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  • If board games be the food of love… — The Treehouse

    If board games be the food of love… — The Treehouse



    Connect psychically

    Maybe what you’re craving isn’t escapism at all, but a way to engage with each other on a deeper level. These (potentially dangerous!) games encourage you to get right into each other’s heads… who knows what surprises you’ll find there?

    A quick aside: both of the following games are really designed for larger groups, and I wouldn’t claim that two is the ideal player count for either. However, during lockdown we’ve all had to make our fun with what’s available, and we’ve had an enjoyable two-player time with both of these. Playing with just two makes them a lot less raucous and a little more intense, but arguably no less satisfying than the larger group version, and you’ll get to have a whole different type of fun with them once party days are here again!

    • Medium. The first game in this weird but potentially wonderful category is Medium, in which players become mind readers trying to pluck words straight out of each other’s brains (not as gross as it sounds!). Each of you begins with a hand of word cards, and you take turns starting each round by choosing one to play face-up in the middle of the table. Then, the other player follows with a card from their hand, ideally one that they think creates an obvious connection with the word already chosen. You both count down from three then say the word that you think most directly links the two cards. If you both said the same word, great! You just scored the maximum points for the round. If not, you repeat the process up to twice more using the words you just said instead of the words on the card. This super-simple game has some genuine magic to it, and never more so than when you can look each other in the eye and just KNOW that you’re thinking the same thing!

    • Wavelength. Ah, Wavelength. I’ve used a whole lot of words waxing lyrical about this phenomenal game since it became available to buy again recently, but I can always find a few more! Wavelength is remarkable in many ways: you can play it in team or cooperatively, by video link or in person, with a large group or with just two players. It’s simple to learn, has some of the coolest components around, and can get you thinking about things as strange and diverse as “who on the Treehouse team is the most Slytherin?”, “which colour does my sister think is the sexiest?” or “what is small but not tiny?”.

      The rules of Wavelength are simple: the player whose turn it is to be clue-giver draws a card which defines a scale, e.g. famous to infamous, pointy animal to round animal, or nice smell to disgusting smell, and tells the other players what it is. Then, they spin the Wavelength Wheel of Wonder* (*not its real name) and take a peak behind the snazzy turquoise screen to find out where on the scale the target has landed, without showing the other players. They then concoct their clue, which can be whatever they like as long as it’s not too complex, to help their team mates (or all other players in the cooperative version) to guess where the target is by adjusting the red needle. Once the decision is made, the screen slides back to show the answer, and points are awarded if the needle is within the target area. It might sound a little abstract without the game in front of you, but as soon as you’ve got to grips with the (literal) mechanics of the wheel, all will become clear!

      A small safety note to finish: with just two players, we’ve found that this game can go one of two ways: either you’re so wondrously in sync that you become increasingly thrilled at your collective cleverness, or… you’re so at odds that you begin to wonder how you’re even friends. In the event that you find yourself in the latter scenario, don’t panic – treat it as a conversation starter and explore how you got there, and you’re bound to find out something about each other that you didn’t know before!



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  • Shallow Regrets Preview – One Board Family

    Shallow Regrets Preview – One Board Family


    The dark and creepy fishing game Deep Regrets is one of our favorite releases this year. But sometimes, you’re looking for a shorter fishing excursion. That’s were Shallow Regrets, a new wallet game from Button Shy Games, comes in handy. This eighteen card experience was created and illustrated by designer Judson Cowan and offers a bitesize experience of its more robust sibling, Deep Regrets.

    Catch of the Day

    Shallow Regrets plays two to three players and takes only fifteen minutes to play. In this fishing filler game, players can cast into six “shoals” in the center of the table. Each shoal is a pile of three cards that contain fair or foul creatures or objects from the ocean.

    Shallow Regrets - shoal piles

    Cards have a coin value (victory points), catch difficulty, and unique ability that can be activated when you have the card in your possession. Some cards contain fish hooks on the left side below the coin value. These hook icons will give you the strength to catch larger creatures as you fish the briny deep.

    Players are given information on the size of the fish based on the size of the shadow that’s shown when it’s on the top of the shoal. There’s also a hint at the bottom of the card back that gives you the range of strength you need to reel in that catch.

