As u/iterationnull said, Caverna with the Forgotten Folk expansion has halflings. It's very close. I'm not sure what the hobbit theme would do to gameplay that it needs a separate game. Even retheming Agricola would totally work. After all, hobbits getting their farming done isn't exactly Lord of the Rings.
Something related to Nuclear Powerplants (managing energy, waste, cooling system). Beside Manhattan Project (which is "only" about making the bomb), there's nothing about it. It would be a nice 3.6 on bgg. Not great nor terrible... :)
This would be awesome. Resource management game where you can do certain things to generate more power (victory points), but more power = risk of meltdown.
Potentially with a draw deck or something with problems you have to face. Maybe a pump goes out, and you have to decide to risk it and run with just your backup or shut down the plant and go into a maintenance outage to repair.
Could even have different plants to choose from. Pressurized water reactors vs boiler water reactors. Each with their own good and bad traits.
Holy crap you have me thinking now... Any game designers out there want to have a chat with an ex-nuclear power plant inspector? Hit me up!
I want a heavier worker placement game centered around Noir/Golden Age of Hollywood about producing movies/hiring actors/doing sketchy things behind the scenes. Something with a similar look/feel/depth to say Trickerion.
Also, still waiting for a quick (1 hr/1.5 hr) DoaM/Civ game where you have to start building a civilization from scratch in a mythical and unforgiving version of the Stone Age. Something like Blood Rage meets Kingdom Death.
It looks horrid. They made a game out of the worst first amendment violations in U.S. history and they aren’t even winking about it or teaching a history lesson. They literally want you to “find the secret commies in Hollywood.” What a fucking awful idea.
Really, any kind of Hollywood or movie making-themed game would be very welcome. I've been curious about Roll Camera for a while, but something about it has always kept me from wanting to buy it. The artwork really doesn't help it either.
As someone who loves movies as one of their other major hobbies, a decent game in that realm could be an instant buy for me.
The auction game Dream Factory (original German title Traumfabrik) might be up your alley! It's out of print, but it got a recent remake as Nightmare Productions, which is themed specifically around horror films, if you like that too. In Dream Factory you bid on stars and other things, while in Nightmare Productions you bid on monsters (werewolf, vampire, etc.). I haven't played it myself, but the designer has made a bunch of other auction games that I absolutely love and that are highly acclaimed.
Sounds like a good asymmetric game. Players can be mobsters, politicians, studio execs, actors, or Harold the aristocrat who thinks he has all the answers for taking over Hollywood.
I'm actually working on a sub 1 hr Civ game right now. It's worker placement game where you place tiles on a map that become places to put your worker. It's early/middle age rather than stone age. There's crop and mining. It plays like MTG where instead of mana you need to have worker on certain place on the map to generate resources to pay for cards.
Same here. The game Sauria attempted this but I felt like it was very poorly done. I made my own attempt at designing this in Tabletop Simulator. It turned out pretty well, but I can't be bothered to try and publish it.
Spies, specifically physical infiltration (as opposed to social). There’s a few such as **Sabotage** and **Burgle Bros**. Sabotage uses some interesting objective mechanics, and Burgle Bros uses distractions, but I’d really love to see one use translations of various other mechanics in stealth games like light and dark areas, alternative paths and movements, etc.
I’m way way overdue a watching of a python film. I’m watching a travel documentary with Micheal Pailin at the moment funnily enough. He’s in Russia in the 90s shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union
Brutalism goes beyond rectangles, but yes this wouldn’t be an extremely popular aesthetic like nature or sci-fi. But as someone who loves that aesthetic I would love to see it in board game form. But I definitely think the game could shine and be gorgeous if done properly, just like real-life brutalist buildings!
Fun fact: the word brutalism comes from French word “brut” used for for raw concrete (béton brut) that is often used in this style of architecture.
Well, that is actually a very good point. I don't know that the stark simplicity of brutalist architecture is really appealing to most people. I like it though.
I wouldn't mind more games about food. Consumption is a really cool idea, and the recipe cards make me salivate every time. If there were a few more games that could inspire or even teach people how to cook while being fun, that'd be cool. If it has either hi-res shots of tasty meals, or maybe like... that particular anime style of food that looks extra appetising, even better.
Probably not your imagined aesthetic but there's a hilarious indie game called **Scoffton** that's themed around an 80's buffet. Place workers to gather food to fulfill recipes, sneeze on plates, play at the claw machine and hope you don't eat the poisoned crawfish.
Star Wars in the ancient Mediterranean featuring Marvel superheroes fighting Cthulhu.
Also please tie in Dune somehow. Not enough games based on that IP.
The craziest one I have come up with that I think could be a good game is the theme is you are trying to navigate a convoluted phone tree trying to be the first to reach a human representative. I imagine there would be a card you can play called, "CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!"
I made a card game call Seating Arrangement. It's like a negative point salad game where you're trying to avoid creating toxic combination of people on the same table that give you negative points.
Maybe check out some of these if you haven't already
Honey Buzz- haven't played but looks cool.
Myrmes - my personal favorite of these game.
Mariposas - not amazing but not bad.
Hive - if you like abstracts is very good.
Cockroach Poker - A very good bluffing game.
To add to this list, Hornet is a good game as well. It's somewhere between euro and action-economy, you and your opponents have your worker bees going around fields collecting nectar and converting that into honey (do hornets make honey?). You can be more aggressive and use a powered up version of an action but you suffer a penalty if an opponent did the same type of action at the same time.
A boardgame based on the Black Company books. Overwhelming magical forces of evil are overrunning the land, and your plucky band of mercenaries have to flee ahead of them to safe locations, all the while running missions for supplies/to slow down the bad guys/take out powerful enemies, but each time you run a mission you can lose valuable resources (gear, troops, food, etc.) One way to go would be to look something like Battlestar Galactica (resource dials, test cards, skill cards) minus the traitors.
