Negotiation is one of my all-time favorite ingredients in tabletop games.  It’s a mechanism that steps out of the way and lets the players do the talking, literally.  For me, one of the most satisfying elements of this hobby is the above-the-table interaction that happens between opponents and/or teammates, and negotiation offers this in spades.  Not only that, but it often allows individuals to bring their own personalities into the competitive experience.  

Are you the generous type who offers favors out like candy at Halloween, all the while earning good karma that will pay off in the long run?  Or are you a greedy wheeler and dealer who tries to milk your competition for all they are worth?  As long as participants are open to making deals and hearing offers, then you’re bound to have a blast with a good negotiation game.

With Bitewing Games soon launching a crowdfunding project for not one but two negotiation games, I’ve been playing and exploring many of the all-time greats in this genre.  We are finally ready to reveal our own publications, so in celebration of that reveal I’d like to share my personal Top 10 Negotiation Games.  Be sure to stick around after perusing my list, because I’ll have some exciting new details to reveal for fans of this mechanism.

Chinatown

What better way to start this list off than with the 1999 classic, Chinatown?  Chinatown has become one of my all time favorite games to introduce to anybody (gamers, non-gamers, family, friends, you name it) thanks to its smooth approachability and lively antics.  Players are seeking to establish the most profitable businesses on the block by acquiring connected lots and building certain businesses on those lots.

Negotiation is at the beating heart of this game, as each round you’ll secretly choose to acquire a few lots from the hand of cards that are dealt to you.  You’ll also draw business tiles from a bag that range from take-out to laundry to flowers and more.  Then, you’ll reveal your lots and tiles and let the wild rumpus begin!  In real time (no clockwise turn structure here!), players simultaneously make offers and negotiate trades of their lots, business tiles, and money.  The rules offer complete freedom in what you offer, how you trade, and how you earn the most money to win the game.  The real fun comes in figuring out how to wring lot 43 from an opponent’s grasp or in realizing how desperately your neighbor wants your dim sum tile and basking in their desperation.  Chinatown never fails to be a hit at our table.

The King’s Dilemma

From a decades-old classic to the second-newest release on this list, The King’s Dilemma features an exciting mix of legacy role-playing, epic kingdom politicking, and tense auction voting.  This one is admittedly not quite as easy to get to the table as Chinatown, as it requires (ideally) 5-players who are willing to assemble semi-regularly and play through roughly 12-20 sessions.  But if you have the right group for it, then you are certainly in for a romp!

This one sees players acting as influential advisory houses to the king.  Together, your council faces an endless stream of dilemmas that have long-term consequences on the military, culture, economy, and moral of your people.  You will use your power (through voting auctions), your money (through bribing), and your wit (through persuasive conversation) to decide the fate of the kingdom as you seek to fulfill your house’s secret agenda.

Cosmic Encounter

Might as well keep the time period whiplash going by jumping back to the oldest game on my list: the legendary Cosmic Encounter.  This is one that I’ve labeled “the pizza” of board gaming, and I stand by that comparison.  The real draw of Cosmic Encounter, and the reason why it has stayed relevant and seen updated versions since its 1977 release, is the fact that it offers an infinite combination of wacky alien powers for players to explore.

Yet the element that keeps its old gears greased is undoubtedly the opportunity for negotiation.  It doesn’t matter that one player’s alien ability is infinitely more powerful than any other, because that simply means the opponents must team up to overcome the galaxy’s Goliath.  While it’s a competitive game at its core, Cosmic Encounter allows its players to collectively dictate who crosses the finish line and victoriously colonizes five planets—resulting in one or multiple winners.

Sidereal Confluence

Let’s continue along the space theme with my next pick, Sidereal Confluence.  While this one also features asymmetric alien powers, like Cosmic Encounter, its gameplay is actually much closer to Chinatown.  If Chinatown is the simultaneous negotiation game made for anyone and everyone, then Sidereal Confluence is the hardcore hobbyist version.

This one is so outlandishly ambitious that I still can’t believe how well it comes together.  I’ll tell you what: the first time I heard about this game I was immediately running in the opposite direction.  Featuring 268 cubes, 9 alien factions whose names simulate a spelling stroke, and multiple hours of resource conversion.  No thank you.  Yet beneath this rough exterior hides one of the greatest negotiation games ever designed.

Here, you’ll find all the chaotic fun of Chinatown with infinitely more layers of strategic possibilities.  All deals are binding and virtually nothing is off limits—you can promise a share of the profits from your convertor to the player who helps you fuel it, or even lend the convertor itself to a neighbor when you find it useless to your needs.  You can exchange planets for ships, ships for food, food for protection, protection for research—the list goes on!  While this sprawling game initially appears alien and unwieldy, it’s surprisingly straightforward, laser-focused, and entirely engaging once the rounds get going.

Quo Vadis?

From the new hotness to another old classic, let’s now examine Quo Vadis.  I never try to hide my biases on any post, but fair warning, I’m definitely biased and personally tied to this game (more on that later).  But even if Quo Vadis was completely unrelated to Bitewing Games, it would still be on my Top 10 Negotiation Games list.  That’s because this one is a playground of pure, zesty politics from one of my favorite designers, Reiner Knizia.

Believe it or not, Quo Vadis is now over 30 years old and among the very first notable releases from Dr. Knizia.  It is certainly starting to look its age in board game years, yet the core experience is as spicy as ever.  The game is a race to squeeze one or more of your senators into the Inner Sanctum before it fills up, because only those who have reached the Inner Sanctum qualify for victory.  The only problem is that it is extremely hard to get there without the help of your opponents.  Through bribing, voting, exchanging favors, and sometimes even backstabbing, only the most cunning players will rise to the top of the Roman Senate.  But you can be the last to cross the finish line—getting in by the skin of your teeth—and still claim the victory for yourself!  That’s because the winner will be the Inner Sanctum player who earns the most laurels from successful campaigns and lucrative deals along the way.  It’s simple, it’s fast, and it is incredibly thrilling.  One must balance the pressing urgency of reaching the Inner Sanctum with the lucrative opportunities to hang back and milk your opponents and the game board for laurels.

As much as I love this game, I’ll be the first to admit that has a few flaws.  Most notably, the board loses some of its tightness and the table some of its tension if you’re playing with 3 people instead of 4 or ideally 5.  And if those people are new to the game, then getting them excited about this grungy old box and bone-dry board is usually a challenge.  Finally, those who enjoy a broader trading sandbox from games like Sidereal Confluence will obviously feel a bit more restricted here.  It’s understandable for some players to come away from the relatively dry Quo Vadis being thirsty for a little more juice in their negotiations.  To that end, I’m thrilled to share that Bitewing Games and Reiner Knizia have worked to address every major flaw in this classic game—so stick around to hear about Quo Vadis evolved.  But for now, let’s pay our respects to the original Quo Vadis and continue on to my next pick…

Root

Root is one of a few picks on my list that features negotiation as a secondary or supplemental mechanism to the core experience.  In fact, the best place you’ll find negotiation in this game is actually within the first expansion thanks to the Riverfolk Company faction of profit-seeking otters.  This commercial crew offers their services to the other woodland critters by displaying their hand at all times and setting prices on their offerings.  Not only can opponents buy cards from your public hand, but they can also use your riverboats to get around the board easier and utilize your mercenaries to bully their targets more effectively.

Being a good merchant otter is not only about setting the right prices for your services, but it’s also about keeping your finger on the woodland’s pulse and enticing your opponents with offers they can’t refuse.  Yet negotiation can even be found outside of the Riverfolk Company as players can form an alliance with the Vagabond or collaborate with enemies to destabilize an even bigger threat.  Designer Cole Wehrle is known for embracing the memorable meta that can arise from a board game, and Root is all about gaming the players.

Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile

If gaming the players is the kind of thing you are looking for, then Mr. Wehrle’s later design, Oath, might be an even better fit for you.  Oath was my favorite release from last year—I’m now 11 meaty plays into it and still having a blast.  But that doesn’t mean it’s for everyone.  Nooooooo way, you better know what you’re getting into with Oath before you take the plunge.

If you too want to have a blast with Oath, then you ideally need a regular group of 3-5 players.  Your group needs to be totally okay with a lengthy rules explanation, a cloudy first play (or more), an unwieldy labyrinth of strategic possibilities, a wide range of emotional highs and lows, and the ever present possibility of kingmaking looming over each game’s outcome.  In many ways, Oath is less about reaching a competitive conclusion and more about charting a civilization’s journey.  But if you’re here for the negotiations and politicking, then you’ll find plenty to love.

Each result of a play of Oath has a direct effect on the setup of the next—like a pseudo legacy game that is constantly morphing and never ending.  The winner of one game always becomes crowned (or continues) as Chancellor in the next.  This Chancellor’s goal is to hold their new oath (a unique victory objective) while keeping the Exiles of the kingdom in check.  Often, the Exiles and their followers can become so dangerous and unwieldy that the Chancellor may be compelled to offer citizenship to a lowly Exile in a desperate attempt to retain control.  The problem is that this Exile-turned-Citizen will do everything in their power to succeed the Chancellor as they cooperate together.  

One of my most recent plays of this game saw one exiled player forcing his citizenship upon me, the Chancellor of the session, and convincing me to share my war bands and power with him to help maintain order in my Empire.  And each time I trusted him with my resources, he immediately stabbed me in the back by revealing secret plans and motives of his own.  Fortunately, the other exiles proved to be a large enough threat that he was compelled to concede his ulterior motives for the next era and help my Empire maintain its grasp on the land.

Inis

Interestingly, Cole has cited that one of his main inspirations for Oath was in fact Inis, by Christian Martinez.  That’s more due to the fact that Inis and Oath both feature multiple paths to victory within a tumultuous power struggle—yet they both possess elements of negotiation as well!  Ironically, the only place that you’ll really find negotiation in Inis is within the conflicts between warring players.

The thing I love about conflict in Inis is that it is completely devoid of things like combat dice and power cards.  These tropes are replaced by a simple question: “Would you like to stop fighting?”  If the answer is no, then players will continue to slap valuable troops out of each other’s armies or precious cards out of each other’s hands until one retreats or is wiped out.  But if the answer is yes—and both players can agree to stop before one or both are virtually annihilated—then the conflict is over.  Simple as that.  The different bands will simply coexist on the same board space.

Inis remains a brilliant game of political power grabbing that is further improved by several of the modules in its expansion.  I’m all ears for the recently announced second installment in this “political trilogy” from designer Martinez and publisher Matagot titled Galactic Renaissance.

Lords of Vegas

Speaking of one game being the inspiration for another, Lords of Vegas actually owes some of its DNA to the previously listed Chinatown according to the designers of this next game on my list.  It certainly makes sense when you look closely enough.  Both games see players taking control of lots on a square grid and seeking to erect businesses across connected lots in order to gain the most profits.  Yet where Chinatown is pure, unadulterated negotiation, Lords of Vegas is a game of cutthroat casinos ripe with entrepreneurial gambling and sprinkled with the opportunity for trading and negotiation.

In this 12-year-old fan favorite, players are constantly risking their hard-earned cash on ambitious endeavors.  These pursuits include everything from building, upgrading, and spreading owned casinos to hostile takeovers of the competition or even high-stakes gambling to steal each other’s cash.  With all of these thrillingly thematic possibilities, it can be easy to forget the advantageous opportunity to trade at any time.  The ability to trade most anything—including money, lots, dice in casinos, and actions—can really help tip the scales of luck in your favor.

Bohnanza

We’re going to close this Top 10 out with another classic trading game that has long been a favorite of many gamers across the world.  Apparently the gateway to becoming a legendary German game designer is by starting with a simple negotiation game.  As Reiner Knizia began his design journey with Quo Vadis (among others) so Uwe Rosenberg started his ludography with the bean-trading card game, Bohnanza. Many frown upon the garish art style of this game, but I personally find it to be quite charming and iconic.

While I personally gravitate toward games that offer more strategy and flexibly in their negotiation possibilities, Bohnanza remains a worthwhile and amusing classic thanks to its unique locked hand card play.  Here, you are not allowed to rearrange any cards in your hand, and you must play them into your fields in order.  This forces players to give up beans to their opponents in hopes of receiving others, as you’ll score more points if you are able to play multiple beans of a single type in a row.  For those who are curious, Bohnanza sits as the most family-friendly negotiation game on this list. If you’re wanting to get gamers or non-gamers hooked on this genre, then Bohnanza, Chinatown, and Quo Vadis are the three best entry points.

