But that is all great. There are still some IP’s that just don’t have good board games yet. And I think that some of them could have great board games if the right company got their hands on them. I think I could come up with more than three, but let’s pick my Top 3 IP’s that I want better board games for.

Top 3 IP’s

3. Tomb Raider

I think that there have been a few Tomb Raider games over time. But none of them have been that good. The one I that played was definitely very bad. That sad thing is that this was in 2019 at Gen Con and while I know bad games come out still, the hope is that if you’re showing off a new game there that isn’t out, you’ll make it better. They did not.

The issue with this game, and there were many, but the biggest is that everyone was Lara Croft. So it starts with something that makes zero sense. Then you try and move around a circle by playing out cards. All the cards were boring. Then you could also just mess with that other players were doing. In all, there is nothing that felt Tomb Raider like about it.

What I Want

This is clearly a narrative adventure game. And honestly a lot of IP games should be that. You have a pre-existing world, so how do you create something good for it. I think this could be perfect for Mansions of Madness style of game. Mansions of Madness does two things. It lets you have puzzles, and Tomb Raider could be way more creative with theirs. And you get to explore and build out locations.

Now, would I make this a campaign game. And honestly I’m a bit torn on it. I think that there are elements that would make sense from the franchise to be a campaign game. But a lot of the games are also pretty standalone in nature. So I almost lean towards standalone. But what I’m going to say is that I think there are game models you could use that offer both.

I like the idea of being able to get a box of the next series of missions in this case. All of those will be a connected arc. But like Fantasy Flight does with their LCG’s, and maybe that’d be a good Tomb Raider format anyways, have some stand alone packs. So you could get the core box, play as Lara and her friends, have some connected missions, and then get one off missions.

2. Sword Art Online

Now, the Sword Art Game is why I have a bit of an issue with Japanime Games. They tend to get a lot of IP’s and they don’t do well by them. The games aren’t balanced, the rules aren’t good, and it’s generally a bit of a mess. Sword Art Online: Sword of Fellows somehow manages to have a lot of rules written out but none of them explained. From when I’ve played it, and I still own it, it’s basically a Yahtzee style game of trying to roll dice and activate hits.

If you can activate all the dice, I believe it is, then you can switch with someone else not giving the bad guy a turn. That element is thematic to the show. But the issue with this game is that there’s not much of a game there. And there isn’t much that makes it feel like the show or light novels. It’s really that one thing, you can switch, and a very basic and boring leveling up.

What I Want

Sword Art Online in a Kingdom Death Monster system. I know really easily what I want. Or maybe Sword Art Online in a Frosthaven system. Finally, it could be Sword Art Online in a Oathsworn system. All of these have one thing in common. You go out to a boss battle or some scenario and then there is a town or settlement phase. I was already working on an idea for a game like this because Sword Art Online: Sword of Fellows was so sad.

But the basic idea is that you spend your time building up your guild, scouting, finding monsters, dealing with events, dealing with other players and NPC’s all leading up to a boss battle and going to the next level. And you need to balance everything, because in Sword Art Online there is no dying and loading it back up again. The whole point of it is a death game, so if you’re not careful your character might die. Of course, you can swap in other characters but obviously, it’s not the person who you were before.

This is just an idea that seems so obvious and it provides depth. But because the one game was made to make a game fast for an IP, we’re stuck with Sword Art Online: Sword of Fellows.

1. Dresden Files

Now my top IP that I’d like to see get a better board game, though this order is flexible, is The Dresden Files. This is a book series that I just love with great urban fantasy. And there is a board game out there that I own everything for the game. And unlike the other ones, I like The Dresden Files board game, but it could be better.

In the game you play through one of the books. And to do that you are either trying to take out more bad guys so that there are fewer of them left than cases you’ve solved. Or that there are more solved cases than bad guys left. And that’ll depend on the characters you play as. And then you are playing cards to beat up bad guys or solve cases, or to get back more action points to solve cases and beat up bad guys in future turns.

