Yo, I know it’s late for this, but I was busy doing other things. So here’s a list of board games I played in 2018 and what I thought of them

Tigris and Euphrates/Yellow and Yangtze

So, Tigris and Euphrates, while perhaps not my favorite game is definitely in the top three to five. Like many of my other favorites it’s simple and elegant. The main mechanics are tile laying and area control. Theme is kinda lacking (read hardly existent) but I’d be lying if I told you that was terribly important to me. Yellow and Yangtze is a retheme that takes place in (surprise) China. Where as Tigris and Euphrates is a little cutthroat, Yellow and Yangtze is a little more forgiving. Hexes are used instead of square tiles. There are some different mechanics that I feel the need to explore in further depth as well, as I’m not sure if they add or detract from the original core gameplay. I also think I’m better at Tigris and Euphrates than I am at Yellow and Yangtze. I’m still pretty bad at both, but they’re both fantastic games.

Azul, Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, and Sagrada

I watched a game of Azul and immediately knew I needed to play this game. I played a game of Azul and went out and bought it. Azul is a tile drafting game. You draft different colored starburst sized tiles from the center to complete a pattern on your player board. It’s similar to Sagrada in this way, only there you draft colored dice. I think Azul is better than Sagrada, though Sagrada gives you a deeper and more challenging puzzle to solve. I think Azul’s simplicity is its strongest point. You can literally play while teaching, which is great. Azul won 2018’s Speil des Jahres award (game of the year), and with good reason. It’s pretty, it’s accessible and at the same time offers complex decisions. Stained Glass of Sintra offers slightly different scoring and placing mechanics, which I think puts it on par with Sagrada with me. I think all three of these games also offer a similar role in your collection, though slightly different experiences.

Hardback

I really like word games, and I’ve been searching for the one I like best. Paperback, a similar game by Tim Fowers, is based on the deck building game Dominon. I like Paperback better than Dominon, but it dragged a little. There has since been an expansion that solves some of the dragging problems, but overall I don’t think it flows as well as Hardback. I think that’s because Hardback is based on a different deck building game Star/Hero Realms. While Paperback solved the dead card problem by making “point” cards into wild cards that let you play any letter you want, Hardback solves it by making any card wild. This is, I think, the single most brilliant thing that Hardback does. It really opens up the game and lets you find words in any combination of letters while maximizing your card powers. If word games are your thing, definitely try out Hardback.

Gaia Project

It took me approximately four games of Terra Mystica to like it. I just didn’t grasp what made it interesting instead of just terribly frustrating. One day I sat down with my family, somewhat resigned to play and it just clicked. I knew what to do, I knew how to do it, and I had goals in mind. I went home and ordered Gaia Project. It’s better. You might have noticed that I like games that have (relatively) simple mechanics that flow easily. Gaia Project took a machine that worked and tuned it until it hummed. Playing Terra Mystica definitely helped me understand this game, but Gaia Project really streamlined a lot of the mechanics so that they’re accessible to players and you don’t have to beat your head against the game for four to five games. My only complaint is that it doesn’t seat five.

Eschaton

This game has a lot of theme that I don’t terribly care for or about, but the game itself is great. Mixing dudes on a map with deck building is a great combination that you might not have thought would work, but really does nicely together. I might liken it to peanut butter and baked goods. This game is kinda what I wished City of Remnants had been.

Dinosaur Island: Totally Liquid

Why is it Totally Liquid? Because marine reptiles. (Dinosaurs weren’t aquatic, but some were, and are, semi aquatic. See spinosaurus or geese.) This expansion adds some variety to the 2017 hit Dinosaur Island, a game that’s basically about Jurassic Park and every 90s trope you can fit in a board game. So aside from variety in dinosaurs, the game adds new dice, a 5th player, new limiting goals, and my favorite, secret end game goals that apply to everyone. There are also “executives” which are player powers? Player powers don’t excite me. But overall I think this expansion has added some neat stuff to a neat game. Bonus points for dinosaurs and other Mesozoic creatures.

