My latest first impressions of new board game releases span from ambitious epics to Knizian comebacks… Let’s jump right into it!

Disclosure: Bitewing Games is publisher of Reiner Knizia (and eventually other designers) games, and any opinions shared on other games are subject to possible personal bias. As with all our content, we do our best to share our honest personal experiences & opinions as fans of the hobby, and we leave the rest for you to decide whether a game is a good fit.

Equinox

3 Plays

I was hesitant to experience my very first play of Equinox at only 2-players, but it turned out to be far more interesting and aggressive than expected.  It turns out that this one works well at any player count.

When I think of betting games, what first comes to mind is loud, bombastic, social activities such as Camel Up.  Equinox is none of these things, but what it lacks in noise and showmanship it makes up for in cutthroat cleverness.

Eight creatures, known as “Champions,” are competing to become legends, but only three will avoid fading into oblivion.  Players take turns adding one creature card to the current row from their hand, and the moment all the spots are filled in, the creature with the lowest value played into that row is eliminated for the rest of the game.  Then play moves down a row, rinse and repeat.

On top of that, you can start your turn by placing one of your five precious betting stones on any space in the current row that does not already contain a stone.  The higher up rows will pay out bigger points to the bets on creatures that survive to the end, but big early bets also make for big easy targets.  If you place a couple big betting stones high up on a cute little creature, you might as well be putting a giant target on its back and a hefty bounty on its head.  So it’s obviously best to save your bets for safer rows, right?  Well… not exactly.

Each of the creatures provides a unique special ability to the player who has the biggest bets on them, and that’s typically the player who bet earliest.  So every time I play a Funguy the mushroom card, he activates the power of another creature who has been eliminated—powers that are normally lost forever as their poor champion fades into a forgotten limbo.  Other creature powers include discarding a card that is currently in competition, claiming a card back into your hand, shifting cards around, pulling back your betting stone… basically all kinds of things to save or sabotage the creatures that you and your opponents have bet your precious stones on. 

With only eight of the fourteen creatures and their abilities utilized in a single game, there is loads to explore and agonize over in this colorfully cutthroat playground.  I find myself getting so invested in the success of one creature and the downfall of another that I sometimes forget that I still have more betting stones to place.  I feel so enticed by the champion’s abilities that I have to remind myself to save some of that creature’s cards for later rounds.  I get so greedy with saving the great cards in my hand for the best moment that I put the very safety of my own champions in jeopardy.

All this juicy goodness, and we’ve only scratched the surface of all the brilliant wrinkles in the gameplay including secret bets, wild chameleon cards, impactful tree cards, and more.  I could toss out some minor production complaints including the functionally pointless and confusing cloth bags (they’re merely used to identify a player’s color, not for storing the tokens in the box or touching ever during the game…), the far too large and unwieldy cards (this game takes up the whole table and requires thorough shuffling and sorting during setup and teardown), the wordy rulebook with a lack of succinct player aids, etc., but at the end of the day I still love Equinox.  

This is a beautiful betting game whose whimsically indulgent production expertly disguises the pile of daggers lurking underneath—meant for plunging into each other’s backs after using them to flay the adorable creatures who just want to be loved.  A fine game, indeed.

Current Rating: 8.5/10

Stellar

1 Play

Stellar is the tagalong younger sibling of The Search for Planet X in that they both came from publishing parent Renegade Games in the same year and they share a similar theme of astronomy.  Yet this quick, 2-player card game is not at all a deduction game and its drafting and set collection gameplay is entirely abstract.

The interesting challenge of Stellar lies within the turn structure where a player drafts a card into their hand and then plays a card from their hand into either their telescope or their notebook, and whatever number they play at one of those two locations determines which other card (from the drafting slots) must be played into the opposite area.  So if I play a 5 card onto my telescope, then I must take the card in slot 5 and play that into my notebook.

The notebook and telescope each contain their own restrictions and objectives.  The notebook is the more straightforward of the two, where you are simply trying to build a run of each card’s suit.  Each run will become a score multiplier for the matching cards that are played out onto your 12-space telescope.  Matching suits must be adjacent on the telescope, and the high value cards compete for majority points against your rival while the low value cards grant more star points for your multiplier.

The game becomes a puzzle of which card to play where and when to maximize points.  Every turn boils down to a very mathy exercise of sums and multipliers to find the optimal sequence of drafting and playing.  While mathing out efficiencies can certainly make for an engaging game, Stellar almost relies on it too heavily in hopes of disguising its dull arc.

