How To Play Project L

Project L is a game about basically playing Tetris, or with Tetris pieces. You are trying to complete shapes by filling in pieces to it. At the start of the game, you have two pieces a single square and two squares, but you get more as the game goes along.

On your turn you have a number of actions that you can do. And you get to take three of them per round. You can pick up one of the shape cards that you need to fill in and put it in front of you. Next you can upgrade a piece, and they have different levels which determine how you can upgrade. Or you can take a basic piece. You can clear a row, or one important one is you can master. Master you can do once per turn, but allows you to put a piece in every shape that you have.

The game continues until you get down to none of the harder tiles left. After that you finish out the round plus one more. That way each person gets a similar number of turns. Then you count up points on your shapes, and most points wins.

What Doesn’t Work?

The base game is a lot of fun, and I have more positives than negatives. However, I am concerned about how the base game will play over a lot of plays. I expect it to stick in my collection because the game is very accessible, more on that later. But for me, without the Finesse expansion or Ghost expansion which I want to get, will it be interesting enough.

The game play itself is simple, and after a handful of plays. I feel like it doesn’t change up too massively. Now, I think it can change up with different players because if I go for the higher scoring cards and push the end game faster, that will make it feel different. But if I build up a really strong set of pieces and go from there, it’s going to feel like what I’ve done before.

What Works?

The ease and time of play are great on this game. In a two player game, turns are snappy. And while there is decision space with what shapes you take, how you allocate your pieces, things like that, it isn’t daunting. I felt like I could sit down and play this game with anyone.

The game also looks great on the table. The bright colored pieces that you are fitting into the black and white cards makes the game pop. It makes it feel easy to get to the table and play. And the pieces are a lot of fun, very high quality game.

Who Is This For?

I think that this is a great game for gamers to teach people getting into the hobby. Or to teach players who gravitate towards that Splendor, Ticket to Ride, and Smallworld weight of game. I don’t know that this will work for a group of heavier gamers. It might work a few times but it won’t be one that sticks around because the decision space and strategy for the base game is a bit limited.

But more casual gamers, I highly recommend this game. Project L is a game that should be in Target and sell a million copies or at least one hundred thousand, because it is fun, it is easy to learn, and it looks great. Put this on a shelf next to a lot of games and it’ll stand out.

Project L- Final Thoughts

I think that this is going to be one that sticks around in my collection. And I think that even though it won’t be one that I always want to play. Because while the game play is fun and easy, I’m not sure the base game has the level of strategy that I want.

I am hopeful, with looking at the expansion, that will improve the game for me. This is a game that should have staying power on my shelf for a lot of people I game with. And I don’t think it is going to be a game where I will turn down playing it. I also think that the expansion is going to make that even less likely that I’ll turn down playing it. Mainly because it looks to add to the puzzle of the game.

Finally, this isn’t part of the review, but there is a insert or Game Trayz for Project L. I’m not sure if it’ll be something you can buy later, but man, is it nice. Takes what could have been a bit of a messy table and a slower set-up and makes an easy game easy to get to the table.

My Grade: B
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: A

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Seafall

This is a game that I really wanted to love and that we kind of gave up on when we were playing through it. Now, I am not selling or doing anything with my half played copy. That a friend owns and I hope they don’t have around anymore. But I did get a copy from another friend that is in shrink still. I am selling that copy.

I had considered, for a while, using that copy of Seafall to make my own game. Why, because Seafall, I think, has some solid ideas it just runs into some problems. There isn’t a good story running through it. They attempted making a very broad story but it lacks depth or progression. The dice are too lucky, and the games take too long. Hopefully someone else will like it though.

Cyclades

I’ve heard amazing things about this game. But I had it for a few years and I never played it. I opened it up, learned the rules once, but I never even punched it. Why is that, well, because I don’t play that many area control games, and when I do, I want to play Blood Rage. This was the case with a game where I probably would like the game, but would I play it over other games.

Blood Rage gives me that more complex area control game. On the flip side, Small World gives me that really easy to get to the table area control. I just can’t see myself pulling out Cyclades over either of those, especially because I can teach both of those quite easily. My memory banks can only remember the rules to so many games.

Nemesis Terrain Pack

So, this is coming into my collection, one of two things. Nemesis is a game that I’m very confident that I’m going to like. Why, because it’s a space horror game, and I like that theme. It is a survival game, and I like that. And the terrain pack is just going to make the experience more immersive. I’d almost picked it up before, but when it was there again, I knew I was going to get it.

Detective: Season 1

So, I love Detective, I can’t say that enough. I’m not sure where, at the end of this month, start of next, this will end up, but I expect it’s going to be very high. I have the Vienna Connection, the base game, LA Crimes, Dig Deeper, and I already pre-ordered Dune: House Secrets from Portal Games. The one thing that I didn’t have was Season 1.

Season 1 didn’t interest me as much because it was one off games. What makes the base game so amazing is that you are playing through a series of tied together games. You are getting a full story in five chapters, I wasn’t sure if Season 1 would feel the same with one offs. But I had Dig Deeper and I got to play it last month. And that game holds up. Just as a one off it is still a lot of fun, so I’m now more excited for Season 1.

HEXplore It: The Forests of Adrimon

Now, I said I was just getting 2 games, and those are the two that I’ve ordered or have in hand. But at my FLGS, I had them set aside this for me, and an expansion. When I sell the two games at the top and Captain Sonar, I’m going to use that store credit to pick up this game. HEXplore It as a series of games has been on my radar for a while. I never got in on the Kickstarter because they cost a fair amount. But used, it wasn’t too bad.

I am very curious to try it because it is another dungeon crawl and exploration sort of game. The map level is higher than your standard dungeon crawl, but there are a lot of bad things that can happen to you. I also like the unique setting in this game, it feels different than some of the other HEXplore It games.

