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Ask HN: Best board games of 2022?

187 points| palidanx | 3 years ago

What are your favorite board games of 2022? I think saboteur might be kind of old, but it ranks for my favorite this year (as I just found out about it)

181 comments

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[+] vermaden|3 years ago|reply
Its not a 2022 board game - but I would really recommend Carcassonne with these two expansions:

- Traders and Builders [1]

- Inns and Cathedrals [2]

The base itself is little limited - but with these two expansions you have one of the best sets for a nice evening with friends. You can also add River or River II expansion - but they only 'divert' the beginning of the game - so you can omit them.

The Carcassonne is really a simple game - yet it takes real thinking and strategy to really master it.

What I like the most about Carcassonne is its 'minimalistic' approach. There are roads/cities/grasslands/monasteries ... and nothing else ... yet taking someone else' city or road is very important strategic move - or splitting the work between X players.

You do not need cards, figures, notes, calculators, excel or dice. You just play and move the cones on the scoring board.

Regards.

[1] https://carcassonne.fandom.com/wiki/Traders_%26_Builders

[2] https://carcassonne.fandom.com/wiki/Inns_%26_Cathedrals

[+] jamager|3 years ago|reply
The expansions are great, but I don't find base limiting at all!

I don't know any game that simple as versatile as Carcassone: you can play friendly or cutthroat, tactical or strategic, conservative or risky, focus on or ignore farmers...

+ Almost no setup, fast turns, equally good at any player count, you end up with a good looking map... this game is a jewel

[+] SmooL|3 years ago|reply
Going to second Carcassonne, and say that one thing I really like about the game is that's almost purely contextless, in that it doesn't require you to hold long-term strategy/ideas/concepts in your head for extended periods of time. If you showed up to the middle of the game, and were told to play the turn for somebody, largely you could. This makes it a great casual game with friends, as a long continuous attention span isn't really required.
[+] evanb|3 years ago|reply
I tend to play with the River and Inns and Cathedrals. We also play with a house rule that you have a hand of 3 tiles to alleviate some of the draw-dependence of whether a strategy is successful or not.
[+] jacobp100|3 years ago|reply
They’re good expansions if you’re playing with more than 2 people. If it’s just 2 people, the base game without the river really is the best. The tiles are far more limited so there’s the strategy of making sure it’s impossible for your opponent to complete some of their features and trap their meeples for the remainder of the game
[+] sverona|3 years ago|reply
It's not new at all, but Cosmic Encounter blew my mind wide open. It's far and away the most chaotic board game I've ever played. I love it.

The object of the game is to occupy ten planets (you start with five) via combat, negotiation, or shenanigans. Each player drafts two unique powers, each of which breaks the rules somehow. Just for instance, in the last game I played, one player had the power "you start with ten planets, but your planets are only worth half." Eventually I won by causing this player to swap places, but not powers, with me. Some such BS happens every single game, and never the same way twice.

[+] cableshaft|3 years ago|reply
Of the games that came out this year:

- Mosaic (disclaimer, I know the designer), Bullet Star, Planet Unknown, Fjords, Long Shot: The Dice Game, Wonderland's War

2022 releases I have but haven't gotten to the table yet:

- Eleven (waiting for it to arrive), Vagrantsong, Resurgence, Caesar!, Mind Bug, Puzzle Strike II, Creature Comforts, Verdant

Best "New to me" games for 2022:

- Memoir '44, Imperium Classics, Ark Nova, Res Arcana, Trekking the World, Nemo's War, Scout, Downforce, First Class, My City

I finally played Memoir '44 for the first time, and man is it amazing. My new favorite game, edging out Spirit Island. I now have a regular person I play with online and have racked up 25 games of it just this year, working our way through all the scenarios (of which there's a ton). The online version at BoardGameArena is excellent.

Best board game-like video game I played in 2022: Inscryption. Basically a "Slay the Spire" style deckbuilder mixed with a creepy vibe mixed with an escape room mixed with...well, you should play it and find out for yourself.

[+] moviedo|3 years ago|reply
Games I've NOT played, but am interested in playing/buying that were released in 2022.

Great Western Trail Argentina(I have the 2021 reprint/update of GWT and this one seems even better)

Decorum

Woodcraft

Terracotta Army

Golem

[+] aussieshibe|3 years ago|reply
I found it difficult to get into Inscryption. I loved Slay the Spire (450 hours played and counting), especially Spire With Friends.

Inscryption never grabbed me. Maybe I need to give it another go.

