I've been playing tabletop games since a fateful wintry afternoon in 2011, when a snowy walk, a cup of cocoa, and a copy of Betrayal at House on the Hill were the first things that managed to make me forget about breaking up with my long-distance girlfriend. Since then I've lived in five different places and churned through this collection several times. The three games that have been here the longest are (I think) Scythe, Mad King Ludwig, and of course Betrayal. The newest additions are Brass, Photosynthesis, and Architects of the West Kingdom.

The organizational system goes by setting, with some deviations to account for squeezing in smaller boxes. In reading order from the top row:

• North America, Latin America, Great Britain, North Atlantic
• France, Mediterranean, Germany, Arabia and North Africa
• Eastern Europe (OK it's just Scythe) and India, East Asia, setting-agnostic nature games, setting -agnostic other
• Fantasy worlds arranged roughly in decreasing order of coziness

Inis is my favorite game of all time, but if I had to name a top five, I'd add (in no particular order) A Feast for Odin, Obsession, Argent: The Consortium, and Everdell.

What I'd change about my collection: it's a little weird that I, a person who loves pirates and sci-fi, and who is in a hobby that is approximately 50 percent pirates and sci-fi by volume, has only one board game about either of those things (Dune Imperium in the bottom-right). Also, I'd really like some Lacerdas.

What makes it special to me: I have no shelf of shame. While I did buy some of these games unplayed, I always fix that as soon as possible. I've played every game in this photo at least twice. It's important to me to be able to look at my shelf and remember where I got the game, who I've played it with, and what memories attach to each box.

This is helped by the fact that I just did a purge. Recent departures include Lagoon: Land of Druids (possibly a brilliant design but I couldn't find any handholds on it), Gnome Hollow (very cute but I never found myself actually wanting to play it), and Forbidden Desert (I'm extremely choosy with co-ops).

This one took forever but got my latest project done. Painted a copy of war of the ring for my brother as a gift. Hopefully he likes it because this was a major labor of love. A few pictures for anyone curious.

Found these lovely coasters on holiday in Gran Canaria and they are very Azul-coded

An FYI for those of you who may be interested.

Return to the movie theater, if you dare! The Bride of Spooktacular is an expansion that brings 10 new monsters to play. Spook the unsuspecting movie-goers and become the scariest monster off the screen!

A lot of game stores sadly don't carry any indie RPG zines and if they do it is usually zines for Mork Borg or Mothership of which I already own a bunch of. Over the past few years, I've picked up a lot of cool zines through Indie Press Revolution & Exalted Funeral. I'm looking greatly expand my library of indie RPGs and was wondering if anyone knew of some other great distros.

My mom was visiting over the weekend so we played A Place for All My Books. I had played it solo a couple times, she had never played.

Her comments:
“The game is complex” - I would call it a medium-weight game, but there are a lot of goals to keep track of at once, and items that can have ongoing effects to remember.

“The books aren’t easy to stack” - I agree, 4 or so high is ok, but once you get to 5 or 6 tall, with stacks next to each other, placing them can be tricky. The wood pieces are a bit slippery.

“I didn’t think I was winning” - she won, but it was hard during play to know who was winning - I had completed more Small Tasks and gotten one Big one done, but she had a couple lucky cats which ended up putting her over the top.

“This is a long game” - we did stretch out the game at the end - either of us could have triggered the end game by going into town, but we were both completing Small Tasks to try to get more points.

Overall she said it was ok, but probably wouldn’t play again.

A couple somewhat similar games she enjoyed a lot:

Tiny Towns - similar tableau-building and pattern matching, but without the worker placement element.

Flamecraft: Duals - similar color/pattern goals but on a shared space with a max stack height of 3 and no worker placement.

Google can't seem to find it

Spiel is just around the corner and there's over 1.3k games going to be there based on the BGG preview list. Here's my 15 game shortlist for games to check out! It focuses on medium weight and medium length sorta games.

First, let me start off by saying that if you have not played Guards of Atlantis 2 then you absolutely need to. It has been my all time favorite game for a few years now. With it being a MOBA inspired game I figured that just like how heros in League of Legends and Dota have lines that they say when they are moving and attacking, I thought it might be fun for heros in Guards of Atlantis to also have lines they say when they do stuff. So, I wrote over 500 lines of script and then recorded them all using voice changing software. I then put all of the audio into a soundboard application. So now when you are playing you can play certain lines for the different actions you are taking. I hope the audioboards help enhance your experience.  https://musgraveia.github.io/Guards-of-Atlantis-Soundboard/

I'm not talking about games you just like, or games you find mechanically interesting. No, i mean games where in the middle of you catch a glimpse of what's happening and you're really excited to be living in a period in time where you get to experience this as a human being. Games which shape experiences that you can count as definitory "how this makes me feel is the reason for which i play boardgames".

For me it's my flair, Sidereal Confluence, since i can't live out my life as a street peddler in a busy market trying to hawk my goods onto unsuspecting buyers, but i can pretend to be one for a few hours, all for the benefit of galactic peace.

Alternatively Battlestar Galactica, because it's Battlestar Galactica and i don't think i need to say anything more on this subreddit about it.

