Pick of the Litter 2017

Think about your favorite movies. The genre-defining movies. The movies that defined an era or pioneered a new technology. Think about the movies we still talk about a decade after their release. Think 2001: A Space Odyssey or Get Out.

Many of these movies didn't win Best Picture. Instead, they likely lost to some movie you don't remember and that no one talks about these days. Think Oliver! or Shape of Water.

These latter aren't bad movies, but it takes time and perspective to truly appreciate something.

And if you think that this is all just some overblown and pretentious excuse for why I'm only now getting around to writing up my favorite games of 2017, well, yeah. Of course. You knew what this was. Sometimes I don't get around to playing something for a bit, and sometimes I need to let something stew.

2017 had quite a few solid releases. So I'm not going to even bother trying to pick a favorite because I don't see much use in that. These were all great games, and none of them are standing out to me as head and shoulders above the rest.

John Company

John Company surprised me. It gave me an experience that I honestly hadn't had before. And I can't stop thinking about it.

In JC, you and your opponents spend the game mucking around a sandbox that represents the East India Company. The business itself is modeled, with players using their family members to hold certain positions in the company that allow them certain actions/benefits.

The financial integrity of the company is represented, and players can invest in it in the hopes of earning dividends, or bet against it in the hopes that it fails and brings all your opponents down with it. On top of that, the political and military position of the countries you are involved with are modeled with a brilliantly simple system that's predictable enough for you to make decisions and gambles, and just random enough to produce some triumphant or crushing results.

You and your opponents work together to run the company, but success of the company is not what wins you the game. The success of your family is what's important here, and if the Company has to go down in flames for that to happen, well, so be it. Moving up the corporate ladder gives you more opportunity to score points, but scoring those points costs money. Different positions in the Company can get you money in different ways, and open you up to different sorts of risk depending on how tied to the fate the company you are, or whether or not your ships actually make it across the ocean.

Like most SMG games, it could use some tightening up. Some of the rules are a bit hazy, but in this case I'm willing to look past that in order to play this extraordinary game.

I will say that, though there is a solo mode, it doesn't impress me the same way the multiplayer game does. In solo, you run the company alone. There is no competition between families, and so a whole third of the game or more is gutted. Instead, you are just learning the ins and outs of keeping the Company afloat, and dealing with random events and disruptions.

It's not a bad way to learn that part of the game, but once you do there's not much meat on those bones. The real pleasure is in manipulating your mastery of running the company into getting a nice place in the country for your family while watching the other guy get skipped over for promotion multiple times.

If I was forced to order these and pick a game of the year, I'd probably pick this one. It's not perfect, I wouldn't always pick to play it, the rules need some work, the solo is lackluster, it can take a while to play, and it needs the right group of people to really sing. But for all its failings, it accomplishes something that I don't think any other game in my collection does. There's an unmatched experience in this box.

The 7th Continent

In the same vein as JC, 7C is a game I'll keep forever because I honestly don't have anything else like it.

I've written much about the game already, which you can read here if you are so inclined; everything from the length of the game, to the interesting opportunities in design their unique resolution mechanic affords them. So I won't rehash what you can read elsewhere.

Suffice it to say that I can't name another game that aims at the scope this one does. That imagining the work going into designing this beast gives me heartburn. That creating the detailed art on every single one of the 1000 or so cards (which actually has mechanical importance) is beyond what I can comprehend. I'm honestly floored that they pulled this off.

There are some issues with it, sure. And it's not for everyone. There are some liberties taken with theme in order to make a game out of it. And the game expects you to spend hours on something with every intention that you are going to fail and start over. Hard pills to swallow for some, understandably.

For me, I love the theme. I love the survival, the requirement for efficiency, the exploration, the risk, the unknown. I love seeing art of a certain type of plant on my card, and then, just by virtue of having spotted it, using that plant to build something.

To me, it works best solo. I want to take my time and do what I want to do, without these other fools running around eating my food. But that's a play preference, not a result of the game, and it works great for a small group if needed.

Spirit Island

I've played this game much more multiplayer than solo, and the experience is only different because, solo, there's no one to stop me from making idiot moves.

This game is a puzzle, which I don't say as a pejorative. Like Mage Knight, or Shadowrun: Crossfire, this is a game that presents you with a set of (almost) deterministic mechanics, and tasks you with figuring out which lever to pull and which gear to turn in order for the outcome to be the most in your favor. You take a look at your powers, resources, enemy positions, friendly unit capabilities, future enemy actions, and decide what you'll play, move, destroy, defend, and sacrifice to end the turn closer to victory.

