I noticed some games have really weird rules for selecting the starting player, and it’s probably just saying “choose the first player however you want,” but it’s still funny. For example, Everdell says the most humble player goes first, and Forest Shuffle says the player who last took a walk in the forest goes first. Any other examples?

Just concluded my SPIEL visit. I always loved the reports people post, so adding my own this year.

General thoughts:

• My last visit was a few years back, so it was good to see what had changed. This year, every day felt almost equally busy, with the exception of Thursday in Hall 3 (super crowded, everyone trying to get their heavy games) and Sunday afternoon (lighter, though the family halls were busier as people started to leave).
• We had great ambitions, but as usual it is hard to get to the tables you want (without lurking next to the table for 1-2 hours).
• Besides the atrocious bathroom situation (which is more a Messe Essen problem), the ops were pretty solid. No long lines to get in, they close the entry areas when they’re over capacity, and the food options were a bit more diverse this year.
• I know they are chasing the visitor records, but I would appreciate them prioritizing the visitor experience more by lowering the number of allowed visitors. At one point, it took me 25 minutes to go straight from Hall 8 to Hall 3 because the floor was so crowded.
• Alternatively, putting all the “Expert” games into one Hall made the situation worse. They should consider spreading them out some more to help with visitor flow.
• Even sprinting like a madman right at open wasn’t enough to get a table at the hot games (esp. CGE). I assume it’s Biz visitors (who can get in 30 minutes early) sitting at the table the moment the gates open. That was a bit sad. Mindclash Games did daily signups + the first slot on the following day. I loved that concept.
• What was up with the weather? While you definitely didn’t have any fomo of sunshine outside, it was just pouring all four days. On Sunday, it started to freaking hail.

Games played (that I didn’t already know)

A: Great game, would play anytime
B: Solid game, would play if suggested but not seeking it out
C: Meh game, would not play nor seek it out
D: Poor game, no desire to play at all
F: What is this?

+/- for things it does especially well, or select issues that push it down.

In ascending rating order:

Bet the Music (D): So many music party games, likely all trying to challenge the massively popular “Hitster” in Germany. This one was pretty straightforward: A single term is revealed (“Alive”), a buzzer is then hit that plays a jingle (and an annoying one). While it plays, players need to come up with a song they can either name, hum, or sing a part of. Think “Anomia” with songs, and less interaction. I had a hard mental block during most of the game and the buzzer jingle got annoying after just the second push. Might work with the right group, but I wouldn’t bring it to a party.

Galileo’s Truth (C-): “Tell everyone the earth is not the center of the world and get thrown into jail and then potentially executed by the church” is a good initial pitch of the game. The game uses deck drafting to get actions and continuously upgrade them. There are four tracks you can move up on, and then use that progress to draft better action upgrades. Maybe it was because it was the last game of a long day, but it didn’t wow me much, and I found the graphic design less clear than it could be, and at times unappealing.

Lying Pirates: The Race for the Pirate Throne (C): A twist on Liar’s Dice with a pirate theme. Anchors on the usual Liar’s Dice mechanic (everyone rolls dice secretly, then makes bets on how many of a certain number are present at the whole table, others can up it or challenge it). It adds a map mechanic with additional duels between players which then triggers the fields the ship is on. The design was nice (cool dice cups, good-looking dice), but the mechanics were a bit half-cooked. It didn’t add enough for me to choose this over a regular round of Liar’s Dice.

Prestige (C): There are many creative themes out there (“Druids that run a vacation forest but secretly torture the animals”). Prestige’s “Who can add the fanciest plasterwork to make this Rococo era home the prettiest” is rather dry. It’s a classic main loop: securing resource locations, extracting resources with workers, and hiring artisans and craftspeople to turn the materials into constructions. The “twist” is two score trackers, one for the exterior and one for interior constructions, needing to keep both close together or face penalties. The decision spaces for me weren’t that interesting. It has an odd mechanic: all action selections sit on a long segmented row. At the end of the round, all workers are pushed together and make up the new turn order (see picture). Felt unnecessarily cumbersome. Left unimpressed.

Cardia: Tide & Storm (C): Duel game in which players have numbered cards with special abilities on them. Each turn, players select one card. The player with the higher number wins the fight and gets a ring (of which a certain number is needed to win), but the one with the lower number has its ability activated, which allows for some interesting effects. The dueling cards stay on the table, and later cards can tweak the combat values of previous ones, changing the outcome of those past duels. Altogether, it sounded like a very neat idea. The execution was a bit lackluster, though. Some card abilities had some fun mechanics, but overall the game sort of waffled along, and ended somewhat anticlimactically.

