Playing Card Information

Dale Yu: Review of The Glorious Guilds of Buttonville

The Glorious Guilds of Buttonville Designers: Christian Kudahl, Erik Andersson Sunden Publisher: Ravensuburger Players: 2-4 Age: 8+ Time: 30 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4o9mttf Played with review copy provided by publisher The village of Buttonville is undoubtedly the most glorious … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2026/01/01/dale-yu-review-of-the-glorious-guilds-of-buttonville/">Continue reading →</a>

Travel to Gold Country, Return to Las Vegas, and Await the New Condottiere

On a turn, roll all unplaced dice, choose a single value that you rolled, then place all dice of that value on the casino of the same value.Take turns until all dice have been placed. For each casino, whoever has placed the most dice on it claims the most valuable bill, then the player with the next most dice takes the other bill — but if two or more players have the most dice, then you remove those dice from play and re-evaluate who has the most. After three rounds, whoever has the most money w

Master Jumping, Build an Ancient Empire, and Prepare Eternal Decks

Here's a handful of what I've seen publishers pitching:▪️ In January 2024, I wrote about new editions of two trick-taking games — Yeon-Min Jung's Boast or Nothing and Takashi Sakaue's My Favorite Carrera RS Trick Taking Game — that will be coming from Portland Game Collective.PGC planned to run a crowdfunding campaign for these two editions — now titled, respectively, Best of Neapolitan and Zoom Zoom Vroom — in mid-2025, then put those plans on hold due to unexpected tariffs being imposed on go

Dale Yu: Review of Australis

Australis Designer: Alessandro Zucchini & Leo Colovini Publisher: Kosmos Players: 2-4 Age: 10+ Time: 60 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/43Guqi5 Played with review copy provided by publisher Stand your ground in the East Australian Current where you have to make … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/31/dale-yu-review-of-australis/">Continue reading →</a>

'We're all family': Old friends keep tradition of playing cards in Omaha's Little Italy alive

An old group of Italian friends continues a long tradition of playing cards in Omaha's Little Italy every Tuesday.

SOTD Game of spades Double Bonus

Fragrance of the Day Game of Spades Double Bonus is fresh, smooth, and quietly confident. No noise. No chasing. Just clean ...

Dale Yu: Review of Point Galaxy

Point Galaxy Designers: Molly Johnson, Robert Melvin, Shawn Stankewich Publisher: AEG Players: 1-5 Age: 10+ Time: 15-30 minutes Amazon affiliate link: https://amzn.to/4ofH7qY Played with review copy provided by publisher Point Galaxy takes the same simple concept of drafting cards and … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/30/dale-yu-review-of-point-galaxy/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diaries: Even More Trivia (Part 2)

As an opportunity to rest during the long read, you can answer trivia questions after each diary...in the style of the respective game, of course.Today I'll write about:▪️ Lost in Translation — a game about idioms for anyone interested in language(s)▪️ Quiz Challenge Europa — the questions change, but the answers stay the same▪️ Quiz-o-Meter — giving answers with a toy factor, inspired by graphs and baby booksLet's start.•••Lost in TranslationThis is a favorite among my own games! I have always

Alison Brennan: Game Snapshots – 2025 (Part 33)

Last one from me for the year so let’s cover some 2025 stats: – 310 new-to-me titles – 424 different titles – 818 plays – … <a href="https://opinionatedgamers.com/2025/12/29/alison-brennan-game-snapshots-2025-part-33/">Continue reading →</a>