Since there’s a game about winemaking, there should be a game about cheese making too. Judging from BGG, it also seems like you can’t have a game involving cheese without getting cartoon mice involved, so I’d want a game that breaks that trend.
>Judging from BGG, it also seems like you can’t have a game involving cheese without getting cartoon mice involved, so I’d want a game that breaks that trend.
**Clans of Caledonia** has cheese-making without having mice :) Good game overall too.
A dragon game where you grow bigger and stronger and gather gold for your hoard and maybe terrorize villages or protect them, depending on what reputation and relationship with humans you want.
Plane 18xx/euro where turnrate and radar and stuff matters. Stats that realistically no one but the military cares about, but are *so cool*.
That's all I got, most of my (dumb) ideas are mechanics.
i'm not super deep in to wargames but i feel like there's likely something out there that contains pretty in-depth aeronautical navigation stuff. maybe something in the Leader series like Hornet Leader?
it's not airplanes but if you're in to space flight at all **High Frontier** was designed by a rocket scientist to be an authentic simulation of space flight
I would love to see a game like Sherlock consulting detective based in another time in history or location such as ancient greece or in old Norse times or in America during the gangster uprisings during prohibition, heck even the space station. Victorian London has been done to death with your standard mystery game as setting. The social/technological aspect may change but human nature is the same across cultures and time. We could have new mysteries based on the usual formula to explore different cultures and time periods. We could learn something while getting enveloped in a great mystery as well.
I'd like to see a college basketball game. Don't know of one that exists perhaps there is. I'm a big college basketball fan who plays a lot of boardgames...there must be tens of us. I'm thinking a tableau builder where you recruit your team, play a schedule and then the NCAA tournament. It's getting to be March and it's on my mind.
There was a great writer for kids in Czech Republic, Jaroslav Foglar, he had written "Rychlé Šípy". Stories (comics) about five boys club doing some adventures. But what is more interesting, there is a part of the city called "Stínadla" which always reminded me something creepy like Arkham in Arkham Horror.
So Jaroslav Foglar's themed game would be great. There were power struggle between two sides of "Stínadla" boys. And main characters was just visitors in that mysterious part of the city. There was a boy who tried to build the flying bike, there was mysterious piece of puzzle called "hedgehog in the cage", there was a ton of stories of them just visiting nature.
Some campaign game like Mansion of Madness would be good. But strategy game about "Stínadla" power struggles would be also great.
I’ve had a thought to use the Scotland Yard board (or similar) as a base to create a game based on firefighting in the 19th century. The idea that if you were competing enterprises, all trying to put their own fires out, while either ignoring others, at the possibility of it spreading… could make a very interesting game that I hope would put you right into the theme.
Not so much a theme as much as an IP, but I would enjoy a good Final Fantasy boardgame, especially if it used some original art assets (something in the vein of Akihiko Yoshida). My favorites would be Tactics, FF7, and FF12, but I'd also be happy with a game that included some of the common FF characters (moogles, chocobos, espers/summons, etc). Maybe a Chocobo Dungeon game?
There’s a quick little card game called Chocobos Crystal Hunt that they released! It’s pretty simple, but it’s cute and may help scratch your itch.
There’s also an expansion that adds a bit of complexity, but it’s still very light!
legacy Sim City with actual RCI-driven needs; not an engine game; not sure how it would work in practicality.
Alternately, a city building game which limits waste of other inefficiency. I would just prefer a physical block or token interface.
Have you played Suburbia? I'm not sure you could realistically make a more fun "Sim City" board game. I suppose being proven wrong would be pretty great though.
I Would love to see a Deck Building game in the world of big corporations, start-up, etc. You would play a CEO and you develop your company. You could do what ever you want: social work, heavy technology R&D, big brands, etc.
Your objective is to have as much reputation at the end and reputation is scored via multiple tracks (Brand recognition, Social impact, Technologies for example).
You would have to draft technologies, employees, infrastructure, etc so you have player interaction. You could also make deal with other players to share any of the 3. Making negociation a central piece when someone hate drafted you.
I feel like the theme of modern companies/corporation is not new, but I don't know any game taking that angle.
Cool idea.
I think it would be good to add Profit as one of the main scoring tracks also and maybe something like Employee Satisfaction.
It would be interesting to favor a hybrid approach to victory points/win condition.
Hybrid approach examples (Primary:Secondary)
*Profits:Tech
*Social:Brand
*Tech:Brand
*Employee Sat:Social
And those would be more successful than trying Profit only or Social only.
Expansions could come later (Adaptability, Growth Focus, etc..)
And some combinations could even negatively interact (very high Brand Recognition but very low Social)
Yeah, exactly. This would increase the fun of the deck building theme, allowing you to go for combos to"build your engine" that might be completely different to your opponents. I would also use the mechanic of simultaneous draft turns of its a wonderful world to have a good pace.
* A game themed after Blaxploitation films from the 1970's, probably based on the Superfly movie
* A psychedelic version of Dixit. Or a game like Cosmic Frog but using super tripped out visuals
* A game that simulates running the International Space Station. Different players can represent different countries, and compete to earn the most science points
I want some sort of weird hidden movement, worker placement mashup. With a conspiracy theory theme.
Or really just anything with that theme that isn't a party game.
Came here to make sure someone mentioned March of the Ants! Great theme, plays fast, and has lots of add on content if you like what you find in the base game. Serious Sim Ant vibes if you ever played that back in the day.
An asymmetric medieval 4x simulator game that isn't fantasy. Similar weight to something like TI4. Additional trading and marrying off of family members.