[+] TheMaskedCoder|3 years ago|reply
Wingspan (2019) was my favorite new (to me) game. I like that you can strategize and compete without directly getting in each other's way. It's great if you're tired of making enemies during games.

Other long term favorites are Castles of Burgundy, Scythe, and Viticulture.

[+] maest|3 years ago|reply
> I like that you can strategize and compete without directly getting in each other's way.

You may be aware of this - this genre is called Eurogame

https://boardgamegeek.com/wiki/page/Eurogame

It's the type of game where you don't directly or fully interact with your opponents (at most, you can usually indirectly block one of their moves, but that's about it). People seem to like the less adversarial playstyle as there are many successful games in this genre: Catan, Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico, Carcassone etc.

[+] brendanmc6|3 years ago|reply
I’m a huge fan of Eurogames but I regret buying Wingspan, it is an absolute bore. After 5 or 6 games it became kindof a meme in my family. “What shall we do now? A round of bird game?”

Beautiful packaging and pieces though! And it’s very cool that it works single player and two player. But nothing eventful at all happens, and nobody feels any compelling reason to rack up points.

So many other great games in the genre though.

[+] raspyberr|3 years ago|reply
Ahh interesting. I played Wingspan before it came out and thought it was pretty good and talked about it. Then I got it and played it a few times and it hit me how uninteractive and solo focused the game is and I just got bored. You can't plan a strategy and instead have to just get random stuff. That also means it's terrible to try to counter your opponents strategies because you can't predict what they're going for. Agricola is the gold standard for me. You're focusing on your own goals but it's very important to see what your opponents want too. Wingspan is like playing darts. It basically doesn't matter if you even have an opponent. Yawn.
[+] tejohnso|3 years ago|reply
Came here to mention My Little Scythe for those who want to include younger children. Zombie Kids Evolution is good too.
[+] PopDipNapFit|3 years ago|reply
Upvote for Wingspan precisely for the reason stated. A competitive game, but without conflict. It has become the family favorite and there are so many different strategies to experiment with.
[+] lmm|3 years ago|reply
You might enjoy Caverna.
[+] spiffytech|3 years ago|reply
What do you like about Viticulture?

I know it's well-loved, but when my wife and I tried playing it we found it dull and tedious. I'm curious if we're just missing something.

[+] greenie_beans|3 years ago|reply
> It's great if you're tired of making enemies during games

this is what my family needs.

also, i heard this is a good game. might get it.

[+] mercutio2|3 years ago|reply
It’s funny how different everyone’s definition of “of 2022” is; I play enough board games that I expected this to be all about 2022 releases, but most of the conversation is about 5-20 year old games!

In 2022 I’ve been focusing on very fast games, to add to my group’s repertoire of mostly mid-to-heavy games. Nidavellir and Jumpdrive both have been fun, here.

My favorite game of the last 5 years is Res Arcana with or without expansions; it’s a fun enough engine builder to appeal to most folks, but has high enough returns to skill to feel like it’s worth investing more plays in.

The most surprising hit for me this year is Star Wars: Rebellion. I’m not generally an Ameritrash fan, and I usually prefer 3-4 player evenings, but if you’ve got 2-3 hours with a single friend and even mildly enjoy the Star Wars atmosphere, it’s an asymmetric game which has felt epic every time I’ve played, win or lose.

[+] mcv|3 years ago|reply
I too took it as 2022 releases, not older games. Otherwise, I'd ask simply for "best boardgames". There were a ton of fun releases this year, well worth a post and a discussion.
[+] solardev|3 years ago|reply
I've heard good things about Rebellion. Can you describe it in more detail? What do you like or don't about it, and are there any games it's similar to?
[+] dmnd|3 years ago|reply
The Crew (2019). Approachable but interesting co-op trick taking with communication restrictions and 50 missions for replayability. If you liked Hanabi, you might end up spending more time on this.
[+] Archipelagia|3 years ago|reply
Skull [1] has been my favorite one this year – it's basically a bluffing / negotitation game. The specific version I linked has particularly beautiful design of cards.

And while it's not exactly a boardgame, this year I finally got into DM'ing D&D campaign – it's more time consuming that I expected, but very satysfying.

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/92415/skull

[+] maest|3 years ago|reply
Skull is definitely in my top 5 games. Love the simplicity.

If you like games which distill the notion of bluffing, you should also try Perudo. Very similar to Skull, but it uses dice.

[+] LesserEvil665|3 years ago|reply
I've described my play style to friends thusly: ALWAYS. SKULL.
[+] GuB-42|3 years ago|reply
It may be from 2021 but we have been playing Stella a lot lately.

