These past few weeks, my family has been bracing ourselves for our cross-country move to sunny Arizona.  As everybody knows, July is the perfect time of year to move there… for anyone looking to be baked by Mother Nature.  

If there’s anything that is just as reliable as as a hot summer in Arizona, perhaps it would be my enjoyment of a solid auctioning game.  There are a surprising number of ways that bidding and auctions can be incorporated into a board game, and I’ve had a blast exploring this entire spectrum of possibilities over the years.

In celebration of our own auctioning games launching on Kickstarter next month that are designed by the master Auctioneer himself, Reiner Knizia, I thought it fitting to explore the many games which have fostered my love for this genre.  The notable titles below are huge reasons why we loved auctioning game Hot Lead and quasi-auctioning game Pumafiosi enough to publish them ourselves.

Rather than rank these bidding games in order from my most to least favorite, I decided it would be more fun to award my favorites by category and type.  Hopefully these categories help you to find a new great game that would fit in perfectly with your collection…

Meanest Auctioning Game

The Estates

The Estates wins this category by a country mile… or maybe a city block?  You can’t possibly prepare a newcomer for the lurking savagery of the colorful, blocky Estates.  What starts out as innocent one-time around auctions to place out pleasant building blocks onto city plots rapidly crumbles into nasty maneuvers and cold-blooded tactics. 

Players can have their hopes dashed when their tall, valuable tower is covered and reclaimed by another player.  But even worse is the calculated sabotage of an entire row that contains your most valuable investments.  When the game ends, any incomplete rows transform from positive points to negative points.  And if I don’t have any personal investments on a particular row, then you better believe that’s my number one target. 

The Estates can go so far as to see the entire board fall into ruin with the player who earns the least negative points claiming the blood-soaked victory.

Honorable Mentions

• Age of Steam
• Tammany Hall

Best Large Group Auctioning Game

Medici

Auctioning games typically take a “the more, the merrier” approach, and perhaps nowhere is this more true than Reiner Knizia’s Medici.  Up to six players bid with their precious points on goods to fill their ships.  More players leads to more competition on the board and for the precious cargo, and navigating this wild journey is all kinds of fun, especially at a full table.  It’s these kinds of auctioning designs that often blur the line between strategy game and party game.

Honorable Mentions

• For Sale
• The Estates
• Skull

Best Small Group Auctioning Game

Biblios

There are quite a few auctioning games that play well at 3 players, but there are very few that play best at 3 and well at only 2.  I would argue that Reiner Knizia’s Hot Lead and Pumafiosi are strong upcoming contenders in this category, but for now Biblios is one of the few titles that excels within small game groups.  The reasons why it made my Top 10 Filler Games are the very same reasons why it’s such a great auctioning game.  And every time I’m with one or two other gamers looking for a fun, quick romp, Biblios is always an easy pick.

Best Game with just a Hint of Auctioning

Oath, Sidereal Confluence

These two mammoth games are like melting pots of all kinds of tasty mechanisms, and one of their shared flavors is that of auctioning.  

In Oath, these auctions take the form of claimed banners with either favor or secrets that pile high on them.  Both banners are frequently critical to the victor’s success, and the main way to reclaim them is through outbidding the current stack that the owner used to claim them.  Of course, you can also just simply sidestep the auctioning all together and bring in your war bands to steal them by force, but that can often be an even trickier route to take.

Sidereal Confluence’s auctions are one of the few mechanisms that breaks up the loud, lively simultaneous negotiation that makes up core of this game.  Yet, like Oath, this mechanism is not to be dismissed, as earning the right research or technology card with a strong bid of ship tokens can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

Best Looking Auctioning Game

Modern Art

Huh.  A game about buying and selling art is the best looking auctioning game.  Go figure.  Of course, I’m not counting Oath as an official auctioning game for most of these categories or it would just win everything, including this one.  I’m just surprised that this category wasn’t more contested.  Going through all of the possible options, it seems that most auctioning games are pretty average looking, or the art is nice but the generic theme brings it down, but at least there are a few notably exceptional box covers mixed in. At any rate, Modern Art is a pleasure to lay out and look at thanks to its large, diverse art cards and wooden gavel.

Honorable Mentions

• Irish Gauge
• Age of Steam: Deluxe Edition
• Skull

Best All-Around Auctioning Game

Modern Art

Back-to-back victories for Modern Art!  If you know anything about it, you should have seen this game being a strong performer on my list from a mile away.  That’s because Modern Art possesses FOUR different types of auctions that keep each session saturated with bombastic bidding from start to finish.  It’s also designed by Reiner Knizia himself, who practically has a trademark on auctioning mechanisms.  I’ve already spoken plenty about Modern Art, as this one earned a spot among my Top 10 Knizia Games and Top 50 Board Games of All Time lists.

Honorable Mentions

• Amun-Re
• For Sale

Most Unique Auctioning Game

Hibachi, Q.E., Cyclades, Downforce

That’s right, this one is a four-way tie for me!  Hibachi, Cyclades, and Downforce all earned their way onto this category because they mix auctioning with something else entirely to make a truly distinct experience.  

Hibachi (or the original version, Safranito) is a dexterity set-collection game of tossing your poker chips facedown onto a board.  Once the chips are out, they are flipped face up and function as bidding tokens for the actions spaces that they landed on.  I’m eager to try out the new Hibachi when the kickstarter fulfills soon.

Cyclades is a member of the classic Matagot area control trilogy composed of Kemet, Cyclades, and Inis.  This one mixes auctioning, in the form of offerings to the gods, with area control where the player who wins an auction for a particular god earns their blessing and executes their category of actions.

Downforce is a modernized version of a racing game originally designed by Wolfgang Kramer.  Players will place bets on cars as they seek to help give their own racers the edge.  But the way you earn a car is through bidding on them at the start of the game.  Whatever amount you pay for your winning bids will be subtracted from your score at the end.

The final auctioning game that feels refreshingly unique, Q.E., doesn’t need any fancy mechanical hybridization tricks to be here.  In fact, it even takes some inspiration from Reiner Knizia’s classic High Society in the way that its highest cumulative bidder is eliminated from victory at the end.  Yet the reason it still feels extremely unique is because players are allowed to bid any amount from zero to infinity.  If that piques your interest, then Kyle sums up the rest of the game nicely in his 6-minute review.

Best New(ish) Auctioning Game

Nidavellir

I recently shared how Nidavellir won me over with its novel coin bidding and upgrading system despite the rest of the design playing things a little too safe.  Yet as I looked back over the past few years, I was surprised to find that nothing else tops it among the newly released titles of this genre.  Most of my top picks are over 3 years old, and many are even decades old.  So if you’re looking for the freshest auctioning game around, you can’t go wrong with the dwarf-infused Nidavellir.  

Best Auctioning Game I Haven’t Played (Yet)

Keyflower, The Great Zimbabwe

On my shelf of opportunity and among my preorders are the legendary designs Keyflower and The Great Zimbabwe, respectively.  These are two games I anxiously await the chance to play, as Keyflower ranks highly across the board from the many trusted hobbyists I follow while The Great Zimbabwe appears to be a solid step up from our household favorite Splotter game, Bus.  I’m very much looking forward to bidding with workers in Keyflower and cows in The Great Zimbabwe.

Honorable Mentions

• Dream Factory
• Container

Most Regret-Filled Auctions

Age of Steam

No game makes you feel worse for over-spending in the auctions or under-spending with your bid than the legendary Age of Steam by Martin Wallace.  That’s because bidding determines the turn order for the rest of the round, and even going one turn too late can mean the difference between making a lucrative route or delivery and being royally screwed by your opponents.  To make matters worse, if you don’t plan and budget your money with the meticulous care of Ebenezer Scrooge, then you can quickly find yourself plummeting back down the income track to bankruptcy and elimination.

Honorable Mentions

• El Grande
• The Estates
• High Society

Best Auctioning Game of Chicken

Condottiere, Skull, Taj Mahal

We’ve got another multi-way tie here between Condottiere, Skull, and Taj Mahal.  If you’re not familiar with the term “game of chicken,” I typically imagine two drivers speeding their cars toward each other, waiting for the other to be the first to “chicken” out by veering off course before a deadly collision.  That’s basically what these three games feel like, and I love ‘em for it.

Condottiere is the perfect card game for feigning your intentions and bluffing your hand as you play in a series of battles over individual regions.  Yet if that’s not sneaky enough for you, then Skull is bluffing distilled down to its purest form.  It’s another one that earned a place among my top filler games as it perfectly blends bluffing and bidding into a hilarious romp.  Yet for those looking for a fully fledged, strategic board game, no big box game does chicken better than the tense auctions of Reiner Knizia’s Taj Mahal.  We can only hope that another publisher picks this one up and reprints soon.

Honorable Mentions

• High Society
• For Sale

Best Shared Incentive Auctioning Game

Irish Gauge, Chicago Express, Modern Art, The Estates

Auctioning mechanisms and shared incentive gameplay go together like peanut butter and jelly.  Except I’m allergic to peanuts, and I prefer my jelly on warm toast, not cold bread… 

Whatever, it’s fine.  Here we have four games that band players together as easily as they tear them apart across evil auctions and engaging gameplay.  Interestingly, all four of these games see players selecting the item to auction off on their turn from a range of options.  Typically, you want to see some of your opponents invested in the same things as you to help protect those investments for external colluders.  The key is to benefit more from all those shared investments than anyone else.

Best Overall Auctioning Game

Ra

This list would be automatically disqualified if it didn’t feature the legendary Ra among its rankings.  It’s difficult to describe exactly how Ra achieves the pinnacle of auctioning games, but perhaps that’s related to the fact that it’s also a difficult game to acquire (at least until its inevitable reprint). 

The thing that makes Ra stand above the rest is the dynamic tension it provides thanks to its irresistible push-your-luck + auctioning combo within Knizia’s signature set collection scoring.  This entrancing, unsolvable beast is light on its feet through its perfect pacing and emergent gameplay.  You almost have to play it to believe it.

Two New Auctioning Games Coming Fresh out of the Oven

Hot Lead, Pumafiosi

Believe it or not, master Auctioneer Reiner Knizia still isn’t finished riffing on one of his favorite mechanisms.  When he presented to us a wide variety of fresh, unpublished card games for our consideration, we were delighted to discover these particular designs.  Hot Lead and Pumafiosi both hit the spot as 20-minute capers perfect for a casual family gathering or a hobbyist filler activity.  Even after all the great auctioning games I’ve explored, I’ve found plenty of reasons to love the distinct auctioning twist that Knizia has given to these two games.

In Hot Lead, players participate in sealed bidding by using the 11 card hand they start with.  Similar to the second phase of For Sale, players select a card from their hand, place it face down on the table, reveal their cards simultaneously, and earn a specific reward from the middle depending on what everyone else bid.  Yet in Hot Lead, the low cards in your hand are just as valuable as the middle and high ones!  That’s because the highest bidder doesn’t lay claim the most valuable reward.  Rather, they simply lay claim to the card that is positioned closest to deck in the column of displayed cards.

