New-to-me games played recently include …

A GENTLE RAIN (2021): Rank 1014, Rating 7.6
A fairly straightforward, effectively solo co-op of drawing and placing a tile (Carcassonne style) to the common display to either complete a 2×2 square of matching coloured edges (which is a point) or placing it to maximise the chances of completing a square later on. Get 8 pts before the tiles run out; which should be under 15 minutes unless someone cares to deploy serious AP. There’s no hidden information; everyone should be making the same choices. It’s gentle enough for those looking for a zen experience but there’s not much there if you’re looking for decisions and game.
Rating: 6

ALL IN: PREDICTIONS (2026): Rank 5947, Rating 6.9 – Walker-Harding
Spend turns trying to improve your poker hand by using the effect of a card you discard to draw new cards from the deck and/or from the display. Hope to start with a good hand. Hope to draw well. Hope you can correctly guess who has the best hand at the end of the discard/redraw process to earn additional points. It felt simplistic, luck-based, and derivative.
Rating: 5

IPSO (2026): Rank 26721, Rating 5.5
You’re aiming to have each of your 5 rows be in a colour and in ascending numerical order. Take one of the two cards in the draft (different colours and numbered 1 to high) and place it in one of your 5 rows. The face-down card you replaced enters the draft face-up for the next player. They either like it or it sucks. Like Lucky Numbers, leave big gaps to max your chances of filling them later on. But here there are no second or third chances – you either get the cards in the colours and numbers you want towards the end and you do well … or you don’t and you lose. No meaningful decisions, not a lot of fun.
Rating: 4

SPOOKY TOWER (2026): Rank 11947, Rating 6.1
Roll dice to determine what card you can take from the draft and add to your tableau, or instead use the dice to activate cards in your tableau you’ve previously collected, flip them, and see what rewards you’ve semi-randomly collected. The higher number cards provide a better chance of VPs and stronger effects. Hope to roll well in the 15 mins it takes until someone lucks into the 5VPs or 3 artifacts needed to win.
Rating: 5

TAKE TIME (2025): Rank 644, Rating 7.7
Take turns playing cards (valued 1-12) face down in the 6 slots on the mission board, winning if (when revealed) each slot has a sum value >= the previous slot. Which sounds easy enough except that only half the cards are in play (so you’re not exactly sure how relatively high or low your cards are) and the mission board slots have requirements that must be met (white card here, play here first, three cards here, etc). Work out a bit of strategy first (ideal numbers in each slot, just one person play here, etc) and go for it. Each board is quick, there’s a nice cheer satisfaction, and even though it reminded me of The Mind, the mission boards switched things up just enough to make it very more-ish. It’s been added to my list of fun closers that I’m happy to do any time.
Rating: 8

TRICKSTER GODS (2026): Rank N/a, Rating N/a
Random trick-taker where, after every trick, the winner has the option of changing the scoring rules and the player who just lost the lead has the option of changing trump, card order, or scoring rules. Plenty of downtime. It can also lead to two players yo-yoing the lead, claiming more and more scoring cards while others are shut out despite having seemingly decent hands at the start. Misere scoring options are trivial so there’s no good alternative to winning tricks. We packed it up rather shortly.
Rating: 4

VISIONS (2026): Rank 19254, Rating 5.9 – Cathala / Sirieix
Play a card from your hand of 3 to extend one of your two sets and then re-fill your hand from the draft. A card must match colour and/or symbol and at the end of the game each set will score its most common colour times its most common symbol. But you avoid all that and win the game immediately by having enough cards in one set match colour and/or symbol with cards in the same positions in the other set. The game should be won by whoever’s luckiest in getting matching cards and hurt least by its random card stealing mechanism (when someone can’t play). It doesn’t leave a lot to explore or come back for but at least it’s only 15 or so quickish turns.
Rating: 6

FIRST GIANTS (2026): Rank 6601, Rating 6.8 – Dunstan / Gilbert
Simple game of picking up a card from an area you haven’t picked up from yet or, when you run out of areas, paying to flip your collected cards from their power to their score side. You can either race to complete sets (same colour or same number) or leave your cards in play for their ongoing effect. It’s over pretty quickly though – you’ll only put out 8-10 cards, maybe 2 or 3 sets. Which has it fall in that twilight zone of too simple for gamers but too many powers to explain for non-gamers. And when you’re putting out so few sets, there’s a ton of luck on whether the cards you want will come out, and in an area you’re eligible to pick up from. I didn’t emotionally invest.
Rating: 6

Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:

Tery: I hate The Mind with a passion. I just don’t enjoy the pressure of having to guess what other people’s pained facial expressions mean or being berated because I waited a half second too long to play my card that is 4 numbers higher; I want more information so I can at least make an educated guess, like in Hanabi. I only agreed to try Take Time because I love the people suggesting we play it and I would play just about anything with them. However, I was glad I had agreed, because I really enjoyed it. I had just enough information to feel that I wasn’t overly guessing or stressing out about guessing, but not so much that it didn’t require some deduction and attention to detail. I would happily play this again.

Mark Jackson: Tery is correct about The Mind. So very correct.

I actually really like A Gentle Rain as a lovely quiet solo game where I’m trying to win but still enjoy the puzzly process if I don’t manage to put out all the flower tokens.

Fraser: Totally agree with what Tery and Mark said in their first sentences.