Monday, April 3, 2017

Obligatory End of 2016 Post Part III: Top Interests of 2016: Honorable Mentions

Well, this series of posts has been a little later than I prefer, but I still think they are a fun exercise of looking back at the previous year of gaming and see what I’ve missed.  We did quite well in finding the games that we really wanted in 2016 and either getting to play them or pick up a copy of them for ourselves.  Even though we have most of the games we were really looking at in 2016 there are always others out there that we’ve missed that are interesting for some reason or another.  The next three posts in my “End of 2016” series will be my top interests from 2016 that I haven’t had a chance to play as of yetSome of these games we may end up getting at some point and some we probably won’t even get to try, but that is the nature of new games coming out all the time!  Before I move on to my list feel free to read the previous two posts in my series which are the “Late-ie” awards and my final gaming statistics from 2016.



Alright, now let’s move on to the meat of the post!  These are five games that just missed my top 10 interests but I still feel that they deserve a mention and thus get a billing here in my honorable mentions post.  These are all some interesting games and I’d love to try out any of them!  Enjoy the read!

The first game I’ll make mention of on this list is Round House, designed by Eros Lin and Zong-Hua Yang and published by EmperorS4.  This is a worker placement game that takes place in a round house.  


These round houses were Chinese dwellings back in the 17th century which were extremely large and multi-leveled and generally held an entire clan and/or village.  In this game you play the head of a family who is trying to gain glory for their particular clan.  The players take turns moving their pawns around the circular board sending off members of the family to do business, hire experts, trade goods for money and gaining goods.  The goal is to maximize their efforts and create a round house with the most glory.  I love the theme of this game; it is a very interesting one!  I would love to try this game out and see if it is as interesting as it appears to be.

The next game to make it on my honorable mentions list is The Golden Sails, designed by Yuri Zhuravlev and published by Hobby World.  This is a card drafting and set collection game that is designed by the creator of the wonderful Viceroy and takes place in the same world.  


You play traders from this world that are stopping at twelve different ports with the hopes of acquiring different goods from this land such as phoenixes, unicorns, spices, weapons and gems.  Then you’ll take them back to your land and sell them for a huge profit!  The game uses a clever card drafting mechanism in order to acquire these different goodsYou will go through three rounds where you will use your experts in order to grab these itemsHowever, you can only use an expert once per round so you have to be clever the way you use them in order to get the most points available.  We love Viceroy so this designer is one we keeps our eyes on and between that and the world/art that it takes place in, it makes me really interested to try it out.

Next up on my honorable mentions list is Solarius Mission, designed by Michael Keller and Andreas “ode” Odendahl and published by Spielworxx.  This is a dice drafting, economic, exploration style game by the creators of the farming simulation, La Granja.  


In this game you take on the role of someone in the Solarius Mission which is a group looking throughout the outer planets in order to find and settle these and create interstellar trade.  Due to their home planet being overpopulated they are forced into this situation and the planetary exploration is the way to conquer this problem.  The game uses dice manipulation, drafting and resource management mechanisms to simulate these different tasksI haven’t yet played La Granja but really respect the design and this game’s theme is more up my alley.  I think between the theme and the mechanisms this game is something that I would really like and look forward to trying it out.

And next up on the honorable mentions list for my interests in 2016 is Lorenzo il Magnifico, designed by Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli, and Simone Luciani and published by Cranio Creations and CMON Limited.  This is a dice drafting, worker placement, and card drafting game that takes place during the Italian Renaissance.  


In this game each player takes on the role of the head of a noble family during the renaissance who is attempting to gain as much prestige for his/her family in order to make them the most influential in the city.  This prestige is gain through a dice drafting and card drafting mechanismEach player will roll the dice and use them as workers to get resources, develop, influence characters, and activate effects on their gained cards.  I love dice drafting.  That is the reason I was originally drawn to this game and seeing some playthroughs since have really made me interested in this dice rolling, strategy game.

The final game, and thus the one that just missed my top 10 interests from 2016, is Railroad Revolution, designed by Marco Canetta and Stefania Niccolini and published by What’s Your Game?.  This is a pool building, route building, and action selection game that takes place in America during the 19th century as large railway corporations were competing to build the quickest and best routes across the country.  


This game has a very interesting worker placement/action selection mechanism where you have general workers and then can upgrade to more specific workersWhen you use a specific type of worker on a specific type of action you can get bonuses.  Stringing these together can create some very cool moves throughout the game.  It appears to be a very fast and very interesting game with some very cool gameplay throughout.  I am very much looking forward to trying this game out one of these days!

These are the five games that just missed my top 10 interests from the games released in 2016 that I haven’t yet played.  They didn’t make the top 10 but they are still worthy of a billing.  Below I have twelve more games that I feel deserve a look and I’d be interested in trying although not as much as the games above.





And there you have it, my honorable mentions for my top interests of 2016 that I have yet to play.  I’m sure that I’ve left some great games off this list but that may be because they are coming up in the actual top 10 list!  Come back for my next post where I’ll go over games 6-10 on the list and the one after will be games 1-5.  Thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!  Until next time, game on!

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