Seven years ago, Uwe Rosenberg’s Agricola took the modern board gaming world by storm, winning award after award and entrenching itself firmly atop the BoardGameGeek.com ratings, where it still resides comfortably as the third highest-rated game of all time. Its not flawless by any means, and many gamers opt to not even use the best — and to be fair, most complicated — aspect of the game: the occupation and minor improvement cards. The “family game” version sacrifices variability for simplicity, but loses little to none of the worker-placement struggle to avoid starvation as you develop your own farm. Now Rosenberg has revisited many of his Agricola mechanics for a sequel of sorts in Caverna: The Cave Farmers, which eliminates the cards altogether to provide one unified experience. READ MORE
Let’s be honest right up front and admit that the Mario Kart series has settled into the same familiar wheel-spinning evident in a lot of Nintendo’s long-running franchises lately. Of course, there really isn’t that much room for improvement, since the series has been incredible for just about its entire run. Mario Kart 8, like most of its predecessors, adds a couple of interesting new minor features, mixes up the roster (now including five babies and seven Koopalings!), and of course provides 16 incredible all-new tracks along with the now-standard 16 retro courses without noticeably breaking anything important. READ MORE
The whole “Mayan Calendar” doomsday scenario of late 2012 was an amusing, if ultimately pointless, event that will largely vanish into memory as time passes. For board game fans, however, it will forever be immortalized by the brilliant Tzolk’in: The Mayan Calendar, designed by Italian Daniele Tascani with help from fellow countryman Simone Luciani. Tzolk’in appeared on a truly impressive number of year’s best lists from late 2012 to early 2014, winning a half-dozen awards and nominated for at least twice as many more in that span. READ MORE
Worker placement is a recurring mechanic in a lot of modern board games. One of the very first games to use this mechanic was Caylus, designed by William Atta almost ten years ago. Nearly a decade after his debut creation, Atta has returned to the worker placement mindspace and turned it into Spyrium with some unique modifications. READ MORE
With the ability to turn production sketches directly into in-game assets, the UbiArt engine supplies some breathtakingly delicate visuals to Child of Light. The unique graphical design, combined with a haunting piano-dominated score, bring the story of Aurora’s journey through Lemuria to life in a way that will be remembered for a long time. While not flawless, this odd blend of turn-based RPG and flying platformer is certainly an experience worth investigating. READ MORE
