And for other ideas check out the previous lists.

Two Player Games
Campaign Games
Solo Games
Party Games
Welcoming Games
Medium Weight Games

Thematic Games

ISS Vanguard

Now, I said that all my thematic games weren’t going to be campaign games. But I’m starting off with one of them that I’ve played some on Malts and Meeples YouTube. This is a big space adventure and exploration game. Let’s get you intrigued, possibly, by the pitch.

A message was decoded on Earth that gave us the coordinates to what looked like an empty spot out in space. The ISS Vanguard was sent out there to figure out why those coordinates were important. When they got there, they realized that wasn’t the case, there was something out there that was hidden away.

In ISS Vanguard you play as the crew of the ship exploring planets and dealing with maintaining morale and researching and improving your technologies. The game really has this interesting divide between exploring the planets which is one type of game play. And managing the ship which is another type of game play. But Awaken Realms did a great job of managing to make both of them feel important and thematic as you play.

Dungeon Kart

Next up is a racing game. Racing games often aren’t the most thematic games. But Dungeon Kart for me is a great Mario Kart style of racing game that works. It is quick, you get spells to sling around, and it feels like you are playing Mario Kart on the table top.

Each player is one of the characters from the Boss Monster world that Brotherwise has created. And they are driving around in a kart trying to get around the track the fastest. But each character has their own special things that they can do. And each vehicle has their own special ways of handling. I forget how much overlap or how static that is. But you also, at the end of each round, check to see who is where, and the further back you are, the more spells and things you get to cast and try and cast up. I love that catch-up mechanism in the game, because it makes it feel like no one is ever out of it.

Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade

Now for the smallest of the thematic games on the list. This is a roll and write game that is pinball. You each get a board, a ball, and dice get rolled. Depending on the numbers on the dice, that determines where the ball is going to go. It always is going to move down, with a few exceptions, just like a pinball table. Then you use your flippers, launch it back up, and keep on going.

The game is all about how well you can use the dice. Two are rolled and you just use one so you generally have options. But if you need to, they offer thematic options like nudging the table. Of course, you nudge too hard, and there is a chance that you get a tilt. And the bumpers, generally three in the middle of a table, the ball can rattle around in there without needing to drop down.

They also sell a lot of options for the game. There is the base game, which I have. But there is an expansion that adds more tables. There is a Star Trek version or maybe DC is more your thing, or you want to play it at Christmas, you can buy Christmas pinball tables. You decide what makes the most sense, or intrigues you the most.

Roll Player Adventures

Now we’re onto another campaign game. The final one for the thematic games is also kind of a campaign game, but I’ll get to that. I love Roll Player Adventures, though, and it has a fun story to it. Roll Player is a thematic game about making a D&D character. Well, they took what they made in that game and created a whole world around it that you can play in Roll Player Adventures.

In this game, it’s a shorter campaign game than some. You play through stories with a map, move around that map, but the game is mainly built around dice placement and dice manipulation. You build up a hand of cards for your character, and then use those cards to get dice onto skill checks and or for fighting monsters. But you need specific color dice to do that, so you need to spend your attributes to pick the dice to get the right colors. Or maybe you just risk it and draw from the bag. There is this great balancing of resource management in the game.

I really enjoy this game. I like the game play a lot, and the story is also great. And I appreciate that it’s not that long a campaign. The game is probably best at 3 players. At 1 or 2 it is going to be harder. My play was a 4 player game, and it became a bit easy. So know that, but if you are up for a challenge at lower players or just want to enjoy the story, grab this fun, big game.

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Finally for thematic games, I want to share Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game. This is the kind of a campaign game and kind of not game. Mainly because the core box is a campaign. It’s five cases that are tied closely together that tell a really good story. But they also sell single castes or a box of cases that don’t all link together.

In this game you play as detectives trying to solve cases, no surprise there. But it is more than just that. You investigate different locations, meet up with people to question them, and you even gather DNA samples. This is a very in-depth detective game. I take so many notes when I play, over the five cases in the base box, I think I ended up with 12-15 pages of notes. And you use a computer to query against the system to see if you find DNA matches, look up details from old cases, run finger prints. And you even, once in a while, look up things online to gain historical context to what is being talked about.

