I feel like it was a pretty good year in which I was able to play almost a quarter of my Top 100 Games I Want to Play from last year. I was also able to continue my streak of playing the number one game on my list. Some of these may end up making my Top 100 or Top 150 Games of All-Time list, but some of these also may have fallen flat for me. So I thought I would put together a short summary of the games that I played, where they had ranked on my 2018 Top 100 Games I Want to Play List, and note where they ended up on my new rankings, if they did. Since the latter will be a bit of a spoiler, I will black it out and you can highlight the position if you wish.
Gaia Project (January 2018 - #1)
2019 Ranking: #1
When I first heard there was a sequel coming out for Terra Mystica that was set in space, I was instantly hooked. At this point, Terra Mystica was my favorite game of all-time and space themes just click with me, so it was a win-win. Then I eventually played it and was blown away. First, the cult track from Terra Mystica was replaced by a technology track that felt very thematic and streamlined some of the different things you needed to keep track of in Terra Mystica, such as shipping, and incorporated that into the different technology levels. Next, the Gaia projects, which is what the game's title is based on, are very interesting mechanically even though at first I thought it was an unecessary complication. Having an alternate option to expand your empire instead of just terraforming helps open up some flexibility in strategies.
Finally, the space theme was perfectly executed. The power bowls felt more thematic than in the original. Increasing your range, similar to shipping in Terra Mystica, feels more vital than ever due to the large empty pockets of space the map has. There will be points in the game where you will have expanded as far as you can and feel constrained until you increase your range and the game completely opens up. Back to the technology track, advancing each one captures the space feel especially well. I could probably go on and on about what has been changed or improved, but it is quite easy to tell that this game is a winner for me. An appealing theme applied to solid mechanics was too difficult to not get right. It is probably easy to figure out where this will end up on my rankings as well.
The Castles of Burgundy (January 2018 - #5)
2019 Ranking: #86
This was the first Stefan Feld game I played and some might say it is his best game. It had a slow but steady ascent into the upper echelons of the BoardGameGeek rankings where it currently sits just outside of the Top 10. Therefore, it has always been at the top of mind when I thought of games I wanted to play. Reading the rules, it seemed like a great combination of mechanics - using dice results, players will slowly be filling their own board with different tiles that score them points in a variety of ways. For example, grey mines provide you with income that can be used to purchase other tiles while light green animal tiles score you points based on the animals you already have on your board.
So what did I think after playing it? I found I had a very middling response to the game. The mechanics were alright, but I found the theme to be non-existent. I really did not feel like I was creating any sort of kingdom with the tiles and instead was purely just placing tiles to optimize my score. I have played it several times and each play only reinforces this feeling. So although I think the mechanics are good, including the dice allocation, it wasn't able to overcome the bland theme and I found the game in general to be a disappointment, especially considering how high on BoardGameGeek it ranks.
Clans of Caledonia (January 2018 - #10)
2019 Ranking: #26
This was one of my most anticipated games based solely on the inspiration that it drew from Terra Mystica. I backed it on Kickstarter and could not wait for it to arrive, only to have it sit in line as one of the many games I wanted to play. However, towards the end of the year I was able to find some time to play the game solo on Tabletopia, which was the first time I had ever used Tabletopia. As I had mentioned in a previous post, I don't enjoy the sandbox environment too much but the opportuniy to play this game was too inviting to pass up. I'll touch on my Tabletopia experience in a later post, but I can see the potential of Clans of Caledonia based on the few solo plays I had of the game. First off, I can see the inspiration from Terra Mystica - from the way the structures are deployed on the board to the clan powers to the shipping to the scoring tiles for each round. However, I think that the game plays quite differently even though on paper it looks very similar.
Clans of Caledonia feels more like a traditional euro game with the way players gather resources and exchange resources for other ones using the structures they built. The market for trading resources is also quite an interesting mechanic for creating a continuous supply and demand balance. Finally, the whole game revolves around fulfilling contracts, which is a very significant change from the gameplay in Terra Mystica. The fact that you are able to remove structures from the board in exchange for goods to fulfill these contracts is very different because it means another player can come in and take that territory away from you. So whereas Gaia Project is definitely an evolution of the Terra Mystica system, Clans of Caledonia is much more of a spin-off. I think with some group plays it will climb up my rankings as I see a lot of potential.
Azul (January 2018 - #13)
2019 Ranking: #45
At the end of 2017 everyone was jumping on board the Azul hype train and I was no exception. I think it might have been the first new game that I played in 2018. I can see why it is such a great abstract game, which is why it ranks quite high for me as well. First, the component quality is great as the tiles used throughout the game have good weight and color to them. Even though it is an abstract game, the theme fits making it not seem as abstract one would think, compared to games such as Go or Onitama. The game play is quite straightforward as well, which makes it an ideal gateway game. However, I find that the game is extremely cutthroat, especially at two players, since you can pretty much plan how you will be able to make your opponent take excess pieces to result in negative victory points. For some, this might turn them away from the game. I think it makes the game better, adding a "take that" mechanic which can appeal to casual gamers. I read it sold over half a million copies and can easily see why.
Keyflower (January 2018 - #15)
2019 Ranking: #14
Keyflower is another one of those euro games that was released when I started to really get into the hobby and was being more mindful of new releases. It quickly shot into the Top 50 on BoardGameGeek and really caught my attention, especially since it seemed to follow in the footsteps of other games in this "Key" series. Unfortunately, it would take until this year for me to finally play it and when I did I was quite taken aback by how good it is. It is a really interesting mix of worker placement, bidding, and tile placement. The game takes place over four seasons and on your turn you must either place some of your workers on tiles to activate them or use them to bid for new tiles. The key to the workers is that they come in different colors and once a tile has any worker on it, the same color workers must be used by other players or yourself again to re-activate or bid on that tile, but one more than was previously used or bid.