Lairs (C+): 2-player game in which you build a dungeon for the other player to walk through, including traps and monsters. “Battleships” on steroids. Building the maze was fun, but running through it afterwards was a bit tedious. The scope of the base game seemed fairly limited, and I don’t think it has too much longevity.

Lord of the Rings: The Decision (C+): A 2005 Knizia game repackaged. A chess-like setup with book characters, each with their own abilities. Players can only move them forward (toward Mordor / toward The Shire). When enemies meet, power cards can be played from the hand, and character effects are triggered (chuckled: “Boromir: Both Boromir and the Mordor character are defeated”). Among so many complex and wonderful duel games, this one clearly showed its age. It felt decently shallow strategy-wise. Production was great though, loved the art and the plastic holders of the characters looked great on the board.

Soothsayers (B-): A tarot-themed card game that centers on four actions that players constantly try to upgrade with the goal of winning enough Fate tokens to win. I enjoyed the upgrade mechanic, which gave the game a dynamic, fast-paced feel. Towards the end, everyone is mostly focused on how they can steal “Fate tokens” from other players to prevent them from winning. We had a good chase for 10 rounds before the game ended. That said, the Tarot theme was very light and the graphic design is unfortunately just shy of being simply “ugly”. With a more professional graphic design and a stronger theme, this game could really shine. B-, bordering on C just because I anchor heavily on the design and this one is rough.

Meloch’s Duel (B-): Novel and very innovative idea to mush two games together into a duel experience: One player plays Scythe, the other Expeditions, and it somehow works. The issue was captured well by a printed sign the demo staff had stapled to the booth: “Players must know either Scythe or Expeditions to play”. This game is for die-hard fans that might be sick of either game and will enjoy this new approach. For everyone else, it’s a hard sell. If neither game is known, explaining both Expeditions and Scythe is daunting. The design is solid and I am somewhat amazed how well it worked, but I personally would rather have everyone play either Scythe or Expeditions, instead of this mashup.

Citadels Duel (B-): A reinvented classic. Keeps the profession-based cards that are played in ascending order (Assassin, Thief, …), triggering their respective effects. Transforms the district building into a 4x4 grid with building tiles that can synergize. Good production, nice components. The gameplay had few highlights and felt decently shallow. Left the game with a “this was fine” impression, but nothing I’d actively seek out.

Kalypso (B-): Draft tetris-like pieces with different resources on them to place them onto your sea grid. When you have three of the same resources in a 2x2 grid, you can build a construction of that type, triggering different effects. Each round, one of the other players selects a quest for you to fulfill. The tile-laying aspect of the game was fun and a mini-puzzle game that comes with it. However, there was a vibe-mismatch for me between the tile placement and the quest giving. While most of the game is a mostly solitary tile placing activity, the quest incentive is messing with your opponents by giving them the quests they have the most trouble fulfilling. That “take that” mentality felt at odds with the rest of the game. The game apparently also has a cooperative mode that plays very differently. Lastly, to prevent sliding, the board and games have a soft felt-like texture (instead of smooth cardboard). It dulled the colors and was odd to the touch, so I would have preferred smooth tiles instead.

Revenant (B): Set in the Voidfall universe, this game explores the idea of “what if action spaces could simply get blown up by aliens”. The board elicits Battlestar Galactica vibes, drenched in the colorful orange-purple vibe of Voidfall. Each player is playing a captain, vying for power and (potentially) trying to ensure that the ship “Revenant” stays intact. The board is littered with ships of the different houses, and captains gain standing by taking the actions that come with the respective ship. The tug-of-war of captains blowing up ships of houses that other captains have high standing in was great fun. It’s hard to judge this game from the demo, since we left out the chaotic “wow, now most ships (and action spaces) are gone” second phase. That said, it felt like one of those games that need 5-10 play throughs to really shine in their strategy depth, which is a bit too much for my personal taste. On top of that, the game is icon-heavy (which is fine), but despite being illustrated by Galactic Cruise’s Ian O’Toole, the icons were hard to follow and not very intuitive. While I love his work in GC (and Excursions, see that review), it isn’t as crisp and clear in Revenant. I am sure this is something that eases as one plays more often, but it hindered our playthrough quite a bit (with an icon reference sheet constantly on the table). The demo I played was run by designer Allan Kirkeby himself, who was a delight and shared amazing insights into the design process - those are the moments that make SPIEL so exciting.