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Current MSRP Increases

So let’s lay out a little bit of context. A number of board game companies are pushing up the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) because the price of creating a board game has gone up. Right now, there is lots of talk about how shipping costs are blowing up. And that definitely is the case which is delaying how fast things can ship but also when they do ship that cost can be moved onto the consumer.

But for board games that’s not the only cost increase to worry about. There has also been an increase in the cost of wood. If you’ve done a house project the past two years you’ll know that. So that means that wooden tokens and cardboard have all gone up in price. While they might all lower again over time, the MSRP increase is likely here to stay.

So Too Expensive To Succeed?

Now, this is not really the question I started with, but I think it’s the question that a lot of people will start thinking about. And I think it’s a question that a lot of gamers in the hobby are thinking about. Let’s take a look at a few games: Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, Black Rose Wars: Rebirth, and Descent: Legends of the Dark. All of these games, before or after shipping are sitting at $175+ which is a lot of money. These, however, are not all games.

Tom Vasel on The Dice Tower gets sales numbers from GameNerdz, I believe it is now, every month to show that games, for them are selling the most. And the ones that sell a lot are generally cheaper games. The game My City was on the list for the month of July and that’s a $30 game. So, no, not all board games are getting too expensive. But the cost of board games in general, might be rising because of shipping and material costs.

But Are They Too Expensive?

To me, this is a hobby board gamer problem, the increasing price of games. The average person who likes board games but isn’t into the hobby doesn’t go to Kickstarter. They won’t see Descent: Legends of the Dark in Target. For them, the price of board games might be high, but it’s not an issue. Ticket to Ride, Catan, Smallworld, Carcassone, all of those games are still a reasonable price. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, still a normal price and that game just came out.

So it isn’t the modern classics that are only a good price. But for gamers who are more on the hobby, the price of board games does seem to be going up. Or more so, there are more good looking big games. For example, this year I have backed Marvel United: X-Men, Chronicles of Drunagor, Zombicide: Undead or Alive, and Primal, all of which had a price tag of over $100. And I bout Descent: Journeys in The Dark.

But Money

And this is what it comes down to. As board gamers we like our new games. There is this fascination with the “cult of the new” in board games. And I think in society as a whole, the new and the shiny are what people care about. Most of the complaints about board game prices really come down to the fact that we can’t afford every cool looking game.

When the original Zombicide came out with a big price tag for everything on Kickstarter, it was a surprise. But it wasn’t as hard a sell. Why, because there wasn’t a new $150+ game each week on Kickstarter. That price tag was a once in a blue moon level. When Kingdom Death Monster was on Kickstarter for $700 for an all in (or something near that), it was a ton of money, but again, not a game like that every week.

But not just that there weren’t big price tag games each week, there weren’t good games every week. Kickstarter was still getting started into what it is today. Now, every week whether it’s a $150 game or a $20 roll and write, there is a game, at least, every week that looks interesting. Most weeks it’s two or three games. Even in the not peak times of right before Christmas, there are still big games out there.

So What Are We Seeing?

What we’re seeing is a hobby booming and growing. It used to be a very niche hobby. Now it’s still a niche hobby but it’s growing in leaps and bounds. I am trying to remember what the Dice Tower had on their news but the money in the hobby grows by about 10% each year, and I think last year, in a pandemic, it was closer to 20%.

This is exciting, but what that means is that there are more games coming to the market. Now, that means that there are more bad games. But on the flip side, it also means more good games and a lot more good games. I think that people forget, very quickly, about the good games and how few were coming out before. We were spoiled because there were ten great games that would come up a year around 2010, and we could buy them all. Now it’s 100 and they cost from $15 to $200 and we can’t afford them all.

So what we’re seeing is the hobby growing and booming and that is what we should want to see. It means that 10 years from now, we aren’t going to see no more board games, there are always going to be more to play.

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There is going to be a consistent theme on a lot of these games. When I look at them, I think I have games that do something like it better, for me. But let’s not spoil too much and get into all the games I’m either selling to friends or trading into my local FLGS.

Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth

This was probably the hardest one to get rid of, but also one that I’ve been wondering about for a long time. I really like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth, but I don’t know when I’ll play it. I look at my shelf and see a lot of campaign games. Games like Solomon Kane, Reichbusters, Arkham Horror The Card Game, Star Wars: Imperial Assault and more are going to get played before it.

Plus I have Kickstarter games coming in like Etherfields, ISS Vanguard, HEL: The Last Saga, Primal, and Oathsworn. So when I look at Journeys in Middle Earth, I had to ask myself, would I play this before those. And the answer is, probably not. While the theme is one that I love, and the game was a lot of fun, I don’t see myself playing it when I have other bigger campaign games and other smaller campaign games.

This one I sold to a friend last night actually who had a group that had gone through Imperial Assault. For them it could be a good next game to play, and again he also really likes the theme as well, so it works well for him. I wish I’d played it, but I also know that I won’t.

Legacy of Dragonholt

Another campaign style game. This one is different though, it’s choose your own adventure with character stats. It’s somewhere between an RPG and a board game. I’ve played the start of it a few times and it’s fun. I think that it does a lot of things really well, but again, you saw my list of campaign games. When am I going to fit this one in?

Oddly enough, I think that it’s just a little bit too big for it’s own good. It takes a bit too much effort to get to the table. And the ruleset is just a bit too complex, though really simple, to play and then come back to in a few weeks or in a couple of months. If I want to do something that is purely choose your own adventure, I have Choose Your Own Adventure House of Danger. If I want that storybook and stat sheet, I have Loup Garou from Van Ryder games that is a one off thing.

Legends of Andor (and Expansion)

This, I think, is kind of another campaign game. Now, I say I think because I didn’t delve too far into the game. It is a fun puzzle game where you are trying to maximize what you do. However, for me, it’s just one I won’t play again. Legends of Andor has some really cool things about it though.

It does have that story element that I like to a game. And it makes you think about what you’re doing for an adventure game where there are monsters. You can’t just kill all the monsters, if you kill all of the monsters, you push up on a track. The faster you push up on that track the faster the game will end. So you only need to deal with the monsters that are a threat or are in the way. That is what really drives the puzzle aspect.

