Yesterday I did a list of Welcoming Games. Today, let’s find some games that are a bit more complex. These are going to be that type of game you need to play maybe more than once to really get the game. But it isn’t going to be that heavy game that is a bear to teach. Medium Weight Games tend to be those games that you can still teach pretty fast, but they offer more things to do on a turn. The definition is pretty loose, really, but let’s look at some of those next step up in complexity games.

And for other ideas check out the previous lists.

Two Player Games
Campaign Games
Solo Games
Party Games
Welcoming Games

Medium Weight Games

Now, I know that some of these games are going to feel pretty light to people who play heavier games. I mean Medium Weight Games as those next step level of game, where you know some games but you haven’t played a ton.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Let’s start out with a racing game for our medium weight games. While Heat: Pedal to the Metal follows a nice system of what actions you take, there are a number of actions to keep track of. That’s what kept me from putting it in my welcoming game list.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal, like I said, is a racing game. And it’s one that moves along pretty quickly as you gun it down straightaways, slam on the brakes and hit corners. You paly out cards for how far you want to go each turn, depending on what you have in your hand and what gear you are in. But if you blast around a corner, or need to accelerate or brake too quickly you build up heat in your engine. This clogs things up, and while you can drop down in gears and start to cool down, you’re costing yourself speed potentially.

This game is a great balancing act of trying to push it as fast as you can while managing the heat as well. And as you play more, you can do tournaments or cups through several races. It even has a solo mode which is fun to play as well.

Dice Forge

Dice Forge is a dice building game. There aren’t that many of that type of game out there. But you roll dice to collect resources and then spend those resources to buy cards or upgrade the faces of your dice so that they are better.

I like how this game has a nice pivot point. You want to improve your dice. But at some point you pivot to getting more cards for points. When do you pivot, though, is the question that determines how well you do in the game. And you also need to figure out the strategy that works the best with the faces of the dice you have. Some cards might be more unattainable than others, but you might be generating points in other ways.

I also appreciate that you do something on your opponents turns. You don’t do much, but you roll your dice. So it’s not a slow resource generation. You can generate a lot of them quickly, and there are rules for two players to roll more so that it doesn’t slow down the game there as well.

Asking for Trobils

Next up we have a worker placement game. But this one is a bit friendlier and goofier than most. It parodies a lot of classic sci-fi stories and shows.

Basically, Trobils are causing troubles. So you need to catch them, and you get points. But of course you need to build the traps to get them. And everyone is racing around to do that. The worker spots are limited, but the number of ships you have to place out is limited as well before you need to pull them back. And you can recruit pirates or do other things to mess with players, but it’s not really a take that sort of game.

If the idea of this worker placement and almost contract fulfillment, building the traps to get the trobils, interests you, Asking for Trobils is on the lighter side of worker placement games, but will still feel like there is a bunch to do.

Clank! In! Space!

Now we’re moving to a slightly heavier game in Clank! In! Space! In this game you are racing around, building out a deck and trying to get treasure before the evil Lord Eradikus takes you out. But of course, the faster you go, the noisier you are.

I like this game a lot because it offers fun deck building. You buy cards that help you buy more cards, or fight bad guys, or race around the board. And I like how in Clank! In! Space! the board is modular. I know that Clank Catacombs offers that as well, but I need to play that one still. You compete with the other players to get in, get a treasure and get to an escape pod. But if you just get to the bay, you are rescued and can win the game. But you might not even make it out and will be out of the running.

Any version of Clank is good. Regular fantasy, Clank Catacombs with it’s even more modular board. Or Clank! In! Space!. And there is a good app for it if you want to try out the game because you aren’t sure.

Slay the Spire

Finally a cooperative game to wrap up the medium weight games list. I put this one on here because it’s cooperative, it’s based off of a video game, and it’s a lot of fun to play, both the board game and video game.

This is a rogue like deck building game. You battle against monsters to gain more and new cards for your deck. You heal up, upgrade cards, and buy more cards as well as you go along. Can you climb all three levels and win the game?

The game is also a ton of fun because it takes what’s a solo computer game and makes it multiplayer in a way that works really well. I love how it builds up towards that. And it still offers you the unlocking experience that you get in the video game as well. There’s so much going on and it’s just a very fun time for deck building. And you play three acts, but it’s easy to stop between and save if it gets too long.

Final Thoughts

These are just some oft he games that I could put down for next steps. The list is long and there are a lot of great classic games that could work on here as well, things like 7 Wonders would make sense, for example. But which of these games would you want to get and play or do you already have that you love?

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