Our Favorite Games of 2019

2019 is nearly over! It’s been our first full year of operation at the Parlor, and we’ve had a blast hosting folks. In 2019 we added hundreds of games to the library and retail walls, had four different seasonal menus of food, raised over $1000 for Akron Children’s Hospital, and won the local vote to begin serving beer, wine, and mixed drinks (which should hopefully go into effect sometime in the Spring of 2020). As the year comes to an end we thought it’d be fun to share what particular games caught our attention and left a lasting impression on us this year. Keep in mind that this won’t be a list of games that exclusively came out in 2019, though some will have. Mostly it will be focused on things that happened to cross our paths this year regardless of when they actually released - so “new to us.” Here’s a handful of things we particularly enjoyed:

PART I : JAMES

Party Games

Just One (2018)

One element of word games I see frustrating folks from time to time is the latent, on-demand creativity they often require. As an example, Codenames asks a lot of a codegiver. It requires a fair bit of thought and rewards a level of word comprehension not everyone may have or feel like exercising. Just One doesn’t completely solve this problem, the nature of word games will always favor a word-savvy player, but it does remove some of the direct pressure and competitiveness with a cooperative take on the genre.

Family Games

PARKS (2019)

Launched as a successful Kickstarter project, PARKS released in fall of 2019 and is a simple, artistic, and tactile joy. Players take on the role of hikers travelling across National Parks over the course of four seasons, trying to accumulate the most points in the process. The gameplay is reminiscent of Tokaido (2012), a game where you’re attempting to have the best trip while traveling the ancient Tokaido road in feudal Japan. Both are simple, but PARKS streamlines the experience (though arguably at the cost of theme, see Jessica’s issues below).

The beauty of the game is in both the art and the components. Every resource token in the game, from trees to water to sunshine, is a beautiful wood piece with colored wash highlighting the natural grain. The art on every National Park card is from the “59 Parks” art print series (linked), and is absolutely stunning. I frequently found myself pausing from playing the game just to admire the art featured on every card.

One of the primary goals of a family game, in my opinion, is to be an easy-to-teach, light, aesthetically pleasing experience you can share with family or friends, regardless of their level of immersion into hobby gaming. PARKS checks every one of those boxes for me.

Card Games

Flesh and Blood (2019)

Flesh and Blood is a new trading card game launched in fall of 2019 by New Zealand’s Legend Story Studios. I’ve had a weakness since childhood for card games, and when a new one comes out I usually bribe Jess into trying it with me. A handful of well made card games came out in 2019, but none had the blend of unique mechanics, beautiful art, and lovingly-crafted word building present in Flesh and Blood.

There are many different card games, but 95% of them can accurately be described as “dudes on a board” games, meaning you simply play, or summon, or cast a variety of creatures in an attempt to destroy objectives or whittle away at your opponent’s health.

Flesh and Blood does away with that, instead focusing on your individual character - the Warrior Dorinthea Ironsong (pictured), the Guardian Bravo Showstopper, and so on. You take on your class and character, and your deck is made up of attacks, martial arts moves, methods, or inspirations. What I loved most about Flesh and Blood was how unique every class played - the Ninja Katsu strings together a variety of punches, jabs, and katana slashes, no single attack especially powerful but their cumulative chain leading into a strong combo, while the Guardian Bravo may forgo attacking altogether, setting up auras to take a single, devastating swing next turn with his hammer.

Launching a card game is a difficult process, since they often require a number of players all supporting one another to thrive. Time will tell if Flesh and Blood manages to get a foothold, but its combination of new mechanics, phenomenal art, and tactically-fulfilling gameplay make it my favorite of 2019. I’m working on a Katsu deck myself!

Light Strategy Games

Space Base (2018)

I originally came across Space Base in 2018 before we opened the Parlor, while attending a card tournament at Recess Games (an awesome game store in Northeast Ohio). I saw it at the demo table, but the hundreds of tiny cards and cubes tracking multiple rows of resources tricked me into thinking it was too heavy a game for me to dive into after six hours of playing Netrunner.

We finally tried it this year, and I was wrong. Space Base is a light, fun, dice-throwing game of building the best fleet of ships you can. You’ll be rolling dice and collecting resources based on what ships are docked in your space station, purchasing ships with those resources, and watching the rolls of others to see what resources you get from your “deployed” ships (the cards you’ve replaced and sent out to space). At its core Space Base feels like a more engaging upgrade to Machi Koro, another game of dice-throwing and card drafting that serves as a good gateway game, but lacks a variety of options. As a dice game Space Base is unabashedly a game about luck, but one that gives you an impressive array of draftable cards to try and steer that luck in your favor.

