Why You Wouldn’t

There are obviously some reasons that you’d be unlikely to play campaign games again. A lot of them tell a story that is important to the game play as you go along. Once you know the story, it won’t be fresh or new again. You will see parts of the story over again even if the story does have some branching narrative paths. And that removes some of the fun of the game knowing what is coming up.

You also might have more campaign games to play. Honestly, this is what will keep me from revisiting something like Gloomhaven with another group soon. I have a lot of other campaign games to get through from Tainted Grail that I’m playing now to Reichbusters and Apocrpyha on the shelf now, and games like Middara, Frosthaven, and Oathsworn coming in probably this year. So it isn’t like I’ll be running out of games to play in the genre.

Why You Would

Now, there are reasons to again. I talk about how you might have seen a lot of the story, but you won’t have seen all of it. For example, I have played the first chapter of Tainted Grail 5 times now, twice solo, and then two different groups three times. I know I haven’t seen everything. I know that the group that I have played it twice with, I’ve done different things than before. So if the story is highly engaging and offers a wide variety, then there is reason to go back through it.

Mechanically if the game is interesting I’m more tempted to go back through it as well. For example, Gloomhaven, I love how that game works mechanically. I love the card play in it. I see going back to it eventually if my kid grows up to like board games. It is a big game, but it’d be something to share experience over, or if I have another group of players who really want to play it. I won’t get bored, even though I’ve seen a lot of story, playing through it again, because there are still classes I haven’t played.

Finally, bonding, board games are something that bring people together. And a campaign game can bring a group of people together more consistently. It is like Dungeons and Dragons that way, you can set-up a standing time where you play. It grows friendships and gives people a reason to get out and see people, which in Minnesota in the winter, you sometimes need. That is why I tried to keep it going, and we did a solid job of it, throughout the pandemic playing on TableTop Simulator or games via Zoom.

What Games Would I Wouldn’t I Play Again?

I think it might be useful to talk about the campaign games that I have played, the two I’ve finished and the one I’m going through now and see if I’d play them again and why. It is easy to explain that there are cool things about them, or I really like them, but is that enough to keep them around.

Tainted Grail

Let us start with the one that I’m playing. Mechanically the game is solid, but that isn’t the reason I have played it so many times. Some of it, thus far, is because it is hard. But the story is the element that really draws me back to it. I know, like I said, that there is more yet to find in that game. We finally made it to chapter four last night, and I’m seeing all sorts of new things that I didn’t know about before. I am going to new locations on the island of Avalon and fighting new monsters. For Tainted Grail that openness of the world and story is what keep me coming back to it.

Sword & Sorcery

Now, I sold this game, it might give you a hint. There are two things that kept me from wanting to come back to it. The story itself is fun, but it doesn’t branch much. So you play the story once, you know what will happen. And mechanically, it is a bit lacking at times as well. I love leveling up, getting new abilities, and fighting in new ways. But that doesn’t happen that often. So it ends up being the same thing, find a monster, use an ability, aim, and attack. You roll dice, and it’s just the same combos over and over. It is just missing that umph that Tainted Grail has.

Gloomhaven

Finally, Gloomhaven, that one is my #1 game of all time. It is staying in my collection, and I would gladly play it again. It doesn’t have the most in depth and branching story. But what it does well is give you enough story to keep it interesting. And it gives you a ton in it’s game play. Mechanically with all the different classes you can play, it is so much fun. We saw all of them in my play through, but I haven’t played all of them. So Gloomhaven gives you a lot to go back to, and you can just play randomly generated scenarios as well, which is cool.

Would you go back to a campaign game? What has made you go back if you have before? What do you look for in one that you think you might go back to?

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Let’s see what all got played in the month of March.

Tainted Grail – 4 Plays

The campaign game that I have rolling now and will have even more plays of starting on Friday when I start a second campaign. I love this game and the stories that it tells. Trying to track down a giant guardian monster to fight. Going in a completely different direction than before and finding out things about the grail, and the world I hadn’t seen before. There is so much story and so much lore to unpack that I’m excited to dive in and see more of it. The game is tough, but it is really so worth it.

Super Fantasy Brawls – 3 Plays

I picked this one up and I blame GloryHoundd YouTube channel for it, but I am really glad that I did. This is a skirmish game that is based around card play. Your play with three different powers basically and you play one card of each power per round. So it makes for some interesting combos and pushes you in what you do while still being really simple.

The game also works because it’s not just rush in and smash stuff, there are goals to complete as well which gives you points. And if you ever have a character knocked out, they can come back in, so it isn’t like you can get locked out of certain cards. Really fun game and I’m excited for more heroes with the Round 2 that wrapped up on Kickstarter.

Ganz Schon Clever – 3 Plays

This one will be on the list a lot. I just like the game. Ganz Schon Clever is a nice puzzle game and a good roll and write for people who don’t know roll and writes that well. Always fun to play and works well enough via Zoom.

Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition – 3 Plays

Another roll and write game, this one is about route building. I need to play this with expansions because I like the base game a lot, but I think the expansions would add in even more. I will say, it is not easy making a good route. But it is fun trying to make the best one possible. Also played via Zoom and it worked pretty well, I will say. It is nice that so many roll and writes one person can have the dice and it works. You just need to print off the sheets.

