#I get it’s not environmentally the best but look the planets getting hotter than balls

[oldfritz]

I think the thing I miss most about america is central ac. I think the thing europe needs most is central ac

[tabletopontap]

Top 30 to Look Forward to at GenCon 2019 (#11-20)

Here’s the continuation of the Top 30 with a look at #11-20, the middle of the list.

Foundations of Rome - Published by Arcane Wonders and designed by Emerson Matsuuchi, this supports 2-4 players. I think this game might’ve only been available to play-test because there’s no play time listed for this one. Emerson really caught fire with his game, Century: Spice Road (and the Century: Golem art variant). The 3-D buildings caught my eye, and I trust Emerson to put together a fun game.

Planet - Published by Blue Orange and designed by Urtis Šulinskas, this game for 2-4 players takes 30-45 min. I've never seen a game like this one! The "board" is actually a hexagonal metal ball upon which you place different landscape tiles. I'm curious to know if the gameplay mechanism feels like a gimmick, or if it's really fun to play! I also wonder how this game compares to other nature/environmental world building games that have come out this year. It seems to be a hot theme of 2019. As our planet gets hotter, maybe we'll see even more games with a climate/nature based theme.

Sierra West - Published by Board & Dice and designed by Jonny Pac Cantin, this game for 1-4 players caught my eye with its cardplay. Also note that there must be a solo mode, which isn’t the case for all board games. I was interested in the mechanism of pulling cards from the mountain and then overlapping player cards on my personal game board. The game plays in 40-60 min., which is a good length for me. The theme sounded like a more interesting Oregon Trail. It will certainly appeal to anyone who likes the Old West.

On Tour - This entry is from another new board game designer, Chad DeShon. The publisher is Boardgametables.com. This is a roll & write game for 1-4 players in 20 minutes. Roll & write is another hot category in boardgaming this year (and last year). I'm always on the lookout for another roll & write that I will like.

Tiny Epic Mechs - The Tiny Epic series is a well known line by Gamelyn Games, created by Scott Almes for 1-4 players. This one is described as an arena style, PVP action programming game that plays in 30-60 min. What makes this one eye-catching is that you can snap suits of armor and weapons onto your meeples! I'm not sure if I'll enjoy gameplay because I don't tend to like PVP mode in digital games, but the meeples are so cute, I just want to try it!

Legendary Forests - This pretty, quick (15-20 min.) tile-laying game was designed for 2-5 players by Toshiki Sato and published by IELLO. This game had me at "similar to Karuba." I'm terrible at Karuba, actually, but I enjoy the challenge of everyone having the same pieces to see who can build the better mouse trap. In this case, each tile is a colorful landscape tile that may have multiple colors on it. Over the course of the game, it sounds like players want to build monuments or other pieces on their landscape tiles. It's just pretty. I'm pretty sure it's the type of game that my main gaming partner will crush me at, though.

Roll for Adventure - Matthew Dunstand and Brett J. Gilbert collaborated to create a cooperative game for 2-4 players that finishes in half an hour. Kosmos is the publisher. The BGG entry doesn't provide enough information on this game, but I'm interested because it's a quick-playing co-op, and I can't get enough of cooperative games in my life.

Tribes: Dawn of Humanity - This Kosmos entry was created for 2-4 players by Rustan Håkansson, who is best known as the designer of Nations and Nations dice game. This is a civilization game that claims there isn't much down time in between player turns, and it plays in 45 min. I'm actually feeling a little more reserved about this one because I heard of some negative reviews. However, a civ game under an hour sounds appealing, especially since my spouse always wanted to play Nations and we STILL haven't.

Empyreal: Spells & Steam - Designed for 2-6 players by Trey Chambers, who brought us Harvest, and published by Level 99 Games, this game is about route building in a world of magic and steampunk. It plays in 30-75 min. To be honest, I think this one caught my eye by aesthetics alone and I'm not sure it's really my cup of tea. It does, however, work for a larger number of players than most games, so that’s appealing for those times when you have more friends over.

Patchwork Doodle - Admittedly, I'm a fan of both Uwe Rosenberg and Patchwork. Patchwork Doodle is the roll & write version of the polyominoes game, Patchwork, that is designed for 1-6 players in 20 min. The publisher is Lookout Games. Definitely bring out multiple colored pencils/pens to really make this game shine!

That's it for my 11-20. Stay tuned for the last installment of ten games in the next post!