10 Played Games for My Gaming Day

10. Pirates of Marcaibo

I love this one on BGA. I want to play it in person and see how that goes. It’s a bit more of a rules teach, but it shouldn’t be too bad to get played. And I think once the game gets going it moves fast. Plus fun theme and easy sell.

9. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a game I love. I own everything for it. So I want to get it in the big box and try out the new tracks in the game and see how everything works together.

8. Mistborn

Another one where I really like the game and it’s been a while since I’ve played it. That is going to be the case for a lot of the games. I think the people who are invited thus far are going to enjoy a game like this as well.

7. The Great Split

See above, really. But after playing New York Slice for the first time it made me realize that I just want to play The Great Split because that game is a brilliant I split and you choose game.

6. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Yet another one where I just want to play it again. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is a great engine building game and good for a longer game day. Like Lost Ruins of Arnak, though, I need to get it sorted out.

5. Strike

I play this one a lot. It’s on the list because it’d be a great group game there. Plus it’s a good filler/take a break from bigger games game.

4. Can’t Stop

The same can be said for Can’t Stop. Though Can’t Stop can’t support as many people. But it works well and it’s an easy one to teach and play. A good filler for when maybe one group finished before another.

3. Trekking Through Time

I’ve played this one two players and I really enjoy it two players. I want to try it with more because it’s just a fun game. It’s also a simple one to learn and play.

2. Skyrockets

You might not even know I played this game. And it is kind of a cheat to be on this part of the list. Played it two years ago at Gen Con when it was still a prototype at the Floodgate Games event. But it’s a fun real time game, so I want to play it again.

1. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

I love this game. It isn’t the easiest I think to learn. But once you wrap your head around it, it’s pretty simple to play. And it is a good game because it plays a lot.

10 Un-Played Games for My Gaming Day

10. The Gang

Now we’re in the new games. This is a cooperative poker game, so I want to give it a whirl. Plus I know it plays at higher player counts so a good one for the list.

9. Critter Kitchen

Critter Kitchen has just been sitting there waiting to get played. I want to take it a lot and see if I can get it played, but I need to open and sort it for that to happen. And it is one I probably need to learn to take along.

8. Maple Valley

Maple Valley is the follow-up to Creature Comforts. I like Creature Comforts as a good simple worker placement game. I am curious to see what Maple Valley does. They are very different games, but same great artwork and in the “same world”.

7. Ruins

Ruins is one that people were talking about going into Gen Con. It is a reworking of Custom Heroes. It is a card shedding game where you upgrade cards throughout the rounds. So I am curious to know how that system is going to work.

6. Ito

Ito is going to be one of the bigger games or party games on the list. I want to learn this one and it seem easy to play. From what I know of it, it is a good ice breaker game as well. Or maybe more of an ice breaker than an actual game.

5. Emberleaf

Emberleaf is the card dancing game. Basically a game where you play cards into a grid and then you activate the grid. The cards then move in that grid, some dropping out, others activating various affects. I like the sound of the game and great cute artwork.

4. Ghosts of Christmas

First of three trick taking games. Ghosts of Christmas sounds like a brain burner of a trick taking game where you play three tricks at once. And depending on how the previous trick goes that determines the led suit for the next one. With a Christmas Carol theme, how will it work for the past, present, and future tricks.

3. The Six of VIII

The Six of VIII is going to be a fun one to try as well. It’s about the six wives of Henry the VIII. And each trick the trump suit is going to be one of the wives. But it is more than that because how long a wife was alive is going to impact how many rounds that suit is trump. I like how thematic they managed to make a trick taking game.

2. Tricky Kids

Now, Tricky Kids is a new game as well. I would have put both Tricky Kids and Cat in the Box on the list, but I’m playing Cat in the Box on BGA right now. It is very possible that Cat in the Box will come along as well. But Tricky Kids is trick taking game where the cards don’t have a value on them. So you need to set the value, but you only have 21 points to allocate over 7 cards.

1. Expeditions

Finally, let’s go with something different and big with Expeditions from Stonemaier games. I like the idea of trying this one in a bigger group, or maybe not with everyone but with some. And I believe that one person in the group owns it and has played it before. It is nice to bring along games like that so that I don’t need to learn the rules. Or more so, so that no one needs to learn the rules because I’m not going to learn them all.

Final Thoughts

Now that is a lot of games to bring along. And I know that all of them won’t make it, but I plan on bringing a big mess of games. There are other smaller games too that are going to be stuck in because they are smaller games. So stuff like Flip 7 or Push are really likely to come along. New games like First-Class Letters and Trinket Trove (as I want to play that one with more) will come along. But this is a good list for me to start planning on what to bring. But it sounds like a good gaming day to me.

If you were to do a full gaming day, what games are you going to take off of the shelf?

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It’s worth noting before I start that some of these games were “Gen Con releases”. They were available prior to Gen Con at other sources but Gen Con was the first convention that they were widely at in the United States.

My Gen Con Haul

Tricky Kids

The first three are going to be the ones that a friend picked up from Gen Con for me. Tricky Kids is a trick taking game. The twist on this trick taking game is that the cards do not have numbers on them. Instead when you get your hand of seven cards you write down the numbers, which need to total up to 21 points.