This means that if you place one red worker on a tile to bid, the next player must place two or three red workers. Another thing to keep in mind is that all your workers are kept behind a screen, meaning that you cannot see what workers another player has. Players can also choose to pass at any time, but as long as not everyone has passed, the next time it is your turn you can decide to use more workers. This is very different from most games where if you pass, you are out for the round. Here you can strategically wait and see what your opponents do, as long as they don't all decide to pass as well! As a result, it can be quite a cutthroat euro as players try to outbid each other or use each other's tiles. I found it to be a lot of fun and it easily shot up my rankings.
Tiny Epic Galaxies (January 2018 - #16)
2019 Ranking: #44
The Tiny Epic series is one that I have been backing since Tiny Epic Galaxies came out, but to this day only Tiny Epic Galaxies has found its way to the table, and it was this year. I have always heard great things about this series, but especially this one especially as it is the most highly rated of the bunch on BoardGameGeek. Like I mentioned earlier, space is always a favorite theme of mine and I was very impressed at how well the game captured this theme. It is a very fun and interactive game built around dice rolling where each player is slowly colonizing planets and expanding his or her space empire. The game plays pretty quick considering the quite epic progression feeling it gives you. There is little downtime since you are always paying attention to other player's roll results since you can spend culture points to use them. I've also played with the mini expansions provided with the Kickstarter and those were fun and easy additions. This was a great preview of the Tiny Epic series though and I can't wait to see how the other games play.
Oh My Goods! (January 2018 - #20)
2019 Ranking: #73
This small box card game never really caught my attention except for the Klemens Franz art. Then when listening to one of Rahdo's lists where he said that the expansion Longsdale in Revolt was game-changing and one of his favorite expansions ever, it peaked my interest instantly. I think I was a bit too hyped for the game, but it really is a great little push-your-luck engine-building card game that mixes the two mechanics together quite well. The expansion added a campaign layer that really helped direct players towards which strategy to chase after as well as implementing some neat little twists into the game play. I've had a lot of fun with it, with or without the expansion, and I love the feeling you get when your engine works, but it didn't impress me as much as I thought it would.
Sagrada (January 2018 - #21)
2019 Ranking: #59
Azul and Sagrada were two similarly "themed" games released in 2017, with most people preferring Azul but a vocal minority stating that Sagrada is better. I lean towards Azul, but only because I have played it a bit more, but I find Sagrada to be a lot of fun as well. With the new 5-6 player expansion, it might even climb higher for me. In this game, players are rolling dice, drafting them, and adding them to their player boards to score points for patterns. The dice are placed into a 4 x 5 grid and there are rules for placement, such as the same colors cannot touch, the same numbers cannot touch, and some spaces may dictate what color or number must go on that spot. This means that early on you have free reign to place dice wherever, but as the game progresses your choices grow slimmer and more stressful.
Players also will have access to special tools that allow them to modify the dice they draft, but each player gets a limited number of these so must use them wisely. This presents an interesting puzzle, almost feeling like a roll-and-write, and while it isn't as cutthroat as Azul there is the chance towards the end that players will draft dice in such a way as to leave other players dice that they cannot place. The rules are simple to learn, making this a great gateway game. All around, I was very impressed by this game and I feel like I had even more to say about this than Azul. Maybe this time next year the two games will switch spots on my rankings.
Flamme Rouge (January 2018 - #32)
2019 Ranking: #82
This is another game that was completely under my radar until the Shut Up & Sit Down review had me excited to play it. At the time I played it, I think the only other racing game I had played was Camel Up! and that is more of a betting game, so this was a relatively unique theme for me. Anyway, the game lived up to my expectations with interesting hand management and slipstream mechanics. The game is really simple to learn and once the racing starts is very fun and sometimes chaotic. The interplay between the two racers you control is pretty strategic as well, forcing you to make a decision on which racer you select movement for first and hoping that the card you pick to play for your first racer will work well with the card you pick for your second racer. I have yet to play the Peleton expansion, but the addition of more players should make the slipstream mechanic even more dynamic. I'm also very interested in trying the Grand Tour mode where races are linked together to form a campaign and exhaustion can carry over from race to race.
In the Year of the Dragon (January 2018 - #34)
2019 Ranking: #124
This is another Stefan Feld game that over the years has had quite a lot of buzz and still is relatively high on the BoardGameGeek rankings in the Top 300. Of course, it is notorious for being a difficult game where each round you need to deal with disasters that plague your palaces. I have played it many times on BoardGameArena, and maybe it is overexposure but it isn't a game I would be itching to get to the table in real life anytime soon, if ever. It has some solid mechanics, but among all the euro games that are out there, nothing stands out, even with a theme that is more unique than others. Again, it feels a bit like a point salad which is a common criticism I hear of most games by Stefan Feld. And between this and Castles of Burgundy, I must say that I feel I have been let down by both games after having high hopes. Perhaps I'm just not a fan of his designs?
The Voyages of Marco Polo (January 2018 - #35)
2019 Ranking: #23
This game slipped under my radar until last year, when I saw how high it was ranking on BoardGameGeek and also found out it was from the same design team as Tzolk'in. On a side note, it seems that this set of rotating designers from this game and Tzolk'in are actually behind a lot of other games that I never noticed before and I feel the need to check all these games out, such as Grand Austria Hotel and Lorenzo Il Magnifico. In addition, this game also peaked my interest because of the Shut Up & Sit Down review from 2017 which stated that although the game was good, it didn't amaze them in ways Concordia and Istanbul did, which are two similar games. In conclusion, they mentioned that as more and more games come up and expectations and quality becomes higher, it becomes more difficult to impress them. I feel that at times I do get burned out by all the games that come out, but usually this is short-lived.
The game mixes quite a few interesting mechanics together. The core of the game is dice - each player rolls five dice at the start of the round. Players then use these dice to perform actions and the value of the dice will affect what actions they can do and how effective they can be. This includes gathering resources, obtaining contracts, and moving around on the map of Europe and Asia. As players move around the map, they can add trading posts, which could provide additional actions or bonus resources or victory points. In general, victory points are scored for completed contracts, if you have placed a certain number of trading posts, or completed secret objectives from the start of the game. Each player also has a special power that greatly alters the game rules. For example, one power is the ability to set the dice value instead of rolling - that sounds very interesting, doesn't it?