Now, if you want to try different versions of this you can as well. Maybe crime isn’t your thing, no big deal. You buy the Batman set, or there is Dune, or 1980’s, or other one off cases that you play as well. This is just one of the best, if not the best thematic deduction game that I’ve played.

Final Thoughts

I love so many thematic games. I even now see a few more that I could have and should have mentioned. Things like Marvel Champions is a great thematic Marvel game. Rock Hard 1977 let’s you live out your rockstar dreams. And of course I own a lot more campaign games like Stars of Akarios, The 7th Citadel, and more that I want to talk about here as well.

What are your favorite thematic games? And which one would you want to add to your holiday list or gift to someone?

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There is going to be a consistent theme on a lot of these games. When I look at them, I think I have games that do something like it better, for me. But let’s not spoil too much and get into all the games I’m either selling to friends or trading into my local FLGS.

Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth

This was probably the hardest one to get rid of, but also one that I’ve been wondering about for a long time. I really like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth, but I don’t know when I’ll play it. I look at my shelf and see a lot of campaign games. Games like Solomon Kane, Reichbusters, Arkham Horror The Card Game, Star Wars: Imperial Assault and more are going to get played before it.

Plus I have Kickstarter games coming in like Etherfields, ISS Vanguard, HEL: The Last Saga, Primal, and Oathsworn. So when I look at Journeys in Middle Earth, I had to ask myself, would I play this before those. And the answer is, probably not. While the theme is one that I love, and the game was a lot of fun, I don’t see myself playing it when I have other bigger campaign games and other smaller campaign games.

This one I sold to a friend last night actually who had a group that had gone through Imperial Assault. For them it could be a good next game to play, and again he also really likes the theme as well, so it works well for him. I wish I’d played it, but I also know that I won’t.

Legacy of Dragonholt

Another campaign style game. This one is different though, it’s choose your own adventure with character stats. It’s somewhere between an RPG and a board game. I’ve played the start of it a few times and it’s fun. I think that it does a lot of things really well, but again, you saw my list of campaign games. When am I going to fit this one in?

Oddly enough, I think that it’s just a little bit too big for it’s own good. It takes a bit too much effort to get to the table. And the ruleset is just a bit too complex, though really simple, to play and then come back to in a few weeks or in a couple of months. If I want to do something that is purely choose your own adventure, I have Choose Your Own Adventure House of Danger. If I want that storybook and stat sheet, I have Loup Garou from Van Ryder games that is a one off thing.

Legends of Andor (and Expansion)

This, I think, is kind of another campaign game. Now, I say I think because I didn’t delve too far into the game. It is a fun puzzle game where you are trying to maximize what you do. However, for me, it’s just one I won’t play again. Legends of Andor has some really cool things about it though.

It does have that story element that I like to a game. And it makes you think about what you’re doing for an adventure game where there are monsters. You can’t just kill all the monsters, if you kill all of the monsters, you push up on a track. The faster you push up on that track the faster the game will end. So you only need to deal with the monsters that are a threat or are in the way. That is what really drives the puzzle aspect.

But, again, it falls into that category of a game that is pretty light, but has just enough rules that I can’t pull it off the shelf and get it to the table in minutes. And the campaign element isn’t strong to it, so I could play one off scenarios, but I’m likely just going to play the tutorial one again if I were to play it more.

Bring Your Own Book

Bring Your Own Book was one of my first Kickstarted board games. I liked it a fair amount in concept the game, just a bit less in actual game play. The idea is simple, everyone has a book and there is someone who is it. They put out a prompt and everyone has a couple of minutes to find a sentence or phrase in their book as an answer. Sounds fun and funny to have a wide variety of books.

There is one flaw in the game for me, though. It isn’t easy to find passages. Two minutes of time, or let’s say even three, isn’t that long. And while it’s funny to have a textbook and a biography and a novel as people’s books, some books just don’t work as well. And some people aren’t as fast as flipping through their books. I am not a speed reader but I can skim/read fast. Even for me it was tricky at times, or what you land is just something because you have to, not because it’s any good. I’d describe this game as clutchy, it can work, or it can stall real easily.

