124-101

100 – 76

75 – 51

Unplayed Board Games 50 – 26

50: Arboretum

This is an abstract game about planting trees. What interests me so much in this one is that you play out cards to build up your arboretum, and you score points for having trees go in ascending order. But in order to score a type of tree, you need it in your h and at the end of the game. So do you risk it that you might not get a tree of the type you need in order to complete a longer route and score more?

49: Call To Adventure: The Stormlight Archive

Call To Adventure comes in a few different flavors. There is the base game which is generic fantasy. That has an expansion for Patrick Rothfeuss Kingkiller Chronicles. And while I do like that series, I knew there was a Stormlight Archives version coming out, so I waited for it. I love the setting of the game, and I think a game where you are building up your characters story is cool.

48: 7 Wonders Duel

I got this one a while ago using store credit after a trade. And the game I think is going to be fun and probably better for me than 7 Wonders which I think is just okay. This does a lot of the same things, drafting, fighting, and science, but all in a two player package. And you can win by doing more than just getting points. Though, points are one way to win. Get one of each science card, you automatically win. Push the combat all the way to your side, automatically win. I like that a lot.

47: The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged

And now we’re back to another IP (intellectual property) that I really like. The Dragon Prince is a great show. And this is a two player battling game. You put together games of characters to face off against each other in battle. Looks some like Super Fantasy Brawl with card play determine a lot of what you do.

46: Paper Dungeons: A Dungeon Scrawler Game

It’s one of a couple roll and writes on this part of the list. Paper Dungeons as it says is a Dungeon Scrawler. So it is going to give you a bit of that dungeon crawling feeling all while being in a roll and write package. I hope that between it, Doodle Dungeons, Deadly Doodles (which I know I like) and Drawn to Adventure, I’ll have some fun adventure focused roll and writes.

45: Yggrasil Chronicles

This is a bigger box game, some of that though, is because it comes with a tree. One that you put together, and then it’s a cooperative game where you are trying to protect Yggdrasil, possibly, my knowledge of this one is limited. But the game looks like a lot of fun, and I know that the original is really challenging. Plus a giant 3d tree that rotates is cool.

44: Forgotten Waters

Forgotten Waters is a campaign game that I wish I played already. It’s gotten bumped down the list a little just because I’m playing more in person. But it was a good one that could be played via Zoom. In this game you are pirates on a crew working together through an adventure. There is voice acting for the story, and overall just seem like a fun time. And it uses the Crossroad card system from Dead of Winter that I love.

43: Mythic Battles: Pantheon

Definitely a big game here. I don’t have the whole Kickstarter, just the base game and Pandora’s box and that is a lot. It’s another one of those head to head battling games, like The Dragon Prince or Super Fantasy Brawl. This one is pitting Greek gods against each other. And what really intrigues me about this one is how you can pick up trees, as a god, and use them as a weapon. So the terrain is very much in play.

42: Catacombs & Castles

We go from an epic minis game to a one versus all dungeon battling game where you flick discs. And that is what intrigues me. I like dexterity games, and Catacombs & Castles seems like a lot of fun. It also seems a bit more complex, otherwise might be higher on the list. But I think if I learn the game it’ll be pretty easy and fast to teach.

41: Adventure Land

While I’ve gotten a lot of games based off of Sam Healey’s reviews on the Dice Tower, I have less based on Tom Vasel’s but Adventure Land is one. In this game you are taking out adventurers trying to get treasure. And they move across the board right and down. That means if a treasure shows up to the left or higher on the board, you might not be able to get it. So how to balance that out getting the best treasure, but still hanging back?

40: Space Base

This falls into that category of Foodies, Machi Koro, and My Farm Shop. A game where you roll dice and no matter what you get something. I like those games, and this is supposed to be the most gamer version of that. It gives you a lot to think about and you can build up some powerful combos while you try and get points. And you have more tracks to control and keep track of.

39: Chronicles of Crime

This is a deduction based game that I’m confident I’ll love. Chronicles of Crime, from Lucky Duck Games, uses an app that you can scan cards with to interrogate them and so you can actually look around the crime scene. The concept is cool and while the cases sound a bit less in depth than Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, it might work better for some people because of that.

