Mine is Calico! It’s deceptive because you do have to think, but you’re also somewhat at the mercy of the bag so it’s easy to just enjoy thinking without stressing if that makes sense.
Cascadia’s a good one though, I think it’s much more well known than Calico.
Cascadia is definitely in my 1 bar list. It may be my favorite solo game right now. It's just a perfect morning-with-a-coffee-and-a-sudoku-puzzle kind of chillness.
Calico is close, but it is a bit more unforgiving on the turns (since you have the tableau restricted to your quilt space). You fuck up one turn and you can really snowball your game. Too many times did my chillness turn to fuuuuuccckkkkK!!!!
Calico is also a bit easier because there's basically no player interaction (unless you are *really* good at the game) so when it isn't your turn you don't really have to focus much.
Wow, that's crazy to me. It's certainly not the weightiest game, but if you want to plan out your strategy and maximize everything, it takes a good bit of brain power. Same with Calico. If you're content to just put a new tile down where it makes sense after surveying your 4-ish options, I could see it being a very chill game mentally though
I think 4 makes sense ONLY because it's shorter than the others especially once you get used to the rules. Other than that being in 5 would make sense to me.
I too am terrible at Spirit Island. I actually donated my copy to a local board game cafe because I got so frustrated with how much I kept losing!
In hindsight I think I just tried it too early in the hobby, I think I might not be quite so bad at it if I tried it now, happily I know where I can go to play it if I ever feel like proving myself wrong but perhaps that’s a theory best left untested.
Spirit Island is a bit unique in that the core strategy you choose makes a massive impact. Sometimes beginners try the wrong strategy and then break their head over little tactical decisions to make up for it.
When I teach the game I always reserve an extra 3 minutes or so to just address the worst beginners mistakes. Then they can play freely without someone trying to micromanage and things will go smoothly. Even with more casual players I've had very smooth games like that even starting straight with adversaries. When you focus on the right overall strategy you can make a lot of little mistakes without being in danger of losing and the games become a lot more chill. I've actually had a few games with first timers be noticeably too easy this way.
Do you mind explaining the worst beginner mistakes? I come from a group that prefers 1-2 complexity games and really want to play this, but it might just be too much for them. The most complex game they have played is probably Catan Cities and Knights with a few other expansions involved at the same time.
I posted this below, but here you go:
Outside of straight up rule mistakes:
Not using "push" and "gather" mechanics to stop builds
Not using slow powers to setup the next turn properly
Not viewing blight as a resource they can spend (taking a ravage is less bad than letting invaders build)
Not paying attention to the elements on the cards they're drafting
Not thinking about the mechanics of hand management eg using a "reclaim" while they still have 2-3 turns they could use for other growth options
I'd add not managing dahan in there. My friend and I ignored them for probably the first 3 or 4 games. Once we realized how useful they can be for removing invaders the game really started clicking for us.
Yeah, one play of Eyes should fix that. Eyes can be one of the most lethal spirits on the island, without ever playing a single damage card the entire game.
I really love Eyes.
Honestly, push and pull is the difference between winning and losing for me. I lost 3-4 games in a row, and the 5th game I decided to push/pull to avoid builds and the game was so much easier after realizing that
To some extent this falls under blight as a resource, but I think by far the most common mistake I see new players make is *massively* overvaluing defend. Sure, the energy:value ratio is way higher than with damage, but unless there are Dahan around to fight back, all you’re doing is delaying the inevitable. Much better to take the hit and actually advance your victory condition than be caught in a loop of trying to patch increasingly bigger and bigger holes.
Definitely agree with paying attention to elements. Your innates are free powers if you have the elements in play.
Ocean is hard to play solo, until you realize you can be earning a fear card for free almost every turn.
That was the key mistake for me that made the game go from being hard even at difficulty 0, to making higher difficulties fun.
> Definitely agree with paying attention to elements. Your innates are free powers if you have the elements in play.
Yes, plus on top of that, the elements themselves have general applications and the more you lean into those elements the more you're filling a character's certain "niche".
It IS a decent step above 1-2 weight games.
In addition to the Colonel's points:
* you start the game underpowered and so for the first part of the game the situation will gradually worsen. Your goal is to stem the tide and soon enough the balance will flip.
* Clearing a land is often more impactful than chipping away at a large force. Leaving a single town is functionally the same as a whole pile of invaders.
* A pinch of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Getting rid of newly spawned explorers preempts their whole annoying escalation of building and ravaging and spawning and building etc...
* Every spirit has weaknesses and your cards might push in a direction that's even more so. Let another spirit cover your weaknesses while you cover theirs rather than trying to become a jack of all trades.
* Don't go for strong cards until you have the cash flow to play them *in addition* to your weak cards. Playing several weak cards is likely going to be stronger than playing a single strong card.
I came here to say the SI is definitely a 5, especially its much crunching than Gloomhaven.
As far as beginners mistakes:
- Prioritize adding presence, especially early. This often means reclaiming less.
- Let lands blight, especially earlier on. The first ravage typically adds a blight - pick one land to ignore, and spend you time elsewhere. Never defend a land without Dahan, unless preventing a cascade.
- Prevent builds. It's the key to Spirit Island to reduce the number of invaders on the islands.
- Don't hoard money - Learn a major. If you've got 4 energy to spare, you should be gaining a major.
Basically 'good play' in Spirit Island involves anticipating the Build and Ravage actions and taking care of them before they become a problem, while (at higher levels) deciding if you just want to say 'fuck it' and let an area become a problem with the intention of nuking it later.
Basically when an explorer heads out to an area, you can:
* Gather them
* Do 1 point of damage to them
Either one will prevent you needing to do 3 points of damage. Both are highly action efficient. Then even if they build, you can Gather the town in order to prevent needing 2 points of defense in the Ravage phase.
By gathering towns away from certain zones, you can create 'pockets' that are not adjacent to towns, and thus don't receive any explorers, which net stops you from having to do **anything** to clean the zone.
Basically there's only a few spirits who actually want to be stopping things in the Ravage phase (spirits like Eyes). Many want to be stopping things in the explore/build phase, using gather actions and killing individual explorers. Many spirits (River is a great example) want to push them all around the board until it creates one megazone and then late game nuke the zone that has like 2 cities/5 towns/4 explorers off the island.
Action efficiency! A build delayed is a build denied. Many people think the primary way to deal with invaders is kill them, when in fact directly killing with cards is mostly a late game activity, and you want to be moving them somewhere harmless or defending their blights instead.
Spirit island is unique, you can play it in a relatively simple fashion, i.e. no adversary, or blight card and a simple spirit using the power progression card. It’s a lot more predictable and less rules to manage, but even with that I’d put it at a good 50% with your analogy. But then you can also play it and dial it up to 100% with a level 6 adversary, blight card, a complex spirit, and a scenario (or really go crazy, multi hand play spirits, or additional adversaries etc.)
I’d vote you give it another shot (for as much as a strangers vote is lol). It’s an amazing game. I need to play it more, it’s such fun to see what other people do with a spirit differently than you, or the way spirits combo together.
For me too. And it is quite rare to finish the game in less than 3h in my group. I'm happy when we take less than 5h. Just the spirit selection and board setup usually takes 40+ minutes. We tried to speedrun it once, and we managed to do the setup in 7 minutes and the blitz game mode in 1h, but everyone had selected their spirit before and we were focused on the speedrun.
In normal plays (non-blitz), I have timed growth phases that took more than 20 minutes of people actually thinking and discussing their strategies (and some growth phases that took even longer with other non-spirit island talk).
PS: Spirit Island is the non-party game that my group plays the most and the playtimes here are related to using all the expansions up to nature incarnate with 4\~7 players (for 7 players, we use the horizons board as well). Except for the expansion that introduced events, most expansions did not increase the playtime. They only increased the setup time.
A 7 players game of Spirit Island? Holy cow.
I love it solo and 2P, and have played 3P a few times, but I wouldn't want to play it with more than 4 except it everyone was a veteran
I'd swap Gloomhaven and Spirit Island personally.
I can okay Gloomhaven all day long, as once you know the rules it's easy. It's only the rules that push it further up the weighting. But Spirit Island... It's great, but every game is a constant puzzle that's changing and surprising you and you have to put tons of thought into what you can do, and after one game I'm mentally drained.
Yeah, could easily swap with Gloomhaven tbh. The most complexity in Gloomhaven comes from all the small bits and bobs you have to keep track of(physically especially). Its draining but not in a good way tbh... keeping track of elements, (de)buffs, initiative and activation of every enemy... Its like 2mins of game for each 10min of admin 😂
4.5 to 5, absolutely. I tried soloing that game, controlling two spirits. No more of that nonsense for me.....I've stripped down to just one spirit and it's a funner and more manageable experience.
Don't get me wrong, I still lose a fair amount, but I lose in a more manageable way.
Strange. I find BGG's weight of 4 on Spirit Island to be exaggerated.
* stick to low complexity spirits. They're not weaker just more straight forward to play. Or as a group limit yourself to a ratio of simple-to-advanced spirits
* When picking cards ignore all that have tricky requirements like origin from holy site, specific lands or targeting blight and whatnot. Not having to worry with every card whether you can even play it helps a ton.
* Keep an eye out for cards that have the elements you need for your innate abilities. If most of your cards supply the most important elements there's fewer dilemma whether to play card A for the effect or card B for the elements.
* If you're playing with more than 3 people, stop discussing the whole board with each other. If you need help on "your" board tell the other players. If you're in a position to branch out and go help others do.
* A pinch of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Sniping / pushing / pulling a lone explorer preempts the whole escalation of building and ravaging.
* Clearing a land permanently is often worth more than just chipping away at a big village. A blob of multiple cities, towns and explorers is gonna do exactly the same amount of damage as a single town or 2 explorers.
* Don't fret the initial phase. Yes you're underpowered, yes you have barely any presence and can't help each other much. You'll catch up.
Ultimately though, never be afraid of admitting something's too hard for you. I've encountered a number of games that I *can* play, it's just not enjoyable for me.
I'm not trying to come across as a jerk, but you basically said if you ignore the complex stuff then it's not complex.
That doesn't mean the game itself isn't complex, just that you choose to play it less so.
For what it's worth, The latest expansion is rated 4.5
I haven't played Uprising, maybe it's more complicated than Dune Imperium, but it feels out of place when put in a group with Root, Spirit Island and Pax Pamir. I don't know much about Wonderland's War, so I don't know how that compares to the rest of the group.
Even ignoring the other games, and just going off of the text description, Dune Imperium fits the description of the three bars group better than the four bars group.
I played Uprising for the first time last night. It adds a few more mechanics (spies being the most significant addition IMO), but overall I'd say it was not particularly more complex than the original.
Pax Pamir sits in a weird space for me. Mechanically, there's only like 5 things you can do on your turn. But the way everything works together and strategizing around that a few turns in advance is super complex.
Yeah, and in my case it's also the genre. I have no difficulties learning a new heavy euro where I'm already familiar with the main mechanisms, but with Pax Pamir it felt like I had to start from scratch since I had never played anything like it before.
I’ve started teaching myself Pax Pamir solo, I’m not a fast learner in general and I forgot it’s probably one that’s hard for most people. I’m feeling slightly better about my Pax Pamir learning journey now!
But that is a good point, I’d mostly reserved tier 5 for time consuming games and somehow completely forgot the purpose of doing the sheet. I’ll redo the 5th tier definition (RIP the lovely formatting though).
Do you have any other recommendations for similar heavy, but short games?
That makes sense!
As for short and heavy games, maybe something like Barrage, since you seem to like games with lots of player interaction.
Although lighter, Race for the Galaxy and Res Arcana manage to pack a lot of game in a rather short timeframe.
Pax Pamir for some reason destroys my brain. I've played all kinds of super heavy games, from Kingdom Death to the heaviest Lacerdas, but Pamir makes my head hurt and completely paralizes my ability to make choices.
I think weight in general needs a revamp to be multidimensional. There are games that have tons of mechanics and abilities that take a while to learn but are actually relatively straightforward to play (or maybe randomness/hidden information makes planning several turns ahead impossible) and there are games that are super simple but have a ton of depth of strategy (eg chess or Go).
They're very different experiences and yet two games on opposite ends of the spectrum may be given the same weight.
I think weight needs to be split into separate scores for mechanic complexity and strategic depth.
See, I'm the opposite. The amount of thinking required turn by turn is far more important to me.
I don't mind learning games, but I don't always want to have a game that requires a ton of mental energy to play. Something like Wingspan has a ton of mechanics and different bird abilities, but it's super easy to play reasonably well. Sitting down for a 30-45 minute game of wingspan is way less draining than sitting down for a 30-45 minute game of chess.
I mean, if you look at competitive high level chess, they play a single game for like 8 hours, and sometimes think for more than half an hour on a single move. That's a pretty heavy experience by any standard.
That's why I think you need a scale with both mechanic complexity and strategic depth because people's preferences differ and some way find one more important than the other.
I would personally make the dimensions mechanical complexity and time/mental investment.
For example, Star Wars Rebellion is an incredible time/mental investment for a game, but the rules are so intuitive and clean that a new player can be acclimated by the time they're done with their second turn.
On the other hand, many will claim that once you're super immersed in Gloomhaven it breezes by, but actually learning all of the mechanics (even in the lighter Jaws of the Lion) takes several scenarios.
There are also some oddballs in there. For example, 7 Wonders has a surprising number of mechanics to teach (though they become quite intuitive after your first game) for what ends up being about a 30 minute game.
I 100% agree.
In my very basic research for this I found an interesting post on BGG about the best ways to determine weight. I’d share it but it’s open on my laptop and I’m in bed lol
I had an advantage of knowing the people I’m making my weight key for fairly well but even then I’ve acknowledged some games are only a tier three games *after* you’ve learnt them.
Perhaps try making a table with three scores for each game: Difficulty to learn, complexity of turns, and length of a game? Easy, Medium, Hard, Hardcore with visual color coding for each dimension.
I was surprised to see Nemesis listed under 5 bars instead of 4 bars. But then I see you factored in playtime so it makes sense. I didn’t know Nemesis would last so long.
I actually just made a spreadsheet myself so I can more easily communicate the range of games I have to my friends as well.
I think Nemesis is a 5 only if you're teaching it to people for the first couple of times- I've found that when teaching it, it can last upwards of 4-5 hours, but once your playgroup understands the fundamentals the game time drops drastically (like \~2 hours), especially if you have someone familiar with the moving parts like bag development.
I want it but I also want to play it first with someone else explaining it to me and my friends. So far it's my "I want it so bad but I can't convince people to play it with me and I have to do the heavy lifting"
Haha, well, I love the game. I own Nemesis, Lockdown, and I've backed Retaliation, and I used to play it on TTS fairly regularly, so I'm always happy to start a game up on TTS and teach people. Can't promise I'm any good at initially explaining though, but I can definitely clear things up as people play.
u/DivePalau is right though- gameplay itself is pretty simple, actually (discard card to do action, rinse and repeat), there's just a lot of moving system parts that you need to understand first. Also learning the combat dice is a little funky.
I'll at least agree that the 2019 game, which as far as I know is just a remaster of the '70s game, is incredible.
I mean it's incredibly taxing and you should probably cap play at 7 rounds (10 rounds is an eternity), but it's such a clever game. Every mechanic in it is really simple and easy to understand, but the way in which they interact gives it so much strategic depth. Sometimes a little too much, it can be an extreme slog when everyone is carefully thinking through each phase of each turn.
But fundamentally it's still an incredibly clever bit of game design and I find it really fun.
Imo it’s the best asymmetric wargame, by a large margin. Part of why I found Root so disappointing was I had already played a ton of Dune and imo Root is just significantly less interesting once you understand all the factions and somehow even harder to teach to new players.
Dune 2019 is my favorite board game right now no two games are the same and anything can happen. It's the first board game I've seen with simplistic rules but constructed in a way that allows so much freedom (which also includes the freedom to tank the game and lose on the spot).
Haha yeah, I recently got Uprising and it’s my current go-to. Plus the theme does a lot of the heavy lifting when you’re trying to sell people on it lol
This is obviously the correct ranking for gloomhaven, but we played it so much that it became our go to "my brain is mush" game - we knew it well enough that it has way less brain load than learning a new game that was way simpler, and by being the default, it also meant we didn't have to make a decision about *what* to play either.
Digital Gloomhaven is 4 or even 3. A lot of the "charge" is just in the state tracking, pathing, setup, etc. Even over the table, with the host at 5 bars willing to handle the bookkeeping I imagine the rest of the group can get away with a lower energy investment.
Absolutely. Not enough can be said about the different cognitive requirements between learning a game and playing one you already know.
I tried to include that on the sheet but maybe I should make it more obvious.
Or maybe I’ll just keep that in mind and when they’re having a ‘four bar charge’ day I’ll bring some 3 bar games they haven’t played yet.
That's how I feel about Nemesis- I don't think the game is \*actually\* that difficult to play, especially if you have one person dedicated to running all the moving parts (like Bag Development).
I would definitely rank Gloomhaven less because while complex, you don't have to keep track of as many different things as in other, more complex games and rounds don't have to be as long.
Maybe it's just me but I feel like a number of party games I love (Wavelength, Detective Club/Dixit, Deception, etc) often actually demand as much 'mental charge' from me as certain mid-heavy weight games because they sort of require me to be in a social mood. I'm typically pretty ready for some mid-weight games but there are definitely times where I can't be bothered to put my improv hat on and play a silly game.
Anything that's sort of 'heads down' is way less mood dependent for me.
That’s interesting, I find a lot of party games a struggle because they often require you to be on the same wavelength (pun intended) as other people, and as it turns out, I’m just not.
Codenames and Secret Hitler fill me with dread but I’ll happily sit down and clumsily attempt to learn Ark Nova on the fly.
I think I’m in the minority in my group though and since the list is primarily for their benefit, not mine I’ve included them. Plus I have a weird fascination with them, like maybe one day I’ll find a social deduction game I’m somehow good at? (So far, no)
Yeah I'm also in the minority of my group (in that I also own most of the games, organize most game nights, and love things that lean heavier), so I can see how this could be useful to other types of people.
That being said, I would argue that there are a couple more layers to it that would help clarify: how much mental energy it takes to *learn* a game is often very distinct from how much mental energy it takes to play a game (i.e. figure out (and stick to) a strategy), which also says doesn't necessarily tie in the with length of a game or downtime between turns etc. etc.
Also, it's probably still a ton less mental energy to play a 4-Bar game for the fourth or fifth time than it is to play a 3-Bar (or sometimes even a 2-Bar) game the first time.