Hanamikoji – 3 Plays

I played this one at work most recently. I know I love the game, but it was fun to get it back to the table, because it is such as simple yet thinky game. The four actions that you can do give you so much to think about. When do you play them, what cards has your opponent hidden away and how can you make the play good for you but not help your opponent that much. We knocked out those three games really fast after the new player learned the rules. My favorite two player only game.

Twice As Clever – 2 Plays

More roll and writes and more that I’ve already played a number of times this year. Like Ganz Schon Clever is is just a fun roll and write game. And it is good over Zoom.

Metro X – 2 Plays

This one I need to play on Malts and Meeples, I thought I had but apparently not yet. It is a run route filling in game that is challenging. Unlike Railroad Ink where it has you connecting things, here you are just filling in predefined routes. That sounds simpler, but the rules for how you can fill in the routes makes it very challenging. And the cards you flip, in this roll and write game, never come up quite the right way. Definitely a good one and it comes with dry erase boards.

Codenames: Pictures – 2 Plays

It had been a while since I played any form of Codenames. It generally got pulled out once or twice a year. But it was fun to play again. We did it via Zoom so Kristen and I were the people giving clues. We messed it up some, but it was a blast and works well via Zoom. I still stand by my thought that Pictures is the far superior version to words because you have way more chances to be clever. I remember games of Codenames Pictures for the game, I remember regular Codenames for where I was.

Clever Hoch Drei – 1 Play

What, more roll and writes. Well, we had to play through the trilogy of Ganz Schon Clever, Doppelt So Clever and Clever Hoch Drei. This one is interesting to teach. But I like it probably the second best. It gives you a lot of confusing things to do but once you get them down, they make sense.

Marvel United – 1 Play

I’ll let my videos do the talking:

Marvel United is a great simple cooperative game. And now I have way more with the expansions. I’ll be playing one tonight, as I said above, at 8 PM Central time, so join me then.

Marvel Battleworld – 1 Play

Let’s be fair, I play Marvel Battleworld for the thrill of busting open something to see what little Marvel figure I got. Will I ever play it again after I open up the characters, I mean, I have, but it’s not high on my list to play again. This is a game with massive amounts of toy factor to it and that collectors itch as well. Marvel Battleworld is not a great game, it’s extremely simple and very random. That’s a big knock, but did I mention the collectors itch that it gives you as you break into a blind pack?

So many games played, but still not quite on track. Which of these games seems the most interesting to you to play?

Yearly Stats

Just as we get into the year, let’s see how we are doing stats wise, this will include what I’ve done in April thus far as well.

85 Plays with 16 different people.

The game played the most with 12 total plays is Deadly Doodles followed by Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon with 9 and then tied Ganz Schon Clever and Metro X with 7. In total there have been 24 different games played. And 9 of the games are roll and write games.

So it’s looking good, and I love to see that I am playing board games a lot. Honestly, playing a board game and letting my brain think that way versus thinking about work or a work problem or something like that is one of my favorite ways to de-stress.

Well, I’ll be back next month with all the new plays.

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10. Sonora

You’ll see that a lot of these can be played two players if I wanted to. Sonora even works just fine two players, but I think it’s just more fun to play it in a bigger group. I’ve played it three players a few times, but I want to play it 4 player and really see how it works with a little more craziness of more and more discs being flicked into the middle. This is one that I should pull out solo or two player again anyways. But Sonora, I’m looking forward to being able to introduce this roll and write game with flicking to some friends.

9. Tokyo Highway

This is not going to be a list dexterity games, but it could be, if I had that many. I only have 5 really, and only three of them are on that list. Tokyo Highways is a game that looks amazing on the table. I call it a piece of artwork when it’s done or nearly done. But man, it looks so good with the roads intertwining. For obvious reasons we can’t play it in a big group and while you could probably play at two players, the game feels like it’s the best at more because you have more roads to interact with.

8. Blood Rage

Card drafting is a mechanic that I guess could work on something like TTS, but playing a physical version of a game is just more fun. Blood Rage has card drafting, it has that simultaneous card play for combat, there are just a lot of things that wouldn’t work as well digitally. And definitely wouldn’t work trying to play it over Zoom or something like that. I really love Blood Rage so it was a bummer to have picked up not that long before the pandemic shut everything down and not get it to the table. It does also require the right group, some of the more casual game night players wouldn’t be interested, and it’d take up a bunch of the game night.

7. Tags

This is one that I picked up during the pandemic hoping that I could make it work via Zoom. I’m still not sure that I can’t, it does seem possible, but it also seems, with the times element that it’d be a little bit too chaotic to work that well. This is one that I’m excited to get around the table with a big group of players and just having a blast with it. I like the game for it’s speed and replayability.

6. Camel Up

Another one purchased during the pandemic, Camel Up is a big silly racing game that has you rolling dice, moving camels and betting on who you think is going to win. You control all the camels as a group so no one player is going to have their camel left behind. And all sorts of wackiness can ensue as the camels stack, and if you move a lower camel all the ones on top of them move with them as well. It’s just looks like a silly good time that I want to get to the table.

5. Draftosaurus

Draftosaurus works better with more players, but could be played at two. But you are also passing around handfuls of dinosaurs which is not very distancing. But, it’s a fun fast game that I want to play again. I really think this game, as you play it, feels like a roll and write game. There is zero writing and the rolling just determines where you can place the dino meeple you are drafting that turn. But the feeling is that of a roll and write as you place those dino meeples into pens and try and score the most points that you can. Super light, super fun and one that you should probably be vaccinated to play with people outside of your house.