Boss Monster

Boss Monster is another I’d call clutchy. It is a pretty fun game with a great theme. You are building out a dungeon and are the boss monster at the end of it. Your goal is to kill as many adventurers as possible. And if you have the most of some symbols you attract adventurers.

That is where the game gets clutchy though. You don’t start out with a dungeon good enough to kill the adventurers. So they only show up in your dungeon if you have the most, so you are trying to tie with people the first few rounds. That isn’t fun, simple as that. If we started with a preseeded dungeon and we could make it bigger or better, that’d be more fun. Also some of the other mechanics aren’t what I’d call intuitive. With that said, I don’t hate the game, I just know I probably won’t play it again.

Sentinels Tactics: The Flame of Freedom

This one is pretty simple to describe why I got it and why it’s leaving. I got it on accident, I thought I was getting another Sentinels of the Multiverse expansion, it is a different game. Why is it leaving, tactics games like this one aren’t always my jam. I have not that many teams on a map games, Super Fantasy Brawl being my favorite. And I know the comparison isn’t perfect, but it’s in a category of games where I just don’t think I’ll get it to the table. It’s just a genre of games that I don’t need that many of.

Small World Underground

Finally one that might be surprising but don’t worry Small World is still in my collection. Small World Underground is basically the game thing as Small World, it just adds in a few little things, like locations to control that give you something more you can do. It is a lot of fun, so why is it leaving?

It’s leaving because I have Small World. That little extra thing to teach means I don’t want to play it as often. When we play Small World it’s generally because we can pull it off the shelf and play immediately. Nothing needs to get taught, everyone in the group knows it or needs a two sentence refresher on it. If I were to pull out Underground, we couldn’t get it to the table as fast.

Which Would You Keep?

So, in all fairness, I actually pulled back one game that was in the pile as I was talking about it. I am keeping Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, at least for right now. It’s such a simple deck building game with a theme that people like, even if they don’t like JK Rowling. And I kind of do want to push through all seven chapters just to see everything that changes. It might not last for a long time, but we’ll see, maybe I’ll stream it.

As you can see, though, there are two main things that pushed games off my shelf. Would I play them over other games in the same genre, and are they in that category of too complex but easy. I’m not sure that makes sense, the better way to put it might be that the games a pretty simple when you get down to it, but have enough rules that you need to refresh yourself to play them.

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What is It?

Brotherwise Games is putting out a tactical minis game based off of the Netflix animated show, The Dragon Prince. Put together a team of your favorite characters and lead them into battle. Will Callum and Soren be able to take down the team of Claudia and Rayla, only your game will decide.

So for what this game is, it looks like it’s a card driven tactical battle game. Like I said, you create your team of characters and then using card play you maneuver and attack your opponent trying to knock out their characters. The game uses a charging systems where characters can charge up powers to do bigger attacks to knock out their opponents even faster. Each characters cards are going to give them a thematic feel like you get from the show. Soren is more of a tank, while the rogue like Rayla will jump in and out of battle.

Why Am I Hyped?

I am hyped because of the theme and because of the card play in the game. I recently have gotten in three games of Super Fantasy Brawl. That was another skirmish tactical battle sort of game but with objectives that you are trying to complete as well. It had simple systems and card play. I hope that this game is similar to that. I think it’ll be more about taking out your opponent than Super Fantasy Brawl was, but if the card play and game play is as fast, that certainly sounds cool.

Brotherwise Games is kind of known for creating games that are lighter. Examples being Boss Monster and Call to Adventure. Now, I have only played Boss Monster and that game is just hanging in my collection. The theme is fun and the 8bit artwork is great for it. The game play is just fine. I do have Call to Adventure: The Stormlight Archives that I need to get to the table. But with the fact that their games tend not to be that heavy, I’m thinking this one will fall in line. And because of the theme, this might be a tactical game my wife would be interested in trying.

When And Where Do I Find It?

The when is still up in the air. You can sign up over on Brotherwise Games site to get notified when the pre-orders go live. But it is going to go to retail for $40 with 8 characters to start. So 8 minis, the board, and 16 cards per character, it is a pretty solid deal in terms of value. I’m glad that this going to retail because I think it should have mass market appeal.

Hype Level

Quick refresher on how the hype level works. It is from 1 to 5. Five is super hyped. One is hyped. I’m not going to do a “Let There Be Hype” if I’m not hyped about it as well.