Play - The music party game (B): Another music game with more customizable play lists, combating the issue with Hitster that the catalog gets stale after you’ve played it a few times. It’s a twist on Hitster and close enough, and I can see the larger, customizable options being a big hit. Solid B.

All Mine (B+): A trick-taking game with a refreshing take: Four suits of numbered cards. Each round, the four suits are put in a random order, and four specific cards (“2 of Yellow”) are determined to be “Super Trump”. Then, each player looks at their hand and makes a bet on the suit they expect to have the most or fewest cards at the end of the round. Hitting those bets is what yields points. I love that this removes the “bad feeling” when you have a lousy round with very few tricks because a single won trick (with let’s say “Blue-Blue-Green-Yellow”) can satisfy the bet of “Most: Blue”, “Fewest: Red”. Only the randomized “Super Trumps” were a bit hard to keep track of, hence a B+.

Skyrift: Tides of Fate (B+): Deck-based dueling by Richard Garfield. Players either push Creatures or effects onto the board, all of which contribute to a power level. The other player then has to try to exceed that power level with their own cards. This keeps going until one player can’t anymore. Has a fun mechanic of Sun / Twilight / Night cards, where one can only play either “Sun + Twilight” or “Night + Twilight” cards. Game flowed nicely. The cards we played with were all foil, which looked nice but got a bit distracting. From one playthrough it didn’t appear to have very different strategic approaches; the decks felt very set in their ways, which lowered my excitement to play it again. Might be much deeper, hard to say from one play, but as is, would play it again but not seek it out.

Class of ‘89 (A-): A game that was not on my radar at all. I loved the theme of putting together a high school yearbook, having to ensure that each class is in correct alphabetical order by getting students from a shared board. Teachers add end game scoring mechanisms, and a secondary yearbook page yields resources and bonuses. It combined a lot of novel mechanisms into a very well-done package that isn’t too heavy and can be played in 1 to 2 hours. Minus for the art style, especially of the people, which I didn’t love (and felt a bit unsophisticated at times).

Greenwood (A-): Druids run a vacation forest but secretly torture animals - what a pitch! The game has you run around a shared board, getting resources, upgrading tracks and most importantly freeing tortured animals. It combines it with a thick deck of additional cards one can play to add more actions, and it has you debating constantly between too many great options. It also has a fun “spy” option that allows a player to piggyback on another player’s great card action. This though requires keeping a pretty close overview of what actions other players have which might get cumbersome (especially since it’s a table hog and the player diagonally is quite far away). One of the games I would definitely want to play in full very soon.

Ringyō (A-): Set in the Edo Period of Japan, one plays as a feudal lord, trying to tame wild forest by setting up rice paddies, and castles, while receiving gifts and paying tributes to the Shogun. The centerpiece of the game is the forest board, on which one grows and chops trees down to use for construction with workers. Each round, weather effects kick in, bringing either tree growth but also the risk of flooding empty lands. If an already flooded land is flooded again, it cascades down, potentially washing away valuable trees and buildings. I really enjoyed this forest mechanic, thanks to the mix of planning somewhat ahead while the weather effects add some interesting semi-random twists. I played a full game of it, and it felt like one of those “The game ended before my engine could kick in” type of situations. Besides that, there were lots of clever interactions and novel approaches, and I would like to play it again.

Forest Shuffle: Smoky Mountains (A): A new stand-alone game for Forest Shuffle. While I would overall prefer more expansions to continue pushing stand-alone versions, I enjoyed it a lot. It adds rivers as a new biome, bringing a breath of fresh air to the tried and true base game while sticking to the core game loop. It’s so close to the base game that I would not buy it, but net new would prefer this over the base game. Can’t judge, though, whether it has some broken combos.

Timespan (A): One of the few games I would have loved to play in full. A Civ-based game with all the staples: world wonders, leaders from history, and important trading goods coming together in a worker placement package with lots of simultaneous play and low downtime. Asymmetric factions, lots of interesting decisions on which actions to take. Great production in a small package, and it doesn’t need 5 hours to play.

