I’ve played some great games this fall, so it’s time for another round of mini-reviews about the 32 different board and card games from the last two months.  It looks like I haven’t done a set of mini-reviews since I extolled the virtues of Cartographers, Brian Boru, and Radlands in 2023 and detailed my qualms with Everdell and 9 Lives in 2022.  So I’m back to give you the quick and dirty on 32 more games, starting with the best of the best… mega 7 Wonders Duel with both the Pantheon and Agora expansions together!

Cream of the Crop

7 Wonders Duel gives you an epic feeling in a 45-minute package when combined with both the Pantheon expansion and the Agora expansion.  I’ve played this 2015 game a total of 58 times, including with one or the other expansion, but recently getting to try it for the first time with both expansions together was a real treat.  It’s not for the faint of heart, given all of the icons and rules in play, or for anyone new to the design, but with some experience under your belt, this fully expanded version is an absolute gem.

I also got Bauza’s and Cathala’s sequel The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth to the table, and it’s really impressive how they’ve changed the formula to give the sequel a really different feel, while keeping the core the same.  This video interview with the designers sheds a lot of light on their thought process behind the Lord of the Rings sequel.

My second favorite game of the season has definitely been Living Forest with the 2023 Kodama expansion.  While I was lukewarm on the original Living Forest base game, the expansion really solidifies the game for me due to the way that it strengthens the flower victory path with new cards and tree tiles.  I’ve also settled into playing this primarily as a two-player game where it seems to shine as a head-to-head battle, in which the fire/water victory path (and “wasting” an action to block an opponent) makes more sense overall.

Back to the table this season were also the wonderfully tense and variable card game Radlands, the clever Dr. Finn head-to-head battle of wits Nanga Parbat, and the decent enough silent dice game Sky Team. Even more exciting though was trying the new Twisted Paths expansion for Lost Ruins of Arnak…

Lost Ruins of Arnak is one of my all-time favorite games of the past 5 years, and I really loved the way that the Expedition Leaders skillfully added asymmetry. However, I’m afraid Twisted Paths might push the decision tree just over the edge.  It’s certainly not for newcomers to the game, but even with 63 games of Arnak under my belt, I found Twisted Paths to create a bit of overload paralysis at times in my first two plays with the latest expansion.  I’ll have to try it more to see how it goes with additional plays. The major changes to the temple tracks on the new board are particularly brain burning.

While I’ve been a huge fan of Tigris & Euphrates for over 20 years, and I loved Aldie’s recent interview with Knizia, I might be enjoying Knizia’s sequel Huang more these days.  I got to play Huang several times in the past couple months, and the changes to the classic T&E gameplay are really fascinating.  I particularly love how leaders off the board are useful, especially leveraging your blue leader when it’s knocked off the board.  I’m enjoying exploring Huang with 7 plays so far, obviously far shy of my 102 plays of Tigris over the years though.

Family Fun

I’ve gotten to play 13 different games with my ten-year-old over the past couple months.  The cooperative games The Gang, Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters, and Things in Rings (using the cooperative variant in the rules) have all gone over well – especially The Gang, despite no one in the family being particularly familiar with Poker.  There’s just something magical about The Gang that works surprisingly great for family and neighbors!

On the heavier end of the spectrum, we’ve enjoyed both Quacks and Through the Desert, which provide interesting and meaningful decisions throughout, while being relatively quick and easy to learn.  These are both phenomenal family games in my experience.

On the lighter end of the spectrum, we’ve enjoyed both Doodle Dash and the Wolfgang Warsch card game Illusion (probably two of the kid’s all-time favorite games), as well as older classics like Quoridor, Spot It, Mastermind and Bananagrams.  The memory game Sherlock (or Der Plumpsack in its earlier German version) continues to be a hit with the family, and more recently, the incredibly portable game Seaside is a more recent hit with 14 plays already this year. I don’t think I have another game in my 500+ game collection nearly as portable as Seaside for play at parks, beaches, or wherever!

