Intro:
My gaming habits have evolved beyond video games into modern board games. Not sure if anyone cares around here, but I'm going to post my list of my best board games of 2023 (video games'll come later).
Note that this list is exclusively board games new to me from this year. It is NOT my favorite board game list, nor is it about board games released in 2023. Many are prone to just single experiences.
So...let's start with honorable mentions:
Tapestry and Path of civiliation were good ones, but fall in the "I'll play it when others want to
" category. Bohnanza is an oldie and a great one, but it's a filler that not everyone liked (which weighs in a board game). There were roughly a dozen other new (to me) board games I've played that were okay. Earth is the only one I genuinely disliked, but I'm not going into that here.
Condottiere was on the list originally but fell off because I forgot about another game.
20. Condottiere
Modern euro board games are criticized on being multiplayer solitaire. But if you ask how games used to be, you can show this game. It's area control in which someone picks a region, then everyone plays cards until they pass. I later learned this is called "ladder climbing", but the tug of war is strong here. That is: how long do you add cards? Isn't it better to concede and leave more for another region? But you get extra cards for controlling a region. And...
It's a knife fight in a phone booth. But a small phone booth and with machetes. It's fast but franctic.
What's left...these games:
20. goodcritters
The party game I brought for my extended family. Last years hellapagos and cash 'n guns were hits. This...is merely "good". It's about being the mob leader and armwrestling for control and more loot than the others. On paper, I should love it. In practice, I found it had just a tad more bookkeeping than I'd like in a game with 6+ players.
19. 7 wonders
It literally took me over 5 years to table it. By this time I've played plenty of other drafting games, and it's a tough one to learn and teach. In theory. In practice, it surprised me in how much I liked it. It's a modern classic, but though I'm very late to this party, it's just a good one. I really just wanted to know if I should sell it, but the answer's a quite resounding "keep it!".
18. menara
I bought this one on a whim. A cooperative dexterity game that isn't childish? I had to see it. Well...it delivers. The game itself is light in mechanics (manage your pillars to ensure you've got place to place them, then place floors), but is hard in a way you don't expect. See, you're tasked to build a temple using ALL floors. You place out pillars, then place a floor once you fill up a floor below up completely. It SOUNDS simple, and the different pillar colors hardly make it a game...but the floor SHAPES make this sneakily hard. This game is about physics. In knowing where to place your pillars so the floor above has the maximum amount of balance. Because make no mistake: "just" having a steady hand is the base request. If you don't plan ahead, you'll suddenly find yourself having to balance a floor on just two pillars or even less. Or worse: require yourself to build higher instead of outward.
Speaking of higher: this probably would've ended higher if I could play it non-solo. But it's not a good pick for when you've got toddlers running around (my game group 1) and not euro enough for my medium euro gaming friends.
17. rolling realms
I've played my share of roll & writes. Ganz Shöhn clever remains king. But at least this one gives it a run for its money: you pick 3 times 3 cards from a total of 12. Each card has a method to fill in, and because you're always working with 3, this really makes the game different every time. The quality is great, it has a solo CAMPAIGN (both are aspects that are RARE for this genre), and the theme is...board games. Seriously. While it might sound like a playable marketing tool for stonemaier board games, the online community ran with it during the pandemic and created dozens if not hundreds of new variants you can mix and match, making replayability downright astounding.
16. blitzkrieg! world war 2 in 20 minutes
One of the games that was a miss for me was twilight struggle, a cold war simulator. The only aspect I really liked in it was the tug of war. That is: a score line in which every time you score, you pull a marker away from your opponent. Well...blitzkrieg consists pretty much of 5 such tracks. You draw tiles, place them on one of these tracks and then it shifts in your direction. It also usually gives a bonus of some kind.
This is a game that looks absolutely NOT how I like my board games. Heck, it looks like a boring war simulation. The thing is: the game is so tense throughout that it flat out overcomes every aspect of that.
Again: because of its looks I don't think I can table it much (heh...perhaps my dad'll like it). But even freaking two-handed games are inredibly tense. How's that even POSSIBLE?
