I Played It Like Twice... For Honor and Small Plastic Rocks: Ascension’s Place in the Pantheon of Deck-Building Games By Orrin Grey • November 18th, 2021 With so many deck-building games on the market, the aesthetic is going to be a big part of what draws a player to one over another.
I Played It, Like, Twice... Of Monsters and Mortals: Playing Campy Creatures On a Dark and Spooky Night By Orrin Grey • October 21st, 2021 Campy Creatures is, as the box declares, a “Ghoulish Game of Deduction & Bluffing.”
I Played It, Like, Twice... Dead Ends: Learning Something About Myself with Cursed City By Orrin Grey • September 30th, 2021 I dove into Cursed City in the hopes that the familiarity of its similarities to Silver Tower would help to ease some of that intimidation fact, but Cursed City has more in common with Blackstone Fortress.
I Played It, Like, Twice... Candles Against the Dark: Surviving the Night (and Each Other) in Deranged By Orrin Grey • August 26th, 2021 A character who is Deranged is normal by day but becomes a monster by night.
I Played It, Like, Twice... Shelf Stability: Good Design Gets Out of the Way in Ex Libris By Orrin Grey • July 29th, 2021 Ex Libris looks complicated, but all the moving parts click together pretty seamlessly, and there are rarely any of those awkward moments where you’re left scratching your head over how one card mechanic interacts with another.
I Played It, Like, Twice... Rising Tension: The Odd and Appropriate Specificity of Resident Evil 2: The Board Game By Orrin Grey • May 13th, 2021 I decided it was high time for me to crack open my copy of Resident Evil 2: The Board Game and see how it stacked up against my memories of the real thing.
I Played It Like Twice Fearful Symmetry: Building the Best of All Possible Overworlds in Overboss By Orrin Grey • April 1st, 2021 In a world where plenty of board games at least claim to be playable with only one person it is, in my experience, rare to find one that actually plays well in solitaire mode.
I Played It, Like, Twice... Versus Mode – Arcadia Quest x Super Dungeon Explore By Orrin Grey • March 2nd, 2021 For the first installment of this periodic feature, we’ll be looking at Arcadia Quest and Super Dungeon Explore.
I Played It, Like, Twice… The Moorcock Connection: Sailors on the Seas of Warhammer Quest By Orrin Grey • February 2nd, 2021 I realized what Age of Sigmar really was: Games Workshop leaning hard into that Moorcockian strain of cosmic fantasy that had always been there.
I Played It, Like, Twice... Only Trust Your Fists: The Side-Scrolling Beat-‘em-Up Vibes of Streets of Steel By Orrin Grey • January 6th, 2021 When Streets of Steel is at its best, it is tapping into my fondness for these types of games in a way that makes for innovative tabletop play, rather than just nostalgia.
I Played It, Like, Twice... The Agony of Adaptation: Hellboy and the Perils of Fandom (and Kickstarter) By Orrin Grey • December 9th, 2020 For a while there, writing about Hellboy: The Board Game, about being a Hellboy fan, and what the franchise means to me as a creator, all felt too fraught.
I Played It, Like, Twice... Darkness of Unusual Size: The Sword-and-Sorcery Answer to Descent By Orrin Grey • November 27th, 2020 If Descent is what we’ve all come to expect from a modern high fantasy D&D-alike, then Massive Darkness is its lo-fi sword-and-sorcery equivalent.
I Played It, Like, Twice… Shadows on the Cave Wall: Finding Clues in Scooby-Doo: Betrayal at Mystery Mansion By Orrin Grey • October 9th, 2020 Scooby-Doo and Betrayal at House on the Hill are a match made in some kind of spooky heaven.
I Played It, Like, Twice… Lost in the Dark: Finding My Way to Descent During the Plague Times By Orrin Grey • September 3rd, 2020 “In a fit of COVID-induced mania and an effort to scratch that at-home D&D itch, I picked up not just Descent but several of the expansions.”
Open Up Shop: Finding a Killer Deal in Bargain Quest By Orrin Grey • August 20th, 2020 “Don’t be surprised if you get a little choked up when you can’t equip the young hero well enough for them to survive their run-in with the vampire queen.”
I Played It, Like, Twice… All Souls Bound Just Contrariwise: Yo Ho Ho and a Game of Rum & Bones By Orrin Grey • July 23rd, 2020 Raid the high sea and manage a ton of miniatures!
I Played It, Like, Twice… Clack Clack Clack: Searching for Rules in Vast: The Mysterious Manor By Orrin Grey • June 30th, 2020 If it has animated skeletons, Orrin’s all about it.
I Played It, Like, Twice… Well, We Warned You: Playing Horrified During a Pandemic By Orrin Grey • May 22nd, 2020 Everything about Horrified echoes the Universal films in ways that will make fans of the original monster franchises grin.
