ISS Vanguard was one of the most anticipated games for me. The game is about exactly what I dreamed of: you are the captain of a spaceship exploring amazing new worlds. Perhaps the most attractive setting for any fan of science fiction. In part, the grand idea of the authors came true: the game turned out to be thematic and with an exciting plot. Exploring the worlds and discovering new things is very exciting, and the narrative in the app is excellent (although I had to turn down the loud background music first).  It was not easy to break through the training mode, but in general the game is very clearly structured. The rulebook, player notes, ship's logbook, text on the cards — everything is quite simple and clear, despite the fact that the action is divided into several stages. All components are of excellent quality. Admittedly, I didn't splurge on the special kickstarter dice, but the basic ones are very nice, and the reviews on the kickstarter dice are mixed. I didn't buy a full set of miniatures either, which I didn't regret; all the small ones are completely unnecessary, except for the character models from the base box. Even the built-in organizer is very good here - however, the cards fit very tightly and it is not easy to find/pull out the necessary ones (and this is despite the fact that I did not put them in protectors). As for the game itself... The gameplay in ISS Vanguard is essentially to create obstacles in the way of the story and to make the decisions you make seem more meaningful. In this respect, it does its job of setting the pace of the game and giving you options to choose from. Like a gate guarding interesting secrets, technologies, pieces of the plot and setting. But if it wasn't for the setting and if the game was about, say, trains or harvesting, then I would definitely pass. The mechanics of ISS Vanguard are not too fan and shallow.  Gameplay decisions basically come down to which die to roll and whether to roll..

 If you've ever wanted to be in the shoes of Indiana Jones: collecting ancient artifacts around the world and fighting Nazis, gangsters and cultists, this is your chance. Fortune & Glory from Flying Frog Productions tries to bring the atmosphere of a classic action novel to the table with a try-your-luck mechanic, dice-based combat and, most importantly, a stylish soundtrack CD. A little about Flying Frog Productions: all of their games (whether zombies, aliens, or action-packed adventures) have a strong emphasis on atmosphere. The mechanics are hardly elegant: they consist of a lot of dice rolls and drawing a lot of cards with a lot of artistic text. However, their games are often boring.  Fortune & Glory is designed for 1-8 players aged 12+ (I suspect this is due to the setting). According to the box, a game takes 90-180 minutes, but its duration can vary greatly depending on the number of participants and the selected game mode: solo, competitive, team-competitive or cooperative. Yes, I played one solo game in 45 minutes, but I was probably just lucky. If you order the game directly from Flying Frog (or buy from them at one of their tabletop shows), you'll get an extra pair of promo cards. COMPONENTS I will not list all the components - there are a lot of them. The set comes with a hefty trifold box (one of the reasons the box is so huge), almost 50 plastic figures (heroes, villains, temples), piles of plastic coins (which you use to mark your wealth and fame) and dice, and hundreds of cards. And even bigger cardboard sheets of characters and villains and stacks of tokens, including those that are useless in themselves but can be useful in homemade or future scenarios. And, of course, Flying Frog's signature feature is a soundtrack CD.  All cardboard is of very high quality: dense, with a glossy finish. The cubes are ordinary: small hexagons. The miniatures look pretty nice, with a unique figure for each hero and villain, plus a..

