Point of Order: First Order of 2021
Yeah, those are a bit stacked on top of each other from the end of 2020 to the start of but I had a little money left on a gift card for the order, so let’s see what I have coming now, it isn’t big …
Where to jump in on board games, anime, books, and movies as a Nerd
Yeah, those are a bit stacked on top of each other from the end of 2020 to the start of but I had a little money left on a gift card for the order, so let’s see what I have coming now, it isn’t big …
Yup, another double letter day with G and H. I really wanted to just do G by itself because of the great title that I have, but no such luck. So another combined letter day and tomorrow will also be a combined letter day as …
We’re back for another chunk of games, this time we’re onto the letter D, there are a number of games that start with D, but I also have a number of expansions as well, which will keep this list a bit shorter than the letter C.
You can find my whole collection here.
D’s
Dead Men Tell No Tales
This one I was sold on because it is a cooperative game that has a bit more going on than Pandemic and a pirate theme. Zee Garcia sold it well on the Dice Tower, and I have to say that I’ve been pleased with it. The use of the dice in the game to track how badly the ship is burning, and everything you are trying to do works for me. From dealing with ghosts, skeleton deckhands, fires, and trying to get back with the treasure the game is a good challenge. It definitely does end up feeling like it has more going on than Pandemic but in a good way, and I like the ship that you build as you go a an added variety to the game.
Status: Played
Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game
Part of me, as a completionist, feels like I should pick up the Warring Colonies expansion and the Rodney Smith Promo card for it, but I also don’t play it a ton right now. This is a big zombie survival game that no matter what length of mission you play it always takes a while. Add in a possible traitor to the mix, you need to spend more time decided what everyone is doing. I do have the Dead of Winter: The Long Night expansion that adds in some new modules that you can play with, and I haven’t even played with all of those. This is a tough game but one that I really do enjoy quite a lot for the theme and game play.
Status: Played
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
Let me start off by saying, I don’t like most social deduction games. There are some that I find as just fine, but Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is a great game. There is a social deduction aspect to it as you talk about the reports that the forensic scientist is putting out to help you figuring out who the murderer is, but there is also just a deduction aspect as you try and interpret what the forensic scientist is getting at. The game is very well done and while some people don’t love the artwork/design on it, I do because it’s very simple for a simple game. If you pull this game out, I would play it every time, other social deduction games, I might pass on those, but this gives the players something to do from the very start.
Status: Played
Deep Madness
This is one that I bought used at my local game store because I saw it played on the Rolling Solo YouTube channel. In this game you are going down into the depths of the ocean to try and figure out what has happened to the station that is down there. As normal, they dug too deep and something has been released, or maybe it was there all along. You need to fight off monsters, and complete objectives in this mission based game that can also be a campaign game, I believe, but not as progressing a one or indepth a one as some. I also got the Endless Nightmares expansion and the Uncounted Horrors expansion for it as my FLGS, All Systems Go, was selling it all as a bundle.
Status: To Be Played
Deranged
This almost wasn’t on the list. I have been waiting on this game for months at this point. It was announced probably around May that UltraPro was going to be doing the distribution and production here in the United States, so I pre-ordered it when I could in June or July, and it showed up with three other games, yesterday. So looking back at the C’s, there’s a game that could have been in there now. Deranged is a game that I love the aesthetic of, and I really enjoyed the game play of at GenCon in 2019. It is a horror themed game, but a bit less so than some out there, where you are trying to escape a cursed village however, there are monsters, and there’s a chance that you might become Deranged which turns you into a monster, but you can get back if you kill someone else, which doesn’t turn them into a deranged, but gives them another curse. Definitely a very competitive game but a lot of fun.
Status: Played (GenCon Demo only)
Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2nd Edition)
So Descent has been on my radar as a one versus all dungeon crawl sort of game. I don’t have many/any other dungeon crawls like that, most are fully cooperative that I own, but this one I had looked at but I mainly picked it up for one thing. It has a ton of minis in the game, of okay quality, and I wanted over Covid to pick up mini painting. I got a base layer down on one dragon, that’s it so far. I do want to get back to it still and really start to dive into it, I need to set aside an evening to watch something in my office and paint them. Eventually I do want to play the game as well because I think it looks interesting and Fantasy Flight generally impresses me with their games, but might not get to the table for a bit and was really gotten for the minis.