The game pulls off this fascinating puzzle with a set of very straightforward rules. It's not gimmicky. It's not difficult to learn. It makes sense thematically. But they compound on each other and spiral off in such a way as you leave you with a complex problem with multiple solutions.

It then gives you different ways to approach those by playing different spirits and combinations of spirits, and ways to change or increase the challenge by using different invading forces.

I like this one solo more than multiplayer, as I find the multiplayer game to be a lot of quiet contemplation, with the slower/more perplexed players (read: me) constantly feeling guilty for thinking so long. Then a brief check-in around the table: "You good?" "You good?" Then resolve. It feels pretty solo anyway, so I'd rather just play it solo.

After The Virus

AtV is sly. It looks like a goofy zombie game. It looks like a deckbuilder. It says it's a co-op.

And then you play it, and it's not like the deckbuilders you're used to (save one), and those goofy zombies bite your head off in a matter of minutes.

AtV is a great example of my favorite type of solo/co-op games. The type that, on first or second play, seem impossible to the point of just being random luck if you win or lose. And then you get better and better at it to the point that those missions that seemed impossible now can't be lost. But of course these NEXT missions are impossible...

I'd put Ghost Stories, Friday, and Shadowrun: Crossfire all in this bucket with AtV.

My thoughts on the game leaned very heavily into comparisons with Shadowrun, and for good reason. The deckbuilding is not what you're used to if you've mostly played Dominion; it's more tactical and less strategic. Timing is critical, and misuse of a turn can end your game right there. The difficulty is high, but skill will ultimately decide the win.

On top of that, the games takes approximately two minutes to set up and one more to pack away. And games take 10-20 minutes. So you can lose fast, learn, adapt, and jump back into a game over and over in no time.

I don't like the art or graphic design. It feels cheap to me. The tokens don't fit in their spaces, the wounds are huge and cover your avatar, the card art is not my jam. But it's a good game, and these don't change that.

I will say that the multiplayer is pretty lackluster. Each player plays their own version of the solo game, but they have to achieve the victory conditions on the same turn. You simultaneously take your turns, look around the table to "You good?" at everyone, then start the next turn. If I have friends at my table, there are much better options.

But if I don't? Especially if I'm low on time? After the Virus is hard to beat.

The award for best solo expansion is a no-brainer: Xia: Embers of a Forsaken Star.

This takes everything that's fantastic about the game, and makes it better. It takes the minor complaints and issues about the base game, and fixes them all. It adds more variety and options, but without increasing the complexity.

Oh, and then it adds a complete solo mode. A way to play against the bots. And on top of that, a tough-as-nails campaign with additional objectives and upgrades.

Xia is still ultimately a sprawling random sandbox, and is not for everyone. But Embers does exactly what an expansion to a game is supposed to do.

Ok. Solo game lightning round:

Too Many Bones: great game. Fun tactical combat, and a nice little character-builder system. Arguably TOO much stuff in here. Production values are fantastic.

This War of Mine: The Board Game: need more time with this, but there's some interesting stuff going on here. Though they often aren't the focus of many peoples' thoughts on the game, I really like the mechanics and puzzle presented here in terms of survival, efficiency, resource use, build order, etc. I've talked some about the depressing nature of the game here.

Legacy of Dragonholt: a great choose-your-own-adventure book. Decently written, well produced, some surprises. It's a story you read, and you get to create a key-word driven character and have the story respond to those keywords. It's not complex, and there is some magical equivocation in effect, sure. We're here for the fun, though, and this was fun.

HEXplore It: The Valley of the Dead King: a very unique adventure game, using pretty complex skills and party dynamics, all tracked in dry erase, to give some interesting and nuanced combats. The dumpster fire of the rulebook has put me off playing this more, though.

Enemy Coast Ahead: The Doolittle Raid: one of my favorite designers with a second game in the footsteps of one of my favorite games. I hope the ECA brand keeps on chuggin' because these are fantastic. No one writes a rulebook like Jerry White. Like the last one, this is a procedural game in resolving a bombing raid that you plan from the ground up.

As last year, I do get to play quite a few games with friends and family. So I'll go over some of my favorite non-solo games as well.

Codenames: Duet: This is probably the easy top pick for me for family games in 2017. It takes the familiar Codenames formula, but makes it co-op, 2-player friendly, and hard as hell. This requires some seriously good clue giving and guessing to win consistently, and the variable ways you can set your game to punish incorrect guesses significantly changes how you weigh risk from game to game. Sure, you need to be a fan of word games, but they don't get a lot better than this.

