Top 10 Games to Demo at Gen Con

10. The Hobbit: There and Back Again

I love the Middle Earth setting, but this is the only Middle Earth set game that is making my Gen Con to demo list. There is also The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship. A “pandemic” style game in some ways. But I know more about that one. The Hobbit: There and Back Again, I don’t know much about it. I hope that it’s a fun and interesting game themed around The Hobbit. As board gamers, I think we have a lot of Lord of the Rings themed games that are good, but The Hobbit, not so much.

9. Crits & Tricks

Crits & Tricks is a fantasy themed trick taking game. I like trick taking so that is what drew me to this one right away. It sounds like each trick is a quest that you play out and that you win loot at the end of it. The theme founds fun and interesting. Or maybe each hand is a quest, so that is interesting and maybe as you progress through the quest, different hands, that is where the suit can change. Either way, I really like the sound of this trick taking game.

8. The Battle of the Divas

The Battle of the Divas is a game that jumped out at me because it is such a different theme for a game. I believe there is another game in this series from Salt & Pepper Games. But the idea is that it’s a two player back and forth game where you want to be the best opera diva. And it is based around actual historical opera singers, Callas and Tebaldi and their clash to be the best. So it is just exciting sounding as a very different game.

7. BattleForge: Berserker

Creative Games Studio LLC is the game company behind BattleForge. And I like the one game of theirs I’ve played. Though I need to play it more. And I am excitedly waiting for their next one Dante: Inferno to come. I think it might be shipping soon-ish. But BattleForge is a cooperative game again, which I love that they make cooperative games. But this one I don’t if it supposed to be a campaign. Either way, I want to know more about it as it comes out and Gen Con is going to be a great spot to demo it.

6. River Market

River Market seems kind of to be a third in the line of Creature Comforts and Maple Valley. Now, each of the games is different from KTBG, but there is a similar aesthetic. And the designer of River Market is Roberta Taylor who is the designer of Cafe Baras, a cafe capybara game. I think that game is light and fun, so I am excited to see what this game can be.

5. Tea Witches

Manny Vega and Sandara Tang are two people working on Tea Witches. If that seems familiar they also did the design and artwork, respectively, for Flamecraft. That’s the game about little dragons who help around town. So a new game with Sandara Tang’s artwork is always going to interest me. I don’t know much about the game play, but it’s tea, it’s witches, and the artwork gives me a vibe of Little Witch Academia, so I’m all in for it.

4. Camp Grizzly

Camp Grizzly is a game that is already out. And if you want to buy it now, it is going to cost you around $600 on ebay. What is this game? It’s a horror movie themed game, or horror themed game in the theme of classic horror movies set at camps. The artwork on it looks great, and I love horror films. So the idea of this theme is really interesting and exciting to me. And it is one that I did look, a year or ago or so, on ebay to see about getting it. But it is crazy expensive. So I think it is coming back to crowdfunding and when it does, I’m very interested.

3. Class of ’89

Paverson games is making a name for themselves. I have the game Luthier which is coming and that looks amazing. But their first game, Distilled, is really popular and is on my shelf to get played. Class of ’89, though, does seem like a little different game. This is a game about making a year book. And that itself sounds lighter as a theme. But it is also a theme that sounds like a ton of fun. So I want to know more about their next project. And I really hope that I like it because I really love the theme.

2. Viking Route

Viking Route I think was on my most anticipated games coming to crowdfunding or maybe coming this year. But now at Gen Con is the time to demo it. This is a ship sailing game but it uses a mechanism for navigating your ship that I think sounds great. What is that mechanism? Magnets. You play magnets around the board to move the ship and affect the way the compass is pointing. That mechanism is in another game that I own and I need to get played.

1. Mystic Curling Club

So after so many amazing sounding games, how is it that Mystic Curling Club is the top of the list? One word, curling. I love watching curling as a sport. And I want at some point in time in my life to do some casual curling. And yes, where I live doing some casual curling is a possibility because the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro has multiple locations with curling. But this is going to be a dice flicking game witch magical powers in it as well. This sounds silly and fun and I love the theme so it is easily my #1 game to demo at Gen Con.

Final Thoughts

As always, I wish I was going to Gen Con. I think that all of these games sound wonderful to play. And there are a ton of different and unique things among them. So someone want to check them out for me and let me know their thoughts?

