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I stumbled into the board game hobby around about a year ago, and – to get straight to the point for once – what an amazing year it’s been. This is the best hobby, no doubt. You and I have chosen well. Of course, hobbies are by and large good for the human soul, no matter what it is .Within reason: painting and stamp collecting and crossword puzzles and mountain biking and all that are great, while devil summoning, screaming into dark corners and mud eating are less beneficial. Board gaming has it all: interactive, hilarious with friends (unless it’s Monopoly and there’s weapons lying around), often beautiful with amazing card art and components, and a workout for the brain. I feel the benefits, and I know you do too.
What I’m trying to say is that I’m not leading you astray with temptations here, I’m doing you a favour. I am. No need to thank me. Although I will accept cheese as payment for services rendered.
Nyakuza
Great mechanics, silky smooth gameplay and a ruleset play-tested to perfection are all well and good, but it's the theme that drags us in. Let's have a fishing game, shall we? Sure, but it's a bit of a solitary, quiet past-time. Okay, how about you're running a fishing company and you've got quotas to fill? Yeah, alright, we've got a purpose now, some targets to fill. Let's crank it up then, you're vying for success against the other fishing teams out there. Oo, now you're talking, not sure this could get better. Oh, it can. Because who likes fish? Cats. You're leading a team of cats going out fishing. Seriously? I'm throwing my wallet at you. Not just any cats. Yakuza cats. Think I just passed out.
Nyakuza from Cmon Games is a competitive game for 2-4 players. Each player is the head of a Cat Yakuza Clan, vying for control over the fishing industry. Get ahead of the competition! Bid for Boats to go out and net the freshest catch in the Bay and establish your seafood Stalls before your rivals. The first Clan to build their Grand Market Stall wins the game!
The waters of Oki-Yo Bay are teeming with fish. Such a lucrative spot would be a great place to set up operations for the different Nyakuza Clan. But, in the end, only one can be top-cat. In Nyakuza, players take on the role of heads of their respective Nyazuka clan. They will bid for boats that will catch the freshest fish out in the bay, then sell them in their seafood Stalls. Each player is racing to build their own Grand Market Stall first, which will prove that they are the best clan and win the game.
For those of you who hung around to read this and didn’t immediately jump to the link at the words ‘Yakuza cats’, here’s the place to be.
Champions of Wind & Fire
We've all reached the point where certain truths are accepted as a simple reality: we all love anything that involves dragons (except for Game of Thrones: sorry, too many bad things happen to dragons in that show (plus it's mostly boring (sorry not sorry))), and board games are the greatest of all things, so a dragon game is immediately accepted as awesome. Now, what if I could introduce you to the world’s first dragon-building board game? A game in which you can upgrade and train your dragon, gather magic elements, and compete to win the tournaments?
Champions of Wind & Fire is a dice placement game of dragon training for 1–4 players, with a 45–60 minute playtime. The game combines dice selection and pattern building in the Dragon Training phase, followed by a fast-paced dragon competition in the Tournament phase. The base game works perfectly as a gateway family game, while the Advanced mode adds new components and strategic betting in the Tournament phase, increasing gameplay variety.
First is the Dragon Training phase. Each round, players select dice to place magic elements on their board and use them to build certain patterns. As soon as you collect enough magic tiles to make a pattern, you can activate them by flipping them face down to upgrade your dragon by getting a stronger head, wings, or tail tile. After any player has collected 3 different upgraded dragon tiles, the Dragon Training phase is over. It is followed by a short Final Preparation phase, and then the Tournament of Wind and Fire begins. In each tournament match, players’ dragons compete in strength by combining the power of a certain body part and the magic elements required by that specific tournament. Be prepared: You will know only some tournaments in advance; the rest will be announced as the competition progresses.
Go take a closer look at the beautiful components and the amazing dragon artwork on the crowdfunding page asap.
Spokes
In the mood for something that manages to look totally unique whilst sticking perfectly to its theme? Here’s a currently-running crowdfunder that’s been building a lot of momentum (this pun is on point, I promise) on Instragram recently.
Spokes is a fast-paced cycling game from Radical 8 Games for 1-6 players, age 14 and up, running at about 30 minutes per playthrough. Build beautiful routes, slipstream other bikes and manage your stamina to be the first to the finish line... or enable someone to rush by at the last minute. All of this in an incredibly elegant and original game design by Bert Hardeman.
There’s a whole bunch of alternative modes you can play in Spokes. There’s a fantastic team mode as well as multi-bike and solo modes, for players who want to cycle as a two man crew, or fancy testing their own velodrome endurance skills.
Radical 8 are taking a stripped back approach to their crowdfunding effort, one that many people (myself included) welcome. Instead of upgraded editions and legendary editions and ultra editions and all-in editions and yadda-yadda-yadda, you can get the full game for £29/$35, a free mini expansion thrown in, and fancy bicycle meeples for £4/$5, and that’s all of your choices. Nice and simple. Basically, you’re choosing if you want it or not.