There is more than that as well. As you play out the tricks, the points you get are from the chips that you take. And you know what order those chips are going to come out in. So while everything might give you some points, you may want to avoid winning a trick in hopes of taking a trick later in the hand. This just sounds brain burning and fun.

Slam Throne

Slam Throne is pogs. Yup, it’s as simple as that, but it’s pogs with the Dice Throne theme. I believe it was four characters who were released, granted you don’t know who you get. This one just looks like silly fun and that is what drew me into it. Plus I love Dice Throne so I want to support the company when they make a product that I think looks fun. Is it going to be great, I doubt it, but sometimes fun is just what you want.

First-Class Letters

I like roll and write games. But First-Class Letters is not like the typical roll and write game. This is a word game with roll and write elements to it. It’s about creating words and putting them in order. But each time you roll letters you get more points for using all three of the letters. But there is always a letter that you cannot use, and as you can guess that’s generally a vowel.

To add to that you need to put your words in alphabetical order. That might not be too hard, but as you get down to it, you become more and more limited as gaps between letters start to shrink. And at the beginning of the game you seed three spots with starting letters, so that can add to the challenge as well. I think this sounds like a ton of fun, though I can see why some people may not like it because it is a word game.

Trinket Trove

From the same company as First-Class Letters, though I didn’t get this one picked up for me at Gen Con, is Trinket Trove. Trinket Trove is a set collection game. But to collect cards you need to bid to draft them. The twist on this is that as you bid to draft cards, the more cards you bid, the sooner you go. But also, the cards that you bid are now a pile of cards that someone else can take. The set collection aspect looks simple, so it is the bidding that really excites me for this game.

No Loose Ends

Also from the same company, which is GameHead, we have No Loose Ends. No Loose Ends is a trick taking game where you want to win certain types of tricks. How do you determine that, well, you use cards from your hand to indicate what type of trick you are going to take. I like this balancing act as it’s a twist on the normal bidding. I need to decide if I can win a blue trick or two but I need to play out two blue cards are bids, for example. That sounds like a fun trick taking twist to me.

Vantage

Vantage from Stonemaier Games is one of the ones that was released before Gen Con. And I pre-ordered it before Gen Con. But this is an open world adventure game. You get a mission to complete as a group at the start of the game. And then you get dropped into a world.

This is a game where you can win, but it’s more about the experience. What is the world like, what adventures will you go on? I also hear that it is better in that one to maybe three player range. And that is because while it is engaging to be part of the story at the table, it is downtime between turns. So I like it for a one off sandbox game when I want to play an open world game.

Otter

Otter is one that wasn’t on my radar going into Gen Con. It is only because of hearing about it that I pre-ordered this one, or late pledged it, on crowdfunding. Otter is a card shedding game. By that I mean you want to empty your hand completely. But if you don’t, you draw back up and try again.

Each otter has a head and tail that are give you a rule. So it might be something like the next card you play is two or less different from the previous card and it is of the fish suit. If you match both things you can keep on playing on that one until you only match one of the two. And there are three otters in play, so you want to try and match all of them.

I like the sound of this one because it sounds simple to learn but tricky to play.

Tag Team

This one the Man vs Meeple channel was the one that brought it to my attention. The game is interesting because it is what is known as an autobattler. That means that you have your two heroes and your opponent has two and the cards just battle themselves. That is not something that sounds like a great game there.

The trick is what as you start you have two cards. You battle both of them out. Then you draw three more cards and you add one of them to your deck. You don’t rearrange the cards in your deck, but you add that one and you decide, do I add it at the top, middle or bottom. Effectively when will cards activate. As you start to know your opponents card you ask yourself, when are they going to activate their big attack, and can I block that time. But they know that, so do they adjust where it is in the deck when they add a new card above it, or keep it in the same spot?

Ace of Spades

Finally is Ace of Spades. I won’t say too much on this one because I already wrote a review for it. You can read the review for Ace of Spades here. Devir has another hit game and one that sold out really fast each day at Gen Con. This is a solo or two player game where you battle a boss by playing out poker hands. It is easy to learn and play but offers some fun challenges as you go along.

The one thing that I think keeps this from being more so for everyone is that it is somewhat lucky. Yes you can manipulate your hand with discards and draws, but sometimes you might not be able to beat the boss just because you drew poorly. I still love the game and think that it’s a very good game with fun mechanisms and a great theme.

Final Thoughts

Clearly without going to Gen Con you can still find Gen Con games. And I love that Devir put Ace of Spades on a free shipping sale during Gen Con. So if you were at the show you could stand in line to buy it or you could just order it. And since I wasn’t, I still could get it at Gen Con prices like I had picked it up there. I hope more companies, when they can, follow suit with that. Makes me feel better when I can’t go.

Out of these games that I haven’t played, I think I am most excited for Tag Team. I love the sound of that game and the characters all look cool. But I want to play all of them. And so many of them offer interesting twists on what you do in the game. What is the Gen Con release that you are most excited about playing or did you pick-up?

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Top 10 Games to Buy at Gen Con

Honorable Mention: Pirates of Maracaibo: Commanders

Is this 11 games, no it is not. Why, because Pirates of Maracaibo: Commanders is an expansion. So it doesn’t count as a game. No, more so you know if you are interested in this based off of if you like Pirates of Maracaibo or not. There are some new things like commanders that give you an asymmetric starting point. Plus there is rum as a new resource because it should have always been there. There are mix and match explore tracks. And there are now cannons and things you can fight with cannons. It adds a little bit, but not too much in my opinion.