But out of all of these, the one that I want to try the most is Mystic Curling Club. But as I say that, I think I am apt to just buy that one for the theme no matter what. So I think that The Battle of the Divas is the one that I want to see and try the most because I am less likely just to buy that one sight unseen. Even then, if I can find it or it’s predecessor cheap, I think I may pick it up. I play games at two players fairly often, so a two player only game is pretty easy to get to the table.

What is your most anticipated game to demo at Gen Con?

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Thoughts on the Gen Con Demos

Let’s face it, there are always going to be a ton of games to demo. Whether it’s new ones to demo at Gen Con for the first time or ones that maybe were the busiest the year before. I want to demo a ton of games. Thankfully that’s generally what I go to Gen Con for. I think last year I demoed around 40 different games. So if I only demoed new games, I’d still only make it through a third of them.

That is the wonderful thing about going to Gen Con or a convention like this. There is always a game for everyone to demo. It won’t matter if you like heavy euro games or you want to find the latest party games. All of those options are going to be out there and all are going to have new games announced for demo. That is an experience that I really appreciate about Gen Con, and one that can feel a bit overwhelming.

The reason I put out a video like this one is because I like to get my thoughts onto a game. But also because a list like this can be overwhelming. Even if you know what you’re getting into with Gen Con knowing the size, the BGG list is long. So I take the chance to chat about it, give my uninformed opinion, and maybe, if your tastes align with mine, you can find some games that might interest you.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I play small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well. And I might do more deck construction with Star Wars Unlimited on Mondays as well or pack openings. Right now it’ll be more Slay the Spire.

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. I plan on playing a campaign game coming up. Right now I’m torn between two games. Well, more than that if you watched through the end of the video. And that is more of The 7th Citadel. I plan to keep playing through The Drums of Desolation for a while so join me for that.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Top 10 Games to Demo at Gen Con

Let’s start out by cheating with two honorable mentions.

Honorable Mention:

Kinfire Delve – Kinfire is a game that I might pick up, it’s a big campaign game. Delve looks like a smaller game set in the same universe. But if it builds on that world in a fun away, even without being a campaign game, it is one that’s on my radar. And it’s still cooperative, so it might be more of a bite sized game.

The A.R.T. Project – Another cooperative game and another one that looks beautiful. I obviously like cooperative games, and I’m hoping that this one won’t be too complex. The idea of trying to figure out certain scenarios to stop an art thief, but again not be a campaign game, that sounds like a lot of fun. And with the look of the game, not a company I’m always drawn towards, but this game is.

Onto the main list.

10. Super Squad High

Let’s start out with the most important thing. There is a narrative dating mechanism. This is a high school for super heroes, of course there is going to be that. Plus it’s cooperative and it’s super heroes, and honestly, I don’t know what’s in this game not to love. Maybe the fact that secretly one of your classmates if the villains. But it doesn’t sound like a hidden traitor game, it sounds like one of the people you interact with through the game will be. So I hope I don’t end up dating them.

9. Spellbook

Phil Walker-Harding puts out good balances of interesting games, but not too complex games. This is fun that they are advertising there are 2100 different spell combinations. That means that the game is going to be and feel unique. And those spells are going to be unique and changing as the game goes on. Plus the whole main concept, feeding your familiar with the “materia” from the spells, that is interesting. Finally, you decide when you spit out those spells. Get an affect now, or you hold onto your spell and launch it later with more power.

8. Reign of Hades

Exploration, fighting monsters, dealing with whatever adventure is thrown at you? The only question is, why is this one not higher on the list for me? Honestly, it probably should be. It’s of course cooperative and hand management. I hope that it’ll be one that stands out as  unique and not too big, but one that I’m curious about as it’s a style of game I love.

7. Charcuterie

Build the best charcuteries board, that sounds fun. I do love a good charcuterie board. The downside I will want to eat charcuterie while playing Charcuterie. From the game side of things, it uses one of my favorite mechanisms. That being I split you choose, so I might want olives, but how do I make it so I give you something good enough that you’ll take it and leave me my olives? But I don’t want it to be too good so I make it harder on myself later on.

6. Diced Veggies

While I prefer charcuterie, this game also looks interesting and it looks simple. Honestly, this is one I’d have over looked except that the YouTube channel Thinker Themer were in on it. And I like what it looks like, you are cutting dice off of a big block of dice. Always need to cut at the edge and no more than 10 pips worth. So can you setup some good cuts so you get great turns and don’t leave anything great. All the while using those dice to fulfill cards for points. Simple, but sounds like a fun time.

