Boards and Beers - Pirate Dice: Voyage on the Rolling Seas (Kickstarter Preview)

Our very good friend Taylor of Boards and Beers shares with us the following review. Take it away Taylor....

In my line of work, I have always found steering a pirate ship to be more difficult than it seems. What with the ropes and the sails and my complete lack of nautical knowledge, even I find it trying at times. However, every now and again a game comes along to truly inspire a new generation of young lads and lasses into becoming a pirate and taking to the seas on one of these awe-inspiring vessels. Today, this game is Pirate Dice: Voyage on the Rolling Seas.

Boards and Beers - Montage

Word games are not my friend. Growing up my mom loved to play Scrabble, but would pull no punches. So when you're 8 and are proud of spelling "cat", having mom throw down "scapulary" for a double word score you tend to not want to continue to play. But to each their own because if anything "Words With Friends" proves that plenty of people out there like the challenge of knowing more than me. Montage does a great job of doing this, while also adding in color coded word jumble, crossword puzzles, and clever clues while being timed. Its a wonder any who played with me survived.

Boards and Beers - Carnival

Ah yes, the carnival. A place where one can go to watch the oddest assortment of people wandering the fairgrounds. It is a place where mullets are in, and sleeves are out, and a mans self-worth is measured only by how much fried food can fit in his belly. It is the one place where you can go and see people who call you neighbors but you never knew of their existence. In a simpler time, these people were not allowed outside the sideshow tent, but we are a more accepting society now. And now, there's a game based on all the excitement there is to be found at the carnival. And what is this mysterious games name you ask?

Boards and Beers - Mondo

Ever wanted to build a series of islands in a timed fashion?

Boards and Beers - Panic Station

Cooperative games are a chaotic mess. More often than not there is a shared goal where players are supposed to come together and work as one in order to win. A few cooperative games do this well, like Pandemic or Forbidden island, and to an extent the D&D board games unified goal of "Get 'em" works for it. So much i happening all at once that it can be hard to keep track of what is happening, especially when players get to choose 2 or 3 actions from a list of like 40 things that they get to do during their turn. Yet through it all, everyone is on the same page, they do it up, and in the end its usually a pretty fun time, win or loose, because we're in it together. The shared experience, its what mom always wanted, where you play nice with your brother and sister and everyone has fun.

Then theres the games with the dirty traitor.

Boards and Beers - Confusion: Espionage and Deception in the Cold War

Back in the 80s there was a secret war going on. Also, the Cold War was happening which was not quite as cool as Spiderman and Wolverine high fiving on a distant moon in an alternate universe after beating up space Nazis and drinking cold beer, but it was a bit more well known of an event. Spies were everywhere, stealing secrets and hosting cooking shows. It was a pretty big deal.

More review after the jump Comrade

Boards and Beers - Knock Your Blocks Off

Like to flick dice, throw dice, or drop dice on or at other dice? Me too. I used to get into dice fights with my brother growing up where we would build the dice up in to massive towers and then start knocking them over with other dice. Eventually the dice would grow into tennis balls, then bowling balls, then straight up fist fights. Ah to be young, dumb, and full of dice. But that is then, this is now. Nowadays, this fun is organized and sold to you as a game that will teach you about patterns and matching too.

Review after the Jump

Boards and Beers - PitchCar

In the last couple of months, I have found myself playing a lot of Pitch Car and have become an internationally acclaimed dexterity-based racing champion. Not a day goes by without being recognized for my innate ability to flick stuff around a wooden track. My fame has gotten to the point where I have had to cancel all of my scheduled TV appearances out of fear of fan frenzy. Yet, I manage to stay humble.

Review after the Jump

Boards and Beers: Angry Birds the Board Game

Ok, so you have a problem with a pack of irate green pigs who want to sit on all of your furniture and random sheets of glass. You're pretty much at a loss as to what to do, so why not launch birds at them and hope that that solves it. I mean, whats the worst that can happen, right? well...

Angry Birds is a game that more or less every one is familiar with in some capacity. Be it they've played the video game on their iPhone/Android, or they've given a stuffed bird as a gift to someone, theres a really real chance that they are at the very least familiar with Angry birds. Question is, did they know there is a board game?

Boards and Beers - Elder Sign

Insanity! Madness! Woe and despair! All things that happen if you try to read an instruction manual from FFG and expect to play the game in the same night. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but it certainly seems to be true. The first time I tried to play Arkham Horror I sat down with the rules a full three hours before we sat down to play and started going through them, and we still had difficulties in understanding what we just read. In all fairness, that was a while ago, we started late at night, and there was much drinking to be had,  but not when reading over the rules mind you. Since then, AH has been a great game to play, but it rarely makes it to the table due to the sheer time commitment it takes to actually play the damn thing. However, FFG has recently release a game that is heavily similar in theme and plays in about a 1/5th of the time.

Boards and Beers - City Square Off

City Square off is a two-player game from Gamewright Games that puts players in a head to head competition of of city planning. You will immediately note that this is not a very good simulation of city planning, as it plays out in about 15-20 minutes, and involves no mechanics for planning committees, public hearings, budgeting sessions, or zoning. As much as I love planning committees, I think is safe to say that is probably for the best.

Review after the jump.

Boards and Beers - Ascending Empires

Up until recently I had never heard of a dexterity game. The concept of playing a board game that involves a bit of the ole flick of the wrist never occurred to me. Then, in one fell swoop I played a massive amount of them (well, three, but still). I've become a Crokinole master (though no one would agree with that statement), a racing mastermind in PitchCar, and most recently the commander of an ever expanding empire.

Ascending Empires from ZMan Games is part conquest, part exploration, part resource management, and is driven through flicking wooden spaceships around the board (on purpose). Within the game, humanity has moved on from Earth and has colonized the the galaxy with mini-empires, but now need to expand. This is where you come in.

Read more at Boards and Beers