Top Rated Games
Thoughts on Favorite Games:
Let's Take A Hike: Top Card game. Hiking theme, nasty little card game, that I love because it is perfectly aligned to the theme, and it has the odd duality that the nastier you are the more strategic you are. Sadly, I enjoy it much more than anyone I know, but can still amuse myself by playing three hands solo. My BGG comments: A little learning curve but my favorite match of theme and game play. Nasty, chaos but definite strategy aimed at persevering in the face of uncertainty. Will play any time any where.
Strat-O-Matic Baseball: I have played this over (literally, not figuratively) thousands of hours since I was in pre-school. Ok, it's at heart a simulation, and I've moved on to other favorite mechanisms, but it is a genius engine, created around a simple complex to balance a game of baseball.
Isla Dorada: Theme immersion with great artwork, funky cards with unbalanced powers, and the novelty of everyone controlling the same game piece. Play by the original rules not the odd variants offered. Ticket To Ride homage in the card drafting mechanism the hidden goals can keep you guessing until the end. Often games have swayed on the last round which for those who have already settled their goals you can begin to assume what others are attempting and wreak havoc. Which means, again, even if you don't use the notorious "Panda Card" it still can get nasty as you shut down bidding in the last round and cost someone a large point swing. But, you know, it's just a game, and that's the fun stuff you can discuss when debriefing.
Fresco: Another Big Box of theme immersion, using the angle of being fresco painters. You push cubes, but the theme works: it takes blue and yellow to make green. You can sleep in and make your workers happy or get up first and get all the best paints at the market. Expansions are necessary for play, usually I'd say after a first instructional play-through, but the game is simple enough to teach with the expansions. Strategy unfolds not only in the wake up times but when to paint, what to paint, blocking others, and so on.
Tumblin' Dice: My top rated dexterity game, and that is admittedly a close call with Crokinole. Whereas Crokinole is more skill based the luck factor here of flying dice and knocking someone's "1" on a top row to a "6" on the bottom roll makes for wild swings. But it's easy enough to clear the board and play it again!
Dominion: there are deck builders of the recent vintage that are similar to Dominion (which is considered the forefather of this genre) but I prefer this for its engine; a solid underlying foundation which makes seamless incorporation of expansions. For those looking at the "inside baseball" of these things, it is a testament to both a well designed mechanism/engine and also to quality play testing on new cards and sets. I've played the base and three expansions and would look at the additions from Seaside as the go-to expansion.
We Didn't Play Test This At All: Maximum Chaos! Just sometimes you dig the chaos, the humorous cards, the easy gateway for all to play. Some don't like that a game can last 20 seconds or 20 minutes, but usually the former not the latter. Oh, and enjoy the banana.
Race For The Galaxy/Glory To Rome: I am placing these two together as they share a lot in common, like action selection, but the main thing for me is how a card can be used in multiple ways and multiple resources. I enjoy that mechanic, not because I'm particularly good at it, but because I am a sucker for those situations where a binary choice is required. You are forced to make choices which you control. Not choices made as a defensive reaction necessarily, or because you have been left with no option; these are choices where both options can lead to a positive outcome. All you gotta do is merely determine which is optimal. Oh, and if that is not enough, you then have to have the courage to follow through on your strategy. You see, when all of these various gaming mechanics are debated that is really the heart of the thing and what makes all games similar and what keeps me coming back. Here's the set-up: You begin with a basic idea of where the game can go, you see what resources you start with and begin to determine your best course of action, your strategy. for some games this occurs even before the first move and sometimes it takes a few turns to see where things are going; but either way you know that you need to commit to a strategy.
And then the best part of gaming occurs: "Events, my dear boy, events"! Events unfold, #*%$ happens! And you begin to see what becomes of your plan. Sometime, like in the case of Galaxy Trucker, what happens is not conceptual but actual, your best plans begin to actually get blown to smithereens. But regardless of the game you are playing the BIG DECISION is now required: Stick with the plan or adjust. Little adjustments or ditch and regroup? It's the choices we make and then living with them that makes it fun. Is it best to stick with a plan or is ditch and switch the best play. What does Monty Hall think? Afterwards, you recap: Maybe I should have not given up on my plans so quickly? (he says when he finishes last...along with the loser's lament: Bad Luck!) Or the moment when you win and see that it was only because you stuck with a plan that seemed to be flailing early on. When we boil it all down to gravy, that's the fun, isn't it?
Founding Fathers - Flavor text ! A competitive game about the Constitution Convention in Phila? Oh, you don't even need to ask!!
Thunder Alley - I need to play this more, and I will note the little chits that GMT usually puts in their war games as being an acquired taste but the basic race team idea here makes for a fun couple of laps. My other non-war game GMT is Urban Sprawl which is not much like this at all aside from the over-arching idea that a game can allow you to dive in for a couple (or few) hours, create your strategy, adjust as necessary, and see it played out. Both games are similar in that event cards are played that throw monkey wrenches into the best laid plans, but as always, part of the strategy is being ready for when the bad things come along.
Incan Gold - Late to the party but a favorite in the push your luck genre. And another from Bruno Faidutti (along with Isla Dorada).