1 of 5

Now that seems low, like I said it’s my favorite animated show possibly ever. And for sure best one for kids. What keeps it lower is the fact it’s a tactical skirmish style game. Those games come out a lot. And I have Super Fantasy Brawl, which I love. Since I’m getting more characters for that and the game is easy to play, I’m not sure that I need to get this one.

What is your hype level for The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged? Let me know in the comments below.

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Numbers

A’s

B’s

Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate

So the next one will be another game in the same family, but I wanted to keep them separate because while I like Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate and feel like it gets some things better, I prefer the other one. This one is a semi-cooperative (or fully cooperative) exploration game where you are taking Dungeons and Dragons type characters through Baldur’s Gate, a town, and exploring, finding items, omens, and events. Eventually there’ll be enough omens and a poor roll will happen and a haunt will begin. This will either be fully cooperative, 20% chance, or one person will be the traitor. The game changes to trying to stop whatever bad thing is happening to Baldur’s Gate.

Status: Played

Betrayal at House on the Hill and Legacy

This is the original, plus the newest all lumped into one section. I really need Covid to be over enough to get Betrayal Legacy to the table. But I’ve played the regular game a lot, and I really like it. It’s a janky, sometimes broken game, but I love it, because it’s a wonderful horror game that feels sometimes like a real horror film as you explore the creepy house and wait for the haunt to happen, and sometimes it feels like you’re the Scooby Gang in a bad horror movie because of how weird things are. There have been some scenarios that haven’t worked well, but most of the time people end up having fun with it, and I’m really excited to try Betrayal Legacy.

Betrayal at House on the Hill: Played
Betrayal Legacy: To Be Played

Blood Rage

This game was one of the earlier area control games that I played, Risk was the first, but most other games I had played up to that point from more modern board games weren’t area control. I love Blood Rage because it has area control, but that’s less of a thing for it. Instead, it’s all about figuring out that combo of upgrades, fighting, and quests that are going to get you the most action points and the most points overall so you can win the game. It feels like it should be a very confrontational game, but it always plays less like that and is really interesting as to what strategy you end up picking. This game also sells itself well too on the table because it just looks interesting and it looks as epic as it is. I like that it’s a game that is epic in a reasonable play time without being a campaign as well. I have the Gods of Asgard expansion that I need to play with sometime.

Status: Played

Blossoms

This is a primarily two player push your luck flower game. I picked it up because it looked simple and cute, and it definitely is that. The game you are basically pushing your luck to see how much you can grow your flowers before you cut them. The taller they are, the more points they are worth, but if you draw one of the flower types that you don’t have planted and can’t plant, then you bust and it’s the other person’s turn. So do you cut a decently tall flower or risk pushing just a bit further but also risk not cutting a flower on your turn. It’s an interesting choice that I think works well, it would work less well if the game took longer, it says 30 minutes, but I think it should go even faster than that.

Status: Played

Boomerang

This one you might have seen recently in a Point of Order. This is a draft and write game where you are drafting cards to fill in spots on your map of Australia to score points. It’s pretty standard roll and write in what it does on the sheet, but the drafting of cards means that you can be strategic, taking a card that might score someone else more points if there’s nothing that great for you. But because I just got this in, I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, of course, but it’s a roll and write style, and I tend to enjoy those a lot.

Status: To Be Played

Boss Monster: The Dungeon Building Card Game

This was a game that I originally played someone else’s copy while I was getting into the board game hobby. I liked it because it has some interesting strategy and I liked old computer games like this one portrays where you are going through a dungeon, fighting/dealing with whatever is in that room and going onto the next one. This is a twist on that in board game form, and one where you aren’t the heroes, but you’re the boss monster at the end of the row trying to create a dungeon that can do enough damage to take out heroes. My one knock on this game and that keeps it from being played that often is that it has “take that” elements to it. By that I mean that you might have something planned that’ll work out well for you and I can with a card just be like, “nope, not happening” and I might get more cards like that than you do or I might play them all on you so it doesn’t seem as fun. But one thing I really do like is that you are attracting different types of heroes, and the person who has the most of a symbol in their dungeon gets that type of hero, and you know which heroes are coming. But you might not be able to defeat that hero and too many wounds, you die and are out of the game. So you kind of have to get into the head of your opponents at times and create ties so that you don’t take damage.