The setup starts players on completely different trajectories, where each person has two different suits from their opponent in their notebook and telescope.  While I can certainly spend my turn snatching away golden opportunities from you, those types of drafts often accomplish nothing substantial for my own score.  The only tangible tension here comes from the majority competition for three separate sections of your telescope where the highest sum of card values in each section wins ten bonus points.  Otherwise, you’re simply drafting and playing what’s optimal for you and I’m doing the same for me.  Eventually we’ll get to the end and simply find out who had the more optimal options across their turns.

Any competition, tension, and push-your-luck card play here all taste too bland for Stellar to provide a distinct or addictive flavor.  Unfortunately, the recycling optimization puzzle of each turn isn’t strong enough on its own merits to keep us hungry for more.  We already have plenty of incredible 2-player card games to feast upon, and so I struggle to find a reason why I should reserve room on my plate for Stellar.

Current Rating: 5.5/10

Kemet: Blood & Sand

2 Plays

Kemet: Blood & Sand rounds out my journey through Matagot’s legendary trilogy of “troops on a map” games, and this journey of mine has certainly ended with a bang!  My introductory game was Inis, which quickly became my absolute favorite game for many months, and it remains in my top 15 of all time.  My next exposure was with Cyclades, which I certainly played and enjoyed a few times but ultimately purged from my collection due to the many other options that do area control or auctions even better.  But I was all in on Matagot’s updated version of Kemet when the Blood & Sand kickstarter launched.

With the long wait finally over and the game spread out on our table, we were instantly impressed with their ambitious vision now come to fruition.  Large chunky miniatures are complemented by interlocking pyramids, personal reference guides, convenient trays, and useful side boards.  As I shared in my Kickstarter Case Study, this campaign had it’s fair share of bumps and bruises along the path to funding.  And the final product isn’t without its flaws (significant rulebook errors and unimaginative game board art in particular), but the entire package still comes together extremely well, especially thanks to the juicy experience at its core.

Kemet remains a titan among area control games thanks to its slick, streamlined turns mingled with sprawling power tile possibilities across a relentlessly aggressive sandy canvas.  I’m not familiar with all the changes here, but I understand that the Blood & Sand reimplementation improves the end game victory condition, the turn order determination, and countless balancing aspects to make for a tighter gaming package.  Plus it includes parts of the original’s expansions, so what’s not to love here?

Unlike the passive-aggressive slow-burn strategery of Inis, Kemet opts for blinding, popping, crackling, and booming conflict like a relentless fireworks show of battles.  The fate of conflict isn’t left to mere chance… there’s not even a single dice to be found in this box.  Rather, players must outwit their opponents by navigating their identical hands of battle cards most efficiently with the help of purchased tiles, summoned creatures, recruited troops, and drawn divine interventions.  Blood & Sand includes a most welcome score board of growing permanent points and shifting temporary points as competitors inch their way to the finish line of 9 or more points.

The massively enticing spread of power tiles is blessedly accompanied by an exciting personal menu where players browse their purchasing options before claiming any of the wonderful abilities that always feel uniquely, terrifyingly overpowered.  One tile comes with a giant scorpion who acts as a your personal wrecking ball against other troops.  Another comes with the freedom to recruit as many units as you want at no cost—a mind-boggling ability.  From extra strength to extra mobility to extra actions to extra discounts, players quickly diverge and specialize into powerful factions bred for Egyptian dominance.  This endless array of combinable technologies means that no two games of Kemet will ever feel alike.

In our most recent game, I found myself gunning for a brutally defensive strategy. Early on I acquired a tile that let me look at the battle card my opponent would commit to a battle before deciding which card I would play. This made for a delicious combo with another tile that gave me an invaluable point for winning any battle as the defender—something that’s normally not possible. I also welcomed in a beastly snake to one of my troops that canceled out the powerful abilities of my opponents’ beasts. Finally, I acquired the freedom to recruit as many units as I desired for free whenever I took that action. This strategy meant that I could completely abandon my valuable pyramids and go on a hunt for the easiest points while not worrying about the massive target I was putting on my back. Players would frequently have to throw multiple battalions at one of my troops to break down my defenses, scoring me points for every attack they lost. Furthermore, blasting me off the map just meant that I would be right back on the board with my full force next time I recruited.

This is merely one of the infinite power tile combinations a player can pursue in this aggressively epic game. Every aspect of Kemet: Blood & Sand reeks with proud ambition, yet this arrogance is justified in every regard.  Kemet is the ultimate “troops on a map” game that all other flamboyant, miniature-based war games so desperately try to be.  It makes its players feel both insanely powerful and dangerously vulnerable with all the grace and ease of a strategic Euro.

Current Rating: 9.5/10

Tutankhamun

2 Plays

After our first session at two players, Tutankhamun wasn’t quite doing it for me. Fortunately, I was also able to try it at four players, where we found more of the magic within. This new reimplementation of an older design contains a similar core concept as Knizia’s Sumatra and Whale Riders in that it utilizes a one-way track for collecting sets of tokens.

