To that end, here are 10 games for your consideration if you are looking to get the perfect game for the many perfect people in your lives and yes that includes you too.
Infinity Gauntlet: A Love Letter Game
A love letter game that is a cut above the rest and a first true deviation from the core mechanics of Love letter. Infinity Gauntlet is instead a one versus many game that pits Thanos versus the Avengers.
Each turn heroes will draw a card and choose to play one of the two cards in their hand, having to do its ability, trying to defeat Thanos in the process to win. Thanos on the other hand will be trying to collect the Infinity stones or defeat the avengers to win the game. A quick easy game that gives the theme of the Avengers fighting Thanos, all in 15minutes!
Pandemic: Hot Zone - North America
A perfect starting game for a family who are looking to get into boardgames. Based on the award winning game Pandemic, Hot Zone reduces the length of the game and its table footprint.
On your turn, you will travel around the world to reduce diseases, build research centres and when you have enough cards, find a cure for the diseases. All the while trying not to lose in more than one way. In the busy world of Finland where time and space is at a premium. Hot Zone ticks all the boxes to allow a family to dip their toes into this great hobby without breaking the wallet or time investment.
Calico
From the plethora of videos involving cute cats on the internet, it is not hard to say that the feline theme is a safe bet. Add to that the beautiful art design involving quilt patterns and you have what can only be said as an eye catching game.
That being said, the game, Calico is an abstract one. On your turn you choose a quilt tile to place on your personal quilt board. Then if it matches scoring patterns, you will score points and cats that will come to rest on your quilt if their favourite patterns are matched. The person with the most points at the end wins.
Small World of Warcraft
Small World, the family game that has stood the test of time with countless expansions has now finally with the popularity of tabletop games gotten the likes of Blizzard to allow their Warcraft IP onto it.
In Small World of Warcraft you play as one of the races of Azeroth and have randomly chosen traits. Which gives you a set amount of soldier tiles and unique race and trait abilities. Which you will use to expand your area of influence and gain money. But it is a small world and thus very soon other races will fight you for the same territory. At some point you might even retire a race so you can choose another one to conquer the board. The player with the most money at the end wins, and gets to tell their own history of Azeroth in under an hour.
Also Read: 11 Unique Board Games from 2019
Tang Garden
The golden age of China, the Tang Dynasty and the Emperor Xuanzhong has chosen you and your fellow architects to build the Imperial Gardens. Taking into account the whims of the many wealthy patrons and the Emperor's court.
In Tang Garden, you will choose one of the face-up tiles and then place it on the board, collecting element points or choose to place a decoration onto the board for end game points. Also as you gain element points, you can more importantly gain characters that you can place onto the board for more end game points. The person with the most points wins and is known as the best architect of the famed Tang Garden.
Pandemic Legacy: Season 0
A prequel to the most popular Legacy game in the world, Pandemic Legacy. Legacy being a system that changes the game permanently after almost every game with its story and has you and your group stick stickers, tear up cards, etc. from the game. In Pandemic Legacy: Season 0, you are CIA operatives looking to stop the Soviets during the Cold War from achieving their goal of Operation Medusa.
Now importantly, although the gameplay is still at its core from the original game of Pandemic. This one adds a lot of new features beyond the surprises of the Legacy element, such as combatting Soviet agents on top of pathogens. And customisation wise, you get even more than any of the other games in the series. With the ability to stick new haircuts, accessories and such on your character passport to make not only a unique game by the end but unique characters too. Do note that Season 0 is a standalone game and there is no need to have played Season 1 or 2 before you play Season 0.
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
A starter introduction set to the massively popular game and the number one board game in the world according to the massive user base (I am one) of the most popular board game website in the world Boardgamegeek.com, Gloomhaven. Jaws of the Lion is a prequel to the original game and so if you not played it before, the story flows perfectly by playing this first before Gloomhaven.
Gloomhaven is a dungeon crawler board game that uses a system of cards instead of dice to reduce luck for combat and is known for its good story. This of course applies to Jaws of the Lion too and it has the big plus of teaching you the Gloomhaven system step by step in scenarios with an easy setup game to game. A criticism of the original game even though it was so popular. And if Jaws of the Lion scratches all the boxes, you can then invest in the way more expensive Gloomhaven experience.
Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power
The asymmetrical Villainous system now spreads its wings into the Marvel Universe. Play as the villains for once and fight the Avengers and the other villains too.
In Villainous, you choose a villain to play and each of them has a themed deck of cards with personal goals that if reached wins them the game. The interaction comes in the form of playing hero cards at each other during play, forcing them to deal with it as they pursue their goals too. What is even more unique in this version of Marvel Villainous: Infinite Power, is that if you use Thanos in the game, the game becomes even more interactive and thematic as Thanos wants to claim the Infinity stones from the other players by force.
Tekhenu: Obelisk of the Sun
Honour the Gods of Egypt, build the complex of Karnak, compete to the be the purest soul.
Tekhenu is a strategic euro game for those who are looking to spend 2 to 3hours pondering strategy and tactics. As you draft dice that are on the light or dark side of action spaces, the number of the dice gives different actions or resources to score points. Then you have to balance your soul with the number on your dice faces on the light and dark side of your personal board. Imbalance loses you points or makes you go later in turn order. Tekhenu is a game you and your friends will probably play in mostly silence as you all are actively thinking. If that sounds like your kind of game, honour the Gods in Tekhenu.
