2022 is coming to an end. Here at spielpunkt we have played one or two board games and video games during this time. Some were brand new and others had been on the market for several years. We had fun with most of the titles. You can find out which titles that each of us played this year made a particularly good impression in the following article.
In addition to some titles from the current year, you will also find some “older” titles here. The favorite titles of the past twelve months are therefore not at the same time new releases from 2022. With the large number of new releases each year, this factor is gradually receding into the background anyway: It is no longer a question of the newest possible, but the best possible ones - or those that are personally found to be good - Put board games on the table.
Andre
Marvel Champions
Yes, the motto also applies to parlor games: Superheroes always work. Fantasy Flight Games has been proving how well the Marvel franchise can work playfully since 2019. With its long-running hit, which is constantly being fed with new content, the creators have managed a real coup. The "Living Card Game" Marvel Champions not only stays in the conversation, it also always lands on the gaming table with great friends.
Even with the basic box, which costs around 45 euros, you can have a lot of fun. However, the much finer feel comes up if you get involved with Marvel Champions as a product line. Hero packs, scenarios, expansions - you can leave a lot of money in the trade if you want. Whether and to what extent a player does this depends on his personal preferences. While Fantasy Flight Games is flooding the market with new content, it's not making it a must-buy. Collectors will buy everything, casual Marvel Champions players will be content with the base game and purchased favorite heroes, while others will be selective and buy the expansions that they expect to have the most fun with.
However, the basic rule of thumb is: The larger the selection of cards, the easier decks can be adjusted in detail. Again and again, players can discover new combinations and synergies - everything ultimately revolves around deck building. It's the heart of Marvel Champions that not only justifies the ever-new expansions, but actually makes sense of them.
Star Wars: Outer Rim
Star Wars – George Lucas' vision of sci-fantasy entertainment has been a global phenomenon in modern pop culture for around 45 years. Anyone who has seen all the films, played all the video games, listened to all the radio plays and read all the books longs for more. More stories, maybe even self-written ones. With Star Wars: Outer Rim and the first expansion Star Wars: Outer Rim - Unfinished Business Board game fans get the opportunity to experience parts of the story Star Wars to rewrite – at least on a small scale.
It was purely playful Star Wars: Outer Rim was rather light fare at the beginning. The board game wasn't great, but it wasn't a failure either - depending on your personal taste in the game, you'll almost certainly be somewhere in between. Too drawn out, sometimes monotonous, sometimes repetitive – Outer Rim had weaknesses and has remained so even after the enlargement. However, Unfinished Business has made improvements in the right places so that Star Wars: Outer Rim benefits from the new content and adjustments overall.
What the board game was able to do right from the start: tell good stories. Event after event is triggered, while the text-heavy mini-maps advance the story of each game for the players. It's not boring during the opponent's moves either - as long as you really use the strength of the board game, celebrate texts and don't just work away card by card following your own automatism.
Sniper Elite: The Board Game
Sneaking in a board game where everyone sits together at a table and supposedly sees the same scenery: that sounds exciting as a concept, but so far only a few games have been able to really implement it. Awarded a license adaptation, it works so exceptionally well that this title is often and often on the table: Sniper Elite - The Board Game.
You wouldn't necessarily have expected that from Rebellion Unplugged: Due to the lack of experience and because it is, of all things, a licensed board game - a sub-genre in whose titles there is always a struggle as to whether the makers have met the template or not. The board game of Sniper Elite almost hits the spot, captures the main idea of the video game and presents players with an enormously good stealth adventure on the gaming table. As a lone wolf, one player in the round tries the impossible: survive against up to three opponents who act together and coordinate to make life difficult for the sniper. However, the sniper's missions are not hopeless. Because: He acts in secret for long stretches of the game, marking his moves on an alternative game board.
But you don't have to do without action entirely in Sniper Elite: The Board Game. Traps are laid and guns are also used. However, be careful - what is easily possible in the video game, namely sweeping over the map in Rambo-style, is not a real option in the board game version. The game concept revolves around sneaking on the one hand and spanning an increasingly tight net on the other. The constant uncertainty creates tension.
Honorable mentions: Dune imperium. A perennial favorite that comes up again and again and will probably stay that way, after all, the next expansion is already in the starting blocks.
Jonas
Trickerion - Magical gaming experience
At this point you might as well anachrony or Cerebria: The Inside World by Mindclash Games. That yes trickerion is in the title is simply because it was the first Mindclash Trio game I played. The other two titles followed within a few days, while I had a lot of time to learn the rules and play thanks to the corona infection. The order in my personal top list tends to be slightly different. Cerebria as favorite game overall, followed by anachrony and trickerion, both of which are easily in the top 10.
trickerion was the trigger that made me really want to delve into the world of complex games. When ordering earlier this year I still have between this and anachrony swayed. In the end it was the topic and its compatibility with my fellow players that convinced me, for the time being trickerion to order. At that time I had no idea that I would own all three games by the end of the year.
