The Crux of the Problem

So, I say problem, we can determine if it’s actually a problem or not. But let’s talk about the big reason why I’m talking about this in the first place. For a lot of people, myself included, board games are a social activity. When you add in a solo mode it takes a game that is that social activity and makes into an activity of solitude.

Some board games, as I hinted at in the introduction, rely on that interaction and shared nature of board games. When I attack another army, it isn’t the games army, it is your army. We make alliances and then break them depending on the state of the game. Yes, all of these examples are from Risk, but it’s true for a number of games.

Yet, even games where there can be large amounts of interaction are getting solo additions to them. Sometimes it comes later, but sometimes it’s out of the box when you buy it. Let’s look at Root for example, that game is a war game. Yet there is a way to play it solo. Is that a good thing to have in the box?

Board Games Doing Solo Well

On the flip side of the problem I laid out is that a lot of board games do allow for playing solo well. When I sit down and play a game like The 7th Citadel or Stonespine Architects, they make solo game play simple. I intentionally did pick one that is a cooperative game but also one that’s competitive. They make solo work smoothly and easily.

Some board games, though, do end up with clunky systems or systems that don’t make that much sense. I think of Roll to the Top which isn’t that complex a system but is basically playing the game a second time to get it to work. That isn’t that fun, the gratification of playing the game is reduced because the solo mode doesn’t work well. The same can be said for Trek 12. And now Trek 12 is a game that I like a lot, but the solo mode out of the box with an opponent to beat is clunky and slows down the fun.

So Why Offer Solo Modes?

The first reason is that for some people board games are more of a solo activity. It is hard for them to get out and play with other people. And while it’s fun to have a big campaign game, or a small solo game to fit in your pocket, sometimes they want to experience other styles of games. So offering a solo mode opens up games to a lot more people.

It also offers gamers a chance to game more. For me this is a big one. I try and sit down at least once a week on Wednesday and stream a solo game. I will get back to doing Mondays more often once school has started for my kid as well. But I get to experience games, a lot of the time campaign games, and decide if they are for me. Though, I’ll caveat this for myself, I stream games because it gives me some of that social aspect of gaming to share the game with others.

Another, possibly overlooked, reason is that it allows for a gamer to learn and play a game prior to needing to teach it. I think this one is very important, though does have a caveat as well. If I sit down and learn the game it is way easier to teach. I deal with questions prior to ever teaching someone. I learn some of the pitfalls of the game. The caveat is that the solo mode needs to be similar enough to the actual game play.

So Keep Solo Modes for Board Games

I think, and I think you all knew, that board games should keep solo modes. I also think that more board games should have solo modes. But as always, the caveat, they need to be done well. And from what I see, not all designers know how to create a good solo mode. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s more a statement around game design how designing for solo is different than for multiplayer.

That said, that’s not an excuse. This reminds me of film when a writer comes in and does that final polish on a film. They aren’t rewriting the whole thing, instead they have a particular skill where they can polish up a script to make it work the best it can for film or television. It’s something that the original creator might not have or might have a hard time doing. A solo mode creator is very similar to that. The great ones channel an ability to create that, not to rework the whole game, but to take what is there and make the best possible solo mode.

So enjoy solo modes. If you don’t want to play solo, don’t play solo. But there is a great reason for them to be in the box if you don’t love solo modes. And for board game companies, keep on putting them there. Even if they rarely get played, but make them good. Don’t add them just to sell to a few more people, add them because they make it easier to learn and teach the game later. And because they stay true to your game.

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Beat the 8 Ball

Beat the 8 Ball is a game of timing. In it you have an eight ball that is spinning down a funnel. Your goal is to beat that eight ball and get points. So when it starts spinning you just release your ball and beat it, not that hard. Well, it’s trickier because you need to release it after someone else does, or everyone else and beat the eight ball. If you don’t beat the eight ball you lose points. If you’re the first person to beat it, you get no points.

The gimmick of the game, this big setup of a contraption for releasing the players balls and the funnel for the eight ball is cool. And I like the scoring of the game because it does make there be pressure. There is a skill element or a recognition element to the game. The more you play, the more you’ll know when the eight ball is going to drop. The downside is that this game could go on for a long time. It didn’t take too long for us, but if people are riding that line too closely no one will hit 10 or -10 to end the game. Or at least it’ll take a while.

Diced Veggies

You’re using dice as veggies to complete recipes and score you points in Diced Veggies by Kids Table Board Games (KTBG). To get your veggies you are using a cleaver to cut them off of a block of veggies (dice) in the middle. That’s the gimmick of the game. With the added twist on how you can cut the veggies, mainly that you can’t have more than 10 pips worth on the dice you cut.