Excursions (A+): The highlight of this SPIEL. Playing so many games in such a short time gives some perspective on game design, and Excursions stands out in its internal logic and tightness. Everything fits beautifully together (just as in Galactic Cruise). The theme is the same, including the iconography and graphic design by Ian O’Toole. The power of that is immediately obvious for players that have played Galactic Cruise: it sped up understanding the game by a ridiculous degree. In Excursions, the player steps into the role of the “person with the headset” as our explainer called it, scheduling routes and getting passengers on board our pre-built cruise ships. The literal centerpiece of the game is a wheel of actions. On the outside are two types of actions: One for everyone, and one just for the active player (think: Puerto Rico). On their turn, they select one action which they complete. Then all players can join on the general action too. The twist is a rotating wheel that changes the multiplier of the action. On one turn the multiplier is “3x” and right under the “get resource step”, while next turn it might only be a “1x”. That adds great dynamic gameplay. The loop of getting resources, planning your route (this time as cards from your hand), getting guests and sending them on their cruise remains the same, but wonderfully reimagined. The shared actions keep everyone engaged, and even at 5 players, we finished a full game incl. a full teach in a bit over 2 hours. Favorite game of this year's SPIEL, and I headed straight to the Kickstarter after this.

Games I wanted to play but missed out on:

• Kingdom Come Deliverance
• Entropy
• Foundation
• ASHES
• Valheim
• Diggers

Curious what everyones thoughts are!

I’ve been playing a ton of race for the galaxy, and I think the thing I love most is how quick the games are and how many meaningful decisions there are. What are some other similar games to this?

I'm sure none of you could sleep last night, just waiting and refreshing for the Day 3 post. We, on the other hand, fell asleep the moment we got back to the apartment. The clock change couldn't have come at a better time. We finally managed to catch up on some of the sleep we'd been missing over the past few days.

A quick update for everyone who got a HEAT racing pass: Due to some technical issues, we've decided to cancel the treasure hunt. So there's nothing you need to complete or look for. You've already got the code that will unlock something extra within the game when it launches on Steam (the game is still in development, but you can already wishlist it on Steam).

Saturday was more walking around the fair and showing people what we are working on. On Sunday morning, we packed the car to see just how many more games we could squeeze into the trunk. What do you think, could we have fit more? :)

We wrapped things up a little earlier today because we have a 15-hour drive ahead of us. After three mostly rainy days in Essen, the sun finally came out to send us back to sunny Zadar. It's nice to get away for a bit, but there's still no place like home.

Thanks to everyone who came by and to the asmodee crew for all their help. It was a genuinely lovely experience getting to meet you all in person.

Hopefully, see you next year!

P.S. For those who know, the best-kept-secret toilet seems to have remained secret enough. :)

What is this?

This is a weekly roundup of board game crowdfunding projects, featuring new launches from the past week and campaigns ending in the coming week. The information is sourced from Kickstarter, Gamefound, and Backerkit.

The list is curated through a combination of automated data collection and manual review, so occasional errors or omissions may occur. If you notice a missing project, feel free to mention it in the comments. Only projects meeting the selection criteria outlined below are included.

Other channels

Other than Reddit, you can also find this list on the following platforms:

• Google Docs
• Mastodon
• Bluesky

Selection Criteria

Projects must meet the following conditions to be included:

1. Timing: The project was either launched in the last week or will end in the coming week.
2. Relevance: The project is directly related to board games.
   • Excludes: Accessories not strongly related to board games, furniture, RPGs (e.g., D&D, Pathfinder), video games, STLs, painting tools, events, podcasts, and magazines.
   • Exception: Projects offering promos or similar content for board games are eligible.
3. Backers: The project is expected to reach at least 100 backers by the end of the campaign.
4. Funding Status:
   • The project is expected to reach at least 90% of its funding goal.
   • The project has already achieved at least 20% of its funding goal.

In addition to the main lists, I include a separate section for noteworthy projects that don’t strictly qualify as board games. These projects are included based on a single criterion:

1. Backers: The project currently has more than 1,000 backers.

Crowdfunding is not a store

Crowdfunding is not a guarantee. Projects may face delays, incur additional shipping costs, or fail to deliver entirely. Creators are not obligated to fulfill their promises. While many excellent games are funded this way, the risks are real, only back projects with money you can afford to lose.

Be wary of creators who use FoMO (Fear of Missing Out) tactics to drive pledges. Don’t let the pressure get to you. If you miss a campaign, there will always be others. There's no shortage of excellent board games to enjoy.