Hot Lead also features the tasty combination of push-your-luck and auctioning that fans of Ra have come to love.  Of course players want to win the higher value cards on display for their inherent points, but the juicier prize lies within the formation of sets of exactly three cards of the same type.  You see, a set of three cards of the same type represents enough evidence collected on one criminal organization, perfect for convicting them for 10 bonus points at the end of the game.  The only problem is that once a fourth card of that type is collected, you’ve investigated too aggressively and scare the criminals underground, losing yourself all four cards of that type!

What results is a game of reading your opponents’ minds—predicting which evidence cards they are hungry for and what numbers they will bid with—in order to claim the right evidence for yourself and force the wrong evidence onto your opponents.  It’s a roller coaster of a game that punches way above its simple rules and zippy playtime, and we can’t wait for you to enjoy it as well.

While Hot Lead is unquestionably the auctioning game of Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection, Pumafiosi offers its own interesting combination of quasi-bidding and quasi-trick taking.  I say quasi because each round sees participants playing one card from their hand face-up to the table in clockwise order with the second highest card winning the trick or auction or whatever you want to call it.  Why the second highest, you ask?  Because Pumafia members don’t want to stick their necks out too far or they’ll end up in prison or dead.

The winner of each round takes their winning card and uses it to claim a point-scoring step on the Pumafia Hierarchy.  The catch is that those points won’t be scored until the end of the game, and opponents can claim your spot and knock your card down by playing higher value cards on that same step.  The twist that really makes you second-guess where to stake your claim in the Hierarchy is the fact that every step you get knocked down earns you negative penalty points in addition to the shrinking Hierarchy points.

We are now less than a month away from launching the Kickstarter campaign for Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection, and we need your help to bring these games to life.  We here at Bitewing Games do not currently have the luxury of bringing these games direct to retail.  Our only hope is that those who share in our passion for juicy auctioning games, for clever Knizia designs, for thoughtful productions and a striking table presence, will also share in our vision for the Criminal Capers Collection.

If you would like to support Bitewing Games for the meaningful content we share, for the refreshing games we are crafting, and for the exciting plans we have in store, then the best thing you can do is subscribe to our newsletter or social media channels of your preference, prepare for our August Kickstarter, and share this upcoming campaign with anyone and everyone who may be interested.

Thanks for your support.  And please share with us your favorite auctioning games, especially the ones that were left off this list!  I’m always hungry for more of that good stuff…

Article written by Nick Murray. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing classy board games that bite. He hopes you’ll join Bitewing Games in their quest to create and share experiences that, much like a bitewing x-ray, provide a unique perspective and refreshing interaction.

The post Top Auctioning Board Games appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Let’s talk about the games that are leaving or entering my collection, and why!  For “surge” games, I’ll stick with titles that are not recent releases as I already cover those in my monthly New Release 1st Impressions series.

PURGE:

PARKS & Tokaido

These games have quite a bit in common.  Both PARKS and Tokaido are gorgeous looking games about traveling or vacationing through scenic environments.  Both contain the chill mechanism of stopping along a one-way track to collect items or trigger effects.  Jumping far ahead guarantee’s that you’ll hit your desired spot, but you’ll be skipping lots of other good options along the way and leaving them open for your opponents.  

It’s rather unnecessary to possess both PARKS and Tokaido in one collection, yet here I am keeping neither.  While I can’t deny the appeal of their aesthetics and settings, I also can’t deny the weakness of their game-night appeal.  Neither game has made it to our table in over a year.

Perhaps what kills them for me is that their time-to-payoff ratio is a little lopsided for my tastes.  We have some comparably simple and chill card games that cram more fun into their shorter playtimes than either PARKS or Tokaido.  I’d say they’re both solid picks as family games, but we own plenty of other family games that I would play many times over before reaching for these.

SURGE:

The Knizia Flood: Ingenious, Yellow & Yangtze, Quo Vadis

As we prepare to publish our own Reiner Knizia designs, I’ve become increasingly keen on exploring the highlights of his portfolio.  I struggle to resist a good sale or interesting new release from the German designer who continues to entertain my gaming group.  Stay tuned for my thoughts on some of his newer releases, but in the meantime let’s talk about Ingenious, Yellow & Yangtze, and Quo Vadis.

Ingenious is touted on the box as “The Ultimate Family Strategy Game,” and for once I actually agree with a generic marketing description! Abstract games typically aren’t my go-to game style, but Ingenious really hits the spot.  This one takes the scoring mechanism of Tigris & Euphrates—where your final score is your color with the least points—and simplifies it down to placing hexagonal dominos and scoring matching colors. The elegant gameplay, layered depth, and breezy turns here shouldn’t come as any surprise to Knizia fans. Nobody makes a better tile-laying game than Reiner, and Ingenious is one of the many feathers in that ridiculously legendary cap.

Yellow & Yangtze has officially arrived at my doorstep (along with Whale Riders and Whale Riders: The Card Game).  And just in the nick of time, apparently, as this one is being dropped by the publisher this year.  With it’s spiritual sibling, Tigris & Euphrates, being my current #3 game of All Time, and Reiner’s other recent reiterations (Babylonia and Blue Lagoon) also being in my top 50, you could astutely predict that I’m thrilled to give Y&Y a try…  Thrilled enough, in fact, to already have my hand on my wallet holster for when the Yellow & Yangtze plastic and bamboo GeekUp tiles go on sale. 

Meanwhile, we’ve enjoyed a couple plays of Quo Vadis, a pure negotiation game from Dr. Knizia that originally released in the 90’s, yet I was able to track down a used copy for cheap.  Players progress their politician pieces on the board through a sequential network of committees. On your turn, you are usually requesting support from other players in your current committee to vote you through to the next committee, and often you have to sweeten the deal for others to get the votes you need. Points are awarded for voting others through and moving your pieces along certain paths, but your points are only valid if one of your politicians makes it to the final Senate position. A game this dry has no right to be so enjoyable, but here we are.  Quo Vadis is pure, simple, quick, tense negotiation in a smart, Knizian style.  I’m interested in exploring this one further to witness the possibilities.  Yet I don’t think I like the “special tokens” variant that Mayfair threw into the box.  They seem to detract from the tension of having to rely on others to progress forward.

PURGE:

Roll & Writes: Railroad Ink, Welcome To, On Tour

It was fun while it lasted, roll & writes!  Yet as I described in my recent impressions of Railroad Ink Challenge, I’m living the law of diminishing returns within this genre of games.  I used to believe that it was so cool how you could play these games with as many people as you had pads and writing utensils.  Although in practice, I’ve noticed that these tend to be the quietest and least interactive games you could possibly play at a party.  Low-interaction games such as roll & writes tend to take the wind out of the sails of interpersonal engagement, and I find these to be hollow forms of entertainment in group gatherings.

Most often, I’ve enjoyed these games in 2-player settings with my wife.  Yet we now own dozens of killer 2-player games that simply increase the opportunity cost of playing another roll & write.  But I haven’t shunned the genre entirely!  We’re still holding onto Super Skill Pinball, which does roll & writes better than the rest, in my opinion.  And for some reason, I haven’t quite convinced myself to get rid of That’s Pretty Clever…

SURGE:

Train Games: Age of Steam Maps, Stephenson’s Rocket Expansion, & Chicago Express

How many train games does one gamer need?!?  Ten, apparently.  Plus a bunch more maps for good measure.  I know what you’re thinking: I’ve already mentioned that I’m getting rid of Railroad Ink!  But don’t worry, I’ve preordered Iberian Gauge, so balance will soon be restored to the railroad collection universe.  I’m not so much obsessed with trains as I am obsessed with highly interactive games—and games with sprawling railroads and shared incentives lend themselves well to this dynamic.

Age of Steam and Stephenson’s Rocket both made my top 50 games of all time.  I couldn’t resist the opportunity to acquire more maps from them.  In both cases, these expansion maps mix up the feel of the core gameplay and help to keep players from getting too comfortable.  I already shared my most recent experience with Eastern US map of Stephenson’s Rocket from our recent board game marathon, and even more recently I had the chance to try the German map of Age of Steam.

I’d say the German map is a safe board for relative newcomers to stray from the starting map.  Some interesting wrinkles include hex spaces that contain specific, expensive prices for building track on them.  The high price tag spots general stick to the edges of the map and block off foreign terminals that can receive specific colors of cubes.  Additionally, the Engineer action is completely different—it now cuts the price of one of your track builds in half rather than increasing your building limit from three to four tiles.  The German map was an interesting change to what we’ve been playing up to this point, and I’m eager to explore the many other maps of Age of Steam.

Finally, Chicago Express is a cube rails style game from 2007 that shares much in common with the likes of Irish Gauge.  Each player takes their turn by selecting an action—auctioning a share of one railroad company, expanding the rail system of a company they own shares in, or developing one of the boards hexes.  For those of you who are familiar with Irish Gauge, this sounds eerily similar, right?  Well the key differences are that money spent on shares for a railroad company goes into that company pool, and those funds are used to expand the rail system.  No money in your company means no opportunity for expansion.  Additionally, these three action options are represented by meters on the board, and whenever a player takes a chosen action, they move the dial up on that action meter until it reaches its highest space.  At that point, nobody else can take that type of action, and once two meters are full, this triggers a dividend phase and a reset of the meters.

I had a great time with my first play of Chicago Express, so when I saw a local Facebooker post their copy for sale at a reasonable price, I just had to bite.

PURGE:

Letting go of Classics: Catan, Dixit, Clank, Sushi Go, & Deep Sea Adventure

Although it was now several years ago, my most recent play of Catan was the fastest ever.  We had invited our friend over for dinner and a game night.  After choosing our settlement and road starting positions and getting into the initial turns, our friend suddenly stood up, ran to our restroom, and puked everywhere.  And that was the end of Catan night.

Since then, I’ve found many more games to love, and Old Faithful Catan never really called to me.  I’ve only recently come to terms with the idea of booting it from my collection.  Part of me thinks it would be neat to keep it around for my kids to show them the game that took the world by storm.  But at the end of the day, I’ve got PLENTY of other accessible games I’d rather teach and play with them.

Dixit is an interesting one.  This is a likeable, colorful game that thankfully renders Apples to Apples obsolete.  Instead of one judge randomly determining their favorite card of the round, players are cleverly incentivized to deceive opponents while deducing and voting for the correct card.  Meanwhile the storyteller of the round must avoid giving a clue that is too hard or too easy.

You’d be hard pressed to find someone who hates this game, yet it feels like Dixit has been overshadowed by newer titles.  Mysterium uses these same types of visual cards, but also allows for collaboration, discussion, and debates.  Mysterium also raises the stakes with an all-win or all-lose premise.

Decrypto has the same interesting balance of giving clues that are neither too easy nor too hard, but it ratchets up the tension with 3 clues per round that become an increasingly thinner tightrope to walk with each successive round.

Wavelength has the same freedom of giving any kind of clue (a word, a sentence, a sound, etc.) but follows it up with a much more interesting discussion and dramatic reveal.

The above mentioned games also do a better job at discouraging inside joke clues compared to Dixit, which is probably one of its greatest weaknesses.  After taking a break from Dixit for several years and finally giving it another go, I can see why this one has been collecting dust on my shelf.  The predator has become the prey; the Apples-gobbling Dixit is now the obsolete game thanks to Mysterium, Decrypto, Wavelength, and many more.

Sushi Go always felt a little more bland than its colorful art style implied, and it never really clicked with me when I felt that 7 Wonders or 7 Wonders Duel did the same thing better.

