Top 10 Anime of 2024

10. Alya Sometimes Hides Her Feelings in Russian

This was one of the bigger anime during the summer season, I believe, because it was a cute romance anime with an interesting premise. Alya has feelings for the protagonist, but she also doesn’t really want to say anything. So she says them in Russian, all of that makes sense from the title, unknown to her, her happens to speak Russian. He had learned it as a kid because he had a childhood friend for a few years who spoke Russian as well, but he can’t remember who it was. Turns out it’s Alya’s older sister, but this is the pretty standard, but cute, high school romance anime.

9. Tower of God

Now, I will caveat this and say, I haven’t caught up on the second season yet. But the first season was really enjoyable. I read the webtoon/manhwa for Tower of God and enjoyed that as well. And I think the story is very well translated to the screen. I’ve heard that the second season maybe doesn’t have as good animation, but the first season is really good. And the premise of this anime, this getting out of the dark and climbing the tower to find the person you care about, it’s well done. The characters have complexity and the whole story is just enjoyable.

8. Oshi No Ko

Now we go to an anime that feels very anime like, but also different. It’s different in that there are elements of this show that’s a mystery. And of course, it’s odd that because the two main characters are reincarnated as the twins of the Idol that they love. I like how the anime and manga don’t really hide from the more questionable sides of the Idol industry and the entertainment industry as it tells the story. And the mystery element is interesting as well and offers some good challenges for the main character.

7. Horimiya

Horimiya is one of my favorite manga that I’ve read. I really enjoy the dynamic between the couple and just how wholesome the whole thing is. And they do a good job of translating at into the anime. They do some odd stuff with the anime in that they condense it and skip arcs and storylines in this teen romance again. But I appreciate that the main characters fall for each other quickly and there isn’t a ton of back and forth of will they won’t they nor is it a harem where all the girls like the main character. It’s just that good wholesome romance.

6. Sign of Affection

And speaking of a good wholesome romance anime, Sign of Affection is amazing for that. The story is of a deaf girl and her falling in love with a guy, and the guy falling in love with her. But it’s just this heartfelt story for them, and it feels like a real relationship. Yes, there is some jealousy and an attempted love triangle in it, but for the most part it’s just this great story about a wholesome relationship. And the male lead, they do a good job of creating a character who puts in so much effort, like learning sign language, that it’s just even more wholesome.

5. Solo Leveling

Now we move into action with Solo Leveling. I am pretty sure that this was my most anticipated anime of 2024 and it really didn’t disappoint. I like Solo Leveling a lot, but there are a few that make it higher that I watched. The animation for this show is great and it stays true enough to the story. It really gives you some iconic moments from the manhwa and it does a good job with them. I enjoy the premise as well of that weaker character becoming strong, but not becoming an edge lord in the process.

4. Kaguya-Sama: Love is War

The final romance on the list is an anime that’s been out for a little bit, but I love this one. It’s so fast with the characters spitting back and forth insults and romance at the same speed. All because the two most popular and powerful kids in the school are in love with each other. But if either of them breaks and admits it to the other, it’s a sign of weakness and the other will have power, that’s their worry anyways. It’s really fun and funny and Ian Sinclair as the narrator is amazing in this, he goes so hard on being over the top and comedic.

3. Shangri-La Frontier

The top three are all ones that I assumed that I’d like because I like the manga lot for all of them. Shangri-La Frontier is no exception, clearly, and I appreciate this one as a video game anime. I love how the video game is highly developed in this anime as well. It makes it feel more immersive, and you get little bits of the real world and real world elements affecting the game, but it’s much more focused on the game itself.

The main character is fun as well, I appreciate as well that he just wants to have fun. It could be a serious gamer, but not. He is a trash gamer, plays bad games, and now he’s just trying out an amazing game. And his two gaming friends are entertaining as well as they give each other a hard time. Even the NPC companions that he has are great.

2. Dandadan

Dandadan is so close to being my top anime of the year, it was really a coin flip between two for me. But I enjoy how absurd this one is, and then how it had an amazing heartfelt moment in it as well. The premise is just goofy. Ken believes in aliens. Momo believes in spirits. They don’t believe in the thing the other believes in. They both challenge the other to go to spots where aliens and spirits are seen. And, well, they both turn out to be right. And it gets crazier from there. The animation is amazing, and like I said, it has some beautiful moments as well. This is romance, comedy, adventure, supernatural all in one.

