Cozy Stickerville, the most chillax of boardgames?
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Posted on June 13th, 2026 by
Some boardgames are tense affairs where victory or defeat rests on the knife edge of a card draw or roll of the dice. Cozy Stickerville is not that game. As the name implies, Cozy Stickerville has players cooperating to create a story about starting up a little town. Cards are flipped up and players make choices on how to respond or what to do, and then look up the results in a book of stories. The most common result has the player(s) take a sticker from the sticker book (with over 800 stickers in it) and add it to the main game board, representing something new added to their town. It could be as simple as a bird nest or tree, or perhaps its a new building like a barn or house. There are no truly epic decisions to be had. Do you go fishing today? Perhaps read up more about the mysterious town founder? Or maybe you’ll build a house for that new couple who came to the country to get out of the city. You can’t really win or lose, but there are choices to be made and stickers put on the town will eventually reflect those choices. There’s just something visceral about peeling a sticker out of a book and then slapping it down on your own little town – I just made this! After ten 30-minute or so sessions, each representing a year of game time, the game is complete and players will be able read up on one of five final endings based on their choices within the game. Cozy Stickerville is like going through a choose-your-own adventure game with friends but when you’re done, you’ve stickered yourself a cute little town to show for it.
Cozy Stickerville
Designer: Corey Konieczka
Publisher: Unexpected Games
Players: 1-6 (best with just a few)
Ages: 8+
Time: 30 min (at a time)
(review copy furnished by publisher)
Unplugged: In a World
Posted on June 12th, 2026 by
In a World is a card game with gameplay similar to something like Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity. The theme of this one is you have cards that present you with wacky worlds, and you must pick cards with things you would want in that world.
Unplugged: Faraway
Posted on May 9th, 2026 by
Releasing in 2023, the drafting card game Faraway has been gathering up award nominations and winning many of those awards. In some respects, it is a pretty simple game. The theme of the game is that players are taking a journey across a foreign land, with cards played representing places they visit and the number on the card representing how long they chose to stay. In a turn, players choose a card from their hand to play, all played cards are simultaneously revealed, and then players take turns drafting a new card to add to their hand. The lowest played card gets to pick first. Cards often display one or more symbols and/or are a specific color. Each card also presents a way to score points at the end of the game. After playing a set number of cards, the game ends. Scoring is somewhat unique. Players go through their cards and score them from last to first, so the last card they play is scored first – all by itself. The first card that was played in a player’s tableau will look at every card played after that to calculate its score. It’s a fast, fun game that is simply a deck (well, technically two decks) of cards. While scoring things can be a little tricky, it’s still simple enough to cement down after playing a single game.
Faraway (and expansion Faraway: Under Starry Skies)
Designer: Johannes Goupy, Corentin Lebrat
Publisher: Pandasaurus Games
Players: 2-6
Ages: 10+
Time: 15-30 min
(expansion review copy furnished by publisher)
Unplugged: Unstoppable – Boardgame
Posted on May 7th, 2026 by
A recent entry in the excellent Solo Hero series by Renegade Game Studios, Unstoppable is a unique combat-focused card-crafting game set in a dystopian future. It is a combat deck-builder where the focus of the game is to damage enemies or purchase upgraded cards to defeat more enemies in the future. The “hook” here lies in how the cards are used. Cards are “created” in sleeves – each sleeve is filled with a player-side card and an enemy side-side card. When a new player card is bought, it is placed in a sleeve with an enemy back, creating a unique double-sided card. During the game, up to two upgrade cards can also be added between the two sides to make the card more powerful to use (and to fight.) Few cards are drawn. Instead, players must defeat the back side of a card to draw its front side into their hand. With four heroes (with slightly different starting hands) and three unique bosses to fight, there is a considerable amount of boardgame space to explore in a relatively small box. If this particular dystopian future isn’t your jam, there is a crowdfunding effort to bring about a sequel featuring Dungeon Crawler Carl, the protagonist (along with his cat) of a series of books set in a planet-wide survival dungeon televised for galactic viewers. There’s obviously a following for it as the campaign for the new card game, along with a new RPG in the setting, is currently pushing $10 million raised.
May the 4th be with you!
Posted on May 4th, 2026 by
Happy Star Wars Day! It being a great time to celebrate one of the most popular science fiction settings around, I thought it would be a appropriate to give a shout out to some of my favorite Star Wars branded boardgames. Two recent titles (and thus should be easy to find) are Star Wars Super Teams (what if CandyLand had actual decisions, strategy AND you could move other people) and Star Wars: Battle of Hoth (an introductory wargame, based around the invasion of the ice planet.) Super Teams would be great for younger folks, maybe 7+, while the latter is deep enough for adults to enjoy but is also playable by a gamer 10 year old.
