Elegance is a word that we gamers love to toss around like a baseball at the park.  Perhaps we are guilty of overusing this word and stretching it to fit all shapes and sizes (myself included).  Yet, it’s hard to argue with the appeal of an elegant game. But what is elegance, anyway?  What does it look like?  How does it feel?

If I had to really put my finger on it, I would say that…. gazelles are elegant.  Hot air balloons are elegant. Humpback whales are elegant. Banana splits are elegant.  Why? Well, they have majestic, balanced, brilliant, smooth dignity about them. That’s elegance, right?

So how are board games elegant?  To me, an elegant board game has simple gameplay with intricate ramifications.  They’re a tidy wardrobe on the outside and a world of Narnia on the inside. They’re a puddle from above and Atlantis from below.  They minimize the bookkeeping and maximize the strategizing. They contain low complexity rules with high complexity consequences. Let’s talk about some examples…

Dr. Reiner Knizia is extremely skilled at crafting this kind of thing.  One of his newer designs, The Quest for El Dorado, is a game that combines deck building with racing across a map.  This combination alone should theoretically result in a mess of rules, yet he somehow managed to cram almost everything you need to know about the rules onto tiny player boards.  I can hand a newcomer one of these player boards and teach them the rules in the blink of an eye.  Before we know it, we’ll all be scrambling across the wilderness seeking the fastest path to El Dorado in a tense and engaging game with so many hidden complexities tucked away behind a streamlined experience.

Dr. Knizia was accomplishing this same style of elegance decades earlier with games like his famous masterpiece, Tigris & Euphrates.  This game, once again, contains almost everything you need to know on the back of each player shield.  Your options boil down to 4 simple actions: place a tile, position a leader, replace tiles from your hand, place a catastrophe tile.  Where things get wild is that the simple act of placing a tile or leader can bring about massive wars, dramatic revolts, huge payoffs, strategic divides, lucrative monuments, and much more.  Thanks to the simplicity of the actions, players are racking their brains through an interactive high-stakes puzzle rather than untangling their minds or autopiloting their pieces through a cascade of menial chores and unintuitive steps.

One can’t speak of elegant board games without mentioning the magnificent Concordia.  This medium-weight Euro with a wealth of strategic juiciness amounts to only FOUR PAGES of rules.  The management, depth, and balance found within the cards is a masterclass in board game design. Whenever I find myself playing a clumsy, complicated, or unintuitive Euro, I always come away from that game wondering why I didn’t just play Concordia instead.

One great Euro that I eventually burned out on was Teotihuacan: City of Gods, due to its excessive bookkeeping and tangle of turn steps.  People (myself included) constantly forget to move a token up a temple track, move a token up the avenue of the dead track, move a token up the pyramid track, upgrade a die, pay a cocoa, shift the eclipse marker, etc., etc., etc., and the fiddliness is a noticeable dampener on the fun.  It feels as though I always spend more time running the game than playing it.  By the time we’ve scored the final points and determined the winner, my brain is so exhausted that the last thing I want to do is put the thousands of tokens back into the dozens of bags.  I prefer much more thinking, strategizing, and planning than bookkeeping, and Teotihuacan struggles to provide this for me.

An elegant board game is, to me, a combination of streamlined rules, intuitive graphic design, simple gameplay, and complex ramifications.  Blend me a smoothie of these crisp fruits of elegance and I’ll slurp it right up! Yet nothing may taste sweeter than a game with evocative art…

Tune in next week for Tabletop Tastes #7: Sweet Evocative Art

LOOKING FOR MORE CRISP GAMES WITH ELEGANT DESIGNS? TRY REFRESHING YOURSELF WITH ONE OF THESE:

• Elegant Fillers: Love Letter, For Sale, Startups
• Elegant Euros: El Grande, Isle of Skye, Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done
• Elegant 2-Players: Hanamikoji, Jaipur, The Fox in the Forest
• Elegant Abstracts: Azul, Sagrada, Onitama
• Elegant Classics: Modern Art, Carcassonne, Dominion
• Elegant Recent Releases: Cryptid, Wingspan, Wavelength

What games do you find to be crisp and elegant?