    Throwing Back Your Catch

    On your turn, draw two cards from the top of the shoal(s) in the center of the table. You can catch one of the two cards you picked up and must toss the other back. The rejected card is placed back on top of a shoal or in an open space if all the cards of a shoal have been fished. Players can strategically toss back a card to cover a card that another player was potentially planning to catch.

    Shallow Regrets - player turn

    Shallow Regrets is all about gaining strength as you gradually work your way up to catching bigger and more valuable creatures. While the coin value is victory points, sometimes the special ability on the card can be extremely advantageous. You can use a cards special ability by exhausting it (turning it sideways) at the start of a turn. You’ll be able to look at more cards on your turn, swap a creature for another players, pass a card to your neighbor, or even flip over the top card of each shoal.

    These abilities are really helpful in getting just the right cards in front of you. As a seasoned fisher, you want to dabble in catching foul fish, but you definitely don’t want all the foul fish! The foul fish in the game can give you the hooks you need to reel in a big catch. But, most of these come with negative coin values that will bring down your score.

    Shallow Regrets - player tableau

    Fair fish have some of the highest coin values but may not give you any hook icons to increase your strength. The game has a nice balance and forces players to keep a variety of fair and foul creatures. The game ends when all the cards have been taken from the shoals or when players don’t have enough strength to catch the cards that are left.

    A Stench Most Foul

    The player who reeled in the most foul fish will have two points deducted from their score at the end of the game. Players count the points on their cards, even their exhausted cards, to get a final score.

    Shallow Regrets - activated card

    Shallow Regrets is a really enjoyable, ultra condensed fishing experience that we really enjoy. The player count is small, supporting only three players. This has been the game Erin and I choose to bring on date nights because it’s such a tight and casual experience. When players lean into using the card abilities, the game is a little mean and that’s a big part of why we like the Shallow Regrets so much.

    Shallow Regrets - Kraken card

    Judson Cowen did an excellent job with illustrations. The creatures feel like a more cartoony version of their Deep Regrets counterparts. As many times as we’ve played Shallow Regrets, we still get excited when one of us finds and is able to reel in the five point Kraken card. This is an easy filler card game to suggest to anyone who has fifteen minutes and a couple friends to play with.

    Shallow Regrets is on Kickstarter through May 17, 2025. Check out the campaign today!

    A prototype of the game was provided for this coverage. Components and rules covered in this preview are not finalized. Read more about our preview policies at One Board Family.



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  • The Geek and I — The Treehouse

    The Geek and I — The Treehouse



    For those already familiar with the above, here are a couple of smaller things you might not have stumbled across yet:

    • Right up at the top of the entry above the game’s title, you can find ‘reimplements’/ ‘reimplemented by’ links, which make it easy to find earlier versions or sequels of the game you’re looking at.

    • On the right-hand side lower down the entry, there’s a grey box headed ‘classification’. In it you can find the game’s key mechanics and theme(s) listed. Clicking on them will take you to a selection of the highest-rated games which feature that mechanic/ theme – an easy way to explore other titles that share a characteristic you enjoy.

    • If you click into the search box in the top right of the screen, before you start typing you’ll see an ‘advanced search’ option appear in the drop down. Clicking on this unlocks a seriously powerful box of tricks. For example, if you know our username (“Treehouse Sheffield”) you can use this to filter The Treehouse’s collection by play time, player count, complexity, minimum age and even specific mechanics. What you’ll get back is a neat list of all the games in our library that meet your criteria, with the most highly-rated ones at the top. Nifty, huh?

    #2: One central hub

    According to its Wikipedia entry, way back in 2010 BGG was given an award for being “a resource without peer for board and card gamers, the recognized authority of this online community”. It feels to me like this has only become more true over time, which means that if you are a board game designer or a board game-related content producer, you are pretty much guaranteed to have a presence on the site. So, if you know how to find it, the BGG entry for a particular game acts as one central point for creators to post their YouTube reviews and ‘how to play’ videos, for fans to share their photos and rules summaries, and for the designer(s) of the game to answer questions and issue rules clarifications.