It is (I think) a more strategic variant of the game Dixit and it is played with the same cards, so if you already own Dixit, you can use it as an extension to Stella and vice versa. The idea is that you have a randomly selected word and 15 randomly selected cards with surreal illustrations face up on the table. Each player has to chose a certain number of cards that he thinks represent the word. If you are the only one to pick a card, you lose, if someone else picked the same card, you both win points.

[+] thelibrarian|3 years ago|reply
Favourite game from this year: John Company 2nd ed. Very complex, but in an interesting, understandable, and thematic way.

Favourite old game discovered this year: The King is Dead. An area control game with restrictions that interact in very interesting ways.

Perennial favourites:

Orleans - the most played game at my weekly board game group. Worker placement and deck building combined.

Concordia - a great resource collection game, plays well from 2-5 players with no rules changes

Hansa Teutonica - brilliant worker placement game. Looks bland, plays well, and now comes in a well-priced box with all expansions.

[+] pinusc|3 years ago|reply
John Company 2nd edition is a fantastic game.

Instant favourite, the smoothest rules (I could not have imagined a game with this complexity could flow so well and have a manual so easy to navigate) Insanely good player interaction, at no time boring, and there's basically no downtime. Paying attention to other players is necessary and effortless. Paired with great rulebook and well defined order of actions, this made my first game flow incredibly well—even though the short scenario took over 6 hours. 2-3 hours in we all felt like we had been playing for 45 minutes.

True competitive co-op, nothing like terraforming Mars (which is co-op in flavor only). You generally want the company to do well while skimming a bit more off the top than your opponents.

And the game does not abstract away the horrible things you do. It's very clear that the players are not the good guys. Power is central to John Company, and not just in the sense of "might", although military strength s important—in the sense of political and economical power, unchecked except by those who would like that power for themselves.

10/10 might not be enough of a rating

[+] krlx|3 years ago|reply
Concordia Venus is an all time favorite here. I love it's balance between deck-building and worker placement mechanisms.

Just discovered Hansa Teutonica last week and it looks very interesting although the first game was frustrating as there is a lot to learn.

[+] moviedo|3 years ago|reply
Up from me, I LOVE Hansa Teutonica. I'm too lazy to buy the Big Box as I already have the original print. Wished it had better 2 player mechanics.
[+] Fuzzwah|3 years ago|reply
I played boardgames 251 times in 2022.

Here's the play counts of games we played at least 3 times in 2022, dumped from the BGStats app I use to track plays.

45: Azul

36: The Isle of Cats

36: Tsuro

22: Lost Ruins of Arnak

15: Luxor

14: Hive

9: Carcassonne Big Box 6

9: Forbidden Island

6: Everdell

6: Project L

5: Watergate

4: Endless Winter: Paleoamericans

4: Paint the Roses

4: Hidden Leaders

3: Paris

3: Lift Off! Get me off this Planet! Expanded Deluxe Edition.

All plays are with physical copies of the games.

The Isle of Cats quickly became our family favourite. We play it with our two kids (8 and 6) in "family mode", and in normal mode with our gaming group. Highly recommended.

Lost Ruins of Arnak is wonderful at 2, 3, or 4 players. The Leaders expansion is worth it to add some more depth.

Luxor is my 6yo's favourite game, but don't let that make you think it's only a kids game. We have all the expansions and there's really a heap of scope in the game.

The Everdell plays were with the New Leaf expansion, and it really brought back my enjoyment of the game. It solved a lot of the problems I'd had with the base game (mostly related to the meadow cards getting stale if no-one wanted them).

Endless Winter felt a little "mechanics soup" to me, but it's solid. Unlike Arnak, it also felt like it wasn't very well balanced across the various things you could focus on.

Hidden Leaders was the stand out 6 player game.

I really love Paris and want to play it a heap more.

Azul, Tsuro, Hive are all worth picking up as "lets just have a quick game" options.

Games we only played once so far but are very keen to play more: Mosaic, Rococco, Windward, Paladins of the West Kingdom.

Edit: my kids and I had a quick little "test play" of Forgotten Depths and I'm really keen to play it with them a heap over the holidays. A co-op dungeon crawler style game with 3 female characters. The design is really sweet.

[+] matty22|3 years ago|reply
Hive Pocket is maybe the best "play it on an airplane tray table" game around.
[+] mcv|3 years ago|reply
> Endless Winter felt a little "mechanics soup" to me, but it's solid. Unlike Arnak, it also felt like it wasn't very well balanced across the various things you could focus on.

