One question I constantly see in board game forums is this: “What are the best travel-friendly board and card games?”  Whether you’re headed out on a business trip, visiting friends and family, or simply taking a vacation, it’s always nice to have something to entertain the group.  Yet board games typically come in huge boxes that don’t always fit in a backpack, purse, or suitcase with your other belongings.  This is the perfect time to have a travel-friendly board or card game that comes in a small package and/or takes up minimal space on a table.  

With those needs in mind, I’ve assembled a list of the Best Travel-Friendly board and card games for any occasion:

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Best Wallet Game – Sprawlopolis

 

Let’s get this one right out of the way.  Wallet games are perhaps the most travel-friendly games that money can buy.  One publisher, Button Shy Games, specializes in this type of bite-sized fun, and one of their best titles is Sprawlopolis or Agropolis.  This is a design we’ve recommended extensively between our Top 10 Quick & Easy Solo Games as well as our Top 10 Spatial Puzzle Games because it takes 18 cards and turns them into a delightful challenge best suited for one or two players.

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Best Standard Deck Game – Regicide

Even if you don’t own an official copy of Regicide, this is one that you can technically track down anywhere and everywhere because the design uses a standard deck of playing cards.  Then, all you have to do is download the rulebook and you are off to the races.

Of course, buying the official Regicide deck is a great way to support the creators for making a fantastic cooperative experience for 1-4 players where you struggle to take down the Jacks, Queens, then Kings.  This is one that comes with me to basically any game night because it slots so easily into my game bag and never fails to entertain for 10-30 minutes.

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Best Trick-Taking Game – The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, Ghosts of Christmas

 

Trick-taking games are a dime a dozen, and the cream of the crop always hits the spot at our table whether I’m playing with hobbyist gamers or non-gamers.  I’ll offer two suggestions here, both excellent and relatively new.  The Crew: Mission Deep Sea was just crowned as one of my Top 15 Games of 2021 for being an addicting crowd-pleaser where you work together to complete wacky round objectives.  Meanwhile, Ghosts of Christmas puts a twist on the formula by allowing players to play tricks into the past, present, and future in any order they wish; plus it’s the perfect game to take home for the holidays.

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Best Pub Game – Skull, Art Robbery

 

I constantly hear folks online asking about the “best game to take to the pub.”  My answer?  Skull.  Skull takes simple bluffing and makes it a riot of a time… whether you are inebriated or not.  Each turn is as simple as placing a disc facedown onto your stash or bidding how many of everybody’s discs you think you can flip without revealing a skull.  Just make sure your bartender doesn’t confuse the discs for coasters.

That said, many folks already own Skull.  So for those of you who want something new and fresh, my follow-up recommendation is Art Robbery.  This one features double-layered thievery—art robbers are splitting the loot with each other via forceful, sticky-fingered methods.  The card play is simple enough that there is no chance of overwhelming your brain, yet the gameplay features some clever twists and funny moments making it perfect for a casual, raucous atmosphere.

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Best Party Game – Insider, A Fake Artist Goes to New York

 

Need a small game for a big, boisterous group?  Look no further than Insider and A Fake Artist Goes to New York by Oink Games.  Oink Games are the masters of putting big, memorable moments into cute, tiny boxes.  Insider is their take on 20 questions with a twist: What if the 20-question limit was replaced with a sand timer, and what if one questioner was secretly a traitor who already knew the answer and wanted you to guess it without you noticing that they guided you to it so they can steal the victory for themself?  Meanwhile, a Fake Artist also has a traitor in that one person does not know the secret topic of the round and is trying to get away with artistic fraud and deception!  

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Best Table-less Game – Trophies

Portable party games are great for casual trips or gatherings, but what if your gathering place has no table to play upon?  In that case, your best bet would be something like Trophies.  Trophies is the simplest, most approachable game on this list, yet it’s also the loudest.  One player clutches a stack of trophy cards and displays one card at a time to the group—each card displays a single large letter.  The lead player then selects and reads aloud a category on the back of the deck such as “Something blue,” “Something slow,” or “Minor Ailment,” and the first person to call out a word that starts with the big letter and relates to that category earns the trophy card.  Once the deck is gone, the player with the most trophies wins.  Whether you’re the lead player judging and awarding the group’s words or a competitor wracking your brain for the first word that comes to mind, you’re bound to have funny time.