But, again, it falls into that category of a game that is pretty light, but has just enough rules that I can’t pull it off the shelf and get it to the table in minutes. And the campaign element isn’t strong to it, so I could play one off scenarios, but I’m likely just going to play the tutorial one again if I were to play it more.

Bring Your Own Book

Bring Your Own Book was one of my first Kickstarted board games. I liked it a fair amount in concept the game, just a bit less in actual game play. The idea is simple, everyone has a book and there is someone who is it. They put out a prompt and everyone has a couple of minutes to find a sentence or phrase in their book as an answer. Sounds fun and funny to have a wide variety of books.

There is one flaw in the game for me, though. It isn’t easy to find passages. Two minutes of time, or let’s say even three, isn’t that long. And while it’s funny to have a textbook and a biography and a novel as people’s books, some books just don’t work as well. And some people aren’t as fast as flipping through their books. I am not a speed reader but I can skim/read fast. Even for me it was tricky at times, or what you land is just something because you have to, not because it’s any good. I’d describe this game as clutchy, it can work, or it can stall real easily.

Boss Monster

Boss Monster is another I’d call clutchy. It is a pretty fun game with a great theme. You are building out a dungeon and are the boss monster at the end of it. Your goal is to kill as many adventurers as possible. And if you have the most of some symbols you attract adventurers.

That is where the game gets clutchy though. You don’t start out with a dungeon good enough to kill the adventurers. So they only show up in your dungeon if you have the most, so you are trying to tie with people the first few rounds. That isn’t fun, simple as that. If we started with a preseeded dungeon and we could make it bigger or better, that’d be more fun. Also some of the other mechanics aren’t what I’d call intuitive. With that said, I don’t hate the game, I just know I probably won’t play it again.

Sentinels Tactics: The Flame of Freedom

This one is pretty simple to describe why I got it and why it’s leaving. I got it on accident, I thought I was getting another Sentinels of the Multiverse expansion, it is a different game. Why is it leaving, tactics games like this one aren’t always my jam. I have not that many teams on a map games, Super Fantasy Brawl being my favorite. And I know the comparison isn’t perfect, but it’s in a category of games where I just don’t think I’ll get it to the table. It’s just a genre of games that I don’t need that many of.

Small World Underground

Finally one that might be surprising but don’t worry Small World is still in my collection. Small World Underground is basically the game thing as Small World, it just adds in a few little things, like locations to control that give you something more you can do. It is a lot of fun, so why is it leaving?

It’s leaving because I have Small World. That little extra thing to teach means I don’t want to play it as often. When we play Small World it’s generally because we can pull it off the shelf and play immediately. Nothing needs to get taught, everyone in the group knows it or needs a two sentence refresher on it. If I were to pull out Underground, we couldn’t get it to the table as fast.

Which Would You Keep?

So, in all fairness, I actually pulled back one game that was in the pile as I was talking about it. I am keeping Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle, at least for right now. It’s such a simple deck building game with a theme that people like, even if they don’t like JK Rowling. And I kind of do want to push through all seven chapters just to see everything that changes. It might not last for a long time, but we’ll see, maybe I’ll stream it.

As you can see, though, there are two main things that pushed games off my shelf. Would I play them over other games in the same genre, and are they in that category of too complex but easy. I’m not sure that makes sense, the better way to put it might be that the games a pretty simple when you get down to it, but have enough rules that you need to refresh yourself to play them.

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But like any person, I enjoy certain themes more than others. You can probably guess some of them based off of the games that I talk about the most, but let’s run down my Top 10 favorite themes in board games.

The List

On this list, going back to yesterday’s post, you are going to see some things where you’ll think, that’s theme is a subset of another theme on the list. Some themes, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, for example, are really broad.

10. Fairy Tales

This is a theme that I don’t see enough in games that target adults. Fairy Tales are often used for kids games, and while that’s a great spot for them, let’s not lie, the original fairy tales were messed up stories that didn’t end well. The versions that we know, those aren’t w hat they first at the start. So I love to see that twisted, but maybe closer to the actual theme fairy tale games.

The Grimm Masquerade

So, my example is going to be The Grimm Masquerade. This creates a hidden role game that is actually pretty interesting for me. I don’t love games like Mafia, Werewolf, or the Resistance because they are generally too simple. The Grimm Masquerade is all about figuring out who is what character, but how it is done is really interesting. Mainly because you have a draw a card and either keep it or give it away, and then the other action with your second card. Simple mechanics and fun game play.

9. Exploration

Honestly, I think if I do this again in two years, explorations will be higher on my list. I have mainly played a couple games that use this theme. And you could argue that it’s more of a mechanic, but I am thinking of that Indiana Jones type feel, where you have fantastic things going on, and you are discovering it with the other people at the tables. There are a few other games that dabble in this in another category that comes up. But I like the feeling of going into that new area and not knowing what I might find.

Tainted Grail

Now, Tainted Grail falls into a few other themes coming up here as well, but it works well here. The biggest element of Tainted Grail is diving in and exploring the massive, well written world that Awaken Realms has created. They even have an exploration journal which has so many things that you can do in it, and some many different paths you can go. It is probably impossible to actually find all the different options which is amazing.

8. Zombies

Yes, Zombies get their own theme. There are so many zombie games out there, and I tend to like them. Zombie games fall mainly into two categories. You either are mowing down zombies to get away from them, or you are trying to survive and it’s about the people versus killing zombies. Both are a lot of fun, and I have games with both types. I even have one where you are the zombies, but that one is a bit themeless really with Zombie Dice.

Dead of Winter

No shock which one I picked here, there are a lot of zombie games, but this one I have played the most. This is one where it is about the survivors and trying to make it through the cold of winter and complete your objectives. It’s interesting because it is cooperative with the possibility of a traitor, but it’s not as well. Because each player has a secret objective they need to complete to be part of the winning group. It is an interesting dynamic that works pretty well but won’t be for everyone. It does help simulate what your survivor(s) might care about most.

