Unplayed Board Games 124 to 101

124: Monza

This is a kids car racing game from Haba. It is one that I will play when the toddler is ready to play it. But, for right now, it has some cars in it. And the toddler can match up the cars to spots on the board. Or roll the dice and have fun with it. Not one that’s likely to get played this year, I’d think, but maybe towards the end of the year the toddler will be ready.

123: Dragon Tea Society

This one, and the next one, fall into that same category a bit. Though really Dragon Tea Society and Monza. Dragon Tea Society is a deck building style game. You draw cards, play them out, get more cards, but a simple one at that. It’s cute, I want to try it, but again, this is probably more apt to get played when the toddler is older.

122: Hey, That’s My Fish

As we get out of the games for younger or family audience, we have Hey, That’s My Fish. It is a game about collecting fish. And as you collect fish you break up the ice flow so that it limits where your opponent can go. That seems a little mean, but the concept is easy to grasp. It is one I could see waiting for the toddler to be ready to play it, or playing it with adults just for an easy game.

121: Danger Park

Next we have Danger Park. I bought this game when the company was going out of business. It’s about building out your amusement park, and clearly you don’t care that much for the safety of your park goers. I like the concept of pushing to see how you can build out the park so that it’s risky but you can make the most money or points.

120: The Faceless

This is a game I saw a while ago on Kickstarter, and it looked cool, in concept. I’m not sure what was going on, but I bought it cheap as the stock was being sold off. The Faceless has you playing as kids trying to avoid a monster. And the monster moves around based off of magnetic pull from where the kids are. The concept seems cool, we’ll have to see how good it is. Because I’d love to be able to manipulate where the monster goes via magnets.

119: 8Bit Box

This is one that I’ve owned for a while. And I keep on meaning to play it, or play one or two of the games in it to see how it is. 8Bit Box promises a game system that has a retro arcade feel. You can pull out some base pieces and a cartridge for a specific game, and that is what you play around with. I don’t know if it’ll be good, I expect it’ll be okay. And it’s a fun concept to mess around with.

118: The Terrifying Girl Disorder

Another one that is not new to my shelf. I bought this game when it was on a sale because it seemed intriguing. A small box card game, the most intriguing part is that you score based off of one of the girls. But you don’t know which it’ll be when you start the game. So you are looking to gather cards in a way that will score you points.

117: Boy Band Builder

My wife backed this one on Kickstarter. A game from a small and new company here in Minneapolis. It is about building a boy band, and it looks funny. It’s one of those games that we’ll see how good it is, but I also have it higher than some on the list, because I expect for one play, it is going to provide a bunch of good laughs.

116: Starship Samurai

Next up is Starship Samurai. I like mechs and this game has cool mechs. Beyond that it is area control, negotiation – it seems, set collection, a lot of mechanics that I enjoy in the game. I think that the game itself looks better than the box looks, which is a shame. The artwork on the box doesn’t sell me on the game.

115: Unicornus Knights

On the flip side, Unicornus Knights looks good. And I really like the concept of the game. The princess is traveling the land to get to a big bad and fighting as she goes. But you, as knights around her know that she can’t win every fight and shouldn’t get into them. So you manipulate where she moves and deal with threats for her. I like the concept of the main character, the princess, but no one plays her.

114: Copenhagen: Roll & Write

It’s a roll and write game. I got it cheap. I don’t need to say more than that. And honestly, I don’t know a ton more about it than that. It’s one that I should just bust out and play and see how it is. I need to get rid of a few more roll and writes as the roll and writes take up 3 full Kallax cubbies.

113: Journey: Wrath of Demons

This is another game that I should know more about. I keep on researching it, because it keeps on being on sale. Eventually a sale was good enough, and in person, so I grabbed it. It’s a cooperative adventure game based off of a classic Chinese novel. That little bit is enough to keep me very interested in the game, so I want to see how it plays. Plus the cover looks impressive.

112: Cowboy Bebop: Board Game Boogie

This one I picked up because of theme. I really like Cowboy Bebop. It’s up there for my favorite anime, and aesthetically, it is amazing. This is a cooperative game where you are all part of the crew and you try and complete bounties. Each character also wants to do specific things for their own story. So it’s a push and pull of that. I don’t know how great this one is, but it is worth it to me to play it for the theme.