The game has some issues. It’s thematic, if you know the books. And the mechanisms are very inspired. It doesn’t feel like a Dresden story that way. It’s very mechanical and sometimes because of the shared action point pool you just discard cards. So you’re helping, but it isn’t exciting.

What I Want

This one I think I have the most specific thing that I want. Though Sword Art Online was pretty specific as well. I think there is more room to play with in that idea. I want the Vampire the Masquerade Chapter system with Dresden Files. It’s kind of choose your own adventure. It’s talking with people and monsters, it’s investigating crime scenes, and then it’s fighting. All of that is Dresden to a tee. You could maybe even mix in a city map and a blue beetle.

The only other option that I think could work, and it wouldn’t be as good would be a combination of TIME Stories and Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game. Both of them are about solving cases, which is what the Dresden Files ultimately are about. But there is more adventure to the Dresden Files that I don’t think that TIME Stories and Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game bring as much as what I’ve seen in Vampire the Masquerade Chapters.

So, Flyos Games, please get this IP or work with whomever has it, I want to see this game.

Other IP’s That Need Better Board Games

There are a lot of them out there. And I wanted to keep it to three so that I could dive into what I wanted to do as well. And there are some that have solid board games but could have better. Like Dungeons and Dragons has games people like, but do they feel like D&D to me? Or Harry Potter, Hogwarts Battle is a fun game, but does it feel like Harry Potter? Barely, and it’s not a game without it’s flaws.

If you could pick a few IP’s that have board games that you’d like to see get a better game, what would they be?

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Now, I won’t complain too much about some of those themes. I like the Cthulhu or Lovecraftian stuff that Fantasy Flight Games does. Marvel, I’m clearly a big Marvel fan as you can see from here and here. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t other themes or really IP’s that I’d like to see games put it, or more games coming from.

The Dresden Files

This one does already have a game. And it has a game that I like. I think that The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game is good. But the theme is something that the players bring to the game. The game does remind you about what the story you’re playing through is, but if you don’t know the story, the cards won’t help that much. I want something that tells more of the Dresden Files story.

What Would I Want?

I don’t know that I want this to be a dungeon crawl type of game. I feel like it would work for Dresden, but not be as interesting. Plus, there are other themes that I’d want a dungeon crawler. What I would love is to see a Detective: A Modern Board Game style Dresden Files game. Dresden is always puzzling out mysteries. And we already have books of short stories that are other cases he’s done. It would work well for creating new cases, and it could be a massive case tied together over 5 smaller cases.

And then you could have Harry, Murphy, and some of the other characters as the ones who give you things to activate. And using magic in the game would be interesting and different. There definitely needs to be some sort of combat mechanic which base Detective really doesn’t have, but it is something that could easily be added. But for a lot of it, and a lot of what Harry does is investigate and get punched.

Sword Art Online

Another one that technically has a board game. But it is a small game from Japanime Games that needs the rule book to be updated or just fixed. And the game gives you a tiny bit of the SAO theme. You play as the main characters, and you can switch, but that is it.

For those of you not familiar with Sword Art Online, it is an anime where the characters get trapped in a video game. If you die in the video game, you die in real life. And the only way to escape is to beat the game by climbing to the top of the tower/levels and beating the final boss. There are more seasons as well with different things, but that’s a good starting point for knowledge.

What Would I Want?

I’d want a boss battling game. Something along the lines of Primal, Kingdom Death Monster, or Townsfolk Tussle. Really, mostly along the lines of Kingdom Death Monster. If you put that theme on KDM, I’d be paying $700 to get everything for it.

Kingdom Death Monster is a boss battling game, but it also has you building up your tribe/colony, adding armor, weapons, and more. That would work well for an RPG style video game which is what Sword Art Online is. While everything you’d be doing is working towards the next boss battle, what you do outside of that matters as well. And the depth of story and world in SAO, side quests that might appear as boss battles, all of those are good. I think that you could really create a good game for SAO in that style.

Tomb Raider

Yes, another one with a board game already. Though, I should say, a board game I think. I forget what happened with it, I demoed it at GenCon in 2019, and I was severely disappointed. And there are a few others a well, but none that have made waves in board gaming. And Tom Raider is a very cool theme. Especially when you think about the newer video games.

