Tuesday, October 18, 2016

Tiny Living, Tiny Gaming

So eventually we would like to move into a space with 600 sqft or less indoor living space. We have always been able to keep our collection around 60 games but if you had to cut down to just 5 games what would they be and why, here is the result of my list. Now these will not be games with a small footprint or our favorite games but games that I feel would see the most play with us and our group of friends being the focus, I also tend to store expansions in the main box so that does give the edge to games with a library of expansions released. So here is the current list of games that I will be working with so we will be keeping 5 of them, kids games are already removed because they serve a different purpose but we would trim those down to a handful as well.

Alhambra: Big Box
The Castles of Burgundy
Chess
Codenames
Concept
Coup
Crokinole
Dixit
Doomtown: Reloaded
Elysium
Felix: The Cat in the Sack
Fire in the Lake
Firenze
Fleet
Fleet: Arctic Bounty
Founding Fathers
Ginkgopolis
Go
Gold West
Grand Austria Hotel
La Granja
The Great Heartland Hauling Co.
Guilds of London
Hanabi
Hive
Imperial Settlers
Keyflower
King Chocolate
King of Tokyo
Lords of Waterdeep
Love Letter
Luna
Machi Koro
Madeira
Mombasa
Myrmes
Mysterium
Nations
Orléans
Pandemic
Pandemic Legacy: Season 1
Qwirkle
Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island
Saint Petersburg
Seasons
Shipyard
Snowdonia
Splendor
Star Wars: The Card Game
Suburbia
Sushi Go!
Taluva
Terra Mystica
Terror in Meeple City
Tokaido
Trajan
Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar
Vikings
Vinhos
Washington's War
Wok Star

In no order the games would be:

Star Wars: The Card Game


This is pretty much the game for just the two of us, with all the expansion in the box it hits deck building and keeps itself fresh enough for me. The game has some interesting decision trees and has the added benefit of being set in the Star Wars Universe.

Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island


Hits all the co-op needs that we have while still being fun and thematic, again all the scenarios and even the fan created content just means the game will have a long shelf life. The risk element to trying to do more actions with your limited resource pull and rolling to see if things are accomplished weighed against taking less actions with assured success makes for fun debate and adds some chance to the game.

Orléans


A bag builder game that has really tight game play at all player counts combined with different roads to victory makes for a great game. The fact that the mechanics are easy to teach but give the game an incredible depth of strategy make it an easy include on such a short list. I hope that the expansions can live up to the high standard the base game has set.

Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar


Another game with easy to teach rules but has a lot of variety with in the rule set. The game is about timing and knowing what you need to do, two simple things that the moving action slots and other players can change from turn to turn. So many games have come down to over extending by one worker or missing a chance to pull a worker to set up future turns. The expansion adds so many little changes that can all be thrown in or just a module at a time to keep things fresh by adding another level of decisions to the game.


Box of Delights

The biggest cheat on the list, we have our Dixit, Codenames and Mysterium all stored in one box, this is pretty much geared towards our game nights as Mysterium and Codenames have been really popular among the group. Dixit serves to freshen up both games and serve as another game by itself.

--Games for the youngling--
Animal Upon Animal
Feuerdrachen
Heart of Attraction
Monstertorte
Pharaoh's Gulo Gulo
PitchCar Mini
RattleSnake
Rhino Hero
Ticket to Ride
Unicorn in the Clouds
Viva Topo

We would probably end up with:
Rhino Hero
Pharaoh's Gulo Gulo
Ticket to Ride


All are fun for adults and can be competitive as she grows.

So there are my five, what are yours?




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