10. Buffet Boss

So the list officially starts with Buffet Boss. This is a stacking game. I believe you draft things from a buffet and then you stack them on edge on your plate and you see how high you can stack them. The higher you get, the more satisfied you are with the buffet. Of course, if you get too much that isn’t good because they won’t balance or they will topple over. This sounds like a silly fun game.

9. Cat Tower

The next game on the list is another dexterity game and the last dexterity game. Cat Tower is a game where you work cooperatively to get a cat as high in the tower as you can. But the edges of things that you use to balance aren’t always even, some might even say that the tower is a bit cattywampus. The story of the game is sweet though and the game play looks fun.

So, if you want to know the story, and this is just the theme of the game not how it is plays, the cats mom has died. And the cat wants to build a tower up to heaven to find their mom. It’s a sad but sweet theme.

8. Trinket Trove

Trinket Trove is a set collection bidding game. This one has cute artwork, but let’s talk about how the game works Because that is what draws me into this one. In Trinket Trove a number of cards are flipped over that you bid on. And you bid with the cards in your hand to get them. So you are giving up something that you might need. The more cards you bid, the sooner you pick. But, and here is the twist, when you bid, the cards you bid are now a new pile of cards for people to take. So it is a great puzzly sounding time with a simple game but fun strategy.

7. Koi

Koi is on my Gen Con list just because it is pretty. If you can’t guess, Koi is about Koi and building a Koi pond. And this game looks great. I assume that each element of the Koi pond score in different ways. But there are elements like arches that you add to your pond, fish that you add and more. And it is a 3D presence to the game which I’m not sure is in every version of the game but I hope so. This is one just from an aesthetic point of view that I want to track down.

6. 12 Rivers

I feel bad about 12 Rivers being outside of my Top 5 on this Gen Con list because I think it looks really intriguing. Some of that, though, is that I mainly know the board. The board is this 12 marble track where there are spots for players to put their blockers. And then you release all the marbles. As the marbles travel down the rivers they hit a blocker. If you block early you might get a specific marble, you could get blocked too if you aren’t high enough. Or further down more will make it to you, but it might not be the ones you want.

That physical element of the game is what gets me. I love Potion Explosion for that. And this one gives me that same toy feel for the game. I hope that the rest of the game is good to go with it and that the game isn’t just all that.

5. First-Class Letters

First-Class Letters is a roll and write word game, and I like roll and write games. In this game you roll four dice. All the players need to find words that use three of those four dice and that don’t use the other one. The more of the letters you use, the more points you get. And you need to put them in alphabetical order. So that is going to be pretty easy the first few times, but, there is more. You also seed the first letter of three of the spots, in alphabetical order, so that is going to limit you more. I think this sounds simple but like a ton of fun.

4. Tricky Kids

Tricky Kids is a trick taking game that looks like it’s for kids. But I’m not 100% sure that it is. In this game you play three hands of seven cards each. And each time you need to assign the values to your cards. Yes, this game there are suits on the cards but no numbers. So you divvy up 21 points between them as you start playing. And yes, you want to win tricks, but when you win tricks you get tokens. And you know what the tokens are and when they are showing up. It sounds like a simple but very fun big twist in trick taking.

3. Slam Throne

Slam Throne could be my #1 on this list. But I think you’ll see why the other two beat it out. This is Dice Throne but pogs. Dice Throne teased and joked about this for years on April Fool’s Day. But it is finally a reality now. You play pogs with powers and abilities and try and take out your opponents stack before they take out yours. This sounds dumb and goofy and 100% a good time. I wish I was going to be at Gen Con because I expect this one to sell out. I asked for a friend to grab it for me, I hope they don’t stand in line early, I can always get it later.

2. Tag Team

Tag Team is a weird game because it gives me Dice Throne vibes, but it’s also auto-battler. So let’s talk about how this works. An auto-battler is a game that when it comes to fighting the fight just happens.

You start with two characters and one card for each character. You both flip over the cards and check what they do. Then after you play out those two cards, you draw three more and pick one to add to your cards. You add it without changing the order of the others. But you add it to the top, bottom, or middle and then you go again. So you start to figure out where to put a block for a big attack. But maybe your opponent thought you would so they changed that with how they added their card.

I love how it works and I love the head games for it. But it isn’t just all head games. As you pick between those three cards, you create strategies and synergies as you play. And the game comes with a ton of characters. I can not way to get this in my hands, I have it pre-ordered.

1. Ace of Spades

The final one on the list is Ace of Spades. This one is getting great reviews 8’s and 8.5 from the Dice Tower and they all really liked it. It is a solo or two player boss battling game. Now, I like a good boss battler, but this one is different with a weird west theme, but let’s talk about how it works.

You face off against monsters and bad guys and you want to take them down. How do you take them down? Not by rolling dice but by playing out poker hands. And each type of hand is going to do some damage. Better hands will do more damage. As you progress the enemies you face start to have powers and abilities that they use against you. But when you beat them, you get one time or ongoing powers as well.