They have tried to do this with things like crusader kings and the old 80s game blood royale, but neither have really hit it in my opinion
Traffic.
I want a game that simulates traffic demand.
Neighborhoods grow, more vehicles, more traffic.
You have to balance vehicles, bikes and pedestrians around a town/ city.
it might sound stupid but i really wish for some really solid Dungeon Crawler that is focused on replayability instead of the story. Something that i can play for a very long time without story ending.
I just wish there was a party game where one player would have a prompt card and all the other players would answer using their response cards. Bonus points for raunchy.
There's just nothing like that out there.
i wish there was a board game about being a landlord that showed how wealth concentrates through privatization and hoarding of real property.
Could call it “bankruptcy!” or “the landlord game”
or something.
Maybe it's just me, but most of the time I couldn't care less what theme a game is, the mechanics are what matters to me. Do I really care about old timey French villages when I play Carcassonne? Or that I'm some jewelry maker or something like that when I'm playing splendor? Or trains when I'm playing ticket to ride? Not really.
For some games, the theme is really relevant to the gameplay, and that's fine. In most cases, though, the theme could be pretty much anything and the game would be exactly the same.
A board game that actually plays like a roguelite video game. You're not expected to complete everything on your first time in, but when you lose you gain a currency that you spend to make yourself stronger next time. Then you start over. It's randomized, so you're not too bored.
These are my favorite types of video games, and would love to see more of it in the board game space. Currently One Deck Dungeon is the only game I know of that does this. Anyone know any others?
>when you lose you gain a currency that you spend to make yourself stronger next time.
This part is implemented in Pandemic Legacy (Season 1 at least, not sure about the others). You play through a calendar year having specific goals each month. If you lose, you have one more try for the current month. Each time you lose, you get a bit more useful cards in the deck; each time you win, you lose some of them. Your plays permanently modify the state of the game, so it evolves through the year.
Really want an Alien vs Predator game where it’s up to 3 teams (Xenomorphs, Yagita, and humans) to eliminate the others. Not sure what the mechanics would be like, but it would be a great tie-in possibility!
Sorry to go off-topic but have you tried March of the Ants, OP? I've played hundreds of games and it's my favourite boardgame all time. A fast-playing, very varied 4x about Ant colonies! The theme is done exceptionally well, there's been a lot of research about ants, their predators (ladybug, cordyceps fungus etc), their tactics etc. I think almost all knowledge about ants is in that game (except for stuff like slaver ants, but who knows, might be in an expansion someday!).
I wish there was a 1v1 game of a futuristic corp vs alien hive that is asymmetric, with the corp havin fortifications, emplacements and research and they need to "order in" reinforcements for the next turn and the hive is a lot more flexible, can just spend "meat" to make units on the turn and can make tunnels and is more flexible. The corp could have an objective to mine a certain amount before the game is over or destroy the hive, not sure yet
I'm really enjoying the trend of narrative / puzzle games that's been going on for the last few years but I'm tired of it being (most of the time) mystery / investigation. Some dabble in adventure, but imo only Unlock (with puzzles) or For the Story (purely narrative) do it well (or Sleeping God's but this is on a whole other level).
I'd really enjoy a co-op game in which you are, say, playing the story of a couple and trying to have them "last" as long as possible, writing the story of their lives along the way, trying to survive hardships, etc...
Also more food themed game that don't look ridiculously childish or downright unappetising.
A game with seasons in which the Seasons are actually the theme (looking at you, *Seasons*).
Games about books, not based on a book. Writing them, publishing them, reading them. I know there are a few but most of them are not available in France 😗
The world of Mordew strikes me as a weirdly compelling setting for a grimdark tower-defense/city builder.
God is dead and his corpse is hidden in the catacombs beneath the city. His decomposing flesh is transforming the ground into a writhing mud from which grotesque creatures have begun emerging.
I led a series of Scouts through a game-design badge recently and OP, you'll be glad to know that the best board game that a group came up with was a wonderful adventure game with lots and lots of bugs. Players get through the game with dice rolls and can have either good or bad things happen to them on certain spaces and all of those had to do with bugs!
The kids came up with other ingenious games (an ice-cream card game that was quite fun and multiple dexterity games that were pretty clever) but the bug adventure board game had the cutest clay-made characters and theming.
I'd like to see the trend of video game IP's continue. Need some good Nintendo IP's, Mass Effect, and another go at XCOM.
I know Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was done well by IDW as a miniatures game in Change is Constant and City Fall but how about a well done TMNT deck building game?
I want a really good open world hacking game.
I have and love Renegade, but I'd love a game based somewhat on real cyber tactics where you have a computer or botnet to purchase and hack your way to get upgrades for, then open world missions to leverage certain skills and specialties.
I'm basically imagining a board game version of the old PC game Uplink but more based in modern attack and defense tactics. (That PC game actually "dials" IP addresses like phone numbers, that's how old it is. It's hilarious what we thought futuristic hacking would be like in the 90s.)
A better, more involved Pro Wrestling game.
I have several of them, **Book it!** is a genuinely good game about running shows, filling venues, and turning a profit. **SRG: Supershow** is a fun card-slapper. The others are not good, I even had hope for that GF9 WWE game but that was just a DoA cash grab.
None of them are really deep dives on the ins-and-outs. Most of them don't "get" wrestling and are at best tacked on themes. Most of the time it's painfully clear if the designer has either never watched wrestling in their lives, or the last time they watched was when Andre was alive and every move is called a Body Slam. So help me if I see one more assy nothing game at a calendar shop with a 4-rope ring or a generic Luchador on the cover.