38: Fleet: The Dice Game

Roll and write game and actually dropped further down the list than I’d have guessed. Fleet is a game about building up your fishing fleet and scoring as many points as you can. I’ve heard that it’s great for combos, which I love in roll and write games. And it’s also more complex. I think that it is going I’m going to play solo pretty often.

37: Raiders of the North Sea

Possibly the highest true euro game on the list, Raiders of the North Sea has you building up your crew and taking them out to plunder lands. What intrigues me so much about this one is that your turn you put a meeple on, and take a meeple off. You can’t do the same one twice in a row, so it gives some interesting strategy to the game. And as you push out further and plunder, you lock some meeples to those locations, but get stronger ones back.

36: Horizon Zero Dawn

Based off of the Playstation video game, Horizon Zero Down doesn’t take you through the story of the game, but it puts you out on hunts against monsters. I’m excited to see how this game works, I really like the video game, but need to play it more. And I like the idea of just going out on a hunt, and it being a scenario and then done. It’s a bigger minis game, but not a campaign.

35: Reichbusters: Projekt Vril

Now we’re onto a campaign and Reichbusters is one that I picked up because it looked like so much fun when GloryHoundd YouTube Channel played it. And I think it’s going to be amazing. I need to get the errata cards taken care of, but sneaking into bases in WWII and finding all sorts of crazy experiments going on, it’s very Hellboy. And that theme is just fun, plus it’s not just kick down the door and shoot the board game.

34: Bloodborne

Another video game board game with Bloodborne. Another one that it is a bigger game but doesn’t play over a massively long campaign. I believe this one comes together over three different plays. Or it might just be that’s how the chapters, that are in the box, come out. Still, fantasy, fighting monsters and bad guys. Story going on, and from CMON, I suspect I’m going to enjoy this one.

33: Time of Legends: Joan of Arc

And another big box game. Time of Legends: Joan of Arc is almost a miniatures game more in the lines of a Warhammer where you takes two armies up against each other. But it does away with all that measuring. And it comes down to scenarios, there are characters, NPC’s, that you can interact with. And it’s time of legends because it takes the legends from the Joan of Arc time period and historical records, so it can add in dragons and things like that.

32: The 7th Continent

The 7th Continent has been on my shelf for a while. And I need to get it played before The 7th Citadel comes in, because I suspect I’m going to like that one better. In The 7th Continent, you wake up on a continent cursed, and need to explore and find a way to break your curse. I’ve heard that the first one is tough and takes a lot of time to play. Mainly so you learn the continent, but as you do the other ones, you have more of an idea of where to go.

31: Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write

The final roll and write for this list, and might be the final one overall. Dinosaur Island is a big game about building out a dinosaur park with a lot of euro mechanics. The Rawr ‘n Write is similar in that you’re building out a park. And you are trying to breed dinosaurs, it just does it in a roll and write version. So I’m very excited to give it a go. Supposed to be a heavier roll and write as well.

30: The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

The Crew is a cooperative trick taking game where you have limited communication. And while there is a space version, the Mission Deep Sea is supposed to help improve a few things. Mainly because you have missions, Mission Deep Sea makes them variable. The space one they are set. I like trick taking, and I need to play more of them.

29: Land vs Sea

Land vs Sea is a tile laying game where you are trying to complete areas of land or sea. But I care about completing land areas where as you care about sea. And the tiles are four sided, so having two in your hand gives you a lot of options. I wonder if this might replace Carcassonne when I play it. A tile laying game, but one that seems like it could be simpler.

28: Heroes of Land, Air & Sea

Now we’re back to a big game with Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea. This is a massive 4x game where you’re taking over lands, exploring new locations, fighting your opponents and building up your power. Twilight Imperium 4th Edition is a massive 4x game as well that I’d love to play set in space, but Heroes of Land, Air, & Sea just spoke to me as a 4x game I wanted to own.