Other than that, it’s a pretty straight forward collection game to fulfill orders or recipes in this case. And the recipes are easier or harder and give you a varying number of points. Plus you can play “hype” cards which augment a recipe. So I might have to discard another die to get a bonus four points. Or if all the dice I use on a recipe are the same value it’ll give me more points per die on the card.

My one concern about this game is the longevity of it. That’s probably true for Beat the 8 Ball as well. The game is simple and I’m not sure that the strategy will massively change over time for Diced Veggies. The upside is, it’s really easy to teach, learn, and play.

Fun Facts

Finally a cooperative party game from Repos Productions. I’ve talked about them before because they made Just One and So Clover, to great cooperative party games. While those are more game, more strategy to them, Fun Facts is more like a fun ice breaker than a game. In Fun Facts you put down a number answer to a question, like how seductive are you 0 to 100. And each person on their turn is trying to add it to a row of everyone’s answers so it’s in the right order.

Then you score points for the lowest to highest and all of them in the right order between. And you play that out over eight rounds. The gimmick is the dry erase boards, which nice raised edges so it won’t slide and erase. It’s also that trying to know your fellow players and how they’d rate themselves.

It’s a fun game because the players control the fun. And it’s about the “You’d spend that much to go to a park with actual dinosaurs?”. Or “After that weird look you gave me I assumed I was more seductive than you.” Jokes around the table but also getting to know people. And I think it’ll work longer because a lot of is it controlled by the group of players versus the game.

Final Thoughts on the Board Games with a Gimmick

Sometimes a game has a great gimmick. And sometimes the gimmick is the game. For all of these board games, I do think that there is thought put into the game aspect of what is going on. And that makes it fun. Fun Facts has the least game, but it’s a fun party game. And it has as much game as most party games. The other two give you simple board games to play. And I think that might be a downside, they might be too simple in the long run. But I can say, after playing each game, I’ve had fun with each one.

Which of the board games sounds most fun to you?

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The Games

Like I was saying, these are two small solo games. Each of them plays fast, but they do hit different desires for me when it comes to solo gaming. What makes the two of them different, I talk about that some in the video but I’ll recap here.

Onirim

Onirim is a card game that has you creating a line of cards trying to get three of a color in a row to get dream doors while dealing with nightmares. That is the basics of it then with more rules thrown in as to how you deal with nightmares and and a few cards having special powers.

Onirim is a a solo game that you need to focus on more. The card play isn’t very complex, but when those nightmares come up, you have interesting choices that you need to make. And that can really determine how well the game goes for you. I use Onirim more when I want to have a game I can focus on more. If I need something to do while watching a baseball or football game besides look at my phone, Onirim gives me more to focus in on.

A Gentle Rain

A Gentle Rain is a tile laying game where you are just flipping a tile and putting it into play. The main decision space in the game is where do you put a tile. You are trying to get a spot where all four corners line up so you can put a token in. But of course, you are matching the sides with the different flowers on them, so you need to draw the right tile.

A Gentle Rain doesn’t feel as rushed as Onirim. When I play A Gentle Rain, it is more about the experience of playing the game, flipping around the tiles and seeing what you can find. It is meant to be peaceful as you play it and that comes across. So while Onirim can help me focus, A Gentle Rain can more help you unwind. Both of them are good for clearing your head but in different ways.

So is there a better one? I don’t know that either of them is better than the other. They meet different criteria for what I want to do. A Gentle Rain works better for more people, probably, because the game is simpler. However, it takes up more space. So Onirim is better for focusing and smaller areas. Both travel very well, as well.

The Beer

So no super new beer this week. Just drank more Fantasy Factory. It is a solid IPA that has grown on me the more I’ve drank it. It is a topic I’ve talked about with board games recently and changing taste, The same hold true for alcohol. For some people, they will never like it, and that is fine. Some people won’t want to try any, also fine.

But for some people, that is going to be something that changes over time. IPA’s are a great example of not judging a whole type of beer by one drink. Some IPA’s are extremely better, some of them have a piney taste, others tropical fruits, other citrus, it just depends on the hops. And judging all IPA’s by the extremely bitter is doing a disservice to that type of beer. Or it might be that you won’t like any, but it is worth trying.

Upcoming Streams

Next Monday, I won’t be streaming. But the following Monday my plan is to stream my Top 10 Games I Want to Play. This will be from my collection of games and the goal will be to get all of these games played ideally this summer. It might end up being this year, but we’ll have to see.

I will have a Wednesday stream, looking around at my collection, I think my plan is to play Aeon’s End. It’s a bit of a bigger game, but I want to start playing through all the content that I have for that game. And like Xenoshyft which I played recently, it is one that I talked about on Monday in my Top 10 Cooperative Games. So I really want to play it again after talking about it.

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With that said, I have a bunch of cooperative games sitting on my shelf and coming via Kickstarter. In fact, I probably have enough on my shelves to make a Top 10 games that way, but I am going to include what I have in Kickstarter and coming that way as well as what is on my shelf.

Let’s get to the list:

10 – Etherfields

This is one that I’m glad I backed from Awaken Realms, but while they normally get me with their theme, like Lords of Hellas and Tainted Grail, Etherfields theme of going through dreams was just interesting, it didn’t blow me away. The game play, however, seemed cool, and now I know that Awaken Realms does amazing story. I think what drew me to the game, the game play and deck building still is strong there, and I’m still excited for when I’ll get my copy in.

9 – HEL: The Last Saga

This is the game that really put Mythic Games on the map for me. I’d looked at Reichbusters and Super Fantasy Brawl when they were on Kickstarter but I hadn’t backed them. Same with Joan of Arc. But HEL: The Last Saga, that just looked too cool for me to pass up. This one takes you through a campaign of Viking explorers trying to find out what had happened to the rest of the clan that had gone on ahead. Definitely seems to have a dark element to it that can lean into horror, which I love.

8 – Uprising: The Curse of the Last Empire

This is one that was on Kickstarter but I didn’t end up backing on Kickstarter. Instead, I backed it with a late pledge because the game just kept coming back to me as I one that I wanted to play. Uprising is a 4x game and those are rarely cooperative. And the players are trying to stop two AI controlled enemies. But for the players to get the win, each of the player factions needs to finish ahead of both of the AI factions. So everyone is playing their own faction, and everyone needs to beat the enemy. That idea is just so unique.

7 – The Reckoners

Well, we are onto one that I have in hand now. And I’ve had this one in hand for a little bit, I just need to get it to the table. This one game takes place in one of my favorite book series, The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson. Basically the Reckoners are a team who tries to take out super powered people. Because all the super powered characters turn bad. But, of course, these are normal people trying to take on powered people, so that isn’t going to be that easy. This game uses dice and just seems really challenging and fun.

6 – Folklore: The Affliction

Another one that I own and this one I’ve had on my shelf for a while. It’s one that I’ve wanted to try streaming but just haven’t gotten to yet. Folklore: The Affliction has you fighting monsters and basically playing an RPG like game. You even use more RPG like dice than a lot of games do. The story just seems fun though, it doesn’t try and go too weird with anything, you are just dealing with werewolves, vampires, and ghosts, more of the normal things the best that you can.

5 – Middara: Unintentional Mallum Act 1

I recently did an unboxing of this game over on Malts and Meeples which you can find here. This is another massive dungeon crawl sort of game. It is even generally a fantasy style game. But the game leans heavily into anime artwork and feel of the game. This is a massive game, I think everything that I have probably is about the same size or slightly more than Gloomhaven, so you know the game is big. The theme and style is just different enough than most that I’m really interested in it.

4 – Solomon Kane

This is another kind of campaign game. I say kind of, because it has a lot of mini campaigns in it. Solomon Kane was originally a collection of short stories by Robert E. Howard who was also known for writing the Conan: The Barbarian stories. Solomon Kane was a bad guy who became a good guy who now fights the forces of evil in the world, of the super natural variety.

That theme is just cool, but how do you now end up with the player who is Solomon Kane being more powerful than anyone else in a cooperative setting? You do that by not playing as Solomon Kane. Instead you play as different virtues who are leading Solomon Kane through the stories, keeping him away from darkness. Really cool and unique idea for a game.

3 – Frosthaven

Now, a lot of people probably thought that this would be number one, and really, all my my top 5 are ones that I really am excited to play. Frosthaven is just a little bit lower because I have played all of Gloomhaven. Do I want more of that game system, absolutely. Does the town building sound cool, most definitely. But, I have already played Gloomhaven, so I want to try a few more of these campaign games before Frosthaven comes in. It’s one of those things where I’m already super confident I will love the game, because I know the core of it, so I’m less excited than some other ones.

2 – Roll Player Adventures

Such as Roll Player Adventures, I am really excited for this one to come in this summer. Roll Player Adventures builds upon some of the systems in Roll Player and turns it into an RPG. You are going through stories and adventures using interesting dice placement and other rules to defeat monsters, and play through stories making interesting choices. I have demoed this one, it was at GenCon in 2019, so I’m excited to finally get this game into my hands.

1 – ISS Vanguard

Finally at #1, we have ISS Vanguard. An Awaken Realms game, this looks like it’s my type of space game. It is going to be a bit messy, like Awaken Realms games are, but a ton of fun. What is really interesting is that the game is in two parts. There is a phase where you improve and do upgrades on your ship, research new things and keep crew members happy and healthy. Then you also go down to planets to explore them and find out their secrets and the secrets of this call that drew you out to these planets.