7. Lovecraftian

So another one that has a darker theme, we’re talking about Lovecraft. Now, this is not like Lovecraft’s books, but more the investigative, pulp, noir, theme that has been put on it by Fantasy Flight Games, mainly, and other companies as well. The main thing that ties it back to Lovecraft is that it uses his monsters to create a more fleshed out world of intrigue, investigation and tentacles.

Mansions of Madness

A few options I could have gone with, there are a ton of games with a Lovecraftian theme because, well, it is a public domain. Don’t have a theme, slap Lovecraft on it. But Mansions of Madness is my favorite. It is taking this city view or world view that some of the other games have and focusing it down to a neighborhood or a mansion. Add in the app which changes things up so you can play the same scenario multiple times and things will vary slightly. Just a nice, deeply thematic game.

6. Detective

Building off of what Lovecraftian themes do with their horror added, I like games where you are the person trying to figure out who done it. I would still even play something like Clue which is one of the first games that did that. But the genre has improved so much over time and you can have Sherlock Holmes, though I haven’t played any of the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective games.

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

It has Detective in it’s name, it has to be good, right? Well, not really, but it was very good. This takes all of the best parts of those procedural cop shows and drops you into it. You are the one making the decisions, picking up on clues, and trying to solve the case. The base box is amazing, and I have a bunch more stuff to play for it. They are now even doing a spy theme using the same system that I am really excited about.

5. Mythology

Welcome to the second category that Tainted Grail falls into it. But I really like games that can pull from different mythologies, Norse, Greek, Roman, Mayan, and more to create interesting board games. And the idea of playing as the gods or adjacent to the gods is always interesting. Especially because of the different powers the gods have and how that can translate into what you are doing. I also get to learn stuff about mythologies that I might not know much about.

Lords of Hellas

This takes a few things and puts them together. It is a bit like the world of Horizon Zero Dawn where the monsters look like creatures but are machines, and it has a cyber punk element. This game definitely leans more into the mythological side of things as you play different heroes and build towers to the gods. I love the different win conditions and the theme just makes the game that much more compelling.

4. Sci-Fi

Broad category #1, science fiction. There are a few different types, and I tend to prefer space exploration type of Sci-Fi versus weird future worlds. Though, things like Shadowrun are technically Sci-Fi and I like that Cyberpunk theme. However, I really like the grander feel that space exploration has in general. And there are a ton of great board games that fall into the realm of space.

Star Wars: Rebellion

Now this could be consider cheating a little bit because Star Wars could be it’s own theme. But it is also a space game. While you aren’t exploring as much, the empire is exploring planets trying to narrow down where the rebels can be. This feels like the original trilogy as it is cat and mouse. The empire trying to squash the rebel fleets and find their base, and the rebels trying to subvert the empires plan. It is also a big game, probably playing in about three hours or a bit less, if you know what you are doing. Ton of fun, Star Wars in a box.

3. Fantasy

Now, the second to last category that Tainted Grail could fit into, I love fantasy games. Unlike Sci-Fi where I prefer space sci-fi, I like almost any type of fantasy. Whether it’s a grim dark world like Tainted Grail, urban fantasy like The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game, or silly fantasy like Smallworld, I like games that have fantasy in them. There’s just something about slinging spells and fighting dragons or other crazy monsters that is a lot of fun.

Gloomhaven

No surprise what game I am going with here, Gloomhaven is my favorite game of all time. It has you on this massive epic adventure as you try and figure out all that is happening in the lands. But beyond that, the game has amazing card play and really unique fantasy creatures to fight and play as. The amount of world building that went into Gloomhaven is amazing.

2. Superhero

I flipped the last two at the last second, but Superheroes, they are just below my #1, because, well, there are a lot of poor superhero games out there. So this theme will always get me interested whether I’m playing as a superhero or fighting against them. But because DC and Marvel are both very popular in general, that means that there are some poorer games out there. But tell me that a board game has a Marvel theme, I am always going to check it out.

Marvel Champions

A Marvel game, no surprise there. I really like Marvel Champions a lot. It is a great game that they keep on adding more great content for. This is the one that has me playing a hero that I know and love from Marvel and I feel like that hero. If I am playing Spider-Man, I can go in there with a swinging web kick, or I can flip over to Peter Parker, the bad guy won’t fight me, and I can recover. Of course, then the bad guy is scheming until I can get in there again to stop their plans and take them down.

1. Horror

Finally, my number 1, Horror. I love horror in board games. From games where it is a one off scenario to games where it is a full campaign. The grim dark fantasy nature of Tainted Grail makes it also dabble into horror. But Zombie and Lovecraftian games also fall into that category as well. Zombies can be more survival and Lovecraftian can be more investigative, so horror get’s it’s own. I love not knowing what’s around the corner, what horror might be popping up and the feeling of the impending doom if things don’t go well.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Now, I know this one will be controversial. There are people who do not like this game, I love it. I think that it is really well done and it gives you that feeling of horror movies. You don’t know what is around the next corner, if a good twist happens, you don’t know who is going to be betray you, and you don’t know if you will survive. Is it well balanced, probably not, but I really like the thematic and cinematic feeling it gives me.

What Is Your Favorite Theme?

Let me know in the comments below or over on Twitter what themes in board games you like best. There are a lot of them out there. I could have broken down Fantasy and Sci-Fi more as well. Are there any that you feel are used too much?

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Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is probably the most popular Modern Classic board game right now. I think that Catan, or Settlers of Catan, has fallen out of favor where as Ticket to Ride is generally better liked. Ticket to Ride is a route building game and a set collection game. Now, the game that I’m picking isn’t so much of a route building game, but it does have those goals that the players are looking to complete. And you are collecting things, but not cards, marbles. This game isn’t much more complex than Ticket to Ride, but Potion Explosion adds in a level of toy factor to the game. You are pulling marbles out of the tray trying to get like colors to hit so you can get those marbles as well so that you can complete potions. That level is basically the same level as Ticket to Ride, it adds in complexity by giving each potion a power you can use as well, so you decide when you need to get that triggered.

