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The best board games of 2016

arstechnica.com

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Re: The best board games of 2016

#41

Post by hoodwink »

gglover wrote: post #9

Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? It could just be what I've seen from my friends but a lot of the times you can tell from the box art and title alone that you're going to need tiles, tokens, cards a 3 page manual and a practice round before you can even start. For me, that's a slog. It's too hard to hold conversation or focus on anything other than the game…

Anyone feel like there's been a resurgence in the popularity of board games in general? Maybe I'm just getting older and my friends are interested in activities other than partying, but I feel like all my circles have simultaneously taken interest in board games. Which is awesome. It used to be impossible to organize a group to play a round of Catan. Now people are down to play Through the Ages.

Re: The best board games of 2016

#42

Post by mkaziz »

gglover wrote: post #9

Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? It could just be what I've seen from my friends but a lot of the times you can tell from the box art and title alone that you're going to need tiles, tokens, cards a 3 page manual and a practice round before you can even start. For me, that's a slog. It's too hard to hold conversation or focus on anything other than the game…

I don't think Catan is particularly complex. I play casual rounds with friends all the time.

Re: The best board games of 2016

#43

Post by m12k »

gglover wrote: post #9

Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? It could just be what I've seen from my friends but a lot of the times you can tell from the box art and title alone that you're going to need tiles, tokens, cards a 3 page manual and a practice round before you can even start. For me, that's a slog. It's too hard to hold conversation or focus on anything other than the game…

There's many board games of a lot of types coming out in recent years. I also usually prefer the ones that seem 'pure' in that they have a focus on a few mechanics that work well and are quick to explain. A couple examples are Coup, Codenames and King of Tokyo.

Re: The best board games of 2016

#44

Post by VLM »

gglover wrote: post #9

Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? It could just be what I've seen from my friends but a lot of the times you can tell from the box art and title alone that you're going to need tiles, tokens, cards a 3 page manual and a practice round before you can even start. For me, that's a slog. It's too hard to hold conversation or focus on anything other than the game…

3 whole pages... Today's active grognard community of hex based (and other) military sims with their 60 pages of manuals for MBT/Panzer or the COIN series games are providing plenty of pressure from the other end to keep things level. To say nothing of the guys with a lineal yard of book shelf space of pathfinder rulebooks or binders full of advanced squad leader and federation commander...

I'm just saying theres many levels of orders of magnitude higher complexity games pushing down from their more complex territory to keep the eurogames simple, relatively. If there's a push against eurogames its probably from the bottom up. The days of the bottom being very weak like chutes n ladders or monopoly are mostly gone so eurogames have to up their game a bit, which seems to result in games more complicated than a single page like the old days of carcassone.

Still for request for simple games, there's card games like Fluxx, which is old but under continuous development such that 1990s fluxx isn't 2014 fluxx. There's a whole genre of bluffing games, Sheriff of Nottingham and the various who is the werewolf games. Then there's organization games like the dice version of space cadets which takes about two minutes to set up and about three days for your voice to recover from all the arguing (unless your starship is more disciplined than ours LOL)

Re: The best board games of 2016

#45

Post by d13 »

icefox wrote: post #19
gglover wrote: post #9

Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? It could just be what I've seen from my friends but a lot of the times you can tell from the box art and title alone that you're going to need tiles, tokens, cards a 3 page manual and a practice round before you can even start. For me, that's a slog. It's too hard to hold conversation or focus on anything other than the game…

This past year at work friends and I made a little board game and your complaints were our top requirements. We wanted it to be setup in minutes, explained in 5, played in about an hour, with turns lasting just minutes at most and with a high degree of social interaction and yet still have a fair amount of depth and strategy. We ended making a little stock game called "Day Traitor" where on your turn you play one of…

I want to play this game :)

Re: The best board games of 2016

#46

Post by cableshaft »

mysterydip wrote: post #6
pessimizer wrote: post #4

What a dire list. The only game that looks interesting is Imhotep. Just a bunch of branded crap and stuff from celebrity designers that sold a thousand copies before even being released. The re-issue list is equally uninspiring, and they cannot resist adding yet another Rosenberg; one that I don't think was ever out of print for a moment. Schotten Totten is a good reprint, though (of something else that hasn't really…

Curious as I'm only a casual boardgamer now, but what would your 2016 list be?