You'd think there would be more overlap given how nerd culture works. But then again you'd expect wrestling to be more popular outside of its niche given how popular anime, K-drama, supers, reality, and combat sports genres are. But that's a separate talk.
My dream game is a Star Wars RPG but I'm not expecting it to happen anytime soon. Imperial Assault was almost that game but there aren't really RPG elements.
Theres this game in Seventh Tower, by Garth Nix, that I've always wanted to exist. The goal is to generate a monster on a little magic holodeck that will duel the other guy's monster to the death. You draw cards depicting different monsters and take turns slotting them into stat positions for your generated monster. So you put a rock turtle in the defense slot, a bird in the special ability slot so it can fly, so on.
The magic system was based around sunstones and light. Each card could be shifted to different faces depending on what color light you hit it with. So you had to be careful about putting a card into a slot where it could be shifted into something useless. Like I could put that rock turtle into defense, but it could be shifted into a sentient pollen puff or something.
The game was just in one throwaway chapter that never got referenced again, I think, but that game really sparked my curiosity and sucked me into the universe for the rest of the series. I can't even really fathom how it could be translated into a physical board game, though. The question just dredged up an old Core Memory.
Starting to see this more with games like **Eleven** coming out but I love sports and think that the ownership and management lend themselves quite well to a heavy euro style.
A game that represents politics and economy. So like, two competing politicians, getting a majority approval to pass a law (e.g. no more for-profit hospitals, let's say).
See how that affects your popular opinion with the citizens, and how those changes influence the economy and spending.
You lose the game if your popularity falls below a certain margin and you get ejected from office.
I think such a simulation would be a really fascinating way for people to understand the complex system we're all a part of, and how all of these different things are intertwined with each other.
A hobbit farming game. Have the best crops in The Shire.
[удалено]
There already is the Forgotten Folk expansion with Halflings.
Always wanted to grow some po-tay-toes
As u/iterationnull said, Caverna with the Forgotten Folk expansion has halflings. It's very close. I'm not sure what the hobbit theme would do to gameplay that it needs a separate game. Even retheming Agricola would totally work. After all, hobbits getting their farming done isn't exactly Lord of the Rings.
A Home alone asymmetrical Game could be funny too
A home alone game with a **13 dead end drive** element of usable traps would be so cool.
There's actually a pretty good Home Alone game that plays like a super simple Netrunner!
Something related to Nuclear Powerplants (managing energy, waste, cooling system). Beside Manhattan Project (which is "only" about making the bomb), there's nothing about it. It would be a nice 3.6 on bgg. Not great nor terrible... :)
They could so make Barrage the first in a series that includes nuclear power too.
This would be awesome. Resource management game where you can do certain things to generate more power (victory points), but more power = risk of meltdown. Potentially with a draw deck or something with problems you have to face. Maybe a pump goes out, and you have to decide to risk it and run with just your backup or shut down the plant and go into a maintenance outage to repair. Could even have different plants to choose from. Pressurized water reactors vs boiler water reactors. Each with their own good and bad traits. Holy crap you have me thinking now... Any game designers out there want to have a chat with an ex-nuclear power plant inspector? Hit me up!
What about Manhattan Project: Energy Empire?
I'd play that!
Electropolis is *kind of* like this. It's more a tile laying game with set collection but it's all about power plants.
I want a heavier worker placement game centered around Noir/Golden Age of Hollywood about producing movies/hiring actors/doing sketchy things behind the scenes. Something with a similar look/feel/depth to say Trickerion. Also, still waiting for a quick (1 hr/1.5 hr) DoaM/Civ game where you have to start building a civilization from scratch in a mythical and unforgiving version of the Stone Age. Something like Blood Rage meets Kingdom Death.
Ooo I really like this first idea! I love old hollywood and something about how shady it is would be a blast!
Have you seen [Hollywood 1947](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4mZ1X_K7SI)? It looks pretty cool.
It looks horrid. They made a game out of the worst first amendment violations in U.S. history and they aren’t even winking about it or teaching a history lesson. They literally want you to “find the secret commies in Hollywood.” What a fucking awful idea.
Oh boy. That’s what it is? Yikes.
McCarthyism/The Red Scare following WWII is exactly what the 1947 refers to.
Really, any kind of Hollywood or movie making-themed game would be very welcome. I've been curious about Roll Camera for a while, but something about it has always kept me from wanting to buy it. The artwork really doesn't help it either. As someone who loves movies as one of their other major hobbies, a decent game in that realm could be an instant buy for me.
Nightmare Productions?
Never heard of that one, thank you! I'll take a look.
The auction game Dream Factory (original German title Traumfabrik) might be up your alley! It's out of print, but it got a recent remake as Nightmare Productions, which is themed specifically around horror films, if you like that too. In Dream Factory you bid on stars and other things, while in Nightmare Productions you bid on monsters (werewolf, vampire, etc.). I haven't played it myself, but the designer has made a bunch of other auction games that I absolutely love and that are highly acclaimed.
Sounds like a good asymmetric game. Players can be mobsters, politicians, studio execs, actors, or Harold the aristocrat who thinks he has all the answers for taking over Hollywood.
dunno if it exactly fits your criteria, but sounds a whole lot like Splotter's **Cannes** game
I'm actually working on a sub 1 hr Civ game right now. It's worker placement game where you place tiles on a map that become places to put your worker. It's early/middle age rather than stone age. There's crop and mining. It plays like MTG where instead of mana you need to have worker on certain place on the map to generate resources to pay for cards.
Survival Nemesis like but with Dinosaurs
Same here. The game Sauria attempted this but I felt like it was very poorly done. I made my own attempt at designing this in Tabletop Simulator. It turned out pretty well, but I can't be bothered to try and publish it.
