Hello long lost patrons!

I feel like I’m returning to you after a long time at sea. It’s me - Jon! I know I’ve been weathered by the tide, and part of me will be forever lost to the ocean, but I promise I still like board games. So let’s talk about some! In this newsletter, I'm giving my thoughts on Reiner Knizia's Gazebo, Fromage and Bombastic.

Up next on the channel is my Top 10 Games of 2025 later this month. I’m very excited to be back writing reviews and jokes - that is my happy place.

Actual Life

The thing they don’t tell you about moving house, is that the moving of the house is only the beginning - then you’ve got to get settled in this new place, where nothing is where it should be and to find the simplest of things like a screwdriver takes so long that you need to stop and have a biscuit, but where are the biscuits?? 

And I promised to myself that I wouldn’t become one of those guys who makes the fact that he’s been very stressed out from moving house his whole personality - but I did become that guy for a while. Now he’s gone, I hope to never see him again.

I didn’t have a game night in over a month. And then I did. It was magical. A rare moment where six people were all available on the same night. Expensive snacks were brought. The lighting was just right. And we played a delightful game of Dark Moon (first on the channel in 2016!) - because I didn’t have any new games for 6 players. And followed it with a game of Liar’s Dice, which was a nice throwback to the 15th century, around the time I first started moving house.

Then we moved studios! A studio is a lot like a house, but smaller, so that became my personality for a bit back there too. The new place came with some new challenges - in the shape of three windows - but we’re fighting back with blinds and curtains. Here is a photo of it all set up, with Serena filming b-roll for the next video. The secret game is Rumble Nation.

And with the help of a local cinematographer, we’ve got it looking lovely on camera (see the latest Shelf Help video).

Actual Games

Gazebo is a remake of Qin, a Reiner Knizia (we’re back baby!) game from 2012. Now, instead of colonising the Chinese hinterland placing out Pagodas, we’re doing something in gardens with Gazebos. 

It’s a domino game. You place a domino tile onto the board, trying to connect up matching colours, to create a “nook” (give me strength), so you can place a gazebo on it. It’s a race to get all your gazebos onto the board first. And you’re fighting it out to control nearby patios - the player with the most adjacent gazebos, gets to place a gazebo on the patio too. 

It’s nice and combative. You are desperately trying to expand faster and better than your opponents. You will play tiles to sabotage their expansion. AND if you combine with a rival nook of the same colour, you can absorb it. Which feels a lot more in keeping with colonisation in China, than gardening.

It’s a great game. Super simple rules, but a very thinky, interactive game. I loved it as Qin. And I love it now. Unfortunately, this production is a festival of stupidness. The cardboard tiles don’t sit nicely on the cloth (WHY ARE WE DOING CLOTHS NOW?). And the garden theme is totally unsuited to the gameplay. And even then, the artwork doesn’t even depict a pretty garden! Nevertheless, I won’t let it stop me from enjoying a Knizia that has been dormant for too long. 

Fromage is a creative game about making cheese. It features some interesting simultaneous play - in that every round, you each face a different quadrant of the board. You will place your cheese workers in that quadrant to collect resources or score points. Then depending on how good their action is, you won’t get them back again until a later round - rotated). 

The mini games in each quadrant are easy to follow - and the game gets out of your way to let you plan your strategy. It’s very slick. There are upgrades you can pursue, and lots to consider. I definitely got AP at times, trying to be perfect. 

For my tastes, you’re a little too focused on your own thing. You can get in each other’s way, but I didn’t find I need to consider my other players that much, and I won the game. So I would personally prefer something that’s more interactive, but as euro games go - I really appreciate this one - and I’d recommend it to anyone who is looking for an entry level euro game. However, it does feel a lot like Mille Fiori, and I would recommend that instead.

Bombastic is a little travel game that turns Tic Tac Toe into a memory game. You have a 3x3 grid of plastic tiles - 4 are Os, 4 are Xs and one is a bomb.

To win the game, you need to reveal a row or column that is a three in a row of your symbol. If you reveal a row/column in with the bomb - you lose the game. Which doesn’t hurt that much, because a game lasts 5 minutes.

So to work out where things are, you take it in turns to choose action cards from the display. These let you look at tiles and swap tiles. You’re learning where your symbols are, and trying to manoeuvre them into position. While your opponent is trying to do the same.

It’s definitely fun for 5 minutes. It reminds me a little of Flip Circus, which I think I slightly prefer. There’s been some great memory games that have come out in the last few years (Trio, Flip Circus, Order Overload Cafe) and I don’t feel like I need another one. But for a fast, two player travel game, it’s pretty decent.

Song of the Month - Circadian Rhythm by Sophia James

Actually yours,

Jon