Week In Review - May 25, 2026

0:00 And that is what I reviewed this week. Thanks, buddy. Here you go. Money. Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vasel and welcome to week in review. This is where I have a quick video that we do on the Dice Tower where we talk about all the videos we put out over the past week and give you short descriptions of them and if you want to know more, we'll have links in the description of this video. Let's get started. Hey everybody, I'm Zee Garcia. Here's what I reviewed last week. I reviewed Dracula's Fortune, which I gave a seven out of 10 to. This is a nice split you choose game in which you are divvying up Dracula's goodies from his castle cuz he is deceased.

0:50 It's it's interesting. It's kind of a table hog, but it's got some fun very tongue-in-cheek humor. It's got some neat abilities built into the splitting itself. Some of the cards are going to have powers that go off once when you sort of tuck them away under a you know, a tile that you have. Um it's got some nice back and forth play. I found the cadence of the game to be a little iffy cuz you have one player next to you who splits and then offers you some choices and then you need to do that for this player and then you're kind of doing this like, okay, I grab one of these and then you're giving me one back and you know, it's a little messy, but overall it works out well and if you like the humor in this, I I think it's going to make for a very good kind of Halloweeny game. I reviewed Quagmire, which I gave a 7.5 out of 10 to. This one is an all grown-up version of a game called Bog.

1:45 Tiny little packo game game in which um you're doing the same things you were doing in that game. Now it plays four players, but you are putting out frogs, jumping them from uh pad to lily pad trying to score the most victory points. This one loses the charm of the original one being in an incredibly tiny box and there being a very interesting game in there. This one's now bigger. It plays four people, so it's going to get a little bit messier with more than two. The original one was only two. Um it has to justify its sort of box size a little bit more, I think. Uh but but it does that well. It's a good game. It is thinking. It is easy to to not notice something that's about to happen and have those like oh what a what a boneheaded move I made, but I like the theme of the game quite a bit.

2:36 So it's fully really like an abstract strategy game. And it is uh captivating the the things you are doing in it. It's a game unlike very many other games. And then lastly I reviewed DC uh the uh sort of a small version of that game. Uh and this I gave a nine out of 10 to. It is very very good. It comes with mostly standees instead of miniatures as we see a lot of sort of Zombicide games too. Because this one has a smaller price point and is more for it's kind of a different audience. It maxes out at four players also, but you're getting a whole lot of game in this smaller box. Uh there's a bunch of missions in there. The characters included are fantastic. The game is peak Zombicide with a lot of streamlined rules, a lot of interesting captivating choices for the players. And if you like DC and I don't think you should play this if you actively dislike DC, then I think you're going to have a fantastic time with this one. Hopefully, DC the bigger bolder edition will come out at some point from CMON.

3:43 But for now you can play this one which was put out by Spin Master and have I think a very good time. So there you go. That's it for me. Let's keep on going. Hey folks, welcome back to Chris Time. This week I took a look at Tiny Mountain Goats. I gave this one a seven. It is Mountain Goats, the all play game, but it's tinier and smaller and kind of kind of cuter. Uh I give it a seven because it's just a little less as easy to use, but it's just the exact same game. But it does fit more table spaces because it's just a smaller footprint. So, seven for that one. Next up, Three Sisters Harvest Edition. I give it an eight. Fantastic roll and write with a lot of modules, a lot of different ways to to throw stuff in that has changed things up. I enjoy the modules, nothing that drastically changes it, but a lot of them. So, an eight. President Maker, also an eight from me. This is a game about running for president of South Korea, and it's it it has this political theme on it. It is extremely thematic to that experience without I don't with I don't I don't think being like bothersome thematically, but that's up to you. I like it. I like leaning into it, the humor of it. It has a bag pull system for the votes, which is very lucky, but very fun.

4:50 Uh next up is The Queen's Dilemma. I gave this one a nine. This is an excellent legacy game where you are you know, basically try to kind of vying for these different uh these different policies to pass, and boy howdy, are there a lot of uncomfortable topics in there, but it's it is amazing how just immersive it is because of that discomfort. I think it's a good experience. If you don't want to feel that, don't get the game. Uh but yeah, great review, should check out. Uh great game with a review should check out. last thing, a message from these message from the stars extinction protocol, the expansion, that I give a 10. I think that this is phenomenal, the way that I would like to play message from the stars from now on, but harder to introduce people to. But after one game of the basic game of this mathematical deduction word game, I think you could throw in some of the expansion rules very easily. So, I like it a lot, a 10 from me. And that, folks, has been my week. Hey everybody, I'm Joey Evans, and here's what I reviewed this week. This week was deceased uh Gotham City outbreak. I don't know something like that. Anyways, deceased like Marvel Zombies. I enjoy this. This is a small retail version of the larger deceased that's coming out with little standees. I enjoy this a lot. I came to in at a nine. So this may be the only zombie side you need if you want to try it again. Small box. Check out that review and that is what I reviewed this week. Hi, I'm Wendy and this week I have one game I reviewed. And that is the three sisters harvest edition. This one I gave a nine. I very much enjoyed what the expansion brought. So it does

6:22 include the base game in the 12 chapters of the expansion and that's just the game number one. But then it includes 11 other possible games and they added little bits at a time. It's not like a ton of changes for each chapter. However, you can also mix and match the chapters if you want more variety and more change per game to really make it feel different. It includes all the super combo-licious of the base like the base game of the three sisters. And so I enjoy that it just gets even more combo-y, more enjoyable. Lots of changes. So there you go. That's a nine for me. Let's go ahead and see who's next. Hey there everybody. It's Mike Delisio and this week I had an excellent week. Two 8.5s. Two seals of excellence.

