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]
Munchkin is a dedicated deck card game by Steve Jackson Games, written by Steve Jackson and illustrated by John Kovalic. It is a humorous take on role-playing games, based on the concept of munchkins.
Ticket to Ride is a series of turn-based strategy railway-themed Eurogames designed by Alan R. Moon, the first of which was released in 2004 by Days of Wonder. As of 2024, 18 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide and it has been translated into 33 languages. Days of Wonder has released electronic versions of the board games in the series, as well as Ticket to Ride-themed card games and puzzles.
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.
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.
Enchanted Forest is a board game designed by Alex Randolph and Samuel Etchie in 1981, that requires players to remember the locations of fairytale treasures. The first edition of the game was published by Ravensburger in Germany in 1981 under the original name Sagaland.
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. It has also received positive reviews because of its innovative idea to use a storybook as gameplay map.
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.