4. Potion Explosion

Now, I have played this one twice not that long ago, I think it was in February. But I want to play more Potion Explosion and not just more at two players, but with a bigger number of players. The game is just a blast to play and the toy factor on it is amazing. I want to get it to the table and share the joy of this one. Plus, with one turn between your turns the board doesn’t change up that much. More people keeps more variety going in what you will be able to pull.

3. Skull

Skull is yet another one that I picked up during covid. However, I have played this one a number of times before. Skull is a bluffing game. You put down cards, eventually someone will start the bid and then whomever wins has to flip over that many cards (coasters) without hitting a skull. The trick is you have to start with your own pile and flip all of those first. So do you bluff that you don’t have a skull in your pile, push up the bid and hope that someone outbids you and then hits your skull. Just a fun game that you could probably make work via something like Zoom, but it’d be different and you need to see both the cards and the people which would be tricky.

2. Letter Jam

I’m not sure you could make this one work physically via something like Zoom. People need to see everyone’s letters but their own, which makes it a mess. For that reason, I really want to play it in person again. Beyond that, I think I’ll love this game even more the more that I play it and it is already way up there in my top 100. The concept is just so simple and fun and I like word games. Definitely one that will get to the table as quick as it can because of how much fun it is.

1. Ice Cool

The final one is my final dexterity game on the list, Ice Cool, I doubt anyone is surprised it made the list. I love this game. It is just silly fun for adults and kids. I loved playing it seriously at GenCon, I loved playing it in a nice goofy way around the table at my house. And since I can play it with 8 people, that is even more awesome. It is a great game to wrap up a game night with, or even to just play throughout most of a game night. The flicking is fun, and you get great shots sometimes and not so great shots other times.

I’m sure that most board gamers have a list of games that they want to play. Honestly, 10 is no where near enough to make my list. I have new to me games like Heroes of Land, Air, & Sea, Dwellings of Eldervale, Lost Ruins of Arnak, I could play Marvel United with more people, Forgotten Waters, The Reckoners, and oh so many more. Plus there are classic game night games, like Sushi Go Party that I haven’t played in a while and Wits & Wagers, though that one I could bring back via Zoom.

What game do you want to get to the table the most again?

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This review is going to talk about how well the game works via Zoom. I plan on doing more in this series, though we might get a few party games lumped together into a single review of the premise of the is similar. For Tainted Grail, though, it is the only big game that I’m playing via Zoom, except for Dungeons and Dragons and people have been playing that digitally for years. So let’s jump into looking at Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

How Do You Make It Work?

So there are a few things that drew me to Tainted Grail as a game that we could play that was big and grandiose over Zoom. I also didn’t want it to be a game that we played digitally. We had played Dice Throne on Table Top Simulator and more games as well there. But the bigger the game, the clunkier it is on TTS.

The first thing to make playing Tainted Grail work was my camera set-up, and even that only kind of worked. The other players can’t always read all the cards or information on the locations, so that is part of what I do, explain what they say. But I have a top down camera that I can show all of the map. I can also Zoom it in for diplomacy and combat on the encounter.

The next thing is getting the players their characters. Since we wrapped up Gloomhaven in person, in a well ventilated area and masked, I just handed off the characters for people to play. That got them their character board, combat and diplomacy cards for the character color and their character. Since then I’ve also handed off the marker for tracking health, and some other sheets and cards that are useful for helping keep track of everything. If I were to do it now I’d hand off the character board, combat and diplomacy cards, a save sheet, some cubes, the health marker, the map, and if you have the Echoes of the Past expansion, the sheet for that. That is what the ideal would be, it sounds like a lot, but it works well.

Then the app is key for the game. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is an adventure game at it’s heart. And there is a massive adventure book. However, there is an app that has most of the adventure book read out in it. So I play the audio and everyone can listen to the narration as it goes along. However, everyone pulls up the app, that way the player who is exploring can see the choices that they have. It makes everything run smoother using that and I don’t have to read as much. I still do need to read the Echoes of the Past story bits thought.

What Works Poorly?

In the game you can team up with other players and do things. You have the option to explore as a group, fight as a group, and more. We don’t do much of that. While, in theory, it sounds great, it is hard to make it work via Zoom. I lay out my combat line, so someone else could work with me, but the other players don’t have a great setup for that. So we need to explain what the open keys are when fighting together. For that reason, we tend to do our own thing, cover more ground, and come together when we need to light an Menhir.

Speaking of Menhir and lighting them, we’ve played through the first two chapters twice now. The reason for that is that remotely, playing not in story mode proved to be too difficult. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is at it’s hard an adventure survival game, and there is emphasis on survival. However, when playing remotely, it is harder to plan as well as we should. Story mode allows us to use fewer resources when lighting the Menhir, it keeps them lit longer, and generally reduces the cost when we do things together. I think in person we might not have played on story mode, but digitally with the extra moving pieces, it’s tricky.

What Works Well?

Honestly, most everything else works well. But let’s talk about the highlights of what really shines. The app is amazing. Tainted Grail wouldn’t have been a game I picked if it wasn’t for the app. There is a lot of reading. And if I were the only one reading, it would be fine, but make it more difficult for the person who has the game. I feel that even if we come back in person before we finish, which I think is very possible, we will still use the app. It makes it that much easier.