    “If you know how to find it” is a pretty big “if” though where BGG is concerned – it certainly took me a while to find my way around the myriad different aspects of each listing, and I’m sure there’s plenty more I haven’t discovered. The key to finding the sort of content described above turns out to be the horizontal menu just below the top banner. Here are some highlights:

    • Under ‘forums’ you can find discussion threads about the game, which can be filtered to show just rules questions, often with answers straight from the designer.

    • Under ‘videos’ you can find video content complete with user ratings that again can be easily filtered by language and type (reviews, instructional, interviews, even ‘humour’ specifically about that game… if you dare to go there!).

    • The stuff stored under ‘files’ can be particularly useful – there’s often a .pdf copy of the rule book, plus all kinds of helpful player aids and cheat sheets created by users (the Twilight Imperium 4th Edition files section contains 25 pages of listings!). Some of it might be poor quality, but as ever on BGG, users can (and do) rate the content that’s added so it’s easy to sort the wheat from the chaff.

    #3: A generally wholesome vibe

    Given what a powerful force BoardGameGeek has become in the tabletop gaming industry, I think it has done a pretty remarkable job of staying true to its community focus and creating a wholesome atmosphere.

    Something that stood out when I was delving into BGG’s history is that it’s still run by a surprisingly small team – just half a dozen or so people, with founder Scott Alden still at the helm. In interviews Alden talks about resisting calls from games production companies to step in when ratings on the site go south, with the exception of some back-end algorithms to stop people setting up accounts specifically to trash/ hype large numbers of games. He does also mention the impossibility of imposing any meaningful moderation on the site given the resources at his disposal, but I’ve seen very little unpleasantness between users either on the site itself or on its lively and supportive Facebook group.

    One aspect that I now see in a different light after watching the interviews is the user-friendliness of BGG. Alden repeatedly mentions that the question ‘what would I want from this site?’ is never far from his mind, which I must admit surprised me slightly given that usability has never been top of my list of BGG’s best qualities. It all makes more sense now that I know that BGG has mostly been coded by Alden himself plus one other programmer: you get the impression that adding extra functionality to enable shiny new content has tended to take priority over polishing the user interface. Progress has been made recently though, with the new homepage finally making its appearance late last year as part of a significant facelift slowly making its way across the vastness of the site.

    Another area where BoardGameGeek has recently made long-overdue progress is in the area of promoting diversity and inclusivity. The uncomfortable significance of the fact that the BGG logo was a white man right up until 2019 only dawned on me recently, but at least a change has now been made, and features like the recent series celebrating Black contributors for Black History Month provide hopeful signs that the changes are more than skin-deep.



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  • Solitaire with the long middle column


    This game was taught to me years ago, using a regular deck of cards.

    Setup:

    • Columns 1,2,3: lay 1 card face up
    • Column 4: 6 cards down and the 7th up
    • Columns 5,6,7: 1 up.
    • The very next card goes up to the foundation and that is your starting number.

    Play:

    • The foundation pile alternate between red and black going up,
    • the columns alternate between red and black going down
    • Column 4: can ONLY be played in the foundation.
    • Also you can only go through the deck once



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  • Official Project Egoist Trello And Discord Links

    Official Project Egoist Trello And Discord Links


    Roblox Project Egoist is the latest Blue Lock Rivals game on the block and it’s one of the best ones ever. It’s got amazing visuals, audio design, and best of all flashy styles. What better way to get info on everything than with the official Project Egoist Trello board and Discord server.

    Project Egoist Trello and Discord Guide

    project egoist discord server
    Image by The Escapist

    Here’s every link you need to get informed on all things Project Egoist:

    Related: Project Egoist Styles Tier List

    I would start with the Trello first because it’s essentially a Wiki on the game filled with useful content information. You can get a better idea of what styles you want to roll for or which cosmetics to get. The Trello has info on:

    • Basic and Advanced Game Mechanics
    • Controls
    • Codes
    • Cash Gain
    • Store Guide
    • All Styles
    • All moves from all styles showcased
    • Goalkeeper guide
    • All Titles
    • All Emotes
    • All MVP Animations
    • All Goal Effects
    • Upgrades and upcoming content

    Overall, it’s you go-to source for everything in the game. Once you have a basic idea you can also dive into the Discord and its various chats. It’s the best place to ask more specific questions about the game like the best styles or best moves from each style and discuss the game.