5. Defenders of the Dictionary

Cooperative word game, like I said, I like cooperative games. And this one sounds very interesting. You are working together against some force in the game that is trying to stop you. And you do that by building words and working with each other. They do a good job of making it sound really fun, and if it’s a strong word game then I’m very curious. It also talks about it being grid based, so I’m not sure if you’re building up words or not? I think that just sounds unique.

4. Weirdwood Manor

This game sounds really interesting because it’s a horror themed game. But not just a horror themed game, one with a haunted or weird house. And the house, from what I can tell, rotates, so how it’s setup at the start of the game might not be how it ends. Maybe should be lower on the list, but I like a cooperative game, and when you have a weird horror theme, that makes me quite interested.

3. Horror on the Orient Express

Have I said that I like horror. And then there is a whole lot more. It’s a cooperative game. There is story and adventure to it, you need to deal with cultists and really a lot of the standard Lovecraftian things. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to play it. I like the them, I like the setting. And if it can have story and depth to the game, not just a simple dice chucker, I am excited to see what it can offer.

2. Ticket to Ride: Legacy

A legacy game, I love legacy games. Ticket to Ride, my favorite gateway game. What do I think this is going to offer, I’m not even sure. And what can you demo on it, I’m definitely  not sure. But I love the idea of it and I like the idea of it for being that gateway plus game. Kind of like Pandemic Legacy let me play Pandemic again and feel like there was more without being too much. I hope that Ticket to Ride Legacy falls in line with those.

1. Star Wars: Unlimited

This one no shock that it’s on my list. It’s a competitive trading card game. But it’s Star Wars themed, I really like Star Wars. And there is a collectible aspect and deck construction. But I like how they are doing a few things. Firstly, “rare” cards are less rare than you’d think to keep the game accessible. But alt art cards, or foil, those are going to be the chase cards in the set. And I like the deck building because you are battling on different fronts. So you might build a deck that is very focused on attacking and defending on the ground in hopes to overwhelm your opponent. Of course, that means that you are weaker in space, so there is going to be a lot of interesting strategy and deck theory crafting that I hope to dive into.

What Is Your Must Demo Game?

Let me know what game or games that I might be missing on my list. There are so many games, even more than I put up on video, which you can find below. But which ones stand out to you as games that you’d like to get demoed when you go, or ones you think should be on my radar?

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Gen Con Demos

I am not going to go through everything in writing as well. I will do a Top 10 games to demo, probably tomorrow. But today, let’s just talk about strategies for demoing because there are a lot of ways and places you can demo games.

Demo Events

Firstly, you can do official demos. Some companies don’t do demos at their booths, notably with that is Chip Theory Games. In some cases it’s because the games will take too long, again see Chip Theory Games, so you need to sign up for official demos. The upside is that while you’re still in a noisy hall, you aren’t as likely to have as many people around you who are having a separate conversation. So a good way to learn those heavier games. Downside is, it often costs.

Hall Demos

Next, you often find demos at booths in the dealer hall. A ton of them have tables setup and they do demos of different levels. I say different levels because some companies, you get to play the whole game. Other companies, you get to play one round. Other companies, they show you small pieces of how the game works.

Two of those, I personally like. I don’t like it when I just get told about the game as a demo. That doesn’t really help me know how the game is played. The other two, I like both of them. I prefer playing a whole game, when I can. But that depends on the game that is being played. Obviously a three hour game is not going to work to demo at a table in the dealer hall, in full anyways.

So with those games a round or two makes a lot more sense. It allows you to get through a game quickly and get to experience it to know what the game is going to feel like. Certain games, Asking for Trobils and Meadow for example, last year had short demos. But it was enough to know what the game was like, you get to experience all the mechanisms through playing a few rounds or through fewer scoring cards.

New Game Purchases

The last way, and this just happens randomly, is if someone bought the game. Two examples of that for me last year with Mythic Mischief and Ready, Set, Bet. Both of them good games, one of them better for me. But it’s a good way with hot games to get to try them if someone else has bought them. Because some games are just hard to demo.

Upcoming Streams

So as we get closer to Gen Con the schedule is going to be more Gen Con focused. Next Wednesday at 8 PM Central we’ll have a larger list of games to buy for the first time at Gen Con. So join me with that next Wednesday.

