Our resident game experts wander the cafe floor spreading their wisdom and knowledge like cardboard Gandalfs. Ever wondered why they suggested that game for you, well maybe their top 5’s will give you some insight (or not, if any of them tries to teach you Mage Knight, they are insta-fired!).
Teresa
5. Scythe – A big, beautiful game that on the outside looks like a bash ’em up, but in reality is an economic, engine builder, where you try to improve your clans abilities as fast as possible, while spreading over the board, being a popular dude…and occasionally bashing someone.
4. Hive Mind – a cafe party fave. So simple, but so fun. Its like Scattegories, but in this case you are trying to give the same answers as everyone else. No winner, just a loser, kicked out of the Hive for being too different.
3. Qwixx – great little dice game that was nominated for game of the year a few years back. Players get to take turns on each others rolls and try to score as many points as possible.
2. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle – A Co-operative deckbuilding game in which you cosntruct a deck as one of the 4 main protagonists to defeat the villains before you lose control of certain locations. It plays with a legacy feel, where you start at book 1 and once you defeat it, move to 2, through to 7, adding rules as you go. Once you’re through you can add difficulty and play again.
1. Indigo – beautiful, easy and works really well for 2,3, or 4 players. The lazy description is Tsuro with gems. With 3 or 4 players you actually work together in part to exit the gems off your section for the board. It’s another Knizia game…he should visit Victoria so we can give worship to him.
Rob
5. Nations – A civilization game without a map. Instead, players purchase cards and then put resources towards completing them if they things like Wonders, or put units on them for technologies or warfare. The cards progress in quality as you move through time. On easy mode, you are so starved for resources it’s a struggle to do anything. I can’t even conceive playing it on hard. Brain burner, but very satisfying.
4. Mage Knight/Star Trek Frontiers – Rob loves him a solo game and this is the best of the bunch. Another game not for the faint of hearted, the rule book is huge but the depth of gameplay is outstanding. Both games use the same core ruleset, it really comes down to wheather you like orcs or Klingons.
3. Stronghold – A 2-player castle defence game where you are…well…defending a castle. One of you has a finite number of troops, but loaded with spells and other trickery. The other player infinite troops slamming up against the wall. Hold out for 7 turns and the defender wins.
2. Concordia – A classic Euro by our boy Mac Gerdts. Almost the deinition of an elegant game, just the right amount of rules to provide strategic depth, a great length that leaves you wishing you had one more turn. Lots of board expansions add great replayability. Highly recommended to people looking for something with a bit more than Catan.
1. Gloomhaven – Currently the #1 game in the world and one of the most ambitious designs in board game land ever attempted. The box is huge, the game is huge (90+ scenarios) and the world is huge. If you love this kind of game, its probably the best there is.
Del
5. Breaking Away – the cycling game for bike fans before Flamme Rouge came along. Luck free, you control a team of 4 cyclists and assign movement to them determined by your position in the race. Guys at the front get low values, ones at the back (drafting) get higher ones. You get extra points if you win sprints at the front though.
4. Tigris & Euphrates – Heeeeeeere’s Reiner (Knizia) again. For many this is the game that will be on his epitaph. It looks like your usual dry Euro on the surface, but in reality it is one of the most cut-throat, confrontational games you will ever play. As it’s a Knizia, it also has weird scoring…
3. Troyes – The forefather of the many dice drafting games that exist today. Players draft dice and then use them to obtain cards they can place workers on to gain fame through the civil, military or relgious parts of the city. Another classic Euro with tight mechanics and tough decisions.
2. El Grande – Still the best area control ever 30 years after it was released.
1. Tragedy Looper – I can’t believe someone even came up with this game, you have to play it to get it, but here’s the game blurb to at least try:
“a scenario-based deduction game for two to four players: one mastermind and one to three protagonists. The game consists of four location boards and a number of character cards. Each scenario features a number of characters, hidden roles for these characters (serial killer, conspiracy theorist, friend), and some pre-set tragedies (murder, suicide).
Each “day” (turn), players and the mastermind play three face-down cards onto the characters, then reveal them to move the characters around or affect their paranoia or goodwill stats. At the end of each day (turn), if the scenario has a tragedy set for that day, it happens if the conditions are met, i.e., certain characters have certain stats or are in a certain location together (or not together) with others. As tragedies happen, players loop back in time, restarting the scenario from the beginning and trying to deduce who the culprit was and why the tragedy occurred.
The players win if they manage to maintain status quo — that is, if no tragedies occur to the key individuals — for a set number of days, within a set number of loops. If not, the mastermind wins”
Chris
In Chris’s words:
5. Kingdom Builder – played it over 50 times live (which is a lot), and easily my favourite game to teach folks looking for something beyond Catan and Ticket to Ride, without taking hours to explain.
4. Magic Maze – That this didn’t win the game of the year 2017 for the Cafe was a travesty. Great co-operative game, with puzzle elements and the big red dobber of shame to remind you gotta do… something.
3. Steam – I love train games, and considered going for the hipster-gamer option of 1925 (unit 2 and 3). But Steam is better on most counts, with a cut-throat auction, economics, route building and many interesting decisions every turn.
2. Caylus – The grand-daddy of worker placement games. Agricola is probably more fun, but Caylus has more long term strategy and deep analysis available. it can take a little too long, but as a two player game with equal skill, it’s a fascinating struggle.
1. Race for the Galaxy – I’ve not got any tattoo’s, but played this game live 200+ times, and on various online sites close to 3000 times. It always feels fulfilling to build up a stellar empire, even on games you lose, while crushing your opponents with the right card combination feels even better.