15. descent: journeys in the dark
I got this one when it was THE hero quest replacement. Problem was that now that my friends and me are adults, have a social life and such, tabling this has become tough. It's especially tough if you're hosting it and playing the overlord. I can't deny loving what it does, but it really hinges on player actions, and...I'm not sure I've got a good group for this. That is: you're supposed to get into the theme and grok the rules to maximize your turn, NOT try to min-max everything, mix rule questions with strategy questions and expect me to hold your hand while you're trying to beat me. I loved my plays, but the effort required to get it to the table isn't worth it that much to me.
14. ark nova
Creating a zoo. Came into this world riding a strong hype. And if you ask me: well deserved. It's longer than I like my games, so the fact that it didn't outstay its welcome or that I liked it even though I royally lost counts for a lot. It's a heavy one, but it's one of those games where you can feel pride in having done the best you could.
13. imhotep
Phil Walker-harding has a lot of IMHO great games on his portfolio. Thing is: they're light, family weight. Seeing a PWH game in my board game club seemed out of place. But this strangely wasn't: unlike his other designs, this is a euro that's so passive-aggressive that I barely believed it was his design. It did, however, had the signature intuitive actions and simple ruleset. It was an incredible hit, even though I now have to make the caveat to families that this might be too mean for them.
12. winter kingdom
Kingdom builder is a game about snaking around the map, placing your tents almost more to block others than trying to fulfill the 3 goals that are different each game. Well...winter kingdom adds more variety, more cards, an economic system and more options. The result is that my main flaw of KB (two or three bad draws early in the game and you've lost with little or nothing you can do) is fixed. The game is more gamer-y, but in a good way.
I played this in a duel, and it was a lot tighter than I had expected. A lot more player interaction as well (I can't imagine what four players would feel like).
11. ten / scout
Okay, I couldn't decide. Both are great, unique card games that do unique things. They're not similar to one another, but nonetheless tick the same boxes.
Scout is the weirdest: it has cards with two values on them (normal and upside down), but you may not rearrange your hand. The goal is to play all your cards and scoring them. Someone starts by playing out something, then the next player either plays something higher (eg: "a pair is higher than any single card") or picks up one of the cards on the table and puts it in their hand (wherever you want, in what direction you want). That's...most of the rules. But this is the sort of game that hides how smart it is until you see it. Have a 6, 7 and 9 in hand? If you pick up an 8, you can play four cards next round (which is hard to beat, so you might win it AND have less cards then). You also win a round if nobody can beat your hand, so one friend invented a strategy where he just picked up cards until he could suddenly win by playing his whole hand.
Ten is a combination of push your luck, auctioning and set collection. It's an abstract game that...correction: it's an UGLY abstract card game. But the gameplay just blew me away. I had 4 or 5 games with me on vacation, but girlfriend and me never played anything aside this one.
10. moon
One of the most recent plays. A euro in theory, but sharp in its mechanics and player interaction (you send out rovers to use resources of others...but then THEY get the rover). The theme is whimsical - think The jetsons - but executed perfectly. It was a total surprise, but this one isn't so much "one thing it does outstanding", but a whole lot of small things that it just does perfectly.
9. glass road
I chased this one. Uwe Rosenberg has a reputation, and the resource clock is something no other game has (okay: ora et labora does...but it uses it differently). But as if the weird way of "automatically create glass and brick" wasn't innovation enough, it also has card play that I want to applaud. You all have the same 15 cards, each of which with 2 abilities. Of these, you select 5. In turn you reveal one. If someone has the same card, they must reveal it, after which you each get to pick one ability (instead of just you having both abilities). The cards give resources, build buildings and score points. It's a straight up euro otherwise. But man, that card play is insane! It's not bad as a solo game, it's a mindfuck at two and pure uncut chaos at four. Not everyone'll like it, let alone at all player counts. But I do.
8. libertalia: wings of galecrest
I had to put this close to glass road, as it does somewhat the same sort of card play. That is: all players have 40 cards of which everyone gets the same random 6 per round. All of you are pirates aiming to pick up loot with different values. You all play a card simultaneous. The highest card played gets to pick first BUT the lower number card has better abilities that often trigger early. With a simple tie breaking ability, 40 cards in different combinations and simultaneous card play, this just shouts chaos.
