Five days. Seventy-one plays. Sixty-two games that were new to me.

Yeah, that’s a lot of games. But thanks to our fearless leader (Dale Yu) and BasementCon, I had a wonderful time playing many of them. (Well, a number of them… and some others that are destined for Mark’s Isle of Misfit Games.)

Unless otherwise noted, these are FIRST impressions… I only had the opportunity to play most of these games a single time with a physical copy and one to four of my Opinionated Gamer friends. I’ve left out the older (read: non-2023) games we played to keep this Essen- and Tokyo Game Market-focused and noted where I was able to play a game more than once.

If you’re interested in my Essen (well, post-Essen) impressions from 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2022, you can find them at the following links. (I’m not sure why I didn’t do one of these in 2021.)

• Mark’s Bundle of 2022 Essen Game Thoughts
• Mark’s Bundle of 2020 Essen Game Thoughts
• Mark’s Bundle of 2019 Essen Game Thoughts
• Mark’s Bundle of 2018 Essen Game Thoughts

For those of you who haven’t read a lot of my reviews, they may give you a better insight into my board game tastes and what I’m likely to enjoy. (Which, of course, may or may not line up with your choices. Your mileage may vary.) I’m also linking to OG articles about the games when they are available.

Revisiting My Thoughts/Rules from Last Year

Last year, I played 51 games. This year, this year, the count was 62 games. I had some thoughts (well, rules) in response to the Essen 2022 extravaganza of games. I’ve decided to add commentary to those notes with another year worth of new releases under my belt.

• 2022: Publishers should have their rulebook and components blind playtested before approving for print.
  • 2023: Still true. I don’t care how desperate you are to make Essen, doing a substandard job of getting the game published may well keep us from enjoying your game.
• 2022: Good iconography and clean presentation are more important than being artsy… not everyone has perfect eyesight and/or hi-tech lighting around their state of the art gaming table.
  • 2023: Yep.
• 2022: If your game is going to take 2+ hours of my life, it needs to tell a story and/or help me tell a story. I do not want to do mechanical stuff over and over to harvest points for that long.
  • 2023: Evacuation did this brilliantly this year. Planta Nubo, not so much.
• 2022: Stupid and fun is still worth playing. I will excuse a lot of weird design choices and even unclear rules if I’m having fun. If I’m not having fun, I don’t feel particularly charitable.
  • 2023: Yes. Yes. 1000 times yes.
• 2022: More people should take the chance to play with folks like Dale, John, Ryan, and James. It was a great weekend.
  • Also true.

My Four Favorites

• Faraway
  • Played 3 times over 5 days
  • This is an incredibly clever little card game where you draft & play eight cards in a line… but then score your cards from the end of the line back to the beginning. It plays in 10-15 minutes… and there’s a lot of game packed into that tiny time frame. (There’s also a great implementation of this game on BGA.)
• Surfosaurus MAX
  • Another clever card game that reminds me of the Knizia classic, Trendy. Players play cards to a central pool in which is then used to form the best 4 card poker hand. If your card(s) are included, you get to score them. Fast-moving and highly enjoyable.
• Unmatched: Tales to Amaze!
  • My seventh play was this last weekend
  • I’m already on record as a huge fan of the Unmatched: Battle of Legends fighting game from Restoration Games. What’s impressive is how they managed to make a very enjoyable cooperative game out of what is essentially a head-to-head combat system. (Even more impressive – my son & I playtested an early version of this game and were not happy with it. The development work done by Restoration is spectacular.) I’ll be writing a review for the OG in the next couple of weeks.
• Voidfall
  • Played 3 solo games prior to this weekend
  • I didn’t actually play Voidfall this weekend – but my Kickstarted copy arrived about the same time as Essen. With three solo plays under my belt, I’m ecstatic that I have a copy to play and enjoy. This is a giant highly thematic puzzle of a game that works brilliantly as a solo game. I’m concerned about how easy it will be to teach – but I’m loving it anyway. I’m working on a review for the OG of this as well.

