With all the “Most Anticipated Games of 2022” lists I’ve seen over the past few weeks, it feels like Bitewing Games is a little late to the party. On the other hand, I’ve been surprised to see very little overlap between my list and the many others out there. So today it is my honor to shine a spotlight on many promising—and possibly overlooked—titles.

From quick, simple card games to sprawling legacy campaigns… from loud, hilarious party romps to tantalizing expansions, my most anticipated board games of 2022 list covers the entire spectrum of exciting upcoming releases. And these are just the ones we know about so far…

Caesar!: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes

Expected Release Date: Now

Well it appears that Caesar being on our 2021 Holiday Board Game Gift Guide was wishful thinking.  But now that this promising war game is finally starting to show up on shelves and doorsteps, it feels like second Christmas!  Don’t be surprised it this one ends up claiming the title of best 2-player game of the year.  Father Paolo Mori and the older sibling to Caesar (Blitzkrieg) are that good.

Why it’s Exciting: Tense, bitey tug-of-war games frequently hit the spot for me.  While this one isn’t as blatant of a tug of war as Blitzkrieg, it still appears to capture a similar essence.  It also gives me faint vibes of another classic tile laying game—Samurai.  Those two bangers are very good company to be in.

Ghosts of Christmas

Expected Release Date: February 2022

Thanks to clogged ports and delayed shipments, some of the games here are spillover from last year’s most anticipated board games list.  Ghosts of Christmas is the first in a trio of games that Board Game Tables launched on Kickstarter last year.  Sadly, this game may have just missed Christmas 2021, but I suppose it’s not a big deal because here you’ll be able to time travel as you play tricks in the past, present, and future.

Why it’s exciting: BGT has developed a new hobby of unearthing bizarre Japanese designs and bringing them to a wider, western audience.  Folks like me who love wonky card games should have this on their radar.

Bear Raid

Expected Release Date: February 2022

Game two from the BGT trio is none other than Ryan Courtney’s Bear Raid.  Fun fact: Ryan told me that he’s not a big fan of games where politics (wheeling and dealing, messing with others’ plans, persuading opponents in directions that help yourself and hurt others, etc.) can influence the outcome, and Bear Raid is in many respects this type of game, so he basically designed a game that he personally isn’t into.  How about that.  The important thing here is that Ryan’s playtesters love this stock investment romp… and it’s whimsically illustrated by Nick Nizzaro.  I was born ready for this one.  Yet for those who are hoping for a more warm and welcoming game from Ryan, we’ve got you covered (more on that later).

Why It’s exciting:  I love a good interactive game where you can bet on or invest in various options.  Whether it’s a horse, a camel, a battalion, or a company, the moment you feel personally invested in a thing’s success is the moment where the excitement begins.

Factory Funner

Expected Release Date: February 2022

I’ve never associated factories with the adjective “fun,” but this final game in the BGT trio is poised to change all that.  I recently shared my top 10 spatial puzzle games, and Factory Funner made that list thanks to questionable combination of gut-feeling and critical acclaim.

Why It’s exciting:  The crunchy spatial game play, the stylish art, the flexibility of tile arrangements, and the quick playtime all speak to me in this updated version from BGT.

Sound Box

Expected Release Date: March 2022

I’m not sure which is more surprising: the implication that Horrible Guild needed to take Sound Box to Kickstarter or the fact that it only raised 12k Euros.  I wouldn’t be surprised if they spent roughly that much just to market the game—what a depressing thought.  Of course, launching a party game during COVID may have had something to do with that… Regardless, I’ve got my money on this game being a hoot (literally—I’m a backer) and gaining a second wind once it hits tables.  The design team behind The King’s Dilemma and Railroad Ink have created a game where players must cooperate to listen to each other’s weird sounds in a quest to pick out the right topic cards.  Imagine Codenames where the clues are a chaotic jumble of simultaneous noises and you’re basically there.

Why it’s exciting: Also imagine your partner, sibling, parent, or friend trying their best but epicly failing to recreate the sound of a printer… or a golf tournament.  Need I say more?

Root: The Marauder Expansion

Expected Release Date: Q2 2022

Few things bring me as much joy as a new box of Root goodies.  Between the exciting faction variety, charismatic art by Kyle Ferrin, and colorful Leder Games production, Root and its several expansions never fail to capture my heart.  The Marauder Expansion is particularly notable in that it apparently offers an enhanced experience a lower player counts thanks to the new hirelings.

Why it’s exciting: “Some critters just want to watch the world burn.” Such a sentiment can be said about about the new faction Lord of the Hundreds—an unhinged rat who incites ‘torch-wielding mobs.’  Meanwhile, the Keepers of Iron are disciplined Badgers on the hunt for ancient relics.  What’s not to love here?

John Company: Second Edition

Expected Release Date: June 2022

Speaking of exciting new games from Root designer Cole Wehrle, John Company: Second Edition is hot on the heels of The Marauder Expansion’s scheduled release.  While this is only the second game to come from the brothers Wehrle and their company Wehrlegig, the first one (Pax Pamir: Second Edition) is one of my favorite games ever.  Thus, a meaty game of negotiation and politics from Cole is exactly the kind of thing that could easily become my favorite game of 2022 (and of all time).  It’s gonna be a good summer of gaming, my friends.

Why it’s exciting: If gorgeous, historical board game productions from a boundary-pushing game designer sound like your kind of thing, then Wehrlegig Games is a publisher you should follow.  They’ve already proven that their games are a labor of love, and John Company: Second Edition is set to please folks who enjoy deep, immersive, and dynamic political experiences.

Soda Smugglers

Expected Release Date: June 2022

I can’t believe we’ve had to stretch all the way to June to find a new Knizia game to be hyped about!  But worry not, because the second half of the year should more than satisfy Knizia fans.  These next three games are ones that I’ve already played a ton of, but that’s because we here at Bitewing Games are their publisher.  Personally, I’m excited to see our vision for Soda Smugglers achieve its final form—bottle cap tokens, hilarious bribing, and all.  For people who want a quick, clever bluffing game that is dead simple to teach, Soda Smugglers should be right up your alley.  You can even still preorder the standard or limited deluxe edition here and be one of the first to own it.

