The Game Makers – Andy Matthews
Even in this age of elaborately produced games, The Game Makers from Bezier Games stands out from the crowd. A “game about making board games”, the team behind this title spent years working on the production, acquiring licenses, and working with Panda Manufacturing, to bring this to tables all over the world. Our man Kevin Brantley had the chance to talk with Bezier Games about this game at Origins 2025 and Gen Con 2025, and even got to sit in on a full play through last year.
The Game Makers features a nearly 12” square cube chock full of wooden components (3 different sizes of meeples, wooden trees), dice in three sizes, plastic buildings, double layer player boards, magnetic wheels, miniature forklifts, and SO MANY CARDS. And all of it is crammed into the box in a very well thought out series of stacked inserts.
How does it play? Quite well actually.
While there’s a lot going on, the main gameplay loop is not only fairly simple, but also simultaneous. Everything starts with the center rondel in which players send their forklifts out to collect resources. Every resource in the game can be used to either improve your personal factory, or to manufacture board games (the cards). There’s too much going on in the game to distill it down to a few paragraphs, but if you have the chance to play this game, you should definitely take it. Bezier have said that it won’t be going to retail, and it won’t be reprinted…so start looking for a copy now.
Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Andy Matthews.
If Then – Justin Bell
I put the new Scott Brady deduction game If Then in front of my wife and nine-year-old recently. We did two quick plays to get an answer to a simple question: is If Then a game that I could get my kids to play consistently?
If Then puts one player in the role of All Knowing, the person behind the curtain trying to help one or more Code Breakers solve a Challenge. The All Knowing knows the answer, and is trying to help the Code Breakers discover that answer. Using a line of cards that come with four different trackable traits—number value (0-9), number size (small, medium, large), number color (yellow, blue, red), and background color (yellow, blue, red)—Code Breakers play or discard one of their hand cards to the line, on top of an existing card or to the discard pile. Then, based on the game’s current Challenge condition, the All Knowing can tell the players whether that play is valid or invalid.
Sussing out the pattern is harder than one would expect, even on Levels 0 or 1 (in a game that has even deeper challenges at Levels 2 and 3). We needed a hint to solve the Level 0 challenge we had, then we got cocky and tried Level 1, getting destroyed in a loss where our number card draw deck ran out before we could empty the Code Breakers’ hands of cards. Event cards, revealed each round after each Code Breaker has taken a turn, spice things up a bit, but at its core, If Then is a slightly-more challenging deduction game than my family was willing to stomach. I think this would live on as a game my wife and I would play without the kids, but even attempting Level 1 cards proved to be a challenge.
Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★☆☆ – Wouldn’t suggest it, but would happily play it
Read more articles from Justin Bell.
Blorp! – Tom Franklin
Blorp! is a square tile-laying game (think: Carcassonne) where, instead of building kingdoms, you’re building Dr. Seuss-ian cartoon creatures known as Blorps. They come in three colors, pink, yellow, and green, and must be a completed creature to be scored. What makes Blorp! interesting is its use of trumpet-like horns. Say your yellow Blorp has a horn tile that’s connected to a green Blorp’s horn. If either Blorp has another horn somewhere on its body, it allows a Blorp! of one color to connect to another Blorp of the same color through the body of the differently-colored Blorp.
This really feels like a fun family game to play with younger kids. Or perhaps grown-ups after several adult drinks. The artwork is amusing, but with only 105 tiles, our individual Blorp!-scape were smaller than I’d hoped it would be. However, this keeps games short and tight, just the right amount of time for a family game night. If this sounds like something your family would enjoy, give Blorp! a try.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Read more articles from Tom Franklin.
Civolution (with Acceptance Letter) – Thomas Wells
I cannot express how little of a Stefan Feld guy I am. I find most of his games to be the epitome of what my friend Tyler calls “do stuff” games. You do things and you score points, and you score a lot of points for doing a lot of different things, which don’t immediately tell you how well you’re doing until you reach the end and discover that you weren’t quite optimized correctly for the particular puzzle of the game. But, you don’t really feel bad losing, and you don’t feel that good winning. My definition of icky point salad.
Civolution stands out for me in a way that very few Feld games have. There’s like 18+ resources, and 36 different actions. You have a faux computer keyboard in front of you that you control everything with as you literally, in game terms, run a computer simulation where you simulate the evolution of a species. Finally, something heady/goofy I can get behind. The genius of the game to me is that it models natural and artificial selection through micro-decisions. Every decision you make in the game is meaningful, but its immediate effects are almost miniscule. But, those micro decisions determine how your genetic hodgepodge evolves. Reminds me a bit of the video game Spore. One of the biggest gaming surprises for me in a long time.
Go check out David’s review for more details about the game. This is one of the few Felds I want to focus on.
Ease of entry?
★★☆☆☆ – Not an easy onboard
Would I play it again?
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Thomas Wells
Wondrous Creatures – Bob Pazehoski, Jr.
Wondrous Creatures has received its fair share of hype. Alas, it is good. It is one of the few games in recent memory that, for me, generated anticipation. Hot on the heels of my first play, I can say that I found it pretty enjoyable. I’ll offer two words and a plea.
The first word, take it as you will, is busy. Wondrous Creatures is so very busy. Here the worker placement is about covering multiple hexes, collecting from multiple hexes, sometimes with multiple effects. Gameplay revolves around icon collection. The icons are randomly and widely scattered throughout the game’s 120+ cards—a challenge of reading, arranging, and counting, but a boon to the game’s demand for more and more icons. The achievements are mostly variations of the same thing, collecting icons. The recharge action even gets in on the busyness by being the only action that requires several lines of guiding text on the player aid. Oh, and eggs and nets and energy tokens. And some redundant scoring on trophies in the endgame. So very much to do.
Busyness being what it is, Wondrous Creatures is still fun. The worker placement requires thought, especially as it grows more convoluted in the late game by the constant activity on the board. Though I wish there was any predictable pattern to the card contents, it is fun to hunt icons and assess revolving opportunities. I can see the objectives growing tiresome after several plays (a point of agreement with our own Kevin Brantley’s review). I love the recharge action and the ability to build a distinct engine upon the age-old need to recall workers. I also appreciate the timing mechanisms, which are entirely in the hands of the players. Calling all racers—you can recharge and accomplish your way to a faster play! Wondrous Creatures makes much of the time. It helps that the kids love it.
(As a side plea: having now experienced the game, I genuinely hope people stop comparing it to Everdell. Aside from the layout of the cards, I don’t understand the comparison, really. The worker placement mechanism is a mini-game all its own, so very different. The cards here are more a mish-mash of icons than a focused set of synergized relationships, and the overall feel is more mathematical icon collection and tactical response than personable city building. The efforts at direct comparison I had seen beforehand seem strenuous.)
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★★★★ – Will definitely play it again
Read more articles from Bob Pazehoski, Jr.