Res Arcana (2019)

If Space Base is a game of managed luck, Res Arcana lies somewhere on the opposite end of the spectrum. The designer Tom Lehmann, perhaps best known for another tactically-fulfilling game Race for the Galaxy, excels at taking the essence of long, heavy strategy games and distilling them into experiences lasting less than an hour. Res Arcana does this masterfully, and I love it.

Res Arcana is a card drafting game of engine building and resource management, with the goal of acquiring ten victory points. Each player will have a deck of ten artifacts that they know in advance (either dealt or drafted), that they will be paying for and playing throughout the course of the game in order to generate more resources. These resources will in turn be used to pay for more artifacts from your personal deck, or to acquire monuments and places of power from a shared pool. Monuments give a variety of unique benefits, while places of power help provide the core of your point-generating engine.

The beauty of Res Arcana lies in the sheer variety of different combinations, and the fun of assembling the most efficient engine you can among the unique mix between the known and unknown factors. To call Res Arcana a light game is to comment only on the ease of play and learning - there’s certainly enough depth and strategy to keep seasoned gamers entertained.

Strategy Games

Architects of the West Kingdom (2018)

The first in the West Kingdom Trilogy (Renegade Games, the publisher, is known for sets of three games sharing similar art and world), Architects of the West Kingdom is a mid-weight worker placement game that provides a few unique twists on the genre.

Like all worker placement games, in Architects you’ll be sending workers to various locations on the board, whether that be for acquiring goods such as lumber or stone, more illicit goods from the black market, recruiting artisans from the workshop, or many other available actions. Typically in a worker placement game at some point, such as the end of a round, you’ll get all of your workers back to redeploy, sometimes with more added to your total available.

Architects shakes things up by giving you all twenty of your workers upfront, and no automatic way of getting them back. You can reclaim your workers in one area by visiting a specific spot, or opponents can capture your workers, making you work harder to get them back. This, paired with the way resources are generated, provides for some interesting new dynamics and strategy. When you place one of your twenty workers on a spot, you get a resource, plus additional resources for how many other workers are already there. If I have four workers at the forest, when I place a fifth there I get five pieces of wood. There’s a unique, almost push-your-luck element to the way workers are handled. Do you dare place that eighth worker at the mines right now, getting you a bundle of gold but risking the wrath of your opponents for being too greedy?

Architects of the West Kingdom takes a well-loved, but saturated game mechanic and adds just enough of a twist to keep things interesting, without making it feel too remote or unfamiliar. I’m looking forward to the Architects of the West Kingdom : Age of Artisans expansion arriving sometime in 2020.

Godtear (2019)

After a few delays, Godtear has finally landed. And goodness is it fun.

Godtear is a blended board game and tactical miniatures skirmish game. That requires a little further explanation to fully understand and appreciate.

Typically when one hears “miniature game” the mind immediately goes to templates, tape measures, and lots of beautiful but expensive models. I know I certainly think of games with dozens and dozens of miniatures on a giant table, carefully pushed across terrain after meticulously measuring the distance, slowly advancing against the enemy for a battle that will last hours. That kind of gaming experience sounds incredibly interesting, but is one I personally don’t have the time or energy to invest in terribly often. Enter Godtear.

In Godtear you select three champions that come with a small handful of set followers, and try to be the first to gain five victory points. Every game is complete in five turns, with each turn worth different points; 1, 2, 3, 2, and 1. A turn is won by accomplishing various things, such as capturing territory, defeating champions, defeating their followers, and so on. The game is played on a hex grid board, and everything a champion or follower can do is explained on three cards.

The rulebook is short, clear, and concise. The mechanics intuitive and simple. Jes and I had a clear understanding of the basics and were well into our first game twenty minutes after opening the box, which is something I’ve never experienced with a miniatures game before. Yet alongside the ease of getting started I see glimpses of depth and strategy that can unfold after more plays.

Godtear is precisely the entry-level skirmish game I’ve been hoping for. Something that is easy to teach and quick to play, but still beautiful and strategic, all without costing an arm and a leg. I’m looking forward to diving more into Godtear in 2020.

PART II : JESSICA

I honestly cannot believe another year has escaped me. With our son turning one and shifting into toddler mode, if you had asked me what games I played this year I would've scoffed at you. Play? Games? With what time?! Yet when I looked back on all our social media posts, I was awestruck at how many we actually did play.

