The team at Board gave us the chance to cover their initial push late last year, and now that the platform is pushing out a new game every month, it’s been much easier to get my kids to join me at the table to check out the new wares. (If you’ve never heard of Board or need a quick overview of its features, check out our product review of the Board electronic device.)
Now that Board is fully up and running, new games are coming to market every month. We asked the Board team if we could continue covering new content, and they have been kind enough to oblige. Luckily, I have two children (ages 12 and 9) who loved the initial batch of games and are constantly looking for new ways to engage with the platform.
Once a quarter, I’ll offer thoughts on the newest batch of releases—both community-designed games as well as centralized releases from the Board development team, using a review style similar to our regular Quick Peaks coverage. Enjoy! (All images here were provided by the Board marketing team.)
The Heist
After spending almost two months playing Board regularly on our living room table over the previous holiday season, the lack of new titles dried up interest with the kids. New games like The Heist have brought the kids right back into the fold.
The Heist, similar to other Board titles such as The Bloogs and Chop Chop, is a scenario-driven game with high score/time challenges that are meant to draw players back to try levels over and over again. Here, players work together (or alone, in solo play) to rob various facilities using a tool set that includes up to six mirror pieces and up to two laser splitters, in a puzzle game that challenges thieves to grab loot and redirect security systems to get out under a specific time threshold.
Games like The Heist are a perfect fit for the Board platform, and for the first few missions, working with the kids to figure out the right places to place the mirror tokens to move red beam tripwires out of harm’s way became an interesting puzzle. The Heist became difficult a little faster than I was expecting, so it’s a somewhat serious challenge for the players in my house.
The Heist doesn’t work as well for a large player coop format, because “quarterbacking” reared its ugly head every time we launched a new game, despite the fact that each unique player gets a turn to move a thief from one checkpoint to the next without being detected. That meant that my 9-year-old had more fun playing it alone than with his sibling and his dad, and I get it—I also found more joy in the puzzle when I was working through a level on my own instead of with a group.
The look and feel of The Heist is a selling point, and there are a couple dozen maps to work through at launch with the promise of more content already on the way in the months ahead. So, the value proposition of The Heist is great. Just be aware that my findings suggest that The Heist is a better fit as a strategy game for one, maybe two, players who are a little older than the suggested age range of 6+.
Ease of entry?
★★★★☆ – The odd bump or two
Would I play it again?
★★★★☆ – Would like to play it again
Pinboard
Pinboard is the first Board release designed by a member of Board’s gamer community. As such, Pinboard was dropped by the Board team for free earlier this summer.
The title gives the concept away: Pinboard is pinball on the Board screen, with options for players to build their own pinball game using the Board Arcade pieces. Ships are placed on the screen to create triangular blocks that can send the onscreen pinball in sharp directions, while robots placed on the screen during setup are used to place spinners and other obstacles that change based on the orientation of the robot.
Games of Pinboard are either competitive or cooperative (in two-player formats), with an AI opponent available in three flavors for the nights when you want to play solo. In this way, Pinboard is not like competitive pinball from your old-skool arcade where players compete by trying to outscore other players when it is specifically one player’s turn. Pinboard is a tricky game; I’m a big fan of “IRL” arcade-style pinball, with a plunger to launch the ball and flippers to control the ball in play.
With Pinboard, players manipulate flippers by pressing buttons on their end of the screen, and that mechanic mostly works well, assuming that you don’t lose your place on where you should be tapping the screen to activate the flippers. (I’m surprised how often I “mis-hit” a flipper because I was watching a ball downscreen and my thumbs drifted away from the onscreen flippers.) But rounds of Pinboard are lightning fast, with complete games lasting just a couple minutes at a time.
I found myself excited by the idea of better, more pinball-style pinball games over what Pinboard has to offer. By that, I mean single-player pinball video games on a Board screen, similar to pinball-style video games available on platforms like the Nintendo Switch, such as Demon’s Tilt or Pinball FX. I think that format could be really exciting on Board and lead to longer games. As it is, my son and I have dabbled in Pinboard and he’s never stayed in a session longer than a few minutes before moving on.
Pinboard represents an interesting potential for Board, but it doesn’t quite stick the landing. As a transitional diversion between other games, Pinboard is only fine.
Ease of entry?
★★★★★ – No sweat
Would I play it again?
★★☆☆☆ – Would play again but would rather play something else
Thrasos
“Finally!” my nine-year-old said when I told him that Thrasos—a game that was originally pitched as a launch title on the Board platform—was available to play. How do we know that Thrasos is way overdue? The Founders Edition of the Board device included the playing pieces for Thrasos…making them the only pieces we’ve had for nearly nine months without being used until now.
It’s a tricky game to describe, but we agree Thrasos was worth the wait. That’s because it is one of the few games on Board that seems to be aimed at a core gamer audience, with area control mechanics and a 2-6 player format that develops into a quick-playing strategy game. Each player takes on the role of one of six different gods (Zeus, Athena, Dionysus, Hades, Poseidon, and Demeter) and over the course of ten rounds, players use their turns to place their piece on a Greek city to bless or curse the location, earning points tied to a mix of various short-term events and each player’s special power while potentially taking points away from connected locations.
Even during the tutorial, my nine-year-old and I were a little confused about the scoring format Thrasos spits out each time someone takes an action at a location. But as a production, Thrasos is full of polish. From the graphic and sound effects to a smooth menu overlay to easy ways to determine how certain actions will affect each map’s locations, Thrasos is a fantastic way to introduce what Board is capable of, even if the game is a bit dry, especially at lower player counts. (Area control board games are weakest at their lowest player counts, and Thrasos suffers the same fate with two players. There needs to be a rule that stops players from taking an action to simply undo much of what their opponent did on a previous turn.)
As a demonstration of potential, Thrasos comes closest with these new titles of best justifying its $35 price tag. Adult players looking for a 20-30 minute large player count game are basically limited to Thrasos at present, as most Board titles cater to families and/or smaller player counts.
Ease of entry?
★★★☆☆ – There were a few questions
Would I play it again?
★★★☆☆ – Wouldn’t suggest it, but would happily play it