111: Detective: City of Angels

Detective: City of Angels, on the other hand, I am very confident will be a great game. It is a crime solving game with a lot of cases. Each person plays a detective racing to solve the case first. Except for one person who plays the chisel, they basically decide on how answers are given. The reason this is low, even though I really want to play it, is that most likely I end up being the chisel. This is a game I want to experience the cases as the detective, but since I own the game, I’ll likely learn it and play as the game master.

110: The Ravens of Thri Sahashri

Another that isn’t new to my shelf. A two player game that I really should pull off the shelf when my friend who I teach a lot of new games to comes over. But the idea is that one person is playing out cards, the other person is trying to pull them back. I forget exactly how it works, but it’s a puzzle of a game to get cards split into certain groupings which looks really interesting.

109: Shadows of Kyoto

Shadows of Kyoto, from the same company as Hanamikoji, is another two player game. In some ways it gives me a little bit of a feeling of a Stratego sort of game. You try and capture enemy agents, or pass along fake intelligence, or escape an agent to win. It plays fast, and I hope that it’s as punchy and interesting a decision space as Hanamikoji, but I suspect it might not be.

108: Ascension: Immortal Heroes

This is a different version of Ascension, but more different than a lot of the expansion/standalone boxes. So I’m curious to see how this one plays. I hope that it keeps a lot of the core mechanics, but maybe makes the game more directly battling versus so purely deck building. I honestly don’t know that much, I got it on a good sale.

107: Pioneer Days

The second game I bought as a company went out of business, this time TMG (Tasty Minstrel Games). Pioneer Days looks like a dice drafting game, and I like dice drafting. It is supposed to have a bit of an Oregon Trail feel where you are heading up west, getting what you need but also having to deal with troubles, weather, sickness, and the like, as you travel. I like the concept of the game a lot, and the artwork on the box is great.

106: Imperial Settlers: Roll & Write

Another roll and write game. And there are a number more on the list. This one is a roll and write version of Portal Games Imperial Settlers. That is an engine building game, so I’m guessing it’ll be similar for the roll and write. Or in roll and write terms a combo building game. Another one that I just need to play to see if it’s a roll and write that sticks around.

105: Quarto

Part of a line of abstract games, it’s been on my shelf too long. And I really like the concept of the game. You are trying to complete a row that matches. But you don’t get to pick what piece you place, your opponent does. So there are shapes, heights, colors, hollow or not, that can all cause a row to be completed. Can you back your opponent into a corner where they need to give you a piece that lets you win.

104: Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

One that is lower on the list because it was kind of a grail game for me. By grail game I mean a game that’s out of print or harder to find that you want to get, the holy grail. But it was only kind of one. I want to see how the game is, mess around with it, because it’s kind of a living card game that is done. And it has some nice designers on it. Plus, I like Cthulhu.

103: Escape the Room: Mystery at the Stargazer’s Manor

Escape room games are hard to know where to rank. I like escape room games, but even in my Top 100, they don’t make it. So when ranking them, it is harder to rank. This has a Lovecraftian theme, which is always a plus for me. And it is in a bigger box than stuff like Unlock and Exit. I don’t know if it means it’s a bigger game, but I’m curious, and I know I’ll like it when I get people over to play it.

102: Mesozooic

A smaller game, Mesozooic just looked like a fun game to get. And like a lot of games on my list, it was on sale. It’s about creating a dinosaur themed part, which is a common theme in games. But it’s in a small package, light, and fast, and the artwork looks great on it. Plus it’s a real time game for part of it and then drafting as well, so I think it’s going to be a lot of fun and a good filler to try.

101: TAGS

Finally, we have TAGS to round out this chunk of the list. TAGS is a party game where in teams, I believe, you try to come up with words that match a prompt and a letter. This isn’t that unique, but the game plays fast, and by that I mean you have 15 seconds to guess, then the next team gets 15 and the next. So you need to be very fast in the moment. Seems like a chaotic and fun time.

