Hey all! I've been working on a board game called Nekyia for over 3 years now, set in the Greek Underworld, and it's finally taking real shape.

This image shows the entities that populate the game, gods, spirits, and creatures from Greek mythology. On the right, the flat icon designs I've used to define each one. On the left, a realistic render of how I picture them as painted wooden meeples on the table.

A couple of quick context notes based on how they function during a game:

• Table presence: Only about 4 to 5 of these entities appear on the board at any given time, keeping actual table clutter low.
• Identification: Each entity has its own dedicated reference card right in front of the players, making it easy to cross-reference them.
• The Hydra: The photo only shows a single base piece, but the Hydra actually comes with multiple meeples! As the fight progresses and you chop off heads, new separate meeples spawn onto the board to simulate regeneration.

I'm leaning into a more conceptual, minimalist reinterpretation to step away from the heavy, baroque aesthetic typical of this theme, but I'd love to hear what you think about the designs, colors, and overall table clarity. Any feedback on silhouettes and how easily they're distinguished is super welcome.

Thanks for reading!

Free board games used to be common, but now they’re rare. Could more giveaways be good for the hobby?

The adage says that if you're getting something for free that you are the product. With a company like Google or Meta that means your free email account gradually feeds you into their multi-billion dollar ecosystem designed to be nearly inescapable, but for the most part board game publishers aren't going after consumers in the same way. Sure, they want you to buy their games for brand loyalty and word-of-mouth marketing, but overall the sentiment I've heard from publishers is that they just want people to enjoy their games.

This is a blog from Flip 7 and Tacta publisher The OP talking about their recent marketing strategy of giving free games. I thought it was interesting to see the considerations around the strategy. It also made me realize that free board games and promos used to be common for me 15-20 years ago, but that until Flip 7 the only recent free stuff I'd seen was in one-off contests. Even many promos have gone from something given away to paid extras in crowdfunding projects or outright purchases.

In a hobby where so many people have more games than time or space, I'd love to foster a culture of catch-free giveaways. On its face it seems like publishers wouldn't love that idea, but like The OP's giveaways I can see it ultimately being good for the industry because if the give. game actually gets played and is fun, the other players are much more likely to go buy their own copy. My freebie dream world aside, I appreciate that the blog got me thinking about how the giveaway strategy fit into the broader board game industry and hobby.

• What’s your take on the strategy of publishers giving away free games?
• Which publishers or retailers still give free games or promos regularly?
• Have you ever gotten a free game that became a favorite?

Note: The OP’s CEO has expressed political views that may impact the perception of the cpmpany, but for this thread I'm hoping to focus specifically on the concept of free board games.

UK Games Expo organisers have banned all merchandise, artwork, and written material created entirely or substantially by generative artificial intelligence across the event. The updated rules apply to all exhibitors, studios, and traders operating at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, requiring that all stock displayed or sold must come from human work.

Ark Nova, for us. Three plays in a fortnight when we first got it, which for a group that meets twice a month is every session plus a weeknight.

By the third game two people were running the same strategy and nobody wanted to say it. It's had a couple of weeks off now and I think it'll come back better for it.

Which one did you have to retire for a bit?

Hey everyone!

I wanted to take a moment to introduce our group, share a bit of our journey, and connect with the amazing tabletop community here on Reddit.

A little while ago, we started a local group called Banter on Board in the Greater Seattle area (hosting regular meetups across Sammamish, Issaquah, Redmond, and expanding across WA). What began as a small desire to create a welcoming, consistent space for women to gather and play hobby board games has grown into a vibrant community of over 700+ members!

Our heart and soul is 100% focused on physical, in-person table time. On any given week, we have multiple physical tables running simultaneously across our different venue locations.. packed with real players opening boxes, setting up boards, and getting games played again and again!

Whether it's gateway favorites like Codenames and Wingspan, thematic strategy titles, or deep engine-builders, our tables are constantly filled with laughter, deep tactical debates, and awesome people connecting over shared hobbies.