In this game we'll take on the roles of illusionists who strive for fame and glory in Magoria. We use our own manpower and that of our henchmen and specialists in various locations around the city to prepare and perform tricks. The performances take place in the theater. Here the program has to be designed wisely in order to get as much of the performance of one's own tricks as possible.
At the core of a worker placement game, there are many beautifully interlocked elements here. The interaction, especially in the theater at the best performance times, is high. The game punishes mistakes quite severely. Nevertheless, it is always a magical gaming experience that remains exciting to the end. If you manage to perform one of the third tier tricks, it's incredibly rewarding. Also the solo mode from the expansion Dahlgaard's Academy can convince, even if there is a bit too much to consider in terms of rules.
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Corax Games Trickerion - Master of Magic Board Game German * |
Warps Edge - combinations almost as diverse as space
Another game on my list that triggered or amplified something is this Solo Bag Builder. This time the love of playing solo. At the beginning of the year, I started playing the games in my collection more and more solo. Initially to get games back on the table that had stayed away for a while, soloing quickly became more than just a stopgap. with Friday, coffee roaster and Onirim soon the first pure solo games moved in.
Warp's Edge then it occurred to me while researching for my "alone entertainment list" on. Since I already have bag building as a mechanism Coffee Roaster had a lot of fun followed Warp's Edge quickly another game with this mechanism.
I approached the game without any real expectations, but after the first few games it quickly became clear: This will be one of my top games.
As Taylor Minde, we fly our spaceship and are stranded somewhere in the vastness of space. Instead of safety and home we find the mother ship of the aliens there. Initially, our ship is too weak to win. Over each of the maximum four warps our ship (the contents of the bag) improves and in the end we have a chance to defeat the mothership and all other enemies.
Five different motherships in four difficulty levels, four spaceships with different abilities and tokens, randomly assembled enemy decks and new ability cards make every game unique. Excellent game in terms of replayability. At some point, when I've won with all spaceships against all motherships, the expansion will also virus invasion move in. The only reason it's not my most-played game of the year is that it's played a little longer than it does onirim
Treehouse Diner - Addictive family game
A SPIEL innovation also made it straight into my top 3 of the year. Treehouse Diner had already addressed me in the advance notice of the optics. Since it was "only" supposed to be a family game, I was, especially after the experience with The animals of the maple valley I'm still a little unsure whether the cute look really hides an exciting game for me.
But the game had made sure that I had the publisher Funtails on the screen. After talking to Steffen for the Publisher presentation, the game soon arrived with a busy flying squirrel.
As kitchen help in a forest delivery service, we try to bring the cooks the right ingredients from the warehouse before the customers get impatient with the waiting time and snatch the best orders on the phone from under the noses of our colleagues.
The more we played the game, the more we wanted to play it again. In November alone, the game was played 15 times. At some point I didn't want to wait for other people anymore and started thinking about a solo mode for the game, which is partly responsible for the large number of games. Meanwhile, this "fan variant" is also on BoardGameGeek.
The two modules "Bees" and "Secret Ingredient" add just the right thing to keep the game engaging for the long term. Gladly with both modules together, but at least with the bees we have this game again and again.
Honorable mentions: Vivid memories - beautiful abstract drafting game about memories; Everdell Complete Collection – the entire world of Everdell in one place.
Team
Patchwork Express
The Patchwork series has been around for a long time and I've often heard from a friend how beautiful the game is. As luck would have it, I eventually saw a reduced copy of Patchwork Express and grabbed. It quickly turned out that this version is a simplified patchwork. This means the playing time is shorter, the parts are larger and the cost is lower - ideal for both older and younger players. But that didn't deter me at all, I found the shorter playing time quite good. So you could play fast games one after the other.
Basically, playing patchwork is always about the same thing: you collect buttons and use them to buy patches for your patchwork. Some patches have coins printed on them and ensure that coins come back into your supply during the game. In addition to coins, there is also time as a resource - patches always cost coins and time. Over time, the order is also determined, it is always your turn until you push the time marker in front of the other person.
In the end you should have as many buttons and few gaps as possible in your blanket. The coins you collect count as plus points, from which you must deduct two points for each free space on your blanket.
This idea runs through all patchwork pieces, but each with its own design (a comparison of patchwork, patchwork express and stack and stuff you can find here). Stack and stuff was the first game in which you didn't sew a blanket but filled a moving truck (a contribution to this, you can find here).
In the end, it's the mixture of entertaining play with the urge to create something perfectly without gaps that makes Patchwork Express appealing to me.
Fog over Carcassonne
Another title I've been looking forward to for a very long time is fog over Carcassonne. This is the first cooperative installment in the series. The basic game principle remains the same, the meadow rating is eliminated and instead a fog is wafting over the towns and meadows. The game contains 6 missions that I can play one after the other. Every mission brings new elements or rules into play and gives you new objectives. It is always important to reach the target number of points before all tiles are used up or you run out of ghosts. ghosts? Yes, you must drive them out if you want to bring peace to Carcassonne. Every time you place a fog tile, you may have to place ghosts. If you cannot place any more ghosts, you lose the game. You also lose if you run out of tiles but haven't reached the destination points yet.
