
The best board games of 2016 - kevlar1818
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/12/game-on-the-best-board-games-of-2016/
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gglover
Anyone think recent board games are becoming unnecessarily complex and deeply
strategy based? It could just be what I've seen from my friends but a lot of
the times you can tell from the box art and title alone that you're going to
need tiles, tokens, cards a 3 page manual and a practice round before you can
even start. For me, that's a slog. It's too hard to hold conversation or focus
on anything other than the game. I guess there will always be a divide between
people who can spend 3 hours of intense concentration on a Settlers of Catan
game and people who just want to play Jenga for a few rounds. Are there any
popular simple games in the latter category recently?

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icefox
This past year at work friends and I made a little board game and your
complaints were our top requirements. We wanted it to be setup in minutes,
explained in 5, played in about an hour, with turns lasting just minutes at
most and with a high degree of social interaction and yet still have a fair
amount of depth and strategy.

We ended making a little stock game called "Day Traitor" where on your turn
you play one of your three cards that let you see the future of two stocks,
followed by selling and buying stocks, and cash out for gold. Get 10 gold and
you win.

The amusing part is that on the back of the card half of the information
(either the stocks or the amount they will change) is visible so everyone else
around the table can see this partial information. And to go with that you
might have just bought a bunch of "Red" stock further leaking information that
you think it will go up and so the person going after you might also buy Red.
When you buy a stock it gets a bonus $1 bump in price (as well a negative $1
bonus when you sell). This all combines to create many situations where we try
to convince each other the now is the time to buy/sell something to great
amusement because doing so might help you. Over the course of the game you
need to cash out for gold, but the more gold you buy on a turn the more
expensive it is so you want to acquire gold at just the right speed for
however the game plays out.

There is a little bit more, but that is the meat of the game. It has been a
lot of fun designing it with our group and just need to get some art and then
I will stick it up thegamecrafter.com or somewhere so at least we can get a
copy. We went through a lot of design choices where we found something fun,
but would cause a turn to take twice as long or double the explanation time or
setup time. We ruthlessly would cut anything that didn't add fun or broke our
requirements of fast quick setup and explanation and in the end created
something pretty fun.

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kbenson
That sounds like a lot of fun. You should definitely do a Show HN if/when you
get it up somewhere, I'm sure a lot of people here would be interested in the
design process.

Edit: Also, I really want to play this. Please do that Show HN so I know I can
get this game somehow. :)

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freshhawk
I'm so happy with this resurgence of intelligent board games.

But as a fan I have to say, that board game is not based on Kim Stanley
Robinson's trilogy. Because the game is about terraforming mars and not about
politics, although there was a minor subplot about mars terraforming going on
in the background of those books. Am I taking fucking crazy pills?

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syngrog66
I believe the best board games are timeless, as with music, books and many
movies. I'm not too hip on the latest from the last few years, but ones I'd
recommend:

Diplomacy. Axis & Allies (some variants more than others). Liberte.
Illuminati. Ticket to Ride. ASL (esp SK's by MMP). Carcasonne. Empire Builder.
Acquire. Puerto Rico. Dominion. Empire of the Sun. Uno. Fluxx.

~~~
TulliusCicero
You can't tell which ones are timeless until a few years have passed.

~~~
syngrog66
agreed. reason I shy a way from putting much weight into any recomms about
games which came out in last few years. the newbs-think-crackers-are-steak
effect. my own list here vary from prob 50+ years ago to 5 years ago. yet
still memorable or enjoyed within last year. prob lots more left out

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a_humean
I just got Scythe for Christmas. I'm just waiting for people to return from
their families after the new year to give this a go!

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SilasX
I'm a European-style game enthusiast and am gradually warming to it, but it
was stressfully complicated the first few times.

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jaryd
+1 for Terraforming Mars. I enjoy playing it solo as well as with a group.
There is enough variety in the cards to keep it fresh and the difficulty ramps
up quickly.

~~~
user5994461
What difficulty? The player cannot die or loose.

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fredleblanc
Nice to see The Networks by Gil Hova on this list.

I've been working on developing a couple board games for a couple of years
now, and at the start of that campaign, I ran into Gil Hova's Bad Medicine on
Kickstarter. On a whim, I sent him an email through his website asking for
some advice about creating board games, not really expecting much of a
response.

What I got was a 4-page email of well-thought-through answers to all of my
questions, and a bunch of additional pointers furthermore. I met Gil at the
Boston Festival of Indie Games in 2015. Super nice guy.

I have The Networks in my collection, but haven't got it to the table yet, but
I eagerly await my first play-through.

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sandGorgon
Do you have permission to put them on a blog ? Would love to read some of it.

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vogt
A lot of great selections here. Terraforming Mars is outstanding.

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EtienneK
Great list, but it's missing Tyrants of the Underdark [1]. Probably my game of
the year.

[1] [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/189932/tyrants-
underdark](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/189932/tyrants-underdark)

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iamsk
Too much complex ;)

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pessimizer
What a dire list. The only game that looks interesting is Imhotep. Just a
bunch of branded crap and stuff from celebrity designers that sold a thousand
copies before even being released. The re-issue list is equally uninspiring,
and they cannot resist adding yet another Rosenberg; one that I don't think
was ever out of print for a moment. Schotten Totten is a good reprint, though
(of something else that hasn't really been out of print for more than a few
moments.) But, come on, Ra gets a reprint and it doesn't get mentioned?
Shogun?

~~~
mysterydip
Curious as I'm only a casual boardgamer now, but what would your 2016 list be?

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pessimizer
Other than the choice of reissues, this might be my 2016 list, too, of what
I've encountered. When I said "what a dire list," I probably meant "what a
dire year."

The problem with year's best lists for board games is that you won't close in
on what's best from 2016 until 2019 or 2020. Board games don't easily fit in
with the typical revolving year of fashion; they're mathematical/economic
constructs with lots of emergent characteristics, and their true values are
only discovered over time, unevenly. All you generally get from a "best of the
year" list is a "bestsellers of the year" list, which within the long
development/marketing/shipping/marketing cycle of game production, boils down
to a "preorders of the year" list.

I think boardgaming is falling into a cycle where (issued too soon) lists like
these are falling into a harmonic cycle with game productions (because of
their need to synchronize around yearly major gaming conferences) and
informing the qualities to be looked for in next games to go into production.
Luck is pushing the industry in a direction that optimizes for marketing and
not quality or fun. Boardgaming has always been prone to this. Before hobby
boardgaming, it was Christmas and the toy cycle.

To get a real best of list, you have to play a large selection of games from
this year, and with the vast amount of games issued, you'll have to have that
number filtered by lots of people whose opinions you respect before you can
have a reasonable expectation that you've touched most of the best games from
this year. The only people who do this are the Spiel des Jahres jury. They're
going to issue the best quick recommendations, and when their picks are not
that fun, it probably means the entire industry was not that fun.

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BatFastard
He asked for your list of best games, instead you gave a critique of the
industry. So of what YOU have played, what do you consider the best?

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pessimizer
No, I answered the question directly in the first sentence, then gave a
critique of "best of the year" lists. I've played a thousand games; are you
seriously interested in what I happened to play from this year and I liked, or
do you just want to criticize people who criticize best of the year lists for
board games and explain why?

I don't communicate in product recommendations.

edit: Looking at the list above, though, I did forget that Medici got a
reprint. It's another of the Knizia auction trilogy with Ra, should always be
in print.

