We established quite a lot of different formats, because we have different content we want to publish and focus on. So whilst we all will be writing Reviews, you will see that some of us are more inclined to do certain formats, and this is something that is a key element of our work as a collective to provide different viewpoints and focuses.
Here is a brief explanation what formats and tags we use, to help you navigate through our blog.
Formats
Reviews
In our Reviews, we not only highlight the gameplay, mechanics and our thoughts, but also try to dive into other relevant considerations. We think about the affordability and availability of games, the politics involved (e.g., representation, theme, artwork), or the accessibility due to the difficulty, the rules, or player counts.
Impression – Some initial thoughts about a game that we have not played enough to write up a full-fledged review. Maybe because we only played it once, or always in the same setting, or for a multitude of different reasons.
Compilation – A review that covers multiple games the reviewer feels should be discussed together. The same series, the same designer, or the same mechanic could be bundled together.
Blog
The blog is space for thoughts around board games in a broader sense, away from a structured review.
Discourse – We do think and talk about board games as a hobby a lot, and we want to dive deeper into this without focusing on a single game. Because we are a diverse group of gamers, we often do have very different opinions and experiences.
Essay – With a focus on a specific game, we tackle a topic we want to highlight. This is not a classic review but a distinct thought on a topic that is relevant to us and comes through in this game.
Top-List – We love creating and reading some Top-10-Lists about some fun topics.
Game-Day – A roundup of impressions about games that were played in a specific setting, or a report about a board game event.
Dialogue
In this section, we want to broaden our impressions and experiences with talking to people who play, design, illustrate, or otherwise care about games.
Perspective – A dialogue with people who play games but are not rabbit-hole deep in the hobby: what they like about gaming, how they perceive games and the hobby.
Interview – A classic interview, but we try to focus more on what is important in our hobby space and how we approach it with people from the industry, rather then focusing on questions about games.
Tags
We use different tags, mainly in our Reviews, but also in some other formats if it makes sense. When you click on a tag, you can see all the other games with the same tag.
We use three different kinds of tags, for mechanisms, player count, and complexity. Whilst the first one is pretty self-explanatory, we want to briefly talk about our approach to the other two.
Player count: Here we are using neither the recommended player count nor the official one, but the ones we played it at and can describe how we experienced it at those counts. We are using four different tags here: Solo, Two-player, Multiplayer (3-5 players) and Group (6 or more players).
Complexity: Here we are using the weight rating from BoardGameGeek as a reference (but might divert slightly). We set the light tag for everything up to 2.5, medium from 2 to 4, and heavy for everything higher then a 3.5. So it is possible for games to have two different tags, if it is somewhere in between.