Here, players are cruising along the Nile, picking up artifacts along the way to offer to the deceased Pharaoh’s tomb for points.  First person to hit the set number of points wins.  Player turns proceed in clockwise order, and you can either move your boat to the tile immediately behind you or as far forward as you’d like, and whatever tile you stop on is the one you’ll claim.  The proceedings are precisely as simple as you’d expect from the good Doctor.

Set collection scoring is a contest of majorities, where whoever has the most tiles of a type once the last one comes off the Nile will score the designated number of points, second place scores half, and ties go in favor of whoever is furthest behind along the Nile.  While there are three different types of artifacts that contain an 8 on them, this number means that there are 8 of that unique artifact and the majority possessor of each will score 8 points.  The same is true for the 6, 4, and 2 value sets.  So the big point tiles take longer to trigger their scoring and require more effort to claim majority over.

There are of course some interesting wrinkles here including ring artifacts that only score 1 point each but do so immediately when claimed and grant 5 bonus points to the person with the most.  There are also God Idol tiles which trigger an immediate ability when claimed, usually good for manipulating the position of tiles along the Nile or trading or discarding a tile.  Also, any tiles that get left behind by all players will end up in the Underworld which can trigger immediate scoring if the last tile of a type leaves the Nile.  The game even includes an essential 2-player variant where the Underworld tiles compete with the two players for majority points.  

Yet with all these interesting wrinkles, our initial experience with Tutankhamun was sadly too dull, too loose, and too slow.  This becomes even more blindingly apparent when contrasted against the similar 2021 release: Whale Riders.  

This is going to sound ironic, but Whale Riders maintains a tense tempo and a rapid pace due to the movement restrictions, while Tutankhamun features grinding gameplay and sluggish speed due to its movement freedom.  In Whale Riders, I’m not all that worried about which exact tiles my opponents want next because I don’t even know what contracts they are trying to fulfill; rather, I’m simply focused on maximizing my own action efficiency at my current space or the next one while applying a tangible pressure of pace on my rivals.  In Tutankhamun, I have to count the number of each tile type that I have, the numbers that my opponents have, and survey the entire river of tiles to determine where the next best spot is for me.  This makes Tutankhamun two-to-three times as long while being mechanically more basic than Whale Riders.  

That’s not a good look for what is otherwise a very good-looking game.  25th Century Games has done a nice job with the production and table presence, whether you have the basic or deluxe version (although the components do get pointlessly overindulgent in some areas). The use of score markers that slot along the box bottom and circle Tutankhamun’s tomb with the winding river tiles leading up to it make for a delicious table presence. The art is lush and vibrant, yet some of the clarity between different artifact tiles is sacrificed in favor of saturated colors, leading to more time spent surveying and differentiating the tiles. Whether the overall look is worth the extra hassle and cost will depend on one’s personal preference.

Perhaps the biggest surprise to me is how the God Idol tiles have floundered in our plays. The Kickstarter version came with eight different types of God Idol tiles, and in both games they have been largely ignored inconveniences. I label them inconveniences because they offer no visual aids or reminders to their unique and specific functions. Each tile is simply a god’s face, and these faces are also found across two different reference cards, one of them being double-sided. It becomes a hassle to look up the function of a particular God Idol multiple times in a game when it shows up once early on and again much later by scanning three different surfaces of cards and re-reading the paragraph of rules for the matching god. One might wish that the majestic faces of these gods could have been replaced with helpful iconography to circumvent the frequent reference card reading.

But the bigger problem here is how the God Idol tiles have been largely ignored. Perhaps there’s a deeper layer to them lurking beneath our current strategies, but at the moment it seems almost always a better move to simply take an artifact tile that will help you gain more points rather than take a tile that merely causes a minor manipulation of the board state. What results is a growing pile of neglected God Idol tiles in the Underworld of shame.

So I was reluctant to devote more precious tabletop time to Tutankhamun after an underwhelming start. But another opportunity presented itself in the form of a 4-player game with my sister and brother-in-law joining my wife and I. As I should have predicted, there was certainly more here than our maiden voyage presented. We found with four players that tile majorities and boat movement offered far more tense and interesting decisions than at two. Within this play, I could see why 25th Century chose to bring back Tutankhamun as a solid offering in the family game genre, even if it doesn’t click for us at two players..