    It’s a prime-time place for advice and tips and tricks as well as tier lists. But that’s not all, it’s also important to stay tuned to the Announcements and Updates channels to see the latest content additions or buffs and nerfs to existing content. The devs keep an updated track of everything that’s going on.

    Lastly, it’s where you can find the latest codes for the game and also participate in giveaways and sneak peeks. Free stuff is best stuff. That’s it for my Project Egoist Trello board and Discord server guide. Check out our Project Egoist codes for free goodies to get you started in style.

    The Escapist is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy



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  • XCOM and Hunt Showdown inspire new strategy game and extraction shooter hybrid

    XCOM and Hunt Showdown inspire new strategy game and extraction shooter hybrid


    Ice Code Games, creator of Hard West 2 and last year’s Rogue Waters, has made a niche for itself in mashing up tactical combat design with supernaturally-infused historical settings. Hard West and its sequel take place in a 19th-century American West haunted by demonic creatures whereas Rogue Waters offers strategic pirate swashbuckling in monster-filled seas. Now, the studio is continuing in a similar vein with the announcement of its latest project, a blend of Hunt Showdown and XCOM 2 called Nightmare Frontier.

    Nightmare Frontier looks, at first blush, like a spiritual successor to the Hard West games. It, too, is a kind of strategy game set in the American West, where players have to contend with bloodthirsty monsters. From this foundation on up, though, it takes a pretty different approach, adding a risk-reward focused style of design to Hard West’s formula.

    In Nightmare Frontier, players control a group of desperate scavengers in a mission to find and collect loot in a town regularly attacked by creatures called Dreadweavers. As in extraction shooters like Hunt Showdown, the scavengers have to decide how long to fight off enemies, gathering increasing rewards as the danger grows, before it’s time to escape or risk losing what they’ve gained. When the player isn’t fighting, they’ll need to craft and upgrade their gear from the resources they’ve gathered and unlock new skills in preparation for their next round of combat.

    YouTube Thumbnail

    Nightmare Frontier is set to launch in Early Access on Steam this summer. Wishlist it or find more information on its Steam page right here.

    Otherwise, you can bide the time between now and Nightmare Frontier’s launch by taking a look at our picks for the best horror games and best action-adventure games already out on PC.

    You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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  • Help! I’m dating a gamesplainer! — The Treehouse

    Help! I’m dating a gamesplainer! — The Treehouse



    Hello, and welcome to The Treehouse’s new agony aunt column!

    I’m Chella, whom you may have met if you’ve visited The Treehouse before. It’s possible I taught you a party game, let you know that we had some corner brownies available in the cake display rack, or served you a Birdhouse Tea. 

    Now you can get to know another side of me as the arbiter of both real and theoretical board game conundrums (including whether or not there exists a board game called Conundrum – there are two!) and you can send in questions from the comfort of your own home.

    More on that later. For now, I will share with you my credentials… OK, I have no ‘official’ agony aunt credentials but I have worked at The Treehouse since our opening day, witnessed a lot of gaming and played plenty of board games myself (and with others!) and in that time I have helped solve many a game-related query.

    Those questions were answered in person though, and the answers drifted into the board game aether. Now, in these uncertain days as we get back to board gaming in person, we felt it worthwhile to archive future answers in the annals of gaming history as a community resource, talking point, and a bit of fun. Lofty ambitions? Probably. Over-egging the importance of this column? Almost definitely!

    But that’s sort of the theme of today’s column as I present to you our first question:

    Help! I’m dating a gamesplainer!

    Dear Treehouse team,

    Please help! I’ve started dating a perfectly decent guy. My family loves him, he is an upstanding citizen, and he is very cute. But, there is a problem. Whenever we play board games together, he has a habit of doing this thing where he goes into what I can only call “gamesplainer mode”. I am calling it this because it is quite different to the way a human person would naturally and casually explain the rules to a game.

    Instead, his normally jocular and mild-mannered tone morphs into something between a gameshow host, home shopping channel salesperson, and gladiator. Suddenly, winning and losing becomes a life-and-death struggle but, crucially, not understanding the rules or making a mistake when it is my turn suddenly feels like a crime.

