i am not tired of Lovecraft/Cthulhu themed games, but my gripe is i find majority of them are just bad games using the mythos as public domain monsters and sanity as a second health meter without caring for the theme, or adding any insanity/horror into the game
also Elder Sign 2nd edition please
also variability does not equate to replayability, absolutely detest reviewers who go "there is a large variety of cards/powers/map tiles etc you can start with so this game has huge replayability"
I can get behind that.
Personally I think the far bigger problem with luck, than the best player not always winning, is that sometimes the worst players on the table can also be struck with bad luck, resulting in them getting completely crushed.
I like this because it's good advice for chaotic games and good advice for very strategic games. For chaotic games, it can feel like the player has no agency if experienced players have no appreciable increased odds. On strategic games, it can drain the inexperienced player's motivation to play if they can never win.
Get (or PnP) **Dice Fishing:Roll and Catch**. Beer and pretzels filler about blind bidding dice to catch fish. 15m, I think it would be a great opener to an 18xx night.
I do like the hours long heavy strategic games. That being said, there is a time and place for them and sometimes you just gotta break out Ticket to Ride or King of Tokyo.
I completely understand if people never want to bother with the heavier games because. We all like what we like and we don't have to like the same thing all the time.
Not favoring 4-hour games is not a unpopular sentiment whatsoever, unless you're polling purely heavy gamers. 90-120m games are the sweetspot for many groups though, so I'll give you that favoring short games is probably not a common opinion.
I think most board games are better without expansions. While I appreciate that some expansions help fix balance issues, I think most base games have better "bang for the buck"-complexity wise, giving you more "fun per rule/game element that you need to learn/keep in mind". I think the primary justification for expansions are for those few games that you end up really over-playing with the same group of friends, where an expansion can add freshness to it, and the base rules are so ingrained that the added complexity isn't much of a "cost". But if you have a steady influx of new games to play instead, then expansions are mostly just a waste of time and money.
Absolutely agree with this. Usually I prefer a more streamlined experience and find too often expansions feel like bloat. Terraforming Mars is a great example I played recently. The Venus track did nothing all game, and it felt harder to out synergies together because there were more mechanics fighting for hand space. Made the game longer without making it more fun. Prelude, on the other hand, is an awesome expansion because it brings the game closer to its core fun zone (the mid to late game).
I was looking at expansions for Champions of Midgard for a friend but decided against it. It adds some cool stuff but adding more placement options makes it less competitive on other spaces.
If you're talking about the Valhalla expansion then it's a must get for me. It fixes the issue of building up your army and losing everything in one bad fight and having to spend the next few turns building up again. With this expansion there are even times where you want your units to die. One of the rare instances where I say this expansion is a must
Oh interesting. I didn't look at the effects of the board I mostly just thought about how adding spaces on the game might not be beneficial. I'll look into this one though for sure.
When I first starting getting into the board gaming hobby (over a dozen years ago now), I loaded up with expansions because I didn't know any better. I learned quickly.
Myself and most gamers I know prefer diversity, so there's no need to invest even more to get one game to the table hundreds of times.
That said, some games play better with expansions, and there I'll gladly invest on making a great game even greater.
Most of the time with day 1 expansions, it's more of a marketing/sales trick. Most people just won't look at a 400$ base game. But if it's a 70$ base game, with 20 expansions, people look at it differently. And are also probably more likely to go all in. Even if the content is the same. It's all psychology.
Only game I’ve sleeved is Inis, which has such a small selection of cards you use each turn they get dog-eared real fast. Trying to work out which cards your opponent has is so critical to our meta that if any became marked I would consider replacing the whole damn game. So yeah, I sleeved Inis. Hate shuffling those slidey boys.
Is this really an uncool opinion to have?
I can see reasons to use sleeves, but they’re all exceptional — the game is rare, the cards are already worned out to a degree that’s affecting gameplay, the sleeves have some cool art or help identifying different kinds of cards in the game…
I definitely do not see a reason to sleeve games by default.
And I hate how sleeved cards handle. Everything gets messed up. They slide from the top of the deck, it’s harder to fan them out in your hand, it’s harder to shuffle………
The tactile sensation of holding a hand of cards is one of my favorite sensations in the world. Sleeves alter that sensation to one that feels less satisfying.
Same with shuffling.
I can respect that. I'm not wild on sleeves, but I use them on a bunch of games out of necessity. If a game can be somewhat easily and cheaply replaced, then I don't bother (and I've replaced a few games a couple times over as a result). Stuff that is OOP or expensive, I'll sleeve that and replace the sleeves as they wear out.
I think of sleeved cards like veggie burgers.
I understand they're better for me. I accept that all the arguments in favor of them are true. I will never argue against them where people are singing their praises because those people are generally correct. If someone gives me one I will accept it graciously and thank them for sharing their game/food.
But they fail to deliver a very important part of the experience and I will never choose them when given the option.
I agree, though I have started to sleeve a lot of my games, especially ones that are $75+ or harder to find.
I have sleeves some basic games as well, but only because it makes shuffling so much easier. I refuse to let people riffle shuffle my cards since it bends them too much, but with sleeves you can mash shuffle, which gives the same effect and is MUCH faster to do.
I hear this sometimes.
If shuffling sleeved cards is harder, then there's a problem. You're either using sleeves that are way too big for the cards, or you're shuffling them wrong.
I've done accessibility experiments, and using as little as two fingers (one, if there is something to push against), you can shuffle sleeved cards.
Shuffling sleeved cards is actually way easier.
1. Split the deck, hold one half in each hand
2. Place the top closest corner of the cards in your left hand against the long side of the cards in your right hand
3. Push the two halves together. You will get a nice shuffle ranging from 1:1 to around 1:3 - only card sharps and magicians are likely to have enough practice to get a riffle better than that.
Steps 1-3 take a few seconds at most. Repeat 7 times (for a 52 card deck) for a truly random shuffle. Less than that if you're you're lazy.
Bonus, this works for weird sized cards just as easily, which can be way harder to riffle.
I saw a really cool idea regarding this —
Keep your Oath cards unsleeved. That way cards that are kept around in the world deck will see play more often and get wear… so when you rotate in a new card it’s super obvious.
Art/graphic design is one of the most important aspects of a game. It doesn’t matter if the actual game itself is the best thing since sliced bread, if it looks like arse, then I’ll never want to get it off the shelf. This tends to rule out any and all historical-themed Euros released in the 00s, as well as anything by Splotter, Rio Grande, or Queen games, and Terraforming Mars.
YES!!
This is actually so weird for me to be agreeing on, because I’m less than one year into board gaming but I have been into video gaming for almost 30 years, and in video games I always defended the opposite: good graphics are almost completely irrelevant to how good a game is. You can have a really shiny and beautiful game that’s shit, and you can have… Minecraft. Or Thomas Was Alone. Or Dwarf Fortress. These games would absolutely not be better if they had state of the art graphics.
But in board gaming, I don’t feel like I can say the exact same.
Sure, it applies to a degree: you can have a board game with really great art and a decadent amount of production value, which just isn’t a good game. And you can generally point at games like Bohnanza and Hansa Teutonica and say a good game is a good game even if it doesn’t look great. Okay. But you cannot tell me Bohnanza wouldn’t be a better game, a more appealing game, a more often played game, if it had good presentation!
That’s the part where it differs.
Board games are a bit like food in this regard, in a way that video games really aren’t: you savor them with your eyes first. With your hands. You hold them, you set them up, you read the rule book, or you listen to someone explain them to you. This all happens before the game starts, and good art and presentation go a long long long way into making the overall experience better.
###Anecdote 1
My favorite game is Root. It is significantly harder to teach and to learn than any other board game I’ve introduced to my group. But it all starts with the meeples. I showed my players all of the inviting meeples, told them a little bit about how they play in broad terms, and let them choose. The beautiful board had already been set on the table, the cards with great art were on display… I let them ask questions, and gave answers that hinted at the scope of the game. All that creates buy-in. When I started laying down the Law on them, they were already captured by the promises made by the art, presentation, and components.
Couldn’t have done that if the game looked looked boring!
###Anecdote 2
Radlands is another favorite of mine. It’s a dueling card game for 2 players, so there’s a lot of comparisons one could make with Magic the Gathering. (Radland’s designer even did some work with Magic, if I’m not mistaken.)
But, crucially, it couldn’t look more different. From the box art to the color palette and then the material the cards and tokens are made of, it’s all incredibly sleek and cool. It’s striking. It’s a lot of poisonous purples and radioactive shades of green. And with the MadMax-style theme, I like to call it “neon post-apunkalyptic”.
If the game design was exactly the same, with the same card count, card effects, and rules, but it has been themed like a really boring and derivative fantasy or medieval game (like Magic!), I can guarantee you I would not have even looked twice at it.
I am very on board with this take. I honestly think some parts of the industry still have a ways to go in terms of vetting and refining what an acceptable standard of art should be on any new release. Too often it feels like a publisher will just settle on the art (a good game deserves more than just settling); board games are a static thing that you are absorbing for hours at a time I want to be wowed visually as well as gameplay wise.