Status: Played

Brew Crafters; Travel Card Game

I honestly don’t know a ton about this one, but I do want to play it. It was given to me as a gift, and it just hasn’t gotten to the table yet. But it’s about brewing beer and as a fan of both brewing and drinking beer, I am interested in the theme. It looks like it should be a fun little game, but I need to get it to the table.

Status: To Be Played

Bring Your Own Book

This was a game that Kickstartered pretty early on, I think it might have been game 3-4 that I backed. It is a party game where there’s a person who is “it” like in most party games who is going to pick their favorite. Everyone else brings (picks) a book to use. The person who is it reads a prompt and then everyone else has some time to dig through their book and try and find a sentence or part of a sentence for the response. There’s a limited amount of time, and who knows what book you decided to bring, so sometimes you can find the perfect thing, or thematic thing, and sometimes it is a dry bit of technical reading that is hilarious. This game suffers like the Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity types that you need to know your audience. How do I tailor my response for the person who is it. But like Stipulations, which I enjoy, this game changes, you might will eventually see the same prompts, but a line from a fantasy book versus a biography, versus a D&D adventure book versus a technical manual, those are all going to be really different.

As always, the two questions, which is your favorite from the B’s, and what, based off of this and my previous part of the list, should I look at getting or playing for the letter B?

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The Premise

The Characters

The Bosses

The Guilds

The Levels

The Boards

Cards vs Dice

Character Leveling

Skills, Weapons and More

Quests

In Town Activities

Level Events and Monsters

Boss Battles

Building a Character

Building a Level Part 1

So the first level is going to be a bit different than every other level. In those you’re going to be able to start in immediately doing whatever you want. And I do want you to be able to do that mainly on the first level, but I also want to help players along with knowing how to play the game, so I want to kind of create some of a walkthrough or how to play within the first level.

The first level is going to have basically everything that a normal level would have. You will have NPC’s and PC’s to interact with, you will have quests, floor events, the guild and monsters, and you’ll have a shop to go to.

That’s probably the first difference is that you won’t have several different shops to go to, you will have a single bazaar that you will go to and you will go to it on your first turn. The first floor event you flip over, before you decide where you’ll go will direct everyone to go shopping. Why do that? Because you don’t start with armor, weapons, etc. It will take you through the shopping experience, let you spend your money and explain how skills work and weapons work. When you talk to the shopkeeper they are going to explain and give examples of the cards and how they work so that you aren’t having to spend as much time in the rule book learning that. That stuff will be in the rule book for refresher, but it won’t be something you need to read to get started.

The next day you’ll flip a new event and it’ll send you fall out to go fight a monster. This is going to give a chance to show how the monsters work and show one of the key mechanics for a level as you draw a hand of modifier cards and use them. This also will show off how XP is gained and tracked as the players defeat the monsters and get rewards. This should be a fairly boring but quick event for everyone to go through, but it’s also important because besides maybe a few PC and NPC actions as well as the shopping, you’ll be given the option to use modifiers on almost everything and to learn how they’ll be removed from your deck for the boss battle and how you can manipulate that.

The third level event is going to kick off the game proper. It’s going to be a level event that everyone has to go to and deal with. This is where the whole game will kick off. There probably will be some thing that you’ll spend a card on, but I don’t really want to spoil any story ideas right now. But most likely this event will lead to some quests or paths that can be opened up in the game.

Then for the rest of the level, another as many rounds as you want, there really won’t be any negatives, creatures will run out so you can’t grind character levels on level one, NPC’s and PC’s will run out eventually, but from that point you’ll be able to go and do quests, fight monsters, research, whatever it is. Also from this point on, there won’t likely be another set of level events that require all players to do something. It might be a very rare occasion where a player is needed to go to a level event, but that would only be if they don’t want to send a guild marker there, or they can’t because the guild is too small.