Then on Monday it’ll be a normal board game stream. What is the game that I’ll play solo, I’m not sure. Generally that is done at the last minute. So I won’t even guess, but not likely a new game that I’ve learned as I’m saving my new game knowledge for Gen Con.

The best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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Gen Con Is For Demoes

So why go over everything? Well, because that is one of the great things that Gen Con is for, going around to different booths and locations and demoing games. It is a chance to get to play a ton of games that you might not otherwise be able to. Even if it is sitting down at a booth and getting shown a game or playing a round of a game.

This is a great way to figure out what you want to buy, or what you might be backing as an upcoming Kickstarter or a game that’ll be coming out later in the year. But it is also a great way to try out a game that you might never try otherwise. I know when I was at Gen Con in 2019, we got to play a game of Stuff of Legends. That just was on Kickstarter, well 6 months ago or so at this point. But while it wasn’t a game for me at it’s price point, it was a good gaming experience.

That is why I went through all of the games just available for demo. These are the game going to be hitting the shelves of your local game stores, Targets, or online stores over the next year. And of course, these won’t be the only games to demo. There are going to be more, and games for sale will be there to demo as well.

Upcoming Streams

So, change to the schedule as I planned it originally. Originally the plan was to stream a game on Wednesday. But there are so many games in the “For Sale” category on Board Game Geek that I need a longer time to cover them all. Wednesday I tend to have more time to stream, so we’re going to put it then. I have a link up, it isn’t quite right for it yet.

That leaves next Monday, I might stream that day, or it might be packing for Gen Con. But I would expect I’ll get a stream in, probably a shorter one, playing a smaller game. It might be Grove, if I learn the rules or Black Sonata.

What game are you interested in demoing at Gen Con?

Top 10 Games to Demo At GenCon

So, there aren’t many rules for how this list will work. The only one is that if I’ve played it or demoed it before, it won’t go onto the list. So I think Stuff of Legends is going to be there. I think that’s a fun game that I’d want to try again, but I’ve already played it. So anything like that won’t count on this list.

10. Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders

I’m starting off with an expansion. This one is for a game that I own but have yet to play. It combines deck building with worker placement, and I really like deck building. But the expansions adds in leaders, basically unique powers that players start with. I’m really excited for that because I like unique or variable powers in games a lot. It if fun when you can do something I can’t and I can do something you can’t in a game.

9. Merchants of the Dark Road

Another worker placement game, and generally I don’t love worker placement. But this one interested me after watching the GloryHoundd Playthrough. The game play seems interesting and the theme isn’t dry, which I like. The artwork on the game is really nice. If this one was for sale, it might have made the list, but it’s a game that I want to see in person and try, maybe not own.

8. Steam Up: A Feast of Dim Sum

I like my food themed games. Sushi Go Party! is great, I have Foodies to play, I want to pick up On The Rocks and already own Homebrewers. There is just something about food themes that I like. I also like that they tend to be pretty straightforward to play. I am hoping that this is going to be another good one because the artwork looks nice and the theme is fun. And the idea of set collection is something that has worked well with my game group.

7. Machi Koro 2

This one almost breaks the rule I set for myself. I have not played Machi Koro 2, but I have played Machi Koro. This seems to build on that but be a pretty similar game. Machi Koro is a game that I liked but didn’t love. The issue I had with it was that everyone was doing basically the same thing, same strategy. There weren’t enough differences, this seems to have fixed that with putting out a variety of the big buildings you need to build to win the game. Having that randomness should make it better.

6. Now or Never

This is the sequel to Near and Far and Above and Below from Red Raven Games. I like Near and Far but I got rid of it because there wasn’t enough of the story it promised. The artwork was amazing and the same is true for this one. I want to see if this would fit better for my group. But, that said, I think that the game on the other list, Sleeping Gods, is going to be the better fit for me from Ryan Laukat and Red Raven Games.

5. Return to Dark Tower

I almost backed this one on Kickstarter. A big cooperative game with a giant powered tower in the middle of it that is spewing out skulls, that is cool. I don’t have the nostalgia to the original game, but watching this one played seems like a lot of fun. It’s also cooperative which works well for me. It’ll be one of those games that when it’s on the table people will notice.

4. Wonder Book

I hadn’t heard anything about this game until I saw it on the list today, but now I want to see it. Cooperative games are always good for me. And add in that this has 3D pop-up scenarios, that’s really cool. I wonder how it would compared to Shivers which I almost backed, but ended up passing on, on Kickstarter. The idea is interesting for at least the look of the game.