Status: To Be Played
Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game (LA Crimes & Dig Deeper)
This was a game that I was really excited about when it came out, and I ordered the base game immediately. I held off on ordering the expansions until later this year after playing the base game and loving it. In the base game you are using your own Detective skills to follow leads through an impressive and really interesting story that loops in bits of real history to create an immersive gaming experience. In some ways it’s like a procedural cop show, NCIS being a fairly closish example, but you are playing it yourself and are the detectives yourself and decide what leads to follow. Game play is really interesting and it’s so much about the experience, I highly highly highly recommend it for a deeply thematic time, and it plays really well via Zoom.
Status: Played
Detective: City of Angels
Have I said that I like deduction games, because I really do, as much as I don’t love social deduction games, deduction games are amazing. This one blends a little of both as one player, the Chisel, is kind of running the game, and they can give people the best answer or a not so good answer when they are questioning someone. If the investigator things they didn’t get the best answer, they can pressure the Chisel to give them the better answer, but do that too much or at the wrong time, it can not work out for you. This one is also different because while you are trying to solve cases, you aren’t doing it as a group like in Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, instead you’re trying to get all of the glory for yourself.
Status: To Be Played
Dice Throne (Season 1 and Season 2)
Dice Throne is on of my most played games out there. It’s a fun Yahtzee inspired dice chucking battling game done in a duel kind of Mortal Kombat style. In this game you are using the dice and combat points to attack, upgrade attacks, and try and get your opponent to 0 health before they knock you down. The game is simple enough to play, and it seems like it could be boring just because you’re rolling dice, but it is a ton of fun as each character plays differently and thematically. The Artificer has attacks that they can do, but also building up your bots to help you do more damage throughout the game or heal up, that’s super useful, where as the Barbarian has all of it’s offensive rolls just be attack attack attack. It’s just a blast always and plays well at 2, but even plays well with a bigger number.
Status: Played
Dicecapades
This one is on my shelf still because it’s just a silly and fun party game. It has you stacking dice, rolling dice, doing a lot of things with dice. My one major knock on this game is that it has a lot of fun things with it and then it has trivia. You roll a die and that determines what trivial question you get, that’s not fun. And that part can just turn into a slog if you just aren’t great at trivia. If you’re interested in the game, or looking for that goofy family/holiday party style game, it’s better than some.
Status: Played
Draftosaurus
This game is basically a roll and write, but instead of rolling and writing, you are drafting dinosaurs and placing them on your board. It works well, and the dinosaur meeples are super cute. The game also has a really nice mechanic where the person whose turn it is to lead rolls a die and that determines where everyone else has to place their dinosaur that they will draft, but the person who is rolling the die can place anywhere. You are trying to get as many of different types as you can, or sets of dinosaurs, or as many of one type as you can and more and that’ll determine how you score. Overall, just a fun filler game that has some thought that goes into it.
Status: Played
Dragonfire
You’ll see a similar game show up later in another letter, but Dragonfire is a deck building, monster fighting game with a Dungeons and Dragons theme on it. I like that you get your class, you can play through what looks like some pretty big stories or smaller stories to make up a larger campaign and level up your characters. I also like that you can play solo in this game. I’ve played it a couple of times with the copy that Fantasy Flight had and then I picked up my own because it was enjoyable and challenging. I feel like I need to nail down a better strategy still, but overall, a lot of fun.
Status: Played
The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game
This is a game based off of my favorite book series, and while it is a pretty mechanical game if you don’t know the books, it is something that we’ve made feel more thematic when I’ve played it, and I’ve played it a lot. In this game you take a team of characters, from 3 to 5 I believe, into the game. You can play solo, but you’re playing 3 characters, or you can play 2 player, but you each mix together two characters, and it works well. I like how each game is you playing through a one of the books as well, and I think that works so incredibly well.
Status: Played
Dutch Blitz
This is a classic game that I grew up playing. It’s a pretty fast and fun card game where you are putting down cards in a stack and seeing how many cards you can get out. I keep it around more because of nostalgia than anything, but it’s also one that I wouldn’t be opposed to pulling out once in a while.
Status: Played
That’s the letter D, I think compared to all the previous ones, this one has the fewest in it that I haven’t played, though, Deep Madness is a pretty big game that I haven’t played. And it has some that I’ve played a lot. I’m guessing that I’ve played over 20 games of The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game and Dice Throne each. What is your favorite game to start with the letter D, and what one do you think i should add?