1. Kaiju No. 8

Finally, my top is Kaiju No. 8. I love this one because Kafka is a dummy but a great character. He’s washed up just fine with working in kaiju disposal. He takes one last crack at the defense force and, well, with a little bit of help from being infected by a kaiju, he’s able to make it. It’s all about his challenge and striving to be a hero and be able to be at his friends side. Of course, his friend is the most powerful kaiju hunter out there.

The cast of characters is a blast as well in this anime. Kafka, like I said, is a dummy, but he has this heart of gold. Mina is stand off-ish but it’s a tough shell. Reno I love as a character because he wants to be tough and cool. He thinks that he can do it all but develops such a soft spot for Kafka and helping him along and worrying about him, as one of the people who knows he’s infected, it’s amazing. And Kikoru is the prodigy that everyone is chasing down. But also is a character with more depth. It’s just such a fun show with everyone, plus great kaiju fighting action and gross kaiju clean-up.

Final Thoughts

I made it through 10, and I should be able to skip honorable mentions. But I want to talk about a few more that I really enjoyed as well. Both Mushoku Tensei and Tsukimichi Moonlit Fantasy are fun isekai to checkout. And I found some enjoyable comedy romances with things like The Quintessential Quintuplets, The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Really Love You and My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU. Those three are all just good fun with The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Really Love You having such an absurd premise.

What is your favorite anime that you watched in 2024? Based off of my tastes, at least from this list, are there any that I should really checkout?

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Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 20 through 11

20. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

• Published by Days of Wonder in 2022
• Fly around the track and manage your engine so it doesn’t over heat to win the race

This is a great racing game. It is a nice blend of simplicity. You play cards equal to the gear that you are in for your movement. But also some complexity as you need to be smart with how you handle the curves, straightaways, how much you push your engine and when you cool it down. That cooling down part of the game is great as it really makes a difference in how you play and when you push it. Plus there are modules you use, like drafting some cards for your deck, that make the game even more fun, or you can do a series of races which is also great.

Buy Heat: Pedal to the Metal

19. Planet Unknown

• Published by Adam’s Apple Games in 2022
• Terraform your planet and increase your technology better than your opponents can

Planet Unknown is a polyomino game where you are terraforming a planet. You can play it in the basic mode where everyone is doing the same planet and same tech track, or you can do unique planets and tech tracks. I love the unique ones and I think that’s the way to go after the first game. But Planet Unknown has more than just laying out tiles, how you decide which tile is picked for you is amazing. Whomever is the leader that round turns a lazy susan full of tiles and whatever one is pointing to where you pick from, those are your options. So you can stick someone with something or sometimes get the perfect thing.

Buy Planet Unknown

18. Clank! In! Space!

• Published by Dire Wolf in 2017
• Race through a spaceship but don’t try and make too much noise as you grab a treasure and get out

This is a push your luck deckbuilding game, and I enjoy both of those elements to the game. I find that pure push your luck doesn’t always work for me, but add in deckbuilding a mechanism I love, it’s great. You build up your deck to move and grab a treasure, fight monsters, and buy more cards that are worth points. But you also need to be aware of how noisy you are. If you’re too noisy the villain, Lord Eradikus will start drawing out your cubes, if you clank, and dealing damage to you. And you might not make it out before you die.

Buy Clank! In! Space!

17. ISS Vanguard

• Published by Awaken Realms in 2022
• Explore a new solar system while you manage your crew and your ship

ISS Vanguard is a big campaign game and one that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples. Not the whole way through, but far enough to give you an idea of how it plays. The game is interesting because it plays over two parts. Part of the game is exploring planets and discovering why humanity was called out to this location in the stars. The other part is managing your ship. I was worried that managing your ship wouldn’t feel important, but it’s a great element to the game and makes it feel even more thematic.

Buy ISS Vanguard

16. Vampire the Masquerade: CHAPTERS

• Published by Flyos Games in 2023
• Enter a world of vampires and darkness as you play across missions and try and figure out what is happening in Montreal

Chapters is choose your own adventure RPG in a box. I love how it gives you this great story filled with depth and grit. And it also gives you tactical combat and dice chucking. It feels like a great blend of things that I love in board games and in RPG’s. The story is well written and while there are definitely issues with it there is an app that should be helping fix that and an upgrade pack for it. But even without that, the game is fun, and the app is free so the few spots it’s really busted should be fixed. Plus, I want to play a dark vampire game, and this gives me that in spades.