Why it’s exciting:  Harmless, simple, and fast bluffing games are perhaps some of the best gateway and/or filler games out there.  Nothing breaks the ice better than witnessing a seemingly gentle person attempt to cross the border with a couple suitcases jam-packed with illicit soda bottles.  And few things are as funny as watching the border guard fall for a bluff or a wily traveler shoot themself in the foot with a mistimed double-bluff.

Pumafiosi

Expected Release Date: June 2022

Along the same lines, Pumafiosi is another offering from Reiner Knizia and Bitewing Games.  This one features a unique style of trick-taking where the second-highest card wins the trick and slots their winning card into a push-your-luck style hierarchy.  To top it all off, it features zany Puma Mafia characters galore.

Why it’s exciting:  Similar to Ghosts of Christmas, here we have another wonky card game that slowly reveals layered strategies as you peel through the onion.  This is a small game with a big payoff in how it rewards multiple plays.  Plus the Pumafia art and lore spread across the entire collection is simply a joy to explore.

Hot Lead

Expected Release Date: June 2022

Finally, Hot Lead rounds out the Criminal Capers Collection with a new twist on auctioning from the master designer of auction games himself.  With the help of 19 illustrated investigators, you’ll be undercover collecting evidence on criminal organizations.  Just like the other two games, this one is quick, simple, and addicting.  Again, if you’re interested, you can preorder here.  This is currently the best and only way to support Bitewing Games as a publisher and content creator.  We love sharing and making games that bite (it’s in the name), and we appreciate the support!

Why it’s exciting: Those who appreciate auctioning games are likely fans of Knizia’s stone-cold classics including Ra, High Society, and Modern Art.  With Hot Lead, we were thrilled to discover that Reiner had funneled his mystical auction design powers into an even faster experience while giving the game its own distinct flavor.  Furthermore, you get the best of a push-your-luck experience where the glorious triumphs feel amazing and the stinging failures are as quick as ripping off a band-aid.  Either way, you’re always hungry for another go.

Beyond the Sun Expansion

Expected Release Date: Q2-Q3 2022

We don’t know much yet, but word on the street is that the upcoming expansion for Beyond the Sun provides more incentives to focus on the planet board (colonization and area control).  But to be honest, anything that gives me more reasons to revisit this excellent tech-tree bonanza of a Euro has my interest.

Why it’s exciting: Beyond the Sun is one of those types of games that feels like it has endless possibilities thanks to the uniquely unraveling tech tree.  Adding more possibilities to those ‘endless’ possibilities is a thrilling prospect that has me wondering what lies beyond Beyond the Sun.

Ahoy

Expected Release Date: Q3 2022

Ahoy is the next direct-to-retail game coming from Leder Games.  This one is described as an asymmetric pirate strategy game for 2-4 players that plays in roughly 1 hour.  Two players will play as oppositional governments (one insurgent, the other established) while the other two players act as smugglers who influence the topology and value of the map that is being contested over.  According to Leder Games, this one is already finished and heading to manufacturing.

Why it’s exciting: Folks who love the idea of Root but dread the baggage that game comes with it (meaty teach, steep cost of admission, etc.) can look forward to Ahoy being the more approachable design that scratches a similar itch.

Trailblazers

Expected Release Date: Q4 2022

Assuming we don’t hit any significant delays, it’s very possible that our next release after the Criminal Capers Collection reaches tables before the end of the year.  We recently unveiled the first details of Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney, and more juicy info will be trickling in over the coming weeks.  Those who enjoy spatial puzzles will find much to love here between the three solo modes, wide player count of 1-8, charming outdoor adventure theme, simple ruleset with a high skill ceiling, and handy travel case.  Be sure to subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter to follow the game all the way to the Q2 Kickstarter launch!

Why it’s exciting: Ever since my first play of the excellent Pipeline, I always thought it would be cool to see a game that really focuses in on and explores the possibilities of a pure spatial puzzle game based solely on Ryan Courtney’s windy pipe domino tiles.  Trailblazers is that game.  Trailblazers is to Pipeline as Patchwork is to A Feast for Odin.  Here you can simply concentrate on constructing ambitious, exciting routes within a charming theme and colorful presentation that will appeal to anyone.  

Horseless Carriage

Expected Release Date: Q4 2022

Publisher Splotter Spellen is known for many strategic classics including Food Chain Magnate, Bus, Indonesia, and The Great Zimbabwe. Fans of their designs have come to love the trademark Splotter traits of pure strategy, punishing decisions, brutal interactions, and deep gameplay. While details on Horseless Carriage are sparse, we do know that this is another economic game about creating and selling automobiles in the dawn of the industry.

Why it’s exciting: Horseless Carriage is the first entirely new game put out by Splotter since 2015’s Food Chain Magnate. With FCM being their highest ranked game and most recent game, that means Horseless Carriage has big shoes to fill. Whether it lives up to those high expectations or not, Splotter fans can finally celebrate the end of a 7-year new game publishing drought.

Sidereal Confluence: Bifurcation

Expected Release Date: 2022

I was recently delighted to discover that one of my favorite high-interaction games is getting an expansion this year.  Thanks to a cross-country move and COVID, it’s been trickier to get Sidereal Confluence to the table lately, especially where the game shines best with 5+ players who enjoy wheeling and dealing.  I’m hoping to dive deeper into this epic game of negotiation before this exciting expansion releases.

Why it’s exciting: Bifurcation is set to effectively double the variety of asymmetric species players can use during the game. It introduces a new variant to each of the 9 alien species in the game—meaning new mechanisms, new strategies, and new trading opportunities.

My City: Roll & Write

Expected Release Date: 2022

Last year, I interviewed Dr. Knizia about his plans for a follow-up to the phenomenal legacy game, My City.  He hinted that there would be a sequel, but it would explore new gameplay rather than retread the same ground.  It turns out, that sequel has been reveal as My City: Roll & Write.  From the box cover, we can gather that many of the core concepts have been carried over: the city sheet shows a very similar layout to the original game’s board including mountains, a river, rocks, and trees.  The art also shows similar polyomino shapes and three different building types.  

Yet this version can play a wider range of 1-6 players and features a smaller (and presumably cheaper) box of 12 episodes rather than 24. The major question is: How will the roll & write aspect of the game change things up?  Will we see new dice introduced across the four chapters?  I’m normally not one to get excited about a roll & write, but I’ll make an exception for the follow-up to My City.