Games I’d Be More Than Happy to Play Again

• Ancient Knowledge
  • If you like card combos, have I got a game for you. There are oodles of ways to create combinations in Ancient Knowledge… enough that it becomes a sequencing puzzle in addition to figuring out what to put together. There’s been some noise/irritation online about the “take that” elements of the game… and while those are present, I don’t mind them because (a) they aren’t game-destroying, and (b) without them, it would be multiplayer solitaire. The decline mechanic at the heart of the game is really neat. (Note: they have already announced an expansion with more cards – some which will replace the “take that” cards that have bothered others – and a solo mode.)
• Buffet Boss
  • Buffet Boss is a slightly more gamer-y take on the stacking game genre. This time, each player is piling up their individual bowls of food… after drafting items from the buffet in order to collect points, satisfy their character’s hidden desires, and actually pick something that won’t cause the whole thing to collapse! The game wisely uses a variant on the friendlier “what happens if I knock pieces off?” rules from the classic Animal Upon Animal in addition to a final measurement of each bowl to reward the player with the tallest creation. I really enjoyed this one.
• Cabanga!
  • I initially described this as “6 Nimmt-ish” – which isn’t wrong, but it doesn’t do an adequate job of explaining why this silly game is so much fun. Players are attempting to clear their hands – but when they leave a numerical gap between the card they play and the other card of that color on the table, the other players can call “Cabanga!”, discard the cards between the number, and force them to draw penalty cards. Lots of laughter ensued. Highly recommended.
• Evacuation
  • This is my favorite of the new “heavy” games… and one of the best examples of a well-done theme making a game easier to teach, learn, and play. Since we are abandoning a dying world to create a new civilization, the shifting of resources from one planet to another presents an intriguing puzzle. We played the race version of the game – I’d probably choose to play the “full” game next time.
• Ku-Ka-Konig
  • When this was explained to me – including the chanting of the game name and the simultaneous flashing of finger numbers to draft cards – I was not impressed. 15 minutes later, I was charmed. It’s a set collection game with two scoring opportunities and the inevitable collisions of players who want the same thing. Nice touch: the set of three cards that players tie over loses a card and those tied players bid again – so they can jump to something else! Recommended.
• Monumental
  • Played 2 times in 5 days (one solo)
  • This is a civilization game with both board play and deck-building elements… coupled with an interesting puzzle each turn of which cards in your tableau to activate. All of that means it is highly enjoyable with 2 players or solo… but I’d avoid it with 3-4 players due to downtime. (There is an official variant to reduce downtime.) For my fellow solo gamers, the AI worked well and was easy to administer
• Path of Civilization
  • Played 2 times in 5 days (one solo)
  • Another civilization building game – with an intriguing mechanic where you continually are getting rid of earlier “technology” cards in order to progress forward. It worked very well both with 4 players and and as a solo game. The first time we set up the game was a lot of work – but once you’ve done the work of putting things together in a logical manner, it’s pretty easy to do. The rulebook felt heavier than the rules actually are – the game itself is very straightforward (and interesting) after you’ve learned it. There is a lot of variety in the various challenge and battle cards, as well as the various leaders and wonders that appear. The solo system – while very easy to run – seemed a little weak… but I was playing on the easy setting.
• Verplant & Zugestellt
  • Played 2 times in 5 days
  • This is not “just like every other flip-n-write” – not only do players have some agency in choosing what elements on each card are used by all players at the table, but the creative problems those choices create are more than “check off some boxes”. Verplant & Zugestellt is about interior design – you are attempting to create a home that satisfies the owner’s desires… and learning to let go of some requests is key to building a successful layout. The game comes with a LOT of scenarios in the book – and an English translation of the rulebook and scenario book are available online.

