Preface: This list does not include app plays, or from websites such as Board game arena or Yucata. Plays on those platforms get tracked by their own platforms and I’m a firm believer of not double recording a play. Also, while none of these plays are astronomically high, for a player like me who gets so much enjoyment form discovering new games over replaying known quantities, playing a game more than 10 times is a massive achievement in my stats.
Magic Maze – 29 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Magic Maze it’s a real time coop that you can lose quickly if you’re not careful. I’ve counted every mission I played in Magic Maze as it’s own individual play. the first few missions slowly introduce the mechanics, while the last dozen make the game harder. Like many coop games it restricts communication and half of the fun comes from staring at your partner who will not receive your telepathic demands to move that one pawn to the left!
Magic Maze also has a very interesting and unique mechanic where each player isn’t controlling a specific character, rather they are in control of a specific move. Every piece that wants to move left? That’s my job. You get to focus on moving people to right. And if you make a mistake and move too far, you have to hope I know what you were trying to do and correct it for you.
Why I don’t own it
I’ve played this game over 3 sessions at the local board game cafe. Those 3 sessions were with entirely different groups (my wife and I being the two consistent parties at each of the sessions) and although each session was fun and everyone walked away from the game with smiles, by the time the third session finished my wife and I agreed that we felt the game had been explored and would not hit the table in our home compared to the rest of the games we already owned. I’ve read the expansion adds significantly to the experience, but it’s not a game that I feel compelled to own.
Karuba – 27 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
The coronavirus pandemic forced my game herd to migrate online for a year. One of the games we found on Tabletop Simulator that had a fantastic implementation was Karuba. This highly scripted version takes care of randomizing the setup, and drawing the same tile out for every player. Once tiles are placed, it automatically locks it in place, moves any gems onto the board (or off if your meeple landed on it), and pulls the next tile. We can knock a game of Karuba out in less than 10 minutes, which is impressive considering most games on Tabletop Simulator take longer to play than their IRL counterparts, even without the setup and tear down times.
Like most games on the platform, it won’t enforce the rules for you, if someone cheats and leaps around the board, it’s up to you to be aware of it and to immediately find better friends.
Why I don’t own it
This is a rare instance where I would rather play a game on TTS than on the table. I wouldn’t turn down a play of this if someone brought it out, but I do not feel the need to have a box sitting on my shelf when I know a fully functional version exists just a couple of clicks away.
Istanbul – 16 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Because it’s great! Really, a race to collect gems with decisions on building up a engine or to pick the low hanging fruit before your opponents get to them first. An incredibly variable play space, easy turn structure, and a fair amount of mastery if you want to plan out your turns a dozen moves ahead. Enough randomness that could swing the game if someone was feeling bold enough to bet high and roll successfully. The expansions each add a pair of mechanics that can swing an entire game (I once won a game by running my coffee engine only), and some more variability to the board, giving this game even more replayability
Why I don’t own it
In what I suspect will be perceived as a personal slight against Rüdiger Dorn, considering I have 3 of his games in a row on this list, the only reason I don’t own Istanbul myself is because someone in my friend herd already owns it, plus an expansion. If I’m ever thirsting for a game of this I can either borrow the game from him, or fire up the Android app and get half a dozen plays in over the course of an hour. This is probably the second game on my to-buy list if suddenly the game was no longer easily available to me.
Scythe – 15 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Rise of Fenris campaign contributed a lot to this play count, but even without the campaign compelling us to play, I very much enjoy Scythe. It’s a cold war game where the threat of combat is more tense than the actual combat. I have had some fantastic plays where my engine grows and hums and I conquer the peasants of Europa, while other games I’ve made blunders and had my opponents promptly capitalize on my mistake (over-committing to a combat, losing by 1 point, having the other 3 players all on their next turns combat my now battered army). I love the mechanic of moving things off the board to make some actions stronger and other actions cheaper, and the player who ends the game is not always the player who wins the war.
Why I don’t own it
A friend in my herd has the collectors editions, upgraded resources, expanded event cards, 2 expansions (Invaders from Afar and Rise of Fenris) and has it in his top 10 games of all time. If I’m going to be playing this game, I’ll be playing it with him.
Las Vegas – 14 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Las Vegas plays fairly quickly and is very easy to set up and teach. Being a very luck based dice area control game, having a serious attitude is a detriment here. Usually, I pick one person and decide to do everything I can to squeeze them out of Vegas. I often play with a variant/house rule where each player is given 2 neutral die that get rolled with all of their normal dice and must be placed with the same restrictions. Using those extra die to manipulate the market is a joy, and when you and your opponent have both committed 5 die to a single spot and you’re down to your last die and you manage to roll the exact number you need, the whole table erupts with laughter. Except for the other guy, but screw that guy, he lost and we don’t care about losers.