27: Champions of Hara

Champions of Hara is a pretty big game, and one that seems like it will be quite unique. It seems unique because all the characters seem unique, and I like that about it. It has a fantasy feel to it, but it isn’t fantasy in the normal way. And I believe that you play the game in two parts. The first part is competitive. Then the second part, really second game, is cooperative where you work together to complete the winner of the first games story.

26: Floriferous

Final one for this part of the list is Floriferous. A set collection flower game, this one looks amazing. The artwork is great, and I like the mechanics, or how they sound. You basically draft cards from the columns. But as you draft, you place your pawn next to the spot. So the higher in the column, the next round, is going to go, then the next. Plus you are drafting scoring cards, great ways to get more points, but you’ll go last in the next round.

Final Thoughts

One more list of this, and then you’ll know about all the games i need to play. I actually had a game night this past weekend and I didn’t play any new to me games. I did have a few pulled out. But with the group, and player count, not all of them would have worked.

This part of the list also had a lot of big games in it. And while some of them might be harder to get to the table, even something that is more campaign like Reichbusters, you can play on off scenarios. So I should be able to get a number of them to the table. And some of the roll and writes, probably all of them, can be played solo.

Which one should I play first from this chunk of the list?

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This is going to be a list article, with all my unplayed games ranked. But before I dive into that, I want to talk about some of the terms that I just used. Mainly shelf of shame and shelf of opportunity. They are the same term phrased in different ways. Let’s dive into them and then the big list of games to play.

Shelf of Shame vs Shelf of Opportunity

This is a term that I’ve heard thrown around for a few years now. The idea that games on your shelf have this title. First off, I think this is kind of silly. Games that you haven’t played don’t have a special spot in existence. Now, maybe they do have a special spot on your shelf, but they aren’t held in any sort of light. They are just a board game.

But the first term I heard is Shelf of Shame. The idea behind this is that you feel bad since you haven’t played all your games. This is silly. I go back to my talk about collection versus a hobby. Know what you have on your shelf. For me, board games are a collection and a hobby. That means it’s fine to not get to every game quickly. They are part of my collection. But I play them, as they are part of my hobby as well, and hobbies get used or worked on.

Then came the term Shelf of Opportunity. Shelf of Shame is very negative, and opportunity sounds much better. But I, again, find this not much better. Yes, they are games that you play eventually. And yes, it spins it in a positive light. But both terms keep a focus on the fact the games aren’t played.

What Do I Call Them?

I call them what they are. Board games to be played. A board game is just an object. In labeling them either way, it places power on that object. Yes, one puts it in the light of a game being an opportunity for something new, and new exciting opportunities are good. But it leaves the pressure on actually playing the game.

Like I said, I play games. I buy games. Board Games are a collection and a hobby for me. I own games that might take a long time to get played. Campaign games where I play one at a time or two, and I am already playing two. Those wait for when I have time, and that is okay. I feel like the label places a cloud, no matter what label, over the games, and in the end of the day, games are just games.

If I never play a game in my collection and it collects dust for five years. I shouldn’t feel bad about leaving that opportunity out there. I most definitely shouldn’t feel shame. It is a game and I play games. So I play other games and not the game that is sitting there. I am still enjoying the hobby without playing every game I own.

So Why Write This Out?

I gave myself a challenge at the beginning of the year. Not because I feel guilt about games that I haven’t played. But because it is fun to play games. And I want to play games, I want to experience new games, and I want to cover new games.

For me, my challenge isn’t to get all the games off the shelf. It isn’t because I feel like I miss out on an opportunity. And I care not about shame from it. For me it’s about trying new things and almost making a game out of it. If I don’t make it by the end of the year, I don’t care. I play these for fun.

Unplayed Board Game List

Let’s Talk About the List

124 Games on it, and my goal is to get it down below 100 by the end of the year. You add in a bunch of Kickstarter games coming in, and you can see why it is a big list and also a challenge. And of course, then, there are campaign games on the list. If we look at campaign style games, I think we’re sitting at 14 on the list. And that is a lot of games to play through a campaign of, so that isn’t going to happen. Though, with Sleeping Gods coming off the list to start the year, it will some over on Malts and Meeples.

