The Opinionated Gamers

Two of the major Game of the Year awards announced their results recently.

The Deutscher Spiele Preis (DSP) award was announced last month.  This is widely viewed as the German-based award that honors heavier games, at least when compared to the SdJ and KdJ awards (for example, Terraforming Mars won in 2017).  However, for the second straight year, the award went to one of the picks of the SdJ jury.  Last year, SdJ winner Azul got the nod and this year, the award goes to KdJ winner Wingspan.  Here are the top 10 finishers, together with each game’s designer and publisher:

1. Wingspan, by Elizabeth Hargrave (Stonemaier Games)
2. The Taverns of Tiefenthal, by Wolfgang Warsch (Schmidt Spiele)
3. Teotihuacan: City of Gods, by Daniele Tascini and Dávid Turczi (Board&Dice)
4. Spirit Island, by R. Eric Reuss (Greater Than Games)
5. Architects of the West Kingdom, by Shem Phillips and S.J. Macdonald (Garphill Games)
6. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, by Ignacy Trzewiczek, Przemysław Rymer, and Jakub Łapot (Portal Games)
7. Underwater Cities, by Vladimír Suchý (Delicious Games)
8. Newton, by Nestore Mangone and Simone Luciani (Cranio Creations)
9. Just One, by Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter (Repos Production)
10. Gloomhaven, by Isaac Childres (Cephalophair Games)

The DSP award for best children’s game went to Concept Kids, by Gaëtan Beaujannot, Alain Rivollet, and published by Repos.

The International Gamers Awards (IGA) were announced earlier this week.  The best multiplayer game award went to Root, designed by Cole Wehrle and published by Leder Games.  This is the third significant award won by Root—earlier, it was chosen as Game of the Year by both the Golden Geeks and the Dice Tower awards.  The IGA award for best 2-player game went to Lincoln, designed by Martin Wallace and published by PSC Games.  This is the fourth IGA award won by Wallace (earlier wins include Age of Steam, Age of Industry, and A Few Acres of Snow); this ties him with Uwe Rosenberg for most IGAs all time.

Congratulations to Hargrave, Wehrle, and Wallace for their selections by these very prestigious awards!

Tanto Cuore

• Designer: Masayuki Kudou
• Publisher: Japanime Games / Arclight
• Players: 2-4
• Ages: 13+
• Time: 45 minutes
• Times played: probably at least 40, but 3 in past month with new review copy provided by Japanime Games

Tanto Cuore is a game that I have played for almost ten years now…  I first got a copy of a game from a friend in Japan back in 2009. As you probably know, I had a hand in Dominion, and as a result, I’ve been very interested in all forms of deck builders since then.  Tanto Cuore was one of the first games to use the basic deckbuilding ideas from Dominion but offer a few different twists to the recipe.

• Designers: Simone Luciani, Tommaso Battista
• Artist: Antonio De Luca
• Publisher: Cranio Creations
• Players: 1-4
• Time: 75-150 minutes
• Times Played: 3, all with four players

This is a review of one of the most controversial games of the year.  The game is Barrage and the reason for the controversy is its recently completed Kickstarter campaign run by its publisher, Cranio Creations.  Without going into too much detail, it appears that Cranio badly underestimated what it takes to run a successful KS campaign, so delivery dates were missed, promised components either weren’t included or fell far short of their expected quality, and many backers were bitterly disappointed.  Needless to say, the complaints about this situation have been loud and numerous.

Despite all that drama, the events surrounding the Kickstarter campaign will not be a part of this review.  There are two reasons for this.  First, I wasn’t a KS backer and am only peripherally aware of all of the many alleged shortcomings of the campaign, so I’m really not qualified to discuss them in depth.  More importantly, though, I don’t honestly feel they’re relevant to this article.  The way I see it, the audience for a review of this game, or any game, are folks who are curious about the title and want to know if they should play and/or buy the game.  Promises that may or may not have been made in the past aren’t really a concern for these readers—they just care about how the game plays and the quality of the components.  I will certainly discuss Barrage’s components; in fact, because of the controversy surrounding them, I’ll devote considerably more words to them than I normally would.  But this will be a review of the game I played recently and not the one that so many of the KS backers thought they’d be receiving.  It’s not that the details of the KS campaign shouldn’t be discussed; it’s just that this isn’t the time or the place for that.  The question at this point in time is, given all the controversy surrounding this game, is it something that a prospective player or buyer should investigate?  That’s the question I’ll try to address in this review.

Now that the elephant in the room has been discussed, let me get to the subject at hand.  Barrage (which, in addition to its normal English meaning, is also the French word for dam) is about generating energy.  Specifically, hydro-electricity.  The players represent industrialists from four post-WWI powers who believe that the best way of satisfying the enormous power demands of the future will be by harnessing the incredible power of flowing water.  They have all gathered at a promising spot in the Alps to test their theories and devices.  And getting in the way of one’s rivals is not only satisfying, but could lead to world domination. Continue reading →