The theme of this game is a ton like Balatro. But it is going to be simpler than that because Balatro changes cards and I’m glad it’s not a Balatro legacy game, though that could be cool. This is one that I’d wait in line for at Gen Con. But it is available to pre-order from Devir, so I just did that today.

Final Thoughts

Oh how I wish I was going to Gen Con. If you are, let me know about some of these games. And let me know which of these games are the most interesting to you. I also remind myself that all of these games will be available at retail at some point in time. So even if I don’t get them, like I said, I expect Slam Throne to sell fast, I will get it eventually. And I am really excited to try all of these games and give you reviews in the future.

What game tops your list that you are anticipating?

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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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Top 10 Board Games that Deserve a Second Shot

10. Bottom of the 9th

Bottom of the 9th is one of a few board games on the list that are Gen Con games. So what does that mean, it means that I got to demo those board games at Gen Con. And that is not always the best spot to do it. This one is lucky feeling. And I think that is going to be one of the common reasons why it is lower.

But I didn’t play a full game at Gen Con. So is there more fun interaction, I suspect there could be. Even if not in the game, Bottom of the 9th is probably a decently fun time with the right person that you are facing off against. It can become a game of just trying to get into that players head. And that, I think, could make the game more fun.

9. Lucidity: Six-Sided Nightmares

This one I think just didn’t work for me because it’s maybe not best at two players. And it isn’t going to be the only one of the board games on the list like that. But this is a push your luck dice game as you try and traverse nightmares. And you might even get turned into a monster.

That is something that I love the sound of. However, like I said, this is a push your luck dice game where generally bad things just happen. And you find that any control you have is very limited. For me that is the biggest letdown in the game. But I do think with more than two players, it is going to balance a bit more. One player still might run away with it, but it won’t feel as lopsided.

8. A Fake Artist Goes to New York

This one I already feel like I should rank higher. And for that reason it is lower on the list. To me, this is a pretty enjoyable hidden role game. However, I don’t love hidden role board games, unless there is more to go on than just social deduction. And A Fake Artist Goes to New York does give you a bit more of that.

Plus this is a fast game and easy to play. It is way less set-up than other hidden role games. It’s just drawing a picture and adding to it each time, but there is one person who doesn’t know what is being drawn. If you figure out who they are, the players who know what the image is get points. If not, the fake artist gets points. And it’s relatively easy to figure out who it is, but if that person can guess what the drawing is, well, they get points that way too.

7. Arkham Horror: Final Hour

This one I suspect is not a great game. But again, it is one of those Gen Con demo board games on the list. And we got to see how some of it works, but not spend enough time with the game. That’s the downside of a game that kind of fizzles immediately, it isn’t back at Gen Con.

In this game you want to interrupt a ritual. And to do that you need to figure out what the ritual is all while dealing with cultists. The game, I think, has a bit of mastermind feel to it, or simple deduction maybe (it’s been a while) where you figure out symbols that are part of the ritual or not. And then you need to correctly guess all of them. But at the same time you need to avoid being overrun by cultists which adds to the game. I like Lovecraftian games though, generally, so I want to try this one again.

6. Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellows

I only played this game a couple of times solo. And it is one that is actually still in my collection. It never left because I like the IP so much and it’s pretty unlikely we’ll get a ton more games in this IP. Though, Japanime Games did just crowdfund a new skirmish Sword Art Online game. I am interested to see that one, and probably pick it up, at some point in time.

But this one is a die rolling game. And I think that there are some interesting elements to it. Mainly, you face off against three bosses in the game, one after the other. As you go you level up your character and unlock new abilities. That is pretty simple and normal, but it brings in from the anime the “switch” mechanism. If you get a perfect hit, aka use up all your dice, you switch with the next person. And that person just jumps straight into their attack. The bad guy doesn’t get to deal damage to you. That is a fun thematic twist from an otherwise Yahtzee style game.

5. Fallout

Now, I own Fallout Shelter, and that’s not the one I’m talking about. Though, I need to play Fallout Shelter still. But I’ve only heard generally good things about that one. This one I’m talking about is the big Fallout board game where you are exploring the world, seeing story, maybe allying yourself with factions, and upgrading.

The issue I saw with this game is that it could get out of balance pretty quickly and there is just too much luck when it comes to pushing the end game. I went for one way of scoring, based off of my character, and things just didn’t line-up for that. What I’ve heard is that the expansion improves the game. I’m not sure it is going to be one of those board games on this list where I start to love it if I play it again, but I’d be interested to try again with the expansion.

4. Celestia

Celestia is another convention board game. Though this one isn’t a Gen Con game. I learned and played this one at AcadeCon which is mainly an RPG convention. My wife and I had downtime between games and we decided to give it a try.

This is one of the games on the list where I know that I played it wrong. I think we rolled too many dice at the lower levels. So we never really progressed up as we went. And Celestia being a push your luck game, I think two players is probably not the right number. In fact on Board Game Geek, they recommend 3-6 players and really say it’s best at 5-6 players. So I want to try it again at a game night and see if it’s better. This is one that I might pick-up to see if it works for me.

3. Smash Up

I did enjoy this game. But it is a game that fell off some for me. I think that I should try it again. Because, I suspect that I’d still find enjoyment in the game. Or maybe more enjoyment now that I haven’t played the game in a while.