Honorable Mentions

No top 10 list is any good without a handful of honorable mentions, right?  At the very least, these mentions help to dampen the outrage of passionate fans who saw their favorite negotiation game shafted on my list.  So let’s get into them!

• John Company: Honestly, I have no doubt that the second edition of this game was merely a few months away from making my Top 10 list and pushing off another title listed above.  Cole Wehrle is a favorite designer of mine (if you didn’t notice from Root and Oath being mentioned above), and John Company is his most negotiation-focused game of all.  I can’t wait to dive into this one when it finally releases in Q3!
• Rising Sun: I’ve heard two main things about Rising Sun.  1) It claims to be a negotiation game but many detractors say that’s a weak claim at best.  2) Many folks also say that this is the weakest design of the Eric Lang / CMON trilogy (Blood Rage, Rising Sun, Ankh).  So will I ever get the chance to try it?  Who knows.  But here it is.
• Twilight Imperium: These next two games are probably the ones that will get me in the most trouble with negotiation fans (because they are on my honorable mentions rather than my Top 10).  I’m still not sure whether I would enjoy this 8-hour extravaganza or simply be annoyed that I didn’t spend an entire day playing 4-10 other games that I know I love instead.  But from the sound of it, those who enjoy TI are hooked from their first play and ever hungry for more plays.
• Diplomacy: Another beast of a game (roughly 6 hours) that apparently must be played at exactly 6 or 7 players who will likely enter as friends and leave as mortal enemies.  Diplomacy apparently takes the back-stabbing part of negotiation and makes it a glorified feature in this epic game of military might.
• Dune: Dune, like TI and Diplomacy, has been around for decades, although it recently received a facelift.  These games also share the common problem of possessing many barriers to entry and requiring the perfect group (in this case 6 players hungry for a heavy 3-hour game).  Dune features deeply asymmetric factions, shakey alliances, and secret treachery.
• Pax Pamir: While Pax Pamir is one of my all-time favorite board games, I couldn’t justify fitting it onto my Top 10 list when negotiation is such a light feature compared to the other games in contention.  The most negotiation you’ll find here is mostly in the table talk—convincing others to join or support your faction and work against opponents.  Of course, you can also waive the forced bribes present in the game if a player is seeking to help your cause—but most often those bribes are enforced because the economy is so tight here.
• Genoa: I’ve come close to tracking down a copy of Genoa, and perhaps that’ll happen before too long.  This one seems to be a bit more polarizing—either you love the dynamic gameplay that Genoa provides, or you hate it for being too long and dry.
• Moonrakers: This is undoubtedly the hottest negotiation game at the moment as Moonrakers is currently having its second smash-hit Kickstarter campaign featuring all kinds of expansion content. What happens when you combine negotiation with deck-building in space? Only Moonrakers can answer that question.
• Panic on Wall Street: I rarely hear about this 2011 game, but it still has its fans.  This one is about loudly negotiating and trading stocks for 3-11 players in only 30 minutes.
• Catan: “Two sheep for a wood?” How could I not mention one of the most popular trading games of all time?
• Spartacus: A Game of Blood and Treachery: Like Quo Vadis, Spartacus is also about competing for power in Ancient Rome.  Only the competition here plays out in gory gladiatorial arenas rather than dignified senatorial committees.  Apparently this one got a somewhat recent reskin as well.

Introducing Zoo Vadis and Gussy Gorillas

I started this post by sharing how negotiation is one of my all-time favorite ingredients in tabletop games.  So of course, as a publisher, I’m eager to keep this genre alive and contribute to the list of legends which include the games noted above.  For my tastes, this might be the most exciting project that we’ve had the privilege to work on.  Let’s dive into the next two releases coming from Bitewing Games… 

Zoo Vadis

When I reached out to Reiner regarding Quo Vadis, I had a vision for what the game could become.  We weren’t interested in simply painting over the cracks in the design.  Rather, I dug through over 30 years of data (thanks BGG) and presented my analysis to Reiner including several development goals for the game.  Then off he went with his decades-old design to give it new life—like a phoenix reborn from the flames.  I’ll be sharing a full publisher diary before too long on all the nitty gritty details behind the evolution of Quo Vadis to Zoo Vadis, but for now let me simply explain the end result, Zoo Vadis:

What if the animals were the ones who ran the zoo?  

…Presumably, this wild government would be built upon the support of fellow creatures and fueled by the fame, attention, and prestige of wide-eyed visitors.  Naturally, the most aspirational beasts would lobby for a position in the star exhibit, and the lead star would be elected Zoo Mascot.  

In order to join the star exhibit, each species must campaign its way up the hierarchy of enclosures with the majority support of animal voters.  And the lead star will be the species that has earned the most laurels from both raving fans and jealous rivals along the way.  

How does one gain support and earn laurels?  Through crafty politicking, clever negotiations, and ruthless schemes.  There can only be one Zoo Mascot, after all.

Where are you going?  That is the ultimate question of Zoo Vadis.

Zoo Vadis is an evolution of Reiner Knizia’s cult-classic negotiation game, Quo Vadis?.  It retains the elegant, political gameplay that fans have come to love while introducing many innovations and improvements by:

-Enhancing the 3-player game and tailoring the board to all player counts through neutral, bribable figures—roaming peacocks

-Widening the player count with a second game board for 6-7 players

-Expanding the possibilities for strategic negotiation with asymmetric animal abilities 

-Increasing tactical opportunities with new special laurel tokens

-Broadening the appeal of the theme and presentation with vibrant zoo art by Kwanchai Moriya and Brigette Indelicato

-Enlivening the production with chunky animal figures and functional player screens

Like the original design, the game ends immediately when the Star Exhibit is full.  Only the animals who have reached the Star Exhibit qualify for victory, and the winner is the player with the most laurels.

Gussy Gorillas

Before Bitewing Games had ever reached out to Reiner Knizia or Ryan Courtney, we had a couple designs of our own that had survived the gauntlet of playtesting and were games that we were eager to share with the community.  One of those is Gussy Gorillas, and we’re jazzed to finally be publishing it alongside Zoo Vadis in our upcoming negotiation games crowdfunding campaign…

Gussy Gorillas are a peculiar group of primates that strive to keep each other gussied up and well-groomed. Through social grooming, these apes remove dirt, insects, and debris from the difficult-to-reach and difficult-to-see places of each other’s fur. Reciprocation is expected and awarded in this kind of monkey business! The player who acquires the most diverse and exotic collection of groomed goods will earn the respect of their fellow primates and be awarded the golden banana of victory.

In Gussy Gorillas, players start out with a personal deck of face-down cards. Without looking at the card(s) in their hand, players simultaneously trade or keep their hand, one or two cards at a time, to form a personal collection. Once all cards have been traded or kept, players tally their collections and the highest score wins — but pairs can cancel out and special cards are not always helpful, so trade carefully!

Similar to the popular game Hanabi, in Gussy Gorillas players hold their cards facing away from themselves…but instead of being a co-operative memory game, this is a competitive negotiation and bluffing game. Things get even more interesting once players realize that every card can either be very good or very bad for one’s collection, depending on the context. You’ll have to convince your opponents to keep bad cards for themselves and give great cards to you if you want to swing away with the win…

There are still plenty more juicy details to share over the coming months and we hope to have your support when Zoo Vadis and Gussy Gorillas launch this January!  The best way to help Bitewing Games and not miss out on these upcoming releases is to subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter. Bitewing Games is only made possible and kept alive by the support of backers and fans of our published games.   Thanks for your support!

What is your favorite negotiation game?  Share in the comments below!

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 Negotiation Board Games + A Bitewing Games Publication Reveal! appeared first on Bitewing Games.

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

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

Caesar!: Seize Rome in 20 Minutes

Expected Release Date: Now

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

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

Ghosts of Christmas

Expected Release Date: February 2022

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

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

Bear Raid

Expected Release Date: February 2022

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

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

Factory Funner

Expected Release Date: February 2022

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

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

Sound Box

Expected Release Date: March 2022

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

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

Root: The Marauder Expansion

Expected Release Date: Q2 2022

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

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

John Company: Second Edition

Expected Release Date: June 2022

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

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

Soda Smugglers

Expected Release Date: June 2022

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

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

Pumafiosi

Expected Release Date: June 2022

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

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

Hot Lead

Expected Release Date: June 2022

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

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

Beyond the Sun Expansion

Expected Release Date: Q2-Q3 2022

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

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

Ahoy

Expected Release Date: Q3 2022

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

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

Trailblazers

Expected Release Date: Q4 2022

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

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

Horseless Carriage

Expected Release Date: Q4 2022

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

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

Sidereal Confluence: Bifurcation

Expected Release Date: 2022

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

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

My City: Roll & Write

Expected Release Date: 2022

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

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

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

Crescent Moon

Expected Release Date: 2022

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

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

Ra

Expected Released Date: 2022

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

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

The Queen’s Dilemma

Expected Release Date: 2022?

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

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

Fit to Print

Expected Release Date: 2023

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

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

Amun-Re: 20th Anniversary Edition

Expected Release Date: 2023

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

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

Arcs

Expected Release Date: 2023

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

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

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

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

Welcome back to my Top 50 Board Games of All Time! If you missed part 1 of this post, then head on over and check out games 50-26. Today, we’ll be finishing things out by discussing games 25-1. That’s right, the cream of the cream of the crop…

25. Camel Up (Second Edition)

Best suited for everyone

Camel Up might be the most reliable party game in my collection.  If there is any game that I can place before a random assortment of 4-8 friends, family, or strangers, and expect them to request a second and third play in a row, that game is undoubtedly Camel Up.  None can resist the allure of betting on chunky, colorful camels as they race around the desert.  Between the stacking camels, dice-dispensing pyramid, memorably dramatic moments, popup palm tree, and shoot-for-the-moon strategies, this one has it all.

24. El Grande

Best suited for everyone

While it doesn’t have the party pizazz of Camel Up, El Grande has been another crowd pleaser at my table.  This classic strategy game of competing for area majorities is unmatched in its elegant flow and potent interaction.  Many designs since have wisely borrowed from El Grande’s master class mechanisms, but few, if any, have risen to its level of grace and wit plus the drama of revealing the contents of the towering Castillo.  It’s not really worth considering outside of the four or five player count, but within that range you’ll find consistently satisfying area influence, auctioning, and action drafting to be had.

23. Renature

Best suited for everyone (but be ready for some mean moments)

El Grande designer, Wolfgang Kramer, also brought us last year’s Renature with the help of Azul designer Michael Kiesling, and this is a game that I’m loving more and more with each new play.  One of the quickest ways to my heart is down the path of simple, clever brutality, and Renature is indeed beautifully simple, wonderfully clever, and deliciously brutal.  This game sees its competitors placing one domino onto the board at a time, and touching domino animals must match.  But the placement of a domino also allows one to plant an adjacent foliage piece, and these plant tokens are used to compete for area majority or even cancel out other player’s plants.  I stand by my declaration that this is the greatest domino game OF ALL TIME.

22. A Feast for Odin

Best suited for hobbyist gamers

While it has dropped out of my previous top 10 games list, that’s more a side-effect of many other stellar games climbing their way up my rankings than A Feast for Odin becoming any less enjoyable over time.  I would label this a heavy worker placement polyomino Euro game with relatively low-interaction.  When there are roughly SIXTY worker placement spaces to choose from—like a wide sandbox of strategies one can use to acquire points—it is typically quite effortless to stay out of each other’s way and do your own thing.  While this blog is riddled with me bemoaning low-interaction games on a regular basis, mostly due to their commonly stale dynamics and limited replayability, I find that A Feast for Odin is one of the few exceptions to my preferences.  The numerous interlocking concepts and mechanisms here are perfect for a warm, cozy, lazy few hours of puzzling perfection that still satisfies after all these plays.

21. Bus

Best suited for cold-blooded strategists

Bus is a game about building bus routes and transporting passengers around town, yet this design is no flowery Ticket to Ride.  Imagine a world where all people were predictable creatures of habit.  They go to the work, then head to the bar, then go home, rinse and repeat… as long as a bus route can get them there, of course.  On and on they cycle through this unchanging lifestyle, with the only exception being when a greedy bus line decides to STOP TIME.  Suddenly, everyone in town decides to work another shift in a row, or pull an all-nighter at the bar, or play hooky from their jobs and kick back at home, and all the buses that were prepared to take them to their usual next destination are suddenly hosed and empty-handed.  With completely open information and not even a hint of luck, Bus is a pure strategy game that has players feuding over the tight economy of passengers in an effort to scrape just a few precious point morsels from this ruthless game.