The story element works very well as well. Now, I talked about the app already, literally just finished. What I am talking about here is the fact that this is a story heavy game. I feel like for playing via Zoom, you need either a game with lots interaction, quick turns, things like that, or you need something that has a ton of story. With a ton of story, every player stays engaged in the game. And the writing in Tainted Grail, it is not even close, it is the best writing I’ve seen in a board game. Yes, it is fairly dark, but it is extremely well put together and is extremely immersive. Honestly, probably the best part of the game, though, I spent my whole last session generally fighting and healing. But when other players explored, that was great to get the story.

Would I Recommend It For Zoom?

This is tough. With vaccines rolling out and it being fine, per the CDC for vaccinated people to get together in small groups, share meals, and spend time, this one is tough to recommend. I personally would prefer to play it in person, it’d be less book keeping for one person. Now, if you are playing with someone across the country, say both of you have the game, that’d be simpler. If not, there is a lot that you would need to send even with just the player board and cards.

So yes, I think this one works. Most likely it’ll be a bit before some groups of people can play together in person. Or maybe you will play across the country with someone who has the game. This game works well digitally. Having played it solo, it works even smoother when everyone is at the table, I think, but it’ll work well digitally also. The main takeaways when considering it, there are a bunch of pieces to hand off, and the set-up. I won’t way the app, because I’ll use that in person as well.

What is the largest game you have played digitally? Would you try something as big as Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon via Zoom?

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The Stats

So in 31 days in January, I got in 30 plays, so just one off. I had time yesterday, so I should have played one more, I guess. The BG Stats estimates around 20 hours of playing games, and this doesn’t count RPG’s, and that I played games on 13 out of the 31 days. I also had two games that I played over five times and three games I only played once. I’ll talk about those coming up here. I also played with 12 different players. Though, a number of my plays were solo, looking at the numbers 50% of my plays were solo. I also played through 4% of my collection, so not a wide variety of games.

The Games

Let’s talk about the games that I played, I’m going to mention all of the games here and talk about a few of them, especially ones that might be newer or new to me.

• Deadly Doodles – 7 plays
• Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion – 6 plays
• That’s Pretty Clever! – 4 plays
• Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon: 3 plays
• Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade: 3 plays
• Metro X – 2 plays
• Cross Clues: 2 plays
• Scattergories: 1 play
• Marvel Battleworld: 1 play
• Criss Cross: 1 play

So Deadly Doodles and Jaws of the Lion were the most played on the list. It helped that Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is scenario based with the first four missions really teaching you how to play the game and keeping things simpler and easier so that you can learn. All of those plays were knocked out in a single evening. Deadly Doodles is one that I played solo five times and with Kristen twice.

Three of the games on the list were played during our monthly board game night. Both plays of Cross Clues, Scattergories, and Criss Cross. We can’t play in person, otherwise my plays overall would likely be higher, but all of those have and do continue to work well via Zoom.

Gaming Highlights

I do want to throw out some highlights with stuff as well, because this is going to be a bit of an odd year for gaming again, and I know that I’ll forget some of the highlights as I go along.

Tainted Grail

I think that my number one highlight is getting into Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon and adding in the Echoes of the Past Expansion. I had played through the first chapter myself before, but this is a three player game, via Zoom, and it’s actually working pretty well. It was a lot of fun being able to dive into the content, see more characters, two that I hadn’t played with Beor and Ailei and then bringing Niahm into it as well. The story has been so good and I like the voice acting in all of it quite well. There is a bit of a grind to it, but it’s been a game I’ve wanted to get to the table more so for months, and to finally do it now has been great.

Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

On a similar note, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion has been a blast as well. Normally I’ll have a single campaign going and then maybe get in gaming on board game nights and one or two more times a month, but that hasn’t been the case, so this is giving me another game that I can consistently get to the table. We’ve been playing in person as well, which is nice, and since it’s just two of us and both work from home during the pandemic, we’re being very safe about it. And obviously I was going to love the game as I love Gloomhaven, so it’s fun to get back into that world, but not have it feel like I’m playing the giant box of stuff.

Roll and Writes

Finally, Metro X, Deadly Doodles, Super-Skill Pinball: 4-cade, Criss Cross, and That’s Pretty Clever, I’ve gotten a ton of roll and writes to the table to be played. If you look at my 30 plays, 18 of them have been roll and writes, And of those roll and write plays, most of those have been solo. While I don’t mind playing bigger games solo, I need to get back to streaming Pandemic Legacy Season 2, there are some evenings where all I have time for is to sit down and knock out a couple games of something really fast, and roll and writes are great for that.

So I’m slightly behind my goal, but I’m likely going to, to relax, knock out a few roll and writes this evening, and I have a few others games, Star Wars Unlock in particular that I need to sit down with Kristen and play some evening(s). What have some of your highlights for board gaming been thus far in 2021, even though we’ve just had a month to game?

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Binging Anime

Now, this is something I 100% couldn’t have done this year without the pandemic, as odd as that sounds. Because I’ve been working from home, I’ve been able to throw on animes as background noise for a while, and I’ve come across some pretty good ones, and some pretty bad ones. But it’s a fun thing that I wouldn’t have been able to do. Normally I watch a handful of new anime a year, but this year I probably watched 10 or maybe more, which is a lot. Some of the highlights were Sword Art Online: Alicization and Food Wars! as two really great anime.