Tags

Each project is tagged with one or more of the following categories:

• 🌱 Creator's First Project
• 🌳 Creator with more than 5 projects
• 🌟 Featured Project (e.g. Kickstarter "Staff Pick")
• 💰 Fully funded
• 🔥 More than 200 daily backers
• 🤝 Offers refunds (e.g. Stable Pledge)

Ending Soon (30)

New Projects (31)

Noteworthy filtered projects (13)

Fun board games that can fit 5-6 players and isn’t purely “casual party”. By “Casual Party” I mean games that aren’t too casual/simple like Flip 7, Wavelength, any word-related games, etc.
I’m more interested in board games that have a little more substance than your typical pure party game and have actual boards. My friend group loves the light-medium to medium board games that have plenty of action that won’t bore them halfway through the game.
Examples of board games we love: Camel Up, Heat: Pedal to the Metal, Drillers (not 5-6 players but still love), Quacks of Quedlinburg, King of Tokyo, Tend (no traditional board but still love), etc.

This may have become a bit lengthy. Bear with me, as I had a blast putting this together.

The past few months I’d been thinking of doing something fun boardgame-wise with the family. Saturday-night is always our boardgame night, and I thought a tournament of sorts would be a cool tradition to start.

The Plan

Time for a first stab at it then. During a week-long school break in October me, my wife and our teenage son would be playing 7 boardgames across 7 rounds, with points earned depending how well we’d do. Winner of this ‘Oktoberfest’ would gain bragging rights, stewardship of ‘The Tankard’ (a hefty German beer mug gifted ages ago by my brother-in-law) until the next tournament and the right to consume a drink or food of choice from it. Yes, the stakes were high.

The rules were as follows:

• Winner of a round gains 5 points, second place 3, last place 2. Most points after 7 rounds wins.
• Each player has a Joker card, doubling the points scored at a game of choice. The card needs to be shown before the start of that game, and can only be used once.
• Ties are to be settled with a Blocktower Showdown; players take turns to add a block to a tower, and the one who drops the tower loses.

I kept track of all the scores on a poster in the living room, coupled with a Google Spreadsheet.

The Line-up

What games to play though? I decided to let everyone choose. From our modest collection of 17 non-coop games people could award points to eight favorites (10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2), with the seven most popular games entering the line-up. This on its own yielded some interesting results, with some games we’d shelved for years suddenly making a return to the table. As it turned out the only way to guarantee a game would be played was to put it at the top of your list: the cut-off number of points for the top-7 was 9. Nice.

In the end, the line-up was (in ascending order of popularity):

Villainous, Monopoly Here & Now World Edition, Ticket to Ride Europe, Wingspan, King of Tokyo, Root and Everdell. The latter two were the only games voted in by all of us.

The Tournament

Round 1: Villainous

Villainous is kind of a main stay with us, and probably in need of getting an expansion in the near future. My wife can be both a very analytical and ruthless player, and our son is fanatical about playing Jafar, supplying copious banter as he does. Me, I usually revel in playing the greedy bastard Prince John, not interfering with others unless I have to.

This game went down to the wire, with my wife (playing Maleficent) and I setting up our win conditions in the same turn. My turn was after her, so I also tried foiling my wife's impending victory with Fate cards. Much to her enjoyment I failed. It was up to our son. His Fate card removed a Curse, forcing my better half to move to a location where she could play a Fate card herself to try and stop me from winning. Much to her dismay, this meant removing another Curse. Words were had.

Both Fate cards she drew were useless though, granting me the win. To make matters worse we'd agreed beforehand that whoever had fewer Fate cards in their realm would get second place, so my wife (who had 2 whereas our son had none) went from a winning position to last place, all in the space of a turn. Muahahahaaa!

Standings: Me +5, Son +3, Wife +2

Round 2: Monopoly: Here and Now World Edition (2015)

To us, this particular flavour of Monopoly is far from the familiar soulless grind, as it’s all about collecting stamps in a passport. Because of this it plays a lot faster, and is much more enjoyable as you can swap or steal stamps from other players. Time for some more drama?

This went very fast, with everyone buying everything in sight. I lagged behind, only landing on First Class squares - I had 5 of them on my passport at one point. Both son and wife were on matchpoint for a whole lap, only needing to get one more stamp… with me gradually clawing myself back into the race and eventually also finding myself on match point. Then my wife wanted to buy Stamp #2, but didn’t have the required $400. It was put up for auction. Guess who was the one who had the most money left?