There are also some kids games on the list. Right now, I don’t think I will play those this year. Monza looks fun, but the toddler isn’t quite ready for it. But the toddler is also three, so who knows, maybe by the end of the year, we can play those games a bit more. But right now I’m not expecting to.

I also think it’s important to note that a lot of big games are at the top. Those are the ones that I’m most excited to play and cover. And some of them should be getting played soon. Probably after this weekend I’ll be lining up a time to get started playing Roll Player Adventures.

To go along with that, there are a lot of solo games as well. I could play, in the top 20, around 75% of them solo and some of them are solo only games. So I need to start knocking those out first, because they are high on my list. That won’t be how I get under 100, though.

Final Thoughts

I think that it is fine to challenge yourself to play your unplayed games. I think it is fine to limit how many unplayed games you own. When that becomes the focus or the obsession, I think that is when we start to lose the focus on what we are doing. Or when tie to it other emotions, like shame.

When I see people post about clearing their shelf of shame, I am sure it feels good for them. But on the flip side, in the comments, you see people feeling guilty about their unplayed games. I am not that way. I don’t feel guilt over that. And you shouldn’t either.

This is an odd article, I wanted to talk more about the games, and I will soon. But before I could do that, I think it is import to talk about the shame or guilt that can be thrown around in the hobby. Not always intentionally malicious but always harmful.

Also, let me know what game you think I need to try first. What is your favorite on the list that I have too low, or that you know I would like or should try?

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Numbers

A’s – B’s

C’s

Calico

This is a game that I kickstarted last year after seeing it, not really demoing it though, at GenCon. The creator had a very little table set-up that was piggybacking off of another booth, and this game was there and it just looked so cute. In this game you are drafting tiles and playing tiles onto your quilt. If you get certain color or patterns you score points, there are some that are shared objectives, like different cats will want different patterns by each other, and if you can do that, you’ll attract that cat, or there are ways to get buttons which give points as well. The game should be a really good puzzle but not a game that you have a ton of rules to teach.

Status: To Be Played

Camel Up

I’ve wanted a racing game for a while, and while I do have another one that will show up in a little bit, that one is a longer and bigger game, I wanted one that could handle a number of players and play fast and silly, and Camel Up does that. You are betting on what camel is going to be in the lead on various legs of the race. What makes it even sillier is that the camels stack. So you don’t have a particular camel that is yours but you are petting on the camel you want to win. If you for example, roll the red die and the red camel has the blue camel on top of it, so you roll a two, that red camel will move with the blue camel on it two spaces forward. And the camel on top is in the lead. Once in a while I’ve seen this game fall flat, but more often than not it is that silly stand-up moment of what die will come out, what camel will move forward, because the more you win on your bets, the more points that you’ll have.

Status: To Be Played

Captain Sonar

This is another big group game, but it pits two teams against each other in submarine warfare in real time. You have tow teams with a captain a sonar operator, first mate, and engineer. Each of them is doing something different. The sonar operator is listening to the other teams captain to try and map out their path and figure out where they are on the board, the engineer is keeping the ship running the best that they can, and the first mate is prepping systems to be ready for use. If you figure out where a ship is and are close enough you can fire off a torpedo to try and hit them. The game is interesting, it has more strategy and the fact you can play it with eight and it’s not just a party game is so much fun.

Status: Played

Carcassonne

This is one of those classic gateway games up there with the likes of Ticket to Ride and Catan that people might have heard of. It’s on the shelves in Target with them. This is a tile placement game as you build out a board collectively building farm area, roads, and towns. You score points for placing out meeples into roads, but you only have a limited supply of them, and most of the time you can get them back, but you might not be able to, so you have hold some meeples back. When a meeple comes off the board for a completed town or a completed road, you get points, at the end of the game you get points for them if things aren’t completed as well, so you are trying to have enough meeples to put them down to score if you need, but not too many so you don’t end up with leftover meeples at the end of the game. It’s easy to teach and play.