Games I’m Willing To Play

• Age of Rome
  • There’s a really interesting mechanic at the heart of this ancient kingdom building game… but watch out for swingy event cards.
• Christmas Tree
  • Historically, Christmas-themed games are a bust. This one is not – it’s a cute set collecting game with tension induced by the way you can lose cards when other players drop down a set.
• Flamme Rouge BMX
  • Flamme Rouge with one lap of a smaller board and bags of wooden tokens rather than cards. We played with all of the various terrain additions (track pieces are double-sided) and the weather die (which can disrupt or supercharge drafting). Delightful filler.
• Forest Shuffle
  • So, what if you melded a Race for the Galaxy-ish card payment system with a well-designed tableau building mechanic and made it about trees and birds and animals and fungi? Yep, you’ve got Forest Shuffle… it’s a game that will definitely reward multiple plays so you can have a better picture of the different combos you can build.
• Imperial Miners
  • Thematically, it’s an offshoot of the Imperial Settlers/Empires of the North franchise from Portal Games. In reality, it’s 30 minutes of simultaneous play with some nifty puzzle elements as each mine card you place triggers a line of cards above going back to the surface. A solid super-filler game.
• Knarr
  • Another super-filler… this time a drafting game with ways to create chains of cards that trigger for a variety of helpful effects as well as expeditions which can aid you in your race to 40 points. The artwork is well done and the game plays cleanly and quickly.
• Maudit Mot Dit
  • The need to give precisely the right amount of clues is pretty cool… as is the excellent use of the box to hold the clue system secretly. But this great little word game is burdened with a nutball penalty card system that should have been left on the cutting room floor.
• Robot Quest Arena
  • If you take the basic card purchasing structure of Star Realms, then add cute robot sculpts & board play, you’ve got Robot Quest Arena. My one play so far was with two players (2 robots each) and I enjoyed it.
• Sea Salt & Paper (with the expansion)
  • This was my first play of Sea Salt & Paper – a game that has received a lot of love from folks over the last year – and the folks who knew the game added the expansion cards. It’s a well-built set collection game with push-your-luck elements… and it works like a charm.
• Similo (Essen 2023 set)
  • I have not been a fan of games like The Mind… but this is one of the few “mind-meld” games that I’ve actually enjoyed. (It probably didn’t hurt that we were playing with a set that was all recently released board games.
• Time Collectors
  • The production of this game suggests a much longer exploration of time travel than the 15-20 minutes it took us to play – but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. At its heart, Time Collectors is a set-collecting game with dice manipulation and tableau layout…and I liked it.
• SpellBook
  • The wide variability of spell card choices makes for different challenges each time… coupled with the set collecting mechanic to power the aforementioned spell cards. And, if you needed something else, you can always push the game end timer. A very solid design that plays quickly (30 minutes).
• Tokyo Highway: Rainbow City
  • I had the chance to play a prototype version of the upcoming Tokyo Highway: Rainbow City. While I didn’t do very well at the game, it’s a visual delight and a decent game buried under all the Instgramable moments. I really do appreciate the rubbery cars and pads on the bottom of the road portions – an improvement from earlier versions.
• Tucana Builders
  • Trails of Tucana has been a flip-n-write solo staple in my game collection for the past couple of years… and this is a tile-laying take on the same kind of route-building. The components are nice and the nature of the puzzle different enough to make me want to have a copy of both games.
• Waterfall Park
  • 24 years ago, I played Chinatown for the first time at Gulf Games III. (Remember, I just attended Gulf Games 50 this summer.) Since then, I’ve owned and sold the original Alea publication of Chinatown – and played it both by the rules I was taught as well as the published rules. Waterfall Park is Chinatown with more flexibility (hexagons instead of squares separated in 2 sections rather than 5 or 6) and less length (4 rounds instead of six rounds). This is better.

Games I Wasn’t All That Excited About

• 3 Ring Circus
  • I was only able to play one game solo… and the production is really nice. (Wish more games came with cardboard sections to block out unused parts of the map with lower player numbers.) However, the automata was a little clunky and had some confusing priorities on which city to choose and which artist to hire. While the game is gorgeous on the table, the various icons are not always easy to suss out and the game wants you to do some VERY specific things in order to make scoring work.
• At the Office
  • Knizia roll’n’write that reminds me of Qwixx (in the way dice are picked) with a bit more theme (you are essentially HR for an office). Not bad but not particularly anything new.
• Boomerang: USA
  • I liked this drafting game with accompanying flip’n write elements as a two player game… since the 7 Wonders-style draft left you with a decent level of control. I’d be much less interested with more players.
• Footprints
  • Yet another “can a prehistoric tribe survive & thrive?” game… it’s a sort-of race game coupled with a sort-of points collecting game. It was sort of fun.
• Havalandi
  • Knizia still finds one more way to lay tiles on a board to create scoring patterns… this time with balloons. Works fine but isn’t particularly compelling. (Of the two Knizia pattern games this Essen, I think Sunrise Lane is the more interesting of the two – and certainly the one with more control for the players.)
• House of Cats
  • I only had a single solo play of the level one version of the game… which is a relatively straightforward roll’n’write with custom dice. (This might have more going on with the higher levels.)
• Kutna Hora: The City of Silver
  • I was really looking forward to this design from CGE… but it felt kind of flat. Mechanically, everything works – but I don’t need to play it again. (Hint: the mining element of the game is not an equal source of points to the city-building part of the game… concentrating on the mines is not a path to victory.) I will give them points for effective use of the new molded token materials and the interesting way the card holders/cards create a dynamic market.
• Lunar Laser Frogs
  • One player rolls 6 dice in 3 sets of their choice… and the rest of us bet on the outcome (by throwing betting cards into the box) like the old Twitch card game. This was more fun than it deserved to be.
• Mycelia
  • Ravensburger’s deck-building game (with training wheels) and an over-produced randomizer. You use your cards to move bits around an individual player board to clear them. I’d be interested in trying again with the “advanced” cards.
• Nanatoridori
  • A Scout-ish card shedding game where losing a hand causes you to lose a decidedly cute wooden penguin marker. Lose two penguins… and everyone else at the table wins.
• Oh My. Orchids!
  • A very pretty set-collecting game with three tiers – seeds, flowers, and orchids. Nothing wrong with it, but I don’t need to play again..
• Pocket Farm
  • A puzzle-y game built out of cards overlaying each other. Another game that works like it is supposed to but that I don’t need to play again.
• Sunrise Lane
  • I like this version better than the original game, Rondo… but I’ll be the first to say that the red/pink colors on the board are WAY too close. (Need a strong light for this one.) It’s the better of the two Knizia tile-laying games from this Essen.
• Terraforming Mars: The Dice Game
  • I’m a huge fan of Terraforming Mars… and I really like Ares Expedition (once you add the expansions)… but the dice game was just so-so. While it’s about the same length as Ares Expedition, I felt like I had much less control.
• Urbify
  • We take turn placing workers in meetings in order to get “juice” to claim building plans to build a communal city. There are some interesting ways to use workers but overall the game didn’t excite me.

