Simple But Deep Board Games

10. Black Sonata

One of two solo games on the list. Black Sonata is about figuring out who the “dark lady” was in Shakespeare’s sonnets. But it is really fascinating because it is a solo game where the dark lady moves around in basically a hidden movement sort of way by an AI deck of cards.

What you do as a player is try and get ahead of the dark lady so that you can look for her, and basically find out clues about who she is not. So your turns are pretty simple. You move, or you search a location. But figuring out that pattern of where they are going is challenging. And then it is a Mastermind style puzzle, or so it feels, to figure out who the lady is. I really enjoy that puzzle aspect, but simple game to hit the table.

9. Century: Golem Edition (Or Spice Road)

This one is not a cheat having two games on it, Golem Edition and Spice Road are the same game. I prefer the Golem Edition because it looks better, and I like that. But this is a game that is about building up an engine of cards in your hand. But how you play is extremely simple. Mainly because you do a single action on your turn.

On your turn you pick up the cards you’ve played, you get a card, you play a card, or you get a golem. You never complete more than a single action a time. And turns fly because of that simplicity of all the actions and the single action. But when you get a card, how much you pay for it, how it works into your engine, all of those things make a very rich but simple game.

8. Quarto

This, I get is one that has depth to it but not one that I like. The game is pretty simple, you are trying to get four in a row. But you pick what piece your opponent is going to play. So you want to give them something that’ll set-up you with the options that they have left to give you. It’s a cool idea that I enjoyed the couple of times that I played it, but it didn’t grab me enough.

Still, for a lot of people, this is going to give them that feeling of outthinking their opponent in a game. Basically making your opponent give you a win. But all you are doing is either placing a piece of picking one for your opponent to place.

7. Potion Explosion

This one is maybe one of the less simple on the list. But what you do on your turn, or at least on every turn is very basic. You pull a marble and then any like colors that hit. Then you put them into a potion, trying to complete them. That is very simple and fun action for a turn.

But where the game is more complex or offers interesting decisions is when you get your potions done. Now they give you powers, and how or when you use a power offers great decision making space. Especially when you can chain a few potions together to complete a potion and then use that potion to complete another potion. It offers that nice combo and cleverness feel a game with depth in it’s decision making should give you.

6. The Fox in the Forest

I could have a number of trick taking games on the list. Matcha, The Fox in the Forest Duet, and others, but I just put The Fox in the Forest on the list. This is a two player trick taking game where you are trying to take some tricks, but not too many. Because if you “shoot the moon” you get no points. And if you just get a few tricks, but slightly too many, it reduces your points a lot.

It becomes a question of how you can give your opponent just enough tricks so that they score poorly and you can score well. Or to trick them into taking all of the tricks. And since it isn’t a one and done sort of game, it allows you to develop more strategy based off of your opponent as time goes on.

5. Letter Jam

Letter Jam is almost a party word game. But it isn’t because you need to figure out how to give good clues. Let me explain, in Letter Jam everyone has a scrambled word in front of them, or the letters for it. Unscrambling wouldn’t be too bad if you could see the letters. But you can’t see your own.

Instead, you have one facing away from you that everyone else can see. And they give clues, in the form of a word, by putting down chips in front of other people’s letters to help you. For example, if I have an R in front of me and someone else has an F, O, and M, you could give the clue FROM or FORM. But one clue is better than the other because FORM could be FOAM as well. So how do you give the best clue to get people to know their letter?

And everyone needs to give clues too. So that adds to the challenge. I have a word, you have a word, and everyone does. So you need to give clues to help me, and I need to give to help you. It’s a very clever design that seems simple to start, but offers a lot of depth.

4. Floriferous

A drafting game, kind of, a set collection game, and a game where you are building up different scoring things. But how you draft is what makes this game so clever and gives it depth. Turn order for each round of drafting, since you pick from a limited set separately, is based off of the person who took the highest thing from a column the time before.

Let me explain that a bit more, in a two player game you have three rows. Two or them are flowers and one is a scoring card. The scoring card is always at the bottom. If I pick-up the scoring card, for my pick, that means that next time, since I’m at the bottom of the column, I pick last. So if there is something I really want in the next column, I would want to pick the highest thing in the column, just to guarantee I go first next time. But if you don’t get enough scoring cards, now you aren’t scoring many points.

3. Under Falling Skies

The next solo only game on the list. A few can be played solo, Under Falling Skies is a combination of Space Invaders meets Independence Day. That it in and of itself sounds pretty cool. But how does it play, what is simple about it. The game is basically rolling a bunch of dice and placing them so that one is in each column to activate things. That is pretty straight forward for what you are going to do.

The depth comes in with how you place the dice. The higher the number, the more the alien ship in that column descends. And if too many hit land you lose the game. So you need to blow them up, and you can do that by putting dice onto attack spots. But that then eats up other things you can do, and that also causes a ship to descend.

So you need to think not only about what power the die is going to give, higher means more, but also what it does to the ships. And you also still only have one die per column. And once you place it, it locks in. So if you aren’t careful, you end up placing a dice in a less than ideal spot with your last placement.

2. Calico

The top two were two that I instantly thought of. Calico is a very simple game with massive brain burning tendencies. In Calico you are making a calico quilt to get cats to sleep on your quilt. You score points by getting like colors adjacent for buttons. Patterns in certain groupings to attacks cats. And finally there are scoring tiles on the quilt that give you points based off of both pattern and color combinations.

