Rob Daviau | BoardGameGeek

by John Kanost

In 2017, I played 91 new-to-me games and/or game expansions. My criteria for whether a game expansion counted as a "new play" for my list is a mystery and a secret that I shall never reveal. But I think it has something to do with how much it adds to a game and how different the game felt to me when played with the expansion. Some of these games were new releases for 2017; many were not--just older games that I'd yet to try. These are their names. These are their stories. Well, most of them don't get stories--just the top ten, really. I don't have that kind of time; I'm already working on my list of games for 2018!

97 Pie Face
96 Onirim
95 Quartermaster General 1914
94 Batman Dice
93 ATK! The Board Game
92 FauxCabulary!
91 Cup Full of Lies

Okay, breaking my rules already because I have to say something about the game that received the honor of being last, a.k.a. worst place, on my list for 2017. I don't have anything against Pie Face. The first time I heard of this game was in a Twitter post from one of the many board-game-related sources I follow; I forget who it was, but it was a photo of the 1960's version of the game. Basically poking fun at it and saying "hey look what they used to do for fun in the 60's haha lol". It was only a few months later that I heard in a news segment that Hasbro was reviving it.

Now this ~~game~~activity that is basically Russian Roullette without the threat of instant death (unless you're highly allergic to whipped cream in a can) is all over the place, with multiple versions. I played it at a work event, a Pie Face "Tournament" of all things, and once was enough for me. To me, party games are the lowest common denominator of board games, and Pie Face is the lowest common denominator of party games. I'm sorry Pie Face, but when I'm putting together my board game team, you're always going to be picked last.

90 History of the World
89 Joking Hazard
88 Smiley Games
87 Pyramid Arcade
86 Twilight Struggle
85 FitzIt
84 BIOTIX
83 Grifters
82 Hero Realms
81 The King is Dead

Many of these are games that I would happily never play again. I probably will eventually play one of them again (I own it). Some of them I might give a second chance, but there are so many games I'd rather play than these. These are the games I'll indulge someone else in if they really want to play them. But I'll probably try to talk them out of it.

P.S. Comment if you must about Twilight Struggle being ranked so low and in this arbitrary section of ranked games. It's a game I didn't think I would like, but tried once because of my personal "try any game once" rule and because the friend who owns the game esteems it so highly. I could see how it would appeal to certain gamer-types. I am simply not one of them.

80 Lazer Ryderz
79 Karuba
78 Aeon's End
77 Snyxtrap
76 Professor Evil and the Citadel of Time
75 Betrayal at Baldur's Gate
74 Costa Rica
73 Wallamoppi
72 Welcome to the Dungeon
71 Chinatown

These are fun games, and I'll definitely play them again if someone wants to. But nary a one of them is a game I'd qualify as a favorite. Some are games that tend to wear out their welcome pretty quickly; others I either forgot about quickly, or just didn't really enjoy on my first play. They're fine as once-in-a-while experiences, but I certainly don't want to play them all the time.

70 Acquire
69 Sola Fide: The Reformation
68 Stockpile
67 Omen: A Reign of War
66 Kingdomino
65 Wits & Wagers
64 Crossfire
63 Go Nuts for Donuts
62 Arena of the Planeswalkers
61 Incan Gold

Almost every game in this section, I've played precisely one time. And I think I might have recognized a spark of something, but I really should play it again before making a final call. But with one exception, I don't own any of them, and they didn't make enough of a mark on their first play to distinguish themselves as collection-worthy. The one exception, Sola Fide, is a good game, but it's one I'm nearly always teaching someone how to play so I've never made it beyond the intro game with the "starter" deck, and that hurts it in my personal rankings.

60 Five Cucumbers
59 Braintopia
58 Get The Cheese!
57 Fiasco
56 Magic Maze
55 Ice Cool
54 Diamonds
53 Tigris & Euphrates
52 Bärenpark
51 Not Alone

These games can be fun! Some of them went terribly for me, others I won on the first play, but for the most part I had a good time playing all of them. Six of them are in my collection. All of them I'll happily play again, even though none of them are titles I'd consider first-pick material... but can I waffle and say one or two of them might be, in the right situation? Yes I can. This is my list.