20. Tournament at Avalon

Best suited for everyone

If you really want to know what this wacky trick-taking card game is all about, I would direct you to my full review from last year.  Here’s a sample of what I said:

“If the possibility of falling behind early and spending the rest of the game trying to claw your way back to the top while your leading opponents pounce on you like sharks to a bleeding prey sounds dreadful, then steer clear of Tournament at Avalon… Then again, perhaps you are like me.  Maybe you’re happy to roll with the punches and simply want to experience trick-taking at its finest.  In Tournament at Avalon, you may be completely fine with being the favorite piñata of the round because you see the fresh gaping wound in your side for what it truly is: a firehose of retribution.  You may be the type of competitor who loves to form shaky alliances with fellow weaklings to surround and beat down the mighty.  And when you are the current King of the Hill, you welcome the opportunity to bob and weave around targeted attacks and gleefully watch as swinging blows skim past your head to land squarely on your neighbor’s face.”

19. My City

Best suited for everyone

Perhaps you’ve noticed by now that I have a soft spot for great polyomino games.  In my Top 50 board games of all time, we’ve already covered titans from master polyomino designer, Uwe Rosenberg, including A Feast For Odin and New York Zoo.  Yet the game that claims the crown to world’s best polyomino game, and the title that makes a strong case for being the best Legacy design yet, is none other than Reiner Knizia’s My City.  We’ve played this one 24 times now—that’s as many episodes as the game contains, so we’re not likely to play it much further with the “eternal game”—but that’s more plays than most other titles on this list.  We’ll always hold a special memory in our hearts for the journey we took through My City

18. Ethnos

Best suited for everyone

Ethnos remains one of my go-to gateway games (games to introduce people to the hobby) because it never fails to entertain newcomers while continuing to engage me.  While the art direction could use a drastic overhaul to match the family friendly nature of the design, none of that matters once the cards are dealt and the fun begins.  Turns are as simple as drawing a card or playing a set known as a “band of allies” of matching colors or creatures.  The band will net you points while the card on top of your band (the “leader”) grants you a special bonus and a token placement on the map.  Much like El Grande, players compete for points via area majorities.  While some folks complain of “top decking” in Ethnos, where you spend your turns drawing a card off the top of the deck until you find what you want, I find this to be a hollow complaint thanks to a little wrinkle that Paolo Mori includes in the design: Whenever you play a band of cards from your hand, you must discard the rest of your hand faceup into the market for other players to feast on.  Suddenly, you have to decide whether the “top decking” strategy is worth it for that one extra card, because everything else you draw will simply help your competition.

17. The King’s Dilemma

Best suited for a regular group of 5 players

Aside from My City, The King’s Dilemma is the only other legacy design that made my Top 50 Board Games of All Time, or even came close, for that matter.  The concept of a legacy game—a game whose rules and components permanently change over time based on the outcome and decisions of each play—is a fascinating, alluring, and popular feature in the industry.  But our experience with some of the more popular options has uncovered it’s ugly side-effects including rules & component management fatigue, forced narratives, messy productions, and unwieldy scheduling requirements.  Burnout is real within this genre, but The King’s Dilemma has soared over these common traps across our many plays by staying focused on the addicting core concept of political negotiation and bribing.  As you’ll soon find out with even higher rated games, I’m a sucker for a good negotiation game, and The King’s Dilemma hits the spot.  I love how the secret incentives can have me championing the cause of the good people in one game and sacrificing their well being for my personal gain in the next like the greedy posterity of a heroic monarch.

16. Wavelength

Best suited for everyone, especially groups of 6 or more

And here we arrive at my favorite party game, Wavelength.  Between Kyle’s video review and my own written review, we’ve covered the entire spectrum of reasons why we love this game. The simple truth is that Wavelength effortlessly captures the the feeling of a gameshow and generates engaging conversations and hilarious memories that last far beyond the party.  It was the first game I backed on Kickstarter, sending me down the rabbit hole of thrillingly creative possibilities.

15. The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

Best suited for everyone

Now we are onto my top rated cooperative game, and not only that, but this is one of only two cooperative games that made my Top 50 Board Games of All Time.  Don’t get me wrong here, I dig a solid cooperative game such as Pandemic, Mysterium, and Horrified.  Yet those types of games obviously don’t quite hit the spot for me as all the competitive ones on my list.  So what makes The Crew so special?  In this mission-based trick-taking game, everyone’s turns matter and nobody can quarterback them through it.  The only communication allowed between players is a single token that lets you signal or imply information about some of the cards in your hand.  Each new challenge and each new hand of cards presents an obstacle that can often seem impossible to overcome, yet it feels amazing when your crew finally triumphs.  It’s an addictive challenge that takes players on an unforgettable 50-mission journey.

14. For Sale / For Sale Autorama

Best suited for everyone

We’re talking about my two favorite card games back-to-back between The Crew and now For Sale.  For Sale consists of two phases: auctioning coins for houses that become your hand of cards, then selling that hand of cards one at a time in a closed auction.  When I pass on the auctioning of the first phase, I have to pay half of what I’ve bid up to that point and take the lowest value face-up house.  So there is a game of chicken between players when nobody wants to take the grungy outhouse card, and thus the bidding war ensues.  Yet the outhouse card might be a great one to claim with a pass in a particular round if the other options aren’t that much better and spending your precious coins to avoid it will merely land you a slightly higher card.  The second phase becomes a game of predicting your opponents’ plays, as the bidding becomes a closed auction where everyone plays a single house card facedown and reveals their bid at the same time and the values of the money cards are dispersed to players according to who bid highest, who bid lowest, and everything in between.  Nothing feels worse than wasting your best card on an auction that everyone else played low for.  Conversely, eeking out the best money card of a round with a measly house makes you feel like a mastermind.  And that roller coaster of emotions is the magic of For Sale.

13. Root

Best suited for a regular group of hobbyist gamers

Root has to be one of the most aesthetically charming games on this list.  Screen-printed, wooden animal tokens and their more detailed card and board illustrations are all brimming with personality.  Rich colors of the woodland span from deep orange hues to refreshing green shades.  Card suits consist of mice, birds, foxes, and rabbits.  There is no shortage of warmth in the presentation of Root.  Yet this art direction was intentionally chosen because of the stark contrast it presents against the savage gameplay.  These woodland creatures are at war, and a negotiated alliance in one round can quickly become a callous betrayal in the next.  No animal is safe from a sudden beatdown, and only one faction will triumph.  With the consistent release of more expansions including animal factions over these past few years, and at least two more in the pipeline, it feels as though I could explore Root’s fascinating asymmetry for dozens upon dozens more plays.

12. Babylonia

Best suited for everyone

This may not be shocking to you, but Reiner Knizia’s Babylonia at number 12 feels like a bit of stealth ranking to me.  It’s one of the more recent Knizia’s which flew under my radar as I was gobbling up his most popular and revered titles.  Yet when I finally came around to Babylonia, I found it to be a rock-solid game that grew on me with each and every play.  This is a fast-paced, 45-minute strategy game that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed at the 2, 3, and 4 player counts.  Everything about picking up the clackity wooden tiles, slotting them into my rack, and deciding which ones to place onto the board and where makes for a deeply satisfying ritual.  My deepest thanks is owed to Space Biff, whose eloquently written review talked me into trying this brilliant jewel.

11. Inis

Best suited for everyone

While it is no longer my #1 game of all time, Inis remains an outstanding area-control experience of careful drafting, crafty cardplay, elegant combat, and sneaky intentions.  Because there are three different conditions one can aim for to become the victor, I’ve rarely seen a game that didn’t come down to the wire as players wrestled to become King of the Celtic Hill.  The production is a mesmerizing masterclass in capturing the mysterious theme thanks to Jim Fitzpatrick’s alluring illustrations and Dimitri Bielak’s lovely tiles.  Ultimately, Inis is as much about playing your opponents as it is about playing the game, and that subtle politicking is what makes it consistently satisfying for me.

10. Chinatown

Best suited for everyone

Out of all the games that made my top 10, Chinatown is the dark horse the snuck its way on here.  This pure negotiation experience beat out dozens of other personal favorites thanks to my many fond memories of it that match my enthusiasm to play it again.  I’ve found Chinatown to be a surprising hit with non-gamers that delightedly brings out both the best and worst in them.  The most generous and thoughtful of folks can immediately transform into vicious traders who see the hunger in your eyes for their prized possessions, so they seize the opportunity to milk you for all you are worth.  

9. Ra

Best suited for everyone

Perhaps Ra is so high on my list simply because I’ve been waiting to acquire my own copy for far too long.  Yet maybe it has made its way here due to the perfect blend of auctioning and push-your-luck that it provides.  How long will you wait to spend your best sun disks?  Wait long enough, and you’ll be one of the only ones left to bid on all the lucrative tiles.  Wait too long, and you may find the round ending before you’ve put your sun disks to good use.  Is this auction really worth fighting for?  Surely you aren’t going to let another opponent claim these tiles for so cheap, are you?  This game is jam-packed with tough decisions.  As a fan of auctioning games, it doesn’t get much better than Ra.

8. Age of Steam

Best suited for hobbyist gamers with thick skin

I just barely shared my thoughts on Age of Steam: Deluxe Edition in my last Candid Cardboard: New Release 1st Impressions post.  This train game rewards careful and opportunistic economic planning and punishes a lack thereof.  Yet players don’t only have to account for their own budget and round-to-round plans; they must also account for the plans of their opponents.  All it takes is for one player to steal away your goods cube, or build track on your planned space, or claim your needed bonus action, and you may suddenly find yourself losing a lot of money and points.  But the arc this game takes—from scraping by with a few meager deliveries, to prospering with massive gains in income and ambitious rail developments, to shrinking opportunities for points as the cubes diminish from the board—is a supremely satisfying experience.

7. Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy

Best suited for hobbyist gamers with a big table… and maybe a side table, too

Last year, I sold my fully deluxified, mostly expanded, legendary boxed copy of Scythe and put some of that money toward a copy of Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy.  After spending several good hours playing multiple sessions of Eclipse, I have no regrets in swapping these two games.  That’s not a knock against Scythe, which I played and enjoyed a solid fifteen times.  But the change to Eclipse reflects a change in my personal gaming preferences.  Eclipse not only presents a wider range of freedom across its various actions and engine upgrades, but it also embraces a more interactive and tense 4X experience.  The memorable moments of war and betrayal are strong with this one, as I shared in my recent Board Game Birthday Marathon Musings.

6. Sidereal Confluence: Remastered Edition

Best suited for hobbyist gamers

Continuing on with the theme of epic space games, Sidereal Confluence features up to 9 wildly asymmetric alien factions cooperating with each other through chaotic cube-tacular negotiation.  Take the simultaneous trading concept of Chinatown, crank it up ten-fold, add in a couple thousand chunky cubes, and you’ve got yourself Sidereal Confluence.  The sheer amount of soulless components and icons in this game scared me off from trying it for the longest time.  But I was sorely mistaken to avoid this game, because all those bits and pieces are mere cogs in a system of player-focused deals and negotiations which are the beating heart of this excellent experience.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the remastered edition has given it a welcome makeover.

5. Hansa Teutonica: Big Box

Best suited for everyone

Despite Hansa Teutonica being over ten years old and looking even older, it remains undeniably refreshing amid the onslaught of sluggish, overly complicated, low-interaction Euros because it is fast-paced, streamlined, and wonderfully interactive.  The new Big Box version provides even more content to explore—it makes for an incredible package value that is not big in size, but big in content.  Quinns of Shut Up & Sit Down recently proposed that this might just be the greatest Euro ever, and I’m inclined to agree.   That’s why the big box version was my number one release of 2020. 

4. Brass: Birmingham

Best suited for hobbyist gamers

Brass hasn’t moved an inch in the rankings since I posted my Top 50 Games of All Time last year.  Even after several more plays, it remains just as engaging and enjoyable as the first time I tried it.  It’s solid at all player counts from 2-4, and I’ve yet to introduce it to a hobbyist gamer who didn’t enjoy it.  Brass: Birmingham makes a strong case for reimplementations considering the look of the original design and the reach that the new versions of Brass have had within the hobby.  If you are a hobbyist gamer looking to add a long-term, well-loved gem to your collection, you’d be hard pressed to find a better bet than Brass: Birmingham.

