It’s almost April, which means that I’m properly late to the party in revealing my favorite board games of 2021!  Why wait so long?  Because I’ve been holding out for a few last-minute games to make their way to our table, particularly if my hunch tells me that they have a shot at my Top 15 Board Games of the year.  I’ve also spent the past few months revisiting many of these new releases with third or fourth or sixteenth plays to discern exactly how they compare against each other.

I’m not the type who shies away from including reimplemented designs on my list, but this year I decided that reimplementations must feature gameplay changes to qualify for my Top 15.  This includes anything from slight balancing tweaks to additional content, but those also tend to come with a new coat of paint (in theme and/or art style).

Ultimately, my list is a celebration of excellence in game design, illustration, and publishing.  The board games that made my Top 15 earned their place by bringing innovation, excellence, and (most importantly) enjoyment to our table and the industry.  2021 was a killer year for tabletop gaming; let’s explore 15 reasons why…

15. Cryo

Cryo is a well-oiled machine of a worker placement sci-fi game.  What it lacks in exciting new ideas, it more than makes up for in slim, trim, focused gameplay.  Each mechanism is tightly interconnected to the overall objective of scavenging the catastrophic wreckage of your space ship and rescuing your colony’s faction on a cold, threatening planet.  

Using only 8 unique cards and a small assortment of tile options, Cryo provides a wealth of strategic possibilities for customizing your engineering platform as you race for the most points.  Much like the experience of gliding down fresh powder with your well-worn skis on a snow-day, the smooth system that Cryo provides is endlessly satisfying to glide through, despite its familiarity.

14. MicroMacro: Crime City — Full House

This list contains a couple of standalone sequels to excellent original designs—sequels which merited their way onto my Top 15 through sheer enjoyment factor.  But these sequels certainly would have been even higher on my list if I hadn’t already played their predecessors dozens of times.  At any rate, MicroMacro: Crime City — Full House is the first such sequel.

While Full House features a little more nuance to its criminal cases and visual trickery, it doesn’t really bother to shake up the formula established in the original game.  Yet, that’s perfectly fine in this case.  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  Full House simply offers more of what we’ve come to love in this cooperative Where’s Waldo murder mystery bonanza: kills and thrills.  I maintain that MicroMacro is one of the best 2-player cooperative games money can buy, especially for couples.

13. So Clover

I was initially dubious at the announcement of yet another word game where the objective is to get players to guess some words using another word as a clue (see also Codenames, Decrypto, Just One, and a gazillion others).  Yet, as Cryo’s reliable worker placement system and MicroMacro’s proven search-and-solve formula have shown, just because you’ve seen it before doesn’t mean it can’t delight you.

The important thing here is that So Clover manages to stand out from its crowded (and seemingly perfected) genre by engaging everyone for every second of its lighting fast 30-minutes with a novel production featuring donut cards and dry-erase clovers.  It wastes no time getting straight to the beating heart of what makes word games fun, and it uniquely does not require a large group of players to provide maximum enjoyment.

12. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

And here is that other commendable sequel I was hinting at.  Do you like yourself a tense card game?  A clean cooperative design?  A solid trick taking challenge?  The Crew: Mission Deep Sea might just be one of the very best games IN ALL THREE GENRES, ever.

I’ve found that with the cooperative genre in general, the key to my heart is through limited communication, low upkeep requirements, tense challenges, and meaningful variety.  The Crew effortlessly checks all of these boxes and keeps me unabashedly addicted to its gameplay loop from one hand to the next.  That’s why I’ve played 111 rounds of The Crew (between The Quest for Planet Nine and Mission Deep Sea), and I still have no intention of stopping.

11. Kabuto Sumo

Speaking of games that I’ve played a ton of, Kabuto Sumo has proven to be another perfect 2-player game for my wife and I.  Having backed the Kickstarter campaign, we were among the first to receive and play it, and it was an instant hit at our table.  Thus, I’ve been frequently surprised to hear so many polarizing opinions on this one as the months have gone on.

Some folks, like us, are having a blast with this gorgeous little game of beetle wrestling and disc pushing.  Others have merely shrugged their shoulders and wondered what all the fuss is about.  Certain people have even come away claiming that there is nothing here in terms of meaningful decisions or strategic momentum.  I’d like to formally invite you naysayers into my home where we will show you the true ways of the Kabuto.  You must learn to wax on and wax off before you can master the art of the Sumo.

As far as dexterity games go, the disc-pushing of Kabuto Sumo is certainly more peaceful and nuanced than that of flicking discs or stacking blocks.  Yet if you’re willing to invest in that nuance and get lost in the weeds of predictive physics—where wood pieces of various shapes, weights, and sizes collide with one another as you try to direct and control this gentle chaos on a raised platform—then and only then will you uncover the alluring magic of Kabuto Sumo.

10. Brian Boru: High King of Ireland

Trick taking games have long explored and experimented with various incentives for both winning and losing tricks.  Few have gone as far as Brian Boru in grafting the clean mechanism of trick taking onto an entire board game and asking the question: What if both winning and losing a trick had unique, impactful consequences in an area majority game?

Brian Boru is a resounding success in its experimental combination of mechanisms.  Hand management remains impactful as players must decide which cards to draft, when to play them, and how to use them to gain the upper hand in this gorgeous depiction of old Irish culture.  This one is ripe with ripple-effect decisions thanks to its strategic flexibility and potent player interaction.

9. Mille Fiori

Thus begins the Reiner Knizia hot streak.  What do I mean by that?  Well, Knizia had one 2020 release (My City) that made my top 15 games that year with a second game (Schotten Totten 2) later earning a place among my ‘keepers.’  Not that my list actually means anything, but I’d call that a killer year for any designer.

Enter 2021… in terms of hot streaks, this year might rank among his very best in his 30 years of published games.  Mille Fiori is my first reason why.

There is something so undeniably joyous about the ramp up in tension, points, and combos that Mille Fiori provides from start to finish.  Yet where many point salad designs fail to have teeth within the competition, Mille Fiori is a real biter.  Both the drafting of cards and claiming of board spaces are deliciously interactive in this glass game of ornate opportunism.

8. The Siege of Runedar

I tend to not click with big box cooperative games unless they are focused, streamlined, and high-pressured.  Of course, keeping a design focused, streamlined, and high-pressured is Knizia’s specialty, thus The Siege of Runedar has been a good fit for our table.

What I love about this cooperative, deck-building, fortress defense game is that it strains and stretches you and your companions across several different wants and needs.  You want to acquire a stronger weapon, but you need to stop the approaching orcs.  You want to dig your way to victory by removing rubble, but you need to address the newly arrived catapult.  The “wants” can help you in the long run, but the “needs” will lead to failure if neglected for too long.

This type of tough trade-off is common in solid cooperative games, but Reiner takes things a step further through interesting deck management decisions.  And the icing on the cake is an ambitious production by Ludonova that brings the experience to life with raised walls and towers.

7. Whale Riders

Perhaps the only thing more breezy and joyous than Reiner Knizia’s Whale Riders is actually riding whales in real life.  Either way, you’re in for a great time when whales are involved.  Whale Riders makes for an excellent filler game in a gorgeous package.  Nothing here is necessarily new or innovative, but the quick pace and tense tempo of this action efficiency game is what makes for a fresh experience.