Why it’s exciting:  Those who play Knizia dice games would largely agree that Knizia understands how to make the most of dice.  The man even wrote an entire book on dice games, for crying out loud!  So the introduction of dice to the My City system means that these 12 episodes will likely have all kinds of new tricks up their sleeves.

Crescent Moon

Expected Release Date: 2022

If a meaty expansion to Sidereal Confluence isn’t enough for you, then perhaps you’ll be able to satisfy your negotiation cravings with Osprey Games’ ambitious Crescent Moon.  This mammoth design apparently takes 2.5-3 hours to play and can only be played with 4-5 players.  You’ll take on the role of a wildly asymmetric character who has unique objectives, actions, and powers in an area control competition of alliances, rivalries, and negotiations.  Based on that description, fans of Cole Wehrle designs should take note.

Why it’s exciting: From a publisher standpoint, putting out a game with such a narrow target audience (groups of 4-5 players who enjoy meaty, asymmetric games) is a tricky proposition.  What this tells me is that publisher Osprey Games really believes in this project enough to take such a risk.  Combine that with the fact that they’ve been putting out some excellent games recently (Undaunted, Brian Boru, etc.) and suddenly this one has the potential to be something truly special.

Ra

Expected Released Date: 2022

Reiner Knizia fans won’t have to wait too much longer for one of his most popular classics to make a triumphant return.  We’ve finally seen a magnificent box cover from artist Ian O’Toole, and that’s only the tip of what’s bound to be an iceberg of stunning visuals and clean graphic design.  We also know that 25th Century Games is aiming to make this the best production of Ra ever.  So whether you own and love this fantastic push-your-luck auctioning design or not, the latest version of Ra should be on your radar.

Why it’s exciting:  A new version of Ra illustrated by Ian O’Toole is like the Spider-man: No Way Home of board game team-ups.  They’re bringing back a classic, critically acclaimed, beloved experience (Doc Oc, Green Goblin—Reiner Knizia’s Ra) and pairing it with something popular and exciting (Tom Holland’s Spider-man aka Ian O’Toole).

The Queen’s Dilemma

Expected Release Date: 2022?

If you’ve played the 2020 Kennerspiel des Jahres nominee, The King’s Dilemma, then you understand how much work went into this legacy game of tug-of-war politics.  Thus, it’s understandable why The Queen’s Dilemma has been announced but not given a release date.  The big change here is that the tug-of-war resource tracks from the King’s Dilemma are being replaced with a kingdom map where players control regions, gather resources, and develop their areas.  I can’t wait to see how this game of tense voting and impactful decisions is taken to the next level. 

Why its exciting: For folks who were underwhelmed by the mechanical side of The King’s Dilemma—dragging resource tokens up and down a track—The Queen’s Dilemma seems to be aiming for a more ambitious area control + Euro experience.  Beyond arguing and debating how the kingdom should be run, players will now get to see their decisions take effect on a map and feel even more invested in their slice of domain.

Fit to Print

Expected Release Date: 2023

While Fit to Print is not scheduled to release until 2023, it’s worth noting here because the game is coming to Kickstarter this year.  Beyond coming from the increasingly popular creators of Calico, Cascadia, and Tiny Towns, Fit to Print caught my eye with the whimsical artwork by Ian O’Toole.  One of my favorite movies of all time is Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox., and this game box gives me very fantastic vibes of the fox variety.  Mr. Fox himself even works for a newspaper, so the game’s theme is obviously a warm (and welcome) nod to that delightful stop-motion animation movie.  Players will be racing to arrange the best front page of their newspaper in this real-time spatial puzzle game.

Why its exciting:  For many gamers, Flatout Games have been on a hot streak of attractively approachable yet engaging publications, and Fit to Print is set to continue that streak.  Bringing in a design from the creator of Tiny Towns seems like a perfect match here, as Tiny Towns shares much in common with Calico and Cascadia.  If you love any of these games, then Fit to Print should certainly be on your watchlist.

Amun-Re: 20th Anniversary Edition

Expected Release Date: 2023

Amun-Re: 20th Anniversary Edition is another new reprint of a Knizia auctioning classic, and it’s likewise an upcoming 2022 Kickstarter that won’t hit tables until 2023.  But even 20 years on from its initial publication, it remains strongly ranked in the top 500 games of all time on BGG.  This new version will see the classic team up of Vincent Dutrait art with Reiner Knizia gameplay plus 3 entirely new expansions.

Why its exciting: I recently acquired an older copy of Amun-Re and it has proven to be a solid design that has been worth keeping around.  It’s a mark of a good Euro when I’d often rather play it over other Euros that are up to 20 years newer.  That said, Amun-Re has widely been regarded as a game that is good for primarily 4-5 players.  It sounds like publisher Alley Cat Games is aiming to improve the experience at lower counts with the help of an expansion, and that is certainly something to be excited about.

Arcs

Expected Release Date: 2023

While Cole Wehrle was designing his latest ambitious strategy game, Oath, he had many wildly intriguing design ideas that ultimately didn’t end up in Oath.  Arcs is the space-themed exploration of those leftover ideas set to come to Kickstarter in 2022.  It’s described as a short campaign game played over a few punchy episodes (or one long session of 3-5 hours) with branching narratives that can be enjoyed across many campaign sessions.  It’s also easier to teach than both Oath and Root.

Why it’s exciting: Arcs approaches the same question that was posed by 2021’s excellent Brian Boru: How do you combine trick taking with a strategy board game?  According to Cole, Arcs answers this question in a very different (and meaner) way from Brian Boru.  Any game that sounds like the love child of Oath and Brian Boru immediately has my attention.