Endless Winter was super popular at Spiel, with endless lines of people waiting for the tables to play it, but I was a bit disappointed by it. "Mechanics soup" is a good description. I felt Ruins of Arnak was a lot more cohesive.

[+] drittich|3 years ago|reply
Forgotten Depths sounds really cool - I can't figure out when it will be available though!
[+] RangerScience|3 years ago|reply
New to me: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/317985/beyond-sun AKA "Tech Tree".

There's enough going on that it can hold my attention, but, each turn is super simple. And now that I think about it, while there's strong degree to which it feels like an engine builder, it mostly isn't. You do get combos, but they tend to be one-turn things. It's got the right mix of determinism and random; RNG won't win or lose you the game, but every game is going to be at least a bit different because of it.

Also new to me: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/342942/ark-nova AKA "Zoo Mars", since we like it for many of the reasons we like Terraforming Mars, although it's simpler, and turns go by faster. It does have a bit of an issue in that poor card draw on your part (or, in one game, excellent card draw on one player's) can lose you the game, as you do build an engine but not all cards will work with the specific engine you're building.

[+] jbm|3 years ago|reply
The best game I played in 2022 was probably Northern Pacific (which was made by Tom Russel, the creator of Irish Gauge and Iberian Gauge.)

Northern Pacific is a surprising mix of train games (which are often long and complex) and a party game with surprising strategic space. You only have two options, but the impact on other players is real. However, as the game ends in 15 minutes, you don't get the same feelings of betrayal and anger that you'd get playing something like Chinatown.

I strongly recommend it. I also recommend Irish Gauge and Iberian Gauge, but those require a bit more of a time investment (1-2 hours) and Iberian Gauge is a bit too complicated for even well-behaved children under the age of 10 or so.

-edit- I just realized it was released in 2013, but I bought it this year so :shrug:.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/138704/northern-pacific

[+] akuchling|3 years ago|reply
Note that the designer is now named Amabel Holland. I think the boxes for Irish Gauge all use her old name, though; they were printed a little too early!
[+] bkandel|3 years ago|reply
Spintronics! It's a puzzle game where you build mechanical equivalents of electrical circuits. It has capacitors, transistors, inductors, etc. Just got it this past weekend (bought it after the Kickstarter ended) and it's really cool.
[+] tasuki|3 years ago|reply
> What are your favorite board games of 2022?

Res Arcana - I've learned it a couple weeks ago and been enjoying it. It's light enough to learn quickly, yet I still have lots of depth to discover, seeing how my friends always destroy me.

Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization - I've played it before a couple times, but really only got into it more this year. Never fails to create strong emotions for me. I play async online and suspect that playing live the game might drag out a bit.

> I think saboteur might be kind of old, but it ranks for my favorite this year

Eh, why? If you're a saboteur you can pretend you're a good guy but that's just bad play. You might like Bang too, it has a similar mechanic.

[+] jeremymims|3 years ago|reply
Not a board game… but highly recommend Magic Puzzle Company puzzles as gifts for family and friends who aren’t quite ready for intense games. A bonus is that Susan Kare (of Apple/Next fame) designed the logo and branding.

https://www.magicpuzzlecompany.com/

[+] abustamam|3 years ago|reply
Oh yay, more puzzles!

In the same vein, I really enjoyed Vizzles [0] which is a regular puzzle with themed "riddles/puns" (the ones we've done so far were plays on words of movies and books), and also Odd Pieces [1], in which you construct a puzzle that is _slightly_ different from what you see on the box (the "lore" is that the puzzle you construct is at a moment in the future of the scene played out in the box).

I found these to be refreshing twists on typical puzzles, which we enjoy a lot as well.

[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samuelmilham/vizzles-vi... [1] https://oddpieces.com/

[+] tstack|3 years ago|reply
Yes, my wife and daughter really loved The Mystic Maze puzzle and the "secret" was a real treat.
[+] thdc|3 years ago|reply
Personally a big fan of ones with co-op elements (I'd guess all of these were released earlier than 2022)

- Eldritch Horror

- Fury of Dracula

- Betrayal at House on the Hill

- Nemesis

- Spirit Island

- Pandemic

And for the not-so-complex list

- Hanabi (more of a card game)

[+] IlPeach|3 years ago|reply
Still love Pandemic. I find it really well done, and quite unique on being a cooperative game.
[+] pmontra|3 years ago|reply
If I have to limit myself to the boardgames I learned this year I'd say Ark Nova and Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition. I think they are from 2021.