What Would I Want?

I think I’d want this to be done in the style of 7th Continent or maybe more like 7th Citadel. I could have said Detective as well, because it is a mystery most of the time. But I think that treasure hunting, getting dropped on an island that you don’t know what is going on. Or going to that bigger set piece area, that is cool.

7th Citadel adds in more story. And I could see that working really well, because you get that exploration, but you could make it feel like a bigger story. In fact, you could drop all the base cards for health, some skills, and some characters. Then you could add in other packs to add in more stories, new treasures to hunt. Almost make it a combination of 7th Citadel and TIME Stories. But actually pay off on a big story.

Locke & Key

Maybe all of these will have a board game done on them, because Locke & Key does. But this is another one that the game looks lacking and too abstracted. Locke & Key is a horror series where there are magical keys. These keys can do all sorts of crazy things, and the Locke family is the protector of the keys. But there are almost Lovecraftian type creatures from beyond, that want to get their hands on the keys and take over.

What Would I Want?

I think I’d want a one versus all game. Maybe even with an element of questioning if someone one is infected or not. So it could end up being a Battlestar Galactica type of game or Unfathomable with hidden traitors. Like, who has been infected by the other world. But I also think it could maybe work better as a one versus all game.

But let’s break it down more so, I think we have one person who is playing an infected villain. Someone under the control of the other world. And then they are trying to get the keys from the Locke family, since they can’t just take them. And at times the Locke’s will need to figure out how to banish them and go to the Omega door, which seals away the other worldly creatures. They need to open the door to get more material to make a new key, but there is a chance someone else can be hit. And if they are hit, then they become other worldly.

Of course, it might not be obvious if they are hit. So every time you do that, you risk getting someone else infected. And if someone else is infected, they start working with the group still, but being less optimal. How do you hide it, when do you switch sides and just start working obviously for the bad guy. It’s more about trying to stop each other versus kill them.

Disenchantment

I know this one doesn’t have a game. And honestly, it is so weird, it might not work all that well. Disenchantment is about a princess who has some lousy friends who go on adventures in all sorts of weird places. And then eventually people want to kill them, everyone wants to kill them. It’s a lighter story, and a completely weird world.

What Would I Do?

This, to me is a great one for a dungeon crawler. They end up in a world of gnomes, elves, castles, hell, other castles, and more. They really get pulled around everywhere. Give it a nice world map and see where all you end up, how you can make it through challenges, and if the monsters will kill you. Or your own mother, or really anyone will kill you.

And because you can go to hell, and they do in the show, I think that’d be a fun way to keep a dungeon crawler moving forward. If you die, it isn’t the end, you just need to get back out of hell. Maybe make a hell book of scenarios. Then every time that you die you play through another one of those. It could be determined by where, or how you die, but it could also just be done randomly. And if you die too many times you eventually get stuck.

Keeper of the Lost Cities

I did just write about this. So if you want to know a bit about the series, you can find that here. But the basic idea is that a girl is plucked from her not so normal human life. She finds out that she is really an elf, she gets into elf school. She makes friends, and yes this sounds like Harry Potter, but the world is better and more interesting. And the magic, each elf has a different skill or could have a different skill. And the world is in unrest and their are secret organizations trying to mess with the status quo.

What Would I Want?

This is tough, mainly because I don’t want to repeat too much of what I’ve already done. And this is a really cool world to play in. Firstly, I would want character creation for this game, or at least some ability to pick. Maybe something like Midarra which is very story heavy and you can build out characters however you want.

The elves unlock their powers, but they also have skills that they all can do. It just depends on how well they train themselves. So really setting up stats in different ways and then picking what power you want from being an empath to mind reading or inflicting emotions on someone else. Plus so many more.

I think this would kind of ben another dungeon crawl type of game. Maybe a bit like something like Arydia which isn’t out yet and I might late back, possibly. The concept of Arydia is that you dig deeper. You spend time at the world map level, you make story decisions, and then you get down to a narrower focus.