    I love playing board games with him but I dread unboxing a new game or playing one he’s played before and I haven’t. He even does it at other people’s houses and I cringe inside when I see ‘the fear’ spreading to them. How can I tell him that he can just be himself while explaining again and we will still listen and learn the rules?

    Yours sincerely,

    Gamesplained in Greystones

    Dear Gamesplained in Greystones,

    Thank you for your excellent question.

    Firstly, I very much appreciate how you have differentiated between “game explainers” and “gamesplainers”. I think we can agree (and not just because it’s my favourite part of the job) that game explainers provide a valuable service in helping people get started on a new game quickly. Some folks are delighted by a twenty-eight-page rulebook, but others will take one look at that alongside the pile of stuff that came out of the box and be grateful that someone is willing to act as their lifeline. So just to be clear, we love a game explainer.

    But then there are the gamesplainers. Those who let the power of superior knowledge go to their heads. Those who enjoy explaining the game more than the players may ever enjoy eventually playing it, who dive in without checking whether people already know the rules, and may even carry on explaining what other players should do on their turns even once the game has begun, and, potentially, long after all of the guests have gone home.

    It’s easy enough to dismiss this as bombast, pomposity, or desperation to remain the focal point of the game night even at the expense of irritating or belittling fellow players. If that is what’s going on though, maybe gaming together should not be in your future. And if that’s a game changer (sorry), maybe it’s the relationship that’s not right. 

    But if you simply find yourself rolling your eyes or sighing as your partner shifts gears into gamesplainer mode, I invite you to see this from another perspective…

    From what I’ve witnessed, gamesplainers are most often simply game enthusiasts who allow their joy to spill over a little too freely (OK, sometimes freely enough to make me wish I were a gelatinous cube who could seep into the floor while hearing all about worker placement vs. tile placement, or fantasise about what I’d do if I really were Ursula or the Red Queen as an asymmetrical game is explained to me for the umpteenth time). But, for now, let’s assume your partner loves gaming so much that he nerds out, takes to an imagined game podium and gives the fantasy “Board Games Are Amazing And This One In Particular” lecture for the ages right there at the dining-room-table-turned-lecture-hall of his mind.



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  • American checkers largest possible number of legal move choices from any board position


    I want to know what is the maximum number of legal move choices from any board position, in the game of checkers, assuming official rules.

    I’m creating a program that plays checkers, and for performance reasons, I need to know in advance the largest number of legal moves. I expect it to be quite low, like under 50, but just making a guess is not an option for me.

    I searched for this, but couldn’t find an answer. Maybe I missed something.

    Edit:

    Thinking for a moment, I think (one of) the largest theoretical number(s) of legal moves might be where all 12 pieces are kings, like in the position W:WK5,K6,K7,K8,K13,K14,K15,K16,K21,K22,K23,K24:BK30, which has 42 legal moves. That position is not valid and is not possible to occur. I’m more interested though in the largest possible moves from a valid checkers position. An upper bound might be fine.



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  • Untitled Drill Game Trello and Discord link

    Untitled Drill Game Trello and Discord link


    An image of a Roblox character drilling the ground, there is a title on top and bottom of the page

    Screenshot by The Escapist

    Image of Aleksandar Perisic

    |

    Published: May 6, 2025 10:39 am

    Untitled Drill Game is a new tycoon/idle game where you drill for ore, sell that ore for profit, and then use that profit to drill for even more ore. Needless to say, there’s a lot to know about this game, and a good way to stay up to date is through the Untitled Drill Game Trello and Discord links.

    A bunch of drills are drilling the ground in Roblox Untitled Drill Game
    Screenshot by The Escapist

    The Untitled Drill Game is chock-full of content, and one great way to learn about it is to engage with its X Page, Discord, and official Trello board. Here are the links:

    If you want to be the first to know what’s going on with Roblox Untitled Drill Game, then the Discord page is your best bet. The server currently has just under 20k members, and around 5k of them are active. Here you can chat with the community and the devs, learn about future updates, or just troll the general chat with your favorite gif (not recommended).

    The official X page is also a good source of codes and special promotions. Most Roblox games don’t bother to make an X page, so it’s nice to see that the Untitled Drill Game is going the extra mile.

    Last but not least, we have the official Trello page, which is definitely one of the better Roblox Trello boards we’ve seen in a while.