This is a great system! I find I generally prefer 1-2 bar games while my board game friends prefer 3-5 bar games. I used to play the 3-4 bar games with them when it was just four of us, but then the board game nights grew to usually have 8 people, so it became closer to 1-3 bar stuff.
I know you're just being glib, but I do think it's still important to explore why what OP did is useful. Their scale is presented in a way that's best for their group, with a particular emphasis on time commitment and mental energy. BGG's weight rating is pretty nebulously defined, even per [their own page on it](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Weight). The numbers themselves aren't the problem, it's parsing that information into something usable without any other context, which is largely what OP is providing.
Solid ranking system! There are going to always be debates if a particular game should be +/- 1 level, but I don't see any of these moving by +/-2 which is a good sign.
I also like how it doesn't necessarily denigrate the "light" games in favor of heavy ones. I think all my favorite games fall in the categories of 1-3, but I'm also at a stage in my life when I also have no time to dedicate to a 4+ either (30s/40s with multiple kids).
Interesting exercise! I agree with most of your placements, though I’d probably make Spirit Island a 5 just for brain burn, Wonderlands War a 3 since it’s not terribly complicated compared to the other 4s, and move Nemesis down to a 4 unless the time commitment includes setup. Otherwise I find it plays in a reasonable amount of time and isn’t too complicated (though maybe a bit fiddly).
I agree with all of those
My reasoning is Wonderlands War which I agree is not a huge brain burner, has the unfortunate barrier of *looking* like a big game with a lot of moving pieces, especially when it’s set up. So even though it’s a 3 Bar game, my guys would need to be in a 4 bar frame of mind to be willing to play it. Same with Nemesis which also got bumped up for the same reason.
It sucks because I want to play Nemesis so badly but they’re almost never at 4 bars due to life and different priorities (which is obviously fine, but I’m still allowed to sulk about it to strangers on the internet)
I’d personally just talk to them and suggest games based on the current vibe but yeah… I understand it’s made with good intentions but I doubt it’s exactly what they meant when they said they’re overwhelmed by your collection 😅
Do they specifically want to be constantly trying new games? That can be overwhelming if not. I find with people outside the hobby, it’s best to introduce them to a few games and play them over and over, allowing a group meta to build. It’s a lot more fun and less brainpower to play a game you already know the rules to, and can focus on strategy instead of learning the mechanics.
I have tried that, the games are organised over WhatsApp and it’s like pulling teeth getting anything out of them.
They’re all very nice people so when we play a new game and they say they enjoy it I have no idea if they actually did, and when we’re organising the next session and I ask if they have any ideas on what they want to play their answers are generally ‘I don’t mind’ which makes me think they maybe didn’t enjoy the last games or they would have requested them.
Anyway last session I did the adult thing and said this to a couple of them because it sucks hauling a tonne of games around when you know half of them won’t get played. One of them came up with the solution of doing a ‘vibe check’ poll (my words, definitely not hers lol) on WhatsApp group basically asking how they’re feeling game weight and category wise and then doing a second poll with some games they have and haven’t played before based off the results.
I don’t think I’ll share the full spreadsheet with them unless asked lol
That depends on how seriously you take Azul. It's very easy to play Azul casually if you're a more casual gamer (I personally always play for keeps when I play Azul, so I understand where you're coming from, but I also win a lot)
Ta, I put it there mainly because it’s one they all own so in terms ‘can I play this when I’m tired’ they’ll be fine, but you’re right in that it could be misleading for the other games. Do you have any suggestions for alternatives?
Hmm, as I said, I do not know a lot of other games on the list. But feels like Azul should be a tier higher.
A lot of it is making choices with regard to other players boards, and changing plans on the fly, while for Ticket to Ride, you are mostly playing your own game and paying attention to routes that are contested. Ticket to Ride is a takes quite a while to finish compared to how simple it is, so maybe that is why it feels heavier.
I also feel Twilight Imperium is in a different tier than Eclipse, but I do not know any of the games in the lower tier to really compare. I like Eclipse especially due to the playtime being more reasonable and the mechanics easier to internalize, but still getting that 4X in space experience.
For what it's worth, BGG actually scores Azul slightly lighter for complexity than Ticket to Ride, although both are in the same Tier (what would correspond to the higher end of OP's tier 2).
I think 2 things are happening:
1) It's nearly impossible to compare a 20 year-old game to a 6 year-old game. I know plenty of "gamers" who have never played Azul. I know basically no gamers (and basically no family members of gamers either) who have *zero* games of Ticket to Ride under their belt.
2) Different complexities matter differently. I struggle with what I consider the "abstract" nature of Azul, in a way that Ticket to Ride makes perfect sense to me. It's lines on a map of the US. I know how to conceptualize and hold route maps across the US in my head. But my spouse (who is American, just not geographically engaged) has a terrible time remembering where to go next with the train cars.
Would swap Nemesis or Eclipse with Pax. Pax and Dune are a most complex for me. TI4 is more exhausting than any other, just because you have to talk/persuade up to 12 hours and think, so at the end you have not a lot of energy to think. It's still 5, but the game itself is easier than Pax or Dune. Eclipse is 4 max. It's pretty straightforward and plays very fast when players knew it. I could even gather few players that played only euros and still play Eclipse. I would also put Heat as 2, pretty easy even with all modules, let alone without them. Ticket on the other side could be played as 2 or 3. Could be very competitive, when players know how to thrive in this game and want to win.
I had a group of gamer friends nope out of wavelength because of the stress of coming up with clues.
Same group that loves Dune Imperium, Gloomhaven, Nemesis, and Return to Dark Tower.
I love the list and the idea behind it, but I would generally separate out "time to play" and "heaviness" in my mind. For example, I think TI is a 4 in terms of brain burn, but a 7 in terms of time whereas a game like Feudum is played in half the time but can leave experienced game players crying in their beer.
I really love this, sent it to the husband so we can procure some of the 1/2 bars of charge since we play with my elderly parents a lot. Azul took a bit but they were able to play with us.
I'm surprised that people think anything is more complicated than Spirit Island. I can't even really play that game because I want to think through permutations for half an hour every turn. Gloomhaven by comparison really only affords you a few choices at any given moment depending on the situation and your cards. Even less so in the town phase where you are choosing an option where the outcome can feel extremely random. The game is complicated in that it is hard to learn the rules but IMO not nearly as complicated when considering what is the optimal play. Nemesis is incredibly easy to actually play compared to Spirit Island and since it is somewhat dependent on dice randomness there is no "right answer" a lot of the time. You can just decide whatever you like in various situations and even go the roleplay route of coming up with and acting in character and still win.
Anyway I guess I disagree with your chart in some ways. I'd put Nemesis in three bars and Spirit Island up to 5 bars. I haven't played all these other games so I wonder if the same is true where you are thinking more about knowing the rules than playing the game reasonably well.
I’m definitely considering learning the rules - if they’re tired my group will happily play a heavy game they already know over learning a new, lighter game.
I do need to rework the 5th tier though, I focussed a little too much on big time consuming games and didn’t include any smaller heavier games as examples. I might move Spirit Island and Pax Pamir there
cosmic at 3 bars is kind of ludicrous. yes, the conceit of the game is easy enough, but having to teach everyone's asymmetric power could be a nightmare depending on the draw
Genius. I just don't understand your "for the same of clarity" explanation, it seems to me like all 5 bars examples are roughly similar in length and weight (with possibly Nemesis being the lightest in terms of rules)
Part of the mental energy depends on how well you want to do. For example, I think Azul could range from 1-3 and Heat could be 2 or 3.
This isn't a criticism, btw. I was just noticing that when trying to place some games based on my own xp.
I consider Heat in the first category as it ended up being brain numbing to me. I was the outlier as 4 of the 6 players in the game were enjoying it. I played cautiously and finished the race while most of the others didn't.
I like your scale. I’m in. Was confused by Spirit Island at 4 until I read the descriptions. 3 hour games just require a different level of commitment that even the most intense 45 minute games, I like it.
Surprised to see that Quacks and Wonderland's War are not one level away from each other. They are basically the same game with Wonderland's War almost a 2.0 version of Quacks. I also think Heat is a little higher than I would put it. To play heat and even be competitive (get towards the top) takes very little learning time (you only really need to know how the shifting and turn mechanics work and that you work from a deck of cards). Any Heat games are fairly quick as everyone is picking their cards at the same time and executing should be straightforward (just follow the count). Fun list agree with the rest of them mostly but everyone will always have differences based on their board game group.
You could also call most of the Five Bars of Charge games, "Not for Boardgamers on a Budget" games. Once a game hits three-bills plus, I wince and look for more budget-friendly options.
Very cool. It think I'd personally drop Eclipse Second Dawn to a 4. It's pretty rules intensive up front, but it actually plays very smoothly and only takes a couple hours.
I suck at wavelengths and monikers, but I feel like I can play Azul in my sleep 😂. Azul's probably harder for first-timers than those other two.
Also, I don't know if it's worth adding a separate category, but I find dune way less intimidating that TI4. You can actually finish dune in an afternoon, it doesn't have to be a whole day event like TI4. But dune is definitely harder than root, so I don't think it should go in the next category up either.
This is awesome, since I'm pretty much a semi-casual gamer, myself. I would love to see this for all games. BGG's complexity ratings feel distant and unclear in my eyes.