Pro Tip, don’t add extra sets of die and play with 8 players. At that player count the time in between turns is unbearably long, and every casino gets 8+ die on it meaning almost everything ends in a tie.
Why I don’t own it
It seems to play best with larger groups (4 or 5) and I rarely have that many people over to my table. Someone in my herd already owns it (and has more friends than I do) and I know it won’t hit my table as a 2 player game over the games I already own.
Can’t Stop – 13 Plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Aside from being my wife’s #1 favourite game of all time, I keep finding this game everywhere. At various events where people bring games, this one always seems to be available. Each time I see it around I usually rope in the nearest two people and break it out. I’ve played this in board game cafe’s across the country (BC, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia), 2 different weddings, and at least 2 picnics. It’s easy and fun to play, and the push your luck element has my hair standing on end every time I roll the die.
Why I don’t own it
It’s way too expensive for what it is. A plastic board, a few cones (11 in each colour, plus 3 white ones), and 4 die. at my FLGS it was around $50, while online I can see it as low as $40. If I ever see this game available used for $15, I’ll be sure to snag it. It’s also the game Board Game Arena uses to teach you the platform. With it being available there and a premium membership allowing for games to be played from the same IP address, I’m not compelled to hand over my cash for this one.
Azul – 11 Plays
Why I’ve played it so much
A very attractive game that is easy to teach and offers interesting decisions. This game usually ends up capping off a game night, or it’s another tool I use to lure people into the hobby when they’re foolish enough to accept my invitation to the local board game cafe.
Why I don’t own it
As far as abstract puzzle games are concerned, I prefer Sagrada. While not directly comparable, both end up scratching the same itch for me, and I just like rolling colorful die more than pulling Starburst from a bag.
Splendor – 11 Plays
Why I’ve played it so much
in 2018 I was mildly obessed with this game. I loved the puzzle of building a ‘engine’ of resources and figuring out the perfect moment to shift my gameplay from collecting cards for the purpose of having more gems, and using the cards I have to finish off the recipes for the nobles. I played the Android app a bunch as well, using it to finely tune how I approached the pivot of the game and how to leap for the endgame victory points.
Why I don’t own it
Honestly, I don’t know about this one. I last played in in June of 2019 and haven’t had the urge to seek it out. I know I still like this game, but I don’t have the desire to acquire a copy and coerce my wife into playing it with me. Which is double odd because I know she likes this game too! Perhaps something replaced it for me, but I’m not sure what it is.
Concordia – 10 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Like Istanbul, this game is so good and so replayable it’s almost funny. with dozens of action cards with end game points coming out in different orders, the resources each city provides shuffling around, and the various way to accrue points, I love to explore this game. And this is even without the additional maps, or Concordia Salsa (which is an expansion I love) which add even more twists to the formula. The end game scoring is sufficiently obfuscated so while you may feel like you know who is going to win the game, it’s not a sure thing and I’ve seen more than a few upset victories when one player sneakily captured all the cards of a single type and exploited it for all they could.
Why I don’t own it
This is my favourite game that I don’t own and would be the first one I purchase if the person in my herd who already owns it suddenly left. Its a little more complex than the games my wife tends to enjoy so I know I wouldn’t suggest it for our 2 player game nights, but it is a game that I love to play, and with my recent foray into Solo gaming, I would like to try the solo play deck that is coming out soon.
Quadropolis – 9 plays
Why I’ve played it so much
Quadropolis is a cute, well made city building game, with 2 modes to play. I’ve mostly played this one at the request of others, but each time it hits the table I find myself enjoying it more than I remember. One mode of the game gives each player a worker of their own number, leaving it entirely up to them to not let themselves get painted into a corner where the one tile they want is out of their reach, while the other mode of play pools all the workers together. I’ve been that guy before to just use all of the #1 workers, just to sow discord and panic amongst my ‘friends’
Why I don’t own it
I don’t love it enough to request playing it, which means it won’t be a game I pull off my shelf often enough to justify the price. This is on top of the fact that another player in my group does own it and does request playing it. No need to double up on our collections!
It’s hard to imagine the mind of a person who sees a busy airport, full of delayed planes and the slow seething anger of the unwashed masses and thinks to himself “I can make a game out of this”. My friends, let me introduce you to Tim Fowers.
Tim Fowers is the only board game designer my wife knows by name. His continued collaboration with artist Ryan Goldsberry and re-use of characters has established a familiar aesthetic when a new game hits the market that makes everything feel somewhat familiar.
