Category Archives: board games

House of Danger: CYOA book to tabletop game

Posted on August 8, 2019 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

House of Danger is an adaptation of a Choose Your Own Adventure book into a card-based format, sold in a box in board-game format. Considered purely as game design, this might seem wrong-headed. Turning a choice-based book into a board … Continue reading →

Posted in board games, cyoa, interactive fiction, review | 2 Comments

T.I.M.E. Stories

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

T.I.M.E. Stories is an adventure game in glossy board game packaging. Like Pandemic Legacy, it’s a one-shot board game, near-pointless to replay once you’ve won; you’re engaged in investigation, uncovering fixed, scripted information. (Unlike Pandemic Legacy, the process of play doesn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in board games, interactive fiction, review | 2 Comments

Pandemic Legacy

Posted on May 29, 2016 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Pandemic is a co-operative board game in which you play an international response team fighting against global disease outbreaks. There’s a lot of Arkham Horror in Pandemic‘s genes: the gnawing sense of anxiety that you’re always just on the brink of being … Continue reading →

Posted in board games | 4 Comments

A Year Without Zombies 12: Teach Us To Care and Not To Care

Posted on January 10, 2016 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

(For 2015, I am trying to avoid playing any games or consuming any static media with zombies in them. My reasons, and other fun things like ‘what exactly counts as a zombie?’, are explained here.) I’m done. On the stroke of … Continue reading →

Posted in board games, videogames | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

A Year Without Zombies 9: Down Among The Dead Men

Posted on September 4, 2015 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

(For 2015, I am trying to avoid playing any games or consuming any static media with zombies in them. My reasons, and other fun things like ‘what exactly counts as a zombie?’, are explained here.) I’m definitely in a slump when … Continue reading →

Posted in board games, interactive fiction, videogames | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

A Year Without Zombies 5: Zed is for Zion

Posted on May 21, 2015 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

(For 2015, I am trying to avoid playing any games or consuming any static media with zombies in them. My reasons, and other fun things like ‘what exactly counts as a zombie?’, are explained here.) Hankerings Avoided Around mid-April I took … Continue reading →

Posted in board games, rpg, videogames | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

A Year Without Zombies

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

I don’t generally do New Year’s resolutions, but here’s the one I’m planning on. For 2015, I won’t buy or play anything that features zombies. (This is mostly a computer game thing, but I also won’t play RPGs or consume static … Continue reading →

Posted in board games, interactive fiction, rpg, videogames | Tagged , | 40 Comments

my uncle Toby

Posted on May 4, 2010 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

I wrote ages ago about Little Wars, the first published wargame, authored by H.G. Wells. Since then, I’ve come across a considerably earlier ancestor. In Laurence Sterne’s serial novel Tristram Shandy, Tristram’s uncle Toby is a captain in the British army; … Continue reading →

Posted in board games | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Cool Shit I Never Knew About

Posted on October 11, 2007 by Sam Kabo Ashwell

Via the ever-awesome Play This Thing: H.G. Wells designed an influential miniatures war game, Little Wars – a turn-based game played with tin soldiers and toy cannon, suitable for adults and children over twelve. Though simple, it’s an obvious ancestor of modern table-top … Continue reading →

Posted in board games | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment