Andy Schwarz – Board Game Quest

Confessions of a Lightly Treasonous Importer

Andy Schwarz — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 13:09:01 +0000

I’m doing my part as a patriotic American in national security crisis related to Chinese cardboard. Or maybe it’s a crisis caused by excessive Dutch innovation related to fast food simulators. Or alternatively, the crisis may be in Canadian e-commerce. Likely all three, possibly just two, but definitely at least one. How can I be […]

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Why Here I Stand should be in your board game library and how to win with the Protestants

Andy Schwarz — Wed, 28 May 2025 11:46:47 +0000

My current board game crush is “Here I Stand” (HIS). Specifically, I just cannot get enough of the 500th Anniversary Edition of Here I Stand, the 2017 revised edition of Ed Beach’s classic, originally released in 2006. This game relies on the well-known “Card-driven Game” (often abbreviated as CDG) formula, pioneered by Mark Herman in […]

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Ancient Knowledge and Heritage Expansion Review

Andy Schwarz — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 14:10:55 +0000

It’s pretty rare when a game introduces a new mechanism into a tried and true format. Think about a tableau builder. You place cards into a tableau, you get the benefits of the card, maybe as a one-time benefit, maybe as an ongoing effect or an end-game score. But sometimes a game shakes the paradigm […]

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Katamino Tower Review

Andy Schwarz — Thu, 12 Sep 2024 13:12:03 +0000

Katamino Tower—a solo puzzle game by Marko Pavlović, published by Gigamic—is, without a doubt, and by far, the game I have found the most difficult to put away. Not so much because it was so fun that I could not stop playing, but rather because it is literally impossible to fit back into the box […]

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The “Postumus Opening” in Time of Crisis

Andy Schwarz — Wed, 03 Jul 2024 13:05:02 +0000

Thanks to the wonderful “Rally the Troops” gaming website, I’ve played many, many games of GMT’s Time of Crisis (designed by Wray Farrell and Brad Johnson, art by Rodger MacGowan). It’s rare I get to play a game enough to really explore its full variety of possibilities, but with over sixty games played, I think […]

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Medici Review

Andy Schwarz — Tue, 14 May 2024 12:57:12 +0000

How to write a new review of an old game? Imagine telling Board Game Quest readers about a little game called (as it once was) The Settlers of Catan. Would you, dear reader, even get past this silly intro paragraph for an award winning game from 1995? Probably not. Well, what if I added that […]

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Sandbag Review

Andy Schwarz — Wed, 08 May 2024 15:03:29 +0000

I have no fancy backstory to introduce you to Sandbag. Yes, I once took my family ballooning in Napa, but it’s irrelevant to this review of a game with a balloon name and balloon art, but essentially zero link between the ostensible theme and the game itself. Nevertheless, theme or no theme, I just want […]

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Brutal But Not Mean: A Tasty Tidbit from Food Chain Magnate

Andy Schwarz — Wed, 10 Apr 2024 13:03:18 +0000

Chris from the excellent “Board Game Hot Takes” podcast recently asked me about Food Chain Magnate (FCM) and the sometimes-expressed feeling that it is a “mean” game. I understand where that is coming from, because it is a game that punishes the slightest disparity in strength between two would-be magnates of the food-chain variety, meaning […]

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Match of the Century Review

Andy Schwarz — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 13:53:38 +0000

For several weeks when I was 5, when I got home from kindergarten, I knew where my mom would be: in front of the TV watching chess. It was 1972 and the whole world seemed to stop to watch American Bobby Fischer challenge the reigning world champion, Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union, in a […]

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Stellar Review

Andy Schwarz — Mon, 19 Feb 2024 16:11:48 +0000

In the late 1970s, Bill Murray (backed by a young Paul Schafer) had a great SNL skit where he added lyrics to the Star Wars theme, including my favorite verse: Star Wars If they should bar wars, Please let these Star Wars Stay. With these lyrics in my head, I finally convinced my wife to […]

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