My wife and I played Now Boarding for the first time at our local board game cafe. Knowing very little about how the game was played ahead of time, I found the rulebook to be adequate for teaching the game with only minor confusion during the set-up process.
I don’t fault the rulebook for our confusion, though. It can be difficult to convey concepts for a real time game using the written word. The game has a “STOP! Check out our How to Play Video!” inserted in the box, but watching a video on your phone isn’t the best option when you’re in a noisy public space.
Concepts learned and game prepared, we launched into our first play of Now Boarding. At first the morning flights were easy affairs, single passengers going directly to their destination, no one waiting for longer than a turn at their home airport, and even able to take advantage of some good weather on the way.
Shortly into the afternoon phase of the game, the pace began to quicken, at one moment there was a single person waiting on the eastern seaboard, but half a dozen customers were angrily stewing in their delays all along the west coast. a concerted effort saw these passengers picked up, but with all the planes on the right side of the board, suddenly the left was filling up with a pair of travelers at each gate, and not enough time to pick them up before their anger boiled over and complaints were filed.
Now Boarding does a real time coop game very well with some interesting mechanics. In between every real time phase of the game you deal out the next set of passengers to their home airport, face down. At this point you can sit and discuss what your plan of attack is, but you only have half the information you really need. Once the real time phase begins you flip over the face down passengers and reveal their destinations. It’s at that moment you realize that the person you were going to pick up needs to go in the complete opposite direction, and the airport you’re passing through has someone that wants to go to your destination! Too bad your plan is full. You couldn’t just… kick someone off the plane because a new customer is slightly more convenient, could you?
Yes. Yes you can. In fact, if you want to win, expect some sudden layovers. It feels rude to jettison a passenger, but seeing as how people only accumulate anger when they’re idle in an airport it makes sense to juggle your customers between planes. After all, once you’re on the plane and moving you just feel so much better, even if your plane isn’t bound for your final destination.
All in all, Tim Fowers has designed a fantastic real time co-op game (two of my favourite game genres mixed together). Our initial thoughts is the game is a little easy, we’ve won 80% of our games, and one of our losses was due to us having people complain at 3 anger, not 4. We have started introducing the MVP cards which add some wrinkles such as crying babies (people get double anger), unattended minors (can’t fly alone), and nervous fliers (can’t fly through weather). These slight wrinkles can throw a wrench into your smoothly running engine and cause a small freakout on my side of the table. I would like to see an expansion added to the game to create some variability, perhaps another country, or adding a ‘first class, business, and coach’ section to your planes offering more rewards for prompt delivery.
TL:DR – Real time, Co-op, and pick up and deliver. If you don’t like any of those words this isn’t going to change your mind. If you do enjoy those, this is a hit.
Number of Plays: 4 on Tabletop Simulator, dozens more via Android app
Game Length: 30 minutes
Mechanics: Flip and Write
Release Year: 2019
Designer: Jordy Adan
Artist: Luis Francisco, Lucas Ribeiro
Publisher: Thunderworks Games
March 2020 marked the end of the gaming in person for our group (somewhat ironically the last game my group played all together in person was Pandemic. We lost). Over the last 12 months we have continued to game together using a few online resources, but Tabletop Simulator has been the most common platform so far with 105 games played. One of the games that was a surprise hit on the platform was Cartographers, a flip and write game set in the Roll Player universe.
Cartographer begins with each player naming their kingdom and 4 of the 16 scoring objective cards are revealed, each one associated with a letter. This is important as each scoring objective will be scored twice throughout the game so you know what you’re working toward right from the beginning of the game.
Cartographers plays by flipping over a card which (usually) offers you two options to put down. Either two different shapes of a single terrain type, or one shape of two different terrain. It’s up to you to choose which scoring objectives you want to chase and how best to fill out your player sheet
Now it wouldn’t be a game if there wasn’t some twists; some way of making to choose between the lesser of two evils or force you to overcome an obstacle in some way. in Cartographers this is achieved in two different ways. The first is the ‘Ruins’ cards which force you to place your shape on a specific spot on the board, which always seem to be just one space too far from the spots that you actually want to put it, or tempting you to choose the smaller option to get the coin, which gives you a point during every scoring.
The other way Cartographers injects some challenge is with the Ambush cards. Each round in the game will shuffle in one ambush card. When these come up you need to give your sheet to another player and they get to put some nasty monsters onto your board. Any empty spaces next to a monster space is worth -1 point during each scoring phase.