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Best 2-Player Game – Schotten Totten 2

This next recommendation is for those of you who think this list is starting to sound more like a party list than a travel-friendly curation.  Schotten Totten 2 is a recent release from one of the greatest 2-player (or any player count, for that matter) game designers of all time, Dr. Reiner Knizia.  Featuring asymmetric strategy, a delightfully zany theme of chickens vs. scotsmen, and characteristically elegant rules, Schotten Totten 2 is the excellent standalone sequel to one of the most widely revered 2-player games (Battle Line / Schotten Totten).  To top it off, the box isn’t much larger than a hen’s egg.

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Best Family Card Game – Startups, SCOUT

 

We’re back with more adorable Oink Games, namely Startups and SCOUT!  Both titles have been effortlessly approachable and addicting for my family members including siblings, cousins, parents, and more.  Both games possess the simplicity of evergreens such as Uno or Phase 10, yet they also provide a superior strategy and tension that will keep you satisfied throughout.  Startups is all about investing just a little bit more in companies than your opponents, while SCOUT sees players recruiting performers into their hand to help them put on a good circus show.

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Best Cooperative Game – The Mind, The Game, Hanabi

 

If your family or friends shy away from competitive settings, then perhaps a cooperative game is in order?  The Mind and The Game (yes, that is its title) are two peas in a pod of being games where players must collectively discard cards from their hands in ascending or descending order without saying anything.  It doesn’t sound like much of a game at all, but somehow it works and it’s thrilling!  Meanwhile, Hanabi is a beloved classic of holding your hand inside-out, meaning everyone can see your cards except you, and giving each other hints about the cards you can see.  Hanabi has had such an impact on me that it inspired the creation of our upcoming publication, Gussy Gorillas, which takes the inside-out hand concept and turns it into a competitive game of trading and bluffing.

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Best Social Deduction Game – Scape Goat, Durian

 

Speaking of bluffing, animals, and not seeing every card, Scape Goat and Durian have proven to be excellent games of deduction and deceit at our table.  Durian is another Oink Game, yet this one comes with a tiny bell and a whole bunch of fruit cards.  Every turn you and your fellow storefront apes must face a difficult decision: take another fruit order or tattle tale on an opponent?  If you think your fruit orders exceed your inventory, then you can call the boss with the ring of a bell and hope that your theory is right, because if you’re wrong then he’ll get mad at you instead!  Meanwhile, Scape Goat is all about throwing a fellow criminal under the bus without them even realizing it… the only problem is that poor sap might actually be you!

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Best Solo Game – Under Falling Skies

I fully admit that Under Falling Skies is the largest box and thus the least travel-friendly game on this list, yet I wouldn’t hesitate to toss it into my backpack or suitcase if I knew I’d have downtime for a great solo session.  This one has been featured a fair amount recently between my Top 10 Quick & Easy Solo Games as well as my Revisiting the Best Board Games of 2020.  To put it plainly, there is much to love about this solo game featuring difficult dice decisions and pesky alien invasions.

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Best Game to Take on Outdoor Adventures – Trailblazers

Now I could argue that Trailblazers also belongs in the Best Solo Game and Best Family Card Game categories, but today we’ll just focus in on its Outdoor Adventure compatibility.  When Ryan Courtney and I were initially hashing out the production plan of his puzzly card game, Trailblazers, we found ourselves facing two clashing possibilities.  On the one hand, Trailblazers could feature various modules or expansions that mix up the core gameplay and bring charming animal and traveler figures to the experience.  On the other hand, we could make a travel-friendly version that features purely cards and focuses on the rock solid standard mode gameplay.  The solution we settled on: Both? Both. Both is good.

While the Standard and Deluxe Editions of Trailblazers are best tailored for hobbyist gamers who want the most variety and content from a standard game box, the Travel Edition became our chance to really lean into the theme of hiking, biking, and kayaking with the packaging and material selection.  We’ve seen many creative packages for board and card games from button shy wallets and pseudo book covers all the way to banana pouches and stuffed monkeys, yet there is one type of package that I’m surprised has been largely overlooked by publishers up to this point.  To me, nothing says outdoor adventure and travel-friendly like a small clamshell case and carabiner, and thus our Trailblazers: Travel Edition was born.

Ryan admits that Trailblazers is his first published design that will appeal to casual and hobbyist gamers alike.  With the help of artist Seth Lucas, who as worked on everything from hiking patches to John Muir books, we knew we could craft a game fit for both friendly local game stores as well as national park gift shops.  