A New D&D Campaign

I think this one would have happened no matter what, but I’m really glad that it did. Because we couldn’t do the board game club idea that I started up just before the pandemic, D&D sounded like a fun idea. I got zoom, found three players, we’ve added a fourth, and got the gaming going. It’s been a fun time and it’s worked well enough over Zoom. And the fact that we’re doing it digitally and one of the players is moving, we can continue it even after they move. I’d love to play in person, but it’s been a great time running a game online and makes it so much easier for everyone.

10 Minute Marvel Podcast

It’s weird to think that this has been a highlight, and I won’t lie, it hasn’t always been a highlight, nor did I complete my goal of getting an episode out every week. I missed two weeks, one when my computer died, and one with a toddler who was under the weather. But it’s been fun doing that podcast and seeing the podcast grow. At the start of the year, I was maybe getting 100 listens a month, and now it’s normally around 200, so it’s grown quite a bit, and I hope to keep it up and keep it growing in 2021.

The GloryHoundd Community

It’s odd to put something on the list that I didn’t see or meet any of these people in person, but it’s been very meaningful in 2020 joining in on the “I’d Back That” live streams, watching their play throughs of games, and chatting on their Discord with them, and other people who watch the live streams or catch their videos. It’s been a part of the community that was lacking for me for part of the year because I couldn’t have game nights in person, it’s given me another area to have a nerdy outlet and it’s been a very welcoming place for so many gamers. Only warning I’ll give is that you will back more games on Kickstarter if you watch their “I’d Back That” videos.

Board Game Club

Now, this only happened once, but it will happen again. We played Lords of Hellas which has rocketed up my games list near the top 10 because of playing it. It’s a great game, and it was fun to think about setting aside an evening a month to play some bigger or heavier game that might not get played at a normal board game night. This is one of those things that I’m really looking forward to getting back to sometime in 2021.

Now, I did more nerdy things as well, but these are some of the highlights for me. I did GenCon digital and that was mainly a “meh” for me. I did back one of the games I played on Kickstarter and picked up another from the Board Game Geek Store, but the experience was lacking. Besides obviously not having the people around, it was just different because you couldn’t go booth to booth and browse games.

What were some of your favorite nerdy experiences in 2020?

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TIME Stories

Now, I already have T.IM.E. Stories, so I didn’t buy the base box again, there’s no reason for that. But some Target, somewhere, had some expansions for it, and while I have the first three, there are a whole lot more and a whole lot that I really want to play because I love that game a lot as it’s #12 in my Top 100 Games. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the next expansion that I needed but they did have the next two after that. So while I might no get them played for a little bit, it was a pretty easy decision to add those to the order to get it closer to $100 and that $25 back. Even with just the 25% off that was cheaper than most places have them, and while I would have paid full price eventually, it’ll be nice to have that backlog for the few people we do see for gaming, so we can schedule out a few times playing with them.

Pandemic Legacy Season 2

So, I already had Pandemic Legacy Season 2 and got rid of it because obviously you can play through the campaign game once. This is a legacy game, and does not leave you with something you can play again. And while it is in my Top 100, it isn’t my favorite Pandemic Legacy, currently Season 1, though Season 0 is coming out soon. So why did I pick it up, because I had a ton of fun streaming Pandemic Legacy Season 1 on Malts and Meeples, and while I remembered some about that game, I remember even less about Pandemic Legacy Season 2, so I want to stream that again, it was a good time and I know that I’ll have fun playing it again. So I’m really interested in seeing how much I remember and there’s something just about playing a familiar game, so again 25% off is basically what you can find it for all the time now, but was worth grabbing as part of this sale.

Hues and Cues

The last one, and I have to say I’m glad that this was the first one to ship because we used it for board game night and had a blast with it. In this game you are taking turn using a card (or for the people who didn’t have the cards just picking) a color on a grid of 30 by 16 and you try and get the other players to guess and for each guess that is either the color or around it, 3×3 square, you get 1 point, but the players guessing, they get points for not only being in that 3×3 square 2 points for being around the spot and 3 points for being on it, but going out one further, so a 5×5 square, they get a point. The clue giver firsts gives a one word clue and then a two word clue and players guess each time. It works well on Zoom or other streaming as long as you can show the board, so a fun game that can play up to 10 people.

That’s the latest order and probably one of the last point of orders for the year. I still have a pre-order that I’m waiting on from CoolStuffInc that is going to give a lot to play. I could see ordering the missing TIME Stories expansion but that’ll be about it. Overall, even without going to cons, a bunch of new games that year and a bunch of fun games as well. We’ll see if there are any announcements of anything exciting at this weeks Essen Spiel Digital that is happening that I might talk about.

Which of these games is the most intriguing for you?

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I got a few good ideas that I hadn’t thought of, and I came up with a few of my own, so for those who maybe have missed the bigger gaming via Zoom or are tired of just playing games like Scattergories, Codenames, or other more party style games via Zoom, here are some ideas that I was given and were given to me.

Charterstone

Now, this is a game that I was recommended and there is only one way to make this work and that’s playing it through the app. Everyone can connect to the same game and you just sit down and play it all together remotely on your device while chatting via Zoom. This is actually a really good one for a lot of people because all it requires is that you have a camera pointed at a board on a table or anything like that, this is done purely with digital gaming. Now, I have played through all but 1 game of this in the physical form, and one of the other people who I play with has played through it all, so it wasn’t the game for us, but for a lot of people, this is going to be a really good option.