Honorable Mentions

I could do a number of honorable mentions. I have The 7th Continent on my shelf that I need to play and Mage Knight. There is Robinson Crusoe. On Kickstarter I have The 7th Citadel that I’m looking forward to getting. Also on Kickstarter I have Zombicide: Undead or Alive and Primal: The Awakening all backed as well. Even other games on my shelf like Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops and a little one like The Fox in the Forest Duet are ones that they want to try. And just missing the list is Deep Madness as well. Really,

I have so many of these games that I want to try I could have done a Top 10 I’m waiting on and a Top 10 that I have. Maybe coming up here, I’ll look at what I have on my shelf, cooperative and competitive and do a Top 10 of ones I want to try and then try and get through them this summer.

What cooperative game are looking forward to getting to the table?

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Cooperative Games

Now, I’m not going to put together a list of all the games and talk about them again. Well, I won’t talk about them again, I’ll have a list at the bottom if anyone wants to find it that way. But I want to talk a little bit about why I like cooperative games.

It is something I touch on just briefly in the video. Cooperative games are a good way to bring more complex games into people’s lives. When I play a cooperative game, I am on the same team as you. That means that I want to help us win. Now I can take it too far and basically play your turns for you. But in the best cooperative game plays, everyone at the table is discussing ideas, working together, and as a new player, you don’t need to worry about getting beat up in the game.

There are a lot of competitive games where the player who knows the game is most likely to win the game. But with a cooperative game you are purely playing against the game. This, again, makes it something that is more palatable to new players, but also when playing with too competitive players. I don’t love playing with someone who must win and must win by as much as possible. While I always try and win, the point of gaming for me is to spend time with people and do something that I love, which cooperative games give me more of that.

But enough about cooperative games. Let’s move onto what I had to drink and then the list.

The Drink

Last nights drink wasn’t a beer. It was in fact a whiskey since yesterday was National Bourbon day. The one that I had was pretty smooth and while wasn’t as flavorful as some bourbons that I’ve had, it was a nice sipping drink. Did you know that bourbon is a whiskey that can only be made in the US? Also, for a whiskey to be consider a bourbon it must also be 51% corn. That corn is what gives it a sweeter taste compared to other whiskeys.

Top 10 Cooperative Games

1. Gloomhaven
2. Mansions of Madness
3. Marvel Champions
4. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon
5. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game
6. Aeon’s End: War Eternal
7. Xenoshyft: Onslaught
8. T.I.M.E. Stories
9. Letter Jam
10. Pandemic (and Legacy)

What’s Coming Up Next?

Well, I am streaming again on Wednesday. And I might get back to Arkham Horror: The Card Game, or we might be back to a roll and write and that schedule just through Disney+ having Loki on Wednesdays. There are other smaller games as well that I can see about getting to the table, or playing less of a bigger scenario. As for another Monday stream, that’ll happen on June 28th, at least that’s my plan. I plan on covering a topic as well as maybe some quick reviews.

If you are enjoying the content and what to know when I go live. You can subscribe and click that notification bell. I also post ahead of time on Twitter and the Nerdologists Facebook page to give you a heads up.

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Dead of Winter

So the first one isn’t actually even a cooperative game, but I wanted to put it on here, because in terms of semi-cooperative games, it is one of the best ones out there. In this game you are trying to survive the zombie apocalypse. But, there might be a traitor in your midst. You have to try and figure out how the traitor might be, as well as complete the overall objective, plus feed your survivors, deal with zombies, build up defenses, and deal with daily issues that pop up. It’s a really fun game, fairly long, but one that has a ton of theme about zombie survival. It also has this amazing thing known as Crossroad Cards. These are cards that offer story and tough decisions that can happen when certain actions are taken or when certain locations are gone to. It helps keep the game very immersive and interesting. This won’t be for all players who want to work together, but if you want to sow that seed of doubt, Dead of Winter is a great option.

Mansions of Madness

Maybe they are fans of horror, Mansions of Madness takes a horror element from HP Lovecraft’s work and gets turned into an investigation and survival game as the players take on the roll of paranormal investigators in Arkham Massachusetts during the 1920’s. You’ve been called in to deal with a strange situation at a Mansion, or maybe into the sea side town of Innsmouth to investigate the creatures coming out of the water. This game is app assisted as it helps you with fighting the bad guys and monsters, figuring out the secret plans of the cultists and trying to stop them, and solving puzzles along the way. The app does a good job of helping with some of the book keeping in the game and keeping the scenarios different when you play them, because the game can change it up based off of what you have, so the mansion might not look quite the same between scenarios. This is a really fun game with a ton of story in it. However, if the Lovecraftian theme doesn’t work for you, Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth is kind of the next iteration of Mansions of Madness in using an app, just a fantasy setting we all know well.

Say Bye to the Villains

Maybe you want a small game, Say Bye to the Villains is a very challenging game where you are Samurai who know of some villains that you’ll be facing off against. You have 10 days to research them, prepare your skills, and do anything else you need to, to get ready. The days are basically point values on your cards. The higher the point value, the more time it might be. I have probably played this game 15 to 20 times and I have yet to win. This is an extremely hard game, because like most cooperative games, there are a lot of things you need to do and not enough time to do them. Each villain has face down cards modifying their attacks, and you won’t have time to figure out all of those and get yourself ready to fight them. The game is almost a tiny bit too tight that way, but if someone is up for a challenge, it’s a really good game.

Gloomhaven

One type of game I haven’t put on the list is campaign games. Gloomhaven isn’t the original campaign game, but it’s probably the most popular. Currently it is the highest ranked game on Board Game Geek, now that is hobby gamers, so don’t let that fool you into thinking that this game is going ot be something that you can pick up easily. In fact, for most people, I’d recommend start with Jaws of the Lions. Jaws of the Lion is Gloomhaven, just in a smaller box. But if you want an epic dungeon crawl game with story, adventuring, leveling up and unlocking new characters, this game is amazing. I just finished it up a week ago, and it was a great time and probably over 250 hours into the base game and the expansion and we didn’t even do all of the side quests. There’s a lot to learn, but it’s definitely worth it, and a game that will give you so much value compared to a lot of other games just with how much you can play it, and once you’re into it, how much you want to play it.

Pandemic

Finally, the game that is fitting for this year, but also is for that person who is interesting in board games if they are cooperative, but hasn’t played a ton of board games. Pandemic is a modern classic when it comes to board games. It’s a game where you are fighting back and trying to find cures for four diseases around the board. Like I was talking about with Say Bye to the Villains, this game has you feeling like there’s always a little bit more that you want to do. You want to be able to get over to one area to treat diseases while also getting to another area to hand off a card to another player to help find one of the cures, plus use a card to build another research base to make things easier to get around. The game starts off as challenging, but the more you play the easier it’ll get. If the person is already familiar with this game and you want to take the next step, I highly recommend Pandemic Legacy Season 1, 2, and most recently 0. Those will give you the same feel, but have a story that evolves.

There are so many cooperative games out there, for really challenging ones like Robinson Crusoe, comic based ones like Marvel Champions and Marvel United, pirates in Dead Men Tell No Tales and Forgotten Waters, so I lot to choose from. I mentioned dungeon crawl games with Gloomhaven, and there are a ton of fully cooperative ones out there. If you want it as a theme for a cooperative game, you can probably find it. But these are some that I really enjoy, shouldn’t be too hard to find, minus maybe Say Bye to the Villains, and offer a lot of fun and interesting challenge.

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But before that, let’s talk a little bit about why you build up a collection of board games. For me, clearly I love board games and having a variety of board games brings me joy. I like being able to pull out so many really different games and play them, but also to just look at them on my shelf, mess around with the pieces and learning the rules. It also gives me joy because I get to introduce other people to the board game hobby as well because I have so many games. I can pull out a game for any occasion, whether it was the board game club that I started just before Covid-19 hit so it’s been on hiatus, or if it’s playing with family, or introducing someone to gaming. Now, that’s why I have a diverse collection of games, but that also is something that won’t work for some people, some people simply do not want to play complex games or they don’t want to play party games, and therefore you might not have as much in your collection. So when building up your collection target games that you’ll love and games that you’ll enjoy that work for your group. If you only play with casual gamers, you’ll probably want to focus your collection more on games that’ll fit their play style. If everyone hates party games, no need to have one in your collection.

Let’s talk about the three different types of games that I think make a strong collection.

1 – Games You Love

This part is pretty obvious. Your collection should have a lot, probably the majority, of games that you like to play. This is whatever type of game you love, maybe you love heavy war games, or euro games, or ameritrash games, campaign games, dungeons crawls, sci-fi, deduction, trick taking, whatever it might be, most of the games in your collection should be games that you love. Most likely, if you love these games, you’re going to have a few people to play them with, as part of your gaming group. These are the games that I’m using, thus far, in the board game club, so not my campaign games that I love, though I do have a group for that, but stuff like Blood Rage, Lords of Hellas, Dead of Winter, Clank! In! Space!, bigger and a bit meatier games that we can sit down and just spend an evening playing those games. These won’t be the games that you play the most, most likely, but that’s fine, these are the games that you always want to play.