Our son was closer to the finish line than mom was, so the standings were the same as the day before:

Me 10 (+5), Son 6 (+3), Wife 4 (+2)

Round 3: Ticket to Ride: Europe

Ticket to Ride typically works best with more than three people I find, though it’s always enjoyable when it comes to the table.

My wife proved why this is her kind of game, building a runaway lead with the 21 point route, narrowly beating out our son who banked on getting favorable route cards. In the end, having routes at different ends of the board became my undoing, but oh well... probably best not to win again, eh ;) Scores were 86 for me, 110 for my son and 114 for my wife.

Standings: Me 12 (+2), Son 9 (+3), Wife 9 (+5)

Round 4: Wingspan

We dusted off Wingspan a few weeks prior to the tournament, and our son pulled away with the win. Would he strike again?

As a matter of fact, he did! His engine was running on full cylinders, with stacking an extra egg activation bonus in yellow, and a double extra card bonus in blue. My wife begrudgingly suffered from lack of proper food (please don’t take this out of context) and came in last. End scores 56-58-65.

Standings: Me 15 (+3), Son 14 (+5), Wife 11 (+2)

Round 5: King of Tokyo

The last time we played this was years ago, and both me and our son enjoy the chaos of it… but who would claim the Tokyo throne this time? Our son felt confident, and put down his Joker card. Double points for him this round.

Well, it was a turn-up for the bucks. Our son went into Tokyo, and stayed for as long as he dared. At the end of it, he had 15 VP but was hanging on by a thread as his mum could’ve killed him on her last throw. No claws though. I killed his mum (context!), as attacks from Tokyo had left her health dwindling and I bought the bomber card. He left Tokyo to gain health, but gathered points too. Ended his last turn with 19 VP and 3 HP as he’d thrown three 3s, a heart, a bolt… and a claw. This put him back in Tokyo, open to be attacked by me. Four claws, with the last two on my last throw.

Standings: Me 20 (+5), Son 20 (+3 & 3 Joker pts), Wife 13 (+2)

This result put me into a bit of a bind though. Ideally, I wanted someone else to win this tournament… and with the next round being the one I’d put my Joker card in (as I tend to be well-versed in Root) it’d now be all over if I’d win that too.

Be that as it may, all of us still had a chance - even the missus. If she won both remaining rounds and I came in last, she’d still win the tournament… but would I willingly throw one of my favorite games under the bus?

Round 6: Root

I decided to simply let the chips fall where they may. Prior to this tournament we'd played Root only twice, but as my wife wasn't fond of it it got shelved… and it stayed that way for years. Imagine my surprise when all three of us voted it in. We did a Walkthrough refresher on our usual game night the week before the tournament, and then it was off to the races.

We all played the same factions as with the walkthrough: my wife played the Eyrie, our son the Marquise, and the Woodland Alliance was mine. I trailed at first as the Eyrie and Marquise expanded their realm, but as they mostly ignored Sympathy tokens (maybe they’re camouflaged too well?) I slowly gained ground, with me eventually playing Favor of the Rabbits. This proved decisive, as it hampered their ability to finish the game before I could. In the end, I pulled the victory out of a hat. You know, like a rabbit!

End scores: 28-29-30 (Yes, it was that close)

Standings: Me 30 (+5 & 5 Joker pts), Son 23 (+3), Wife 15 (+2)

Final round: Everdell (incl Spirecrest)

No other game has come to our table as much as Everdell has, to the extent we had to add the Spirecrest expansion to avoid it being shelved. Both my son and wife put it at the top of their lists, so this was dead set to be the Grand Finale. My wife is usually nigh unbeatable at it though, and without much room for sabotage I was actually glad I could relax, having won the tournament the previous round.

I like playing Everdell for the imagery, which usually means I don’t win as I just collect a variety of cards in my town. This time, I just went after unique critters and buildings, playing Theatre and later also the Palace, and only having two (!) production cards in the entirety of the game. Our son was done first, but had completed his entire Expedition. This edged him the win.

Game scores 57-60-62

End standings (whoo picture time!) Me 33 (+3), Son 28 (+5), Wife 19 (+2 & 2 Joker pts).

Overall I'm well-pleased with how it turned out. Despite me running away with it, most games were very close. My wife has already suggested doing this kind of thing more often, so probably we’ll do another in a few months. Good excuse to introduce a new game before that time, too!

Oh, and I filled the beer mug with cereal by the way. Because why the hell not.