On the other hand, we got a kick out of Clank from our first few plays of it.  The push-your-luck concept of deciding how deep to venture into the dungeon for greater treasures at the risk of succumbing to the dragon was highly amusing.  The problem is that we never made it past those first few plays.  I think the messy rulebook and setup were partially to blame.  The other thing that hurt Clank was us owning another deck-building board movement hybrid, The Quest for El Dorado, which has received many more plays thanks to its cleaner, tighter, and smarter design.  Despite my fond memories of our plays of Clank, I realized it was time to say goodbye when I noticed our last play was nearly two years ago.

Funnily enough, Deep Sea Adventure contains the exact same concept as Clank of venturing deeper for greater rewards but at a much higher risk of not making it back to the surface.  Of course, being an Oink game, it strips away everything else that Clank offers except for that core concept.  Yet after thoroughly enjoying other all-time greats from publisher Oink including Insider, Startups, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, and Durian, I just didn’t feel that Deep Sea Adventure reached the same heights of memorable, engaging fun. 

SURGE:

Picking up some Classics: Agricola, Bohnanza, Keyflower

Meanwhile, I’ve acquired a few new-to-me classics thanks to some irresistible deals.  Agricola is one such game that we finally got around to playing after spending a few months on our shelf in shrink-wrap.  As expected, this is a rock-solid Euro.  It certainly contains less rules than designer Uwe Rosenberg’s A Feast for Odin, but it’s also a less forgiving game.  It’s such a tight game of meager earnings that my wife found it to be more stressful than enjoyable, so hopefully I’ll find someone else to continue to play it with.  For me, the thing that puts Agricola above the thousands of other worker placement games that have been published since is the meaningful variety of the cards and impactful tightness of the board.

Speaking of Uwe classics, I also picked up a copy of Bohnanza that has yet to hit our table.  It’s a simple negotiation game with wacky beans that I have a vague memory of playing and enjoying one time several years ago.  Unfortunately, our intended plays of family-weight games has been a little bit backed up for the past year between anti-social COVID protocols and moving around for work.

And while we’re on the topic of classic games, the much-loved Keyflower landed a spot in my collection at last.  It took a wide breadth of critical acclaim and a gut-purchase Deal of the Day to get me to do it, but I’m excited to see what this unique worker placement game has to offer.

PURGE:

Saying goodbye to old friends: Dice Throne, Dragon Castle, Aerion

I can offer some comfort to my wife, Camille, in the fact that in the past few months I’ve sold and traded away more games than I’ve acquired.  So we’ll bookend this post with a final batch of purged games, specifically some old friends that we’ve enjoyed over the past several years.  Aerion was the first primarily solo board game that I ever purchased, and it was fun to see how a simple, challenging puzzle can hit the spot when I’m in the mood to sit at my kitchen table alone.  This is a solid dice game of managing probabilities and mitigating risks to assemble your flying machines before resources are depleted.  I didn’t quite explore all of the expansions and variants in this box, but I never had a bad session of Aerion.  With Under Falling Skies recently entering the fray, I simply found Aerion to be the less interesting of the two and an unnecessary possession for how infrequently I play solo games.

Dragon Castle hit our collection back when we were surfing the wave of abstract drafting games including Azul and Sagrada.  While its a solid offering in its own right, complete with chunky Mahjong tiles and an attractive presentation,  it is another game that never made it past our initial plays over two years ago.  The only reason it’s survived in our collection until now is because I wanted to give it one last play to be sure I was ok with dumping it.  But when I have an entire two years to make that happen and my reluctance keeps me from spending even one more hour with it, I finally had to accept that it doesn’t belong on my shelf.  Ultimately, Azul is the best of the bunch, so I’m ok with discarding the rest.

I’ve spoken much about Dice Throne recently after colliding with the recent expansion, Dice Throne Adventures.  In some ways, Adventures was perhaps a spoiler for the entire Dice Throne series for me.  Yet it was also one of the few Kickstarter campaigns I lost my hype for between pledging and receiving the rewards due to my changing tastes.  Revisiting the system’s latest offerings merely confirmed my fears that Dice Throne was no longer for me.  But that’s ok! 

The good news is that board games typically keep a great resell value, and when one doesn’t satisfy, there’s always another one around the corner ready to entertain its participants.  I’m happy to see my departing games find a new home and excited to see what adventures await in my recent acquisitions.

What games are you purging from or surging into your collection? Share with us in the comments below!

Article written by Nick Murray. And speaking of adding new games to one’s collection, keep an eye out for his first published design, Social Grooming, which will debut in a Kickstarter bundle alongside two games from critically acclaimed designer, Reiner Knizia! Don’t miss out on this killer filler bundle coming in 2021! Subscribe to the Bitewing Games monthly newsletter to stay in touch.

The post Purge & Surge: Games Recently Leaving or Entering My Collection, and Why appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Welcome back to my Top 50 Board Games of All Time! If you missed part 1 of this post, then head on over and check out games 50-26. Today, we’ll be finishing things out by discussing games 25-1. That’s right, the cream of the cream of the crop…

25. Camel Up (Second Edition)

Best suited for everyone

Camel Up might be the most reliable party game in my collection.  If there is any game that I can place before a random assortment of 4-8 friends, family, or strangers, and expect them to request a second and third play in a row, that game is undoubtedly Camel Up.  None can resist the allure of betting on chunky, colorful camels as they race around the desert.  Between the stacking camels, dice-dispensing pyramid, memorably dramatic moments, popup palm tree, and shoot-for-the-moon strategies, this one has it all.

24. El Grande

Best suited for everyone

While it doesn’t have the party pizazz of Camel Up, El Grande has been another crowd pleaser at my table.  This classic strategy game of competing for area majorities is unmatched in its elegant flow and potent interaction.  Many designs since have wisely borrowed from El Grande’s master class mechanisms, but few, if any, have risen to its level of grace and wit plus the drama of revealing the contents of the towering Castillo.  It’s not really worth considering outside of the four or five player count, but within that range you’ll find consistently satisfying area influence, auctioning, and action drafting to be had.

23. Renature

Best suited for everyone (but be ready for some mean moments)

El Grande designer, Wolfgang Kramer, also brought us last year’s Renature with the help of Azul designer Michael Kiesling, and this is a game that I’m loving more and more with each new play.  One of the quickest ways to my heart is down the path of simple, clever brutality, and Renature is indeed beautifully simple, wonderfully clever, and deliciously brutal.  This game sees its competitors placing one domino onto the board at a time, and touching domino animals must match.  But the placement of a domino also allows one to plant an adjacent foliage piece, and these plant tokens are used to compete for area majority or even cancel out other player’s plants.  I stand by my declaration that this is the greatest domino game OF ALL TIME.

22. A Feast for Odin

Best suited for hobbyist gamers

While it has dropped out of my previous top 10 games list, that’s more a side-effect of many other stellar games climbing their way up my rankings than A Feast for Odin becoming any less enjoyable over time.  I would label this a heavy worker placement polyomino Euro game with relatively low-interaction.  When there are roughly SIXTY worker placement spaces to choose from—like a wide sandbox of strategies one can use to acquire points—it is typically quite effortless to stay out of each other’s way and do your own thing.  While this blog is riddled with me bemoaning low-interaction games on a regular basis, mostly due to their commonly stale dynamics and limited replayability, I find that A Feast for Odin is one of the few exceptions to my preferences.  The numerous interlocking concepts and mechanisms here are perfect for a warm, cozy, lazy few hours of puzzling perfection that still satisfies after all these plays.

21. Bus

Best suited for cold-blooded strategists

Bus is a game about building bus routes and transporting passengers around town, yet this design is no flowery Ticket to Ride.  Imagine a world where all people were predictable creatures of habit.  They go to the work, then head to the bar, then go home, rinse and repeat… as long as a bus route can get them there, of course.  On and on they cycle through this unchanging lifestyle, with the only exception being when a greedy bus line decides to STOP TIME.  Suddenly, everyone in town decides to work another shift in a row, or pull an all-nighter at the bar, or play hooky from their jobs and kick back at home, and all the buses that were prepared to take them to their usual next destination are suddenly hosed and empty-handed.  With completely open information and not even a hint of luck, Bus is a pure strategy game that has players feuding over the tight economy of passengers in an effort to scrape just a few precious point morsels from this ruthless game.

20. Tournament at Avalon

Best suited for everyone

If you really want to know what this wacky trick-taking card game is all about, I would direct you to my full review from last year.  Here’s a sample of what I said:

“If the possibility of falling behind early and spending the rest of the game trying to claw your way back to the top while your leading opponents pounce on you like sharks to a bleeding prey sounds dreadful, then steer clear of Tournament at Avalon… Then again, perhaps you are like me.  Maybe you’re happy to roll with the punches and simply want to experience trick-taking at its finest.  In Tournament at Avalon, you may be completely fine with being the favorite piñata of the round because you see the fresh gaping wound in your side for what it truly is: a firehose of retribution.  You may be the type of competitor who loves to form shaky alliances with fellow weaklings to surround and beat down the mighty.  And when you are the current King of the Hill, you welcome the opportunity to bob and weave around targeted attacks and gleefully watch as swinging blows skim past your head to land squarely on your neighbor’s face.”

19. My City

Best suited for everyone

Perhaps you’ve noticed by now that I have a soft spot for great polyomino games.  In my Top 50 board games of all time, we’ve already covered titans from master polyomino designer, Uwe Rosenberg, including A Feast For Odin and New York Zoo.  Yet the game that claims the crown to world’s best polyomino game, and the title that makes a strong case for being the best Legacy design yet, is none other than Reiner Knizia’s My City.  We’ve played this one 24 times now—that’s as many episodes as the game contains, so we’re not likely to play it much further with the “eternal game”—but that’s more plays than most other titles on this list.  We’ll always hold a special memory in our hearts for the journey we took through My City

18. Ethnos

Best suited for everyone

Ethnos remains one of my go-to gateway games (games to introduce people to the hobby) because it never fails to entertain newcomers while continuing to engage me.  While the art direction could use a drastic overhaul to match the family friendly nature of the design, none of that matters once the cards are dealt and the fun begins.  Turns are as simple as drawing a card or playing a set known as a “band of allies” of matching colors or creatures.  The band will net you points while the card on top of your band (the “leader”) grants you a special bonus and a token placement on the map.  Much like El Grande, players compete for points via area majorities.  While some folks complain of “top decking” in Ethnos, where you spend your turns drawing a card off the top of the deck until you find what you want, I find this to be a hollow complaint thanks to a little wrinkle that Paolo Mori includes in the design: Whenever you play a band of cards from your hand, you must discard the rest of your hand faceup into the market for other players to feast on.  Suddenly, you have to decide whether the “top decking” strategy is worth it for that one extra card, because everything else you draw will simply help your competition.

17. The King’s Dilemma

Best suited for a regular group of 5 players

Aside from My City, The King’s Dilemma is the only other legacy design that made my Top 50 Board Games of All Time, or even came close, for that matter.  The concept of a legacy game—a game whose rules and components permanently change over time based on the outcome and decisions of each play—is a fascinating, alluring, and popular feature in the industry.  But our experience with some of the more popular options has uncovered it’s ugly side-effects including rules & component management fatigue, forced narratives, messy productions, and unwieldy scheduling requirements.  Burnout is real within this genre, but The King’s Dilemma has soared over these common traps across our many plays by staying focused on the addicting core concept of political negotiation and bribing.  As you’ll soon find out with even higher rated games, I’m a sucker for a good negotiation game, and The King’s Dilemma hits the spot.  I love how the secret incentives can have me championing the cause of the good people in one game and sacrificing their well being for my personal gain in the next like the greedy posterity of a heroic monarch.