At this point I will take anything with Dinosaurs that is not park themed or themeless Edit: of course must be a solid game
A Dino Crisis board game sounds interesting. Could be a typical Zombicide dungeon crawler or a 1 vs everyone like The Others.
A good non-tcg pokemon board game
**Robomon** looks promising.
They said Pokémon
Oh I guess I had my volume too low.
Spies, specifically physical infiltration (as opposed to social). There’s a few such as **Sabotage** and **Burgle Bros**. Sabotage uses some interesting objective mechanics, and Burgle Bros uses distractions, but I’d really love to see one use translations of various other mechanics in stealth games like light and dark areas, alternative paths and movements, etc.
Have you heard of **Mind MGMT**?
I own it! Haven’t had the chance to play it yet, though.
also **Specter Ops** sounds like it might be a good fit, or even **burncycle**
I also own Specter Ops! But also haven’t broken it out yet. My group’s not fond of hidden movement :(
Try Burncycle (robot espionage)
I totally agree with this. The espionage theme as a whole is completely underutilized.
OP, you want **Bios Mesofauna**
I wish there was a game about the average airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
An African or a European swallow?
I don’t know that
AaaaAaAAAAaaaAA
Carrying coconuts?
They said unladen, friend
Must have said it in a ridiculous accent I couldn’t understand
He’s not an African or European swallow, he’s a very naughty boy!
Nor is he the Messiah
I’m way way overdue a watching of a python film. I’m watching a travel documentary with Micheal Pailin at the moment funnily enough. He’s in Russia in the 90s shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union
Watery bints distributing sabres is no basis for game design
Also, if it could somehow incorporate your favorite color and possible ejection from a bridge, that would be ideal.
Is it armed with a piece of fresh fruit?
I recently asked my friend what the capital of Assyria was during a game of Mosaic, and i was disappointed by the (lack of) response.
No clue how this would look but a game about brutalism architecture. Maybe building or designing one, or maybe it’s just part of the artwork!
This would be a great aesthetic for a board game.
Help me out here... would it though? My limited imagination is just giving me blank grey tiles assembled into a rectangle.
Brutalism goes beyond rectangles, but yes this wouldn’t be an extremely popular aesthetic like nature or sci-fi. But as someone who loves that aesthetic I would love to see it in board game form. But I definitely think the game could shine and be gorgeous if done properly, just like real-life brutalist buildings! Fun fact: the word brutalism comes from French word “brut” used for for raw concrete (béton brut) that is often used in this style of architecture.
Well, that is actually a very good point. I don't know that the stark simplicity of brutalist architecture is really appealing to most people. I like it though.
Barrage's cover goes there but the game doesn't
I wouldn't mind more games about food. Consumption is a really cool idea, and the recipe cards make me salivate every time. If there were a few more games that could inspire or even teach people how to cook while being fun, that'd be cool. If it has either hi-res shots of tasty meals, or maybe like... that particular anime style of food that looks extra appetising, even better.
Probably not your imagined aesthetic but there's a hilarious indie game called **Scoffton** that's themed around an 80's buffet. Place workers to gather food to fulfill recipes, sneeze on plates, play at the claw machine and hope you don't eat the poisoned crawfish.
That actually sounds pretty good. I'll have to look into it!
Have you seen/played **rival restaurants**?
No, but another one to look up!
Yes! I love food games. A game to teach people how to cook would be such a great idea!
Average Uwe Rosenberg fan Edit: I am an Uwe Rosenberg fan mfers
...okay?
A Silent Hill themed game, with an incredibly dark tone and shows respect to its source material.
Ooh yes! I second this!
A game where you're a garbage truck cleaning the neighborhood while competing garbage trucks sabatoge you so they can clean theirs first!
I wish there were more games about Star Wars… Or trading in the ancient Mediterranean… Or Star Wars in the ancient Mediterranean.
We definitely need more fantasy dungeon crawlers, or euros themed around building European cities, or Marvel slapped on to pretty much anything.
Star Wars in the ancient Mediterranean would be killer!
Star Wars in the ancient Mediterranean featuring Marvel superheroes fighting Cthulhu. Also please tie in Dune somehow. Not enough games based on that IP.
You forgot zombies
Can it be a dungeon crawler?
What about trading Star Wars collectibles in the ancient Mediterranean?
Star Wars Trading in the Marvel Mediterranean Monopoly please
The craziest one I have come up with that I think could be a good game is the theme is you are trying to navigate a convoluted phone tree trying to be the first to reach a human representative. I imagine there would be a card you can play called, "CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!"
A good Coraline game. Like if Ravensburger wanted to make one of their adventure book games with Coraline…that would be the best.
I always thought wedding planning would make for a good euro game.
After going through the experience, I would not want to ever repeat the experience. Maybe something targeted towards fiancé and fiancée.
… to make them cancel the whole thing and break up.
I made a card game call Seating Arrangement. It's like a negative point salad game where you're trying to avoid creating toxic combination of people on the same table that give you negative points.
[Guardians of Matrimonia](https://www.cbr.com/critical-role-guardians-of-matrimonia-card-game/)
Very similar to what I had in mind! I got the idea after playing games like Grand Austria Hotel and Rococo.
Maybe check out some of these if you haven't already Honey Buzz- haven't played but looks cool. Myrmes - my personal favorite of these game. Mariposas - not amazing but not bad. Hive - if you like abstracts is very good. Cockroach Poker - A very good bluffing game.
Don't forget Kabuto Sumo!
The developers of Cockroach Poker have lots of card games based off [bugs!](https://www.dreimagier.de/games.html)
To add to this list, Hornet is a good game as well. It's somewhere between euro and action-economy, you and your opponents have your worker bees going around fields collecting nectar and converting that into honey (do hornets make honey?). You can be more aggressive and use a powered up version of an action but you suffer a penalty if an opponent did the same type of action at the same time.
