Top 10 Games of 2023 So Far

0:00 welcome to allies or enemies I'm Jess and I am Sean and this time we are talking about our top 10 games of the first half of 2023 so we always do these at the end of the year to talk about last year but we always find that we forget about the games from the beginning of the year because we move on to all those new games that come out at Essen and those take over everyone's brain so we thought you know what let's just let's preempt that let's talk about that stuff we're excited about at the beginning of the year while we're still excited about it and there are a few caveats because some of these technically are a 2022 release but weren't really available in English until this year so they're gonna go on our list yeah we're not going to count them if they were Germany only we're really counting it by when were they available in the UK and probably same time in the US actually I think the US sometimes gets them even later than we get it's great it's like the opposite of how movies work so we finally get something first but we are really excited to talk about all of these a couple of of them were provided but I think only two um and we'll mention those when we get to them but let's just let's just dive right into it number 10 is Disney animated and this was provided to us by the publisher Funko for a review and in Disney animated you are cooperatively trying to put together a Disney film in time for a deadline so you're building out a scene you're adding characters

1:31 um but in the meantime the villains are trying to thwart you from getting it done in time and how you're doing this is it uses this very similar system to Arc Nova or civilization New Dawn with the card actions getting stronger the longer they are left out so doing that in a Cooperative way I thought was pretty interesting yeah it's cool you gotta like get your characters out build your background add your pink colors all of this different stuff and you got to work together because as you move those obviously if one of them is at five it's really strong but if you move that to one now the other person can basically not do that because you really want to be using everything when it's at four or five so it's really cool actually to take that thing from Arc Nova and others and move that into a co-op space and I'm not that surprised because it's Prospero Hall and we just generally really like their stuff horrified as one of our favorite co-op games they're good with IPS and so this one it was a bit of a surprise for sure because I hadn't really heard of it and then we got it at ukg and we were really I think pleasantly surprised by what it offered yeah they tend to be really good at using interesting mechanics but for family weight games and that is our number 10. number nine is bamboo and bamboo is from the same designer as batoku and it's kind of set in the same world so it's Jermaine P Milan and it's if you've played batoku you'll recognize the art style right away and even some

3:03 of the characters I saw Kappa was one of the characters but this has got this really interesting um kind of action selection system where you've got the these little bamboo stalks and each one of them has a symbol on it and those symbols are for the four things you can do in the game and that's kind of getting decorations for your home getting money getting food to feed your family and having these goals for how your decorations are placed and there's this big part of the game where you're trying to balance how your decorations are within your home but you your decisions like what bamboo do I take because that bamboo gets different Spirits depending on the color of the actions and then you're moving up the actions to get other actions that you can use the next time and you're also trying to balance things and fill those goals and it's like a fairly simple space in terms of rules but it uses your brain yeah and it does come in a small box as well so I think that also is a little bit deceptive of thinking it's going to be a bit lighter than it is but that decision of the color leads to the area control aspect of the temples and that really can influence what you do and when you do it as well so it does lead to some interesting decisions I like that one of the families is a panda family yeah I wish there's more than because Jess always plays purple so she always gets the panda family I'm stuck with dumb people I wish that there were two pandas I would love to be a panda family too but and I love that devere size box it's that same size box as red

4:33 Cathedral and oh boy they they put a lot into those little boxes Luna capital I think was the same size box too I just I love those that sized of ear box those those are great uh so that is our number nine our number eight is Stomp The Plank and we played this for the first time at ukge and we played it because it was always popular there were always people playing always people watching and I got given it as a birthday gift which I was super happy about because it's silly and it's delightful it's a push your luck game where you have to flip cards but the longer you can go without getting a pair means that the more disc everybody else have to add to the end of this plank which is attached magnetically in a really cool way uh and then the heavier that gets and the further their elephants walk forward the more likely they're gonna fall into the Seas and and lose yeah it's it's the dichotomy of this game is that as you push your luck you put more more discs on everyone else but if you fail your elephant has to take a step forward and taking a step forward is a big deal because you can only go so far and we've had a lot of fun this is a game that it's not even that you just are going to play two or three times we play this like five or six times every time we play it like this is the sort of thing it's the same sort of feeling we got with strike where we just play strike over and over and over and over you just kind of getting a