As a whole, the game does play like a great euro. There are resources to gather which then are converted into points and it does some very interesting things with dice. The player powers also really help mix the game up - even though the power you have is great, everyone else's power seems even better! It may have been a bit hyped for me, but the Shut Up & Sit Down review helped to tamper my expectations. I ended up playing it before Concordia and Istanbul and after playing those games thoroughly as well, I think this one slots right in the middle. I will get to the other two games in a bit, but in general this game feels quite a bit more clunky than the elegant Concordia, but does offer more depth than Istanbul.
Barenpark (January 2018 - #37)
2019 Ranking: #88
Patchwork seemed to start it off, A Feast for Odin used it in a heavy euro, and Cottage Garden took Patchwork to a four player experience. In the span of a couple years, polyomino tile placement became as synonymous with Uwe Rosenberg as worker placement. Then Barenpark came along and seemed to take the genre over as everyone wanted to get their hands on it and those who did praised how much better it was than the more bland Uwe Rosenberg games. I won't even bother comparing it to A Feast for Odin, as that is a completely different beast, but how does it compare to Patchwork, Cottage Garden, and Indian Summer, which I have played? The theme is definitely lighter and more playful than the other three, but the gameplay I think is a bit lacking. Of course, this makes it a better gateway game in the process.
Similar to the other games, in Barenpark players are trying to fill up their boards with bear-themed or other attraction tiles. Covering up icons on the board allows players to take new tiles. However, with the exception of one tile reserved for statues, there are not too many limitations to how players fill their boards, which I think simplifies things a bit too much. Patchwork is similar, but adds a complicated button and time economy that in a way is more important than the tile placement. Cottage Garden has a unique element for drafting tiles, two scoring boards, and grid you place tiles on are full of pots you don't want to cover up because they score points. Finally, Indian Summer has the holes on the tiles that you want to line-up with spaces on the board to score points. In comparison to these, Barenpark is much simpler. So a good gateway with a fun theme, but not enough depth to rank higher than the rest.
Mint Works (January 2018 - #42)
2019 Ranking: #66
The moment I heard about this game, it was on my radar. A light, quick worker placement game that fits into a super tiny box? Sounds like a perfect filler! Again, worker placement is one of my favorite mechanics, but these types of games are usually very long. So, I was very pleased when I got around to playing Mint Works, which also added a few twists to the traditional formula that even threw me off. The whole objective is to have the most stars at the end of the game and players will be placing their mint workers on common actions in the middle of the table. However, unlike most worker placement games, at the end of the round you actually do not recall these workers and they are lost to the action they are placed on. Instead, in the Upkeep phase at the end of each round, players will gain one worker plus any additional workers from buildings that they have constructed during the game. This means it might be a strategic play to hang onto workers for the next round if the actions you wanted to take have already been filled up. This was quite an interesting mechanic, especially for a filler worker placement game.
Codenames: Duet (January 2018 - #44)
2019 Ranking: #137
Codenames is one of the best party games ever. In fact, it is my highest-ranked party game. So when I heard a two-player version of the game came out, I was intrigued. Then I saw that it quickly rose up the BoardGameGeek rankings and sat just outside the Top 100, which really caught my attention. I kept wondering, was there was something revolutionary or groundbreaking that this version has to make it rank so high? How could a team vs. team game be turned into two-player co-operative game? In the end, it is a solid game but I was not amazed by it. The implementation is done well, but I wonder if it could have just been an expansion that added the necessary few pieces, rather than releasing the entire game again. If I had to play the game with just one other person, this would be fine but there are a lot of other two-player games out there so I would probably just save this for a party? I'm pretty mixed on this - great game, so it ranks relatively high, but perhaps in the future I should just consider it a variant rather than its own entry.
At the Gates of Loyang (January 2018 - #47)
2019 Ranking: #81
After the juggernauts Agricola and Le Havre were released, Uwe Rosenberg followed up those two games with this one. In general, this has slipped under the radar, as it is not talked about nearly as much as the other two, nor Caverna or A Feast for Odin, or even Ora et Labora or Fields of Arle. However, I was always interested in trying it out, especially since it was supposed to close out his "Harvest Trilogy" of games. Even though you are planting and harvesting vegetables, it plays significantly different from any of his other games that I have played.
Instead of worker placement, which almost all of his other big games use, this one focuses on card play. There is an interesting card drafting phase where players will hire assistants, obtain customers, or buy markets or fields. Players will need to balance growing their fields versus fulfilling customer contracts for money. There is a very interesting scoring track that really rewards being able to have big turns where you can make a lot of money to advance your score. I found the game to be a breath of fresh air compared to his typical games. I think it goes underappreciated for this reason - most people will see it assuming it is a worker placement game themed around harvesting and ignore it. I think it is a unique game which really can't compare to anything else.
New York Slice (January 2018 - #63)
2019 Ranking: #141
When I heard about this "I split, you choose" game, I was intrigued by the concept. Other than this, I don't think I have really tried this mechanic before. Well, actually I just remembered that Castles of Mad King Ludwig is similar and also from Bezier Games, but it is not a core mechanic like it is in New York Slice. This game is also well-produced in a box that looks like a pizza box and rulebook that looks like a menu along with many, many pizza slices. As for how it plays, it is a pretty fun, light game. Player are essentially trying to set collect pizza slices because at the end of the game, the player with the most of each kind of pizza will score for that type. When it comes to your turn, you must try to slice the pizza in a way that each portion has something that someone else needs to entice then to pick it and hopefully the last portion that you will be forced to select will have something you need. Fun, but nothing groundbreaking at the same time.
El Grande (January 2018 - #65)
2019 Ranking: #31
The classic area control game. I even picked up a copy when I first started playing board games, even though it has taken me until now to play it. However, I'm happy to say that almost 25 years after it's release, the game holds up well. It has an elegance about it, very similar to the feel I find in Concordia. Each player receives a hand of cards which they use to bid for turn order over each of the nine rounds. When they bid, the card they select also indicates how many of their caballeros they can move from the general supply into their personal supply. Then in bid order, each player will select one of five action cards. These action cards tell you how many caballeros you can move from your personal supply to the board and also what special action you may take. Special actions can sometimes include additional scoring, moving the king (which determines where caballeros can be placed), or removing caballeros belonging to another player.