Potion Explosion

Catan

Catan is a game that is known for rolling dice, getting resources, spending resources building more things and repeating the process. You can block people from going places, you can trade things, and while the trading is important to how I play the game, it isn’t for everyone. So when I looked to pick a game, I picked a legacy game, actually, that can still be played after it’s done, and I went with Charterstone. Charterstone is a worker placement game where you get resources which you spend to build more spots to go. It has a similar feel to me as you build out through the legacy campaign. The fact it adds more slowly as well, seems like it’d be a good way to build from a pretty simple game to a game with a lot more going on in it.

Charterstone

Carcassone

Carcassone is one of those games that surprises people when they see it. If they just know classic board games, the idea of building the board as you go is so cool. And that’s the area that I really focused on. I could focus on the meeples and how you play them to get points and get them back. If you love that part but want more, see Charterstone above. But I went with Galaxy Trucker. This game has a real time element to it where you grab tiles and fit them together to make your ship. Then it flies along and you hope to get the most and best cargo and not have your ship be blown apart. It’s a very different theme, but if people love the tile placement, this game has it, just faster. Though, I should be clear, there isn’t a hard time limit for parts of the real time aspect, and the tile placement part is the main part of the game.

Galaxy Trucker

King of Tokyo

This one will probably be obvious to most people who read my articles what game I am going to pick. In King of Tokyo you roll dice to try and get points and energy to get cards, but mainly, you roll dice to hit everyone else trying to knock them out. A game that takes that combat and that dice rolling is Dice Throne. This removes that middle board and makes it so anyone can hit anyone whenever they want. I’d say it’s primarily a two player game, but it does work well with King of the Hill play for three players and keeps people from ganging up on one player. The dice chucking is great, and the unique characters are amazing. I always want the monsters in King of Tokyo to be more unique.

Dice Throne

Small World

A lot of the board games have been a small step up, for Small World, I am going with a bigger step up. Small World is an area control game that I say makes a great replacement for Risk. It’s Risk, but it’s fun and way faster. The game that I’d use as a next step up from it is my second favorite game of all time, Blood Rage. Blood Rage has more than just fighting and area control, there are missions you can do, you draft cards, and you upgrade your clan. I really like the game, and while there are a lot of moving pieces with it, the game just works really well. And if someone wants, they can really lean into combat for getting their points and win, just don’t let someone get all the Loki cards.

Blood Rage

Dominion

Dominion, this is a game that I can get why people like it, but I really don’t. Most of the time, if you have a good player who knows the combos, they will win. That’s no fun to know that you’ll lose before the game starts. You could just explain the combos and whoever has the best one wins without playing the game. Instead, I prefer my deck building games to have a variable market. And the game that I picked to be the next step has that. Clank! In! Space! is a deck building game with more. There is a push your luck element as you try and get as far into the ship as you can to grab the best treasure you can. But the deck building is the big part of the game. The market works great, and the game doesn’t have amazing artwork, just like Dominion, but it has a much more fun theme.

Clank! In! Space!

Pandemic

This is my copout one, what do you play if you like Pandemic but are done with the base game. Pandemic Legacy Season 1, then Season 2, then Season 0. You have three versions of Pandemic to continue with. Season 1 is similar to the base game but then adds more and more. Season 2 is a major twist on how everything works but still feels like Pandemic somehow. And Season 0, I have yet to play that one, but I’ve heard amazing things about it. Pandemic is a good game and a good system, so dive into the more complex version with Pandemic Legacy.

Pandemic Legacy

Five Tribes

Five Tribe is what is known as a point salad style game. You do something, you get points for it. It might be now, it might be at the end of the game, but it’ll give you points somehow. There are plenty of Euro games that do that, but I don’t want to dump someone into a big Euro after they have played Five Tribes. Five Tribes doesn’t feel that euro to me, it’s more puzzly. So I went with Dice Forge for the next game to play. In Dice Forge you are upgrading your dice by changing out sides. It has that cool toy element to it, you are buying cards to get powers and get points. And the big thing is, you are always getting something. You roll the dice for your resources, you roll your dice on your turn and your opponents. And you are always getting resources to spend on your turn, so no turn ever feels wasted, just like in Five Tribes.

Dice Forge

Splendor

Splendor is an interesting one, it really is an abstract game as it’s heart of collecting gems to get more gems to spend those gems to get more gems. And as you go, it gets easier to get more gems as you build out your tableau. The game I went with doesn’t have a tableau, but it does have you getting gems. In Century Golem Edition you are getting cards in your hand to convert your gems into more gems and better gems, but also the right combo of gems to get golems. On your turn you either play a card from your hand, get a card to add to your hand, spend gems to get a golem, or pick up the card you’ve played. It’s a very simple and fast game, but there is more of a puzzle to figure out than Splendor has to get your engine going.

Century Golem Edition

Cards Against Humanity/Apples to Apples

No shocker to the game that I’ll pick here. There are a ton of games that I could say fit into that Cards Against Humanity and Apples to Apples category. The game where you play down cards and someone picks the best. Well, the issue is that once you’ve seen the jokes, you’ve seen them. So how do you get around that? Cards Against Humanity tries to add in a million expansions. My pick, Stipulations, makes your write down your answer. I also like Stipulations because it is flexible for your group. If you want to make it dirty you can. If you want it to be clean, it can be. Plus the categories such as super power are a lot of fun. It’s trickier because it requires creativity of the players. But because it requires that, it makes it much more replayable.

Stipulations

Which of these board games if your favorite modern classic? Are there any that you want to try, or that you want to try the next step up from? What games do you recommend to people who want that next game after Ticket to Ride or Catan?