...except I'm not rating it as such because I've only played it two player and solo. The fact that it caters to these player counts is already remarkable. The fact that it's not only good but great at lower player count is...astounding, really.
7. rome in a day
This is what you call a filler game: something to end the night with. Quick, easy to explain and plays five players. It revolves around a very elegant "I split, you choose" mechanism. Everyone draws five tiles, puts two buildings on the first two, then secretly splits these in two groups. The smaller group gets a diamond (which scores more if you've got a lot of them). Then you pick one of your neighbor's piles while the other picks one from you. Then you create or extend your kingdom with the tiles and buildings you've ended up with. At the end of the game, each building scores the group of same-colored tiles it's adjacent to. Maybe it sounds a bit hard, but it's so quick to grasp that you're mostly pondering how to best split to mess with your opponent (or steer the other one so you'll end up with what YOU want). And it's so freakingly smart at that!
6. jump drive / terminal velocity
Okay, somewhat of a cheat: the solo campaign of jump drive was one of my best board game experiences during the pandemic. The thing is: it wasn't official. But it was received so well that it got an official variant in the expansion (which also added some cool cards). Multiplayer, this is another simultaneous play filler: you pick one or two cards to play, pay for them with cards...then receive cards and points for all cards you've built. It's a little more complicated than that, but not much. And it's a game that's the equivalent of a drag race: you want to squeeze out the most early because this game is over before you realise it.
5. ginkgopolis
One of the weirdest games I've played, especially in theme (alt-left futurism or something). But you and everyone else build a city together. As the city expands or grows upward, you claim territories, bonusses, points, building materials and extra building tiles. It's...a bit of a mess to wrap your head around, but brilliant once you do. One of the few euro games that's all about building yet nicely integrates area control in the mix.
4. scythe
This has been on my radar for years, and mostly for its out of this world look (dieselpunk mechs). The thing is: you have to take in mind that the impressive tanks aren't the center of the game. It's a worker placement that happens to take place during a war you're fighting. It's about expanding, moving your units around, gaining and using resources and so on. The thing is: it all comes together so well that it doesn't matter that it's not about the fighting (though there is some). It's more about the threat that it could happen. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to table it, but I really HAD to have it after playing it once. And I don't do impulse buys often.
3. islebound
Only now I see some similarities with scythe: this is also about moving on the board, gaining stuff to claim control to increase in stuff even more. But this is more about claiming control from the board rather than from each other. It has a light fantasy theme, solid gameplay mechanics and was a blast to play.
2. spirit island
It's a year of me buying fan favorites. This one I haven't tried aside solo. It's...pest control: you're spirits on an island trying to get rid of invaders that not only move on your island but quickly multiply. The thing is: you're growing in power as well, and you're in total control on how. This is a tough one to play...kind of like magic: the gathering meets pandemic (though you know in advance where the invaders are going to go), so being swamped with choices is on par for this game. It comes with many, MANY options. I barely scratched the surface on this thing, and it's not even my best game of this year. Might not be one to "just try it out", but it's an incredibly good game.
1. dune: imperium
This. Freaking. Game. I've waited for years ignoring it because I don't like franchises (and I happened to LIKE dune). But everyone kept saying it was good, so I tried it out. It looked cool, so...
I was blown away. It's mostly a worker placement, though it has deck building and some confrontational area control (one area) and four tracks to climb. Despite the different elements, it all comes together pretty elegantly. It's a race to ten points, and boy do they make you fight over each one. But even that isn't what throws this to the top spot.
It's the solo mode. I was very hesitant, knowing that you'd be fighting two enemies. But what initially looked like a bookkeeping nightmare is actually easier to handle than games like spirit island or even blitzkrieg (which is far easier to grasp, mind you!). Simple to handle, however, does NOT mean it's easy to win. On the contrary: what might look like random turns (you flip over a card and go to the assigned spot...or flip another one if it's already taken) are actually scaringly good opponents. To the point where you really have to take into consideration what each of them have. I can barely survive an easy game. But man...I've yet to play a game that ISN'T hairbitingly tense.
