Great list, thanks for posting it. It's still over 6 months away but I'm already so excited for the UKGE next year. We took a punt at going this year, not really knowing anything about it, and loved it so much that we booked a hotel straight away for next year so we can do 2 days.

Gotta agree in that a game where you can get eliminated through pure luck on your first turn and have to sit through the rest of the game is 100% awful. Games with player elimination should either have some sort of resurrection mechanic, end the game at the first elimination, or be 5-10 minutes long.

I really want to play Terraforming Mars. Sagrada looks really good but seems very expensive for what it is, so that's on our list to buy at some point if we can pick it up cheaply. I will definitely check out the other games you listed, even though our "to look up" list is now about 50 games long!

Games we've bought/played recently:

Hanamikoji - Awesome 2 player card game. Sets up and plays in 10-15 mins. Simple to learn but strategy is very deep for the size of the game.

Scythe - Been wanting to play this for ages, so finally managed to persuade the wife to play it in a board game cafe. We both loved it. I think the mark of a good game is that I have found myself thinking about it loads since we played it, thinking about the options for strategy and how to play better. It's on the "to buy" list and will probably actually buy it this week as I'm paranoid about it going out of stock.

Ticket to Ride - I know it's an oldie, but I'd never played it before. I can see why it's considered a classic. Engaging enough for hardcore gamers but easy enough to learn and play for pretty much anybody. Already want to get expansions.

Splendor - Another classic. Very good game although it's very abstract in feel. It plays simply and quickly enough for me to ignore the lack of theme though.

Blood Rage - Area control/light wargame with miniatures. Really good fun and something different for us. Only played it 2 player so far so really looking forward to getting it on the table with 4 as I think that will expand the strategy a lot.

I've recently bought and played a game too: Mage Knight. It is from 2011 and has various expansions, of which I have none.

You can play 1-4 players, I have only played solo. This game is too tough for my kids and also I have the EN version, which they can barely read.

You are a Mage Knight (unsurprisingly) and have 2 stats (defense + cards in hand) as well as a 16-card deck to start the game. You are moving on a deck of tiles (7 hexes each) that are pulled randomly and make every game different. On these tiles you will be able to find a LOT of different things: enemies and structures. I like that you can move freely and not contained in any way. So you are on your own and have a lot of decisions to make how to use your cards, your turns, your mana and your abilities. Which structure do I visit or conquer, which monster do I fight? A lot of structures contain monsters that will show themselves only after you engage them, so you have to really calculate and make sure you can handle most, if not all of them with the resources you have available.

As you fight, you will gain fame and level up, to obtain better stats, to add new cards to your deck, to recruit units, to learn new abilities.

The game has a very steep learning curve at the start. There are actions cards that define how you start the turn. There are day and night phases with different characteristics. You will need to look up what a structure does every 2 minutes.

But once you have done the reconnaissance scenario and played your first game, it starts to click and still there are many things you must manage well.

So I'm a fan of it and expect to play many more games with the different heroes, which all have a different feel.

Over the weekend I played Magic Maze. It's a cooperative game with frantic play where you attempt to beat a timer. The premise is, amusingly, a set of fantasy heroes (an elf, a barbarian, etc) attempting to steal **** from a shopping mall.

It's one of those games where it starts with really basic rules and then keeps tossing in new ones that keep you on your toes and keep you fighting confusion while playing. I had fun with it for sure. Replayability didn't seem super high.

yea have played a lot of scythe, ticket to ride, and splendour and all are great. ticket to ride probably the least of the 3 due to depth but great casual game that's low barrier to entry. Splendour ipad app is awesome and enough people to really spend time working on your rating

Love Magic Maze. Have played it with a wide variety of people and it never fails to get laughs. Something we started doing with a couple we have a fortnightly games night with is playing one game of it to start off each games night. If we complete it, we'll move onto the next level next time. If we fail, we play the same level again. Just a good way of getting the evening going on a high note.

Pulled the trigger and bought Scythe today. It's coming tomorrow but we're out tomorrow night Gotta wait till Friday to play it

I'm desperately waiting on my KDM shipping notice just got locked, been waiting on that and gloomhaven forever. super pumped

Got Gloomhaven in mail yesterday; ridiculously large box

Played some Blokus Duo the other day. It was fun. My friend tells me 4-player is way better so I ordered that. Also got Codenames that I heard is good.

