My 2015 - boardgames/real world games played

In 2015, I decided to keep a record of what media I consumed, with a short record of my thoughts about each (one or two sentences only).

This is every boardgame and real world game I played. Partway through I started recording how many players each game was played with.

The complete 2015 review:

January (St Albans, London)

Hanabi
Really accessible, most people would enjoy it! Scoring 25 seems ridiculously hard?

Ticket to Ride: Märklin
Passenger mechanic didn’t feel central. Base game is decent though.

X-COM board game
So many things to keep track of! Maybe a bit too focused on repeatedly rolling dice for me to be eager to try again, but I’m glad I experienced it briefly (phone ran out of power before we really got going).

February (New York)

Pretty Pretty Princess
I guess if you’re five you could have fun with this?

March (San Francisco)

Reef Encounter
Didn’t click particularly. Maybe better with two players rather than four?

Perudo
I’ve played it a lot, not much to say about it.

Wits and Wagers
Surprisingly fun, even if you’re not good at trivia.

Black Friday
Feedback for mistakes is several turns later, so hard to get a grip on strategy.

Love Letter
Played with an alternate set of cards I didn’t know existed! “You lose if combined hand value > 12” seems really harsh.

Coup
I’ve played it a lot, not much to say about it.

Lifeboat
This was really fun, even when you’re losing horribly.

April (Montreal, Poland)

Dead of Winter
Nice blend of things going on here but failure was anticlimactic every time.

Red Dragon Inn
Great theme. Very accessible, suprisingly balanced.

Sheriff of Nottingham
Lovely bluffing. Bonus points for having most of each item feels slightly awkward though.

Suspend
Decent physical game about balancing things.

Botswana
Really elegant. Though possibly I liked it even more because I won both times.

Star Realms
Too many possible cards for my liking, made it hard to plan ahead.

Croquet
Not fun enough to not want to mod it.

May (London, Birmingham, Coventry, Inisbofin)

Machi Koro
A bit too randomness-focused for my liking, but it worked okay.

Lords of Waterdeep
Mandatory quests in the final round are a bit overpowered.

Keyhunter room escape “The Triads”
Good but not great, felt pretty soulless. We escaped.

Mysterium
Very unique experience. Want to play again not as the spirit.

Sushi Go
Simultaneous play makes this go really quickly.

Pickomino
An okay push your luck game. Many funny moments.

For sale
I liked it, a pretty elegant bidding game.

Chrononauts
Not very good. Incredibly random, cardinal sin of drawing at start of turn.

Spyfall
Played with 9 players, feels like it would have been better with fewer? Engaging and unique though.

Monikers
Co-op version of The Hat Game. I don’t think it gains anything over the original folk game though.

Cash ‘n’ Guns
I think it would be better with more knowledge/hints about where people are likely to point their guns. Pointing guns at each other is inherently fun though.

June (Copenhagen, Coventry, Oxford, Birmingham, Manchester, London)

Smash Up
Not particularly exciting. The most interesting thing was probably the two-part factions.

Sheriff of Nottingham
Still fun.

Sushi Go
Still quick.

Space Alert
Finally got to play with the full set of rules. Hectic and stressful.

Braggart
Six months later, I barely remember playing this game.

The Duke
Really nice chess-like. The double-sided pieces weren’t as intimidating to play with as I’d expected.

Good Cop Bad Cop
Interesting hidden-role variant. Don’t remember if it was actually fun to play though.

Sushi Dice
Hectic, more fun than I was expecting.

Timeline
Simple & accessible. I’m really bad at it though, so I don’t find it particularly enjoyable.

Snake Oil
Playing with young children is not the most enjoyable way to play this game.

Zombicide
Only played briefly. The rule for when you run out of one type of zombie figure seems harsh.

Shadow Hunters
This felt very random and wasn’t that exciting.

Johann Sebastian Joust
Great game, shame that it’s so expensive to get hold of lots of Move controllers.

Graenaland (3 players)
Only five regions makes for a very focused game! The rulebook says it’s better with 4 or 5 players.

Trains (2 players)
Fun, but the main board was mostly not relevant - seems like it would be more strategic with more players.

Flashpoint (2 players)
This was easier than expected. Someone suggested it’s harder/better with more players.

July (London)

Innovation (2 players)
Really elegant.

Hive (2 players)
I almost decided to stop travelling with this, but I’m glad I didn’t. It’s a great two player strategy game.

Qwirkle (4 players)
More enjoyable than expected!

Top Secret Spies (5 players)
Pretty random.

Perudo (5 players)
I still don’t have much to say about this game.

Mascarade (5 players)
I don’t think this works particularly well with large groups, but five players is about the right size.

Colt Express (5 players)
Hard to play competitively, but the theme is so strong that it doesn’t really matter.

August (London)

Hive (2 players)
Still good.

Citadels (2 players)
I’ve played this a lot but it’s still neat. Tried to play with alt characters but those cards were obviously less worn.

Chairs game (2 players)
Good balancing game. Easy to show off.

Kamisado (2 players)
Neat but I found it hard to strategize. Felt like I won by luck.

The Duke (2 players)
Still like this.

Splendor (2 players)
Very elegant, I like it a lot.

Snatch (4 players)
Good word game. Felt like I got worse at it over the course of the game though.

Love Letter (4 players)
I think I’m going to start house ruling this to play to fewer rounds, otherwise it drags a bit.

