Alright! Here we are at the end of the top 10 list for my hot games of 2015! This post will contain the games 1-5 of my top 10 and these games are all must-buys. Actually, out of these five games, I’ve already pre-ordered or Kickstarted two of them and a third I’m just waiting for a new shipment to be delivered to CoolStuffInc!
Honorable mentions of 2014: http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-i-top.html
Games 6-10 of 2014: http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-i-top_13.html
Games 1-5 of 2014: http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-iii.html Honorable mentions of 2015: http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-iv-top.html
Games 6-10 of 2015: http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-v-top.html
Now that the precursors are out of the way, on to the main event! This will be my top 5 games on my top 10 list of hot games in 2015. I am super-excited about these games and 2015 is already shaping up to be an interesting year of gaming! With all that being said, as usual, if you have any questions/comments feel free to comment below or on my BoardGameGeek handle, LateToTheTable. Without further ado…the top 5!
Fields of Arle is a new farming simulation game that was released at Essen Spiel 2014 to great critical acclaim. This game was designed by the uber-popular Uwe Rosenberg and distributed in the United States by Z-Man Games. This is an interesting game to go over. Rosenberg is well known for his fantastic design work and is beloved as one of the best designer in the gaming community. His games Agricola, Caverna, and La Havre are just some of the most popular Euro-style games in distribution. In total honesty, I’ve never played any of his designs but I guarantee this will be the first! This is third game I spoke of earlier that I’m just waiting to be restocked at CoolStuffInc. This is the biggest 2-player-only game that Rosenberg has done and it just looks every bit of amazing! I can’t wait to get this game and get it on the table with my wife, I think she’ll end up loving it just like I’m sure I will!
#4 – Dice Brewing (StuntKite Publishing)
Dice Brewing is a new dice heavy game that was released at this past year’s Essen Spiel. This game was designed by Filip Glowacz and Ireneusz Huszcza of Board&Dice and is being distributed in the United States by StuntKite Publishing. I have already pre-ordered this game from StuntKite’s website and it should be shipping out around the end of February or beginning of March. I am really looking forward to this game. It is a dice-building game where you use your dice as different ingredients in order to brew beer. As you go further in the game you can brew better beer and add different ingredients to create larger victory point scores. I am a huge fan of good, craft beer and of course I’m a huge fan of dice, so this is a match made in heaven! Along with dice-chucking, there are other mechanics that allow you to change the dice rolls, get new dice, and replace existing dice. This adds a level of skill and tactics to the luck factor of rolling dice. We even loved the idea of this game so much we pre-ordered a copy for my brother-in-law’s birthday, as he’s a beer brewer.
#3 – Viceroy (Mayday Games)
Viceroy is one of the few games that I have ever chosen to Kickstart. This game was designed by Yuri Zhuravlev and will be distributed in the United States by Mayday Games. Viceroy was originally created in Russia and published by Hobby World. After becoming a huge hit at this past year’s Essen, Mayday Games decided to pick it up and put it up as a glorified pre-order on Kickstarter. Due to the low price and extras that were reached in stretch goals, I decided to go ahead and order the game. This game looks like a somewhat lighter fair, card game where you are trying to build a “pyramid of power” with the cards in your hand. You use “gems” to buy these cards using a blind bidding mechanism. Then you are able to match colors and get more gems and better powers as you continue to build up your pyramid of cards. This game just looks like it is going to be a beautiful and fun card-based game that I should be able to easily teach to others. As long as everything goes well, people who funded this game should be seeing their copies sometime in mid to late March.
#2 – Pandemic Legacy (Z-Man Games)
Pandemic Legacy is a new game that will be out in August of this year. It is designed by Pandemic creator, Matt Leacock, and Risk Legacy creator, Rob Daviau, and will be distributed in the United States by Z-Man Games. To be honest, if you have any great love of modern boardgames, then you have probably heard about this game. It takes the uber-hit, Pandemic, and combines it with the new Legacy-style of boardgame where each decision made creates lasting effects on the future of the game. When a character dies, they are dead forever. When a certain event happens, it will make waves in the future plays. This sounds absolutely amazing! I love the idea of progression in games, and it has become a much more popular trend in modern boardgaming. This takes an already beloved game and adds the idea of the progression to it to make an even more interesting game! I can’t wait for this one to be released, and it may be another that I’ll bite the bullet on and pre-order.
#1 – SeaFall: A Legacy Game (IronWall Games & Plaid Hat Games)
SeaFall is going to be the third game to be created with the “Legacy” tag added to it. It is currently being designed by Rob Daviau and will be co-published by IronWall Games (Daviau’s game company) and Plaid Hat Games. This game just looks like it is going to be amazing! It is a 4X-style game (explore, expand, exploit, exterminate) with an open-world sense where you takes ships and explore a mostly unexplored map. It takes place in a time similar to the Dark Ages where you are taking your civilization out to explore the seas. However, this is a different age where there appears to be magic and fantasy about. You are able to focus in a certain style of play in SeaFall. You can be a trader, an explorer, a warmonger, and probably even more specialties to be announced as the game gets closer to release. This game takes the Legacy title seriously as you change the board and the way the game is played with each decision that you make. These continue with you throughout the 10ish plays where you’ll actually change the board and play of the game. After you are done (in the same way as Risk Legacy is and Pandemic Legacy will be) you will have a game that is specific to the way you have played and you will be able to take each of the civilizations and play them the way that you have created. Also, it seems that each of the “X’s” is a legitimate way to win the game. If this game is even half of the ideas that Daviau has put out there, then this game has a very real chance of being one of my favorites! Sadly, I’m kind of cheating by putting it here as it probably won’t be released until 2016…but I guess that just shows how excited I am for it!
Well, there are the final games on my top 10 hot games of 2015. I am incredibly excited for these games and two of them should be on my table in a month or so! My next post (seventh) in the “End of 2014” series will be a wrap-up and review of 2014 as a whole. Considering it was my first year of serious boardgaming, I’m excited to write this one! After that I’ll do a few posts on my top five or ten games. Then, hopefully I’ll be able to convince my wife (check out her foodie blog at www.tastymess.org) to do a guest post on her top five games. It’s going to be a great year! Until next time, game on!
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