Dune: Imperium
Based on the new movie of the famed Sci-Fi novel by Frank Herbert. Dune Imperium sees you fight for power over Arrakis or it is more widely known as Dune. Influence the Fremen, Mentats, Guilds, Bene Gesserit and more, all the while collecting resources to fund your ventures.
Dune Imperium is a unique deck building worker placement. On your turn you play a card which has symbols on where you can send workers on Dune. You will keep doing so until you choose to pass and then reveal your hand for persuasion resources to buy cards to fill your deck or conflict cards to help fight others on Dune. A simple yet strategic system that is filled with theme. Help the spice flow, spice it up with Dune Imperium.
Winter Kingdom
A reworking of Kingdom Builder from the game designer of the widely popular Dominion. You play a lord in the game. All the while trying to influence widely known nobles to get the most influence.
On your turn, you get to place 3 houses on a terrain showed on the terrain card. Rules are they all have to touch an existing area of the board of the terrain shown and if possible touch an existing building connected to that terrain, if not you can start in a new area of that terrain type. Thus you can see this game can be very strategic for both families and hardcore gamers.
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Zhou Huibin is a smith of words who majored in Philosophy & History from the University of Western Australia and whose life has followed the flow of his hobbies. He seeks continual contentment in his ponders, reading, writing, painting and board games which fills almost all of his time.
]]>In board gaming, it is an analog world. That being said, there is no reason not to use technology to make finding details on a particular board game easier, especially for newer gamers and although I could list a myriad of sites. There is one website that stands out among the rest. That is, of course, Board Game Geek (BGG).
BGG is a website that is free to use and is known for almost every aspect of the hobby. Be it a search for a board game to a rumoured expansion announcement. In fact, BGG dominates the online board game sphere so much that oftentimes, BGG is the first search result in Google's search results, surpassing even the publisher of a particular game.
The site for this niche hobby has hundred of thousands of registered users and currently lists over 90,000 board games as of the writing of this article.
Now although the site is a monumental achievement for the hobby, it is also known to not be the easiest site to navigate. So today we will go through some tips on how to best navigate BGG for the reason it is most used for, to find a board game and what is the myriad of information you can use once you are at the board game's listing.
Related: Board Game Hobby 101
Search Function and drop down Menus
First thing is if you are looking for almost anything on BGG but in general terms, like a type of board game, then the above drop down menus will probably be your best friend on the entire site as it centralises where you will need to go and breaks down the many uses of the site. Although it might not get you to exactly where you need to go, it probably is a good starting point.
If you do have a specific game or item you are looking for then the search bar is the best option but make sure to change the kind of item you are looking for to the left of the search bar. Also, BGG's internal search function requires an exact spelling of the item you are looking for, if not the search result will be 'item not found'.
Quick tip, if you are looking for a board game, the fastest way is to use Google and type in the game's name with board game or board game geek and it should be the first search item on the search results.
When you get to a board game's listing, there will be a lot of information to digest but let me help you by pointing out the most important information that people use.
Board Game's General Details
The first thing you will see is the general information of the board game from the many publishers internationally, weight, play time, designers, etc. Also if the game has garnered enough ratings, then it will be ranked among all the other games that have been ranked. The rankings are totally player driven and can be a useful guide along with the games other details to see if the game is for you.
Trade and Purchase of Games
The next section is especially important if you are starting to build up your collection and that is the buy option. The obvious benefits of BGG for buying games is that you can get great deals on games and you might even get that out of print grail game, you played as a child and regretted throwing away. Just be sure to check the seller's rating before making a purchase.
Also if you would rather trade one game for another, there is a trade function in the page above the 'Buy a Copy' section.
And reputation wise, BGG has proven to have a high success rate and positive feedback on the trade and sales it has done on its site.
Videos
And if you are a more visual person, there are many games that have videos done on them. These are usually reviews, playthroughs, unboxings, etc. Sometimes there are even people who do full instructional videos on how to play the game in video form. The majority of gamers now usually using video reviews to help decide if they want to buy a game or not.
Forums and rule clarifications
Each board game also has a collection of forum topics on the game. These can be about anything about the game but the most used forums usually are the ones for rule clarifications. Sometimes even the designer themselves will help to answer some questions.
Another tip here is if you are looking for a particular kind of forum on a page listing then you can click on the topic type itself if it is showing in the recent threads section instead of going through the normal stages by clicking forum. An example is in the above picture, shown by the lower second arrow in the picture.
Files (Player aids, Fan scenarios, etc.)
Last but not least is the files section of the listing, which usually has fan made items for the game. This can range from player aids to tuck boxes you can print out and put together. In fact, some designers even release free scenarios or updated rulebooks through BGG's file section.
If you ever feel a board game is missing something that the publisher has not released, then it is not out of the ordinary for a fan to help fix that with their own version of a solution.
In conclusion, there is so much to show on BGG and I would not be lying when I said that it will be a book that will be needed to fully show how to use all of BGG's functions fully. Thus, I hope that by showing a breakdown of its core function that you too will look to explore BGG and the hobby more and as always in the immortal words of Will Wheaton, "Play more games!".