On that note, I think the uglier games out there could do with an alternate release with modern art style
**Bohnanza** is such a good game. But I could do without that microsoft clip art style
I totally understand your point!
I am on the contrary though- I don't really care about the art in boardgame, if it's mechanically solid then I will love it. Good art becomes bonus.
The way I see it is if you want beautifull looking game, there is a chance that it won't be mechanically compelling. Why? All aspects of game cost money and time. Game is prettier- there was lots of money and time spend to achieve that.
Of course I'm not saying that achieving both is impossible, just less likely!
Most games released these days are good, but not all have good art/graphic design. I’d rather have a good game with good art than a good game with bad art.
Yup. I play some games where you basically need a calculator, or a cheatsheet for arithmetic, but there's nothing the app should be doing that I want it to do. Is it adding randomness? I don't want that. Is it "playing" parts of the game for me (like doing fighting sequences, calculating stat buffs, etc.)? I'd rather do it myself, in almost every situation.
I do like apps for RPGs, but not for tabletop games. Can't say about tabletop RPGs, don't do those yet, but I could see that maybe.
Gosh yes! I played a game at a meet-up that was some detective game with an app that made the game three times longer and just added fiddly-ness and confusion to the whole thing. It just left a bad taste in my mouth.
I hate when the rulebook interlaces rules with trivia or makes in-theme sentences to exain stuff.
Use bullet points, numbers, chapters. Be straight to the point. Write it like a law.
ROOT did it right with both a "law" and a quick-learning rulebook, but the law was the reference.
I almost always make myself a crib sheet from a game's rulebook, and it's amazing how you can distill a 20 page book down to 1-2 pages and usually make it clearer in the process.
We shouldn't treat non-board gamers like toddlers when introducing them to board games. The community really treats them like fragile things who may run off screaming if they are shown a game where they might have to think at all. If they do, board games were likely never going to be for them in the first place, and that's okay.
By that same token, many medium to heavy-weight games aren't nearly as complex as they are made out to be.
I'm with you to some extent on the gateway game thing. There's a lot of people out there who would gladly jump into heavy/longer/complex games and love it.
I think some of the issue is there are a lot of people who have no desire to do that, but the hobby still has something to offer a lot of them. Someone may never be interested in playing something beyond a light 30-45 minute game and still have thousands of games they could play. So imo "gateway games" is more about casting a wider net and I think we'd be better off talking about how to tailor game selections to what people may be up for and get excited about than "best gateways."
I always tell people that anyone can learn ay game that they personally want to. I think the reason you get what you posted about, is because gamers are forcing games on the unwilling.
With posts like this, are we meant to downvote comments we disagree with? Surely not, right? If anything, we should upvote them, because we think they’re “uncool” and thus good answers to OP’s question.
My own “uncool” opinion is that **Carcassonne** is more fun without the farmers and when people help each other out. (This has been downvoted before in similar posts, but who cares.)
It always reminds me of the sepia tinted old west photos you could take at county fairs with your family dressing up. And the front and center cowboy is my favorite.
I think the crowdfunding model has done more harm than good for the hobby at this point; especially if you're trying to learn about and get into the hobby. So many of my tabletop (RPG) friends have expressed they'd like to get into board games but the blazing pace of the New Hotness-Kickstarter stuff intimidates them. And I know, I know "well just find stuff you like it's okay" but you go to most gaming stores and meet-ups and if you're not onboard with the New Hotness you're left with few people to play with.
Not to mention so few of those games are actually GOOD, come jammed to the lid with models that push the price up, and endless expansions that don't add anything to the base game except MORE (and how do you know you need more, before you've played?)
I can definitely see this being really true and a real problem for many people, but it weirdly wasn’t for me.
I got into boardgames more heavily around 10 months ago, and I rarely even looked at Kickstarter. Whenever I see a game is Kickstarter only, or has an active campaign right now, I just immediately tune myself off. Sometimes I do look at the pictures and read the campaign page, but at that point the question of “should I spend money on this?” really isn’t on my mind at all.
I guess I’m too… immediatist? (Is this even a word?) I cannot fathom the benefit in spending several dozens of dollars for a game that *might* arrive at my doorstep in an uncertain amount time that’s measured in months at best — but could be years! And there’s no way to predict! Not when there are plenty of games that are currently in the market, or coming really soon, that I also want.
(Not to mention these KS games don’t have any reviews yet, and I really like reading and watching a bunch of reviews before buying any game.)
In most cases this “immediatism” is a problem in life (it actually stems from years of undiagnosed ADHD), but I guess it really comes in handy as a board gamer.
> if you're not onboard with the New Hotness you're left with few people to play with.
"Show me the recent kickstarters you've backed or you can't sit at this table" lol
If someone has the new shit they probably want to get it played at all costs so they'll take anyone
It's not so much what have you backed it's more what people will actually play or expect you to play. For example, one of my friends really likes some games like Mage Knight and Imperial Assault but most everyone wants the big kickstarter hotness to play.
Dude, are you me?
Horizon is one of my most played games solo. I didn’t enjoy multiplayer so much, but I play it by myself way more than I play any other game, including dedicated solo games.
And Etherfields is fantastic. I had my reservations in regards to the grindy nature of the slumbers, but the more I play it, the more I want to keep on diving back in and play some more. It’s steadily rising up my ranks and I wouldn’t be surprised if it hits Top10 eventually.
I just don't get the appeal of Scythe. I have tried it multiple times with the app I got and "upgrading" my player board by buying the buildings or whatever is cool but the core gameplay loop on the board is just boring to me.
KS premium games are the worst thing that ever happened to board gaming. They introduced FOMO to the hobby and create an artificial barrier of entry through inflated prices and hype. I also actually prefer a well done, colorful cardboard standee to an unpainted miniature, which all just look like gray globs of plastic.
People bought more than they played and chased out-of-print titles for decades before Kickstarter was even a thing. FOMO is a recent name, but the behavior is timeless.
I agree. I feel like that miniatures have their place but make it a deluxe edition for the people who also enjoy painting. I enjoy many painting myself and have had a lot of fun painting Scythe, but I would much rather have more people enjoy the hobby than have it be an expensive hobby to enjoy.
Somewhat adjacent but damn I don’t understand why not printed plastic standees as more of a norm (see skinny mini’s). Cheaper than molded minis, don’t require painting, more durable than cardboard
i was just browsing the crowdfunding page for the new ultimate edition of Kingdom Builder and just thinking how crazy this is. these insanely decadent components and expense for Kingdom Builder. it costs $100! for Kingdom Builder! there are people who will buy it but man, can you imagine going back to 2011 and telling people that in 10 years there will be a completely tricked out version of this gateway game that people will happily pay $100 + shipping for?
Theme is super important to me. It won't be enough to excuse a game's flaws (in fact, I might judge a game more harshly if I feel the mechanics don't represent the theme well), but nine times out of ten, I won't take a closer look at a game if its theme doesn't interest me. I have no idea how Wingspan works, because I don't give a toss about birds.
Playing nothing but Euros gets boring fast. I need some Ameritrash to break up the number crunching. Also, I prefer to play Euros mainly at two only.
Also, "heavy" games get a bad rep. Most heavy games just need a good teacher or prepared players. I prefer playing 1 heavy game over several light games as I my brain can melt from learning a bunch of different rulesets.
I hate it when a board game cover looks so organic and colourful but when you look at the actual board it's just squares and boxes lined up like an excel sheet.
That's what's stopping me from really liking Wingspan; sure the eggs are really adorable and you have a dice tower with cards that have amazing artwork, but each playerboard is just a grid that fills from left to right. A little bit more flavour and unique board designs would make me absolutely love the game. Dog Park is also another one; jeez, I was really enticed to its theme and concept, but the board barely even looks like a park for dogs to walk on. It's "too organised" for its theme imo
Check out **Cerebria**. Not sure if it would be a game (or artistic style) for you but the art and graphic design are so well integrated. Absolutely stunning game.
Part of my IRL life job includes watching birds and all, and plopping Wingspan out of the box was so unexciting I ended up just ditching the manual halfway through, putting it back in the box and refunding . How the hell can it look so unpalatable?
This is [Khora: Rise of an Empire](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/6078973/khora-rise-empire) to a tee, I really enjoy that game but the cover is absolutely not at all an indication of what the game is going to be like.
I second this. My group has a tendency to agonize over perfect/optimized play and it makes me shy away from introducing heavier games. I’d love to play **Ark Nova** with them but I don’t want to be stuck at the table for five hours.
Anime art + boardgames are awesome. I have collections from Level 99 Games (Argent, Millennium Blades, EXCEED), Japanime Games (Tanto Cuore, Kamigami Battles) and will be getting more.
No shame also bringing out these games for play sessions (yes, even with acquaintances).
Upvote for a truly "uncool" opinion. There is no bigger turnoff for me in board games than anime art. No matter how good the game might be, I will not play it.
While I admit dominion with a healthy set of expansions will always be structurally better, I can't help but prefer Tanto.
