In Good Cop Bad Cop, the police are trying to shake out the crooked cops from their ranks. What starts out as an investigation will escalate to a full-blown gunfight until one of the leaders of each side is dead. Do you want to step inside the police precinct and get entangled with a messy war on corruption?
The harvest is in and it’s time to celebrate! In Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, players act as artisans, decorating the lake around the castle with colourful lanterns. The player who earns the most honour by the end of the process is declared the winner. This isn’t a process that I’m familiar with in real life, but it does make for a neat and fairly light strategy game that sort of evokes the feelings that come with Ticket to Ride and Carcasonne.
As someone who lives on the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area and works in the downtown core, I can comfortably say that the board game fans in the city are spoiled relative to those everyone else outside. Board games are booming in Toronto, with stores and cafes popping up everywhere to support a rabid fan base. Meanwhile, just outside of the city limits, your options for buying games or playing games in public venues is far more sparse, albeit growing.
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but I wanted to highlight a few places that are notable to me. Here’s a few places that I think are worth talking about!
So you think Catan wore out its welcome years ago. You buy games off the strength of a designer’s name alone. You’re also constantly looking for the next big game or gems that other people have overlooked. If this sounds like you, you might be a board game hipster.
And there’s nothing wrong with that! You clearly have a passion for the hobby and a strong point of view on topics relating to the scene. For your next board game night, here’s a few under the radar gems you may have missed. Or, if you’re not a board game hipster, try these awesome games out while upping your board game street cred tenfold.
Paperback by Tim Fowler puts players in the shoes of aspiring writers. Pouring over each word, players compete to become the most famous writer of the bunch by completing work on paperback novels. No, you won’t actually have to write novels to win the game, but your vocabulary will be put to the test in a game that is equal parts Scrabble and Dominion. Are you ready to become the next J.K. Rowling, Stephen King or Nicholas Sparks?
From its insanely long title to its artwork that is equal parts cartoony and metal, Epic Spell Wars of the Battle Wizards: Duel at Mt. Skullzfyre needs no help in the style department. Heck, the game even comes with a cardboard standee of the mountain just for the added ambiance. But does this wizard battle royale have the substance to keep you coming back for more?
The tension in the stadium is palpable. It’s the end of the game and the score is tied between the scrappy underdogs at bat and the powerhouse squad on defense. If the underdogs can’t score now, their opposition will surely beat them in extra innings. This is the scenario you and one other player will face in Bottom of the 9th. Do you have what it takes to score the winning run or record the final out?
Exploding Kittens blew up last year on Kickstarter (pun intended), raising over $8 million dollars during its campaign. While that mark makes it easily the biggest board gaming Kickstarter campaign of all-time, it’s heavily presumed that the game itself wasn’t the biggest driver of dollars. Instead, the key selling point appears to be the creators of the Oatmeal web comic, who co-created the game and provide its humour. Because of this, it’s unfair to expect Exploding Kittens to be the best board game of all-time based on its Kickstarter money. Instead, let’s judge it on its own merits.
As my love for board games has grown, so too has my admiration for the work that’s put into making them. Early on, it completely mystified me how game designers jumped from Monopoly to Dominion in terms of game mechanics. Playing more games has opened my eyes to the different types of games, though it’s only impressed me more in regards to how board game designers are able to put cool twists on established mechanics or how they’re able to create something brand new.
Of late, it’s got me thinking about the possibility of designing my own game. I’ve read a little bit online about how to design a game, and the physical act of putting one together can be done with a few craft supplies or stuff around the house. That said, it’s not one’s ability to make a board or cards. The real magic comes from the ability to design a great game.
For most of my life, there was no tile placement sub-genre of board games. There was just Scrabble. This all-time great won me over at a young age and continues to be a favourite. Once I discovered the world of enthusiast board gaming, I discovered that there were many other games that use the concept of tile placement in very different ways. In this installment of the Board Game Night Playlist, we’re doing nothing but quality tile placement games. Let’s go!
In Third Person 