That is a fair amount for scoring, but your turn is simple. On your turn you place a quilt tile onto your board and take one of the three available. But because the scoring overlap where you’ll use tiles for a button or cat in your quilt scoring. You really need to think through and plan out what you want to do. It’s a brain burner of a game. But I love it, and I love the limiting it puts on you, so you might be hoping for that one last tile you need to get pulled from the bag.

1. Hanamikoji

Instantly thought of this game, Hanamikoji is a simple game but such a brain burner. You want to win the favor of Geisha by giving them gifts. That isn’t that complex an idea, and the game gives you actions that you take to put gifts in front of the Geisha. But how you do that creates a fascinating puzzle of a game.

You must do all of the four different abilities. So whether that is putting one face down that you use at the end of the round, or discarding two face down that only you know are hidden, that limits what you know and your opponent. Plus then the other two actions are much trickier to figure out. You need to give your opponent the choice of one of three cards, you use the other two. Or two sets of two, they get one, you get the one they don’t pick.

And while those decisions are very tricky to make. There are so few of them that it doesn’t make the game too complex to play. You’ll just be worried about what is going to give your opponent what they need. And try and read their brain to see what it seems like they have.

Final Thoughts

I think I had about 25 games in my list that I sorted. There are some games that once I was further into them that are big games that now I realize are pretty simple. I’m going to mention Gloomhaven and Perdition’s Mouth: Abyssal Rift. These two didn’t make the list that I sort, but once you learn the core loop of the game, the card play in Gloomhaven and Rondel with card play in Perdition’s Mouth, they aren’t that difficult.

But that is only once you get to that point. Because if you play either of those games enough, you just know what the status effects do. But to get to that point with either of those games is going to take time. You need to learn the symbols and learn the game. But the core loops are simple and give great depth of game play. So they don’t quite make the list, but could fall into that category.

Just missing were the likes of Photosynthesis, Sonora, Hats, and Orchard. All of them have pretty simple base mechanics. But the optimize what you are doing and your scoring, you need to think a few steps ahead.

What are some of your favorite simple but deep games?

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Casting Shadows from Unstable Games

Casting Shadows is going to be a battling game for two to four players. Players are going to gather cards, summon companions and sling spells in a strategic game. This is from the company that brought Here to Slay and Unstable Unicorns. I haven’t played either of those games and they aren’t high on my radar. But I always checkout the games because the artwork on Here to Slay is great, and same with Casting Shadows.

What interests me less about the game is the style of game that it is. I am always only so interested in skirmish style games. Especially where the game seems to be focused most on slinging spells and knocking out your opponent. I own Super Fantasy Brawl in the genre, and it gives me ease of game and objectives. It reminds me in some ways of a combination of Magic: The Gathering and Super Fantasy Brawl. I own both, so the artwork isn’t enough to bring me in. This is a Brick for me.

Fire For Light from Greenbrier Games

Greenbrier Games is another well known company. They’ve done some fun games like Folklore: The Affliction, Grimslingers, and Champions of Hara. This one feels different than some of their other games. Fire For Light is a narrative driven cooperative game. They have done stuff like that before, but the polish of this game seems less than their other games.

That said, I do like that this is supposed to be a light, fast to the table narrative driven campaign game. A lot of campaign games end up with a million little pieces and take forever to set-up. Fire For Light looks like it should be faster. And it offers character leveling. I also like that Fire For Light is a 15 game campaign. You saw Sleeping Gods played over 10 sessions, I like some shorter campaigns right now. That said, it is still a campaign game, and how many do I need? This is going to be another Brick for me.

Jurrasic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar by Prospero Hall

Dive into the world of the Jurassic Park and Jurassic World movies. Build up your dinosaur islands, create new dinosaurs and hope that things don’t go wrong. That’s the hole of Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar anyways. This is a big cooperative legacy game from Prospero Hall who has done a lot of work with Target for games before, but this game is too big and expensive for a mass market store. So it is coming to Kickstarter, and I expect to see it show up at local game stores as well.

Obviously, the main thing that draws me in is it being a legacy game. Whenever someone says Legacy I am going to be interested. But, I am also interested in it because of the dinosaur theme. There have been a lot of games that promise dinosaurs from Dinosaur Island, Dinogenics, Tiny Epic Dinosaurs, Welcome To Dinoworld, and more recently. But this is the first truly Jurassic Park one.

I like that about it, but there isn’t much that is Kickstarter exclusive. Yes, this game might be harder to find when it comes to retail, but what’s the added benefit of backing it? Apparently they are looking to address that, but until they do this is a game I will get, but at retail.

Mercurial by Hyperlixer

This one I don’t know nearly as much about as some of them. It hit my radar because of the artwork and someone telling me about it. Which, I mean, other people being interested in a game makes it more interesting to me. I like it when I don’t have to fully vet everything myself. And then great artwork that is going to draw me in even more. I don’t know much about Hyperlixir as a company, so while I don’t think it is a big risk that this is never going to fulfill, expect it to be later than the estimated date.

Mercurial seems like it might be some of an engine building game, at least to some level. I almost get a bit of a Century game vibe to it, Spice Road or Golem Edition. The game appears to have you adding in cards to your hand and rotating those cards to get different resources, then using those resources to complete bigger cards. It’s a system that looks interesting, but I’m not quite sold on it yet, so right now it’s a Brick for me, but one I want to look into more.

Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders by Druid City Games

So, while this is in the same world as Tidal Blades, it is a very different game. This is a dungeon crawler versus that was a dice upgrading and engine building game. Druid City Games, is also an established company and definitely makes very pretty looking games. Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders is definitely the interesting part of this campaign to me. Cypher System RPG is great for some people, but I am sticking with D&D for my RPG’s.

What interests me a lot in the dungeon crawler is how you activate. This building action as you play down cards to a grid and when you get full rows or columns they activate for a big action, wipe, and you build up again. I see this an interesting puzzle, but I wonder about the downtime between the big actions. That said, this looks like a deluxe game, even if you don’t pledge at the minis level. And the character progression and the different paths you need to keep track of is cool to me. It has a lot going on that I like in a campaign game.

But, that said, it is also a campaign game. That means that it will take a while to play. And Druid City Games, and what they have done before, they generally do see some level of retail. I’m tempted to wait on this one, but it’s teetering whether or not this is a Back or Brick for me, right now it’s a Brick because of upcoming games, but I really want to get it at some point in time.

Ares Expedition: Discovery – Foundations – Crisis from Stronghold Games

So, when the original game that this is expanding upon came out it was called Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition. The game, from what I know, plays different than Terraforming Mars, but is similar in some ways. It appears for this Kickstarter they are focusing on the fact it is a different game. That might have made it more interesting or better set expectations for some gamers the first time.

There are three expansions for this game that they are doing. You’ll be able to get all of them later, but the big draw of buying it now is getting dual layer boards, as an add-on, if you want, and the fact it comes in a big box. The big box means that you can store everything, including the base game, more easily. And that’s the most tempting reason to back it.

Discovery adds in awards and and milestones. Those are interesting, but less interesting than the upgraded phase cards. In the base game you all have the same phase cards that add extra powers if you play down that phase. The upgraded phase cards means that my cards can become more unique as th game goes on.

Crisis adds in a cooperative mode. Basically, Mars has been terraformed and now things are happening to undo all our hard work. Can we keep up as bad things keep happening. It’s an interesting add to the game.

Foundations is a 5-6 player expansion, so you can play with more. Plus it adds in an infrastructure track and 20 project cads that you can work on for that track.

Right now, I think I will end up backing this one. But I am waiting on it. Out of all of them it’s the most likely to be a Back for me. Mainly having a big box that will store the base game and expansions sounds great.

Crowdfunding Madness Final Thoughts

There are so many games that came out this week. I know that there are some others that I haven’t looked into as much because they didn’t jump out at me. But there are a strong six games here, so let’s go through quickly and rank my least to most likely to back.

6: Casting Shadows – Great artwork, not my style of game.

5: Fire for Light – Looks like a light campaign game and some interesting things, but it’s campaign and the aesthetic doesn’t draw me in.

4: Mercurial – I need to look into it more, I hope it’s hand/engine building, but I don’t know. Also, I have games like that.

3: Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders – Game looks gorgeous and I really am intrigued by the building up rows and columns for actions.

2: Ares Expedition – Discovery -Crisis – Foundations – I really like the base game, so expansions are almost a no brainer. The only thing is, do I need the big box, that’s the main reason to back it on Kickstarter.

1: Jurassic World: The Legacy of Isla Nublar – It’s a legacy game, it’s a cooperative game, and it’s a dinosaur game. But right now while I know I will buy it sometime, I don’t need to back on Kickstarter to get a fancy sleeve.

Which one are you most interested in?

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Different Types of Board Game Versions

I think it’s good to talk about the different types of versions you can find within these board game reprints. To me, there are three different categories of board games game reprints or versions that can happen. There might be more, but these are the three that stand out. A board game could also just get reprinted as it was before, but that really isn’t a change from what I already might own.

• The Updated Look Reprint
• Same Game New Theme
• Version 2.0

The Updated Look Reprint

This type of reprint is going to give you the same game that you had before. The game itself is getting a new look and feel to it. So this is something like the different editions of Pandemic that have come out. And while it isn’t a reprint, this is kind of what Pandemic Legacy does with season 1 and season 2, they each are available in two different options of box colors. Those box colors mean nothing to what is in the game.

A reprint like this happens most often when a game has been out for a while. It starts to look dated and people are buying it less. So even though it’s a classic or popular game, it needs a reprint to get it into the hands of more people.

Why might you want to get a reprint? It might get the game to the table more. If the artwork and aesthetic are better, people might be more willing to play it. Or if you old version of the game is well played, then you might want to get a new copy of the game and the new artwork and aesthetic might make sense versus tracking down an old copy.

Same Game New Theme

The game also doesn’t change or change much in this sort of version or reprint. It is more of a new version of the game though. The easiest example of this comes from CMON and all their different versions of Zombicide. You have Zombicide, Zombicide: Black Plague, Zombicide Green Horde, Zombicide Invaders, Zombicide Undead or Alive. They might do a minor tweak to the rules to improve them ore make them more thematic, but the games generally stay the same.

This again helps sell more games because some people like other themes better. This is true for myself, Undead or Alive with zombies and an old west theme is way more interesting than orcs in Green Horde. And the same with the just standard version of the game, it interests me less. This also is why I have Century: Golem Edition instead of Century: Spice Road. The theme makes a difference to if I want to play the game.