The post Tabletop Tastes #6: Crisp Elegance appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Have you ever opened a box and discovered a dementor emerging from it to give you the dreaded kiss of death as all light and hope is vacuumed from your body?  Even worse, have you ever bitten into a tasty looking sandwich only to encounter a mouthful of soggy bread? I have… several times. These boxes or “sandwiches” were called things such as Phase 10, Betrayal at House on the Hill, Mexican Train, Monopoly, and more.

Some games just make me die inside, and the ones that do it best are the ones that completely lack meaningful decisions.  If the game is playing me and my actions are on autopilot, then I might as well be soulless. But I’ve found that meaningful decisions are not always a black and white affair.  There are plenty of games that get stuck in that gray area of mildly amusing yet ultimately hollow decisions.

My most recent hollow encounter with a somewhat soggy game was the 25-year-old classic known as Take 5 or 6 Nimmt! It comes close to hitting that sweet spot with its simple gameplay and suspenseful reveals. The issue is that there is not enough structure to the design where choices feel clever or victories feel earned. You see a player have to “take 5” because of the card they revealed, but no other player reaps the psychological reward of directly causing their opponent’s misfortune. The game is not tight enough to be able to take calculated risks or make clever predictions.

For Sale, on the other hand, absolutely wipes the floor with Take 5. It is likewise a filler card game from the 90s with simple gameplay and suspenseful reveals… but For Sale’s decision space has a real crunch. In the first phase, a set of houses is auctioned off each round where passing earns you the lowest house of the set (at half the price of your stopping bid) while the highest bidder pays full price for the best house of the set. One must bid wisely during the first phase, as leftover money counts as points; furthermore, the houses in your hand are then sold for even more points in secret auctions where selling a better house relative to your opponents will earn you a better money card. This tasty combination of bluffing and bidding morph an appetizer game into a fantastic feast of fun.

One game that I love to appreciate but not to play is Flamme Rouge.  From a design standpoint, the game is a delight. The rules and mechanisms form a sweet melody of authentic cycling; the winding track and classy bikers stir the heart with their thematic charm.  Unfortunately, from a decision standpoint, this game lacks purpose and thrill. Each turn feels a bit too arbitrary and random as players are unable to predict their opponents and can only hope to succeed at the single interesting decision of the game: when to start sprinting.  The game succeeds at being safe family fun, but not in making me feel clever or keeping me fully engaged. At least if you asked me to play Flamme Rouge, I would rarely turn down the opportunity to enjoy this mildly amusing bike race… unfortunately, the same can’t be said for Betrayal at House on the Hill.

Betrayal is the Toby Flenderson to my Michael Scott in every conceivable way.  This average, unassuming game somehow manages to suck my soul from my body and rid me of all happiness and hope.  Fun theme and concept aside, the game amounts to moving, stopping, drawing a card to discover what happened to you, and rolling some dice to determine a result. Now you can decide to move upstairs or downstairs… you can decide to move left or right… you can decide whether you want to try to win or try to lose… but that is unfortunately as deep as the well goes. Never did I encounter a tough decision, an interesting puzzle, a tricky situation. Never did I feel clever, crafty, or mentally stimulated.  If you want an experience where random thematic stuff happens to you and your friends until somebody eventually pulls out the win, then you may enjoy Betrayal. As for me, I will keep singing, “Goodbye, Toby!” as I have no intention of seeing this one again.

I prefer experiences that frequently allow me to take a calculated leap of faith.  Who doesn’t love that feeling a game offers when every option of a decision feels too essential to reject, yet only one can be selected?  Or when a seemingly simple choice makes you hesitate as you realize the ripple effect it can have? There is something about the agony of those decisions that hurts so good.

My top games with meaningful decisions would no doubt include Arboretum with its tight scoring qualifications and juicy hand management, Tigris & Euphrates with its deep well of action ramifications from the simple placement of a tile, A Feast for Odin with its wide sandbox of worker placement fun and tasty challenge of covering the dozens of negative victory points, and Inis with its clever balancing act between passing to gain hand advantage and playing to gain board momentum.