Once the players have decided they’ve done everything that they need, the boss monster will be up for them to fight. And I again want to do some of a tutorial for this. That means that this is probably going to be a smaller map, just to fit some text onto the page. I’ve talked about how the boss monsters and boss battles will work, but the first boss battle is going to lay out those details as well as how turn order works. Don’t worry, there will be cheat sheet cards that explain how both the levels and the combat works that will have this information as well, but I want to be able to go into more detail and lay out kind of that first monster turn and what is going to happen as well as how some of the combat will work for the players. I don’t with it, however, want to tell the players what they have to do, no play this card as the optimal play or attack this way as the optimal way.

Finally, just to recap some of the layout of how this will all be set-up. This will be in a book, there probably will be a page of intro story that can be read at the very beginning and how to use the book/mark where you are at, that sort of thing, but general layout will be, on the left page, you’ll have spots for all the actions that you can take. For the quests, monsters, NPC’s, etc. Most won’t be limited as to how many people can go there, but sometimes they might be, in particular for something like the monsters, the quests, or the level events there might be a limit, otherwise people can go to the same spot if they want. With this there will also be spots to put down the cards for the level. That might be the level events, it might be cards that you have unlocked as new quests, it might be a list of the NPC’s or PC’s whom you can talk to, or it might be the monsters that you could fight. These are generally going to be small cards, think like the modifier and item card size from Gloomhaven if you are familiar with that game. They aren’t meant to have a ton of information on them, they are meant to drive you to the story book or adventure book in the game. Then on the right page you’ll have the map for the boss battle. It’s going to also help you know what type of level it is, there will be artwork throughout the levels as well, but this will be generally a large spot to highlight that.

The next part of the level design will start to dive into samples of how quests, level events, NPC and PC interactions and more might go.

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Pros

• Based off of an existing game world
• Established Company
• Fun theme
• Fun artwork
• Tile Drafting

Cons

• Same world, very different game
• Set collection

The Page

Brotherwise is a company that’s done several successful Kickstarters before, so they know what they are doing. I like that you get a good idea of what the game is pretty quickly into the page as they talk about the theme and the rules. I think that they really lay stuff out in a nice order. Shipping for the game is really good as well.

Overall, it’s a clean looking page, and because it doesn’t have minis, it doesn’t bog down in a ton of images of minis and make it a slog to scroll through at times to find the game play.

Back or Brick

I have Boss Monster on my shelf and I like it for the old school eight bit artwork and just the fun theme of the game. Being the monster at the end of the dungeon is great, though, there are some rough spots for the game, mainly, I think that building the dungeon can be a little bit goofy. When I saw this game, I hoped that they had done a tile drafting version of basically the same game, where you could build out your dungeon, but just in a cooler layout with some more mechanically interesting choices.

Instead you’re basically making a set collection sort of game as you take over the eight bit world. I still like the artwork on the game, but set collection isn’t as cool and doesn’t feel as thematic as the other game. I want to have the heroes still questing and being able to take them down for points. I would love to see a Boss Monster 2.0 with some slightly cleaned up rules using drafting and tile laying instead of the random card draw for building your dungeon. So for me, this is a brick, it just seems like this new “theme” isn’t nearly as much of a theme and it’ll feel more mechanical. It’s one that I’d definitely try, but can’t just back it.

How about for you, is this a game a back or a brick?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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Castle Panic is a classic tower defense style game where you and the other players team up as heroes who are sending out troops, firing with archers and trying to stop the goblin horde that is coming to knock down the walls of your castle and destroy it. The game plays simply where players on their turns play out cards matching colors and ranges to kill off the goblins. But some goblins take more than one hit so can you get them taken out before they start destroying everything. Every turn you are drawing cards, trading them, and hoping to take out a goblin or three. To make it a little bit more challenging there are things that you can do like rebuild castle walls and put up barricades to drive back the horde for at least a turn. And there are boss monsters who will do things like cause you to draw and place more monsters on a single turn or heal already injured monsters. Finally, when placing the monsters it’s a die roll, so if you are unlucky, you might have monsters overrun one of the colors.

