Dan Thurot
LightNews LightNews
banner
danthurot.bsky.social
Dan Thurot
@danthurot.bsky.social
4.2K followers 290 following 2.3K posts
I'm just some dude. A cardboard cowboy. I also write Space-Biff!, the world's first and only board game review site.
Posts Replies Media Videos
danthurot.bsky.social
It has been a wild two weeks! Thanks to SDHistCon, the forthcoming Indie Games Night Market, and my own game days, we've played some truly incredible games. And these are only the ones I can talk about!

AMA.
board games: In the Shadow of Atlas, Heavenly Bodies, Adulting, Compile, Shakespeare's First Folio, An Infamous Traffic, South Pacific, John Company, Medusa's Garden, Hot Streak, Terra, Bowie, Numberwang, Spot It!, Qwirkle, Night Soil, Win Lose or Banana, Spooktacular, Gone to Gaia, Paper Pencil Stencil, Fold & Fly!, Coupon Clipper, The Old King's Crown, Conviction
November 17, 2025 at 5:57 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
It was a slower week round these parts, but hardly a bad one.

What did you get to the table?
board games: Rowin, Re;Act: The Arts of War, Solar Titans, Pyrotechnics, The Great Commission, Bohemians, Heavenly Bodies, Adulting, The Two Towers: Trick-Taking Game
November 3, 2025 at 10:48 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
In terms of board games, I had a great week! What did you get to the table?
board games: Rowin, Re;ACT: The Arts of War, CogDrive Neon, In the Shadow of Atlas, Wilmot's Warehouse, Storyfold: Wildwoods, Revive, The Last Kingdom, Adulting, Bohemians, The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game, I'm Out, No Thanks!, The Great Commission
October 27, 2025 at 2:27 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
It was a nice week! What did you get to the table?
board games: Tag Team, Crownfell, Storyfold: Wildwoods, Leaders, CogDrive Neon, In the Shadow of Atlas, Chasing Shadows, Compile, Valhue, The Great Commission, Fate of the Fellowship, No Thanks!, The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game, March of the Ants
October 20, 2025 at 5:01 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
It was a nice week! What did you get to the table?
board games: Tag Team, Leviathan Wilds, Storyfold: Wildwoods, Don't Botch the Borccoli, March of the Ants, Bohemians, The Great Commission, Fate of the Fellowship, Magical Athlete
October 13, 2025 at 6:40 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Had a lovely week. What did you get to the table?
board games: Leaders, Tag Team, Yonkai no Yokai, Storyfold: Wildwoods, Famous: Stage I, Crownfell, March of the Ants, No Thanks!, Oh No We Crashed!, The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game, Explorers of Navoria, Chasing Shadows, Origin Story, Leviathan Wilds
October 6, 2025 at 4:12 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Swung by my favorite local bookshop to pick up this chonker. Can't wait to prove that I'm even studlier than Odysseus.
Book: You Are Odysseus
October 5, 2025 at 7:16 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Many writers will tell you that the first paragraph is the hardest. What they don't tell you is that if you just surrender to the absurdity, you may wind up writing such a terrible intro that it horseshoes back around to being terrific.
I know what it’s like to be scooped. Years before I could write The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner got to it. It’s doubly unfair because I wasn’t even born yet. That’s why I’ve vowed to cover any board game that seems like it’s riding the coattails of a more popular title. For example, Famous: Stage I, the build-a-band game by Jared Lutes, might seem like a knockoff of Jackie Fox’s Rock Hard: 1977, but it would be a mistake to confuse their proximity for inspiration. Famous, it turns out, is the more tangled game, messy like a rocker who’s stayed up too late writing songs and doing drugs. Sorry, candy.
October 2, 2025 at 5:32 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Had a lighter week! What did you get to the table?
board games: Compile, Chasing Shadows, No Thanks!, That's the Spirit!, Famous: Stage I, Leaders, Tag Team, Vegeterrors, Storyfold: Wildwoods.
September 29, 2025 at 1:55 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Got in a lot of games this week. What did you play?
board games: Unstoppable, Workworkwork, Fright Factor, Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, Azure, Moytura, A Gentle Rain, Crossbows & Catapults, The Two Towers Trick-Taking Game, That's the Spirit!, Crownfell, Converge, Ayar: Children of the Sun, Oh No We Crashed!
September 22, 2025 at 3:53 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
It was a crazy week. What did you play?
board games: My City, Compile, Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, Azure, Moytura, Mr. Postmouse's Picnic, Leviathan Wilds, Oh No We Crashed!, The Old King's Crown, Critter Kitchen, That's the Spirit!, Club Spooky, Converge, RoboKraft, Workworkwork
September 15, 2025 at 2:46 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Played some board games. How 'bout you?
board games: Bombastic, Magical Athlete, The Bell of Treason, Gobblet Gobblers, Hood, Wyrmspan, Age of Galaxy, Workworkwork, Dune: Imperium, Chess, Unstoppable
September 8, 2025 at 4:16 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
I was busy for Labor Day, but a day late is a dollar short, or something! What did you play last week?
board games: General Orders: Sengoku Jidai, Workworkwork, The Bell of Treason, Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars, Bombastic, The Presence, Magical Athlete, Club Spooky, Leviathan Wilds, Azure, Moytura.
September 2, 2025 at 5:26 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Had a busy week. AMA!

