This list is a bit trickier than some of the other lists that I’ve put together in the series. What is a medium box, or how does one define that really? For me, they are games that come in a smaller box than Ticket to Ride, but a bigger box than some of the games like Parade or Skyrockets. Is that hard to define, yes it is. But let’s try because some of these medium games offer a whole lot of game.

5 Medium Box Games You Should Try

5. Super Squad High

I’m going to be the champion of this game, I think. For me, it’s a fun game of playing a high schooler superheroes. And of course, that means you need to balance classes, wash your super suit, fight crime, and all try and keep a social life going. That’s a lot in the box but it works well.

It’s a game that also does a couple of different fun things. Firstly, there is this dating element that is really more of a deduction element. Because you need to figure out who is the villain. And it’s going to be one of your classmates. But it’s not going to be someone you romance, if I remember correctly, so you need to piece together the clues as to who that might be. And that is going to vary based off of how the classmates are set-up.

The other thing is this timed worker placement. It’s something that you see in Rock Hard 1977 as well. There are different phases of the day. So when it’s daytime, you’re at school and you take school actions. When it’s the evening you can go on dates. But at the same time, you need to be fighting crime. So it’s trying to balance all of that out and being limited in what you can do.

Another element I like is that it makes you study. If you don’t study, you start to do poorly in classes and now there’s more work to be done and it limits how you can interact with the other parts of the game.

So Super Squad High has a fun theme and a lot of fun in it’s mechanisms. It’s one of the games that I hope gets a second printing, but who knows as it’s a crowdfunding game.

4. Ancient Knowledge

I’m not sure how much Ancient Knowledge has really flown under the radar, but when it comes to engine building games, I don’t hear it talked about as much as I’d like. This one is is a game where you build up your civilization to grab point cards and generate points in different ways. But every bit of knowledge has a cost that you need to deal with. And you need to deal with it before it falls off your player board and into the past.

Now, the past is good because some of the scoring is based off of the cards you have in your past. But it also means that your engine is changing. Because the cards in your past aren’t part of that engine anymore, they aren’t going to give you powers.

And the other element I really like is the hand management. You can draw cards, spending them from the past, or other other mechanisms. But that’s one of your two actions. So when you draw cards you want it to be really strong and get you a good hand of cards. But sometimes you just run out of cards if you aren’t careful and now you need to just draw one card to try and get the engine working better.

3. Homebrewers

Homebrewers is another engine building game, I really like engine building. And this one is a theme that I love. I love brewing and drinking beer.

In this game you are homebrewers, someone who brews beer at home, who is trying to brew the beers that will win you points at Summerfest and Oktoberfest. You do this by following the actual steps of brewing beers and adding in interesting flavors and ingredients. These flavorings and ingredients are how you build up your engine. When you add them to a beer it’s going to do something, like give you money or raise the value of that beer you’re brewing faster, or one adjacent to it.

It’s not a complex game and it’s a friendly game in that you use dice to determine your actions but then you can trade dice. You might not end up with the actions you exactly want, but if the die rolls land that way, everyone can have a strong turn.

I don’t know why this one didn’t take off more. I think that the theme is fun, and one that people should find interesting. And the mechanisms aren’t too complex, so I think a lot of homebrewers could enjoy it as well. So it’s one that I’ll keep on talking about.

2. Astro Knights

This is probably the biggest name when it comes to games on the list. But it’s more so because Astro Knights is the follow-up to a game that I love Aeon’s End. I don’t think it’s quite as good as Aeon’s End, but it’s still really good and I’d probably teach Astro Knights first.

Now, while Aeon’s End is a bigger box game and kind of intimidating to get into because there is so much now, Astro Knights gives you a bit more streamlined experience. This is a boss battling deck building game. You are space heroes who are fighting against these crazy monsters and you do it by buying cards, prepping attacks and then on the next activation releasing those attacks against the boss or their minions.

I like that each hero you can play as a little bit different and has their own powers. And each boss is going to be different as well. The game is easier to teach as well and more variable because it doesn’t have a fixed market. I find that fixed markets often create this imbalance in s game between players, but that variable market helps it a lot. And the fact that this is a cooperative game.

1. Trailblazers

Finally on the list is Trailblazers. I think that this game has sold pretty well but it’s one that I wish more people would talk about because it’s such a fun time. In this game you draft cards, but those cards don’t score you points, at least not directly.

You draft your cards and then you use those cards to create different nature paths. Whether those paths be biking, hiking or kayaking. And you need to go from the starting spot, trailhead let’s call it, and get your route back to there. Now that doesn’t make sense for rivers and kayaking, I know, but it works well in the game.

One of the fun twists on the game is that you play it over four hands. Okay, that’s not the twist, the twist is that each of the first three hands you add in another type of path that you can do. So on the first play you play out one of your hiking, biking or kayaking trailheads. But you only get one out that first time. So you can build towards routes of the others but you can’t complete any then. The next round you play out another connecting it to your grid, and the third round the last of them.

This simple thing of adding what you can build out helps keep the game from feeling too heavy in terms of decision making. It also makes the game different for players. Yes, we could all start with hiking and go to kayaking and biking. But the next game only I might start with hiking. So it a bit of strategy on later rounds as you try and pick things that people might be drafting less of.

Final Thoughts

Just a few of these medium box games that you could checkout. And all of them are a lot of fun and worth checking out. I think that when it comes to medium box games, the trick for gamers is knowing how heavy it is. Companies like Devir pack a ton into their medium box line of games, maybe even too much. Others, like Trailblazers from Bitewing Games (originally) offer a pretty light game in that medium sized box.

Which of these games do you want to try?

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