Buy Vampire: the Masquerade – CHAPTERS

15. Metal Gear Solid

• Published by CMON in 2024/2025
• Sneak around the base and battle only when you need to complete missions

Yes, there is a game on my list that isn’t out yet. Spoilers, there might be another one as well coming up in my Top 10. But that is because I’ve gotten to play the final version of the game and I feel like I’ve had enough time with it. I love this game as it’s a tactical minis game where you can fight. But fighting generally is going to be noisy and messy and you’ll be swarmed. When that happens, well, it’s probably game over for you. So instead you need to be smart, sneak around, and try and avoid the guards the best you can or lose them. All while being a pretty simple game to play.

Coming Soon

14. Lost Ruins of Arnak

• Published by Czech Games Edition in 2020
• Explore the lands, find treasure, fight monsters and discover what adventure awaits you

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deckbuilding game. It is a worker placement game, and it’s a exploring adventure game. For me all of those elements come through. And I love the puzzle of trying to manage your two workers you get place, knowing when and where to place them, buying cards, and risking fighting monsters. Because you need to do it all, and the game isn’t that long in terms of how many rounds it is. But if you’re smart, you can stretch it out for a lot of points and a lot of chaining actions. The Expedition Leaders even adds more fun to the game and more variability as well which I love.

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

13. XenoShyft Onslaught

• Published by CMON in 2015
• The base is under attack by bugs, you need to build up your defenses and work together to defeat them

I think I’m the champion of XenoShyft, but I really like the game. It’s another deckbuilding game, but it’s a cooperative one. And I think that cooperative element and how incredibly interactive the cooperation is, that is what makes the game stand out to me. Plus it does a clever thing where you’re never drawing dead with money, so you can always buy cards and bolster up your defenses. Because everyone needs to be able to defend their side of the base so the bugs don’t overrun it.

Out of Print, but you can find it on eBay

12. Marvel Champions

• Published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2019
• Heroes battle villains in this Marvel Superhero game

I love Marvel, we all know that. And Marvel Champions is one of my favorite, if not my favorite Marvel themed game. What I love about this one is that you feel like you are the hero. And not only that, you need to think about being the hero but balancing that with the alter ego. If you stay in hero form the bad guy will beat you up and probably take you out. But if you are in the alter ego side, they don’t know who you are, so they’ll go back to completing their scheme. And that’s not great as well because you can’t blow your cover in alter ego form.

Buy Marvel Champions

11. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

• Published by Portal Games in 2018
• Take on the role of detectives and work together, take the notes, and try and solve the cases

Detective for me is my favorite deduction game. I like deduction a lot, but Detective just makes it really immersive. In the box I’m showing it has five cases that all connect into something big and impressive. And you use information that you took notes on from one case and use it in another. I think by the end of all five cases I had between 12 and 15 pages of notes that we’d look back at. And it uses a computer system as well to let you do things like compare DNA, interview witnesses, and more. The game is just this great thematic detective game for me.

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule. It’s not just all my Top 100 Games (of all time).

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition. There is one week left, which is going to be two Wednesdays out. After that I’m planning on doing some look back and look ahead videos and smaller solo games or things like Balatro and Slay the Spire.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

The best way to know when we go live, though is to subscribe and click that notification bell. I can’t promise, and in fact it’s pretty unlikely, that I’ll have events to click on ahead of time. Though I do want to get better at it. I hope that you can join a stream and hop into the chat. And let me know what games in this list are your favorite or that you want to try.

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Why did I pick Chronicles of Crime?

There are multiple reasons, first, I really like games that have some sort of puzzle or deduction to them. Escape room games like Unlock or Exit are good examples, Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition or Arkham Horror The Card Game even have elements of them. So I like detective style games as well, even Clue, the classic, I still enjoy because of the puzzle of figuring out information as efficiently as possible.

