برچسب: Board

3-2-1 Countdown Review – One Board Family
We’ve learned over the years that a card game from Grandpa Beck’s Games is sure to be a good time around the table. 3-2-1 Countdown is a card shedding game released in early 2025 that we’re just now getting a chance to play. Will this retro rocket themed game be a crowd pleaser or will this be a failure to launch?

Countdown

3-2-1 Countdown is for two to eight players and is played over the course of 5 rounds. Each round, players are trying to shed the twelve cards from their hand or at least have the lowest valued hand when the round comes to an end. In higher player count games, you’ll only have ten cards in your hand, but the objective remains the same.

On your turn, you’ll simply discard a card or cards of all the same value to one discard pile, then draw the top card of the other discard pile. If you don’t like the card laying at the top, feel free to draw blind from the top of the deck in the center of the table. Having multiple copies of the same card is a great thing because it means that you can discard all of them at one time, inching your hand of cards closer to empty.

Drawing a new card after discarding can give you a chance of doubling or tripling another card value in your hand, making a future turn even more lucrative. Players are dropping cards and looking for chances to gain lower cards or cards that have synergy with the cards they have in their hand.

Ready to Blast Off

A round of 3-2-1 Countdown will end in one of two ways. If a player is able to discard a final card or cards on their turn, they say “Blast Off” and the round is over. For shedding all their cards, this player gets three points for emptying their hand. All other players share their numerical card totals as they share their hand of remaining cards. The player with the lowest card total gets two points and the next lowest gets one point.

A player can choose to end a round before someone has the opportunity to empty their hand. If a player has five or less points in their hand, they can place their cards face up in front of them, saying “Countdown”. This will end the round, but could be a risky move. If another player has a lower point total in their hand, they will grab the three victory points while the player who initiated this receives nothing. If the player who said “Countdown” did have the lowest total, they receive an additional bonus point, scoring four points. In either case, the next two players with the lowest point totals receive two and one point respectively.

The players that finish outside of the three lowest values don’t receive points, but there’s always next round. Most of our games, we play the full five rounds before totaling the players scores. In a game with six or seven players, we’ll sometimes play three or four rounds for a quicker game.

Mission Control

3-2-1 Countdown has great artwork from Apryl Stott that’s reminiscent of mid-1900’s science fiction. The rocket and color pallet of the game is excellent and works well as you race to shed your cards. I really enjoy the variety of rockets that appear on the eleven different cards in the game (zero to ten).

The card breakdown is weighted to the middle of the deck with the five cards showing up the most frequently. This is important to understand as you make decisions on whether or not to pick up specific numbers after discarding on your turn. Players often shoot immediately for low numbered cards in their first couple games. The problem is that the lower and higher cards in the deck are less plentiful, giving you less card matches in your hand.

While it seems counter intuitive, picking up that six or seven card makes a lot of sense. Chances are that you’ll have a couple of these cards in your hand already. Discarding a pile of cards feels so satisfying as you work to catch the other players off guard.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTkIxcd-ujI

Space on our Game Shelf

This game definitely flew under our radar this year. I originally didn’t dig too deep into 3-2-1 Countdown because of the shear number of card games that have shown up in our house over the past year. We had a chance to check the game out at Origins Game Fair in June and we knew this would be a hit for our family and friends.

I’m a little sad that we waited six months to check out this great card shedding game. The game is quick to teach and moves really fast after you get through your first round. I like that players who don’t finish in the top three of the round are locked out of earning points. While scores are pretty low numerically, the games we’ve played have been tight and competitive.

I’m positive that this is one of my top three games that Grandpa Beck’s publishes. It’s going to be tough to take the place of the incredible trick-taking classic Skull King and the ultra mean Cover Your A$$ets. 3-2-1 Countdown is a game that can hit the table after dinner or at the beginning or end of any game night. This is an easy suggestion for anyone who’s looking to introduce a new card game that the whole family can jump into.

3-2-1 Countdown is available at your local game store, through the Grandpa Beck’s webstore or online through Amazon today.

This game was provided to us by the publisher for review. Read more about our review policies at One Board Family.

Highs
- Quick gameplay with a great art style
- Tension near the end of the round is fantastic
- Player interaction in the form of picking up what others discarded
Lows
- Play at the highest player count can drag a little
Complexity

Time Commitment

Replayability
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05/07/2025
INKtentions Preview – One Board Family
The octopus is probably one of the most sneaky, clever, and cunning creatures in the ocean. INKtentions is a card game for two to four players that requires players to outsmart their opponents to get the most food in the ocean. The game is designed by Matthew Kambic with artwork from Chris Adams, and is being published by MaKa Games. Let’s jump into the deep end and learn more about INKtentions.

