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?

The post Tabletop Tastes #7: Sweet Evocative Art appeared first on Bitewing Games.

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

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

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

Spicy – Tension of Objectives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tell us about your tabletop tastes!

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

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

Introduction

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

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

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

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

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

#50 Roll for the Galaxy

Recommended for: Gamers

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

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

#49 Skull

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

#48 Takenoko

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

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

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

#47 The Quest for El Dorado

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

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

#46  The Fox in the Forest

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

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

#45 Startups

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

#44 Dominion (Second Edition)

Recommended for: Everyone

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

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

#43 Watergate

Recommended for: Everyone

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

#42 Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Recommended for: Everyone

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

#41 Decrypto

Recommended for: Everyone

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

If you enjoy Codenames, you have gotta try Decrypto!

Next Page: Games 40-31

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