Spokes is generating some strong and positive buzz over on Instagram (which is where I dwell, so it must be trustworthy), and could be one to watch in 2025. Check it out here.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game
Don’t pretend you have no idea which towering (another pun!) fantasy world this involves, don’t you dare. This is another game that’s gaining a lot of traction in the board gaming corner of Instagram (the best and friendliest corner, and I’m not at all biased), and thematically it doesn’t need one of my ridiculous introductions. I guess all of these games could benefit from the absence of my ridiculous introductions, but this is my playground and I do what I want.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game from Office Dog Games is a co-operative card game that plays out over eighteen chapters that lead players through the events of the novel The Fellowship of the Ring. The chapters can be played in any order, but – and I don’t want to be rude about this – but what kind of evil, demented fiend would play them out of order? It’s like watching Return of The King, then the Fellowship, then The Two Towers. You just don’t do it.
In each chapter, each player takes a different character role — Frodo, Gandalf, Sam, Pippin, Farmer Maggot, etc. — and each character has a condition that must be met in order to pass the chapter and advance in the story. This is all very thematically done. Frodo needs to capture ring cards, for example, while Pippin wants to take as few tricks as possible. As you advance through the chapters, new characters, items, and challenges are introduced to the game.
The deck consists of 37 cards, with one card being set aside as "lost" each hand. Whoever is dealt the One Ring becomes Frodo (no need to fight over who's who, everyone has a chance to be a Baggins), then other players choose from the available characters based on their hand. The One Ring is the game's only trump card, but initially rings can't be led until someone plays one off-suit.
In the two-player game, one hand of cards is dealt to a dummy player, with some cards being face up and others face down. This dummy is assigned a character, and one of the human players will play cards for it based on which cards are free to be played. In the solitaire game, one player plays four hands of face-up cards, with each hand being assigned a character and only a few cards being available at a time. After you play a trick, deal each hand a new card. Fancy a bit of this, my precious? Go here and grab it today, Gollum, Gollum.
Victory Garden
The beautiful thing about board games is the huge variety of themes this amazing hobby can cover. If you can think of it, then it’s probably already been covered. ‘Ah,’ you say, ‘I bet there hasn’t been a farming game based in World War II era America’. Hold my vegetables…
Victory Garden from Tunnel Monster Collective is a lightweight roll and write for 1-5 players that should prove to be a fast-paced play. In it, you each own a homestead in rural USA 1942, and your fingers are so green they're mossy. Growing vegetables, cultivating plants and raising livestock is your jam, and you'll be using your resources to chef up a storm, contribute to community events and upgrade your abilities to harvest resources.
Your beautifully illustrated game sheet provides six work areas for you to explore, and opportunities to build and hone an efficient resource-gathering engine. Some of these work areas allow you to harvest fruits, legumes and grains, while others are focused on raising animals. Also, some areas provide a diverse range of goods whilst others are more narrowly focused. Think hard about the combinations you create, as a bit of forethought can result in a cascade of goods and actions.
If this is stirring up the Stardew Valley side of your soul (admit it, we all have one), then herd yourself over to Kickstarter and drop a few resources on a pledge.
Manatee Sanctuary
Let’s wrap up with one more conservation themed board game, because I’ve got a bit of soft spot for this style of entertainment: this is another one that plays great and looks fab.
Manatee Sanctuary from Warped Reality Games is a card drafting game for either 1-6 or 1-12 players (more on this in a minute), in which you will each take on the role of conservationist. You will manage to grow your sanctuary, attract wonderful manatees and feed them, and hopefully score the best Manatee Sanctuary.
Each round players will participate in an "I split, you choose" draft of sanctuary cards. Once each player has a set of cards, they will simultaneously use their cards to either tuck into their sanctuary to make it grow or play the card for its actions to draw manatees from the Manatee
Bag or gain income of food. Once all players have finished using their cards all will be required to feed their manatees. Be careful, if you cannot feed your manatees they will swim away! Players will score each round based on the number of manatees in their sanctuary and the player with the most points at the end of 3 rounds is the winner! Over just 3 short rounds players will strategize how to best grow their sanctuary, feed their manatees and score points. With all actions taking place simultaneously the game is intended to be strategic and engaging without overstaying its welcome.
So, the player count situation. Instead of forcing a 1-12 player single edition upon pledgers - which would lead to a higher cost game - there are two editions available. They are almost the same, other than the box cover, player colours and main board colour. If you buy both, either one can be the expansion that allows for a properly big player count. It is rare for a strategic type game can play at such high player counts and still keep the play time to around 30 min. You don't have a need to play 7-12 players? Great! You get to pick which cover you like best as your pledge level. You want to check out those two covers, don’t you? Go for it, here!
It’s signing off time, and I agree that it’s come round all too soon. Looking at and chatting about games is always good fun.
About the author:
Steve is currently a freelance board game blogger, but often dreams of life as a pirate, or as a ghost herder in the Lake District, or as an evil estate agent who sells haunted houses for his own dark pleasure. Instead of figuring out how to do these jobs in real life like a normal lunatic, he tries to write about them instead, and releases the resultant books upon the unsuspecting world via famous digital bookstores. More books are bound to follow. Find this peculiar entity here: www.instagram.com/positively.board
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