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 22 Most Anticipated Board Games of 2022 appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Nick is joined by internationally acclaimed designer Reiner Knizia for an epic interview exploring an entire spectrum of board game topics!  This is one episode you don’t want to miss…

Link to the Kickstarter campaign for Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection

• Intro to Dr. Reiner Knizia – 1:49
• Inspiration behind Soda Smugglers, Pumafiosi, & Hot Lead – 2:50
• Reiner’s favorite animal – 10:08
• Designing different genres of games – 12:08
• Deck-builders & The Quest for El Dorado – 15:47
• The Siege of Runedar – 19:33
• Reiner’s future with legacy games; a sequel to My City? – 28:13
• Personal & career goals moving forward – 31:47
• Observations on international publishing – 36:10
• Reiner’s mysterious 2000+ game library – 40:13
• Current design projects that Reiner is excited about – 46:05
• How the pandemic has affected Reiner’s work – 48:58
• Reiner’s take on remixing his classic games (Tigris & Euphrates -> Yellow & Yangtze) – 50:10
• Advice to game designers – 53:33

The post Reiner Knizia Interview—Podcast Exclusive appeared first on Bitewing Games.

What does it take to publish a board game?  A LOT.  A whole, stinking lot.  The kind of lot that will eat up hours upon hours, months upon months of your free time like the eery No-Face of Spirited Away.  The kind of lot that will quickly and efficiently drain your bank account of tax returns and COVID relief funds and more before your game is even produced.  The kind of lot that you’re better off running away and hiding from… unless you are really passionate about that particular game.

And that game can’t just be any old design.  If you want it to spread far and wide—to earn it’s way into cozy mom-and-pop game shops or onto coveted Target store shelves—or if you want it to be loved and lauded—praised by critics and recommended by fans—then it needs to be something special.

So that’s a good place to start.  Find a game design or concoct a prototype that really sings.  Uncover an experience that people want to have again and again.  Craft a challenge that is novel, engaging, and dynamic.  That’s easier said than done, and there’s a whole universe of useful information out there about how to design a game that people love. But that’s not where we’ll swim in this particular post. 

We here at Bitewing Games did not have to cook up a mechanical meal of play for our debut publications.  Nor did we have to worry about another typical task of publishing—specifically the development and polishing of a design. That’s because we were provided a menu of fresh and fully developed entrees from a master chef, namely Reiner Knizia.  Our only dietary restrictions for menu options were to stay within the parameters of “a small-box game that is quick to teach, easy to get anybody into, fast to play, and addictively replayable.”  And the culinary card-game artist certainly provided on that front.

Dr. Knizia and his team presented us with seven card game prototypes that were a mixture of entirely new concepts and reimagined designs.  The presentation of each game was nothing fancy… simply a game title, a list of components, a paragraph or two describing the gameplay, and a handful of prototype images.  Yet this luxury buffet didn’t need any fancy dressings… the games speak for themselves.

That doesn’t mean we salivated at all of the proposals.   From the get-go, some designs felt like they were targeting the wrong audience for our brand.  Others had us skeptical of their potential.  Yet a few shined with a spark of promise within their descriptions.  We decided to try five of the seven prototypes, and away we went… printing off paper cards and tokens to test on willing guinea pigs including nearby family members and gaming friends.

From the depths of this intensive testing emerged three card games—loved by both casual and hobbyist gamer alike.  These prototypes were specifically:

Hot Goods: A newer bluffing and bribing game of alcohol smuggling only ever published in Germany and Japan in 2019

Mafiosi: a sharper, more strategic reimplementation of an older family game known as Rooster Booster

Hot Lead: a brand-new push-your-luck auctioning game from the designer of some of the best auctioning games in the world

Yet we couldn’t just love to play these designs…. We had to have a passionate vision for what they could become.  With my educational background in Business Administration, I’ve naturally found myself applying business tools and fundamentals to more abstract and creative processes including game design and development.  So of course, I couldn’t help but run a SWOT Analysis on Reiner’s most promising designs to see if we could chart a clear path to publishing these games through Kickstarter.  This analysis wasn’t just a right of passage… it became our publishing blueprint.

I’ve already delved deep into an explanation of the SWOT Analysis and how it applies to the board game industry on a recent episode of the Board Game Design Lab Podcast.  But to put it simply: SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, and these four categories can be applied to even a Reiner Knizia prototype to evaluate internal and external factors that can determine its value and potential.  This tool is a great way to take a step back and get both a broad perspective and a laser focus on everything that matters most about the subject.

So to offer an example of how that all actually works, here is my SWOT analysis for the prototype called “Hot Goods:”

The strengths of this prototype included its wide player count (3-8 players), no downtime (everyone is always participating as either traveler or border guard), simple and engaging gameplay, and a solid smuggling and bribing theme that shines through the experience.

The weaknesses of this prototype included confusion from how the rules were explained (at least in the English translation of the German version), a muted look to the overall presentation, and a game length that had the potential of going up to 60 minutes which is way too far beyond our target of 20 minutes.

One major opportunity for this prototype was something that I had already stored in the back of my mind from my own game design brainstorming sessions: specifically a game featuring soda and bottle caps.  Despite the colorful inspiration and flavorful experiences that soda provides, despite the collectable clackitiness that comes with bottle caps, I had never encountered a soda-themed game that really stuck within the industry.  Another opportunity was certainly the stylish artist we had in mind, Paul Halkyon, who would obviously thrive best off of a theme with wide artistic potential.

Finally, some threats for this prototype included the need to differentiate it—or communicate the differences from other popular bluffing games including Sheriff of Nottingham and Skull.  Another threat unique to Bitewing Games is that many of our theoretical day-one backers would be friends and family who culturally don’t drink alcohol, thus making it harder to sell them on an alcohol smuggling game.

So, Hot Goods went into this furnace of analysis, and from it emerged Soda Smugglers, a 20 minute card game of fizzy contraband. The star of the production would be the soda brands, the table presence would be an explosion of colorful bottles and bottle caps, and the maximum possible number of rounds would be trimmed down from 16 to 8. I shared the results of our analysis with Reiner Knizia, and he didn’t just approve our vision for the design… he preferred it.  Dr Knizia agreed that our proposed production presented both the best artistic potential and the broadest appeal to the game’s target audience.

Likewise, the prototype Mafiosi evolved into a more potent Pumafiosi while Hot Lead ended up requiring minimal resculpting.  And it was once we had settled upon publishing these three games due to their individual merits and promising possibilities that they became more than just a convenient bundle.  Suddenly, we weren’t just publishing three 20-minute card games… we were publishing three games designed by the illustrious Reiner Knizia that were all related to criminal activities.  We were publishing Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection.  In other words, we were publishing something special.