Smash Up is one of those board games with a great concept. You take two factions, you mix them together and then you battle for area control. But, I think that the game works at three. Mainly because three factions can battle over the locations. And then the number of locations as well. The game just feels too lopsided at times with two. One player might just get their combo or dinosaurs and bears to work perfectly while the other players wizard robots never get going. But at four, it’s a bit too much randomness.

2. SeaFall

This one might be shocking on the list. But I think with the right group of three players, none of whom have analysis paralysis tendencies at all, the game could be fun. I thought that there were some good ideas in SeaFall, and some fairly easy things to fix that could have made the game better.

But the biggest thing is that the game at five players is just way to long. Especially when I played it, there were a couple of people who loved to think heavily through their turns. So even though they had four turns before theirs, their turns would be as long as the three players who didn’t have analysis paralysis. So I think the game could be fun with three for me. Though, even I’ll admit, it is going to need to be the right three.

Side note, I’d love to see a second edition of this come out. And in the second edition the story be fixed, and game length, so that the story, being redone is more of a narrative progression. I think faster game length (so fewer points to win), progressing story, and balancing winning and losing combats would by relatively easy fixes to the game.

1. Nidavellir

The final game on the list is a bit of a cheat. But I came to realize as I played Nidavellir on BGA (Board Game Arena) for the first time in a couple of years why it maybe didn’t work for me. I think that there are some strategies in two players that makes Nidavellir not that fun. But at three players or more, I think it works well.

Nidavellir is a blind bidding game where you recruit dwarves into your group. Each type of dwarf is going to score a different way. Generally the more you have the more you score. But some of them the numbers on them matter as well. You also gain bonus dwarves as you fill in complete sets of dwarves. And these bonus ones often give you some really nice extra scoring or abilities. But one of the abilities is kind of broken in two players if you get it. So that just makes the game less fun.

It’s like I’ve said with some other board games. At two players it is prone to a run away leader issue. But at more players there is more of a balancing act that needs to be done. And I don’t find that with more than three, which sometimes can become too random, Nidavellir becomes too random. I think it still works well.

Final Thoughts

What are some games that you ranked poorly in the past that you think you should revisit. Now, know that my list is not all the games that I’ve ranked that low. And I think that there are some that I rank low that people would be shocked about. For example, I really dislike Concept and Dominion. Neither of them made the list for me to revisit them.

Let me know which ones would make your Top 5 or even just a couple you think you should revisit?

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Games 20 through 11 of 2024

Now, first off, I do want to say, there are some games on the list that I don’t really enjoy. The bottom three I find to be poor or just okay, but let’s get to them.

20. Takenokolor

Takenokolor is a roll and write game where what you are rolling is the pens. However, the game itself is really simple and the choices are generally very obvious. They do have a few different “boards” that you can play on, but even the more complex ones tend not to offer that much more choice than the others. It feels like a very basic roll and write game with the gimmick that you are rolling pens. And even the added complexity doesn’t make the game more fun, it’s still very basic, just extra rules for the sake of extra rules.

19. Landmarks

Landmarks is a party style of game where one person is “it” and they are giving clues to lead the other players around a map. And the clues they give are one word based off of other words on the board. Basically, there are hexes, three of them have words on them, to start the game, and the clue giver gives a clue and the other players need to figure out where it makes sense to place that new tile. Does it make sense to connect to two words, or is the clue giver trying to keep you away from some.

Now, I said at the beginning that I wasn’t a huge fan of the bottom three. I think I want to try this one again. My hopes are fairly limited that it’d be a consistent hit for me, but I do believe, in the right group, this could be a fun game.

18. Odin

Odin is a card shedding game. Probably the best known card shedding game right now is Scout, which just broke into the Board Game Geek Top 100. Odin isn’t that, it’s a solid but simple card shedding game that works on a more basic principle than scout. You play out cards either as a bigger number of one color or a bigger number of a set of one number than the previous person did. Then you take one card to add to your hand from what the previous person played.

I think that this one is probably a 7 for me at 2 or 3 players if I were to rank it out of 10. But it plays higher than that. And at higher numbers than that it’s just very random. And you find lots of turns where you aren’t able to play and that might happen several rounds in a row. In Scout at least you are picking up new cards when you can’t play, here you are just left stuck with what you have.

17. Icecool Wizards

Icecool Wizards is not as good as Icecool. But if you want a smaller box and a bit more game play, there is an option for you. The core mechanisms remain the same. You flick around a penguin, but now you are trying to get elements to cast spells, basically set collection. And you do that by flicking your penguin over the elements and then flicking them over spells to collect those spells.

The one thing that keeps it from being up higher is that there is almost more luck than the basic game. What do you flip out for a spell, who knows. Now that balances out somewhat over the course of the game, but it’s just an extra element to the game that isn’t completely needed.

16. Festival

Next up we have Festival. I like games with fireworks, fireworks are fun. But Festival is just fine for me because it’s basically a pattern building game. And while I think it works well, it’s very abstract, and I’m just okay with abstract games. You take one of two tiles that’s visible and you’re trying to complete goals. But, instead of taking tiles you can reserve a goal as well because you can only score goals that you reserve.

Honestly, I think it’s the reserving the goals that bugs me about the game. It’s an extra turn that you take, and generally you reserve and score it the same turn. Unless you spy someone else going for it, you’re not going to waste a turn grabbing it early to then never be able to score it. It might be more exciting of a game if you just scored if you were the first to get it, though maybe a bit more deterministic, I see you one turn ahead of me for a goal, I pivot goals, whereas now you can steal it out from under another player.

