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

CloudAge

2 Plays

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Current Rating: 6/10

Maracaibo

2 Plays

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

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

Current Rating: 8/10

The Shores of Tripoli

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

1 Play

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Current Rating: 5/10

Age of Steam: Deluxe Edition

3 Plays

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

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

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

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

Current Rating: 10/10

Lost Ruins of Arnak

1 Play

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

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

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

Current Rating: 6.5/10

Sleeping Gods

2 Plays

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

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

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

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

Current Rating: 6/10

A War of Whispers

1 Play

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Current Rating: 6.5/10

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

The post Candid Cardboard: New Release 1st Impressions (April 2021) 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.

Tis the season to buy more board games for your friends and family! Our 2020 Holiday Board Game Gift Guide is here to guide you to some of the best options available. Whether you’re looking to get your significant other the best surprise or hoping to find the perfect game for your holiday party, we’re here to help you find the cream of the crop!

Browse all the lists by clicking through the page numbers at the bottom, or use the links below to take you directly to the most relevant list for your needs. If any game mentioned catches your eye, click on the provided link (on the game’s title) to find some options for purchasing it.

Note: This is a completely unsponsored article, and none of the information or links provided generate a profit for us in any way. This article is written purely as service to you from genuine fans of board gaming who love to share this awesome hobby. This list has been carefully assembled to be ultimate gift guide, whether you’re looking to buy the hottest new game or find a reliable classic. We sincerely hope we can help you and your gift receiver find your next favorite game.

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

Continue on to Page 2: Gifts for the Hobbyist Board Gamer

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