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In area control players are trying to control portions of the board for some benefit. This can be to win the game, it can be that they get a resource if they control the area, or it can allow them to acquire currency or victory points. To do this, you are looking to have either all or the majority of the pieces in an area.

Like I saw saying, the classic example of this mechanic is Risk. In Risk you are getting armies, taking them to conquer areas of the world hoping to eventually reach world domination and hold every area. You do this by rolling dice to see if you can defeat your opponent and push your armies out as far as you feel is safe so that when your next turn comes around, you can get more armies and push things out further in your march to victory.

As I was saying earlier, for some people, this mechanic can be considered mean or less fun to play because it encourages confrontation. If you have the majority or the area completely controlled, I might want it to help me win the game, so I’m going to directly interact with your pieces and negatively impact your plans. What can happen in games like this is that someone will take the early lead in the area control and then will have the other players gang up on them to help prevent them from running away with the game, but that can feel very mean to the player who is getting ganged up, and this is something very common in Risk, because there are just some positions that are extremely strong.

A lot of modern board games try and balance this out. Some of the examples I give will make it so that the confrontation is much more common but not as negative in the game. Or some games now balance it out by saying if you don’t have the majority, you get some lesser option or the leftover option from the person who has the most selects from. This helps keep the game from feeling as mean and as personal because either everyone is always in the midst of the conflict, or the conflict isn’t as directly negative as because you still get some reward. This really makes area control more appealing to a general gaming crowd and can remove the memory of old childhood fights while playing Risk.

Gateway Game

Smallworld – This game is one of those that is conflict all of the time. In this game you are collecting coins, which are victory points at the end of the game. To do this, you just look at the number of areas that you are controlling at the end of each round. So you are regularly fighting for areas on the board. But with Smallworld, a 2-5 person game, the map size changes depending on player count in order to keep the conflict level high. So on a three player game, you are guaranteed to be running into your opponents. Beyond that the race and trait combination that you select at the start of the game isn’t the one that you have the whole time. So maybe your commando pixies were good to start, but as your opponents start to attack you, you can put the pixies into decline and get a new race and start attacking your opponents with that race. So it’s a balancing act that keeps you in the game and in conflict throughout the game. But because there is so much conflict no one generally feels ganged up on.

Medium Weight

Hanamikoji – Now this game is actually pretty simple as well, but I really like it as a thinky two player area control/area influence game. In this game instead of a chunk of land like so many area control areas, you are trying to win the favor of Geisha. To do this, you have to give them gifts. What makes this game interesting is how the mechanics work. Each player has a total of four given actions that they can do, and they can do them each once per round. Each player gets four turns during a round, so they can either set aside a gift that their opponent won’t see, discard two gifts that won’t be used for influence, show three gifts, of what their opponent can take one, or create two groups of gifts that their opponent can see and their opponent picks one. The game plays extremely fast but offers more interesting and important decisions than a lot of larger games do as you try and puzzle out what your opponent might have based off of the choices that they give you.

Heavy Weight

Blood Rage – In this Vikings themed game, you are fighting with the power of the Norse gods backing your clan. You do this by spending action points and upgrading your troops and completing missions. To complete these missions and to get more action points for turns, glory for winning in battle, and other things, you need to control an area. However, conflict will arise as you raid an area and the opposing clans can come rushing in and try and stop you from being able to take it. This one is about grabbing that control each round and trying to get control of Yggdrasil so that you get improve in multiple areas. This game does a good job of balancing out winning fights and getting control of those areas and losing because of what is known as the Loki strategy. Loki is all about tricking people and gaining victory points that way. Definitely a good game all around with a lot of different objectives you can go for and an area control game that can allow you not to have to be purely in the conflict and you can still do well.

There are so many options for area control out there, these are just a few that I like a lot and that work well for a good variety of people. Area control or influence doesn’t have to be as swingy or give as many options for a run away leader as something like Risk did so it shouldn’t lead to hurt feelings like straight up conflict games can. What are some of your favorite area control games?

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10 – Ascension
Now, a lot of people would have Dominion on this list, but I have an issue with Dominion as an intro deck building game. An experienced player can look at the combination of cards and quickly see the best combo, a new player will not get that strategy for a while, and therefore can be stomped. In Ascension because there isn’t a fixed market of cards, I think it works better as an gateway game. And the fantasy theme is as interesting to new gamers as a middle ages theme, so either works for that. In Ascension you are building up your deck of cards and creating combos, and while Ascension’s combos can be complex if you chain things together or remember to play cards in a certain order, the game is also pretty forgiving with that, and someone can simply focus on combat and killing monsters if they don’t want to try a combo strategy and do just fine. That’s the other thing about this compared to Dominion that works better, you kill monsters, which is a mechanic that people can understand for gaining points instead of the more abstracted set-up of adding provinces to your deck that at the end of the game will give you points.

9 – Century: Golem Edition
An engine building hand management game, you could also do Century: Spice Road, but the Golem Edition is cuter and has more interesting artwork. In this game, you’re just buying cards that will help you get the gems you want, playing those cards to turn gems into other colored gems and hope to get the right combination of gems or plan to, to get a Golem, after someone has 5 Golems, the person with the most points from the Golem and coins wins. The game can have an advantage to someone who understands strategy better because you can customize your engine more so for being able to play cards to get the most gems possible and better colored gems, but a quick explanation or why some cards, especially ones that produce gems are really good, and everyone will be on a pretty even playing field. Plus, the game is fast, so after a play the strategy should make more sense and it’s one that people will probably want to play again.

8 – The Grimm Masquerade
A simple deduction game where you are all characters from Grimm Fairy Tales trying to get what you need, figure out who other people are, and be the last one standing to get points. It’s pretty simple, if you are a character you want to get three of one item, the rose of your The Beast from Beauty and The Beast or the slipper if you’re Cinderella, but then you also have something that you don’t want to get. If you get two of those you’re out of the round. The game works on two simple mechanics. You get two cards on a turn, drawing one you decide to keep it or give it away, then you draw another one and do the opposite thing. Then, if you have a pair of matching cards in front of you, you can spend those cards to take a special action, and the special actions are simple, and most of the time it’s accusing/guessing which character someone else is. If you get it right, you get points, if you’re the last one standing, you get points, and after three rounds, whomever has the most points wins. It’s a lot of fun, and you can accuse other people, which is fun, especially when you’re accusing them of being a fairy tale character.

