I am very happy to see For Northwood doing so well. #36 is an amazing debut especially for such a small and unique little game.

No change in the top 3 but some interesting moves after that. Gloomhaven is out of the top 10 despite being bundled together with JotL and Frosthaven. Both Dune Imperium and Arnak have made big jumps. The LotR LCG has climbed a few spots. Ark Nova overtook Terraforming Mars. Cascadia continues its steady climb while Wingspan continues to slide.

Dice Tower is running their 12 Games of Christmas 2023 series too. 9 videos so far with 12 games each for various categories.

Is this a hit board game? The number of BGG ratings and rank (13648) don’t reflect that. Does it stand out in some way from the multitude of similar games?

How is the Bitoku expansion in terms of extra rules and table space? Are you planning to leave it in permanently? And the most important question, does it fit in the base box?

Darwin’s Journey - A nice combo-tastic euro with an interesting theme. Looks great on the table. Many familiar elements from other Italian-style euros and also a hint of Maracaibo. Left it on the table for a couple more plays and I might try the solo too later on. Minor regrets about not having the double-layered boards from the collector’s edition.

Sky Team - This is a really good 2p-only co-op. I first tried it on BGA and had to immediately order it and we played it on the table a few times since. Easy to learn rules and the box contains a lot of content to allow you to ramp up the difficulty. Highly recommended if you enjoy limited-communication co-ops (Hanabi etc) and dice placement.

Castellion - got in a few solo plays, it was nice coming back to it after a long break I enjoyed it a lot more this time and I finally gave the advanced mode a try.

Best: play games with them

Might be pricey and difficult but will almost certainly make them happy: find out what game they’ve been wanting to get but it’s hard to find or too pricey. But it will be hard to find and pricey for you too. Maybe they have “Wishlist” or “Want to trade” items on boardgamegeek.

If they also play online: annual Boardgamearena subscription. They have a way to gift a subscription but you have to make a (free) account for yourself and you have to know their username.

More practical, lower budget: If they play on a regular table (not a special boardgame table) then they might like a neoprene mat. Ideally it should be close to the dimensions of the table. Deckboxes and the accessories others are mentioning are always nice too. Upgrade bits for their favorite game (etsy has a ton of stuff too) or trays/card holders etc.

Istanbul: The Dice Game - A simple but solid dice based take on the original Istanbul. Like in the original you are racing to get 5 or 6 rubies and the rolled dice faces, saved up resources, upgrade tiles and card draws give you various ways to get there. Nice chunky dice.

Maul Peak - a new version of Skulk Hollow. Only one play so far but looking forward to exploring this further. Very nice production.

First play of Maracaibo. It’s a medium-heavy euro with lots going on. You can definitely see the GWT lineage, it’s fun to try to map the various concepts between them. Gameplay feels very different though, I don’t think that either is a replacement for the other. Maracaibo has a bit more of that Pfister wackiness (in a good way). And so much content in the box!

How do you play Maracaibo? Very carefully! Lots of moving parts that are easy to accidentally knock around. GWT-style double-layered player boards would have made a big difference. I hear that the expansion actually comes with those but I want to give the base game a few more plays before deciding on that. BTW, Amazon US currently has Maracaibo at a decent price in case anybody is looking to get it.

Back to back Clank and Clank! In! Space! - Happy to play any Clank any time! We haven’t yet played CiS as much as the original so I really enjoyed jumping back into that. We don’t have Catacombs yet, waiting for the price to drop.

Fit to Print - this came in just today and we gave it a quick whirl. Imagine if Phil Walker-Harding designed a more family-friendly version of Galaxy Trucker, that’s what it feels like. The actual designer is Peter McPherson who is known for Tiny Towns. At first glance the game might seems light (and it kinda is) but the twist of having to collect your components onto a small table first (without trying them on the board) and then build your newspaper in a separate phase (so you can’t take or discard anymore) makes it work. The game comes with a bunch of variants: player powers, event cards, solo, a turn-based mode, some puzzles and Cascadia-style challenges.

I never look at the Type and Category fields, my eyes are just not drawn there.

What I do look at all the time is the Mechanism field. That’s one of the first things I check when finding out about a game for the first time. I also use that field extensively in searches. It’s fun to do an advanced search for combinations of different mechanisms. For example what are some co-op trick-taking games besides Crew and Fox in the Forest Duet?

I like it a lot! We play at two and sometimes use a fan made variant that pre-populates some of spaces with a dummy color. This tightens up the game quite a bit. I love the way the game looks on the table and the tactility of the tiles. This is a game where the production elevates a good game into a great experience. I only wish that the cards were standard size for easier shuffling and handling.

I’ve been thinking about different ways we could draft at 2p. For example a Biblios style draft where each player draws 3 cards one at a time and has to keep one, give one to the opponent and place one into the bonus area. Or maybe just an open draft where we take turns picking from the current batch of face-up cards.

If anyone has the expansion I’d love to hear you experiences with that, especially at 2.

The BGG best player count is currently based on a single vote. Looking at the rule book less than 4 works by having players control multiple characters. So as long as you are ok with that it should play the same at all player counts.