To make things even better, Reiner and his design chops weren’t the only ace up our sleeve.  We also had the dark horse illustrator, Paul Halkyon, who just so happens to have enough imagination, passion, and talent to craft an entire anthropomorphic Criminal Capers universe where these three games can intermingle and coexist.  As project managers, our task was simply to maximize both the functionality of Reiner’s mechanisms and the aesthetics of Paul’s art.  We had to plan a production that makes these card games pop in every possible way.  Now, how the heck do you make a game designed by Reiner Knizia and illustrated by Paul Halkyon pop even more?  I’m glad you asked…

Soda Smugglers:

• Step 1: Charge Paul with the duty of creating several soda brands that straddle the fence between nostalgic familiarity and mesmerizing peculiarity.
• Step 2: Make these fantastical soda brands the star of the production.  I’m talking large, loud, and in-your-face bottles on the cards.  Don’t forget to supplement them with matching life-size bottle caps as well.
• Step 3: Select components and materials that enhance the theme and supplement the fun.
• Etc.

Pumafiosi:

• Step 1:  Give players their own personal family tiles and tokens that have character and lore.  Make them feel an invested tie to their Pumafia family to strengthen the emotional range and potency of the game.
• Step 2:  Give the push-your-luck gameplay a physical form.  Rather than recording gained or lost points or simply earning and returning point tokens for successes and losses, give each player a wealth point card and penalty point card where their glorious triumphs and hilarious failures can be piled high and on full display for all to bask in or envy.
• Step 3:  When your artist displays an unexpected passion or shows intriguing promise within their concept art, fuel that fire with everything you’ve got.  They just might come up with some of their finest work ever.
• Etc.

Hot Lead:

• Step 1: Just step back and let Paul do his thing because he is on a freaking roll now.
• Step 2:  Once the initial designs are in, look at every card and component from a readability perspective.  If anything has the potential to be unclear, make tweaks to the components as needed.  (Good example here: the font of the numbers in Hot Lead has been changed since our latest prototypes.  So the final cards will be even easier to read than what the cards on our Kickstarter campaign page show).
• Step 3: Don’t be afraid to make late improvements to the production.  Our initial deluxe version plans for this game featured metallic foil cards, but with enough time to mull it over we decided that there was too much of a risk of this card material being problematic.  That’s when we came up with an even better idea to turn the promotion tiles into sheriff stars and have the deluxe version feature thick wooden stars that you can proudly stand up on the table and display when earned.
• Etc.

Of course, planning the art direction and components is merely one task covered by a publisher.  We’ve also had to track down a manufacturer who is capable of making these games at top quality and a reasonable price.  Likewise, we’ve scouted out reliable fulfillment and shipping partners amid these hectic COVID shortages.  And crafting the Kickstarter campaign page with a strong marketing message have been monumental efforts unto themselves.  It helps to possess or acquire secondary skills such as graphic design, photography, videography, writing, podcasting, communication, branding, scheduling, budgeting, and more.

If you have the time and drive for the Herculean task of publishing, great!  There are plenty of helpful tools and resources out there to get you the skills you need.  But one aspect that may prove even more difficult is the money.  Years ago, it used to be that you could slap a rough concept on a crowdfunding site and wait until you’ve funded to invest significant money into the project.  Nowadays, there is simply too much competition to thrive with low-effort or low-investment campaigns. Of course, you can skip the crowdfunding route all-together and try your hand at online or direct-to-retail sales, but the minimized risks and maximized marketability of crowdfunding is usually too good to ignore.

From the beginning, we knew we wanted to make a big splash with our first campaign.  Time is too precious for us to simply inch-worm our way through the early publishing years before we can ramp up to more ambitious publications.  We’ve already got 7 total games lined up to publish with a hunger to add even more to our plans!  From game 1, we want our backers and customers to understand that we mean business when it comes to publishing gorgeous, fantastic games.  

Thus, we’ve invested nearly the cost of our funding goal to get this business and this first project up and running.  If you intend to assemble a team of experts to design and develop exceptional games, bring them to life with stunning art, engineer custom plastic components, find interested gamers across the World Wide Web, produce the games with premium precision, and deliver them to doorsteps around the world, then you better be ready to invest the finances required to enlist this team plus the time required to direct them.

It’s a rollercoaster, to say the least.  And tomorrow, we finally reach the starting line.

The Kickstarter Campaign for Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection runs from August 10th through September 2nd! We need your help to make these games a reality. Please consider pledging your support so we can 1) send you these excellent games once they are manufactured, 2) continue to provide you with juicy board game content through our blog/podcast/Youtube/etc., and 3) publish even more exciting games in the future!

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 How to Publish a Board Game — A Criminal Capers Collection Publishing Diary appeared first on Bitewing Games.

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

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

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

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

Meanest Auctioning Game

The Estates

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

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

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

Honorable Mentions

• Age of Steam
• Tammany Hall

Best Large Group Auctioning Game

Medici

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

Honorable Mentions

• For Sale
• The Estates
• Skull

Best Small Group Auctioning Game

Biblios

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

Best Game with just a Hint of Auctioning

Oath, Sidereal Confluence

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

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

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

Best Looking Auctioning Game

Modern Art

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

Honorable Mentions

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

Best All-Around Auctioning Game

Modern Art

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

Honorable Mentions

• Amun-Re
• For Sale

Most Unique Auctioning Game

Hibachi, Q.E., Cyclades, Downforce

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

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

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

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

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

Best New(ish) Auctioning Game

Nidavellir

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

Best Auctioning Game I Haven’t Played (Yet)

Keyflower, The Great Zimbabwe

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

Honorable Mentions

• Dream Factory
• Container

Most Regret-Filled Auctions

Age of Steam

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

Honorable Mentions

• El Grande
• The Estates
• High Society

Best Auctioning Game of Chicken

Condottiere, Skull, Taj Mahal

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

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

Honorable Mentions

• High Society
• For Sale

Best Shared Incentive Auctioning Game

Irish Gauge, Chicago Express, Modern Art, The Estates

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

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

Best Overall Auctioning Game

Ra

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

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

Two New Auctioning Games Coming Fresh out of the Oven

Hot Lead, Pumafiosi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Filler games are like the mashed potatoes or the sticky rice of the tabletop games industry.  Perhaps most people don’t get hyped out of their minds for a single filler game, but everybody notices when they’re missing from the gaming meal.  If you’re trying to get infant gamers to consume new-to-them games and enjoy this hobby, your odds of success are much better if you place a simple filler in front of them rather than a complicated entree.  When you don’t have the time or stomach space for an entire gaming feast, a filler can make for the perfect satisfying snack.