16. Wavelength

Best suited for everyone, especially groups of 6 or more

And here we arrive at my favorite party game, Wavelength.  Between Kyle’s video review and my own written review, we’ve covered the entire spectrum of reasons why we love this game. The simple truth is that Wavelength effortlessly captures the the feeling of a gameshow and generates engaging conversations and hilarious memories that last far beyond the party.  It was the first game I backed on Kickstarter, sending me down the rabbit hole of thrillingly creative possibilities.

15. The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

Best suited for everyone

Now we are onto my top rated cooperative game, and not only that, but this is one of only two cooperative games that made my Top 50 Board Games of All Time.  Don’t get me wrong here, I dig a solid cooperative game such as Pandemic, Mysterium, and Horrified.  Yet those types of games obviously don’t quite hit the spot for me as all the competitive ones on my list.  So what makes The Crew so special?  In this mission-based trick-taking game, everyone’s turns matter and nobody can quarterback them through it.  The only communication allowed between players is a single token that lets you signal or imply information about some of the cards in your hand.  Each new challenge and each new hand of cards presents an obstacle that can often seem impossible to overcome, yet it feels amazing when your crew finally triumphs.  It’s an addictive challenge that takes players on an unforgettable 50-mission journey.

14. For Sale / For Sale Autorama

Best suited for everyone

We’re talking about my two favorite card games back-to-back between The Crew and now For Sale.  For Sale consists of two phases: auctioning coins for houses that become your hand of cards, then selling that hand of cards one at a time in a closed auction.  When I pass on the auctioning of the first phase, I have to pay half of what I’ve bid up to that point and take the lowest value face-up house.  So there is a game of chicken between players when nobody wants to take the grungy outhouse card, and thus the bidding war ensues.  Yet the outhouse card might be a great one to claim with a pass in a particular round if the other options aren’t that much better and spending your precious coins to avoid it will merely land you a slightly higher card.  The second phase becomes a game of predicting your opponents’ plays, as the bidding becomes a closed auction where everyone plays a single house card facedown and reveals their bid at the same time and the values of the money cards are dispersed to players according to who bid highest, who bid lowest, and everything in between.  Nothing feels worse than wasting your best card on an auction that everyone else played low for.  Conversely, eeking out the best money card of a round with a measly house makes you feel like a mastermind.  And that roller coaster of emotions is the magic of For Sale.

13. Root

Best suited for a regular group of hobbyist gamers

Root has to be one of the most aesthetically charming games on this list.  Screen-printed, wooden animal tokens and their more detailed card and board illustrations are all brimming with personality.  Rich colors of the woodland span from deep orange hues to refreshing green shades.  Card suits consist of mice, birds, foxes, and rabbits.  There is no shortage of warmth in the presentation of Root.  Yet this art direction was intentionally chosen because of the stark contrast it presents against the savage gameplay.  These woodland creatures are at war, and a negotiated alliance in one round can quickly become a callous betrayal in the next.  No animal is safe from a sudden beatdown, and only one faction will triumph.  With the consistent release of more expansions including animal factions over these past few years, and at least two more in the pipeline, it feels as though I could explore Root’s fascinating asymmetry for dozens upon dozens more plays.

12. Babylonia

Best suited for everyone

This may not be shocking to you, but Reiner Knizia’s Babylonia at number 12 feels like a bit of stealth ranking to me.  It’s one of the more recent Knizia’s which flew under my radar as I was gobbling up his most popular and revered titles.  Yet when I finally came around to Babylonia, I found it to be a rock-solid game that grew on me with each and every play.  This is a fast-paced, 45-minute strategy game that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed at the 2, 3, and 4 player counts.  Everything about picking up the clackity wooden tiles, slotting them into my rack, and deciding which ones to place onto the board and where makes for a deeply satisfying ritual.  My deepest thanks is owed to Space Biff, whose eloquently written review talked me into trying this brilliant jewel.

11. Inis

Best suited for everyone

While it is no longer my #1 game of all time, Inis remains an outstanding area-control experience of careful drafting, crafty cardplay, elegant combat, and sneaky intentions.  Because there are three different conditions one can aim for to become the victor, I’ve rarely seen a game that didn’t come down to the wire as players wrestled to become King of the Celtic Hill.  The production is a mesmerizing masterclass in capturing the mysterious theme thanks to Jim Fitzpatrick’s alluring illustrations and Dimitri Bielak’s lovely tiles.  Ultimately, Inis is as much about playing your opponents as it is about playing the game, and that subtle politicking is what makes it consistently satisfying for me.

10. Chinatown

Best suited for everyone

Out of all the games that made my top 10, Chinatown is the dark horse the snuck its way on here.  This pure negotiation experience beat out dozens of other personal favorites thanks to my many fond memories of it that match my enthusiasm to play it again.  I’ve found Chinatown to be a surprising hit with non-gamers that delightedly brings out both the best and worst in them.  The most generous and thoughtful of folks can immediately transform into vicious traders who see the hunger in your eyes for their prized possessions, so they seize the opportunity to milk you for all you are worth.  

9. Ra

Best suited for everyone

Perhaps Ra is so high on my list simply because I’ve been waiting to acquire my own copy for far too long.  Yet maybe it has made its way here due to the perfect blend of auctioning and push-your-luck that it provides.  How long will you wait to spend your best sun disks?  Wait long enough, and you’ll be one of the only ones left to bid on all the lucrative tiles.  Wait too long, and you may find the round ending before you’ve put your sun disks to good use.  Is this auction really worth fighting for?  Surely you aren’t going to let another opponent claim these tiles for so cheap, are you?  This game is jam-packed with tough decisions.  As a fan of auctioning games, it doesn’t get much better than Ra.

8. Age of Steam

Best suited for hobbyist gamers with thick skin

I just barely shared my thoughts on Age of Steam: Deluxe Edition in my last Candid Cardboard: New Release 1st Impressions post.  This train game rewards careful and opportunistic economic planning and punishes a lack thereof.  Yet players don’t only have to account for their own budget and round-to-round plans; they must also account for the plans of their opponents.  All it takes is for one player to steal away your goods cube, or build track on your planned space, or claim your needed bonus action, and you may suddenly find yourself losing a lot of money and points.  But the arc this game takes—from scraping by with a few meager deliveries, to prospering with massive gains in income and ambitious rail developments, to shrinking opportunities for points as the cubes diminish from the board—is a supremely satisfying experience.

7. Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy

Best suited for hobbyist gamers with a big table… and maybe a side table, too

Last year, I sold my fully deluxified, mostly expanded, legendary boxed copy of Scythe and put some of that money toward a copy of Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy.  After spending several good hours playing multiple sessions of Eclipse, I have no regrets in swapping these two games.  That’s not a knock against Scythe, which I played and enjoyed a solid fifteen times.  But the change to Eclipse reflects a change in my personal gaming preferences.  Eclipse not only presents a wider range of freedom across its various actions and engine upgrades, but it also embraces a more interactive and tense 4X experience.  The memorable moments of war and betrayal are strong with this one, as I shared in my recent Board Game Birthday Marathon Musings.

6. Sidereal Confluence: Remastered Edition

Best suited for hobbyist gamers

Continuing on with the theme of epic space games, Sidereal Confluence features up to 9 wildly asymmetric alien factions cooperating with each other through chaotic cube-tacular negotiation.  Take the simultaneous trading concept of Chinatown, crank it up ten-fold, add in a couple thousand chunky cubes, and you’ve got yourself Sidereal Confluence.  The sheer amount of soulless components and icons in this game scared me off from trying it for the longest time.  But I was sorely mistaken to avoid this game, because all those bits and pieces are mere cogs in a system of player-focused deals and negotiations which are the beating heart of this excellent experience.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the remastered edition has given it a welcome makeover.

5. Hansa Teutonica: Big Box

Best suited for everyone

Despite Hansa Teutonica being over ten years old and looking even older, it remains undeniably refreshing amid the onslaught of sluggish, overly complicated, low-interaction Euros because it is fast-paced, streamlined, and wonderfully interactive.  The new Big Box version provides even more content to explore—it makes for an incredible package value that is not big in size, but big in content.  Quinns of Shut Up & Sit Down recently proposed that this might just be the greatest Euro ever, and I’m inclined to agree.   That’s why the big box version was my number one release of 2020. 

4. Brass: Birmingham

Best suited for hobbyist gamers

Brass hasn’t moved an inch in the rankings since I posted my Top 50 Games of All Time last year.  Even after several more plays, it remains just as engaging and enjoyable as the first time I tried it.  It’s solid at all player counts from 2-4, and I’ve yet to introduce it to a hobbyist gamer who didn’t enjoy it.  Brass: Birmingham makes a strong case for reimplementations considering the look of the original design and the reach that the new versions of Brass have had within the hobby.  If you are a hobbyist gamer looking to add a long-term, well-loved gem to your collection, you’d be hard pressed to find a better bet than Brass: Birmingham.

3. Tigris & Euphrates

Best suited for strategy gamers

The deeper I get into this hobby, the more I appreciate games that contain a wide dynamic range within a narrow rules space.  Reiner Knizia is more skilled at creating these kinds of games than any other designer in the industry; that’s why my Top 50 is crammed with his masterpieces, and that’s why Tigris & Euphrates, his magnum opus, is my number three game of all time.  Most turns simply involve placing a couple tiles or leaders onto the game board, but the points those tiles can earn, the ripple effect their positioning can have, and the wars and revolts that they can trigger are where things get incredibly meaty.  For an experience that appears to be abstract strategy through and through, it’s surprising how thematic of a civilization game this is.  The rise, prosperity, and fall of dynasties and kingdoms are epic arcs that most civ games can only dream of providing.  The many opportunities for clever moves and brilliant plays are what continually keep me coming back for more Tigris & Euphrates.

2. Crokinole

Best suited for everyone

Crokinole straddles the fence that separates board games from competitive sports and rides that fence to the moon and back.  Darts, billiards, foosball, and Jenga are perfectly fine indoor activities, but Crokinole takes the cake for me.  Like a meaner, faster, sexier version of curling, Crokinole sees its participants flicking discs to the center of a large, slick board as they ricochet off a center ring of posts and collide with other discs.  There’s far more strategy here than simply aiming for the center hole.  With enough plays, you start to realize that the planned positioning of your disc after you hit an opponent’s disc is just as important as knocking them off the board.  Crokinole works as both a 4-player party game and a 2-player showdown, and my board will remain a family heirloom for decades to come.

1. Pax Pamir: Second Edition

Best suited for hobbyist gamers

When every aspect of a game oozes with deliberate thought and delicate attention to detail, it’s hard not to be attracted to such an experience regardless of its theme or genre.  From the deeply intricate gameplay to the opulent multi-sensory production, none could call Pax Pamir: Second Edition anything but a labor of love.  Pamir transcends the level of consumer product and cements itself as a historical, philosophical, and strategic sandbox for participants to lose themselves in as they explore its nuances over the course of endlessly engaging plays.  To boil this game down to its mechanical pieces—a political area control tableau builder—is a disservice to its greater whole.  The vast card market, oscillating coalitions, tight economy, and unstable alliances all combine into a supple, historical harmony between musical chair loyalties and tug of war gameplay.

