what root and other board games gain and lose in digital format
Modern board games suffer from the difficulty of onboarding new players. More often than not, players rely on one patient friend who has either played the game before or read all the rules prior to the gaming session. As the…
wingspan bonus cards reference list with applicable birds
Wingspan’s bonus cards showcase the thoughtful balance of the board game. In the original game, there are twenty-six bonus cards that award the player who has them bonus points for achieving different goals. As an exercise, I’ve created a list…
hearthstone mercenaries mode is only good for the grind
The most recent new mode to arrive in Hearthstone was Mercenaries, in October 2021. Another distinct departure from traditional Hearthstone, this also differed from Battlegrounds and Duels in interesting ways. One notable trait was the procedural generation of maps of…
hearthstone duels is its best designed game mode, with the least support
Duels was the Hearthstone mode we all knew was coming. Its format was the most logical next step for a collectible card game whose number of cards and mechanics were growing at an unsustainable rate. Personally, I think Duels is…
hearthstone battlegrounds: a card-based auto battler experiment in game design
2019. The year before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world. In games, this was the year of the auto battler. Dota’s Auto Chess mod debuted in January, becoming a resounding success. By June, Riot had jumped on the trend,…
comparing hearthstone’s game modes: battlegrounds, duels and mercenaries
Hearthstone has evolved significantly over the past two years. In 2020, the introduction of its first new class, Demon Hunter, and the initially contested new rewards track have been two of the largest changes the game has seen so far.…
wingspan game review: the best cards match strategy mechanics to real birds
If there’s one game that’s captured my imagination — and my time — recently, it’s Wingspan. I’ve played dozens of rounds of the bird-themed board game, against friends and against the AI on Steam. Wingspan is about collecting bird cards…
the best improvements to hearthstone’s rewards track
I’ll admit, I give Hearthstone a hard time on this blog. But that’s only because I have such a high standard for the awesome card game that captured my imagination way back in 2014. It’s been a mainstay on my gaming list…
what went wrong with hearthstone’s new reward system
In November 2020, Blizzard revamped Hearthstone‘s reward system in a major way for the first time since the popular card game’s release in 20141. But after the new reward system’s release on 11th November, there was an outcry amongst unhappy…
