While the term ‘Spin-Off’ might inherently sound like a lesser version of its source material, movies such as Creed (Rocky) and Logan (X-Men), TV shows such as The Mandalorian (Star Wars) and Better Call Saul (Breaking Bad), books including The Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Hobbit) and the Wax and Wayne Series (Mistborn), and video games including Super Mario Bros (Donkey Kong) and Super Smash Bros (Nintendo) would beg to differ.

The world of board games is also rife with spin-offs, whether a publisher is milking the cash cow of a popular IP or a designer is exploring their clever concept from another angle, or both!  Our consumerist society lives and dies by a constant blend of nostalgia and novelty.  The benefit of a great spin-off game is that often it can end up being even better than the source that inspired it! 

In celebration of our upcoming publication, Trailblazers—which is itself a spin-off of the critically acclaimed Pipeline—we’ll explore my Top 10 Spin-Off Games and how they iterate on their parent designs.  And be sure to stick around for the end where I’ll reveal new juicy info and images on Trailblazers by Ryan Courtney!

7 Wonders Duel

7 Wonders is a card drafting, civilization building game that took the gaming world by storm in 2010.  It went on to win dozens of nominations and awards including the coveted Kennerspiel Des Jahres.  Players love how quick and crunchy the decisions are as well as the various strategies one can pursue from crushing military to crafty science.

Five years later, the designer of 7 Wonders (Antoine Bauza) teamed up with another prolific creator (Bruno Cathala) to bring us a 2-player dueling version of his classic in 7 Wonders Duel.  Duel takes the core civ-building formula and turns the experience into a more tense, cut-throat, and interactive competition.  It’s why I haven’t played regular 7 Wonders in years.  While one player threatens to end the game immediately with a military victory, the other might be sneaking their way to a sudden science win.  Every card you draft from the pyramid display opens up another opportunity for your opponent.  And the expansions to this one add even more juicy layers to the strategy.

Blitzkrieg/Caesar

Staying on the topic of 2-player versions of beloved concepts, Blitzkrieg is a 2 player Paolo Mori design that shares much in common with his older 3-5 player game, Dogs of War.  Both games explore an interesting combination of worker placement tug-of-war where you’ll commit your piece to a region to pull a region marker in your direction, and the space you place your piece on top of will often grant an immediate bonus.  

Dogs of War remains one of my favorite games, but it really only works with 4 or 5 players.  Blitzkrieg manages to offer me a similar tension of dangling carrots and shifting momentum in a lightning fast 20 minutes that only requires one more player.  That’s why both of these games ended up right next to each other on my most recent Top 50 Games of All Time post.  We’ll see if 2022’s Caesar—the spin-off of this spin-off—manages to also reach such lofty heights, but so far it’s looking very promising.

L.A.M.A. Dice

L.A.M.A Dice is a 2021 release that is based on the popular card game L.A.M.A., yet it hasn’t officially made its way to North America yet.   Hopefully that will change soon, as we’ve found L.A.M.A. Dice to be a hoot at the table.  This is a particularly surprising redemption story for L.A.M.A. considering my initial impressions of the card game weren’t too enthusiastic.  I’ll be sharing my full thoughts on this game soon, but here’s a teaser for now:

While L.A.M.A. Dice plays out similarly to L.A.M.A. the card game, it also has some key differences that make it the more lively, loud, and laugh-inducing game of the two.  Where the card game is more about quiet, subtle, and private hand management, the dice game is about clackety rolls, foolish decisions, public humiliations, and occasionally glorious triumphs.  While there is of course a big old dollop of luck to the game of L.A.M.A., the dice game transforms that luck into a collective experience of laughs, groans, and cheers.  And because it comes in at a breezy 20 minutes, that means that you can get in, have a colorful little riot, get out, and be on to the next game in the blink of an eye.

Patchwork

One cannot discuss board game spin-offs without discussing the legendary duo of A Feast for Odin and Patchwork.  The legend goes that while esteemed designer Uwe Rosenberg was crafting and polishing his magnum opus—the dense and sprawling polyomino worker placement game A Feast for Odin—he began to toy with a smaller 2-player design that focuses solely on the polyominoes.  