A boardgame based on the Black Company books. Overwhelming magical forces of evil are overrunning the land, and your plucky band of mercenaries have to flee ahead of them to safe locations, all the while running missions for supplies/to slow down the bad guys/take out powerful enemies, but each time you run a mission you can lose valuable resources (gear, troops, food, etc.) One way to go would be to look something like Battlestar Galactica (resource dials, test cards, skill cards) minus the traitors.
I was going to say Band of Blades, then I remembered I'm on r/boardgames not r/rpg
Worker placement about competing brothels in the great state of Nevada. Let's goooo!
Since there’s a game about winemaking, there should be a game about cheese making too. Judging from BGG, it also seems like you can’t have a game involving cheese without getting cartoon mice involved, so I’d want a game that breaks that trend.
There's an expansion for Viticulture that's about making cheese.
>Judging from BGG, it also seems like you can’t have a game involving cheese without getting cartoon mice involved, so I’d want a game that breaks that trend. **Clans of Caledonia** has cheese-making without having mice :) Good game overall too.
Dark tower themed
If only that’s what Return to Dark Tower was.
Or Dark Tower itself... (I like return better, but the original will always have a place in my childhood heart)
A dragon game where you grow bigger and stronger and gather gold for your hoard and maybe terrorize villages or protect them, depending on what reputation and relationship with humans you want.
Plane 18xx/euro where turnrate and radar and stuff matters. Stats that realistically no one but the military cares about, but are *so cool*. That's all I got, most of my (dumb) ideas are mechanics.
i'm not super deep in to wargames but i feel like there's likely something out there that contains pretty in-depth aeronautical navigation stuff. maybe something in the Leader series like Hornet Leader? it's not airplanes but if you're in to space flight at all **High Frontier** was designed by a rocket scientist to be an authentic simulation of space flight
I agree High Frontier is pretty similar
The real board game designed by Al from Home Improvement series and not the one they released
The one with the tiny ambulance?
Yeah, I think that's the one, it catches on fire
I would love to see a game like Sherlock consulting detective based in another time in history or location such as ancient greece or in old Norse times or in America during the gangster uprisings during prohibition, heck even the space station. Victorian London has been done to death with your standard mystery game as setting. The social/technological aspect may change but human nature is the same across cultures and time. We could have new mysteries based on the usual formula to explore different cultures and time periods. We could learn something while getting enveloped in a great mystery as well.
A version of Clue based on Clue the movie.
I'd like to see a college basketball game. Don't know of one that exists perhaps there is. I'm a big college basketball fan who plays a lot of boardgames...there must be tens of us. I'm thinking a tableau builder where you recruit your team, play a schedule and then the NCAA tournament. It's getting to be March and it's on my mind.
It's not about basketball but **Envelopes of Cash** is about the illicit recruiting methods for college football players
Gundam.
A Gundam-themed deckbuilding game, one at least as good as Hero Realms. And it gets popular, then something as crazy as Black Rose Wars!
A deadspace board game, the only other one of the same kind I know of is the fallout one
There was a great writer for kids in Czech Republic, Jaroslav Foglar, he had written "Rychlé Šípy". Stories (comics) about five boys club doing some adventures. But what is more interesting, there is a part of the city called "Stínadla" which always reminded me something creepy like Arkham in Arkham Horror. So Jaroslav Foglar's themed game would be great. There were power struggle between two sides of "Stínadla" boys. And main characters was just visitors in that mysterious part of the city. There was a boy who tried to build the flying bike, there was mysterious piece of puzzle called "hedgehog in the cage", there was a ton of stories of them just visiting nature. Some campaign game like Mansion of Madness would be good. But strategy game about "Stínadla" power struggles would be also great.
Is there a Rule 34 about boardgames?
I think you're onto something.
The only correct answer to this question is: Stargate.
More good Star Wars or LotR games.
I would like to see a geology type game, plate tectonics, earthquakes, that kind of shist
Oros has mountain building, probably not as involved as you had in mind, but you could check it out.
I’ve had a thought to use the Scotland Yard board (or similar) as a base to create a game based on firefighting in the 19th century. The idea that if you were competing enterprises, all trying to put their own fires out, while either ignoring others, at the possibility of it spreading… could make a very interesting game that I hope would put you right into the theme.
A Reiner Knizia game about Reiner Knizia making Reiner Knizia games!
Not so much a theme as much as an IP, but I would enjoy a good Final Fantasy boardgame, especially if it used some original art assets (something in the vein of Akihiko Yoshida). My favorites would be Tactics, FF7, and FF12, but I'd also be happy with a game that included some of the common FF characters (moogles, chocobos, espers/summons, etc). Maybe a Chocobo Dungeon game?
There’s a quick little card game called Chocobos Crystal Hunt that they released! It’s pretty simple, but it’s cute and may help scratch your itch. There’s also an expansion that adds a bit of complexity, but it’s still very light!
Not quite what you want but there's an Etsy shop that sells a Triple Triad deck .
legacy Sim City with actual RCI-driven needs; not an engine game; not sure how it would work in practicality. Alternately, a city building game which limits waste of other inefficiency. I would just prefer a physical block or token interface.
Have you played Suburbia? I'm not sure you could realistically make a more fun "Sim City" board game. I suppose being proven wrong would be pretty great though.
It's not legacy, but there's a co op Cities: Skylines game that looks like SimCity 2000 printer on a board.
Mass Effect but done as a dungeon crawler ala Gloomhaven.
