I'm doing a little bit of a different take on the "fantasy board game" theme this week. This is a puzzle, but one whose artwork speaks directly...
The Puzzled Patron
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Games
I’ve always been a gamer, from the first Atari 2600 my dad put in my hands. As many of you know, frustrations with my friends throwing monkey wrenches in my carefully-plotted D&D campaigns gave rise to my writing career in the first place. This column covers some of my favorite SciFi- and Fantasy-themed games of all kinds.
Incoming Transmission: Space Stations Are Hard Enough to Fix…
If only the antenna wasn’t the first thing broken. Incoming Transmission is a co-op puzzle game wherein a team tries to complete a set of repairs to...
Diablo: Point, Click, Loot, Repeat!
Though others came before it, 1997’s Diablo redefined and became the exemplar of the Action Role-Playing Game (ARPG) genre. ARPGs are...
Whispers of a Machine
An inventive puzzle game with a “killer” plot…PLUS cyber tools One of my guilty pleasures is the murder mystery. One or more people are dead. We...
Dice Throne – A cool adventure…or “Yahtzee with hitpoints”
Dice Throne is a fantasy combat game that, boiled down to its core, is “Yahtzee with hitpoints.” Each custom hero comes with their own playing board...
EarthBreak: Omega Protocol – Finally…a mystery game for the SciFi crowd
Experience a next level whodunnit mystery with aliens, AI, and a paranoid band of human survivors. EarthBreak: Omega Protocol is a mystery puzzle...
Skyrim created a world too awesome to bother saving
If you’re familiar with Skyrim, congratulations. You don’t need to be told. But for everyone else, this 2011 Bethesda game is a classic. There, I’ve...
Truberbrook: Twin Peaks meets Fringe
Truberbrook is a point-and-click mystery game set in a quaint little town in the mountains of Germany. And by quaint, I mean batshit crazy. It’s an...
It’s like D&D without the D&D
If you’ve never played D&D but always been intrigued by the concept, Lord’s of Waterdeep is a great tabletop board game to get you a taste. Set...
You Like Weird Games, Right?
Point & click mysteries are a guilty pleasure. They’re cooperative, so my wife and I don’t need to be opponents. They’re not timed, so they’re...
Boss Monster
Tired of Good Always Winning? Boss Monster is a game where you are the evil ruler of a stereotypical fantasy dungeon. You preside over a lair...
The Only Fun Pandemics
The two classic responses to crises are avoidance and action. If you don’t want to hear any more about rampant diseases and what to do about them,...
An RPG you have time to play
Sleeping Gods is a different sort of RPG. Or board game. Or both. See, this is where it gets a little hybridy. It’s a board game with a map...
Beat Saber
You had me at lightsabers. IMHO, the best VR game. Ask any child from the Star Wars era whether they’d like to play with a lightsaber, and it’s a...
The best of games / The worst of games
I don’t feel like I’m doing it a disservice to call Dwarf Fortress the game with the worst user interface in the history of successful...
For the Horde!
I played World of Warcraft waaaaaay back in the day, back when there didn’t need to be suffixed qualifiers to explain...
Heroes are More than Tavern Brawls
If you're a fan of board games, there's a good chance you've at least heard of Red Dragon Inn, even if you haven't played it. Well, that...
Firefly: You can’t take this board game from me
I've never made a secret of Firefly being one of the main inspirations of my Black Ocean universe. And when it comes to themed board games, there...
Seasons: more than just awesome dice
Today I want to talk about a wonderfully whimsical game called Seasons. It is high fantasy in a vacuum. It is a myth without context, or any attempt...
Race for the Galaxy
The game I'll never get sick of I play a lot of board games. I love sci-fi. Where the two of these passions best overlap is a board game called Race...
RPGs: the Fantasy Author’s Gateway Drug to Writing
This past weekend, I got together with the same group of guys I've been gaming with since the mid-'90s for some tabletop D&D action. Even though...
Stellaris
I'm battling cyborgs, building Dyson spheres, and corrupting primitive societies with advanced tech... I can't be the only gamer around here, can I?...