Blokus Duo is good fun, until you either spend a bit of time working on strategy, or just look strategy up. It's pretty much solved, so as soon as you learn a few simple rules you can smash anybody that doesn't also know the strat.

Codenames is great. I've played that with several non-gamer groups and it's always gone down really well.

Codenames is like my platonic ideal of what a good game should be. It's up there with something like bridge in how near-perfect a game it is.

www.horsepaste.com

is codenames duet any good?

Yes. Not as good as the original, but pretty darn good for a 2 player game. It has just a smidge of that "playing poker for play money" feeling, because it's co-op and the turn limits you play against are fairly arbitrary, but it feels less like that than I was expecting it to. There's basically no downtime in it because you both clue, so while the other person is thinking, you're thinking about clues too. The original game is a 10/10 for me and Duet is maybe like an 8.5. While I can play the original like 3 or 4 times in a row happily, Duet I'm more often one and done.

If nothing else, the word set is all different to the original Codenames and it's perfectly possible to use the words in the original game, so it functions as an expansion as well. Also, for people who have kids, it's a really good way to play it with them, because it's not adversarial.

The pictures version I don't recommend. Nor the adult version. I see they're also bringing out Marvel and Disney variants, with words relating to those universes. All those themed-word variants are strictly worse than the original game, because you want words with multiple meanings and subtle connotations, but I suppose the latter two could be a gateway drug for kids who are obsessed with that stuff.

Pretty sure we were playing Codenames on pog 1-3 years ago. Just remembered that. Now I think I vaguely remember how game works.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=728610302

It uses a wordlist of 665 words. How it works:
Type something in the yellow cell to re-rand.

It provides two columns of output, the one that is color coded and goes to the captains:

Puppet
Slow
Post
Penny
Squint
Lightsaber
Brave
Blimp
Door
Dog
Tractor
Upgrade
Pigpen
Phone
Chocolate
Wig
Hang
Shaft
Kneel
Boy
Sneeze
Hurdle
Niece
Forehead
Bird

And the one that is not color coded and goes to the guessers:

Bird
Blimp
Boy
Brave
Chocolate
Dog
Door
Forehead
Hang
Hurdle
Kneel
Lightsaber
Niece
Penny
Phone
Pigpen
Post
Puppet
Shaft
Slow
Sneeze
Squint
Tractor
Upgrade
Wig

Red will always have a word more and will start every game.

Whether the word list is good or not, I cannot tell. But this can be set up easily for any kind of word list of any kind of size. I created a Harry Potter version for the HP7 mishmash using 150-ish HP universe words.

I played some Stone Age and though I liked it, I thought some things were scripted too much. For example the choice between 1) moving up the food marker, 2) getting an extra worker or 3) getting a tool is unbalanced (tools are underpowered), which makes a 3-player game run with very few use of tools. My kids kinda liked it as well. I don't have Stone Age, but I borrowed it from a friend.

Now I'm looking to get a worker placement game for my family that isn't Stone Age and that I can play with my 11-14 year old kids (light gamers). So it should not be too heavy or have a steep learning curve, as they might just give up before even getting started.

How about

• Kingsburg
• Viticulture

How about the learning curve and complexity for these games?
Playability and playing time with 2, 3 and 4 (not too long please)?

Which of these two would you recommend, if even at all?

I noticed that on boardgamegeek both games are not classified as family games, suggesting them to be too heavy. But they also have 7 Wonders as family game and that sure doesn't qualify in my opinion.

I play too many games nowadays. Also will be at gencon in august.

Everyone I know likes viticulture. I've only ever played with the expansion and it's good probably marginally too complex for the younger ones but they'll learn.

Recently have played all of Gallerist, Vinhos, and Lisboa. Think I'd have Vinhos as the worst of the 3 and Gallerist the best. They are all quite complex the biggest problem is sometimes just functionally remembering to do your turn correctly.

Patchwork is a solid two player game. Games are fairly quick and always tight the few times I played it. B

Rajas of the Ganges good worker placement game where you use dice as your resources. You have two point tracks moving opposite directions and the game end condition is getting them to meet. Kind of nice not just having most victory points at the end sometimes. The board can be a bit visually confusing. B

Brass this game is dope and has been incredibly tight almost every time we've played. Tons of player interaction every turn and your turns will be dictated by other people's choices. Use cards from your hand to build industry and rails to eventually ship cotton (or not!). A-

Viticulture with Tuscany Expansion worker placement where you are trying to produce wine and sell to get to 25 points first (and have the most at the end of that turn). Game goes slow first few rounds then people explode. You will need more workers in order to win but possibly not all of them. One of the more annoying things is a few strategies seem almost impossible to win with and a couple buildings are a bit overpowering. Also card draw luck is very high. And you can win without selling nearly any wine. Still one of my most replayed and favorite games. A

Codenames

I have created a randomizer with the official word list of Codenames and one of the same list expanded with the 400 words from Codenames Duet, for a total of 800 words.