So, I think this is a better reason to get a new version of a game. For me, I could have backed Zombicide 2.0 when that came out, the updated version, but the theme wasn’t interesting. I almost backed Zombicide Invaders, but theme didn’t grab me as much. So depending on your group a new theme might make a game more interesting for getting to the table.

Version 2.0

This type of version doesn’t change the theme, most likely, though it might. And it keeps the core of the game the same as was before, but it tries to improve upon the game that already existed. Lords of Hellas to Lords of Ragnarok is kind of a Version 2.0 of a game. Some of the original DNA is in the game, and while the theme changed, it is going to feel similar to at least some extent.

Another example of this would be Galaxy Trucker getting a new version. Galaxy Trucker, the original, was played over building your ship and flying three times. Each time you build a new ship and then go off flying through space. The new version gives you that option, but you can also play the game just doing the building and flight once. That drastically shortens the game time. Or any game that Restoration Games does like Downforce or Return To Dark Tower could be 2.0 versions of a game.

This is the one that I’m much more likely to want and I think that a lot of people want. A 2.0 version should improve your gaming experience not just because the looks or theme have changed. It should make the game more streamlined, better balanced, less obtuse rules, generally better in some meaningful way. Now, not everyone will like the changes, but the goal is that the game should be more accessible overall.

So Get A Version 2.0 Board Game?

Not always will you want to get that, because you can ask yourself a few questions. Will I play it over the version 1.0? Can I bring the new rules back to the old version? Do I play this game enough to need a new version or two versions? Do the changes improve it for me?

Let me use Lords of Ragnarok as an example for this, because I’m questioning this right now for myself. The game is backed, but I’m not sure if I’ll keep it because I have Lords of Hellas and do I really need both, even though Lords of Ragnarok does change up the system.

Will I Play It Over Version 1.0?

This one is tough, I have a lot of stuff for Lords of Hellas, which I mean, you get with any Awaken Realms crowdfunding. And I have played a solid chunk of it, but not all of it. So I do have stuff in version 1.0, Lords of Hellas, to explore still. But, Lords of Ragnarok is also a different enough experience that I suspect I’d play both of them. Gone is questing, one whole way of winning the game has been removed. The end game doesn’t trigger on a monument being built but Ragnarok.

There are a lot of different things that make me think I’d play both games. Lords of Ragnarok even has a tighter board, so you’re going to be in each others way more often and there should be more conflict between pieces on the board. This might be a 2.0 version of Lords of Hellas, but there are certainly a good amount of changes to the game.

Can I Bring The New Rules To The Old Version?

This one is easy to answer, no. The whole Ragnarok end game trigger is not something you could bring into Lords of Hellas easily.

Do I Play This Game Enough To Need New/Two Versions?

I put the word need in there, but that’s really more want. I love the Vikings and Norse Mythology theme, so I want Lords of Ragnarok for that. And I also think that this will feel enough like a different game that they will feel different. Dropping one way to win a game is a lot, and they changed up an end game trigger. So I am not sure I need two versions because of them, but mechanically I can see keeping both of them on my shelf.

Do The Changed Improve It For Me?

This I wonder about. BoardGameCo and Quackalope have done some content on this. And I’m slightly concerned, but this is also Awaken Realms and they have a very good track record for me. It seems like Lords of Ragnarok has pulled back on some of the things that can make you unique. I really love that about Lords of Hellas. Now, Awaken Realms might be looking at that feedback. And the more things that are unlocked in the Gamefound campaign, the more likely it’ll have more things to make you unique.

But also the end game trigger changing, I like that. One knock that people had on the previous game, Lords of Hellas, was that you’d only get one monument on the board. And that was on the board for the last three rounds of the game because it was the game end trigger. Lords of Ragnarok seems to encourage that building more. The game no longer ends on that but on Ragnarok. Though, even Ragnarok sounded like it might need tweaking or better selection for how fast it’ll trigger.

You can see how it might be a tough decision. For a new theme, I just keep the game that I like the theme of better. For a new edition/printing of a game if the rules haven’t changed, I don’t even care. Even something like Galaxy Trucker, I have my version, I don’t need the new one. But this is so much tougher because the games are different enough, and from a company that I love their stuff.

So Do You Get A New Version?

This is really one of those things that you need to decide. Even after laying out everything, pros/cons, comparison between theme and changes, I still don’t know if I’ll keep my Lords of Ragnarok pledge. Will I like the game, most likely. Will I be able to sell the game if I don’t like it for what I paid for it, most likely. But when a new version or new edition of a game comes out, don’t assume that it’s always going to be better as well, or that your old version isn’t worth it anymore.

Way out the pros and cons of the new version. Even if it’s just an artwork update, that might be enough to get the new printing of a game. Or a new theme if it gets it to your table more often. Generally I try and consider that as the biggest factor. Will I get this new version to the table more.

How do you decide to get a new version or printing of a game?

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Pros

• Established company
• Engine Building
• Expansion and base game
• Good price
• Quality components

Cons

• No base game only level

The Page

I like the page, you can tell that they are an established company and they know what they are doing. Because it is a previous game as well, they can really highlight the game with images of something that’s not a prototype and have quotes from reviews without it feeling like it’s a preview instead of a review.

Now, when looking at the pledge levels, so me there is one glaring missing level. That’s one just for the base game. Clearly they don’t need it to make this game happen as they are fully funded, but for myself who would want to budget more in terms of games that I get, I don’t know I need the expansion as the base game seems interesting enough to me.