I’m still amazed that I’ve been able to teach and play this game in under 25 minutes, considering the large box and plentiful tiles and cards.  At such a short playtime for 2-6 players, Whale Riders is both highly flexible and endlessly approachable, making it easy to squeeze into any type of game night.  The various different play styles it offers—from meandering along the coast for cheap goods to rushing to the pile of pearls at the end—have all proven to be viable strategies.  There is something to be said for good, clean game design that pays no mind to trending gimmicks or excess bells and whistles.

6. Equinox

It was a tough toss-up to rank all these great Knizias against each other, but I ultimately found that Equinox just barely won out on my list by being the most deliciously cutthroat of the bunch.  Equinox gives me feelings similar to Reiner’s best card games including Lost Cities and Schotten Totten in that often I don’t want to play any of the cards in my hand—somehow each card feels like a golden opportunity waiting to be unleashed if I can just manage to hold onto them a bit longer.

Thanks to the poignant creature betting and elimination, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this tense hand-management game at every player count.  Equinox also features a couple key improvements over its predecessor, Colossal Arena.  One improvement being the two additional creatures that bring the total creature count up to fourteen and the setup combinations beyond three-thousand.  The other key improvement is found on the cards themselves, where Equinox uses clear graphic design to denote a creature’s ability rather than small, pesky text.

Where most betting games fall back on the convenient racing formula, Equinox stands out by honing in on interactive card-play and devastating creature elimination.

5. Ark Nova

A Feast for Odin has occupied a comfortable niche in my collection for the past few years by being a sprawling sandbox game perfect for long, cozy game nights with my wife.  When I started to learn about Ark Nova, I wondered if this hot new game could manage to scratch a similar itch.  After only one play, and continuing on through several more, I’ve been delighted to find that Ark Nova does exactly that.  This is especially impressive when considering the fact that my wife loathes most games that are heavy-weight in their complexity.

I don’t believe Ark Nova has one secret ingredient that makes it a success at our table.  Rather, I find that this epic zoo-builder is more than the sum of its parts.  Thanks to a brilliantly interconnected system of action selection, tableau building, tile placement, economic juggling, and hand management—all of which provide lovely thematic touches—Ark Nova keeps us fully engaged from start to finish.  It’s competitive Zoo Tycoon brought to our tabletop, and rarely is this board gaming hobby much more exciting than that.

4. Kemet: Blood & Sand

Kemet has long been a favorite of many area control connoisseurs since its initial release now one decade ago.  I was quite tempted to jump into the design and see what the fuss was all about, but I instead decided to wait until the release of its evolved version: Kemet: Blood & Sand.  The wait was worth it, my friends.

Kemet: Blood & Sand is essentially Kemet 2.0, with many changes and improvements brought to the system including a redesigned map, balanced powers, upgraded components, and fine-tuned gameplay.  The joy of Kemet remains the hyper-aggressive gameplay mixed with a buffet of powers and creatures.  No two plays of this game have ever felt alike as each player cobbles together a terrifyingly unique army.  The ever-present challenge is to discover and exploit your opponents’ weaknesses while avoiding their strengths.  The cherry on top is a tight combat system that is full of strategy and surprises.

3. Ankh: Gods of Egypt

2021 was a great year for Egyptian area control, apparently, because Ankh manages to be just as compelling as Kemet: Blood & Sand, if not more so.  Ankh brings so many brilliant concepts to the table that it’s hard to know where to start.  The action selection tracks are a fascinating feature that can strongly influence one’s tactics, particularly when an action reaches the end of its track thereby ending a player’s turn and triggering the next event.  The conflicts present exciting opportunities for scoring points, building monuments, weakening opponents, and replenishing your hand.  And the experience follows a dynamic arc where the two weakest players eventually combine into one insanely strong faction as everyone races to the end of the point track.

While Kemet kicks the doors open with an immediately impressive array of strategic opportunities, Ankh has been more sly and subtle with a streamlined system that grows on you from one play to the next.  Each session has revealed new challenges to overcome and new strategies to explore, making it an alluring experience that rewards repeat plays.  I haven’t tried Eric Lang’s other games, but I would be surprised and impressed if any of them were better than Ankh.

2. Radlands

While I’ve tried a good number of popular dueling games over the years including Dice Throne, Unmatched, Blue Moon Legends, Funkoverse, Riftforce, and Summoner Wars, I’ve never been majorly impressed with the genre.  Something about the overly tactical “I slap you, you slap me” nature of these games never fully satisfied compared to other 2-player games and genres.  But with Radlands, I’ve finally found an addicting and satisfying dueler.

Not only does Radlands raise the bar with a stunning art style and production, but it also hits the sweet spot of being blazingly streamlined yet surprisingly deep.  The water economy is balanced on a knife’s edge, as are the huge variety of card abilities.  

The flexibility allowed in the gameplay is perhaps Radland’s strongest feature… You can aim to hit hard and fast and hope to knock your opponent out before they have time to retaliate against your weak defenses, or you can carefully play the long game and slowly undermine your enemy while keeping your camps well protected and repaired.  You can invest in new characters and store a little extra water for a later big turn, or you can junk your cards and blow your water for instant gratification from powerful but fleeting effects.  Thanks to a brilliant system of action timing and event triggering, you almost always have time to anticipate and prepare for your opponent’s next maneuver.  

Rather than leaning on cheap tricks and random surprises, Radlands confidently plants its feet on more strategic soil without losing any of the drama and fun of overpowered abilities and asymmetric dueling.  

1. Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile

In an industry that cranks out thousands of new releases per year that makes hobbyists feel like they’re drinking from a firehose of recycled mechanisms and themes, it is rare to come across a game that brings true innovation to the table.  Yet when those rare gems emerge, and when one can manage to assemble the right group to properly embrace the experience, these games are transcendent.

Oath flips the conventions of tabletop storytelling by turning the players from the audience into the story tellers.  This game is not about recreating or reliving history, it is about writing it.  It’s not about discovering tactical paths or uncovering strategic ripple effects, it’s about paving paths and creating ripple effects.  It’s not about deciding the best player at today’s table, it’s about determining who will rule the next generation and how that kingdom will evolve or decay over time.

Oath demands much from its participants—namely a regular group of players who are willing to embrace both the highs and the lows of the experience—yet it gives even more in return.  I never know what my next play of Oath is going to become… a joint quest to overpower and overthrow the tyrannical Chancellor, a covert operation to undermine the empire as a traitorous citizen, a ruler’s mad scramble to put out the fires started by pesky exiles, a struggle for territory or favor or secrets or relics… the possibilities are seemingly endless.  In a game where the decisions of one play carry over into the next in an endless transformation of land, peoples, and power, I doubt I’ll ever grow tired of Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile.

Oath also wins my vote for Best Art and Best Production for having delightful art by Kyle Ferrin and excellent components (including top-tier rulebooks) from the team at Leder Games.

