It’s a good list.Great games. I’m surprised to see 7th Continent place above Sleeping Gods, which adds more gameplay and a really cool world to the storytelling.
Oh, are these similar games? I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of 7th Continent, but dissuaded by reports that it doesn’t quite come together. I’ve heard of Sleeping Gods, but don’t know much about it.
They’re both exploration games set in similar time periods perhaps, but honestly at least for me that’s where a lot of the similarities end.
What I would say is that 7th Continent and Sleeping Gods both share strong mechanical elements with a game like Tainted Grail, however. It’s like a Venn diagram with three circles with partial overlap.
Honestly, the veneer of resource management in Sleeping Gods isn’t SUPER deep, but it’s also very important and when added to the other elements of the game creates a very pleasing whole.
It’s a storytelling and open world exploration game, with some sharp gmaeplay mechanics (resource and hand mangement, quests unlocking as you find certain keywords during your adventures, …). It’s also got a clever combat system.
It comes with a log of your adventures. You record your findings in a run. You can remember what you found where and it unlocks new stuff on your next run. It also allows you to go explore other things next time, complete new quests, find more totems and unlock more stuff.
Rahdo gives a good over view in his final thoughts and briefly compares it to 7th Continent:
It’s also a bit of a table hog:
(Edited most non starter items, quest cards and achievements)
Oh yeah, that’s the one with the spiral-bound book! Looks incredibly cool.
Anyway, I’d be very curious to try any of these games focused on exploration. I love Ryan Laukat’s art, too, so maybe I just need to pick up Sleeping Gods…
It is indeed worthy of consideration. We ran a full adventure with my wife and explored maybe 1/4th of the map. Probably less. So much potential for repeat play.
Ryan Laukat is such a versatile designer.
Wait what. I just started dabbling in 18xx over the past year and had no idea there was one with a solo mode. I am intrigued.
I guess I’m going to have to officially retract this. Though I do feel dirty for coming in here as a filthy casual and voting for the only board game I’ve really played in the last five years, and then seeing it win by one vote.
I voted in the videogames poll! Do you mean why didn’t I vote in this one? Mostly because I haven’t played enough of the games released in the last five years. Which doesn’t seem to matter since one of the winners is from 2016. :/
But – with all due respect – I also don’t think you guys played enough games released in the past five years for this to be anything but an indicator of marketing and popularity, and I wouldn’t be a good gauge for either of those. But grats to Gloomhaven! I could have told you it would win before the thread was even started.
-Tom
I for one haven’t had a chance to play my copy of Sleeping Gods yet. Been too busy with Etherfields.
Another point is that my own gaming tastes have evolved so that I’d generally prefer to play a time-tested game I’ve played many times before than something brand new.
Yeah, Gloomhaven is why I ugh’ed. I am vehemently not a fan.
I think maybe just voting on the board game you liked playing the most regardless of release date may be a better approach. I rarely play games when they are new. Still, there were games in the top ten that only received two votes, and that wasn’t because of a lack of votes so much as a lack of consensus. There are a ton of games in this list given the vote count.
I personally disagree with that assessment.
Without counting expansions, I personally own around 45 games released in the past 5 years (which does not include the 2 2016 ones I foolishly voted for as I thought we were still in 2021). All my games have been played. I have also played around as many different ones I don’t own from the same period at my boardgame club or with friends. Only a handful of that list are million dollar Kickstarters.
And while some in this thread have stated they haven’t played many games from that period, others are very active in the boardgaming thread and seem to play a good spread of games too.
Also, as @arrendek pointed out, there is a large number of games in the picks. It’s not just people voting for the most popular games.
It’s a bit reductive to say we don’t know any better or mainly react to hype/marketing.
Then it becomes a top X games of all time. It would certainly be a very different list for me. It’s apples to oranges to the question that was asked here.
Not sure it’s necessarily a better question. But it’s an interesting one too.
Yeah, I probably didn’t word it correctly, but what I mean is the top games of the ones you have been playing in the time span for the scoring. So if it’s “in the last year” or “in the last five years” then you would exclude those old games that you loved that never come out again or maybe if you only managed to get it out once or whatever. It would be really subjective but in my mind more useful as a “games I should find and go play” as a thread observer. The regular yearly board game thread does a pretty good job of this already but I would think that we’d get fewer tangents in a voting thread. :)
I record all my plays (well, only since mid 2019 that is) and could likely find out. But you wouldn’t want to ask people who don’t to try and remember what they have played in the past 5 years. The focus would likely need to be a lot narrower. Unless you all have a much better memory than me. Even a year ago is hazy as far as knowing what games I was playing.
Just got my Arkham Horror LCG box in the mail, and I called an NYC game shop and had them put Sleeping Gods on hold for me to pick up this Monday.
Look at me, I’m a boardgamer!
It’s amazing what solo play can offer simply by taking scheduling issues and family bickering out of the equation. :D
I’ve enjoyed reading this thread and researching all the games. Thanks y’all!
Good choices. I hope you have fun on those adventures!
Solo play is far behind family and friends for me. I just enjoy the time shared in front of a game so much that spending time mulling moves alone feels kind of dull.
But that’s a me thing and not the fault of solo play. It’s definitely much easier to schedule games that way, and some games are really beloved by solo players.
And don’t even get me started about single-player videogames, am I right?
-Tom
One of us. One of us…
:)
You really have picked a great time to get in on Arkham Horror LCG, with the revised core set.