Cartographers plays quickly and has enough player interaction to alleviate the multiplayer solitaire game that I find is pervasive throughout the roll (or flip) and write genre. It plays surprisingly well on Tabletop Simulator as the mod uses tiles instead of trying to force you to draw with a mouse. I’ve seen some pictures of completed sheets and they look like a nightmare to keep everything neat and orderly, drawing squares around the grid and different symbols to indicate the terrain type. I’ve also seen some people using multicolor pencils to assist with differentiating the different terrain types at a glance.
I know my own penmanship would be the biggest detractor with playing the game physically, it’s not something that I’d fault the game for. Knowing that drawing isn’t my strong suit does push me to playing on TTS or the digital app where my board looks nice the entire time I’m playing.
However you play Cartographers, no one can deny that the mechanism for interacting with other players is unique to this type of game, and the varied scoring cards leads to a good amount of variablitiy between plays. Some plays you won’t see a single ambush or ruin (as the explore cards get reshuffled at the end of each season) leaving you to create a utopia and everything goes exactly according to plan. Meanwhile the exact opposite can happen in the next game, all four ambushes come out, your neighbors manage to place the monsters is the absolute worst spots and your entire kingdom burns before your eyes.
*ahem*
I do know there are a couple mini expansions that include an alternate set of Ambushes (I’d argue these are almost essential) and a 8 card expansion that requires you spend your gold but you get a benefit in return, suck as during the draw phase you can choose to draw a 2×2 shape instead on one of the available shapes. Situational, but potentially powerful.
All in all, Cartographers is an excellent game, easy to explain and understand, and enough variability that you’ll feel you’re still discovering things after a half dozen plays (which for me, is pretty good). The player interaction isn’t too much to incur bad feelings between you and your friends and I’ve never felt like someone was unfairly advantaged in the game. It’s an excellent easy to learn hard to master game that can be enjoyed by the gamers of all persuasions and weight classes.
The question that comes up when I make the choice to play a solo game is ‘what differentiates a game from a puzzle’? I could also question why do we even play games in the first place, but I’m here to write, not to think.
I tried the Solo mode for Sagrada the other day, after saying I’d get around to it for years. It was always something that I knew I could do if I wanted, but I didn’t really feel like it just now.
I don’t know how to solo mode came into being for Sagrada, if the game was designed to be both solo-able, or if it was a kickstarter strech goal they hoped they’d never reach, but after playing it once, I can say that it doesn’t appear to have been given the same amount of time or thought as the multiplayer design.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not a game designer, and making a game that is compelling for both multiple people to play competitively and solo would be quite the challenge, especially if the person sitting down to judge your work is professing from the start that he is ‘not a solo gamer’.
Sagrada’s solo mode follows the same basic gameplay from the competitive game. Pull out a number of die, put two into your window following all the restrictions, and try to get the highest score possible (according to amigoodat.games the average score is around 46. My own stats trend a little higher at 49.29, with the average winning score being 56.43. You can submit your amigoodat.games bug reports here).
Should you be able to beat a solo game the first time you play? Should it matter if you’ve played the multiplayer mode a couple dozen times? I played at the medium difficulty level and beat the goal score without much issue. But even if I cranked it up to the highest difficulty, it only would have added 2 more die to the target score, and removed 2 of the possible tools from me.
What sets the solo mode apart is instead of having other players scores to try and exceed, you’re trying to exceed the sum of all sum of the die you pass over throughout the game. With a difficulty scaling of +/- 4 scoring die and less tools to use, I found the solo mode to be a fine way to learn how the game plays, but not a compelling experience that would have me pulling the box off the shelf when I find myself craving some cardboard time.
One of the questions I found myself thinking after the fact is if it would have been more satisfying if I wasn’t trying to beat goal score, but rather trying to achieve the highest score possible and getting a ‘rank’ based upon the score threshold. Of course, that score would vary depending on the goal cards that are dealt at the beginning of the game and if the colours of die match the goals well.
I wonder if there would be a way to set up scenarios? Preconfigure specific goal cards and seed the bag with a certain number of each colour, then attribute a rank depending on your endgame score. I wonder how much more you’d have to change before this becomes less of a game to beat and becomes more of a puzzle to solve.
I recently heard a rumor of Sagrada Legacy, perhaps some of my thoughts and questions will be answered there.
P. S. I’m still upset about the amount of empty space in the box.
Mechanics: Card drafting, set collection, tug of war
Release Year: 2015
Designer: Antoine Bauza Bruno Cathala
Artist: Miguel Coimbra
Publisher: Repos Production
7 Wonders is a pillar of the board game community, often a entry point for many people into this hobby. 7 Wonders has the amazing ability to play in 30 minutes no mater if you’re playing with only 3, or all the way up to 7 players.