 Drako is a game about a young dragon trapped in a valley and trying to save his skin from money-hungry gnome mercenaries. Since he's chained (for now) it won't be easy to escape, but the dragon is still full of strength and can breathe fire. On the dwarves' side is a long-range crossbow and a fishing net. Who will win in this fight? ABOUT THE GAME  Drako is a duel in which one player takes on the role of a dragon and the other three dwarves. The dragon's goal is to survive (hold out until the gnome uses up all actions) or kill all the gnomes. The goal of the dwarves is to kill the dragon before it flies away.  Drako is an asymmetric game. Although the goals of the participants are similar, each has their own strengths and weaknesses and different play styles. The dwarves must act aggressively to injure the dragon as quickly as possible. They are strong in a group and well protected, but it is better not to face a lizard 1v1.  If the number of dwarves decreases, it will become much more difficult to fulfill the victory condition. The dragon is very strong, but in order to use all of its abilities (flight, mobility and fire breathing), it needs to actively move around the field and attack from a safe position. At the heart of Drako are card-based actions. When playing cards, the dragon and dwarves attack, move, or use special abilities COMPONENTS  A medium-sized box (roughly from Battle for the Galaxy) contains 2 mini-tablets for both players, 1 field, 1 dragon token, 3 dwarf tokens (all three different), some tokens, and two decks of 38 cards, one of each the player The components are quite high-quality, nicely illustrated, and the small ones look great - at the level of FFG ones. Let's take a closer look at the cards, since the mechanics are tied to them. Each card has one or two symbols. They reflect what action a player can take after playing that card. If there are two symbols, then choose one of the two.  The following actions are..

 You have inherited an old distillery and are burning with the desire to restore the former glory of the family business.  Over the course of seven rounds, you'll learn spirits recipes, buy the right ingredients for them, create drinks, sell them and improve your distillery. All this in order to earn the most victory points and become the best master of his craft. At the beginning of the game, each player will receive two characters, of which he must keep one for himself. The choice of character depends on what ability you will have, what will be the size of the starting capital and what will be the starting ingredients.  In addition to this, each character has their own signature recipe, ingredient and affiliation to a certain region.  At the beginning of the game, each player will receive 3 cards of personal goals, for the achievement of which at the end of the game he will receive additional victory points. You need to keep only two of the three goal cards.  The game lasts 7 rounds, each of which is divided into 4 phases: MARKET PHASE During this phase, players make 1 buyer each and pass the move until everyone says "pass". Each drink necessarily consists of three ingredients: water, yeast and sugar.  1. In the regular market you can buy: yeast, water, one of three types of sugar and containers for storing the drink. When you buy yeast or water from the regular market, you get the bonus indicated on the card (1 coin or view a card from the deck of the elite market with the possibility of purchasing it).  In the normal market, you can only buy 2 cards in the entire market phase. The purchased ingredients go to the pantry, and the containers go to the utility room.  Depending on the type of drink being created, it will be possible to sell it immediately after creation, or send it to the warehouse so that it reaches the required age, and only then sell it. For storage in the warehouse and required containers...

 Did you ever imagine as a kid that you had your own amusement park? You thought you could ride all the rides, eat fast food in any quantity, stay up all night to watch endless fireworks. But now you will descend from heaven to earth. Actually, managing a theme park is a huge amount of hard work. You must build rides, hire staff, open entertainment venues, improve and upgrade equipment to outshine rival parks, and be prepared for any subterfuge, corporate schemes or espionage from other players. Who will have the grandest amusement park at the end of 8 rounds? Fingers crossed for luck! PREPARATION FOR THE GAME  To lay out the game, each player chooses one of the themed decks to include in the game. Then you take all the cards of the chosen theme, divide them by type (event, park, drawing, etc.) and shuffle everything together. Each player receives a center gate card, a loan card, 20 coins, and 5 cards from the top of the park deck. Once all players have received their cards, the first round can begin. GAME PROCESS The Unfair game consists of 8 rounds. In each round, starting with the first player, you will go through 4 phases. In phase 1, the event phase, each player plays an event card and then has the opportunity to play as many event cards from their hand as they wish. Phase 2 is the park phase where you will do your main actions. On your turn, you have several options: you can buy a card from your hand or from the market on the playing field to add to your park, or draw some more cards from your park deck, events, or blueprints, or demolish an attraction in your park, or "pick up a change" (this is the weakest action in my opinion, but it can give you a few more dollars instead of taking out a loan). After the action-packed Park phase, you get all the money from ticket sales in the Visitor phase. Finally comes the "Cleaning Up" phase, which involves preparing for the next round. I know what you're thinking. And that's all? The most..