15. Metrorunner

Next up is Metrorunner. This is one that I got to play at Gen Con and it’s a fun game. You are going around a rondel collecting cubes and trading them in to complete missions. It’s not that super unique a game, but I like that rondel mechanism in it. It feels different while still being an accessible and easy to understand and play game.

But the game has an interesting extra element to it. In Metrorunner you also have a sliding puzzle game in the middle. It reminds me of I believe it was called Pipes Dream where you connect one side of the board to another specific side with pipes. You do that here, but you do it with limited moves and only a few special abilities to help you. I won the game because I am very good at figuring out those puzzles, and you can do it a lot in the game.

14. Captain Flip

This one is a game that I’d love to add to my collection. I own 15 & 17 already, but Captain Flip is maybe the last one that I don’t own on the list. This is a fun game of drawing a tile, you see one side and that tells you some of the scoring that might be on that tile. And it is scoring that you can use and add to your pirate ship. But on the flip side is some other scoring and that scoring might be better. But, once you flip you are locked in on that side of the tile. So do you push your luck or not. It’s a very light game but a good time.

13. Adulthood

Adulthood is a game with a fun theme of being an adult, though, I’m already an adult and I think the game is more fun than real life. You have less taxes that you need to do in the game. But the game is all about how you spend your time and money. And the artwork is great and goes well with the theme because it just creates this fun experience.

I love how you might lose your job but you find a new one easily. Or you fall in love and get married and how you have a new action spot to spend time and money on. Plus you also are trying to play out other cards that are life experiences. If you do well with those, they are great way to score points, but a lot of them require that you have other life experiences first. No going to the PTA meeting without having a kid first. And who knows if you find that kid because it’s a big deck of cards you dig through.

12. Cafe Baras

Cafe Baras is a game with a really fun theme. You are Capybara baristas and you want to make your best coffee shop. So you buy items to put on your menu. Then you bring in customers who will give you money. And if you match everything a customer wants, you can get a repeat customer, which is going to give you points. Plus there are special customers. They score at the end of the game and only if you cafe meets certain things.

The game is from Kids Table Board Games and it is light. But because o that it plays fast as well. And it’s a pretty easy game to teach. I don’t think with a silly cute theme I’d want it to be longer. So Cafe Baras is a very fun time.

11. Stonespine Architects

And just missing my Top 10 for 2024 is Stonespine Architects. Though it is one of my most played games in 2024, at least in person. I really like this game because it’s all about building out a dungeon. And you want your dungeon to meet certain things. If it does you are going to get points. But there is an element of drafting cards to add to your dungeon. And then buying items to enhance your dungeon.

I also really like that you draft some scoring objectives as well. Players add three to the game as they play, each of them unique to that player. So while there are shared scoring elements, your dungeon is going to become more unique. And when cards don’t quite fit perfectly, well that might work for a scoring objective that you have.

Final Thoughts

I’m sure that I’m missing games that I played in 2024. Some because maybe they didn’t get rated from a quick play at Gen Con. Or maybe I just missed that date, but 2024 was a year where I got in a lot of fun games. And I also know that there are games from 2024 that I haven’t gotten to that I really want to play. In fact, I see one from where I’m sitting with Stamp Swap, and I know there are more as well.

What are some of your favorite games from 2024? But not you #1 game, bring that to Malts and Meeples tomorrow night as I stream at 9 PM Central my 10 through 1.

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Gen Con Games I’m Most Excited To Play

I’m not going to go through them all. Mainly because that would take a long time. But let’s talk about some that I haven’t played yet that I’m excited to get to the table. And I’m going to limit myself to five because otherwise I might just put them all on the list.

5. Fateforge

Fateforge is almost a cheat. I pre-ordered it, actually, for Gen Con pick-up. So I did pick it up there, I had just bought it ahead of time. But I couldn’t have played it ahead of time, so I’m counting it. This is going to be a campaign style game and honestly, that is enough to draw me in. But as I looked at it when Meet Me At the Table did an unboxing, the game felt like one that I’d like a lot. And really, a fantasy campaign style game with fighting, that is right my alley.

4. Adulthood

Adulthood is probably one that’s a bit different than my normal game. Though, the theme is again what drew me to the game. Adulthood is a game about being an adult and living your best life as an adult. So you need to work to make money, but not work too much so that it sucks all the fun out of life. And the more fun you can have during your life, the better, I believe. The theme of game just sounds like it should be fun. Now, I need it to be different enough from my actual life, but otherwise, I’m all in.

3. Cities

This was not Devir’s biggest game at the con. That one, spoiler, is coming up on the list. But I knew that I wanted Cities as well as that one. Mainly because I like city building games. And the design team of Phil Walker-Harding and Steve Finn, I like that one a lot. They tend to make lighter and more accessible games, and one that is city building, I’m definitely interested in that. My hope is that like others of their games it’ll be easy to play but offer interesting decisions.