Status: Played

Cartographers

Another game in that roll or flip and write category. In this one you are making a map set in the fantasy world of Roll Player games. You’ve been sent out to be a royal cartographer, and are mapping the villages, farm lands, rivers, and forest while also mapping out where the monsters are. The big thing that this game does, which I really like, is that you score things by season. So if I were scoring in the first season I’d score cards A and B, next season B and C, and then in the fourth season D and A again. So you have to balance your scoring and think about what will help you now and help in the future, or what doesn’t matter, because after the second season you won’t score B again. The game is fast and fun, and I’m excited for more stuff that I have coming from their latest Kickstarter.

Status: Played

Castle Panic

This one I’m a little bit surprised it’s still on my shelf and that I haven’t sold it, but it is such a good and simple cooperative game. I like that everything is played open, you have very simple zones for everything and where damage can be done. I don’t play this one often anymore, but I’m keeping it around because when the toddler is older it’ll be a nice simple game to play with them and something that we can play as a whole family, but I’ve had fun with it before, and there is a nice little bit of tension too it though you win more often than you lose.

Status: Played

Cat Cafe

This one is a true roll and write game, with a little bit of dice drafting. In this you are trying to make your best cat cafe. And you are scoring points off of certain things that the cats like, such as food dishes or toy mice. You also score points by filling up cat trees, the first person to get one filled in scores more points than the next person. There is some strategy in the dice drafting and the game works well. The game has a cute theme which was the big selling point, and some of the worst dice I’ve seen, but I replaced them with dice with cats on it, so it’s all better. Definitely a fun one that I need to play again.

Status: Played

Century Golem Edition

If I were to have a go to engine building game, Century: Golem Edition would probably be it. This is a fast and fun game where you are getting gems to collect golems. You do that by either taking a card to add to your hand on your turn, playing a card to get gems or upgrade gems, spending gems to get a golem, or picking back up all your cards. The game is simple and fast, but you can create some really powerful engines that will turn out a lot of gems fast if you can, and the game has great components, a great carrier for the gems, the gems themselves are cool, overall, such a fun and fast engine builder with a table presence that really sells the game.

Status: Played

Champions of Hara

I picked this one up after watching a playthrough on the Gloryhoundd YouTube channel. This seems like a fun game with a lot of depth of story to it without really being a story game. And the game components just look amazing. The modular board is cool, the areas of the world are very interesting, and the fact that you upgrade your character as you go throughout the game also helps sell it for me. Finally, the aesthetic of this game is just amazing, really a huge selling point when a game looks good and looks good.

Status: To Be Played

Charterstone

I still need to finish this one, there were several children that were born which derailed the game, and I think we have one or two games left of it, we’ll see if we get back to it, or I might buy a refresh pack and play it with another group. This is a simple worker placement legacy game that builds over time. It pretends like it has some story, but really it’s just a fun worker placement game, and I’m not always the biggest fan of worker placement. The rules do grow into more, but there are a lot of nice things about the game, and you won’t really be able to have a runaway leader through the game since it is competitive with how it’s balanced. Overall, this game is slipping for me a little bit, just because I can’t play it until we’ve finished it or I spend money to refresh it, and I need to group to play with then.

Status: Played

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

If you liked the goofy Choose Your Own Adventure books growing up, this game fits that perfectly. It’s a light silly and fun game, which doesn’t have you start over when you die thankfully. If you want something that feels like nostalgia, this is a good one, and I think that it goes over well with most groups. Definitely more of an experience than a game, but that’s what I waned from a game with Choose Your Own Adventure in the title.

Status: Played

Chronicles of Crime

Another one that I got to demo a little bit at GenCon in 2019, this one is an interesting tech assisted crime game. You use that feels like VR on your phone to look around a crime scene, you scan QR codes to investigate things, question people, take stuff to the lab and more all as you try and solve the case. I love the idea of this game as I really do love deduction games (keep in mind I said deduction not social deduction). This one is a bit lighter and simpler than some deduction games that might show up in different letters, but still such a good concept and excution from what I saw.

Status: To Be Played

Clank! In! Space! and Clank Legacy

I like deck building games, that’s why I have multiple versions of Clank. I don’t have the original version though where it is dungeon delving in a fantasy setting. Instead I went with the space version which has a lot of fun and silly sci-fi references sprinkles across the cards. And I knew when Clank! Legacy was announced with an Acquisitions Inc theme on it I was going to get that as well. The space game does enough more than just deck building to make it an interesting challenge and I like the push your luck in the game, even if I don’t always do the best at it.