Gloomhaven

Now, Gloomhaven can work two ways, if you are playing it with people near you, you can drop off their character and show the game on the board so that people can play with their own physical thing, one person will just have the duty of moving everything and doing all of that house keeping, which could be a lot. Though, with the Gloomhaven Helper App, someone else could be in charge of monster initiative and what the monsters are doing, so not the worst option and personally, I like playing with the physical components better than option two which is play it through the mod on Tabletop Simulator. Now, the base game is scripted, which means it helps with set-up, but there is still a lot of book keeping and if it seemed like a lot on the physical version, it is slower on the Tabletop Simulator version. This, obviously, also wasn’t an option for my group because that’s the game we’re literally finishing.

Pandemic Legacy Season 0, 1, and 2

Now, this one shows up and from here on out, you’re going to need a camera on the table. But Pandemic is a great game because there is no hidden information in the game. You play with the location cards out in front of you, so you can plan and worth together, your character is also open information as to what they can do. The only thing someone might need is a sheet of what the actions are that they can take, and that’s something that the person who owns the game can write up and add to as more actions are unlocked. Like Gloomhaven and basically anything that requires a camera pointed a the table, one person is going to have to do all the book keeping, but with Pandemic, that isn’t too hard, fairly often when playing Pandemic Legacy Season 1 & 2 with four players one person would be moving more of the pawns anyways just because of how it was positioned on the table. This again, though, for my group, falls into the category of games that won’t work as well because two of us have played them before, and I’ve played Season 1 twice now. And while none of us have played Season 0, that is one that I want to play with the people we played Seasons 1 & 2 with.

Folklore: The Affliction

This is one that I had recommend and I hadn’t thought of, but it’s actually one that wouldn’t be too difficult to do. Folklore is an RPG type of game in a box. You roll dice for your attacks, have a character sheet, and go through stories and scenarios. What I hadn’t thought about was the fact that beyond needing your own set of dice, which everyone in my gaming group has because they are all RPGer’s and of course they have at least one set of dice, I think one only one who doesn’t have at least five sets of dice is playing in my D&D campaign, and he probably has two sets of dice. But this one all you need is a camera pointed at a board, and sure, there are items and stats and things to track, but that’s like a regular RPG, so that can be done between sessions via e-mail or text messages without much trouble as players level up their characters. And, again, technically there is no or very little hidden information so that isn’t an issue with the game. Definitely one for people who want more of a pen and paper RPG feel. Might be one for my group.

Yggdrasil Chronicles

Now, I own this game, and I am excited to play it, I just don’t know a ton about it. But according to one person in our group who has the game as well, this is one where there is no hidden information in it, the god cards and their powers are out there. This is game that I hope would work well, my concern about this one is that because it has a 3D tree element you would need to know fairly well what is on all sides of the tree as things rotate and it changes. That for me would be the biggest challenge, granted, it wouldn’t be an issue for me because I have the tree in front of me, so I could see all sides at once, but for other people it might be a bigger deal if they get distracted or lose track of what is on what side and what is rotating which way. This one definitely interests me, but I’d want to play it in person a couple of times first so that everyone knew what was going on, it seems less intuitive than some others.

Tainted Grail

Now, I’m sure there are more but this is the last one that I’m going to talk about. In Tainted Grail you are exploring a large, about 50 hour, campaign as you explore through the lands of Avalon, journey to Kamelot, and keep Menhir lit to fight back the wyrdness that threatens to overtake the land. This is one that I’m definitely interested in trying, it’s already in my Top 10 games, and I’ve made it part of the way through, but to restart with more players seems like a lot of fun, though challenging in some other ways. This game would work if you could get the players their characters. They’d need both their character, the basic cards for their character and class and the upgrade cards as well. Items could be sent via text or e-mail between sessions. This is really such an exploration game, I think it would work well, the person who owns the game would just be reading the passages, which I actually like not the person who is doing the action reading the passages because it feels like there is more mystery in the choices. This is one that is definitely in consideration for our group as well, it’s one that I am enjoying already and I’m confident that our group would enjoy as well.

Now, I’m sure there are many a campaign game that I missed. Some of them, like Arkham Horror: The Card Game, could work as well, but people would probably need their own set of the base game to make it work. Forgotten Waters is another one that can work well, which I failed to mention, but see on my shelf, and because of when it got released, around May this year, I know they have focused on supporting it in a way that it can be played with more people. I’m hesitant to use that for my group, because I know my wife is interested in it, so I want to leave that free to play with her as well. Which would you try? Have you considered doing a bigger campaign game via Zoom, besides something like D&D?

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• These are my favorite, you want what people consider best, see the Board Game Geek Top 100
• If a game you love isn’t on the list, it might be be coming, I might not have played it, and if I have, it’s 101
• If a game looks cool, I have links to buy it from CoolStuffInc or Amazon, or you can grab most at your FLGS
• There are a few games, Destiny 2 Player versus regular Destiny where if they are basically the same thing, I only do one of them

90. Small World Underground

Now, I like Small World of all varieties so the other might be higher on the list, but Small World Underground does a lot of fun things. Mainly, I like that it adds in some new combinations and it adds in landmarks or buildings that if you control the area, you get a certain added power. It encourages even more fighting but also keeps it from picking on a player. If you aren’t familiar with Small World, it’s a nice introductory style area control game, I like to call it Risk but fun, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, you have fun and goofy combinations and you still get all of that in this version as well, it just adds in a little bit more, which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 65

89. Scattergories

First party game on the list, and as a spoiler, there aren’t a ton of party games. But this one is a classic party game that I think works well still. What I like is that with the randomness of picking different lists and rolling to see what letter you get, and just playing with a different group, you can really see a wide variety of answers. I also like this one because it’s extremely easy to play on Zoom or over video chat. You just need one person with the game and everyone else with paper and pencil. You just show off the list and the letter each time and let people work off of that, it makes it a lot of fun and works extremely smoothly.