The other thing is that is has an interesting app integration piece. Now, that’s going to disappoint some people, but I really find it interesting, though it can’t be played without the app. The app scans QR codes allowing you to interact with people and ask them about clues or other people you might have found during you investigation. But that’s not the coolest piece of the app in my opinion. Instead, there is a video component that you can use basically as VR if you want, where you can look all around and see the crime scene. While you’re doing that, you’re telling the other players what you see and they’re grabbing what might be useful clues for you to use later in your investigation.

The other thing that’s really cool about this for me is that there is a community aspect to it. It’s not just the company making scenarios, you can go out and get scenarios that other people have created and put together so maybe someone did a dog napping or there was a grisly murder, you don’t know. But there can be an ever increasing amount of story just from the base game. Plus there are expansions, there is a Noir expansion that looks cool, but I’m more excited for the Redview expansion which is a kids on bikes, almost RPG like version of the game, so it doesn’t have to just be crime, you can do wildly different things with it.

So hopefully that explains why I was interested in the game and picked it up. Does it sound like a game that would be cool? Maybe see if your FLGS (Friendly Local Game Store) and get it ordered in for you and help them during these times.

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

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Audrey Parker is an FBI agent who is sent after a wanted man and she tracks him down to the town of Haven. When part of the road gives way on the coast, she is rescued from her car by Nathan Wuornos, a detective in the police department and someone who is “troubled” (has a special ability) where he can’t feel pain, which as some upsides and downsides. Audrey quickly figures out that there’s a lot of “troubled” people in the town and she figures out that she can help them. Not only that, with being adopted, the two journalists in the small town show her a picture of someone who looks like her mother. She decides to use some of the vacation time that she’s saved up and spend some time in Haven, helping out the police department and see what she can find out about her mother, and that might be what Agent Howard, her superior, really wanted to happen.

That, by the way, is basically the synopsis of the first episode of a five season show and it doesn’t change massively as time goes on. The first couple of seasons are a bit more episodic, but eventually you start to get bigger story arcs as Audrey, Nathan, and Duke (who is introduced in episode one as well), keep having to solve the problems and deal with the troubles. And the troubles can get out there, there’s someone who basically put their soul into the work on their house and keeping their family safe that they took control over their own house and use the mirrors to see, which is pretty horrifying. Or there’s someone with whatever they touch in with their hands, it causes it to explode. Or time travel or mermen. There are so many, and it’s almost one per episode, though we do get to go back and visit. And while we get that, they spend more time building up Audrey Parker’s past and delve into the mystery surrounding her mother and an unexplained Colorado Kid mystery. In the end, I think that they tie it up quite well, though, it ends differently than I would have expected, but it ends smartly. They are given time to wrap up the mystery and complete the full story which is really nice.

Now for a downside of the show, I think that some of the special affects haven’t aged the best, and that’s kind of to be expected. While this show had a solid budget in terms of what they were able to pull of it was still early 2010’s and that’s going to look dated now. I just kind of expect that because some of the other shows I really like from the SyFy channel has the same issue, Eureka and Warehouse 13. Another thing is the early season storytelling, I think that they have a few arcs that are being set-up that would have had great long term potential, and then they rush through them in a couple of episodes. Some of that was the product of the time, and some of that was just poorer storytelling. The issue with the storytelling like that is that you feel like you lose the payoff, but in the early 2010’s, the larger story arcs were generally secondary.

Finally, as a downside and an upside, I want to talk about the acting in this show. I would say that the acting is okay for the show. I don’t think that it’s bad and I don’t think that it’s great. With Audrey, Nathan, and Duke, though, it ends up being good on screen chemistry, it just takes a bit to get there. The early episodes, in fact I’d say through a good chunk of season 1, the acting is quite rough. Now there are some characters, Vince and Dave, the journalist brothers, played by Richard Donat and John Dunsworth who are great from the start. Eventually the acting does get better and I think that’s mainly as the chemistry on screen gets better. Plus, it’s a show where Edge and Christian from the WWE are both in it, and Edge (Aaron Copeland) playing Dwight Hendrickson actually has a big role in the show and does really well with his acting. There are other professional wrestlers who have acted, but he’s one of the best that I’ve seen besides the ones who have gone to Hollywood, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and John Cena.

