I will check that out - thanks for the recommendation!
Star realms and dominion
A co-op one I like is the Hogwarts Battles game. It’s up to 4 players, co-op against the system. My wife and I love it. If you like Harry Potter, it’s well worth a look.
Race for the Galaxy is a variation, not quite deck builder in the same sense as a Dominion (a game I largely am uninterested in playing these days) but a hand based engine builder. Seven Wonders is another one of a similar vein. I strongly recommend both.
Looking forward to playing this one when my daughters hit their Harry Potter stage!
Indeed. Looks a little heavy on pastels and a little light on abnegation of the self.
Hands in the Sea
If this forum had likes, I would be pressing the like button so hard.
-Tom
Hoo boy, that’s quite the question.
I feel Arctic Scavengers is a sadly overlooked deck-builder, but only for three or more players. It does a great job with the deck architecture control you’re talking about, and it’s super interactive in a way that Dominion and Ascension aren’t.
Core Worlds is a bit grognardy/wonky, but it’s a fantastic design by Andrew Park, who knows how to craft really smart brain-burning challenges with tons of personality.
But it needs at least the first expansion for how it forces the players to compete for guilds.
Martin Wallace’s A Few Acres of Snow, then A Study in Emerald, and also Mythopia do a great job of marrying a deck builder to a map control game. I love all of them, but they’re far more than just deck builders and some of them are harder to find than others. And there’s a second edition of Study in Emerald that heavily revised the rules, so I can’t recommend it.
Ascension gets a little crazy with all the sequels, but I love its visuals and world-building. So much character, so much great artwork and writing, so many variations on the basic system scattered across so many separate releases. But even the basic game holds up.
Flip City is a great economic engine builder with a cute city building theme. The flip concept is really cool, too. Very sleek and all about making specific choices about your deck architecture in terms of which cards you buy and which you upgrade (flip).
-Tom
Citadels? I leave the boards for a few days and the whole thing crumbles into chaos. Tom, wtf man! Isn’t there some quality control in this forum?
As far as deck builders go…
Arctic Scavengers is an interesting slow burn deck builder. I really enjoy it and the expansion.
Ascension feels like a solitaire game to me. It’s not bad, but after a couple of games I feel you’ve seen everything the game has to offer.
Core Worlds was also just kind of off for me. It’s been a while since I’ve played but I remember that game being slow, not very interactive and just kind of a race.
Have you looked at Trains? It’s a deck builder with a board. It’s pretty good, but Clank seems to be the game to beat at the moment. With Clank in Space being a gamers’ version of the game.
Does anyone have the four? Anyone? Four? No one has the four? The four?
-Tom, designated Citadels caller
Go fish!
Wait. No.
Now look what you’ve done.
Did anyone here go to GenCon?
I’m not really interested in getting into another miniature game, but I absolutely love what Ares games is doing with the BSG dog fighting game. I was worried it would be an X-wing re-theme poorly implemented, but the demo I saw has really got me excited to play it.
Verdict is out on Arkham 3rd edition, but I will definitely try it. Just not sure it can surpass Mansions of Madness or Arkham 2nd edition.
Verdict is also out on Keyforge a non Richard Breese Key game. It will either do gang busters or tank. I suspect with Netrunner gone KF will have a lot of takers.
2 foot Super Star Destroyer for Armada also sounds cool.
I’m actually more excited for ks games coming out at the end of the year:
Cerebria
Teotihuacan
Gùgōng (The Forbidden City)
The second printing is shipping any day now. It should be in my hands by the end of the month!
I am pretty stoked for it.
I’m working on my GenCon report. Probably will post tomorrow.
Hey Tom -
Thanks for the thoughtful post - I am going to dig into this.
I was looking for a Few Acres of Snow, and subsequently Hands in the Sea, but wasn’t sure either were in print anymore. How complicated do those games get? Is a normal session a few hours? Shorter? Longer?
Do you think Flip City would work with kids?
A Few Acres of Snow can be a long game, especially if both players know it. Longer than most deck-builders, at any rate. As you’re learning it, there might be the occasional shut-out, but eventually it’s about maneuvering around a series of stalemates. The participants in the French and Indian Wars didn’t have a lot of mobility, and they fought far from their home countries at a time when it was a real chore to deploy to some overseas backwater where the only real infrastructure were freezing rivers. Laying siege to a fort was pretty much impossible without a lot of advanced logistical setup. France wasn’t even that interested in the whole affair. Martin Wallace wanted to capture all this in the game, and it shows. A Study in Emerald and Mythopia have more dramatic back-and-forths.
I didn’t realize Hands in the Sea was inspired by A Few Acres of Snow! Glad you mentioned that, as I’m super curious about it now.
And, yes, I think Flip City goes over well with kids. Not super young, of course, as it’s an economic engine game. But the artwork is really charming, the concept is great for kids, the basic actions are pretty intuitive, and the “interface” iconography is thorough and accessible. The box says ages 14+, but I would revise that down a bit. We had some kids visiting who were maybe 10 or 12. Out of all the games stacked up in the living room, the two boys gravitated to Flip City. They didn’t actually play, but they pored over the cards with their mother and definitely wanted to play. I think if I’d had the time to teach it to them – at the time, there was too much else going on in the house with other people visiting – we’d have played Flip City.
-Tom
I really want to buy Hands in the Sea ($60), but I’m pretty sure I won’t ever get to play it.
I need to find some boardgame friends in my area
One of the reasons I have so many solitaire games is that I never need to convince other people to play them, and they never eat into the valuable time spent playing boardgames with other people!
But, yeah, there are a fair number of games that I just know I won’t get to play enough to make it worthwhile. For instance:
Alternatively, just move to LA and hang out with us.
Great idea! Let me ask my wife…
Whereabouts in the LA area? Might be a viable trip up from OC!