These games are essential to filling in the cracks and crevices of one’s board game collection, and so I’ve set out to determine my top 10 recommendations for filler games.  While there are far more than 10 fantastic options to choose from, this list will serve as my most reliable team of fillers for anyone and everyone.  As the term “filler game” has the potential the cover a wide range of possibilities, I’ve narrowed down my selection criteria to the following…

To make this particular Top 10 Filler Game list, the game must be:

• Compact in size and scope
• Consistently playable in under 30 minutes
• Fast and easy to teach
• Playable with a range of player counts 

This criteria means that loads of 2-player only games that are otherwise solid filler games are out of the runnings.  This means that killer compact classics that tend to go longer than 30 minutes such as Arboretum, Condottiere, and Stick ‘Em are out.  And tragically, this also means that the non-compact Crokinole won’t be sneaking its way onto another one of my top 10 lists.  But worry not, this criteria still leaves us with plenty of good stuff to explore, and explore we shall!  In no particular order, my top 10 filler games are the following…

Archaeology: The New Expedition

A great filler is most commonly a card game, and Archaeology: The New Expedition is the first of many such titles on this list.  While Sushi Go and Barenpark are designer Phil Walker-Harding’s most popular creations, I personally prefer the quick turns and push your luck collecting that Archaeology provides.  

Players spend turns digging at sites and trading with the marketplace for the finest of items in hopes of selling lucrative sets to the museum.  The problem is that sets take time to build into something massively profitable, and the longer you wait to sell your artifacts, the more likely you are to lose them to a thief or a sandstorm.  Archaeology: The New Expedition hits the spot at any player count from 2-5, with any player type from grandma to gamer, and doesn’t overstay its welcome, making it an easy addition to this list.

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

We here at Bitewing Games have covered The Crew from front to back and head to toe, which ought to hint at how much we love it.  For those of you who already know and love this game, my substitute recommendation is simply the upcoming The Crew: Mission Deep Sea.  For those of you who are not familiar with this widely acclaimed cooperative, trick-taking card game, here are two great places to start:

ARTICLE: Double Review – Tournament at Avalon & The Quest for Planet Nine

YouTube Review: Is The Crew Fun?

Skull

It’s a coaster!  It’s a frisbee!  No…. It’s Skull!  Skull is a pure bluffing game composed entirely of what looks like drink coasters.  Each player receives 4 round cardboard coasters and 1 square cardboard coaster.  The round coasters act as your hand of cards that are played one at a time facedown onto your square coaster.  Three of these round coasters display roses, but the fourth displays a skull.

As players take turns adding one coaster facedown to their own stack, during their turn a player can instead declare a challenge.  This challenge takes the form of a bid where the highest bidder must flip that many round coasters (starting with all of their own) in hopes of not revealing a skull.  If they manage to avoid catastrophe, then they flip their square coaster to display and flaunt the fact that they are one more victory away from winning the game.  Yet the other way to win is to be the lone survivor, as players will lose one of their round coasters each time they flip a skull (their own or someone else’s), and once you’ve lost your final coaster you are out of the game!

Skull is both tense and hilarious as players try to outwit each other.  The moment I secretly add my own skull to my facedown stack, I’ve now set up a trap for my opponents.  But the best way to spring the trap on them is to make them believe that my stack is safely stocked with only roses.  Yet if I raise the challenge bid in an attempt to give off that impression, and nobody else raises my bid, then I’ll very quickly have egg on my face when I flip my skull and writhe in my own mess.

For Sale

Speaking of tense auctioning games, Skull won’t be the first on this list and For Sale won’t be the last.  For Sale somehow sneaks its way onto nearly every list that I make.  So while I apologize to those who have heard me endlessly rant about it, I couldn’t leave it off the top 10 filler games list!  Seriously, I tried to block it out of this list just to get a little more variety into my recommendations, but I’m not a barbaric criminal, so here it is, back on my list.

If you’re hungry for more details and thoughts about this reliable filler game, I suggest you check out any of the following options that strike your fancy:

• #14 of my Top 25 Games of All Time
• Our Top 10 Family Games podcast episode 
• 10 Games to Enjoy Amid a Quarantine
• Episode #4 of my Tabletop Tastes Series: Crunchy Meaningful Decisions

Whale Riders

It’s time to get spicy with a brand new release which will be near impossible to find once the current stock runs out.  Good thing we have the icy coast to curb the heat of this recommendation.  If you’re reading this post, then it’s likely that you already got an eye-full of my first impressions of Whale Riders last week.  While Whale Riders is the largest game to make its way onto my top 10 fillers list, the box is still deliciously slim and the gameplay is unbelievably quick.  Dr. Knizia and Grail Games have crammed a beautiful big box board game experience into a simple, rapid, tight race of efficient mercantilism.  When I can setup, teach, and play this game in under 30 minutes, and have a blast from start to finish, you better believe it’s gonna end up on this list.

The Mind

The Mind is the second and final cooperative game to end up on this list.  While it’s not much of a looker, what it lacks in aesthetics it makes up for in price and novelty.  Yet even after many plays, the novelty of this game of gut-feelings hasn’t worn off for me.   Perhaps because it emphasizes the interaction and unison between myself and my teammates over anything else, and the emotional rollercoaster it takes us on is always refreshing.  Check out Kyle’s recent 3-minute review to learn why it might be a hit for your group as well:

Startups

While Oink’s other top-tier publications feel closer to party games, Startups stands apart as a tight card game of investing in startup companies.  The catch is that your investments will only pay off if you have the most cards of that company, otherwise you’ll be forking over points to that majority owner at the end of the game.  It’s a refreshingly simple game, yet it has elements of bluffing, risk-taking, and climactic reveals.  The fact that it’s a big pile of tokens crammed into a tiny box somehow adds to its charm.