2. Video Game Champion

Next up is Video Game Champion. I don’t know a ton about how this one plays. But the theme is what got me. I like video games. I don’t always find the time to play them, but I like them a lot. But I do always find the time to play board games. Now I can play a board game about being great at playing video games. But it’s more than just that, it’s from the era where people regularly would rent them and you’d need to do chores, get allowance, and maybe as Grandma for some money to buy them so you could get to be the best. That is a fun take on the theme of video games.

1. Rock Hard 1977

Finally, from Devir again, is the game of the con. Sure there were other games that people were excited about. A lot of booths had lines formed to start the day. But Devir with Rock Hard 1977 generally had the longest lines. Add in Jackie Fox the designer and original bassist of the Runaways being there, it added to the hype.

This is a game of garage band to stadium tours. The game wants you to write songs, record a demo tape, get an album and go onto bigger and better shows to score more points. But you need to balance that with your day job, at leas at the start. And eventually you’ll be rocking the hardest of everyone. This is a worker placement game, which isn’t always my style, but one with a theme that I really love.

Final Gen Con Game Thoughts

Now, I have plenty more that I want to play as well. Earth, Terminus, and Draft And Write Records all make that list. Plus so many more as I look over at games like Wandering Towers, Maple Valley, Creature Comforts and more. Plus I got games that I just need to play anyways because I have them and I haven’t gotten them to the table. So as I find out which ones have solod rules, those will be the ones that I’m targeting to play and stream on Malts and Meeples. Look for those videos coming up.

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How to Win in Defenders of the Dictionary

The answer is play multiple games to really get the win. You need to collect enough stars to beat the bad guy, and that takes more stars than you can get in a single game. Let’s talk about how you get stars. There are four ways to get stars.

Firstly is to complete words. If you get enough points from words, you will get a star. Then there are private objectives, if everyone completes theirs, you get a star. Plus there are mission points on the board, you connect two, you get a star. And finally, if you trap both minions, you get a star. You need five to defeat the bad guy, but you won’t always get all four.

How to Play Defenders of the Dictionary

Like I said, this is a cooperative word game. But what surprise people is that it’s based off of Scrabble to some extent. Players have letters in front of them and with limited communication they need to pick some to use in a word. In a two player game, I pick two and my teammate picks two. Or in a four player game, each player picks one.

Then everyone reveals their letters. They combine their letter and the bad guys letter into a word to play on the board, like Scrabble. Any letters not used are saved for the next word. And if you don’t use the bad guy’s letter, then you take negative points to offset the positive points you got from the word. You continue to build out your words until you decide to stop.

But that doesn’t seem that hard, maybe if no one has a vowel, but even then you can connect often to one that is already played. But there are some other rules to note. Mainly that you only have limited space to store letters. So if you run out of space after a word, you not only lose points for the bad guys letter, you also lose for your highest value unused letters.

Game Play Highlights

Firstly, I think it was just a highlight for me that it worked. I didn’t know how it was going to work and like I said, I wasn’t super excited for it. But when I got to demo it, I really enjoyed how the system worked. Sometimes you can be really clever and put out a great word with the bad guy letter. Other times, because the bad guy letters are hard, and maybe no one added a vowel, you end up eating some points one round. It’s a good push your luck that way.

I also like that the board itself is not just a standard Scrabble board. There are no double word or triple letter spaces. Instead, there are spots where there are rivers that you can’t go across. And sometimes a building or two will block your path. So it’s not as simple to play out a word as it might seem. That with the minions who might also mess up things also make it trickier when playing words.

What I Want To See More Of

I think how the scenarios work is interesting. I call them scenarios, it might be more like the games or specific bad guy set-ups. But because you just can go until you want to stop, or at least that is how I was taught, it made it pretty easy. We went until we hit three goals and stopped. Connecting up missions points, getting your private goals, and scoring enough points weren’t that hard. I want to see if that can be harder to do at some point in time.

I also want to test it out with more players. I played at two and it wasn’t too bad to make words. Sometimes we were short on vowels, but never too bad. I wonder with more players if it is going to make the game more challenging in a good way. I could see it going either way. I wish my demo had more people, but Defenders of the Dictionary wasn’t one that I saw talked about a ton going into Gen Con.

Final Thoughts and Impressions

I enjoy this game. I don’t know that it would ever be one of my favorites, but there is a lot good going for it. And in terms of word games, it is one of the better ones I’ve played. I like Letter Jam better, but both of these feel like good games. And I like the cooperative nature of it as well. It helps with the whole, whomever has the largest vocabulary wins feelings that some word games have.

Do you like word games, is this one you want to checkout on crowdfunding?

Follow the project here.

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How To Win at Stardriven: Gateway

I want to change things up about how I talk about these games. Often times I touch on how to win, but I want to make it a focus. Stardriven: Gateway is a game of collecting points. You get your points in a few different ways. The big way is getting influence out onto the main planets. You do this, generally, by completing missions. But at the end of the game, you also gain points for trained crew, total crew, and anomaly faced. Though, that scoring can change depending on the scenario you play.

The game end trigger is when one player has nine influence out on the board. At that point, the round is completed and one more full round happens.

How to Play Stardriven: Gateway

While this is a big space game with hexes and planets that you fly around, that board is almost secondary. Most of what you do is going to be on your player board. On your player board you are managing your crew by placing them in locations and then activating those locations with dice.