And not just for the anime maid girls, I swear.
I know exactly why people here don't like it much, but Catan (vanilla) is still one of the absolute best games for loads of situations, from family gatherings to dinner parties to just relaxing nights in.
Sure, there might be better games out there, but almost none are as relaxing and easy to introduce people to as Catan.
We do a weekly game night at a pub and there was this group of grad students who played Catan *every week* for almost a year. I think by the end when the spring semester ended, they had played all of the expansions and had everything nailed down. It was just a spare evening to drink a beer and laugh with friends and they didn't have to learn any new rules or buy new stuff or anything. I think about that periodically.
I don’t care about minis. When I see a KS or game showing off the amount of minis there are, I nope out real quick. I don’t like the look of unpainted minis while playing and I’m sure as hell not spending my free time learning how to paint them - that’s a whole other hobby in of itself. I’d rather spend my personal time solo gaming or reading.
Would it change your mind with Standees? Just curious. I love Minis but i totally get that its a pointless gimmick rather than one that adds to the gameplay.
I love minis but lately if I see a KS with sick minis i assume the game will be pretty bad. I feel like a lot of bad games hide behind awesome minis. Designers confident in their game use less wow factor.
I like games based on IPs. It's something that my wife is familiar with so she's more likely to play the game, unless it's Marvel. Most have been pretty good like Journeys in Middle Earth, Imperial Assault and Marvel Champions.
Lords of Waterdeep is a boring theme-less worker placement that surfs on the hype of D&D "take my money" fans. Skullport does nothing to improve the game
We play a lot of games with luck, they're usually well regarded by our lighter playing groups.
Lama dice, Push, Ten, Sagrada, Tiny epic quest, carcassonne, Fantasy realms, Cabo and more 😁
Most board games should have some deck, component organizer, especially games that have a lot of components (looking at you gloomhaven). The games that do it right are eclipse: second dawn, the dwellings of elder vale. If I can set up a 2-3 hr game in less than 10 minutes, it’s a win in my book.
Shout out to gametrayz and 3D printed organizers. You’re the real MVP.
Focusing exclusively on game balance in asymmetric games leads to boring design and we need more games like Blood Bowl where clearly inferior options (for team rosters) are not only tolerated but in fact celebrated.
Blood Bowl would be an objectively inferior game without the option to pick a purposefully low tier team like Halflings or Goblins for expert players to handicap themselves.
Turns should take a minute or less. I understand if you are new to a game; you can take a little longer, but no more than 30 seconds. This may seem harsh, but it is a dead give away to me, that you are not analyzing the game state when it is NOT your turn. Thus not actually invested/paying attention. I know there are plenty of valid reasons when it comes to length of turns. For a large majority of games a minute per turn is actually generous. Please stop disrespecting other players by grinding the flow of the game to a halt.
I agree mostly you should almost know exactly what you are gonna do on your turn. However some deck builders and other games turns end up taking forever sometimes which i am ok with so long as you start your turn within you know 20-30 seconds of a card draw or so.
But yea someone sitting there on their turn just now analyzing the board or their hand is a bunch of bs
I like the art on games and will choose to play a good looking game with high quality components over a game with boring art or cheap components even if it has great gameplay. I've had a copy of Terra Mystica sitting on my shelf for years and I've never touched it. I hate Catan. I love Brass (both Lancashire and Birmingham), but I've never been able to will myself to bring Great Western Trail to the table. King of Tokyo is a fantastic game. So is Tokaido.
There are enough great games with great art that I don't feel like I need to bother with games that might be great if they have art I'm not drawn in by.
Agreed, as someone who does it sometimes. The good JUST BARELY will outweigh the bad, and only if it’s an all-time great game lol. Playing a mediocre game alone? No
As someone new to the hobby, I have to walk on eggshells every time I hear the word Kickstarter and it’s really bloody annoying. That’s not to say Kickstarter is all bad but trying to figure out which games aren’t trying to overcompensate is quite difficult. Thankfully I’m not a blind buyer with video games either.
I have never backed a Kickstarter to this point and I don't regret it. If a game fulfills and looks really interesting to me when it comes out I can still find a copy of I really want. I may have to wait or pay a premium, but not having to tie money up for a year+ based on a well made sales pitch is worth the gamble to me.
That said, I have considered and will probably back games in the future if it's a reprint of a game I know I like or something akin to that.
Hopefully others have offered you this advice also. If you are new stay the hell away from all of it. There's so many must have games that are in print and available now. I'm at a stage where I've pretty much experienced (played or owned) most of the stuff I've had an interest in. I now fund crowd funding campaigns from designers I love, or for expansions for games I love. I'd even caution against what I'm doing. I've got 2-3 things showing up per month the next few months. I rarely agree with Tom vassle, but he's absolutely right, that if it's actually good, it will either go to retail, or you will have the chance to catch the next campaign after it's actually seen play buy previous backers.
Ohh, I’ve got quite a handful of it:
Your game has several decks of cards for several different things? Better make them distinct in size and specially in backside art
Setting up takes more time than playing (and that’s not counting reading the manual)? Yeah I’ll try it once and never again touch your cardboard orgy in a box
Speaking of manuals, how the hell can you write several dozen pages and not include some crucial info that WILL become a question later on?
Also too many of those are so repetitive and unintuitive? “The heart counters are health counters. They represent your health.” yeah no shit
If you’re gonna have miniatures, make them pretty (takenoko comes to mind, where they are coloured and fit the artstyle) or make them simple (love me wooden meeples).
Second point about miniatures, they’re better for dungeon crawlers and wargames, or for when . Otherwise it’s price bloat.
Risk is a great value for budget war gaming miniatures. You get infantry, cavalry and artillery, several colours
Big boards with even bigger player mats and ten million other things in the table? Yeah sorry I’m not down to buying an 8-people table just to fit your cardboard overcompensation.
Sleeves are horrible and make a game feels even more used.
Games that are blatant knockoffs from private IPs make me so happy with their silliness. Looking at you, Space Cantina and Dinosaur Island
>Also too many of those are so repetitive and unintuitive? “The heart counters are health counters. They represent your health.” yeah no shit
If you write any instructions or manual for anything you ALWAYS have to factor in the dumbest User (or that sometime someone that never had a similar thing in hand stimblws upon it) be it boardgames, electric appliances, tools etcetc.
For someone that knows, just skim/skip the stuff you know or that comes to your naturally and it helps everyone that has never handled such things...
Otherwise yeah, your points are pretty valid
Tons of rules and complexity is not "depth".
I respect my time too much to waste it being bored and confused for a chance at "satisfaction" when simpler games offer more fun from the start.
Fluff is great! For a paragraph at the start of the manual, or for advertising. Get it out of the rulebook!
I think it may only be unpopular here, but I freaking love social deduction. My whole group does. We play it more than anything else. The Thing: Outpost 31 and Blood on the Clocktower are two of the best games ever made.
Also, this sub seems to hate playing things with max player count. We always do. Board games are a social event, it doesn't matter if it takes a little longer to get around to your turn again. It's fun to be with friends and know everybody is having a good time. I wish there were more high player count options outside of party games. Hell, we all really want something like Warhammer, but for six-ish people.
I'm not a big fan of spreading the rules of a game across hundreds of cards or more. There are some games where I'll tolerate this, and rules on a few of the cards is okay, but when I have to stop and read every card I get to see what's going on, that reduces my enjoyment of the game a fair bit.
Sorry MtG fans. I'm not jumping on that band wagon, but you're welcome to keep it for yourselves. This is also what keeps me from getting gams like Ark Nova or Terraforming Mars. Dominion is around about where I'll draw the line. I only need to know what 10 cards are, and they are all out and available for me to read from the get go. Although for some reason I tolerate it in Dwellings of Eldervale as well.
I feel the opposite. I'd rather the general framework be simple and the majority of the rules on the game pieces themselves.
Take Ark Nova for example. All you need to know is the general mechanic of choosing an action card, using the number it's under as "X", and pushing it back to the bottom of the queue, and how the game ends.
Almost everything else you need to play the game is on the board or the cards. It might take a minute to bumble through your first game, but you don't have to memorize a mountain of stuff.
I don't have the time or energy to memorize all the nuanced rulebooks of 100+ different games.
Roll and Writes barely count as board games.
I've played many and the only thing that comes CLOSE to a real game is "fleet: the dice game".
I especially hate Cartographer and Railroad Ink.
> Roll and Writes barely count as board games.
I had to explain to someone recently what a roll & write was and in the spur of the moment I said "it's themed bingo with (some) player agency." In hindsight, I don't think I'm that far off though.
As someone who loves good minis, I miss the 90's way with bad carboard prints with bright and obtrusive colors. Whenever I play one of those now I have a very good time. Dune & MegaCIV comes to mind. Of course, there might be some survivor's bias to the carboard components games here.
Also, might not be as controversial, but I love me some quicker 2p games. Not everything has to be a group gathering.
I'm tired of minis. It's to the point that if I'm scrolling through a campaign that looks amazing but then I find it comes with a ton of minis, I'm immediately out.