Card Game Creations

I’ve enjoyed 5 different card games over the past couple months, including trick-taking games The Crew: Mission Deep Sea, Rebel Princess, and Tricky Kids.  Rebel Princess in particular is a popular choice with friends and family due to the incredible artwork, the fun of trying different princesses, and the variability of the round-to-round rule cards.  Tricky Kids was an impulse buy after reading the Designer Diary and finding it really intriguing.  I’ve only had the chance to play Tricky Kids once so far, but I’m excited to try it more and see how it holds up.  It’s certainly completely unlike all the other trick-taking games in my collection.  That being said, even though they haven’t gotten back to the table very recently, my favorite trick-taking game is still almost certainly Matagot’s Tatsu, followed by the classics Was Sticht and Njet, and the more recent Fishing.

The other card games enjoyed this fall are a couple games of Netrunner using some of the newer Null Signal Games cards, which are incredibly well designed, and a bit of KeyForge, using some homebrew drafting rules to make deck-building and gameplay even more interesting and engaging.

Last and (in some cases) Least

Rounding out the past couple months are 6 more games that did not fit into the buckets above.  I have a legacy game group that has enjoyed playing through Pandemic Legacy, Ticket to Ride Legacy, and just recently wrapped up a 10-month campaign of Betrayal Legacy.  Betrayal at House on the Hill is not particularly my cup of tea, but I have a huge soft spot for legacy games, and I’d heard such great things about Betrayal Legacy.  While the gameplay, balance, and clarity of the rules certainly left something to be desired (reminiscent of 2012’s Mice & Mystics), the theme and sheer fun were there for sure.  It did not seem like some scenarios had been particularly playtested and the games felt incredibly swingy with fragile rule systems in place, but we were nonetheless able to use the game to share entertaining and memorable stories over the past year.

I was excited to get Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship to the table, as a big fan of both Lord of the Rings and the Pandemic game system… but Fate of the Fellowship really did not grab me in my initial three plays.  Unlike War of the Ring (or even Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation), I had a lot of trouble connecting with the theme, and the turn options felt constraining and limiting in a way that was not particularly fun.  I’ll have to try it again with one of the many fans out there, but my first impression is that I’d rather be playing one of the many other Lord of the Rings themed games out there or one of the other excellent Pandemic system games (like the lovely Forbidden Desert).

I also gave Heat: Pedal to the Metal another try, but I suppose racing games really are not for me.  I think Heat must be a great game, and it’s clearly widely beloved, but I cannot find a way to get into it, or really any racing game for some reason, including Snow Tails, Formula De, TurfMaster, and all the rest apparently.  This type of game just bores me unlike any other genre with decisions that feel kind of scripted and uninspiring. I did enjoy giving Escape: The Curse of the Temple another try after many years, and it’s certainly 10 minutes of frantic fun, but it’s hard to see it having the staying power to merit owning. Escape might be the game to go the longest between plays, having played it a few times in 2012, and then not until 13 years later in 2025.

I tried a friend’s copy of Flatiron, which is a clever resource management and engine building game that I had not previously heard of.  It’s got great components and artwork from a smaller publisher.  After a couple plays, we ended up modifying the rules a bit to provide a starting income card and more card slots for creative engine building, but there are some interesting systems there to play with in what feels like a flexible and thought-provoking structure.

Lastly, I played a handful of prototypes (including my new three-player block wargame prototype that I’m working on this year and really excited about) and the CMYK game Monikers, which is a reimplementation of Time’s Up and the classic homebrew game Celebrities.  As a huge fan of Celebrities / Time’s Up, I enjoyed the card set of Monikers and especially the Cécile Gariépy artwork of the 2019 Classics edition.

Overall, I got to play a solid crop of 32 different games this fall, including older classics, newer designs, card games, family games, and high-quality expansions.

What have been your favorite games of the past couple months? Do you particularly like (or loathe) any of the games above?