Keeping it under Lost Expedition complexity narrows it down quite a bit. Focusing on the small deck solitaire/patience aspect Puzzle Dungeon and For Northwood come to mind. Both are great at what they do but they might have the type of storytelling you are looking for. Also, while it’s playable with a standard deck Regicide is worth checking out too, it’s as thematic as a standard deck of cards can get. There is a custom deck available for it too (cosmetic only, no change to the gameplay).

Canvas comes with the wall mount built into the box.

Here is my take. There 3 types of options:

Web based services that fully implement and enforce rules for their games

• Boardgamearena - the best selection in this category by far. These days games are added much faster than normal players will be able to keep up with so there is always plenty to explore. Very large player base, for popular games you will find matches quickly. Good match-making and lots of play modes: real-time, turn-based (with customizable time allowances), Arena, Tournaments. Generally high quality implementations that tend to stay visually true to the physical version of the game. Many games have good tutorials. The premium subscription is not strictly required but an excellent value if you use the site a lot. BGA has been invaluable in my boardgame journey. It has allowed me to learn and try hundreds of games and I must have bought at least 50 physical games based primarily on my BGA experience. Too many favorites to list.

• Yucata.de - moves slower but over the years it has built up a decent repertoire and it has some real gems that you won’t find elsewhere. Primarily for turn-based play (unless you find a group of people who commits to quick turns). The UI is a bit quirky but after getting used to it I like a lot of things about it. In my opinion Yucata has the best undo and replay/review implementation out there. My favorites here are Grand Austria Hotel, Newton, Mottainai, Taverns of Tiefenthal, Lorenzo Il Magnifico. Rajas of the Ganges (and Rajas Dice), Targi, Fields of Arle. Yucata has “sold” me a bunch of games too.

• triqqy.com, happymeeple.com, brettspielwelt.de, rally-the-troops.com, boiteajeux.net, warchestonline.com are some other sites that I visit for specific games. These have smaller player bases but worth checking out to see if they have one of your favorites.

Virtual tabletops that don’t enforce the rules

• Tabletop Simulator is a desktop app that’s available for purchase on Steam. As the name suggests this is a physics based 3d tabletop that allows you to play a huge number of games thanks to a passionate community that implements and provides these via the Steam workshop. You will find just about everything here. The main downside (to some) is that game rules are not implemented or enforced. It’s primarily a 3d simulation of the phyisical components. Many games implement some level of assistance using the built-in Lua support, for example they might automate setup or have a button for end-of-round cleanup. But generally it’s up to the players to follow and enforce the rules of the game. I don’t play a lot on TTS but I use it all the time to get a feel for a game or its components.
• Tabletopia is a web-based alternative to TTS with the same caveats. Smaller selection of games and less flexible UI, smaller (and less involved) community. Some games can be played for free, others require a subscription.
• virtualtabletop.io - is an open-source reimplementation of playingcards.io. You can think of it as a 2d version of TTS. I like this approach a lot, especially for card games or abstract stuff where the physics simulation and fancy graphics wouldn’t add much. Relatively small but passionate community.
• Vassal engine - a Java based open-source desktop app. Lots of modules and a passionate community. Worth checking out especially if you are into wargaming.

Apps that fully implement the rules

There are a lot of apps out there, some for mobile, some for desktop (many available on Steam). Most require a purchase. The quality of implementations vary greatly. Some support online multiplayer, some don’t or there is no playerbase. Some have nice snappy implementations, others have very poor UIs or go the other extreme and create an overly fancy UI that is too removed from the physical game. This is generally my least favorite option, I will almost always prefer a good BGA or Yucata implementation over an app. There are a few exceptions: Ascension, One Deck Dungeon, Onirim, Sagrada and Paperback are some where I like the app version a lot.

For anyone looking for legit games with ratlings First Rat is excellent. The upcoming Rats of Wistar looks neat too.

Meadow with the Downstream expansion - I like the new river track a lot, adds a race element to the game and the new rules are simple and integrate well. It does make the game slightly longer since each player gets one more action every round. Base Meadow is great on its own but the expansion is worth checking out for anyone who enjoys the game. Fitting it all into the base box with the insert is slightly awkward but doable.

Project L - simple polyomino engine building with excellent production. A comfort game for us that I am always happy to play.

Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade - we like it and I am looking forward to trying the other tables but I kinda wish there was just a little less rolling and writing. Very thematic but feels a bit too granular at times.

I am currently learning Maracaibo, hoping to try that soon.

Mine:

• A couple of very cheap sectioned trays. Shallow enough to make grabbing tokens easy and enough sections to organize them. We use these for pretty much every game with tokens.
• A side-table to help deal with table hogs.
• A couple of those foldable dice trays. I don’t actually use them for dice but as a flexible funnel when bagging things.
• Notepad, pencils, eraser
• An empty tea tin. I use this for some games where you frequently draw items from a bag because it’s a lot faster.

Giveaway contest on BGG, ends on 10/24.

The great thing about Azul is that it works well at all player levels. For beginners it’s easy to teach, it has great table presence and you can have a lot of fun playing it completely casually. For experienced players it can turn into a cutthroat duel of probability calculations and mind games.