3. Tigris & Euphrates

Best suited for strategy gamers

The deeper I get into this hobby, the more I appreciate games that contain a wide dynamic range within a narrow rules space.  Reiner Knizia is more skilled at creating these kinds of games than any other designer in the industry; that’s why my Top 50 is crammed with his masterpieces, and that’s why Tigris & Euphrates, his magnum opus, is my number three game of all time.  Most turns simply involve placing a couple tiles or leaders onto the game board, but the points those tiles can earn, the ripple effect their positioning can have, and the wars and revolts that they can trigger are where things get incredibly meaty.  For an experience that appears to be abstract strategy through and through, it’s surprising how thematic of a civilization game this is.  The rise, prosperity, and fall of dynasties and kingdoms are epic arcs that most civ games can only dream of providing.  The many opportunities for clever moves and brilliant plays are what continually keep me coming back for more Tigris & Euphrates.

2. Crokinole

Best suited for everyone

Crokinole straddles the fence that separates board games from competitive sports and rides that fence to the moon and back.  Darts, billiards, foosball, and Jenga are perfectly fine indoor activities, but Crokinole takes the cake for me.  Like a meaner, faster, sexier version of curling, Crokinole sees its participants flicking discs to the center of a large, slick board as they ricochet off a center ring of posts and collide with other discs.  There’s far more strategy here than simply aiming for the center hole.  With enough plays, you start to realize that the planned positioning of your disc after you hit an opponent’s disc is just as important as knocking them off the board.  Crokinole works as both a 4-player party game and a 2-player showdown, and my board will remain a family heirloom for decades to come.

1. Pax Pamir: Second Edition

Best suited for hobbyist gamers

When every aspect of a game oozes with deliberate thought and delicate attention to detail, it’s hard not to be attracted to such an experience regardless of its theme or genre.  From the deeply intricate gameplay to the opulent multi-sensory production, none could call Pax Pamir: Second Edition anything but a labor of love.  Pamir transcends the level of consumer product and cements itself as a historical, philosophical, and strategic sandbox for participants to lose themselves in as they explore its nuances over the course of endlessly engaging plays.  To boil this game down to its mechanical pieces—a political area control tableau builder—is a disservice to its greater whole.  The vast card market, oscillating coalitions, tight economy, and unstable alliances all combine into a supple, historical harmony between musical chair loyalties and tug of war gameplay.

This concludes my Top 50 Board Games of All Time! I hope you’ve enjoyed this journey with me through some of the world’s greatest tabletop games, and if you’re still hungry for more gaming goodness then stick around with us here at Bitewing Games!

We are thrilled to be launching a Kickstarter campaign this summer featuring a bundle of three 20-minute games, including two zesty Reiner Knizia designs! Be sure to subscribe to our monthly newsletter so you don’t miss out on this killer filler bundle. Speaking of which, the upcoming May email will feature a concept art reveal for Reiner Knizia’s Soda Smugglers!

Article written by Nick Murray. If you found yourself nodding in agreement to some of his favorite games, then keep an eye out for the three upcoming games that he loved enough to publish! Nick’s first published design, Social Grooming, which will debut in a Kickstarter bundle alongside two games—Soda Smugglers and Pumafiosi—from critically acclaimed designer, Reiner Knizia!

The post Top 50 Board Games of All Time — 2021 Edition — Games 25-1 appeared first on Bitewing Games.

I always look forward to comparing, ranking, and declaring my top games of the year.  When I tune in to other content creators’ lists, I’m frequently fuming or cheering at their selections and omissions: 

“How could you leave this MASTERPIECE completely off your list?!?” 

“Thank you!  THAT’s what I’m talking about!  This gal just gets it!” 

“Yeah, I played your favorite game of the year, and I seem to recall it being a HOT MESS!”

“Can confirm, this game is freaking LEGENDARY.”

But at the end of the day, these lists represent the unique experiences that people shared with a particular design, and they reflect one’s individual tastes and preferences within a medium that mixes art, entertainment, and narrative.  Ultimately, these lists are a celebration of designers, illustrators, publishers, and countless others who had a vision, worked tirelessly to make it a reality, and succeeded at bring joy to others.  

Despite my vain, passionate feelings on this subject, I fully acknowledge that my rankings are no more right than others.  All I can offer is some insight into how this list might provide some unique benefits.  So let’s talk about that for a moment.

Every hobby has it’s own subgroups of individuals and types.  You have the casual dabblers—those who merely enjoy a simple, convenient sampling here and there.  The hardcore campers—those who find their sweet spot, set up camp, and pay no mind to their wider surroundings because they are content with digging deeper and deeper into their cozy niche.  Then there’s the hungry explorers—this is what I consider myself within the industry.  We explorers set out to find the very best within each region, the cream of the crop.  And there are very few categories that we don’t extract enjoyment from.  We certainly stub plenty of toes and hit plenty of dead ends along the way, but the constant feeling of discovery within a world of creativity makes it all worth it.

I’m likely one of the more critical explorers in this hobby, as I’ll hold no punches against games that don’t land for me. Concerning tabletop games, my strongest biases are probably against sprawling, cumbersome cooperative designs and any game that heavily prioritizes tangible style over mechanical substance.  You’re not gonna see these types of games on this list because they just don’t speak to me from a design perspective, so I didn’t even seek out an opportunity to play them.  Anything that flaunts its components or theme so hard that I have difficulty seeing a clever and clean mechanical underbelly gives me enough reason to leave it alone while keeping an open ear out for them among the critics I follow.

I’m not surprised by many of the games that have ended up on other’s top 2020 lists.  I’m much more surprised by the games that haven’t ended up on other’s 2020 lists!  These are the unsung gems that I’ve set out to play and analyze to ensure that they’ve gotten the love and attention they deserve.  This is why my list is debuting in March of 2021 rather than December of 2020.  And this is why I’ll return at the end of this year to revisit 2020’s releases again, just like I did with my Best Games of 2019 list.  Come December, we’ll be looking back at the Lovers, Keepers, Dumpers, Flingers, and Seekers of 2020 after an extra year of playtime.  As for now, we’ll stick with my current top 15 board games of 2020. 

Fair warning: you may find some of these selections to be upsetting. Several of my top 15 are either second editions, re-implementations, or basically re-printings.  And for those of you who feel inclined to protest, I suggest you first direct your pitchforks and torches to popular reviewers Shut Up and Sit Down or No Pun Included, who hilariously and entirely selected games that existed before 2020 as their top games of 2020.  I only jest, they’re a bunch of great folks who had great picks all-around.

I debated whether or not to include these remixed games among my rankings. Ultimately, I realized that without their 2020 versions, I may never have discovered these absolute bangers.  If that excuse is not good enough for you, then you are welcome to simply cross those out on my list and shift everything else beneath them upwards.

Finally, let me just add one more hot take:. Anybody who claims that 2020 was a weak year for board game releases has simply spoken too soon…  or they are a “hardcore camper” in the hobby who is unsatisfied with their particular genre of releases.  This was one of the most excruciating lists I have ever had to rank.  Pushing certain titles down the hierarchy had me writhing in pain.  Leaving several of these gems outside of my top 15 feels like tossing my precious children out of the house, locking the door, and abandoning them to the desolate cold.  I played at least 20 new firecrackers from last year, and at the end of this post I’ll be sharing even more remaining contenders.  2020 was unquestionably a killer year for board game releases.

Top 15 Board Games of 2020

15. Beyond the Sun

The first thing I want to say about Beyond the Sun is that I’m honestly shocked that this game didn’t end up higher in my rankings.  I agree with So Very Wrong About Games’ Mark Bigney in that this is one of the best new Euros of 2020.  But full merits are given to this stellar design and the other 2020 releases that just barely squeezed past it on my personal rankings.

Beyond the Sun is a triumph thanks to its unflinching commitment to being extremely good at one particular thing: A Tech Tree.  The possibilities branch ever outward in this space civilization game where the actions start out few and simple yet quickly multiply into many powerful options.  The strategy of developing your technologies is well-balanced against the opportunities for controlling and colonizing the systems of space.

For anyone looking for the best Euro of 2020, Beyond the Sun is a strong contender.

14. Iwari

Iwari is a breath of fresh air every time I play it.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that this gorgeous production is a visual and tactile pleasure.  But there are plenty of games that can reach that bar these days.  What sets Iwari apart from the pack is its simple, breezy gameplay mixed with insanely clever rules.  I can easily recall these 3-2-1 rules from memory: Play up to 3 cards to place 2 pieces in 1 territory, then refill your hand back up to 3.  Boom.  That’s all there is to it.  The only thing that functionally matters about each card is its color.  Play some colors and draw some more.

I’m gonna toss out some phrases like candy on Halloween.  If any of these mean anything to you, particularly if they fill your heart with childlike joy, then you’ll know that Iwari is must-try for you because it evokes strong feelings of the following:

• Cube Rails
• Knizian Elegance
• Dynamic Player Interaction

For the rest of you, Iwari compares quite similarly to the worldwide phenomenon known as Ticket to Ride.  The key differences are that Iwari contains more depth and room for strategy, but feels entirely abstract.  That’s quite easy to forgive because, again, this game is a real looker.

13. Durian

If you aren’t familiar with a publisher known as Oink Games, they are an extremely charming Japanese brand known for their tiny, rectangular boxes crammed with stylish components that make for quick, simple, and (usually) engaging games.  Shut Up and Sit Down does a great job reviewing a whole heaping of their games, even ranking them into tiers from “Worst” to “Average” to “Best.”

The 3 Oink Games that made their top tier include A Fake Artist Goes to New York, Insider, and Startups.  I can confirm that that all 3 of these titles have been hits at our table and keepers in our collection.  Wait, I thought we were supposed to be talking about Durian! Why all this preamble?!  Oh, that’s right.  Because Durian is one of the latest offerings from Oink Games, and I’m here to formally nominate it to be ranked in the Top Tier list alongside the Big 3!

Durian is the type of game you can set down in front of your complexity-averse mother-in-law, get her fully engaged in the competition, and yet still have a blast playing yourself.  That’s exactly what I did very recently when she flew out to help take care of our newborn.  We had such a great time trying the game that we found ourselves back at it the very next night!  

This game of deduction and bluffing sees players acting as clerks running the same store.  Each person displays one inventory card toward everyone else and away from themselves.  You can’t see the types or amounts of fruits on your own card, but you can see all the other cards.  Thus, everybody has imperfect information about how much inventory is in this fruit store.  One at a time, players take an order card from the deck and add it to the center, deciding which of the two options on the card to add as a customer order.  The moment a player feels that the orders exceed the inventory, they can instead ring the bell, calling the grumpy gorilla manager to inspect the problem.  Players lay all the inventory cards face up and determine whether the tattletale made the right call.  If they did, then the previous player (in turn order) takes the blame for taking the last order!  But if not, then the tattletale gets punished for their false alert!  Whoever has the lowest sum of angry manager tokens at game end wins!

Durian just hits the SPOT as a filler game.  It has the perfect amount of luck, drama, suspense, and mystery to make for tense, addictive rounds that end with a thrilling ring of a tiny bell.   Even at 3-players, we’ve had so many memorable rounds.  Despite us playing the game many times, I still haven’t won it a single time.  Yet those moments of me being one decision away from sweet victory, confidently ringing the tiny bell, and watching it all crumble under the gleeful eyes of my mother-in-law as I discover that I was horrifyingly wrong about my own inventory card is a memory that holds a special place in my heart.

12. Fort

From the moment Leder Games announced Fort, I knew we were in for a treat.  How can a game that is illustrated by the legendary Kyle Ferrin and all about being kids who build forts, make and steal friends, and collect toys and pizza not be pure delight?!  Spoilers:  It is pure delight.

Although, you have to come into Fort with the right mindset.  Those who see that this is a “deck builder” and come rolling in with their truckload of associated expectations are either going to be pleasantly surprised or bitterly disappointed by this subversive design.  Within Fort, you won’t find many of the popular ingredients that most deck builders contain like mega-combo turns or meticulously crafted player decks.  What you will find is refreshing and rare deck building ingredients including significant player interaction.

Fort is less about calculating the entire trajectory of your strategy and more about rolling with the punches.  This works extremely well because the game plays so quickly.  There are also a good handful of icons to learn at the beginning, but they’re well designed and easily remembered thanks to the handy player aids.  While this game contains surprisingly more rules than its appearance suggests, the act of playing Fort feels nimble, whimsical, and joyous.

11. Renature

Ever heard of a little game called Azul?  You know, one of the top selling board games of the past several years?  Well I would suggest that Renature deserves to be the next Azul, and that’s not just because they share the same father (designer Michael Kiesling).  Consider this: both Azul and Renature are pretty games with chunky pieces.  Both games serve up elegant rules above a platter of agonizing decisions with a hearty dollop of cutthroat nastiness on top.  Only Renature is MORE.  More elegant, more agonizing, and much, MUCH nastier.  When the placement of a single domino and a single plant token can cause my wife to say in a burst of rage, “I’m never playing this game with you again,” that’s when you know you’ve found a rare treasure.