In this case, the spin-off ended up releasing a whole two years before its source material, but the end result was the same.  We got two excellent games from a master chef who went on to craft many more polyomino designs.  While Patchwork and A Feast for Odin cater to very different crowds, you never know if these two might be the gateway drug for polyomino lovers into the realm of heavy Euro games.

Pandemic: Iberia

Pandemic is an industry phenomenon that likewise has a cornucopia of spin-off titles thanks to its monstrous popularity and approachability as a cooperative game.  While many Pandemic spin-offs would be great options for this list, I opted for my favorite of the bunch.  This one features the opportunity to develop rail lines for faster travel plus a preventative buffer action of distributing water.

2 new actions, a different board, and a few rules tweaks doesn’t seem like it would make a big difference.  Yet Pandemic: Iberia is the best version of any Pandemic spinoff or copy-cat that I’ve ever played.  The stakes are raised, the strategy is deepened, the tension is thickened, and our love for Pandemic is rekindled. 

Schotten Totten 2

I see many folks point to Battle Line / Schotten Totten as their favorite 2-player game and/or favorite Knizia design of all time.  Who can blame them?  This clever 2-player card game of forming poker sets across a battle line is ripe with tough choices, narrow defeats, and tight victories.  

So what does a sequel to this masterpiece possibly have to offer?  Surprisingly, a lot.  Schotten Totten 2 approaches this tactical card game with a few interesting wrinkles that dramatically change the overall experience.  Both players have asymmetric objectives and abilities as one defends their wall while the other tries to break through.  Furthermore, each section of the wall features a unique formation requirement to keep you on your toes.  This one continues to grow on me with more plays, which is why it’s absolutely worthy of this list.

Brass: Birmingham

Here we have another spin-off that seemingly split it’s fanbase right down the middle as to which one they prefer.  But more than anything, I typically hear that fans of Brass are happy to play either Lancashire (the original) or Birmingham (the spin-off), and that’s the mark of a great spin-off based on a solid classic.

Birmingham offers a few twists to the Brass gameplay including a new scout action to obtain wild cards, several new industry types, and an additional commodity—the ever precious beer.  It seems that folks who like more flexibility opt for Birmingham while those who glutton for punishment prefer Lancashire, but you really can’t go wrong either way.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea is perhaps the only spin-off on this list where many fans claim that it makes the original game obsolete in their collection.  That’s only because Mission Deep Sea possesses a more elegant mission structure that provides infinitely more possibilities.  This is another one I’ll be discussing further soon (in an upcoming first-impressions post), but since you’re here I might as well spoil my conclusion:

Much more than The Quest for Planet Nine, Mission Deep Sea feels like a game I can endlessly revisit (even after beating all the missions) because I’ll never see the same combination of objective cards.  Essentially, you can astutely consider Mission Deep Sea the Toy Story 2, the Spider-man 2, or the Shrek 2 of card games.  It takes a bona-fide classic and does it even better.

Yellow & Yangtze

Tigris & Euphrates is one of my favorite games of all time thanks to abyss of layered strategy and brilliant interactions that exist in its box.  While T&E has existed as a holy grail game for decades now, Reiner Knizia boldly decided to create a sister design to it only a few short years ago.  

While I consider the original to be a perfect experience, it seems as though every T&E complaint that someone might have regarding luck of the draw, value of the tiles, usefulness of leaders in the late game, brutality of the conflicts, etc., has been considered and addressed in one way or another here in Yellow & Yangtze.  Between the low-key enormous shift to hexagon spaces (from squares) and the shocking addition of yellow tiles (providing wild points), there’s an entirely new pool of possibilities to explore.  It’s so brilliantly distinct that I consistently have a commitment crisis just deciding which of these two favorites I should play next.

Tournament at Avalon

Some designs just understand how to embrace chaos and capture its essence within a ruleset that still manages to make you feel strategically clever.  Tournament at Camelot is one such design, and this trick-taking card game is further improved upon with the spin-off: Tournament at Avalon.  I haven’t even played the original game, but I understand enough to know that what Avalon adds to experience is something I couldn’t live without.  These improvements include more strategic flexibility for when you can play your wild cards plus even wackier powers that help make the most of this zany premise.  Check out my full review of this spin-off here.