I recently had the chance to try 2019’s Watergate which was a complete playground of meaningful decisions.  Each card provides an opportunity to play it for token movement along the tug-of-war track or for a unique event that may result in the card being trashed due to its one-time use limit.  Determining the specific benefits and sequence to use from your hand feels critical in staying one step ahead of your nemesis.

Gugong is another example that takes itself from good to fantastic with the luscious decision space it provides.  The gift cards are where the game really shines. One must decide the best order and location to play out these cards, and the mechanisms surrounding how and when you can play them are the beating heart of this clever worker placement style game. Gugong entices you with a constant stream of good reasons to exchange one gift for another…. the action locations, the card actions, the destiny dice, the cards available to claim, the cheap action opportunities, barring other players from an action, etc. It’s an exquisite flow of sneaky cultural corruption across a well-balanced expanse of interesting options.

While every game in my diet needs to have interesting choices, because I dread a soggy-sandwich game that lacks meaningful decisions, the most memorable ones often contain theme-inspired mechanisms.

Click on to explore Tabletop Tastes #5: Juicy Theme-Inspired Mechanisms

LOOKING FOR MORE GAMES WITH A CRUNCHY DECISION SPACE? TRY CHOMPING ON ONE OF THESE:

• Optimization Decisions: Scythe, Brass: Birmingham, Concordia
• Gut-Feeling Decisions: The Mind, The Quacks of Quedlinburg, Skull
• Deep Strategy Decisions: Onitama, Tzaar, Samurai
• Risky Decisions: The Estates, Treasure Island, Startups
• Costly Decisions: Patchwork, PARKS, Isle of Skye
• Sandbox Decisions: Five Tribes, Great Western Trail, Dominion

What games give you the crunchy decision space you need?

The post Tabletop Tastes #4: Crunchy Meaningful Decisions appeared first on Bitewing Games.

We all have our own preferences for how to have a good time.  Some prefer to savor the peaceful moments of serenity, while others hunger for the rowdy and wild.  For many, our appetite consists of a wide spectrum that allows room for variety and mood.

Hobby gamers likewise have their own individual palates for tabletop games.  The more games they sample, the further their taste buds develop. With enough exposure, one can begin to recognize a pattern between their experiences.  The bitter taste of a dud becomes repulsively discernible, and the sweet familiar aroma of a hit can reach the nostrils of hype before a cardboard box even hits the table.

After basking in many blasts and enduring some busts myself, I’ve begun to identify what exactly makes one game sing and another game flop for me.  The most recent board game taste I’ve acquired, or perhaps more fittingly discovered, is that of objective tension.

Spicy – Tension of Objectives

I love when a game provides a framework that allows for spicy tension.  This framework can take many forms…

• The end-game elimination of the highest overall bidder in Q.E.
• The suspense of needing to remove your opponent’s disc from the board while strategically placing your own in Crokinole
• The round-ending emergence of the third dragon card from the draw pile of Ethnos
• The game-ending placement of a player’s sixth star in Scythe
• The anticipation of drawing the perfect tile in Carcassonne
• The pressure of earning more points in your weakest category of Tigris & Euphrates.

To me, games that completely lack tension feel less like games and more like activities.  There’s nothing wrong with gathering a group of friends for a tension-free activity, as such things can foster creativity, strengthen relationships, and make memories… but none of those things are unique to gaming.  Indeed, the thing that sets a game apart from most other activities is the tension.

Now on the surface, it may seem like a game requires player interaction in order to have tension.  How can the rope be taut if there is no tug of war? Well, it’s funny, because I didn’t notice my preference for tension until I recognized it in one of the most solitaire genres of all: the Roll & Write.