My gaming habits have evolved beyond video games into modern board games. Not sure if anyone cares around here, but I'm going to post my list of my best board games of 2023 (video games'll come later).
Note that this list is exclusively board games new to me from this year. It is NOT my favorite board game list, nor is it about board games released in 2023. Many are prone to just single experiences.
So...let's start with honorable mentions:
Tapestry and Path of civiliation were good ones, but fall in the "I'll play it when others want to
" category. Bohnanza is an oldie and a great one, but it's a filler that not everyone liked (which weighs in a board game). There were roughly a dozen other new (to me) board games I've played that were okay. Earth is the only one I genuinely disliked, but I'm not going into that here.Condottiere was on the list originally but fell off because I forgot about another game.
Modern euro board games are criticized on being multiplayer solitaire. But if you ask how games used to be, you can show this game. It's area control in which someone picks a region, then everyone plays cards until they pass. I later learned this is called "ladder climbing", but the tug of war is strong here. That is: how long do you add cards? Isn't it better to concede and leave more for another region? But you get extra cards for controlling a region. And...
It's a knife fight in a phone booth. But a small phone booth and with machetes. It's fast but franctic.
What's left...these games:
20. goodcritters
The party game I brought for my extended family. Last years hellapagos and cash 'n guns were hits. This...is merely "good". It's about being the mob leader and armwrestling for control and more loot than the others. On paper, I should love it. In practice, I found it had just a tad more bookkeeping than I'd like in a game with 6+ players.
19. 7 wonders
It literally took me over 5 years to table it. By this time I've played plenty of other drafting games, and it's a tough one to learn and teach. In theory. In practice, it surprised me in how much I liked it. It's a modern classic, but though I'm very late to this party, it's just a good one. I really just wanted to know if I should sell it, but the answer's a quite resounding "keep it!".
18. menara
I bought this one on a whim. A cooperative dexterity game that isn't childish? I had to see it. Well...it delivers. The game itself is light in mechanics (manage your pillars to ensure you've got place to place them, then place floors), but is hard in a way you don't expect. See, you're tasked to build a temple using ALL floors. You place out pillars, then place a floor once you fill up a floor below up completely. It SOUNDS simple, and the different pillar colors hardly make it a game...but the floor SHAPES make this sneakily hard. This game is about physics. In knowing where to place your pillars so the floor above has the maximum amount of balance. Because make no mistake: "just" having a steady hand is the base request. If you don't plan ahead, you'll suddenly find yourself having to balance a floor on just two pillars or even less. Or worse: require yourself to build higher instead of outward.
Speaking of higher: this probably would've ended higher if I could play it non-solo. But it's not a good pick for when you've got toddlers running around (my game group 1) and not euro enough for my medium euro gaming friends.
17. rolling realms
I've played my share of roll & writes. Ganz Shöhn clever remains king. But at least this one gives it a run for its money: you pick 3 times 3 cards from a total of 12. Each card has a method to fill in, and because you're always working with 3, this really makes the game different every time. The quality is great, it has a solo CAMPAIGN (both are aspects that are RARE for this genre), and the theme is...board games. Seriously. While it might sound like a playable marketing tool for stonemaier board games, the online community ran with it during the pandemic and created dozens if not hundreds of new variants you can mix and match, making replayability downright astounding.
16. blitzkrieg! world war 2 in 20 minutes
One of the games that was a miss for me was twilight struggle, a cold war simulator. The only aspect I really liked in it was the tug of war. That is: a score line in which every time you score, you pull a marker away from your opponent. Well...blitzkrieg consists pretty much of 5 such tracks. You draw tiles, place them on one of these tracks and then it shifts in your direction. It also usually gives a bonus of some kind.
This is a game that looks absolutely NOT how I like my board games. Heck, it looks like a boring war simulation. The thing is: the game is so tense throughout that it flat out overcomes every aspect of that.
Again: because of its looks I don't think I can table it much (heh...perhaps my dad'll like it). But even freaking two-handed games are inredibly tense. How's that even POSSIBLE?