7 – Homebrewers
The newest game, I think that’s going to be on the list. Homebrewers is a quick engine building game, but does some things that really work well. It gives you an easy mode where everyone is the same and you don’t have special powers. For brand new players, this would be how you teach it. The player board has player aides on it, so even though it’s symbols it’s pretty simple. And, the game has dice. Dice are oddly one of those things that make a game seem more familiar, and make it more gateway often because the dice are going to take away from the amount of decision making you have to do. In Homebrewers, it certainly does that as you roll your dice, and you can pay to change dice faces or trade dice, but you roll them once, unless you get 3 of the same side, then you can roll again, and that’s what you can do on your turn. Plus, for an engine building game, it plays very fast, and the theme is fun.

6 – Dice Throne (Season 1 and 2)
One of the classic games that people know well is Yahtzee. You roll three times keeping dice each time, and then whatever you end up with, you use that to score some points. Dice Throne is a slightly, very slightly, more complex version of that where it adds in some card play to it as well, very simple based off of combat points for how you play the cards, and has a nice cheat sheet. You’re going to see and probably have already seen me mention cheat sheets a lot. Dice Throne also works because while it does have a fantasy theme, which can be a turn off for some people, it’s a pretty quick game, and there’s good back and forth to it. Now, when introducing this to people, I’d probably either do teams or do 1 vs 1, because targeting becomes tricky otherwise, though, you can just do king of the hill style targeting for whom you fight. It’s also fun because they do a good job of laying out difficulty level for characters, so you can start off teaching and playing with simpler characters and then move to more complex.

5 – The Lost Expedition
The highest cooperative game on the list, and this one does have a fair number of symbols to keep track of. I try and keep that at a minimum because that can be tricky for some people. However, in The Lost Expedition, they have one of the best cheat sheets (player aides) out there, so it makes it much easier to teach. The only odd thing that can trip people up is hiking difference between morning and evening, basically when you put the cards in numerical order or not. But because cards are laid down from your hand without it being discussed, it’s just the person’s own choice, that means that you can correct how things are done if you are the person who knows the game. This is also nice because if you find out that one of the people you are teaching might be an alpha player, the lack of discussion of playing cards for the hike keeps everyone engaged in the game and the alpha player from being able to alpha game.

4 – Sushi Go Party!
A lot of drafting games on the list coming up, though not all of them card drafting. Sushi Go Party! is a great intro game because you can level up the difficulty as you go. There are some cards, especially in the specials, that are just more difficult to explain, so you can leave those out. But the game is extremely cute with the anthropomorphic foods, and it stands out on the table. The scoring, like I said, can be a little bit funky, but if you go with the base set of the game, what came in Sushi Go!, you’ll have a pretty easy to teach game. And the fact that everyone is playing at the same time is helpful because it means that for the people who aren’t the biggest game lovers they don’t have time to get bored between their turns.

3 – Point Salad
A simple little card game that plays fast, but plays differently and encourages people to think about their strategies and adjust them each game. But it’s a cute game, and that is part of what makes it a good gateway game. You’re making a salad, it’s a silly theme, but it’s one that people understand. And it teaches some card drafting. But, because, the cards rotate as much as they do, you can’t build the biggest strategy. It’s also one, with the concept of either taking a scoring card or taking two veggies, that people can understand how that works. The game play is as simple as that, and all the cards are up on the table, so there’s no hidden information that if someone doesn’t fully get something, it can’t be explained without giving the “expert” in the game an advantage.

2 – Welcome To…
This one is probably the most complex game that I’m putting on the list, and it’s not that complex. It’s mainly that the player aid for helping you know what cards do isn’t that great. But when you can teach it by using a city building, neighborhood building example, it’s again something that people recognize, and they can get the hang of it. In the game all you’re doing is putting house numbers in numerical order and then fencing off neighborhoods, building parks, and putting in pools. Again, all concepts that are pretty straight forward, and when you’re done, you have your little town. Now, some of the rest of them are a bit more complex, but overall, it’s not difficult to explain and play.

1 – Sagrada
This dice drafting game has one important thing going for it for being a good gateway game, it looks amazing on the table. The translucent dice just pop and turn what would be a good looking game into an amazing one. Why this one works well is that the rules are pretty simple, you grab out 5 dice (in a two player game) you roll them, you take one and put it on your board, the next person takes one and then it snakes back with one die being leftover at the end. You’re just trying to fill in a pattern that you’ve been given. Now, the powers can be a bit more difficult to explain, but there are some easy ones in there, and I start with those. And the scoring is simple, plus when you’re done, you have something that is familiar to most people, a stained glass window.

Now, I know this is a top 10 list, and I want to talk about why some games weren’t on here. Ticket to Ride, Catan, Carcassone, and Smallworld are all amazing gateway games, however, this is based off of the games that I like, and they just missed the list. There is also the fact that a lot of people have already played at least some of those games so they are somewhat familiar with them. These are other games that you can play to branch out from those slightly older though still good gateway games. You’ll also notice that as compared to my Top 10 games of all times or games that are showing up on a lot of other lists, most of these have more mundane themes. Stained glass windows, building a town, or food. And while that might not lend itself to that much story, it is something that doesn’t seem as nerdy to a lot of people and something that they can more easily grasp onto.

So what are some games that you’ve had success with as gateway games? Are there any that you’d really recommend?

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5. Gloom
Not Gloomhaven, Gloom is a silly little card game where you are telling a story about the horrible things that are happening to your characters. And then you are trying to kill them off so you get the fewest (or most negative) points possible. While I like this game with lower player counts, the higher player counts mean that you get to tell a silly story as a group. The more people you have to play good cards on, the funnier it is as you really do all tie your stories together as you play and create this crazy shared world with your miserable little families.