Delicious Ocean Food

Each player has a stack of nine cards, all the same, with the players color represented on the back of their cards. Over the course of the round, players will add eight of these cards into the display in the center of the table. The goal is to snag some of the delicious sea life (food) found in the center of the table. Each food tile has a different scoring method and you don’t want to end the round hungry.

At the start of INKtentions, you’ll choose the food tiles that you’ll compete for in the center of the table. The game comes with nine different food tiles that all score differently. Based on the player count, you’ll select five, six, or seven of these tiles to put in the center of the table. Players will play their cards off of the edge of these tiles as they compete to eat these underwater morsels.

INKtentions plays over the course of three rounds as you accumulate tiles to get your final score. Let’s talk about what the cards do.

Eight Arms of Fun

Players take turns around the table playing cards onto any food tile they want. These cards are played facedown, adding to the growing tentacle until they reach the card limit (based on player count). At the end of the round, you’ll go tentacle by tentacle, turning over cards and resolving them one at a time. Here is what each card type does:
- Hunt cards (x3) allow you to take a food tile at the base of that tentacle as long as this card isn’t eaten.
- Shark cards (x1) will eat any Hunt cards to the left and right of this card.
- Eel cards (x1) will eat a single Hunt card to the left or right of this card, chosen by the player who played the Eel card.
- Ink cards (x1) will cause a Shark card that is adjacent to go away.
- Hide & Hunt cards (x1) are immune to Shark and Eel cards, allowing the player to nab a food tile at the base of that tentacle.
There are two additional cards in the players hand that get played directly in front of the player and not in the center of the table. The Punch card lets you move a card from one tentacle to another uncapped tentacle. Finally, the Octobility card will let the player pull a special ability tile that was set out at the start of the round.

Octobilities give players a unique ability that will be used immediately or when directed on the tile. These abilities allow you to play your ninth card, swap a card on the table with one from your hand, gain a point and peek at a card, cap a tentacle and more. With every player having the same card set, you’re looking to outwit your opponents each round.

Underwater Deduction

The heart of INKtentions is a programming game where players are trying to predict what their opponents are playing. The Hunt & Hide card is the only guarantee of earning a food tile. Playing your Shark and Eel card at just the right time will take out another players Hunt card. One of the most devious moves in the game is using a Punch card to move another players Shark card to cancel out their Hunt card.

Since everything is played facedown, you’re going purely off intuition and anticipating players strategies. I’m a fan of programming games like Colt Express, Mountains Out of Molehills, and How to Rob a Bank. Players are trying to bluff or misdirect the other players with their card play. INKtentions shines when players catch on to their opponents patterns and block them from getting the food that gives them victory points.

Final Thoughts

Scoring in INKtentions feels a lot like Sushi Go or Bugs on Rugs. The scoring variety across the different food tiles works really well. Players have to diversify which foods they go for since your opponents can easily block you when you focus on a single food source.

The way cards build the arms of the octopus from the center of the table makes for a great table presence. Players who enjoy deduction, programming, and hand management games will really enjoy INKtentions.

You can visit the Kickstarter campaign for INKtentions when it launches on June 10, 2025.

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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10/06/2025
Beach Day Preview – One Board Family

For many people, the beach is the epidemy of rest and relaxation. The sun, sand, and ocean waves can wash away the stress of our everyday life. I’m not in that group of people. Sand and myself are mortal enemies that have been in a battle since my teenage years. Thankfully, games like Beach Day from CakePie Games exist so I don’t have to actually be on a beach to enjoy this atmosphere.

Beach Day is a tile placement game for 1 to 5 players that’s illustrated by Ammon Anderson (Gnome Hollow) and designed by Brennan Smith and Josh Bowman. This small box game brings all the joy of the beach as you chase victory points and stay away from pesky sand.

Fun in the Sun

Each player is adding cards to their own beach tableau on their turn, chasing five global goals and their own unique goal. You’ll receive two crab cards at the start of the game, discarding one and keeping the other. This is a personal scoring goal that is unique to just you.

Everyone starts with a single tile 2×2 card that is marked with a sea turtle in one of the corners. This sea turtle is important and can never be covered by another card.