Unplugged: 20 Strong – Tanglewoods
Posted on April 23rd, 2026 by
In 20 Strong Tanglewoods, one takes on the role of their favorite fairytale protagonist in this solo dice-rolling game of adventure. Gamers looking for a card-based, solo, medium to lightweight dungeon crawling experience should check it out. 20 Strong is a series of games from Chip Theory that use the same set of twenty dice of several different colors. These dice are then used to play any number of different games, players only have to purchase a new deck of cards to have a new game to play. At present, every game in the 20 Strong line revolves around rolling dice to damage and defeat a deck filled with antagonist cards. However, only some of the rolled dice are recovered to be used again. Thus, a primary focus in the game is managing one’s dice use. After wading through various minions, defeat the final boss to win the game. The recent Tanglewoods series (red, white, gold, rose – I leave the reader to figure out which fairy tale is which) all tend to involve a strong movement component, whereby the player moves from location to location, triggering an event (battling something or recovering) on their way to the final showdown location. While there is a strong similarity between versions, a player that enjoys one deck of cards will probably appreciate the variety offered by another. There is even a special card deck that combines three of the other Tanglewoods decks for a linked campaign. If the 20 Strong line of games sounds interesting, there is also a crowdfunding campaign going on for three new decks based on the popular boardgames: Tainted Grail, Nemesis, and Etherfields.
20 Strong – Tanglewoods
Designer: Josh J. Carlson (also Logan Giannini & Ryan Howard)
Publisher: Chip Theory Games
Players: 1 (solo only)
Ages: 14+
Time: 30-40 min
(review copy provided by publisher)
Unplugged: GamerDad Holiday Guide 2025
Posted on December 11th, 2025 by
Happy Holidays! After two decades of a GamerDad Unplugged Holiday Guide I think it’s finally time to say boardgaming has officially gone mainstream. There’s no better time to get (or get your friends and family) into the hobby than an extended holiday break. There are boardgames out there to meet up with almost any taste. Boardgames are timeless, just as good today as they will be years in the future, so a purchase today will still be serving you well into the future. As we at GamerDad have done for the past 20-odd years, it’s time for an annual rundown of recent boardgames well worth your time. Feel free to delve into some past year’s guides for 2024, 2023, 2022, or older as they’re still great candidates for your consideration. You might not find all these titles at your local mega-mart but many can be found online or in a friendly local game store. Some may argue $70+ boardgames (or more) are expensive, but compare that to video gaming (and where multiple copies are required for multiplayer play) and the economics of boardgaming shows their true value. For each game, I’ve provided the publisher (to help you find it), an approximate MSRP (you can probably find it lower), the number of players, the expected time for one game, and the manufacturer’s recommended ages. These age listings are often set for legal reasons and I would say most could easily be skewed lower for experienced younger gamers.
(Buy through this link and GamerDad gets a kickback…)
Unplugged: The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era (Boardgame)
Posted on October 28th, 2025 by
Many of you may be familiar with the Elder Scrolls line of role-playing videogames. The series sports games consistently found in lists of the best videogames of all time. Elder Scrolls: Arena appeared in 1994, Morrowind in 2002, Oblivion in 2006, and finally Skyrim in 2011. From Morrowind onward the games have been showered with mods, re-released and redeveloped, and it has almost become a meme to see if a particular platform can run Skyrim. With such a strong role-playing pedigree, creating a boardgame that might stand up to the series is no small task. Chip Theory Games, a company known for developing deep games using premium components have taken on the challenge and succeeded wildly. Granted, the game is not cheap (it retails over $200!) but what you get is a game that captures much of the feeling of building and growing a character in the videogame but now you get to do it together with friends while sitting around a table together! Like the videogames, Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era can be played again and again, adventuring through multiple different provinces, pursue dozens of main quest stories, and (perhaps most importantly) construct and nurture player characters of almost innumerable variety. When one realizes the game can provide a group of 4 players with hundreds of hours of unique gameplay, one might claim the price averages out to be a bargain.
Unplugged: Food Fight Frenzy
Posted on June 12th, 2025 by
Games that give you a chance to think and plan out your next several moves are fun, but sometimes it’s great just to slap a fast-playing game down on the table and let chaos ensue. Food Fight Frenzy is a dice rolling, speed, pattern recognition, and dexterity game. Dice are rolled and players try to stack their tiles on top of the correct dice without letting the tiles fall off. Play continues over the course of several rounds and the first player to get rid of all their cards wins the game. Food Fight Frenzy is a brief, but fun, game that works well for fans of dexterity titles like Jenga and quick-reaction-time games like the card game Speed.
Food Fight Frenzy
Designer: Kim Vandenbroucke
Publisher: Ultra PRO
Players: 2-6
Ages: 6+
Time: 5-15 min
(review copy provided by publisher)
Unplugged: Bluey Scavenger Hunt Game
Posted on May 23rd, 2025 by
I freaking love the Bluey TV show! It’s a kids show but has so much to offer for adults, too. And I even reviewed a Bluey video game last year. The show is set (and animated) in Australia, and stars a family of four cartoon Australian Cattle Dogs, or Blue Heelers for short. The family consists of Bluey, the titular playful and curious six year old, her younger sister Bingo, and their parents: Bandit and Chilli. They all learn lessons through play and imagination, and some of the topics are more serious things that only adults would truly understand. These can range from moving away, infertility, dealing with ADHD, and even death. The show strikes a balance between making things easy for kids to understand, but deep enough to keep adults interested. So when I got the opportunity to play a Bluey board game with my 5 year old nephew and 3 year old twin nieces, I was thrilled and decided I would review it. In the game, up to four takes turns moving around the board, and everyone works together to try and find and pick up all the toys before bedtime. If you do, everyone wins!