Last year, my criteria for a game making it to the table was a fun-to-ease ratio. I was still deep in the throes of a baby who woke every 2-4 hours at night and I could hardly remember what day it was, let alone a complex turn order. This year though, my tastes have shifted. In short, it's this: was the game memorable? When I look back on the posts that we made, do I actually remember playing the game or has it been lost into the minutiae of our hectic schedules? I know that's a subjective measurement, but as we grow within the hobby and play more and more, a game needs to be memorable and enjoyable to learn. In essence, the games I've chosen this year brought me wonder and not confusion.

Honorable Mention

Parks (2019)

Before I discussed my top 4 I wanted to talk briefly about Parks.

I waffled back and forth about putting it on my list. It’s gorgeous and not just because they used the Fifty-Nine Parks art series (which you will find if you visit any of the National Parks gift shops - we have a few prints that I purchased from Carlsbad Caverns that are simply stunning). The components inside the game are also incredible. The tiles are thick and satisfying to hold, the wooden resources are adorable, there’s an enamel hiker badge that serves as a first player token, and they even took the time to have a sensible, twig-shaped component holder. It’s actually crazy how much thought has been put into the production of this game.

For a lot of people, the production quality mixed with the easy gameplay is going to be enough. And it nearly was for me. I can’t quite place my finger on what it is that just doesn’t cut it for my top list, but it feels... almost there. There’s a Tokaido-like mechanism in this game where you move the hiker down the trail, collecting resources, taking pictures, taking actions, knowing you can’t go back. There is only forward. You win by collecting the most points, which is generally pictures and the acquisition of the parks cards themselves, alongside secret bonus objectives. Maybe I wanted something more on-the-nose, but it’s too abstracted from the theme for me to feel fulfilled after finishing the game. Don’t get me wrong. I still recommend this game to others, especially if they enjoyed Tokaido. It’s quicker than Tokaido and works so much better with two players. But for my personal taste it fell just a little short of something I imagined to be an epic cross-country sightseeing adventure.

No. 4

Walking in Burano (2018)

Okay, I’ll be honest. This game has some serious nostalgia factor for me. It takes me back to getting lost in Venice, stumbling upon hidden chapels and restaurants and the constant sound of lapping water and bustling crowds.

That being said, it’s a very fun, straightforward set collection and drafting game. Points are collected by diversifying your street and wisely choosing your tourists and inhabitants. The rulebook is concise with plenty of visual examples which is fabulous for a visual learner like me. And although I’m not colorblind, I appreciate that the designers modified the cards with symbology for easy recognition.

Also, the first player token is a cat. We talked about this last time with Cat Lady. Cats in games will always make my list!

No. 3

Architects of the West Kingdom (2018)

This was a surprise hit for me. I didn’t love the medieval theme and frankly would’ve just passed it on by if I was perusing the shelves. Shockingly, this is one of the games that has hit the table the most. We’ve played at both two player and four player counts and I’m pleased to say that our four player games weren’t perceptibly longer than ours at two. Often the more players are added to a game the more opportunities for agonizing decisions and dragging, especially between turns. While I’m certain four players took longer, it didn’t feel longer, if that makes sense.

Architects works differently than most worker placement games function. The longer the game goes on, the fewer workers there are left to place. In a normal worker placement game, you’re flush with workers the closer you get to the end, but in Architects you’re given all the options up front with every worker in the beginning. The start of the game is filled with plenty of tough decisions while trying to figure the best strategy, and to understand the consequences of what you choose to build. But by the end of the game the places all make sense, and while you have a plethora of choices for your workers, there’s really only a few viable options towards the path you’ve already established. It’s almost like a musical composition that starts off slow and lilting and then crescendos into a climax of frantic, decisive notes as all the players struggle to finish a few more things before someone triggers the end. And you had better have built on that cathedral!

No. 2

Tussie Mussie (2019)

Why is this simple little game my number two? Because Tussie Mussie fills a void in my heart I didn’t know I had: the quick card game that you can take anywhere and teach anyone. Like many people, I grew up on card games -not Magic the Gathering card games like James, but Old Maid, Go Fish, Rummy and the like. These were games I could play with my parents or my cousins and everyone was on board with the rules and strategy.

Although Tussie Mussie’s quick rules aren’t immediately intuitive, it only takes a round for the logic to set in. Draw two cards, offer one to your opponent face up and the other face down. They select one and you are left with the remainder. Continue taking turns until you fill out your tableau with four cards and then calculate points based on your flowers, and how they interact with each other. The rulebook does a nice, succinct job of explaining how to tally points. The game lasts three rounds, and each round the card abilities become clearer while the strategy sinks a little deeper. So often we look for the big boxes with the fancy covers and complicated rulesets that we overlook the meek, unassuming 18-card game that could get the most play and love.