Final Thoughts

This chunk of the list I do think I’ll play a handful of games. I’ve love to play the escape room game as well as TAGS. And the roll and write games I can knock out solo as well. Mesozooic seems like a good one as well. There are others, mainly Detective: City of Angels that I really want to play, but do I want to put the time in right now to learning that game and playing as the chisel.

Which game would you play first from this group of games?

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

Shelf of Shame vs Shelf of Opportunity

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

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

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

What Do I Call Them?

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

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

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

So Why Write This Out?

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

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

Unplayed Board Game List

Let’s Talk About the List

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

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s

D’s

Dead Men Tell No Tales

This one I was sold on because it is a cooperative game that has a bit more going on than Pandemic and a pirate theme. Zee Garcia sold it well on the Dice Tower, and I have to say that I’ve been pleased with it. The use of the dice in the game to track how badly the ship is burning, and everything you are trying to do works for me. From dealing with ghosts, skeleton deckhands, fires, and trying to get back with the treasure the game is a good challenge. It definitely does end up feeling like it has more going on than Pandemic but in a good way, and I like the ship that you build as you go a an added variety to the game.

Status: Played

Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

Part of me, as a completionist, feels like I should pick up the Warring Colonies expansion and the Rodney Smith Promo card for it, but I also don’t play it a ton right now. This is a big zombie survival game that no matter what length of mission you play it always takes a while. Add in a possible traitor to the mix, you need to spend more time decided what everyone is doing. I do have the Dead of Winter: The Long Night expansion that adds in some new modules that you can play with, and I haven’t even played with all of those. This is a tough game but one that I really do enjoy quite a lot for the theme and game play.

Status: Played

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Let me start off by saying, I don’t like most social deduction games. There are some that I find as just fine, but Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a great game. There is a social deduction aspect to it as you talk about the reports that the forensic scientist is putting out to help you figuring out who the murderer is, but there is also just a deduction aspect as you try and interpret what the forensic scientist is getting at. The game is very well done and while some people don’t love the artwork/design on it, I do because it’s very simple for a simple game. If you pull this game out, I would play it every time, other social deduction games, I might pass on those, but this gives the players something to do from the very start.

Status: Played

Deep Madness

This is one that I bought used at my local game store because I saw it played on the Rolling Solo YouTube channel. In this game you are going down into the depths of the ocean to try and figure out what has happened to the station that is down there. As normal, they dug too deep and something has been released, or maybe it was there all along. You need to fight off monsters, and complete objectives in this mission based game that can also be a campaign game, I believe, but not as progressing a one or indepth a one as some. I also got the Endless Nightmares expansion and the Uncounted Horrors expansion for it as my FLGS, All Systems Go, was selling it all as a bundle.

Status: To Be Played

Deranged

This almost wasn’t on the list. I have been waiting on this game for months at this point. It was announced probably around May that UltraPro was going to be doing the distribution and production here in the United States, so I pre-ordered it when I could in June or July, and it showed up with three other games, yesterday. So looking back at the C’s, there’s a game that could have been in there now. Deranged is a game that I love the aesthetic of, and I really enjoyed the game play of at GenCon in 2019. It is a horror themed game, but a bit less so than some out there, where you are trying to escape a cursed village however, there are monsters, and there’s a chance that you might become Deranged which turns you into a monster, but you can get back if you kill someone else, which doesn’t turn them into a deranged, but gives them another curse. Definitely a very competitive game but a lot of fun.

Status: Played (GenCon Demo only)

Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd Edition)

So Descent has been on my radar as a one versus all dungeon crawl sort of game. I don’t have many/any other dungeon crawls like that, most are fully cooperative that I own, but this one I had looked at but I mainly picked it up for one thing. It has a ton of minis in the game, of okay quality, and I wanted over Covid to pick up mini painting. I got a base layer down on one dragon, that’s it so far. I do want to get back to it still and really start to dive into it, I need to set aside an evening to watch something in my office and paint them. Eventually I do want to play the game as well because I think it looks interesting and Fantasy Flight generally impresses me with their games, but might not get to the table for a bit and was really gotten for the minis.