Last Year: 69

88. The Hobbit

This game is a pretty simple game, but one that I think is pretty fun, what I like about it is that it’s a semi-cooperative game and I think one that works. You are trying to collect the most gems possible, all while getting to the end before Smaug comes out of the Lonely Mountain and makes it to Lake Town, but the member of the party who has the most gems and money is the winner of the game. So you’re leveling up and then facing off against challenges, but if everyone can’t handle the challenges, that means that Smaug is going to advance and you don’t want that happening. So it’s trying to help people level up their skills enough, but also making sure that you’re in position to get the most and the best gems. I think the combination works and the game plays pretty fast for looking like it has a pretty big board.

Last Year: Not Ranked

87. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Plant

Some games are extremely challenging and have a lot of moving parts, this is one of those games, in fact it can feel like there is more going on with upkeep throughout the game than playing the game, for some people, but I like it, not the upkeep, but the game in general, as it’s my number 87. In this game you can play through a series of tied together campaign story as you try and survive in a habitation station on Mars, which The Martian, or you can play one off scenarios that are focused on different things, getting the habitation station up and running or you can go out and explore the planet. The variety of the game works nicely and it feels like there is always more to do than you can. reasonably get done. It’s a good challenging game that might not be for everyone, but is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 72

86. Quoridor

So just higher than a big heavy game, we have a small little abstract game. This one is a lot of fun because of how simple it is. You want to get to the opposite side of the board. To do that, you move your pawn one space in any direction on your turn, or you place a wall that creates a blocker for your opponent. And that’s the game, but there’s more to the game than that, as you try and set-up traps and let the other person get close and then make them back track a long ways, it’s a very interesting game and one that plays quite quickly. I think it works good at two, but I like it at four because there’s a bit more randomness to the game as you have to plan and keep track of more, but there’s also more teamwork that needs to happen as you need to work to stop people at times.

Last Year: 73

85. Root

Now we’re back into bigger games with Root, an asymmetrical war game, basically, with different factions of woodland creatures vying to complete their goals in order to win the game. I like how the different factions play, the cats are all about building up and out, the woodland creatures need to take over areas and don’t start really with a board presence, the birds follow a very specific pecking order (all puns intended) of actions that build up over time. And the Vagabond just builds up their own things and can ally with people or become enemies of them. The game has an extremely long teach as you need to explain how each faction works, and that’s definitely a negative for it, but the actual actions and how to play each faction is pretty straight forward. It’s a big game but one that’s very cute on the table and doesn’t bog itself down when it comes to game play, which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 70

84. Age of War

Age of War is a small little dice game where you are trying to get the correct combinations on your dice in order to get control of castles, creating sets of them, and scoring points. It’s basically a luck based dice rolling game, but there’s something about it that just works for me. First, the game doesn’t generally take too long. If everyone is unlucky, getting the last castle could take a bit, but I haven’t really seen that happen and turns are very fast. What I like about this as compared to just a random die rolling game like a Farkle or something along those lines is that when you get a castle, it isn’t yours, it could be stolen from you, but it’ll cost just a bit more in terms of dice that you need than it did to take it from the middle. But if you get a full set of the yellow, or grey, or whatever color castles, they flip over and give you a few more points and are locked in for you and can’t be stolen. So if you see someone getting close to a set, it could be worth it to steal from them. That just gives the game a little bit more strategy which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: Not Ranks

83. Star Wars: Imperial Assault

If you want to play a Star Wars dungeon crawl, this is the game. You play through as heroes adjacent to the main story of the original movies, at least out of the core box, as you can be a Jedi in training, a wookie, or one of several other characters and you face off against the Empire. This game can be played with someone running the Empire side or, which I’ve done, there is an app that works well with a good tutorial that walks you through everything so you can play solo. I like that flexibility for the game play, and I like that it feels like Star Wars without it being so closely tied to the main characters or feel like you’re changing the movies, but it still gives you an engaging story. Overall, this is one that I want to play more of.

Last Year: 30

82. Ticket to Ride

Dropping down a bit this year, I still like Ticket to Ride a lot, it is just a bit lower on the gateway game list. This is one of my preferred gateway games, though, and it gives a lot of options for play. I think that it works well for introducing people and while there is some to keep track of in the game as you are planning and building your routes, what you are doing on a given turn is extremely simple and that makes it very accessible. In terms of truly simple gateway games, this one takes the crown for me as the best of them that people have heard of and I can pull out with basically any group. It’s hard to say more about this one, most people know it, and it’s a fun time. Plus there are lots of different maps if you get board with the base game.

