How We Rate

Every score on this site follows the same recipe. Here it is, ingredient by ingredient.

Where our information comes from

Two public wells, cross-referenced for every game we cover:

1. BoardGameGeek data. The hobby's public database supplies the hard numbers we cite: community rating, complexity ("weight" — explained here), player counts, and playtime. BGG ratings shift slightly over time, so we write them with an "≈" and spot-check them when we update posts.

2. Community discussion. Public player conversations — BGG forums, Reddit's board game communities, comment threads — are where a game's real reputation lives: the recurring praise, the recurring complaints, the "great game BUT" patterns that only emerge across hundreds of voices. We read for those patterns and report them in plain English.

What the Consensus Score means

The Consensus Score (out of 10) is our editorial synthesis of those two sources — a judgment call about where the community's verdict actually lands, weighted for the audience each guide serves. It is not a poll result or a statistical average, and we don't pretend otherwise. A party game scored 8.5 in a party-game guide means "the community consensus is that this excels at what it's for" — not that it out-strategizes a 90-minute euro.

The tiers

Essential — the consensus is emphatic; buy with confidence. Great — widely loved, with a caveat or two we'll always spell out. Situational — excellent for a specific table or taste, wrong for others; the "get it if" line is doing real work here. Skip — the community's enthusiasm doesn't justify the price or shelf space for most people.

What we don't do

We don't claim hands-on testing we haven't done — our value is the synthesis, and we'd rather be honest about that than borrow credibility. We don't let affiliate commissions touch a score (a game's tier is set before any link exists — see our disclosure). We don't quote real prices that go stale by Tuesday; we use typical ranges instead. And we don't publish a recommendation we wouldn't give a friend who asked.

When we're wrong

Consensus shifts, editions change, and sometimes we misread the room. If a score looks off to you, say so in the comments — posts get revisited and updated, and reader pushback is part of the process.