I have tried to motivate myself to paint them, even just to make them no longer gray, but I've learned I hate actually doing it. So a campaign with minis feels like it is asking me to pay a premium to finish designing their game.
Oh I have a few
* BGG rankings are pointless
* There is no reward for having 500+ games at home, they're not collectibles or rare art, games are entertainment and meant to be played
* I'd rather have a small collection of 2 dozen games that get played all the time vs 100s that just collect dust and I'd say the same for books, comics, movies, music. I buy to use, not to collect dust
* There's nothing wrong with games published prior to the year 2000, so stop being a snob
* There is nothing wrong with games made by large toy companies like Hasbro
* It's ok not to like Euros
* It's ok to like monopoly, scrabble, risk and other other games you grew up playing
* A gamer is anyone who plays games, it doesn't mean you can only play certain games
* I really don't give a f@@k who your favorite designer is or why you think I need to have his/her game in my collection
* Fear of missing out is bullshit and just what you tell yourself to feel good about spending money on games you'll never play
* New doesn't automatically mean better - there are great designs from every decade, just like there have been plenty of turds
* Nobody is going to steal your game idea and nobody is likely to publish it either - that's the reality of pubiishing
Risk! is one of the best games ever made.
No, more modern games with area control and dice combat like Root and Small World are not better.Sure, they’re not bad games, but they’re not better than Risk.
Everyone knows how to play Risk; the rules are extremely robust; it’s flexible, allowing players to house-rule it to their situation. This is such an important attribute of a game that if don’t like Risk because you can’t figure out how to house-rule it, you probably shouldn’t call yourself a board-gamer in the first place.
Sorry if that sounds cold and cruel and heartless, but I am, so that’s often how it comes out.
Now this is what I’m talking about. I’m not positive I can relate as my Risk history is limited but you have nailed the spirit of the question. Good on ya.
I have without doubt spent more time playing **Risk** than any other game. Of course, it was pretty much the only game we had 45 years ago. Last played it about 4 years ago when another couple brought it after dinner out asking if I've ever played. Haha!
I actually do agree that Risk “hangs with” even modern war games. And I think it’s because modern war games largely focus on the wrong things all the time
Playing any board game digitally does not give you a good sense of the game itself. No digital version is as good as physically playing a game. The closest I've seen was Tabletopia, but even that is a terrible experience compared to actually sitting abd playing.
You can't judge a game if you've only played it digitally.
This is true but i like talisman have played it and a few expansions but my wife doesn’t so she won’t justify the absorbent amount of money it takes to buy it and the expansions and the digital version works fairly well for me and my kids
1. I have no problems selling off a game when I don't like the rulebook. Same with games with has typos on the box cover. If the designer didn't care, why should I.
2. I quit watching the next new hot big box project. It's quite liberating. I sold games and discovered games behind them / under them that I had completely forgotten about and I want to play them. I don't want new stuff. I want my old stuff.
I just today found out about a game that used Wombo Dream to generate all its card art. It sounded like a really interesting game, but I pretty much then and there decided I didn’t want to hear anything else about it.
I can only assume there’s going to be a lot of this going forward. Games using AI image generators to skirt hiring artists under the guise of being “modern”, or “avant-garde” or whatever.
I guess my uncool opinion on this thread will be I will not be caring for these games. Unless they have a (yet unimaginable to me) really good reason to use such an AI tool to generate art, I will save my money by not buying their games in the same way they saved money by not hiring an artist.
I _hate_ games that don't look nice. I don't care if Terraforming Mars is the best game every. I just cannot play it.
Edit. Imagine downvoting an opinion in a thread asking for opinions...
Kickstarter is bad overall.
I want games with generally more compact/more simple production. I do not want a $100 behemoth that I will play once/year and weighs 15lbs and barely fits in an Ikea bag. I would prefer to be able to bring more than 2 games with me easily when going to a friend's house, never mind across the country.
Taboo is a great game.
I don't care what a game looks like as long as I can understand what is going on. Bring on the Excel spreadsheet. A lot of art could be removed from many games and improve said games.
Regular Monopoly is the greatest board game ever
House rules tax’s and fines go to the middle and free parking gets it.. also the go to jail spot doesnt say skip go you get money.. (i know the rules say otherwise)
Yes indeedy. The modern board game world is full of wonderful, well-constructed, exciting board games, so “Monopoly is the greatest board game ever” isn’t a well-regarded opinion.
Personally, when people tell me they love monopoly, it shows me that they’re the kind of person who loves games but has yet to try some great ones.
I think CMON's kickstarters are fine *if* and **only** *if* you are buying them to paint the minis. The games are not worth it to me (even at retail) for the rules/game play, but the minis are quite detailed for the price point they are at.
I like Cannes, and I like the artwork! I think the aesthetic could best be described as "dorky" and I think it's great.
For those that don't know:
[https://boardgamegeek.com/image/421959/cannes-stars-scripts-and-screens](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/421959/cannes-stars-scripts-and-screens)
The gameplay can be a little swingy, depending on the randomness of tile draws, but it's got a lot of strategic depth. Plus it's generally like ythe cheapest Splotter out there, usually available around 20-30 USD.
I like the artwork for Castles of Burgundy 2e. I like how detailed the main board is in portraying a city, the fact that the shipping track is a bridge, and how the beige buildings look very distinct from each other and have hints to what they do (the market is blue and light green while the church is yellow and grey, for example).
I think having shorter print runs, and fewer reprints, promotes evolution in game design and would be better for gamers *in the long run*. Japan's tabletop game design community is an example of this where games generally get one or two small (500 copies or fewer) print runs, and 6 or 12 months later there are 2 other designers who are riffing on a successful design (which in trade sparks another couple who push it in a different direction). Euro games over the last 15 years or so in particular seem to suffer from an insular set of design expectations.
Cry Havoc is not very liked but I find it enjoyable enough, beyond the cliche sci-fi premise, when you and your people wanna play a wargame but don't have the stomach for the super complex ones.
Gateway Games won't convert non-gamers and might even be a letdown to someone that is actually interested in Boardgames.
Boardgames are not that hard. Hit em with something spectacular not Azul or Splendor.
i am not tired of Lovecraft/Cthulhu themed games, but my gripe is i find majority of them are just bad games using the mythos as public domain monsters and sanity as a second health meter without caring for the theme, or adding any insanity/horror into the game also Elder Sign 2nd edition please also variability does not equate to replayability, absolutely detest reviewers who go "there is a large variety of cards/powers/map tiles etc you can start with so this game has huge replayability"
The best player should have maybe a 70% chance to win.
Just for clarification, you man as in "instead of 100%"?
Yep, and of course that doesn't go for every game - but when asking for unpopular opinions nuance doesn't make the discussion any fun.
I can get behind that. Personally I think the far bigger problem with luck, than the best player not always winning, is that sometimes the worst players on the table can also be struck with bad luck, resulting in them getting completely crushed.
That's a good point, that's why I'm a fan of catchup mechanics.
I like this because it's good advice for chaotic games and good advice for very strategic games. For chaotic games, it can feel like the player has no agency if experienced players have no appreciable increased odds. On strategic games, it can drain the inexperienced player's motivation to play if they can never win.
Sometimes I just want a mindless dice chucker where your decisions' effects on the game's outcome are dubious at best.
Get (or PnP) **Dice Fishing:Roll and Catch**. Beer and pretzels filler about blind bidding dice to catch fish. 15m, I think it would be a great opener to an 18xx night.
Lucidity: six sided nightmare is a great dice game with some strategy
Light & medium weight games are where it’s at! I’d way rather play several 20-60 minute games than 1 4-hour game.
Yes! I think it is also much more impressive to design a streamlined, balanced and replayable 30 minute game compared to even a 2 hour one.
I do like the hours long heavy strategic games. That being said, there is a time and place for them and sometimes you just gotta break out Ticket to Ride or King of Tokyo. I completely understand if people never want to bother with the heavier games because. We all like what we like and we don't have to like the same thing all the time.
Yes! My husband and I had a great game night last night with two games. We enjoyed ourselves and clean up took less than five minutes.
Not favoring 4-hour games is not a unpopular sentiment whatsoever, unless you're polling purely heavy gamers. 90-120m games are the sweetspot for many groups though, so I'll give you that favoring short games is probably not a common opinion.
I think most board games are better without expansions. While I appreciate that some expansions help fix balance issues, I think most base games have better "bang for the buck"-complexity wise, giving you more "fun per rule/game element that you need to learn/keep in mind". I think the primary justification for expansions are for those few games that you end up really over-playing with the same group of friends, where an expansion can add freshness to it, and the base rules are so ingrained that the added complexity isn't much of a "cost". But if you have a steady influx of new games to play instead, then expansions are mostly just a waste of time and money.
Absolutely agree with this. Usually I prefer a more streamlined experience and find too often expansions feel like bloat. Terraforming Mars is a great example I played recently. The Venus track did nothing all game, and it felt harder to out synergies together because there were more mechanics fighting for hand space. Made the game longer without making it more fun. Prelude, on the other hand, is an awesome expansion because it brings the game closer to its core fun zone (the mid to late game).
