2015 Five Year Look Back

by Sean Johnson

I am continuing my annual look back by going back ten years. For me, 2015 was a good year of playing game. The game group I was part of started meeting weekly at a new location, and that worked really well. For the first time since high school, I had a stable RPG game happening. I was really into Dice Masters in 2015. The local competitive scene never really took off, but I did try participating in it. I finished second in a tournament at Gen Con that year, winning an official play mat.

Despite being a decent year for playing games, I was kind of surprised to look back at the games released that year. While there were certainly a lot of good games, my short list was not terribly long despite playing 117 games released this year. Some of the better regarded games from 2015 are ones that I have never had a ton of desire to play such as Food Chain Magnate, Mombasa, and Trickerion: Legends of Illusion. While I would be willing to play these games if given the opportunity I have not had much desire to seek them out. Of the games I have not played form 2015, the one I want to play the most is Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization.

Of the games I have played that were released in 2015 these are the ones I enjoy the most, listed in descending order for dramatic effect.

10. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
We are not the biggest co-op fans, but we loved are playthrough of this legacy version. We really liked the sense of discovery the game offered, and it was exciting to find out what was going to happen next with each game played. We tried playing Season 2 when it came out, and we very much did not like it, because of that we did not even consider season zero. Now that our kids are older, it might be worth coming back to this game and playing through it again as a family.

9. SteamRollers
This game first came into existence in 2015, but I did not play it until 2018 when the Stronghold Games version came out. However, it is too hard to track when games had wide release in America so we are just going with what Board Game Geek list.

M wife really likes roll and write games. While the strictly number roll and write games are ok, I much prefer when the games have a much stronger thematic connection. This was one of the first games I played that did that. It is still a little abstract, but this is undeniably a train game of building a route and delivering goods.

8. Risk: Star Wars Edition
The marketing of this game is honestly a bit of a weird mess. It is labeled as a Risk game, but it really has nothing to do with Risk. It came out in the build up to The Force Awakens, so it has the Force Awakens Star Wars branding with Kylo Ren even though it is about Return of the Jedi.

This game leans towards being a mass market game, but it is still a fun game and is a bit of a spiritual successor of Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit. Having to balance between the three different areas is interesting, and the game captures the theme fairly well. The game's components are so-so, but I did upgrade my copy with Star Wars micro-machines.

7. City of Spies: Estoril 1942
I did not play this game until it was available in English when Stronghold Games released it in 2016. I got it at Gen Con that year, and it was one of the games I was most anticipating.

I really enjoy the area control aspect of this game and how it uses hidden information to add some intrigue and trying to guess what the opponents are doing. I also enjoy the aspect of building a team and balancing their strength on the board versus how many points they can score. I know this game got redone with a sci-fi theme in 2020, and I honestly think that theme might fit the gameplay a bit better. It was always a little weird to recruit a team of spies who's only job was to recruit more spies.

6. A Study in Emerald (Second Edition)
Today it is more common for deckbuilding to be just one mechanism in a game, but that was far less common a decade ago. At that time, Martin Wallace was making interesting games that really explored how to do that. For me, this was the standout example of the time.

I like how cards are acquired through area control mechanisms. I like this game the most at higher player counts because then the mechanism of not knowing who is on your team really comes into play. Because it works best with more, this is a game I have not played for several years. I have fond memories of it, and I would love to play it again.

5. Tiny Epic Galaxies
I completely missed this game when it first came out. It was only after getting a couple of other Tiny Epic games and deciding we were going to have the whole series (an idea we since have abandoned) that we went back and picked this up.

I do not know how to explain it, but this has a different feel compared to all of the other tiny epic games. Most of them have a board game feel, but this is more of a card game with dice drafting. One of the mechanisms that really makes this game stand out is the way that other players can follow and do actions on the other active player's turn. We do have the expansion for this game, but we have only played with it a couple of times.

4. Mysterium
I actually first played this game in it's polish iteration Tajemnicze Domostwo. I honestly prefer the straight co-op rules of that version compared to the more convoluted rules of Mysterium. The best part of this game is using the crazy cards to communicate. It is as fun as it is maddening. More than once I have passed out a card that I thought perfectly communicated what they should pick, only to have the person obsessively focus on a random background color which puts them on the completely wrong thing. I do prefer being the one giving out cards, but I think that is true of most people in this game.

3. Codenames
I think one of the reasons why I like this game is that I am fairly good at it. I have recorded 60 plays in just the base game, and my win percentage is 73%. I am not sure there is any other game I can claim those kind of stats on.

I really enjoy the challenge of making connection between words. While I prefer being the person who gives the clues, I do enjoy guessing as well (more so here than in Mysterium). In 2017 when themed versions of Codenames started coming out, I was hopeful for a Star Wars version but unfortunately it never happened.

2. Blood Rage
I got to play this game right as it was released in 2015, and at game nights in 2016 I jumped in every time it came out. In 2018 I got my own copy in a math trade. I really like how everyone starts out identical in this game, but through drafting and playing cards players create their own unique faction.

Unfortunately, I have not played this game much in recent years because I think it really needs four players to be at it's best. It works OK at three and, I do not think it works well at all at two. Despite not getting to play it much this is a game I hold onto because I like it so much.

1. Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King
My wife and I visited the Isle of Skye years ago, so when this game was announced it was one she wanted instantly. However, we played a bit of a long game with it. We did not get this game when it was released at Gen Con in 2015. Instead, we waited until the next year. Every year at Gen con Mayfair Games did a ribbon hunt, where ribbons corresponding to Catan resources could be collected for demoing games. These games could be turned in for a 50% off coupon. So we got the game for cheaper a year later.

There are three things I really like about this game. I love how the scoring works. Each round there are different scoring conditions, and each condition will score twice throughout the game. These conditions are different from game to game. I also like the tile laying and building my own little part of the island. Even if I lose it is fun to make something. Finally, I like how the mechanism for pricing and buying tiles. It is intuitive, creates interesting player interaction, and is not quite like anything in any of our other games. This all combines to make Isle of Skye my favorite game from ten years ago.