Today we continue our end-of-year retrospective week at the OG with a write-up of our favorite new-to-us games played in 2021.  These are all games that were released before 2021, but which we tried for the first time in 2021 and really enjoyed.  It’s always a joy to discover games from years past that you didn’t have an opportunity to play before and that make the year a little brighter.  These are the pre-2021 games that hit our radar in the past year and that we recommend going back to check out.  Check it out and then share your favorite new-to-you games learned in 2021.

Talia: In 2021, I really enjoyed getting to learn Lost Ruins of Arnak (2020), Doodle Quest (2014), Rosetta: The Lost Language (2020), and Barenpark (2017).  Doodle Quest is a wonderful children’s game that involves drawing with dry erase markers on transparent sheets that then get placed on a “puzzle” image to score based on satisfying various criteria (such as drawing inside bubbles, avoiding traps, collecting coins, or catching fish).  I highly recommend checking out Doodle Quest with any children in your life.  Rosetta: The Lost Language is a clever party game that has Dixit-style artwork paired with more open-ended gameplay in which one silent player (like in Mysterium) tries to get the rest of the players to determine the answer to a mystery through symbology.  Barenpark is an adorable Tetris-like game by Phil Walker-Harding that is supremely satisfying when you manage to pull off a clever sequence of moves to fill in your board with animal tiles.

Mark Jackson: My biggest find this year was/is the sprawling nutty wonderful Xia: Legends of a Drift System (designed by Cody Miller)… I managed to track down a complete copy (including all the expansions) thanks to the BGG Marketplace and it was one of my highlights of the last four months of 2021. Honestly, it occupies a similar niche to FFG’s Star Wars: Outer Rim, but with a MUCH more open world and a lot more variety.

I also enjoyed Great Western Trail (I’m becoming a Pfister fan) and Fleet: The Dice Game for the first time this year… not sure how I missed these previously!

This week we will be sharing a series of four end-of-year retrospective articles about our favorite games.  We’ll start off with our favorite new games from 2021.  These are the hot new games that OG writers particularly enjoyed over the past year.  While our tastes are wide and varied, you’ll see a few recurring titles below, particularly The Crew: Mission Deep Sea appears on several best-of lists, along with Ark Nova and Lum Lum Party.  Check it out and then share your favorite new games from 2021 in the comments.

Talia: My favorite new game released in 2021 was easily Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile by Cole Wehrle.  I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to play the game 18 times over the course of the year, including 10 plays during a week-long convention back in August.  Oath is a tough game to explain, but I think of it as a light roleplaying adventure in a box where the winner is very much secondary to the story that emerges from the gorgeous and entertaining cards along with the evolving map.  The theme and artwork of the hundreds of different cards is a blast to explore with a group of like-minded adventurers.  My second favorite game of 2021 was definitely Steve Finn’s Nanga Parbat, which is almost as clever as his definitive classic Scripts & Scribes from 2007.  Nanga Parbat is a quick, tense two-player game of collecting lovely animal meeples with unique and tricky abilities.  I’ll give honorable mentions to Let’s Make a Bus Route: The Dice Game (which is a fast and fun two-player roll-and-write) and to Dominant Species: Marine (especially since no one else at the OG recognizes the brilliance of Dominant Species, and this sequel is a fascinating spin on a phenomenal base game).

James Nathan: For me it was a year that leaned into my line that “I like games which don’t sound like they should work, but do.”  Often that’s because the game posits something a bit preposterous, but this year was different. Two of the highlights which I’ve played repeatedly – despite only first playing one of them in December – are the Japanese releases Lum Lum Party and nana. Each seems to present too basic of a premise to “work,” but for me, they’ve both shined.  Lum Lum Party is a take on bingo that gives the players agency in 2 areas; first, within some guidelines you can choose the numbers on your board.  Second, players take turns around the table influencing the next number that is called.  In nana, it’s a take on memory, but you’re looking for 3-of-a-kind, yet it’s been mixed into a game of “Go Fish,” where in addition to flipping cards from the table, you can ask the players if they have the card you’re trying to make 3 of (with the twist being you can only ask for their lowest or highest card).

In contrast to those two, my other standout was The Crew: Mission Deep Sea.  It plays like a fully developed version of the base game.  From a rules read, I wasn’t expecting it to feel as different from the original, but it’s well worth your time.

ラムラムパーティー (Lum Lum Party)
Designer: Rei (レイ)
Publisher: 四等星 (4tousei)
Players: 3-5
Playing Time: 30-45 minutes
Times Played: 5

Lum Lum Party is a game that makes no sense. It is among my favorite 2021 releases, but probably won’t share that same love from everyone. The title is based upon a protagonist in a manga series from the 70s and 80s, Urusei Yatsura, but it seems unrelated to the game in theme or mechanics. The rules, however, give direction on how to search YouTube for this song the designer made about Urusei Yatsura, linked here to inspire you as we talk about the game. Stick around for the whistle, then tempo change!

Lum Lum Party is also a game that makes perfect sense. In short, it is a Bingo-based game, with two wrinkles: you have some agency for choosing the numbers on your board, and you have some agency in choosing the next number that is “called”. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything there.