Despite a pleasantly surprising comeback, the harsh reality is that Tutankhamun and Whale Riders are both family-weight 2021 releases about sailing along a watery route to collect sets of tiles and score points. Whale Riders presents a better tempo, tension, range, polish, and flexibility within a speedier package that makes it difficult for Tutankhamun to compete for attention in our collection. I suppose playing Tutankhamun feels a tad too much like I’m slowly meandering down a river with nothing extremely interesting to look at besides endless piles of sand… but at least it’s warm and sunny!

Current Rating: 6.5/10

Oath

4 Plays

Leder Games has removed the leashes from designer Cole Wehrle and artist Kyle Ferrin and let them run amok with the creation of Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile.  Fortunately, both of these legends of the industry knew exactly what they were doing when they concocted this strange beast of a game.

Oath takes the colorful, cutthroat charm of Root and mixes it with the vast strategic possibilities of Pax Pamir while amping up the narrative volume to eleven.  Cole Wehrle stays true to his design philosophy and even doubles down on it here by tossing out the industry playbook of maximizing fairness and fun in favor of broadening the game’s emotional range.  Collusion, cooperation, betrayal, kingmaking, savagery, politicking, secrecy, gambling, deflecting, destruction, thievery, prosperity, and more are interwoven with the gorgeous components of Oath.

There are plenty of hurdles to overcome if gamers wish to immerse themselves in this wacky, wonderful world.  A steep upfront price, a daunting learning and teaching experience, an astute rules referee, the perfect selection of compatible gaming friends, a clear opportunity for regular plays, and a collective enjoyment of the journey over the destination.  It’ll take a lot of sheer willpower for some gamers to find the pot of gold at the end of this rocky rainbow.

But Leder Games is one of the best in the business when it comes to giving broad appeal to a complex game.  Rulebooks, walkthroughs, references, and guides galore go a long way in smoothing out this game with intentionally rough edges.  Thoughtful, zany, hilarious, and mesmerizing art remind you that it’s ok to have a knife plunged into your back every now and then by those you once thought friends.  Screen-printed characters, masterful interlocking metal coins, gorgeous blue books of secrets, and a sprawling kingdom across a breathtaking neoprene mat make every penny spent feel unflinchingly worthwhile.

One can’t possibly pin Oath down to a single core mechanism, especially when every game is unbelievably unique.  While one play feels like an auctioning tug-of-war, the next feels like an exploration adventure.  The world can be ablaze with battles in one game before pivoting into a passive-aggressive game of chicken in the next.  The empire may grow into a seemingly insurmountable power with an endless reach after one session yet be completely obliterated by an exile-concocted apocalypse merely one generation later.  There is simply no predicting what will happen next in this game with so many impactful sites, and exciting cards, and devious relics, and tangling victory objectives… and that prospect of a genuine sandbox experience with dynamic ripple effects should make every other board game on this planet tremble in fear.

In Oath, players don’t recreate history, they write it.  They don’t follow a pre-planned trail, they pave it.  Legacy games hide their faces in shame as Oath provides true consequences for its actions and organic adventures for it participants.

Current Rating: 10/10

You’ve probably noticed that we explore and enjoy a lot of games by the legendary Reiner Knizia here, even if we don’t absolutely love all of them. Yet there are three Knizia designs that we’ve loved so much that we decided to devote our time, energy, and resources to bring them to life for YOU.

Next month, we are launching a Kickstarter project for Reiner Knizia’s Criminal Capers Collection featuring Soda Smugglers, Pumafiosi, and Hot Lead. We hand picked these three 20-minute card games from a treasure trove of fresh, unpublished Knizia designs because we love to play them, and we think you will to. But the only way these delightful games are getting published is with your help!

Subscribe to the Bitewing Games newsletter so you don’t miss out on the upcoming Kickstarter campaign. We deeply appreciate your support in helping us to create and share classy board games that bite.

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

The post Candid Cardboard: 1st Impressions of Oath, Kemet: Blood & Sand, Equinox, and more! appeared first on Bitewing Games.

Not much of a reader? You’re in luck! This post also exists in podcast form shown below. Happy listening!

It’s about time to kiss (or more appropriately, kick) 2020 goodbye! As we hopefully look forward to a new year of long-awaited returns to normalcy, what better way to get hyped than to peek behind the curtains and get a glimpse of the most exciting board games to come!

I’ve cooked up quite the list with a variety of promising titles that might just deserve a spot on your wishlist. Several of these games were also explored in my Kickstarter Case Study: How to Win Backers and Fund Projects. Let’s see what’s on the 2021 menu…

Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile – Q2/Q3 2021

We might as well start off with my most anticipated game of 2021. Cole Wehrle’s magnum opus is right around the corner. With the publishing passion of Leder Games, the artistic flex of Kyle Ferrin, and the design chops of one of the industry’s hottest designers, we’ve got a recipe for success in Oath. Along the lines of Root and Pax Pamir, Oath is a highly strategic, cutthroat, and political game that best suits a group of regular players.