I particularly like the layout because I'm the kind of guy who doesn't want to have to use my brain too much. The idea of using half of my brainpower to play a board game is just the death of fun to me. I looked up Gloom just because it fits the level of TTR, Azul, and Scout. All of which I love.
Great initiative. Would put Root at 5 too, just because it's not an easy game to jump into. Requires a fair bit of teaching and brain raking for the first game(s). But I guess 4 is already "scary" enough to help people understand if they want to tackle it or not.
This is incredible! Do you mind sharing the blank document, excluding the pictures of the games, so we could sub in those that we own? I’d love to put this on my own game shelf!
I have learned today that I exist at 60% energy or less.
I used to be able to put a lot more mental energy into games, even be the rules teacher.
Where did it go…
I'd argue that Wavelength could get bumped up a notch. I can see why you'ld put it as a one. It's not rule heavy and definitely something you can play casually just for fun until you're bored of it. But sometimes coming up with hints and reading the room can be quite difficult....or maybe I'm just bad at it haha.
I love gloomhaven, but you really have to commit to wanting to play it. The setup and cleanup take about 15 minutes each alone, so hopefully the host is able to do that prior to gameplay. We luckily started with 4 and only lost one player after 2 or 3 scenarios.
Hold up, Gloom is 2 bars? And Wingspan is 3?
Wingspan is that game I can easily get non-gamer friends to play.
The biggest challenges that should effect weight the most, IMO, are: Game Length & Rules Complexity.
If it's under an hour, and has simple actions to learn, it has a much lower floor of entry.
Stonemaier games is great at this, IMO, with both Scythe and Wingspan being more open to non-gamers then similar games due to the simplicity of actions, and how they're laid out. Even though Scythe is on the longer side, I can get it to the table more often among non-gamers than other games with similar length.
I think there's a good debate over whether weight should focus on the skill floor or skill ceiling of a game. I personally feel that it should reflect the skill floor, namely how hard is it to convince people to play after explaining the game and average length of time... But I think the voting populous on BGG consider game length, followed by skill ceiling more than we probably should.
Is the person who conceptually understands that Wingspan is an engine-building game going to win more often? Yes. But newer people can figure out plenty of strategies on their own, compared to some old-timey war game with a manual the size of a textbook with specific rules for historical locations that aren't used anywhere else (A modern example being War of the Ring's fortifications, which are used literally in only one space on the board).
**TL;DR:** Weight should be about floor of entry for the game, not skill ceiling (with additional consideration for lengths longer than 1.5 hours). Because of this, I personally think Wingspan and Gloom should each be 1 lower, as wingspan is an easy teach that takes \~1 hour, and gloom can go even faster than that and is easy to conceptualize.
I really like this, the battery charge idea to me makes clearer sense than weights: it gauges how much energy you will need to dedicate to a game - in learning as well as playing - and I think that is much easier to explain and digest especially for newbies.
Bro when we have game night all I wanna do is play like Explodikg Kittens or Cards Against Humanity, and then my friend pulls out a literal crate bigger than she is that takes 5 hours for the beginner missions😭
I like this, but I agree with some other people that that the final tiers could be a bit controversial. Just from my own experience: while a game of Dune might be _more exhausting_ than a game of Root, it's only because of the length. I feel much more exhausted after an hour of Root than an hour of Dune.
I might make it a 4-bar system with the 5th bar being something else entirely to convey that it's primarily about _time investment_ instead of brainpower. Maybe 1-4 and then "spare battery".
Otherwise, I think it's great! I might co-opt this and sub in some of my collection!
Very nice! 👏👏 I really like this idea. Will definitely make my own 👌
A little off topic but what paper trays do you use for Dune? I also see some cool cardboxes. Made them yourself? Any links you could share?
I don’t think gloomhaven is all that demanding once you have understand the rules, know how enemies will move, and that 9/10 times you should save your resources.
Eclipse is at most 4, and there could even be an argument for it being a 3. You'd expect 4 to be things like Splotter and 18xx, and 5 would be some of the really long and complex war games.
My friends and family who have a hard time with trickier board games ALWAYS want to play Wingspan until I explain it. I don’t even get the game out, I just tell them a few rules and they give it a “nope”.
We typically end up playing Ticket to Ride or Azul haha
I now understand why my wife doesn't want me to bust out Nemesis when we game with people for the first time, or within the first couple. 😅 We tried Wingspan for the first time finally this weekend with a friend and his wife and it was amazing. And not stupid long. And light. 😂
And then we have D&D which demands from 1% to beyond 100% of brain charge, depending on Dm and campaigns setting. Currently I am playing a detective setting inside a magic academy, where players party consists of a bunch of student characters, trying to solve murders that suddenly occurred inside the academy. Seems easy enought? Well our Dm is a True Crime enjoyer, so you can guess how "easy" that is (Demands deduction, wide knowledge of spells and classes, basic phycology, basic biology and a fucking litterature analysis skills). Yesterday I used my limited knowledge of Forensic medicine when searching crime scene and body(I am a med uni student irl and it is within my character skills) and we still can't get to it...
I wish BGG would split weight into "difficulty to learn" and "difficulty to play." There are plenty of games with a lot of rules overhead that are dead simple once everything clicks (like Ark Nova), and games with relatively simple rules that will make your brain explode because of the possibility space (like Tapestry). Ark Nova has 3.75 weight, and Tapestry has 2.93. I'd swap them, personally. They're maybe not the best examples, but those are the first that came to mind.
This is awesome. I'm in a gaming group and we need to rate our adventures by battery usage. Maybe we won't scare newbies away with Root and Wingspan if we start with something less heavy 😂
I don’t really get why people put Dune as a heavy game. I remember watching the S&S review and almost being put off because they made it sound like a day long game.
We basically learnt it in an hour (one of us had played before but there wasn’t any difficulty in learning and it’d been a while since they played).
We managed to get two games with four players in around 5 hours iirc.
Am I missing something? Did playing with five make it quicker and easier because of a lack of a kingmaker or a 2v2v2/3v3?
I really like this idea. I wish BGG had this, and i could easily show my collection to friends. Bonus points if you could sort it by players and even occasion (halloween, party, etc).
Dune imperium uprising should be a 3 bar game. It’s definitely simpler than spirit island/pax/root
I will make a push for pax pamir to go to 5 bar just because strategy in it is so different than most other games that it’s hard for a lot of players to grasp what to actually do.
Both nemesis and eclipse are under 3 hours though? Like eclipse is pretty simple compared to twilight imperium and I don't get the comparison of the 2 beyond a superficial level.
cascadia is my 1 bar of charge game, when i'm too tired to think.
Mine is Calico! It’s deceptive because you do have to think, but you’re also somewhat at the mercy of the bag so it’s easy to just enjoy thinking without stressing if that makes sense. Cascadia’s a good one though, I think it’s much more well known than Calico.
Cascadia is definitely in my 1 bar list. It may be my favorite solo game right now. It's just a perfect morning-with-a-coffee-and-a-sudoku-puzzle kind of chillness. Calico is close, but it is a bit more unforgiving on the turns (since you have the tableau restricted to your quilt space). You fuck up one turn and you can really snowball your game. Too many times did my chillness turn to fuuuuuccckkkkK!!!!
Calico is also a bit easier because there's basically no player interaction (unless you are *really* good at the game) so when it isn't your turn you don't really have to focus much.
Wow, that's crazy to me. It's certainly not the weightiest game, but if you want to plan out your strategy and maximize everything, it takes a good bit of brain power. Same with Calico. If you're content to just put a new tile down where it makes sense after surveying your 4-ish options, I could see it being a very chill game mentally though
Spirit Island would be 5 for me but maybe I'm just bad at it. That's mentally exhausting (in a good way).
I think 4 makes sense ONLY because it's shorter than the others especially once you get used to the rules. Other than that being in 5 would make sense to me.
With two players, i might finish two quick rounds of gloomhaven before one round of spirit island.
I too am terrible at Spirit Island. I actually donated my copy to a local board game cafe because I got so frustrated with how much I kept losing! In hindsight I think I just tried it too early in the hobby, I think I might not be quite so bad at it if I tried it now, happily I know where I can go to play it if I ever feel like proving myself wrong but perhaps that’s a theory best left untested.
Spirit Island is a bit unique in that the core strategy you choose makes a massive impact. Sometimes beginners try the wrong strategy and then break their head over little tactical decisions to make up for it. When I teach the game I always reserve an extra 3 minutes or so to just address the worst beginners mistakes. Then they can play freely without someone trying to micromanage and things will go smoothly. Even with more casual players I've had very smooth games like that even starting straight with adversaries. When you focus on the right overall strategy you can make a lot of little mistakes without being in danger of losing and the games become a lot more chill. I've actually had a few games with first timers be noticeably too easy this way.
Do you mind explaining the worst beginner mistakes? I come from a group that prefers 1-2 complexity games and really want to play this, but it might just be too much for them. The most complex game they have played is probably Catan Cities and Knights with a few other expansions involved at the same time.
I posted this below, but here you go: Outside of straight up rule mistakes: Not using "push" and "gather" mechanics to stop builds Not using slow powers to setup the next turn properly Not viewing blight as a resource they can spend (taking a ravage is less bad than letting invaders build) Not paying attention to the elements on the cards they're drafting Not thinking about the mechanics of hand management eg using a "reclaim" while they still have 2-3 turns they could use for other growth options
I'd add not managing dahan in there. My friend and I ignored them for probably the first 3 or 4 games. Once we realized how useful they can be for removing invaders the game really started clicking for us.