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Getting close to the end, the top 100 are all games that I really do love and would want to play basically whenever someone asks but as we get higher in the list, and I think about and write up about these games, I always …
So, not something you might have thought was a mechanic, but there are quite a number of games that use deduction in them. Deduction can be used in a few different ways, you might be solving a case, or figuring out who are the traitors among you.
There are two different types of deduction games, the first is based off of the game Clue, where you are trying to figure out who-done-it. It isn’t a particular person in the group, it is a part of the game that there is some character that has done something. You are then using logic and reasoning to determine and guess a result. This can be done in a number of different ways, it might be that you are using reasoning while looking at a card. Or it could be trying to acquire information that other people know as well. These games typically end when someone figures out the solution or everyone gets it wrong.
The other type is social deduction. Social deduction is where you are trying to find out about which players at the table are the “bad guys”. These games normally have some way for both sides to win. These sorts of games are based off of Mafia or Werewolf where some people are normal citizens who are trying to figure out who the Mafia or Werewolves are before all the normal citizens are killed. This sort of game originally had a moderator who would run the game as you’d have to close your eyes and have secret information as to who was going to be killed. This has been built up over time for additional difficulty and intrigue to the game versus primarily being a conversation around the table.
The first type is much more pure deduction because all the information you’d need to know is available. With social deduction because the players are the ones who are lying, or telling the truth, about their role, the information is going to be less perfect as you try and read the people in the room and determine who is on what team and who is trying to cause the group as a whole to lose. So depending on what your style is, more social or logical, that’ll help determine which one is better for you.
So, let’s talk about some of the games that fit into these genres.
Gateway Game:
The Resistance – In this game it’s a simple social deduction where you are going on missions. However, depending on the numbers of players, some of the players are spies from the evil organization who is trying to stop the resistance. If they go on a mission, they can cause it to fail. But if they aren’t careful how they do it, they can reveal who they are. And if they reveal who they are, or people at the table guess who they are, they won’t get sent on anymore missions, because no one trusts them, and then it’ll make it harder for the spies to be able to fail missions. So it’s a balancing act for the spies to fail missions covertly so it’s harder for it to be pin pointed to them. The game plays fast, and you can put some theme into what is basically voting on a team and then team doing the mission if you want. The game scales well as well and is enjoyable.
Medium Weight:
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong – This builds and I would say is kind of between the two games on my list. While Resistance is completely about the interactions and being able to guess and read the other players, this game still has hidden roles, one person is a murder and one is a witness, and you might have an accomplice and everyone else is investigators who are trying to solve a murder. To do that, the game runner, who has the role of the forensic scientist, is sending up reports. These reports are will give the investigators clues, like, the murder took place at a hospital, or the murder victim was old, things like that. And the investigators are trying to piece together these reports in such a way that they can figure out which of the murder weapons and clues left that the scene, in front of each player, make sense for the murder. The murder and the accomplice are trying to deflect or suggest things that keep suspicion off of themselves. While the witness is trying to quietly keep people on track, because if the murder is caught, the murder and accomplice still have a chance to take out the witness which then still gives them the win. This game has more moving parts to it, and while the Resistance builds with accusing people, from the start of the game, people are trying to puzzle out what it might be from the first report that is sent up. Plus, figuring out who the murder is, you might have it narrowed down, but you still have to get the combination right of weapon and clue.
Heavy Weight:
Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game – Now, this one is the first of the deduction Clue style games where the information is out there, it’s just if you can piece it together. This is a big box game that takes you through a series of cards, based off of how you as a group want to investigate and you are trying to get through five different cases. There are expansions that add more cases. You, and your fellow players, then will spend your time carefully investigating a case, talking to witnesses, digging through evidence, and going through the games online database. And the cases can be very different from working a cold case to finding evidence of people being framed, to a kidnapping. And they can do a whole lot more. I really love how this game blends the digital portion where you are using a database they’ve created for the game, looking up real events and history, as well reading the story off of the cards. There is so much to dig through, and in the end, you are answering the best that you can. And then the cases build off of each other as well, which makes it even more fun. It’s a bigger and heavier game and you won’t be able to solve the cases perfectly just because there isn’t enough time, but I highly recommend this if you’re looking for a meatier deduction game.
Do you like deduction games? Have you played Clue or games like Mafia? What are some of your favorite deduction games? There are a lot of good ones out there, and while I don’t love social deduction, I really love the more logical deduction games.
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