This title innovates upon legacy and campaign designs by taking the results of one game and integrating them into the objectives and setup of the next. Nothing is scripted or predetermined, rather the game organically follows a meta narrative controlled entirely by the decisions of the players. The ripple effect of players’ actions will be felt by all for games to come, and they can even keep record of this fascinating history in the Chronicle Session Journal (included in the kickstarter copies or likely to be available directly from Leder Games).

Kemet: Blood and Sand – Summer 2021

The area-control darling, Kemet, has been an established favorite for nearly a decade now. In 2021, Matagot will be releasing version 2.0 with a completely revamped presentation, improved rules, and new gameplay. Matagot’s legendary dudes-on-a-map trilogy has proven its worth to me with the incredible card-drafting Inis and solid auction-style Cyclades; Kemet is the remaining classic that I have yet to try, and Blood and Sand appears to be worth the wait.

Hibachi – Fall 2021

Hibachi flew a bit under the radar when it recently launched on Kickstarter, but it appears to be firing on all cylinders as a family-friendly set collection dexterity game. The design is a reimplementation of 2010’s Safranito that retains the core fun it presented.

Players toss poker chips onto a large board in an attempt to center the poker chip’s hole over ingredients and bonuses that will help the fill orders. The catch is that your poker chips are also used as a sort of blind auction for drafting order and other privileges. The value of your chips will stay face-down as you toss them onto the board, so a combination of skillful tosses and wise chip selections will ensure that you come out on top when the chips are flipped and the ingredients are claimed.

Grail Games promises that the leftovers from this Kickstarter will go to retail (or you can late pledge here), so keep your eyes peeled come Fall 2021 if you’re hungry to jump in on this fun feast.

Coffee Traders – May 2021

Capstone Games has gone all out with their debut of Coffee Traders. This heavy economic Euro from the makers of Wildcatters boasts over 650 deluxified, colorful components including wooden donkeys and plastic coffee beans! More importantly, the design promises a meaty, interactive competition within the sprawling coffee industry of the 1970s.

While we’re likely to see a more affordable, standard version of the game down the road, it’s hard not to get behind such an ambitious, beautiful project spearheaded by a highly capable publisher. If you can’t get enough sprawling Euros in your life, then this one is a no-brainer for any group of 3-5 players.

Whale Riders – Spring 2021

Dr. Knizia is on another hot streak spanning back to 2017 with the likes of Quest for El Dorado, Babylonia, My City, and more. Whale Riders brings us another team up of old faithful designer Knizia, ever stalwart artist Vincent Dutrait, and the consistently solid publisher Grail Games.

In this economic race, players must decide how to spend their 2 actions each turn as they ride whales along the arctic coast. You can sail ahead to claim the greatest treasures for yourself, but you’ll be missing out on golden opportunities along the way.

Next year, if you find yourself in need of a simple strategy game with enough subtle tension to satisfy everyone at the table, then you’d be hard pressed to bet against Reiner Knizia.

Undaunted: Reinforcements – August 2021

For fans of the Undaunted series, Reinforcements is the modular expansion you never knew you always wanted. This title will include new scenarios, units, and rules to keep the fun rolling. Compatible with both Undaunted games, this expansion even provides 4-player and solo modes for owners of either version. While the details are still sparse, this series already earned its right to the title of Undaunted when it initially debuted among the top board games of 2019. Undaunted will go down as one of my all time favorite deck builders thanks to its elegant flow and painful decisions. I’m thrilled to have more reasons to dive back into this excellent system.

Anno 1800 – Q1 2021 (English Version)

While the game setup isn’t exactly easy on the eyes, Anno 1800 doesn’t need to look amazing when it boasts the design talent of Martin Wallace, creator of Brass: Birmingham and Age of Steam.

Anno 1800 is based on the popular PC game from Ubisoft, but I’m more interested in what Mr. Wallace has done to create a city building tech-tree game. The German version is already on the market, and early buzz around this medium-weight Euro is positive.

Switch & Signal – 2021 (English Version)

Speaking of German games that have yet to make it overseas, Switch & Signal is a cooperative train game from one of the designers of Undaunted: Normandy. This game is as simple and accessible as Pandemic, yet thankfully it is not another Pandemic clone. Switch & Signal sees players guiding trains across a map of Europe or North America to deliver cargo to its destination before time runs out. Each turn involves deciding how to spend your cards to move trains, adjust signals, and switch tracks to keep engines along the most efficient paths possible.

There’s no official date for when this game hits North America, but we can safely assume that Kosmos is planning to localize and release it sometime next year, as it debuted in Germany just a few months ago.