In fact, now that I reconsider it, Renature likely won’t reach the same heights as Azul simply because of how evil it allows its participants to be.  Don’t get me wrong, I am in LOVE with the diabolical opportunities this game presents, but you’ll require some thick skin to get through this fiery furnace of fun, especially at 2-players.

You’re probably wondering if I’m even talking about the right design at this point.  Yes, I am talking about the cute, cuddly game with colorful animal dominoes and cheery chunks of foliage and bright sunflower tokens.  Speaking of dominoes, I’m gonna plant my flag right here and declare that this is the greatest domino game of all time.  Come at me, Dominites!!!

10. Cosmic Frog

What a strange beast of a game, that Cosmic Frog.  Across the entire list of my Top 15 Board Games of 2020, this one is likely the most polarizing.  My personal experience with Cosmic Frog up to this point has been ripe with bad luck.  Yet for those who can appreciate the bizarre, refreshing package that this game provides, those moments of horrible luck are part of its memorable charm.

That charm oozes from every inch of the production.  Take one look at the psychedelic art or read a brief description of this whacky concept and you’ll get what I mean.  Players control 2-mile-tall cosmic frogs that leap through the interstellar aether, consuming planetary shards that are stored in their gullets, before disgorging their gullets of valuable terrain into their inter-dimensional vaults.  Simple enough, right?  Only these frogs can hit each other so hard that they vacuum the shards out of each other’s gullets or even blast their victim into another dimension learning their vault unprotected.

This is the only game I’ve ever encountered that transforms turn order into a randomly shuffled deck.  That’s right, on one end of the spectrum you can sometimes have multiple turns in a row, on the other end you might be waiting what feels like AGES for your next turn to show up.  Designer Jim Felli fully embraces this chaos by asking players how far they wish to push their luck.  By making player turns feel like unicorn sightings, players develop this insatiable hunger and greed to milk each turn for all its worth.  The problem is that you only get one free action each turn; if you want to take a second action, you’ll have to spend precious Oomph, and less Oomph in your supply translates to a larger target on your back because Oomph gives frogs significant advantages when spent in combat.

The luck in Cosmic Frog is like a huge serving platter where players must decide how many expensive drinks in fragile glasses they are willing to carry at once.  Successful deliveries can equate to huge gains, but a tilt of the platter can be disastrous.  I’m the type who can’t resist using up all the precious platter real-estate, and thus I’ve landed myself in more than a few self-inflicted messes.

I think at this point you know whether this is game for you.  And if it is for you, then boy are you in for a trip!  So BUCKLE UP!!!

9. Scape Goat

Like Durian, this is another under-the-radar gem that I haven’t seen on ANY top games of 2020 lists.  I can’t exactly blame anyone for judging this game by it’s cover, because one can’t help but assume that the goat puns are the only standout feature here.  Let me be perfectly clear that such brash assumptions are entirely WRONG.

Scape Goat is the epitome of a sleeper hit.  At the time of this writing, which is nearly three months into 2021, this game has a whopping total of 222 owners and 62 ratings and an overall rank of 7,930 on BoardGameGeek.com.  For those of you not familiar with the stats, that’s a depressingly low number for one of the freshest designs in the entire party deduction genre. 

The conventions of social deduction are flipped on their head here.  From the get-go, everybody knows exactly who the Scape Goat of the round is because their individual cards reveal this person to them, except one player’s card is lying to them and that player could be YOU.  

So do you think you’re the Scape Goat?!  Why is she acting that way?  Why did he take that card?!?  You better run to the police before your traitorous gang throws you under the bus!  But hold up, you’ll jeopardize everything if you aren’t actually the Scape Goat…

While your own teammates might scare you off within the game, don’t let the term “party” scare you off about this game.  This one is meant to be played with only 3-6 people.  And if you want experience the most paranoid-induced 5-20 minutes of your gaming career, then you’d be wise to pick up a copy of Scape Goat.

8. New York Zoo

We’re on a roll with the animal games here, so let’s continue with the excellent New York Zoo. What can I say about this delectable racing game featuring diverse polyomino enclosures and colorful animal breeding that hasn’t already been said? I’ve already spent paragraphs upon paragraphs gushing over this design in my feature article, Battle of the Polyominoes, where New York Zoo is a close runner up to the greatest family-weight polyomino game of all time (more on that later).

What lands New York Zoo so high on my Top Board Games of 2020? Satisfaction. The pleasure of moving an elephant around a rondel. The relief of claiming the perfect piece to fit your zoo. The amusement of breeding penguins and kangaroos and arctic foxes. The achievement of snatching a precious rollercoaster from the supply. The pride of timing your moves and your spaces perfectly while predicting your opponent’s decisions. And the ultimate satisfaction of completing your zoo first and becoming the winner.

7. Undaunted: North Africa

Undaunted: Normandy made my top 10 games of 2019, so it should come as little surprise that Undaunted: North Africa is keeping the hot streak going. Despite this Undaunted sequel retaining the same core system, we still haven’t grown tired of this stellar head-to-head deck builder. This fusion of deck building and tactical war commanding is a match made in heaven.

North Africa cleverly builds on its predecessor by polishing the rules, speeding up the playing time, increasing asymmetry, and smoothly implementing vehicles. Yet, for complete newcomers to Undaunted, I still might recommend Normandy first because it is a solid game that will provide you with at least a dozen worthwhile plays and make the jump to North Africa feel like an exciting evolution of the fun. But you really can’t go wrong with either game.

The Undaunted series will go down as one of the most played experiences in our entire collection thanks to its tense decisions interlaced with slick gameplay across many thrilling scenarios.

6. Tournament at Avalon

I’ve been enchanted by this trick-taking game ever since my first play of it. The extra large cards and the appropriately thematic art contribute to a highly satisfying card game with charmingly medieval brutality.

There is no winner of each trick in Tournament at Avalon. Rather there is merely a loser who plays the lowest card and takes the trick of played cards into their “wound” pile which will bring them that much closer to death. All of the other rules, powers, special cards round out this compelling entree for a fantastic feast of fun.

No other game makes me as excited to be in last place as this one. Last place means that I get to have a unique, overpowered ability for an entire round. Last place means that I’m the closest to activating my secondary power. Last place means that I can rally my fellow opponents around a common cause: bringing down the leader.

You can explore my full review of this riotous romp here.

5. Curious Cargo

Speaking of full reviews of stellar games, Curious Cargo earned one from me recently as well. One key takeaway from my review is that this 2-player puzzler isn’t for everyone. It’s best suited for those who love spatial analysis, crave dynamic player interaction, and feed on adaptive challenges.

I can’t get over how dense and indulgent this small box feels. The PVC material used for the six unique player boards, the screen printed wooden cargo tokens, the player forklifts, the long truck tiles, the double-sided conveyer tiles, the Kwanchai Moriya art… Mmm, mmm, MMMM. Of course these would all mean nothing if the game wasn’t also highly compelling and repayable challenge.

Curious Cargo is all that and a bag of chips. It’s one that I just don’t see myself ever turning down a chance to play.

4. My City

Well, it’s time to make good on my promise from back when we were talking about New York Zoo. The design that has proven to be the greatest family-weight polyomino game of all time is Reiner Knizia’s My City. You don’t have to take my word for it! Go look for yourself! My City took down heavyweight champions Patchwork and Barenpark, for crying out loud!

Beyond being the GOAT (greatest of all time) in that category, I’m gonna throw down the other gauntlet and say that this is the best legacy game by a country mile. Legacy game fans may cry foul here, citing the lack of a heavy narrative to accompany this mechanical rollercoaster, but I’ve yet to see a legacy game as slick, streamlined, and focused as My City.

No other Legacy game that I’ve encountered fundamentally changes my entire strategic approach from one play to the next like My City. No other Legacy game I’ve encountered feels as gut-wrenching, tense, and personal as My City.

I named the city on my player board Wolverton, in honor of the gray wolf symbol on my board. We’ve been through soaring highs and crushing lows, Wolverton and I. We’ve seen eras come and go… times of prosperity and times of famine, times of opportunity and times of trouble. From the stickered trees to the cursed rocks, from the winding river to the sprawling buildings, there’s a familiar coziness to this game that I will desperately miss when we conclude our final episode that is now only a few plays away.

My only hope is that the good Dr. Knizia will give us a sequel to My City before too long…

We now enter the top 3 games of 2020 which, admittedly, all have existed in some form before last year. Since I’m making guilty admissions, I’ll also toss this one out for you to chew on: I’m not confident in how I ranked these games against each other. It feels like my opinion on how these should be ordered could change tomorrow… or in an hour… or right now—One second, let me just swap number 1 with number 3… Yeah that’s better… Hold on! Number 2 looks like it accidentally got pushed one lower than it should. We’ll just bump that one back up…. there we go! And then we’ll just tidy things up by rearranging 3 with 2 and 2 with 1… and voila! I now present to you my top 3 Board Games of 2020!

3. Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy

Every hobbyist gamer deserves a good war game in their collection. An old, reliable friend who will always be there for you when have large table, a few enthusiastic companions, and a wide chunk of free time that all need spending.

And no, I’m not talking about a war game like the previously mentioned Undaunted: North Africa. I’m talking about a wooly mammoth war game that rarely emerges from its spot on your shelf but always makes a splash when it does hit the table. I’m talking about the kind of game that often requires 2 or 3 tables, 4 or 5 hours, days or weeks of prior planning.

This is the type of game that I considered a “bucket list” experience. I figured, “Hey, if I ever get the chance to play somebody else’s copy of one of these mega-hits, then that sounds great! But there’s no way in heck I’m dropping 100 bucks or more on a game like that when I don’t even know if I’ll ever get to play it!”

At least that was my attitude until I met Eclipse: Second Dawn. The creators of Eclipse looked long and hard at what gamers love about this genre and what barriers are keeping everyone from enjoying it more. Eclipse Second Dawn, a reimplementation of the 2011 original, was their answer. And this game is one heck of an answer!

Within Eclipse, we have a sprawling, epic game that can be played in a very reasonable 2-3 hours (maybe 4+ for complete beginners). We have a stunning production that feels perfectly tailored to enhance and supplement the entire experience. And we have a whole cornucopia of engaging decisions and weighty consequences within this beautiful blend of Euro-like management and Sci-fi style conflict.

2. Sidereal Confluence: Remastered Edition

Sidereal Confluence is all about being a wildly unique alien who exchanges resources and ideas with other intergalactic beings in a quest to maximize your strengths and develop new technologies.  In other words, it’s an epic simultaneous negotiation game featuring cubes, converters, and asymmetric factions.  

While the original edition of Sidereal Confluence released in 2017, and I was fully aware of it before 2020, it was 2020’s Remastered Edition that finally convinced me to give this game a try.  The Remastered Edition changes nothing about the core gameplay; rather, it aims to increase readability, clean up graphic design, improve the rulebook, provide a useful teaching guide, and modernize the overall look of the game.  Call me vain, if you must, but this newer version is infinitely more attractive and approachable, and that’s precisely the push I needed to dive in to this negotiation romp.

Even subtle touches such as trimming the alien names down from “KJASJAVIKALIMM” to “K-JAS” on the player shields is a wise change to avoid scaring off newcomers.  Despite the thematic liberties that Tauceti Deichmann has taken to challenge our lingual abilities, his design is as rock solid as ever.  The fresh makeover is a fitting production that matches the high quality of the design.  

This is the ultimate negotiation game where almost anything goes as players desperately strive to acquire the resources and converters that will propel them to victory.  Few things are as satisfying as turning a pile of useless resources in a cornucopia of opportunities via the art of negotiation.  Just be prepared for a crowded table and lot of noise, as this game hosts up to 9 players, and things can get wild.

While it demands much in terms of time, space, and participants, this is an all-time favorite that will undoubtedly make it to my table for years to come.

1. Hansa Teutonica: Big Box

Hansa Teutonica is the type of German game design that wipes the floor with other Euros before gobbling them up with glee. It requires no decks of cards, no piles of money and resources, no desperately extravagant variable setups… It simply gives each player a small board with a bunch of cubes and a few discs and challenges them to use these “tradesmen” wisely upon the game board.

Each turn, participants have 5 options for spending their 2 actions (or more actions, if they develop their player board). Actions are as simple as placing a tradesmen on an open space along a route, moving your tradesmen already on the board to other spaces, paying extra cubes to bump another player’s tradesmen and take its place, establishing a trade route along a path that you completely control, and restocking your personal supply of tradesmen.