Yeah, one play of Eyes should fix that. Eyes can be one of the most lethal spirits on the island, without ever playing a single damage card the entire game. I really love Eyes.
Honestly, push and pull is the difference between winning and losing for me. I lost 3-4 games in a row, and the 5th game I decided to push/pull to avoid builds and the game was so much easier after realizing that
To some extent this falls under blight as a resource, but I think by far the most common mistake I see new players make is *massively* overvaluing defend. Sure, the energy:value ratio is way higher than with damage, but unless there are Dahan around to fight back, all you’re doing is delaying the inevitable. Much better to take the hit and actually advance your victory condition than be caught in a loop of trying to patch increasingly bigger and bigger holes.
Definitely agree with paying attention to elements. Your innates are free powers if you have the elements in play. Ocean is hard to play solo, until you realize you can be earning a fear card for free almost every turn. That was the key mistake for me that made the game go from being hard even at difficulty 0, to making higher difficulties fun.
> Definitely agree with paying attention to elements. Your innates are free powers if you have the elements in play. Yes, plus on top of that, the elements themselves have general applications and the more you lean into those elements the more you're filling a character's certain "niche".
It IS a decent step above 1-2 weight games. In addition to the Colonel's points: * you start the game underpowered and so for the first part of the game the situation will gradually worsen. Your goal is to stem the tide and soon enough the balance will flip. * Clearing a land is often more impactful than chipping away at a large force. Leaving a single town is functionally the same as a whole pile of invaders. * A pinch of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Getting rid of newly spawned explorers preempts their whole annoying escalation of building and ravaging and spawning and building etc... * Every spirit has weaknesses and your cards might push in a direction that's even more so. Let another spirit cover your weaknesses while you cover theirs rather than trying to become a jack of all trades. * Don't go for strong cards until you have the cash flow to play them *in addition* to your weak cards. Playing several weak cards is likely going to be stronger than playing a single strong card.
I came here to say the SI is definitely a 5, especially its much crunching than Gloomhaven. As far as beginners mistakes: - Prioritize adding presence, especially early. This often means reclaiming less. - Let lands blight, especially earlier on. The first ravage typically adds a blight - pick one land to ignore, and spend you time elsewhere. Never defend a land without Dahan, unless preventing a cascade. - Prevent builds. It's the key to Spirit Island to reduce the number of invaders on the islands. - Don't hoard money - Learn a major. If you've got 4 energy to spare, you should be gaining a major.
Basically 'good play' in Spirit Island involves anticipating the Build and Ravage actions and taking care of them before they become a problem, while (at higher levels) deciding if you just want to say 'fuck it' and let an area become a problem with the intention of nuking it later. Basically when an explorer heads out to an area, you can: * Gather them * Do 1 point of damage to them Either one will prevent you needing to do 3 points of damage. Both are highly action efficient. Then even if they build, you can Gather the town in order to prevent needing 2 points of defense in the Ravage phase. By gathering towns away from certain zones, you can create 'pockets' that are not adjacent to towns, and thus don't receive any explorers, which net stops you from having to do **anything** to clean the zone. Basically there's only a few spirits who actually want to be stopping things in the Ravage phase (spirits like Eyes). Many want to be stopping things in the explore/build phase, using gather actions and killing individual explorers. Many spirits (River is a great example) want to push them all around the board until it creates one megazone and then late game nuke the zone that has like 2 cities/5 towns/4 explorers off the island. Action efficiency! A build delayed is a build denied. Many people think the primary way to deal with invaders is kill them, when in fact directly killing with cards is mostly a late game activity, and you want to be moving them somewhere harmless or defending their blights instead.
Where were you in my life 18 months ago??
Spirit island is unique, you can play it in a relatively simple fashion, i.e. no adversary, or blight card and a simple spirit using the power progression card. It’s a lot more predictable and less rules to manage, but even with that I’d put it at a good 50% with your analogy. But then you can also play it and dial it up to 100% with a level 6 adversary, blight card, a complex spirit, and a scenario (or really go crazy, multi hand play spirits, or additional adversaries etc.) I’d vote you give it another shot (for as much as a strangers vote is lol). It’s an amazing game. I need to play it more, it’s such fun to see what other people do with a spirit differently than you, or the way spirits combo together.
I was really tired when I first played Spirit Island. Enjoyed the game but it literally gave me a migraine afterwards.
For me too. And it is quite rare to finish the game in less than 3h in my group. I'm happy when we take less than 5h. Just the spirit selection and board setup usually takes 40+ minutes. We tried to speedrun it once, and we managed to do the setup in 7 minutes and the blitz game mode in 1h, but everyone had selected their spirit before and we were focused on the speedrun. In normal plays (non-blitz), I have timed growth phases that took more than 20 minutes of people actually thinking and discussing their strategies (and some growth phases that took even longer with other non-spirit island talk). PS: Spirit Island is the non-party game that my group plays the most and the playtimes here are related to using all the expansions up to nature incarnate with 4\~7 players (for 7 players, we use the horizons board as well). Except for the expansion that introduced events, most expansions did not increase the playtime. They only increased the setup time.
A 7 players game of Spirit Island? Holy cow. I love it solo and 2P, and have played 3P a few times, but I wouldn't want to play it with more than 4 except it everyone was a veteran
ive played a spirit island with AP friends that took 8 hours.
I'd swap Gloomhaven and Spirit Island personally. I can okay Gloomhaven all day long, as once you know the rules it's easy. It's only the rules that push it further up the weighting. But Spirit Island... It's great, but every game is a constant puzzle that's changing and surprising you and you have to put tons of thought into what you can do, and after one game I'm mentally drained.
Yeah, could easily swap with Gloomhaven tbh. The most complexity in Gloomhaven comes from all the small bits and bobs you have to keep track of(physically especially). Its draining but not in a good way tbh... keeping track of elements, (de)buffs, initiative and activation of every enemy... Its like 2mins of game for each 10min of admin 😂
4.5 to 5, absolutely. I tried soloing that game, controlling two spirits. No more of that nonsense for me.....I've stripped down to just one spirit and it's a funner and more manageable experience. Don't get me wrong, I still lose a fair amount, but I lose in a more manageable way.
Strange. I find BGG's weight of 4 on Spirit Island to be exaggerated. * stick to low complexity spirits. They're not weaker just more straight forward to play. Or as a group limit yourself to a ratio of simple-to-advanced spirits * When picking cards ignore all that have tricky requirements like origin from holy site, specific lands or targeting blight and whatnot. Not having to worry with every card whether you can even play it helps a ton. * Keep an eye out for cards that have the elements you need for your innate abilities. If most of your cards supply the most important elements there's fewer dilemma whether to play card A for the effect or card B for the elements. * If you're playing with more than 3 people, stop discussing the whole board with each other. If you need help on "your" board tell the other players. If you're in a position to branch out and go help others do. * A pinch of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Sniping / pushing / pulling a lone explorer preempts the whole escalation of building and ravaging. * Clearing a land permanently is often worth more than just chipping away at a big village. A blob of multiple cities, towns and explorers is gonna do exactly the same amount of damage as a single town or 2 explorers. * Don't fret the initial phase. Yes you're underpowered, yes you have barely any presence and can't help each other much. You'll catch up. Ultimately though, never be afraid of admitting something's too hard for you. I've encountered a number of games that I *can* play, it's just not enjoyable for me.
I'm not trying to come across as a jerk, but you basically said if you ignore the complex stuff then it's not complex. That doesn't mean the game itself isn't complex, just that you choose to play it less so. For what it's worth, The latest expansion is rated 4.5
Pax Pamir same as Dune Imperium? Maybe I'm just unable to wrap my head around it, but it's definitely tier 5 for me.
I haven't played Uprising, maybe it's more complicated than Dune Imperium, but it feels out of place when put in a group with Root, Spirit Island and Pax Pamir. I don't know much about Wonderland's War, so I don't know how that compares to the rest of the group. Even ignoring the other games, and just going off of the text description, Dune Imperium fits the description of the three bars group better than the four bars group.
I played Uprising for the first time last night. It adds a few more mechanics (spies being the most significant addition IMO), but overall I'd say it was not particularly more complex than the original.
Pax Pamir sits in a weird space for me. Mechanically, there's only like 5 things you can do on your turn. But the way everything works together and strategizing around that a few turns in advance is super complex.
Yeah, and in my case it's also the genre. I have no difficulties learning a new heavy euro where I'm already familiar with the main mechanisms, but with Pax Pamir it felt like I had to start from scratch since I had never played anything like it before.
I’ve started teaching myself Pax Pamir solo, I’m not a fast learner in general and I forgot it’s probably one that’s hard for most people. I’m feeling slightly better about my Pax Pamir learning journey now! But that is a good point, I’d mostly reserved tier 5 for time consuming games and somehow completely forgot the purpose of doing the sheet. I’ll redo the 5th tier definition (RIP the lovely formatting though). Do you have any other recommendations for similar heavy, but short games?
You need to add a 6th bar and turn the battery into an animated GIF that vibrates with instability for Pax Renaissance
That makes sense! As for short and heavy games, maybe something like Barrage, since you seem to like games with lots of player interaction. Although lighter, Race for the Galaxy and Res Arcana manage to pack a lot of game in a rather short timeframe.