50 Valeria: Card Kingdoms
49 A Fake Artist Goes to New York
48 Ethnos
47 Potion Explosion
46 Time's Up
45 Secret Hitler
44 Liars Dice (Perudo)
43 Imhotep
42 Slide Blast
41 G.R.I.T.

These games are fun! Six of them are in my collection, and many of them I was surprised by how much I enjoyed them the first time I played them. Every game in this section of the list is one I want to play again, and would suggest if I thought the person or group I was playing with would enjoy it too.

40 Go Cuckoo!
39 Star Wars: Destiny
38 Food Chain Magnate
37 Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
36 Cottage Garden
35 Honshu
34 Codenames Duet
33 Clank! A Deck-Building Adventure
32 Anomia
31 Alhambra

Now we're getting into some really great games. I own 6 out of the 10 here, and any of them could be games I'd want to play first on a game night, depending on the makeup of the group and the atmosphere. One of the three games I don't own is Food Chain Magnate; I really really want to play more and try to get better at.

30 Wordsy
29 Viticulture
28 Via Nebula
27 Ticket to Ride: UK/PA
26 Flamme Rouge
25 Richard the Lionheart
24 Insider
23 Indulgence
22 Sagrada
21 Fuji Flush

Holy smokes, I don't know how some of these games aren't on my top ten for the year. I guess 2017 was just the year I waited until to play a lot of really awesome games. Viticulture was amazing. Sagrada is a beautiful and incredible game. I didn't think I liked racing games until I tried Flamme Rouge.

20 FlipShips
19 Downforce
18 Cry Havoc
17 Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black
16 51st State: Master Set
15 Ticket to Ride: Europe
14 Master of Orion
13 Karmaka
12 Euphoria
11 Coal Baron: The Great Card Game

Consider this my second-tier top ten list. In fact, I want to say a little bit about each game in the top 11-20 here, just not as much as I will about the top ten. FlipShips is Space Invaders in a box! And my boys (who dislike co-ops as much as I tend to) love it. Downforce basically destroyed any chance Formula D had of ever drawing me back in. Cry Havoc provides some healthy competition in my collection for Blood Rage and Inis. 51st State (Master Set) is a fun thematic change of pace from Imperial Settlers with the same multi-use card combo fun. TTR: Europe finally convinced my wife that TTR is a great game that we should play more often. Master of Orion, if I owned it, would probably fire Eclipse for me, simply because it captured the same essence for me without the overly-long play time, set-up or tear-down. Karmaka was a delightful surprise that I've unfortunately not been able to play again because the buddy who owns it turned into a workaholic who never comes to game nights anymore. I found Euphoria's theme hilarious and enjoyed seeing many prototypical elements that were later taken and refined into my favorite board game, Scythe. Coal Baron: The Great Card Game really is a great card game, and one I've found to be extremely versatile, working equally well at 2-, 3-, and 4-player counts.

Top Ten

Before beginning my top ten, I'll explain a bit how I arrived at all the rankings on this list of ninety-seven games and expansions. In past years, I just created a list of games and then started moving them around willy-nilly until I was satisfied with the order. I'd begin by creating groupings or tiers of games, then order the games within that section. Then during the process of writing the blog post, I'd often tweak the order of things until I was happy with it. This year, I tried out the web application challonge.com to get my initial list. I input all the games on my First-Played Games of 2017 geeklist into a double-elimination bracket that I set up, then went through each pairing and thought about which of the two games I would rather play. Once the tournament of board game titles was over, I had my Top Ten nailed down, but the rest of the list still needed some tweaking, and this was done using my tried-and-true method of sectioning, reordering, and tweaking.

Then, as I put together this post, I tweaked things further. Every year, no matter how vigilant I've been throughout the year, my list of games grows a bit as I order it and put it together and realize that I'm missing some games. I log all my plays, and this year I started using the Board Game Stats application, which made it really easy for me to double-check and confirm if a game that I played for the first time in 2017 was missing from my Geeklist (and therefore from this post). I found and added six additional new plays that were missing, growing the list from 91 to 97 new games/expansions played this year! I used to have to pore through my Plays by month here on the Geek and compare to the geeklist; BGStats made this process so much faster! I highly recommend this app if you're interested in such things.

Anyhow, that's how this massive novella of blah blah blah about board games comes to be every year. On to the top ten!

