Tabletop

Set is a match-three puzzle cardgame. Set was inspired by the designer's day job as a population geneticist. Marsha Jean Falco was keeping track of traits in the population of German Shepherds, sort of a simple database on index cards. Since many of the traits were the same, she created symbols for traits. One day as she explained her card system to a veterinarian...inspiration came to her. A few years later, we have Set.

Game play is simple; you lay out twelve cards in a 4x3 grid. Each card has the following features:

• Color: red, green, or purple
• Symbol: ovals, squiggles, or diamonds
• Quantity: one, two, or three symbols
• Shading: solid, open, or striped

Ubongo is a competitive puzzler, a blend of Blokus and 'Take It Easy!'. Each player draws a unique random mini board with set of puzzles. A caller rolls a six-sided die to determine, via an index, which puzzle the players must solve individually, under a one minute sand timer. The games rewards players who solve the puzzle faster by giving them priority choice on victory point gems.

The puzzles are like tangrams in which the player fits three or four pieces from a twelve identical polyomino pieces into an outlined shape. There are thirty-six double sided boards with six puzzles on each side, totaling 432 different puzzles.

Korner Entertainment "ported" the boardgame to Win, Wii, DS, PSP, PS3, and iOS. It is the same game with addition of a solo campaign mode where you solve puzzles versus various villains for gems.

Draw A Stickman is a short linear story in which you draw a stickman and the environment. The drawings are animated as you draw them and you see your story unfold. It is more of a directed doodling session, in which you get to be creative in the confines of the narrative, than a game. It is an interesting use of doodling as a game mechanic.

If you really want to have fun, play twice and give your stickman some creative tools and outfits for his adventure. They recently added a second episode that you can illustrate and more may be added later.

'Take It Easy!' is bingo improved or Euro bingo by Peter Burley. Burley took bingo (arguably a game because there are no meaningful choices) and added risk management and real choices. Each player gets their own a hex shaped board divided into smaller hexes. The designated caller picks and announces a random hex tile and other player play that tile. Each player can place the called tile onto any open space trying to line up high value rods. Each tile has three color rods that go in three directions. When you connect the same color rod across the board you score the value of the rodss. So if you manage to connect four orange rods, value 8, across your board, then you earn 32 points.

The difficulty lies in that each tile has three rods; when you match one color rod, two other colors may mismatch and you have to decide which colors you want to score and which ones you want to sacrifice. Like bingo, there is no player interaction because your board does not influence another player's board. Hence 'Take It Easy!' can accommodate unlimited players as long each player has their own set of tiles and board and be ear's reach of the caller.

Since over 500,000 copies have sold, multiple digital implementations of 'Take It Easy!' exits. The best are the iOS and Facebook app by Zabu Studios.

We tend to overlook gambling games and casinos. While arcades and pinball parlors have disappeared, their cousins, casinos and slot machines (slots) are thriving. In fact, many casinos dedicate two-thirds of their floor space to slots. Fireball is a video slot, an upright arcade cabinet-like, digital adaptation of a physics-based random number generator game. While slots, like pinball, are a hybrid of mechanical and electronic parts, newer slots like Fireball are purely electronic. Fireball is developed by Sierra Studios (not Sierra Online), a division of Bally Technologies. You may recall Bally for their famous pinball games like The Addams Family.

Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box is Pazio's clone of Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, commonly known as the "Red Box". Pathfinder Roleplaying Game: Beginner Box or simply, the Beginner Box is a complete RPG introduction kit designed to welcome players new to paper RPGs and the Pathfinder system. Like the Red Box, the contents include dice, maps, counters, character sheets, rules for players and GM -- everything you need to run a full campaign in one box. The components are shinier, thicker, more colorful, and generally better than the components of the the Red Box. The cardboard stand-up pawns are awesome. Miniatures make the game so much better, yet painting, collecting, and storing minis is expensive and time consuming. The included thick and colorful cardboard stand-up pawns of heroes and monsters are an excellent substitute for miniatures.

Where's Waldo? is a series of illustrated hidden object gamebooks by British author and illustrator, Martin Handford. Martin Handford's gambebooks pioneered the popular casual game genre, hidden object games. Wally, the official British name is localized as Waldo (North American), Charlie (German), Holger (Danish) and differently in numerous other languages.

The Where's Waldo? in Hollywood book and the app both have adjustable difficulty levels. At the easiest difficulty you look for Waldo in his bright red striped shirt and bobble hat. If you want to challenge yourself, you can look for his friends, other characters, or small objects. The game is challenging because Waldo is surrounded by hundreds of colorful characters who are in comical situations. The digital port is superior to the book because it offers competitive play, light animation, and a hint system. In Where's Waldo? in Hollywood, Waldo travels to different big-budget film sets where hundreds of fans, actors, and crew members are crowding in elbow-to-elbow fashion.

Armor Attacks: The Tank Platoon is a serious gamebook created as "An Interactive Exercise in Small-Unit Tactics and Leadership." The designer and author is colonel (retired) John F. Antal, the former commander of a tank battalion in South Korea. He is better known in the game industry as the Executive Producer at Gearbox, responsible for historical accuracy for the Brothers in Arms series.

Around fifty pages are highly detailed and illustrated specifications of tanks, armored vehicles, procedures, military symbols, definitions and all sorts information to prepare you to be in the mindset of a tank platoon commander. The book is full of military jargon and procedures but Antal does an excellent job of weaving technical explanations into the narrative as you follow your character, US Army 2nd Lieutenant, Sam Jeger, in a series of strategy meetings.

Dominion is the the most popular deck-building game. As much as Magic introduced the collectible aspect, Dominion popularized the concept of deck-building as core gameplay as well as selling complete boxed sets of 500 cards, rather than small booster sets. Dominion is wildly popular and multiple fanwares have been created for Android by Ankur Mehta, iOS by Hammer Technology, and for Windows by Jeff Till. There is an official version in the works for the iOS.

Dominion is more streamed-lined and smoother than Thunderstone at the cost of less color and narrative. Which is better...is a matter of taste.

Thunderstone is the second most popular deck-building game after Dominion. Many people like one and not the other. If you like elegant Euro-style, streamed-lined game mechanics, you would prefer Dominion. If you enjoy more depth and a stronger American RPG style narrative, Thunderstone is your game.

You can test and refine your strategy with the Campaign mode of the Thunderstone Facebook app or with the upcoming iOS app.