This concludes my Top 50 Board Games of All Time! I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey with me through some of the world’s greatest tabletop games, and if you’re still hungry for more gaming goodness then stick around with us here at Bitewing Games!

We are thrilled to be launching a Kickstarter campaign this summer featuring a bundle of three 20-minute games, including two zesty Reiner Knizia designs! Be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter so you don’t miss out on this killer filler bundle. Speaking of which, the upcoming May email will feature a concept art reveal for Reiner Knizia’s Soda Smugglers!

Article written by Nick Murray. If you found yourself nodding in agreement to some of his favorite games, then keep an eye out for the three upcoming games that he loved enough to publish! Nick’s first published design, Social Grooming, which will debut in a Kickstarter bundle alongside two games—Soda Smugglers and Pumafiosi—from critically acclaimed designer, Reiner Knizia!

The post Top 50 Board Games of All Time — 2021 Edition — Games 25-1 appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Watch out, this latest batch of first impressions might give you a bit of whiplash!

CloudAge

2 Plays

CloudAge is not great with first impressions and it struggles to stay engaging after the honeymoon phase. It was a bit of a hassle to grok the rules after my initial read through. I believe more images and examples could have made things much clearer.  Honestly, the core gameplay is quite simple once you get into the groove of playing it, so the rulebook does feel unnecessarily difficult.  

Additionally, I had heard from multiple people that Chapter 1 of the campaign isn’t even worth playing because it cuts out too much juicy goodness for relatively little improvement in accessibility.  I can fully appreciate the intention of improving accessibility and easing gamers into the full experience.  Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, The Crew, and Undaunted are just a few recent designs that have successfully accomplished this.  But it sounds like the creators of CloudAge took things too far as some players are coming away from barebones Chapter 1 with a bland taste in their mouths.

Thus, we skipped Chapter 1 and dove straight into Chapter 2.  The main changes from Chapter 1 to 2 that I noticed include the opportunity for players to choose some of their starting cards (instead of a completely random deal), players receive private objectives to pursue, and the game is longer in both board length and round count for an even bigger finish.  If you’re the type of gamer who wants a big payoff for your custom-built airship, or who shuns designs that don’t provide an excellent first play, or who can handle any medium-weight game with general ease, then I too advise that you skip Chapter 1.

During our first play, my skepticism with the game started to fade as I taught the game to my wife and we made it through the initial rounds.  While a session starts out with a feeling of aimless wandering, things become more tight and intentional as participants grind the gears of efficiency.  The three phases—Production, Movement, and Actions—make for a rather addictively smooth gameplay loop.  Designers Pfister and Steinwender sprinkle just the right amount of luck and mystery across the navigation cards, combat mechanism, and city cards to keep things engaging.

The city cards, tucked within the cloud sleeves, are particularly notable.  Edges of the city peek out from around the clouds that cover most the landscape below.  These clouds challenge players to observe the visible details on the card, predict which resources will be most profitable, and commit to one resource based on that prediction and their own needs.  When your entire turn’s plan revolves around having the perfect amount of resources or taking advantage of the potential bonus action, it feels especially good when you slide that card out from behind the clouds and find that you have earned exactly what you need.

Mr. Pfister’s latest design doesn’t stray too far from its popular siblings, Great Western Trail and Maracaibo.  Much of the interlocking mechanisms and overall feel shares an undeniable resemblance with those two games.  Yet folks who are looking for a third gargantuan Euro to round out the trilogy might be in for an unpleasant surprise when they catch CloudAge flirting with a significantly less depth and lighter complexity.  The creators have made it clear since Day 1 that CloudAge is a simpler game than GWT and Maracaibo, but I still see people acting disappointed that it’s not also a heavyweight.

Personally, my biggest issue with CloudAge is the shoehorned campaign.  This element is so forced, clunky, inelegant, and bland that it actively detracts from the enjoyable parts of the game.  Part of the reason the rulebook is a mess is because it flips and flops and stumbles between the unique setups and rules of each scenario.  

The legacy cards also make way for critical errors.  For example, a Chapter 2 card states: “put ALL legacy tiles in the active bag” when it really means “put USED legacy tiles in the active bag.”  This poor wording teed us up for a messy Chapter 3 when the setup instructed us to place out all the active legacy tiles and left us to flounder in the resulting mess of random new tiles with no context to them.

The addition of growth tiles in Chapter 3, a mechanism that is supposed to be exciting and evolutionary to the experience, is perhaps the lamest add-on I’ve ever seen a game.  It is a unique strategy that you can incorporate into your play, but it’s far less interesting than the other options.

By separating the game out into an introductory scenario, an intermediate scenario, and a fully-fledge scenario, CloudAge sabotages itself by sandwiching its meat between two slices of underwhelming bread.  By stretching and segmenting itself to try and satisfy both casual gamers and hardcore hobbyists, it feels like butter scraped over too much bread.

Despite the design’s relentless attempts to make itself replayable, it struggled to stay fresh after our first play.  The forced variety either frustratingly muddies or shamelessly rehashes the existing content.  And the core design just doesn’t lend itself naturally to refreshing dynamics from one play to the next.  Sadly, we found CloudAge to be a rare bungle from Capstone Games.

Current Rating: 6/10

Maracaibo

2 Plays

Speaking of Capstone Games, I also have some good news!  My second play of Maracaibo was just as enjoyable as my first.  This one is very similar to Great Western Trail with perhaps an extra layer of complexity added on.  It’s also an absolute monster to setup and teardown, but both times that I’ve played, another person as done all the hard work of setting it up for us.  I still don’t feel the absolute necessity to own a copy of Maracaibo when our copy of Great Western Trail scratches a similar itch and hasn’t grown old.  But it’s a game that I wouldn’t avoid the chance to play even more.  

To put it simply: Maracaibo is initially overwhelming, mysteriously satisfying, oddly familiar, undeniably fun, and undoubtedly Pfister.

Current Rating: 8/10

The Shores of Tripoli

Note: A review copy of The Shores of Tripoli was provided to me by the publisher.  

1 Play

The Shores of Tripoli is a card-driven historical game set in the early 1800’s that sees one player commanding President Thomas Jefferson’s American troops against another player who controls the forces of Tripoli.  I’ll leave the thematic summary at that as there are plenty other folks with much more knowledge on these events who can really bring this subject to life.

In fact, that may be The Shore’s of Tripoli’s greatest compliment and strength.  Not only does it come with an entire booklet containing historical supplements and designer’s notes, but the art, gameplay, and actions across the cards evoke the period drama to great effect within a production of solid components.  

For those who love historical settings and themes within their tabletop games, you’ll be right at home here within The Shores of Tripoli.  If you find yourself to be more of a Hopeless Historian, like me, then the most enjoyment you’ll get from the theme might simply be when you finally declare, “It’s time to bring out the big guns…. Thomas Jefferson, I CHOOSE YOU!!!!!” As you slide your massive fleet of ships into the harbors of war with childlike glee.

Indeed, for those who are unfamiliar with the enormous niche of historical war games, The Shores of Tripoli may offer a great introduction thanks to its short playtime (under an hour) and medium-light complexity.  Although, if Shores of Tripoli was aiming to be the quintessential gateway historical game, it didn’t exactly stick the landing.

My biggest beef with Tripoli’s accessibility is the barebones rulebook.  Outside of initial images of the components, we’re talking about a rulebook that provides zero examples, zero visual aids… nothing, nada, zilch.  Now again, this isn’t all that complicated of a game, but the cognitive load that is dumped on a complete newcomer who is trying to absorb the rulebook is unnecessarily brutal thanks to the lack of graphical and hypothetical assistance.  This wall of text quickly becomes a jumble of terms—frigates, infantry, corsairs, Algerine, Marines, Tripolitan, Ground Combat, Harbors, Naval Combat, Patrol Zones, Morocco (Tangier), Preble’s Boys Take Aim, etc. etc.  The text’s insistence on thematic authenticity actively works against the game’s approachability.

To the publisher’s credit, they did invest in a great How to Play YouTube video that was an essential supplement to both keeping me from getting a headache and allowing me to sit down and play the game.  It’s no excuse for a difficult rulebook, but it’s a welcome aid nonetheless.  And maybe I was just a weak-sauce rules reader, but I still believe that this rulebook could have been much more digestible, especially when comparing it to the hundreds of other rulebooks I’ve consumed with little to no problems.

Unfortunately, that pattern of historical authenticity coming with a cost also carries over into the gameplay itself.  As the American team, the first few rounds gave me the feeling of biding my time until the mid-game where the real action kicks in.  My early decisions felt scripted and predestined, as though there was nothing I would ever do differently given a different situation or hand of cards.  Add some Swedish boats here of course (because that’s all the card lets me do anyway), put down some enemy boats there (it’s basically my only target at the moment), pull a couple more ships from the supply, undo my enemy’s event card, and save the rest of these event cards for when they are actually useful and/or usable.

When the action finally picks up, it all boils down to each player grabbing a fist full of dice, sending them cascading across the table, and hoping a few sixes show up, because otherwise there ain’t nothing happenin’ at all!  Pack up and go home, your turn is over.  Essentially, you’re trying to keep a few areas clear of the enemy for when you can finally force a treaty that requires certain areas to be uncluttered.  Or, you can opt for the go-for-broke option of blasting Tripoli’s home base to smithereens near the end of the game. 

Meanwhile, the Tripolitan player finds themselves laboring to build up defenses while sending out pirates on raids in hopes of either crippling the Americans or pirating enough gold to earn their way to victory.  It’s the more straightforward faction of the two options where less experienced gamers will feel more comfortable.

If I understand correctly, The Shores of Tripoli takes inspiration from classic historical war games such as Twilight Struggle.  But to be frank, I know almost nothing about Twilight Struggle except that it is a big, sprawling, meaty 2-player game that has thus far sounded too exhausting for me dive into.  I’m much more familiar with a compact, streamlined version of its style in the excellent 2019 release, Watergate.  And sure enough, while playing The Shores of Tripoli, I found some parallel mechanisms between these two similar-weight designs.  

Both games have a tug-of-war like vibe where the progress of one comes at the detriment of the other.  Both are 2-player games with asymmetric decks and objectives.  Both see players using their cards in multiple possible ways, and both require powerful cards to be completely removed from your deck when used for their feature ability.

Yet this similarity is also where Shores of Tripoli suffers within my collection, as both games scratch a similar itch, yet if The Shores of Tripoli is a wooden back scratcher from the dollar store, then Watergate is Zeus’s personal Olympian Masseuse.  

A card in Tripoli can be discarded to take a generic action, or it can often be trashed to take a powerful action, but the loss of a trashed card to use its one-time benefit never mattered to me.  I was going to use it eventually, so why not now?  Meanwhile, cards in Watergate have very specific “generic” actions whose value match that of their powerful action… meaning that I can either keep milking an amazing card for its amazing generic action, or I can take the plunge and lose it forever for a quick shot of tactical adrenaline, all the while hoping that I don’t regret my giving up the card so soon.