Honorable Mentions

• Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
• Pandemic Legacy
• Ra: The Dice Game
• The Quest for El Dorado: The Golden Temples
• Undaunted: North Africa
• Curious Cargo

Trailblazers—An Exciting New Spin-off

During my Most Anticipated Games of 2022 post, I shared how Trailblazers is to Pipeline as Patchwork is to A Feast for Odin.  Some might cry that I’m doing Curious Cargo a disservice by not including it in this comparison, as it is technically another spin-off of Pipeline that is even exclusively a 2-player game (similar to Patchwork).  That said, designer Ryan Courtney approached the design of Trailblazers in a dramatically different way from how he designed Curious Cargo.  So let’s explore a little bit more of what makes Trailblazers unique from its windy pipe siblings.

From day one, Ryan has approached the creation of Trailblazers with two priorities in mind:

1. Make the game rules as simple and approachable as possible (contrast this to Curious Cargo which was intended to cram as much brain-burning, decision-making complexity into a small-box as possible)
2. Develop compelling solo modes to make this a solo-friendly game as much as it is a family-friendly game

These two design goals have been like a guiding North Star through the entire development of Trailblazers.  We’ll save the discussion of that second priority for next month, but for now let’s explore what makes Trailblazers approachable for anyone yet satisfying for everyone.

Many folks will point to the spatial puzzle aspect of Pipeline and Curious Cargo (the windy pipe domino tiles) as their favorite element of those designs.  That’s because there is something inherently satisfying about finding and fitting the perfect tiles together to establish an elaborate network of routes.  Pipeline utilizes this puzzle to fit into a larger economic challenge where the spatial puzzle aspect simply becomes: “build your pipes as long as possible to help you refine oil.”  Curious Cargo cranks the spatial brutality up to eleven by giving you less flexibility in your tile options and more demands in what exactly needs to connect to where in order to ship and receive cargo of the curious kind.

Trailblazers features the same type of domino tiles (albeit these are cards, not tiles, and trails, not pipes or conveyer belts), yet this time the game steps completely out of the way and gives you a wide open field of endless possibilities.  Gone are the economic considerations and shipping demands.  Cast aside are the brain-melting conversions and pesky rules restrictions.  Here, you’ll simply be drafting two cards from a hand of options and arranging and layering them however you’d like.

The other side of the coin that really gives Trailblazers a distinct flavor is the objective of the game: to construct loops that start and end at a campsite of the matching trail color.  Like I mentioned previously, Pipeline asks its players to build long networks, Curious Cargo demands that they establish very specific and deliberate connections, but Trailblazers simply requests that your adventurous routes return back to their square camp card eventually.  Yet between that time period of now and eventually (or more specifically, before the end of the game), you can blaze your trails however you’d like.  

It seems almost too loose and free to be interesting, but the tension of the game is quickly uncovered when you must decide how far you wish to push your luck.  How long and elaborate and winding are you going to make your trail before you focus on connecting it back to camp?  How many loops are you going to invest your precious turns in before the final round of the game sneaks up on you and demands you complete them all?  A loop that is 99% complete is a loop that will score zero points at the end of the game.

Yet this push-your-luck pillar of Trailblazers is exactly why a game with rules as simple as “draft two cards and place them however you want” is still satisfying for more ambitious and experienced spatial puzzlers.  I consider myself a relative veteran, having played Ryan’s spatial puzzlers—including Trailblazers—many times.  Yet I’ve managed to lose the game to complete newcomers because I flew too close to the sun and got burned by my lofty ambitions while my opponents played smarter and safer.  And for a game that is over in the blink of an eye—usually about 30 minutes—I’m able to laugh at my failures rather than painfully regret my poor decisions or resent a stroke of bad luck.

That’s the beauty of Trailblazers for me.  It provides all the juicy spatial puzzling and brain-burning strategy that Ryan Courtney fans (such as myself) have come to love, yet it’s also a game that I can introduce to anybody and not completely crush them at thanks to its press-your-luck simplicity.  For a hobbyist who still can’t get enough of Pipeline (and its zesty new expansion) and Curious Cargo, Trailblazers is absolutely my kind of spin-off game.

