Bewitchments, Buckets, Bugs

Imagine me in a real pickle sandwich. The middle of preview season (ho ho ho), and suddenly I come down with not one illness, but two. Something chronic, something acute. And me with a whole stack of board games to write about. Some of them time-sensitive, counting down the minutes on crowdfunding platforms as we speak. What’s an old man to do? Write about all three in a single splash, naturally. In other words, here are three very different tabletop titles, each worth a wink of your time. Come on in. Let me tell you about them. Briskly, before I’m back to bed. Runes, crafted, so thus they may be written. Rune Rite At a glance, Rune Rite doesn’t look all that dissimilar from any number of other flip-and-writes. Fortunately, designer Jason Katzwinkel makes one alteration that has major implications not only for this game, but for the entire format. Short version: you craft the card in advance. Longer version. Like every other instance of the genre, you begin your turn by flipping over…