With this randomizer you can rand a game in 3 seconds.

I hope I have put the permissions correctly, people should only be able to edit the yellow cell and not edit anything else.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=179533694

Gabe, I also find tools to be very UP in Stone Age. Getting an extra worker is virtually always the right play imo. But generally I like the game, I think it serves its purpose excellently as an entry level worker placement game with some chance involved.

The last two weeks I have been playing a large amount of Mage Knight solo.

This game has been named best solo player game OAT by boardgamegeek for the third year in a row. So if you are into solo playing, this is a must have. Check out this top 100 list.

First thing you need is the Lost Legions expansion, as it introduces General Volkare and adds new cards and tweaks old OP cards. Volkare is a fierce enemy and playing with him reduces predictability of city-only games and will force you at times to reconsider your strategy based on his actions and where he is on the board.

You can tweak the difficulty level in many ways to your preferences. You can increase the city level of the one city, so that it becomes harder to capture it before facing Volkare, you can increase Volkare's level, so that his starting army is bigger and stronger, you can reduce the wound cards in Volkare's deck so that he will move more and run out of cards earlier, getting him frenzied and finally you can increase the number of indecisive units, which are units you both can recruit. Any unit he recruits is a setback, 1-2 units more or less in his army make a huge difference in the final battle.

I have been playing at Heroic/Tight and won close to half of the games with different heroes and all games were like 4-5h a piece (or sometimes an early concession)

What I like most about the game is 1) the complete freedom of choice you have moving around the map and attacking enemy units and plundering sites and 2) the lack of randomness in battles. Practically no dice rolling involved, except for Volkare's attack himself, which is fierce no matter what he rolls. You have to calculate everything with your cards, abilities and units. The most randomness you can get in a battle is when you attack a face down enemy. Depending on what flips up it might be a cakewalk or you might not be able to defeat it without heavy losses or at all.

There are two more expansions: Krang and Shades of Tezla. I have neither. Krang just introduces a new Hero, which is barely worth it, while Shades of Tezla does add more so I will certainly be looking at that for the future.

Stone Age is an entry level worker placement and sounds like time for you to move on to new ones.

Champions of Midgard should be easy enough for the kids to learn and has worker placement with some fighting of monsters and some dice rolling. A good next step if the theme is appealing.

I still have yet to play Viticulture but it should work from what I’ve heard.

I like Godfather: Corleone’s Empire as a worker placement with area control and if the mafia theme is appealing then it shouldn’t be too hard to learn.

Snowdonia is good but may be impossible to find until the reprint finally comes to Kickstarter this summer.

Orleans is a fun bag builder where you use different types of workers that you should check out if you can find it. Not exactly worker placement, though, but should appeal.


It also depends on your definition of worker placement...true worker placements will have limits to how many people can take a specific action, but many games use workers to choose actions but if the action spaces aren’t really limited, then it’s more of an action selection game using workers than a true worker placement, tho action selection will likely appeal to people who like worker placement games. But if you like the “only one person can increase food production” aspect of Stone Age, then you’ll want a true worker placement game rather than an action selection game.

Agricola is great and there is the “all creatures great and small” version that is less complex, but I’ve never played that so not sure; I’d just get Agricola and then use the “family rules” to start which doesn’t use occupation cards and some other things that increase complexity. The “family rules” version is a good true worker placement game where every round more actions become available.

If anybody ever wants to play a game on Tabletop Simulator, let me know. I enjoy playing on there (it’s $10 or $20 on Steam but you can then play pretty much any major board game for free with others) but whenever I get on to check out what games are starting up, there are rarely any good meaty games available to join.

It’s with voice and is easy enough to teach games. I learned Great Western Trail from a stranger on it just fine.

It’s a great way to learn new games and play them before buying them and to just play games when you can’t get together with people in person to play.

Heard of Tabletop Simulator, but never really taken a serious look at it until now.

How is that legal?