What Theme Would You Want?

Do you feel that there are some that need more love? I could probably spend time and come up with more. Stormlight Archives by Brandon Sanderson is getting another one, otherwise it’d be on my list. The Call to Adventure version is cool, but there is so much that could be done in that world. And there are plenty of IP’s that could be treated better. I’m going to call out Japanime a little bit here, I think that they often put out okay games with a big IP. I’d love to see some of their anime IP’s get a better developed game.

Let me know which of my ideas sounds the coolest. And let me know what you want to see a game made about that doesn’t get enough love.

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Pros

• Theme
• Price
• Multiple Game Modes
• Art

Cons

• Multiple Game Modes
• Aesthetics

The Page

This page has both some positives and negatives for me on it. Firstly, I do love how well they lay out the page when it comes to game play. There are three modes, so not only do we get some basic game play, we get each mode of the game talked about. That said, this feels like isn’t as polished as it should be. The animations seem a little bit rough and not as smoothed as they should be.

I also think that the cards and artwork themselves seem a little bit dated in their look. I actually like the artwork quite well, it’s a slightly different fantasy style artwork, but solid looking. The layout of the card and symbols just look a bit like they belong on a collectible card game or a little bit like Clank! The Adventure Deck Building Game, which I think looks a bit dated as well. Again, I think it’s that the graphical design doesn’t look like it’s been smoothed over for the aesthetic layout. I will say, even with the aesthetics maybe needing a bit more polish the symbols are clear as to what they are.

The Game

The game modes are where I want to start, I put them as both a positive and a negative. I like that they managed to get a story mode that can be played solo into the game. A tactical battle game is interesting, but I have Super Fantasy Brawl, I’ll likely be getting some Marvel Unmatched, I had and got rid of Krosmaster Arena, so it’s a genre that I’ve had stuff for and not one that gets played a ton for me, but a story mode that I an play solo, that is more likely to get played. However, they are both a positive and a negative because I want to know how the support is for them, was the story mode/solo mode added as an after thought? I hope not.

But the game play itself seems interesting. I like the action points and how they activate different area of the cards and how clear that makes it for each character. The combat system with dice is less exciting except for the triggered effects on the dice. I like it when even a miss might do something that way the dice in the game don’t feel as punishing.

And of course, the biggest interest for me in the game is the taking of endowments. Think about being given someone else’s strength, or glamour, or agility so that your leaders are extremely powerful with lots of all of them, and then those fighters battling. Those epic points of conflict are going to be what really make this game standout as something different, I think.

Back or Brick

Right now this is a back for me. I like the book series and the premise behind it especially. However, like last week with Epic Seven Arise, I want to look more into it. Thankfully GloryHoundd and DrGloryHogg did a play through of it on the GloryHoundd channel, so I can catch up on that today to make sure it is still a back for me. I really hope that the game play seems interesting and that it feels thematic to the books. Also, it seems to have a lot of game for a very reasonable price.

Is this game a back or a brick for you? What keeps you from backing it or makes it more likely that you will? Have you read the book series?

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Frostpunk: The Board Game

So this one I don’t know a ton about, but the theme is interesting to me. I like the idea of this frozen world, and it’s a theme we’ve seen in a few other games. This one interests me more than some of the others that feel theme adjacent because this one is cooperative, and it is scenario driven. And I actually like that this is scenario driven but not campaign driven. I’m starting to look for more games that are going to have that story element to it but won’t require a consistent group for an extended period of time.

It’s also a game that’s based off of a video game IP (intellectual property) so that means it should do well, especially with the fact it has minis and the fact that the video game company also did This War of Mine.

I’m a bit concerned about the game length. I don’t mind longer games, but I also don’t need only longer games. They say 120 to 180 minutes, at 120 it’s something that could get played fairly often especially since it can be played solo, but at 180, that’s pretty long.