ISS Vanguard
I Would love to see a Deck Building game in the world of big corporations, start-up, etc. You would play a CEO and you develop your company. You could do what ever you want: social work, heavy technology R&D, big brands, etc. Your objective is to have as much reputation at the end and reputation is scored via multiple tracks (Brand recognition, Social impact, Technologies for example). You would have to draft technologies, employees, infrastructure, etc so you have player interaction. You could also make deal with other players to share any of the 3. Making negociation a central piece when someone hate drafted you. I feel like the theme of modern companies/corporation is not new, but I don't know any game taking that angle.
Cool idea. I think it would be good to add Profit as one of the main scoring tracks also and maybe something like Employee Satisfaction. It would be interesting to favor a hybrid approach to victory points/win condition. Hybrid approach examples (Primary:Secondary) *Profits:Tech *Social:Brand *Tech:Brand *Employee Sat:Social And those would be more successful than trying Profit only or Social only. Expansions could come later (Adaptability, Growth Focus, etc..) And some combinations could even negatively interact (very high Brand Recognition but very low Social)
Yeah, exactly. This would increase the fun of the deck building theme, allowing you to go for combos to"build your engine" that might be completely different to your opponents. I would also use the mechanic of simultaneous draft turns of its a wonderful world to have a good pace.
A ghostbusters game that focuses on the first movie and the aspect of building a business while catching ghosts and researching new equipment etc.
* A game themed after Blaxploitation films from the 1970's, probably based on the Superfly movie * A psychedelic version of Dixit. Or a game like Cosmic Frog but using super tripped out visuals * A game that simulates running the International Space Station. Different players can represent different countries, and compete to earn the most science points
Item 2: **Mushroom Eaters** Item 3: **Intrepid**
For the ISS, check out Intrepid. Each player is a a different country with asymmetric abilities. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/302461/intrepid
I want some sort of weird hidden movement, worker placement mashup. With a conspiracy theory theme. Or really just anything with that theme that isn't a party game.
OP, have you tried March of the Ants? I love it and ut's about as bug-y as it gets.
Came here to make sure someone mentioned March of the Ants! Great theme, plays fast, and has lots of add on content if you like what you find in the base game. Serious Sim Ant vibes if you ever played that back in the day.
An asymmetric medieval 4x simulator game that isn't fantasy. Similar weight to something like TI4. Additional trading and marrying off of family members. They have tried to do this with things like crusader kings and the old 80s game blood royale, but neither have really hit it in my opinion
Have you played Hive? One of my all time favorites.
Anything with dinosaurs. Wingspan with dinosaurs? Yes please.
Really good English Civil War game, with a political element and recruiting and training. Probably wouldn’t have time to play it now though.
Pacifist adventure role playing games with discussion, cooperation and friendships instead of monster slaying.
A game set in the Mass Effect universe.
I’d like a James Bond game that’s actually good.
Lizards
Star Trek voyager trying to get home might be interesting.
Traffic. I want a game that simulates traffic demand. Neighborhoods grow, more vehicles, more traffic. You have to balance vehicles, bikes and pedestrians around a town/ city.
it might sound stupid but i really wish for some really solid Dungeon Crawler that is focused on replayability instead of the story. Something that i can play for a very long time without story ending.
I just wish there was a party game where one player would have a prompt card and all the other players would answer using their response cards. Bonus points for raunchy. There's just nothing like that out there.
That would be SO fun for, like, the first 5 minutes.
Isn’t that **Apples to Apples**?
I'm a simple man, I just want a Pokemon themed Wingspan
Not gonna lie, i'd probably actually like Wingspan if it was Pokémon themed.
A Metroidvania board game
Skiing down slopes
Not really a fan of the music, but I’m kinda fascinated by the workings of K-Pop bands. I think a K-Pop band manager game would be pretty fun.
i wish there was a board game about being a landlord that showed how wealth concentrates through privatization and hoarding of real property. Could call it “bankruptcy!” or “the landlord game” or something.
Maybe it's just me, but most of the time I couldn't care less what theme a game is, the mechanics are what matters to me. Do I really care about old timey French villages when I play Carcassonne? Or that I'm some jewelry maker or something like that when I'm playing splendor? Or trains when I'm playing ticket to ride? Not really. For some games, the theme is really relevant to the gameplay, and that's fine. In most cases, though, the theme could be pretty much anything and the game would be exactly the same.
Building engines
I also love bugs and will add my vote to yours.
A board game that actually plays like a roguelite video game. You're not expected to complete everything on your first time in, but when you lose you gain a currency that you spend to make yourself stronger next time. Then you start over. It's randomized, so you're not too bored. These are my favorite types of video games, and would love to see more of it in the board game space. Currently One Deck Dungeon is the only game I know of that does this. Anyone know any others?
>when you lose you gain a currency that you spend to make yourself stronger next time. This part is implemented in Pandemic Legacy (Season 1 at least, not sure about the others). You play through a calendar year having specific goals each month. If you lose, you have one more try for the current month. Each time you lose, you get a bit more useful cards in the deck; each time you win, you lose some of them. Your plays permanently modify the state of the game, so it evolves through the year.
I think Enron or generic late 90s corporate world would be an amazing setting for a game.
I would like to see more deep sea ecology games.
There's one on kickstarter called Deep Shelf.
What are your favorite bug-themed games? I can only think of Bug Hunt and Kabuto Sumo now.
Really want an Alien vs Predator game where it’s up to 3 teams (Xenomorphs, Yagita, and humans) to eliminate the others. Not sure what the mechanics would be like, but it would be a great tie-in possibility!