    The Trello page contains information such as:

    • All NPCs/Vendors in the game
    • All types of Drills, including craftable ones
    • All types of storage, including craftable ones
    • All Ores currently in the game
    • All Ore mutations
    • Weather and weather totems
    • An Efficiency Spreadsheet with details on how to make the most in-game money in the least amount of time (really useful)

    If you’re planning to play the Untitled Drill Game seriously, we definitely recommend you check out the Trello board, especially the Efficiency Spreadsheet.

    That’s all there is to it. Have fun playing the Untitled Drill Game. If you haven’t already, check out our Untitled Drill Game codes (coming soon) for some free stuff in the game.

    The Escapist is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy



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  • travel games for UK holidays — The Treehouse

    travel games for UK holidays — The Treehouse



    It’s summer! And it’s actually been warm! Ridiculously warm! And sunny! Ridiculously sunny! You may have decided to venture outdoors, or even outside of Sheffield for holiday-related fun times over the coming weeks. But if you, dear readers, are anything like us here at the Treehouse, you will be incorporating games into your travel plans.

    Yes, I know this summer is different than most, and we can lament not being able to play Carcassonne in Carcassonne, play Santorini in Santorini, or the dream: play Jaipur in Jaipur while drinking a bottle of Thornbridge Jaipur IPA (this may just be my dream). But we are big fans of making our own fun, and so here is a roundup of games for holidays and it goes out to our tribe whom we know will play them rain or shine, Near and Far (available in our library). Read on for a round up of travel games for everyone. 

    Beach (and rain!) proof games

    We are an island nation, and although Sheffield may not have a coastline, we’re surrounded by water (sometimes more than we would like!). I am a beach girl and wild swimmer at heart, so this first group of games is for anyone who’ll be out on the water, or relaxing in the sand, games in tow. Some of these games fit into other categories below, but I wanted to give a special mention to games that are easy to clean and conveniently play well near sand, water and even ice lollies.

    • Blokus: This colourful abstract strategy game looks like a very cool analogue version of Tetris but the goal is to fill up the board, not empty it. It can be played by up to four players but works well as a two player game and even has a variation that allows for solitaire mode. Without any text it is easy for kids to pick up and for multilingual groups to play. It’s not necessarily travel sized in the traditional sense but the box is flat and very easy to slip into a suitcase or car boot. I should mention there are some small bits involved, but nothing that a picnic blanket couldn’t contain, and the plastic pieces and board are easy to clean.

    • Bananagrams: This Scrabble free-for-all only requires a flat surface to play and each player races to complete their own crossword-style grid in front of them using only the letters they’ve picked up. You can play it alone or up to a group of eight, but eight can get kind of frantic. It’s most enjoyable for two to five players in my experience. And it comes in a cute little fabric banana bag. The whole thing is sand-proof and washable.

    • Cobra Paw: Cobra Paw has a cardboard box, which will admittedly get a bit battered the further it strays from your admirably arranged board game shelf. You can accept this hazard, or store the components in a travel bag… or even do as some friends of mine have done and create a special travel box that helps you both store the pieces more compactly, and immediately see if one is missing so that you don’t leave the campsite without it. Cobra Paw is a very speedy matching game for two to six players requiring quick reflexes and good observational skills. It relies on rolling dice and matching symbols on domino shapes and has the extra competitive mechanic of stealing pieces from other players if they are not quick enough to defend them. It is suitable for both adults and kids to enjoy, as long as neither are tantrum-prone when they’re not winning!

    • Qwirkle: This one comes in a big-ish box, but don’t be discouraged. Inside the box is a bag of tiles and you can easily take it on holiday with you in the bag and leave the box on your aforementioned beautiful game shelf. You’ll need a large, stable playing surface because these tiles get layed out sort of like dominos and there is no limit to how far you can place them other than the table’s edge. This is a pattern- and colour-matching strategy game for two to four players and is also family friendly and requires no reading. It can be difficult to master for younger players but they may just enjoy making patterns with some of the shapes. You may need pen and paper or a phone to keep score as you and your opponents aim to use up all of the tiles by placing them in sets of matching or contrasting shapes and colours. The design is simple and bright and would suit an outdoor playing table.



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