On your turn, you can take two cards from the top of the draw pile, placing one and discarding the other to one of the two discard piles. OR, you can take and place one of the top cards on either of the discard piles. In adding a new card to your beach, you can place it adjacent to another card or overlap another previously placed card. Overlapping is generous in this game since you can cover one or more of the four squares on a card. You can never place a card diagonally adjacent or tuck a card under another previously placed card.

Beach Activities

On the cards in Beach Day, you’ll find beachballs, sand castles, pools of water, shells, sand dollars, and even trash. Each item on the beach has a different method of scoring based on the goal cards that were chosen at the start of the game. Beachball halves need to be paired with another half in order to be scored. Sea shells score the most when grouped in contiguous paths.

Don’t forget about your crab card! That secret scoring criteria can be helpful in outscoring your opponent. Players will watch how each beach is being built at the table. In many of our games, the score has been tight and competitive which is exactly how we like our games.

Since the goal cards in the game are double-sided, players can pick their favorite scoring cards each and every game. Once you get a couple games under your belt, you’ll start to enjoy some goals more than others. The game gives you the agency to just pick your favorites and run with it.

After the draw pile is empty, players score based on the goal cards and crab card that each player has. The highest score wins.

Final Thoughts

Like a day at the beach, Beach Day is a relaxing and breezy time at the game table. The small box makes this a great game to throw into a bag or to play over a meal. It’s easy to understand how everything is scored and the placement rules are straight-forward.

Beach Day is a filler game that is going to check a lot of boxes for anyone looking for a quick game that you can take on the go. The gameplay and theme absolutely go hand-in-hand with this release.

Beach Day is being funded through Kickstarter starting in June from CakePie Games. 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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04/06/2025
Everdell Duo Review – One Board Family
Everdell has been a huge presence in the hobby since its release in 2018. With more than half a dozen expansions and multiple editions of the game, it’s tough to know where to jump into this award winning worker placement game. Thankfully, Everdell Duo is a less intimidating 2-player game that seems to be a prefect ramp into this universe.

Woodland Communities

Everdell Duo is a 2-player focused experience where players are building their forest focused communities over the series of four seasons. One player takes the role of the tortoise while the other player plays as the hare. In the competitive play mode, players work to build out their woodland village with structures and inhabitants. You’ll have three workers to place and a variety of resources that can be earned and spent.

Cards are available from a draw deck or from the central board. These cards each have a cost that has to be paid before they are added to your tableau. Cards offer end game scoring, new worker placement spots, resources, or coins (which are your victory points). Like it’s older board game sibling, Everdell Duo is an incredibly cute game. With artwork from Andrew Bosley and Enggar Adirasa, this game draws you into its nature themed world.

The Sun and the Moon

Each round of Everdell Duo is tracked using a sun and moon token that moves through the center of the board. When players place a worker, the moon token moves along the track. When a player plays a card, the sun token moves along the track. Picking up a card from the deck or meadow (board) allows the player to advance either token, their choice. These sun and moon tokens keep the game moving and have strategic value as you try to lock out your opponent from using their final worker.

There are standard worker placement spots on the board along with two river spaces that get swapped out each round. Players are primarily collecting resources from these spots. Berries, twigs, pebble, and resin resources are used throughout the game to pay for cards and add them to your tableau. I’m a big fan of how tactile these resources are.

Cards are either categorized as creature or construction. These cards offer new worker placement locations, production bonuses, additional resources, coins (victory points), and end gaming scoring. Finding synergies across these cards is a big part of the game.

Seasons Come and Go

Across the top of the meadow is a set of locations where players can claim events that are randomly chosen at the start of the game. Players can claim these events if they meet the requirements of the tile, resulting in additional victory points. Since these are first come, first serve, players want to commit to chasing specific tiles as they build out their tableau.

At the end of the fourth season, players count their victory points, coins, bonuses, awarded events, and any end game scoring from cards.

Everdell Duo is a really straight-forward 2-player experience with great components (for the most part). While I love the high quality resources in the game, it feels like the sun and moon tokens could have been a little better. These are just cardboard trackers and pale in comparison with the resource components.

The sun and moon tracker is being moved each and every turn and is an important part of the game. It’s also the item that is forgotten about the most often. I’ve played Everdell Duo against four different people and moving these trackers are forgotten about a few times each game. It’s an upkeep step that is often tough to remember.

Cooperative Gameplay

In the cooperative game mode, both players are working together to build a single city that is flourishing with life. Players work their way through a book that has over a dozen chapters which guide the players through a story. You’ll have goals to achieve, and the setup will be slightly different each time.