The layout of the game board and the development opportunities of the player boards are what make this simple premise exquisitely deep. The playing field is ripe with golden opportunities for those who can discern the strategic intentions of their opponents and exploit these to their benefit. Like a little point leech embedded in the fur of a beast, players can establish trading posts to profit off of the efforts of others. Yet decisions become more precarious and more tense as the three possible game-ending conditions threaten to cut the legs out from under your strategic grand finale.

Be warned, inexperienced players are more susceptible to strategic group-think, where one area or aspect is perceived as superior to the rest. An expert player can quickly make such assumptions look foolish by exploiting the blind spots. And herein lies another great secret of this unassuming classic: Hansa Teutonica is a living, breathing game that will grow with the experience and knowledge of the players surrounding it. When the group meta zooms in too closely on one strategy, that simply opens the door wider for one creative schemer to sneak off with the victory. Only those with an open mind and a courageous trigger finger will come to love and appreciate the deceptive depth that keeps the dynamics of Hansa brilliantly balanced.

The entire game looks and sounds like standard Euro fare, but make no mistake, Hansa Teutonica is leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. With its shared incentives and network building, it holds much in common with timeless train games. Through its elegant rules, brisk pace, and boundless depth, it resembles the legendary designs of Reiner Knizia. By its complex interactions and dynamic opportunities, it shames the vast majority of Euros releasing today.

Hansa Teutonica: Big Box is a fitting tribute to a modern classic and the perfect place for newcomers to jump into the fun. While it would have been nice to see something like an Ian O’Toole-caliber makeover to the visual presentation, this design and production is a well-oiled machine that has no problems producing one of the finest tabletop experiences in the entire industry.

Remaining Contenders

Whether we’re awaiting a North American release or simply a re-print of these unavailable titles, these are the games that will almost certainly make an appearance in my Revisiting of the Best Games of 2020 (coming this December):

Anno 1800

Economic Euros are a staple of tabletop gaming, yet there were very few new ones that successfully captured my heart in 2020.  Last year’s Rococo Deluxe is one such game that is solid on all accounts, yet I couldn’t quite find the magic within that would earn it a long-term spot among my collection.  For games like this, the elephants in the room will always be our all-time favorites: Brass: Birmingham, Great Western Trail, Concordia, A Feast for Odin, Pipeline, etc.  These are the kind of greedy elephants that don’t like to share time at the table or space on the shelf with lesser animals (at least at my household zoo).

Yet within the the green shrubs of opportunity hides a promising beast, waiting to pounce on my unsuspecting collection when it is localized in North America.  The blood of a greedy elephant courses through its veins, as it is a sibling to Brass Birmingham and child of Martin Wallace.  This sneaky predator is known as Anno 1800, and its time has nearly come….

Of course, it just as easily might leap from the bushes and land on its face, embarrassing itself at my table.  We shall see!

Nidavellir 

If I had a dollar for every time I heard the phrase, “This game is a Splendor killer,” I would have….. 5 dollars, probably.  Nidavellir is the latest title to add to this imaginary wealth.  And despite my increasing numbness towards anything Splendor-like, Nidavellir in particular has pinched me back to a sense of intrigue with two simple words: constrained bidding.  What the heck is exciting about that, you ask?  Consider this… Three absolute bangers in my collection contain this same mechanism of bidding for something using the limited options in your hand: namely Ra, High Society, and For Sale.  So with the early positive buzz this one has received, I’m definitely planning to check this light weight, accessible game out.

Kyoto

I’ve got a hunch that Kyoto will be surprise banger of a game.  It sees players representing selfish countries that have come together to negotiate unselfish topics, specifically climate change.  I get the impression of mix between Q.E.’s amusing theme and Chinatown’s engaging gameplay.  It’s also coming at us from the hot new publisher, Deep Print Games, who recently busted open the industry’s Saloon doors with the fantastic Renature.  I could be wrong, but Kyoto is at least one to keep on the radar.

The Search for Planet X

My household enjoys a good deduction game including the popular Cryptid and more recent Loot of Lima.  The Search for Planet X appears to be among the best of the bunch, and it’s one I’m looking forward to trying whenever it decides to show up in stores again.  This game keeps things running smooth with a handy app, freeing up players to focus in on the space riddle at the table in a hunt for Planet X.

Switch & Signal

I’ve already talked about this highly accessible cooperative train game in my most anticipated board games of 2021 list, and now I’m back double dipping on this title in my remaining candidates for the top games of 2020.  So is this game a 2020 release, or a 2021 release?…. The answer is yes…. probably.  Kosmos seems to be dragging their feet getting it to North America, but like the little engine that could, I think they’ll eventually come around.

Sumatra

Even after hearing the Shut Up & Sit Down Podcast’s lukewarm reaction to Sumatra, I can’t help but try it for myself.  This light set-collection game intrigues me with it’s characteristically Knizian elegance.  The game is a simple as either move ahead one space or hang behind and draft another tile, but players set the pace of the movement by forcing others to keep up with the pack in this chill game about touring an island.

Best Art

Fort – Kyle Ferrin

Not only does the theme of Fort snuggly fit Grant Rodiek’s design. It also perfectly matches Kyle Ferrin’s art style. Kyle does a masterful job evoking all of the weird, wacky wonder of being a kid. I’ll let his art do the talking:

Best Art Runner-Up: Cosmic Frog

Best Production

Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy – Lautapelit.fi

Just to be clear, the best production does not equal the most expensive game. Our pick for 2019’s best production was the $35 Wavelength thanks to the way its production felt essential to the experience. Yet in this year’s case, the best production of 2020 is, in fact, the most expensive game on this post: Eclipse Second Dawn.

Without the Game Trayz in this box that serve to organize, enhance, and streamline the Eclipse experience, this game would be significantly more cumbersome. As it is, Eclipse’s production serves to carry it over the barrier of “event game of the month” into a much more approachable “feature game of the night” by reducing playtime, simplifying setup, and deluxifying the experience. This game both looks and feels freaking phenomenal.

Best Production Runner-Up: Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

Best Expansion

Root: The Underworld Expansion – Leder Games

The Underworld Expansion to Root offers even more of that asymmetric good stuff! The new board is gorgeous and shakes things up nicely while the new factions are delightfully unique and solid additions. The moles are a tasty tableau builder while the crows are slimy sneaksters.

Our plays have been very well balanced and competitive between the new and old factions. No complaints here! This one is absolutely worth the purchase if you are a fan of base Root.

Best Expansion Runner-Up: Downforce: Wild Ride

This concludes our Top 15 Board Games of 2020! What were your favorite new releases from last year? Share with us in the comments below!

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 Top 15 Board Games of 2020 appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Welcome back to Tabletop Tastes: My favorite flavors in board games! This is a series where we spend each episode diving deep into an essential element of game design. For hobbyist gamers, this series will help you to explore your own tastes in the hobby and perhaps discover your next favorite game that fits those tastes. For game designers, this series will offer you more tools to add to your utility belt and metrics to measure your projects by.

If you missed the previous episode, then go on and check out Tabletop Tastes #11: Filling Turns.

Shameless Pride and Questionable Diets

Have you ever been unreasonably proud of an accomplishment that you should instead be ashamed of?  

For me, these pitifully proud accomplishments would include things like breaking 150 hours of playtime on The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, eating some form of ice cream every day for a week straight, and being only 6 minutes late to work.

Another shameless accomplishment that I remember fondly occurred during my years in Junior High School.  It was seemingly a day just like any other until I found myself snacking on s’mores ice cream late in the evening and realized something truly magical had happened that day: I had consumed FOUR different kinds of s’mores flavored products in a single day.  Kelloggs s’mores cereal for breakfast, a s’mores Chewy granola bar for a snack, a s’mores Pop Tart after school, and s’mores ice cream for dessert.  Now before you go judging 14-year-old Nick, you need to understand that s’mores cereal contains ELEVEN vitamins and minerals.  I’m sure that completely changes how this all looks to you…

So while I got away with such a sweet treat feat back in my glory days, one can presume that this diet would quickly wreck an average human’s health and energy, even after only a few days.  I still love me a good s’mores flavored treat, but I try to keep a more balanced diet from one day to the next.  It’s amazing how different your body can feel when eating constant junk food compared to fresh, hearty, healthy food.

Cooperative Design – A Balancing Act

Balance is likewise important in board games, where an experience can quickly feel wrecked by a lack thereof.  Last episode, we talked about how Pandemic provides filling turns while another Pandemic-like game, Flash Point, struggles to satiate.  Well, Pandemic is again a great example to explore within the context of balance, particularly when compared with its younger sibling, Forbidden Desert.

Forbidden Desert has a combination of a fun theme and simple rules that plants itself firmly in the family-friendly, gateway game category.  It brings out the theme well as players thirstily, blindly, & desperately search the desert in a scramble to assemble a rescue machine before time runs out.

With this Forbidden series, the designer, Matt Leacock, shamelessly recycles the mechanisms of his legendary classic, Pandemic, to morph the system into a different theme.  Of course many cooperative designers do (and rightly should) take inspiration from Pandemic, so you can’t blame Mr. Leacock for doing this very thing.

The issue with Forbidden Desert is that it copies Pandemic’s recipe but leaves out one critical ingredient: difficulty balance.  In Pandemic, the game gets increasingly harder as time passes because more infection cards are drawn per turn.  This is mitigated by the cycling infection cards being predictable and by players being able to get stronger and increase their turn efficiency: they place buildings, eradicate diseases, and increase the cards in their hands.  Meanwhile, in Forbidden Desert, more “bad” cards per turn are drawn as the game progress, but players are not able to proportionally mitigate these problems.

Every experience that I’ve had playing Forbidden Desert follows the same course of multiplying piles of sand tokens that increasingly bog down each player’s turn effectiveness until they are finally put out of their misery in crushing defeat. With Forbidden Desert, what you end up with is a poor Pandemic copy-cat that much more frequently spirals out of control because of luck of the draw.  In Pandemic, you can usually blame yourselves for losing the game.  In Forbidden Desert, you’re usually blaming the game for losing the game; and more often than not, you’re losing the game.

Balance for Blandness

I’m perfectly fine with punishing games and challenging experiences, but Forbidden Desert just feels broken and unbalanced when compared to the superior Pandemic.  Yet there is something to be said for having too much balance in a diet—devoid of indulgent entrees or divine desserts—or too much fairness in a game.  Cole Werhle explains this issue best in his GDC talk about Kingmaking, his Ludology podcast interview about fairness, and his Dicebreaker interview about prioritizing “good” over “fun” in game design.  

In short, games that are devoid of “unfair” moments are games that frequently lack memorable, dramatic, and interesting experiences.  Cole explains further: 

“So a lot of event decks, the more you play, the more they are in development, they get milder and milder and milder. Because what they’re doing is they’re optimizing for fun and they’re optimizing against ‘feel bad’ moments.

“From my own design aesthetic, both of those things are horrible things to optimize for. Whenever I am working at Leder, we have friends in or people are visiting or working on games, if ever people start talking about ‘fun’ or ‘feel bad’, I’m like, ‘No, you can’t use those words.’ Because we’re not trying to make the game fun. We’re trying to make the game good. So ‘fun’ to me is this word that doesn’t really mean anything. Games have this massive emotional range – why would you want to make the game just about the giggles?  You could do that too but, when you’re optimizing for it, you’re going to remove a lot of the character of the project.”

Dicebreaker interview with Cole Werhle

The Merits of External Balance

So how do games keep healthy balance in harmony with dynamic character?  Cole’s most famous design, Root, is a great place to look.  This woodland war between deeply asymmetric creatures is an emotional roller coaster packed to the brim with overpowered maneuvers and unfair situations.  Despite this frequently unstable game state, the design allows for players to keep runaway leaders in check or boost lagging losers upward by forming enemies and forging alliances.  Root puts its own balance into the hands of the players and allows them to dictate the scales of favor.  The beauty of a highly interactive game is that internal balance (within the design and rules) can move to the back seat and let external balance (player influence and interaction) do the driving.

One game that I’ve found to severely lack and desperately need external balance is Tapestry.  During our first few plays with it, we had a blast igniting its many combotastic chain-reactions that result from the endless combinations of asymmetric Civilizations, unique tapestry cards, diverse technology cards, and varied advancement tracks.  Yet the cracks began to show as these combos proved to be highly variable in their effectiveness and all too dependent upon luck-of-the-draw.  Furthermore, the design teases players with the idea of interaction on the large central map of the board yet sucks the bones of the area control mechanism dry until it feels like a crumbling afterthought.  