15. descent: journeys in the dark
I got this one when it was THE hero quest replacement. Problem was that now that my friends and me are adults, have a social life and such, tabling this has become tough. It's especially tough if you're hosting it and playing the overlord. I can't deny loving what it does, but it really hinges on player actions, and...I'm not sure I've got a good group for this. That is: you're supposed to get into the theme and grok the rules to maximize your turn, NOT try to min-max everything, mix rule questions with strategy questions and expect me to hold your hand while you're trying to beat me. I loved my plays, but the effort required to get it to the table isn't worth it that much to me.
14. ark nova
Creating a zoo. Came into this world riding a strong hype. And if you ask me: well deserved. It's longer than I like my games, so the fact that it didn't outstay its welcome or that I liked it even though I royally lost counts for a lot. It's a heavy one, but it's one of those games where you can feel pride in having done the best you could.
13. imhotep
Phil Walker-harding has a lot of IMHO great games on his portfolio. Thing is: they're light, family weight. Seeing a PWH game in my board game club seemed out of place. But this strangely wasn't: unlike his other designs, this is a euro that's so passive-aggressive that I barely believed it was his design. It did, however, had the signature intuitive actions and simple ruleset. It was an incredible hit, even though I now have to make the caveat to families that this might be too mean for them.
12. winter kingdom
Kingdom builder is a game about snaking around the map, placing your tents almost more to block others than trying to fulfill the 3 goals that are different each game. Well...winter kingdom adds more variety, more cards, an economic system and more options. The result is that my main flaw of KB (two or three bad draws early in the game and you've lost with little or nothing you can do) is fixed. The game is more gamer-y, but in a good way.
I played this in a duel, and it was a lot tighter than I had expected. A lot more player interaction as well (I can't imagine what four players would feel like).
11. ten / scout
Okay, I couldn't decide. Both are great, unique card games that do unique things. They're not similar to one another, but nonetheless tick the same boxes.
Scout is the weirdest: it has cards with two values on them (normal and upside down), but you may not rearrange your hand. The goal is to play all your cards and scoring them. Someone starts by playing out something, then the next player either plays something higher (eg: "a pair is higher than any single card") or picks up one of the cards on the table and puts it in their hand (wherever you want, in what direction you want). That's...most of the rules. But this is the sort of game that hides how smart it is until you see it. Have a 6, 7 and 9 in hand? If you pick up an 8, you can play four cards next round (which is hard to beat, so you might win it AND have less cards then). You also win a round if nobody can beat your hand, so one friend invented a strategy where he just picked up cards until he could suddenly win by playing his whole hand.
Ten is a combination of push your luck, auctioning and set collection. It's an abstract game that...correction: it's an UGLY abstract card game. But the gameplay just blew me away. I had 4 or 5 games with me on vacation, but girlfriend and me never played anything aside this one.
10. moon
One of the most recent plays. A euro in theory, but sharp in its mechanics and player interaction (you send out rovers to use resources of others...but then THEY get the rover). The theme is whimsical - think The jetsons - but executed perfectly. It was a total surprise, but this one isn't so much "one thing it does outstanding", but a whole lot of small things that it just does perfectly.
9. glass road
I chased this one. Uwe Rosenberg has a reputation, and the resource clock is something no other game has (okay: ora et labora does...but it uses it differently). But as if the weird way of "automatically create glass and brick" wasn't innovation enough, it also has card play that I want to applaud. You all have the same 15 cards, each of which with 2 abilities. Of these, you select 5. In turn you reveal one. If someone has the same card, they must reveal it, after which you each get to pick one ability (instead of just you having both abilities). The cards give resources, build buildings and score points. It's a straight up euro otherwise. But man, that card play is insane! It's not bad as a solo game, it's a mindfuck at two and pure uncut chaos at four. Not everyone'll like it, let alone at all player counts. But I do.
8. libertalia: wings of galecrest
I had to put this close to glass road, as it does somewhat the same sort of card play. That is: all players have 40 cards of which everyone gets the same random 6 per round. All of you are pirates aiming to pick up loot with different values. You all play a card simultaneous. The highest card played gets to pick first BUT the lower number card has better abilities that often trigger early. With a simple tie breaking ability, 40 cards in different combinations and simultaneous card play, this just shouts chaos.