The Game

This game seems really interesting, I like how it feels almost like a cross between Splendor and Century. It is that small little engine building game that generally works really well with my group.

I think the game play is very simple, but clever in how you can work on building up an engine. The start of the game goes “slow” but as you get further and further in the more you can do and the faster you can complete the cards, which is what you want in a good engine building game.

Back or Brick

Now, generally what I’ve said has been glowing about this game, and if I weren’t on a bit of a board game budget right now, I’d probably lean towards this being a back, but for me, this is a brick, because I really want there to be a base game only level pledge. It really feels like they are probably missing out on a solid chunk of change because of it. And the base game with expansion is $60, the expansion by itself is $18, so that puts the base game at $40-45 range, which when you get under $50, it makes it more tempting as well. So this is a brick for me, though, I know I’m probably in the minority on that. If/when this comes to retail, and right now places like CoolStuffInc and Miniature Market are sold out, I’ll likely just pick up the base game.

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

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10 – Marrying Mr. Darcy
As I was creating the list, I was surprised to see this game make the list. It’s down a ways in my top 100, no spoilers for this fall when I do my top 100 again, but it is really an interesting theme. First, there’s the Pride and Prejudice theme, I’m actually a little bit surprised that we don’t have more games based off of Jane Austen, I’m not sure how they’d work, but I’m surprised. Then it’s a game about marriage, now there are some party games about marriage, but this one isn’t about guessing trivia between married couples, it’s about marrying off your character from Pride and Prejudice to your most preferred suitor. It’s a light hearted game that is pretty simple but enjoyable and pretty good at not going too long.

9 – Hanabi
Hanabi has an interesting them of fireworks. That’s not one that you really see in board games, but beyond that it is a fun game because it has some really interesting mechanics. You are trying to create lines of fireworks by color going from one to five. But you can’t see your cards in your hand, they are facing away from you, using clues, you have to work together to discard the right cards, to get more clues, put down the correct number on the correct color, and give clues. The trick is giving good clues because your clues need to be either pointing out all the cards in someone’s hand of a color or of a number and hope that they infer the right order. It’s a fast game, but it’s very challenging.

8 – Photosynthesis
Now, some would argue that this isn’t a completely unique theme, there are other games out there that are about trees, but it’s still a pretty uncommon theme. And how it handles trees is really interesting and the pieces are cool and board is amazing. In Photosynthesis, you are trying to grow trees to harvest to get points. The theme is fairly abstract, but it works, because there is a sun that rotates around the board. So you get light points to spend to plan seeds, grow trees, and score points, and how you get points if based off of how many of your trees are getting sunlight and the size of those trees, because if you have a larger tree behind a smaller tree, both trees get sunlight, but smaller tree or same size tree, they can be blocked in the shadow and not get you any light points. It’s an interesting strategy game that offers a lot of tough choices and has a bit of a cutthroat element as you try and position your trees to get light and block off other people. Really fun, easy to teach, and has a lot of depth.

7 – Hats
The hat part of the game Hats is what gives it a more unique theme. There is also an Alice in Wonderland theme on it with the Madd Hatter’s tea party, but that’s a pretty common theme in games. But the idea of hats and which hats are on the table scoring points is unique. It’s also very clever. In most card games, you are using your hand of cards either to give yourself points if they are good or your opponent points if they are bad. Here there’s a middle step. When you play a card, you are putting it onto the table in one of six spots and taking the card that was already put there and placing it in front of you for scoring. So you’re giving your opponent a potential card for scoring, but it’ll only score if there is a card of that color out on the Madd Hatter’s table. So you have to think about how your opponent can use the cards that you have to set-up their scoring and hopefully play them in such a way that the table ends up favoring you at the end. A lot of strategy in this game, though some luck especially at higher player counts. It is really quite abstract, but it works for a theme because of the Madd Hatter and hats.

6 – Cartographers
So there are a lot of games out there where you’re building a world or a city. Something like Carcassone pops into my head or a game like Suburbia where you are building a city. In Cartographers, you are making a map, not to build out a land and score points by putting people on it like Carcassone, but because you are mapping the far off reaches of the land. How it works is interesting as well, this is a flip and write game where each player is filling out their own map, so at the end it looks different for everyone. But you are either given one type of land with one of two shapes to put it in, or two types of land with one shape to put one of those two land types in. Or, there are monsters. Filling in the land is pretty normal, it has a Second Chance vibe to it, but monsters are very different as one of your opponents will decide where the monster goes on your board. It’s very clever that way, and the scoring is good as well. You score two things each season and it rotates, so in Winter you’re scoring one thing that you scored at the beginning of the game in spring. Not the only game to do this, but does it well, and the map making theme is great.

5 – Century: Golem Edition
This one was interesting to put on the list, mainly because Century: Spice Road, exists, and that has the most generic theme of moving cubes around and trading spices, this literally 90% of Euro games right there. All Century: Golem Edition is, is a retheme of that game. So it goes from a very generic theme to a unique theme about golems just by a retheme. In this game you are going out and mining gems and then trading gems around various market places (all by playing cards from your hand), in order to get certain combinations of gems to be able to power up golems and get points. The game is really simple and slick to play. It’s like Splendor in some ways but a step up in complexity. You are doing one of a few things on your turn, you can play a card to get or swap gems, you can get more cards for your hand, you can take all your played cards back into your hand, or you can get a golem. The game ends when someone has 5 golems, and everyone adds up their points, and most points wins. The art and the gems just make this pop on hte table though.