Biggest Snubs

Art Robbery

Art Robbery is another delightful Knizia design that ended up just outside my Top 15.  It’s not the deepest card game out there, but Art Robbery does hit the spot in terms of quick simplicity and clever thievery.

Coffee Traders

I really enjoyed my first play of Coffee Traders. But that’s the problem, I haven’t managed to play it since.  Unfortunately, this one requires a very specific type of group and a huge chunk of time to get to the table.  Due to its sprawling, complex nature, Coffee Traders possesses far too many barriers to entry to have seen enough plays or earn itself a spot in my Top 15.

Best Reskin

Royal Visit

Royal Visit instantly became a household favorite among our 2-player collection when we tried this new reskin last year.  And what a reskin it is!  While the original game was amusingly themed after some drunk folks in Times Square, this new one feels more fitting for the tug-of-war mechanisms of attracting the king and his court to your chateau.  The production is colorful, blocky, and serene.  But most importantly, the gameplay has aged like a fine wine.  This one would absolutely be in my Top 15 Games of 2021 if any part of the design was new.

Best Games I Didn’t Love

Mind MGMT

I still hope to revisit Mind MGMT eventually.  Perhaps with a few months time or a different group of players it’ll finally click for us and become a hit as it has with so many others.  Whether or not that happens, I still admire and respect this hidden-movement deduction game for the interesting tricks and clever twists that it has up its sleeve.

Riftforce

As I shared in my 1st impressions post, Riftforce does everything right save for committing one critical error in my book.  I’m referring to the flat game arc where the start, middle, and end of the game all feel roughly the same.  But even so, Riftforce packs a heck of a punch as a 2-player dueling game with neat asymmetry and tasty combos.  

Worst Games I Adored

Family Inc.

My goodness, whose idea was it to make this game box so offensively large?  This is one of the few times where I’m actually considering defiling the box and cutting it down to a proper size or replacing it entirely with more sensible packaging.  The gameplay of Family Inc. isn’t the most revelatory either, but Knizia knows how to make even the dumbest of concepts amusing.  This experience boils down to “flip a random tile and hope for the best,” yet it still manages to entertain a jaded gamer like myself.

L.A.M.A. Dice

I also get a kick out of Knizia’s other “dumb fun” game, L.A.M.A. Dice, and this one even comes in a properly small box!  I almost feel bad putting this one under the “worst game I adored” category, because I actually think it’s a very smart design appropriately wrapped in a silly package.  Most hobby gamers would likely shrug at it, but for us it is a blast of a filler game.

Best Expansion

Pipeline: Emerging Markets

Emerging Markets is the perfect expansion for Pipeline in that it brings impactful market variety to the experience.  It’s a great one to jump into after a few plays of the base game, as it will keep you from getting too comfortable with a specific strategy.  For being an expansion that I would never play Pipeline without, Emerging Markets takes that cake as my top expansion of 2021.

Best New To Me Game

Yellow & Yangtze

I thought this would be a much harder decision, but once I realized that Yellow & Yangtze was a “new to me” game last year, my choice couldn’t have been easier.  While this list is already littered with far too many Knizias (I’m fully aware ;), I’m not about to leave off one of the very best designs in his massive ludography.  Yellow & Yangtze is a triumph of a strategy game that I will never get enough of.  Now who’s going to pick up the rights to this one and give us the expansion?

If you appreciate our content (such as this post) and/or have any interest in our next publication, Trailblazers, then please consider subscribing to the Bitewing Games newsletter! Every two weeks, we’ll send you an email sharing our latest content and teasing new reveals about our upcoming publications. Bitewing Games is only made possible and kept alive through the support of fans and backers via our published games. Thanks for your support!

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, including the upcoming Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney. 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 15 Board Games of 2021 appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Tis the season to buy more board games for your friends and family (and maybe even treat yourself)! Selecting the perfect gift can often be a Nightmare before Christmas, but worry not, Bitewing Games is here to guide you to some of the hottest games of the year for casual and hobbyist gamer alike.

Our selection criteria for this guide includes the following:

• The games have been tried, tested, and approved by us and/or trusted critics
• The games are generally available to purchase (links will be provided below to sites where you can purchase them)
• We won’t recommend anything from our past Holiday Gift Guides, but we still fully endorse those previous guides, so if you need even more recommendations then check out our 2020 Guide.

For your information, we receive no financial compensation, sponsorship, or advertisement money for this guide or these recommendations. The following are simply games we genuinely believe are great Holiday gifts. So why even make this guide? Well for one, we love to see this hobby grow. It means more games, gamers, and fun for everyone! Second, if you find value in our content, then we’d love to have you join our Bitewing Games newsletter! We use our newsletter to send regular updates regarding our latest content (like this gift guide) and publications (such as our Criminal Capers Collection of card games).

Let’s dive into the fun! Our 2021 Holiday Board Game Gift Guide is split into sections for your scrolling convenience (or you can click the link to jump to that section of the page):

• Gifts for the Casual Board Gamer
• Gifts for your Significant Other
• Stocking Stuffer Games (small & cheap!)
• Perfect games for your Holiday Party
• Gifts for the Hobbyist Board Gamer

Gifts for the Casual Board Gamer

Many people enjoy a good board or card game, but they don’t have the time or energy to invest in long/complicated games. The following games all play in roughly an hour or less and feature easy rules with stellar gameplay—perfect for any friends or family!

Kabuto Sumo – $34

If you’re at all familiar with coin pushing games found at the arcade, then you already understand the core mechanism of Kabuto Sumo. In this game, players are beetle wrestlers who try to push opponents out of the ring to win. This box is filled with chunky wooden discs and tokens of various shapes and sizes, and it features some of the most refreshing gameplay in years (click here to read my full impressions of the game).

This one features a kid-friendly mode, and competitive mode for adults, and works great from 2-4 players. In short, you can’t go wrong with making this Christmas a Kabuto Christmas.

Support the Publisher—Buy directly from Board Game Tables (this game is only available directly from the publisher)

Equinox – $40

Equinox is a fantastic card game from Reiner Knizia with a lovely presentation from artist Chris Quilliams. For those who aren’t aware, Reiner Knizia is the very same designer who invented our Criminal Capers Collection!

Here, players place bets on which mystical creatures they believe will last until the end of the game, and then they must play their cards wisely to keep their chosen champions alive! There is loads of replayability to be enjoyed here, as each session is crammed with cutthroat player interaction and uses only eight of the fourteen creatures and their unique abilities. You can learn more about why we love this game in my first impressions post.

Support the Publisher—Buy Equinox directly from Plan B Games

See current Equinox deals from online retailers

Hibachi – $30

If you’ve been looking to become a master chef, here’s your big chance!

Like Kabuto Sumo, Hibachi also features a mix of strategy and dexterity. This unique blend of mechanisms is one that I found to be quite engaging! 2-4 players take turns tossing their poker chips onto the large board, and they can buy or sell the ingredients that their chips land on. You can even aim for the smaller bonus spaces or knock opponent discs away from coveted spots. A precise flick of the wrist helps, but you’ll also need to play smart to manage your money wisely and outbid your competition.

All this is part of a race to complete three recipes first and win the game. It’s delightfully unique, it’s deliciously challenging, it’s Hibachi.