...except I'm not rating it as such because I've only played it two player and solo. The fact that it caters to these player counts is already remarkable. The fact that it's not only good but great at lower player count is...astounding, really.
7. rome in a day
This is what you call a filler game: something to end the night with. Quick, easy to explain and plays five players. It revolves around a very elegant "I split, you choose" mechanism. Everyone draws five tiles, puts two buildings on the first two, then secretly splits these in two groups. The smaller group gets a diamond (which scores more if you've got a lot of them). Then you pick one of your neighbor's piles while the other picks one from you. Then you create or extend your kingdom with the tiles and buildings you've ended up with. At the end of the game, each building scores the group of same-colored tiles it's adjacent to. Maybe it sounds a bit hard, but it's so quick to grasp that you're mostly pondering how to best split to mess with your opponent (or steer the other one so you'll end up with what YOU want). And it's so freakingly smart at that!
6. jump drive / terminal velocity
Okay, somewhat of a cheat: the solo campaign of jump drive was one of my best board game experiences during the pandemic. The thing is: it wasn't official. But it was received so well that it got an official variant in the expansion (which also added some cool cards). Multiplayer, this is another simultaneous play filler: you pick one or two cards to play, pay for them with cards...then receive cards and points for all cards you've built. It's a little more complicated than that, but not much. And it's a game that's the equivalent of a drag race: you want to squeeze out the most early because this game is over before you realise it.
5. ginkgopolis
One of the weirdest games I've played, especially in theme (alt-left futurism or something). But you and everyone else build a city together. As the city expands or grows upward, you claim territories, bonusses, points, building materials and extra building tiles. It's...a bit of a mess to wrap your head around, but brilliant once you do. One of the few euro games that's all about building yet nicely integrates area control in the mix.
4. scythe
This has been on my radar for years, and mostly for its out of this world look (dieselpunk mechs). The thing is: you have to take in mind that the impressive tanks aren't the center of the game. It's a worker placement that happens to take place during a war you're fighting. It's about expanding, moving your units around, gaining and using resources and so on. The thing is: it all comes together so well that it doesn't matter that it's not about the fighting (though there is some). It's more about the threat that it could happen. I'm not sure how often I'll be able to table it, but I really HAD to have it after playing it once. And I don't do impulse buys often.
3. islebound
Only now I see some similarities with scythe: this is also about moving on the board, gaining stuff to claim control to increase in stuff even more. But this is more about claiming control from the board rather than from each other. It has a light fantasy theme, solid gameplay mechanics and was a blast to play.
2. spirit island
It's a year of me buying fan favorites. This one I haven't tried aside solo. It's...pest control: you're spirits on an island trying to get rid of invaders that not only move on your island but quickly multiply. The thing is: you're growing in power as well, and you're in total control on how. This is a tough one to play...kind of like magic: the gathering meets pandemic (though you know in advance where the invaders are going to go), so being swamped with choices is on par for this game. It comes with many, MANY options. I barely scratched the surface on this thing, and it's not even my best game of this year. Might not be one to "just try it out", but it's an incredibly good game.
1. dune: imperium
This. Freaking. Game. I've waited for years ignoring it because I don't like franchises (and I happened to LIKE dune). But everyone kept saying it was good, so I tried it out. It looked cool, so...
I was blown away. It's mostly a worker placement, though it has deck building and some confrontational area control (one area) and four tracks to climb. Despite the different elements, it all comes together pretty elegantly. It's a race to ten points, and boy do they make you fight over each one. But even that isn't what throws this to the top spot.
It's the solo mode. I was very hesitant, knowing that you'd be fighting two enemies. But what initially looked like a bookkeeping nightmare is actually easier to handle than games like spirit island or even blitzkrieg (which is far easier to grasp, mind you!). Simple to handle, however, does NOT mean it's easy to win. On the contrary: what might look like random turns (you flip over a card and go to the assigned spot...or flip another one if it's already taken) are actually scaringly good opponents. To the point where you really have to take into consideration what each of them have. I can barely survive an easy game. But man...I've yet to play a game that ISN'T hairbitingly tense.