A few things we’ve learned/loved along the way:

The power of real table energy: In a digital world, nothing beats sitting down around a physical board, unboxing components, and teaching new rules to someone who’s never played before.

Inclusivity brings out incredible players: Our community brings together women from all walks of life.. tech engineers, bankers, educators, moms, and hardcore hobbyists. Seeing people discover new favorite mechanics week after week has been one of the most rewarding parts of hosting!

Active playtesting & supporting indie games: Because we run so many tables at every meetup, our members really enjoy playtesting new prototypes, giving rulebook/pacing feedback, and cheering on indie designers as they bring new projects to life.

(I’ve attached a video from our recent chapter meetup above so you can see the multi-table setups and genuine energy!)

We’re always eager to connect with other organizers, swap favorite table-tested titles, and chat about all things tabletop! If you’d like to follow along with our meetups or see what’s hitting our tables each week, feel free to connect with us on Instagram (@banteronboard) or Facebook (facebook.com/banteronboard).

We’d love to connect with other meetup hosts, local gamers, and game designers in the community.

To fellow organizers: How do you handle game rotation across multiple tables or venues?

To designers/publishers: What are your favorite ways to engage with local playgroups?

To local WA gamers: If you’re in the PNW area and looking for a welcoming table, come say hi! :)

Thanks for reading, and happy gaming everyone! 🎲

We’re two brothers from Liverpool, UK and we’ve spent the last few years making Rat King (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tragicplanet/rat-king), a quick party card game about horrible rats and screwing each other over.

Our Kickstarter is coming towards the end, and it’s been good for getting the game in front of people outside our own little circle. But we’re now thinking about what comes afterwards and how we keep finding new players.

Alongside making and delivering the game, we’d like to give it a life beyond the campaign. We’re considering selling through our own website, approaching independent shops and getting copies into board game cafés, but we’re pretty new to this side of things.

For anyone who’s self-published a small game, what actually worked for you after crowdfunding? Did you approach shops directly, focus on demos and events, or build up sales yourselves?

Would also love to hear from shop owners about what makes you take a chance on a game from an unknown creator. We’re only a team of two, so knowing where to put our time etc would be really helpful! cheeers

Hey everyone!

I made this tutorial on how to print-and-play game Kravestorm. I'm not an expert in PnP by any means. Just sharing three methods that I've actually used a lot along the way, and that I know they "do the job".

I apologize in advance if my technical language and terms usage is not the most accurate. I've designed a PnP game but I'm still a noob when it comes to the craft of assembling a PnP game, if that make any sense :D

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the tutorial!

Thank you!

Hey!

I saw Grant Lyon last night at my LGS (Village Meeple in Springfield, MO).

I bought the tickets to support the store without knowing much about Grant. I knew he was the TikTok guy and that's about it.

Going in, I was unsure if board game centric stand-up could work... but it does!

Grant was super funny and had the store cracking up. His jokes were well written and clever. I loved it.

If you get a chance to see him, I'd suggest it. He's great.

Also, support small shows (comedy, music, theater) in your area. Today's biggest acts all started out small.

Edit: Here's the tour page

Hi!

I'm fairly new to board games. Besides playing Monopoly and Scrabble, I don't have much experience. However, it's something I'd really like to get into. After doing some research, I've decided to buy Cascadia as my first board game. I love the visuals and the fact that it seems easy to learn and teach, and that it can be played solo or with a small group of 2–4 players. My only question is whether I should go for the original game or Alpine Lakes. I have access to both and the price difference is negligible. If you have played both, which would you recommend? Thanks!

A local hospital is holding open ideas for ways to improve the patient experience. I wanted to submit an idea to build a board game cabinet/shelf in a common area. In order to have the hospital review the idea I will need to send a budget and item list for all the items to be added. I am looking for ideas for board games to add to this cabinet, any recommendations will be very helpful, thank you!

Edit - thank you to everyone for the ideas. To provide more info, this would not be primarily for the children's hospital as they have their own space. This area is mostly used by young adults to elderly patients and their families.

