Pints of Blood, BraveRats, The Great War – board game reviews

From a zombie apocalypse to the horrors of trench warfare

Many tabletop games enjoy taking inspiration from obscure sources. Not so Pints of Blood, which leaves little room for confusion. Focusing on a group of survivors fending off zombies in a pub, it's Edgar Wright's Shaun of the Dead in your hands. With attractive production quality and semi-co-operative gameplay, it's easy to tempt friends into Pints of Blood, but it can quickly feel repetitive. The result offers plenty of undemanding fun, if a slight lack of intricacy.

With a less obvious influence, but more nuanced - and surprisingly so - is BraveRats, which across just 17 cards presents a brilliantly elegant playing system. Themed loosely around two warring rodent clans, it's a quickfire game of reading your rival's intentions in snappy sessions of about five minutes.

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