Biblios

Biblios is thematically about building a library, but the the star feature here is the two-act play of donations and auctions.  During the donation act, players take turns drawing a few cards: selecting one to keep, one to set aside for the auction, and the others to donate to opponents.  Once the deck runs out, players use their formed hands to bid on each card in the auction pile.

This jockeying for cards is all part of a quest to have the highest sum of cards in a particular category, thereby earning the points (shown on the dice) of that category at the end of the game.  But if one person is pummeling everyone else by spending big on blue and red points, then crafty opponents can seek to decrease the value of those colors by bidding on cards that reduce any dice of their choice.

By allowing players to be sneaky, clever, and conniving, Biblios remains a solid option even 14 years since its release. 

Love Letter

Lave Letter has been in our collection longer than any other game on this list, and it remains one of the best of its class.  Like For Sale, it has received countless mentions across our blog posts and podcast episodes.  If you’re looking for a strategic competition, then you’re likely to be disappointed by the amount of luck within Love Letter.  But if you’re coming for some bite-sized, light-hearted fun, then you are in the right place.

YouTube Review: Is Love Letter Fun?

Parade

I always appreciate a solid, simple card game with a bit of luck and nice fistful of strategy, and Parade hits that sweet spot for me.  The gameplay here feels closest to Arboretum but is less cutthroat and agonizing, more light and breezy.  Yet there’s enough decision space lurking underneath to keep me engaged.

This pretty little game features Alice in Wonderland artwork with the characters forming a parade of cards behind the draw pile.  The rules are a little wonky to explain, but basically players are trying to avoid taking cards from the parade by adding the right card from their hand to the end of the line.  The problem is that you frequently have to take a hit and end up with some point scoring cards in this game where points are bad.  

Selecting which cards to play when is a unique and engaging challenge.  Yet another twist comes in the end-game scoring, where the player with the most cards of a single color gets to convert those cards to 1 point each (instead of their printed values).  So you end up with something like a game of chicken that quickly unfolds into a desperate struggle to erase one’s own points.  And because any card from zero through ten can be the best card to play, depending on the situation, Parade manages to keep itself fresh and interesting throughout.

3 Bonus Filler Games

Well if you’ve made it this far, then I think it’s safe to assume that these kinds of “filler” games are up your alley!  And if that’s the case, then this segment is an extra special bonus just for you.  We here at Bitewing Games need your help to bring a bundle of three killer filler games to the world.  This bundle is known as Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection, and it features Soda Smugglers, Pumafiosi, and Hot Lead.

Each of these 20-minute games was hand-picked from Dr. Knizia’s fresh batch of brilliance and is being brought to life by our wildly capable friend and illustration partner, Paul K. Halkyon.  We’ve been having a blast playing and testing these as we prepare to publish them for you.  But none of these games will reach any tables without the support of Kickstarter backers who share our passion for clever Reiner Knizia designs, refreshing filler games, and affordably classy productions.

We’re scheduled to launch this Kickstarter campaign later this summer.  But if you want to follow or support this project now, then subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter and spread the word to any friends or family who may share your interest.  We intend to make a big splash with Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection, but joining our newsletter will ensure that you don’t miss out; plus we have even more exciting things in store beyond this collection.  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. 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 10 Filler Board Games appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Note: This post will be particularly engaging for those who are interested or involved in the creation of board games (publishing, designing, etc.), so if you’d rather just skip to the big Reiner Knizia news then feel free to jump down below!

It’s hard to resist the allure of a good bundle.  Whether it’s a $5 box from Taco Bell, Super Mario 3D All-Stars for Nintendo Switch, or an all-inclusive vacation on a cruise ship, the concept of getting everything you want or need all in one convenient, discounted place is a classic, universal marketing tool.  It can also be the world’s most annoying spam message when companies like Spectrum or AT&T can’t take a hint that I DON’T WANT YOUR OVERPRICED CABLE TV SERVICES WITH MY INTERNET, NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES YOU SEND ME A FLIPPING LETTER ABOUT IT.  NOW GET OFF MY BACK!

Bundles also have their place in the board game industry, whether it’s the Big Box version of a game such as Hansa Teutonica with its expansions or a collection of packs that are part of game system like the Dice Throne Battle Chest featuring every fighter within a single container.  When done right, these types of bundles typically appeal to me thanks to the convenience and savings in cost and space that they provide.  Yet there is one type of bundle that I’ve been thinking about lately far more than any other.  This is the multi-product Kickstarter campaign.

Some notable examples of these types of bundles include campaigns such as BoardGameTables’ GPS, Sequoia, and Mountain Goats, or their more recent Factory Funner, Bear Raid, and Ghosts of Christmas.  Final Frontier Games recently wrapped up a pretty campaign of their own with games Solani + The Girl Who Made the Stars.  Grail Games just concluded their Reiner Knizia & Vincent Dutrait collaboration with Whale Riders the board game and Whale Riders the card game (stay tuned for my thoughts on those two next week).  Meanwhile, micro-game publishers including Oink Games and Button Shy have also run such campaigns featuring multiple of their small, charming productions in one place.

But the mere existence and seeming increase of these bundled campaigns hasn’t been the reason they’ve been on my mind.  Not even the fact that I’ve backed multiple of these very bundles is why we’re chatting about this today.  Rather, they’ve served as excellent case studies for my own publishing plans.  And while viewing these bundles through the lens of a customer, designer, and publisher, I’ve formed some strong opinions in the process that will serve to guide my own journey down this publishing path.  For those interested, we’ll be diving deeper into those opinions here and now.  Following that, I have some big and exciting changes to announce regarding our own upcoming bundle of three 20-minute games.

But first, let’s jump back to where this bundle all started for Bitewing Games, specifically with my design Social Grooming.  This title was born out of a fleeting thought: “What if there was a negotiation game where everybody but you knew what was on the card you were trying to trade away?”  The mechanism of negotiation typically features trading of fully known goods with somewhat opaque values.  For example, a single cube is only worth trading for in Sidereal Confluence if you can acquire all of the other cubes required to run a converter, and there’s no guarantee this can all be accomplished.  The value of a specific lot in Chinatown depends on who, if anyone, has ownership of adjacent lots and what businesses are established on them and how quickly those businesses can be developed.  Yet these cubes or lots or businesses are out in the open for all to see and consider, and the act of simultaneous negotiation is always a lively and engaging affair.  But we found through its development that Social Grooming offered a compelling twist to this formula by introducing trust, bluffing, and gut-valuations to the proceedings.