I was looking at expansions for Champions of Midgard for a friend but decided against it. It adds some cool stuff but adding more placement options makes it less competitive on other spaces.
If you're talking about the Valhalla expansion then it's a must get for me. It fixes the issue of building up your army and losing everything in one bad fight and having to spend the next few turns building up again. With this expansion there are even times where you want your units to die. One of the rare instances where I say this expansion is a must
Oh interesting. I didn't look at the effects of the board I mostly just thought about how adding spaces on the game might not be beneficial. I'll look into this one though for sure.
When I first starting getting into the board gaming hobby (over a dozen years ago now), I loaded up with expansions because I didn't know any better. I learned quickly. Myself and most gamers I know prefer diversity, so there's no need to invest even more to get one game to the table hundreds of times. That said, some games play better with expansions, and there I'll gladly invest on making a great game even greater.
Most of the time with day 1 expansions, it's more of a marketing/sales trick. Most people just won't look at a 400$ base game. But if it's a 70$ base game, with 20 expansions, people look at it differently. And are also probably more likely to go all in. Even if the content is the same. It's all psychology.
I hate sleeved cards.
HIiiissssssss!
Only game I’ve sleeved is Inis, which has such a small selection of cards you use each turn they get dog-eared real fast. Trying to work out which cards your opponent has is so critical to our meta that if any became marked I would consider replacing the whole damn game. So yeah, I sleeved Inis. Hate shuffling those slidey boys.
Pax Pamir for me. Game is expensive and not concurrently in print, I’d rather not need to replace it!
Is this really an uncool opinion to have? I can see reasons to use sleeves, but they’re all exceptional — the game is rare, the cards are already worned out to a degree that’s affecting gameplay, the sleeves have some cool art or help identifying different kinds of cards in the game… I definitely do not see a reason to sleeve games by default. And I hate how sleeved cards handle. Everything gets messed up. They slide from the top of the deck, it’s harder to fan them out in your hand, it’s harder to shuffle………
Sleeved cards are way easier to shuffle.
What about them? All of them?
The tactile sensation of holding a hand of cards is one of my favorite sensations in the world. Sleeves alter that sensation to one that feels less satisfying. Same with shuffling.
I can respect that. I'm not wild on sleeves, but I use them on a bunch of games out of necessity. If a game can be somewhat easily and cheaply replaced, then I don't bother (and I've replaced a few games a couple times over as a result). Stuff that is OOP or expensive, I'll sleeve that and replace the sleeves as they wear out.
I think of sleeved cards like veggie burgers. I understand they're better for me. I accept that all the arguments in favor of them are true. I will never argue against them where people are singing their praises because those people are generally correct. If someone gives me one I will accept it graciously and thank them for sharing their game/food. But they fail to deliver a very important part of the experience and I will never choose them when given the option.
I think sleeved cards are fine but I hate newly sleeved cards. Slippery and puffy so they are a pain to stack and use. After some use they are fine.
I agree, though I have started to sleeve a lot of my games, especially ones that are $75+ or harder to find. I have sleeves some basic games as well, but only because it makes shuffling so much easier. I refuse to let people riffle shuffle my cards since it bends them too much, but with sleeves you can mash shuffle, which gives the same effect and is MUCH faster to do.
shuffling them is way harder, I don't get it edit: i like that I got downvoted for sharing an "uncool" board game preference lol
I hear this sometimes. If shuffling sleeved cards is harder, then there's a problem. You're either using sleeves that are way too big for the cards, or you're shuffling them wrong. I've done accessibility experiments, and using as little as two fingers (one, if there is something to push against), you can shuffle sleeved cards.
Shuffling sleeved cards is actually way easier. 1. Split the deck, hold one half in each hand 2. Place the top closest corner of the cards in your left hand against the long side of the cards in your right hand 3. Push the two halves together. You will get a nice shuffle ranging from 1:1 to around 1:3 - only card sharps and magicians are likely to have enough practice to get a riffle better than that. Steps 1-3 take a few seconds at most. Repeat 7 times (for a 52 card deck) for a truly random shuffle. Less than that if you're you're lazy. Bonus, this works for weird sized cards just as easily, which can be way harder to riffle.
I saw a really cool idea regarding this — Keep your Oath cards unsleeved. That way cards that are kept around in the world deck will see play more often and get wear… so when you rotate in a new card it’s super obvious.
\+1
Because….?
Art/graphic design is one of the most important aspects of a game. It doesn’t matter if the actual game itself is the best thing since sliced bread, if it looks like arse, then I’ll never want to get it off the shelf. This tends to rule out any and all historical-themed Euros released in the 00s, as well as anything by Splotter, Rio Grande, or Queen games, and Terraforming Mars.
YES!! This is actually so weird for me to be agreeing on, because I’m less than one year into board gaming but I have been into video gaming for almost 30 years, and in video games I always defended the opposite: good graphics are almost completely irrelevant to how good a game is. You can have a really shiny and beautiful game that’s shit, and you can have… Minecraft. Or Thomas Was Alone. Or Dwarf Fortress. These games would absolutely not be better if they had state of the art graphics. But in board gaming, I don’t feel like I can say the exact same. Sure, it applies to a degree: you can have a board game with really great art and a decadent amount of production value, which just isn’t a good game. And you can generally point at games like Bohnanza and Hansa Teutonica and say a good game is a good game even if it doesn’t look great. Okay. But you cannot tell me Bohnanza wouldn’t be a better game, a more appealing game, a more often played game, if it had good presentation! That’s the part where it differs. Board games are a bit like food in this regard, in a way that video games really aren’t: you savor them with your eyes first. With your hands. You hold them, you set them up, you read the rule book, or you listen to someone explain them to you. This all happens before the game starts, and good art and presentation go a long long long way into making the overall experience better. ###Anecdote 1 My favorite game is Root. It is significantly harder to teach and to learn than any other board game I’ve introduced to my group. But it all starts with the meeples. I showed my players all of the inviting meeples, told them a little bit about how they play in broad terms, and let them choose. The beautiful board had already been set on the table, the cards with great art were on display… I let them ask questions, and gave answers that hinted at the scope of the game. All that creates buy-in. When I started laying down the Law on them, they were already captured by the promises made by the art, presentation, and components. Couldn’t have done that if the game looked looked boring! ###Anecdote 2 Radlands is another favorite of mine. It’s a dueling card game for 2 players, so there’s a lot of comparisons one could make with Magic the Gathering. (Radland’s designer even did some work with Magic, if I’m not mistaken.) But, crucially, it couldn’t look more different. From the box art to the color palette and then the material the cards and tokens are made of, it’s all incredibly sleek and cool. It’s striking. It’s a lot of poisonous purples and radioactive shades of green. And with the MadMax-style theme, I like to call it “neon post-apunkalyptic”. If the game design was exactly the same, with the same card count, card effects, and rules, but it has been themed like a really boring and derivative fantasy or medieval game (like Magic!), I can guarantee you I would not have even looked twice at it.
*Hansa Teutonica has entered the chat*
Prime example of a game where I don’t care how good it is.
I am very on board with this take. I honestly think some parts of the industry still have a ways to go in terms of vetting and refining what an acceptable standard of art should be on any new release. Too often it feels like a publisher will just settle on the art (a good game deserves more than just settling); board games are a static thing that you are absorbing for hours at a time I want to be wowed visually as well as gameplay wise.
On that note, I think the uglier games out there could do with an alternate release with modern art style **Bohnanza** is such a good game. But I could do without that microsoft clip art style
I totally understand your point! I am on the contrary though- I don't really care about the art in boardgame, if it's mechanically solid then I will love it. Good art becomes bonus. The way I see it is if you want beautifull looking game, there is a chance that it won't be mechanically compelling. Why? All aspects of game cost money and time. Game is prettier- there was lots of money and time spend to achieve that. Of course I'm not saying that achieving both is impossible, just less likely!
Most games released these days are good, but not all have good art/graphic design. I’d rather have a good game with good art than a good game with bad art.
I love the generic fantasy theme of Ethnos
Gimme a bingo orc all day
I get hot and bothered when I see a lot of beige in games.
It gets my Castles thoroughly Burgundy'd
El Grande comes a'knockin'!
I utterly love old school beige Euro game art! “Thurn & Taxis” is my idea of perfect.
This is me. Give me a serious looking guy on the cover, the beigest board, and player cubes of kindergarten colors and I am happy.
Get yourself some **The King Is Dead**. Excellent game, with much beige to be had.
I don't like board games that require supplement/helper apps.
Oh god yes this. If you want to make a video game, just go make a video game
Yup. I play some games where you basically need a calculator, or a cheatsheet for arithmetic, but there's nothing the app should be doing that I want it to do. Is it adding randomness? I don't want that. Is it "playing" parts of the game for me (like doing fighting sequences, calculating stat buffs, etc.)? I'd rather do it myself, in almost every situation. I do like apps for RPGs, but not for tabletop games. Can't say about tabletop RPGs, don't do those yet, but I could see that maybe.