I discovered my need for tension after trying Cartographers and coming away underwhelmed from the experience.  This is a solid game that has received plenty of positive buzz from many gamers that I usually agree with. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed trying the most popular roll & write style games from Railroad Ink to Welcome To, from That’s Pretty Clever to On Tour.  Cartographers appeared to have all the right ingredients plus even more: some player interaction, variable scoring objectives, variable setup, etc. Coming into the game, I figured these unique elements would make it stand out among other great games in the genre, but my hopes were dashed after giving it a go.

What do Railroad Ink, Welcome To, That’s Pretty Clever, and On Tour all have that Cartographers doesn’t?  I believe the answer is: TENSION.

Railroad Ink, Welcome To, and On Tour all have the tension of pushing your luck, adapting your strategy, and straining for the “just one more” of objectives or bonuses.  This tension is palpable thanks to the balance between obvious risks and tempting benefits. That’s Pretty Clever has the tension of selecting one die for yourself while giving up other dice to your opponents, of deciding when to save or spend your abilities, of being enticed to do everything.

Cartographers somehow lacks this similar tension. It trades tension for a continual stream of points across a too wide canvas of options and possibilities.  Where players quickly understand what to predict, what to bet on, and what to desperately hope for in the above mentioned games, Cartographers was too random and unknown for us to really take risks or bask in payoffs.  I don’t mean to put down a clearly well-made game. But, I’m always interested in defining and discovering the reasons why a game does or doesn’t work for me. Ask me about any of my top 50 games, and I’ll describe to you the fiery tension it provides.  I might also be able to tell you about memorable wins and salty losses with family members or friends, especially if the game is highly interactive.

Click on to explore the next episode of Tabletop Tastes: Salty Player Interaction

Looking for more tension-filled games? Check out one of these:

• Cooperative Tension: Mysterium, The Mind, Hanabi
• Bluffing Tension: Skull, Tortuga 1667, Treasure Island
• Dexterity Tension: KLASK, Junk Art, Men at Work
• Quick-Thinking Tension: Trophies, Magic Maze, Insider
• Strategic Tension: Brass: Birmingham, Viticulture, El Grande
• Conflict Tension: Inis, Root, Pax Pamir (Second Edition)
• Deduction Tension: Love Letter, Cryptid, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
• Racing Tension: The Quest for El Dorado, Downforce, Clank!
• 2-player Tension: Jaipur, Combo Fighter, Onitama
• Push Your Luck Tension: Ra, King of Tokyo, The Quacks of Quedlinburg

Tell us about your tabletop tastes!

What are your favorite tension-filled games? Do you like the spicy heat that tension can provide, or do you prefer a cool, chill experience? Comment below!

The post Tabletop Tastes #1: Spicy Tension appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Introduction

I dove into the deep end of the board game community over a year ago. With helpful guides including Shut Up & Sit Down’s recommended games, The Dice Tower’s Top 100, Board Game Geek (BGG) rankings, Geekbuddy comments, and more, my hunt has led me through the “Cult of the New”, Cult of the Classic, and many games in between.

I’ve played and purchased more board games in the past year than I have in my entire life, and it has been a blast! The true catalyst that launched me into the hobby was when I discovered a passion for designing board games during the summer of 2018. My experience learning and playing new-to-me tabletop games has been one of both research and adventure, discovery and inspiration. As I’ve sought to feed my creative drive, I’ve also uncovered an explorative hunger and developed a personal palate. Playing board games and creating board games are cyclical interests for me that have consumed much of my free time since they began.

So while I feel my understanding of the board game industry is well researched and experienced on one hand, I realize my complete amateur status on the other. Perhaps my perspective will offer you something new to consider, and I certainly hope you won’t hesitate to offer me suggestions as well.  

If you feel we may have similar tastes, and you have a BGG account, please feel free to add me as a Geekbuddy! I’m always eager to hear what you fine folks think of any games I am curious about, and I’ve found the Geekbuddy tool to be invaluable in narrowing down my wishlist. It’s also possible that your suggestion for me is already on my wishlist, so check out my most anticipated new-to-me games list!

So without further adO, I present to you my current Top 50 Games!

