Thomas J. Vasel is a podcaster, designer and reviewer of board games, [1] [2] [3] and hosted The Dice Tower podcast from 2003-2022, which has more than 300,000 subscribers. Vasel began publishing board game reviews in 2002 on BoardGameGeek, [4] followed by YouTube, [5] [6] and his Dice Tower website. [7] [8] [9] As of 2021, he has rated over 7000 games and expansions. [10] His first board game review was for The Settlers of Canaan . [4] [11]
Vasel was the designer of the board game Vicious Fishes in 2010, [12] and co-designer for the boardgame Nothing Personal in 2013. [13]
One of his children, Jack Vasel, died in 2011, resulting in Vasel establishing the Jack Vasel Memorial Fund, [14] a not-for-profit fund with the goal of raising and distributing funds to help gamers in their hour of need. [15] [16] [17]
The Spiel des Jahres is an award for board and card games, created in 1978 with the purpose of rewarding family-friendly game design, and promoting excellent games in the German market. It is thought that the existence and popularity of the award was one of the major drivers of the quality of games coming out of Germany, particularly in the 1980s and 1990s. A Spiel des Jahres nomination can increase the typical sales of a game from 500–3,000 copies to around 10,000, and the winner can usually expect to sell as many as 500,000 copies.
Evo: The Last Gasp of the Dinosaurs is a German-style board game for three to five players, designed by Philippe Keyaerts and published by Eurogames. The game won the GAMES Magazine award for Game of the year 2002. It was nominated for the Origins Award for Best Graphic Presentation of a Board Game 2000. In 2004 it was nominated for the Hra Roku. The game went out of print in 2007, and a second edition was released in 2011.
BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games. In addition to the game database, the site allows users to rate games on a 1–10 scale and publishes a ranked list of board games.
Dungeons & Dragons: The Fantasy Adventure Board Game, released in 2002 by Parker Brothers, a division of Hasbro, is based on the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) by Wizards of the Coast. The game is distributed in the European market only.
Pandemic is a cooperative board game designed by Matt Leacock and first published by Z-Man Games in the United States in 2008. Pandemic is based on the premise that four diseases have broken out in the world, each threatening to wipe out a region. The game accommodates two to four players, each playing one of seven possible roles: dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher, operations expert, contingency planner, or quarantine specialist. Through the combined effort of all the players, the goal is to discover all four cures before any of several game-losing conditions are reached.
Bézier Games, Inc. is a privately owned American tabletop game publisher, known by hobby gamers for Castles of Mad King Ludwig and Suburbia, and known to casual gamers for the One Night Ultimate Werewolf series, Werewords, the Silver series, and Ultimate Werewolf. It was founded in San Jose, California in 2006 by Ted Alspach upon publication of Start Player. In 2013, the company was renamed Bézier Games, Inc. when it incorporated. The company moved to Louisville, Tennessee in 2016 run by Ted & Toni Alspach.
Race for the Galaxy is a card game designed by Thomas Lehmann. It was released in 2007 by Rio Grande Games. Its theme is to build galactic civilizations via game cards that represent worlds or technical and social developments. It accommodates two to four players by default although expansions allow for up to six players, as well as solo play. The game uses iconography in place of language in some places, with complex powers also having a text description. While appreciated by experienced players for being concise, some new players find the icons difficult to learn and to decipher.
Lords of Waterdeep is a German-style board game designed by Peter Lee and Rodney Thompson and published by Wizards of the Coast in 2012. The game is set in Waterdeep, a fictional city in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. Players take the roles of the masked rulers of Waterdeep, deploying agents and hiring adventurers to complete quests and increase their influence over the city.
Mansions of Madness is a tabletop strategy game designed by Corey Konieczka and published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2011. Players explore a locale filled with Lovecraftian horrors and solve a mystery.
Terra Mystica is a Euro-style board game for two to five players designed by Helge Ostertag and Jens Drögemüller. The game was first published by Feuerland Spiele in Germany in 2012, and was later published in English and French by Zman Games and Filosofia Édition in 2013. Feuerland Spiele released a second German edition of the game in 2013.
The Castles of Burgundy is a board game for two to four players, set in Medieval Burgundy. It was designed by Stefan Feld and illustrated by Julien Delval and Harald Lieske, and was published in 2011 by Ravensburger/alea. It is considered a classic of the Eurogame genre, and is cited as one of the most influential board games of the last decade. It uses dice rolling and dice placement, a modular setup, and set collection as its mechanics. The dice and the ability to change them give players a wide range of options.
Um Reifenbreite is a bicycle racing themed board game for two to four players. It was invented by Rob Bontenbal.
Plaid Hat Games is a United States-based board game studio. Plaid Hat Games was founded in 2009. Board game designer Colby Dauch formed the board game publishing company in order to release the company's first game, Summoner Wars.
Craig Besinque is a wargame designer from British Columbia, Canada, who grew up in Arcadia, California. Most of his games are block wargames which have World War II as a theme. In 1991, his game East Front, co-designed with Tom Dalgliesh, won the Charles S. Roberts Award for Best World War Two Game, a James F. Dunnigan Award for playability and design, and the Origins Award for best Modern-era wargame. His game Triumph & Tragedy was the runner-up for the best 2015 Golden Geek Wargame. His other popular games have included Rommel in the Desert and Hellenes: Campaigns of the Peloponnesian War.
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a board game for 4 to 12 players designed by Tobey Ho and published by Grey Fox games in 2015. Set as a detective investigation scene, in Deception players find themselves in a scenario of intrigue and murder, deduction and deception. Players take on the roles of investigators attempting to solve a murder case, but one of the investigators is actually the killer. Different roles are randomly assigned at the start of play. As the investigators attempt to deduce the truth, the murderer's team must deceive and mislead.
Mice and Mystics is a fantasy-themed dungeon crawling cooperative board game designed by Jerry Hawthorne and published by Plaid Hat Games in 2012. In the games, the players represent fantasy characters transformed into anthropomorphic mice, on a quest to defeat an evil witch. The game has been praised for its original theme, with player's characters using buttons and needles instead of shields and swords, and fighting rat warriors and cats instead of goblins and dragons.
Battles of Westeros is a 2010 strategic wargame set in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire universe. It was designed by Robert A. Kouba and published by Fantasy Flight Games.
Roll Player is a euro-style board game designed by Keith Matejka and published in 2016 by Thunderworks Games. In the game, players compete to design the best fantasy adventurer, through dice rolling and card drafting mechanics.
Tapestry is a 2019 strategy board game designed by Jamey Stegmaier and published by Stonemaier Games.