At the end of the 3rd, 6th, and 9th round, there is a scoring phase. For each region, the player with the most caballeros will gain the first place victory points, the player with the second most will gain the second place victory points, and the player with the third most will gain the third place victory points. So in the end, the game is pretty straightforward - have the most caballeros in the region to score the most points. Or try to have at least one in each region so you at least get some points? The use of cards to determine what you do is my favorite aspect, like it is in Concordia. It helps keeps the rules straightforward and game easy to learn. There might not be much theme, but these mechanics are timeless.
Troyes (January 2018 - #67)
2019 Ranking: #80
This is another game that came out a few years ago that built up a lot of initial buzz but I lost interest in after purchasing the game. I held onto it though as it went in and out of print and built up a following of people saying it was one of their favorite euro games. So I finally got around to playing this dice allocation game this year and overall was a bit underwhelmed by the experience. It definitely has unique mechanics in the way dice are used between events, actions, and spots on the board. Each player is also given a secret role that scores in a unique way, but at the end of the game everyone can score based on the secret roles in play so you have to pay attention to what actions others are taking to try and guess their role. But there was something about the game that did not click for me. Maybe playing the game solely on BoardGameArena does not work for the secret roles. I also do not follow the events as closely as I should. The mechanics are quite unique but not enough to make up for the lack of a good theme. Maybe more plays will change my mind, or the expansion, but for now I only see this dropping over time.
Concordia (January 2018 - #68)
2019 Ranking: #10
I've already mentioned this game a couple times, probably because of all games but one it has impressed me the most. As can be seen by its position on my Want to Play list from last year, it was quite low. I didn't know too much about the game and the cover did not do it any favors either. However, it was on the list because it was so high up on BoardGameGeek, I think in the Top 20 at the time. When I got around to reading the rulebook, I was shocked. It was only four pages long. Four pages for what was supposed to be a heavy euro game. This had me very intrigued. The entire game revolves around playing cards from your hand. These cards tell you what actions you can do, including moving your colonists around on the board and building houses, adding new colonists to the board, producing goods from the houses built on the board, trading goods, and buying new cards to add to your hand.
When you play a card, it is sent to the discard pile while newly purchased cards are immediately added to your hand. How do you get your cards back? By playing the card that allows you to add all the cards in your discard pile back to your hand. By using cards to tell players exactly what they can do, it simplifies the rules needed to learn ahead of time by quite a bit. By giving you all the cards at once instead of having to draw them, you only have yourself to blame if you don't play the cards correctly instead of being able to scapegoat the luck of the draw. It is a very elegant game - maybe not the prettiest, but the mechanics are amazing. Easily one of the best games I have ever played.
The Great Zimbabwe (January 2018 - #77)
2019 Ranking: #24
Food Chain Magnate set a high bar for Splotter Spellen games. Most of their games have always been on my radar, but after playing Food Chain Magnate, it really increased my desire to play more of their games. The Splotter Spellen game for this year would be The Great Zimbabwe, which is a little further down the rankings than most of their games, actually just outside the Top 300. I think it deserves to be quite a bit higher though as I found this game to be extremely good and quite unique, both in terms of theme and mechanics.
Each player controls a tribe in Zimbabwe and will be placing monuments down on a map. Monuments give victory points, with higher monuments giving more. In order to increase the height of monuments, you must use craftsman that will be placed on the map by the players to convert goods found on the map. Some craftsman require the input of other craftsman, and all craftsman add victory points to your score as well. However, this is where the unique element of the game comes into play.
If you add a craftsman to the map, sure it increases your victory points, but the first time you place this craftsman your victory points required to win increases as well. The winner of the game is the first player to meet their required victory points; if multiple players meet their requirement, then it is the person who overshot their requirement wins. There are also unique god powers that you can select to add to your tribe, but you can choose only one and it is permanent for the rest of the game. In most cases, this also adds to your victory point requirements. These two features really make this game unique and live up to its name as great.
Werewords (January 2018 - #78)
2019 Ranking: #---
Insider was a game I really wanted to play when I first heard the game concept. Then I heard it was getting re-themed into the Ultimate Werewolf universe, which is a party game franchise I absolutely love, so I was ecstatic about it. It took awhile to get to the table but I finally played it this year. On the whole, it was a fun game. Coming up with questions is fun and entertaining as are the answers provided. Once the word is revealed, there are usually laughs all around the table once some of the once nonsensical answers do make sense. But is it better than other games in the series? I think One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a better game, especially with all the roles. In most cases, I would prefer to play that game. But, this might be an option if I am looking for an alternative and perhaps will get better with more plays.
Onitama (January 2018 - #91)
2019 Ranking: #97
There are so many two player abstract games out there. When I started playing boardgames after a short hiatus in 2016, this one hit my radar but near the same time Santorini came out and completely consumed all of my attention. However, this past year the app was released and I was very impressed by the game! In some ways, it feels like a simplified and card-based version of chess where the cards determine how your pieces can move. Because you essentially give your opponent the card that you used on your last turn, there is a lot of strategic planning involved to make sure you aren't handing your opponent the win. A lot of fun, plays quick, rules are simple, and production values are high.
Istanbul (January 2018 - #98)
2019 Ranking: #39
Istanbul is a game that came out a few years ago that also hit my window when I was not playing as many games. However, it caught my attention when I saw it was in the Top 100 on BoardGameGeek and it looks like the type of game that I would enjoy. And I did, quite a bit. As I mentioned earlier, it sits behind Concordia and The Voyages of Marco Polo, which I compared them to since they were all new games to me this year and all have a similar feeling of gathering resources to convert to points, maybe a bit less so for Concordia. Istanbul does it in a very interesting way with its worker placement mechanic and the grid of tiles the workers move around on. There is a lot of strategy to determine how far your workers can reach with your workers before you have to call them back and how far your opponents can. This adds up to a lot of replayability as the grid of tiles changes from game to game, thus making some strategies more viable than others. It is also rather easy to learn and the theme is stronger, which in some ways makes this middleweight game feel like a gateway. Definitely something I will keep coming back to.