See current Hibachi deals from online retailers (this one is not available to purchase directly from publisher Grail Games)

Ethnos – $40

Don’t let the box art scare you off! Ethnos actually shares a lot in common with legendary family game Ticket to Ride. I admit that the visuals of this game could be more attractive and inviting, but what if I told you that I’ve introduced this game to dozens of people (friends, family, gamers, non-gamers) and ALL have LOVED it? It’s true! There’s a reason that Ethnos is in my top 50 games of all time!

Let Kyle share with you why this game rocks in only 7 minutes:

Support the Publisher—Buy Ethnos directly from CMON/Asmodee

See current Ethnos deals from online retailers

Chinatown – $45

I love a good game of trading and negotiation, and Chinatown is one of the best of this genre. Like Ethnos, this classic is a massive crowdpleaser. It features dead simple rules, wonderfully memorable player interactions, and satisfyingly clever possibilities.

The magic of Chinatown lies in the fact that you can trade anything however you’d like—property, tiles, money, favors, you name it! There is something so raw and satisfying about turning your worthless assets into profitable deals. But at the end of the day, the player with the most money earned from lucrative deals and businesses is the ultimate winner. This one is ranked #10 in my top 50 board games of all time, and it becomes an instant favorite for nearly everyone I show it to. Enough said.

See current Chinatown deals from online retailers (this one is not currently available directly from publisher Z-Man Games/Asmodee)

Gifts for your Significant Other

Want to give a game that says “I love you?” How about a game that you can enjoy together over and over again? We’ve got you covered with these recommendations:

My City – $35

If you follow Bitewing Games and the content we put out, then you understand that we are physically incapable of recommending My City enough. This masterclass polyomino legacy game from Reiner Knizia is featured in:

• My top 50 games list
• Our recent podcast discussion of games we’ve been playing
• My interview with designer Reiner Knizia himself
• My Top 10 Reiner Knizia Games article
• My deep dive article into what makes games refreshingly replayable
• My Battle of the Polyomino games article (spoilers: My City won)
• My top 15 board games of 2020 list
• Our top 10 Family Games podcast episode

…You get the picture. Now for a warning: don’t let the above list trick you into setting your expectations 300 miles high. The truth is that My City is simply an easy to recommend game, and it’s especially good for couples and families. My wife and I loved playing through it at 2 players, and this one scales all the way up to 4. I can think of few holiday activities better than cozying up to the table with some hot cocoa, a loved one, and My City.

See current My City deals from online retailers (this one is not currently available directly from publisher Kosmos)

Riftforce – $30

Riftforce is one of the few games on this list that I personally haven’t tried yet, but that’s only because it hasn’t yet been released to retail in the US (at the time of this writing). But worry not, this one hits stores in October and is available directly from the publisher today!

I’ve already preordered my copy, and that’s because Riftforce is already released in Europe and pleasing consumers and critics alike. It even earned itself a spot on my most anticipated games of 2021 part II list. This game takes some inspiration from the likes of Battle Line (Schotten Totten) and Air, Land, and Sea where two players duel across multiple rift spaces as they play cards onto their side of the rift. The interesting wrinkle here is that players assemble their own deck of four asymmetric guilds from the ten that come in the box.

Crafting and executing the right combo at the right time will be key to victory in this simple, strategic 30 minute card game.

Support the Publisher—Buy Riftforce directly from Capstone Games

See current Riftforce deals from online retailers

Royal Visit – $25

Who doesn’t like a good tug-of-war? Royal Visit is a gorgeous new version of a classic Reiner Knizia tug-of-war game where two competing players attract guards, a jester, a wizard, and the king himself toward their end of the board by playing cards of a matching type. Each figure has its own interesting traits and abilities, and the ultimate goal is to get the king into your castle.

We’re big fans of this game at my house… we even played it again last night, twice! I dive into the nitty gritty details of Royal Visit with my first impressions post here.

Support the Publisher—Buy Royal Visit directly from Iello

See current Royal Visit deals from online retailers

Summoner Wars (Second Edition) – $50

If asymmetric dice combat chess is more your gift receiver’s style, then Summoner Wars fits the bill. The second edition of this much beloved game is a more polished and perfected version that released this year. Play cards onto the grid-based board, slide them from one space to the next, line up to attack your opponent’s cards, and bring down their summoner using your unique abilities! My first impressions of the game have shown that this is absolutely the way to go for those who prefer meaty yet streamlined dueling.

Support the Publisher—Buy Summoner Wars (Second Edition) directly from Plaid Hat Games

See current Summoner Wars deals from online retailers

Caesar!: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes! – $30

Here we have another hotly anticipated, soon-to-be-released game that is indeed titled “Caesar!: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes!” This one comes at us from one of my favorite designers, namely Paolo Mori, designer of Dogs of War, Ethnos (mentioned above), and Blitzkrieg. Blitzkrieg is an especially notable one here, as Caesar is the spiritual sibling to this critically acclaimed game, and its real title is Blitzkrieg!: World War Two in 20 Minutes (see the resemblance? ;).

Now listen here, I know what some of you are thinking: “I have zero interest in war games.” I get it, I was thinking the same thing when I first encountered Blitzkrieg. But even more than being a war game, Blitzkrieg is a tactical tug-of-war game (much like Royal Visit), and Caesar takes much of the same DNA of Blitzkrieg and turns it into an area majority game.

The elegance of these games lies within their turn-by-turn structure… simply place a tile onto the board (from your three tile options that are hidden behind your screen), resolve the effects, and draw another tile from your bag. This formula makes for one of the most tense and engaging 20 minutes out there. It’s why Blitzkrieg is also in my top 50 board games of all time.

Support the Publisher—Buy Caesar directly from PSC Games

See current Summoner Wars deals from online retailers

Stocking Stuffer Gifts

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, with hopes that small games would be placed in there. These ones are both conveniently compact and blessedly affordable. And they pack a punch!

Durian – $23

You can never go wrong with a stocking stuffer gift from publisher Oink Games. Their tiny, charming rectangular boxes were practically born to be nestled in stockings and hung by the chimney with care.

Durian is one of the best new Oink game releases of recent years about taking fruity orders and calling the grumpy gorilla boss on your co-workers. It’s simple, it’s fast, and it’s hilarious. We’ve enjoyed it so much that it even made my Top 15 Games of 2020 list.

Support the Publisher—Buy Durian directly from Oink Games (note to US buyers: you’ll need to select the Japanese language option… it comes with an English rulebook as noted in the description)

See current Durian deals from online retailers

Schotten Totten 2 – $15

Whether you’re a fan of the original Schotten Totten (aka Battle Line) or have never heard of those wacky words, Schotten Totten 2 is an excellent little 2-player game that should be on your radar.

Much like its predecessor, ST2 is all about playing chicken against the player across the table from you by forming poker-style sets of cards from your hand (runs, sets, sums, etc.). This sequel is unique in that the competing players have asymmetric roles, objectives, and abilities. The defender must protect their wall and keep the attacker from breaking through. Check out my first impressions of this clever card game here.

