The Game of Life is one of my least favorite games to play. It has zero strategy and few decisions. And, with these decisions, you must make the most optimum one, or risk (another classic game) losing the game. One of the later editions adds in the gambling aspect, but still, it is not enough to save this 1960 Milton Bradley classic.

I begrudgingly bought The Game of Life: Rivals Edition. I was not looking forward to playing it. After the modestly entertaining Monopoly Rivals Edition, I had a little more interest in playing Life: Rivals Edition.

So, I grabbed Edward, who likes The Game of Life, and made him sit down and play the Rivals Edition with me. Let’s see how it went.

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I don’t want to say that Edward is all in on this IP book, but as we were strolling through Target, he spotted a game. His pitch, “It’s an IP, Dad. We need it for the book!” So, without hesitation, we added Buffalo Games’s Tecmo Bowl to the cart. It wasn’t that hard of a sale for me though. I loved this Nintendo game back in the day. While I prefer the Tecmo Super Bowl to its predecessor, I was not about to let this chance at nostalgia pass me by.

In Tecmo Bowl, which came out this year, 2025, you and your opponent manage football teams in an effort to outsmart, outthink, and outscore them. We got home that evening, put on Sunday Night Football, sat down, selected our teams, and flipped the provided coin to start Tecmo Bowl. Let’s see how it went.

Trophy Idea

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Another fun series of games that I discovered through my research was the Hasbro "Rivals Editions." In this series, Hasbro took one of its classics and boiled it down to a two-player, mano y mano showdown. I was interested in how you could boil some of these games down to two players, for sure. So, first up, Monopoly! Grab your biggest rival and let’s battle it out over Monopoly: Rivals Edition!

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You know me. I love to give credit where credit is due. While reading the book, Who’s in the Game? by Terri Tolles Patkin, I came across an interesting variant to Operation; Operation: Brain Surgery. I immediately had to look into this. Operation debuted in 1968. It hasn’t really changed in the past 30+ years, other than the “funatomy” parts. No new gameplay was offered until 2002 with the debut of Brain Surgery. Since then, it has had a few other variants on the brand: Pet Scan, Botched Operation, & most recently Junior.

Anyway, I went on Board Game Geek and looked into this weird sounding Operation Brain Surgery, and you should, too. It is Cavity Sam’s head, just his head. You are a brain surgeon trying to find head themed funatomy parts like Train of Thought, Bright Idea, Cat’s Got Your Tongue, etc. And to find them, well, you put your hand into his head. Dig around using only feel in search of the correct new funatomy parts. I am sure this is 100% medically accurate.

So, gather your fellow medical buffs, and let’s dig into Sam’s head in Operation Brain Surgery.

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In 2010, Hasbro released five games in this U-Build series. I was only familiar with the Monopoly version, so I was excited to try U-Build Mouse Trap, a variant of the 1963 staple.

U-Build Mouse Trap arrived, procured from eBay, and the kids and I sat down that evening to play it. I had done very little research into it because I wanted to go into it with no expectations. We opened the box to discover it was filled with a lot of building blocks similar to, but not, Lego. We sat around the table, and set to work building the game and playing it. Let’s see how it went.

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A few weeks ago, I had professor and author Marco Arnaudo on the show. We talked about his amazing book, Tabletop Revolution. One of the many games I bought because this book was A Universal Truth. It was in the card games section. Marco talked about how cards have evolved from their rudimentary beginnings as just a suit and a number to multi-use, multi-functional components. He mentioned A Universal Truth: The Strategic Game of Courtship, designed by Patrick Einheber, self-published by Danger Toad Games via The Game Crafter.

What drew me to this game truly was Marco talking about how Patrick used every inch, every side, every bit of the card to move the game forward.

As happened many times while I was reading Tabletop Revolution, I put my copy down, picked up my phone, and immediately did some digging into A Universal Truth. I reached out to the designer, who graciously mailed me a copy. When it arrived, Edward and I carefully tore into it.

In A Universal Truth, you and your coworkers are trying to woo your loved one. To do this, you must meet or exceed all of their requirements: affection, social amity, accomplishments, and of course money. That is just the basic version of the game. I will explain more later in the episode. So, put on your ascot and monocle, gather your coworkers, and see who can court their love first in A Universal Truth.

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Just a routine reading of Board Game Geek put me onto the release of today’s focus game, King of Tokyo: Duel. There was a banner ad on the homepage. From there, a quick click over to my local game shop webpage allowed me to preorder the game. I did not need any more information. It was King of Tokyo. It was designed by Richard Garfield. It was two-player.

Upon further inspection, it appeared to be a tug of war style game. It had the established characters. Well, my copy arrived. I went to get it. Edward and I sat down to play it.

King of Tokyo Duel sets you and your opponent in a mano a mano battle over Tokyo. As with the original game, there are multiple ways to win: knock the other monster out, get both the star and building markers into your spotlight zone, or one of the markers reaches the last space on your side of the board.

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My family loves this game. My sister has not yet played it because it's a little over her skill level. But my mom, dad and I love this game. We have played this game dozens of times. When it comes to the expansion (which I will talk about later), we have only played it a few times.

In Chili Mafia, you are a mob boss building gangs of various chili peppers. You can either build a gang of different peppers, or one of similar peppers. Both have their benefits. The game ends when the cards run out. The gang worth the most points wins!

So, gather your gang, and let's get into the review for “Chili Mafia”

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