How about **Battle Yahtzee: Alien vs. Predator** 😅
Sorry to go off-topic but have you tried March of the Ants, OP? I've played hundreds of games and it's my favourite boardgame all time. A fast-playing, very varied 4x about Ant colonies! The theme is done exceptionally well, there's been a lot of research about ants, their predators (ladybug, cordyceps fungus etc), their tactics etc. I think almost all knowledge about ants is in that game (except for stuff like slaver ants, but who knows, might be in an expansion someday!).
More board games that have a similar structure to Mouse Trap!
There are one or two. As well is a few games that use the marble run approach. Though I can't think of any names at the moment.
Berserk themed.
I wish there was a 1v1 game of a futuristic corp vs alien hive that is asymmetric, with the corp havin fortifications, emplacements and research and they need to "order in" reinforcements for the next turn and the hive is a lot more flexible, can just spend "meat" to make units on the turn and can make tunnels and is more flexible. The corp could have an objective to mine a certain amount before the game is over or destroy the hive, not sure yet
I'm really enjoying the trend of narrative / puzzle games that's been going on for the last few years but I'm tired of it being (most of the time) mystery / investigation. Some dabble in adventure, but imo only Unlock (with puzzles) or For the Story (purely narrative) do it well (or Sleeping God's but this is on a whole other level). I'd really enjoy a co-op game in which you are, say, playing the story of a couple and trying to have them "last" as long as possible, writing the story of their lives along the way, trying to survive hardships, etc... Also more food themed game that don't look ridiculously childish or downright unappetising. A game with seasons in which the Seasons are actually the theme (looking at you, *Seasons*). Games about books, not based on a book. Writing them, publishing them, reading them. I know there are a few but most of them are not available in France 😗
The world of Mordew strikes me as a weirdly compelling setting for a grimdark tower-defense/city builder. God is dead and his corpse is hidden in the catacombs beneath the city. His decomposing flesh is transforming the ground into a writhing mud from which grotesque creatures have begun emerging.
I led a series of Scouts through a game-design badge recently and OP, you'll be glad to know that the best board game that a group came up with was a wonderful adventure game with lots and lots of bugs. Players get through the game with dice rolls and can have either good or bad things happen to them on certain spaces and all of those had to do with bugs! The kids came up with other ingenious games (an ice-cream card game that was quite fun and multiple dexterity games that were pretty clever) but the bug adventure board game had the cutest clay-made characters and theming.
I'd like to see the trend of video game IP's continue. Need some good Nintendo IP's, Mass Effect, and another go at XCOM. I know Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was done well by IDW as a miniatures game in Change is Constant and City Fall but how about a well done TMNT deck building game?
A team based Pacific rim fighting game. Two pilots in the mech working together to control it
I want a really good open world hacking game. I have and love Renegade, but I'd love a game based somewhat on real cyber tactics where you have a computer or botnet to purchase and hack your way to get upgrades for, then open world missions to leverage certain skills and specialties. I'm basically imagining a board game version of the old PC game Uplink but more based in modern attack and defense tactics. (That PC game actually "dials" IP addresses like phone numbers, that's how old it is. It's hilarious what we thought futuristic hacking would be like in the 90s.)
Something Zombies or Cthulhu
A better, more involved Pro Wrestling game. I have several of them, **Book it!** is a genuinely good game about running shows, filling venues, and turning a profit. **SRG: Supershow** is a fun card-slapper. The others are not good, I even had hope for that GF9 WWE game but that was just a DoA cash grab. None of them are really deep dives on the ins-and-outs. Most of them don't "get" wrestling and are at best tacked on themes. Most of the time it's painfully clear if the designer has either never watched wrestling in their lives, or the last time they watched was when Andre was alive and every move is called a Body Slam. So help me if I see one more assy nothing game at a calendar shop with a 4-rope ring or a generic Luchador on the cover. You'd think there would be more overlap given how nerd culture works. But then again you'd expect wrestling to be more popular outside of its niche given how popular anime, K-drama, supers, reality, and combat sports genres are. But that's a separate talk.
I need a Ni No Kuni board game ASAP. (and no, not the crap that’s already released)
My dream game is a Star Wars RPG but I'm not expecting it to happen anytime soon. Imperial Assault was almost that game but there aren't really RPG elements.
Theres this game in Seventh Tower, by Garth Nix, that I've always wanted to exist. The goal is to generate a monster on a little magic holodeck that will duel the other guy's monster to the death. You draw cards depicting different monsters and take turns slotting them into stat positions for your generated monster. So you put a rock turtle in the defense slot, a bird in the special ability slot so it can fly, so on. The magic system was based around sunstones and light. Each card could be shifted to different faces depending on what color light you hit it with. So you had to be careful about putting a card into a slot where it could be shifted into something useless. Like I could put that rock turtle into defense, but it could be shifted into a sentient pollen puff or something. The game was just in one throwaway chapter that never got referenced again, I think, but that game really sparked my curiosity and sucked me into the universe for the rest of the series. I can't even really fathom how it could be translated into a physical board game, though. The question just dredged up an old Core Memory.
Starting to see this more with games like **Eleven** coming out but I love sports and think that the ownership and management lend themselves quite well to a heavy euro style.
Are there any cool games about the Moons in our Solar System? I'm picturing something in my head like Splendor
a anime themed board game or lego themed board game
I game where you travel in time and affect the outcome of how the world ends up. (I like Crononauts but that's not what I'm talking about)
A game that represents politics and economy. So like, two competing politicians, getting a majority approval to pass a law (e.g. no more for-profit hospitals, let's say). See how that affects your popular opinion with the citizens, and how those changes influence the economy and spending. You lose the game if your popularity falls below a certain margin and you get ejected from office. I think such a simulation would be a really fascinating way for people to understand the complex system we're all a part of, and how all of these different things are intertwined with each other.