The Island of Misfit Toys Games

• 5 Towers
  • There are enough strong feelings about this one on both sides that the OG will be publishing an article about it. For me, the bids were obvious most of the time and the game did not impress me.
• Brass Empire
  • Couple a badly organized rulebook (for a relatively straightforward deckbuilder) with cards that are difficult to read across the table… and you take what could be a decent game and make it much less enjoyable.
• Bubble King
  • This is a cute theme for a real-time game (filling drink orders while searching for ingredients)… but a bad recipe draw (some cards require you to play a memory game as well as find ingredients) at the beginning dooms your chances. Not interested in trying again.
• Carry Me Pig
  • Blind bidding with a whimsical theme but uninteresting gameplay. One and done.
• Dogfight!: Rule The Skies in 20 Minutes!
  • This is a simple abstract game of dogfighting… there are more varieties of planes and scenarios that might add to it, but the base game didn’t excite.
• Ito
  • Cross The Mind (which I detest) with Fun Facts (which was not fun)… and you can guess what I think of this one. (Use your “mind powers”.)
• KINMO
  • While the monkey cards are cute, the game is basically a King of the Mountain card game… and since I’ve played enough of those to last a lifetime, I’ll step back and let the rest of you enjoy it..
• Lucky First Incense
  • Multiple head-to-head battles to race for position to be the first to light incense in the New Year. Many of the cards have special powers which (thankfully) have clear rules for their interaction. Nothing wrong with it, but one play was enough. (There is a number of extra cardboard “props” in the box – which in the right hands could make this a better experience… and we did not include the artifact cards.)
• Monster Hide and Seek
  • A perfectly fine memory game with double-sided cards… I am just too old for this.
• Perspectives
  • It’s like the activity/game Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective if you cut the clues into pieces and wouldn’t let people show them to each other. Excruciating.
• Planta Nubo
  • The nicest way to say it is that the rulebook is eccentrically organized and the gameplay is not particularly inspiring. The theme does not help connect the various elements of the game… and our three player game was 3 hours long. One positive note: the energy track is a cool idea. Will not play again.
• Prey Another Day
  • Rock/Paper/Scissors genre game with simultaneous play that leads to relatively random results. Done with that.
• Rebel Princess
  • I am not understanding the love for Rebel Princess. The art is cute, but it is Hearts with a number of unbalanced role cards and “special” rules for each hand. Not enjoyable.
• Secret Number
  • This is a deduction-ish game that really relies on you guessing early before you have enough information to know the correct answer. Pass.
• Sensu
  • The fan cards are a neat design element… otherwise, it is just a set-collecting game
• The Academy
  • Another trick-taking game with arcane rules and extra twists. Don’t need to play it again.
• Town 77
  • This is a logic puzzle (similar to Qwirkle) not-so-cleverly disguised as a game. No thank you.
• Zero Hero
  • Finally, a drafting game with No Thanks!-ish element (the zero tokens)… it’s just OK.

Pictures

• I’m not even going to try on the header picture… it’s a mishmash of pictures I posted to Facebook plus 50 of the 62 games I played.
• Four Favorites
  • Left: Unmatched: Tales to Amaze! with Beowulf
  • Right: Voidfall
• Happy to Play Again
  • Clockwise: Dale playing Buffet Boss, Evacuation, Path of Civilization (solo setup), my Alpine Wellness hut in Verplant & Zugestellt, Monumental
• Willing to Play
  • Clockwise: Age of Rome, Tokyo Highway: Rainbow City, Waterfall Park, Robot Quest Arena
• Not All That Excited
  • Top row: 3 Ring Circus, Kutna Hora
  • Bottom row: Havalandi, Sunrise Lane
• Misfit Games
  • Top: Dale & I playing Planta Nubo
  • Bottom row: 5 Towers, Ryan & James playing Perspectives, KINMO, Zero Hero