The Board Game Minimalist Blog

  Frankly speaking I wasn't surprised that the publishers of Terraforming Mars opted for Ai art and Ai tools for their latest campaign (although admittedly those are quite different things). I don't think they've ever really prioritised great artwork for their games, the first editions of the base game came included with stock photography and even some images of the designers/publishers posing in multiple scenes. The game even became a bit of a laughing stock for its amateurish visuals.  But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the game, in fact it's been one of my most played and one of the few heavy games I've managed to share with my wife (she actually enjoys it a lot, probably because she always destroys me at it). I love the theme and the core mechanisms, and its probably one of the strongest games to come out in the last 10 years, with a significant impact on the hobby and subsequent hits (.e.g Ark Nova, Earth etc).  I suppose that's a big reason this ...

As a constantly aspiring board game minimalist, I’ve had to experiment a lot with the right configuration of games to build and maintain my compact game collection (currently sitting at about 24 games). With so many games being included in oversized boxes, the appeal of small box games for someone like myself is very strong. Being able to fit 2 or 3 small box games in the physical space required by one game means I could fit even more games on my allotted single board game shelf, and clearly I’m not alone to share this view, especially if you consider the popularity of such games as the ‘ Tiny Epic ’ series of games or the plethora of card games that are often so well regarded by even the most seasoned board gamers. Often smaller box games are simpler games that are also easier to learn and (gasp!) teach. Offering shorter playing times which is great for people like myself who don’t have the time to play longer games. A lot of small box games are also often designed with two players on...