Author: Orrin Grey
![A crop of the cover of the rulebook for Dreadfleet with a pirate with a mossy back and horned red pirate hat and golden chin](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/dreadfleet-rulebook-cover-featured-cover.png)
Blood and Plunder: Finding Lost Treasure (Though Maybe Not the Kind You Want) in Dreadfleet
Just as Dreadfleet is one of the last games released before Warhammer’s “Old World” became the “Mortal Realms” of Age of Sigmar, it is also one of the last gasps of an aesthetic style that had once defined the brand but was already on the way out.
![A screenshot from The Bat Woman where a fishman is on underwater camera maybe or some other ancient monitoring device he's just swimming around loving life](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/santo-fish-featured.png)
Wrestling and Sex: Three Mexican Wrestling Films from Director Rene Cardona
While all three of the films that we’re discussing today may not have been released in alternate cuts with sexo in the title, all three are definitely films that are skirting Mexican censors of the late ‘60s and using sex appeal to help sell their stories of masked wrestlers, lycanthropes, mad science, swinging spies, and… lepers?
![Key art for Disney's Lorcana game, with ice queen, Mickey Mausritter, and crow queen standing in a line together](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/lorcana-featured.png)
Versus Mode: Lorcana x Sorcerer’s Arena
Unlike Lorcana, Sorcerer’s Arena is not an original game cooked up whole cloth. It is, instead, an adaptation of the mobile game of the same name. I’ve tried out the mobile game a bit, but not enough to really get a feel for it, and there’s something to be said for the joy of pushing little plastic standees around on a board.
![A crop from the cover for Ni no Kuni 2 the board game, with the title text laid over a cartoon image of a long dragon soaring through a partly cloudy sky over a quaint city below](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/ni-no-kuni-2-cover-featured.png)
A Question of Influence: Building Your Kingdom in Ni no Kuni II: The Board Game
In some ways, however, the simplicity of Ni no Kuni II: The Board Game is also part of its strength. It’s a game that’s easy to learn and quick to play. In a world full of overly complex titles packed with fiddly little tokens and pieces, it almost feels old-fashioned.
![Screenshot from the trailer for Night has A Thousand Eyes, featuring the main character in a suit walking back from an attic window looking over a city at night](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/night-has-a-thousand-eyes-featured.png)
The Stars Can’t Hurt You: Fighting the Future in Night Has a Thousand Eyes (1948)
Even if you’re pretty sure you know going in – it is difficult, after all, to not have been spoiled at least a little bit on a movie that is three-quarters of a century old – the unspooling of the film does a good job of keeping you on your toes,
![Screenshot from Talk to Me, featuring the mummified medium's hand gracefully reaching out as if to be shaken with a lone candle in the background](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/talk-to-me-featured-2.png)
I Don’t Get Nightmares: Scaring Yourself with Talk to Me (2023)
Talk to Me may be the most credible supernatural teen horror movie ever made, simply by dint of the way that the kids in the film turn the medium-istic hand into a party game, heedless of the larger questions it raises, or the possible consequences of their actions.
![Close-up of the cover for Scooby-Doo The Board Game with the whole gang sitting in the front of the Mystery Machine van. From left to right we have beatnik poet, anxious dog, rational map-reader, equally smart friend, and ascot driver](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/scooby-featured1.png)
Wacky Hijinks: Similarities and Differences in Scooby-Doo: The Board Game
It is also ironic that, in many ways, Scooby-Doo: The Board Game feels less like Scooby-Doo and more like a board game than Betrayal at Mystery Mansion, which was already repurposing the mechanics of another game and yet managed, in so doing, to create an almost perfect evocation of a Scooby-Doo episode.
![a crop of the box cover for Mexico Macabre, mostly featuring the title text but you can see a little bit of what looks like a hairy mutant turkey's legs and a monstrous human's forehead](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/mexico-macabre-featured.png)
Entering the Kingdom of the Supernatural: The Mexico Macabre Collection from Indicator
Mexican horror films from the ’60s feel like someone attempting to remake the classic horror films of the ‘30s and ‘40s from memory. Which, given that we were still decades ahead of the advent of home video, was probably almost literally the case.
![A photo from Orrin featuring a few of the mixed up monsters from Fearsome Floors, with a fancy lad with an eyeball for a head and a top hat on the left, a melty jawn in the middle, and a skinless skull with milky eyes on the right, all pointing at leach other like three spidermen](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/fearsome-floors-featured.png)
Fleeing Fast from Freaky Fiends: Finding Fun with Fearsome Floors
Indeed, Fearsome Floors is one of those European imports, hailing from eccentric German game designer Friedemann Friese, whose fixation on the color green and massive use of alliteration of the letter F can sometimes get lost in translation but certainly helps to set his games apart.
![Crop from the box cover for Legend of Drizzt the Adventure Series Board Game, with an angry Drizzt with long hair and fur mantle and flowing cape as he slices through some enemies with his trademark scimitars and his black panther companion and best friend growling in the background](https://unwinnable.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/drizzt-box-cover-featured.png)
A Maze of Twisty Little Passages, All Alike: Navigating the D&D Adventure System Board Games
Anyone who has been following along here for very long knows that dungeon tiles are one of my very favorite parts of any dungeon crawl game, and the ones for the various D&D Adventure System games have their distinctive pluses.