Designer Diary: TacTile

by <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/blog/1?bloggerid=19297" >Joseph Bugbee</a> <div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8520589"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/BT5qItDLt3csuIwE_p_3_g__small/img/nJZUEfvDq8IlS6ogUFRSylcAXCo=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8520589.png" border=0></a></div>Hey, everyone, With <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/415808/tactile" >TacTile</a> blowing up on BGA, a lot of people have been asking about the creative process and where the idea for TacTile came from, so I've written this post to shed a little light on the game's backstory and share a few tips for aspiring designers along the way. Joe's take on game design: With TacTile and all my current designs, I start every process by asking myself the same question: How can I design the most fun game possible? I think it's important to ground yourself with this statement because I see too many designers (myself included) falling into the same trap of having a game idea and trying to "make it work". You end up spending forever adding more and more junk to overcompensate for a core game that just isn't that fun to begin with. One thing I've learned from studying start-ups is that generally the best way to create a strong product is to start with something already popular, improve it, then test! test! test! During testing, I try to uncover how players want to play the game, then I try to create game incentives that reinforce how my players already want to play, creating a positive feedback loop. A fun, unique, core mechanism with a solid positive feedback structure usually ends up being a fun game. Designing TacTile Step 1: Find a fun core mechanism TacTile was actually my second project. I developed my first game, <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/412762/widgets-n-digit-dollar" >Widgets n' Digit$</a>, with <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/159337/alexander-cheng" >Alex Cheng</a> and like every first game design we tried a million mechanisms. One of the key learnings from WnD was how much everyone enjoyed card abilities and card combos. This inspired me to begin work on a game focused entirely on card abilities and card combos. <center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8671335"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/RsBpfVrGxDDgsjpMoaDVqg__small/img/IMDeqaETj7FaoWSwNz5i4g-HDog=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8671335.png" border=0></a></div></center> Step 2: Improve the mechanism When it comes to how card combos are typically done in games, I think about games like <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266192/wingspan" >Wingspan</a> or <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/167791/terraforming-mars" >Terraforming Mars</a>. In these games, you have this huge stack of cards and tons of abilities, and the fun comes from finding the best cards and trying to set up combos. My problem with this approach is that it disproportionally adds complexity over strategy. Each card adds to the rules complexity of the game, but you don't use every card. This results in a player experience in which you've got to read a lot of cards, you're always going to the rulebook for edge cases and weird situations, and ultimately you'll end up using few of the cards in a game, so all that reading and figuring out rules time is wasted, or you'll spend a lot of time setting up a combo that you can perform only a few times before game's end. <center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8671337"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/5wdvfPdjSNhrTOAHrtGWhg__small/img/1WNAYXz59tuCST35FhphDKmNyjc=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8671337.png" border=0></a></div></center> Step 3: Bringing it all together I decided that instead of a bunch of cards with a few possible combos I would create few cards but they would all combo. Instead of one big payoff at the end of the game, cards would be cheap and easy to acquire. Combos would happen early and often, leading to massive combos at game's end. The result is TacTile, which features the world's simplest objective: Get to the other side. The design uses only three cards — move a tile, push an opponent one tile, gain a resource — yet it is by no means a simple game. A few simple building blocks turn the game into a sandbox where the burden is on the player to visualize their path, anticipate their opponent's actions, and devise the most efficient engine. Early and often combos create a powerful snowballing effect, leading to early tension that escalates rapidly. I discovered that by removing fluff I had opened the door to deep emergent strategy. The barrier to players was no longer the rules, but their ability to adapt to new situations and out-vision their opponents. Strategy, not memorization, was king. <center><div style=''><a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/image/8671340"><img src="https://cf.geekdo-images.com/MwLPWR2bZygEqodl-pYTRw__small/img/wFOzhl5sBvJv6_E_t0XHPaqaEP4=/fit-in/200x150/filters:strip_icc()/pic8671340.png" border=0></a></div></center> Final Thoughts Personally, I don't feel that I created TacTile as much as I defined the parameters for a fun game, then by iterative process TacTile came into existence. I feel this is the only way a highly emergent strategy game like TacTile can be made. It's difficult to design for emergent strategy, but when you discover an elegant system emergent strategy arises naturally. <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/159336/joseph-bugbee" >Joe Bugbee</a>

Dale Yu: Review of Four Corner Detective

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 →</a>

Designer Diary: Sidekick Saga

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

Opinionated Gamers Quick Takes 2025 – Part 2

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 →</a>

Designer Diary: Yin Yang

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

Dale Yu: Review of Formidable Farm

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 →</a>

Designer Diary: The Development of Eastern Empires

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

Thanksgaming 2025

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 →</a>

Doug G: Review of Covenant

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 →</a>

Designer Diaries: One Quiz Game After Another (Part 1)

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

SETI Adds Portugal’s Jogo do Ano to Its Win Total

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 →</a>