Obligatory End of 2014 Post Part VI: Top Interests of 2015: Top 10 List (Part II)

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! 

This is the sixth installment total of my “End of 2014” series. If you’re curious or haven’t read the previous posts, feel free to click on the links below and check them out! Again, if you’re not sure why a game is here and not on the 2014 list, just check out one of the honorable mentions posts and I go over my prerequisites for a 2014 versus a 2015 game.

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! 

#5 – Fields of Arle (Z-Man Games)
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! 

Obligatory End of 2014 Post Part II: Top Interests of 2014: Top 10 List (Part I)

2014 is done and gone. My honorable mentions post (check it out at http://www.alittlelatetothetable.blogspot.com/2015/01/obligatory-end-of-2014-post-part-i-top.html) is up and ready for reading. If you haven’t read that post yet it does go over how I categorize 2014 releases from 2015 releases. If you’re curious about my categorization, check out that post. Now onto the good stuff! This post will be the latter half of my top 10 list of gaming interests from 2014. What will follow will be numbers 6-10. Enjoy and feel free to comment or let me know what games you haven’t played from 2014 that you really want to try out! 

#10 – Kanban: Automotive Revolution (Stronghold Games) Kanban is a fairly heavy simulation where you place workers on different parts of an automotive plant in order to design, build, and collect cars. This game is by designer Vital Lacerda and is distributed in the United States by Stronghold Games. This game uses worker placement as its main mechanic in order to create the façade of controlling the day-to-day running of a plant. You are able to place in many different options in order to design a car, build a car, test a car, collect a car, or even take a meeting. 

I think the meeting option in the game is the most interesting as this is the way you time the game and get mid-game scores. It is an interesting mechanic that looks like it works incredibly well! I also love that there is a non-player character (Sandra) that is controlled by the game in order to score the players at each option. Sandra moves around the plant checking up on each player to make sure they are doing their jobs well. The game actually has a “nice” Sandra and a “mean” Sandra built in so that the players may choose to play the easier or the more difficult versions of the game. Kanban is a fun-looking, heavy, Euro-style game that definitely has the possibility of ending up on my shelf this year! 

#9 – Tragedy Looper (Z-Man Games) Tragedy Looper is quite an interesting addition onto this list. It may be the most original idea of all the releases on both my 2014 and 2015 lists! This game was created a few years ago by Japanese game designer, BakaFire, and was finally picked up for United States distribution by Z-Man Games. This was widely considered one of the most innovative games of a few years ago and even this past year at Gen Con and Essen Spiel. 

Tragedy Looper uses deduction and co-operative play in order to solve the mystery of a murder. It is a one versus all game where one player takes the role of the mastermind against one to three other players who take on the roles of the protagonists. What really makes this game interesting is that the players may lose a round but they then go back in time to try again and now have more information with which to work out the mystery. There are a set amount of times the players can go back in time which creates a timer of sorts for the game. This looks so incredibly interesting and I really want to play it! I think this would be a play-before-buy but it still makes it very high on my lists of interests from 2014! 

#8 – Lords of Xidit (Asmodee) Lords of Xidit is an interesting programming game that is a re-implement of an older game called Himalaya. Himalaya was originally created by Régis Bonnessée and has now been re-implemented as Lords of Xidit and distributed in the United States by Asmodee. Lords of Xidit takes place in the world of Bonnessée’s other hit, Seasons, but they are very different games. While Seasons takes on hand management, card drafting, and dice rolling, Lords of Xidit uses programming and area control mechanics. This game not only looks beautiful, but also looks like a ton of fun. You go around the board programming your moves ahead of time and then everyone simultaneously show where they are going. It is possible to continuously run into other players and have stuff taken before you get there. Along with the great mechanics, it has an interesting scoring mechanism where you need to make sure you are never last in any of the scoring areas. A cool looking game that is like nothing else I own.  

#7 – Dead of Winter (Plaid Hat Games) Dead of Winter seemed to come out of nowhere this year. It was a game that wasn’t on everyone’s radar until just before Gen Con of this past year. Dead of Winter was designed by Jonathan Gilmour and Isaac Vega and distributed in the United States by Plaid Hat Games. This game holds the same distinction as all of Plaid Hat Games, they develop and produce everything in house. That being said, the game itself looks quite interesting. This is the first in a line of Plaid Hat Games titles that will feature the “A Crossroads Game” subtitle. The crossroad’s cards add decisions into the group’s game that are both interesting and at times incredibly difficult to make. All of this happens while each player has a secret agenda they are working on during the game. Often times, there is a traitor in the mix. All of this together makes for what appears to be quite an interesting game.

#6 – Panamax (Stronghold Games) Panamax is another fairly heavy Euro-style game that has hit my top 10 interests of this past year. It was designed by Gil d’Orey, Nuno Senteiro, and Paulo Soledade and distributed in the United States by Stronghold Games. This game is more on the economic end of Euro-games while Kanban (the other heavy Stronghold Games title on this list) has more of a worker placement mechanic. Panamax has the players controlling shipping companies as they are attempting to get their ships and cargo through the Panama Canal. It uses heavy economic mechanics as well as interesting dice-rolling and placement. Your goal is to have the most money in your personal coffers (as opposed to your companies vault) which can be obtained in many different ways. This game looks interesting, fun, and beautiful and thus hits #6 on my top ten interests of 2014.