Want to follow Trailblazers all the way to its Q2 Kickstarter launch? Be sure to subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter where we’ll continue to reveal more art, components, and details over the coming weeks.

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

The post Top 10 Spin-off Board Games appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Treasure Island: Captain Silver — Revenge Island

1 Play

I finally got to try the new expansion to one of my favorite refreshingly unique designs, Treasure Island, and it didn’t disappoint!  

I’ve always appreciated Treasure Island for its thematic treasure hunt style of gameplay where one player acts as Long John Silver who buries his treasure on a massive island and marks the spot with an X on his tiny secret map.  Meanwhile, the remaining players are pirates who scour the game board with dry erase markers as they search for the buried treasure and narrow their search with hints, clues, and bluffs from Captain Silver.

The mere act of tracing routes and circling search areas and sectioning off regions with markers on a game board makes Treasure Island a novel experience.  Add in the pirate bluffing, semi-cooperation, and devious manipulation, and this design becomes a real winner for me.

That said, this isn’t the type of game that I would want to play on a frequent basis.  I think it benefits most from long gaps between plays, and your mileage will vary depending on whether you prefer to be the deducing pirate or the Captain Silver puppet master. 

Additionally, most veterans of Treasure Island will tell you that the game board is too saturated and the markers are too weak, leading to difficult-to-read colors and markings on the board.  Up to this point, the suggested solution has been to replace the provided markers with neon markers or dry erase Chalk pens, which pop much better on the components.

Fortunately, the expansion amends this issue by including a game board with dimmed colors that make the standard markers stand out perfectly fine.  That’s one base game issue solved, and it’s not the only lifestyle improvement this expansion provides.

The expansion also features a sticker for Captain Silver’s player shield that tweaks and improves his movement capabilities for when he escapes his tower in the late game and books it to the treasure.  This is a rules tweak that has been suggested by the creators for years, one that we implemented into our plays long ago, but now the expansion makes it official.

Finally, many groups have complained that the game is too easy for pirates and too hard for Captain Silver to win.  I’d argue that the difficulty of the game depends heavily on the cleverness of Captain Silver and his chosen bluffs and clues, although there is certainly some luck involved in a game where players spend many actions tracing search circles based solely on gut feelings and probabilities.  But designer Marc Paquien and publisher Matagot heard this complaint and addressed it in a way that works for the entire spectrum of skill levels.  That’s because they have provided Captain Silver with ruse cards, and he is allowed to use multiple cards or stronger cards depending on the difficulty level that the group decided on at the start of the game.  These cards can allow Long John to dodge defeats or throw pirates off the scent of his treasure, buying him a little more time to snatch the victory for himself.

And some of these ruse cards are really spicy.  Such as an accomplice card that lets you move the treasure a short distance from where you initially buried it.  Or a traitor card that allows you to secretly recruit another player to join your team and cover your tracks by convincing others to search in dead areas.

Aside from these improvements, the only other feature the expansion provides is a second map.  This map comes with a couple unique clue cards, a different island layout, and a couple restrictions for pirates.  Specifically, pirates are not allowed pass through Urban areas with a move longer than 3 miles; nor are they allowed to do a large search action in any forested terrain.  These restrictions are balanced out in what feels like a tighter, smaller game board compared to the original island.  That said, I’m not sure if the changes are worth all the extra trouble of having to remind players what they can and can’t do on this board.

All in all, Revenge Island is an expansion that I feel was a worthwhile addition for a game that I enjoy to break out and introduce to people on occasion.  Yet at this point, it seems like Matagot should just discontinue the original game and release an updated version that includes all the improvements and additions in a single box.  This expansion is simply a bunch of improved replacements with a few extra cards and tokens thrown in for variety.  I’ve already tossed the old components and fit everything into the original box, and I think Matagot should too.

Current Rating: 7.5/10

L.L.A.M.A

3 Plays

L.L.A.M.A. has been sitting on my shelf long enough that I finally gave in to the temptation of trying it at 2-players, knowing full well that this is likely the worst way to play Reiner Knizia’s 2019 Spiel des Jahres nominated card game.  After three plays in a row, my fears were confirmed.  I come away from these plays offering what little praise I can muster, specifically: It’s better than UNO.