Support the Publisher—Buy Schotten Totten 2 directly from Iello

See current Schotten Totten 2 deals from online retailers

Illusion – $13

From Wolfgang Warsch, the designer of many popular games including Wavelength, Quacks of Quedlinburg, The Mind, and That’s Pretty Clever comes another excellent little card game.

Illusion is a tense game of arranging a growing row of cards in sequential order by the amount of one color shown on each card. The moment you feel that another player has added a card to the wrong spot, you can use your turn to challenge the sequence and reveal the backs of the cards that quantify how much area each color takes up. If your challenge is correct, then the previous player takes a penalty. If your challenge is incorrect, then you take the penalty!

I can personally vouch for this as a great stocking stuffer of optical illusions, because it’s exactly what I received and enjoyed last Christmas! I’m a huge fan of its captivating core, brilliant rules, and dramatic reveals.

Support the Publisher—Buy Illusion directly from Pandasaurus Games

See current Illusion deals from online retailers

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea – $15

We here at Bitewing Games are massive fans of The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine. You can find both my written review and Kyle’s video review of this cooperative trick-taking masterpiece.

Mission Deep Sea is the standalone sequel to our 2020 darling, and word on the street is that this one is even better. You’ll be able to get a whole lot of game out of this $15 box when it hits stores this fall. We can’t wait to try it!

Support the Publisher—Buy The Crew: Mission Deep Sea directly from Kosmos

See current The Crew: Mission Deep Sea deals from online retailers

Parade – $20

Kyle and I very recently had a podcast discussion about this quirky little Alice in Wonderland themed card game called Parade. It features gorgeous art, tough decisions, and elegant gameplay. You’ll be adding a card from your hand to the back of the parade and strategizing which colors to avoid and which colors to claim. Much like the other suggestions in this category, this one is a treasured gem on my card game shelf.

Support the Publisher—Buy Parade directly from Z-Man Games/Asmodee

See current Parade deals from online retailers

X-Trayz from Game Trayz – $2.32

Here’s a little stocking stuffer bonus for you. If your gift receiver has any bitty games that they play frequently, these trays are perfect for convenient storage and speedy organization.

It’s always satisfying when a setup merely consists of removing game trayz from the box and opening the lid. I love to fit these trays into my favorite game boxes including Concordia (for the wood resources), Dogs of War (for the cardboard tokens), and Yellow & Yangtze (for the point cubes). For games where I can’t fit the trays inside, I usually have some spare ones on hand to make for a cleaner table presence during play.

Check out all the X-Trayz options at the BGG Store.

Perfect Games for your Holiday Party

While people can never be replaced as the life of the party, a good game can help take that party to the next level. Here are our suggestions to help make your party fun and memorable…

Don’t Get Got – $22

Imagine a game where each player (up to 8 total) is given a wallet containing six secret missions they must complete. These missions challenge players to creatively trick each other without drawing suspicion.

You see, Don’t Get Got is one meta game that can be played in the background during a party, a game night, a holiday get-together, you name it! If someone calls you out on your mission attempt, then you fail it, but you’ve got six objectives total and the first person to complete three wins! I personally can’t wait to try this game of harmless and hilarious pranks… just waiting for the right occasion!

Support the Publisher—Buy Don’t Get Got directly from Big Potato Games

Skull – $20

Alongside our own upcoming Soda Smugglers, Skull is one of my favorite bluffing games thanks to its pure, tense gameplay for 3-6 players. It even earned itself a spot in my Top 10 Filler Games list (as well as the previously mentioned Parade and The Crew).

The rules are as follows: either add a coaster to your own stack facedown, or place a bid for how many coasters you think you can flip over without revealing a skull. Raising the bid sends out a signal to your opponents that your stack is safe and free of deadly skulls, but is it a false signal? If others call your bluff and leave you high and dry as the winning bidder, then your planted bluffing bomb can backfire!

It’s loud, funny, and fantastic. Just like any good party should be!

See current Skull deals from online retailers (not currently available directly from the publisher)

Bristol 1350 – $25

Bristol 1350 is a gorgeous game of wagon racing and Black Plague dodging from our friends over a Facade Games. This is the fourth game in their Dark Cities series featuring magnetic book boxes and social deduction in a grim period of history that allows 2-9 players.

I had the chance to help play and test Bristol 1350 back when it was a budding prototype, and the final production certainly packs a punch!

Support the Publisher—Buy Bristol 1350 directly from Facade Games

See current Bristol 1350 deals from online retailers

Sidereal Confluence – $70

I’ve got to be honest with you here… this one is absolutely not suited for your average Holiday Party. Sidereal Confluence is best for a tabletop gaming party where everyone comes expecting a meaty, strategic board game experience.

But boy, this one makes for a heck of an experience. Like Chinatown (recommended above), players will dive deep into simultaneous, real-time negotiation of anything and everything on the table. Only here, things are much more sprawling and complicated. Sidereal Confluence plays with up to 9 people, which is why it landed a spot on our Holiday Party board game recommendations. Just make sure you have an extra large table if you’re gathering 9 to play.

Support the Publisher—Buy Sidereal Confluence directly from WizKids

See current Sidereal Confluence deals from online retailers (I recommend you get the remastered edition pictured above, not the older version)

Decrypto – $23

Word clue games, such as the mega-hit Codenames, are all the rage these days, and for good reason! They’re usually social & casual, and they allow for creative personalities to spill into the gameplay.

Decrypto is one such game that is among our Top 10 Family Games and absolutely worthy of any party game collection. Two teams face off over multiple rounds as one player from each team crafts a code of clues that is easy enough for their team to decipher yet too tricky for their rivals to decode.

I’ve played it on over a dozen different occasions and still find it to be a killer experience. It even currently reigns supreme as the #1 ranked party game on Board Game Geek.

See current Decrypto deals from online retailers (not currently available directly from the publisher)

Rorschach – $30

Not two weeks ago I had the pleasure of trying Rorschach, the new family-friendly party game from Capstone Games and Deep Print Games. I’ll be sharing my full first impressions of this amusing little box next month, but here’s a little teaser for now:

In Rorschach, players are divided into two teams, and each team takes turns offering up a test subject who must connect three words to three inkblot images.  This is performed by placing tokens facedown onto the image cards that match the tokens which designate each topic card.  Then the group must guess which images the test subject connected to which words.  

At first, the inkblot images almost look roughly the same.  Merely a symmetrical smudge of black ink with some corners here or some squiggles there.  But thanks to the three face-up word cards which players are forced to use, the mind begins to fill in the blanks with details and silhouettes and settings that transform an incoherent mess into a tangible topic.  And it is within the cycle of these inkblot images starting out seemingly meaningless, irrelevant, and unrelated, but slowly coming to life with the help of one’s imagination that we find the magic of Rorschach.

