My personal blog about the board games I play and the books I read — honest, first-person reviews, no scores handed down from on high, just what worked and what didn't.https://mercercornerr.com/en-UShttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-reality-dysfunction/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-reality-dysfunction/Three thousand pages of space opera and horror ahead of me across this series, and after book one I'm already resigned to reading all of it.Mon, 17 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/castles-of-burgundy-special-edition/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/castles-of-burgundy-special-edition/A deluxe remake of a game I already owned in its plainer form, and I still think the upgrade was worth it, mostly because of the tiles.Sat, 15 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/phi/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/phi/Galileo touring the brain in conversation with Descartes and Emily Dickinson, which is either a beautiful idea for a science book or a very expensive way to avoid writing one.Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-old-kings-crown/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-old-kings-crown/Gorgeous lane battler that resolves its battles with one blind card play per region, and I'm still deciding if that's elegant or just thin.Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-social-conquest-of-earth/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-social-conquest-of-earth/E.O. Wilson picks a fight with his own field's consensus on kin selection, and I don't have the biology background to referee it, but I loved reading the argument anyway.Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/godtear/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/godtear/A skirmish game with a genuinely clean ruleset that I keep wanting to like more than I actually do once the dice get involved.Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-glass-bead-game/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-glass-bead-game/Hesse never actually tells you the rules of the game the whole book is named after, and I spent four hundred pages waiting for him to.Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/frosthaven/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/frosthaven/Gloomhaven's mechanics sharpened and its upkeep bloated, plus a town-building layer I didn't ask for but mostly enjoy anyway.Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/diaspora/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/diaspora/Egan asks you to sit through thirty pages of orphanogenesis exposition before the story even starts moving, and somehow it's worth it.Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/the-game-i-sold-everyone-on/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/the-game-i-sold-everyone-on/I evangelized this one hard for a month. Three sessions later I was the only person still asking to play it, and I had to actually sit with why.Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/seti/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/seti/A spinning central board and a genuinely fresh engine, wrapped in enough mental overhead that I won't be bringing it every week.Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/candide/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/candide/A short, brutal satire that made its point early and then kept making it, and kept making it, for another hundred pages.Wed, 15 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/the-scenario-that-nearly-ended-the-tuesday-group/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/the-scenario-that-nearly-ended-the-tuesday-group/One bad campaign scenario, a three-hour loss, and a genuinely tense car ride home. Here's how close six years of Tuesdays came to just stopping.Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/mechs-vs-minions/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/mechs-vs-minions/The best box insert I own, bar none, wrapped around a co-op programming game that's fun for about as long as the campaign lasts.Fri, 10 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/physical-books-and-why-i-wont-switch/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/physical-books-and-why-i-wont-switch/Everyone in my life reads on a tablet now. I've tried it twice, and both times ended up back at the shelf for a reason I didn't expect.Tue, 07 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/small-gods/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/small-gods/My first Discworld book, and probably not the one people usually recommend to start with, but I'm glad it's the one I picked up.Mon, 06 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/teaching-priya-a-game-she-picked-apart/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/teaching-priya-a-game-she-picked-apart/I brought a game to the table convinced it was airtight. Twenty minutes in, Priya found the seam I'd never noticed, and I'm still not sure how I feel about it.Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/inis/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/inis/Beautiful card art, a genuinely clever drafting system, and an endgame that's dragged us into a fifth round more than once.Thu, 02 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/a-week-arguing-about-a-tolerance-spec/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/a-week-arguing-about-a-tolerance-spec/A supplier dispute at work turned out to be the same argument my game group has every time a rulebook is ambiguous, just with more money on the line.Mon, 29 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-cyberiad/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/the-cyberiad/Two robot inventors, a universe of pseudoscientific wordplay, and one of the funniest books I've read that's also quietly about the limits of reason.Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/the-case-against-playing-games-alone/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/the-case-against-playing-games-alone/Solo modes are everywhere now and I own several. I still think the thing I actually want out of a game night can't happen without another person in the room.Sat, 20 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/brass-birmingham/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/brass-birmingham/The heaviest euro on my shelf and still the one I most want to teach to someone new, which is its own kind of achievement.Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/why-i-moved-to-the-high-desert/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/why-i-moved-to-the-high-desert/Bend for the job, the dry air, the mountains thirty minutes away. Also, somehow, the thing I miss most is rain on a specific kind of roof.Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/weapons-of-math-destruction/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/weapons-of-math-destruction/A book about algorithms written for people who don't build them, and it still managed to change how I think about the ones I use every day.Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/the-insert-i-rebuilt-twice/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/the-insert-i-rebuilt-twice/An engineer's take on why a bad box insert bothers me more than it should, and the second attempt at Brass: Birmingham's that finally got it right.Tue, 02 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/too-many-bones/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/too-many-bones/A dice-building dungeon crawler with an absurd barrier to entry and a genuinely clever system once you're past it.Sat, 30 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/whats-actually-in-my-reading-log/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/whats-actually-in-my-reading-log/A plain notebook by the bed, no app, no star ratings until later. Here's what six years of stubbornly analog reading tracking actually looks like.Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/1984/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/1984/The book I loved uncritically at seventeen reads differently now, denser, more exhausting, and honestly better for it.Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/essays/daves-copy-of-ticket-to-ride/https://mercercornerr.com/essays/daves-copy-of-ticket-to-ride/The origin story, six years back, of how one coworker's lunch-break board game turned into a Tuesday habit I never really quit.Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalNolan Mercerhttps://mercercornerr.com/reviews/cascadia/https://mercercornerr.com/reviews/cascadia/A tile-and-token puzzle that's fast to teach and genuinely relaxing, even if two of my regulars think it's just Calico's quieter cousin.Wed, 20 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesNolan Mercer