The game consists of a deck of cards ranging from 1-6 plus llamas, with eight of each card total.  Turns are blazingly fast as players must either play a card equal to or one higher than the number displayed on the discard pile, draw a card, or cut their losses and quit the round.  Llamas can be played on llamas or sixes, and ones can be played on llamas, thus resetting the cycle.

Just like in UNO, getting rid of cards is great, as cards left in your hand at the end of the round result in negative points according to their face value.  Furthermore, you only count each unique card once, so five 3’s in your hand is much better than a hand of 2, 3, and 4.  Llamas are the stinkers of the deck, in that they tack 10 negative points onto your score.  Yet point chips come in white 1’s and black 10’s, and if you manage to play all the cards in your hand, you end the round and earn the bonus of discarding one chip (black or white) from your score.

The only substantial decision of the game comes when you must decide whether to draw another card to keep your hopes of thinning your hand alive, or cut your losses and quit with the remaining cards in your hand as further dents in your score.  If your hand has a lot of duplicates, then quitting can have its benefits… the last opponent still in the round can no longer draw cards, thus they can only play legal numbers from their hand.  So I can try to quit early with a decent hand and hope that I’ve left my opponent with an even worse hand that they can’t get rid of.

It’s extremely simple, very luck driven, but again, there’s a least more meat on the bone than UNO.  Even then, this is a sad feast for a card game that leaves me wholly unsatisfied, especially having tried it at 2-players.  I’m sure that with a few more personalities around the table, things get more lively and decisions slightly more interesting.  But such gaming opportunities with others are too few and far between for me to even consider giving L.L.A.M.A such precious tabletop time.  The opportunity cost is too great for me to recklessly spend rare gatherings on games that are only mildly amusing at best.

For a game as cheap as L.L.A.M.A, I do find that there is one thread keeping it tethered to my collection… Specifically, five years from now, when I can play it with my wife and our two daughters who will be old enough to understand and enjoy the colorful simplicity of L.L.A.M.A.  I can guarantee you that they’ll be deeply familiar with this game long before they’ve ever even heard of UNO.

Current Rating: 4.5/10

Hibachi

1 Play

Hibachi is a new release from Grail Games that is a reimplementation of 2010’s Safranito by Marco Teubner.  Overall, Hibachi is nearly identical to Safranito with a few minor exceptions.  It seems that Grail Games has opted to streamline the rules and speed up the gameplay by selecting a standardized setup and flow that keep the game at a more brisk pace of earning ingredients and fulfilling recipes.  I haven’t played the original Safranito, but based on my experience with Hibachi and understanding of the differences, I think this new version has the superior ruleset and production.

This game caught my eye on Kickstarter late last year with it’s unique blend of skillful poker chip tossing and tactical sealed-bidding.  The objective is to toss poker chips onto a large board, buy or sell the ingredients that your chips land on, and be the first to fulfill three orders using the ingredients you purchase.  It’s a race that demands both dexterous prowess and smart budgeting.  

The game board is a large square with raised edges to help contain the sliding chips.  This board is made up of 9 large circular ingredient spaces, and 4 small bonus action spaces.  Players each receive a set of six large, hefty poker chips with a small hole cut out of the center.  They take turns throwing one chip at a time facedown onto the board, hoping to get the hole of their chip to stop over a desired space.  

I suppose there are different options for how to throw your chip, but most of us opted for a miniature frisbee toss technique.  It takes a bit of practice to get the wrist-flick and finger release just right, but we quickly found ourselves landing our chips in the intended spaces roughly 60 or 70 percent of the time.  The epic failures are absolutely part of the fun, and seeing a chip end up way too short or far always prompted a lively reaction from the table.  

There is certainly the opportunity for opponent screwage, as your sliding poker chip can careen into another well-placed chip and send it far off from where it began.  Yet one particularly nice improvement to Hibachi that Safranito lacked is the opportunity to collect a new chili card for each of your poker chips that end up in a dead space.  These chili cards can be spent in sets of two to substitute for a single ingredient when fulfilling an order.  So even your “invalid” poker chips don’t feel like a total waste.  Although another amusing rule here is that when the chili card pile runs out, the player with the most chili cards stashed in their hand must return all of them to the pile, so these wild cards have a frequent “use it or lose it” pressure to them.

