Review: Eight-Minute Empire board game

I seem to be forming a bit of a Red Raven Games series recently, with reviews of the beautiful Above and Below and its sequel Near and Far. To continue the theme, this week I'm taking a look at an older Ryan Laukat game that has grand ambitions on a tiny scale: Eight-Minute Empire.

Cardboard - Codenames Pictures giveaway

I love, love, love the original version of Codenames, the word-linking party game from the awesome Vlaada Chvátil (Galaxy Trucker, Mage Knight, Dungeon Lords) and having tried out a prototype of Codenames: Pictures at last year's UK Games Expo I decided that I liked this version even more!

Now the proud owner of my own copy of the game, I thought with the anniversary of my first game approaching it would be fun to share the love and give away a copy to someone in the UK - see below.

Making - October 2016

I can't believe that the last time I made a 'making stuff' post was in January! There have been a couple of craft-based posts since (like another trip to the Handmade Fair last month) but this side of things has definitely been neglected. Inexcusable! (Although, if anyone has any suggestions for how to magic more time into my life to get things done, they'd be gratefully received...)

As far as what I *did* get done goes, the past few months have been very much cross-stitch focused while I tried to clear out my work-in-progress pile. This post is a little update about where everything is up to.

I'm still working on the Pumpkin Passport stitch-along pattern from The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery. There are only two months to go until it's complete and I'm excited to see what countries we'll be headed to for November and December (maybe Canada and America might feature somewhere?)

Here's the pattern complete up to October (with Australia and a very cute koala):

Cardboard - Cortex Challenge card game review (with giveaway!)

Cortex Challenge is a family card game for 2 to 6 players designed by Nicolas Bourgoin and Johan Benvenuto. It's published by Asmodee and Captain Macaque who, as an aside, are now front runners in my mental competition for cutest publisher logo along with Happy Otter Games and Formal Ferret Games.

Cardboard - Codenames card game review (with giveaway!)

I've heard so much about Codenames since its release late last year that I couldn't help but pick up a copy. Initially dismissing it as a party game that I wouldn't be interested in (and to be fair, judging it by its frankly not too exciting cover), it kept popping up again and again in blogs, podcasts and YouTube videos with reviewers whose opinions I trust telling me I needed to play it immediately. Eventually, I gave in!

The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery (with giveaway!)

Ever since Pam pushed me off a cliff into the addiction that is cross-stitch (last year at the Handmade Fair) I've been slightly smitten with the adorable patterns of The Frosted Pumpkin Stitchery that she introduced me to. This is a small company formed by two friends in California, US; Ashleigh works on design whilst Amanda looks after the business side, making a brilliant partnership that creates colourful kawaii designs.

Cardboard - Love Letter: Batman card game giveaway

With Valentine's day fast approaching it seems like a great time to talk about Seiji Kanai's tiny-but-awesome card game Love Letter. Not the most original of links, I know, but I'd forgotten how much I loved this game until I got the Batman version at Christmas and we've played it lots of times since! I like it so much, in fact, that I thought I'd share the fun with everyone by running another giveaway.

Christmas stocking fillers #4: Star Wars Timeline card game review and giveaway

It's less than a month until Star Wars: The Force Awakens is released, so I may be getting *slightly* over-excited. To help feed the Star Wars frenzy, Esdevium have sent me a copy of Timeline: Star Wars to try out and I thought it would fit nicely into the Christmas stocking fillers series.

My knowledge of history is pretty horrendous, so what better to shame me into learning than Timeline, a game of putting events into chronological order more accurately than everyone else. Asmodee publish the game in various educational sounding flavours: Science & Discoveries, Inventions, Music & Cinema and Historical Events.

But wait! There's a Star Wars version, you say? I know about this already - I can't possibly lose...

Cardboard - Portal: The Uncooperative Cake Acquisition Game (with Portal 2 Steam giveaway)

I'm making a note here: 'huge success'...

(Okay, it's a bit cheesy and obvious, and sort of gives away what I think of the game before you've read the post, but I had to use the song lyrics in here somewhere!)

Christmas stocking filler #3: Smart Egg review and giveaway

Smart Eggs
Distributor: Esdevium Games
Players: 1
Age: 8+
Cost: RRP £5.99, available from Waterstones on the high street

Five weeks to go until Christmas - have you sorted out any of your gift shopping yet? I might be starting to panic slightly...

Anyway, returning to the post I'm writing (when I should be shopping), Esdevium Games have sent me some Smart Eggs to review as part of my Christmas stocking filler series - hurrah!