7th Citadel

Firstly, this game has a strong pedigree behind it with 7th Continent. It’s one that I have sitting on my shelf (well packed in a box right now) that I really need to play. I like the idea of exploration in that one, and this one seems to pick up with that, plus now they’ve had more time to streamline the rules and game play.

For me a neutral thing is that this is a dark fantasy setting. I know for some people that’ll get them excited, and I have nothing against dark fantasy, we’ve just seen a lot of dark fantasy as of late. Plus the world right now just with the pandemic, it feels a bit grim, so while hopefully things will be much better by the time you’d get The 7th Citadel into your hands, selling me on a dark fantasy theme right now is a bit harder.

Also for me, because I have 7th Continent but I haven’t played it yet, this is a hard sell for me to be all in on this game. I do think it’ll probably be a smoother spot to get into because 7th Continent is quite a beast, but they feel like they are going to scratch a similar itch, so I don’t know that I need two right now.

Finally, this one isn’t based off of an IP, but according to the blurb on Board Game Geek, this was inspired by the Fighting Fantasy book series, which are solo RPG’s that you can play.

So let me know what you think of these two games. Have you played Frostpunk the video game or the Fighting Fantasy solo RPG books? Do either of them stand out as a more interesting project that’s coming up to you?

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In Fallout, you take on one of several roles from the video games, you might be a Ghoul or a Super Mutant or someone from a Vault or someone who explores the wasteland for a living. You, and the fellow players are racing to be the best wanderer of the wasteland, completing objectives, fighting monsters, and exploring new locations and ruins. By completing various objectives and fights, you can gain experience points to become better at surviving the wasteland. On your turn, you can move, explore, interact with quests or fight, but when you interact with a quest or search a location, those are where the game really takes off, because you get story read to you. Fallout as a branching story deck that allows you put in or take out cards from the story and advance quests an the main plotline, and depending on what you do, that determines where the story and scenario go. And that’s also how you can get victory points, and the first person to nine points wins.

Let’s start out by talking about theme, the people who I played with talked about how it pulled in quests and side quests from the video game, and that thematically it felt right for that. As someone who wasn’t familiar with the game, I thought that the theme worked well, and I enjoy a good dystopian/post-apocalyptic theme. I’m sure if I was more familiar with the IP (intellectual property) I’d pick up on more of the specific Fallout theme, the theme didn’t differentiate itself a ton from other dystopian/post-apocalyptic settings. That said, it wasn’t completely generic either and even without playing the games, just from being familiar with them in concept, things like Nuka-Cola are nods to the video games that I recognized.

The theme isn’t where the game suffers a bit for me. The game is pretty stingy in handing out points. So getting to nine victory points, which are on quest or objective cards, is slow. And you basically always get them through completing parts of the story quest. You can fight monsters, but unless they are harassing you, it’s not that great a strategy, and while leveling up can be helpful, the randomness of how leveling up works can work out extremely well for some people and very poorly for others. I like the concept of leveling up and how it works, but it felt a bit too random. And leveling up doesn’t give you anymore scoring and isn’t always that helpful for allowing you to get more of the main quest done.

But, to counter some of what I said here, the story parts are the best part of the game. The combat, challenges, exploring, movement, all of those things are pretty standard fair. The story, on the other hand, how it’s created is well done. You can branch out in different directions as to who you help or how you help them. That will then lead you into a new section of the story, depending on which one you did, and it continues to branch and add things to locations that you can explore as well as to the main story. And since that’s the best way to get victory points, it really encourages you to find ways to solve the main quest items as they come up. And that means that there is more story that is read. And sometimes the main story is contingent on the locations that you are searching, so separately you all search at similar locations until you find what you need.