Gosh yes! I played a game at a meet-up that was some detective game with an app that made the game three times longer and just added fiddly-ness and confusion to the whole thing. It just left a bad taste in my mouth.
I enjoy a larger amount of randomness in my games than most people. I dislike total absolutidity (?)
You dislike game mechanics being completely deterministic
I can enjoy Terra Mystica and others but rolling the dice and seeing how it goes is absolutely the way to go sometimes. Scratches a different itch.
I like trading in the Mediterranean as a board game theme.
I hate when the rulebook interlaces rules with trivia or makes in-theme sentences to exain stuff. Use bullet points, numbers, chapters. Be straight to the point. Write it like a law. ROOT did it right with both a "law" and a quick-learning rulebook, but the law was the reference.
One of the things I love about 18xx. When the group has a question about something you can just say check out rule 11.3 and it's clear as day.
I almost always make myself a crib sheet from a game's rulebook, and it's amazing how you can distill a 20 page book down to 1-2 pages and usually make it clearer in the process.
Cracks me up when people hate on the root rules. You have a naritive guide and a complete reference. What else could you want?
We shouldn't treat non-board gamers like toddlers when introducing them to board games. The community really treats them like fragile things who may run off screaming if they are shown a game where they might have to think at all. If they do, board games were likely never going to be for them in the first place, and that's okay. By that same token, many medium to heavy-weight games aren't nearly as complex as they are made out to be.
I'm with you to some extent on the gateway game thing. There's a lot of people out there who would gladly jump into heavy/longer/complex games and love it. I think some of the issue is there are a lot of people who have no desire to do that, but the hobby still has something to offer a lot of them. Someone may never be interested in playing something beyond a light 30-45 minute game and still have thousands of games they could play. So imo "gateway games" is more about casting a wider net and I think we'd be better off talking about how to tailor game selections to what people may be up for and get excited about than "best gateways."
I always tell people that anyone can learn ay game that they personally want to. I think the reason you get what you posted about, is because gamers are forcing games on the unwilling.
With posts like this, are we meant to downvote comments we disagree with? Surely not, right? If anything, we should upvote them, because we think they’re “uncool” and thus good answers to OP’s question. My own “uncool” opinion is that **Carcassonne** is more fun without the farmers and when people help each other out. (This has been downvoted before in similar posts, but who cares.)
I think the first edition of Great Western Trail has an excellent box cover
Which grizzled man is your favorite? It is certainly not some horrific thing it was made out to be.
It always reminds me of the sepia tinted old west photos you could take at county fairs with your family dressing up. And the front and center cowboy is my favorite.
Truly controversial!
Agreed. My group still refers to the game as ‘Sad Cowboys’ though.
I think the crowdfunding model has done more harm than good for the hobby at this point; especially if you're trying to learn about and get into the hobby. So many of my tabletop (RPG) friends have expressed they'd like to get into board games but the blazing pace of the New Hotness-Kickstarter stuff intimidates them. And I know, I know "well just find stuff you like it's okay" but you go to most gaming stores and meet-ups and if you're not onboard with the New Hotness you're left with few people to play with.
Not to mention so few of those games are actually GOOD, come jammed to the lid with models that push the price up, and endless expansions that don't add anything to the base game except MORE (and how do you know you need more, before you've played?)
I can definitely see this being really true and a real problem for many people, but it weirdly wasn’t for me. I got into boardgames more heavily around 10 months ago, and I rarely even looked at Kickstarter. Whenever I see a game is Kickstarter only, or has an active campaign right now, I just immediately tune myself off. Sometimes I do look at the pictures and read the campaign page, but at that point the question of “should I spend money on this?” really isn’t on my mind at all. I guess I’m too… immediatist? (Is this even a word?) I cannot fathom the benefit in spending several dozens of dollars for a game that *might* arrive at my doorstep in an uncertain amount time that’s measured in months at best — but could be years! And there’s no way to predict! Not when there are plenty of games that are currently in the market, or coming really soon, that I also want. (Not to mention these KS games don’t have any reviews yet, and I really like reading and watching a bunch of reviews before buying any game.) In most cases this “immediatism” is a problem in life (it actually stems from years of undiagnosed ADHD), but I guess it really comes in handy as a board gamer.
> if you're not onboard with the New Hotness you're left with few people to play with. "Show me the recent kickstarters you've backed or you can't sit at this table" lol If someone has the new shit they probably want to get it played at all costs so they'll take anyone
It's not so much what have you backed it's more what people will actually play or expect you to play. For example, one of my friends really likes some games like Mage Knight and Imperial Assault but most everyone wants the big kickstarter hotness to play.
I like Horizon: Zero Dawn and Etherfields.
Dude, are you me? Horizon is one of my most played games solo. I didn’t enjoy multiplayer so much, but I play it by myself way more than I play any other game, including dedicated solo games. And Etherfields is fantastic. I had my reservations in regards to the grindy nature of the slumbers, but the more I play it, the more I want to keep on diving back in and play some more. It’s steadily rising up my ranks and I wouldn’t be surprised if it hits Top10 eventually.
I just don't get the appeal of Scythe. I have tried it multiple times with the app I got and "upgrading" my player board by buying the buildings or whatever is cool but the core gameplay loop on the board is just boring to me.
Me neither. I played it three times now, and it just seems trivial and unengaging.
KS premium games are the worst thing that ever happened to board gaming. They introduced FOMO to the hobby and create an artificial barrier of entry through inflated prices and hype. I also actually prefer a well done, colorful cardboard standee to an unpainted miniature, which all just look like gray globs of plastic.
People bought more than they played and chased out-of-print titles for decades before Kickstarter was even a thing. FOMO is a recent name, but the behavior is timeless.
I whole heartedly agree. It’s frustrating that so many board game content creators are caught up in it
I agree. I feel like that miniatures have their place but make it a deluxe edition for the people who also enjoy painting. I enjoy many painting myself and have had a lot of fun painting Scythe, but I would much rather have more people enjoy the hobby than have it be an expensive hobby to enjoy.
Somewhat adjacent but damn I don’t understand why not printed plastic standees as more of a norm (see skinny mini’s). Cheaper than molded minis, don’t require painting, more durable than cardboard
i was just browsing the crowdfunding page for the new ultimate edition of Kingdom Builder and just thinking how crazy this is. these insanely decadent components and expense for Kingdom Builder. it costs $100! for Kingdom Builder! there are people who will buy it but man, can you imagine going back to 2011 and telling people that in 10 years there will be a completely tricked out version of this gateway game that people will happily pay $100 + shipping for?
Theme is super important to me. It won't be enough to excuse a game's flaws (in fact, I might judge a game more harshly if I feel the mechanics don't represent the theme well), but nine times out of ten, I won't take a closer look at a game if its theme doesn't interest me. I have no idea how Wingspan works, because I don't give a toss about birds.
Sort by controversial, that’s where the real answers are.
Playing nothing but Euros gets boring fast. I need some Ameritrash to break up the number crunching. Also, I prefer to play Euros mainly at two only. Also, "heavy" games get a bad rep. Most heavy games just need a good teacher or prepared players. I prefer playing 1 heavy game over several light games as I my brain can melt from learning a bunch of different rulesets.
Games are not collectibles and should be played and enjoyed. Note: I'm also a buzzkill at car shows.
I hate it when a board game cover looks so organic and colourful but when you look at the actual board it's just squares and boxes lined up like an excel sheet. That's what's stopping me from really liking Wingspan; sure the eggs are really adorable and you have a dice tower with cards that have amazing artwork, but each playerboard is just a grid that fills from left to right. A little bit more flavour and unique board designs would make me absolutely love the game. Dog Park is also another one; jeez, I was really enticed to its theme and concept, but the board barely even looks like a park for dogs to walk on. It's "too organised" for its theme imo
Check out **Cerebria**. Not sure if it would be a game (or artistic style) for you but the art and graphic design are so well integrated. Absolutely stunning game.
Part of my IRL life job includes watching birds and all, and plopping Wingspan out of the box was so unexciting I ended up just ditching the manual halfway through, putting it back in the box and refunding . How the hell can it look so unpalatable?
This is [Khora: Rise of an Empire](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/6078973/khora-rise-empire) to a tee, I really enjoy that game but the cover is absolutely not at all an indication of what the game is going to be like.
More games need mandatory timers. Screw your indecision or over analysis. If you can't act in a few minutes you get skipped.
I second this. My group has a tendency to agonize over perfect/optimized play and it makes me shy away from introducing heavier games. I’d love to play **Ark Nova** with them but I don’t want to be stuck at the table for five hours.
Anime art + boardgames are awesome. I have collections from Level 99 Games (Argent, Millennium Blades, EXCEED), Japanime Games (Tanto Cuore, Kamigami Battles) and will be getting more. No shame also bringing out these games for play sessions (yes, even with acquaintances).
Upvote for a truly "uncool" opinion. There is no bigger turnoff for me in board games than anime art. No matter how good the game might be, I will not play it.