4. Hanabi
This game does play well at two players, but I like it at the higher player count as it keeps you from getting in as much of a rut with one person burning a card to give a clue, the next person using that clue to tell the other player what to burn to get another clue and so on and so forth, if there aren’t better clues to give. It also means that each player has more information with the higher player count because you can see more hands of cards. This is sometimes stressful because you hope one of the other players will give a clue that you want them to give.

3. T.I.M.E. Stories
With four players in T.I.M.E. Stories you might get less time to complete the scenario, but I feel like it gives you the right breathe of characters. You get the characters who are strong at fighting, but also the ones who have the social skills. It also gives you another brain in the mix to help figure out the puzzles and find the clues that are at the various locations, maybe hidden on the image that you are seeing. Now, I think that T.I.M.E. Stories is still a lot of fun with any player count, but with four players you can really get the whole experience of the game and be able to use your time more efficiently.

2. Blood Rage
This epic Viking area control, card drafting, variable player power game is the most fun at four. You get more epic battles with the higher player counts and you really have to decide when to make your move going after a resource. They do a solid job of adjusting the board size for lower player counts, but to have that more open game is really enjoyable. And when you have a lot of players fighting over Yggdrasil, it’s a fun time. You also get to play with all the cards in the drafting round for the age. That means that you get to see a great variety of cards and can tailor your strategy around what you can see. The game doesn’t seem to take much longer with four players either, which is nice.

1. Pandemic Legacy
Now, I know some people will like this with fewer players and generally they are considered easier with fewer players. For that reason I actually like it at the higher player count. It adds to the stress of the game as you try and complete everything, and you can’t rely on a single character leading the way. In the first season, playing with the Dispatcher and Medic would be playing on easy mode as you’d be able to keep the diseases pretty well under wraps. But with more players, you don’t get those two important characters making moves as often. This is also true for Pandemic in general that the higher player count I find more fun, unless you’re picking odd characters. Otherwise the game can be a bit too easy.

Now, there are so many games that are great with four players, and I want to toss out a couple of games that haven’t made the list yet. Smallworld and Five Tribes. Neither of these are going to make of the lists, because I like them with any player count. Five Tribes does change it’s feel with different player counts, but it works well. And Smallworld has different maps for each player count which makes the game work very well.

What are some games that you really like at four players? Are there some games that shouldn’t be played at four players?

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5. Smallworld
The lightest game on the list by far, but one that has a ton of different variable powers. In fact, every race and power is unique, and those combinations are randomly generated each game. So how you play is going to change each time. Add in the fact that you will have multiple different race and power combinations throughout the game, and this game is basically just about those variable powers. However, it works really well in this game, because you get that silly area control, but you also have some decisions to actually make in the game. I’d highly recommend this or my #2 on the list as options for introductory games with variable player powers, and then work your way up to the rest of them.

4. T.I.M.E. Stories
Not one that I have put on a list before, but T.I.M.E. Stories has an interesting way for unique player powers. Because you are traveling back in time or to other dimensions, and how they do it in this game is by sending your brain back into another person’s body, you now have all of that persons stats and issues. No spoilers for anything more than the base version of the game, but you might get sent back into the body of a cannibal or someone who is addicted to cocaine, so good player powers like you’d expect. And you can change it up between jumps depending on how you want to play through the scenario. The one thing I wish it would do a bit differently though is that you need a balanced party with mental stats and physical/combat stats. It would be nice to avoid combat more often if you wanted to.

3. Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition
This one is great because not only are your characters different because of stats, such as lore, strength, agility and others, they also have different powers. You could go into a scenario with a character who can attack better, gain clues when monsters die, or maybe you have someone who can reroll when doing lore checks and has a great lore. There are support characters and there are attacking characters. While the scenarios might be the same, with the exception of slightly different generated rooms, the game can feel different depending on who you are playing each time you play a scenario. And how you go about solving scenario might change as well, because sometimes your investigators might prefer a more direct approach.

2. Pandemic/Pandemic Legacy
Both are rolled into one since I really shouldn’t spoil characters in the Legacy version, but even in the base version it’s great. The medic can do something different than the dispatcher, the scientist different than the researcher, and so on. Each role has something that they are better at, and people can pick to tailor to their playstyle if they want. Or you can just try and random combination to see how well they work. They do a really good job of balancing the characters in the main game. And in the legacy version you get to decide even more options to make your character feel even more unique which is great.

1. Gloomhaven
Each character in Gloomhaven plays differently. You might be the ranged character, a magic user, a healer, tanks, there are so many different unique options. Gloomhaven is a massive game, a huge story driven dungeon crawler, and because of the card play, the combat is less random than a lot of dungeon crawlers where you are just rolling dice. And from the start you feel like each character is unique in what they do. I’ve played three different characters so far, and while they have all kind of been support characters, they all feel different and support in different ways, they haven’t been just healers. Overall my favorite game, and just great variable powers that the player can then even customize themselves.

There are a ton of games that I haven’t listed with variable player powers. Most of the time they are in games it works really well. But there are risks that a certain combination might be too powerful in a game if not properly playtested.

A few for the honorable mentions:
Cry Havoc – Gives each race their own buildings and style for getting points. Definitely a fun option that allows people to go from Euro to Amerithrash in the game.
Imperial Assault – Each playable Star Wars character has their own stats and powers. See Mansions of Madness for how the game play works somewhat. Or at least how the variable powers work.
Arkham Horror LCG – Fantasy Flight does a good job of creating Lovecraftian games with variable powers through their investigators. This one is probably my #5, but it’s similar to Mansions of Madness, so I didn’t need a double up.

And there are so many more games that I love like this. Root, Star Wars Rebellion, Legends of Andor, and so many more that it’s hard to keep track. What are your favorite games with variable player powers? Do you find it confusing in some games or do you generally want it?

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