So, who is this show for? I think that’s a good question, I think that the supernatural element is going to keep some people a way as it dabbles in dimensions, time travel, ghosts, and so much more that would give away a lot of the plot if I continue down that route. I would say that it probably would make sense for fans of Supernatural but maybe aligns itself closer with Locke & Key in terms of feel. Also fans of Eureka and Warehouse 13, while it’s kind of in a different genre, it definitely has some similar feel to those shows.

Overall, I really like this show. I think it suffers a tiny bit from Stephen King syndrome where the ending is a little bit out there, but they build towards that well. There are also some story elements that are just dropped in an odd way, but overall, it’s good. And I think some shows like this, Supernatural, suffer from having the world ending event at the end of every season that needs to be stopped, Haven does a good job of building up the stakes for the seasons as time goes on.

Is this a show that you watched when it came out or one that interests you now? If you’ve seen it, did you enjoy it?

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

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In addition to having the well-known combat mechanisms of Gloomhaven, Frosthaven will feature much more to do outside of combat, such as numerous mysteries to solve, a seasonal event system to live through, and player control over how this ramshackle village expands, with each new building offering new ways to progress.

Board Game Geek

There is some information on BoardGameGeek, but more information in a panel that Tom Vassel led at Pax Unplugged with the creator of Gloomhaven and Frosthaven, Isaac Childress. So I’m listening to that now, and I”m going to be taking notes of what we know thus far. So this might be a bit of a scattered post, but it’s important stuff for the fans of Gloomhaven, and now you don’t need to watch the whole video that is up on Pax Unplugged’s Twitch Channel.

First, Tom asks about if you need to play Gloomhaven first, and can you use Gloomahven characters.

• No, you don’t need to play Gloomhaven first, this is completely stand alone
• Yes, there are ways to use characters or items between games, but Frosthaven is a different much smaller location, so you don’t have access to all of the Gloomhaven items, and you even have to craft your own items.

The Six Base Characters:

• Banner Spear – Tank character. Noble character, mostly melee, and something called a formation attack, which is like an area of effect, but allies need to be in a certain locations.
• Necromancer – Has summons that aren’t lost, because of course they do. An Aesther character, summons undead, obviously. You lose health when you summon them though.
• A lot of characters have extra resources that you have to keep track of, like the Necromancer with her health.
• Stepping up the mini game with them having more dynamic poses.
• Deathwalker – She creates shadows on the board. Shamanistic type classs, who ushers people into death. Can manipulate shadows to deal more damage and usher monsters into the after life.
• Drifter – Inox character. Survivalist character who loves living off the land. About keeping himself alive as long as possible. Persistent abilities with chargers that can then recharge
• Geminate – Harrower Character – Split conciousness sort of character. Two different forms, melee and ranged, and two separate decks of cards 7 in each, and you change forms and the cards can force you to change form. Can choose to switch on long rest.
• Blink Blade – Quatryl character, can manipulate time. Can slow down or speed up time, and runs around and stabs and then runs away. Time token resource, faster is better, but needs to recharge. Bonuses or detriments on cards if you are going fast or slow.

Different races in this area, 3 new races. They actually start out as threats in the game, and you can become their friends or subdue them, and you unlock them. Augox, cousins of the Inox. More primitive and bigger, ice yeti. Have two separate sects around religion, ice or snow, so I’m assuming we’ll get two playable characters one from each? Lurkers are another character. They are ocean creatures, Northern Sea, they invade from the sea. Whole Lurker civilization, a wave thrower. They are psychic. Robots. Eventually you can play as robots, they are wandering around the north.

Basic story

• Frosthaven is outpost in north, north west of Gloomhaven.
• Have to pass through between Copper Neck Mountains and Imperial Mountains. Gets cut off in the winter.
• Initial story is that you are trying to protect the town, find ways to keep the town safe.
• Frosthaven is a very small outpost.
• Big thing in the game is building up the city, and using resources to do so. And unlock new things in time.
• Craftsman is big thing, and Alchemist. Craftsman can make items and combine items to make them better. Alchemist can create potions, trial and error. You can make bad potions.
• And you’ll have to build up the defenses of the town. Town has a defense rating.
• Calendar system, as you come in the summer and then in winter things start freezing over.
• Every time you go to a scenario the calendar progresses.
• Winter event deck is all bad things.
• Depending on defense rating bad things happen or you fend them off.
• You can still find items.

Loot system has changed.