Beyond the ability to attach the Travel Edition to a backpack, we wanted to make sure the cards could hold up under endless plays and rigorous conditions.  So for those who buy the Super Travel or Deluxe editions of Trailblazers, your game will come with 100% PVC cards (durable, water-resistant, plastic cards).

So whether you want an affordable, portable game or a box crammed with content, you’ll be able to acquire the travel-friendly clamshell case, carabiner, and PVC cards via the Trailblazers Super Travel or Deluxe edition when our Kickstarter project launches this August.  You can subscribe to the Kickstarter pre-launch page here. And we absolutely need your help!  Bitewing Games is only made possible and kept alive by the support of backers and fans of our published games.   Thanks for your support!

Article written by Nick Murray. Outside of practicing dentistry part-time, Nick has devoted his remaining work-time to collaborating with the world’s best designers, illustrators, and creators in producing classy board games that bite, 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.

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

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

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

7 Wonders Duel

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

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

Blitzkrieg/Caesar

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

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

L.A.M.A. Dice

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

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

Patchwork

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

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

Pandemic: Iberia

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

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

Schotten Totten 2

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

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

Brass: Birmingham

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

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

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

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

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

Yellow & Yangtze

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

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

Tournament at Avalon

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

Honorable Mentions

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

Trailblazers—An Exciting New Spin-off

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Note: This written post features only my top 10 Spatial Puzzle games, but the podcast episode includes my picks plus 10 more picks from podcast guest, Ryan Flaherty. If you want twice the Spatial Puzzle gaming goodness via an audio discussion between friends, then check out our meaty episode!

Before one becomes a dentist, or even enters dental school, a prospective dental student in the US must take what is called the Dental Admissions Test.  This exam is an absolute beast of a hoop that one must successfully jump through if they wish keep their dental career dream alive.  Many folks (including myself) take off several weeks to spend 6-8 hours a day cramming biology, chemistry, mathematics, and more into our brains in preparation for the great spewing.  For a couple months or so, this pursuit essentially consumes your life as you cram, take practice exams, and cram some more as though you are trying to pour more knowledge fluid into an already overflowing brain bucket while patching up the leaky holes all over.

Oddly enough, there is one part of this exam that starts to feel like a game.  It is a section known as the Perceptual Ability Test, or PAT for short.  As the title describes, this section examines your ability to mentally visualize things such as 3D shapes, acute angles, and more.  The reason this feels like a game is that rather than solve problems or recall memorized information, you are challenged to rank angles, match keyholes, visualize folds, count cube surfaces, and more.  The reason for the PAT is because dentists are constantly using mirrors, x-rays, and models to visualize, shape, and diagnose teeth.  Thus, the PAT material is not so much something you can learn or memorize to be prepared.  Rather, it requires a spatially minded brain and a whole lot of practice to master the challenging types of questions you’ll encounter.  In a sort of sick and twisted way, this PAT practice becomes the “fun” part of your studying routine, and a great way to break up the monotony of the science subjects.  Over time, It’s quite satisfying to nail these questions with increasing competence.

Much like the PAT (but in a far more entertaining form), it is also very satisfying to take on spatial puzzles in tabletop games.  These puzzles usually take the form of cards and tiles which can be aligned, arranged, and overlapped in an open space of endless possibilities.  Typically, these games will punish you for poor spatial arrangements and reward you for clever planning.  While some games are pure spacial puzzling, others implement this mental challenge into a larger game packed with many more mechanisms.

We’ve had loads of fun exploring many games that include spatial puzzling in their repertoire.  Many titles in t  his genre have proven to be deliciously addicting and widely popular.  We’ve enjoyed them so much, that it is with great excitement that Bitewing Games here and now reveals our next published game to be… a meaty spatial puzzler.  That’s right!  We’ve been working hard these past several months to plan and prepare our next game for you.  You can find our grand reveal at the end of this post.  And in celebration of that reveal, today we’d like to share our Top 10 Spatial Puzzle games.  If you, like us, are a fan of many of these games and their puzzly goodness, then our next offering might just be up your alley.

But we’ll save the details for the end.  As for now, let’s talk about our favorite, highly recommended spatial puzzle games in no particular order…

Patchwork / New York Zoo

Might as well come clean right up front… there is definitely going to be some cheating involved on this Top 10 list.  It will actually consist of 13 games plus more honorable mentions at the end!  The reason for this dirty trick is simple: there are far more than 10 excellent spatial puzzle games out there.  Plus, some titles share so much in common that it’s too hard to mention one without mentioning the other.  Thus, with this first pick, we split the spotlight between Uwe Rosenberg’s Patchwork and New York Zoo.

