Board Game Arena is awesome. It gives me the opportunity to try so many different board games. But the downside is that now I have a lot more games that I want to buy. So let’s talk about five games that I found for the first time on Board Game Arena. And which ones I want to add into my game collection.

5 BGA Games I Want To Buy

The rules for picking these games are pretty simple. They have to be available, so no grail games, that was yesterday. And I need to have learned them on Board Game Arena. So let’s see what make the list.

5. Echoes of Time

The first one is one that I haven’t talked about yet. It is a new one for the month of October, so look forward to that article with all the new October games in a week or so.

Echoes of Time is a game about managing your hand and your track of cards which you combo together to take locations and then score points. What I like about the game and why I want it is this track that you place cards on. When you play a card you don’t get to use it right away. You need to get it off this track first. Now, that will happen after a few rounds, but if you want it faster you can push that. Of course, there is a cost to playing cards, and that is cards. So that duel use of cards as abilities and paying for other cards is one I like.

4. Azure

Azure is a game that I mentioned before. It is also one that I have almost picked up a number of times when I got to the game store. I’m not sure what is keeping me from doing what when I think about the other games that I’ve added to my collection. But it is one that I want to get.

It is a two player game where you are trying to get to 25 points fastest. To do this you are placing out stones into certain areas of the board. Each area has a special piece and power as well that goes with that. Most of them are just more points or getting another card into your hand. The cards are simple just a color, but you need to pay a card to play a stone, and not just a card, one per symbol. So you need to get cards, or your stones in that row and column reduce cost as well, which is a fun way to handle things.

3. Drillers

Drillers is the newest of the games on the list. And technically it is out of print but that is just because it was popular at Gen Con. So it is going to be coming back into print shortly.

This game is about drilling down, gaining resources and getting up to the surface to sell them. The more you sell the more you can upgrade your mining machine with more fuel, storage, and you can buy more cards. These cards you can use for fuel, or you can spend your fuel to use their abilities.

It reminds me a little bit of Lost Ruins of Arnak in how you build this deck or cards and are trying to get the right combos to be able to have great turns. But the game is quite different from that and not as good. Not that I’ll say that is a reason to keep me from buying it.

2. Galactic Cruise

Galactic Cruise is the biggest of the games on the list. And honestly, I only kind of do well at this game. That is because of how big the game is. And sometimes that’s worth noting for Board Game Arena. If a game is huge, I want to learn the game on my table first. It is going to be easier for me to understand all the pieces that are moving.

But the theme of this game of building up these galactic cruise ships, advertising or getting the right guests and then launching that into space for points is great. The mechanisms are fun as well in this game as you place out workers and activate things where you place them or spots you have connected. The downside, like I said, is that there is just so much going on in the game. There might be an optimal strategy, but I think I need to see it on my table.

1. Darwin’s Journey

Darwin’s Journey isn’t too far behind Galactic Cruise in terms of size definitely not in terms of things going on in the game. You are competing to have the best journey of the Beagle around the Galapagos Islands. Researching and finding creatures and sending that back. All of these different systems work to give you points. And there are objectives to complete, and you need money.

Like I said with Galactic Cruise when it comes to board games like this it is often easier to get that all figured out on my own table. On BGA it is fine, but sometimes it is hard to see everything. Other times they show you your options well and that might be easier. Either way, I want to get this one and get it to my table.

Have You Had Experience With Games Like This?

I think that as I’ve now owned probably over 1000 games in my lifetime, or near that that trying before you guy is good. Gen Con or a convention is my preferred way to do that. Or is there a game that you are hoping will show up on Board Game Arena so you can try it before you inevitably buy it or forget about it?

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