• Still collect tokens, but they aren’t money.
• At the end of the scenario you can exchange them for a card from the loot deck.
• Build a loot deck for each scenario.
• If in a forest, loot deck might be money or resource or herb or something else, like items or special items.

New map with world map, top half is traditional map of the world, bottom is town. There are bigger stickers that help explore what the world actually looks like. Lots of space to build up buildings in the town, but you decide how it’s all built.

More monsters to talk about.

• There will be some repeat monsters.
• Undead monsters, frozen undead.
• Frozen Corpse – like a living corpse, but frozen.
• New status effect, brittle, next time you suffer damage, you suffer double damage.
• Living Doom – Most powerful undead
• Living Doom can summon living spirits based on his health
• New status effect called Bane. Solution to instant kill mechanic. If you don’t remove it by healing, at the end of next turn, you take 10 damage. Way to deal with instant kill cards.
• Instant kill was considered overly powerful.
• Polar bears, because bears.
• The Abale, fishmen characters. Spelling is probably wrong. Fish king from his original game.

Puzzles as well:

• Kind of complicated to explain.
• At some point in the game you get something similar to the town record.
• Extra side story, get more lore into the game.
• There will be cool things it unlocks.
• How you go through the book is by solving puzzles that you do through the course of the campaign.
• Give you clues that’ll lead you to various aspects of the game.
• Limited details, because spoilers.
• Series of puzzles, that are informed by everything else in the game.
• Not sure what to do, play more.
• There is a big puzzle in Gloomhaven, there is no feedback in the puzzle, so he wanted to give a puzzle with more feedback in the game.

What’s the learning curve from Gloomhaven?

• Similar to Gloomhaven, it’s going to throw you in there.
• The combat mechanics are all the same.
• The town mechanics are introduced over time, so not much overhead.

How have things progressed from the first to the second one?

• Puzzles changing.
• Forgotten Circles, breaking up scenarios into various sections, successes and problems with it. So you don’t always see everything up front, and they can hide things better.
• Taking that and giving more information up front, but still doing section system.
• Forgotten Circles, set-up in the middle, here they are not doing that.
• Surprises, but no surprise set-up.
• Same length of campaign.

How do you get it?

• Coming to Kickstarter in March 2020.
• Ideally, if it goes according to plan, delivered in less than a year.

Questions from the Audience:

• Is Frosthaven too cold for Ooze? Don’t make that assumption.
• Can you be bad and get rewarded? There’s always moral ambiguity.
• Reputation system, evil and good, don’t feel tempted? Working on events to make them more dynamic and give them better options.
• Where is Frosthaven compared to Gloomhaven? Extending the world, North and West of Gloomhaven.
• Will there be a pie eating video if Kickstarter game is a success? It’s not out of the question.
• Coming from Gloomhaven, what are you taking away from that, that is biggest learning point? Main thing, more town building, town management aspect.
• How come bears haven’t destroyed Gloomhaven? Bears can’t climb walls.
• Trading Items going to be a thing? Still can’t trade items. When you create a potion, you decide who gets it.
• Necromancer in this one not the small box one like they were planning? They realized it was too complex, summoning was too complex for an introductory sort of game for more casual gamers.
• Bane Mechanic going to be put back onto Gloomhaven? Maybe
• Loot tokens represent resources, more of them on the ground, money on the ground doesn’t make sense, wood does? Might be a little more
• Is charging elements still going to be a big part of the game? Elements are still going to be a big part of it. Still going to keep the elements balanced.
• Why did you transition from being a physicist to board game designer? Got tired of physics. Decided to make it more of a career. Kickstarted first game in grad school.
• Any tweaks to combat rules that are interesting? Besides new status effects, combat mechanics are generally the same.
• Will there be a 3 damage token? Yes
• Do you get more cards or health, since this game seems like difficulty has been ramped up? No. Necromancer starts with 6 health.
• Any changes to achievement quests? Didn’t feel like some of retirement goals were tied together? Any more customization for the decks? Personal quests are going to be changed, not going to be random. Going to start with a much smaller deck of things you can accomplish, as you unlock things, you unlock more. Because you’ve unlocked it, you can get it done in a reasonable amount of time. Perk system remains. Not much more customization for characters. Not much more unique backstory. Events will be a similar system, and outcomes might be tied to character with some sort of trait versus just character types. Battle goals will be more balanced.
• Summons don’t scale well, any change with that? Some of summons that can resummon which is a change.
• Is Enhancement system going to remain the same? Enhancement system will remain the same, will be unlocked over the course of the game.
• Where does Frosthaven take place timewise? Set afterwards. Doesn’t matter for the most part, not much interaction. Finally going to get cypher to solve thing without the cypher at the end of Gloomhaven, probably?
• Equally as difficult to get in as Gloomhaven? About the same difficulty. Might introduce tutorial system. That’s what Jaws of the Lion is for.
• Gloomhaven was more semi-cooperative, can’t trade or sell between, is this going to be more collaborative? Town building is more collaborative. But still more semi-cooperative. Still dark brooding jerks.
• Any plans for recharge pack? It is something they are talking about.
• PVP? Toyed with idea with original one, but going first was so much better. Didn’t work out balance wise. Hasn’t be revisited and don’t plan to.
• Mind thief plushy? Longer project, but working on it.
• How does Calendar work? Just one year, just those two seasons? There are multiple years. Go through cycle of summer/winter, summer nicer things, winter worse things.
• How far does it progress each scenario? Every time you finish a set of scenarios will progress one time unit, and 15 time units per season.