Players will deal with skunk tokens that block out different locations during the course of the game. The skunks get in your way and keep you from getting exactly what you need. You can choose to take on a single chapter or work through a campaign where you name your city and track your progress over time.

This co-op experience is a great option for players who are looking for a new way to play. It works really well and is perfect for players who don’t mind working together with another person. This is also a great option for anyone who wants to play the game with a younger gamer. Some chapters allow you to share resources or cards, while other chapters are more restrictive.

Final Thoughts

Everdell Duo has quickly become part of our weekend gaming rhythm. Erin and I really enjoy playing this game over breakfast during a chill weekend. The game has enough cards that it’s impossible to see all the cards during a single game. There is a lot of replayability because event cards and the river location tiles are randomized each game.

With two different ways to play, Everdell Duo is a great option for players looking to change things up after a couple of games. While jumping into Everdell feels a little intimidating, Everdell Duo is a fantastic way to experience this world as a newcomer.

If you already own Everdell (along with some of the expansions), I’m not entirely sure Everdell Duo is a must buy. This new game does a great job of removing some of the “fluff” of the original and streamlines the game in plenty of ways. The setup and speed of play is the biggest selling point when compared to the original. If these aspects are important to you, you should check out this release.

For gamers who play games at the 2-player count often, Everdell Duo is an excellent purchase. The setup is quick, the mechanics are clean, and the game is one that we’re going to enjoy for a long time.

Everdell Duo is now available at your local game store or through the Tabletop Tycoon webstore.

This game was provided to us by the publisher for review. Read more about our review policies at One Board Family.

Highs
- Mostly great components and excellent art
- Variable events and river locations each game
- Speedy setup and smooth gameplay
Lows
- Moving the sun and moon tokens are often overlooked
- Wish the box had some level of organization
Complexity

Time Commitment

Replayability
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29/05/2025
Prescriptive Tasks & Workflows – Board Game Publishing — Pine Island Games

A task becoming more prescriptive doesn’t mean that it’s less creative. Even though I now have more frameworks around sourcing illustration or graphic design – they are still creative processes. It’s just that I now know how to approach those tasks.

By the same token, a lot of tasks are iterative. But having a framework for how to approach tasks helps us iterate more efficiently and come up with better products.

I like this way of thinking about and framing the business. It makes it easier to approach less-well-defined problems, knowing that working through them will help me learn and level up my games publishing craft.

The next time they crop up they won’t be nearly as scary.

Passing it On

My hope is that Pine Island Games will grow as a company, and that some day we’ll have in house partners who benefit from the experience I’m building now.

It’s also why I write this blog.

I want to help other indie publishers learn processes and methods that help them on their journeys. It’s my way of giving back to this community, which I owe so much to.

A lot of articles are like this, a little more philosophical and less full of specific device, but I also try and provide some real concrete advice.

Our Nuts & Bolts series is for instance bite sized prescriptive advice on tackling specific publishing problems. I recommend checking them out:

Game & Product Design

Publishing

Marketing

Graphic Design, Illustration, Packaging & Iconography

What’s is a complicated problem that you’ve developed a prescriptive method to tackle?

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29/05/2025
How to Find & Hire a Fulfillment Provider for your Board Game Kickstarter or Gamefound — Pine Island Games

They will be able to provide shipping rates by geography – like this shipping estimate for Sigil from Fulfillrite. Most will break down their picking fees, the cost of packaging, and postage costs.

Key Considerations

Price isn’t the most important consideration when finding your fulfillment partner.

Reputation: Reputation and surety that they will get the job done smoothly, and without undue product damage, is far more important than a dollar or two savings on picking and packing. I recommend asking around in game design and publishing forums for peoples’ experiences with your with your most competitive.

Ease of Communication: You’ll need a good relationship with your sales rep to smooth the freight delivery process, and address any hiccups that come up during fulfillment. Make sure your sales rep is responsive and can help you workshop your fulfillment options.

Technology: My favorite thing about Fulfillrite is their tech platform. They have a dashboard where I can manage inventory, upload shipping details, and best of all, it automatically ties into our Shopify storefront.

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28/05/2025
The Board Game Content Ecosystem — Pine Island Games

Paid Versus Unpaid

It’s important to note the difference between paid and unpaid content. Most review content and round ups is unpaid, while a lot of preview content is paid. Whether content is paid or unpaid will also depend on the individual creator, and the size of the channel’s audience.

For instance, a smaller channel will likely create preview content for free (to help build its audience and have novel content), while larger established channels will charge a fee for content.

