The Board Game Book: Volume 1

Product Information

Burdened with the quest of delivering the one ring to Mordor, you and your companions must travel across the realm of middle earth and safely destroy the one ring. All whilst avoiding the searching Eye of Sauron. Are you up to the challenge? Imagine if you were in charge of writing the history of our world. Scary responsibility, right? The quote “History is written by the victors” springs to mind. How do you cover everything? A lot of stuff has happened. Everyone deserves to have their achievements etched into the tapestries of time! In Books of Time, players are rival scribes, so to speak, looking to create three books. One about industry, one about science and the other about trade. How will you decide to tell the tale of Earth’s past achievements? But when it comes to oversized, complex strategy games that get played over a serious length of time, there could be only one game that I think of. I must say my mind went to a couple of very different places with this. Firstly, the idea of a society so intertwined with a game, with pieces that evolved into other forms during play; where learning the game begins in childhood and the best players hold positions of power and/or are worshipped like gods? Surely this could only be describing the Pokemon franchise, which materialised five years later. True, the book and the game both go to their own dark places, but evolving game pieces – can I get a Pika-Pika?

Most of my favourite books fall into this dystopian category and so I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise that this is a board game theme that also really appeals to me too! It’s A Wonderful World is an amazing game where you are drafting cards and building an engine over 4 short simultaneous play rounds. During the draft phase, you select cards to either slate for construction and build or to recycle and scrap for a one-time resource. To build cards you will need to place resource cubes onto it, and as soon as all of these required resources are placed the building gets constructed and will either start producing for you or accruing end of game scoring opportunities. I read this book pretty early, probably before I even really got into board games strangely enough. I definitely have to reread it now to fully benefit from it. Did you hear? Ravensburger are taking the Hobbits to Isenguard! That’s right, following in the steps of previous adventure book releases such as; the Princess Bride and Alice in Wonderland. Ravensburger is now taking on Tolkien's thrilling adventure in the Lord of the Rings Adventure Book. One thing I expected to see – because the Board & Dice catalogue have spoiled us before – was a variant of the rewards on the Civ Board. It’s not crucial, but that kind of modular aspect could provide further unique strategies. But that is the most minor of quibbles… The book has a bit of a potpourri approach. Some chapters I enjoyed, others not so much. I would have preferred it to be more structured, and more consistent. However, if you want an insight into how several well-known board games were designed, this is perfect.If there is one genre of fiction that I really love, it has to be ‘dystopian future’. The epitome of this has to be 1984 by George Orwell, a book I recently re-read with my book group and thoroughly enjoyed diving into it. 1984 was written in the 1940s and detailed a future where Big Brother watched your every move, and language was contracted to remove some of the duplicate words. No synonyms! My idea of utter hell indeed. This book has a variety of contributors, each writing their own chapter on board game design related topics. From this book you learn about design mainly through reading essays about the design of several board games, including Agricola, Cosmic Encounter, and Pandemic, among many others. However, the chapter I found the most useful as an aspiring game designer was entitled “The Greatest Gift” and was about the early stages of the design process. I just wish more of the book was filled with such practical information like this chapter. Honestly, I would recommend this book to all gamers, because Azad is tantalisingly intriguing and, as far as I can see, an inspiration for at least three big game licences properties. The game itself is comprised of different games, played in rounds. The first rounds are played using cards to gain advantage on the three massive main boards, the Boards of Origin, Form and Becoming. These boards are large enough to walk on and the pieces are ‘biomechs’ that transform into their final form on the Boards, depending on their interaction with the player. Other than that, all we find out is that the game is ‘strategic’ and so important that it is used to determine an Azadian’s position (or health) in their deeply flawed society. The new Essential edition includes brilliant asymmetrical landscape maps, new civic buildings, and other cool twists from the Capitals expansion to the original game.

Robin Stevens’ First Class Murder and the EXIT: The Game entry Dead Man on the Orient Express both use the above aspects of the genre to create wonderfully thrilling mysteries for their readers and players. It really narrowed down the choice to story-driven games, so I went to my favourite which is The Adventures of Robin Hood. In this game, you and your friends play as Robin Hood and his companions, exploring different parts of Nottingham and Sherwood Forest in a continuous story. The Lord of the Rings Adventure Book Game is designed for 1-4 players from ages 1 and up. With play sessions lasting anywhere from 20-160 minutes each. Meaning this is the perfect family board game for a Sunday afternoon, filled with adventure and mystery. For an adventure book game, you gave a fantastic amount of components that are made to a very high quality. Inside the box, you’ll find:

There were many times when playing where I wasn’t able to afford the action I wanted. But then the Chronicle provided a way for me to achieve it! Having two choices gives you a decent range of paths to take on your turn. This level of flexibility means it’s rare that you have a turn that leaves you feeling, “Meh, that was bland.” I never felt overwhelmed with options, but there always seemed to be something cool I could accomplish. I had a few games on my shortlist for World Book Day. There are games with a link to a book series, like Red Rising (which I haven’t read) or Lord of the Rings (the only one I’ve played is Lord of the Rings Risk, so that doesn’t count), but then I had a brainwave… what about a game where you have to read a book during the gameplay? The range of paths to take in the game is widespread, but you need to adapt to your strategy in the moment. Like many Euros, efficiency is king. 15 turns feels like a lot at the start of the game, but this timer is in place for a reason… A Trio Of Tantalising Objective Tiles