But I’d say that the truly spicy mechanism here lies in the sealed bidding.  Poker chips range from 1-6, they’ll be flipped face up after the tossing phase is finished, and the player with the highest sum on a space gets exclusive rights to the bonus action or first dibs on the ingredient.  The only catch is that the ingredient will cost you the total value of your chips on that space, so you constantly must decide whether to bid high and guarantee yourself one of the precious few ingredients available, or bid low and hope that nobody swoops in and steals your desired card away.

But before the purchasing of an ingredient can happen, players have the opportunity to sell that ingredient from their hand for a price equal to the sum total of all players’ poker chips that are displayed on that space.  So when you see loads of chips aiming for the same spot, and you already have one or more ingredients of that type, you’ll find yourself tempted by the lucrative opportunity of selling your hard-earned cards for cash rather than saving them for victory.

The small bonus action spaces are not to be ignored either, as one of these spaces ended up winning me our first game.  One space allows you to toss an extra, unused chip from your hand after the tossing phase of a round is finished; this can turn the tide of a round in your favor, assuming your aim is true with the bonus toss.  Another space lets you draw as many ingredient cards as the value of the chip thrown so you can keep one in your personal stash.  The third space grants you a private recipe card that can be fulfilled at the end of a round and at the same time you fulfill a public recipe; where three fulfilled recipes instantly wins you the game, this is one space that can really give you a competitive edge.  Finally, the fourth space lets you steal the “master chef” token (a delightful wooden soy sauce bottle) mid-round, which means that ties and turn-order go in your favor for the buying and cooking phases.  

In our first play of Hibachi, my wife, Camille, caught an early lead and was the first to fulfill two recipes.  We were fortunate that later rounds were less successful for her and soon all players were tied at a sudden death standoff of two fulfilled recipes each.  Suddenly, the soy sauce bottle was the most vital space on the board, as the owner of the bottle would get to fulfill an order first to win the game.  Since Camille currently possessed the bottle and I sat to her right, I would be the last player to make a toss onto the board.  I managed to knock her own chip off the soy sauce bottle space and replace it with my own, and nobody had a chip on the bonus toss space, meaning I was able to snatch away the bottle and cross the finish line first by default of stolen turn order.

For a novel game that frequently makes you feel both intellectually clever and digitally gifted (and by digital I mean physical fingers ;),  I’d say that Grail Games nailed their company mission of breathing new life into a hidden gem.

Current Rating: 8/10

Nusfjord

1 Play

Uwe Rosenberg has yet to disappoint me after all of his designs that I have tried (I’ve now played 7 of his games).  Nusfjord doesn’t stray from this pattern of success, yet I’m beginning to see another pattern in Uwe’s design style.  

You see, I can’t help but shake the feeling that many of Uwe’s design children merely exist to cannabalize each other.  His farming games are overshadowed by his legendary farming games, his polyomino games are crowded out by his better polyomino games.  And while most of them are solid experiences in their own right, they all scratch nearly the same itch within their genre.  

Why would I play Cottage Garden or Indian Summer when I can instead play Patchwork or New York Zoo?  Why would I play Nusfjord when I can instead play A Feast for Odin, Agricola, or Le Havre?  Why indeed.

For those who are mega fans of Uwe Rosenberg and his style of game, like I am of Reiner Knizia, these questions are silly and pointless.  Why own both Blue Lagoon and Through the Desert?  Or both Yellow & Yangtze and Tigris & Euphrates?  Or both Babylonia and Samurai?  They’re basically all peas in the same pod, right?  And you certainly don’t need all six of those tile laying Knizia designs in your collection, right?  WRONG.  Now get your disgusting insinuations out of my face and leave me and my precious collection alone.

I have no place to judge… I can only speak for myself.  My problem is that I own and enjoy both A Feast for Odin and Agricola—both are incredible economic Euros—and I don’t play either of them nearly enough.  So when I’m hungry for a meaty Rosenberg game, which again is not nearly as frequent of an occurrence as my Knizia cravings, I’m already forced to decide between two underplayed classics.  On top of that, I desperately want to purchase Le Havre, and the urge has been with me for months since I first tried it, yet I haven’t been able to talk myself into it because I already have two underplayed Uwe economic classics.  Adding a third one to the mix is just asking for even more sadness and neglect.

