Four Corner Detective Designer: Yoshihisa Itsubaki Publisher: itten Players: 1-5 Age: 6+ Time: 15 mins Played with review copy provided by publisher Guess the four-digit number with your fingertips. Four Corner Detective is a new tactile card game in which … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/26/dale-yu-review-of-four-corner-detective/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
One of my favorite of her pieces is the army of snowmen — so creepy and so what I wanted!I also had William Liberto help out, mostly with the heroic items as I wanted them to have a similar and consistent vibe, and he did a great job.Final ThoughtsI am proud of Sidekick Saga as it's the game I wanted to make, a superhero game with an overarching story! It has exploration, co-operative drafting, every card being useful in one way or another, and ways for the sidekicks to be clever in their combin
Happy Holidays to everyone! As the year comes to a close, another Quick Takes column We’ve started a tradition of writing a group document with very short takes on the games that we play. Of course, you’ll not … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/25/opinionated-gamers-quick-takes-2025-part-2/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Players will arrange the same six coins across phases in different combinations to provide different effects, and these game actions are also subtly based on actual divination results listed in "I Ching”.Yin Yang uses Zhou Dynasty as the historical background because "I Ching" was so popular at that time. More specifically, the game uses the seven regions of the Warring States Period as the background for regional control, and also uses the four most valuable goods of this period as the resource
Formidable Farm Designer: Friedemann Friese Publisher: 2F Players: 1-4 Age: 10+ Time: 30-45 min Played with review copy provided by publisher In Formidable Farm, you tirelessly try to fulfill the wishes of the village population for field crops. At the … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/24/dale-yu-review-of-formidable-farm/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
The "Civilization Advances" are balanced for the current system of calamities.Most importantly, the trade system requires sufficient cards in rotation each round, so that enough wealth is inserted into the player's hand in order to be able to acquire the advances they need to keep the game going.Testing Eastern EmpiresCreating a 3-4 player ScenarioWhile testing games on the map board, it became clear soon that an equal balance of neighbors is very much required to provide both interaction and co
I’m thankful for a lot of things – for example, I’ve been married 35 years to a wonderful non-gamer wife who encourages my board game hobby/obsession despite her near-complete lack of interest in playing board games. For a guy in … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/23/thanksgaming-2025/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Covenant Designer: German Millan Publisher: Devir Players: 1-4 Age: 14+ Time: 100 minutes Played with review copy provided by publisher Heavy games…require effort. They command our attention and patience as we attempt to digest the rules. They demand our time … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/23/doug-g-review-of-covenant/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
To give you a chance to rest during the long read, you can answer trivia questions after each diary...in the style of the respective game, of course.In this first part I'll talk about:▪️ Scope — geography trivia with a cool gadget to show the solution▪️ Quiziko — if you just wait, random wrong answers go away▪️ Fake Check — half the statements are facts, half are fakesLet's start...•••Scope — with Arno SteinwenderIn 2018, a few months before my first visit to Spielwarenmesse, the annual toy and
As we prepare to ring out the gaming year of 2025, it’s obvious which title dominated the Game of the Year awards. Tomas Holek’s SETI, published by CGE, swept through the awards like E.T. on a flying bicycle. It recently … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/22/seti-adds-portugals-jogo-do-ano-to-its-win-total/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
I recently lifted my rating of Forest Shuffle to a 9. It’s now at 40+ plays and it continues to be requested on BGA on a lot of game nights. I’m noting this here because we tried out Forest Shuffle: … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/22/alison-brennan-game-snapshots-2025-part-32/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
by Felix Sonne Dice Duelo is a semi-abstract, two-player dice-placement game set in the Wild West. You are playing as a gambler-duelist — it's the Wild West, what do you expect? — who will duel to the death on a poker table...with dice.The premise of the game is that each duelist's revolver has six bullets, which are their dice. They take turns loading their bullets, one by one into the cylinders, then they "shoot" their opponent by forming a poker combination on the game board. The catch? You w
Splendor Kids Designer: Marc André, Catherine André Publisher: Space Cowboys Players: 2-4 Age: 6+ Time: 30 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4q9AO9S Played with review copy provided by publisher Play travelers that deliver food across the kingdom. Splendor is a game … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/21/two-different-takes-on-splendor-splendor-kids-and-splendor-silk-road-expansion/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Marvel Skirmish in New York Designer: Matthias Cramer Publisher: Lookout Games Players: 2 Age: 10+ Time: 30 mins Amazon affiliate link: Played with review copy provided by publisher Old friends and enemies meet in the streets of New York, and … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/20/dale-yu-review-of-marvel-skirmish-in-new-york/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
A PUB punter has been left stunned after spotting an Oscar-nominated actor alongside his huge popstar girlfriend in a London boozer. The pair...
They are:• Lunar City, which focuses on attracting civilian settlers to the Moon.• Undermoon, which introduces an advanced excavation system, allowing players to dig tunnels beneath their existing structures.• Zenith Works, which permits players to collaborate with a powerful construction conglomerate to build shared infrastructure.▪️ On December 12, 2025, Gigamic released Qomet, a two-player game from Fabrice Puleo that joins other "Q" titles in the publisher's abstract strategy series such as
That added a meaningful strategic constraint.At the same time, I simplified the bonus scoring by allowing bonus cards to be claimed directly when forming certain combinations (such as pairs or color triples), eliminating the need for separate point cards.In other words, the theme didn't just make the game more beautiful; it improved the mechanisms of play.Tweaking the FansI researched Japanese folding fans, the "Sensu", and focused on three traditional types (without worrying too much about hist
Tulikko Designer: Jerome SOleil and Nicolas Melet Publisher: Studio H Players: 2-4 Age: 8+ Time: 20 mins Amazon affiliate link: Played with review copy provided by publisher Legend has it that Tulikko, the fire fox, lives hidden among the animal … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/19/dale-yu-review-of-tulikko/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Since 2019, I’ve been a devoted fan (and playtester) for the Unmatched: Battle of Legends game system – and been part of epic face-offs between so many different heroes in so many diverse locations. (There are – if you’ve acquired … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/18/unmatched-float-like-a-butterfly-sting-like-a-pizza-scarfing-ninja-turtle/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>
Take Time Designers: Alexi Piovesan, Julien Prothiere Publisher: Libellud Players: 2-4 Age: 10+ Time: 30 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/48MVKOv Played with review copy provided by publisher Take Time is a cooperative game where players either win or lose together. … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/18/dale-yu-review-of-take-time/">Continue reading <span class="meta-nav">→</span></a>