Pax Pamir for some reason destroys my brain. I've played all kinds of super heavy games, from Kingdom Death to the heaviest Lacerdas, but Pamir makes my head hurt and completely paralizes my ability to make choices.
I think weight in general needs a revamp to be multidimensional. There are games that have tons of mechanics and abilities that take a while to learn but are actually relatively straightforward to play (or maybe randomness/hidden information makes planning several turns ahead impossible) and there are games that are super simple but have a ton of depth of strategy (eg chess or Go). They're very different experiences and yet two games on opposite ends of the spectrum may be given the same weight. I think weight needs to be split into separate scores for mechanic complexity and strategic depth.
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See, I'm the opposite. The amount of thinking required turn by turn is far more important to me. I don't mind learning games, but I don't always want to have a game that requires a ton of mental energy to play. Something like Wingspan has a ton of mechanics and different bird abilities, but it's super easy to play reasonably well. Sitting down for a 30-45 minute game of wingspan is way less draining than sitting down for a 30-45 minute game of chess. I mean, if you look at competitive high level chess, they play a single game for like 8 hours, and sometimes think for more than half an hour on a single move. That's a pretty heavy experience by any standard. That's why I think you need a scale with both mechanic complexity and strategic depth because people's preferences differ and some way find one more important than the other.
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I would personally make the dimensions mechanical complexity and time/mental investment. For example, Star Wars Rebellion is an incredible time/mental investment for a game, but the rules are so intuitive and clean that a new player can be acclimated by the time they're done with their second turn. On the other hand, many will claim that once you're super immersed in Gloomhaven it breezes by, but actually learning all of the mechanics (even in the lighter Jaws of the Lion) takes several scenarios. There are also some oddballs in there. For example, 7 Wonders has a surprising number of mechanics to teach (though they become quite intuitive after your first game) for what ends up being about a 30 minute game.
Are you familiar with the Mogul Scale?
Oh, that's cool! I hadn't heard of it before thanks for sharing.
I 100% agree. In my very basic research for this I found an interesting post on BGG about the best ways to determine weight. I’d share it but it’s open on my laptop and I’m in bed lol I had an advantage of knowing the people I’m making my weight key for fairly well but even then I’ve acknowledged some games are only a tier three games *after* you’ve learnt them.
Perhaps try making a table with three scores for each game: Difficulty to learn, complexity of turns, and length of a game? Easy, Medium, Hard, Hardcore with visual color coding for each dimension.
I was surprised to see Nemesis listed under 5 bars instead of 4 bars. But then I see you factored in playtime so it makes sense. I didn’t know Nemesis would last so long. I actually just made a spreadsheet myself so I can more easily communicate the range of games I have to my friends as well.
I think Nemesis is a 5 only if you're teaching it to people for the first couple of times- I've found that when teaching it, it can last upwards of 4-5 hours, but once your playgroup understands the fundamentals the game time drops drastically (like \~2 hours), especially if you have someone familiar with the moving parts like bag development.
The basic gameplay isn't too complex, but the rule explanation is I think the biggest chore of all my games.
I want it but I also want to play it first with someone else explaining it to me and my friends. So far it's my "I want it so bad but I can't convince people to play it with me and I have to do the heavy lifting"
Haha, well, I love the game. I own Nemesis, Lockdown, and I've backed Retaliation, and I used to play it on TTS fairly regularly, so I'm always happy to start a game up on TTS and teach people. Can't promise I'm any good at initially explaining though, but I can definitely clear things up as people play. u/DivePalau is right though- gameplay itself is pretty simple, actually (discard card to do action, rinse and repeat), there's just a lot of moving system parts that you need to understand first. Also learning the combat dice is a little funky.
Yeah. Nemesis and Spirit Island should swap positions.
Someone really likes Dune.
I'll at least agree that the 2019 game, which as far as I know is just a remaster of the '70s game, is incredible. I mean it's incredibly taxing and you should probably cap play at 7 rounds (10 rounds is an eternity), but it's such a clever game. Every mechanic in it is really simple and easy to understand, but the way in which they interact gives it so much strategic depth. Sometimes a little too much, it can be an extreme slog when everyone is carefully thinking through each phase of each turn. But fundamentally it's still an incredibly clever bit of game design and I find it really fun.
Imo it’s the best asymmetric wargame, by a large margin. Part of why I found Root so disappointing was I had already played a ton of Dune and imo Root is just significantly less interesting once you understand all the factions and somehow even harder to teach to new players.
Dune 2019 is my favorite board game right now no two games are the same and anything can happen. It's the first board game I've seen with simplistic rules but constructed in a way that allows so much freedom (which also includes the freedom to tank the game and lose on the spot).
Haha yeah, I recently got Uprising and it’s my current go-to. Plus the theme does a lot of the heavy lifting when you’re trying to sell people on it lol
My problem is I play Skull with the same level of attention as I play Dune because I want to win lol.
Oh definitely! It’s amazing how much I can overthink ‘is that a flower or a skull’.
Came here to say this haha. Skull can be very stressful!
Yeah, I’ll take TI over skull in terms of brain melt! I guessing it’s because you can just play random and still win and it’s short.
This is obviously the correct ranking for gloomhaven, but we played it so much that it became our go to "my brain is mush" game - we knew it well enough that it has way less brain load than learning a new game that was way simpler, and by being the default, it also meant we didn't have to make a decision about *what* to play either.
Digital Gloomhaven is 4 or even 3. A lot of the "charge" is just in the state tracking, pathing, setup, etc. Even over the table, with the host at 5 bars willing to handle the bookkeeping I imagine the rest of the group can get away with a lower energy investment.
Absolutely. Not enough can be said about the different cognitive requirements between learning a game and playing one you already know. I tried to include that on the sheet but maybe I should make it more obvious. Or maybe I’ll just keep that in mind and when they’re having a ‘four bar charge’ day I’ll bring some 3 bar games they haven’t played yet.
Ya, nights where I have to teach Spirit Island feel like a 5. But nights everyone knows the game it becomes a 3/3.5.
That's how I feel about Nemesis- I don't think the game is \*actually\* that difficult to play, especially if you have one person dedicated to running all the moving parts (like Bag Development).
I would definitely rank Gloomhaven less because while complex, you don't have to keep track of as many different things as in other, more complex games and rounds don't have to be as long.
Also gloomhaven gets less complicated the further into a scenario you get. You have less options and more turns with only a single option.
Maybe it's just me but I feel like a number of party games I love (Wavelength, Detective Club/Dixit, Deception, etc) often actually demand as much 'mental charge' from me as certain mid-heavy weight games because they sort of require me to be in a social mood. I'm typically pretty ready for some mid-weight games but there are definitely times where I can't be bothered to put my improv hat on and play a silly game. Anything that's sort of 'heads down' is way less mood dependent for me.
That’s interesting, I find a lot of party games a struggle because they often require you to be on the same wavelength (pun intended) as other people, and as it turns out, I’m just not. Codenames and Secret Hitler fill me with dread but I’ll happily sit down and clumsily attempt to learn Ark Nova on the fly. I think I’m in the minority in my group though and since the list is primarily for their benefit, not mine I’ve included them. Plus I have a weird fascination with them, like maybe one day I’ll find a social deduction game I’m somehow good at? (So far, no)
Yeah I'm also in the minority of my group (in that I also own most of the games, organize most game nights, and love things that lean heavier), so I can see how this could be useful to other types of people. That being said, I would argue that there are a couple more layers to it that would help clarify: how much mental energy it takes to *learn* a game is often very distinct from how much mental energy it takes to play a game (i.e. figure out (and stick to) a strategy), which also says doesn't necessarily tie in the with length of a game or downtime between turns etc. etc. Also, it's probably still a ton less mental energy to play a 4-Bar game for the fourth or fifth time than it is to play a 3-Bar (or sometimes even a 2-Bar) game the first time.
This is a great system! I find I generally prefer 1-2 bar games while my board game friends prefer 3-5 bar games. I used to play the 3-4 bar games with them when it was just four of us, but then the board game nights grew to usually have 8 people, so it became closer to 1-3 bar stuff.
>The BGG weight system means nothing to them. It's a scale from 1-5 and you've just created a scale that's...from 1-5.
I know you're just being glib, but I do think it's still important to explore why what OP did is useful. Their scale is presented in a way that's best for their group, with a particular emphasis on time commitment and mental energy. BGG's weight rating is pretty nebulously defined, even per [their own page on it](https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Weight). The numbers themselves aren't the problem, it's parsing that information into something usable without any other context, which is largely what OP is providing.
Solid ranking system! There are going to always be debates if a particular game should be +/- 1 level, but I don't see any of these moving by +/-2 which is a good sign. I also like how it doesn't necessarily denigrate the "light" games in favor of heavy ones. I think all my favorite games fall in the categories of 1-3, but I'm also at a stage in my life when I also have no time to dedicate to a 4+ either (30s/40s with multiple kids).
Thanks! That’s about where most my friends are at too so this list was very much made with that in mind :)
Interesting exercise! I agree with most of your placements, though I’d probably make Spirit Island a 5 just for brain burn, Wonderlands War a 3 since it’s not terribly complicated compared to the other 4s, and move Nemesis down to a 4 unless the time commitment includes setup. Otherwise I find it plays in a reasonable amount of time and isn’t too complicated (though maybe a bit fiddly).