This is a simple game that I think works well as an introduction to fantasy games for kids, and as a cooperative game that you can play with a lot of kids. There is a “kids” version, but that is targeting getting kids in that 3-6 age range. The main game they say that it’s for 10+, but that has more to do with the piece sizes than the game itself, I think younger kids would be able to play this and the Board Game Geek community agrees with me as they rate it a 6+ in terms of the age range. The card play is easy, you draw up cards, you can put mortar and brick together to rebuild a wall, you can trade cards, etc. all of this is done in a mainly cooperative way. You can play fully cooperative, but like Marvel Legendary, they suggest that you keep who you’ve killed to see who has done more in the end.

With that said, I do think the game is almost too simple to play with adults. Even in a casual gaming environment with a bunch of non-gamers, the game doesn’t have long term legs. The play doesn’t change up too much and the strategy of the game is fairly limited. You’re really just seeing what you draw in terms of cards and monsters, and where you roll to place out the monsters. There are some things, like discarding and drawing a card that you can push to hope to get a better outcome, but it really comes down to the draws and the rolls. I’ve played games where I’ve gotten the boss who makes you draw more monsters when the bag was almost empty so we couldn’t draw enough, and that makes it easier, or the boss who heals monsters when no monsters were injured, I’ve also had the flip happen as well. I’ve had the one who causes you to draw monsters draw into the tile that has you draw more monster and all of a sudden we’re being overrun by goblins.

With that all said, I don’t think it is a bad game for what it is. It isn’t your normal kids game, Candyland or Snakes and Ladders where you are at the whim of a die or a random card draw. There is decision making that has to go into the game as you are able to plan multiple turns ahead. You never know what you might draw that might change up that plan, but the monsters move in a predictable pattern, one forward every turn, so you can plan your turns out fairly well and trading cards matters more because you want to get the right cards to the right players at the right time with a limited number of trades that you can make. So I think, even with non-gamers who are adults, it gives you something to think about and do for a play or two, and more than that if you are playing with kids.

Overall, this is a game that i still have in my collection. Yes, it is a bit simple, but I know that it’s a game that I can pull out with most people and get the game up and running fast. There is also the bright colors and 3d towers and walls that look interesting to it has a good table presence and people are more interested in playing it. It isn’t a game that I play that often, but as my kid gets older, it’ll be one of those transitional games into a bigger games as it teaches cooperation and planning in gaming.

Overall Grade: C+
Gamer Grade: D
Casual Grade: B-

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Stocking Stuffers are going to be small games, though a few of them might be slightly too large for a small stocking, but they are going to be smaller games and hopefully slightly cheaper options for you as well. These games are not going to be big and grandiose, but hopefully you’ll find a good range of games for the people in your lives. This list isn’t in a best to worst or vice-a-versa order, just alphabetical

Age of War – This game will easily fit into a stocking. It is a simple little dice game where you are trying to collect fortresses by rolling combinations on the dice. If you get a set, you can lock them in, but if not, someone can try and steal it from you, though it’s a little bit trickier. This game is very simple and small. It’s a good game for people who like a bit of dice rolling, but don’t want anything too thinky.

Boss Monster – A game that’s a bit bigger than Age of War, but it’s still easy to play. Each person is a monster in a 8-bit video game and you are trying to set-up your dungeon and lair so that you can defeat all the heroes who are coming from the town. But you also have to be able to attract them. But if they don’t die in your dungeon, you don’t want to take too much damage. This is for someone who likes a lot of nerdy things and retro video games being one of them. There are good nods to other nerdy things on the cards.

Cat Cafe – Your crazy cat lady aunt will love you for this game, though you’ll probably have to teach it to her. It’s a bit more complex than some roll and writes, but in the game, you are creating your own cat towers to attract cats to you. You score in various ways by placing mice toys together or by getting food dishes or other things your cats would love. This is a good game for the whole family.

Criss Cross – Another roll and write, you might see a third on the list, but Criss Cross is a little game, but a good one for people who like to puzzle out the best score. In Criss Cross you are rolling dice and everyone is placing the symbols rolled onto their own board, but you have to remember that you are scoring both columns and rows, so you don’t want to have too many of them that score zero. It’s a very small game and easy to play multiple times.

Gloom – This is completely different than the other games, because Gloom is a story telling game. In it you are taking turns playing down cards to either make your opponents characters lives go better, or to make yours go worst until you can kill off your whole family. You are telling the horrible things that are happening to them as you play card. This has a nice dark humor to the game, and it just ends up being silly fun for a potentially dark theme. Plus, the cards are clear plastic, so that they stack on top of previous cards and you can see through.