This is just the tip of the iceberg of reasons why I would never choose to play The Shores of Tripoli over Watergate.  Watergate has always played out in uniquely dynamic ways, while Tripoli feels more on-the-rails and scripted.  Watergate grows in tension and suspense as both players inch toward victory, while Tripoli meanders around during the first half before ending in a quick flash-bang of lucky dice rolls in the second half. Watergate provides players with aids and helpful reminders that make it easy to revisit even months after the previous play, while Tripoli begs players to remember all of the many exceptions and differences without even the slightest helpful hint from any of the components.  

Sadly, I find no compelling reason to get Tripoli to the table again.  I’m sure that historically savvy players will find much to appreciate within the thematic richness of The Shores of Tripoli.  As for myself, I’m content to leave it in the past.

Current Rating: 5/10

Age of Steam: Deluxe Edition

3 Plays

Age of Steam is a tight, tense, and thrilling strategy design.  The training wheels are off and the sleeves are rolled up in this cutthroat game.

To start off, I was pleasantly surprised to find the rules and complexity were more accessible than expected, yet the skill ceiling seems incredibly high.  The round phases are clearly laid out across the display boards.  Thus, each round flows smoothly across issuing shares, bidding for player order, selecting actions, building track, moving goods, collecting income, paying expenses, adjusting income, growing goods, and advancing the round marker.

The amount of freedom that Age of Steam offers is deliciously liberating.  One can choose to take loads of shares and rake in tons of immediate money to benefit them in the turn order bidding and building costs, but they’ll be paying for it dearly when expenses come around for the rest of the game.  Turn order bidding cannot be ignored, as player order can mean the difference between gaining the bonus action, building track on the spaces, or moving specific goods that are essential to your strategy and easily stolen away by other opponents if you don’t claim them first.  Budgeting your finances and the costs associated with your plans is vital as well, as excess money is strategically wasteful while having not enough money is brutally punishing.  

If you enjoy a good Splotter game or Brass: Birmingham, then this should be on your radar.  Just watch out for costly mistakes and hope that you or your game teacher can help navigate newcomers away from crushing punishments long enough for them to get hooked.  The most soul-crushing aspect of the design is the bankruptcy and player elimination.  As long as you can avoid that (which is usually the case), you’re in for a treat.

Current Rating: 10/10

Lost Ruins of Arnak

1 Play

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a solid euro with a gorgeous production and a good amount of card/action/ability variety.  On the flip side, I don’t find Arnak to be a standout game in any particular way.  

It’s basically a low-interaction resource converting point salad where you can either move up the tracks, purchase more cards, or hit new action spaces—or a combination of the three—to acquire points and bonuses.

I get why Arnak has its fans.  It just provides me no compelling reasons to love it or hate it.  For me, it’s a fine but forgettable game all around.

Current Rating: 6.5/10

Sleeping Gods

2 Plays

I have to accept at this point that sprawling cooperative adventures (dungeon crawlers, narrative-driven games, etc.) are not exactly my jam.  These games always feel like work to me, and that’s never a desirable feeling when I’m seeking entertainment.  It’s especially difficult to enjoy these types of games when I see them trying to scratch an itch that a good novel or video game can scratch 1000 times better.

One particular aspect that bogs down the experience is the messy rulebook. With so many mechanisms and effects going on in the design, we’ve found ourselves frequently turning to the rulebook for clarity during our initial plays. There has never been an instance where referencing the rulebook wasn’t slightly cumbersome and irritating. It’s just difficult to find what you are looking for, and such instances always bring a game to a screeching halt. On top of that, within days of the game arriving on backer’s doorsteps, Red Raven had to put out five pages of errata, FAQ’s, and advice to try and patch up all the leaky holes in the game’s rules. I just struggle to see a session of this game ever going smoothly for us unless we are playing it multiple times a week and remembering all the tiny little details across the many pages of rules. And for how long it takes to setup and teardown, it doesn’t lend itself well to being an easy go-to game on a consistent basis.

Sleeping Gods can be played solo, and playing with more people simply divides up the abilities, so there’s not a massively compelling reason to gather a group around for this game in particular (outside of experiencing the adventure together).  That just brings me back around to my soul-searching question: Why not just read a killer fantasy novel or play a killer adventure video game instead?  At least for me, both of these options are far more convenient, streamlined, exciting, and memorable.

That said, Sleeping Gods is a pretty solid option within this genre. It really shines in those moments where you find yourself immersed in the experience and not dealing with the bookkeeping or rules referencing.  Stunning artwork, superior storytelling, and some solid mechanics help push this one into tolerably enjoyable territory for me.  When both my wife and I are in the mood for the storytelling, it’s quite fun to get into the spirit of the adventure.  The combat and challenges are constantly tough decisions with weighty consequences, which is an essential element to keep me engaged in any game.  We saved our last session at a point where our entire crew is banged up pretty badly, desperately in need of some good morale and nourishment.  I can’t promise we’ll survive or even finish the adventure, but we haven’t given up yet, and that’s certainly worth something for a demanding game outside of my wheelhouse!

Current Rating: 6/10

A War of Whispers

1 Play

This circular track worker placement game is all about manipulating the warring empires on the board so that your secret favorites come out on top.  My first impressions are that the neat things going on here are mixed with a heaping of flaws. But as always, my opinion of what appears to be “flaws” should be taken with a grain of salt, as I’ve only played A War of Whispers one time.

Secret incentives are fun, but randomizing them allows for an uneven playing field.  If the other 3 players want blue to be crushed and blue is your highest scoring empire, then you’re already starting at a disadvantage.  

Area control on a circular board is nice, but the restrictions imposed by the movement rules and map make it a scripted and sluggish affair.  Military units can only move one space at a time and are funneled through very specific connections.  

The worker placement track is nifty, but jumping between players and actions and decisions is laborious.  The worker placement actions all take place in clockwise order around the board, but the 20 actions jump around between players and force them to make more decisions each time the action arises.  It’s not quite as smooth and fast-paced as the action resolution phase of other worker placement games like Caylus or Bus.

The cards feel valuable, yet they lack imagination.  The obvious optimal use for them seems to be to save them until the game end and then blast your opponents with the take-that abilities. 

Our final scores were tight, but it felt less like a close race and more like a gentle merry-go-round.  Players simply revealed their tokens, tallied their scores, and somebody had one more point than second place and two more points than third place and so on.

I would suggest that Dogs of War, Blitzkrieg, and The King’s Dilemma explore the same territory of political influence and incentivized tug-of-war in more interesting and less flawed ways.

Current Rating: 6.5/10

Article written by Nick Murray. Keep an eye out for his first published design, Social Grooming, which will debut in a Kickstarter bundle alongside two games from critically acclaimed designer, Reiner Knizia! Don’t miss out on this killer filler bundle coming in 2021! Subscribe to the Bitewing Games monthly newsletter to stay in touch.

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It’s been nearly a year since we received the last of 2019’s thousands of board game releases.

I waited until nearly May to make my top games of 2019 list, and I’ve since discovered loads of great games, some of which would have even made my top 10 of the year. The sad truth is that there is simply not enough time to keep up with all the best new board games that are constantly pouring down on the industry. Especially not if your FONYO (Fear of Neglecting Your Own) keeps you coming back to your under-played collection.

I recently heard some content creators squirming over their top 10 games of 2020 lists due to the overwhelming amount of great designs. I’m always surprised when content creators are declaring their best games of the year when that year hasn’t even ended yet. Unless you are Tom Vasel, you likely haven’t played every noteworthy release of the year, even months into the following year. A quick glance at my want to play list on BGG reveals that I’ve only scratched the surface of 2020’s bangers, and it’s going to take me many months yet to even come close to trying everything that has caught my eye.

So rather than make a premature 2020 list, I feel inclined to revisit the many board games of 2019 that I’ve tried. I considered updating my top 10 games list, extending it to top 15 or 20, or even ranking all of the games I’ve tried against each other, but none of those options had a strong appeal to me. Instead, we’re gonna separate all these games into 5 different categories: Lovers, Keepers, Dumpers, Flingers, and Seekers. Let the fun begin!

Lovers

Games that I’m still CRAZY about.

I’m a bit of an explorer when it comes to my hobbyist gaming habits. This is mostly due to the curious designer within. Sometimes it results in me playing hot potato with certain games (see Dumpers below), but it’s all worth it when I find an absolute gem that I love. The following are my cream of the 2019 crop (in no particular order):

• Pipeline– I recently talked about how Pipeline made a poor first impression at our table, but eventually we came around to its brutal economics. What can I say? I guess I’m a glutton for punishment. But with a little practice and a lot of thinking, you’ll go from scraping oil out of the bottom of the barrel to drowning in gallons of that greasy goodness.

• Blitzkrieg!– Paolo Mori is quickly becoming one of my top designers. His quick and accessible Ethnos has long been my favorite gateway game, and his difficult to obtain Dogs of War is what I asked Santa for this Christmas. Blitzkrieg deserves a spot among his greatest hits thanks to its elegant back and forth battles between 2 players at war.

• The King’s Dilemma– I finally tracked down a copy and can happily report that it was worth the wait. If you enjoy bluffing, bidding, and negotiation all wrapped into a light role-playing package, and if you can track down a group of 5 people to join you, then this is a must-play legacy game.

• QE– I now own a crap-load of auctioning games. It’s a testament to QE’s uniqueness that it firmly remains a title that I get excited to play. I love myself a golden opportunity to mess with other people’s heads and sneak away with the victory.

• Watergate– A zesty but simple tug-of-war 2-player game, certainly in the same ballpark as Blitzkrieg. I love ’em both. If you’re a big fan of this game, then the Geek Up bits coming in Q2 2021 might catch your interest.

• Babylonia– If you’ve got a soft spot for Knizia tile layers, like me, then you really should be getting yourself a copy of Babylonia. This one feels like a hybrid between Samurai’s tense tile majorities and Through the Desert’s dangling carrots and snaking connections. The big differences here are that points are constantly/instantly awarded, unique abilities/bonuses are up for grabs, and decisions have a much wider ripple effect.

• Maracaibo– This is the sole lover of 2019 that I don’t own. I had a blast trying it out for the first time. Yet Maracaibo fills the same niche as Great Western Trail, and I don’t even give GWT enough table time. I would recommend this one to anybody who appreciates an epic heavy Euro.

• The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine– This game probably deserves a spot in my top 10 games of all time. That’s how addicting and delightful it was to play through its 50 cooperative missions. I still stand by my review and declaration that this is one of greatest card games of all time. Thank goodness Kosmos has announced a sequel for next year!

• A Feast for Odin: Mini Expansion 2– Before this expansion, I looked at the shorter (6-round) version of A Feast for Odin as a joke. Why would somebody shorten this sprawling game by a single round and miss out on the big 7th round climax? This expansion changed that entirely. It essentially trades the uneventful first round of a 7-round game for an interesting, highly variable setup with an exciting head start for everyone.

• Inis: Seasons of Inis (expansion)– Inis is one of my all time favorite games, and this expansion was well worth the investment. Particularly the extra Epic Tale cards and area tiles, the harbors and islands, and the 5th player addition.

