I feel like it’s hard to play board games the year they’re released unless you go to lots of conventions. I spent most of this year playing games from previous years, and I assume I’ll spend 2018 mostly playing 2017 games. Still had some standouts that did release this year
2017 Games:
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Sidereal Confluence
I thought I didn’t like Trading as a mechanic after not loving it in Catan and Genoa. Apparently all I needed was some crazy asymmetric factions and ridiculous tech names. Sidereal is the most fun I’ve ever had trading cubes. This game also nails semi-cooperative as an idea in a way that felt entirely new to me. It’s not about tricking people into crazy trades, it’s about whoever can empower everyone else best. You get points for helping others see more efficient ways to run their engines (that just happen to use your cubes). -
Pandemic Legacy Season 2 [No spoilers below]
I didn’t love Panedmic Legacy Season 1 because it mostly felt like playing Pandemic with some expansions and an uninspiring story. Season 2 on the other hand felt crazy right from the get-go. The balance of the game is all over the place, sometimes quite hard and others really easy. But anytime you were ahead of the curve you had to use that advantage to waste time advancing the meta-game or the game would stay brutally difficult. I loved the decision of balancing future games against trying to win the current game. There were exciting mid-game discoveries in nearly every game! -
Gloomhaven
My favorite part about Gloomhaven is that it’s a great legacy game that you don’t have to binge on. I feel comfortable putting it away for a month or two and picking up my character where I left them off. Or if I’d rather I can just start a new character and keep playing through the same story. I don’t think Gloomhaven is that fun if you play it a bunch in a short sitting, but you don’t have to. It’s happy to be left alone until you’re ready for it again. -
Werewords
This is the first party game I’ve liked in quite a while and I think the only one I own. It’s like 20 questions with a timer, except one person is trying to keep you from guessing the right word. What makes this really fun is how many situations there are in the game. For instance, if you’re the werewolf, how do you ask yes or no questions that mislead everyone else? If you’re not, how do you figure out who’s trying to mislead you? Or maybe the person answering the yes or no questions secretly ends up being the werewolf, then they’ll be intentionally deceptive and lying in their answers. But they can’t be too obvious because if the players guess they’re the traitor, the traitor loses. So many weird situations can come up and a lot of the fun is trying to figure out which weird situation you’re in. -
Near and Far
I think this is my favorite game with a story book. The stories here are cute even if they rarely present interesting decisions. The game around them is an exciting race with exponentially growing super powers. Getting to stories feels hard, and the payout of having someone read you some text about how your character is cool is a great reward. The game isn’t perfect (it can feel like the winner is determined during set up), but it’s exciting and dramatic and uses a story book in a way that fits in perfectly.