3. Dubious

I’m always dubious of deduction games with a social aspect to it. But Dubious from Hobby World seems interesting. I’ve heard good things about it, or about it’s mechanics anyways. And the artwork on the box really stands out to me. I’m always interested in social deduction games because I want to find more that I like. And Dubious looks like it might be a deduction game with a social aspect which is really in my wheelhouse.

2. Velocity: Vanguard

A cooperative space adventure, that sounds interesting to me. I don’t know much about this game, but the theme is interesting. The question I have to ask myself is do I need another adventure game, or want one. The answer to one of those questions is basically always yes. But I want to get better when I would have a chance to demo something, demoing it prior to buying it.

1. Key to the Kingdom

This one is one that I’m basing it mainly off of the artwork. The game has take that as a mechanic, which I really don’t like. But I am always interested when Restoration Games takes an old game and turns it into something new. It means that it might work better for me. And I am curious about this one because taking pixies to fight a Demon King, that seems entertaining.

All The Games

This list was much shorter than the games for sale. Now, I’m guessing that is because a bunch of companies won’t announce what’s going to be there ahead of time, or at least Board Game Geek doesn’t have them yet. But you can checkout the list to see all 33 for yourself here. And I’d totally expect to see a lot more games to demo.

This is going to be a different year at GenCon though. I am sure that there will be less games to demo and less games just in general. Some of that will be due to Asmodee not being there, which means a number of companies won’t. Some of it is going to be supply chain issues. Let me know what games you’re interested in demoing though.

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So the question, then becomes, how do you buy games and not end up getting a bunch of games that you don’t like and then you either have to sell them through something like Facebook Market Place, or you sell them to your FLGS, or give them away to a friend who might like them better.

I’ve written on this topic before, but I think that it’s one that is worth coming back to and that deserves a bit more of a deep dive into it. Because there are a number of things that you can do to determine what games might interest you, and while this might only be a couple of parts, I do want to spend the second part talking about some of the online resources that I use to figure out and what I really enjoy about them.

Beyond those online sources, I’ll talk about that a lot in the next article about the reviewers, actual plays, game teachers, etc. that are really good, there are plenty of other ways to narrow down what games you should purchase.

#1 – Play Games

Now, this one is a catch-22, I realize that. You can’t play games if you don’t have games but that might mean you’re getting games that you don’t like. Thankfully, if you’re in a bigger town/city, a lot of FLGS have either demo games, rental games, or a game library. Play different types of games there, see if you can demo a game that you’re interested in. If that doesn’t exist as an option for you, if other people in your area have some games, play those. This does two things for you, if you play something or demo something that you’re interested in, you’ll be able to determine if you like the game for buying, but that’s a fairly specific situation and it might be that you can’t demo or play a game. But playing games also helps you know what you like. Maybe you like Ascension as a deck building game, but Clank! In! Space! was too complex for you. Now you know that you like the lighter more streamlined deck building game. Playing more games helps you get a better idea of what you look for in a game and what parts of the game that you really like. In the Ascension and Clank! In! Space! example, maybe you don’t like Ascension as well and you realize that deck building isn’t the part in Clank! In! Space! that you really like, it’s the push your luck or the combos or something else.

#2 – Ask For Advice
I’m going to give you three good spots for asking for advice. Your friends, FLGS, and BGG. First, ask people you know, they are going to know your taste the best. Also, they’ll know what they have, so everyone in the group doesn’t need to have Wingspan, for example, but if they know you like engine building games they might recommend something like Res Arcana for you to add. An FLGS is going to be able to help some as well, though they are going to know what is newer and hotter or what’s been on their shelf for a while. But if you get familiar with people at your FLGS, they should be familiar with your tastes and they should ask questions and be able to give advice. So for example, if you say that you like engine building games, they should be able to give you some options. Finally, BGG (Board Game Geek) is useful as well. Not only can you use it for rating games and showing people what you like for them to help give you advice, but it has a built in recommendations feature. For example, going to Wingspan will give you some things like Welcome To.. and other games. Now, the returns are diminishing because your friends will know you best.