Number Ten...
Santorini

First Play: 21 August
Number of Plays: 6

I remember when Santorini popped up on Kickstarter. How cool it looked, how appealing, how whimsical, but I dismissed it because it was an abstract. Abstract games hold very little appeal for me, and tend to fall flat with my family, so even though the game looked like a work of art, I didn't think it would be anything I'd ever want to play.

When backers in my area started getting their rewards, it started showing up on gaming tables. Santorini has presence. It is an impressive game, physically, and while it may be true that its components are really overproduced for the type of game that it is, can't we say that of most modern board games? Sometimes, really nice components are what draws you into a game, and that was certainly true of Santorini for me. I had no desire to play it until I saw it on a table, and then I had to have a copy.

Lucky for me, Roxley Games still happened to have a few Kickstarter editions lying around, and made them available for free GenCon delivery a few weeks before the convention. Yeah, I jumped on that wagon pretty fast... without ever having actually played the game. So my first play of Santorini was the week after GenCon, with my son Matthew who of all of us is the most interested in playing abstract games. He also loves building things; his favorite video game is MineCraft and his favorite toys are Lego, so this game of building pretty white towers and standing on top of them drew him in right away.

We really should play Santorini more than we have. We've barely begun to explore the huge pile of different gods with their various powers, and have yet to try the game wtih the Golden Fleece expansion that came with it. It plays so quickly, you'd think we'd get it out more often. I must admit, I'm not very good at it and my boys usually beat me... maybe there's been a bit of reluctance on my part? Perhaps that will be one of our gaming goals of 2018--to play Santorini more often!

Number Nine...
Islebound

First Play: 24 June
Number of Plays: 3

I was about a year late to the game on Islebound. It was a bucket list game for me for about six months before I finally gave up and bought a copy without ever trying the game first, something I didn't used to ever do. It seems to be happening more often recently. I picked it up at Origins this year, and it was one of the first games we got to the table after returning home from Ohio.

My family was already very enthusiastic about the first game in this "series", Above and Below, and from what I'd heard, Islebound was more "gamerly" an experience. It was pretty fun translating some of the worker mechanics from A&B onto a boat, and I think Islebound did a lot to prepare the way for the culmination of this series, Near and Far (appearing later on this list!)

If there's one thing I do miss in Islebound, it's the deeper story elements that feature in Above and Below. There are brief glimpses of a story in this game as seen on some of the cards, but there are so few of them that we've inevitably found ourselves repeating several of them by the end of each game, and after just three plays reading the same story "excerpts" over and over again was beginning to grow stale. Since story doesn't seem to be the focus of Islebound so much as deepening some of the mechanisms of its predecessor, that's okay, but it would have been nice to have a slightly larger set of event cards to work through.

That's really the only criticism I have for Islebound, though. Ryan Laukat's artwork is as whimsical and fun as ever, and the game absolutely does expand on and deepen the game that was somewhat light in Above and Below. I've enjoyed every play of it, and even if I don't want to play this title as often as its siblings, the completionist in me is still happy to see it sitting on the shelf in between Above and Below and Near and Far.

Number Eight...
Alien Artifacts

First Play: 16 August
Number of Plays: 1

I attended my first GenCon this year, thanks to Portal Games providing me with an exhibitor badge in exchange for volunteering to work at their booth. The game I demoed for them during the convention? Alien Artifacts. I knew nothing about the game going in; my first experience with it was the training game I got to play on one of the prototypes, taught by Ignacy Trzewiczek himself. That training game was the only full game I got to play, but I spent a total of 16 hours at GenCon teaching and running demo games of Alien Artifacts.

This game is rock solid. While it wasn't designed by Ignacy, he did do quite a lot of development work on it, and you can see his fingerprints on the game, featuring as it does many of the same mechanical elements that make 51st State and Imperial Settlers so much fun. I'm a sucker for any game that has multi-use cards, and Alien Artifacts has several varieties thereof. At GenCon we were sort of promoting as a 4X game that plays in an hour, and it does (play in an hour). Calling it a 4X is a bit of a stretch, but it does use the concepts of Exploration, Expansion, Exploitation and Extermination in its gameplay.

I have sadly not been able to play it again since GenCon because I haven't got a copy yet, but I do intend to when the time is right. This is a game I'm really excited to play again when I have the chance.