Support the Publisher—Buy Rorschach directly from Capstone Games

See current Rorschach deals from online retailers

Gifts for the Hobbyist Board Gamer

Finally, we arrive at the meatiest section of all. No holiday board game gift guide is complete without solid recommendations for hobbyist gamers. If your gift receiver knows their Langs from their Knizias, their worker placements from their tableau builders, or if one of their favorite things to read is rulebooks, then these are the games for them…

Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile – $120

Much like Cole Wehrle’s other designs (Root, Pax Pamir, etc.), Oath is a game that is best suited for 4 or 5 gamers who love diving deep into a single design to explore its intricacies. If your gift receiver is one who never spends more than a couple plays on the latest hotness, then I suggest you keep on scrolling.

With the right group, Oath is a fascinating exploration of political powers, dynasties, and historiography. Players will spend sessions as Chancellor, citizens, and/or exiles competing to gain control of the kingdom through various objectives. Beyond the stunning production and whimsical artwork on display, every decision made by players has innovative ripple effects that influence the current game state as well as future plays. After only a few plays, this has quickly become one of my all-time favorite games.

Support the Publisher—Buy Oath directly from Leder Games

See current Oath deals from online retailers

Hansa Teutonica: Big Box – $50

On the opposite end of the spectrum from the shiny new Oath, here we have a tried and tested classic game which was recently reprinted in a regular sized box but titled Hansa Teutonica: Big Box. Despite its drab appearance, this game resides among the very best Euros thanks to its quick tempo and poignant player interaction. It’s so good that when I ranked my top board game releases of 2020, Hansa Teutonica: Big Box was number one!

On the surface, you’ll be placing out your merchants and establishing trading posts. But beneath it all you’ll be trying to outfox your opponents and take advantage of every little opportunity they give you to become the world’s greatest trader. This big box version provides plenty to explore with more game board maps that provide their own interesting wrinkles to the compelling core.

See current Hansa Teutonica: Big Box deals from online retailers (this game is not currently available directly from the publisher)

The Search for Planet X – $45

Perhaps your gamer prefers puzzly deduction over sprawling campaigns or classic Euros? Well then The Search for Planet X might just be perfect for them! Here you’ll use the help of a phone app to dole out clues to players in a smooth, flawless system where you can only blame yourself for any deductive errors.

Another benefit to this game is that each player can start at different difficulty levels (with more or less clues), thereby evening the playing field against more experienced players. It’s a fun puzzle to crack that comes highly recommended by yours truly.

Support the Publisher—Buy the Search for Planet X directly from Renegade Games

See current The Search for Planet X deals from online retailers

Beyond the Sun – $85

If there is any game on this list that is least likely to disappoint your gamer, it’s Beyond the Sun. That’s because this game has been the most popular new release I’ve shown all of my gaming friends. This futuristic, sci-fi game lets players develop technologies, colonize planets, and build an incredibly satisfying economic engine.

It was number fifteen on my top games of 2020… but since making that list, it has only gotten better with each play, and an updated version of that list would rank Beyond the Sun much higher. Between the collaborative tech track and aggressive planet board, there is something here for everyone.

See current Beyond the Sun deals from online retailers (this game is not available directly from the publisher, and it is expected to have a retailer restock in October)

Iberian Gauge – $40

It’s hard to resist the allure of a good box cover, and artist Ian O’Toole knows how to bring out best in a cube rails game. Iberian Gauge comes to us hot off the assembly line from the creators of Irish Gauge (illustrator O’Toole, designer Amabel Holland, and publisher Capstone Games). For those who aren’t familiar, cube rails games tend to feature simple rules (only 1 sheet of paper), shared incentives, stock opportunities, and network building goodness.

Iberian Gauge features an interesting balance of railroad investments and expenditures where the money you pay for stock becomes that company’s budget for expansion. The mix of strategy and tactics within this Iron Rail series (Iberian Gauge being the third in the series) has never failed to engage me. This one will surely make for a slim & slick gift.

Support the Publisher—But Iberian Gauge directly from Capstone Games

See current Iberian Gauge deals from online retailers

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 2021 Holiday Board Game Gift Guide appeared first on Bitewing Games.

My latest first impressions of new board game releases span from ambitious epics to Knizian comebacks… Let’s jump right into it!

Disclosure: Bitewing Games is publisher of Reiner Knizia (and eventually other designers) games, and any opinions shared on other games are subject to possible personal bias. As with all our content, we do our best to share our honest personal experiences & opinions as fans of the hobby, and we leave the rest for you to decide whether a game is a good fit.

Equinox

3 Plays

I was hesitant to experience my very first play of Equinox at only 2-players, but it turned out to be far more interesting and aggressive than expected.  It turns out that this one works well at any player count.

When I think of betting games, what first comes to mind is loud, bombastic, social activities such as Camel Up.  Equinox is none of these things, but what it lacks in noise and showmanship it makes up for in cutthroat cleverness.

Eight creatures, known as “Champions,” are competing to become legends, but only three will avoid fading into oblivion.  Players take turns adding one creature card to the current row from their hand, and the moment all the spots are filled in, the creature with the lowest value played into that row is eliminated for the rest of the game.  Then play moves down a row, rinse and repeat.

On top of that, you can start your turn by placing one of your five precious betting stones on any space in the current row that does not already contain a stone.  The higher up rows will pay out bigger points to the bets on creatures that survive to the end, but big early bets also make for big easy targets.  If you place a couple big betting stones high up on a cute little creature, you might as well be putting a giant target on its back and a hefty bounty on its head.  So it’s obviously best to save your bets for safer rows, right?  Well… not exactly.

Each of the creatures provides a unique special ability to the player who has the biggest bets on them, and that’s typically the player who bet earliest.  So every time I play a Funguy the mushroom card, he activates the power of another creature who has been eliminated—powers that are normally lost forever as their poor champion fades into a forgotten limbo.  Other creature powers include discarding a card that is currently in competition, claiming a card back into your hand, shifting cards around, pulling back your betting stone… basically all kinds of things to save or sabotage the creatures that you and your opponents have bet your precious stones on. 

With only eight of the fourteen creatures and their abilities utilized in a single game, there is loads to explore and agonize over in this colorfully cutthroat playground.  I find myself getting so invested in the success of one creature and the downfall of another that I sometimes forget that I still have more betting stones to place.  I feel so enticed by the champion’s abilities that I have to remind myself to save some of that creature’s cards for later rounds.  I get so greedy with saving the great cards in my hand for the best moment that I put the very safety of my own champions in jeopardy.

All this juicy goodness, and we’ve only scratched the surface of all the brilliant wrinkles in the gameplay including secret bets, wild chameleon cards, impactful tree cards, and more.  I could toss out some minor production complaints including the functionally pointless and confusing cloth bags (they’re merely used to identify a player’s color, not for storing the tokens in the box or touching ever during the game…), the far too large and unwieldy cards (this game takes up the whole table and requires thorough shuffling and sorting during setup and teardown), the wordy rulebook with a lack of succinct player aids, etc., but at the end of the day I still love Equinox.  

This is a beautiful betting game whose whimsically indulgent production expertly disguises the pile of daggers lurking underneath—meant for plunging into each other’s backs after using them to flay the adorable creatures who just want to be loved.  A fine game, indeed.

Current Rating: 8.5/10

Stellar

1 Play

Stellar is the tagalong younger sibling of The Search for Planet X in that they both came from publishing parent Renegade Games in the same year and they share a similar theme of astronomy.  Yet this quick, 2-player card game is not at all a deduction game and its drafting and set collection gameplay is entirely abstract.