Don’t Get Got: Shut Up & Sit Down Special Edition – Apr 2021

Don’t Get Got is a clever party game that has been around since 2018. It received high praise from popular critic site Shut Up & Sit Down in their highly entertaining review. Thereafter, Big Potato Games reached out to the funny folks at SU&SD and pitched a collaboration for a special edition which successfully funded on Kickstarter this year.

Don’t Get Got is a meta-game that can be sneakily tucked into the background of a game night, group party, or work environment. Each player receives a small wallet with unique objectives that typically require harmless but ridiculous tasks. These tasks span from “Get a player to compliment your hair” to “Make up a word and get a player to ask what it means.” The catch is that if players suspect foul play, they can call you out on your odd behavior and cause you to fail that mission. The first player to complete three missions wins the game.

I’m hoping to receive this game while I’m still at my General Practice Residency program with 7 other dental residents, where the setting is ripe for getting got!

Ra (New Versions)- 2021

Ra, one of all-time greats of the auctioning genre, has been criminally out of print for years. It’s a game that perfectly mixes agonizing auctioning with precarious push-your-luck mechanisms. 2021 is the year where that changes. Dice Tree Games is a South Korean publisher known for its deluxe productions of Knizia classics including Modern Art and Winner’s Circle, and they have a version of Ra ready to release seemingly any day (the game is listed as a 2020 planned release).

25th Century Games, best known for its Splendor-like 2017 release, Space Explorers, is a US-based publisher planning to release an English version of Ra in Summer 2021 as well. Details are sparse, but this release will be one to keep an eye on for anyone looking to jump into this masterclass design. I reached out to Chad (25th Century Games) and learned that he’s aiming to “create the nicest quality and visual art version of the game to date.”

It sounds like a fantastic way for new fans to jump in or old fans to update their copy. Although for those who already own a copy (Alea, Rio Grande, or Uberplay versions in particular), Board Game Geek will be offering delectable Geek Up bits in the spring! All hail the year of Ra!

Tutankhamun – Jan 2021

Speaking of 25th Century Games, they’ll be releasing another Knizia design that has been refreshed and revitalized in Tutankhamun. Players travel down the Nile and collect artifacts in a race to 30 points. The rules are easy enough for any friends or family, simply move your boat downstream and collect the tile you stop on. The key is to have majority in artifact types and lunge for the special power tiles when the timing is right to end up on top.

Dead Reckoning – May 2021

Dead Reckoning is nothing short of ambitious. This mega-project from AEG and John D. Clair (Space Base, Mystic Vale) takes their card crafting concept to the next level. Transparent cards will be combined, flipped, and rotated within sleeves to create a deck-building experience that sends players on a 4X (eXplore, eXpand, eXtort, eXterminate) journey through piratism.

It also features a wildly creative combat system where cubes are dropped onto a battleship that sends them cascading across a battle board, giving a cannonball-like effect that determines the result of the attack by where the cubes land on the board.

This game has so many mechanisms and pieces crammed into it that I’ve opted to leave it on my radar and wait to strike if the reviews come in overwhelmingly positive. It won’t be simple or cheap, but it promises quite the epic adventure.

Kabuto Sumo – June 2021

BoardGameTables.com is back at it with another novel design and gorgeous production. Kabuto Sumo is inspired by coin-pushing arcade games and real-life rhinoceros beetle wrestling. That’s pretty stinking awesome if you ask me.

Players will be shifting the push platform around the sumo ring to line up their move of pushing a piece into the ring in hopes of shoving opponent beetles off. This combination of physics, tactics, and dexterity promise to be a breath of fresh air for any game night. The world can never have too many refreshing dexterity games, and Kabuto Sumo is teed up to be the next one.

So, You’ve Been Eaten – 2021?

That’s right, the game is titled So, You’ve Been Eaten. With a name like that, it has to be good!…. Right?…

After initially rearing its head and riding high on the hotness wave of BGG, news on this title seemingly vanished… like it had been eaten. But more recent updates indicate that they’ve been quietly cramming even more tasty content into the game as they prepare for a Kickstarter launch.

The game claims that it is for 0-2 players. You read that correctly, zero players. A bold miner takes on a massive beast by burrowing into its intestines for crystals as the beast’s immune system fights back. Players can take on the role of either the miner or the beast… or neither?… in a 1v1, 1vGame, or GamevGame showdown.

Bristol 1350 – April 2021

The Dark Cities games have always taken the bones of a classic social deduction game and dressed them in various thematic mechanisms. From witch trials to pirate mutinies to wild west bank robberies to now escaping the Black Plague.