#50 Roll for the Galaxy

Recommended for: Gamers

I seem to like this game more every time I play it. Always engaging and interesting with loads of variety. The rules and symbols can seem intimidating at first, but the player shields contain basically all the information you need to play the game (and remember the rules). Very well done production.

I realize how popular Terraforming Mars is, but Roll for the Galaxy is my preferred space engine builder thanks to its zippy play time, better production, and higher fun factor.

#49 Skull

Recommended for: Everyone

Skull is a game of bluffing filtered down into its purest form. I love those moments when I can get on a roll and make my opponents feel like I am reading them like a book.

If you enjoy bluffing games like Poker, but you want a game that throws out everything but the good old bluffing, then Skull is for you!

#48 Takenoko

Recommended for: Everyone

Fantastic family game. We absolutely love the theme and components; the presentation is a home-run. The feeling of watering bamboo tiles to build bamboo towers and moving the Panda to eat bamboo comes together so nicely.

The event die is interesting in how it encourages players to adapt their strategy on each turn.

There is definitely a significant amount of luck involved in drawing the right or wrong objective cards (especially late in the game). This can make some plays quite frustrating for competitive players.

The Takenoko: Chibis expansion helps with mitigating some bad luck and adds some really interesting mechanics to the game, so I would suggest getting the expansion if you enjoy the base game.

#47 The Quest for El Dorado

Recommended for: Everyone

There’s something about this game that is so slick, streamlined, and satisfying. Perhaps the obvious answer is: Reiner Knizia. I love how this deck-builder makes you plan ahead and consider the long-term consequences of buying all those machete cards when a dense area of water and villages lie ahead in the distance.

There’s also something to be said of a game that contains all the essential rules on the thin rectangular player boards, making for an easy-breezy teach leading to an epic, tense race.

The Quest for El Dorado has served as a major case-study and inspiration for the snowboarding deck-builder that I’ve been designing myself.

#46  The Fox in the Forest

Recommended for: Everyone

I grew up playing Rook from time to time with relatives. Having an auction based on your hand of cards always felt like such a clever way to mitigate luck in a trick-taking game. It never occurred to me that losing a trick could be just as much fun as winning a trick.

Enter The Fox in the Forest. I love how players can spend early tricks baiting their opponent, testing the waters, while late tricks find them desperately struggling to balance their wins and losses. Man, I need to play this again.

As I’ve been designing a trick-taking game inspired by hot air balloon competitions, The Fox in the Forest has been instrumental in helping me refine the mechanisms of my design.

#45 Startups

Recommended for: Everyone

I picked up Startups very recently (thanks to the fine folks at SU&SD), and found it to be delightfully similar to Arboretum. Both games reward clever hand management among calculated discards and well-timed plays. Startups is certainly the milder of the two, but still a solid card game I’m hungry to play again.

Startups is also my introductory game to Oink Games; their minimalist design and production is actually quite charming, in my opinion. I stumbled across Startups in a random board game store while out of town, and now Insider is next on my list to try. I’m also quite familiar with the famous A Fake Artist Goes to New York, although I haven’t played it, as it shares some similarities with a party game that my wife and I have in the works.

#44 Dominion (Second Edition)

Recommended for: Everyone

Dominion reminds me of a good bowl of vanilla ice cream. It’s nothing flashy, but it’s a fine-tuned base of deck-building that seemingly goes well with almost anything. Sometimes it’s just nice to go back to some smooth, quick simplicity and bask in Old Faithful.

To me, this game has plenty of tension within the decision space of cards to purchase and cards combinations you hope to draw; but for those looking for more player interaction, it seems that the later deck-builders it inspired fill this need better. I’m particularly enamored with Arctic Scavengers adding in the option to save a card for combat (even as a bluff) rather than play or discard it; this particular mechanism fits perfectly into my snowboarding deck builder design of storing cards as a snowball stash.

#43 Watergate

Recommended for: Everyone

Watergate captures and streamlines the element of tension that I’ve so come to love in my favorite games. This is the only game that I don’t own and haven’t played multiple times (yet), but it left a massive first impression with its novel historical theme and focused gameplay. I love that the cards have multiple uses and provide a deeper decision space beyond just deciding which card to play but how to play them.