Number Seven...
Strike

First Play: 14 June
Number of Plays: 2

In Strike, the game of intense gladatorial combat, your team of gladiators will enter the massive battle arena again and again to fight for glory! Your dexterity will be tested time and time again as you send your fearless warriors into the melee and attempt to knock out your opponents' gladiators while keeping your own team alive for another round! The last one standing is the champion, and to the victor go the spoils!

[user=wolfpackee]Some people[/user] (fools!) claim that Strike is nothing more than throwing dice into a bowl, but this is folly. Sure, you can replicate the beautifully simple mechanics of Strike to a point with a tupperware bowl and several handfuls of plain dice, but something is lost in translation; some je ne sais quoi, some joie de vivre. These people are troglodytes, funsuckers rather than funseekers, and should be given no quarter in the arena!

I first heard about Strike thanks to this debate, actually. I initially encountered the game being played by [user=pelvidar]Rodney "Watch It Played" Smith[/user] with [user=slayn000]Jamie Keagy[/user] and [user=chrissc]Chris Miller[/user] of The Secret Cabal, on the streets of Columbus across from the Ohio Convention Center at Origins 2016. The Founders' Origins review episode that year included mention of the game, and before long the game's hype had spread to two of the other podcasts to which I listen faithfully, RDTN and Blue Peg, Pink Peg. Thanks to Mr. Smith's evangelization of the game, both [user=piranhapig]Christina "Piranha Pig" Rouse[/user] of BPPP and [user=damcree]Tony McRee[/user] of RDTN acquired copies of the game and began proselytizing for Strike as well, to the chagrin of some of their cohosts, perhaps. Particularly [user=wolfpackee]Marty Connell[/user], who has repeatedly decried Strike as nothing more than "dice in a bowl" (wrong).

Well, I eventually had to try it for myself in order to choose a side, and I got my opportunity at Origins 2017 on the first day, as my son and I were sitting at a table outside the main gaming hall waiting for the doors to open. Who should appear but the illustrious Mr. Smith, in the company of Mr. Connell as well. Of course, he had Strike with him, and of course we had to play. We had enough people at the table for a full game without Marty's reluctant participation, and so he got to sit and glare grumpily at us enjoying our game. I did not win, but I came close, and finally came to understand the glory that is Strike.

The Great Strike Debate came to a head five weeks later at GenCon, where Tony and Marty hosted a Strike tournament to determine once and for all (i.e. until next year) whether hashtag Team Gladiator would be able to continue touting Strike a game of glorious gladatorial combat in a majestic arena (which it is) or hashtag Team Tupperware would get to suck the fun out of everything good in the world and decry the game as simply throwin' dice inna bowl (boo). Team Gladiator was victorious, and Strike is now definitively known for what it truly is.

The long and short of it is, Strike is a fun game, and without all this artificial drama and hyperbole surrounding it, I might have never heard of it. By Grapthar's Hammer, I will one day own a copy... until then, I shall dream of the day when I get to launch my warriors into battle in the arena once again.

Number Six...
Keyflower

First Play: 28 April
Number of Plays: 1

Keyflower predates my return in full force to hobby board gaming; it came out while I was in my Magic phase and back then, I was only really playing gateway games like 7 Wonders, Catan and Carcassone. I'd still never even heard of Keyflower until 2014, when I started tuning in to hobby gaming podcasts. As respected a game as it may be, it isn't very well-represented by the player base in my area; I only know one person in the area who has a copy. I had my first opportunity to play it with him at one of our local ExtraLife gaming marathon events in November 2016, and listened to the rules teach but then wound up being called away to teach and play a different game.

I finally had my chance to play Keyflower at this year's CabinCon in Williamsport, PA. Right off the bat I knew it was "my kind of game", as a fairly heavy euro with worker management and placement and the ability to preempt other players' choices with your own. I don't need to own it--I already have plenty of games that scratch this particular itch, but I'd play this game any time someone suggested it!