There you have it. These are the bottom five games in my top 10 of 2014 list. Let me know if you think something should be higher on the list, lower, or not on it at all. Stay tuned in the next few days for my top 5 game interests in 2014! Until next time, game on!

Obligatory End of 2014 Post Part I: Top Interests of 2014 - Honorable Mentions

Another year has passed us by and, with that, it is time to roll out “best of 2014” lists. Instead of doing a “best games of 2014” list I have decided to go another way with my next series of posts. The first will be three part series focusing on games that came out in 2014 that I still really want to play and/or own! Almost all of these games have been mentioned at some point during my Gen Con and Essen Spiel posts, but there are a few that have jumped up and become more interesting over the past few months! The second series will focus on games that will/may be released in 2015 that I am most interested. Finally, I will probably do a final wrap up post making seven in all. The final post will cover the entire year and also will cover what my first “real” year of gaming was like!

Before going on I will explain how I separated the 2014 release dates from the 2015 release dates. Some of you may be thinking as I go over my 2014’s, “where is so-and-so game?” If a really good-sounding game isn’t on the 2014 list it may yet show up on the 2015 list. This is because I am separating games by English distribution. For instance, a game may have made a showing at Essen, but if it doesn’t have an easily obtainable English version through an American distributor, then I am putting it on the 2015 list as it will probably be released widely this year at some point. As an example, Viceroy, a game released overseas by Hobby World, will be release in the first or second quarter of 2015 in America by Mayday Games. I hope this clears up my decision-making somewhat. That being said, on with the honorable mentions of my top interests of 2014!

The first game to slide its way onto my most interesting games of 2014 honorable mention list is Doomtown: Reloaded, designed by Mark Wootton and Dave Williams and distributed by Alderac Entertainment Group in the United States. This is a card-driven game in the style of Fantasy Flight’s Living Card Games or LCG’s for short. These LCG’s (which is technically a trademark by Fantasy Flight Games) are games which are released as a base set and then have regular expansion packs to add onto the number of cards in the game. These games are widely used as tournament style games as they usually focus heavily on a 2-player, combat-heavy style of play. Doomtown: Reloaded, while not technically an LCG, holds true to this type of game as they have already released two expansions with many more on the way. This game looks like a ton of fun and the deck building in it actually interests me. If anyone is curious, The Fourth Ring would be my faction of choice!
 

The next game to be mentioned is Kingsport Festival, designed by Andrea Chiarveslo and Gianluca Santopietro and distributed by Passport Game Studios in the United States. This is a re-implement of Chairveslo’s 2007 hit Kingsburg. This is one of the first games to really use dice as the “workers” in a worker-placement style game. Kingsport Festival uses the same basic game-play mechanic of Kingsburg but themes it in the Lovecraftian mythos. Instead of being heroes protecting a city from attacking monsters, you are a cultist attempting to raise the elder gods from their slumber in order to destroy the world. While it is a darker theme, there are a few mechanics that are most interesting and cement it as an honorable mention in my 2014 interests list.

The third game to make its way onto this list is Arcadia Quest, designed by Thiago Aranha, Guilherme Goulart, Eric M. Lang, and Fred Perret and distributed by Cool Mini Or Not in the United States. This game didn’t really hit my radar or even crack it until after Gen Con. Even then, it took seeing quite a few reviews and video play-through’s until I became somewhat interested in the game. Arcadia Quest takes chibi-styled characters and throws them into a 2-player game where each person takes a guild and attempts to move through campaigns while getting more points/honor/gold than the other player. While appearing to be a dungeon-delver, this is actually quite a different game altogether. The two players go through campaigns using their guild characters against each other to complete missions and win the round. When complete the players take the same characters and are able to get them better equipment and spells and such before they go into another round of the game. Each campaign has roughly six rounds in it and the character progression goes the whole way throughout. A very interesting idea that appears to be good dice-chucking fun!

The fourth game on the list is Battle Merchants, designed by Gil Hova and distributed by Minion Games in the United States. This is probably my biggest surprise for the list as I didn’t know much about this game at all when I did my Gen Con and Essen Spiel posts. Battle Merchants is an area-control and card drafting game where you take on the role of weapons crafters/dealers who are selling to different fantasy races in order for them to wage their wars. You are able to create stronger weapons and sell to the different races in order to gain their favor during the war. It appears to be quite an interesting game and nothing that like other games I currently have in my collection.

The final game and the one I’m most interested in on my honorable mentions list is Hyperborea, designed by Andrea Chiarvesio and Pierluca Zizzi and distributed by Asmodee in the United States. This game has been on my radar for some time and it just continues to interest me. I so badly want to try this game out! It uses a “bag-building” mechanic where you pull your cubes out of the bag pool you are building and thus make your particular race/civilization stronger and more able to take over the kingdom of Hyperborea. This is another wonderful idea of a mixture of the European-style and American-style of games that is become more popular. Can’t wait to try this one!

This concludes my honorable mentions for the games released in 2014. Stay tuned to my page during the next week to two weeks as I will be doing my top ten interests of 2014 and then my top ten interests of 2015. Enjoy the gaming goodness and as usual let me know here or on the same post in BoardGameGeek if you have any questions or comments! Until next time, game on!