No. 1

Everdell (2018)

I could probably write a thesis on how much I love Everdell. From its table presence with the big tree to the squishy berry components to the card art, it’s truly a gem. On the boughs are placed cards and seasonal workers. The tree trunk holds the massive deck of cards and scattered at the bottom are important event tiles. Across the river, a collection of beautifully produced resources: squishy berries, crystalline resin, smooth pebbles, and twigs. Beneath the resources, serving as a shared marketplace, are critter and construction cards that feature some of the prettiest art I’ve seen in any game. From this point it’s a relatively easy-to-understand worker placement game with a tableau building aspect. Place a worker and collect the benefits, or play a card from your hand or the shared marketplace, or move onto the next season, which fetches your workers and gives you more to work with. I always love when turns are distilled down to two or three options -it’s probably why I’m so fond of worker placement games.

I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of what each worker space does, but I will touch on a few details that are unique. First, once a construction is acquired, there’s a tag in the lower right that dictates what critter it can be paired with (and also stated in the upper left of critter cards). For free. Have a farm in your city? Well you can play the Husband or Wife from your hand or the marketplace for free. Free I tells ya! This is one of the critical aspects of the game that can really break impulsive people like me (Also I love free stuff). I’ll explain why after I mention the second pivotal detail: the city.

The city is what makes Everdell so distinct from other worker placement games. As you acquire critters and build constructions, you start by placing the easiest, cheapest, most immediately beneficial cards. But be careful, because your city can only hold fifteen critters and constructions and removing them once they’ve been placed is a very difficult task. You can’t just burn down the farm because you don’t need the stupid berries anymore. But now that you have it, well it sure is awful tempting to acquire the Husband. It is free after all. I mean free, if you have the extra space. Fifteen cards in your city sounds like an awful lot and you’re not using that empty space right now anyway...

Everdell is filled with decisions that seem innocuous at first, but by Autumn will have you scratching your head and lamenting your past choices while anxiously wondering if you can complete your masterpiece before the game is over.

James and I played this at two and four players, and we enjoyed both equally. My only knock is the tree with its boughs full of cards, while beautiful, will almost certainly wear quickly with repeated setups. Still, every other aspect of the game is, to put it in critter terms, pawfect.

PART III : DISCORD COMMUNITY

In 2019 we started a Discord channel, and it’s quickly grown to about a hundred local gamers all chatting daily on a variety of topics, especially games! We thought it would be fun to poll what everyone else’s favorite games were this year. Here are the top three results.

No. 3

Marvel Champions (2019)

“Marvel Champions is a cooperative living card game for 1-4 heroes. Players get to lace up their favorite heroes boots and fit into their spandex suits. Players switch from alter ego to hero form to thwart schemes and fight villains as well as their henchmen. With 5 heroes and three villains in the core set there is plenty here to play for awhile. The good news is that due to it being a living card game the creators will be periodically releasing more content, that means more heroes and more villains. Assemble your favorite team or play solo - either way this game is a great time.”

- Tim “Some who call me Kim” Greene

No. 2

Stuffed Fables (2018)

“Stuffed Fables is an adventure RPG with premade characters and maps, where the players take on the roles of stuffed animals protecting their child from the creepy monsters that skulk in the night. It's set up to make it easy for children to get their first taste of a tabletop adventure without having to deal with too many stats or character choices, and an easy dice-drafting mechanic resolves all actions. The game really shines as it gives plenty of time for story, and opportunities to play out the brave actions of the stuffed animals, though its difficulty might require a grown-up to maybe shift a die around here and there to help kids through. The game is aimed mostly at kids, but who doesn't occasionally want to be a heroic teddy bear on a quest to save her child's baby blanket?”

- Kyle “Hawkyle” Brown

No. 1

Wingspan (2019)

"Wingspan is a competitive engine-building game that anyone in the family can easily enjoy. The beautiful art, texturally-appealing tokens, and ubiquitous subject matter makes it an unintimidating prospect for a first time gamer to grasp. Once you get the mechanics down, the speed of the game picks up and it becomes a fight for who gets the finest feathered friend! It's easy to soar into the world of birds and fly away from the experience on the wings of value-engine gratification!"

- Lucinda “PixelDeerest” VerPlanck

"Crowtec is OP.”

- Josh “Josh Zurcher” Zurcher

As we move into 2020 there’s a handful of games on our horizon that we’d like to try -our Kickstarter copies of Altar Quest and Blood on the Clocktower, additional champion releases for Godtear, and a new Vampire : the Masquerade card game, in addition to a number of games that have been out for a while that we’ve not gotten to dive into yet. We’re looking forward to continuing to host you fine folks into 2020, and gaming vicariously through all of you! Have an awesome new year.