#3 – Online
Now, I’m going to talk about who I really like online coming up here, but I want to talk about a few different things that are useful online. First, there are rules videos. These teach you how to play the game. But it also shows you the components and too often the back of board game boxes don’t really tell you enough about how a game works. There are also actual plays, play through of whatever board game it might be. These tend to be a whole lot longer, because you’re literally watching someone play the game. Whereas with the rules overview you get an idea of how the game theoretically works, and actual play will show you in great detail, if you can sit through it. Finally, there are reviewers as well. A lot of them go over some of how the game is played and how it feels to play the game before they give their thoughts. Unlike the other two, this one has much more of a subjective nature to it. So going from rules videos to actual play to a review you’re getting more and more subjective. However, the other two can be much drier than a review, so often reviews give you a better feel and in a shorter amount of time than an actual play.

Those are going to be the top three pieces of advice that I have for buying board games, and figuring out which ones you’d like. I’m going to come back to #3 – Online, next week to talk through various sites and content creators that can be useful when thinking about what you might like. How do you generally pick what game to buy?

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

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So, one thing that I’d do differently, but I was glad that I did this time, was that we stayed at my friends parents place so we didn’t have to pay for a room, that saved a good chunk of change. The downside to it, was that their place was an hour and fifteen away from our parking spot. So that was a lot of driving at times. Now, if I were to do it again, I would maybe see about doing, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at a hotel, but keep our same driving schedule of getting there on Wednesday and going back on Monday. That way my friend would be able to see his parents, but being closer to the convention would be really nice.

The other thing that I’d do differently is be a bit pickier on games. Now, I think basically all the games that we played in were great, and that it was a good number of games, I think we ended up doing six events in total, but we skipped one game on Sunday to get into a demo of another game. That was a great call, since as interesting as the Harry Potter miniatures game sounded, the price point was too high, so we likely wouldn’t have started playing it even if we loved it. Instead, we got to demo a game that we both decided we wanted after playing it.

That really takes me to one of the big highlights. There are so many games there, and we spent a ton of our time wandering the dealer floor and looking at games, getting games explained to us, and best of all, getting games demoed. There are so many games that if you didn’t want to, you wouldn’t have to do any organized events. We got to demo God of War, Deranged, Last Hour, Homebrewer, Bottom of the 9th, and so many more, and I’ll be touching on some of them in future articles. In fact, it took us a day and a half just to walk around what we thought was all of the dealer space, only to find that we had missed some and then remember that we had skipped some bigger booths to start because they were too busy when we went by them the first time.

Oh, and the events, the events that we went to were great. Marc Gunn performing Hobbit drinking songs was a fun and goofy old time. There was the North American Championships for Ice Cool (I was a semi-finalist), and that was a blast, most of the people were there to just have fun with it, so everyone was having fun. The best event was playtesting the Alpha version of Role Player Adventures. It’s a RPG-Lite sort of game, where it’s more about some dice manipulation, but we had a great group to play test with and we made some silly decisions and had a lot of fun with it.

There is so much to talk about, and I did pick up a number of things, so let me give a fast rundown of what I picked up:

1. Cowboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie – I like Cowboy Bebop a lot, and the game looked fun
2. Albion’s Legacy – Got this one for free with Cowboy Bebop, and it’s a big box game which is interesting.
3. Hats – Good simple card game with a lot of interesting and challenging choices. You kind of have to forget what you know about card games to get your brain wrapped around this one.
4. Cat Cafe – Cat Cafe is a roll and write, but it’s actually more complex than you’d think for the theme. Definitely a fun one with the time I played it.
5. Loup Garou – A choose your own adventure book, really, but you have a character sheet, so there’s a game element to it.
6. Detective: City of Angels – Big box detective game. In it, one person is the “chisel”, person giving clues, but they don’t want anyone to solve the case, but if they lie all the time, people will know that too. And all the detectives are racing to a solution.
7. The Grimm Masquerade – Which of the fairy tale characters are sitting around the table and trying to collect their item of choice? Can you call them out before they succeed, or maybe bust them with the item that they don’t want. Seems like a fun and interactive social deduction game with an actual game there.
8. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong & Expansion – Not a new game, but my favorite social deduction game.
9. Tokyo Highway & Expansion – Not a new game either, but hard to find, it’s a pretty looking wood game where you are building out roads and trying to be the first to place your cars.
10. Welcome To… Fallout and Spring Expansions
11. Sagrada Expansion

Oof, I have a lot of board games to get through. So I want to talk more about games that I demoed in a future articles, games that we paid for and played, including a Dresden Files skinned Savage World game, and more. There’s a lot to unpack and a lot of fun was had, and I definitely want to go again next year.

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