Hot Game Magnet: Board Game Reviews

I've never had much interest in trains but I have to say, Railroad Ink is so well designed and beautifully illustrated I can almost see myself as a train enthusiast. At least I can while I'm playing the game.

Do you love ghost stories and Magic shows? I'm not sure if the metaphysical world is real but I love pretending. I don't really want to know how the rabbit got in the hat because I love feeling the magic. If this is how you feel you will probably want to play "The Mind" by Panadasaurus Games . It's such an interesting little game. I'm not so sure that it taps into anything supernatural, but it sure is fun to pretend. 

I can't believe it took us almost a year to get Ankh off the shelf and onto the table. Was it worth the wait? Could this be a contender for HotGameMagnet game of the year, or will it go back on the shelf never to be spoken of again?

Factories are not the funnest thing in the world. I think actually, they have a pretty strong reputation for being not at all fun. However, from the point of view of a child's imagination a factory could be a fantastical, colorful, and mind boggling place of fun and excitement. Not unlike that famous chocolate factory. This week we look at Factory Funner by BoardGameTables.com. A game that really taps into that place of imagination and fun for it's colorful theme. It's also a nice crunchy puzzle game that sets up fast for a quick satisfying game for 1-6 players.

Sometimes the best part of a game is the physical nature of it's mechanics. Potion Explosion is a perfect example. It's at it's core an excellent puzzle game, but what really makes it shine is the way it uses glass marbles to represent the explosive chemical reactions that drive the game play.   

Wow! 2022 is off too an exciting start with some awesome looking games up on kickstarter. One in particular looks to overshadow everything else, but hey, don't sell short the underdogs.

I'm not sure how many dinosaur themed games is too many, but I am sure we haven't hit that limit. This week we review God's Love Dinosaurs from Pandasuarus Games. Even though it is from the same company that created Dinosaur Island and Dinosaur World, God's Love Dinosaurs is it's own game with unique theme and mechanics. We really had a lot of fun with this one. Could this be our new favorite dinosaur game?

2021 as a pretty wild year, but through it all we got to play and review some excellent games. This is the end of our third year going at HotGameMagnet and it's time to pick our top five games for the year. let us know if you agree or if we've inspired you to try out some new games. Happy New Year!

Power Slam is a hand management card game designed to bring all the fun and excitement of professional wrestling to your table. If you are a huge wrestling fan, like the games creators, this might just be the perfect game for you.

We haven't done a kickstarter roundup in a while so I'm pretty excited to have a look at a few really cool games currently running funding campaigns. There's some role and writes, there's dice, and even a bit of time travel! 

It's time to get into the fish displaying business. Aqua Garden By Uchibacoya is a cute and surprisingly cut throat game about building the most lovely (and profitable) aquarium. Fill your Aquarium with clown fish, sea turtles, and even whale sharks. Enjoy the beautifully crafted fish meeples but make sure that other aquariums don't get all the best displays before you do.

Dinosaur Island is one of our all time favorite games. It's not perfect but it perfectly captures the fun and imagination that dinosaurs inspire. A big part of that fun was the excessive amount of blingy components and available dinos to play with, or so I thought. Dinosaur Island Rawr 'n Write replaces all the meeples, and coins and literal stacks of dinos with not much more than a couple pads of paper and some cards, but oh my gosh is it ever fun! This could be our new favorite game for real!

This week we had the opportunity to speak with Jacek of Gindi games about Goldenstar: The Galactic Tournament. Goldenstar will be launching on October 5th on Gamefound. It was really interesting to talk about what goes into developing such a big game and a bit about all the new options available to creators for funding.

It took us 25 minutes to talk about a game that takes 5 minutes to play. Five Minute Marvel is a super quick game but oh my goodness, it's so fun. I did not expect this game to be such a hit, but it is already one of our top 5 games for the game group.

game preview. This week we got the chance to play a preview of Battle For Goldenstar, an area movement and hand management game, with a pretty cool conflict resolution mechanic. This game has a ton of the stuff I like to have in a good sci-fi space game. It's got space planets, it's got space pirates, but it's only got one Goldenstar.  Which is the point. Battle for Goldenstar! * A few notes from the creator 1. The expansion introduced 4 extra character's, which gives a total of 12 playable characters, not 20. 2. The launch is postponed about a month to late September/early October

This week we have a talk with Jason Washburn of Talon Strikes Studios about their new game "Top Pop". It's a fun chat about what makes Talon Strikes Studios unique, and why Top Pop might be the perfect game to add to your collection.

June came and went pretty fast. As have a lot of great looking games on Kickstarter. This week we have a look at a few of those games that are still going and that you may want to back. There's something for everyone. Honestly, I'm tempted to back all five games, but I probably wont. Maybe. I shouldn't. LOL!

I'm a sucker for bright colors and gonzoid themes. Crash Octopus from Itten Games does not disappoint. It's a light-hearted dexterity game that is just challenging enough. Set up is easy and game play has a built-in time limit using a round tracker. Oh man! I just love that giant pink octopus.

This week I got to speak with the designer of one of our all time favorite games. Actually, we talk about this game all the time and use it as a bench mark when discussing other games. If you haven't guessed already the game is Feudum, and the designer is Mark Swanson. I got to find out about how Mark goes about creating a game, and why he decided to do game design. We also got to talk a little about his next game, the much anticipated follow-up to Feudum. 

I don't think there are any games that we have played too much, but there are definitely games that we haven't played enough.  Hellboy was one of our favorite games from 2019 but surprisingly we haven't played it at all since the first month we got it. This week we revisited Hellboy to see what we've been missing out on, and perhaps figure out why we've been missing out.