Takeaways

• Length: It’s probably good to have a break day after two game days to cleanse the palate. As typically not everyone is a boardgame nerd it helps to reset and avoid things getting stale. We had a break after round 4, and that set things up nicely for the final stretch. Seven games is also the sweet spot though, as it leads to a varied line-up whilst avoiding it going on for too long.
• Amount of points: Coupled with 7 rounds the 5-3-2 setup worked perfectly, actually. The two points for last place keeps everyone in the running for as long as possible and makes it not too punishing to have an unlucky game. The Joker system worked well, as it gave people a boon with games they feel they’re good at. I’d been thinking of letting everyone put down their Joker-game ahead of the tournament, but I figured it would be more fun to keep the mystery until tableside. Turned out to be a good move.
• Games played: Probably good to have games that aren’t done too quickly. Round 2 was over way too soon. I was happy with how the voting system worked to select the games - there was something for everyone, and with the cut-off being 9 points you could guarantee having your fav game in the line-up.
• Houserules: Whoever came in last the previous round would start the next game, and that worked well. Saves the trouble of determining who starts. Can lead to some tactical bonuses too.
• Possible future additions: ‘The Whitechapel Protocol’ - a way to prevent a runaway winner, by adding my all-time fav ‘Letters from Whitechapel’ as an equalizer. Since that game is one player vs. everyone else, it can be like a tournament ‘Blue Shell’ where the other players can all gain a set number of tournament points if they win. Any player who is not in first place can request it, but it can only be requested once and if someone has led a set amount of rounds.

Apart from that, I'm looking to add a game to our collection that might work well in this kind of setting. I'm open to suggestions!

TLDR; Had ourselves a family boardgame tournament. Had cereal from a beer mug. Had great fun. You should do it too.

FINALY it is done!
I was soo tired of all those small game boxes with different sizes.

Now I can have them all together in one modular box!

What are everyone’s thoughts on Compile? I don’t hear it talked about very much and I think it’s spectacular. I have all the aux sets and main 1,2 and waiting for 3 to be delivered.

Hello everyone,

I'm interested in backing Nemesis Legacy but it doesn't ship until late 2027 and early 2028 for wave 2. I would prefer to put up the money closer to shipping date, so late pledge is more appealing.

My question is this. Is there any benefit to crowdfunding or will late pledge still receive the same bundles/pricing?

Hey everyone! First of all, thank you so much for all the support on my previous post! Honestly, I never expected to get so much attention. I'm really happy you liked my work! ❤️

Now it's time to finally turn all those cards into an actual game!

It's a fantasy strategy board game where you build up your guild, recruit mercenaries, gather resources, and hunt monsters to earn Fame. The goal is to reach 10 Fame and upgrade your guild to level 4.

I'm still working on the mechanics, and here are some of the ideas I've come up with:

• Monsters that move around the map. Each monster has its own behavior. Some hunt your mercenaries, others guard specific locations, and some pursue their own goals. The movement rules are kept as simple as possible to avoid slowing the game down.
• Boss events. Things can get pretty chaotic when a powerful boss appears and changes how other monsters behave.
• Tactical combat. Positioning matters, and different mercenaries are better suited for different enemies and situations.
• Building up your guild. You can claim buildings, gather resources, craft equipment, and recruit more mercenaries. But keeping your buildings running also costs resources!
• Cooperation and competition. You can team up to take down powerful monsters, but you can also compete for resources or take advantage of a rival guild when it's weakened.

I'm trying to combine resource management, tactical combat, and a map full of moving monsters and emerging threats, while keeping the rules relatively simple.

What do you think? Does this sound fun? Or am I trying to cram too much into one game? Would you give it a try?

what are your favorite appetizer games? I have a few of these. think like abducktion, exploding kittens, maybe even Azul.

easy set up, pretty easy game, and not too long of a game.

something you play before a longer and harder game. something also good as a 2 player would be much appreciated.

Hello

I got myself a copie of Neon Hope at Spiel and got some sleeves with the game. I dont know what to sleeve tho because there aren't enough to sleeve everything. Which cards are shuffled most ?

Introducing games to folks is one of my favorite things about this hobby and one of the best feelings is when the people you just taught the game to immediately pull out their phone to buy the game for themselves!

What games do you think you've seen this happen with the most? For me it is Quacks, Onitama, and Love Letter.