Clank! In! Space! Status: Played
Clank! Legacy Status: To Be Played

Clue

A classic, but a good one. This is another simple deduction game that I mainly keep on my shelf because it is such a classic. I think that my copy of the game has been played maybe twice in about a decade. It does have roll and move which generally I don’t like in a game and only kind of works in this game because you basically always want to make an guess on something to see what information you can get. But if you already know everything you want from one room and roll poorly, you might just be stuck out in the middle. Still for a simple deduction game, it isn’t bad at all.

Status: Played

Codinca

This is an abstract game that I picked up a while ago. It’s all about manipulating/flipping tiles in order to try and complete patterns on cards. The first person to complete a certain number wins. I like the simple concept of the game, though the round cards are a bit weird. It falls into that category of a game that is simple to teach but could have some turns where you really have to think about what you’re going to do.

Status: To Be Played

Conan

This was a game that I bought because it was 50% off, I wasn’t sure when I’d get to play it I know that the rule book is very bad. But I liked the idea of this game. In it you are taking Conan and some other characters up against another person who is running the bad guys for the scenario. What is so interesting is the gaining and spending of energy and activating certain troops might be what you want to do, but when you do, you push them further down the river so it’ll cost more to do so again as the person playing the bad guys. Definitely a really interesting concept with a lot of cool looking minis and a Conan theme that is pretty fun.

Status: To Be Played

Cosmic Encounter

This is an old board game that plays a lot like a new board game. In Cosmic you are a wheeling and dealing alien race who is trying to colonize a certain number of planets. Now, you do that by on you turn picking what planet you’re going after, how many ship you’re sending, and then the fun starts. You can recruit other people to help you and you also spend cards to improve your total. You can negotiate with the person you’re going against to maybe go for a draw and getting something else in return besides knocking them off the planet, it’s a really fun idea. This game does depend on the group some, but when I have played it, I like it. Oh, and the alien powers can mess everything up.

Status: Played

Cowboy Bebop: Boardgame Boogie

This game caught my eye as Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite anime, so I thought I’d give the game a whirl. Another one that I saw and purchased at GenCon. This is a cooperative game where you play as crew members and work your way through their story arcs, dealing with obstacles, having to bring in bounties and things like that. I like the theme and the game play while it doesn’t seem complex definitely seems like it should be thematic fun.

Status: To Be Played

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

This game has been on fire, figuratively, this year. It’s a trick taking game oddly enough, but it is a cooperative trick taking game where you are trying to get certain players to take certain tricks to get a card of a certain color or number, or someone might not want to win a trick, otherwise you’ll lose that level. It limits communication like most trick taking games do, but just seems like such a fun game and one that you can sit down, set-up a mission, play, and do another mission if you want or two even and be done within an hour at most.

Status: To Be Played

Cribbage

A classic game for a reason, I like Cribbage quite well, especially as a bar game. It’s so small you can pull it out at a brewery, throw it onto the table and play a few games while having some beers, it works really well. I like the card play and the scoring for it that you’re always thinking about. It’s a classic, don’t need to say much more than that.

Status: Played

Criss Cross

Another roll and write on the list, the smallest roll and write that I have. I really like this one because of how fast and tricky it is. Now this one has more luck than some because guessing right on what die face might randomly show up, is helpful, but how you place in the dice faces on your sheet is even more important. And how you place the dice is interesting. You need to use them almost as a domino so that they are touching, you can orient them however you want, but they need to be touching like the two halves of a domino. Then you score both vertical and horizontal by how many adjacent symbols you have in the row or column. Good, little, and fast.

Status: Played (a lot)

Cross Clues

I picked this one up for playing on digital board game nights. Cross Clues is a fun game where you have a grid. You might have in row A the word stick, and in column 4 the word witch. So if you have the A4 card in your hand, you have to give a clue to get people to guess it, it might be something like broom. Broom handles are sticks and witches ride on brooms. But if the word in row B was clean, now that clue isn’t as good. So you’re trying to find that clue that works for that one right spot for the card you have. You can play it with a timer, which I think would work well in person, but digitally we play without.