Gaia Project (January 2018 - #1)
2019 Ranking: #1
When I first heard there was a sequel coming out for Terra Mystica that was set in space, I was instantly hooked. At this point, Terra Mystica was my favorite game of all-time and space themes just click with me, so it was a win-win. Then I eventually played it and was blown away. First, the cult track from Terra Mystica was replaced by a technology track that felt very thematic and streamlined some of the different things you needed to keep track of in Terra Mystica, such as shipping, and incorporated that into the different technology levels. Next, the Gaia projects, which is what the game's title is based on, are very interesting mechanically even though at first I thought it was an unecessary complication. Having an alternate option to expand your empire instead of just terraforming helps open up some flexibility in strategies.
Finally, the space theme was perfectly executed. The power bowls felt more thematic than in the original. Increasing your range, similar to shipping in Terra Mystica, feels more vital than ever due to the large empty pockets of space the map has. There will be points in the game where you will have expanded as far as you can and feel constrained until you increase your range and the game completely opens up. Back to the technology track, advancing each one captures the space feel especially well. I could probably go on and on about what has been changed or improved, but it is quite easy to tell that this game is a winner for me. An appealing theme applied to solid mechanics was too difficult to not get right. It is probably easy to figure out where this will end up on my rankings as well.
The Castles of Burgundy (January 2018 - #5)
2019 Ranking: #86
This was the first Stefan Feld game I played and some might say it is his best game. It had a slow but steady ascent into the upper echelons of the BoardGameGeek rankings where it currently sits just outside of the Top 10. Therefore, it has always been at the top of mind when I thought of games I wanted to play. Reading the rules, it seemed like a great combination of mechanics - using dice results, players will slowly be filling their own board with different tiles that score them points in a variety of ways. For example, grey mines provide you with income that can be used to purchase other tiles while light green animal tiles score you points based on the animals you already have on your board.
So what did I think after playing it? I found I had a very middling response to the game. The mechanics were alright, but I found the theme to be non-existent. I really did not feel like I was creating any sort of kingdom with the tiles and instead was purely just placing tiles to optimize my score. I have played it several times and each play only reinforces this feeling. So although I think the mechanics are good, including the dice allocation, it wasn't able to overcome the bland theme and I found the game in general to be a disappointment, especially considering how high on BoardGameGeek it ranks.
Clans of Caledonia (January 2018 - #10)
2019 Ranking: #26
This was one of my most anticipated games based solely on the inspiration that it drew from Terra Mystica. I backed it on Kickstarter and could not wait for it to arrive, only to have it sit in line as one of the many games I wanted to play. However, towards the end of the year I was able to find some time to play the game solo on Tabletopia, which was the first time I had ever used Tabletopia. As I had mentioned in a previous post, I don't enjoy the sandbox environment too much but the opportuniy to play this game was too inviting to pass up. I'll touch on my Tabletopia experience in a later post, but I can see the potential of Clans of Caledonia based on the few solo plays I had of the game. First off, I can see the inspiration from Terra Mystica - from the way the structures are deployed on the board to the clan powers to the shipping to the scoring tiles for each round. However, I think that the game plays quite differently even though on paper it looks very similar.
Clans of Caledonia feels more like a traditional euro game with the way players gather resources and exchange resources for other ones using the structures they built. The market for trading resources is also quite an interesting mechanic for creating a continuous supply and demand balance. Finally, the whole game revolves around fulfilling contracts, which is a very significant change from the gameplay in Terra Mystica. The fact that you are able to remove structures from the board in exchange for goods to fulfill these contracts is very different because it means another player can come in and take that territory away from you. So whereas Gaia Project is definitely an evolution of the Terra Mystica system, Clans of Caledonia is much more of a spin-off. I think with some group plays it will climb up my rankings as I see a lot of potential.
Azul (January 2018 - #13)
2019 Ranking: #45
At the end of 2017 everyone was jumping on board the Azul hype train and I was no exception. I think it might have been the first new game that I played in 2018. I can see why it is such a great abstract game, which is why it ranks quite high for me as well. First, the component quality is great as the tiles used throughout the game have good weight and color to them. Even though it is an abstract game, the theme fits making it not seem as abstract one would think, compared to games such as Go or Onitama. The game play is quite straightforward as well, which makes it an ideal gateway game. However, I find that the game is extremely cutthroat, especially at two players, since you can pretty much plan how you will be able to make your opponent take excess pieces to result in negative victory points. For some, this might turn them away from the game. I think it makes the game better, adding a "take that" mechanic which can appeal to casual gamers. I read it sold over half a million copies and can easily see why.
Keyflower (January 2018 - #15)
2019 Ranking: #14
Keyflower is another one of those euro games that was released when I started to really get into the hobby and was being more mindful of new releases. It quickly shot into the Top 50 on BoardGameGeek and really caught my attention, especially since it seemed to follow in the footsteps of other games in this "Key" series. Unfortunately, it would take until this year for me to finally play it and when I did I was quite taken aback by how good it is. It is a really interesting mix of worker placement, bidding, and tile placement. The game takes place over four seasons and on your turn you must either place some of your workers on tiles to activate them or use them to bid for new tiles. The key to the workers is that they come in different colors and once a tile has any worker on it, the same color workers must be used by other players or yourself again to re-activate or bid on that tile, but one more than was previously used or bid.
This means that if you place one red worker on a tile to bid, the next player must place two or three red workers. Another thing to keep in mind is that all your workers are kept behind a screen, meaning that you cannot see what workers another player has. Players can also choose to pass at any time, but as long as not everyone has passed, the next time it is your turn you can decide to use more workers. This is very different from most games where if you pass, you are out for the round. Here you can strategically wait and see what your opponents do, as long as they don't all decide to pass as well! As a result, it can be quite a cutthroat euro as players try to outbid each other or use each other's tiles. I found it to be a lot of fun and it easily shot up my rankings.