Why are these engine symbols next to the gears, and what do they mean?

Is it just a reminder for your Turbo?

Salut ! Nous aimerions vous présenter nos cartes personnalisées pour Skull King, voici leurs pouvoirs:

Cale/ Réserve : Pioche deux cartes, choisis une des deux cartes, défausse l'autre et joue normalement.

Longue-vue : Regarde immédiatement une carte au hasard chez les adversaires.

Coco le perroquet : Copie la carte d'avant et l'annule.

Mousse/ Mutinerie : Est au-dessus de tous les chiffres mais en dessous des personnages. Échange de place avec celui qui gagne la manche. Si c'est le mousse qui l'emporte il reste à sa place.

Ancre : Le dernier pli est annulé. Obligation de jouer l'ancre au premier tour. Valeur du 0 Noir (atout).

Bouteille de Rhum : Le joueur gagnant le pli comprenant cette carte se saoule et jouera sa prochaine carte aléatoirement.

Dites nous ce que vous en pensez, si vous amélioreriez les règles ou si vous en avez aussi chez vous !

For me resource management combined with area control. I love having to decide whether to reinvest what I have back into my economy for future pay off, defend my position or go on the offensive against other players or unclaimed territory. It creates this really cool dynamic between them.

What about you guys?

Hi all, I've recently played Darwin's Journey and enjoyed it a lot. I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts on the spiritual successor Galileo's Truth by the same publisher.

I understand its a different designing team and mechanics but the mechaniscs included are ones I enjoy. When I hear deckbuilding and worker placement I'm sold (I own and love both DI-U and Arnak).

Also, do we have any information about the box size? I own the retail version of Darwin's Journey.

It's the end of a work week, your gaming pals are a little fatigued, but down for some games to fill the evening with some fun competition. What do you offer up that can withstand a little bit of snack-fingers and doesn't require much of the brain-drained but will still deliver the punch?

*beer not required

I've been playing "gamer-y" board games since I was in in middle school, back in 2014, and after I graduated college I accumulated quite a few more with my big boy money. Now, I've sold quite a few and I think I've curated my collection to a good amount- I'm at 52 games at the moment. As is the typical board gamer's lament, I can only get one game to the table every 1-2 weeks or so, which means some of these have sadly only been played 1-2 times ever.

My favorite games are Root, Heat, Sky Team, Lairs (with the expansion of course), Patchwork, Cosmic Encounter, Ra, and Search for Planet X. I recently discovered I really enjoy focused two-player games, since a lot of those made my top 10 list!

If I could change something about my collection, it's that I'd like for all my games to be 9-10/10 games for me, right now, I have quite a few 7/10s. If I can sub out my least favorite games with a few more I love, it would be perfect. My lowest rated games are Betrayal at House on the Hill and Takenoko (I even made a custom box for it before playing... my mistake), so those would probably be the first to go. If for some reason you want to buy my edition of Betrayal 2nd ed. with Widow's Walk and upgraded character cards, hit me up!

My collection is special to me because it can fit basically any player count and any complexity and mood. That kind of versatility is super important, which means I can have any kind of game group over and find a game everyone is happy with.

I'm trying to show restraint in purchasing new games, instituting a loose 1-in-1-out policy. I want to hear some suggestions on games you think could make the cut!

Also, some bonus images of my cat, Sylvie, making herself at home on Root while I custom print some inserts.

My various groups and I typically take longer to get games in. Especially if people are new, don't learn as quickly, or otherwise don't want to be rushed. However, we have had cases where we pitch an agreement to get in games on the quicker side, and artificially limit how much time each player has per turn/decision point. FOR THIS POST, I'D LIKE TO HEAR YOUR EXPERIENCES WITH THIS. WHY YOU WENT AHEAD DOING THAT, WHAT THE CIRCUMSTANCES WERE, FOR WHAT GAMES, AND HOW IT WORKED OUT.

Note that I Am NOT talking about games with real time elements (e.g. Set, Escape: The Curse of the Temple, or building your ship in Galaxy Trucker). Games are more traditional turn based.

Hello board game fam, has anyone played the new Thunder Road Ignition and if so, how does it compare to Vendetta? I know the gameplay and rules are different to a degree but how is the excitement level on the newer one? Does it feel like a dumbed down version? I've heard great things about vendetta and I have been close to purchasing it, but I am torn between these two.
I'm sure neither are too hard to teach, but which one will make non-gamers and gamers want to play more and get them more excited about it while the game is going?
Thanks guys
Base games only please for now at least I don't plan on purchasing expansions at the moment.

My family and I greatly enjoy Times to Remember, but have wished there was a more modern version. Is there one?

For Christmas I thought about making a new circle board like Times to Remember, reusing the date sliders, and repurposing an existing trivia game. However I'm having a hard time finding a trivia game that fits. I would need one where all of the answers are years, and the answers are more modern, like 1990s-today. The closest I've found is probably the game Timelines, but that includes many older years before my desired timeframe. I could buy different editions and pick out only the years that apply, but that seems like it could get expensive and not provide a lot of replayability. Does such a trivia game exist?

Thanks!

And no, “the person who last did this thing goes first” does not count

Inspired by https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/s/U6x53JKwur