2 – Gateway Games

This is a pretty small part of your collection, these are games that you use to introduce people to hobby gaming. Best known are the Ticket to Rides, Dominion, Carcassone, Small World, and Catan. But find what works for you and the ones that you enjoy. Having a few of these slightly more complicated games than your typical mass market games will allow you to get more people into hobby gaming. You wouldn’t want to start someone off with Blood Rage if they don’t understand area control and card drafting strategies, but Small World and Sushi Go Party! and now they have a basis for potentially playing Blood Rage. Make sure that you do enjoy the ones that you have, you might be sitting for a while in this part of your collection with some gamers as they get to explore and discover new games and strategies as compared to the mass market games, and consider outside the normal games. Something like King of Tokyo is great that isn’t mentioned as often as the big five I mentioned above, but works well and is familiar in some ways to Yahtzee, or something like Century: Golem Edition is easy to teach and play and newer.

3 – Big Group Games

Now, with board game nights, there’s kind of a tipping point of around eight people to ten people where you can start to split into multiple groups. But even then, sometimes you want to play in a big group. I also like these bigger group games for kicking off or winding down a board game night as people start to leave and you go from a couple of groups into a single group. This category of games has stuff like Criss Cross, Welcome To…, Just One, Scattergories, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, Sushi Go Party!, and more that can handle a pretty good size number, and they don’t take that long. They are almost filler games, but for a bigger group, and I could have probably put a fourth category of filler games, but I also like just using the higher player count games with lower player counts if I need a filler. These games are meant to get played quickly to start off a game night, played by people who don’t want to play a heavier game, or just played for the whole game night if that’s what everyone is feeling or you don’t have enough people to split into two groups easily.

Now, obviously, your group and your tastes will get different mileage out of the different types of games. You might just have it planned out that you don’t need filler games. When one game is full, the next person there just starts setting up the next game until more people show up. But that’s going to be up to you. If you know you need a more well rounded collection, those are the three categories that I would look at filling out your collection with. All this keeping in mind that your collection is to bring you joy, so with Gateway Games and Big Group Games, you can fill in a few that you like or can tolerate if you need them. If you hate all gateway games, don’t have any in your collection, that is okay, same with group/filler types of games, but think about the group that you play with, and make your decisions based off of that.

Do you have a mix of games in your collection? Is it only games that you like, do you find that you need group games or gateway games?

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

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AP (Analysis Paralysis) Player
So I’ve talked about AP players in the past and I’ll get them out of the way fairly quickly here, but these are the players, when it’s really bad, who will take 5-10 times longer on their turn than any other player. They overthink everything, sometimes trying to optimize points, sometimes just because they happen to see another possibility, so they need to think about that one a little bit, and they weren’t planning ahead of their turn. It’s fine to take of extra time on some key turns, but when you, yourself, call out that your turns are taking long, that needs to be a mental trigger to just do something, even if you don’t know if it’s ideal.

Game Recommendation – Sagrada
There are a few reasons why I think that this one would work well. First, there are no major decisions in it, yes, you have to decide what die to take and where to place it, but you have specific restrictions on it and the die pool is small enough. Everything leads you in a direction versus being able to pick what direction you want to go, and with that, you cut down on the AP.

Alpha Gamer
So, Alpha Gaming is mainly brought up in the context of cooperative games, but it can happen in any game. It’s when some player at the table thinks that they know better than everyone else, so they tell people what to do on their turn. This can come from two things, feeling like they know better in the game, or in cooperative games, desperately needing to win. The downside is that the Alpha Gamer is basically playing a solo game with other people moving pieces, and sometimes not even that, the Alpha Gamer will move another person’s pieces as well. If you notice yourself doing that, it hurts, but shut your mouth. Or, if that ends up being too hard, do what I do when running a game of D&D, if someone seems to be struggling with what they can or should do, give them two or three options, including the ideal option, just don’t tell them what’s the best option, but give them some help in in things to pick from.

Game Recommendation – The Lost Expedition
This game really tries to solve a personal issue, alpha gaming, in the game itself. The Mind is also another example of this. Anything that limits communication, I just think that The Lost Expedition is the best I’ve run across. You can’t discuss what cards you’re playing down when you’re hiking in both the morning and evening, so it’s the person who is laying down their cards decision. After that, the Alpha Gamer can have some fun as you discuss what’s the most ideal course of action, but the game is already giving you half of it that the Alpha Gamer can’t run.