Duelosaur Island

You know how there’s a 7 Wonders Duel? Well, now there’s one for Dinosaur Island too. My wife’s not a huge fan, she’d rather just play Race for the Galaxy (who can blame her?), but I thought it was good. It’s a little more streamlined than standard Dinosaur Island, with less moving parts, and slightly less complexity to accompany that. I liked it, but there are a lot of other two player games I’d go to first. Also, why did we put in fidget spinners? Any teacher could have told you those would die out faster than POGS.

An aside about DI in all its forms: I don’t think they capitalize on dinosaur puns to the best of their ability. I feel like they have some good and fun puns and then they got lazy and we’re like, “eh, it’s a roller coaster”. Commitment people.

Dragoon

It’s area control… with DRAGONS! They made a Trogdor game, but honestly, this works just fine, and from what I could tell, is way more interesting. This comes in precious metals (which I guess is a selling point for some people?), but my desire to spend another like, $80 was minimal. I got plastic, and I like the plastic just fine. The games rules are simple and it’s infinitely transportable (it comes in a canvas bag that doubles as the score board). It plays up to 6, though I have yet to break out the expansion that allows this. It’s cute, it’s fun, it’s light.

One house rule that makes this game WAY better: The person in first place goes first. I have found that (at least the way everyone I’ve played with plays it), the person going first had a severe disadvantage, because everyone takes over their hard won territory, and then there’s nothing they can do. The rules say that the person in last gets to go first, and I know this is supposed to help them, but in no way does it. First place goes first. You’re welcome.

Tzolkin

I have nothing to say about this. I played it once. People love it. I can see why, but I didn’t play it enough to have insights other than “ya, it’s a good worker placement game”.

Terraforming Mars Expansions

I got the Prelude expansion and the Hellas and Elysium expansion. Prelude is supposed to speed up the game? I don’t think it does. It still took like three hours to play. I still liked it. Hellas and Elysium are new boards. I like them too. Some people don’t like TM, but I think it’s great. The expansions? If you don’t already like TM, don’t bother. It’s more of the same. If you do like TM, go for it, they’re awesome.

Voluspa

Is a tile laying game by a dude (Scott Caputo) whose game is coming out later this year (Sorcerer City) that I cannot wait to play. So I got another one of his games to try. It’s a retheme of another game that he designed about Native American gods, which he replaced with Norse gods. I like Native American mythology better as a theme. I just think it’s more original. The game itself is just ok. It’s a fine game to maybe sit down and play at a con when you need something light.

Spirit Island

I played this game and loved it the first couple times I played it, so I went out and got myself a copy on sale. This, it turns out, was a mistake. While I think this game handles card cycling in a more interesting way than Gloomhaven (sorry if you like that pile of a game), I think that once you get past the complexity, this game is just Pandemic vs white people. And while I agree that most white people are a plague upon this earth, I don’t think Pandemic is an interesting game. The internet raves about this game, I’m done with it.

Rising Sun

Does anyone care about this game anymore? Here’s the thing, the components make this game. You don’t want to play anything other than the Kickstarter version, and if you look past the components, there’s not much there. The action selection is interesting if frustrating, I guess. I’m not sure I have any desire to play this again. I think CMON puts out overproduced games like this and suckers buy them to have something pretty on their table, but give me Hive Carbon, or hell, even backgammon, over this shit any day.

Endeavor: Age of Sail

Apparently, this was a big Kickstarter? I don’t know why. This game did nothing for me.

Jurassic Park: DANGER! Adventure Strategy Game

Someone phoned this game in and sold it to Target. Well, it worked anonymous person. Good job. There are some fun JP jokes in this… thing, but to call it an “adventure strategy game” is being generous. This is the sort of thing I’d have Flip the Table play if they were still doing their thing. Cheesy, weird, and obscure fits this game to the T. You might actually have fun playing this game is what I can say for it, which is more than I can really say for Rising Sun.