Imagine what a truly dynamic map could do to mend this seemingly broken design… A map where wars and alliances matter and lucky runaway combos can be kept in check by crafty adversaries.  The thought of what might have been saddens me for a game that has so much going for it.  I ultimately found that the more I consumed Tapestry, the more it made me feel sick to my stomach and long for more substantial games.  Much like an all s’mores diet, it fails to provide the proper balance of nutrients that my hobbyist cravings demand.

Of course, something as potent as a sugar infused s’mores feast can hit the spot when properly timed and expected.

Tune in next time for Tabletop Tastes Episode 13: Purposefully Potent Meanness.

Other great games that contain balanced diets:

• Balanced strategy games: 7 Wonders, 7 Wonders Duel, Concordia, Brass: Birmingham, Beyond the Sun, Babylonia.
• Balanced cooperative games: The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, Horrified, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, The Mind, Sprawlopolis.
• Games with heavy external balance: Pax Pamir (Second Edition), Inis, Tammany Hall, Cosmic Encounter, Lords of Vegas.

What games have you found to be finely balanced? Share with us in the comments below!

Article written by Nick Murray. To follow his designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

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Welcome back to Tabletop Tastes: My favorite flavors in board games! This is a series where we spend each episode diving deep into an essential element of game design. For hobbyist gamers, this series will help you to explore your own tastes in the hobby and perhaps discover your next favorite game that fits those tastes. For game designers, this series will offer you more tools to add to your utility belt and metrics to measure your projects by. If you missed the previous episode, then go on and check out Tabletop Tastes #10: A Dynamic Arc.

Columbus, Ohio is a fantastic city for foodies.  Back when our family first moved there, we were constantly venturing out to interesting, unique, and popular local eateries.  We slowly discovered an entire collection of favorite restaurants that kept us returning for the four years we were around.  That doesn’t mean that every spot we tried was a hit…

I remember a couple hipster restaurants in particular that provided interesting cuisines but forgot that they were supposed to feed us!  We would order a standard item on their menu, pay the full price of a meal, and then receive a pitiful snack.  There are few worse feelings in this world than that of paying for a full meal and walking away still hungry.  Unsurprisingly, we never returned to these restaurants.

Just as important as a menu with filling meals is a board game with filling turns.  It’s one thing to leave players hungry for another session at the conclusion of a game.  It’s something entirely different to leave players unsatisfied from one turn to the next.  I recently touched upon the topic of fresh downtime and shared examples of Pax Pamir and Root as games that typically come with a lot of downtime but merit that long wait through satisfying turns and engaging downtime dynamics.  These games are comparable to waiting in a long line at a popular restaurant, but the wait is all worth it when you’re finally seated at the table having a King’s feast.

One game that recently struggled to provide me a similar turn feast between stretches of hungry downtime was Dune: Imperium.  From the creators of the smash-hit deck builder, Clank, Dune: Imperium blends together both deck builder and worker placement mechanisms in exciting new ways.  The brilliance of the game is how it often pits the rewards of deck building against the rewards of worker placement.  It may cost me a valuable card to place a worker into a matching, powerful space.  But if I don’t spend that card to place a worker, I can instead use it to acquire an even better card or other advantages at the end of the round.

Unfortunately, Dune: Imperium demands a level of downtime that I feel it doesn’t merit, at least at 4 players.  These dual layered mechanisms give participants twice as much to analyze, and it gets even slower when somebody claims the spot that another’s entire plan was built upon.  And even when my entire plan wasn’t blasted to smithereens, I often found myself waiting ages for play to go around the table only for me to do something as minuscule as place a worker and gain 1 water token.  When I already know this pitiful action is my best move at the end of my previous turn, that only makes the wait worse.

At least with Dune, I can see myself enjoying the game much more at a lower player count or with fast, experienced players where the downtime hunger is minimized.  I’m not sure I can say the same thing for Flash Point: Fire Rescue.

Flash Point is another off-brand Pandemic that paints a nice thematic picture but ultimately fails to justify its existence among the competition for me.  I get that this was one of the earlier Pandemic clones, but the formula is so overdone at this point that many cooperatives in this genre struggle to age well, including Flash Point.  My experience with this firefighting game revealed a messier design where players are much more likely to encounter useless turns.

A turn in Pandemic earns you extra cards into your hand as a bare minimum; furthermore, it allows you to improve the efficiency of your turns by building research centers, or you can prepare and plan ahead by trading cards or removing infection cubes.  Meanwhile, Flash Point tries to compensate for wasted turns by letting players carry over up to 4 unused actions, but that brings little comfort when you wait for play to go all the way around the table only for it to finally get back to you as you realize that the most useful thing to do is skip your turn.  Often, there is little space for strategic actions when the negative events are completely random (unlike Pandemic which is strategically predictable).

Furthermore, we played Flash Point at 6 players and that is the WORST idea the publisher ever had for this game.  Does the game work at 6 players?  Yes.  Does it work well?  Not at all.  If you want the game to be more difficult to win, then sure, have at the 6 player option.  But it’s a hollow challenge bump because everyone’s impact on game is reduced relative to the objectives.  This is where you get even more frequently useless turns that are even more punishing due to the increased downtime.  There is often no point in setting yourself up for your next turn as the game state is going to completely change by the time your next turn crawls around.

What’s the maximum player count on Pandemic?  FOUR.  It’s because the team behind Pandemic realized that any count higher than four made their game worse in every possible way.  Flash Point had the entire cheat sheet to work off of and yet it completely missed the memo.

Speaking of classics that struggle to be filling, Catan deserves a mention here.  Most of us have played Catan and can recall the painful rounds where Lady Luck leaves you high and dry and the dice rolls earn you nothing useful.  So when it finally comes back to your turn, you have almost nothing to show for all that downtime and nothing you can accomplish that round.  Fortunately, in the 25 years since its release, many games have shown us a better way than Catan’s inconsistent methods.

Concordia is my favorite Catan-killer.  Both games see players utilizing routes and building little wooden settlements onto a map.  In both cases, these settlements will earn players more resources from the map to help them build, expand, and compete for victory.  They are both rather easy to teach, yet Concordia contains much more depth to enjoy and explore.  Best of all, I can always expect a filling turn from Concordia.  This design rips control of the resource production from Lady Luck’s grasp and gives it to the players.  When an opponent decides to trigger production in the green region, that will also trigger production for you if you’ve built settlements there.  And whenever the quick, slick turns come back around to you, there is always an interesting and useful action to choose from your hand of cards.

Like a big, hearty meal that sends you home with a belly full of food and an armful of leftovers, the best games ensure that each player enjoys filling turns.  Of course, filling turns are better than empty stomachs, but the things you consume won’t don’t you much good if they aren’t part of a balanced diet.

Tune in next time for Tabletop Tastes #12: A Balanced Diet

More great designs that serve filling turns:

Critical Turns: Brass: Birmingham, The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, Age of Steam, Babylonia, El Grande, Undaunted, Bus.

Combotastic Turns: Curious Cargo, Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade, Blitzkrieg, That’s Pretty Clever, Five Tribes, Wingspan.

What are your favorite games with filling turns?

Article written by Nick Murray. To follow his designs as they come to fruition, subscribe to our newsletter and follow Bitewing Games on social media!

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So how is this board gaming industry still even a thing?  Is there more to it than… winning?  Of course there is!  You know that, I know that.  Perhaps in games of pure luck, there really is nothing fun about losing.  But when we begin to mix other elements into the game… the interesting friends, the dynamic strategies, the dramatic moments… that’s when the finish line fades and the journey prevails.  Let’s take a look at some of the many games that hurt so good.  In other words, let’s explore games that are fun to lose, and most importantly, why:

Close, Intense Battles for Victory

These kinds of losses are perhaps the most fun, at least for me.  When I feel that victory is within all of our grasps, and even when I’m not crowned champion, I love a good battle to the death.  I’ve encountered it time and time again in tightly designed titles including Inis and Pax Pamir (2nd Edition).  It’s what puts these games among my all time favorites.  You can never count a player out, because there is always a route for them to make a wrecking-ball comeback.

Competitive Races

Along the same lines, I love a close race.  When the winning objective is clear—reach El Dorado first in The Quest for El Dorado, or fill your mat first in New York Zoo—yet the competition is tight.  The games I just mentioned have provided multiple instances where opponents were one good turn away from claiming the victory.  It’s the kind of roller coaster of tension that I love taking again and again.

When You Are Proud of what You’ve Built/Accomplished

I love it when a game allows the players to approach its challenge in unique and creative ways.  Often times, the path you pave can be even more satisfying than reaching the finish line first.  You see this all the time in games like Junk Art, where players must stack wildly different shapes as they build their own teetering works of art.  Men at Work is another obvious example, as one player may not win the overall game, but they’ll pull off the most challenging task of all (to the “Ooos” and “Ahhhs” of their opponents).  More recently, I experienced this with our first play of Curious Cargo.  My wife ended up kicking my trash (nearly doubling my score), yet I was still mighty proud of the tricky network I had built and the maneuvers I had pulled off.

When the Strategy you Execute Plays Out Beautifully, and Somebody Still Outwits You

Pax Pamir (2nd Edition) is one of my absolute favorite games.  It quickly rose to the top of my list despite me losing the game over and over again.  I believe it took me 6 or so plays (even with less experienced people) to actually win the dang thing.  Despite my struggle, I loved every session of it.  Pax Pamir is the kind of game where the strategies and tactics are seemingly endless, and I’m always scheming up new plots to swoop in and win a dominance check (a scoring phase).  Often, I can get at least one of these schemes to pay off each game, and thereby position myself in the lead.  Even when my crafty opponents manage to snatch the victory from my salivating jaws, I still have a satisfied belly from the tasty schemes I hatched.

When an Opponent Shoots for the Moon and Wins Against All Odds

You have to respect the moon shooters of our hobby and the games that give them those tiniest of windows to hope and victory.  When I see an opponent, fresh out of reasonable options, shooting for the moon, I always give them an internal salute.  Everyone knows that they have the slimmest shot of victory, but the key is that they still have a shot… and you can’t help but root for the underdog.  Speaking of Root, this game’s Dominance Cards are a great example of shooting for the moon.  You’ll see one player just barely cross the 10-point mark as their opponents are closing in on the 30 point victory.  Suddenly, the 10-pointer plays out a Dominance Card, removes their score marker from the track, and declares that they will win on their next turn if everybody else doesn’t stop them.  Respect.

My utmost respect also goes to those folks who bet on the camel in last place winning the race of Camel Up.  To those in Lords of Vegas who choose to gamble all of their money at the enemy’s casino in a desperate attempt at a comeback, we salute you.  To that one wild Space Base card that is extremely hard to complete, but when completed it automatically declares its owner the winner (throwing out the whole points-based objective), I tip my hat to you and the player who lassos you up and rides you into the sunset of victory.

When You Set a Perfect Trap and They Still Manage to Escape

Two of the greatest dexterity games on the planet include Crokinole and Klask.  Perhaps one of the most underrated features of these games is the ability to set traps for your opponent.  In Crokinole, that involves planning and positioning your discs in the hardest to reach spots for your opponent, who must at least touch your disc in order for their shot to not be a scratch.  For Klask, that involves nudging the magnetic biscuits onto your opponent’s half of the board, surrounding them with booby traps that are hungry to latch onto their pawn.  Putting my opposition in these situations never ceases to delight me.  Yet I’ve seen people pull off mission: impossible by executing the perfect shot and turning the tables on me.  Touché, good sir/madame.  

When the Players are the Most Entertaining Part of the Game

It’s hard to be mad about losing a game when your friends harnessed its mechanisms to surprise and entertain you.  Games such as Wavelength (my all-time favorite party game) and A Fake Artist Goes to New York never fail to provide this type of experience.  Even when our team is falling hopelessly behind in Wavelength, I can’t help but laugh when our group ranks black licorice only slightly less unpopular than child labor.  Even when an innocent teammate is epically failing at proving their innocence in Fake Artist, I can’t help but appreciate their pitiful attempt at drawing a meaningful line.

When a Game Lets You Feel like a Genius

Deep down, I think I only ever wanted to be a wheeler and dealer.  Chinatown gives me what I’ve always wanted.  Chinatown is game where I get to dangle carrots in front of my opponents, carefully selecting the right carrot at the right time, to lure them in to my schemes.  Those moments when I can use the hot garbage under my ownership and convert it all into golden geese through crafty trades and clever negotiations make me feel like an absolute genius.  After that, it doesn’t matter all that much whether I win or lose the game, because in my heart, I’ve already won.