Must Get It Right Gamer
So this one was harder to come up with a name for them, but they’re the gamer who needs to know the rules perfectly at the start of the game. If there’s something that comes up and is ambiguous in the middle of the game, they have to stop it and look up the rules. Now, sometimes it’s very important to get that rule right if it’s a major scoring rule or something like that, and I’m fine pausing a game to look that up, but when that person is flipping through the rule book between every turn and sometimes a couple of times on their turn, it’s dragging the game out considerably. If you find yourself doing that, keep track of what you’re wondering about and look it up either not on your turn or after the game. Don’t slow down the game by looking stuff up on your own turn, and if it gets to your turn and you don’t know the answer and that would affect what you do, do something else, and then continue looking it up.

Game Recommendation – Quoridor
Now, this is a placeholder for a number of games, and a lot of abstract games are going to work very well, because they can have simpler rulesets. But in Quoridor you either are moving a space left, right, up or down, or you’re placing a wall. That’s it, so it’s a fast game to teach and there aren’t rules to look up. Finding a game with good and simple rules that still offers a choice is going to be the best bet.

Between Turn Scroller
This is the person who gets distracted by something, anything, between turns. They have trouble sitting there and waiting for their turn, so they pull out a phone and start scrolling through Facebook, and then all of a sudden, it’s their turn, they don’t know what they want to do, because they were scrolling through Facebook or something like that. It can also be the person who gets up and walks away from the table to do something between turns, or starts a conversation with someone the second their turn is done. This one is harder to suggest things for because attention spans are short and sometimes between turns is quite long. My recommendation for someone who notices that they’re doing this is take up knitting or something else that keeps your fingers moving and brain somewhat engaged but isn’t as fully distracting. Once it’s more muscle memory as you know what you’re doing and you’ve done it a lot, you’ll be able to pay more attention between turns but still be doing something so it doesn’t feel like dead time.

Game Recommendation – Welcome To…
Now, there are a number of games that can fit here, and really any real time game could or simultaneous turns. In Welcome To, there’s just no downtime, same with Second Chance or Criss Cross, so if you know you have someone who can start scrolling at the table, just don’t give them enough time to do that by keeping them always invovled.

This Games The Best/Worst
This is the person who after having played the game for 10 minutes will declare the game the greatest game of all time or the worst game of all time. Now, sometimes this isn’t horrible because if the game is the best of all time the person is probably going to be happy and in a good mood, though that might also just mean that person is winning handily, which is why it’s the best, so it can come off as bragging. The this game is the worst side of things is tougher because if they make that proclamation 10 minutes into a two hour game, they’re going to spend a lot of the rest of the time complaining and that’ll kill other people’s fun. And it might turn out that what was thought in the first 10 minutes isn’t accurate to how good or bad the game really is. So if you’re one of these gamers, how do you combat it? First, try and free yourself from all preconceived notions. That’s way easier said than done, but often times when a game is the best ever it lived up to hype or if it’s worst ever, it didn’t live up to hype. So I guess another thing to say would be to avoid the hype market, now that means you probably can’t checkout Board Game Geek or something as much as you’d like, but it’ll keep the bias for or against a game lower. And the biggest thing is just bite your tongue at times. Now, if you don’t like a game after 10 minutes, you can make a comment, same if you like a game, but try not to use best/worst language and keep it to a comment. That way you have a release for some of your opinion in the moment but that doesn’t become the focus of the game.

Game Recommendation – Draftosaurus
Why, the game is 15 minutes long, so that’s really a placeholder again for this type of player. They might hate Draftosaurus, but it’s only 15 minutes long, so they aren’t going to be able to complain through a long game. And the game has enough going on in it that it should keep them somewhat entertained at a least and it looks good on the table. But basically, with this type of player, try and avoid the 90 minute long games.

The Sore Loser/Bad Winner
This can tie into the this is the best/worst game ever person, but this is going to be the person who can’t believe that they lost, that their strategy was clearly worse than everyone else, that the dice hate them, etc. When you’re done playing a game with them, you kind of wish you’d let them win because you’re done with their complaining. This can stem from several things, but probably the most obvious is going to be taking the game too seriously. And on the winning side, there are couple of types of bad winner, there’s the person who gloats, which is just annoying but can be dealt with, and there’s the person who makes it seem like they lucked into the win. For fixing some of this issue, first, remember that it’s only a game, if you win or lose, it’s still only a game, the point of playing games is to have fun first and foremost. Secondly, and this is stealing from little league, hockey, etc, train yourself to tell people good game afterwards. You don’t need to line up and give each other high fives, but try and compliment people on what they’ve done, and this really can go for everyone at the table to do.

Game Recommendation – Pandemic
More placeholding for games, this one is simply anything cooperative. Pandemic is just a good gateway cooperative game to get to the table, but if you can win or lose as a group, that’s going to make the poor winner/sore loser feel better about the game because they are in the same boat as everyone else. It also gives them a chance to see people model a healthier style of winning and losing at the same time they’re going through the emotion of winning or losing.