Status: To Be Played

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game (LA Crimes & Dig Deeper)

This was a game that I was really excited about when it came out, and I ordered the base game immediately. I held off on ordering the expansions until later this year after playing the base game and loving it. In the base game you are using your own Detective skills to follow leads through an impressive and really interesting story that loops in bits of real history to create an immersive gaming experience. In some ways it’s like a procedural cop show, NCIS being a fairly closish example, but you are playing it yourself and are the detectives yourself and decide what leads to follow. Game play is really interesting and it’s so much about the experience, I highly highly highly recommend it for a deeply thematic time, and it plays really well via Zoom.

Status: Played

Detective: City of Angels

Have I said that I like deduction games, because I really do, as much as I don’t love social deduction games, deduction games are amazing. This one blends a little of both as one player, the Chisel, is kind of running the game, and they can give people the best answer or a not so good answer when they are questioning someone. If the investigator things they didn’t get the best answer, they can pressure the Chisel to give them the better answer, but do that too much or at the wrong time, it can not work out for you. This one is also different because while you are trying to solve cases, you aren’t doing it as a group like in Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, instead you’re trying to get all of the glory for yourself.

Status: To Be Played

Dice Throne (Season 1 and Season 2)

Dice Throne is on of my most played games out there. It’s a fun Yahtzee inspired dice chucking battling game done in a duel kind of Mortal Kombat style. In this game you are using the dice and combat points to attack, upgrade attacks, and try and get your opponent to 0 health before they knock you down. The game is simple enough to play, and it seems like it could be boring just because you’re rolling dice, but it is a ton of fun as each character plays differently and thematically. The Artificer has attacks that they can do, but also building up your bots to help you do more damage throughout the game or heal up, that’s super useful, where as the Barbarian has all of it’s offensive rolls just be attack attack attack. It’s just a blast always and plays well at 2, but even plays well with a bigger number.

Status: Played

Dicecapades

This one is on my shelf still because it’s just a silly and fun party game. It has you stacking dice, rolling dice, doing a lot of things with dice. My one major knock on this game is that it has a lot of fun things with it and then it has trivia. You roll a die and that determines what trivial question you get, that’s not fun. And that part can just turn into a slog if you just aren’t great at trivia. If you’re interested in the game, or looking for that goofy family/holiday party style game, it’s better than some.

Status: Played

Draftosaurus

This game is basically a roll and write, but instead of rolling and writing, you are drafting dinosaurs and placing them on your board. It works well, and the dinosaur meeples are super cute. The game also has a really nice mechanic where the person whose turn it is to lead rolls a die and that determines where everyone else has to place their dinosaur that they will draft, but the person who is rolling the die can place anywhere. You are trying to get as many of different types as you can, or sets of dinosaurs, or as many of one type as you can and more and that’ll determine how you score. Overall, just a fun filler game that has some thought that goes into it.

Status: Played

Dragonfire

You’ll see a similar game show up later in another letter, but Dragonfire is a deck building, monster fighting game with a Dungeons and Dragons theme on it. I like that you get your class, you can play through what looks like some pretty big stories or smaller stories to make up a larger campaign and level up your characters. I also like that you can play solo in this game. I’ve played it a couple of times with the copy that Fantasy Flight had and then I picked up my own because it was enjoyable and challenging. I feel like I need to nail down a better strategy still, but overall, a lot of fun.

Status: Played

The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

This is a game based off of my favorite book series, and while it is a pretty mechanical game if you don’t know the books, it is something that we’ve made feel more thematic when I’ve played it, and I’ve played it a lot. In this game you take a team of characters, from 3 to 5 I believe, into the game. You can play solo, but you’re playing 3 characters, or you can play 2 player, but you each mix together two characters, and it works well. I like how each game is you playing through a one of the books as well, and I think that works so incredibly well.

Status: Played

Dutch Blitz

This is a classic game that I grew up playing. It’s a pretty fast and fun card game where you are putting down cards in a stack and seeing how many cards you can get out. I keep it around more because of nostalgia than anything, but it’s also one that I wouldn’t be opposed to pulling out once in a while.