The interesting challenge of Stellar lies within the turn structure where a player drafts a card into their hand and then plays a card from their hand into either their telescope or their notebook, and whatever number they play at one of those two locations determines which other card (from the drafting slots) must be played into the opposite area.  So if I play a 5 card onto my telescope, then I must take the card in slot 5 and play that into my notebook.

The notebook and telescope each contain their own restrictions and objectives.  The notebook is the more straightforward of the two, where you are simply trying to build a run of each card’s suit.  Each run will become a score multiplier for the matching cards that are played out onto your 12-space telescope.  Matching suits must be adjacent on the telescope, and the high value cards compete for majority points against your rival while the low value cards grant more star points for your multiplier.

The game becomes a puzzle of which card to play where and when to maximize points.  Every turn boils down to a very mathy exercise of sums and multipliers to find the optimal sequence of drafting and playing.  While mathing out efficiencies can certainly make for an engaging game, Stellar almost relies on it too heavily in hopes of disguising its dull arc.

The setup starts players on completely different trajectories, where each person has two different suits from their opponent in their notebook and telescope.  While I can certainly spend my turn snatching away golden opportunities from you, those types of drafts often accomplish nothing substantial for my own score.  The only tangible tension here comes from the majority competition for three separate sections of your telescope where the highest sum of card values in each section wins ten bonus points.  Otherwise, you’re simply drafting and playing what’s optimal for you and I’m doing the same for me.  Eventually we’ll get to the end and simply find out who had the more optimal options across their turns.

Any competition, tension, and push-your-luck card play here all taste too bland for Stellar to provide a distinct or addictive flavor.  Unfortunately, the recycling optimization puzzle of each turn isn’t strong enough on its own merits to keep us hungry for more.  We already have plenty of incredible 2-player card games to feast upon, and so I struggle to find a reason why I should reserve room on my plate for Stellar.

Current Rating: 5.5/10

Kemet: Blood & Sand

2 Plays

Kemet: Blood & Sand rounds out my journey through Matagot’s legendary trilogy of “troops on a map” games, and this journey of mine has certainly ended with a bang!  My introductory game was Inis, which quickly became my absolute favorite game for many months, and it remains in my top 15 of all time.  My next exposure was with Cyclades, which I certainly played and enjoyed a few times but ultimately purged from my collection due to the many other options that do area control or auctions even better.  But I was all in on Matagot’s updated version of Kemet when the Blood & Sand kickstarter launched.

With the long wait finally over and the game spread out on our table, we were instantly impressed with their ambitious vision now come to fruition.  Large chunky miniatures are complemented by interlocking pyramids, personal reference guides, convenient trays, and useful side boards.  As I shared in my Kickstarter Case Study, this campaign had it’s fair share of bumps and bruises along the path to funding.  And the final product isn’t without its flaws (significant rulebook errors and unimaginative game board art in particular), but the entire package still comes together extremely well, especially thanks to the juicy experience at its core.

Kemet remains a titan among area control games thanks to its slick, streamlined turns mingled with sprawling power tile possibilities across a relentlessly aggressive sandy canvas.  I’m not familiar with all the changes here, but I understand that the Blood & Sand reimplementation improves the end game victory condition, the turn order determination, and countless balancing aspects to make for a tighter gaming package.  Plus it includes parts of the original’s expansions, so what’s not to love here?

Unlike the passive-aggressive slow-burn strategery of Inis, Kemet opts for blinding, popping, crackling, and booming conflict like a relentless fireworks show of battles.  The fate of conflict isn’t left to mere chance… there’s not even a single dice to be found in this box.  Rather, players must outwit their opponents by navigating their identical hands of battle cards most efficiently with the help of purchased tiles, summoned creatures, recruited troops, and drawn divine interventions.  Blood & Sand includes a most welcome score board of growing permanent points and shifting temporary points as competitors inch their way to the finish line of 9 or more points.

The massively enticing spread of power tiles is blessedly accompanied by an exciting personal menu where players browse their purchasing options before claiming any of the wonderful abilities that always feel uniquely, terrifyingly overpowered.  One tile comes with a giant scorpion who acts as a your personal wrecking ball against other troops.  Another comes with the freedom to recruit as many units as you want at no cost—a mind-boggling ability.  From extra strength to extra mobility to extra actions to extra discounts, players quickly diverge and specialize into powerful factions bred for Egyptian dominance.  This endless array of combinable technologies means that no two games of Kemet will ever feel alike.

In our most recent game, I found myself gunning for a brutally defensive strategy. Early on I acquired a tile that let me look at the battle card my opponent would commit to a battle before deciding which card I would play. This made for a delicious combo with another tile that gave me an invaluable point for winning any battle as the defender—something that’s normally not possible. I also welcomed in a beastly snake to one of my troops that canceled out the powerful abilities of my opponents’ beasts. Finally, I acquired the freedom to recruit as many units as I desired for free whenever I took that action. This strategy meant that I could completely abandon my valuable pyramids and go on a hunt for the easiest points while not worrying about the massive target I was putting on my back. Players would frequently have to throw multiple battalions at one of my troops to break down my defenses, scoring me points for every attack they lost. Furthermore, blasting me off the map just meant that I would be right back on the board with my full force next time I recruited.

This is merely one of the infinite power tile combinations a player can pursue in this aggressively epic game. Every aspect of Kemet: Blood & Sand reeks with proud ambition, yet this arrogance is justified in every regard.  Kemet is the ultimate “troops on a map” game that all other flamboyant, miniature-based war games so desperately try to be.  It makes its players feel both insanely powerful and dangerously vulnerable with all the grace and ease of a strategic Euro.

Current Rating: 9.5/10

Tutankhamun

2 Plays

After our first session at two players, Tutankhamun wasn’t quite doing it for me. Fortunately, I was also able to try it at four players, where we found more of the magic within. This new reimplementation of an older design contains a similar core concept as Knizia’s Sumatra and Whale Riders in that it utilizes a one-way track for collecting sets of tokens.

Here, players are cruising along the Nile, picking up artifacts along the way to offer to the deceased Pharaoh’s tomb for points.  First person to hit the set number of points wins.  Player turns proceed in clockwise order, and you can either move your boat to the tile immediately behind you or as far forward as you’d like, and whatever tile you stop on is the one you’ll claim.  The proceedings are precisely as simple as you’d expect from the good Doctor.

Set collection scoring is a contest of majorities, where whoever has the most tiles of a type once the last one comes off the Nile will score the designated number of points, second place scores half, and ties go in favor of whoever is furthest behind along the Nile.  While there are three different types of artifacts that contain an 8 on them, this number means that there are 8 of that unique artifact and the majority possessor of each will score 8 points.  The same is true for the 6, 4, and 2 value sets.  So the big point tiles take longer to trigger their scoring and require more effort to claim majority over.