Now, I’m sure there are more types of gamers out there that can cause issues at the gaming table. And I didn’t touch on things like hygiene or anything like that, more on the mental and emotional side of board gaming. Hopefully this will give you some ideas of how you can improve your gaming habits if you fall into one of these categories, or what you can bring to the table if you play with someone who falls into one of the gamer tropes.

Which gamer tropes have I missed? And what games would you recommend to some of the groups that I’ve mentioned above?

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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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In Say Bye to the Villains, you are a team of Samurai who are seeking to stop a number of villains equal to the number of players. Each villain has a number of face down cards that are going to influence their scores for speed, health, and attack. As players you are trying to build up your own skill sets in those three areas so that you can take on one of the villains and defeat them. Each player has to defeat a villain and every villain must be defeated to win the game. However, you have a limited amount of time, 10 days. And you have cards that you can play down that allow you to increase your stats, look at the villains face down cards and possible turn them face up, and figure out what Samurai should go up against what villain, because, when you run out of time, you have to pick your villain.

Now, this is a very tough game, because you are never completely sure what the villains skills are going to be, and while you might be able to figure out some of them, others are going to be unknown so you hope you set it up right. When you face off against a villain whomever is faster attacks first. If Samurai or villain who attacks first deals more damage than their opponent’s health, they win. If not, their opponent gets to hit back. But, if at the end of a fight both are still up, it’s a draw and the players lose the game because of that. So you have multiple strategies. You might want to be extremely fast and deal a lot of damage while not having much health because you’re goal is to get the kill before the villain can even go. Or maybe you want to have a lot of health and hit hard so that you can take the blow from the villain and then strike back. That doesn’t seem so bad, however, the villains can have cards that say you need to draw with them, because maybe they weren’t actually a villain. So, when you are looking at the cards that the villains have, you hope to find that one so that you know what is going on and don’t accidentally send someone who will kill that villain and cause you to lose the game.

I mentioned earlier that you have 10 days to complete your training and research on the villains. This is not enough time, basically in any game that I’ve played. We’ve had most of the villains scouted and planned, and we know who is going to face whom, but there is almost always a single villain remaining who we just don’t know about. And as we saw above, if they are going to need you to draw against them, you might have come in with too much power and your attack will kill them and then you lose the game. Or, maybe you do get a very good idea of what every villain has, now that means you might not have enough time left to be able to train your characters up enough so that you can actually get enough speed or damage out. But, thankfully, there are some cards that give you time back, unfortunately, villains can also spend your time, sometimes, by giving you false leads. In Say By to the Villains, it’s a constant struggle determining what you need to do for your time and figuring out what information is the most important for you to get or what training is the best to do.

I really enjoy those different things, but they make the game extremely tough. You always feel like you maybe made the wrong decision, but there’s probably no right decision. One decision that you get to make at the start of the game that will influence how you play, though, is what character you take. Each character has unique abilities and starting stats, so that can really determine what you are wanting to do. Some of the characters are helped by discarding cards face down, which can often let you help give cards to other players or to look at what skills villains might have. Whereas other characters are good at removing cards from villains or flipping over cards to see what they are. You can really tailor how you want to play the game by what villain you select, and some villains actually combo together fairly well. However, basically everything is costing you time, and the more powerful an ability, the more time it’s going to cost you, and you only have ten days.

Say Bye to the Villains is a game that I really like, however, I think it has a limited spot on the table. It’s a very difficult game, and because of that, it can be a bit much for some people. It’s also a very collaborative game, so unless you’re involved and paying attention to what is going on closely, you might not be in the collaboration as much as you should be. It also isn’t that fast a game for being a small card game. The play time for 45 minutes seems right because of all the collaboration that happens in the game. And I’m not sure with fewer players that is really makes it that much faster. It probably makes it a little bit faster, but there is a lot going on and to think about with any player count.

Overall, I think that this is a good game. I just don’t know that for a lot of people it’s going to be what they want in a small box card game and I think it can be overwhelming or discouraging if you don’t know going into it that you probably won’t win the game the first time or possibly even the first ten times. Often, I look at it as basically a win if we can take out all but one of the villains, that’s how difficult this game is. For me, that’s some of the draw of the game, however, I want to beat the game, and I want to try a slightly different strategy to see if that will make a difference the next time that I play.

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

Now, you might notice if you go to my collection, I rate this game way higher. My grades here are meant to be a balance focused as much on how I think others will perceive the game and how it will work to get back to the table with any group, versus something that is purely my thoughts on it. And because of the difficult cooperative nature and the length of the game, I graded it out lower here than what I think of it.