4 – Homebrewers
There are a few games out there about brewing, but it’s a very small number, so I picked the one that I have had a lot of fun with. Homebrewers is all about brewing your best beer so when it comes to Summerfest and Oktoberfest, you are ready to wow the judges and take home the gold, and get the most points. To do this, you’re rolling dice to take actions. What really makes this game so much fun to play, though is brewing the beer. You could brew a generic beer and it wouldn’t do that much for you, but you can add in flavors to make your beer better and that might give you more points, more money, or even help help improve the quality of another beer with the techniques that you’ve learned. But, as a player, would you really want to drink a nutmeg and cherry IPA? So it’s always fun to see what weird beer you can make. This game is also a lot of fun because it’s a good engine building game, but it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome.

3 – Sagrada
Stained glass windows, seems like there wouldn’t be many games out there on this, and there aren’t, but there is another. Sagrada is my preferred one, though as it just pops on the table and offers a good puzzle as you try and draft the right dice in order to be able complete your stained glass window. Each round someone draws two times the number of players, plus one, dice and rolls them, then going around, you draft dice and put them into your window. However, there are rules as to how they can be placed, you can’t have the same number orthogonally adjacent to the same number (up down, left right) nor can you do that with color. Beyond that, there are certain spots where you have to put a color or a number, so you have to think about that as well. Sagrada looks amazing on the table and is actually really easy to teach and play. I’ve had great success with this game with all sorts of groups of people.

2 – Hanamikoji
Hanamikoji was one of the first games I thought of when doing this list. Mainly, there aren’t many games that would dare handle a theme such as Geisha. But Hanamikoji does, and even though this a very abstract game, it handles it well. Hanamikoji is all about the winning the favor of various Geisha by giving them gifts. To do that, you and your opponent each have a had of cards and have four actions per round you can take. You can either save a hidden card for winning favor at the end, you can discard two cards that won’t be used to win favor, you give your opponent the choice of three cards, and they pick one to place on their side for winning favor and you play the other two, or you create two sets of two cards and your opponent picks one of those for their side to win favor and you get the other. This game really is all about making your opponent make tough decisions for you so that you are able to manipulate the cards you can see to win the favor of the Geisha. You either want to win the favor of 11 points worth of Geisha or of four Geisha. The game is really fast, very thinking, and it forces a lot of tough decisions. I’d highly recommend this game as a two player game.

1 – Icecool
Penguin High School, I dare anyone to find a game that has that theme on it, besides Icecool 2. In this game you are flicking around student penguins who are skipping class in order to get fish to eat. Each round, someone is also the hall monitor. If the hall monitor catches, runs into, a student who is skipping class, that student has to give the hall monitor their hall pass, which gives the hall monitor points. But for each fish that the student gets they get a point as well. A round ends when either the hall monitor has caught all the students or a student has gotten their three fish. Then after every person has been the hall monitor once you count up your points, most points wins. It’s fun though because of the silly theme, but also because you’re flicking around little penguins, and not only that, you can jump them over walls if you flick them right, or spin them and ricochet through multiple doors, if you line it up right, there are just lots of fun things you can do.

So, this list dug further into my top 100 than most. I like a lot of games that have a fantasy or sci-fi theme, but even games like Lost Expedition which is about exploring or Point Salad which is about food, those are themes that are done pretty often. I think with that I did a solid job of finding games that have out there themes. If you’re not a big sci-fi or fantasy fan, these games might tick that theme box for you. What are some interesting, unique, themes that you’ve found? Are there any from the list that you want to try?

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Most of these games are going to be pretty simple and easy to play with a range of ages and are often called introductory games. While, if you are a seasoned gamer, these might be a little bit lighter than you’d want to play all the time, but it’s a good compromise with family who might only want to play very light games or “classic” games like Uno and Monopoly.

Carcassonne – This game can actually be a bit more challenging for new players when it comes to placing out their meeples. When do they do it, where should they do it, how do farmers even work? But the tile playing piece is something that is very easy for people to pick up on and fun for people to do. It’s a fun game for that tile laying aspect, and once they have down the basics of the scoring, and scoring at least towns and monasteries are easy to understand, Carcassonne is a good game for the whole family.

Castle Panic – This game skews a little bit younger, but maybe you have a younger sibling or niece of nephew who you want to get into gaming or a grand child. Whatever the relationship might be, Castle Panic is a fun game. It’s simple as to how it works, it’s cooperative, so you can all plan out things together and that makes it easier to teach as well. Definitely, once they start to get the idea of the game hang back and let them take the lead, but this tower defense card game is a lot of fun, and easy for younger kids to pick up. There is also My First Castle Panic for even younger kids.

Century: Golem Edition – I picked this one over the normal version, Century: Spice Road, because the gems in this game are cooler than cubes in Spice Road. It’s a pretty simple game of collecting gems, getting cards, using those cards to get other types of gems, and turning in gems for golems. This game has a bit more going on to it, but the turns are very fast, and since you can only do one action per turn, it makes it easier for people to figure it out as they go along. The table appeal is great for this game as well.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger – Now, this one is completely different and might be too silly for some people in your family. But in Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger, you are going through chapters of this story, making choices and rolling dice once in a while to see if you can complete a challenge. This is really a story telling game, and it would be an easy one to play just sitting around a living room without needing a table. This game is light, easy and cooperative.