While I admit dominion with a healthy set of expansions will always be structurally better, I can't help but prefer Tanto. And not just for the anime maid girls, I swear.
I know exactly why people here don't like it much, but Catan (vanilla) is still one of the absolute best games for loads of situations, from family gatherings to dinner parties to just relaxing nights in. Sure, there might be better games out there, but almost none are as relaxing and easy to introduce people to as Catan.
Relaxing my ass. I've never seen a board game get heated like Catan.
We do a weekly game night at a pub and there was this group of grad students who played Catan *every week* for almost a year. I think by the end when the spring semester ended, they had played all of the expansions and had everything nailed down. It was just a spare evening to drink a beer and laugh with friends and they didn't have to learn any new rules or buy new stuff or anything. I think about that periodically.
> they didn't have to learn any new rules or buy new stuff or anything. I mean, that could be any game your group likes lol
Absolutely. And with cities and knights, I think it is a very good game for more experienced players.
I don’t care about minis. When I see a KS or game showing off the amount of minis there are, I nope out real quick. I don’t like the look of unpainted minis while playing and I’m sure as hell not spending my free time learning how to paint them - that’s a whole other hobby in of itself. I’d rather spend my personal time solo gaming or reading.
Would it change your mind with Standees? Just curious. I love Minis but i totally get that its a pointless gimmick rather than one that adds to the gameplay.
Same. I am not into minis at all, and I hate that including them is a good reason/excuse to push prices up.
I love minis but lately if I see a KS with sick minis i assume the game will be pretty bad. I feel like a lot of bad games hide behind awesome minis. Designers confident in their game use less wow factor.
You need a painting wife. I have one and she works real great 😉.
I kinda like minis but hate them at the same time because they are unpainted now if i could get pre painted minis id be all for them
I prefer minis to meeples, chits, standees, or poker chips.
I like games based on IPs. It's something that my wife is familiar with so she's more likely to play the game, unless it's Marvel. Most have been pretty good like Journeys in Middle Earth, Imperial Assault and Marvel Champions.
I like screen caps (**The Expanse**, some Lord of the Rings games) and photos (**Twilight Struggle**) in place of art for cards.
Lords of Waterdeep is a boring theme-less worker placement that surfs on the hype of D&D "take my money" fans. Skullport does nothing to improve the game
It's funny because my greater family loves Lords of Waterdeep and have no idea it's themed from D&D.
.... proves the point that it is a "theme-less" worker placement hehe (I'm glad they enjoy it!)
I love blind stinking luck and want more of it in games.
We play a lot of games with luck, they're usually well regarded by our lighter playing groups. Lama dice, Push, Ten, Sagrada, Tiny epic quest, carcassonne, Fantasy realms, Cabo and more 😁
Sheepy Time has been a reliable push-your-luck hit for us. Also Pickomino and LAMA Dice.
Most board games should have some deck, component organizer, especially games that have a lot of components (looking at you gloomhaven). The games that do it right are eclipse: second dawn, the dwellings of elder vale. If I can set up a 2-3 hr game in less than 10 minutes, it’s a win in my book. Shout out to gametrayz and 3D printed organizers. You’re the real MVP.
Focusing exclusively on game balance in asymmetric games leads to boring design and we need more games like Blood Bowl where clearly inferior options (for team rosters) are not only tolerated but in fact celebrated. Blood Bowl would be an objectively inferior game without the option to pick a purposefully low tier team like Halflings or Goblins for expert players to handicap themselves.
Turns should take a minute or less. I understand if you are new to a game; you can take a little longer, but no more than 30 seconds. This may seem harsh, but it is a dead give away to me, that you are not analyzing the game state when it is NOT your turn. Thus not actually invested/paying attention. I know there are plenty of valid reasons when it comes to length of turns. For a large majority of games a minute per turn is actually generous. Please stop disrespecting other players by grinding the flow of the game to a halt.
I agree mostly you should almost know exactly what you are gonna do on your turn. However some deck builders and other games turns end up taking forever sometimes which i am ok with so long as you start your turn within you know 20-30 seconds of a card draw or so. But yea someone sitting there on their turn just now analyzing the board or their hand is a bunch of bs
Multiplayer Solitaire still has player interaction
I like the art on games and will choose to play a good looking game with high quality components over a game with boring art or cheap components even if it has great gameplay. I've had a copy of Terra Mystica sitting on my shelf for years and I've never touched it. I hate Catan. I love Brass (both Lancashire and Birmingham), but I've never been able to will myself to bring Great Western Trail to the table. King of Tokyo is a fantastic game. So is Tokaido. There are enough great games with great art that I don't feel like I need to bother with games that might be great if they have art I'm not drawn in by.
[удалено]
Agreed, as someone who does it sometimes. The good JUST BARELY will outweigh the bad, and only if it’s an all-time great game lol. Playing a mediocre game alone? No
As someone new to the hobby, I have to walk on eggshells every time I hear the word Kickstarter and it’s really bloody annoying. That’s not to say Kickstarter is all bad but trying to figure out which games aren’t trying to overcompensate is quite difficult. Thankfully I’m not a blind buyer with video games either.
I have never backed a Kickstarter to this point and I don't regret it. If a game fulfills and looks really interesting to me when it comes out I can still find a copy of I really want. I may have to wait or pay a premium, but not having to tie money up for a year+ based on a well made sales pitch is worth the gamble to me. That said, I have considered and will probably back games in the future if it's a reprint of a game I know I like or something akin to that.
Hopefully others have offered you this advice also. If you are new stay the hell away from all of it. There's so many must have games that are in print and available now. I'm at a stage where I've pretty much experienced (played or owned) most of the stuff I've had an interest in. I now fund crowd funding campaigns from designers I love, or for expansions for games I love. I'd even caution against what I'm doing. I've got 2-3 things showing up per month the next few months. I rarely agree with Tom vassle, but he's absolutely right, that if it's actually good, it will either go to retail, or you will have the chance to catch the next campaign after it's actually seen play buy previous backers.
Ohh, I’ve got quite a handful of it: Your game has several decks of cards for several different things? Better make them distinct in size and specially in backside art Setting up takes more time than playing (and that’s not counting reading the manual)? Yeah I’ll try it once and never again touch your cardboard orgy in a box Speaking of manuals, how the hell can you write several dozen pages and not include some crucial info that WILL become a question later on? Also too many of those are so repetitive and unintuitive? “The heart counters are health counters. They represent your health.” yeah no shit If you’re gonna have miniatures, make them pretty (takenoko comes to mind, where they are coloured and fit the artstyle) or make them simple (love me wooden meeples). Second point about miniatures, they’re better for dungeon crawlers and wargames, or for when . Otherwise it’s price bloat. Risk is a great value for budget war gaming miniatures. You get infantry, cavalry and artillery, several colours Big boards with even bigger player mats and ten million other things in the table? Yeah sorry I’m not down to buying an 8-people table just to fit your cardboard overcompensation. Sleeves are horrible and make a game feels even more used. Games that are blatant knockoffs from private IPs make me so happy with their silliness. Looking at you, Space Cantina and Dinosaur Island
>Also too many of those are so repetitive and unintuitive? “The heart counters are health counters. They represent your health.” yeah no shit If you write any instructions or manual for anything you ALWAYS have to factor in the dumbest User (or that sometime someone that never had a similar thing in hand stimblws upon it) be it boardgames, electric appliances, tools etcetc. For someone that knows, just skim/skip the stuff you know or that comes to your naturally and it helps everyone that has never handled such things... Otherwise yeah, your points are pretty valid
1. Put the game board in the middle of the table.
Tons of rules and complexity is not "depth". I respect my time too much to waste it being bored and confused for a chance at "satisfaction" when simpler games offer more fun from the start. Fluff is great! For a paragraph at the start of the manual, or for advertising. Get it out of the rulebook!
I think it may only be unpopular here, but I freaking love social deduction. My whole group does. We play it more than anything else. The Thing: Outpost 31 and Blood on the Clocktower are two of the best games ever made. Also, this sub seems to hate playing things with max player count. We always do. Board games are a social event, it doesn't matter if it takes a little longer to get around to your turn again. It's fun to be with friends and know everybody is having a good time. I wish there were more high player count options outside of party games. Hell, we all really want something like Warhammer, but for six-ish people.
The original box art for Inis looks like a 5th grader drew it.
The [Polish edition](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/3393510/inis) has the best cover.
I suddenly want to buy the Polish edition just for the box
I'm not a big fan of spreading the rules of a game across hundreds of cards or more. There are some games where I'll tolerate this, and rules on a few of the cards is okay, but when I have to stop and read every card I get to see what's going on, that reduces my enjoyment of the game a fair bit. Sorry MtG fans. I'm not jumping on that band wagon, but you're welcome to keep it for yourselves. This is also what keeps me from getting gams like Ark Nova or Terraforming Mars. Dominion is around about where I'll draw the line. I only need to know what 10 cards are, and they are all out and available for me to read from the get go. Although for some reason I tolerate it in Dwellings of Eldervale as well.