• Mandala– Mandala is as good as simple 2-player cards games get. I rank it right up there with the likes of Jaipur, Lost Cities, and Battle Line.

• Pax Pamir (2nd Edition)– Between you and me, Pax Pamir might just be my #1 game of all time. After plenty of plays at a wide range of player counts, it is still that good. This is a deluxe strategy gaming experience in a deservedly deluxe package.

• Age of Steam: Deluxe Edition– Speaking of all time greats, Age of Steam is a newer title on my radar (with only two plays so far) and it’s already knocking on the door of my top 10. That’s right, if you’ve been counting, we have three releases from 2019 that are worthy to be among my 10 best! That’s a good year, my friends. Of course, I may be cheating considering that Age of Steam and Pax Pamir originally released in years prior. At any rate, this is the perfect blend of punishing economics and crafty interaction for those with a blood-thirsty appetite and thick skin.

• Undaunted: Normandy– My wife and I finally closed out our campaign of Undaunted: Normandy, and it was the bomb. This is the kind of deck builder that made me realize I didn’t need Dominion anymore. We’re looking forward to diving into the next one, Undaunted: North Africa.

Keepers

Other games that have survived the purge of 2020.

Now, obviously the Lovers mentioned above are Keepers. But there are plenty of other 2019 releases that I enjoy breaking out when the setting is right. The following games are great options that have thus far survived my purging ploys.

• Aerion- I’m not much of solo gamer, but Aerion eliminates all of my personal barriers to entry. This puzzly little game has a quick setup, minimal bookkeeping, and addictive gameplay loop that I intend to see through to the end of its several included expansions.

• Cairn– Cairn is one of those abstract games that is good enough to keep around yet forgettable enough to not get to the table. In other words, we’ve only played it once so far, but it was solid.

• Caylus 1303– This updated classic absolutely pummels your average worker placement game with its refined balance, deep interaction, and juicy tension. Just don’t set your expectations for something exceptionally unique.

• The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples– I would not recommend this standalone expansion to somebody who has never tried the excellent Quest for El Dorado, but it does make for an interesting change of pace on its own and an epic journey when combined with the base game. More thoughts here.

• Azul: Summer Pavilion– I’ve weighed and measured Summer Pavilion against its siblings and found it to be a more gentle, gamer friendly version. At the end of the day, vanilla Azul is my go-to thanks to its more dynamic player interaction.

• Dice Forge: Rebellion (expansion)- I haven’t played Dice Forge in over year, which tells you a lot about how it fares against the rest of my collection. Rebellion does add a whole lot of interesting variety for fans of the game, and I’m hoping to explore the rest of it soon.

• Horrified– There are far too many Pandemic copy-cats out there, but Horrified remains one of the best. It’s a fun one to break out with non-gamers that presents an undeniably charming theme.

• Men at Work– I always get a kick out of Men at Work whenever we break it out. Nothing beats Crokinole as far as dexterity games go, but Men at Work is an excellent option that puts Jenga to shame.

• On Tour– While it isn’t my favorite roll & write, On Tour is one of the easiest to break out and teach others. It’s a nice, easy way to start out a game night as players discover how far they can stretch their strategies.

• PARKS– I suspect that if I was forced to play PARKS enough, it would get the boot from my collection. There’s just not a ton of meat here that I frequently crave. But as a gorgeous, pleasant game, I’m ok with breaking it open every now and then.

• Trophies– A quick, simple, and pretty party game of quick thinking. This is the kind of solid stocking stuffer that I would recommend to anyone. That’s why it landed a spot on our Holiday Board Game Gift Guide.

• Unmatched– This series becomes more and more fun as you explore the variety of characters and pit them against each other. Who wouldn’t want to see Bruce Lee take on 3 raptors?! I’ve talked about some of the newer sets here.

Dumpers

Games that I dropped like a hot potato.

Many of these games made a strong enough impression for me to purchase and enjoy them for several plays. Others were a train wreck right from the get-go. Either way, I eventually found myself ok with never playing them again, and those that I owned were traded or sold away thereafter.

• Point Salad- Like a well-made salad, this game is tasty, addicting, and not completely filling. After a few plays, it doesn’t provide much incentive to keep returning for more. But for $15, it was fun while it lasted.

• Res Arcana– This is a solid design that any engine builder super fan should put on their radar. Unfortunately, we didn’t love it because the game feels like a ho-hum resource converter. Res Arcana was ultimately unable to escape the shadow of its own genericy.

• Wingspan + European Expansion– The presentation initially knocked our socks off, but our many plays over time demonstrated the law of diminishing returns. Wingspan contains a pretty narrow track for decisions and strategy; most turn actions will feel on-the-rails, for better or for worse. As a gateway engine builder, I can’t deny that I enjoy playing it. But as a game night go-to, it now struggles to do more than mildly amuse.

• Tapestry– I wish Tapestry had spent more time in the development oven. The fun factor of a session of Tapestry can vary just as much as the strategies and Civilizations themselves. Cutting certain elements, balancing others, and increasing players’ abilities to truly interact with each other on the map could have gone a long way to make Tapestry a consistent hit. Ultimately, I’d rather not roll the dice on how fun a 3-hour game will be.

• Tiny Towns– A solid bingo-style spatial puzzle that lost its luster after five plays. My City is also a quick, accessible Bingo-style game about building a town for points within the confines of a spatial puzzle… and frankly, it blows Tiny Towns out of the water. But to its credit, Tiny Towns can be played with up to 6 players!

• Jaws– An amusing, highly thematic experience that gets bogged down by an excessive setup, rules-to-depth ratio, downtime, and duration. Act 2 especially dragged on and thereby felt weaker than Act 1. Played it once and had no desire to play it again. But I still respect that shark meeple.

• Bruxelles 1897– I enjoyed how compact and dense Bruxelles 1897 is for a strategic, Euro-style card game. It makes me wish more games would follow suit by trimming the fat and getting to the juicy center. My only complaint is that the game lacks legs to get it beyond more than a few interesting plays.

• Cartographers– This award nominated flip & write lacked the tension that I love to experience in my favorites of the genre. More thoughts here.

• Dead Man’s Cabal– Some interesting decisions, a fairly solid production, but the turns with many steps (simple as they may individually be) are prone to regular AP leading to longer down time and slower turns. The game also seems to lack any true sense of progression or change over the course of its long playtime… what you are doing on the first turn is practically the exact same as what you are doing on the last turn. This makes Dead Man’s Cabal feel as though it overstays its welcome. It quickly got the boot from our collection.

• Era: Medieval Age– A hefty price tag for fancy parts and pieces amount to a glorified spreadsheet roll & write polyomino Yahtzee game. I admire its production ambition but can’t get past its clumsy execution. Too much time is spent reading spreadsheets, moving pegs, or arranging dice and not enough time is spent playing a game.

• Funkoverse– Shameless cash grab of an unimaginative game with an IP pasted on top. There was absolutely nothing in the game design that made it feel like the IP we tried (Batman). The gameplay of Funkoverse itself consists of mind-numbingly basic dudes-on-a-map mechanisms and offers no reason to exist. The bland design is just veiled behind colorful funkos and meaningless variety. Unmatched is a much better version of this.

• Rune Stones– A generic resource converter. While the deck building aspect of the game certainly works, it doesn’t fully embrace any of the mechanism’s strengths. Rarely do you feel rewarded for slimming your deck or punished for bloating it. Most of the differentiating traits between the cards just blur together into a dull, samey mush. Not for me, but I can see why others may enjoy it. Kyle has a very different opinion from me on this one, so it’s worth giving his video review a look!

• Tricky Tides– I was quite impressed with Tricky Tides. The artwork and presentation is what drew me in, but the interesting combination between pick up/deliver and trick taking is what really sold me on the game. My main downside would be that the game takes way longer than advertised. We would simply rather play a meatier game if we are doing a 4 player game for 90 minutes.

• Tussie Mussie– A simple, beautiful game of I Cut, You Choose that doesn’t provide a compelling reason to keep coming back for more plays. That’s obviously a tough ask for an 18 card game, but Sprawlopolis (from the same publisher) manages to pull it off.

• Welcome To: Outbreak Thematic Neighborhood– This one is a hot mess. Deep Water Games was clearly going with quantity over quality on these expansions. It seems they were in such a big hurry to crank these out that they didn’t bother to properly test, polish, and streamline this expansion. The rulebook is unclear, the added gameplay poisons the base game’s fun, and the graphic design muddies the visibility of your writing.

Flingers

Games that were amusing to try at least once.

I’m blessed to have some good friends who possess solid collections and a knack for teaching their games. Most of these are games they’ve introduced me to that made for a fun night.

• Paladins of the West Kingdom– A nearly solitaire game from a publisher I’m lukewarm on… all the more impressive that enjoyed this play. While the novelty of Architects and Raiders felt overshadowed by their blandness, Paladin’s blandness is overshadowed by its juicy arc. Not one I would buy, but I wouldn’t mind playing it again.

• Taverns of Tiefenthal- I can see why this is thought of as a spiritual sibling to Quacks of Quedlinburg. Taverns largely benefits/suffers from the same strengths/weaknesses as Quacks. On the other hand, Taverns quite possibly beats out Quacks for me because bad luck is much less punishing, strategic options feel more numerous, and the theme is even more charming.

• Animal Kingdoms– Solid, simple gameplay. Very easy to teach, but enough meat on the bone for interesting decisions. The kind of game you can play with anyone. Not sure if it would hold interest beyond a few plays, but it was fun to try at a convention.

• Last Bastion– Improves on the rulebook, production, and gameplay of Ghost Stories, yet still feels largely the same. Last Bastion/Ghost Stories is an engaging cooperative game that plays best at a rapid pace with experience players, but doesn’t reach the heights of my favorite co-ops because so much of the game comes down to luck of the dice.

• Tuki– From the publisher of Azul. Tuki is an amusing real-time dexterity game we tried at a convention, but not exceptional enough for us to throw down money on.

Seekers

Interesting games that still elude me.

Whether they haven’t hooked me enough to convince me to open the wallet, or they require a ideal setting that my current situation can’t provide, these are the games that hover over the fringe of my radar and elude my reach.

• Isle of Cats– This is the big game that was missing from my Battle of the Polyominoes comparison. Drafting + polyominoes + psychedelic cats certainly sounds interesting!

• Detective: City of Angels– We weren’t huge fans of Chronicles of Crime. While amusing, it was ultimately not as satisfying as a board game without a screen; and it honestly feels kind of pointless to play with other people. Detective: City of Angels appears to be the game we wanted out of Chronicles.

• Dune- A heavy, Shut Up & Sit Down approved war game that works best at 6? Sign me up! ….Anyone?….No? *Sigh*

• Nova Luna– I’m sure I would enjoy this one, but it seems so similar to Rosenburg’s Patchwork (aside from the polyomino tiles) that I struggle to justify the purchase. Can anyone convince me to bite?

• Rail Pass– A real time cooperative dexterity game where you pass trains that are carrying physical goods to each other causing a jumble of brains and arms. Best of all, when you want to pass a train along, you have to communicate by saying “Toot toot!”

• Barrage– A heavy, nasty economic game of controlling water flow with dams for power. The overwhelmingly positive critical acclaim surrounding this one tells me it is certainly worth a go!