Dice Throne Season 1 – This game is just silly in a very different way than Choose Your Own Adventure. This one is also about the opposite of a cooperative game as you’re having different contestants fight against each other in a dice chucking game. But it is also familiar because it’s yahtzee style rolling, just with more added onto it. It would be a fun one to face off different characters against each other and see who can do the best. The games also play fast, so you could do a small tournament if you wanted and had the right group. The art in the game is also fun, and the dice are great. I’d recommend the first season of the game though, as the second season has more complicated characters.

Draftosaurous – Draftosaurous is a game that I’ve only played once, but it was a ton of fun when I did. In it, you are drafting dinosaur and scoring them in different ways. The ways are simple and you can easily explain them as often as you want in your game without slowing down the game. Plus, the dinosaurs are meeples, which look amazing. So it has a cute factor going for it as well. The game also plays very quickly, so you might end up playing a few in a row. But the game isn’t so simple that people will get board with it fast.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle – People will be drawn to games with an intellectual property (IP) that they recognize. And Harry Potter is a very popular IP that most people are at least familiar with, even if they haven’t seen all the movies or read all the books. This is a deck building game, so it has a little bit to teach with deck building if people aren’t familiar with it, but the first few games, which have bad guys from the first few books, keep the game simple so that people can understand it. Eventually you get more complex things, but by then, people should be familiar with deck building enough that more won’t complicate it for them. It’s a good fun game, and has a little bit more than some other games.

ICECOOL – This one, if you’ve followed my top 100 and my thoughts on the game, shouldn’t be a surprise to you. Icecool is a great family game that anyone can play. Even younger kids can play with only possibly needing to make the rules simpler just for scoring, and go with more of a tournament rule style. This game is just about flicking penguins around and having a silly good time. If you want to play it on a table, you can, if you want to play it on the floor you can. Adults might find it a bit too simple, but it is meant to be silly fun more than a strategic match.

Just One – Yes, it showed up on the stocking stuffer list, but it works well here also. It’s a cooperative party game, and instead of just pulling out the old ones at your parents or grandparents place, Just One offers something new. The game play is easy and the components are nice. The concept of the game is also easy to teach. This game should work well in most settings and with a wide age range, from Grandma and Grandpa to your 10 year old cousin.

Lost Expedition – Another cooperative game, but I really think that for family weight games, cooperative games are great. They are good introductory level and for people who might not like conflict in games, they work well. Lost Expedition is all about going and trying to find the lost city of Z. However, there are plenty of challenges you have to get through each morning and evening as you hike. If you don’t ration out your resources, you might die before they get there, but with some clever path construction, you can rush to the end before you run out of resources. The game is quite easy to explain and the artwork is nice. This game also helps keep alpha players from running the table.

Machi Koro – I’m not going to suggest any Machi Koro in particular, but if you think people will like the game, I recommend the legacy version. For me, that game seemed to play faster than the base game and being able to make the game unique to the person who is getting it, that’s something that is cool and most games don’t do. This is a tableau building game, but you can more easily explain it that you are trying to build up the best town by getting buildings and building monuments. Turns are pretty fast in Machi Koro, especially when people start to become familiar with the cards. And the cards are pretty simple, so it shouldn’t take too long. While not my favorite game, it’s a good one that is easy to teach to a lot of different levels of players.

Pandemic – I’m sure you expected this one to be on the list, but it’s a good and straightforward cooperative game. It’s also one that even if people aren’t gamers, they might have seen before. It’s also challenging enough that the person you give it to won’t get bored with it or beat it too often right away. And when they start to, there are expansions that can be added to change up the game to make it more challenging. This game of player powers and curing diseases also has a theme that people will be able to understand quickly, even if the game is fairly abstract.

Potion Explosion – The toy factor to this game is high with all the marbles in it, but the game itself is pretty simple. You are collecting marbles to complete potions to help you get more marbles. The game play is simple just pulling out a marble, if like colored marbles hit, you get those marbles, and it can cascade onward. These marbles you then use to complete potions, and the potions give you more things that you can do to get more marbles. But the game is really about pulling out those marbles and letting them hit and getting a whole bunch of marbles when they keep on doing that. Turns are pretty fast, and the concept is easy to grasp, especially with so many app games doing something similar.

Sagrada – A game about making stained glass windows, this looks great on the table with translucent dice that actually help make it look like stained glass. Another drafting game, this one you are taking dice that match specific colors or numbers to try and fill in your stained glass windows. The scoring for the game is pretty simple, and while there are some powers that are a bit tricky, there are plenty of simple ones you can start with, and I often choose those for the first game. The concepts are simple, like numbers and colors can’t go next to each other orthogonally (in rows and columns), and you have to place the die you drafted next to another one, diagonally or orthogonally. Definitely one that most people will pick up on fast.

Second Chance – Another one from the stocking stuffer list, but this is my roll and write (or flip and write as the case might be) for the list. Second Chance just works well because of the Tetris like shapes and people understand trying to fill in an area as much as possible. It is pretty solitaire as what other people are doing won’t affect you, but the game is pretty when it’s completed and a fast game to play. Generally I don’t see people only playing a single game of it, you at least play two, one for each side of your sheet before being done.