All this is to say that I had a great time playing Nusfjord, but I would never proactively choose to play it over the above mentioned Triforce of A Feast for Odin, Agricola, and Le Havre.  Regardless, let’s talk a little bit about what still makes Nusfjord, the overshadowed younger sibling, a joy to play.

Do you like fish?  How about little blue fish meeples?  How about a pile of a hundred of them?!?  Now we’re talking.

Nusfjord is all about clearing trees, building a harbor, and being a fisherman in Norway.  Just like any good economic Rosenburg, the worker placement gameplay is tight & interconnected while the cards are varied and plentiful.  

The standout aspect of this design in particular (besides the oodles of fish) is perhaps the opportunity to sell and buy shares of each other’s fishing companies.  Selling shares will instantly earn you ever-precious money, but buying shares will nab you more fish from those players’ nets for the rest of the game.  The fish in this game are just as oily as fish in real life, keeping your economy smooth and flowing from one upgrade to the next.

While you’ll only ever get to use three workers each round, you’ll open up more opportunities and bonuses for using them with the help of local elders and erected buildings that you’ll add to your personal board.  Elders act as private, extra worker placement spaces that you’ll need to keep feeding in order to use them.  Buildings function as point and resource generators that can also improve your standard action options.

It’s a well-balanced sandbox of economic efficiency entertainment, something that Mr. Rosenburg has practically trademarked at this point, although Nusfjord is perhaps a bit more easy-going and luck-influenced than average.  Cards emerging from the decks and from under other cards can have a massive effect on the outcome of the game.  Major scoring objective cards are randomly dealt out in the late game, and it’s possible for one player to end up with a useless hand just as easily as a game winning one.  This is probably most people’s main complaint about the game.

At the end of the day, Nusfjord is still miles better than most of the resource exchanging Euros that have flooded the market.  Its only problem is that it will forever live in the shadow of its older, more interesting siblings.  As it’s supposed to last only 20 minutes per player, I hear that it’s particularly good as a fast 1-3 player game.  So perhaps there is hope for this game yet…

Current Rating: 7/10

5 Classic Games—Lightning Round

I’m still waiting for some delayed preorders to show up, so that’s all I have (this time) for impressions of new-ish games. But I’ve been playing loads of classics lately, so let’s do a lightning round featuring some of these…

Wildlife Safari

1 Play of 4 Games (Scores added together)

Wildlife Safari is not my favorite Knizia filler, but it’s definitely one of his better dead simple card games (I would play this over L.L.A.M.A., Whale Riders: The Card Game, Modern Art Card Game, etc.).

Simply play an animal card (number 0-5) and take any animal token. The game ends once all animal cards of one type have been played, and the last card played of each animal determines the scoring value of their matching tokens!

While I didn’t feel I had as much control over the game state as I tend to prefer in these types of games, it’s still a thrill to invest in certain animals, influence their values, and save a juicy card for a final boom or bust.

Current Rating: 7/10

Libertalia

1 Play

I’m a big fan of Paolo Mori’s work (we even had another great session of Ethnos this past week), but Libertalia feels its age in board game years. The gameplay of simultaneously selecting a card to bid for token drafting order was merely ok for me. I get the appeal starting with the same hands and having unused cards carry over from one campaign to the next, but I still don’t think the design merits the length it took to play. I would have much preferred to play a faster 2-campaign game or 3 speedier campaigns.

It seems as though the game possesses a variety of reasons to keep you coming back for more, but then it blows most of it’s surprises in one play and overstays its welcome by a lot. I realize this one is still ranked in the top 500 on BGG, but I think Ethnos and Dogs of War wipe the floor with Libertalia.

Current Rating: 5.5/10

Blue Moon Legends

2 Plays

I’ve been wanting to talk about Reiner Knizia’s famous Blue Moon Legends for a while now, but this is one meaty game that I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of. We’ve merely dipped our toes in the shallow end of the pool so far, sticking to the two recommended starting decks. Where I haven’t even jumped into the advanced rules or decks yet, I doubt I could offer much valuable input here.