Status: Played

Cry Havoc

This is a game that I really do want to play more. It’s an interesting area control and fighting game all at the same time. Like Blood Rage, but also really not like Blood Rage in a lot of other ways. You are coming to an alien planet to get a resource, it’s a very classic movie trope, and there are natives there. What is really interesting is how the different factions play. There are mechs, humans, pilgrims, and the natives, and the natives start out with the best board presence and will score more gems, the pilgrims are trying to just collect gems and create their own pool of scoring that no one can take away, humans and mechs need to spread out and win more battles. The combat is interesting as well with how you allocate your troops to different areas of majority control, killing, and capturing.

Status: Played

Cthulhu Fluxx

If you want to find a version of Fluxx on any topic, IP, anything, you basically can. Fluxx is what you hope will be a fast little filler card game where you are trying to get the right set-up of cards in front of you to win the game. And the rules are always changing. The game can be a bit of a mess to keep track of the rules, but that’s part of the silly fun of it. Definitely doesn’t get played all that often, because while it should be a short filler it can sometimes run long.

Status: Played

Cyclades

Final one that starts with the letter C, Cyclades is another area control, influence game where you are fighting to build and control a number of a cities. All of this while bidding for your power and turn order as to what god will shine their face on you that round and what actions you can take. It’s an interesting idea and I think one that I’d really enjoy, however, it hasn’t hit the table after quite some time. I’m not ready to get rid of it though because it does seem like a really good game.

Status: To Be Played

That was a lot of C’s, what is your favorite game that starts with the Letter C? Is there one based off of my list thus far of what I own that you think I should get for hte letter C?

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Pros

• Solo game play
• Theme
• Not a campaign
• Story elements
• Price for Retail
• Established Company

Cons

• Shipping
• Retail vs Minis Pledge
• Old style feeling stretch goals

The Page

This is a company that has run Kickstarters before for their Folklore: The Affliction and Champions of Hara, so they know what they are doing. With that said, I think it’s an okay laid out page. You get the idea and theme of the game well at the top, but in terms of actual game play, you get way more from the video at the top than you do from the game play section.

I will also say that there are parts of the page that don’t feel like a more recent Kickstarter, even two years ago this would have made sense, now it feels like it’s a bit out of date. The pledge levels for example, there is the retail pledge and the minis pledge. Honestly, nothing too odd about that, but the minis pledge level has more game play to it as well. So if I want to get all the game play, I need to get the minis as well. This then continues into the stretch goals where some are just for the minis level and some will also be in the retail level. It feels like there is a level missing, like it should be retail which is just the game no stretch goals unless it’s a cosmetic upgrade, linen finish on cards stuff like that, standees version, cheaper than the minis version with all the game play additions, and then one with the minis. At least that’s what it seems like a lot more are doing, instead of me now guessing what stretch goals I might get or not. I can understand why a company would do it that way, I just think it’s a bit messier than some other ways of handling it and feels like there is more of an upsell going on with this one.

The artwork, though, is outstanding on the game, and definitely provides that classical fairies and magic feel to the game that it really feels like they are going for.

The Game

So the game itself has a lot going for me, I like that this is a narrative driven game where you have branching choices of what you can do and depending on what you find and what skills you’ve used before, your options might be limited because of that. I really like the fae setting, that is something that I’ve always really enjoyed in books and movies and games even other games. Stuff like The Dresden Files leans into it heavily or anime The Ancient Magus Bride, I’ve even picked up a fae book for D&D monsters.

Beyond the theme, I like the push yourself element to the game where you have skills or abilities basically that are cards you can play out of your hands. As I talked about above, you spend those, you don’t have them potentially for a narrative challenge you need to deal with and you’re going to be dealing with that in a different way than you’d have preferred. Not only that but they don’t refresh automatically, you need to find a place to rest, basically, and then you’ll refresh your cards back to your hand. This almost has a bit of a 7th Continent vibe in how you are pushing forward but trying to balance card use with the risk, and the exploration element also lends itself to that vibe as well.