Those of you who’ve seen my Battle of the Polyominoes article likely predicted that these games would end up here.  Polyominoes are to spatial puzzle games as dogs are to house pets.  They’re like a gamer’s best friend.  There is something about fitting various shapes together on a square grid that we gamers can’t get enough of.  This won’t be the only polyomino pick on this list—far from it—so let’s talk about what makes Patchwork and New York Zoo special.

Coming from the same designer, Patchwork and New York Zoo both feature an engaging rondel for tile drafting.  The former is all about an economy of spending and earning buttons while managing time to maximize positive points and cover up negative points to beat your single opponent.  The latter is instead an economy of breeding… that’s right… breeding animals in their exhibits at the zoo in a race to be the first to cover your board entirely before 1-4 opponents.  In both cases, you can enjoy pleasant themes mixed with compelling decisions from the polyomino connoisseur himself.  Which one is better is up for debate, but I say you can’t go wrong with either (or both).

Galaxy Trucker

While Patchwork and New York Zoo both contain elements of time economics or racing to the finish, neither of them are actual ‘real-time’ games where you are rushing your arrangements and burning your brain into overdrive.  But if that’s what you are looking for, Galaxy Trucker has you covered.  This wild, wacky game has been around for many years, but it recently received a new coat of paint with some minor tweaks to the formula.  Either version is dirt cheap and loads of fun, but you’ll need to have a group who can handle a bit of a rules dump up front.

While this one isn’t as family-friendly as it wants to be thanks to a few too many fiddly rules, it still has a major payoff for those who are fully invested.  The game consist of two acts: first, rush to reveal and arrange square tiles into a jumbled mess of a space ship that contains guns, thrusters, energy, shields, storage, and more.  The longer you take to arrange and nitpick your ship, the faster the best tiles will be claimed by other players because during this act you are scrambling to build your ships all at the same time and the tiles are first-come-first-serve.  The second act sees you laughing, cheering, and moaning as you send your ships on a risky voyage ripe with perilous dangers and delicious rewards.  Ship parts and sections get blasted and blown off, and all you can do is just hang on and hope you survive the journey.

Factory Funner

Speaking of rushing to grab tiles while cooking your brain, Factory Funner is also split into two phases: the first phase consists of brief real-time drafting, the second consists of crunchy spatial efficiency.  The cool thing here is that you are free to use connectors and other helpful tiles to your heart’s content, but each extra piece you use costs a dollar from your score.  As you have to add a new machine each round, you can also remove old pipes and tiles to establish new connections between the machine inputs and outputs.

The new version of this game (releasing within the next few months) comes to us from publisher BoardGameTables.com and features zesty new art, a non-real-time drafting variant for those who don’t like to be rushed, and the addition of a sixth player.

Pipeline / Curious Cargo

Since we’re on the subject of pipes, we might as well chat about the ultimate pipey games from designer Ryan Courtney: Pipeline and Curious Cargo.  Ryan burst into the board game industry with the critically acclaimed Pipeline, a slick economic brain burner about buying, refining, and selling oil.  While worker placement, loans, economics, engine building, and contract fulfillment are all major parts of this design, one of the standout features of this game is the pipe tiles where players must make long, winding connections of pipe of the same color to help refine their oil.  Purchasing and arranging these pipes is a compelling part of the challenge, and these different combinations of routes across dozens of domino tiles was something fresh and new in the spatial puzzle genre.

People loved it so much that the creators followed Pipeline up with another domino spatial puzzle game in Curious Cargo.  While many expected Curious Cargo to be a pure, simple distillation of the pipe element from Pipeline, in reality Ryan took this follow-up design as a challenge to cram as much complexity into a small box game as possible.  What resulted was a title that has perhaps been a little more polarizing in the industry.  This head-to-head shipping and receiving game contorts your brain with its even more difficult spatial challenges.  It demands much flexibility and adaptation from players as they draw tiles out the bag and must figure out how to best use those frequently less-than-ideal draws.  But I stand by my final statement in my review of this title: “Despite the emotional cuts, bruises, and occasional broken bones that this design doles out, I’ve found Curious Cargo to be one heck of a satisfying game.”

