Jocelyn Ramsey's personal site for book reviews, board game reviews, and the occasional essay about the rest of life around them. No schedule, no affiliate links, nothing sponsored.https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/en-UShttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/light/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/light/Three timelines, a serial killer physicist, and a space empire built on tech nobody understands, braided together in a way that refuses to explain itself and is better for it.Fri, 21 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTLightJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/ventus/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/ventus/Terraforming nanotech gods gone half-feral, a teenage protagonist who can hear them, and a scope that keeps widening past where you think the book will stop.Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTVentusJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/faraway/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/faraway/A small-box card game about writing your own legend through overlapping card text, and it's smarter about scoring interactions than a game this size has any right to be.Sat, 08 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMTFarawayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/i-evangelized-gormenghast-to-marcus-and-he-bounced-hard/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/i-evangelized-gormenghast-to-marcus-and-he-bounced-hard/I pushed a slow, strange book on a friend who reads almost nothing but fast-moving epic fantasy, and it went about as badly as it probably should have.Fri, 31 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-cultural-origins-of-human-cognition/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-cultural-origins-of-human-cognition/A tightly argued case that the one thing separating us from other great apes isn't raw intelligence, it's the ratchet effect of culture accumulating on itself.Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Cultural Origins of Human CognitionJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/dune-gf9/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/dune-gf9/Six asymmetric factions, secret alliances, and a bidding phase where the actual negotiating between players matters more than any card in your hand.Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTDune (GF9)Jocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-manuscript-that-made-me-a-worse-fiction-reader-for-a-month/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-manuscript-that-made-me-a-worse-fiction-reader-for-a-month/A brutal six-week production schedule on a dense academic manuscript left me unable to enjoy a novel for pleasure, and it took longer than I expected to get that back.Sun, 05 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/why-i-still-keep-a-paper-reading-log/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/why-i-still-keep-a-paper-reading-log/Everyone in my life who tracks their reading uses an app, and I'm still working through the same water-stained notebook I started nine years ago, on purpose.Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/guards-of-atlantis-ii/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/guards-of-atlantis-ii/Asymmetric hero drafting, lane pushing, ability combos, all the DNA of a video-game MOBA translated to cardboard without losing what makes that genre tense.Mon, 08 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMTGuards of Atlantis IIJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/andromedas-edge/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/andromedas-edge/A tile-laying, fleet-building 4X in a box, with enough clacking plastic ships to make setup itself feel like part of the fun.Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTAndromeda's EdgeJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/mechs-vs-minions/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/mechs-vs-minions/A cooperative programming puzzle disguised as a League of Legends spinoff, and the physical component quality alone justifies the box's size.Tue, 19 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTMechs vs. MinionsJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-glass-bead-game/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-glass-bead-game/A fictional future biography of a monk-scholar devoted to a game that synthesizes all of human knowledge, and Hesse never once shows you a single move of it.Thu, 14 May 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Glass Bead GameJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-thursday-group-almost-broke-up-over-a-rules-dispute/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-thursday-group-almost-broke-up-over-a-rules-dispute/A single disputed rules interaction turned a normal Thursday into forty-five minutes of increasingly personal argument, and nobody involved actually cared about the game by the end of it.Mon, 27 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-windup-girl/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-windup-girl/Post-oil Bangkok, agribusiness warlords hoarding seed banks, and a genetically engineered woman treated as property by everyone in the book except the reader.Tue, 21 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Windup GirlJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/brass-birmingham/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/brass-birmingham/A two-era industrial economy engine where the double-sided board and the coal-and-iron supply chain make every single build a real calculation.Sun, 19 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMTBrass: BirminghamJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/castles-of-burgundy-special-edition/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/castles-of-burgundy-special-edition/The best pure Euro on my shelf got a component and rulebook facelift that fixes the fiddliness without touching the actual design underneath.Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Castles of Burgundy: Special EditionJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/i-was-wrong-about-solo-modes/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/i-was-wrong-about-solo-modes/For years I dismissed solo board game modes as a consolation prize for people without a group. Then my group's schedule fell apart for two months and I found out I was just wrong.Sun, 15 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/against-the-two-hour-game-night-rule/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/against-the-two-hour-game-night-rule/A lot of advice for game groups says cap your session at two hours so nobody burns out. I think that rule quietly kills the best games before they get a fair shot.Wed, 04 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/ithaca-in-february-is-its-own-kind-of-training/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/ithaca-in-february-is-its-own-kind-of-training/What five winters in a gorge town taught me about reading indoors, and why my heaviest reading months have nothing to do with which books are actually good.Fri, 20 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/this-war-of-mine/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/this-war-of-mine/A survival game about civilians in a besieged city, where the hardest decisions aren't about resources, they're about who you're willing to become to get them.Mon, 09 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMTThis War of Mine: The Board GameJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/blood-rage/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/blood-rage/A Norse-mythology area-control game where losing battles is often the correct play, and dying gloriously is a legitimate scoring strategy.Sat, 31 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTBlood RageJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/gormenghast/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/gormenghast/Titus Groan grows up inside a castle so ritual-bound it might as well be a character, and Steerpike is one of the great slow-motion villains in the genre.Sun, 25 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTGormenghastJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/i-gave-a-book-five-stars-and-now-i-regret-it/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/i-gave-a-book-five-stars-and-now-i-regret-it/A book I rated perfectly a few years ago didn't survive a reread, and figuring out whether that means my original rating was wrong took longer than the reread itself.Thu, 22 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/cyclades/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/cyclades/A Greek-mythology auction and area-control game where bidding for divine favor matters more than the actual fighting most of the time.Fri, 16 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTCycladesJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/malazan-book-of-the-fallen/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/malazan-book-of-the-fallen/Ten volumes, a cast that requires an actual spreadsheet, and a payoff in the last three books that makes every confused chapter from book one worth it.Mon, 12 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTMalazan Book of the FallenJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-master-and-margarita/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/the-master-and-margarita/A satanic entourage descends on Stalinist Moscow, a novelist burns his manuscript, and somehow the whole thing reads faster than a thriller half its length.Sat, 10 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMTThe Master and MargaritaJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/what-a-bad-index-taught-me-about-a-bad-rulebook/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/what-a-bad-index-taught-me-about-a-bad-rulebook/Nine years of production-editing academic manuscripts turned out to be the exact training I needed for spotting why a board game's rulebook fails.Wed, 31 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/phi/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/phi/Integrated information theory delivered as a fever-dream conversation between Galileo and various dead scientists, which is a bold structural choice that only half pays off.Sun, 28 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTPhiJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/a-wrinkle-in-time/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/a-wrinkle-in-time/A childhood favorite that turned out to hold up, mostly because it never actually talked down to me even the first time around.Sun, 21 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTA Wrinkle in TimeJocelyn Ramseyhttps://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/teaching-dune-to-someone-who-hates-negotiating/https://jocelynsnerdnotes.com/articles/teaching-dune-to-someone-who-hates-negotiating/A newer member of our group told us upfront she hates negotiation games. We taught her Dune anyway. It went sideways in a way I didn't expect, and then it didn't.Fri, 12 Dec 2025 00:00:00 GMTpersonal_essayJocelyn Ramsey