Hanabi – A card driven game, Hanabi is unique because the cards aren’t facing you. Your hand of cards is facing your opponents and they are giving clues to help you play down your cards. You are all trying to work together to get stacks of fireworks from 1 to 5 of their colors, but if you play down the wrong number or the wrong color, you lose a fuse, and you don’t want it to blow up in your face. It’s a unique idea and it works well for a small box game.

Hanamikoji – This is a great game to get for your significant other, if they enjoy gaming. It’s a two player only abstract game where you are trying to win favors of various Geisha. But to do so, you must give them gifts using four actions that you can take. And your opponent has the same four actions. When you use them and the choices you make are what work well in this thinky game. It plays fast, though, and generally I’ve found that people want to play again after the first game.

Just One – Okay, you’ll need a large stocking for this one. The game isn’t that huge, but it’s larger than most. A cooperative word based party game, this one is great for your family if you are sick and tired of playing the same party games over and over again from the 90’s or you’ve read every single Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity card. In Just One, one person is it, and you are all trying to get them to guess a word, but you can only write down a one word clue. If you match with someone, though, both clues are hidden. It’s a super fun game that takes the place of a lot of other party games.

Onirim – Maybe you have a family member who likes to play solitaire games, probably including solitaire, but they haven’t jumped into modern board games. Onirim is a great game for a solitaire player with simple rules in the base game, and a lot of challenge as you are playing cards, it’s one of the best purely solo games out there. The artwork is unique, but I like it, and the game is small, just a bunch of cards, so it won’t feel like too much.

Parade – This game can be a bit hard to find, but if you can get your hands on it, it’s an interesting card collection game where you are trying to get as few cards and as few points as possible. But, in a twist, if you get the most of a certain color/suit, those cards only count as a single point. It’s an abstract little game, but the Alice in Wonderland artwork will draw people in.

Say Bye to the Villains – If the person likes hard games, this will be a good option. Say Bye to the Villains is a very hard game, I haven’t beaten it, but a ton of fun. You are all Samurai who have 10 days to prepare to fight a group of villains at the end of that time each of you will face off against one. You can prepare by improving your stats or scouting out the villains. This game works well, because it’s cooperative and you feel like you can’t get everything done that you need to. Extremely tough, good variety in the game, and if you are looking for a challenge it’ll be a good choice.

Second Chance – We’re back to roll and writes, but Second Chance is a great one for it, and a simpler one. In this game, two cards are flipped and you have to draw in the shape shown of one of them on your board. The person who has the fewest spaces left at the end of the game wins. However, to keep it from being the same, each person has a unique starting shape, and if you use larger shapes, you might run out of room faster, but you get a bonus spot. If you can’t fill in one of the shapes, you get a second chance, and if you can use that new shape, that is just for you, you can keep playing. The game has a nice art feel to it and works well in large groups. Another game that you will play multiple times in a single sitting.

Stipulations – Another party game is making the list, and this one will easily fit in a stocking. Too many party games either need to have a ton of cards, Apples to Apples/Cards Against Humanity, because you go through them quickly, or they have large pieces like Catch Phrase, but Stipulations is a fun game in a small package. In the game the person who is it picks a dream job, super power, life time supply or fulfilled dream that then other players write a stipulation for. It’s a good creative game, and one that you can make as dirty or as clean as you want, so you can always play with anyone.

Unlock! – Any of the Unlock games, or the Exit games, would work in this spot, but if you have someone who loves escape rooms, give them an escape room in a box. Unlock puts you into a situation that you have to combine cards, solve riddles and other puzzles and figure out the solution before time runs out. And then when it does, you can still finish, you just get fewer points, but you can watch the clock count down and get stressed out. If you are looking for that escape room experience but on a budget, it works well with groups too, probably up to 6 players maximum, though I think 4 is the ideal number.

Alright, I don’t know how many that was, but it’s a good variety of games that you can stick in people stockings. If you want, you can probably find one for everyone in your family. Board games are fun to give and get over the holidays because you can then turn them into a family activity if you want.

Which game would you want to get in your stocking? Which one would you be most apt to give?

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