• Shobu– An elegant, abstract game of pushing stones off wooden boards. I’ve heard good things about this one, and the presentation is just classy.

• L.L.A.M.A.– A simple Knizia card game is always going to catch my attention. If I were in a supremely casual setting perfect for a light card game with kids and/or grandparents, I imagine this would hit the spot.

• Medium– While I usually opt for something with at least a hint of strategy, this appears to be a light, funny party game I would enjoy. Two players hold a unique topic card and must simultaneously blurt out the same word that connects the two topics, that is if they are on the same wavelength.

This concludes my walk down memory lane of the best board games of 2019! Can you think of a Lover, Keeper, Dumper, Flinger, and Seeker from 2019? Share them with us in the comments below!

Article written by Nick Murray. To learn more about his tabletop gaming tastes and preferences, check out his blog series: Tabletop Tastes: My Favorite Flavors in Board Games. To follow his designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

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In this article, we take a long, hard look at a board game disease known as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and how it can be turned into a healthier FONYO (Fear of Neglecting Your Own).

A Confession… and Solution

I must confess…. I have contracted FOMO, formally known as Fear of Missing Out.  Ever since it dawned on me that the wealth of titles on Board Game Geek was a cornucopia of interesting ideas, exciting experiences, and endless opportunities, I became an explorer of the industry.  I’ve browsed YouTube for reviews, perused forums for opinions, and flocked to stores for the next exciting possession.

Like many before me, I quickly found that my hunger for the next thing outpaced my ability to consume them.  In moments of clarity and perspective, I could see that I was in an unsustainable cycle.  Some games wait weeks or months to be opened, others become quickly forgotten after the first or second session.  All the while, the next batch of games is on the way or waiting to pounce when my wallet’s defenses are weakest.  The collector’s guilt becomes even easier for someone like me (a board game designer) to suppress, as I can look at these frequent new games as research and development 😉

While I feel that this FOMO has caused me to cross the line at times, I’ve been fortunate to keep it in check enough to preserve a healthy lifestyle and relationships.  That said, I find myself and others tiptoeing along a cliff’s edge, only a bad slip away from plummeting into the dangerous depths below.

Like any great passion, it is critical to maintain balance and moderation.  That is easier said than done, especially when the number of exciting new releases each year is exponentially increasing all while I continue to find more compelling classics that demand a spot on my game shelf.  As a relative newcomer to the hobby, I’m playing catch-up in both directions of the space-time continuum of must-own games.  Just this past week, I had the opportunity to try a friend’s copy of Age of Steam, and OH BABY it was good.  SOOOO GOOOOOOOD!  That right there is the kind of game I want to play again and again.  And the latest version is sheer luxury.  I gotta get in on that before it sells ou—See, there I go again.

So with Age of Steam and plenty of other games continually tempting me to dive into their “Add to Cart” buttons, how does one resist the FOMO?  Honestly, I’m still fighting it.  I don’t think it’s possible to completely escape its pull, but it is possible to manage it.  One of the most effective techniques that has worked for me is transforming my FOMO into FONYO.

That’s right, FONYO, or Fear of Neglecting Your Own.  So what does this really mean, and what makes it an effective treatment to FOMO?  It’s easy to be swept up in the next big thing when you aren’t considering the opportunity costs associated with it.  When I realized that I was acquiring too many games too quickly, the first thing I did was give myself a wakeup call by evaluating how many times I’ve actually played each game in my collection.

Statistical Mind Tricks

BoardGameGeek.com or Board Game Stats (a mobile app) offer great options for tracking the number of plays for each game.  These stats offer you the chance to feel both pride and shame at the same time.  Pride when you’ve hit double digits with a favorite title.  Shame when you sort by least number of plays and rediscover all the unloved boxes on your shelf.  It’s those zeros, ones, and twos, especially.  Those are the ones that really rub me wrong.

I’ll find a game that I absolutely LOVE.  Just rave about to anyone who will listen.  And how many times have I played it?  Just two.  Wait… REALLY?!?  Put this dang game at the top of my to-play list, STAT!

Another game, I’ll notice, has only one play, and that was ages ago.  It’s just been hanging out there in limbo.  Too unattractive for me to play it again, yet too solid for me to get rid of it so soon.  Over time, I either have to force it back to the table (with considerable effort), or let it go and accept that it just wasn’t for me.  But at the very least, I can rest assured that the money or trade that comes from that dust-collector will more than likely be put to good use in the next acquisition.  Furthermore, it has become easier for me to spot and avoid future temptresses as I become more conscious of a one-night stand style of game.  I wouldn’t learn from my purchase mistakes without constant statistical reminders of those mistakes.

And those zeroes.  Those dang zeroes.  If I keep forcing my nose into this pile, I’ll at least keep them at the front of my mind as I wait for the right moment to present itself.  Best of all, I can get myself re-psyched to explore these untouched frontiers and forget about the next big thing that is lurking on the preorder page.

Fighting Fire with Fire

Beyond the benefits of statistical influence, keeping an up-to-date list of my owned games has helped me to fight fire with fire.  I’ve found that the easiest way to suppress wishlist cravings is by focusing on my wishlist cravings.  Makes sense, right?  

I’m speaking of two different kinds of wishlists.  The first is the kind you are likely thinking of: games that I wish to own.  The second kind of wishlist is the antidote to the FOMO-inducing first: games that I already own and wish to play.  This kind of wishlist can easily be made by going through each and every game in your possession and jotting down every one that you are hungry to play.  This kind of exercise generates the same type of cravings as FOMO and even replaces them.  If you’re like me, you’ll quickly have a massive list of games that you are dying to play as soon as possible, and the best part about it is that you already own them!  Instead of focusing your efforts and wallet and how to obtain the next pretty possession, you’ll be focusing your planning and thoughts on how to get these games from your shelf to the table.

Tastes are a Double-Edged Sword

The second thing that has helped me to combat FOMO is rating and critiquing each game I play.  These days, I’ll always jot down my thoughts on a game on BGG while it is still fresh on the mind.  And as I get more sessions in with a title, I’ll update my thoughts and rating when I notice drastic changes in my feelings towards the game.  

Doing this consistently has helped me to discover the patterns within my gaming tastes and preferences.  I’ve even gone so far as to list and define those tabletop tastes.  So does being a self-designated board game critic help one to overcome FOMO?  Well… not really.  But also… yes, definitely!  But then again… nope, it actually does the opposite.  But on the other hand…

You see, writing about games and the experiences, feelings, and thoughts they stimulate is a cathartic experience.  When I find myself stuck in an hours-long torture chamber of messy mechanisms or hollow experiences, I can at least look forward to teeing up the design later and blasting it to kingdom-come.  More commonly, I’ll find myself in a game that I don’t love but want to, and so I have to ask myself why. By defining the elements that aren’t clicking for me, I often learn more about game design than from elements that work well in games I love.  So for me, Fear of Missing Out on fun can also be Fear of Missing Out on a hot take or an insightful design lesson.  I may pull the trigger on a game, knowing full well that it won’t last long in my collection, but it’ll probably be really fun to dissect.

Meanwhile, I won’t forget when I’m burned by a particular designer, publisher, or type of game.  What I mean by that is: all designers, publishers, and genres tend to be fairly predictable and consistent.  Splotter is probably going to make a punishing game.  Cole Wehrle’s designs are probably going to have plenty of king-making potential.  Roll & Writes are usually going to have minimal player interaction.  I’m not saying any of these things are bad (I even like some of them).  But if these elements don’t jive with me, and I’m able to recognize them, then it’s much easier to avoid similar options in the future.

The problem with recognizing consistency in the board game industry is that it makes blind purchases from my favorite creators all the easier!  An acclaimed Knizia title, an upcoming Capstone publication, a teased Wehrle design… These kinds of things transform my FOMO into FONOF—Fear of Not Owning First!

And here is where we reach my weakest point… I don’t care.  I don’t care if I own way too many Knizia games, he’s my favorite designer so GET OFF MY BACK.  Ok, so maybe Capstone’s next Iron Rails game would be the… *counts on fingers*… sixth—no, wait—SEVENTH train game in my collection, but that’s not gonna stop me from buying it!  And of course John Company 2e is far too niche for 95% of the people I game with, but that’s not gonna stop me from backing Cole’s next game!  THE MAN IS A GENIUS!

Phew, well I’m sorry about that.  As you can see, FOMO has many side-effects including iron-clad, passionate justifications.  In my opinion, you gotta pick and choose your battles.  I look at the paragraph of nonsense above and see some battles with my subconscious that I simply can’t win.  Best I can do is compensate for those losses in other areas.

The YO in FONYO is not just “Your Own” Games

When I find myself in a year that contains the most enticing release lineup that Capstone has ever produced AND Cole Wehrle’s most ambitious kickstarter campaign yet AND the resurgence of the legendary Dr Knizia, etc., etc., I find myself scrambling to pull every piece of loose change out of every imaginable furniture crack in our budget.  I’ll do what it takes to ensure that I can obtain my most anticipated games while keeping the budget from self-imploding.  I have a family to support, an emergency fund to stock, and a retirement fund to nourish, after all.  

Weighing these feelings of FOMO against the necessities of life helps me to trim down my unreasonable appetite while creatively expanding my stomach (the games budget).  I can harness Fear of Missing Out on a game I KNOW I’ll LOVE and use it to pass on the FOMO from games that I THINK I’ll LIKE.  Furthermore, I can force myself to wait for a great deal on a wishlist game, and if it eventually doesn’t make the cut for a permanent spot in my collection, I can resell it in the used market without taking a huge blow to my wallet.  A $5 or $10 rental fee for a game experience is much more palatable to me than $40 or $50 down the drain for a box that I’m unlikely to revisit any time soon. 

FONYO isn’t just limited to your budget.  It’s a motivating feeling that can extend to other hobbies, interests, and priorities.    I’m constantly seeking out, planning, and giving myself things to look forward to.  Instead of spending far too much time researching more board games, I try to give myself something else to anticipate: designing a game prototype for an idea that has been bouncing around in my head, planning an activity with friends or family, focusing on a person who could use a day-brightener, etc.

I’d hate to look back on a whole week/month/year (or my entire life, heaven forbid) and only be able to say, “Well…. I was really good at researching and buying board games.”  This FONYO regarding my dreams and priorities has been a fantastic method for keeping me busy, focused, and balanced.

Replacing FOMO with FONYO

In a FOMO-flooded hobby where too many of us have shelves of shame ranging from a minor handful of still shrink-wrapped boxes to entire towers of terror, we could all use a little more FONYO.  FONYO for the treasured games already in our collections.  FONYO for the priceless people and relationships in our lives.  And FONYO for the many other priorities that deserve our anticipation.

A hero of mine once told me that the things which are the most important are the things that last the longest. The new hotness of the board game industry will come and go with the blink of an eye. Let’s not allow a fleeting flash of lightning to distract us from the essential rays of daily sunshine.

This concludes my article on Turning FOMO into FONYO (Fear of Neglecting Your Own). Of course, there are many healthy solutions for combatting and controlling FOMO. We’d love to hear your ideas for how you’ve kept your board gaming passions in check. Please feel free to comment below!

Article written by Nick Murray. To learn more about his tabletop gaming tastes and preferences, check out his blog series: Tabletop Tastes: My Favorite Flavors in Board Games. To follow his designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

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