Over time, we had ourselves a consistently satisfying and widely crowd-pleasing game perfect for a quick entertainment snack in both small and large group settings.  Our next step was clear: Let’s get this gem published!  Yet that is much easier said than done, especially when games of this scale make a much smaller splash in the industry compared to sprawling, miniature-packed productions.

We found ourselves in a bit of a new publisher’s paradox: The smart thing to do is start with a small, low-risk project such as Social Grooming and ramp up the complexity of our campaigns from there, yet the value prospect and marketing noise of a single, small card game from an unknown publishing company is like a fart in the wind of the board game industry.  How’d you like to pay a stranger for a small game that you won’t receive for months and you can’t be sure you’ll enjoy until you actually receive it?  Oh, and by the way, we’ll need you to also pay nearly the cost of the game itself in shipping.  Sounds like a smart investment, right?

Well amid my marketing research, I noticed that small games and party games typically don’t perform as well as eye-catching plastic productions or complicated mechanical creations.  Our design is both small and party-ish, so not your typical great fit for Kickstarter.  A large gorgeous box brimming with challenging campaigns and chunky creatures is always going to make the biggest splash in crowdfunding.  So how to you provide value, attract attention, and establish credibility within a first-time creator’s campaign that features none of those things?

And here we circle back to the prospect of a bundle.  Shipping fees are much more palatable when the box contains two or three games instead of just one.  Party games and filler games make a bigger splash when combined into a harmonic chorus of discounted delight.  Unknown publishers are much more trustworthy when they collaborate with trusted brands.  This ultimately brought us to Three 20-Minute Games featuring two designs from Reiner Knizia and the illustrations of Paul K. Halkyon.  Yet there’s been much behind-the-scenes work involved to get us to this point…. Testing and evaluating many unpublished designs from Dr. Knizia, forming a production and marketing plan for each game, investing in licensing, marketing, illustration, and graphic design, building a pre-campaign crowd, finding the right manufacturer, and much more. 

I’ve seen some multi-product Kickstarter campaigns attempt to cobble completely unrelated titles together.  I’ve noticed some publishers attempt to spread a single marketing budget across multiple productions or shine a single spotlight on multiple games at once.  Overall, these campaigns and bundles have usually performed just fine based on the brand strength and fanbase of the company itself or the merits of each individual game, but one can’t help but wonder if these games didn’t reach their full personal potential.

We at Bitewing Games feel that each game in a bundle deserves its own spotlight and marketing plan.  Gamers have come to rely on previews, playthroughs, and more to learn about and get excited for each game they decide to add to their collection.  Nobody wants to clutter their shelves with more stuff simply because it was a good deal.  The challenge of running a bundled campaign is that a publisher must sell a single backer on two or three games rather than one.  The means twice or three times the campaign page content without losing attention or breeding impatience.  Just like in game design, the key is to cut the fluff, maintain the focal point, and streamline the encounter.

This becomes a much easier hurdle to clear if the bundled games share much in common.  Same price, same game length, similar complexity, similar player counts, similar themes, similar art styles, similar box sizes, similar design philoshophies, etc., etc.  Suddenly, I don’t have to firehose you with three versions of the same necessary information.  Rather, I can lay it all out at once and hit three birds with a single stone.  Yet, on the flip side, if the games are too similar, then what’s the point in owning all of them?  That’s where the big, bright spotlights come in: highlighting the unique and interesting features of each carefully selected game. 

The brand and messaging of our bundle up to this point has focused in on the commonalities of my own Social Grooming and Reiner Knizia’s Soda Smugglers and Pumafiosi.  We’ve emphasized that they are all 20-minute games with simple rules, clever depth, and gorgeous art from Paul Halkyon.  Things have gone great with this plan, but we recently received a news bombshell from the team over at Knizia Games.  To give you some context, back when we were evaluating all of the unpublished games that Reiner had pitched to us, there was a third design that we had also fallen in love with and wanted to publish alongside Social Grooming, Soda Smugglers, and Pumafiosi.  Before we had the chance to lock in to the licensing rights, we suddenly heard back that it was no longer up for grabs (another publisher had belatedly decided they wanted to make the game).  While we were disappointed with that news, we were thrilled to have these other three games to bring to life and share with the world.  Fast forward several months, and that’s when the bombshell arrived: Reiner’s third awesome game was dropped by the other publisher and is now back on the market.

So the answer was simple:  Just lump this fourth game into our upcoming bundle because “the more the merrier,” right?  Not so fast…  the leap from a 3-game bundle to a 4-game bundle is a much wider gap than it initially sounds.  That means increasing the bundle price by a whopping 33%.  That means juggling each potential backer’s attention with four games rather than three.  At some point you have to draw the line, and four games felt like we were crossing that line.  Yes, we had considered lumping all four of them together initially (back when Reiner first pitched his games to us), but a few months of thorough planning made it immediately clear that a 4-game bundle would do more harm than good.  But that didn’t mean we had to let the golden opportunity of Reiner’s third game pass us by…

There was another option we could consider… one of shifting things around a bit in the old publishing pipeline.  You see, our second Kickstarter campaign was always planned to feature a unique party game.  Despite the track record of party games on Kickstarter, we’ve always felt that this one had a little extra something special to stand out from the crowd.  But as I theorized earlier, party games can make a bigger splash when combined into a harmonic chorus of discounted delight.  And it just so happens that Social Grooming is a party-style game as well.  Plus it shares the same designer (myself), the same design philosophy, a wide player count, a similar complexity, similar light-hearted fun, and highly social interactions.  Most importantly, these games target the same audience, making them highly compatible for a Kickstarter bundle.  We must apologize to any who have been eagerly awaiting the chance to play Social Grooming, but please stay tuned for its debut in the Bitewing Games Party Pack Kickstarter campaign coming in 2022.

Perhaps the even bigger benefit to this change would be the strengthened branding and focus of our first Kickstarter campaign.  Not only do we get to publish another fantastic game, but now these titles would share the same designer and a similar theme.  No longer is this bundle simply “Three 20-Minute Games,” it is now Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection.

Big News: Introducing Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection

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