Is It Worth It

The Gloomhaven universe sits at the very top of the modern board game canon. Gloomhaven has held a spot in BGG’s top 5 for years. Its successor Frosthaven became the most-funded board game in Kickstarter history at the time of its campaign. And yet somehow Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion - the smaller sibling - is often the smarter buy. Which one should you actually get? That depends entirely on who you are, who you’re playing with, and how much dungeon-crawling chaos you can actually commit to. ...

Terraforming Mars has been a staple of modern board gaming since 2016, and with good reason - few games nail that slow-build engine satisfaction quite like watching your card combos snowball across generations. But with six expansions now available, the buy-in can feel overwhelming. Which ones transform the experience, and which ones are dead weight? We’ve ranked them all, from essential to skippable. The Base Game at a Glance Before diving into expansions, here’s where Terraforming Mars stands: ...

Ark Nova doesn’t need an introduction. It’s the #2 game on BoardGameGeek, sitting at an 8.54 rating with over 88,000 owners. If you’re reading a board game blog, you’ve either played it, want to play it, or are actively avoiding it because the word “zoo” appeared in the same sentence as “3.80 weight.” So when designer Mathias Wigge released Ark Nova: Marine Worlds in 2023, the question wasn’t will people buy it - it was should they? ...