#42 Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Recommended for: Everyone

Deception takes the ever popular Werewolf/Mafia style of social deduction gameplay, combines it with the basic premise of Clue, and gives it just enough mechanical framework to satisfy everyone involved. The cognitive deducers can feel clever as they narrow down the probable weapon and key evidence, and the social influencers can steer the discussion and cast suspicion.

#41 Decrypto

Recommended for: Everyone

Decrypto blows the ever popular Codenames out of the water for me. I love how the clues you offer contain long-term consequences. The game forces you to think outside the box by avoiding new clues that are to closely related to old clues. One of my favorite moments is during a tie-breaker when teams must guess the exact words of their opponents.

If you enjoy Codenames, you have gotta try Decrypto!

Next Page: Games 40-31

The post Top 50 Board Games: Nick’s Cream of the Crop appeared first on Bitewing Games.

They may not be universally loved, but everyone should at least try a cooperative game, and Pandemic is the one that has stood the test of time. It pits you and your friends against the game itself. Will you find a cure before time runs out and humanity is doomed?  You may find that you prefer a bit more tension and competition between players, but you might just discover that you enjoy the experience and dynamics of working as a team.

KYLE – SUSHI GO PARTY!

An adorable game that is simple enough everyone can play, but interesting enough that few people will turn it down. Sushi Go Party introduces the mechanism of drafting – each player has cards in their hand, selects one card, and passes the rest onto their neighbor. And that is the game. You select and pass cards, with the goal of creating unique collections of Sushi. Different types of Sushi provide different point combinations. It is fast to learn and to play, and did I mention how adorable the little Sushi are? Go find out for yourself!

 

NICK – THE MIND

The Mind is less a structured game and more a thrilling experience with lots of tense and exciting moments. Super easy and entertaining to teach and introduce to others.  Kudos to Wolfgang Warsch for creating such a brilliant and innovative activity!

This simple game throws out everything you’ve come to expect in a standard board or card game (strategic planning, calculated maneuvering, etc.) and boils down the fun to the purest essence of playing by gut feeling.  Everyone must cooperate to play their hand of cards in ascending numerical order in increasingly harder rounds without communicating ever.  The Mind is surprisingly basic, but you will be shocked by how addicting it is.

 

KYLE – DOMINION

A unique type of game called deck building. You are certainly accustomed to traditional card games with a center draw pile that each player gets to draw from. How about a game where each player creates their own “center draw pile” that only they get to draw from during the game? This is Dominion, the classic deck building game. This game has personally provided me with hours and hours of entertainement, and is a game everyone should try!

NICK – TIGRIS AND EUPHRATES

This classic was first published in 1997, but the design was so rock solid that it didn’t come with an expiration date and it has seen many reprints since!  I’m not a huge fan of Chess, but that is perhaps the best thing to compare T&E to.  The difference is that T&E is a 2-4 player civilization-building tile-laying game with a little bit of luck and a lot of hidden information thrown in to keep things interesting.

There is an astounding amount of cleverness and depth to be found within T&E. I’m still a complete novice to it, but there’s no denying that this game is legendary. It’s designs like this one that have influenced my strong preference toward games containing low-complexity rules with high-complexity consequences over games containing high-complexity rules with low-complexity consequences.

What a bang for your buck! Love Letter is nothing more than 16 cards and a few red cubes, but boy can this game entertain. Love Letter lets you use your deductive skills to see if you can outwit your opponents by guessing which card they may have, or at the very least outplaying them by playing one of the 2 cards in your hand. The game plays in under 10 minutes, but it creates an amazing experience and is so simple to learn. This certainly is a game everyone should try, I’ve got a feeling you’re going to love it!

KYLE – DIXIT

Whether you love Apples to Apples due to its party-style fun or hate it due to its tiresome 2000’s popularity, we think Dixit might be the game for you.  With gorgeous whimsical art (instead of bland words) and a cleverer scoring system, Dixit is the Apples to Apples killer for us.