I played a ton of games this year, but most weren't released in 2016. Of those that I played, I'd rank them as:

1. Pyramid Arcade 2. Quadropolis 3. Medici (reprint) 4. World's Fair 1893 5. Eko 6. Animals on Board 7. Control

That being said, I own several 2016 games I haven't been able to get to the table yet: Oceanos, 13 Days (Cuban Missile Crisis), Codex, Circular Reasoning, Glux, Santorini, Mechs vs Minions, and Imhotep. All of which I expect could possibly add to or replace something on the above list.

Re: The best board games of 2016

#47

Post by chrisabrams »

hoodwink wrote: post #41
gglover wrote: post #9

Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? It could just be what I've seen from my friends but a lot of the times you can tell from the box art and title alone that you're going to need tiles, tokens, cards a 3 page manual and a practice round before you can even start. For me, that's a slog. It's too hard to hold conversation or focus on anything other than the game…

Anyone feel like there's been a resurgence in the popularity of board games in general? Maybe I'm just getting older and my friends are interested in activities other than partying, but I feel like all my circles have simultaneously taken interest in board games. Which is awesome. It used to be impossible to organize a group to play a round of Catan. Now people are down to play Through the Ages.

Yes thanks to kickstarter I've enjoyed many board games that I otherwise would not have even heard of. It's offered an alternative path to production thats led to many great games.

Re: The best board games of 2016

#48

Post by indigo_rex »

d13 wrote: post #34
KVFinn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? Nah, both simple and complicated board games are more popular than ever. This particular list is focused on the complicated side. But off the top of my head some great and recent simpler ones: Codenames, Bring Your Own Book (free if you print your own copy), Potion Explosion, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, Spaceteam, Colt…

A few more to add.. You can teach the rules of these amazing games in about a minute: Love Letter (best card game ever?), Hand of the King, Splendor, Carcassonne. You can teach the rules of these equally great games in about 5 minutes: Forbidden Island, Inis (my favourite game of the year!), Not Alone (a brilliant cat-and-mouse game card game that scales from 2 to 7 players )

I haven't played the original Love Letter, but Batman Love Letter (from what I remember, the Robin card is the major variation, but I could be wrong) is a great game to break out for small gatherings. Anyone can play it, and there's enough luck involved that anyone can win a given game.

Star Realms is not as easy, but most people can pick up the basics pretty quickly, and it's one of our favorites. The app is also great!

It requires more setup, but King of Tokyo is easy and fun, too. The main problem with King of Tokyo is that it soon becomes obvious that rolling for points is the best approach most of the time. King of New York fixes this, but new people are more likely to struggle with the rules.

Zombie Dice is almost purely a game you play while doing something else, but it doesn't get much easier, and it's still pretty fun.

Re: The best board games of 2016

#49

Post by Zikes »

d13 wrote: post #34
KVFinn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? Nah, both simple and complicated board games are more popular than ever. This particular list is focused on the complicated side. But off the top of my head some great and recent simpler ones: Codenames, Bring Your Own Book (free if you print your own copy), Potion Explosion, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, Spaceteam, Colt…

A few more to add.. You can teach the rules of these amazing games in about a minute: Love Letter (best card game ever?), Hand of the King, Splendor, Carcassonne. You can teach the rules of these equally great games in about 5 minutes: Forbidden Island, Inis (my favourite game of the year!), Not Alone (a brilliant cat-and-mouse game card game that scales from 2 to 7 players )

Tsuro is another great one that can be taught in less than a minute.

Re: The best board games of 2016

#50

Post by bjelkeman-again »

d13 wrote: post #34
KVFinn wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply strategy based? Nah, both simple and complicated board games are more popular than ever. This particular list is focused on the complicated side. But off the top of my head some great and recent simpler ones: Codenames, Bring Your Own Book (free if you print your own copy), Potion Explosion, A Fake Artist Goes to New York, Spaceteam, Colt…

A few more to add.. You can teach the rules of these amazing games in about a minute: Love Letter (best card game ever?), Hand of the King, Splendor, Carcassonne. You can teach the rules of these equally great games in about 5 minutes: Forbidden Island, Inis (my favourite game of the year!), Not Alone (a brilliant cat-and-mouse game card game that scales from 2 to 7 players )

Two player: Patchwork, quick setup, easy rules, fast to play. Even my wife got hooked on this one. Which means it is a keeper (both game and wife ;) ).
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