Number Five!
Sentient

First Play: 4 October
Number of Plays: 1

There were so many podcast reviewers chattering about how excellent this game from Renegade is after GenCon that I had to try it. Though I shall probably always have a hard time not calling it "Sentinent" after listening to Marty Connell talk about it on Rolling Dice & Taking Names' 5-Minute Initiative segment. I only had one opportunity to play the game in 2017, but that play was enough to convince me that this game was one I'd like to pick up eventually. I don't know that more plays would have edged it any higher on the list, but it makes it to the number five slot simply because it's becoming rarer that a game impresses me enough to want to own it after one play. As the collection grows and shelf space begins to run out, one must become more choosy, and it becomes more difficult for a new game to "make the cut". Sentient makes the cut!

Number Four!
Century Golem Edition / Spice Road

First Play: 16 June
Number of Plays: 10

I'm lumping both Centuries together on my list since they're the same game with different components and themes. However, the one I own is the Golem Edition, and my comments about the game are mostly related to my plays of that version.

I first heard about this game--known as "Caravan" at the time, I beleive--just following my first time attending a larger convention, Origins 2016. Designer Emerson Matsuuchi was there, demoing a prototype of the game for Z-Man Games. I didn't try the game at Origins, just heard it being talked about on several board gaming podcasts afterwards, including The Dice Tower and Rolling Dice & Taking Names. I'm pretty sure it was [user=TomVasel]Tom Vasel[/user] whom I first heard refer to the game as a potential "Splendor Killer". All the previews seemed positive, and my interest was piqued.

Cut to a year later: Filosophia and Z-Man were now under the Asmodee umbrella, but this title had stayed with Plan B, the new company formed in the wake of that acquisition, and they were making a big deal about Century: Spice Road at Origins. More and more people were dubbing it "The Splendor Killer" and apparently it was selling like hotcakes. I was busy with other commitments the first few days of the convention, and by the time my buddy and I made it over to the Plan B booth to demo the game, they had already sold out of copies the day before.

I was quite impressed by my initial play. The rules lesson was remarkably short (and in the game, the rules are all entirely contained on a nice double-sided sheet of card stock) and we were playing in no time. I could see the similarities to Splendor right away, but also that this game had a bit more to it. The components, while sparse, were nice; especially the plastic bowls included in the game for the spice cubes. The nicest component was the add-on playmat though, and that effectively doubled the cost of the game! Still, the playmat gives the game a lot more presence on the table, and I was tempted to buy one (they weren't sold out of those yet) since I was pretty much sold on the game at that point. But the booth staff assured me that while the playmat was an exclusive promotional item, they would have them at GenCon too, so I decided to wait. So glad I did!

The week before GenCon, the Golem Edition was announced. I know some people were a bit irate with Plan B about this, since by Origins they surely must have already had the Golem Edition print run under way or even ready to go five weeks later. I suppose it's understandable that they wouldn't want to dilute the initial launch of the game. I know some people bought both; if I'd already purchased Spice Road I doubt I would have picked up Golem Edition too. But I'd already planned on purchasing Century at GenCon, and while I did waffle a bit about which version to get, I ultimately went with Golems. The alternate theme makes the game a lot more appealing to my boys, and the chunky crystals are a lot more pleasing to the eye and to the fingers than sterile wooden cubes.

Yes, I'm a little disappointed that there will be no expansions for the Golem Edition, and it's going to be a standalone game rather than part of a trilogy, but even if it didn't exist and we owned Century: Spice Road isntead, that wouldn't guarantee that Century: Eastern Wonders (or the third game in the series, whatever it's called) would one day join it on the shelf. That'll be something to consider next year!

Number Three!
Rising Sun

First Play: 29 August
Number of Plays: 1

I didn't expect this to be on my 2017 list since the game won't be out until early 2018. However, I got a chance to play it at the Secret Cabal Beermongers game night shortly after GenCon, when a Baltimore-area attendee brought up his copy of the game that he'd won in one of CMON's pay-to-play charity events at the convention.

Up front: for the most part, I backed Rising Sun because of the theme and how incredible all the miniatures looked. I also backed it because my older son loves Blood Rage and was very enthusiastic about this game's theme too. I'm rather lukewarm toward Blood Rage myself; it's a good game and I enjoy playing it, but it's not a top ten game for me. I expected I would feel much the same about Rising Sun, since it was initially dubbed "the spiritual successor" to Blood Rage by its designer, Eric Lang.