 Uprising: Curse of the last Emperor - cooperative 4 for 2-4 participants. Players must defeat both the legions of the Empire and the hordes of Chaos to win freedom for their peoples. FILLING THE BOX  The quality of Uprising's components is impressive. All the illustrations are great. The plastic stands look great, as does the playing field. It is very large and divided into hexes. The game laid out on the table looks impressive. The playing field simultaneously serves as a very convenient landmark, where a rather complex structure of the move is written in detail, and in two directions; no matter where you sit, it will be easy to reach the attraction. In addition to the main playing field, there are also two tablets: one for quests and items, the other for the bad ones. A pleasant, but completely optional supplement. If they are not placed on your table, you can simply not use them. As for the players' tablets, they are also good quality and thick and also clutter the field. The cards are made of high-quality material, although they tend to stick together, which makes it difficult to shuffle them. Protectors are highly desirable. I liked that garrisons are marked with plastic tokens that are placed on top of each other, as well as walls and towers that you can surround your shelters with. There's a lot of stuff on the playing field, and it's nice that three garrisons take up as much space as one garrison. Thank God, the game has a built-in organizer, and a very good one at that. It is far from ideal: cubes do not fit in there, and there is no compartment for some items. But in general, it is quite convenient and speeds up the layout of the game. I also really liked the rule book: small, square format, spring-bound - just the thing to lay open during the game. It looks bright, there are a lot of examples, everything is clear, except for a few points that would not hurt to describe in more detail. There is also a table of contents..

 "The Thing" is an excellent game: exciting, with tension that builds as the game progresses, just like in the movie. The weight category is medium. The replayability is very decent. COMPONENTS  I bought the kickstarter Super Deluxe. The components in it are gorgeous. Excellent miniatures, and the characters are recognizable (which cannot be said about Western Legends, for example). Thick, pleasant to the touch plastic tokens. The cards are also thick. My only gripe is that the text on the tokens used in the contact phase is white on white. It's a little hard to read. Also, when playing alien-human interactions, dog tokens are used, which was a little confusing to us until we realized that this was for economy: to not produce an extra set of tokens for humans. In general, this is a trifle. BOOK OF RULES The rulebook doesn't miss a beat, but it does feel confusing in places, especially when it comes to the layout process. Technically everything is correct, but to understand, you have to read the whole section carefully. There is a lot of commotion with decks, bags, etc. depending on the number of players. An example of a confused description is the instructions for mixing location maps in the dogs section. In general, it's a good idea to read the rules sections carefully before doing anything. GAME PROCESS  The game is good in many ways because it borrows a lot of mechanics from other games: we found references to Avalon, "Dead of Winter", Ultimate Werewolf Extreme and even "Secret Hitler". However, the mechanics did not stupidly copy, but modified. Almost all changes benefited the game. In essence, this is a game about the secret placement of workers (each character can go to one location per turn), in which there are interesting, difficult solutions. Here is one of our "favorite" points: when repairing the base (which is a critical part of the game), if 2 characters are in the same location, then you get great bonuses. For example, if 1..

REVIEW I've read a lot of reviews on ATO, and often they start with the disclaimer that "I have played / not played Kingdom Death: Monster". Not sure how helpful this will be, but I thought I'd write my ATO review as someone who is very familiar with KDM. I've gone through so many KDM campaigns (both successful and not so successful) that I've lost count of them. I have all the expansions from the first kickstarter and went all-in on the second kickstarter. KDM is still my favorite game and I'm looking forward to the Gambler's Chest and everything else (it's just a shame I have to wait so long).  As for ATO, I initially invested in it to keep me occupied while waiting for the second KDM kickstarter to arrive, as I already knew Poots would be developing KDM for a long time (although I had no idea it would be that long). I ordered just the base, thinking it would just be a KDM in an ancient Greek setting; practically a reskin. I'm now 30 days into the ATO campaign and I'm happy to report that I was wrong.  The key difference lies in the names of the games themselves. Kingdom Death: Monster focuses on monsters. Every year you choose which of the available monsters to fight, prepare for the battle with all your might and then fight. After the battle (if you won, of course), you process the carcass, take the resources obtained by sweat and blood back to the settlement, and next year everything is repeated. The plot here is gloomy, dark, scattered with crumbs throughout the campaign. The story consists of events and situations that you remember; For example, how one survivor died a terrible death and the other survived against all odds. You yourself shape the plot during the game, create the history of your settlement and your survivors. Rando Calrissian was sent to the company of 3 other newcomers to certain death as cannon fodder, but he acquired acid palms and tore monster after monster to pieces with his bare hands and teeth. Athena Topless..

