Ian Whitaker's board game and book reviews plus personal essays — small, specific, no review copies.https://iansbackroom.com/en-UShttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/driving-back-to-coeur-dalene-for-my-brothers-recommendation/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/driving-back-to-coeur-dalene-for-my-brothers-recommendation/Forty minutes each way, twice a month or so, to sit in the same kitchen we grew up eating in and argue about a book he made me read.Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/sentinels-of-the-multiverse/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/sentinels-of-the-multiverse/Comic book cooperative card combat that's better with a group that resists the urge to backseat everyone else's turn.Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/the-sparrow/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/the-sparrow/A first-contact novel that broke me more thoroughly than anything I've read in years, and I don't even read that much science fiction.Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/magic-the-gathering/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/magic-the-gathering/Thirty years of the best game design ideas in the hobby, buried under a collection habit I can no longer justify.Sat, 25 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/unmatched/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/unmatched/The two-player game I reach for most, and the one that finally cured my group of the 'I already know what you're going to do' problem.Wed, 24 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/mistborn/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/mistborn/A heist novel wearing a magic system's clothes, and the magic system is good enough that I didn't mind the disguise.Sun, 21 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/tolerance-stacking-and-the-wednesday-rules-dispute/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/tolerance-stacking-and-the-wednesday-rules-dispute/Twenty minutes arguing about a card's wording, and the warehouse math that finally settled it.Sat, 06 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/this-war-of-mine/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/this-war-of-mine/The only game that's ever made our whole table go quiet, and mean it as a compliment.Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/the-night-marcus-almost-walked-out-of-his-own-storytelling-chair/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/the-night-marcus-almost-walked-out-of-his-own-storytelling-chair/Running Blood on the Clocktower is a bigger job than most of us at the table give him credit for, and one night it showed.Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/marvel-champions-lcg/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/marvel-champions-lcg/A living card game that finally made deckbuilding click for me, once I stopped trying to solve every villain the same way.Wed, 27 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/the-trial/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/the-trial/A bureaucratic nightmare that got funnier and more infuriating the longer I sat with it.Mon, 25 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/the-pallet-count-i-bring-home-with-me/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/the-pallet-count-i-bring-home-with-me/Eight years of counting pallets for a living does something to how you play a points-scoring game, and I only noticed it once Dana pointed it out.Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/star-maker/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/star-maker/The book half the science fiction I already love is quietly stealing from, and I can see why now, even where it lost me.Fri, 15 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/mage-knight/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/mage-knight/A genuinely huge solo campaign, and the first thing that made me reconsider how I feel about playing games alone.Tue, 12 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/why-i-wont-buy-a-companion-app-game-anymore/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/why-i-wont-buy-a-companion-app-game-anymore/A rule I made for myself two years ago, and the specific bad night that made me make it.Sun, 03 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/the-notebook-i-keep-instead-of-trusting-my-memory/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/the-notebook-i-keep-instead-of-trusting-my-memory/Marcus calls it a spreadsheet with extra steps. He's not wrong, but he also doesn't understand why I need it.Tue, 28 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/the-master-and-his-emissary/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/the-master-and-his-emissary/A genuinely brilliant argument buried inside more pages than it strictly needed.Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/blood-on-the-clocktower/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/blood-on-the-clocktower/The social deduction game that made me stop calling social deduction games a genre I merely tolerate.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/secondhand-time/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/secondhand-time/An oral history of the end of the Soviet Union that I've thought about nearly every week since finishing it.Wed, 01 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/thunder-road-vendetta/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/thunder-road-vendetta/Loud, dumb fun for one night, and I mean both of those as compliments, mostly.Tue, 10 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/seti/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/seti/A heavy, handsome science game that rewards planning further ahead than my group usually manages.Sun, 08 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/teaching-dana-sky-team-on-a-tuesday-that-went-sideways/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/teaching-dana-sky-team-on-a-tuesday-that-went-sideways/The first time we played it, we crashed the plane in the tutorial scenario. She still brings that up.Wed, 18 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/never-let-me-go/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/never-let-me-go/A quiet, devastating book that reveals its premise slowly enough that I don't want to spoil it for anyone.Fri, 30 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/sky-team/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/sky-team/Twenty minutes, two players, dice, and somehow the tensest thing I own. Dana likes this one, which tells you everything.Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTBoard GamesIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/the-overstory/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/the-overstory/Nine lives braided around trees, some threads stronger than others, and one accidental pairing that made the whole book click for me.Sun, 11 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/we/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/we/The dystopia that beat 1984 to nearly everything it's famous for, and honestly does some of it sharper.Fri, 09 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/what-a-spokane-winter-does-to-the-loading-dock/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/what-a-spokane-winter-does-to-the-loading-dock/Snow is fun. Shoveling a dock apron at six in the morning before the first truck is not, and neither is a game night when nobody wants to leave the house.Wed, 17 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/the-magic-collection-i-finally-admitted-i-outgrew/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/the-magic-collection-i-finally-admitted-i-outgrew/I told myself for three years I'd sort the bin eventually. I finally sorted it, and it didn't go the way I expected.Fri, 21 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/essays/why-i-read-on-lunch-breaks-instead-of-at-home/https://iansbackroom.com/essays/why-i-read-on-lunch-breaks-instead-of-at-home/Thirty-five minutes in a break room with bad lighting turns out to be better reading time than a whole evening at home.Wed, 12 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTPersonalIan Whitakerhttps://iansbackroom.com/reviews/1984/https://iansbackroom.com/reviews/1984/A reread I put off for years, and one that hit differently now than it did assigned in a tenth-grade classroom.Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:00:00 GMTBooksIan Whitaker