Azul

Let’s step away from the brain burning puzzles for a moment to talk about a few lighter options.  Azul mixes tile drafting with just a hint of spacial puzzling.  The sequence and location tiles added to your board is the core element of scoring, and it’s a challenge that comes into conflict with the dwindling drafting options of each round.  It’s just as important to be able to predict what tiles others will claim as it is to smartly plan your own moves.

Azul is one that ranks highly among our favorite 2-player games and 10 games everyone should try.  While there are now four versions of Azul out in the wild, I’m sticking with my guns and declaring that the original is the best.  At least that’s how things will remain until Azul: Queen’s Garden makes its way to the US for me to properly scrutinize it.

Carcassonne / Isle of Skye

If you’re looking to go even more classic and simple than Azul, then perhaps Carcassonne is the best candidate.  The procedure is dead simple: play the one tile in your hand anywhere into the growing arrangement of tiles and add a meeple on top of it if you’d like.  With the tiles, you’ll be accomplishing tasks as simple as growing, connecting, or enclosing fields, roads, or cities.  But the most important aspect is deciding when and where to add your meeples.  You see, these meeples are like investments in unfinished landscape features; the person with the most meeples in a feature when it becomes fully enclosed gets the big payout in points.  Things get extra spicy when opponents attempt to outcompete each other in the same region or when they try to sabotage the completion of a road or city.

Yet I can’t help but mention here another square tile game with an interesting twist.  In Isle of Skye, there is no shared, central region of growing tiles for players to add to like in Carcassonne.  Rather, you’ll be building up your own personal area as you’re pulled this way and that by the changing scoring criteria.  Each round, you’ll also be pulling 3 tiles out of the bag and deciding how to price them to either entice or deter your opponents.  Money is important here because you’ll desperately need it to be able to buy the best tile from a single opponent of your choice.  Plus, you’ll be using your own money to price your tiles, and if nobody bites, then you just bought them yourself for the price you set.

If you’re looking for a straightforward game that lets players dip their toes in the spatial puzzle waters by aligning and arranging matching features on square tiles, then you can’t go wrong with Carcassonne or Isle of Skye.

A Feast for Odin

For those of you who prefer your games sprawling and meaty, let’s now dive back into the deep end of spatial puzzle designs.  A Feast for Odin is a game that features a worker placement game board with over 60 possible spaces, hundreds of tiny polyomino tiles organized across several trays, and large player boards with supplemental island boards for you to arrange these many tiles over the course of a 2-3 hour playtime.  This is one big box game that will make you wish your table was at least… three times its size.

Yet, A Feast for Odin is one of the most satisfying Euros in existence thanks to Uwe Rosenberg’s steady design hand.  You’ll be hunting, raiding, farming, whaling, trading, and more to acquire viking goods that come in many shapes and sizes.  You’ll have to arrange these polyomino goods wisely in order to increase your income, surround and gain bonuses, and cover up negative points.  All the while, you’ll be feeding your vikings as they grow increasingly hungry throughout their many pursuits.  It’s a feast of game that is indeed worthy of Odin’s name.

Isle of Cats 

If you want to wrap your braintacles around one of the hottest polyomino games of the recent years, then Isle of Cats might just be what the doctor ordered.  You’ll be rescuing cats from the evil Lord Vesh by cramming them onto your boat board.  If that doesn’t already sound zesty enough for you, then consider that the other core mechanism of this game is card drafting similar to 7 Wonders or Sushi Go.

This game also has an easier, more family friendly mode for those who need it.  But either way, you’ll be playing a game that is currently ranked in the top 100 games on BGG and the BGG top 10 family games.  Need I say more?

Sprawlopolis

Those of you who are primarily solo or cooperative gamers, worry not, we haven’t forgotten about you!  Sprawlopolis is arguably the best wallet game that money can buy, and it is meant to be played solo or together.  It still blows my mind what the creators were able to pull off with only 18 cards:  The backs of these cards each have a unique scoring objective.  Your game will feature a random combination of 3 scoring objectives, and you’ll be using the remaining 15 card faces to arrange and layer a city of cards to try and achieve the scoring requirements.

You’ll lose points for each unique road, so it’s wise to try and connect them together to minimize damage.  Meanwhile, you’ll be trying to overlap and connect matching districts in all directions according to the tricky objectives of each individual play.  If the 3 objective cards are easy, then you’ll need a higher score to win.  This crunchy minimalist game comes highly acclaimed by many critics, and at such a low price you have no reason not to try it.