7:07 So first up we have Overparked from designer Daryl Chow. This is a game as I said 8.5 where you are managing a parking lot. I know it sounds fascinating but it's a really cool puzzle game where you are going to be drafting cards and those cards are going to be representing cars that you're placing within this player board which is essentially a parking lot. And so you've got um the the kind of the pure puzzle element of trying to be logistical and getting the the cars to work in such a way that you get large groups of cars together of the same color because that's going to give you scoring. You also are going to have some objectives you're trying to complete throughout the game. It is a very simple and basic version of this type of game where you're trying to fill up essentially a grid, but that purity is what works so well for it. It's very quick, very easy to understand, but leads to some really really challenging difficult decisions for you to make and so a winner in my book. And then next is President Maker as I said another 8.5.

8:14 This is a really cool game with a very wacky theme of an alternate reality South Korea where you are a presidential candidate and you are trying to gain the most votes through five regions in South Korea. It's a game that involves a fair amount of luck because what you're doing is you're going to be placing vote tokens into a bag and then there's a blind pull from the bag to determine who's going to be the winner in each of the regions. Whoever has the most total votes wins. So, yes, there is luck, but you are going to be playing cards to do things to get you the type of votes that you might need. It is just such a clever quick game best at four players because then every player is representing one of the parties. If you play at lower player counts, you could have an NPC and they could even theoretically win. There you go. That's my week, a really good one for me. So, that's it. Mike Delisio. I said that's it again. Let's just say that's it. Let's keep it moving. And this week I reviewed Queen's Well, we we played Star Wars Queen's Gambit.

9:21 Uh which we wanted to play live cuz King's Gambit's coming out, the Lord of the Rings King's Gambit, based on this game. But we reviewed Queen's Dilemma. This is a wonderful dexterity not dexterity game. Uh led Uh the the the legacy game. Apparently, I don't know the the word for this. Um and we're very much into the campaign, really enjoy it, like it better than King's Legacy. In review, I said 8.5, but then I waffle cuz I really really really like it, so I'm giving it a nine. Um I reviewed an interesting Euro-style game that's you know, boringly named called Everstone but discovering Ingas, but it's a solid game of basically restoring artifacts but making your actions really fun to do. Eight out of 10.

10:06 Uh we did a hot takes video. We talked about your hot takes and discussed them. I did Fantasy Realms: Greek Legends. This is the newest version of Fantasy Realms, but I feel it's a little too complex, a little too much going on with the underworld. I like the original one better. This one was fine at best, a six out of 10. Peaks, a very interesting game about climbing mountains all over the world, and I like the concept of this of moving and climbing, but it just was missing something to keep me It was maybe a little too long, too. 6.5. Um President Sorry, Heroscape. Heroscape book. There's a book for Heroscape, the a tome. Amazing, 10 out of 10. Love this stuff. Uh and I did Terraria: The Board Game. Man, I wanted to like this game so much.

10:53 I like Terraria. I liked this game a lot when I started it, but as it went on, it's way way way way way way way way too long and way way way too fiddly for the amount of fun it gives. But there's so many good ideas in here. There's no save state, either. It takes nine hours. Um and interesting game, but five out of 10. Uh and I also did six games I played so you don't have to. And I did a pile mid-games where I look through all the games on BoardGameGeek and all kinds of stuff we did this week. We did our top 10 mythological games. And more. So, check them all out. We'll see you all this coming week. Until then, I'm Tom Vasel, and you're watching The Dice Tower.

11:38 Hey folks, thanks for watching another one of our videos. If you like our videos, if you like our channel, you would love to game with us at one of our conventions. Check out Dice Tower Cruise, Dice Tower East, and Dice Tower West. Fantastic adventures where we play games with wonderful people, a humongous library, and lots of other events and stuff. Also, don't forget to check out our channel. Like and subscribe. I'm Tom Vasel. Today's light reading is brought to you by The Renegade Wizard Adventure Book, entry number 30. The skeleton that lies within the sarcophagus was buried in full combat gear, rusty chainmail, and a steel helmet with a flat-topped kite shield laid on top of the ancient remains. Do you examine the items, leave the dead in peace, or close the sarcophagus? I close the sarcophagus entry 343.

12:36 You go around to the other side of the sarcophagus and heave the lid back in place, but before you have moved the massive stone more than a couple of inches, you see a skeletal hand shoot out and grab the stone. You step back in horror as the skeleton warrior emerges from the sarcophagus and advances towards you with its sword raised high. Turn to entry 31. I was just at 30. I'm not fighting this stupid skeleton.