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Gold Country: Review

Gold Country: Review  Introduction : Gold Country is a reimagining of Reiner Knizia 2012 Spectaculum. This is a stock manipulation game masked by a fun theme of gold mining in the old west. Players have three claim tokens that they have to place each turn. These tokens will slowly close the available spots on the board while also manipulating the value of each mine.  Game Anatomy: Board: There are two boards included in the game the standard board.  As well a second side which contains rivers and tunnels.  As well as new tokens such as gems that score five points at the end of the game; boats that let the players cross the river and dynamite which gives the player a surge of two extra claim tokens in the turn. In short these tokens add tokens that affect the player not the mine.  Claim Tokens: Each turn a player will start with three claim tokens they can place.  These claim tokens are ...
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Trails and Tails: Kickstarter Buzz Review

Trails and Tails: Review Information: Mechanics : Roll and Move, Take That Player Age :  6+ Player Count :  2 - 4 Time to Play:  20 - 40 Minutes  Year Published: 2026 Basics : I have always enjoyed when current games bring back a mechanism from childhood. Mancala games or the games that do a twist on chess are easy examples. Trails and Tails takes the premise of snakes and ladders into modern gaming. More importantly Trails and Tails takes roll and move and really opens the decision space on the standard  not often used mechanism.  Trails and Tails has players moving up, well, a snakes and ladders board. This time there are no ladders but only falls (or animals eating).  To move players have a set amount of dice each round that they can add or minus two dice together each turn and move that amount. This counts for even negative values allowing the player to move backwards.  With two to four dice thi...

Red Panda Suprise: Review

Red Panda Surprise: Review Information: Mechanics : Card Shedding, Filler, Simultaneous Play Player Age :  8+ Player Count : 1 - 7 Game Designer: Dylan Coyle Game Artist:  Dylan Coyle Publisher: Charming Games Collective Time to Play:  5 - 20 Minutes  Year Published: 2026 Introduction : Red Panda Surprise is a card shedding game, where players are combining the sums of two cards. Players with the highest combined value played, are discarding their cards. Everyone has mostly the same deck to shed. The catch is that whichever player plays the lowest sum gains a plus 10. When the standard set of cards only goes up to 11 this is a big sway of value.  Game Anatomy: Number Cards: Number Cards appear in seven sets featuring nine cards each. One for each player.  At lower player counts players will use two or three sets instead to create their deck.  The sets include numbered cards from 0 to 11 appearing once each. The exc...

Pond: Review

Pond: Review  Information: Mechanics:  Area Control, Assymetric, Deck Building Player Age: 13+  Player Count: 2 - 4 Players Time to Play:  30 - 60 Minutes  Game Designer: MingYang Lu Game Artist: PondHQ Publisher : Brother Ming Games Year Published: 2025 BGG Weight: 2.00 Disclaimer: A review copy for the game was provided by the publisher. Introduction : So far Brother Ming games seem to be focused on high interaction head to head games. This time they are exploring the calm nature of fwooogs, sorry frogs. Pond is an area control game with a good blend of light asymmetry and deck building.  Game Anatomy: Frog Cards: Anytime during the game five frog cards will be revealed and available for purchase. The frog with big net and the frog with two knives will also always be available for purchase.  Each frog card will have a berry cost on the top right, followed by points in the middle of the card. Each frog card ...