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A Gaming Life
Dicing Your Way Through the Galaxy – Tiny Epic Galaxies Review
There’s something cool about games that have small boxes that you can cart around fairly easily, just sticking it in the back of your pack behind huge games like Speakeasy or something.
There’s also something cool about jetting through the galaxy, colonizing planets and robbing them of their resources, and also making sure they do something for you if you happen to bring them into your galactic empire.
Galaxies are huge! And who knew that we could each have our own?
Hence the name Tiny Epic Galaxies.
Tiny Epic Galaxies is a dice throwing game where you are trying to build up your galactic empire by adding colonies to it, because somehow you can drag planets into your own galaxy like they were a wayward child, maybe?
Or maybe they’re Schrodinger’s Planets and it’s not clear which galaxy they’re in until somebody claims them?
The game was designed by Scott Almes with artwork by William Bricker.
It was published by Gamelyn Games (which has apparently been absorbed by Tycoon Games) in 2015.
It’s actually a fairly simple game in concept, though for some reason it can be hard to really wrap your head around.
You build up your empire for points, you acquire planets for points.
As soon as somebody hits or passes 21 points, that triggers the end of the game.
Complete the round (and how are you supposed to tell who was first player with no first player marker??? I kid, I kid…) and then see who managed to actually get the high score after the endgame scoring cards.
How do you do all of that?
Let’s talk about it.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – If You Aren’t Playing the Game to Win, Are You Playing the Game?
I mentioned last week that this Boardgame Geek thread about unpopular opinions was going to be a gold mine for Friday Night Shots posts.
Lo and behold, here’s a second post!
Games are games, with winners and losers.
The cogent question this time around is “are you playing the game to win?”
An additional, and supplementary question, is how important is it to you to play a game to win versus just trying to have fun and enjoy the social aspect of the game?
That brings to mind a post that I thought I had written, but I can’t find, which basically asks “why do you play games?”
So let’s explore both of those questions in this post.
Because the basic answer to the original question is “yes, of course you are playing the game even if you aren’t playing to win.”
Though there is a bit of a caveat to my response on that one.
Are we just playing to win?
The object of a game is to win it, but what if there’s no way in Hell you’re going to, because you’re playing Cal in a game of Gaia Project, which you don’t know at all and he knows like the back of his hand?
Let’s explore that further.
Read MoreRock Hard: Ear Candy Update
I normally don’t do two posts in one day, but I couldn’t contain my excitement about this one and wanted to post something quick about it.
It’s long been known that Rock Hard is one of my favourite games out there right now, but that I felt it needed a few more cards and options to really come into its own.
When designer Jackie Fox announced the Ear Candy expansion, I knew those needs would be fulfilled, but she was understandably vague about just what the new content would be.
However, Devir just announced that the rules are available and what that new content will be.
And it looks amazing.
Here’s the picture Devir posted in their email along with the announcement.
Read MoreHidden Jungle Horror – Final Girl – The Green Terror Review
One of the conceits with the whole Final Girl franchise of dice-rolling, solo horror games, is that you and your character are the typical “final girl” in various horror films, the one who watches everybody die around her but she ends up defeating the killer before she can be killed herself.
It has expanded a bit in some Final Girl feature films, basically to include female characters who are more professionals (rather than just a camper who happens to be there) but who are still only in this situation by happenstance.
I mean, Ripley didn’t mean to be the sole survivor of her ship when the Alien attacked, right?
The Green Terror moves away from that trope, at least slightly, and thus ends up being one of the least-thematic feature films of the franchise in that respect.
(Please note you can click on a picture to blow it up)
Not that it’s non-thematic in a lot of others, though!
For the first time that I can recall (there are a few films I haven’t played yet), there doesn’t seem to be any real reason for the Final Girl to be there before the killing starts happening.
The Green Terror takes place in an island jungle (Pesadilla Verde) with a killer (Volkar) straight out of the Predator franchise, with invisible movement and everything.
With a bunch of soldiers on the island hunting the Volkar (or whichever killer you use on this island).
Who is this girl, how did she get to this island, and why are these soldiers listening to this girl who is probably not a professional at all?
What, is she a Time Lord or something? The Doctor and his companions can often make military types listen to them…eventually.
All of that is to say that the Final Girl franchise has seemingly evolved again, endlessly adaptable as it should be.
The Green Terror was designed by Evan Derrick with art by Agnieszka Dabrowiecka.
It was published by Van Ryder Games in 2026.
Let’s talk about the Volkar first.
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 3601 – 3700
One reason I love doing these Boardgame Geek century posts about games that are ranked fairly far down is that I get to explore games that are kind of outside the mainstream.
And also, most likely, games that I haven’t played in quite a while.
But the other thing I like about these is that I get weekly content!
That’s why I write these almost a week ahead of time, which can become a problem (like last week, where two games I was talking about actually fell or rose out of the century I was actually talking about).
But I do enjoy them, and I also enjoy the conversations with some of my friends that these posts do trigger.
It’s also enlightening to find out what’s down here in the minor dregs (3600 out of the many many thousands of games is still fairly high) and see if there’s anything that would be cool!
That, and also since wargames are kind of a niche product, it’s neat to see what wargames might be cool to play.
One day I will reach a century where I haven’t played any of the games, and then maybe I’ll stop.
Don’t all cheer at once.
For now, let’s continue!
Here is the list this century is taken from.
Keep in mind that, if you are coming to this post sometime in the future (the way things have been going, that might even be next week!), the numbers will have changed.