Small World – Another classic modern game, Small World is an area control game where you get points for all the areas that you have and other scoring, such as what type of area you are in. It’s a silly game that can be a bit mean, but the nice thing about how this game can be mean is that if you are almost kicked off the board, you can go into decline, get a new race next turn and go onto the board. That’s the only tricky part about the game, in my opinion, knowing when to go into decline and understanding that it is your whole turn. The combinations of races and powers are what then make the game stand out, because who doesn’t want flying halflings or maybe seafaring dwarves. You never know what combination you might get or want.

Sushi Go Party! – Now, this is a bit more complex than just normal Sushi Go, but because of that complexity, if offers variability which will keep it coming to the table longer. In the game you are drafting different types of foods to create the best meal and scoring points over three rounds. Depending on what type of food it is, it’ll score you points in various ways. Maybe you want three sashimi to get 10 points, but will get three of them, whereas tofu scores you points for two of them, but if you get a third, you don’t get any points, because you don’t want to fill up on tofu. The game can take a little bit to get into, but if you play a pretty basic set-up to start, people will catch on fast.

Ticket to Ride – The Train Game, as a lot of people call it, is a classic family weight game where you’re trying to complete various routes. This game has a little bit of strategy in it, mainly in picking your routes to help create the longest route, but beyond that, it’s collecting sets of cards and building your train routes. What works well in this game is that the rules are simple and you only do one thing on your turn. This helps people not be bogged down by all the options available. While this game doesn’t have a ton of variety in the base box, there are other maps you can get for it that’ll change up how the game works once you’ve played through the base game enough. But this one is a good one to add to parents or grand parents collection and play once or twice a year around the holidays.

Wits & Wagers – Final game on the list, and other party game. This one is my favorite trivia style party game, because you don’t need to be great at trivia. You just have to know, who in the group, might know the answer or be closest to the answer, without going over. All the questions have answers that are numbers, so you put down your answer and then bet on what answer you think is right. If you are correct, you get your money back plus some, depending on how close to the middle it was, so you can bet on your answer, if you think you are right, or you can go with the person who you think might know more about it than you do. It’s a fun and sometimes funny game that is good for a whole family and because of how it works, can play with younger kids.

Now, there are so many more family games out there. I left some off the list that I like, simply because I had something similar on the list. Dice Throne could have easily been left off the list for King of Tokyo that has a similar mechanic, but I also wanted to provide some different options as well. Hopefully you can play some of these with family or friends over the holidays, and maybe give them to them as a gift so that they can introduce them to their friends and grow the board gaming hobby.

What are some of your favorites from my list? Is there a game that you’ve found works well as a gift?

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Century: Golem Edition is an engine building, hand management game where you are trying to convert games into different types to get the right combination to get golems. To do that, you have to collect gems, upgrade gems, and get cards. With the cards, they let you get more gems or upgrade/change the type of gems in different ways than your base cards do. So you are trying to build up a combination that helps you get gems faster, but also gems that are going to allow you to get the golems. Every card you get is added to your hand, and you play down cards and only return them to your hand when you decide that you want to. Eventually you’ll need to, though, because you’ll want to get the cards of the engine back into your hand so that you can get it working again.

Century: Golem Edition is a really slick engine building game. With cute artwork and a cute theme, you expect the game to not offer that much strategy, but there is a good amount of strategy there if you want to find it. The cards, and how valuable the card is to you really determines what you might want to do. The engine building, too, never becomes too much, because while you are building up an engine you are only playing a single card a turn. That means that you are either getting more gems or changing out gems, depending on the card. Then the next turn you play the next step to the engine. If you were playing all the cards at once, turns would last a long time, but instead, the turns fly by because you are only firing off part of your engine each time. That really makes it as an accessible engine building game and a good introductory engine building game. It would be easy for there to be too many things to keep track of otherwise.

The components also really sell this game on the table. The gems are amazing looking and just fun to play around with. And their holding bins work really well and are another nice aesthetic piece, but it’s also highly functional. Then there are metal coins that just add a little bit to the potential scoring of the golems and make getting some of the passed over golems more valuable. There is no reason that the coins need to be metal, you could have just put in a +1 and a +2 cardboard chips, but the metal coins feel amazing and look great. Century: Golem Edition really goes above and beyond the expected quality of a game with nice large cards, a great insert, an the other things that I’ve mentioned above. The game pops on the table and people are drawn to the game to see what is going on.

Finally, Century: Golem Edition is a very good introductory game while still not being a game that more “serious” gamers are going to find boring. The engine building piece is interesting and offers different choices each game, the random golems mean that you have to vary your strategy, so it helps keep the playing field a bit more balanced. Plus, there is the determination of when you bring cards back to your hand, because that is your turn. If you do it at the wrong time, someone might beat you to a golem that you’ve been angling for. This isn’t going to be game that more “serious” gamers are going to always want to play to fill that strategy itch, and the game isn’t one that has a ton of strategy, but they aren’t likely to be bored with it either.

Overall, I enjoy this game a lot. I think that it works well for a mixed crowd of players and I love the speed that game plays at. If you are looking for an engine building game to teach the concept and strategy of engine building, Century: Golem Edition stands out in that field. You can definitely use Century: Spice Road, but if you are playing with very casual gamers, Golem Edition is going to draw them in a whole lot more. I definitely recommend this game to people to help fill out that introductory game collection for when new gamers are around.

Overall Grade: A
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A+

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