to explore the game over many, many sessions. I enjoyed playing it, but I had a hard time really getting a feel for the rules, and it always felt like I was just sort of winging it the whole time. After 5 sessions or so, we just kind of stopped playing. I wanted to play again, but it seemed like too much work to set it all up. Queue

I’ve always loved board games. From the hours I spent playing Monopoly as a kid to the hours I spent playing Risk as a teen to when I was first introduced to Settlers of Catan in college. I still play a fair number of them, and I have a self-confessed hoarding problem when it comes to them. And of course, with the pandemic raging everywhere, one area I thought I would really end up suffering in was in the opportunities I had to play board games with people outside my family. That’s what happened for the first while at least.