A game I’m talking about may not be in this century anymore.
Here are my numbers for this week: 6 games played (thought one of them moved up to last week’s century!) and 1 game owned.
I’m almost over word-budget, so let’s begin!
Read MoreNew to Me – June 2026
June wasn’t as big of a month for new to me games, which makes sense because even the convention I attended only had two.
Bottoscons tend to have us play older games for the most part, though not always.
Combine that with, as I mentioned last week, a missing Sunday game day and us not really playing new games at lunch at work, and I only ended up with four new to me games in June, as opposed to something like eleven in May.
However, I was able to keep the Cult of the New to Me happy, because only one of them was relatively new!
I try my best as a cult leader to make them happy.
Revolts are not pretty, at least for the deposed cult leaders.
So, without further ado (all of my ado fell of a derailed traing going into Paris anyway), let’s begin!
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Should Solo Games Exist?
Last week, I was reading a Boardgame Geek forum post that I thought would be a goldmine for some Friday Night Shots posts.
And it is!
The thread is entitled “Do you have an unpopular opinion that is TRULY unpopular?”
As opposed to those “unpopular opinions” that people put forth that, in reality, most people agree with.
There may be more coming from this one, but tonight I’d like to talk about one post in particular, from Boardziggy: “Solo gaming shouldn’t exist. That’s what apps and videogames are for.”
Are they taking the piss? Or is that a serious thought in their mind?
Let’s take it seriously just for the sake of this post.
Reading that, it’s unclear exactly what they mean by that.
Do they mean that solo games themselves shouldn’t exist? That publishers should never publish a solo game?
Or do they mean that adding solo modes to otherwise multiplayer games is a waste of time and resources?
Taking the statement as written, it sounds like it’s just the very existence of solo games that is the problem.
(Note: I have not read further in the thread before writing this post, so I have no idea if anybody has actually discussed this or whether it’s gone further than this. I’m using this as a springboard for my own post).
With the thousands of games every year that are published, it’s flat out insane to be saying that they shouldn’t exist at all.
One of the finest games I know is Final Girl, a wonderful solo game that wouldn’t exist if this person’s opinion were to become law.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to make it larger)
But let’s extrapolate further and instead talk about solo modes in games.
Are they useful?
Should publishers spend time and resources trying to include a solo mode for those gamers who prefer to play alone?
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 3501-3600
No time warps this time, hopefully.
There wasn’t last week, anyway.
Yes, doing these centuries (that’s 100 games for those who have been wondering) of Boardgame Geek game rankings have been really interesting and fun to do.
But writing them ahead as I do, I sometimes run into the problem of one of the games I’m talking about suddenly not being in the century by the time it posts.
So far so good on last week’s, though.
And hopefully this week as well.
I’ll keep writing these as long as you’ll have me and as long as I’ve actually played some of the games in the century.
This week’s list is here, though keep in mind, as usual, that things may have changed by the time you’re reading this.
In case you’ve been in a coma for a year and are just catching up on my blog.
You have a lot to read!
This week is a bit of a lean week, with me only having played 5 games and own (or previously owned) 2 of them.
Still, doesn’t mean there aren’t some interesting games down here, including my previously-owned one!
But yeah, not so much.
Getting close to the introduction word limit, so let’s just get started.
Read MoreJune 2026 Gaming
Happy Canada Day!
June was a weird month for gaming.
It had a full convention, a 3-day weekend of wonderful gaming with friends as well new acquintances.
However, that convention was full of long plays so the number of games played wasn’t as high as it has been in previous convention months.
That’s not a bad thing!
It just means the numbers aren’t as high.
Add to that Father’s Day where we didn’t game at all (though I did get a Final Girl game in!) and work weeks that didn’t have a lot of games for various reasons, and you’ve got a relatively normal month of games instead of the usual convention bonanza.
Not that I’m complaining, because the month was fabulous from a gaming standpoint.
Overall, I played 25 games a total of 39 times (down from 30 games 44 times last month).
Of course, Final Girl led the way again (will I play it this often when I am finished reviewing the films? I hope so), with no other games getting more than 2 plays.
Here’s the list of games I played in June.
And here it is in grid format.
Many thanks to the incredible Boardgame Stats app for this beautiful summary!
Don’t forget that you can click/tap on a picture to blow it up.
Also, any new to me games played this month will show up in my post next week.
Let’s get to the highlights, as I did manage to get a few games that I haven’t played in a while under my belt.
Read MoreCorny Terror – Final Girl – A Rotten Harvest Review
I grew up in a state that was full of corn fields, though I never actually experienced running through them in terror, being stalked by some creature of existential dread or anything like that.
You know, like Steve King.
(Editor: “Only a certain subset of people is going to get that joke”)
No, I was a city boy.
But I saw corn fields!
And they could still be terrifying.
The next Final Girl Series 4 feature film that I have completed is A Rotten Harvest.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
The film was designed by Ryan Jorjorian with artwork by Ondine Champetier de Ribes.
It was published by Van Ryder Games in 2025.
It takes place in the nice, peaceful farming town of Shady Acres, where one of the farms contains an altar to the old gods, where children are disappearing, but then coming back…to sacrifice others.
And that doesn’t even involve the killer!
No, a guy with a sinister flaming pumpkin head is also stalking the farm, killing people.
What’s a small town in rural America supposed to do with two maniacs surrounding them?
Put them in the White House?
Anyway, Grimlash is making his presence felt, and you’d better get running through those corn fields to see if you can stop him.
Read More