One player is the “storyteller” each round who plays a secret dreamlike image from their hand while giving a clue that relates to this image.  Next, all other players mix a card of their own among the storyteller’s image, and then the images are revealed and players must vote to determine which card is the storyteller’s.  The catch is that the storyteller’s clue can be neither too hard nor too easy, as they only score points (along with the players who guess correctly) if only some but not all of the players vote their card.

If you want to try a cooperative version of Dixit, we also whole-heartedly recommend Mysterium!

 

NICK – WAVELENGTH

For me, Wavelength beats out other party classics including our very favorites (Decrypto, Codenames, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, etc.) because of its consistent and simple one-two punch of memorable discussions and exciting reveals. To me, it earns a perfect 10/10, a score which I have never given a party game. Maybe 10 or 50 or 100 plays from now I’ll feel differently about it, but it’s genuinely hard to imagine myself enjoying it any less thanks to its tantalizingly endless possibilities.

This is the kind of production that the designers crafted with the end in mind. They knew that in order to get the most of out of the concept, they needed a device that allows approximative gut-feeling guesses for teammates and dramatically climactic reveals from the psychic. The device is a genius component worthy of Wolfgang Warsch’s brilliance.

KYLE – WACKEE SIX

Wackee Six is a game of speed, where you are trying to lay cards in ascending order in the center of the table…but everyone else is doing the same, so you have to be quick. Think Skip-Bo, but without turns. My mom loves it and my dad hates it. Are speed games for you? You’ll never know till you give one a try.

NICK – CONCORDIA

It still shocks me how short and simple the rule book is for this game. If elegance is a living being, then Concordia birthed it. Your deck of cards are used to their full potential in an impressive Eurotastic way. If you haven’t played this one before, you have no excuse not to.

I’m excited to see my design partner, Kyle, explore Concordia’s core hand-management mechanism in his blossoming family game design, Three Ring Circus. Concordia is the only game I’m very familiar with that has this satisfying hand-builder idea of adding multi-purpose cards into your hand and periodically up-taking your entire discard back into your hand to play again.

KYLE – COVER YOUR ASSETS

Take That! That is the type of experience you are having as you sit to play Cover Your Assets. And that isn’t for everyone, some people just want to play nice and don’t want to steal cards from another player. And others love nothing more than meniacally laughing as they steal the assets, or cards, of another player. You may find that you like to play fair and not hurt any feelings. But you may find that you like the playful banter and competition that Take That games have to offer, and Cover Your Assets is a game everyone should try to decide for themselves.

NICK – CROKINOLE

I have never played Crokinole before I asked for a Tracey board this past Christmas. After watching Quinns’ excellent SU&SD review of the game, I knew that this one was right up my alley and so I took the plunge.

Crokinole is without a doubt one of the sexiest games in existence. From the flicking and gliding to the ricochet clacking to the strategic positioning and jaw-dropping maneuvers… this is as supple as it gets. If there is any game in my collection that I will be playing until the day I die, it will surely be Crokinole.

 

KYLE – WELCOME TO…

Usually in a game you get mad cause you didn’t pick the right card and your neighbor did, right? No fair!!! Well, in Welcome To each player has a piece of paper showing a neighborhood. You will write house numbers on the houses to form a nice neighborhood. Is this sounding boring? It’s not! Just stick with me. 3 cards are laid out on the table, and each player selects one of the numbers to use and writes it on their paper. Each player has the same cards to choose from throughout the game so there is no “I didn’t get the right card.” Everyone had the same cards. This is called a “Roll and Write” game, and is certainly a style of game everyone should try.

NICK – EL GRANDE

El Grande is the Grand Daddy of area control games, and its buttery smooth gameplay hasn’t aged a day. It is an intense game that I can get almost any group fully invested in. We haven’t even touched the included expansions yet as the base game continues to satisfy. Area Control games have quickly become one of my absolute favorite mechanisms, and El Grande is the epitome of why.

The post 10 Games Everyone Should Try appeared first on Bitewing Games.