Unboxed the Board Game Blog

Simple premise and challenging gameplay with hours of fun to remember! That's Codenames – a fast paced party game that's sure to keep the whole group entertained, great for families, friends, and total strangers alike. Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their codenames. To win the game, your team will need to contact all of your agents in the field before the other team finds their own agents. And watch out for the assassin – meet him in the field and your team is done! Codenames is simple to explain and easy to understand, with no limit to size of the teams – you can play in four people as well as in twelve!

A cooperative version of the game Concept, adapted for play with children aged 4 and up. A game entirely dedicated to the animal kingdom! Get people to guess your favorite animals. But shh, there’s no talking here – words have been replaced with icons!

In Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, players find themselves in a scenario of intrigue and murder, deduction and deception. One player is the Murderer, secretly choosing their weapon and the evidence they leave behind. Another is the Forensic Scientist who holds the key to convicting the criminal but is only able to express their knowledge through analysis of the scene. The rest are investigators, interpreting the clues to solve the crime - and the killer is among them. Investigators must collaborate and use their wits, their hunches, and their keen deductive insight to correctly identify the means of murder and the key evidence to convict the killer. The murderer must mislead and confuse the investigators to save themselves. Do you have what it takes to see through the lies and catch the criminal in your ranks or will they muddy the waters long enough to get away with murder?

Decrypto is a "scramble communication" game: you must give clues to your teammates that are precise enough, so they can understand you, but vague enough, to make sure your opponents don't get the message...

Players will take on the role of a wandering mercenary with their own special set of skills and their own reasons for traveling to this remote corner of the world. Players must work together out of necessity to clear out menacing dungeons and forgotten ruins. In the process they will enhance their abilities with experience and loot, discover new locations to explore and plunder, and expand an ever-branching story fueled by the decisions they make. This is a persistent game that is intended to be played over many game sessions. After a scenario, players will make decisions on what to do, which will determine how the story continues, kind of like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book.

Letter Jam is a cooperative game for 2 to 6 players. In each round, every player has a letter that everyone else can see. But no one can see their own letter! Players try to find words that can be made with the letters they see. The player with the best clue spells it by marking the letters with numbered tokens. Your letter’s position in the clue helps you guess what it might be. Then you can move on to a new one! Guess them all before clues run out, and unscramble your hidden word.

Will you dare to walk through the gates of the Mysterium manor? The manor is haunted by a ghost. The circumstances of its death are shrouded in mystery. Psychics gather to reconstruct the events of the crime’s night. They won’t make it without the ghost’s help, whose visions are the only clues they have to discover the truth. The clock is ticking: at dawn, the ghost will disappear! Mysterium is a thrilling and innovative immersive board game. It reinvents investigation games and cooperative games. Due to its asymmetrical roles, you’ll have a great deal of fun trying to guess what the other players have on their mind, whether you play a Psychic or the ghost. Walk in the manor, have a seat, and let your sixth sense guide you.

Welcome to Mysterium Park, the most spectacular mobile funfair in the United States! Enjoy fantastic attractions and breathtaking shows. Mysterium Park conceals many secrets… and what secrets! The director of the park is missing. It is said that strange events have been occuring ever since he disappeared. Drawn by these rumors, you and your team of Psychics decide to visit the site to shed light on this affair. Once on the spot, you find out that the former director’s ghost is trying to communicate with you. With his help, will you manage to prove the right people innocent and to finally unmask the murderer and find the crime scene? Mysterium Park is a cooperative game where players embody asymmetrical roles for ever-surprising game experiences. The ghost sends Visions to the Psychics through illustrated cards. The latter must interpret those cards in order to rule out the wrong suspects, and to conduct their investigation in different places so as to finally identify the murderer and the location where the crime occured. Be aware that you only have 6 nights before the funfair breaks camp. Mysterium Park is the ideal game: quick to set up and to play.

You are movie producers in a failing film production company. You have one last chance to make a successful film - otherwise the company will collapse and you’ll never work in this town again! You have to use the resources at your disposal to produce this film on time and under budget, ensure it’s a high enough quality, and make some sense of the resulting story. No time to waste - roll camera! Roll Camera! is a cooperative or solo dice worker placement game of resource management and a central geometric puzzle representing your shooting arrangement. You throw the custom D6 Crew dice, each face representing a different production department (camera, light, sound, actor, production design, visual effects) and assign them to actions, either on the main board or on your individual player boards. Your player board features a specific head of department (Director, Producer, Cinematographer, Editor, Production Designer or The Star) and contains unique action spaces that can be used on your turn. Place the Crew in specific arrangements matching those on the Shot cards, resolve the constant Problems getting in your way, and hold production meetings to play Idea cards from your hand to help out. Everything costs time and money, and you lose if either one runs out. You must also ensure your film reaches a certain level of Quality in order to win! At the game's end, you'll have a unique sequence of completed Shot cards which you can "premiere" using the story cues -- it's the filmmaking game that results in a "real" movie!

So Clover! is a cooperative word-association game. Play as a team to get the highest score. Get Keywords and secretly write their common features on your Clover board; these are your Clues. Then work together to try to figure out each player’s Keywords. At the end of the game, add up your score according to how many Keywords you found and write it in the Record of Legends. Try to beat your high score each game!

Astronauts wanted! Scientists say there is a mysterious ninth planet located at the edge of our solar system. But despite all of their efforts, so far they have been unable to provide substantial evidence of its existence. Join this exciting space adventure to find out if the theories are just science fiction or if you will discover Planet Nine. In this card game you need to complete 50 different missions as you travel across the solar system. But you will only succeed if you can work together as a team. To master the challenges and achieve your mission, communication will be essential — but in space, things can be more challenging than expected …

Congrats, filmmaker! Your career is finally finding its footing, thanks to your determination, luck, and more than a few questionable scripts. While other filmmakers burden themselves with “important” movies that have “big” budgets and are “good,” YOU are wisely blazing a trail in the opposite direction: the B-Movie! Yes, the B-movie - low on budget, but high on thrills, chills, and bloody spills. This may not be the glamorous side of Hollywood but if you roll your dice right, it could still be profitable! This time around, you'll have access to new roles and specialized equipment to help you get the job done. But your responsibility to produce a watchable film is as demanding as ever! Your movies now have unique genre requirements: crime, fantasy, horror, sci-fi, western -- or some kind of mixed-up genre soup combination. The whole thing is causing more disorganization and chaos than ever before... There's even less time to waste - Roll Camera!!