Not all paid content is created equal, and it’s important to partner with creators whose tastes and audiences align with your design. Even when content is paid, you can tell how enthusiastic content creators are about the game they are covering.

Getting Coverage

There are two main kinds of coverage – coverage before your game is released or crowdfunded, and coverage after your game is published.

I wrote up an article on how to reach out to content creators: How to Query Content Creators.

It’s worth noting that the process of reaching out to content creators is relatively similar in each case. However, once your game is published you will get a higher proportion of inquiries for coverage, as well as unprompted coverage.

Once a game is published, unless you are paying for specific content (like a how to play video), the vast majority of coverage will be unpaid (although you may send a review copy of your game).

Where to Find Content Creators

Most readers will have their own favorite board game content creators. Those are a great place to start when looking for reviewers and previewers for your game. But, it’s always worth expanding your playlists. Here are a few places to look for content creators for your game:

Who are your favorite under the radar board game content creators?

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27/05/2025
How Board Games are Made — Pine Island Games

A lot goes into making a board game. From design to development, marketing and of course manufacture. In the past I wrote about the distribution pipeline (see our article: Supply Chain A-Z), and decided that it might be helpful to dig a little deeper into the actual process of manufacturing a board game.

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26/05/2025
What a Journey – A Board Game 15 Years in the Making — Pine Island Games

But, Sigil didn’t start with me. It wasn’t my brain child, and while I helped tighten the game up around the edges, the design fully belongs to Andy Voellmer.

15 Years in the Making

If you were near Montreal’s Parc LaFontaine in summer 2009, you might have seen a couple of college aged kids playing a game with maple leaf pennies.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of those first plays – and I’m not sure that those first iterations would even be recognizable to someone introduced to the game as it stands today. The rules were a bit different, spells weren’t even modular, and that’s not even getting into how the game looks.

But, the spark of it was there.

That spark stayed with Andy through a PHD, from Canada to California, and to New York City where we met.

While I don’t have pictures of those first plays, I do have a picture of one of my early plays with Andy.

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25/05/2025
Tips for Running a Great Board Game Demo — Pine Island Games
Go With the Flow

No two demos are going to be the same, so it’s important to make sure everyone knows your games inside and out, and to stay flexible in a teach.

Some gamers like to skip around and ask a bunch of questions, some gamers are hands on with components, some are content to let you monologue.

And all those approaches are ok.

Converting a Sale

The ultimate goal of demoing at a convention is to show off your games and get them into the hands of people who will love and play them.

This means that you need a call to action to convert those would be fans into consumers. At Gen Con we ran a special price on Nut Hunt (since we didn’t have to pay for shipping). This was a strong incentive to buy the game now, rather than wait and mull it over, and maybe let it slip their mind on their flight home.

Sigil was a harder sale since we don’t have physical copies to sell (we wrapped up the Kickstarter in June and were taking late pledges at the con).

What I found worked for Sigil was to be frank about where in the process we were, and to appeal to consumers who the game really clicked with.

This is roughly the closing script I settled on by the end of the weekend.

“Sigil is our second game. It’s not even out yet. For context, we Kickstarted Nut Hunt last June and delivered it over two months ahead of schedule in January. We Kickstarted Sigil this June, and like Nut Hunt are targeting a March delivery. We can’t promise it will be early because obviously some things are out of our hands, but from our perspective we are on schedule.

“So, what we’re asking people to do today is to go on our website and join the mailing list, and you’ll get notified when we open it up to late pledges next month.

“And, what’s been pretty incredible is that a lot of people know they want the game today. They either demo it or sit down and play it. And, this is one of those games where if this is in your genre – if you like GO, Hive, Onitama – if this is your kind of game, then once you play this you’ll love it.

“If you know already that you want the game, then what we can do today is ring you up and charge you for the base game, and we’ll get your email and when we open up the pledge manager next month you’ll already be in there with all of the Kickstarter backers and have access to the add-ons and all the Kickstarter components.

I think the script I settled on did a couple of things really well.
1. It gave context around where we are in the process and set expectations.
2. It didn’t pressure people to buy now – but gave them a few ways to engage with us.
3. It normalized late pledging in person at the convention.
People like being part of a crowd, and by highlighting that a lot of people were taking the late pledge in person option, I normalized for our con goers that it was a good route to go.

Stay Hydrated

Cons are long, you’ll be talking a lot and your voice will start to go. So, stay hydrated. Take breaks when you need them. Treat yourself well and you’ll keep up that energy to have a successful con full of memorable demos with amazing people.

What are your favorite demo experiences?
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25/05/2025