6:03 rhythm of playing it this is a little bit along those lines and that Simplicity sometimes you just want that and the elephants look really cute and then the boat itself is actually the the box and the magnet system is genius uh and so that is our number eight our number seven is another one that was provided by the publisher but it is books of time and we've had time to play more of books of time and it's it's just such a clever action selection system where you're adding pages to these books and the pages have actions on them and as you do the pages as you do the if you take the book action you're doing both sides of the page and you're also doing this shared page and you're trying to put the pages in like an order and get certain pages and certain books to do these goals and get points along the way and it's just it's really it's such a clever interesting mechanic that I think works pretty well yes I do like the choice of the three different books that you're working off of so you do tend to have lots of options for what actions you want to perform but it just is also really satisfying to have it at the actual binder pages so you do have to like Snap open the binders and and pop them in and so that combination of it being functionally needed but also just very satisfying uh works really well yeah and it works well it's solo as well

7:34 I was surprised at what a solid solo game this is too but that is our number seven books of time number six is revive and this is one that I think I put on a this would make the top game of 2022 list if it had been available for us in 2022 because I thought I would really like it it's by the same designers as Trails of tucana yeah which is a bit of surprise it is a heavy game but you are different factions and you're able to explore a world um but what's really clever about it is the different tracks that you go out because as you get further on the tracks you're able to open up new abilities and those also combine to go on your scoring track too so it I don't know there's such a mishmash of things and mechanics that I think is put together in a really interesting way yeah I think like if you ask me what is kind of the main mechanic I would probably say it's cards it's like card play with the action selection but I could see someone else saying that this is about map management or this is about the actions on the board or this is about the I think really at the heart of it is probably the Combos and it it's really lining up those cards to be able to take off the blue things and then the blue things get you these other things and the theme does get a bit lost in

9:05 this I know that that is definitely been a complaint I think if it didn't tell you what the theme is I don't know that you'd guess it but I don't really care because it's just this combo full Euro and I love that and they did try to set it up as a campaign but it's really just slowly introducing you to bits you can put in at the start and that is our number six our number five is Earth and we had plenty of plays of this before we even purchased it because we were playing it on BGA quite a bit right at the beginning of the year and I know everyone was very excited about it at the start of the year and I think people maybe have got a lot of plays in and cooled off a little I'm not sure but it's a solid game and I think it fills kind of the same space as like wingspan as this is going to be one of those games that becomes kind of that next step after Gateway that a lot of people can get into it just has a really solid card Tableau building system that fits to these shared goals and as you each time as you choose one of the actions you're kind of going along and doing all of the cards that are able to do that action so you're trying to find these kind of combo chains of how to maximize those actions and how to maximize those actions on other people's turns because whenever anyone does anything you get something out of it so if anyone does the whatever the green is you get all of your green cards go off again and you get a lesser version of the main green action which is cool because I like games where I'm always involved yes I

10:36 think being able to do something on everyone's turn it just keeps it interesting throughout the game and the table building is interesting as well because you do really have to consider what goes next to things because often some of the goals will will tie in so it just feels like you're always doing these Combos and sometimes when you can pull off a really big turn like there can be a lot you can do in one turn it can feel really satisfying and I have seen that some folks say that they basically kind of solved this game that they figured it out that there's like a path towards like guaranteed winning I don't know that that's true I've even tried what they suggestion I can make it work um Jess is just a lot better at this point than me but I I haven't found that that happens yet so it might be the case it might not be the case but I think for most people for the vast majority of people who aren't just gonna die hard min max it and you could argue the same thing for the first versions of wingspan as well and I think an awful lot of people are still having a lot of fun with that game even if they weren't doing the the egg optimal yeah optimal egg strategy which I don't think works anymore so it still is a really fun game and a lot to explore I think and it is our number five number four is Village big box and I know Village is an older game but the big box version did come out this year and it does have all of the expansions included plus some new stuff so I think it is fair to be a 2023