Turns out I really like negotiation and diplomacy in these types of games! The idea of playing a game like Diplomacy turns me off, and I'm not sure I'd ever want to play something that was purely about that mechanic, but I discovered an appreciation for it last year when I played Game of Thrones for the first time. Rising Sun proved to be even more my speed. The making and breaking of alliances is part of what makes the game shine.

I just wish I could have gotten to play it more than once! This is the greatest reason that Rising Sun makes it so high on my list for 2017... more than any of the games lower than it on the list, I want to get Rising Sun to the table again.

Number Two!
Near and Far

First Play: 27 June
Number of Plays: 4

Should a board game that I have only played four times this year make my top ten? Probably a silly question since four plays could be considered a lot for some reviewers. But should a board game that I have only played four times this year be my number two game of the year? Well, I think the question I should really be asking is, who is asking these questions and, more importantly, who cares? These are all my opinions and not objective statements of fact, so here's Near and Far in the number two position!

My family enjoys Above and Below, the first game in this "series" quite a lot. My youngest Matthew especially appreciates the exploration and storytelling aspects of hte game, and whenever we play it he usually comes in last simply because he spends too much exploring Below, resulting in the neglect of Above. Those of us who pursue a more balanced strategy might win the game, but Matthew is having fun and doesn't seem to care what his score is at the end. So Near and Far was a Kickstarter "insta-back" when it was announced (as was it's recently Kickstarted expansion, Amber Mines). Unfortunately for me, I had quite a long wait to get my copy, since the mail carrier botched the delivery and it got returned to sender. I knew plenty of fellow gamers who had also backed the game, though, so I got to play it once before mine arrived.

As a result, I played the starting scenario three times, including once with my entire family. They all liked the game, and when I couldn't wait any more, my boys and I started on the campaign, playing through the first game. My wife didn't like that we did so without her, and so I promised we would restart and play the first game again with her included. This all happened in August and the game hasn't made it back to the table yet, but it isn't for lack of trying! I suggest Near and Far frequently, and will continue to do so. Once we dive in, I'm hoping it will be the story-driven experience that will bring us back to the table again and again.

Number One!
Anachrony

First Play: 2 March
Number of Plays: 11

I was excercising on an elliptical machine at the gym the first time I heard about this game, watching [user=gibbous]Suzanne Sheldon[/user]'s brand-new-at-the-time crowdfunding segment on The Dice Tower's Board Game Breakfast show. The time travel theme grabbed my attention immediately... I knew nothing about the gameplay or the theme; I had no prior experience with the designer, and the only thing I knew about MindClash Games was that they were the publishers of Trickerion, a game I had never played and had no interest in at the time. I had never backed a game this expensive on Kickstarter before, either... but I put it on my "remind me" list, and when the reminder went off a few days later, I backed it at the Leader level to make sure I got the cool miniatures. Having never really looked into the game's story at all, I picked the Path of Progress leader sleeve for my reward pretty much at random, thinking that Science sounded good.

When the game finally arrived early this year, I must admit that I was a bit blown away by the size of it! To date Anachrony is still the largest-size (and weight) game box in my collection. I spent hours punching out the cardboard components and figuring out how I wanted to organize it, and after all was said and done I found myself unable to fit everything back into the box and still get the lid closed all the way!

Then I played the game, and was blown away again by how much fun it was. As heavy as the game was and as complicated and time-consuming to set up and tear down, for a few weeks I was carrying it with me to every game night I went to, hoping to play it again and introduce new players to it. It hit the table twice at my Monday night game group, despite the fact that we never had time to finish a play. I soon realized I needed to invest in an organizer of some kind, and decided not to skimp, pre-ordering one of the Meeple Realty "Time Capsule" inserts as soon as they were announced. When that arrived, I spent an entire weekend putting it together, and when it was done I revelled in being able to fit everything neatly into the box (except for my replacement water components--more about that in a minute).

Unfortunately, after getting my game organized, it started to hit the table less frequently. As much as I love the game, it has not replaced favorites like Scythe, Terraforming Mars, or Great Western Trail, and I often still find myself preferring these titles over Anachrony. Also, there's always something new to try. Even with the insert, Anachrony is a complicated game, both to get to the table, teach, and un-table. It's certainly not as complex a game as it might look, and most people I've introduced it to have remarked their surprise at how much easier it was to learn and play than they were expecting, but that appearance of complexity sometimes hurts its chances to get played, I feel. The amount of work required to set it up and teach it is often counted against Anachrony when I'm weighing the pros and cons of what game to play on a given night. I've heard that the game's solo mode is excellent, but I have yet to muster up the willingness to go through the process of unpacking it to play it solo.