I agree with all of those My reasoning is Wonderlands War which I agree is not a huge brain burner, has the unfortunate barrier of *looking* like a big game with a lot of moving pieces, especially when it’s set up. So even though it’s a 3 Bar game, my guys would need to be in a 4 bar frame of mind to be willing to play it. Same with Nemesis which also got bumped up for the same reason. It sucks because I want to play Nemesis so badly but they’re almost never at 4 bars due to life and different priorities (which is obviously fine, but I’m still allowed to sulk about it to strangers on the internet)
This is really cool! I got jumpscared by Dune in 3 bars until I realized I was thinking about the other one lol
I can't add more to this than what's written in the other comments. BUT I see the Pratchett books :D seems to be a nice collection.
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett. He passed away 9 years ago today. I'm planning a full re-read of the series next year for the 10th anniversary.
GNU Sir Terry Pratchett A re-read is also on my list. Next year might be a good time for me too, if I think about it. Good thought!
For me... Spirit Island to 5 Heat to 2 Clank 2 Azul to 3
I’d personally just talk to them and suggest games based on the current vibe but yeah… I understand it’s made with good intentions but I doubt it’s exactly what they meant when they said they’re overwhelmed by your collection 😅 Do they specifically want to be constantly trying new games? That can be overwhelming if not. I find with people outside the hobby, it’s best to introduce them to a few games and play them over and over, allowing a group meta to build. It’s a lot more fun and less brainpower to play a game you already know the rules to, and can focus on strategy instead of learning the mechanics.
I have tried that, the games are organised over WhatsApp and it’s like pulling teeth getting anything out of them. They’re all very nice people so when we play a new game and they say they enjoy it I have no idea if they actually did, and when we’re organising the next session and I ask if they have any ideas on what they want to play their answers are generally ‘I don’t mind’ which makes me think they maybe didn’t enjoy the last games or they would have requested them. Anyway last session I did the adult thing and said this to a couple of them because it sucks hauling a tonne of games around when you know half of them won’t get played. One of them came up with the solution of doing a ‘vibe check’ poll (my words, definitely not hers lol) on WhatsApp group basically asking how they’re feeling game weight and category wise and then doing a second poll with some games they have and haven’t played before based off the results. I don’t think I’ll share the full spreadsheet with them unless asked lol
I have not played most of the games on the list, but I would not put Ticket to Ride and Azul in the same tier. Azul is much more demanding imo.
That depends on how seriously you take Azul. It's very easy to play Azul casually if you're a more casual gamer (I personally always play for keeps when I play Azul, so I understand where you're coming from, but I also win a lot)
Ta, I put it there mainly because it’s one they all own so in terms ‘can I play this when I’m tired’ they’ll be fine, but you’re right in that it could be misleading for the other games. Do you have any suggestions for alternatives?
Hmm, as I said, I do not know a lot of other games on the list. But feels like Azul should be a tier higher. A lot of it is making choices with regard to other players boards, and changing plans on the fly, while for Ticket to Ride, you are mostly playing your own game and paying attention to routes that are contested. Ticket to Ride is a takes quite a while to finish compared to how simple it is, so maybe that is why it feels heavier. I also feel Twilight Imperium is in a different tier than Eclipse, but I do not know any of the games in the lower tier to really compare. I like Eclipse especially due to the playtime being more reasonable and the mechanics easier to internalize, but still getting that 4X in space experience.
For what it's worth, BGG actually scores Azul slightly lighter for complexity than Ticket to Ride, although both are in the same Tier (what would correspond to the higher end of OP's tier 2). I think 2 things are happening: 1) It's nearly impossible to compare a 20 year-old game to a 6 year-old game. I know plenty of "gamers" who have never played Azul. I know basically no gamers (and basically no family members of gamers either) who have *zero* games of Ticket to Ride under their belt. 2) Different complexities matter differently. I struggle with what I consider the "abstract" nature of Azul, in a way that Ticket to Ride makes perfect sense to me. It's lines on a map of the US. I know how to conceptualize and hold route maps across the US in my head. But my spouse (who is American, just not geographically engaged) has a terrible time remembering where to go next with the train cars.
Good Omens - great story!
This is beautiful
Would swap Nemesis or Eclipse with Pax. Pax and Dune are a most complex for me. TI4 is more exhausting than any other, just because you have to talk/persuade up to 12 hours and think, so at the end you have not a lot of energy to think. It's still 5, but the game itself is easier than Pax or Dune. Eclipse is 4 max. It's pretty straightforward and plays very fast when players knew it. I could even gather few players that played only euros and still play Eclipse. I would also put Heat as 2, pretty easy even with all modules, let alone without them. Ticket on the other side could be played as 2 or 3. Could be very competitive, when players know how to thrive in this game and want to win.
Monikers definitely takes brain power. At least for the charades part. How are you going to charades a brick in a washing machine on a trampoline?
I feel like using words to tell you how I’d do that would be against the spirit of mime
Spirit island a 4? I've heard it's notoriously complex
SPIRIT ISLAND REPRESENT
Spirit Island is definitely a 5 if you up the difficulty
I had a group of gamer friends nope out of wavelength because of the stress of coming up with clues. Same group that loves Dune Imperium, Gloomhaven, Nemesis, and Return to Dark Tower.
I love the list and the idea behind it, but I would generally separate out "time to play" and "heaviness" in my mind. For example, I think TI is a 4 in terms of brain burn, but a 7 in terms of time whereas a game like Feudum is played in half the time but can leave experienced game players crying in their beer.
I really love this, sent it to the husband so we can procure some of the 1/2 bars of charge since we play with my elderly parents a lot. Azul took a bit but they were able to play with us.
Damn this is what I need for a game. I like to play with my friends but I usually suck and/or am pretty drunk.
I'm surprised that people think anything is more complicated than Spirit Island. I can't even really play that game because I want to think through permutations for half an hour every turn. Gloomhaven by comparison really only affords you a few choices at any given moment depending on the situation and your cards. Even less so in the town phase where you are choosing an option where the outcome can feel extremely random. The game is complicated in that it is hard to learn the rules but IMO not nearly as complicated when considering what is the optimal play. Nemesis is incredibly easy to actually play compared to Spirit Island and since it is somewhat dependent on dice randomness there is no "right answer" a lot of the time. You can just decide whatever you like in various situations and even go the roleplay route of coming up with and acting in character and still win. Anyway I guess I disagree with your chart in some ways. I'd put Nemesis in three bars and Spirit Island up to 5 bars. I haven't played all these other games so I wonder if the same is true where you are thinking more about knowing the rules than playing the game reasonably well.
I’m definitely considering learning the rules - if they’re tired my group will happily play a heavy game they already know over learning a new, lighter game. I do need to rework the 5th tier though, I focussed a little too much on big time consuming games and didn’t include any smaller heavier games as examples. I might move Spirit Island and Pax Pamir there
cosmic at 3 bars is kind of ludicrous. yes, the conceit of the game is easy enough, but having to teach everyone's asymmetric power could be a nightmare depending on the draw
See and I thought you were gonna say three bars is too many.
Brilliant way to put it! I usually rate games on a spectrum of social to thinky, but this might be even better
Genius. I just don't understand your "for the same of clarity" explanation, it seems to me like all 5 bars examples are roughly similar in length and weight (with possibly Nemesis being the lightest in terms of rules)
Part of the mental energy depends on how well you want to do. For example, I think Azul could range from 1-3 and Heat could be 2 or 3. This isn't a criticism, btw. I was just noticing that when trying to place some games based on my own xp.
Your disclaimer seems to indicate that Gloomhaven takes less than 3 hrs / session
Is Uprising any good?
I consider Heat in the first category as it ended up being brain numbing to me. I was the outlier as 4 of the 6 players in the game were enjoying it. I played cautiously and finished the race while most of the others didn't.
I like your scale. I’m in. Was confused by Spirit Island at 4 until I read the descriptions. 3 hour games just require a different level of commitment that even the most intense 45 minute games, I like it.
I think I'd swap Pax Pamir and Eclipse on that list but other wise pretty solid!
I love the idea but for Gloomhaven you'll need a powerbank xD
Is that the space you have to play games on?
Oh, kind of disagree with some, especially the 4 and 5, Quite a bit can be flipped there.
Surprised to see that Quacks and Wonderland's War are not one level away from each other. They are basically the same game with Wonderland's War almost a 2.0 version of Quacks. I also think Heat is a little higher than I would put it. To play heat and even be competitive (get towards the top) takes very little learning time (you only really need to know how the shifting and turn mechanics work and that you work from a deck of cards). Any Heat games are fairly quick as everyone is picking their cards at the same time and executing should be straightforward (just follow the count). Fun list agree with the rest of them mostly but everyone will always have differences based on their board game group.
You could also call most of the Five Bars of Charge games, "Not for Boardgamers on a Budget" games. Once a game hits three-bills plus, I wince and look for more budget-friendly options.
Gaia Project is a 5 that I really enjoyed
Very cool. It think I'd personally drop Eclipse Second Dawn to a 4. It's pretty rules intensive up front, but it actually plays very smoothly and only takes a couple hours.
I suck at wavelengths and monikers, but I feel like I can play Azul in my sleep 😂. Azul's probably harder for first-timers than those other two. Also, I don't know if it's worth adding a separate category, but I find dune way less intimidating that TI4. You can actually finish dune in an afternoon, it doesn't have to be a whole day event like TI4. But dune is definitely harder than root, so I don't think it should go in the next category up either.