Tiny Epic Galaxies (January 2018 - #16)
2019 Ranking: #44
The Tiny Epic series is one that I have been backing since Tiny Epic Galaxies came out, but to this day only Tiny Epic Galaxies has found its way to the table, and it was this year. I have always heard great things about this series, but especially this one especially as it is the most highly rated of the bunch on BoardGameGeek. Like I mentioned earlier, space is always a favorite theme of mine and I was very impressed at how well the game captured this theme. It is a very fun and interactive game built around dice rolling where each player is slowly colonizing planets and expanding his or her space empire. The game plays pretty quick considering the quite epic progression feeling it gives you. There is little downtime since you are always paying attention to other player's roll results since you can spend culture points to use them. I've also played with the mini expansions provided with the Kickstarter and those were fun and easy additions. This was a great preview of the Tiny Epic series though and I can't wait to see how the other games play.
Oh My Goods! (January 2018 - #20)
2019 Ranking: #73
This small box card game never really caught my attention except for the Klemens Franz art. Then when listening to one of Rahdo's lists where he said that the expansion Longsdale in Revolt was game-changing and one of his favorite expansions ever, it peaked my interest instantly. I think I was a bit too hyped for the game, but it really is a great little push-your-luck engine-building card game that mixes the two mechanics together quite well. The expansion added a campaign layer that really helped direct players towards which strategy to chase after as well as implementing some neat little twists into the game play. I've had a lot of fun with it, with or without the expansion, and I love the feeling you get when your engine works, but it didn't impress me as much as I thought it would.
Sagrada (January 2018 - #21)
2019 Ranking: #59
Azul and Sagrada were two similarly "themed" games released in 2017, with most people preferring Azul but a vocal minority stating that Sagrada is better. I lean towards Azul, but only because I have played it a bit more, but I find Sagrada to be a lot of fun as well. With the new 5-6 player expansion, it might even climb higher for me. In this game, players are rolling dice, drafting them, and adding them to their player boards to score points for patterns. The dice are placed into a 4 x 5 grid and there are rules for placement, such as the same colors cannot touch, the same numbers cannot touch, and some spaces may dictate what color or number must go on that spot. This means that early on you have free reign to place dice wherever, but as the game progresses your choices grow slimmer and more stressful.
Players also will have access to special tools that allow them to modify the dice they draft, but each player gets a limited number of these so must use them wisely. This presents an interesting puzzle, almost feeling like a roll-and-write, and while it isn't as cutthroat as Azul there is the chance towards the end that players will draft dice in such a way as to leave other players dice that they cannot place. The rules are simple to learn, making this a great gateway game. All around, I was very impressed by this game and I feel like I had even more to say about this than Azul. Maybe this time next year the two games will switch spots on my rankings.
Flamme Rouge (January 2018 - #32)
2019 Ranking: #82
This is another game that was completely under my radar until the Shut Up & Sit Down review had me excited to play it. At the time I played it, I think the only other racing game I had played was Camel Up! and that is more of a betting game, so this was a relatively unique theme for me. Anyway, the game lived up to my expectations with interesting hand management and slipstream mechanics. The game is really simple to learn and once the racing starts is very fun and sometimes chaotic. The interplay between the two racers you control is pretty strategic as well, forcing you to make a decision on which racer you select movement for first and hoping that the card you pick to play for your first racer will work well with the card you pick for your second racer. I have yet to play the Peleton expansion, but the addition of more players should make the slipstream mechanic even more dynamic. I'm also very interested in trying the Grand Tour mode where races are linked together to form a campaign and exhaustion can carry over from race to race.
In the Year of the Dragon (January 2018 - #34)
2019 Ranking: #124
This is another Stefan Feld game that over the years has had quite a lot of buzz and still is relatively high on the BoardGameGeek rankings in the Top 300. Of course, it is notorious for being a difficult game where each round you need to deal with disasters that plague your palaces. I have played it many times on BoardGameArena, and maybe it is overexposure but it isn't a game I would be itching to get to the table in real life anytime soon, if ever. It has some solid mechanics, but among all the euro games that are out there, nothing stands out, even with a theme that is more unique than others. Again, it feels a bit like a point salad which is a common criticism I hear of most games by Stefan Feld. And between this and Castles of Burgundy, I must say that I feel I have been let down by both games after having high hopes. Perhaps I'm just not a fan of his designs?
The Voyages of Marco Polo (January 2018 - #35)
2019 Ranking: #23
This game slipped under my radar until last year, when I saw how high it was ranking on BoardGameGeek and also found out it was from the same design team as Tzolk'in. On a side note, it seems that this set of rotating designers from this game and Tzolk'in are actually behind a lot of other games that I never noticed before and I feel the need to check all these games out, such as Grand Austria Hotel and Lorenzo Il Magnifico. In addition, this game also peaked my interest because of the Shut Up & Sit Down review from 2017 which stated that although the game was good, it didn't amaze them in ways Concordia and Istanbul did, which are two similar games. In conclusion, they mentioned that as more and more games come up and expectations and quality becomes higher, it becomes more difficult to impress them. I feel that at times I do get burned out by all the games that come out, but usually this is short-lived.
The game mixes quite a few interesting mechanics together. The core of the game is dice - each player rolls five dice at the start of the round. Players then use these dice to perform actions and the value of the dice will affect what actions they can do and how effective they can be. This includes gathering resources, obtaining contracts, and moving around on the map of Europe and Asia. As players move around the map, they can add trading posts, which could provide additional actions or bonus resources or victory points. In general, victory points are scored for completed contracts, if you have placed a certain number of trading posts, or completed secret objectives from the start of the game. Each player also has a special power that greatly alters the game rules. For example, one power is the ability to set the dice value instead of rolling - that sounds very interesting, doesn't it?