Status: Played

That’s the letter D, I think compared to all the previous ones, this one has the fewest in it that I haven’t played, though, Deep Madness is a pretty big game that I haven’t played. And it has some that I’ve played a lot. I’m guessing that I’ve played over 20 games of The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game and Dice Throne each. What is your favorite game to start with the letter D, and what one do you think i should add?

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Join me as I look at Kickstarter and see what games I’ve saved and am or was considering Kickstarting.

Dice & Ink: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

Aeon Trespass: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

Up Your Game: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/… Isofarian Guard: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

Detective City of Angels: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

Monster Cards: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

Time of Legends: Destinies https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

Godspeed: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

Wicked Foundations: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/…

Which one of these games catches your fancy? Are there any that I missed in September that I really should have checked out?

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Bottoms up!

Let’s talk about what’s coming to my game table soon:

Welcome To… Doomsday and Welcome To… Spring – So this is just an expansion to a game that I already love, Welcome To. These add new things to the board, where in the first game you were building neighborhoods, pools, and parks, in these two, you get to add in new things. The Spring has Easter eggs scattered about, and if you fill in those houses, you get points for collecting eggs. In Doomsday you are building bunkers for the inevitable nuclear destruction of your neighborhood. You can save as many people as the house number, but the person who saves the most gets the more points, but will it mess up your neighborhood?

Hats – This Alice in Wonderland Tea Party themed game is a fairly small card game that comes in a beautiful package. I had seen it played on Man Vs Meeple youtube channel, and it looked like a lot of fun. I picked it up, and it was a lot of fun. The interesting thing about the game is that while you are collecting cards, you aren’t using the cards from your hand to score. Instead you are placing them out into a scoring track, and taking a card from that track that you’ll score at the end. But it’s possible that at the end of the game certain colors won’t score, which could keep you from getting points on something you’ve collected. It’s a simple game of placing cards and scoring cards, but because you really don’t score your own hand of cards, there is a nice twist on it. And it look great, the plastic cookie in it, looks almost real.

The Grimm Masquerade – In this game, you play three rounds where you are a different (possibly) fairy tale character at a masquerade. You are trying to collect the item that you want, but you don’t want to be too obvious about it, otherwise the other players can force you to take what you don’t want. This is a smaller social deduction game with some actual game to it. On a turn you draw a card and can either keep it for yourself or place it in front of an opponent, and then you draw a second card and do the opposite thing. If you get three of your item you get the end of round points, but if you make it too obvious people can guess as to who you are for a couple of points or give you the items that you don’t want. Can you properly hide who you are while deducing what other fairy tale characters are at the table with you. At the end of three rounds, most points wins. This one seems very interesting and looks great. I like social deduction games that put in more of a game than you get from Resistance and Werewolf.

Tokyo Highway + Expansion – I didn’t get this one for myself technically. Kristen and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary in a few weeks. And with that, you get anniversary gifts for each other and we often try, just for the fun of it, to match the randomly assigned theme from years ago that you can google. For five years it is wood. And Tokoyo Highway is a pretty looking dexterity game that has a lot of wood components. In the game you are trying to build a highway system in a way that you can get all of your cars onto the roads before your opponent. But to be able to place a car, your road either needs to go above or below another road, so it becomes tricky to place them. The expansion adds in some different shaped cars, so it might be easier to place the small cars early, but does that mean you can’t place a truck later on, because it won’t fit?

Cat Cafe – Cat Cafe is a cute little roll and write game. In it you are setting up your cat trees to attract the cats in the cat cafe over to you. You get points for getting toys and treats in certain arrangements and for completing cat trees. It seems like a good roll and write game, and with two different strategies the first time that I played it, the game ended up being close. For a cute little theme, this is actually more of a thinky roll and write than I thought it would be. I will knock the game a little bit because the dice are bad in the game, but it gets some of those points back because the pencils that come in the game have erasers, which is unheard of. I, however, laminated my boards so I can play it even longer.

Cobwboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie – I actually don’t know a ton about this game, except for what the saleman told me at GenCon. But I also got a free game with it, Albion’s Legacy, that I know even less about. In Cowboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie you are taking on the roles of the main characters from the show. You are trying to complete missions, get small bounties, but you really want to get the big bounties and compete your own objectives. What is interesting about this game is that each character has their own powers that they can do that are supposed to be fairly thematic. I’ll be curious to get this game to the table as it looks interesting, and I really like the Cowboy Bebop theme.

Sagrada The Great Facades – Passion – Another expansion, this one for a game that I really love. Sagrada is just a beautiful game to get to the table. And this expansion adds in some shiny clear dice. These are used in place in one of the powers that you can use, but the dice doesn’t count as any color making it easier to place. I think that it adds in an interesting challenge to the game, making it easier, but those power seem expensive. You also get to add in some more scoring objectives that can make the game trickier and give it more variety as you play. I’m waiting to get this one to the table soon.

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong and Expansion – I love this game, but I haven’t owned it and it’s been hard to find. But, of course, it was available at GenCon, so I had to grab it. This is just such as good social deduction game, and a mystery game. It’s fun, as a detective, to try and figure out the clues that the Forensic Scientist is giving you. And sometimes, a clue just isn’t going to be useful, but as the detectives, you don’t know that. I’m waiting to get this back to the table soon.

Detective: City of Angels – This is the biggest game that I got, but I’m a sucker for detective games. I do have to get them to the table more, as I also want to get Chronicles of Crime, which we demoed. But this one is interesting because it isn’t a cooperative game. In fact, there is one person who runs all the suspects who is intentionally trying to get mislead the detectives so that they can’t figure it out. And, along with that, as a fellow detective, you can send in someone to spy and get the same information, but it’s going to cost you money. Can you balance all of that to figure out what is going on, and can you figure out when to lean on a suspect to get that last piece for information, or were they telling the truth? I think this game seems like fun on either side, but I would love to be a detective in it.

Loup Garou – From the same company that made Detective: City of Angels, this is something completely different. It’s part of their graphic novel series. I don’t know a ton about this story, but it looked cool, and was the sales persons favorite of the books. What is interesting about these books is that they are a choose your own adventure graphic novel. That doesn’t seem like something a board game company would do. But, it is because you have a character sheet with abilities that turns this reading adventure into a game. I’m curious to try it out, and if I like it, they have a lot more titles that I’ll want to get my hands on, including a cooperative graphic novel adventure that is more child focused, but if you are playing the tall character, your panel is going to give you more options than you’re the strong character if, for example you’re standing next to a fence, but less options if you are standing by a boulder blocking a cave entrance. These seem really cool and fun to try.

I think that’s all that I got. You can see that I have a lot of games to get to the table. And I missed out on a couple that I’d love to get my hands on, mainly Letter Jam. But it’ll be fun to get those to the table this year, plus the other big box games that I have coming from Kickstarter eventually.

What of these games would you be most interested in trying? Was there a game that you were really looking forward to coming out at GenCon?

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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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Five – Cloudspire – Chip Theory Games is also coming out with a couple of expansions for Cloudspire. The game looks cool, and maybe, if I get to demo it, it’s really awesome, I’ll grab the expansions for it as well, but I’d be curious to know what they add to the game, if it’s just more story, or if it adds something else to the game, like new actions or places to go to.

Four – Detective: City of Angels – Bullets over Hollywood – This one is an expansion to a game that I want to check out. If the game looks good and I get there fast enough to get it, I’m not going to rush, I might end up getting the expansion as well, but getting more cases and things to do in this Detective game, it seems interesting, especially since I don’t know how replayable the game is going to be after you’ve finished a case.

Three – Sword and Sorcery – I’m adding multiple ones here, like some of them higher on the list, because there is a whole new story arc to go through, but also there are a couple more characters, and while I might never play all the characters, I do kind of want them for my game. I’m excited to get this game either to Malts and Meeples, or possibly this will be the game I play with friends after I’m done with Gloomhaven.

Two – Sagrada: The Great Facades – Passion – First of the trilogy of new of expansions. This one seems fun, I really do like Sagrada and I need to get it back to the table. I don’t know that I need more for it, but having some new dice is interesting, having some new goals is cool, and having some different private objectives is really really cool. So I’m excited to get it added into my game.