Anachrony's components are solid. I know some reviewers have levelled criticism against the miniatures as overproduced, unnecessary, and a hindrance to efficent game play, and to them I say "poopsticks." The minis are wonderful, and inserting cardboard worker tokens into their (mostly) perfectly-sized slots when sending them across the wastelands to work in the capital city adds Fun (with a capital "F", you see) to the game. Plunking one of these babies down on your action space is waaay more satisfying than carefully pinching a hexagonal cardboard token together with your worker as you place it to make sure the worker doesn't slide off. All the game boards are nicely illustrated and the graphic design is well-thought out and helps with understanding the various actions once players learn the iconography of the game. There are a few component issues; the transluscent plastic resource cubes in the Kickstarter edition do suffer from cracking and can be rather difficult to tell apart unless you're playing in a very well-lit space. But the cardboard resource tokens also provided in the game can resolve this. The only component choice I really have to question is the teeny tiny crystal pieces provided to represent the Water. Water is currency in the post-apocalyptic world of Anachrony, and as such is constantly being acquired, spent, exchanged, and other manipulated by up to four sets of hands. The provided components are far too small, fiddly, and easily dropped and lost. I replaced them almost immediately, opting to use chunkier light and dark blue glass beads (the same ones seen in the game's prototype in Rahdo's Run-Through video of the game). Why MindClash didn't stick with these components, or at least provide a cardboard equivalent as they did for the resources, is beyond me. Unfortunately, as nice as they are to play the game with, I haven't yet figured out how to fit them into the box with the Time Capsule insert without taking out some other set of components to make room--this box is packed tight!

Anachrony's theme is integrated extremely well with its mechanics, and this is one of my favorite aspects of the game. It's mixing of post-apocalypse and time travel shenanigans is unique, and while I know that the Take A Loan, Pay It Back mechanic isn't something new in this game, it fits perfectly with the time travel theme. When I get some resource from Future John to use now, it doesn't feel like a loan--I feel the pressure of making sure I send that resource back in time to myself later in the game, because of the penalties I'll incur in the form of temporal paradoxes and anomalies if I fail. Yet the game doesn't force that mechanic on anyone; I have seen many a player do quite well in the game while completely ignoring that aspect of it. The fact that Water is the primary currency feels very appropriate in this wrecked future, including the fact that its availabilty or lack there is a key source of victory points (or their loss) when managing your workforce in the game. Making the players' faction boards remote cites that the workers are stuck in without access to their exosuits to make the trek across the wastelands was another brilliant thematic design choice for this game. Anachrony is chock-full of little attentions to detail here, there, and everywhere that just make it ooze theme. Of course it makes sense that an Administrator would be better at making deals with the Nomads, that Geniuses will only respect and therefore come to work for strong leaders (or other Geniuses like themselves), or that an Administrator or Engineer would have no idea what to do in a futuristic science lab.

Anachrony's gameplay is surprisingly simple, once the hurdle of its appearance of complexity is overcome. I'm making a distinction here between complexity and complication: I feel that Anachrony is a complicated game, but not a complex one. When teaching the game there is a TON of stuff to explain, but for experienced gamers none of it will be difficult to grasp. It's not a gateway game by any means, but neither is it a heavyweight Euro. It usually takes me about 30-40 minutes just to explain what we're doing, what our goals are, and what all the pieces are for, but it's all very easy to explain--there's just a LOT to explain. In my most recent play at PAX Unplugged, I taught three brand-new-to-the-game players, and after I was done dumping information on them, the only questions they really had during the game were asking for reminders about things I may have touched on early in my rules teach. Anachrony is accessible--IF you can get your players over being intimidated by the game. In that last play, one of those brand-new players won the game, defeating me by just a couple points, and loved it so much that he went home and ordered his own copy the next weekend.

So apparently I had as much to say about why Anachrony is my #1 game of 2017 as I do when I'm teaching it to new players!

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