As a whole, the game does play like a great euro. There are resources to gather which then are converted into points and it does some very interesting things with dice. The player powers also really help mix the game up - even though the power you have is great, everyone else's power seems even better! It may have been a bit hyped for me, but the Shut Up & Sit Down review helped to tamper my expectations. I ended up playing it before Concordia and Istanbul and after playing those games thoroughly as well, I think this one slots right in the middle. I will get to the other two games in a bit, but in general this game feels quite a bit more clunky than the elegant Concordia, but does offer more depth than Istanbul.
Barenpark (January 2018 - #37)
2019 Ranking: #88
Patchwork seemed to start it off, A Feast for Odin used it in a heavy euro, and Cottage Garden took Patchwork to a four player experience. In the span of a couple years, polyomino tile placement became as synonymous with Uwe Rosenberg as worker placement. Then Barenpark came along and seemed to take the genre over as everyone wanted to get their hands on it and those who did praised how much better it was than the more bland Uwe Rosenberg games. I won't even bother comparing it to A Feast for Odin, as that is a completely different beast, but how does it compare to Patchwork, Cottage Garden, and Indian Summer, which I have played? The theme is definitely lighter and more playful than the other three, but the gameplay I think is a bit lacking. Of course, this makes it a better gateway game in the process.
Similar to the other games, in Barenpark players are trying to fill up their boards with bear-themed or other attraction tiles. Covering up icons on the board allows players to take new tiles. However, with the exception of one tile reserved for statues, there are not too many limitations to how players fill their boards, which I think simplifies things a bit too much. Patchwork is similar, but adds a complicated button and time economy that in a way is more important than the tile placement. Cottage Garden has a unique element for drafting tiles, two scoring boards, and grid you place tiles on are full of pots you don't want to cover up because they score points. Finally, Indian Summer has the holes on the tiles that you want to line-up with spaces on the board to score points. In comparison to these, Barenpark is much simpler. So a good gateway with a fun theme, but not enough depth to rank higher than the rest.
Mint Works (January 2018 - #42)
2019 Ranking: #66
The moment I heard about this game, it was on my radar. A light, quick worker placement game that fits into a super tiny box? Sounds like a perfect filler! Again, worker placement is one of my favorite mechanics, but these types of games are usually very long. So, I was very pleased when I got around to playing Mint Works, which also added a few twists to the traditional formula that even threw me off. The whole objective is to have the most stars at the end of the game and players will be placing their mint workers on common actions in the middle of the table. However, unlike most worker placement games, at the end of the round you actually do not recall these workers and they are lost to the action they are placed on. Instead, in the Upkeep phase at the end of each round, players will gain one worker plus any additional workers from buildings that they have constructed during the game. This means it might be a strategic play to hang onto workers for the next round if the actions you wanted to take have already been filled up. This was quite an interesting mechanic, especially for a filler worker placement game.
Codenames: Duet (January 2018 - #44)
2019 Ranking: #137
Codenames is one of the best party games ever. In fact, it is my highest-ranked party game. So when I heard a two-player version of the game came out, I was intrigued. Then I saw that it quickly rose up the BoardGameGeek rankings and sat just outside the Top 100, which really caught my attention. I kept wondering, was there was something revolutionary or groundbreaking that this version has to make it rank so high? How could a team vs. team game be turned into two-player co-operative game? In the end, it is a solid game but I was not amazed by it. The implementation is done well, but I wonder if it could have just been an expansion that added the necessary few pieces, rather than releasing the entire game again. If I had to play the game with just one other person, this would be fine but there are a lot of other two-player games out there so I would probably just save this for a party? I'm pretty mixed on this - great game, so it ranks relatively high, but perhaps in the future I should just consider it a variant rather than its own entry.
At the Gates of Loyang (January 2018 - #47)
2019 Ranking: #81
After the juggernauts Agricola and Le Havre were released, Uwe Rosenberg followed up those two games with this one. In general, this has slipped under the radar, as it is not talked about nearly as much as the other two, nor Caverna or A Feast for Odin, or even Ora et Labora or Fields of Arle. However, I was always interested in trying it out, especially since it was supposed to close out his "Harvest Trilogy" of games. Even though you are planting and harvesting vegetables, it plays significantly different from any of his other games that I have played.
Instead of worker placement, which almost all of his other big games use, this one focuses on card play. There is an interesting card drafting phase where players will hire assistants, obtain customers, or buy markets or fields. Players will need to balance growing their fields versus fulfilling customer contracts for money. There is a very interesting scoring track that really rewards being able to have big turns where you can make a lot of money to advance your score. I found the game to be a breath of fresh air compared to his typical games. I think it goes underappreciated for this reason - most people will see it assuming it is a worker placement game themed around harvesting and ignore it. I think it is a unique game which really can't compare to anything else.
New York Slice (January 2018 - #63)
2019 Ranking: #141
When I heard about this "I split, you choose" game, I was intrigued by the concept. Other than this, I don't think I have really tried this mechanic before. Well, actually I just remembered that Castles of Mad King Ludwig is similar and also from Bezier Games, but it is not a core mechanic like it is in New York Slice. This game is also well-produced in a box that looks like a pizza box and rulebook that looks like a menu along with many, many pizza slices. As for how it plays, it is a pretty fun, light game. Player are essentially trying to set collect pizza slices because at the end of the game, the player with the most of each kind of pizza will score for that type. When it comes to your turn, you must try to slice the pizza in a way that each portion has something that someone else needs to entice then to pick it and hopefully the last portion that you will be forced to select will have something you need. Fun, but nothing groundbreaking at the same time.
El Grande (January 2018 - #65)
2019 Ranking: #31
The classic area control game. I even picked up a copy when I first started playing board games, even though it has taken me until now to play it. However, I'm happy to say that almost 25 years after it's release, the game holds up well. It has an elegance about it, very similar to the feel I find in Concordia. Each player receives a hand of cards which they use to bid for turn order over each of the nine rounds. When they bid, the card they select also indicates how many of their caballeros they can move from the general supply into their personal supply. Then in bid order, each player will select one of five action cards. These action cards tell you how many caballeros you can move from your personal supply to the board and also what special action you may take. Special actions can sometimes include additional scoring, moving the king (which determines where caballeros can be placed), or removing caballeros belonging to another player.