There are of course some interesting wrinkles here including ring artifacts that only score 1 point each but do so immediately when claimed and grant 5 bonus points to the person with the most.  There are also God Idol tiles which trigger an immediate ability when claimed, usually good for manipulating the position of tiles along the Nile or trading or discarding a tile.  Also, any tiles that get left behind by all players will end up in the Underworld which can trigger immediate scoring if the last tile of a type leaves the Nile.  The game even includes an essential 2-player variant where the Underworld tiles compete with the two players for majority points.  

Yet with all these interesting wrinkles, our initial experience with Tutankhamun was sadly too dull, too loose, and too slow.  This becomes even more blindingly apparent when contrasted against the similar 2021 release: Whale Riders.  

This is going to sound ironic, but Whale Riders maintains a tense tempo and a rapid pace due to the movement restrictions, while Tutankhamun features grinding gameplay and sluggish speed due to its movement freedom.  In Whale Riders, I’m not all that worried about which exact tiles my opponents want next because I don’t even know what contracts they are trying to fulfill; rather, I’m simply focused on maximizing my own action efficiency at my current space or the next one while applying a tangible pressure of pace on my rivals.  In Tutankhamun, I have to count the number of each tile type that I have, the numbers that my opponents have, and survey the entire river of tiles to determine where the next best spot is for me.  This makes Tutankhamun two-to-three times as long while being mechanically more basic than Whale Riders.  

That’s not a good look for what is otherwise a very good-looking game.  25th Century Games has done a nice job with the production and table presence, whether you have the basic or deluxe version (although the components do get pointlessly overindulgent in some areas). The use of score markers that slot along the box bottom and circle Tutankhamun’s tomb with the winding river tiles leading up to it make for a delicious table presence. The art is lush and vibrant, yet some of the clarity between different artifact tiles is sacrificed in favor of saturated colors, leading to more time spent surveying and differentiating the tiles. Whether the overall look is worth the extra hassle and cost will depend on one’s personal preference.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to me is how the God Idol tiles have floundered in our plays. The Kickstarter version came with eight different types of God Idol tiles, and in both games they have been largely ignored inconveniences. I label them inconveniences because they offer no visual aids or reminders to their unique and specific functions. Each tile is simply a god’s face, and these faces are also found across two different reference cards, one of them being double-sided. It becomes a hassle to look up the function of a particular God Idol multiple times in a game when it shows up once early on and again much later by scanning three different surfaces of cards and re-reading the paragraph of rules for the matching god. One might wish that the majestic faces of these gods could have been replaced with helpful iconography to circumvent the frequent reference card reading.

But the bigger problem here is how the God Idol tiles have been largely ignored. Perhaps there’s a deeper layer to them lurking beneath our current strategies, but at the moment it seems almost always a better move to simply take an artifact tile that will help you gain more points rather than take a tile that merely causes a minor manipulation of the board state. What results is a growing pile of neglected God Idol tiles in the Underworld of shame.

So I was reluctant to devote more precious tabletop time to Tutankhamun after an underwhelming start. But another opportunity presented itself in the form of a 4-player game with my sister and brother-in-law joining my wife and I. As I should have predicted, there was certainly more here than our maiden voyage presented. We found with four players that tile majorities and boat movement offered far more tense and interesting decisions than at two. Within this play, I could see why 25th Century chose to bring back Tutankhamun as a solid offering in the family game genre, even if it doesn’t click for us at two players..

Despite a pleasantly surprising comeback, the harsh reality is that Tutankhamun and Whale Riders are both family-weight 2021 releases about sailing along a watery route to collect sets of tiles and score points. Whale Riders presents a better tempo, tension, range, polish, and flexibility within a speedier package that makes it difficult for Tutankhamun to compete for attention in our collection. I suppose playing Tutankhamun feels a tad too much like I’m slowly meandering down a river with nothing extremely interesting to look at besides endless piles of sand… but at least it’s warm and sunny!

Current Rating: 6.5/10

Oath

4 Plays

Leder Games has removed the leashes from designer Cole Wehrle and artist Kyle Ferrin and let them run amok with the creation of Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile.  Fortunately, both of these legends of the industry knew exactly what they were doing when they concocted this strange beast of a game.

Oath takes the colorful, cutthroat charm of Root and mixes it with the vast strategic possibilities of Pax Pamir while amping up the narrative volume to eleven.  Cole Wehrle stays true to his design philosophy and even doubles down on it here by tossing out the industry playbook of maximizing fairness and fun in favor of broadening the game’s emotional range.  Collusion, cooperation, betrayal, kingmaking, savagery, politicking, secrecy, gambling, deflecting, destruction, thievery, prosperity, and more are interwoven with the gorgeous components of Oath.

There are plenty of hurdles to overcome if gamers wish to immerse themselves in this wacky, wonderful world.  A steep upfront price, a daunting learning and teaching experience, an astute rules referee, the perfect selection of compatible gaming friends, a clear opportunity for regular plays, and a collective enjoyment of the journey over the destination.  It’ll take a lot of sheer willpower for some gamers to find the pot of gold at the end of this rocky rainbow.

But Leder Games is one of the best in the business when it comes to giving broad appeal to a complex game.  Rulebooks, walkthroughs, references, and guides galore go a long way in smoothing out this game with intentionally rough edges.  Thoughtful, zany, hilarious, and mesmerizing art remind you that it’s ok to have a knife plunged into your back every now and then by those you once thought friends.  Screen-printed characters, masterful interlocking metal coins, gorgeous blue books of secrets, and a sprawling kingdom across a breathtaking neoprene mat make every penny spent feel unflinchingly worthwhile.

One can’t possibly pin Oath down to a single core mechanism, especially when every game is unbelievably unique.  While one play feels like an auctioning tug-of-war, the next feels like an exploration adventure.  The world can be ablaze with battles in one game before pivoting into a passive-aggressive game of chicken in the next.  The empire may grow into a seemingly insurmountable power with an endless reach after one session yet be completely obliterated by an exile-concocted apocalypse merely one generation later.  There is simply no predicting what will happen next in this game with so many impactful sites, and exciting cards, and devious relics, and tangling victory objectives… and that prospect of a genuine sandbox experience with dynamic ripple effects should make every other board game on this planet tremble in fear.

In Oath, players don’t recreate history, they write it.  They don’t follow a pre-planned trail, they pave it.  Legacy games hide their faces in shame as Oath provides true consequences for its actions and organic adventures for it participants.

Current Rating: 10/10

You’ve probably noticed that we explore and enjoy a lot of games by the legendary Reiner Knizia here, even if we don’t absolutely love all of them. Yet there are three Knizia designs that we’ve loved so much that we decided to devote our time, energy, and resources to bring them to life for YOU.

Next month, we are launching a Kickstarter project for Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection featuring Soda Smugglers, Pumafiosi, and Hot Lead. We hand picked these three 20-minute card games from a treasure trove of fresh, unpublished Knizia designs because we love to play them, and we think you will to. But the only way these delightful games are getting published is with your help!

Subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter so you don’t miss out on the upcoming Kickstarter campaign. We deeply appreciate your support in helping us to create and share classy board games that bite.

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 Candid Cardboard: 1st Impressions of Oath, Kemet: Blood & Sand, Equinox, and more! appeared first on Bitewing Games.