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Luke Pickles:
August is my birthday month, so I’m usually browsing the Board Game Geek pages to see what I might ask for (or buy if I get vouchers.) It’s a weird time, because GenCon is happening as I type this so a whole bunch of games are being released but aren’t coming out over hear until after Essen in October. However, there’s some “older” games released this year that I’ve had my eye on and the main one is the latest game from Garphill Games, Ezra & Nehemiah. This game is set in Jerusalem, where players are helping rebuild the city, focusing on the city walls and temples, but also having the option to visit nearby settlements, stoke the fires at the alter or develop the land for farming. The main gameplay is similar to Viscounts of the West Kingdom, where you play cards down and bolster the action you want to take by different banners, inspired from Paladins of the West Kingdom. You’ll play six cards over the course of the round, creating three stacks of two cards each so the order of placement is crucial to plan your actions. At the end of the round, you’ll have a rest day, gaining extra resources and scoring points for the end of the game.
It’s such a great homage to all the games that have come before it and fits in within the ancient anthology series that Garphill are working on, including Raiders of Scythia and Hadrian’s Wall. This game shot up my favourite games list early this year when I played on Tabletop Simulator and it’s stayed there. Now the Kickstarter has fulfilled, the game will hopefully be in retail sometime soon.
Hannah Blacknell:
I try to keep my wishlist quite manageable as I d have a lot of games and not all of them are getting played as much as I would like. There has been in recent times a drive to go lighter rather than heavier with our game picks. We don't have as much time as we usually do right now because of home renovations and so often we won't be sitting down for a heavy 2 hour plus game without some prior planning. Instead we have been tending towards medium to light games that can be played in perhaps an hour or so at two players.
With that in mind, there have been a few games that have popped into my wishlist lately, there is one series in particular that I am very keen on. That is by KTBG which includes the 2022 release Creature Comforts, the 2023 release Maple Valley and the 2024 release Cafe Baras. All three of these games are set in a cutesy cosy world when the animals are brought to life similar to Everdell or Farshore. These are family weight games with an age rating of 8+ but still have enough meat on them to keep my interest. The newest installment is a card drafting tableau building game about serving animal customers coffee as a capybara, hence the pun name. I can't wait to get these as a treat perhaps for my upcoming birthday!
Lewis Ralston
I have a few games on my wishlist right now. I’ll talk briefly about the one on everyone’s mind, Arcs. Arcs was on everyone’s lips at the UKGE this year but I didn’t get a proper glimpse of it until Shut Up & Sit Down posted their glowing review. Now I’m desperately eager to get my hands on it. A fun space game with beautiful visuals, incredibly balanced mechanics and high strategy? Yes please Cole Wehrle, yes please!
Another one which some of our readers may have already played, but which is currently topping my wishlist is Fury of Dracula. I remember the Tabletop episode (anyone else miss that show) being one of my favourites, and it has been on my mind ever since. However, after recently playing through the Pandemic “Bio-Terrorist” expansion (seen in Pandemic: On The Brink), I’ve been more desperate than ever to get my hands on it. The idea of being a vampire hunter seeking out a hidden Dracula to destroy him once and for all, or being Dracula trying to pick off these hunters one by one and reign over Europe as some sort of Dark Lord....It’s all very exciting. I love games that bring these moments of tension, and those “aha” moments when you catch Dracula and then freak out because you’re actually very under prepared. It seems right up my alley, so I’m hoping to grab a copy soon. At least this new edition is WAY CHEAPER than the old one (we’re talking half the price).
A few other games circling the wishlist, but which I won’t delve deep into, are as follows;
M’LEM: Space Agency – A push your luck game as cat astronauts try to make it into deep space.
Horrified: Greek Monsters – A co-operative game where you play as Greek Gods trying to capture Monsters from Greek Mythology.
Good Grief – A 2 player board game by new developers Goodie Baggs Games where one character plays a Mad Scientist and the other, their ghostly ex. It looks fast-paced and adorable. I unfortunately wasn’t able to support their Kickstarter, but hope to get hands on it in the future.
Sophie Jones:
After attending UKGE, one game shot straight to the top of my wishlist: SETI. This title comes from one of my favourite publishers, CGE, and features all the gameplay mechanics I love, including engine building, resource management, and multi-use cards. To top it off, it’s space themed, which is perfect as my collection currently has a space themed hole in it.
In SETI, players take turns searching for extraterrestrial life. You'll launch probes, gather data through telescopes, and use scientific advancements to uncover hidden secrets.With over 200 multi-use cards, there's plenty to explore and a tonne of replayability. As the game progresses, new discoveries will add different elements to the game which players can interact with.
One of the standout features of SETI is its visually stunning design. The game board consists of four rotating sections that mimic planets orbiting the sun. This innovative design not only adds a strategic layer, as players must time their probe launches, but also looks amazing on the table. For a space-themed game, it's surprisingly vibrant, which is a refreshing departure from the often dark and muted palettes typical of this genre. The components are crafted from RE-wood, and the sun centrepiece adds a nice thematic touch.
SETI ticks all the boxes for me: engaging mechanics, beautiful aesthetics, and a captivating theme. The combination of engine building, resource management, and multi-use cards ensures a deep and strategic experience. Coupled with quality components and stunning visuals, SETI’s artistic look is set to elevate the experience. With a late Q4 release date, I can’t wait to be sipping hot chocolate on a cold winter afternoon, whilst I search the stars for life outside our galaxy.
Harvey Brewer:
In the summer sun of July, there’s nothing I like more than a good round of golf. Unfortunately for me, Britain’s often sporadic weather and my ever-tightening wallet both mean that I’m very rarely able to permit myself this luxury, and so a board game that allows me to play golf in the comfort of my own home is the ideal solution! 18 Holes is a hand-management game for 1-5 players that will see your group battling it out on the green to be crowned Golf Champion. Its designer, Ryan Boucher, really seems to have ‘knocked it out of the park’ (no pun intended!) with this one, with the game combining elements of strategy and luck with an ever-changing game board, meaning no two rounds are the same.
What excites me particularly about this game is the dynamic plethora of possibilities on each turn; after picking your club you’ll be drawing from the deck to learn how the shot will play out, and after that, you’ll choose the direction in which you play. There’s no obligation to stay on the fairway when playing your shot, which is great because players have more choices and can more easily adapt to the cards they draw, and also because I can match my swings in the game to those I often do in real life! The course itself is made up of an arbitrary number of hexagonal ‘green tiles’ – the game comes with some suggestions for courses to play, but there’s nothing stopping you from making your own course completely from scratch (and with nearly 50 tiles to choose from, new combinations are in no short supply!).
To summarise, 18 Holes is on my wishlist this month because of its unique theme and dynamic gameplay, which is all you can really ask for in a good board game!