While the big brother has a two player variant included, it’s wildly unsatisfying. Each player takes a turn sinking cards into a dummy city while competing to draft the best civilization. I found it annoying to manage and while it’s nice to have a way to deny cards to your opponent other than building your wonders, it left me (and my wife) feeling like we should have found a third player, or play a game actually designed for 2 players.
7 Wonders Duel is a game designed for exactly two players. It offers a tight race with alternate win conditions should one player manage to claim supremacy in scientific discovery or military might. If neither of those two conditions are fulfilled before the end of the game then the player who built the most civilized society will claim victory.
The game begins by drafting 8 of the 12 possible wonders between the two players , which should influence how your civilization will progress. Once the wonders have been drafted the age cards are laid out into a pyramid shape, with cards on the bottom covering cards higher up. Layers of cards alternate between being face up and face down. Sometimes you know what you’re working toward, and sometimes you’re revealing a new card for your opponent.
Almost every card will require some resources in order to build them. If you have the required resources within in your civilization, you can just add the card to your side of the table and start enjoying the benefits immediately. If you find yourself short of a resource you always have the option of buying the missing resources from the bank. The cost for each resource you want to buy is 2 coins, plus 1 more coin for every one of the depicted resource that your opponent controls.
There is a workaround available, in the first age there are gold market cards for each of the 3 basic resources that allow you to buy depicted resource from the bank for 1 coin each. This is incredibly important as if you find yourself missing a resource type and your opponent has 4, every time you need that resource you’re stuck paying 6 coins.
Money ebbs and flows a lot more freely in this version of 7 Wonders. With gold cards increasing the amount of money gained when discarding a card instead of building it, it’s not THAT unreasonable to not take any resource cards. If you can get the gold market cards, and one or two of the wild if you can get a couple of the market cards. It does cost a lot of money, but when you have 20 coins in your reserve, paying 4 for a clay doesn’t feel like quite the expense. Also, many cards allow you to build a card in the next age for free.
The two alternate victory conditions are controlled by the red military cards and the green scientific cards. For every shield on a red card you push the war marker down the military track. As it passes certain thresholds it causes your opponent to lose a small amount of money. If the game ends before the war marker makes it all the way to your opponent’s side you are rewarded with a small amount of victory points. If you do manage to push it all the way to the end of the track the game ends immediately. Conversely, the green scientific cards are a set collection achievement. There are 7 different scientific symbols in the game (one is on a scientific achievement pog which may or may not be present in each game). If you manage to collect 6 different symbols, the game ends immediately with you lording over your mastery of the sciences to your peasant (I’ve always likened this to achieving a space victory in Civilization).
There are 2 copies of the 6 different symbols, and collecting a pair of the same symbol grants you a scientific achievement pog. 5 science pogs are set out at the beginning and can offer some pretty powerful rewards, such as 7 victory points, or all blue cards cost 2 resources less, or granting you an extra turn every time you build one of your wonders. These pogs usually aren’t game breaking, but they can be very powerful if collected at the right time and utilized properly.
A common theme that develops after both players have a few games under their belt is counting ahead. . Every turn someone will take a card off of the tableu so if there is a specific card you want, you can just count the turns until or if you want to deny your opponent a specific card you often count the turns ahead to see who will get access to that card. The only way to change that order is to build a wonder that grants you a bonus turn, of which you may have 4 but you may have 0, giving you much less control over the flow of cards. .This is the most common complaint about the game that’s I’ve heard, if you didn’t manage to take a wonder at the beginning of the game that had that ability, then there is literally no way to change the order. If you see the one card your opponent needs to win the game and you don’t have one of those wonders available to you, then you’re toast.
Assuming that neither player achieves a military’s or scientific victory, the game ends once all the cards from the 3rd age are taken. Both players add up all the cards that give them points and the player with the most points wins.
7 Wonders Duel is a game that my wife and I absolutely fell in love with. She gave it to me within a few months we promptly played it 20 times. We’d pull it out on the ferry, play several games back to back to back. Unfortunately we kind of burned out on it just a bit, but it’s still one of the games that is always suggested when a 2 player game is a possibility.
7 Wonders Duel is likely my third favourite game of all time. It’s simple enough that I feel comfortable teaching it to someone who shows a slight interest in games (as compared to the games that I play with people who have no interest in games). As easy as it is to teach, the game has strategic depth necessary to keep core gamers invested. There’s enough luck that can swing the game but a skilled player will win more often than not.