I’ve already played Bristol 1350 plenty of times leading up to my written preview of the design. The timing of this plague-themed game is uncannily coincidental, but the design has been a blast ever since I first tried it two years ago. I’m looking forward to experiencing the full vision that Facade Games had in mind for this quick, engaging gem of a deduction game.

John Company (Second Edition) – 2021?

Wehrlegig Games, the publisher of Pax Pamir (Second Edition), is cooking up their next project in John Company (Second Edition). Designer Cole Werhle’s most recent update reveals that the design has received a complete overhaul to help streamline the rules, focus on the game’s strengths, evoke the period art, and presumably deluxify the production. This heavy political economic romp is sure to be a strategically engaging and historically informative exploration of the British East India Company.

Railroad Ink Challenge – Q1 2021

One of our household’s favorite roll & writes makes an explosive return with Railroad Ink Challenge. The Shining Yellow and Lush Green editions promise player interaction, special structures, and new dice to help keep the puzzle fresh and interesting for series veterans. The development team has also cooked up a cornucopia of extras from an Epic game board to loads of expansion dice.

Iberian Gauge – Summer 2021

Like the previous two games in Capstone’s Iron Rail series, Iberian Gauge already exists among many other cube rails options. These cube rails games possess a common thread of stock investment, railroad expansion, and shared incentives. The key differentiator with the Iron Rail series is that publisher Capstone handpicks a solid design from the many options, gives it the Ian O’Toole makeover, and brings it to the masses. These slim, gorgeous boxes contain a single sheet of rules but pack a huge punch in roughly 1-hour of fun.

Sleeping Gods – Q1 2021

Sleeping Gods was on our most anticipated games of 2020 list, and it’s back again for another round of hype! The good news is that this cooperative exploration adventure is right around the corner, with fulfillment planned to begin in January. Players will be chipping away at this epic adventure a little bit at a time, and they can save their progress and pack it back into the box at any time. I spoke more about how Red Raven convinced me to back their project in my Kickstarter Case Study: How to Win Backers and Crowdfund Projects.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea – March 2021

Ooo baby, designer Thomas Sing is dipping back into the well in an effort to satiate my unquenchable thirst for more of his brilliant cooperative trick taking. All we know thus far is that we’re going from space to sea, but hopefully Mr. Sing still has a few more tricks up his sleeve to mix up the formula. Either way, I’m all in on this sequel to one of the greatest cards games of all time.

Publishers To Watch

That’s right, we’re not done quite yet! Many publishers like to play their cards close to the chest, meaning that there are surely more hype-worthy games waiting to be announced and planned to be released direct-to-retail than the 19 we’ve already covered. We’ll point you toward a handful of publishers that have been on hot streaks recently and show no signs of cooling down.

• Capstone Games: At the time of this writing, I’ve had the chance to try ten of Capstone’s releases of 2018-2020, and they have all been killer games. 2021 releases will include Coffee Traders, Iberian Gauge, Pipeline Emerging Markets (expansion), and more.

• Leder Games: Most famously known for the deceptively charming and deeply asymmetric war-game Root, Leder Games is banking on their next mega-hit being Oath. But with Oath development wrapping up, they’ve shared that their next big project will be another Root expansion featuring militant factions of a Rat warlord and Badgers (expect a Kickstarter in Q1)! Patrick Leder is also working on his own spin on Twilight Imperium known as Void Lich. And who knows, maybe we’ll get a Fort expansion as well…

• Boardgametables.com: I’ve found that the best approach to take with Boardgametables.com’s publications is to expect the unexpected. They’ve brought us a band touring roll & write, an unchained auctioning game, a thinky pirate treasure deduction game, a trio of pretty fillers, and soon a coin-pushing style dexterity game. Whatever they cook up next, it’s sure to be unique and well-produced.

• Eagle-Gryphon Games: With recent killer deluxe versions of Rococo and Age of Steam, heavy hitters like On Mars, on upcoming refreshes such as For Sale Autorama, Eagle-Grypon games is not a publisher to be dismissed.

• WizKids: WizKids has been bringing their A-game recently with the incredible Sidereal Confluence: Remastered Edition, spicy Tournament at Avalon, and juicy Super Skill Pinball 4-Cade, all from 2020 alone. I’m hoping they have just as good of a lineup for 2021.

• Grail Games: This Australian publisher has earned a spot on my radar because of their ability to dig up and dust off the underdog games of yesteryear. Thanks to them, I’ve been able to discover and enjoy Knizia classics including Stephenson’s Rocket and Medici, and I’m excited to try Yellow and Yangtze and Whale Riders. Outside of Hibachi, they have many more exciting plans in the works for 2021 and beyond, including a Yellow and Yangtze expansion, an updated version of cult fan-favorite Fjords, and a two-player climbing card game known as ChuHan from the designer of Race for the Galaxy.

