Recent Articles & Reviews by Justin Bell

I joined the Meeple Mountain team in February 2021. Like many others, I found myself with a lot of free time during the early stages of COVID and I turned that downtime into a tabletop writing hobby! It was an easy transition, because I’ve been gaming my whole life—I was big on Fortress America, UNO, Yahtzee, Axis & Allies, Spades, Monopoly, Rummikub, Pay Day, Hotels, Go for It! and so many other games growing up along with an AD&D game called Mertwig’s Maze—and now I participate in multiple game groups in the Chicagoland area.

Some of the games in my rotation include auction and economic games such as Stockpile: Epic Edition, City of the Big Shoulders, Railway Boom, and Amun-Re: 20th Anniversary Edition; medium-weight Eurogames such as Grand Austria Hotel, Tiletum, The White Castle and Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon; dice chuckers like Thunder Road: Vendetta and Arcadia Quest; card games like Inheritors, Xylotar, and Jungo; heavier fare such as Nucleum, Kanban EV and Voidfall. In 2025, my top five games were Vantage, Speakeasy, Masters of Crime: Rapture, Jungo, and Ayar: Children of the Sun. In 2026, I expect to cover about 100 new games, including categories like the ones above in addition to dexterity games, party games, and family-weight strategy games.

Offline, I am a program management and employee engagement leader with experience building training programs and community engagement activities in the tech, legal and professional services fields. I have had the distinct pleasure of representing Meeple Mountain at tabletop conventions around the world, at shows including the Festival International des Jeux, Gen Con, TraXX, PAX Unplugged, Dice Tower West, BGG Con, and Essen SPIEL. I build reviews, convention roundups, and industry profiles each year, and I also created two series to explore older games: our "Back in the Day" series, covering games from the childhood of our writing team, and "The Dusty Euro Series", dedicated to exploring older Eurogames that I have not previously played. In addition to writing for Meeple Mountain, I'm also a features contributor to the news blog on BoardGameGeek. I have also served as a guest on a number of podcasts, including Five Games for Doomsday, The BGG Podcast, The Tabletop Merchant Podcast, Board Game Times, Tabletop Submarine, and as a former contributor on The Five By. I participated as a member of the jury panel for Dicebreaker's Tabletop Awards 2023. I love chatting with others who have a passion for the hobby!