The Board Game Family Welcome back to the world of Valeria! In May, we reviewed the first Valeria game published by Daily Magic Games, Valeria: Card Kingdoms. It's a fun card and dice game where players build their crew of various citizens to expand their realm and fight monsters. Since then, Daily Magic Games has published a number of card games in the Valeria universe. Each have unique game mechanics. Today, we're excited to share our thoughts on one of the most recent Valeria card games, Thrones of Valeria. It's a unique trick-taking card game where the ranks of the different Houses (suits ..read more

The Board Game Family My first encounter with Valeria: Card Kingdoms at SaltCon 2017 was an absolute blast, leaving me eager for more. It reminded me a lot of Machi Koro, but I liked Valeria's fantasy theme much better. Plus, I loved that everyone gains resources on anybody's turn, not just on their own turn. I added the game to my wish list soon after, but just never pulled the trigger on buying a copy. That is, until two years ago when Daily Magic Games published an updated version! The new edition not only had upgraded components and streamlined play, but it was also much cheaper! I've sinc ..read more

The Board Game Family The first weekend of March, I spent a couple of days playing a bunch of fun games at SaltCon Spring 2024. SaltCon Spring is a 4-day event held on the first weekend of March. This year, I arrived Thursday night after work and stayed through Saturday afternoon (taking Friday off work so I could play all day). Even though SaltCon now hosts game events a few times each year, the spring gathering is the biggest of the bunch and one I look forward to every year. This year, the attendance hit 2,400! Read on to get a quick recap of the 16 different games I played and my thoughts ..read more

The Board Game Family This time of year, it’s great to gather as family and friends for some light-hearted games. Similo, by Horrible Guild, fits that very well. That’s because Similo is a cooperative deduction game where everyone either wins or loses together. It comes in a variety of card sets of 30 cards such as Fables, Myths, Animals, History, and more. All of which have fantastic artwork that add to the enjoyment of the game. The goal is to make the other players guess one secret character by playing other character cards from your hand as clues, stating whether they’re similar to or diff ..read more

The Board Game Family Way back in 2012, we reviewed a hot new card game getting a lot of buzz – 7 Wonders. While it looked intimidating with so many colors and symbols, it quickly became a family hit – even for mom! Fast forward a decade and Asmodee released a new standalone iteration on the theme with 7 Wonders Architects. The game play is quite different while still feeling familiar for those who enjoy the original. It’s a much simpler card game and also includes players physically building their personal wonder in stages. And because it’s a standalone game, one wonderful thing is that you d ..read more

The Board Game Family Happy Star Wars Day! To celebrate, we’re diving into a review of another Star Wars family board game – Star Wars: Unlock! That’s right, the very cool Unlock! escape-room series of games now has a Star Wars themed game – with 3 distinct game adventures. As far as escape-room games go, the Unlock! series have been our favorite. So I was super excited when Asmodee published a Star Wars version. After having played through all 3 adventures, I’m happy to report that all of them are super fun to play. Star Wars: Unlock! game review is an article from The Board Game Family ..read more

The Board Game Family SaltCon Spring just keeps getting bigger and better every year! This year over 2,000 people enjoyed playing board games, card games, dice games, party games, and more for 4 days straight as part of SaltCon Spring 2023. And with that many people, there’s a broad range of gaming interests. That’s why there are also areas in the convention center set aside for RPGs, miniatures painting, dexterity games, play-to-win games, competitions, and an Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator. But even as the event itself keeps getting bigger, this year the game playing for me was much more ..read more

The Board Game Family Time is ticking down and there are only a few more shopping days left until Christmas Day. If that puts you in a frantic rush for finding game gifts for your friends and family this year, we can help with that! For starters, jump over to our 2022 Board Game Gift Guide and you’ll find a bunch of great games to choose from as gifts. If you already have what you need with those game gifts and just need a few smaller games to pack a Christmas stocking with game goodies, then this list of 15 recommended games is for you. 15 Stocking Stuffer Games for 2022 is an article from Th ..read more

The Board Game Family As the holidays approach, it’s super common for people to look for the best family board games to give as gifts to family members and friends. This is our 12th year publishing a Board Game Gift Guide to help you find fantastic board games, dice games, card games, party games, and more for those you love. And this year we’ve got 36 new board games to recommend! Since there’s a wide range of people to consider for game gifts, we break down this board game gift guide into various categories with a handful of game ideas in each. Board Game Gift Guide 2022! is an article from ..read more

The Board Game Family When everyone you introduce a new game to starts buying their own copies, you know you have a hit game on your hands. Such has been the case for us with the card game Silver! It's a card game with a mix of hidden information, memory, strategy, luck, variable character abilities, and fun artwork that has us playing it over and over. Plus, the expansions Bezier Games has published for it makes it infinitely replayable. Silver Card Game Review is an article from The Board Game Family ..read more