• Osprey Games: This publisher is based in Great-Britain and has drummed up at least 1 killer title every year for the past few years. Those games include Cryptid, the Undaunted series, The King is Dead (Second Edition), and more. They certainly deserve our attention for whatever else they have in mind for 2021 besides Undaunted: Reinforcements.

Designers to Watch

We’ll top this post off with a list of designers that, much like the above mentioned publishers, are on hot streaks of their own. Whenever I catch wind of a new release coming from one of these creative folks, my ears always perk up:

• David Thompson: I’ve talked plenty about David’s upcoming Undaunted Reinforcements and Switch & Signal, and that merely scratches the surface of David’s designs that are hitting the market in 2021. Others include War Chest: Siege (an expansion to Undaunted-like abstract game, War Chest), Soldiers in Postmen’s Uniforms (a WWII inspired solitaire game), Sniper Elite: The Board Game (a hidden moment design based on the video game series of the same name), and Dire Alliance: Horror (a cooperative/competitive tactical deck builder). And those are just the ones we know of. Needless to say, he’s certainly one to keep on the radar.

• Paolo Mori: We’re big fans of Ethnos, a family-weight area majority game that was #8 in my most recent top 50 games of all time list. We’ve also been digging 2019’s Blitzkrieg, a 2-player tug of war game that made a fantastic 1st impression and still holds up after several more plays. There’s no telling what Paolo will do next, but odds are it will be amazing.

• Alexander Pfister: This is the legend who brought us the excellent Great Western Trail, Isle of Skye, Maracaibo, and much more. His latest release, CloudAge, should probably be among the list of games up above seeing how the North American shipment appears to be delayed into the new year (thanks for nothing, Covid!). Regardless, the man is a machine who continues to impress with his designs. I expect to see another big one from him in 2021.

• Wolfgang Warsch: From The Mind to Quacks of Quedlinburg, from Wavelength to That’s Pretty Clever, you know him, you love him, he’s Wolfgang Warsch! After seemingly bursting onto the scene in 2018, Wolfgang has been on a design rampage ever since. Hopefully he hasn’t run out of steam for 2021. You can do it, Wolfgang!

• Kramer & Kiesling: Like Peanut Butter and Jelly, Wolfgang Kramer and Michael Kiesling have been tearing it up together for years with classics such as Tikal or Mexica and more recent releases including our Holiday Board Game Gift recommendation, Renature. Not that they actually need each other, as Mr. Kiesling is the genius behind Azul and Heaven & Ale while Mr. Kramer is mastermind behind El Grande and Downforce. Indeed, these gentlemen should already be on your 2021 watchlist.

• Cole Wehrle: I started this entire post out with Cole’s upcoming design, Oath, and quickly followed it up with his returning hit, John Company (Second Edition), so you already know where I stand here. He’s both a lead designer/developer at Leder Games and he runs Wehrlegig Games with his brother, so anything coming from either company is going to have his fingerprints on it. Why do I appreciate his handiwork so much? Aside from him owning two spots in my top 10 games of all time, I’ve found Cole to be more interested in creating immersive experiences than tossing out gimmicky, shallow designs. He’s churning out arguably the most fascinating designs in the industry with the help of many talented colleagues. Keep it coming, Cole!

• Ryan Courtney: Ryan is the newest published designer among those on this list. In fact, his first game, Pipeline, was categorized as a Lover in my recent revisit of the best games of 2019. His other design, Curious Cargo, continues to impress as well. The man takes “thinky” to the next level, and I’m there for whatever he cooks up next.

• Uwe Rosenberg: It’s breeding!… It’s polyominoes!… That’s right, it’s Uwe Rosenberg. Uwe is one of the all time greats in the industry, and his most recent hits, including New York Zoo and Nova Luna, prove that he’s still got it. He’s always a safe bet when heading into a new year of releases.

• Reiner Knizia: Alongside Cole Wehrle, Reiner Knizia is my absolute favorite board game designer. I own and love more games from Dr. Knizia than any other designer (15 and counting)! He’s best known for his decades old evergreens including Tigris & Euphrates, Lost Cities, and Ra, but he’s been on another hot streak with recent bangers including Babylonia, My City, and Quest for El Dorado. This man is the Willy Wonka of board games, with over 600 titles to his name. Of course they’re not all going to be amazing at that kind of output, but the sheer number golden designs that have come from this one mind is staggering. I’ll take three more decades of Knizia releases, please and thank you.

Hungry for more board game hype? Then continue on to PART TWO of my Most Anticipated Board Games of 2021!

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!

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