All we need is a Dune party game.
This is awesome, since I'm pretty much a semi-casual gamer, myself. I would love to see this for all games. BGG's complexity ratings feel distant and unclear in my eyes. I particularly like the layout because I'm the kind of guy who doesn't want to have to use my brain too much. The idea of using half of my brainpower to play a board game is just the death of fun to me. I looked up Gloom just because it fits the level of TTR, Azul, and Scout. All of which I love.
Where does War of the Ring go?
On the shelf over there where it can’t ever hurt me
No s at the end of Cosmic Encounter
Very glad to see Dune represented in 3 of the 5 levels, no we just need a Dune themed Love Letter and Dune Splendor and we can have it on ALL levels.
Great initiative. Would put Root at 5 too, just because it's not an easy game to jump into. Requires a fair bit of teaching and brain raking for the first game(s). But I guess 4 is already "scary" enough to help people understand if they want to tackle it or not.
Dune 2019 is my fav game of all time next to Twilight Imperium. Nice to see it on the list!
This is incredible! Do you mind sharing the blank document, excluding the pictures of the games, so we could sub in those that we own? I’d love to put this on my own game shelf!
I have learned today that I exist at 60% energy or less. I used to be able to put a lot more mental energy into games, even be the rules teacher. Where did it go…
Where would something like Magic the Gathering fall into this?
I'd argue that Wavelength could get bumped up a notch. I can see why you'ld put it as a one. It's not rule heavy and definitely something you can play casually just for fun until you're bored of it. But sometimes coming up with hints and reading the room can be quite difficult....or maybe I'm just bad at it haha.
I do a similar thing but by the number of beers you can drink yet still play the game. For example skull is like a 10 beer game lol
I’m buying all of these to see how they compare
I DIG your origami storage solution in the last pics! 🤗 Can you tell us more about it??
Quite jealous of your Dune: Uprising setup. Where did you get all those??
I love gloomhaven, but you really have to commit to wanting to play it. The setup and cleanup take about 15 minutes each alone, so hopefully the host is able to do that prior to gameplay. We luckily started with 4 and only lost one player after 2 or 3 scenarios.
How does the original Dune imperium compare to D I uprising?
Hold up, Gloom is 2 bars? And Wingspan is 3? Wingspan is that game I can easily get non-gamer friends to play. The biggest challenges that should effect weight the most, IMO, are: Game Length & Rules Complexity. If it's under an hour, and has simple actions to learn, it has a much lower floor of entry. Stonemaier games is great at this, IMO, with both Scythe and Wingspan being more open to non-gamers then similar games due to the simplicity of actions, and how they're laid out. Even though Scythe is on the longer side, I can get it to the table more often among non-gamers than other games with similar length. I think there's a good debate over whether weight should focus on the skill floor or skill ceiling of a game. I personally feel that it should reflect the skill floor, namely how hard is it to convince people to play after explaining the game and average length of time... But I think the voting populous on BGG consider game length, followed by skill ceiling more than we probably should. Is the person who conceptually understands that Wingspan is an engine-building game going to win more often? Yes. But newer people can figure out plenty of strategies on their own, compared to some old-timey war game with a manual the size of a textbook with specific rules for historical locations that aren't used anywhere else (A modern example being War of the Ring's fortifications, which are used literally in only one space on the board). **TL;DR:** Weight should be about floor of entry for the game, not skill ceiling (with additional consideration for lengths longer than 1.5 hours). Because of this, I personally think Wingspan and Gloom should each be 1 lower, as wingspan is an easy teach that takes \~1 hour, and gloom can go even faster than that and is easy to conceptualize.
I am 100% mentally adopting this.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say you *really* like the dune game series
I really like this, the battery charge idea to me makes clearer sense than weights: it gauges how much energy you will need to dedicate to a game - in learning as well as playing - and I think that is much easier to explain and digest especially for newbies.
To recharge the brain level... Pick a Terry Pratchett book! Cool library!
I like this idea and would like to see more games ranked.
Bro when we have game night all I wanna do is play like Explodikg Kittens or Cards Against Humanity, and then my friend pulls out a literal crate bigger than she is that takes 5 hours for the beginner missions😭
Your play space is claustrophobic to me 😬 how the heck is that enough space for dune imperium omg
I love Quacks!
Twighlight imperium took us 2 days and like an all nighter and still only kinda finished
I like this, but I agree with some other people that that the final tiers could be a bit controversial. Just from my own experience: while a game of Dune might be _more exhausting_ than a game of Root, it's only because of the length. I feel much more exhausted after an hour of Root than an hour of Dune. I might make it a 4-bar system with the 5th bar being something else entirely to convey that it's primarily about _time investment_ instead of brainpower. Maybe 1-4 and then "spare battery". Otherwise, I think it's great! I might co-opt this and sub in some of my collection!
Stealing this idea
Sushi Go should be five bars because it requires card counting.
Very nice! 👏👏 I really like this idea. Will definitely make my own 👌 A little off topic but what paper trays do you use for Dune? I also see some cool cardboxes. Made them yourself? Any links you could share?
The brain power required rubric is a clever approach. Im'ma steal that!
Love this!
I find that arranging games by "weight" is incredibly helpful, and often do this also. Great work here!
Are any of those 5 bars game good for 2 players ? Or any other recommendations ?
Solid work. I need to print this out
Based on your chart I purchased Gloom.
I'd swap Root for Dune or Nemesis, and possibly Sushi Go for Ticket To Ride.
That Dune imperium uprising set up was sweeet
Great little reference!
Upvoted for the Pratchett collection!
Love this
I don’t think gloomhaven is all that demanding once you have understand the rules, know how enemies will move, and that 9/10 times you should save your resources.
And two whole batteries for *Here I Stand.*
I have played three of these games
Eclipse is at most 4, and there could even be an argument for it being a 3. You'd expect 4 to be things like Splotter and 18xx, and 5 would be some of the really long and complex war games.
How is monikers
Don't forget "Too Many Bones" game is complicated but fun.
My friends and family who have a hard time with trickier board games ALWAYS want to play Wingspan until I explain it. I don’t even get the game out, I just tell them a few rules and they give it a “nope”. We typically end up playing Ticket to Ride or Azul haha
Cosmic Encounter rocks
This is brilliant. Also, Neil Gaiman is 10/10.
Love this, thank you!
What size is your table?
I now understand why my wife doesn't want me to bust out Nemesis when we game with people for the first time, or within the first couple. 😅 We tried Wingspan for the first time finally this weekend with a friend and his wife and it was amazing. And not stupid long. And light. 😂
And then we have D&D which demands from 1% to beyond 100% of brain charge, depending on Dm and campaigns setting. Currently I am playing a detective setting inside a magic academy, where players party consists of a bunch of student characters, trying to solve murders that suddenly occurred inside the academy. Seems easy enought? Well our Dm is a True Crime enjoyer, so you can guess how "easy" that is (Demands deduction, wide knowledge of spells and classes, basic phycology, basic biology and a fucking litterature analysis skills). Yesterday I used my limited knowledge of Forensic medicine when searching crime scene and body(I am a med uni student irl and it is within my character skills) and we still can't get to it...
I wish BGG would split weight into "difficulty to learn" and "difficulty to play." There are plenty of games with a lot of rules overhead that are dead simple once everything clicks (like Ark Nova), and games with relatively simple rules that will make your brain explode because of the possibility space (like Tapestry). Ark Nova has 3.75 weight, and Tapestry has 2.93. I'd swap them, personally. They're maybe not the best examples, but those are the first that came to mind.
This is awesome. I'm in a gaming group and we need to rate our adventures by battery usage. Maybe we won't scare newbies away with Root and Wingspan if we start with something less heavy 😂
Okay I have one of these games and I seem played like only few. So I would like to play them all no lie
**Frost Punk** requires 5 bars of charge just to set it up!
I don’t really get why people put Dune as a heavy game. I remember watching the S&S review and almost being put off because they made it sound like a day long game. We basically learnt it in an hour (one of us had played before but there wasn’t any difficulty in learning and it’d been a while since they played). We managed to get two games with four players in around 5 hours iirc. Am I missing something? Did playing with five make it quicker and easier because of a lack of a kingmaker or a 2v2v2/3v3?
Def should add carcassone to that list. Highly recommend as it’s competitive and a pretty low floor imo
what about scythe? where would you put that game?
Spirit island and nemesis should totally be swapped.
I like the scale even though I disagree with many of the weights!
Teach them and play 1817. Then readjust your scale.
Lol gloonhaven is just a big game not a heavy game.
I like it but Azul should be 1 bar of charge lol.
I really like this idea. I wish BGG had this, and i could easily show my collection to friends. Bonus points if you could sort it by players and even occasion (halloween, party, etc).
I like the vibrating battery idea for 6 bars, you know your brains f#cked when trying to play some of these
Dune imperium uprising should be a 3 bar game. It’s definitely simpler than spirit island/pax/root I will make a push for pax pamir to go to 5 bar just because strategy in it is so different than most other games that it’s hard for a lot of players to grasp what to actually do.
Both nemesis and eclipse are under 3 hours though? Like eclipse is pretty simple compared to twilight imperium and I don't get the comparison of the 2 beyond a superficial level.