And what did you play this past week?
board games: Lightning Train, Workworkwork, Azure, Moytura, The Bell of Treason, Gatsby, Age of Galaxy, General Orders: Sengoku Jidai, Summoner Wars, Club Spooky, That's the Spirit!, Leviathan Wilds, Magical Athlete, Wyrmspan
August 25, 2025 at 2:23 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
It was a nice week. AMA! And tell me what you put on your table!
board games: Compile, GHQ, Magical Athlete, 21x, Phantom Ink, Wyrmspan, Leviathan Wilds, Lightning Train, Calimala, Workworkwork
August 18, 2025 at 1:50 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
It was a lovely week. AMA, and feel free to share what you got to the table.
board games: The Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth, Workworkwork, Wyrmspan, The Old King's Crown, Charioteer, Fruit, Chalice of Poison
August 11, 2025 at 6:27 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Getting my butt kicked by @letibus.bsky.social's latest...
Workworkwork, a dry-erase puzzle book
August 5, 2025 at 3:50 AM
danthurot.bsky.social
As you can see, I did not attend Gen Con! Had a busy week and didn't play too many games. Alas!

What did you play this week?
board games: Gatsby, The Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth, Calimala, Tycoon: India 1981, Lightning Train
August 4, 2025 at 3:16 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Not every board game treats its setting as a condiment. Some are designed to engage on historical, social, or polemical grounds. To evaluate such a game principally as a jumble of mechanisms would fail to engage with it as created, presented, intended, and, yes, as it plays.
a comment from r/boardgames discussing my review of Pax Hispanica, in which the commenter notes: "He's a good writer, no doubt, but I've read a few of his pieces lately which seem to focus more on what it's like to inhabit the thematic space of the game rather than on what it's like to interact with the game system. Theme is a condiment, a game shouldn't need theme to work (though theme can certainly make a game more enjoyable) because fundamentally, a game is a collection of interlocking mechanisms that serve to provide the space for making interesting decisions, and the game is only as good as the decision space it offers. It is this angle that I sometimes miss in reviews. And also in some games :-)"
August 1, 2025 at 1:24 AM
danthurot.bsky.social
Feel free to swing by my Gen Con booth this weekend!!
My awesome hammock. In my backyard. Which will not be at Gen Con.
July 29, 2025 at 10:57 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
My week included a little something for everyone.

What did you play?
board games: Compile, Nature, The Restless, Kinfire Council, Tycoon: India 1981, Pax Hispanica, Karnak, Folia Folio
July 29, 2025 at 1:11 AM
danthurot.bsky.social
It was a tonally inconsistent week! My favorite kind of week!

AMA! But more importantly, share what you got to the table!
board games: The Restless, UNO, Compile, Monotheism, Karnak, Nature, Fit to Print, General Orders: Sengoku Jidai, The Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth, Hot Streak, Vantage
July 21, 2025 at 4:28 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
I love Compile so much.
Compile being played
July 15, 2025 at 5:35 PM
danthurot.bsky.social
Getting this up late today, but it was a really nice week! What did you play?
board games: Vantage, Emberleaf, 365 Adventures: Cthulhu 1926, High Tide, Monotheism, CVLT, Corps of Discovery, The Restless, Nature, Raising Chicago, General Orders: Sengoku Jidai
July 15, 2025 at 1:32 AM
danthurot.bsky.social
I'd call this a good week. AMA! And tell me what you got to the table!
board games: High Tide, Monotheism, 365 Adventures: Cthulhu 1926, Tezuma Trick, Oath, Emberleaf, Barony, Roam, Raising Chicago, Nature, Unstoppable.
July 7, 2025 at 6:01 PM