Perudo (6 players)
There’s something inherently great about bluffing games.

Johann Sebastian Joust (6/7 players)
I enjoy showing off, even if it doesn’t pay off.

September (London, New York)

Dark Moon (5 players)
Interesting but not great. It played slowly and it didn’t feel like there was enough information to be sure of anything.

Splendor (4 players)
Liked it less than with 2, but still good.

Cockroach Poker (4 players)
I wish you were meant to play to a winner, not until one person loses.

Skull (4 players)
There’s still something great about bluffing games.

Super Rhino (4 players)
Fun, but the idea of winning by using up all your cards is weird.

Shuffleboard (2 players)
More interaction than the dutch version Sjoelen I played in 2014. Very satisfying to deny the other person points.

Skee ball (2 players)
I don’t want to brag, but I was pretty good at this game.

October (Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, Nottingham)

San Juan (2 players)
I was completely trounced, didn’t have much grasp on good strategy.

Machi Koro (5 players, both expansions)
Not necessarily an improvement on base Machi Koro, just different. Note to self: if I play again, try this variant.

Pentago (2 players)
Probably not very deep, but a decent variation on Tic Tac Toe.

Citadels (2 players)
Made up for San Juan by being unbeatable at Citadels.

Between Two Cities (4 players)
Being co-op with two neighbours but also competitive is a really interesting mechanic.

Animal Upon Animal (4 players)
The randomness in this is really unpleasant, if you play you should mod it.

Timeline (3 players)
Still simple and accessible.

Last mouse lost (2 players)
Terrible game, amazingly pleasing toy to interact with

Spark of Resistance (3 players)
Some really neat moments and puzzle props; some niggles but they were fairly minor. We escaped.

Restless (~7 players)
I liked how it was basically just a set of prompts to help you improvise a story. I’ve not played any other story-focused RPGs to compare it to though.

The Bloody Inn (4 players)
The theme only partially makes sense. As an abstract system it’s okay though.

Fabulous Beasts (preview, 4 players)
A bit of a shame that the positioning of objects isn’t relevant. The game on the tablet was a bit abstract.

Stratego (2 players)
We played with lots of rules being wrong, but it was engaging regardless. Both of us were still thinking about it after playing multiple games.

Dixit (5 players)
I’ve played a bit too much Dixit to ever be enthusiastic about playing it again, but it’s good & accessible.

Skull (5 players)
Always a laugh.

November (Coventry, Oxford, London)

Hanabi (3 players)
There was a funny moment very near the end where we realised we were making incorrect deductions because one of the cards had been lost.

Settlers of Catan (3 players)
Still fairly enjoyable. Development cards having secret victory points might be too anticlimactic?

Cosmic Encounter (6 players)
It’s not terrible but I don’t seem to enjoy this as much as everyone else. Not really sure why.

Saboteur 2 (6 players)
This works as a kinda engaging distraction, but it’s very random and not that deep.

Arctic Scavengers (5 players)
Interesting twist on Dominion. Maybe would have been better with fewer players.

Skull (5 players)
Still always a laugh.

Netrunner (2 players)
I really don’t want to do deckbuilding but the game itself is interesting, so playing with someone else’s deck is optimal for me.

December (Melbourne)

CopyDraw (8 players)
Nico’s independent invention of what I know as Chinese Pictionary.

Panic on Wall Street (9 players)
Hectic and interesting. Feels hard to pay attention to other players and undermine them, but I would have needed to do that to win.

Go (2 players)
Hadn’t played in a long while but managed to play pretty well regardless (against a weak player, admittedly).

Jaipur (2 players)
Enjoyable/quick/portable two player game, want to play more.

Meteor (4 players)
Doesn’t feel very balanced, but was interesting/fairly different.

Netrunner (2 players)
Still playing with someone else’s deck, still fun in that capacity.

Codenames (7 players)
Very smart. My only complaint is that one team frequently seemed to get a large lead on the other, which is uninteresting.

The Resistance (6 players)
I love this game, but sometimes I’m not very good at it. This time was not one of those times.

Pandemic Legacy session 1 (4 players)
Failed first half of January, partially because of not reading both sides of the special cards properly.

Guillotine (4 players)
Very random, but not horrible.

Funemployed (4-5 players)
Makes me feel smart and funny.

Welcome to the Dungeon (2 players)
It’s fun to trick someone into staying in too long.

Masques (2 players)
Rules took a long time to get through, but after that point it was interesting.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective case 1 (2 players)
Quite a dick move to omit a vital location from the directory. We still did well though - scored 75.

Sushi Go (2 players)
Very pure with two players, it still works. Next time I’d try the alternate 2P rules though.

Welcome To The Dungeon (3 players)
Shame about the player elimination with more than two players, but still good.

The Resistance (5 players)
I find it really hard to avoid confirmation bias when playing this game.

What I played most:

  • Hanabi
  • Perudo
  • Skull
  • Sushi Go
  • Stratego
  • The Duke
  • Hive

Two very clear groups: light games which are easy to teach and quick to play, and competitive games where you’ll want to play multiple games against the same person.

What I most want to play again:

  • Spyfall
  • The Duke
  • Codenames
  • Funemployed
  • Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective 
  • Pandemic Legacy

The broad themes: games where you get to be funny, games where you get to be clever, and games which give you a fairly unique experience.

Tags: boardgames 2015