My City

Although this list was arranged in no particular order, we are going to end things off with my personal favorite spatial puzzle game.  While most of these games see players drafting or selecting tiles or cards to arrange in optimal orientations, My City makes its players fall victim to a bingo style draft.  A central deck with one card for each tile is shuffled at the start of the game.  Each round, the top card is revealed and players must decide where to place this building tile onto their city board.

One would surmise, as I once did, that such a system devoid of tile choice or player interaction would be aggressively dull.  Not so, dear reader.  Instead, this system creates an experience of suspense, risk, and anticipation as you plan and hope that the right tile will come out of the deck before you fill a suitable area in with something less ideal.  

A critical aspect of these rules is that you may spend a point to trash a tile rather than be forced to add it to your board.  And we haven’t even gotten to the real juicy part of the design:  My City is a legacy game where over the course of 24 sessions players will add stickers to their board, gain more tiles, encounter new challenges and objectives, and compete to be the ultimate city builder by tracking points earned during each play.  We’ve sung the praises of My City so much that our followers are undoubtedly now bleeding from all orifices and begging us to branch out to other games.  But alas, when one makes a Top 10 Spacial Puzzles list, one must listen to their heart and include the masterful My City among the champions.

Honorable Mentions

While there can only be thirteen games among the top 10 (our math is sound, don’t question it), the following are honorable mentions that we wish to list and celebrate so that we can minimize our chances of being flogged by spatial puzzle connoisseurs:

1. Blokus – classic, strategic goodness
2. Calico / Cascadia – hot new tile drafting and arranging games featuring animals
3. Arboretum – a tense cutthroat hand management game with a sprinkling of spatial arrangement
4. Railroad Ink – a solid roll & write of connecting highways and railroads
5. Barenpark – a favorite polyomino game for many… plus BEARS
6. On Tour – a roll & write about scheduling a tour by sequencing your route across the country
7. Sagrada – a popular game similar to Azul featuring gorgeous colorful token drafting (dice in this case) and arranging

A Bitewing Games Publication Reveal…

And here we have finally arrived… at the end of all things.  Or more accurately, at the end of all things yet published.  We are thrilled to finally unveil the next title that Bitewing Games will be publishing via a Kickstarter campaign in Q2 2022.  It is indeed a spatial puzzle game, but it is also a love letter to outdoor adventuring.  Introducing Trailblazers by designer Ryan Courtney:

Trailblazers are the gutsy folks who pave and brave the trails of the great outdoors.  Whether by hiking boots, cycling wheels, or river paddle, these tenacious travelers seek to feed their insatiable appetite for adventure.  With a scenic wilderness ever ahead and a freshly charted path upon the heels, one mustn’t forget to eventually find their way back to camp.  For there are always new environments to explore, further expeditions to undertake, and more trails to blaze.

In Trailblazers, players compete to earn the most points by building biking, hiking, and kayaking loops from their campsites of the matching trail type.  Each round, players are dealt eight trail cards where they’ll draft two cards, arrange those cards in their personal area, and pass their hand to the next player three times.  Cards must either be placed adjacent to or overlapping other cards.  While players can push their luck by aiming to construct long and elaborate trails, only closed loops that start and end at a matching campsite will score points.  Players also compete to fulfill “First To” and “End Game” goal cards.  After four rounds, the game ends and the player with the most points from closed loops and goal cards wins.

Compared to the travel edition for 1-4 players, the standard edition of Trailblazers features a second deck of trail & player cards so you can play with up to 8 players.  The box also contains two expansions (the Animals expansion and Adventurers expansion) that add another challenging layer of strategy and objectives to the experience.  

Trailblazers is the third spacial puzzle domino game by designer Ryan Courtney (the first two being Pipeline and Curious Cargo).  While they share a similar puzzly DNA that fans have come to know and love, Trailblazers differs by:

• Featuring simple, highly accessible rules in a 30 minute game for 1-8 players
• Boiling the gameplay down to pure spatial puzzling and card drafting with a dash of push-your-luck route building
• Using durable PVC cards that can easily be shuffled, dealt, drafted, and overlapped (found in the travel edition and deluxe edition)
• Including three challenging solo modes with a high skill-ceiling

Well there you have it!  We’re ecstatic to finally get that big news off our chest.  But we’re even more excited to launch this Kickstarter project next year!  For those of you who want to follow along or even try out the game early on Tabletop Simulator (once it is ready), simply subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter and join us for the ride!  In the meantime, keep on enjoying those spatial puzzlers!

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

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