But regarding our first couple plays, I’ve found Blue Moon Legends to be a tight, engaging game of chicken featuring a very Knizian flow of battles in the form of auctions. I’m not a fan of the artwork, and it is all the more disheartening to hear that a publisher nearly produced a new version (one that would presumably have more imaginative illustrations), but I’ll take what I can get at this point.

For those who enjoy diving deep into dueling games such as Summoner Wars, Magic: The Gathering, or other Living/Collectable Card Games, this might be a great option for you. On the other hand, Blue Moon is probably much more streamlined and subtle than what many CCG/LCG fans have come to expect from the genre, so I could see them coming away disappointed instead of delighted. I think this game is likely best for people who become intimately familiar with the decks where they can fully mine its tactical richness.

Current Rating: 8/10

Bohnanza

2 Plays

Bohnanza is a solid, accessible negotiation game, and you could certainly do much worse for a gateway card game, but I find that Chinatown & Quo Vadis scratch the same itch in roughly the same time much better. Both games offer more lively and interesting negotiations, more strategic flexibility, more tension, more drama, and they are equally accessible gateway games.

I suppose the main thing that Bohnanza has to its advantage is its wider player count and much kinder gameplay (in groups where that matters).

I think the art is better than people give it credit for (particularly the bean illustrations), but perhaps the core color palette (neon yellow) could be more… palatable. I also appreciate the novelty and pressure of the unadjustable hand sequencing—this is perhaps the most clever and interesting aspect of Bohnanza.

On the flip side, my least favorite part is how hosed you can feel when the game ends before you’ve had an equal number of turns. The only thing that counteracts this significant advantage is that ties go in your favor, but that’s little consolation when you had a couple cards in hand ready to score you more points on your turn.

As there are both faster card games and meatier negotiation games in my collection, I just don’t see this one getting played very often. At the same time, I’m reluctant to get rid of it, because I agree that it’s something special and worth breaking out every once in a while.

Current Rating: 6/10

Tower of Babel

1 Play

I hate nearly everything about the look and production of this game, and the theme doesn’t do much for me either, but Knizia is onto something here with the design. We ignored the unsanctioned special/action cards as others have suggested and stuck with the pure Euro goodness of contributing building cards to wonder construction and competing for the most contributions.

I like how quickly Tower of Babel plays and how it keeps players active throughout. I dig the offering mechanism with the interesting wrinkles of adding a trade card to your offer or gaining points for rejected offers.

On your turn, you’ll simply propose a wonder to progress the construction on and select one of the discs at that wonder to be both the building requirement and the scoring bonus of your turn. Your opponents can simultaneously offer matching cards from their hand, and you have the freedom accept any of their offers and/or add cards from your own hand. The catch is that you must accept every card in an opponent’s accepted offer, meanwhile rejected opponents score points for every card they offered. Indeed, rejection has never felt so good as it does here in Reiner Knizia’s Tower of Babel.

If your opponent adds a trade card to their offer, and you accept it, then they’ll get to keep the end-game scoring disc (instead of you) from a successful construction, but you’ll get to place your color of pieces instead of theirs for even more control of that particular wonder.

I think currently, part of me wishes there was more to earning the disc tokens than simply hiding them for set points at the end. But perhaps with more plays the layers will peel back and I’ll be fully satisfied with this aspect.

For those who enjoy uncovering hidden Knizia gems, I’d say this one is worthy of your radar. But I’d love to see this game get a full makeover where Dr. Knizia expands on the concept and the publisher makes it look like anything else besides this (I say this knowing full well that Tower of Babel was reimplemented into Planet Rush in 2016… but from the sound of it, most people prefer Tower of Babel).

Current Rating: 7/10

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

The post Candid Cardboard: 1st Impressions of Hibachi, Nusfjord, L.L.A.M.A., & Treasure Island Expansion appeared first on Bitewing Games.

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

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

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

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

Lovers

Games that I’m still CRAZY about.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keepers

Other games that have survived the purge of 2020.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dumpers

Games that I dropped like a hot potato.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flingers

Games that were amusing to try at least once.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Seekers

Interesting games that still elude me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The post Revisiting the Best Board Games of 2019 appeared first on Bitewing Games.