On your turn you always get two actions and any number of free actions. The actions are simple, either place a crew or activate a station with a crew with one of your dice. There is a third action, resting, which allows you to get back and reroll your dice. Only after you play out four of your dice. To activate a station on your ship, you need enough energy, so you sometimes need to take less ideal actions to be able to get energy back.

The free actions are things like upgrading your crew if you have experience, completing a mission or activating crew. Crew actions can vary a lot. You can exhaust them to refresh or re-roll dice or gain energy back. But how you activate them and if you use them to complete missions is part of the puzzle of the game.

Game Play Highlights

There is a lot that I like about Stardriven: Gateway. The biggest thing is the smoothness of the system. You know what you want to do on your turn, and other players are not going to affect it too much. Yes, a mission might get stolen out from under you, but generally the player interaction is limited. I’ll talk more about that later with how it might not be. The actions are consistent across the game, so that is what I mean by smooth.

And I really like the crew management aspect of the game. That is what is interesting to me on this game. Each faction has it’s own crew with their own abilities. So everyone is a bit asymmetric that way. And while a lot of the abilities fall into the categories of refresh a die, swap a die, or gain energy. But I like to use that to prolong when I need to pull back dice. If I can use them to squeak out an extra couple of actions more than other people, I feel like my efficiency is good.

The dice actions were interest as well. The number on the die is basically the amount of action points that you get. This might be for drawing more crew, or how far you can fly. Or if you can take out an enemy ship. No die is a complete dud, though, it always provides you some actions. But a worse role is going to be provide you fewer actions or less energy in return.

What I Need To See More Of

Firstly, they talked about how there are some scenarios that are competitive, like I played, and some that are cooperative. How is the cooperative going to work? That is the question that I have and will it feel compelling? I mainly ask that because I think cooperative will work, the game didn’t have much direct confrontation. But is it just going to be beat a score or something like that which you want to target?

The one thing that I said I’d talk more about is player combat in this as well. When going up against the enemy it makes sense. The system is enjoyable and simple. But there is options for players to go up against other players. That never happened in my play. And a lot of that was because I didn’t see a good reason for it. I think that everyone else in the playthrough thought the same. So is this just part of the game that is rarely ever used, is it maybe in a specific scenario there is reason? I want to know if I should ever focus on player vs player combat, because I’m not always the biggest fan.

Final Thoughts and Initial Impression

I like this game, a lot. It is a game that doesn’t feel over engineered in what it is doing. It is also a game that doesn’t feel like it doesn’t have real choices. That for me is a sweet spot because it’s easy enough to teach and play but won’t feel old or stale after a few plays. Even with the scenarios, the one I played will go completely differently next time I play it.

And I think another important factor about this game and you can take it for what it is worth, I want to play it again. I think that there are elements that I could do better and explore more. Like how I utilized my crew wasn’t always the best. So I think I can do even better than I did the first time. And I think that that feeling isn’t going to go away quickly with the factions and scenarios to explore in the game.

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Gen Con Felt Smaller

So, for a gen con where everything had sold out completely, Gen Con felt smaller. This could be several reasons for it. I heard of a few people who couldn’t make it because of getting sick ahead of time. But that is a minor percentage of people. I think the reason it felt smaller is that there were fewer choke points.

Last year was the year of Lorcana. And I expect that nothing will match that, at least for a long time. But that meant that there were no extremely long lines. A lot of people went for a lot of different things. So while some aisles at the start of every day had lines, it wasn’t as consistent. And, for example, I stood in line for Devir’s room to get a game (watch the Gen Con Haul video coming up), but that was from 7:30 until 8.

Demoing Prototypes

This is one element of Gen Con that I love every time that I go. I like to try and learn about new games or games that aren’t even out yet. And I got to play three new games that are either coming to retail or crowdfunding. You can pre-order Mistborn from Brotherwise Games on sites like Game Nerdz already. And then the two for crowdfunding we have Defenders of the Dictionary coming to Kickstarter and Stardriven: Gateway on Gamefound which you can find here. I will write more up on all of these later.

Seeing People Again

This year I didn’t meet up with as many people, but the Man vs Meeple event was as fun as ever. But it is great to always see people who I know there. And to meet new people. And to play games with new people and just experience the con that way. Plus it’s always fun to learn a new game and teach a new game while at an event like that. Plus with prizes (again haul video coming up for more details), food, and being off your feet it’s a good time. I got to play Rebel Princess twice and Comic Hunters two games that are now ones that I like a lot.

Going with Friends

So, the past two years I’ve gone to Gen Con by myself. It has been great because I just kind of wander and do my own thing. But this year, going with friends reminded me that it can be nice to do that as well. Going with friends didn’t mean that I wandered and did my own thing that much less. It meant that I didn’t do a car drive by myself. And it meant that I got to meet up with people a bit more. And I got to chat about the day and what people were excited about each evening.

Going in a group made the drive a lot faster. Conversations were had and better friendships were formed. Plus I love hearing people get excited about on a day. What new thing they found or bought. What they want to check out the next day, all of that is great.

Final Thoughts

Now there are more highlights than that. I need to try and think about Saturday and mark down my game plays that day. Because I failed, again to track everything. But I know of a few games that I need to mark down plays for. Including one of the prototypes that I played, actually, I think two of them that day.

Did you go to Gen Con? If so, what were some of your highlights. If not, what do you want to know about from this convention?

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