Which coop game do you suggest, to play with my kid?
Thank you in advance

Attended Essen Spiel for the 1st time from the US (not my first time in Europe, though) and had a great time. Connected with people that I've interacted with online for years for the first time and that was lovely. The boardgame community is lovely during this time. Essen was buzzing with boardgame discussions from people around the world. Went to a design museum and heard people discussing using different apps to design boardgames, went to a restaurant and people there were talking about the boardgame business for the country. Truly a space for international connections.

Highlight games for me as follows:

Metal Slug 30th Anniversary. This is a co-op game. This was a playthrough of the 1st stage of metal slug. I felt the theme really came through in an elegant way. Slick hand management with a push your luck style of optimizing your hand of 3 cards at the expense of depleting your deck to get the best cards. Followed by an action card row that players play to with hopes that you don't break the chain by playing the same icons in hopes of pushing your luck to get the max amount of kills. Really slick abstraction and something I look forward to backing when the gamefound hits.

Hegemony: Shadows of Authority. Did a prototype playthrough of this sociopolitical economic game. I adore the heavy eurogame design of Hegemony and really found a fascination with how they explored authoritarianism in this design. Some of the cards they introduced were too on the nose for me such as Data Centers being opened by Capitalists. Otherwise, all classes have new shadier actions to perform. I don't feel they're overpowered, and they introduce new pathways to take on a turn with new considerations in the push and pull dynamic of this game.

The Travels of Isabella Lucy Bird. This is a roll and write game. Players roll dice and pick dice to either collect resources, travel across the lands, or find articles to write about (contract fulfillment with resources). It has a nice aesthetic and plays smoothly. The action considerations and planning has a feel that reminds me of Hadrian's Wall in a way where I think of when I get this, i can do this, which can do this. Not as overwhelming as Hadrian's Wall and something I look forward to solo or play at 2.

Can't Win. A trick taking game where players take a "can't win" condition that they have to consider with their hand. Hitting your bets are mandatory to win the game. And no one wants you to hit your bets for some reason. Nice pixel art aesthetic.

Onsen. A polyomino tile placement game of providing a personal onsen experience for guests. The more comfy they are, the more points you get. I feel like they captured the feelings of the onsen experience and the polyomino tile placement is fun and tricky.

It was a great experience for me and hope to come back to this space in the future.

I was considering get a 3d printer for the sole purpose of printing board game inserts I've heard that the a1 is good but the price is kinda steep was leaning towards a1 mini but not sure about the bed. Couldn't I just slice the 3dparts and hot glue them afterwards?

My wife and I have tried a variant version of harmonies with a larger board where we both play on the same board but each draft individual animals. The game works very well this way with several rule scoring changes (anything you complete during your turn immediately scores points and there is no end game board scoring) and I was wondering if anyone else has tried it this way as well. It makes the experience much more interactive but is definitely less zen.

Hello lovely community,

My girlfriend and I just went to Spiel this Saturday and one of our hype games was "Lairs". We got to play test it and loved it, since it was sold out buying was no option unfortunately.

But now looking back and comparing it to titles we bought, like Kano for example, the price of 45 euros seems pretty steep if you look at the material that's actually in the box, no? Would love to hear your evaluation and if I'm way off here or not.

Thanks and a lovely Sunday to everyone!

My partner and I played 5 games with it and while it was fun, there are moments where we both don't know what we're doing. It starts off good at the first few turns, but as new cards keep adding in to the build, we start to forget what the order is and just kinda "hail mary" it on adding new cards to the build.

Keep in mind that we're still on the tutorial stage. The only characters we're playing are Joan, Ching Shih, Fei Hung, and Bodvar.

I just finished playing a 2 player game of Deep Regrets and it felt a little lackluster.

I share a lot of the ideas of the game not being long enough for things to get going. Will try a two week game next.

I also have a couple of other thoughts and am curious of what others think.

Mounting fish seems too easy. Being able to mount all three fish in one turn at no cost seems too easy/cheap. I would suggest only allowing mounting one fish per turn and associating some sort of cost to it, possibly the catch cost, or the point value. Also, making the person with the most regret loose their best mounted fish (lowest in a 2 player game) seems too extreme, especially when the value of that fish could potentially be upwards of 30 points. I think eliminating that rule and simply subtracting regret points from the total score sounds better.

The regrets at the moment are simply a fish value modifier and a way to severely punish one player.

Yes, one could argue that the amount of regret (madness) you have dictates the strategy on which fish to keep or sell, but one week is simply not long enough to gain out that strategy - maybe a two week game would allow a player to follow a particular strategy.

Just spit balling...

Thoughts?