The Quest for El Dorado: one of my very favorite deckbuilders in recent memory. It's simple to understand and play, but the race aspect and changing needs give you both turn-to-turn tactical decisions to make on top of overarching strategic choices. It's very replayable, quick to play, easy to teach, fun every time, and cheap to boot.

The Fox in the Forest: a fantastic 2-player trick-taking game. The scoring system elevates this up into quite a fun back-and-forth for two players (a player count that doesn't have many trick-taking options). If I only have 2 and can't get Haggis, Tichu, or Pinochle to the table, this is the choice.

Fog of Love: I hesitated mentioning this because I haven't played it a ton, and not everything it does is fantastic. But there are a couple elements to this game that I found quite fascinating and I felt I should at least bring it up for those reasons.

You play as two people in a couple, roleplaying not as yourselves, and dealing with the twists and turns and ups and downs that come with every relationship. Meeting her parents. Your first trip with him to Ikea. Seriously, these are what you are solving together in this game. The game constantly moves you closer together or further apart on a bunch of different axes as you resolve these issues.

But you both start the game with the same set of possible outcomes for your relationship. And you secretly discard them one by one as the game progresses. If your characters look to be not compatible, you might start ditching all the "true love" outcomes, for example. And at the end of the game, you see which outcome you both decided to end up with, and whether or not you succeeded in that. Success requires certain board states, but also sometimes requires certain outcomes be chosen by the other player.

This is brilliant and fascinating and, dare I say it, not actually a bad simulation of actual relationships. It's the only co-op game I've played where you can chose not to work together. Your characters have to actually want this to work if it's going to work, it's not just assumed that this is a co-op where you're both trying to end up in a relationship together.

From a design standpoint, this is fascinating. From a play standpoint, just know that this is really a roleplaying game. And if you get too close to playing as yourself, you may end up feeling a bit hurt, especially if you're playing with your actual romantic partner. Make a character that's as far from yourself as you can, so you're not tempted to take things personally.

Ok.

So, the duds. The runts, to keep the metaphor alive.

I had a very hard time choosing it this year, and I think it's a tie. Between two games, that, if you read my geeklist ever, will not in the least surprise you.

What's interesting to me is that for both of these games, they're actually probably not bad games. But my personal reaction to them was so negative that I smell sulfur whenever they pop up. I'm going to do my best to be succinct here (as you can see above, I'm good at this), and let you follow-up on your own if you need more information.

Dragonfire

Shadowrun: Crossfire is one of my favorite games of all time. So the idea of taking that game, adding a better implemented theme (even if the theme is worse), and putting in some story to tie the games together, sounded great.

But what we got here was worse than SR in every way. The new mechanics were half-baked. The story mechanics were boring and unthematic. And worse, they took steps backwards on many things that already worked well in Shadowrun.

And I'm not just talking rules changes. I'm saying that there are the same rules (even the same CARDS) that show up in both games, but somehow in Dragonfire they botched it.

Further reading on my thoughts can be found elsewhere. Most of my problems with the game are nitpicky rules problems and UI issues, but it boils my blood to think about just how much work had to go into this game to make it worse.

Target for Today

This is similar. Oddly, this game led to one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a long time. And yet, here it is in the runt section?

I had a great time with this game despite the game, not because of it. The people involved with my session, and the types of cinematic events and stories that you can get from ANY game of this ilk, were what made it memorable. But the entire time, all I did was fight with this game.

The errata got so long that they stopped even listing them item by item and just posted new rules and tables. I'd be willing to bet that, during my play, about 20% of the rules I used I just made up myself. Because they weren't in the book or on the charts.

And it goes so much further. Down to the inconsistency of language and chart layout. Down to the assumptions of prior knowledge of the actual planes. You can fix all the things that are technically incorrect, and still this game is a mess. This is, by far, the sloppiest and most poorly developed, edited, and proofread game I have played, to the point that I changed some purchasing habits. And given my high rank in the Society of Pedants, that's saying something.

A lot of fun to be had in 2017, even with the bad games! Many of these games will stay in regular rotation for a long time to come. And many of these games, even if I don't play them again, have really surprised me in their innovation and ingenuity in design.

Like my favorite movies and music, I think many of these needed a couple years to breath. I'm not sure this list would have been the same if I'd made it in 2017. Or at least, that's how I'm excusing my procrastination, and my planned approach for the best of 2018.