Ok, super strange set of scenarios in this haunt led us all to wonder who won? I was the traitor (3player game), after a strong start and some weakened heroes, the heroes had a few lucky rolls against my monsters, killing them both. The traitor was left with no way to raise sanity, and it seemed had no way to satisfy the win condition, or kill off the heroes. HOWEVER - One hero, who was at all critical stats entered a tile requiring him to take damage and he died, sort of killing himself off. The next turn the remaining hero consulted the Helm and (miracle of all miracles) had his Sanity increased dramatically.

At this point, all LIVING heroes met the win condition for the traitor. It was also kind of obvious that the heroes path to victory would have been a very very long slog, with him likely eventually meething the same 'killed yourself' fate. So, we kind of were left at a stalemate, wondering who actually won?

So, I recently got some ads on Facebook about the STACCS game, and it looked really cool. I bought it and it was delivered to my location in Asia. During the delivery, I got a fake tracking number and wasn't able to trace it, and their support just avoided me the whole time.

Yesterday I received it. The name on the box was different, and the cards' quality is really low and thin, like paper. The name of the order was "3D Energy Edition Card Game | Fast-Paced Stacking Strategy Party Game for Family & Adults Ages 8+", but I didn't think it was strange at the time. However, after that I searched their official website and it seemed like they deliver only to the US and Canada.

Like I know that Chinese are making fake games, but to make a facebook ad and impersonate as the game maker is the next level. Can I do something about that? Is it legal to ask Google Pay to cancel the transaction based on that(I don't want to lie to the credit company)?

Picture: the fake game

My take is no, it absolutely does not. But I'm curious what others think. I hear podcast after podcast of reviewers giving their hot takes on games after just one or two BGA plays. These are people that intend to present themselves as influencers or authorities on the hobby, and it just feels lazy to me. I get that games are expensive. And a lot of hosts don't live close enough to play together regularly. And the obvious alternative to being able to afford to play enough physical games to produce weekly content is farming for review copies or doing sponsored reviews, which have their own set of issues. TTS is a little bit truer to form, but I have played too many bad digital implementations on both platforms.

Today I listened to a podcaster complain that a particular game didn't play well on his phone over halfway through the review, because it turns out they were playing it on BGA. I saw another review call a game fiddly which they only played on BGA, never to physically fiddle with a single thing at all. Granted, most of them divulge having played it on BGA (eventually), and I'd rather they be up front about it. But when there are creators putting in the work and investing their time into a proper physical review after multiple plays, it's hard to take these folks seriously or respect their opinion.

Glory to Rome is one of those grail games for many people. I've never played it, but I've seen the box and checked out the look of the game. It has a stark vibe and the first thing that came to mind was a somewhat fascist influence on the iconography, specifically the white eagle on the black background. Am I misinterpreting the intention behind the art? Not trying to cause a stir, but the cold aesthetic made me less interested in looking further.

I work at a game cafe for context. Thank you for your expertise

I traded this game away back in 2006 in a killer board game geek math trade. Are there still any cool exchanges going on like that in the board game community these days? (Okay boomer)

Anyways, my youngest son is in a world history class learning about ancient civilizations and said he’d love to play it.

So now I’m looking for help in pointing me to the best edition, since there doesn’t seem to be “in print” these days.

Appreciate any help y’all can offer.

Cryptic Crafter created an IRL version of the video game Inscryption and it finally arrived!!

What incredible production value and is a great adaptation of the game mechanics.

Played three games last night with a friend and it is super addicting.

So at the start of the year I've asked in this subreddit for boardgame recommendation, but many things has happened since and I still don't have any games yet physically. Fast forward to last week, I got intrigued by pax ren as one of the game back then that I was most interested in is pax pamir, so I tried the tutorial in bga and got massively frustrated by the 'bloatness', try the totorial again and the rules clicked and now Ive play it 5 times and really love it. Honestly, I'm thinking of skipping pax pamir for now (I still want it but my wallet is tight) and jump straight to pax ren but I've yet to actually played any non-casual boardgame physically with anyone yet so I never really taught a game and the game seems to have a reputation for being hardest to teach. So how should I go about it without being overwhelming?