 Note: Review is based on 8 games with a friend. We decided to play co-op because the rules are not that easy to get used to and because my friend doesn't like to compete. We won twice (and jokingly noted that we had just watched "Alien" and "Alien 2", because in the first game the aliens appeared only at the end, when we were already in the cryocapsules, and in the second game, after waking up, we immediately started shooting the aliens by the end my soldier had 5 frags, maybe more), three times we lost in a tight fight by a hair of victory (due to a bunch of bad rolls), and three times the game crushed us without a chance (with some coincidence the ship can explode at the end of the first turn, also, with a certain coincidence of circumstances, the character can die at the end of the first turn, both of which happened to us). In general, I love "Nemesis" because the game is very thematic and because it will not be possible to plan ahead and optimize all actions, unlike many other decks; all that remains is to do as the circumstances suggest and enjoy the unfolding story. 2 players is clearly not an optimal lineup for Nemesis, so in the future we plan to use 2 characters each, because when there are only 2 characters in the game, you just don't have enough time for a lot of interesting things. The size of the map does not change, and the actions to explore it are much less. If you're unlucky with the layout of the rooms, 2 characters barely have enough time to complete the objectives and reach the escape pods before the timer runs out, provided they're not interrupted (in our winning and near-winning games, the timer was 1 - 2 moves). In conditions of acute lack of actions, it is impossible to be distracted by something extra.  The co-op mode is generally not bad, but the game was clearly not designed to be co-op; some cards and items are completely useless in this mode. If we had more players, I would definitely prefer standard mode. It's..

BRIEF OVERVIEW  Rating - 7.5/10.  Buy DD if: You liked the PC version OR if you are a fan of dark fantasy like Lovecraft. You want a rectilinear cube metal dungeon crawler. You like nice miniatures and/or you like to paint them. You have nothing against games that are not very difficult or tactically deep. You have a lot of money (for replayability, it is recommended to have at least 1 add-on; currently only Crimson Court can be bought). Do not buy DD if: You would rather buy 3-4 good board games for the same price, even if they have fewer miniatures in total. You are not interested in a dungeon crawler. You don't care about thumbnails. You prefer complex decks with tactical depth. You don't like randomness (there are dice rolls when attacking, random dungeon exploration in corridors, random tile layout). You do not like the idea that you can lose due to randomness. You don't want to play the campaign (you can't play outside the campaign mode in DD). You don't have much free space on your desk. DETAILED REVIEW  Darkest Dungeon: The Board Game is a dungeon crawler based on the computer game of the same name. Four heroes (always four - i.e. designed for 1-4 players) go into dungeons, fight monsters, gain experience and gold, and also often die or receive terrible injuries and disorders (both in battle and while wandering around long) corridors connecting rooms filled with monsters). The campaign consists of 4 acts. Acts 1–3 each have three dungeons; in the first two you gain gold and experience, and in the third you fight the boss. After completing 3 bosses (that is, 9 dungeons), you are presented with the final creepy act with the most terrifying part of the Dark Dungeon. I will not spoil; let me just say that this is definitely my favorite act. After each trip to the dungeon, heroes can heal, recover and upgrade skills in the town of Hamlet. Each character also has their own unique skill that can be used in Hamlet. Some treat, others give..