There is one notable other downside for me, this is not a short game. Getting to nine victory points, because it mainly comes through quests that you can then get more points because of completing objectives, the game can last a long time. Our three player game lasted probably near 2.5 to 3 hours, and while the story is good, that means that you’re taking a lot of turns where you are either getting generic story or no story at all. And, if you don’t get lucky on some dice rolls at times, you can find what you need to get more story, but then the story is taken away from you. If this was a fast game with turns taking a few seconds (which they generally don’t take long) and you get points for killing tough monsters or other ways, the game would work better. Instead, the game overstayed it’s welcome. I think I’d find it more interesting if you could try and move forward the story faster every turn, or that the choices were a bit more choose your own adventure style or, in Dungeons and Dragons terms, failing forward, where even when you don’t succeed on the main story, that causes it to move forward somehow, as that would make the game move faster. For what we were doing in the game I think that 1.5 hours would have been a good upper time limit, not nearly twice that long, and the game can be played with four people, which is going to make the game last even longer.

But overall it’s not a bad game. I think that fans of the Fallout video games who like board games are going to enjoy this game way more than I did. And, I think, with the expectation of how long the game takes set from the very beginning that might help better set expectations for the game. I knew, generally, how long it was, but the game still seemed a bit long to me. I do think that the theming is pretty strong and especially that case for fans of the video games.

Overall Grade: C-
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: D
Fan of Fallout Grade & Board Games: B-

So, I decided, what are the Top 10 Demos that I want to check out at GenCon? Keeping in mind that Fantasy Flight hasn’t announced anything yet, and I know there will be more added and surprises that are showing up there.

Ten – Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl – A long title, but an interesting sounding game. You are going through and trying to collect secrets before you go into the sarcophagus of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant. The first person to succeed wins the game, but it’s possible for time to run out and everyone to lose the game. It seems like an interesting race against the clock.

Nine – Calico – For something complete different, this game is about cats and making quilts. It’s going to be more of a puzzle game, but the artwork looks very cute and the game just have a very satisfying look and seems like it would be a relaxing game to play. I think with it’s theme, if it’s a good game, it would be a good entry level game.

Eight – Deranged – To start, the artwork on this game looks very cool. It’s creepy and monstrous, but not gross. Second, this game has people turning into monsters, having to hunt down and kill the other players characters to turn back into a human themselves. It seems interesting, a modular board and variable player powers make me want to check out this game. I also like the weird horror theme that it has going on.

Seven – Arkeis – Arkeis seems like it’s a super natural adventure game, but instead of it being Lovecraftian, we get ancient Egypt and exploring a tomb. It looks to use the box as a game board and I’m assuming different games can be played in different configurations. But any game that has that adventure and exploration feel, it seems like a lot of fun, and it seems to be driven by storytelling, which is great.

Six – Nemesis – This one is already out, but it’s just for demo at GenCon. From Awaken Realms, Nemesis is an Aliens game, just without the IP for Aliens. You’re trying to navigate a ship back to Earth (or some planet), but everyone has their own secret objective, and did I mention, there are aliens on the ship that are most definitely trying to kill you.

Five – IT: Evil Below – I don’t know much of anything about this game. And it’s a game built upon an IP (intellectual property), which can be hit or miss, but I’m a big fan of Stephen King and It, so I want to check the game out and see if it can take any of the creep factor from the book and add it into the game.

Four – Mystery House – What makes Mystery House so interesting is that it uses it’s box to create a game board where you can’t see everything in it. So you’re going around blind searching for things, and it seems like it’s going to build up a good amount of suspense. There’s also a companion app for it, which I find interesting. It seems like a game that is going to have some wow factor on the table.

Three – Sleeping Gods – From Ryan Laukat and Red Raven Games, this game is in the line of his storybook games like Near and Far, and Above and Below. His artwork, as always, is amazing, and the idea of sailing around and completing missions, it seems interesting. It’s also a campaign game as you go through and explore the world. Definitely one that I want to see on the table.

Two – Iron Forest – This game is from the same company as Ice Cool and uses a lot of the same mechanisms as Ice Cool. But instead of a nice high school, it’s a board that goes up levels, with an elevator that you launch yourself from the first floor to the second floor and spots to drop back down. This game just seems like a lot of fun to see and demo.

One – Floor Plan – This is a roll and write game, but it looks interesting. It’s a game where you are building your floor plan (hence the name) for a house. Adding in bedrooms, living rooms, kitchens, etc, but you have to make sure you’re putting in doors, and other features to score you more points.