Wooo, that’s all the information, I can catch my breath again. But that’s Frosthaven. Sorry for the wall of text, but not much for images thus far, and I’ve spent some time with this, so I’m not going to track them all down.

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To answer that question immediately — no, I don’t think I enjoy it less. There’s a sense of excitement about figuring out a twist in a story before it happens, to connecting two things that seemly loosely connected but then really matter. Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a show that is built on these loose connections, and connecting those dots before the characters do is fun, because the show does a good job of keeping these things somewhat hidden from the viewer. So, making those connections is fun, and it doesn’t take away from the story.

However, I do think it can for some people. When I’m watching something like Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency or Dark, I’m not what I would consider actively looking for these clues. The shows are built around twists, turns, and mysteries, so as I think about the show, I naturally think about those things. And if you’ve read some of my board game reviews, you know that I enjoy puzzle-y type games, and that I love trying to figure out what clue to give in Hanabi or what cards to play in Gloomhaven to get a perfect score or beat the dungeon. I just naturally think about these patterns.

On the other hand, I know people who actively are searching to make these connections. Their enjoyment is often fulfilled, like mine is, by figuring out these connections, but figuring them out too early or not figuring them out at all can ruin their enjoyment of a story. The hunt is what is enjoyable to them, and once that has passed, it isn’t enjoyable anymore, and conversely, if they can’t figure it out, they don’t enjoy it as much because they felt like the story tricked them or didn’t give them enough to figure out the secret, and they could feel like they are slow because of that.

Finally, there is the type of person who isn’t wired for figuring these clues out, and I think that this can be split into a couple of ways as well — those who don’t care, and those who simply enjoy the story. When Kristen and I watch Dirk Gently, it isn’t as if Kristen is getting less enjoyment out of the show because she doesn’t figure it out ahead of time. She enjoys it as much as I do; I’m just bouncing up and down on the couch because I’m pretty sure I figured something out, and she’s shaking her head and laughing at my antics. That is how it should be — being able to enjoy the story as a story, even if you aren’t picking out all the twists and mysteries as soon as the other people you’re watching it with are.

However, there’s an opposite side of this as well, where someone might feel like they are missing out because they can’t figure the story out as quickly as other people. This shouldn’t be the case, because stories are worth enjoying on their own even if you don’t pick up on the secret before it’s revealed. A fine line can be drawn as to how someone can “help” in this situation, as there are some chance that a person could make it worse. If you are figuring out what is going on before someone else, it can come across as patronizing if you try and say that it is just okay that someone else didn’t figure it out. A better route would be to, when talking about the story, focus on the story itself and what it meant to you, not when you figured out the twists and turns, so that everyone can enjoy the story.

As I started out this post, this was an interesting concept to me. There isn’t a right way to engage with a story as long as you are enjoying it. Remember — even if you figured out the twist in the first scene, don’t spoil it for the rest of us, and let everyone enjoy the story in their own way. To quote what the RPG Academy says (they’re talking about RPGs and how to play them, but I think it’s very appropriate here, too) – “If you’re having fun, you’re doing it right.”