How To Play

Get the best tips, tricks & strategies for mastering your favorite games!

Home Sweet Home: Box Cover Front

How To Play: Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home is a light strategy game about building the best house from available rooms. On your turn, place rooms, chase useful bonuses, and balance comfort with clever scoring choices. Plan ahead, but stay flexible when the tiles change. The player with the happiest, highest-scoring home wins.

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Niagara: Box Cover Front

How To Play: Niagara

Niagara is a fast river race where players guide canoes, collect gems, and try not to tumble over the waterfall. Each turn, you secretly choose a paddle card to move the current and your boats. Plan carefully, watch your rivals, and bring back the right gems to win.

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Dark Tower cover

How To Play: Dark Tower

Dark Tower is a fantasy adventure game where heroes explore lands, gather supplies, fight monsters, and complete quests. Players use the electronic tower to track events, issue commands, and reveal nasty surprises. Plan your moves, manage your gold, and reach the tower prepared, or its dark magic will ruin your day.

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Medici cover

How To Play: Medici

Medici is a fast auction game where players buy goods for their merchant ships. Each round, reveal cargo cards and bid against your friends, balancing tempting deals with a tight purse. Score points by shipping valuable goods and winning majorities, but spend too much and your trading empire may sink.

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Wildlands - Wildlands, Osprey Games, 2018 — front cover (image provided by the publisher) - Credit: W Eric Martin

How To Play: Wildlands

Wildlands is a fast fantasy skirmish game where rival warbands battle across a changing map. Players use cards to move fighters, attack enemies, claim objectives, and trigger special powers. Smart positioning matters, but so does knowing when to grab points and run. It plays best with bold plans and sneaky surprises.

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Distilled: Box Cover Front

How To Play: Distilled

Distilled is a lively strategy game about running a small spirits company. You buy ingredients, manage your cash, age recipes, and bottle drinks for profit. Each round brings tough choices as prices shift and rivals chase the same goods. Build your distillery wisely, complete secret goals, and become the best producer.

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Trade: Box Cover Front

How To Play: Trade

Trade is a fast trading game where players collect goods, swap resources, and plan clever deals. Each turn, you must weigh your current stash against future gains while watching what rivals want. Make smart trades, build your wealth, and finish with the most valuable collection to win.

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War and Peace: Box Cover Front

How To Play: War and Peace

War and Peace is a tense strategy game where players lead armies, manage resources, build alliances, and fight for control. Each turn brings tough choices: advance, defend, negotiate, or save supplies. Plan ahead, watch your rivals, and pick battles carefully to claim victory without wrecking your own side.

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Top Ten - Top Ten, Cocktail Games, 2020 — front cover (image provided by the publisher) - Credit: W Eric Martin

How To Play: Top Ten

Top Ten is a party game where players answer a silly prompt with a number from one to ten. One player, the Captain, then puts everyone’s answers in order from low to high. The team wins by getting the sequence right, though wildly creative clues often cause the funniest disasters.

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Picture Perfect: Box Cover Front

How To Play: Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect is a deduction game where players arrange guests around a photographer, using clues to work out who belongs where. Each player secretly chases photo goals, so clever placement matters twice. Read the hints, swap people when needed, and check your final scene before scoring the best-looking—and best-planned—picture.

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Dolmen: Box Cover Front

How To Play: Dolmen

Dolmen starts with learning the rules, checking components, and planning moves. Manage resources carefully, study enemy patterns, hold strong positions, and choose gear that fits your build. After playing with friends, I found patience beats panic. Practice, prepare for bosses, and spend upgrades wisely to survive.

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Deadfall - Deadfall, Cheapass Games, 2016 — front cover (image provided by the publisher) - Credit: W Eric Martin

How To Play: Deadfall

Deadfall starts with 26 cards and a rules booklet. Learn setup, turns, card tracking, hand control, and seat position. Watch for bluffs and tells, but test every hunch. Save traps for the right moment, reveal carefully, and stay calm. Smart timing beats loud confidence and lucky guesses.

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Suzerain: Box Cover Front

How To Play: Suzerain

Suzerain teaches players to guide a nation through political fights, economic trouble, and crises. It has no physical components; choices drive everything. Balance factions, manage spending, protect support, and save before risky decisions. After playing with friends, I found patience beats flashy plans every time.

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Tropico - Tropico, Cocktail Games, 2017 — front cover (image provided by the publisher) - Credit: W Eric Martin

How To Play: Tropico

If you're itching for a Tropico win, remember this: manage resources like a miser, keep your people happy (cakes help), and don’t plop buildings anywhere. Use this guide, follow the rules, and soon you’ll be the top banana! That’s basically the secret sauce for How To Play tropico.

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