At the end of the 3rd, 6th, and 9th round, there is a scoring phase. For each region, the player with the most caballeros will gain the first place victory points, the player with the second most will gain the second place victory points, and the player with the third most will gain the third place victory points. So in the end, the game is pretty straightforward - have the most caballeros in the region to score the most points. Or try to have at least one in each region so you at least get some points? The use of cards to determine what you do is my favorite aspect, like it is in Concordia. It helps keeps the rules straightforward and game easy to learn. There might not be much theme, but these mechanics are timeless.
Troyes (January 2018 - #67)
2019 Ranking: #80
This is another game that came out a few years ago that built up a lot of initial buzz but I lost interest in after purchasing the game. I held onto it though as it went in and out of print and built up a following of people saying it was one of their favorite euro games. So I finally got around to playing this dice allocation game this year and overall was a bit underwhelmed by the experience. It definitely has unique mechanics in the way dice are used between events, actions, and spots on the board. Each player is also given a secret role that scores in a unique way, but at the end of the game everyone can score based on the secret roles in play so you have to pay attention to what actions others are taking to try and guess their role. But there was something about the game that did not click for me. Maybe playing the game solely on BoardGameArena does not work for the secret roles. I also do not follow the events as closely as I should. The mechanics are quite unique but not enough to make up for the lack of a good theme. Maybe more plays will change my mind, or the expansion, but for now I only see this dropping over time.
Concordia (January 2018 - #68)
2019 Ranking: #10
I've already mentioned this game a couple times, probably because of all games but one it has impressed me the most. As can be seen by its position on my Want to Play list from last year, it was quite low. I didn't know too much about the game and the cover did not do it any favors either. However, it was on the list because it was so high up on BoardGameGeek, I think in the Top 20 at the time. When I got around to reading the rulebook, I was shocked. It was only four pages long. Four pages for what was supposed to be a heavy euro game. This had me very intrigued. The entire game revolves around playing cards from your hand. These cards tell you what actions you can do, including moving your colonists around on the board and building houses, adding new colonists to the board, producing goods from the houses built on the board, trading goods, and buying new cards to add to your hand.
When you play a card, it is sent to the discard pile while newly purchased cards are immediately added to your hand. How do you get your cards back? By playing the card that allows you to add all the cards in your discard pile back to your hand. By using cards to tell players exactly what they can do, it simplifies the rules needed to learn ahead of time by quite a bit. By giving you all the cards at once instead of having to draw them, you only have yourself to blame if you don't play the cards correctly instead of being able to scapegoat the luck of the draw. It is a very elegant game - maybe not the prettiest, but the mechanics are amazing. Easily one of the best games I have ever played.
The Great Zimbabwe (January 2018 - #77)
2019 Ranking: #24
Food Chain Magnate set a high bar for Splotter Spellen games. Most of their games have always been on my radar, but after playing Food Chain Magnate, it really increased my desire to play more of their games. The Splotter Spellen game for this year would be The Great Zimbabwe, which is a little further down the rankings than most of their games, actually just outside the Top 300. I think it deserves to be quite a bit higher though as I found this game to be extremely good and quite unique, both in terms of theme and mechanics.
Each player controls a tribe in Zimbabwe and will be placing monuments down on a map. Monuments give victory points, with higher monuments giving more. In order to increase the height of monuments, you must use craftsman that will be placed on the map by the players to convert goods found on the map. Some craftsman require the input of other craftsman, and all craftsman add victory points to your score as well. However, this is where the unique element of the game comes into play.
If you add a craftsman to the map, sure it increases your victory points, but the first time you place this craftsman your victory points required to win increases as well. The winner of the game is the first player to meet their required victory points; if multiple players meet their requirement, then it is the person who overshot their requirement wins. There are also unique god powers that you can select to add to your tribe, but you can choose only one and it is permanent for the rest of the game. In most cases, this also adds to your victory point requirements. These two features really make this game unique and live up to its name as great.
Werewords (January 2018 - #78)
2019 Ranking: #---
Insider was a game I really wanted to play when I first heard the game concept. Then I heard it was getting re-themed into the Ultimate Werewolf universe, which is a party game franchise I absolutely love, so I was ecstatic about it. It took awhile to get to the table but I finally played it this year. On the whole, it was a fun game. Coming up with questions is fun and entertaining as are the answers provided. Once the word is revealed, there are usually laughs all around the table once some of the once nonsensical answers do make sense. But is it better than other games in the series? I think One Night Ultimate Werewolf is a better game, especially with all the roles. In most cases, I would prefer to play that game. But, this might be an option if I am looking for an alternative and perhaps will get better with more plays.
Onitama (January 2018 - #91)
2019 Ranking: #97
There are so many two player abstract games out there. When I started playing boardgames after a short hiatus in 2016, this one hit my radar but near the same time Santorini came out and completely consumed all of my attention. However, this past year the app was released and I was very impressed by the game! In some ways, it feels like a simplified and card-based version of chess where the cards determine how your pieces can move. Because you essentially give your opponent the card that you used on your last turn, there is a lot of strategic planning involved to make sure you aren't handing your opponent the win. A lot of fun, plays quick, rules are simple, and production values are high.
Istanbul (January 2018 - #98)
2019 Ranking: #39
Istanbul is a game that came out a few years ago that also hit my window when I was not playing as many games. However, it caught my attention when I saw it was in the Top 100 on BoardGameGeek and it looks like the type of game that I would enjoy. And I did, quite a bit. As I mentioned earlier, it sits behind Concordia and The Voyages of Marco Polo, which I compared them to since they were all new games to me this year and all have a similar feeling of gathering resources to convert to points, maybe a bit less so for Concordia. Istanbul does it in a very interesting way with its worker placement mechanic and the grid of tiles the workers move around on. There is a lot of strategy to determine how far your workers can reach with your workers before you have to call them back and how far your opponents can. This adds up to a lot of replayability as the grid of tiles changes from game to game, thus making some strategies more viable than others. It is also rather easy to learn and the theme is stronger, which in some ways makes this middleweight game feel like a gateway. Definitely something I will keep coming back to.
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