One – Welcome To… – So many expansions for this, but they are all interesting. You get different city maps that might be set in Halloween, or maybe now there are fallout shelters on the board. I definitely want to get a couple of these to add even more variability to the game. It’s a game that has worked well every time I get it to the table, and I think these expansions will keep at at the table for a long time.

Are there any expansions that you’re looking forward to coming out at GenCon? Any that I’ve missed, probably since I don’t have the base game?

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Ten – Skull Tales: Full Sail! – A pirate themed game is interesting to me, as I’m on the lookout for a good one, aka not Seafall. This one seems to have a lot going on with it, and the semi-cooperative nature is definitely interesting to me. I want to see how they implement it before I make much judgement on it. The minis look cool, and the style of the game seems interesting to me. But I don’t know much about the game, so I want to give it a good look.

Nine – Cloudspire – A big game from Chip Theory Games. This one I think I’m more interested to see than buy, but a cooperative exploration game with a modular board, that seems pretty cool. And the aesthetic with castles floating on rocks in the sky is very interesting. Their other games, Too Many Bones being the biggest, looks interesting, though not quite my style, and I’m curious to see how this one works compared to that.

Eight – Anomaly – A horror based board game, this one takes one versus all as some players take on the rolls of kids who are left to deal with this anomaly. There’s hidden movement as well, not just for the anomaly, but for the players as well, which I think adds an interesting twist into it. I always enjoy this type of game, one versus all, and the theme reminds me a bit of Not Alone, where you have astronauts on a crashed spaceship trying to avoid a monster and the planet killing them.

Seven – Slide Quest – Slide Quest looks like a fun and silly game where it’s like a marble puzzle, where you control which sides are higher and lower to get a knight to his goals and to deal with bad guys, but the twist is that it can be played with four players. In this game you can have one person controlling each lever that lowers or raises a side. This one I want to check it out, because it seems like it could be a silly game to play with smaller groups at a board game night, but I want to see it first, because it could be frustrating to some.

Six – The Grimm Masquerade – I found out about this one when they played it on the Dice Tower. The Grim Masquerade seems like an interesting social deduction game where you are playing as various Grimm Fairy Tale characters who are trying to collect three of the item that they need. But the other players are trying to figure out who you are under the mask, and can knock you out of the round by figuring out who you are or by giving you the item that you don’t want. It’s a social deduction game that has more to it, which is interesting to me.

Five – Arkham Noir Case #1 – This one is an odd one on the list, and while I’m not sure it’s an immediate purchase for me, it’s a game that has a player count of 1 to 1. So it’s a purely solo game, and it’s a game where you are trying to solve a mystery. I’m curious to see how this deck of cards is going to work, but the theme and aesthetic, which is very 1920’s noir, are interesting to me.

Four – Walking in Burano – You’re building up the beautiful Burano neighborhood of Venice. When you are building these houses though, you need to match colors and get various scoring cards to create the best looking and most popular neighborhood. Walking in Burano isn’t a big game, but it looks like a relaxing game to play.

Three – Choose Your Own Adventure: War with the Evil Power Master – The name is absurd (and absurdly long, hence forth known as Power Master), but that’s what I want in a CYOA game. And this game appears to have a bit more game to it than the CYOA: House of Danger did. It’s a fun group game where you aren’t doing the same boring party tropes, so I’m excited to get the next one.

Two – Detective: City of Angels – This game is a big detective game, something that we’re seeing more of with Chronicles of Crime and Detective: A Modern Crime Story. But in Detective: City of Angels it’s competitive as players are leaning on possibly witnesses to see if the person running the game has lied to them, and other players can send in a snitch to spy on the conversation to help out with their investigation. Will you be able to solve the case faster than your the other detectives?

One – Hats – This is actually a small game to start, but I like the simplicity of the game along with the game scoring. In this game you’re at the tea party with the Mad Hatter and you’re trying to have to the best scoring collection of hats. You do that by swapping out hats from the scoring track with one from your hand. So, while the game is simple, there seems to be a good amount of strategy to it, it reminds me some of Hanimkoji and Parade in that way.

What games are you looking forward to at GenCon?

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