The same can be said of Decrypto, a game where players must give clues to their teammates that are neither too easy for their opponents to crack nor too hard for their comrades to misunderstand.  As the rounds march on, players are forced to be increasingly creative to keep the opposing team swinging and missing, and this game of cat and mouse can be even more satisfying than the victory.

When You Feel Yourself Improving

I love a great cooperative game that teaches and strengthens a group through their failures.  Games like The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine and The Mind are perfect examples.  Typically, when friends gather around the table to give one of these a go, everybody is out of sync, inexperienced, and/or rusty.  But after fumbling through a few rounds, the collective skill level at the table rises and the team finds a nice groove.  Things get even more interesting as the challenge ramps up and the players must increase their focus and determination to succeed.

I get the same feeling of growth and improvement from sprawling titles such as A Feast for Odin and deep puzzles such as Curious Cargo.  These games provide plenty of new paths to explore to help keep one from getting too comfortable.  Even when the scores are tallied and my total isn’t at the top, I love seeing the progress in my strategies and abilities from one game to the next.

When Rounds are Quick and Addictive

It’s hard to get salty about a loss when you only have a minute or two to wait before you’re back into the next round of play.  This is what makes Love Letter and Skull such addicting fillers, aside from being great fun, of course.  Shortening the playtime is one of the best ways to compensate for a high-luck or high-punishment mechanism (such as player elimination or luck-of-the-draw).  Eliminations and poor hands become funny instead of painful.

When Losing Earns You a Meaningful Pity Prize

Nobody likes being the loser of the group, but everybody likes prizes.  A meaningful pity prize can be a great way to dampen the blow of losing.  In My City, a competitive, polyomino legacy game, the player(s) who lose the round are often awarded with a bonus that permanently improves their board or tiles.  This functions as both a catchup mechanism and an exciting opportunity.

Tournament at Avalon takes a similar approach, but in a much more dramatic way.  This is the type of trick taking game where one person usually becomes the piñata of the round that everyone else takes a big swing at.  Only when this player-piñata is struck in Tournament at Avalon, instead of spewing out candy from their gaping wounds, they end up spewing out vengeance.  You can explore my review of the game for further details, but the long story short is that whoever is in last place (or close to last) from round to round gains more abilities and powers for them to gleefully unleash on their enemies.  Sometimes it pays to be in last.

When You Take Down Others With You

We’ll conclude this topic by looking at two more games: one that is still in the oven and one that has stood the test of time.  Bristol 1350 is a game that I had the pleasure of previewing through many play testing sessions during its development.  It’s a roller-coaster of a social deduction game where a few select players secretly start with the black plague, doomed to succumb to its wrath, and they are striving to bring down every other healthy player with them.  While it is absolutely thrilling to make it through the game healthy and unscathed, the opposite end of the spectrum is plenty of fun as well, even when you catch the plaque mid-game and must pivot to a new objective.  This is one form of losing that I look forward to experiencing more when it officially releases next year.

But when I think of losing with dignity—going out with bang, if you will—perhaps the best example that comes to mind is the battle mode in Mario Kart 64.  Yes, you know what I’m talking about.  That moment when you lose your last balloon and transform into a mobile bomb.  Few things in life are as good for the soul as when you kamikaze your bomb into an unfortunate player and their last balloon.

This concludes our exploration of games that are fun to lose, and why! Which games do you enjoy, despite your losses, and what keeps you coming back for more pain?

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 Hurt So Good: Games that are Fun to Lose appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Have you ever seen Wes Anderson’s stop-motion animated masterpiece, Fantastic Mr. Fox?  What senses come to mind as you remember it? I’m betting that your brain is painting a scene of rich oranges, intricate landscapes, and detailed animals.  Perhaps your ears are gliding along to the tune of Alexandre Desplat’s stylized soundtrack. This is a movie that is not only enjoyable to watch, but it’s also a delight to see and hear.  Whenever I reencounter these unique sensations, they never fail to evoke the emotions and memories that the story provides.  Furthermore, these sensations always create a sense of longing within me… Longing to be there, to be a part of that whimsical world of mischievous wildlife.

I get the same feelings in the world of Cuphead.  This lovingly crafted video game packs so much personality and character into its art direction and soundtrack that I’m naturally drawn to it… despite its relentless efforts to break my will and destroy my soul with its mercilessly punishing challenges.  Only the creative genius within Cuphead can cause me to adore someone like Grim Matchstick the Dragon with all my heart and despise him with my whole soul at the same time.

I seriously doubt that Fantastic Mr. Fox would be one of my all time favorite movies and Cuphead would be one of my all time favorite video games if they didn’t have such evocative art.  Perhaps the same could be said of some of my favorite board games…

I don’t know how Leder Games did it, but they managed to create the most hypnotic box art of my whole library in their stunning game, Root.  For a long time, Root has been one of the few boxes on my bookshelf with its front side entirely on display. It’s not the most efficient way to store a game, but this one demands to be visually basked in, and who am eye to deneye it?!?  Whenever I sit in our living room in quiet reflection, I’ll often accidentally catch my eyes wandering in leisurely circles around its four cheeky critters as I soak in the gorgeous colors and charming details.  I’m naturally drawn to its cutthroat experience by the entire package of evocative art.

The same can be said for my absolute favorite game, Inis.  The thoughtful color scheme and standout art style serve as a perfect seasoning to the delicious gameplay.  Even something as simple as the card backs just hit the sweet spot for me.

Scythe is another rather amusing example in our household.  My wife does not enjoy playing Scythe.  She can’t stand the ploddingly complex strategery.  I eventually gave up on convincing her to play it, as I knew she just wouldn’t enjoy herself.  So you can imagine my absolute shock when one day she requested that we order prints of Scythe’s gorgeous art to hang on our walls.  Despite her negative feelings towards the game, she couldn’t resist the pull of the art.

I submit that evocative art is one of the most powerful tools that a board game publisher can possibly use.  Just think of how much effort it takes to muster your desire to play a good game that is gorgeous compared to a good game that is ugly.  What makes me hungry to play an unattractive game like El Grande, Castles of Burgundy, or Puerto Rico? I have to stretch and strain my arms of memory as I struggle to grasp at slippery ideas such as clever mechanisms and interesting strategies.  Contrast this with Scythe or Inis or Root: I simply have to look at a box on my shelf, or a painting on my wall, or a picture online, and I’m already salivating at the idea of playing them again. Evocative art not only enhances the experience, but it sweetens and strengthens the memories too.

Over the last seven blog posts, we’ve explored my absolute favorite flavors in board games:  spicy objective tension, salty player interaction, savory thoughtful production, crunchy meaningful decisions, juicy theme-inspired mechanisms, crisp elegance, and sweet evocative art.  Glob them all together, and perhaps you’ll understand the reasoning behind my top 50 games or my most anticipated new-to-me games.  Yet, I’m sure that there are even more hidden essential ingredients to be found across an array of games that cause my gaming taste buds to dance with delight.  

Thus concludes my series, Tabletop Tastes: My favorite flavors in board games. Thanks for following along! Of course, I’m bound to acquire some more tastes as time passes. So perhaps we’ll have to continue the series some day… UPDATE: It’s your lucky day! The series continues with Episode 8: Fresh Downtime.

LOOKING FOR MORE SWEET GAMES WITH EVOCATIVE ART? WHY NOT INDULGE IN ONE OF THESE:

• Clean, Minimalist Art: Insider, Startups, Onitama
• Functional Art: Mysterium, Dixit, Codenames: Pictures
• Charming Art: Railroad Ink, Takenoko, Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig
• Jaw-Dropping Art: PARKS, Wingspan, Tokaido
• Theme-Inducing Art: Welcome To, Brass: Birmingham, Dinosaur Island
• Bold Box Art: Oceans, Azul, Modern Art

What are your favorite flavors in board games?

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I really appreciate when companies give a lot of love to even the little things in their product or service.  These touches can be as subtle as the crisp packaging of an Apple product, the non-messy cap on a Tide detergent container, and the dippable ketchup packets at Chick-fil-a.

I am likewise impressed when a publisher goes the extra mile to make their game look and feel good.  Perhaps no publisher out there understands this concept better than Stonemaier Games. When I first saw pictures of the 2019 darling, Wingspan, I said “Wow.”  But when I first opened and unboxed Wingspan, I said “WOW!”

The art is top tier, the box feels great, the containers are perfect, the eggs are slick, the cards are gorgeous, the game has a freaking bird feeder, the rulebook even feels good.  Say what you will about Stonemaier Games’ philosophy, but they know how to produce a game and it works.

PARKS is another game with a thoughtful production that rises to the caliber of its stunning art with inserts and tokens and bits that round out a deliciously beautiful package.  The gameplay doesn’t revolutionize the industry, yet it doesn’t need to when it deftly assaults nearly all of your senses with everything else.

Root makes a knockout first impression with its whimsical artwork, screen printed meeples, chunky battle dice, and painstakingly arranged player aids.  It’s brilliant production lures you in like a tasty appetizer, and before you know it you are waist deep in a much more meaty and nasty game than you could ever have predicted.  Even as the group gangs up on your beautiful birds and throws your Eyrie Dynasty into dreaded turmoil, there is no denying how pleasing the game looks to the eye and feels to the fingers.

Men At Work likewise tosses its hard hat into the ring of premium with colorful components that have the perfect size, weight, and feel to match its laser-focused dexterity gameplay… and nothing beats that feeling when you first open the game and get to press the snug plastic hard hats onto each of the wooden construction meeples.  Are these perfectly crafted hard hats essential to the gameplay? No. But are these perfectly crafted hard hats essential to the experience? YES.

I can think of no production more clever, more praiseworthy, or more essential than that of Wavelength. This is the kind of production that the designers crafted with the end in mind. They knew that in order to get the most of out of the concept, they needed a device that allows approximative gut-feeling guesses for teammates and dramatically climactic reveals from the psychic. The spinning target wheel, the clicky red dial, and the snappy blue screen are a thing of beauty. This device is a genius component worthy of Wolfgang Warsch’s brilliance. The game is even self-contained and almost instantly ready-to-rumble thanks to a carefully crafted box insert that eliminates the need for a table.

These games are so satisfying to setup and tear down, to touch and manipulate, to play and replay because the publishers were willing to invest in a thoughtful production.  Compare these games to other legendary titles like Terraforming Mars, Castles of Burgundy, and Ethnos, and you may notice a subconscious reluctance to play the underproduced games over the premium feeling ones.  No game needs a thoughtful production to be great, no game needs to be deluxified to be playable, but why not opt for something that looks good and feels good whenever possible?  

Wingspan, PARKS, Root, Men At Work, and Wavelength are gorgeously thoughtful productions that can all be bought at a perfectly reasonable price (when in stock, of course); these games raise the bar for not only their slightly higher cost-to-manufacture components but also the perceptible love, care, and ingenuity that went into their presentation.

Fortunately, even when a presentation is a bit of a train wreck, like the above mentioned Castles of Burgundy and Ethnos, these games are certainly salvaged by the crunchy meaningful decisions they provide.

Click on to check out Tabletop Tastes #4: Crunchy Meaningful Decisions

LOOKING FOR MORE SAVORY GAMES WITH A THOUGHTFUL PRODUCTION? TRY FEASTING ON ONE OF THESE:

• Tasty Tactility: Splendor, Azul, Sagrada, Dragon Castle, Tapestry, KLASK, Crokinole, Junk Art, Roll for the Galaxy, Takenoko, Five Tribes, A Feast for Odin, The Estates
• Tantalizing Table Presence: Dixit, Horrified, Skull, Arboretum, Modern Art, Tokaido, Welcome To, Railroad Ink, Oceans, Inis, Viticulture Essential Edition, Treasure Island, Tapestry, Yamatai
• Satisfying Packing/Unpacking: Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig, KLASK, Onitama, Tortuga 1667, 7 Wonders Duel
• Home run Production: Camel Up (Second Edition), Pax Pamir (Second Edition), Brass Birmingham (Deluxe Edition), Scythe, On Tour, Dice Throne Season 2, Mysterium

Which thoughtful productions are most savory to you?

The post Tabletop Tastes #3: Savory Thoughtful Production appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

#50 Roll for the Galaxy

Recommended for: Gamers

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

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

#49 Skull

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

#48 Takenoko

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

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

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

#47 The Quest for El Dorado

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

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

#46  The Fox in the Forest

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

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

#45 Startups

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

#44 Dominion (Second Edition)

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

#43 Watergate

Recommended for: Everyone

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

#42 Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Recommended for: Everyone

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

#41 Decrypto

Recommended for: Everyone

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

If you enjoy Codenames, you have gotta try Decrypto!

Next Page: Games 40-31

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