Last Year: 38

81. The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

So, this one is higher than Star Wars: Imperial Assault, but it feels a bit like a sequel to it or one that is built upon it, and it has smoother game play, but it does one thing I don’t love. Just to quickly talk about it, you can play major characters from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, it doesn’t make a ton of sense thematically, in my opinion, I wish they had gone with the archetypes like Imperial Assault did. That said, I like the game play, I like the card play and the deck construction and upgrading it gets that feels like it’s borrowed from Arkham Horror LCG, I think that the combat works well, and overall, it’s just a fun time. The story is cool, and while I haven’t beat it yet, I need to go back and start again and enjoy. I also like that there is part of the game that is on a bigger exploration map and you get to explore new areas, find clues, and things like that as well as fighting, but then there are tactical battles as well in between the explorations. The game feels like there is a ton it can do, so I want to play more. And it has an app that works very nicely.

Last Year: 94

As always, what is your favorite out of this group? I have quite a variety, we have some big games, some small games, party games, and gateway games. So possibly, a little bit of something for everyone.

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But first, let’s meet the characters, we have Barrai a Tiefling, Thrain a Hill Dwarf, and Bokken a War Forged. You’ll notice that there are no classes tied to them, that’s because I decided, we’re starting at level 0. They are all just average characters to slightly above average with 10’s across the board for their stats, plus racial bonuses, that’s because of the Tower of the Gods.

So, what is a Tower of The Gods? It was a magical tower that appeared about 200 years ago. Bigger than a city block and going up into the clouds, no one knows how tall it is. Monsters spilled out of it devastating the lands around it. The nations put up a quick defense after the initial shock and devastation. But the number of monsters seemed unlimited, eventually, as morale was getting low, a group of soldiers at one of the Towers took the fight to the Tower itself and found an entrance. When they came out, they had stemmed some of the flow of the monsters but also came out stronger with new abilities (aka D&D Classes). Once the news spread of this more people went into all the Towers and while most perished, those who came out came out stronger and had slowed the flow of the monsters.

Now, the monsters still show up, but there are guards at every tower to deal with the small monster incursions. But, of course, a tower that is powerful enough to give people new skills, that’s something that every nation wants and they want several of them if they can. So the nations fought over the tower until a shaky truce was made. Now, there are schools that not only train you to be ready for the Towers but instruct you in the new skills you have when you leave. It’s a honor to be sent into the Towers and not an honor that every can afford or could survive.

Thrain, Bokken, and Barrai are three of a new group of trainees going into the Towers who have come to them through different paths.

This is where the game basically kicked off, with those three waiting their turn to go into the tower to see if they’d survive and come out the other side with new found skills. When they went in, they were given a riddle and a chance to equip themselves, grabbing a few weapons, they ventured further into the magical tower which took them to many different areas.

There was a jungle room where the floor was poisonous and they had to swing from branch to branch on vines towards one of the exits, but if they fell, it might mean their death.

There was a room with a moat, all they had to do was get across it and they’d be able to go through one of two doors. But there was a sea serpent swimming in the moat, and it wasn’t something they could jump across. Using some quick thinking, they grabbed vines from the other room and were able, using their fourth test taker, a jacked halfling named Steve (the players named him not me), and the War Forged tossed Steve up to the ceiling where he was able to grab onto a hook and tie a vine to it. They had some troubles swinging across, but eventually did, but Steve notices there was a trapdoor, a third door, at the bottom of the moat.

That led them to a room with a bunch of floating tiles. They quickly discerned that they could move them around and use them to get to another door way. Unfortunately, having a jacked halfling and a dwarf trying to get past each other on a 3×3 foot tile didn’t work and Steve fell to his death.

This led them into a room that was basically pitch black. When they stepped into the room, shadow creatures started attacking them. They made a break for it but both Bokken and Barrai were knocked down by the creatures. Thrain had to drag them into the next room where they were revived.

In this room, it was something pretty different. There was just an old lady drinking tea and she offered them some tea. Bokken, rolling low, sniffed the tea, thought it smelled good, so he drank some of it as did the other two. This opened their eyes and they saw that the old lady was a monster in disguise, but the monster didn’t make a move to attack them. Finding out that the next room was the last room, they bid the lady/monster farewell and continued on their way.

In the final room they were given 6 different goblets that they could drink from. Once the drank from them it allowed them to see an exit from the tower. However, the old lady had told them that which one they drank from could make a difference on how they walked out of the tower. They each picked and drank and walked out of the doors that appeared to them as:

Thrain the Hill Dwarf Warlock
Barrai the Tiefling Bard
Bokken the War Forged Fighter

And that’s where the first session ended. We’ll probably be adding a fourth player at some point in time, so we’ll have to see who is added to the party.

What do you think of the game thus far?

Just some DM notes on this. I set it up so that the doors were different colors, I didn’t delve into it too deeply if it was tied to the elements or what, but that’s what the players took away from it.

All the rooms were generally planned, but how many they had to go through and what order they went through them in was kind of up to how the game went. I just picked two rooms, one for each door and then repeated the process for each room after that. They were moving through them pretty fast, so we ended going through more than I’d thought so we could go for a little, plus I needed a way to kill of Steve.

So, that lends itself to another question, why Steve? Again, I didn’t name him, but I always wanted someone with them in the tower for at least a little bit of it. That would allow me to show them bits of the tower if they missed it. But it would also give me someone who I could kill, show off some of the deadliness of the tower, and also that if you die in the tower, you’ll be forgotten in the real world.

What will come next for them? Probably getting them recruited into a school and let them play around with their powers.

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