There are a couple more things game play wise that are interesting and maybe slightly concerning. The first is that this is not a campaign game, normally I get really excited about campaign games, or this sort of theme would be a campaign game, but I love that this is a game that takes about an hour to an hour and a half to play, and you still get some narrative with the encounters you have and what you find. But with that, I’m slightly worried about long term replayability. I’m worried that if I see 60-70% of the tiles each game, even with me potentially not having all options open for that I do, that the narrative will run out or I’ll start to know, giant green mushroom, don’t eat it, little blue mushroom, eat it, yellow mushroom, eat it if you play this card but not this card and it either won’t be as interesting or it’ll become something where I try and optimize the game, and this doesn’t feel like that sort of game.

Back or Brick

This one was a pretty easy Back for me, the theme and the exploration really make the game interesting to me. I love fae stuff, I think that’s an element of fantasy that is not delved into nearly as much as it should be. The only thing I don’t like, right now, is the upselling that is going on with this, you get more if you get the minis. I get that they have a super deluxe version that comes with extra games, but I want the game play for this without the minis, though I get it, it the minis look amazing. It makes me wonder if this is something worth backing on here, or how much I’ll actually save versus buying this later retail. With that said, and with my concerns about replayability, everything else sings to me about this game from the artwork and theme, to the game play itself, so I’m backing this now that the retail level with maybe getting pressured into the minis level.

Is this a back or a brick for you?

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Greenbriar Games

So first I ordered from Greenbriar games, during Gencon use the code GENCANT to get 50% off your order. The game I ordered from there was Champions of Hara, this game is a competitive and cooperative game with two different parts. The first part each player race to protect the lands of Hara from monsters and rifts that are opening and completing goals in order to get a wish of their fulfilled. This can be done with combat of both monsters and the other players. The second part is that the winner gets their wish and then they have to, along with the other players deal with the fallout of that wish. This game just seems like a lot of fun as you level up skills and get new cards to play giving your already unique character even more unique things to do. I like that it has the two modes as well.

Checkout a playthrough from GloryHoundd that sold me on this game:

Cool Stuff Inc

So Cool Stuff Inc normally has a big booth selling random games as well at Gencon even though they aren’t a game development company. As a sale they have a code GENCON5 to get 5% off your order. Since I’ve bought a fair amount from them, I also got an additional 3% off my order.

The first game I am getting is Sonora a flick and write game from Pandasaurus. In this game you are doing two main things, you are flicking disks around a board to try and land in specific areas. These areas then translate into what you are filling in on your board. What seems fun about this game is that you can strategize some with your flicking or knock people out of a spot where you’d want, but then when filling in things on your board, you have a ton of different options which can then lead to getting more things filled in on your scoring sheet. There are four different areas there and four areas on the board, and each scores well, and you can really focus in on a single area if you want or maybe two, and score well in those, but if you try and do everything you might spread yourself too thin.

I’m also getting Dig Deeper and LA Crime expansion for Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game. I have really enjoyed my playthroughs of that game, and we’re going to be getting back to it shortly, so I just want to get some more games in of it, and I think more cases are going to be great for it. I like that these are smaller box expansions as well, so I don’t need to get everything for it again, I can just get more content without it feeling like a whole new game. I’ll let you find more of why I love that game here.

Finally, I got Camel Up. This is a camel racing game, but one that is light and silly. On your turn you can guess who will be the lead camel at the end of a round, you can put a booster or something to back-up a camel on a track, you can bid on who is going to win or lose overall, or, you can roll the dice. When you roll the dice, you shake a pyramid that has all the camel color of dice, plus a die for the two crazy camels, and whatever die falls out falls out. So there’s a lot of randomness with that, but what makes it even sillier is that the camels can stack on top of each other. So if the blue camel ends up on top of the red camel, and then the red camels die is rolled it moves with both itself and the blue camel on top of it, and whatever camel is on top is the leader. It’s a silly game, but it can play a large number of players, so I think it’ll work well for game nights coming up.

Which of these games seems the most interesting to you? Do you have any of them in your collection?

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

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