The graveyard and a castle are added as new tiles. Both ensure that you have to place more ghosts in the game - which becomes really tricky at some point. You can only exorcise ghosts by completing fog fields (like with a castle) or by not scoring (which is tricky, since you also need points to win).
Each of the six levels has different target conditions, which means that each mission is a little more difficult than the previous one - so try & error is guaranteed, and of course a bit of luck plays a part, because the bad cards come when you can't use them.
But playing Carcassonne together is a very interesting change. In addition to the independent game, you can also use the new tiles as an expansion for the basic game.
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Hans in Luck, Fog over Carcassonne, family game,... * |
29,99 EUR |
Next stop: London
Next Station: London is a Flip & Write game by Matthew Dunstan and released earlier this year by HCM Kinzel. The task is to rearrange the London underground system over four rounds. For this we enter a subway line in each round. We can only extend our route to the station that has just been uncovered - and only along the pre-drawn lines.
The lines must not cross, but you should use the same station, as it gives you bonus points. After each round you change the pen color and start at the starting station of the respective color. The points for each line are made up by multiplying the served districts and the number of stations in the best district. Two additional points are awarded for each river crossing. Stations that are served by several lines give additional points. So there are a few things you should consider when building without being overwhelmed by them.
In general, the rules are very simple and make the game ideal to play with new people as well. The playing time is also very reasonable, so you can quickly start a new game. I hope that in the near future we will also be able to build subways or railway lines in other cities.
In the new year you can also look forward to your own contribution to the game.
Honorable mentions: Village romance – exciting implementation of the decelerating video game hit, I haven't been able to play it often enough to give it a proper rating, citrus grove - like Obsthain, quick to learn and quick to play, but with enough innovations to be at least as exciting.
Sven
An Age Contrived
An Age Contrived is a Euro Game which On Kickstarter early next year will start. I was able to test the prototype as part of our crowdfunding previews and I'm very positive. The game was so much fun for our gaming group that we hardly wanted to give it back. We are now eagerly awaiting the start of the crowdfunding campaign. That's why the game by the still young publisher Bellows Intent is number 1 of my favorite games of the year.
In An Age Contrived we take on the role of gods who draw their power from mortals' belief in the strength of our power. We program resources on our player board and can thus develop an engine to create powerful buildings and civilizations in the world of Eldain.
Through a creative and unprecedented mechanism, the game offers a variety of ways to approach a game. No game is like the other. Personally, I've rarely had as much fun as An Age Contrived, which is why it deserves to be #1 in my personal top 3.
Kingdomino Origins
Let's continue with Kingdomino Origins. With a rating of 85% in our test convinced us of the latest offshoot of the popular placement game and since then it has always landed on our table. The game inspires me every time, especially for the beginning or end of a game night or as a small game in between.
Right from the start, I didn't have any great expectations of the game and thought it would be over quickly. However, Kingdomino Origins offers a lot of variety with its three game modes, each of which leads to different approaches to solving the puzzle of his tribe.
The basic goal of the first game mode is to form the largest possible contiguous areas with fireplaces. The other game modes then bring resources into play, which you either collect in the second mode or spend in the third mode to get cavemen for your tribe. In addition to the areas, these then each give additional victory points.
Because it's easy and quick to play, yet requires a lot of brain power to puzzle its areas, Kingdomino Origins will likely get plenty of play time beyond this year.
Wonderland War
It was difficult to determine a third place. Many games have been played, many of which have been found to be good. Ultimately, I chose Wonderlands War by Tim Eisner, Ben Eisner and Ian Moss. Even though my first game didn't convince me and I initially wanted to sell the game again, I grew more and more fond of Wonderlands War with every game I played. It's now one of those games that I keep happily picking off the shelf.
In Wonderlands War, 2-5 players take on the roles of well-known characters from the popular novel Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. Within three rounds we fight for dominance of known areas of the wonderland, in which we recruit wonderlanders for our cause and send them into battle. This works in the form of a classic bag builder. We fill our bag during the tea phase with combat units that we can draw during the war phase in the respective areas we are fighting over. All units have different abilities that can affect combat. But we have to watch out for the so-called Madness Chips, which are also in our bag. If we pull too many of them, we lose our sanity and thus the fight in the respective area.
Due to the asymmetrical abilities of the characters and the combat units (which each have an A, B, C or D version), Wonderlands War is a fun fight for dominance of the areas, in which you can also puzzle together the best bag. Wonderlands War also has a high level of replayability, as the game board always offers other ways to improve. In addition, the game is comparatively easy to learn and has been able to convince everyone so far.
Honorable mentions: Nemesis - semi-cooperative horror on a spaceship where we can't trust any of our fellow players; Harry Potter - Battle for Hogwarts – playfully good implementation of a brand that I love. We play it over and over again, especially at Christmas.
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Skybound Games - Wonderland's War * |
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