I know what you're thinking: Neal, reviewing a video game? And an online Flash game, at that? I can't believe it either. What makes it even stranger is this: on paper, I should hate this game. A robot unicorn in a floating world of rainbows and fairies attempts to make its wishes come true. (Exactly how that happens is unclear, but it involves running really fast, ramming into stars and eating sai... more.

An international cabal of bankers owns the mass media. Oil companies are secretly in the pocket of Cthulhu cultists. And the Boy Scouts are a front for UFO aliens. Conspiracy theories abound, but now you can be at the center of one. Steve Jackson Games' Illuminati! puts you in control of one of the groups rumored to be vying for world domination behind the scenes. Each faction of Illuminati aim... more.

Okay, confession time: if I have a favorite game, it's probably Cosmic Encounter. At least I'm in good company: Steve Jackson cited Cosmic Encounter as one of the games that influenced his classic Illuminati! Richard Garfield said the same of Cosmic Encounter with regard to the creation of Magic: the Gathering. The game has jumped from company to company - five in English alone - and was enshrined... more.

Since last week's column covered Risk, I thought it would be good to contrast and compare Risk with Diplomacy. Both games were first released commercially in the US in 1959, which makes them siblings of a sort, and both games put the player in charge of armies attempting to gain supremacy over the theater of war. And that's about where the similarities end. Instead of being a fraternal twin, Di... more.

If one were to put together a pantheon of classic board games, a few mainstream games would make the list simply because of their ubiquity. Generations of players grew up with a handful of time-tested games that work because they're "high concept": Monopoly is one of these. Others earn their fame by having very wide appeal: Scrabble cuts across demographic, national, even linguistic lines. Risk ma... more.

One of the first things to come up every time we've discussed a game here or on our podcast is the production value of the game: how good it looks, and how well it's made. While some games get by just fine with a simple, clean aesthetic approach, try imagining what Monopoly would be like without the iconic pieces or money. Even games that started out simple, like Trivial Pursuit, have evolved more... more.

I have to admit: sometimes it's hard to get non-gamers to try some of the better board games available. Even the German ones. Especially the German ones. Much of the problem seems to stem from the peculiar themes that German game designers choose for their games: trying to convince the average person that they'll have a great time pretending to gather natural resources and colonize an island, for ... more.

National Public Radio just aired a segment on the growth of board game sales, which you can read or listen to here. As I've said in previous columns, board games are an economical way to get lots of entertainment value for your money, in addition to promoting useful mental and social skills. The piece also brings to mind an important factor we haven't discussed quite as much here at GameJournal, b... more.

A few weeks ago, a project furtively referred to around the internet as "Project Donut" was unveiled by RPG designers Luke Crane (Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard) and Jared Sorensen (Lacuna, octaNe) for beta playtesting. Named FreeMarket, the game promises to advance some of the cutting-edge design philosophy of the last few years. A free preview, excerpted from the book's intro, can be downloaded here... more.

You've seen them: tables with little plastic trees and molded hills. You've seen the generals standing on either side, amassing rows and regiments of small soldiers, planning out the way the attack will go. And, probably, you've considered what it would be like to command your own tiny army. There's such a broad range of choices in miniatures games these days that one could be excused for feeli... more.