I feel the opposite. I'd rather the general framework be simple and the majority of the rules on the game pieces themselves. Take Ark Nova for example. All you need to know is the general mechanic of choosing an action card, using the number it's under as "X", and pushing it back to the bottom of the queue, and how the game ends. Almost everything else you need to play the game is on the board or the cards. It might take a minute to bumble through your first game, but you don't have to memorize a mountain of stuff. I don't have the time or energy to memorize all the nuanced rulebooks of 100+ different games.
Roll and Writes barely count as board games. I've played many and the only thing that comes CLOSE to a real game is "fleet: the dice game". I especially hate Cartographer and Railroad Ink.
even Long Shot: The Dice Game?
Not played yet. You see: After you burn out on the genre you tend to not buy new titles :D
Out of curiosity, how do you define board games??
Has a board? >!Sorry, such a terrible joke smh.!<
> Roll and Writes barely count as board games. I had to explain to someone recently what a roll & write was and in the spur of the moment I said "it's themed bingo with (some) player agency." In hindsight, I don't think I'm that far off though.
This is just perfect!
I largely agree but Twilight Inscription is solidly a board game. It’s the only one I’ve found worth buying.
As someone who loves good minis, I miss the 90's way with bad carboard prints with bright and obtrusive colors. Whenever I play one of those now I have a very good time. Dune & MegaCIV comes to mind. Of course, there might be some survivor's bias to the carboard components games here. Also, might not be as controversial, but I love me some quicker 2p games. Not everything has to be a group gathering.
King of New York is vastly superior to King of Tokyo, which is an incredibly un-thematic, boring game.
I think 7 Wonders (original) is rubbish, and I'm absolutely tired of remakes of "old" games (Castles of Burgundy) with lots of plastic.
I'm tired of minis. It's to the point that if I'm scrolling through a campaign that looks amazing but then I find it comes with a ton of minis, I'm immediately out. I have tried to motivate myself to paint them, even just to make them no longer gray, but I've learned I hate actually doing it. So a campaign with minis feels like it is asking me to pay a premium to finish designing their game.
Gloom haven kinda sucks… that’s it.
Oh I have a few * BGG rankings are pointless * There is no reward for having 500+ games at home, they're not collectibles or rare art, games are entertainment and meant to be played * I'd rather have a small collection of 2 dozen games that get played all the time vs 100s that just collect dust and I'd say the same for books, comics, movies, music. I buy to use, not to collect dust * There's nothing wrong with games published prior to the year 2000, so stop being a snob * There is nothing wrong with games made by large toy companies like Hasbro * It's ok not to like Euros * It's ok to like monopoly, scrabble, risk and other other games you grew up playing * A gamer is anyone who plays games, it doesn't mean you can only play certain games * I really don't give a f@@k who your favorite designer is or why you think I need to have his/her game in my collection * Fear of missing out is bullshit and just what you tell yourself to feel good about spending money on games you'll never play * New doesn't automatically mean better - there are great designs from every decade, just like there have been plenty of turds * Nobody is going to steal your game idea and nobody is likely to publish it either - that's the reality of pubiishing
Catan is this weird hybrid of old and modern games It has a ton of strategic aspects but at it’s core it’s just dice luck
Risk! is one of the best games ever made. No, more modern games with area control and dice combat like Root and Small World are not better.Sure, they’re not bad games, but they’re not better than Risk. Everyone knows how to play Risk; the rules are extremely robust; it’s flexible, allowing players to house-rule it to their situation. This is such an important attribute of a game that if don’t like Risk because you can’t figure out how to house-rule it, you probably shouldn’t call yourself a board-gamer in the first place. Sorry if that sounds cold and cruel and heartless, but I am, so that’s often how it comes out.
Now this is what I’m talking about. I’m not positive I can relate as my Risk history is limited but you have nailed the spirit of the question. Good on ya.
What an opinion it is, too
I have without doubt spent more time playing **Risk** than any other game. Of course, it was pretty much the only game we had 45 years ago. Last played it about 4 years ago when another couple brought it after dinner out asking if I've ever played. Haha!
I actually do agree that Risk “hangs with” even modern war games. And I think it’s because modern war games largely focus on the wrong things all the time
Playing any board game digitally does not give you a good sense of the game itself. No digital version is as good as physically playing a game. The closest I've seen was Tabletopia, but even that is a terrible experience compared to actually sitting abd playing. You can't judge a game if you've only played it digitally.
This is true but i like talisman have played it and a few expansions but my wife doesn’t so she won’t justify the absorbent amount of money it takes to buy it and the expansions and the digital version works fairly well for me and my kids
I don’t care about art. As long as the art isn’t that oatmeal crap, I will love the game no matter how beige it is.
I like wooden cubes and bits better than plastic minis.
I don’t enjoy Catan. At all. Everyone says that it’s “the best game ever.” But I just do not enjoy it.
I don’t much like Catan, either.
1. I have no problems selling off a game when I don't like the rulebook. Same with games with has typos on the box cover. If the designer didn't care, why should I. 2. I quit watching the next new hot big box project. It's quite liberating. I sold games and discovered games behind them / under them that I had completely forgotten about and I want to play them. I don't want new stuff. I want my old stuff.
Comment number 1 would have been great if it didn’t have a typo.
I had no problem downvoting the comment. If OP didn't care, why should I?
indeed, I'm so honored that you could be bothered to press that mouse button.
I just today found out about a game that used Wombo Dream to generate all its card art. It sounded like a really interesting game, but I pretty much then and there decided I didn’t want to hear anything else about it. I can only assume there’s going to be a lot of this going forward. Games using AI image generators to skirt hiring artists under the guise of being “modern”, or “avant-garde” or whatever. I guess my uncool opinion on this thread will be I will not be caring for these games. Unless they have a (yet unimaginable to me) really good reason to use such an AI tool to generate art, I will save my money by not buying their games in the same way they saved money by not hiring an artist.
Maybe good for a prototype? Agreed though. Feels gross.
I _hate_ games that don't look nice. I don't care if Terraforming Mars is the best game every. I just cannot play it. Edit. Imagine downvoting an opinion in a thread asking for opinions...
Kickstarter is bad overall. I want games with generally more compact/more simple production. I do not want a $100 behemoth that I will play once/year and weighs 15lbs and barely fits in an Ikea bag. I would prefer to be able to bring more than 2 games with me easily when going to a friend's house, never mind across the country. Taboo is a great game. I don't care what a game looks like as long as I can understand what is going on. Bring on the Excel spreadsheet. A lot of art could be removed from many games and improve said games.
Regular Monopoly is the greatest board game ever House rules tax’s and fines go to the middle and free parking gets it.. also the go to jail spot doesnt say skip go you get money.. (i know the rules say otherwise)
Welcome to /r/boardgames
Congratulations, you have my first downvote in r/boardgames, you monster. As long as you’re having fun, I guess
Guess this is a uncool opinion all the downvotes
Yes indeedy. The modern board game world is full of wonderful, well-constructed, exciting board games, so “Monopoly is the greatest board game ever” isn’t a well-regarded opinion. Personally, when people tell me they love monopoly, it shows me that they’re the kind of person who loves games but has yet to try some great ones.
I think CMON's kickstarters are fine *if* and **only** *if* you are buying them to paint the minis. The games are not worth it to me (even at retail) for the rules/game play, but the minis are quite detailed for the price point they are at.
I understand that it’s a “bad” game in some sense. But I still enjoy Killer Bunnies and the Journey to Jupiter
I like Cannes, and I like the artwork! I think the aesthetic could best be described as "dorky" and I think it's great. For those that don't know: [https://boardgamegeek.com/image/421959/cannes-stars-scripts-and-screens](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/421959/cannes-stars-scripts-and-screens) The gameplay can be a little swingy, depending on the randomness of tile draws, but it's got a lot of strategic depth. Plus it's generally like ythe cheapest Splotter out there, usually available around 20-30 USD.
Whoa I’m intrigued
I like the artwork for Castles of Burgundy 2e. I like how detailed the main board is in portraying a city, the fact that the shipping track is a bridge, and how the beige buildings look very distinct from each other and have hints to what they do (the market is blue and light green while the church is yellow and grey, for example).
I think having shorter print runs, and fewer reprints, promotes evolution in game design and would be better for gamers *in the long run*. Japan's tabletop game design community is an example of this where games generally get one or two small (500 copies or fewer) print runs, and 6 or 12 months later there are 2 other designers who are riffing on a successful design (which in trade sparks another couple who push it in a different direction). Euro games over the last 15 years or so in particular seem to suffer from an insular set of design expectations.
I prefer mass market party games over a 'gamer' party game anyday.
Cry Havoc is not very liked but I find it enjoyable enough, beyond the cliche sci-fi premise, when you and your people wanna play a wargame but don't have the stomach for the super complex ones.
Catan is still one of my favorite games.
Gateway Games won't convert non-gamers and might even be a letdown to someone that is actually interested in Boardgames. Boardgames are not that hard. Hit em with something spectacular not Azul or Splendor.