12:07 game and this we've played this probably a dozen times it is is very interesting you have the different resources that go out and you are going through your generations of people to be able to collect those resources and perform those actions which also cost them time and anytime it goes past The Hourglass somebody has to die so you're trying to maximize your different Generations so that they end up being being famous in the village and I we we talk about this one quite a bit if we should include it or not and I had this in number two two I think because this whole list is us both doing separate lists and then smooshing our lists together and they were honestly they're fairly similar I think these top ones we had I had a very different number one than Jess and we'll talk about that when we get to them but this is just such a tremendous game and we played it so much this year it just felt like we had to include it on this list because if this was a brand new game this this would probably be my number one I really like this it's only only at four because it's a re-implementation and it's just such a genius game Inca Marcus brand do such great games I really like the style that they've got they've also did um rajas or the Ganges and they did the terrific Orlean expansion that makes it into a co-op game so they're so good at these Euro mechanics and for my money this is their best game yes

13:37 and it would be higher but because it's a re-implementation it ended up as our number four at number three we have tribes of the wind and we've had kind of an interesting Journey with tribes of the wind because I think the sweet spot for us is to play this as a two-person game and there is there's kind of a two-player variant so what the game is is you've got this world that's a little bit like nausicaa Valley of the wind if you're familiar with that where you're building out Villages and it's like this very nice kind of arboreally themed post-apocalypse it's like the prettiest post-apocalypse ever so you're building out this Village and then you've got these wind rider people you're moving into your village and you're putting up houses and all this stuff but how you mostly do that is you play cards and to play your cards you've got these little rules on the cards that are like you can play this if everyone has six of these or if you have the most of these compared to other people so you see the backs of their cards a bit like kind of Hanabi so when you play two players the deck becomes the other player's hand of cards which is great because now it's this whole other level of thinking about I want there to be like three yellows in this Row in the deck so I don't necessarily want to take a yellow because I want to play this and then I hope Jess doesn't take a yellow whereas when you play with more players you don't have that little extra level of control so actually I think this is a great hit too yeah it does work out more

15:09 it just takes longer and it takes away that that little extra element as you were saying because that there is factoring what car you're removing if you want to have more than than the bot which is not the bot but the row of cards which is your neighbor and one of the things that was I think surprising for us is how much of a race game this really is oh yeah because you do really want to try and achieve your goals but also get your your five Villages out which is the trigger for the end game as quickly as possible and and so anytime you do an action which doesn't feel really efficient can really cost you because it it you don't have so many turns and so you really want to maximize there's a lot of like oh do I play this to get this done and I I feel like the end sneaks upon me uh very quickly that could be because you always trigger the end and you always win but it always comes sooner than I expect which which is good yeah this is really a race game so you've got to be efficient and you got to be fast and it's beautiful and it's super fun and it's our number three our number two was actually Shawn's number one but I managed to squeak in our number one uh in the one spot so why don't you tell us about number two all right we'll jump out of order here because number one was just as number one because it was my number three I think but this was my number one with a bullet I love this game it is hegemony and Gemini is this it's weird that I

16:39 like it so much because it's so dry the idea of it it's a socio economic political game we have this giant board it takes up a hundred percent of the table even at just two players and you're playing as the working class the middle class the capitalists or the state and basically you're just trying to help your class you're trying to help your class succeed you're trying to help them succeed financially if you're the working class of the middle class you're trying to build up your health care and your education if you're the state you're just trying your best to make everyone happy if you're the capitalist you're just trying to make a whole lot of stuff in a whole lot of stores and make a whole lot of money and so you've got different goals these asymmetric goals but the game is kind of simple like it's complex in like when you look at the whole of it but when you look at kind of a turn you've just got seven cards in your hand everyone has fairly similar cards and you're just choosing one of those cards or one of your kind of five or six pre-action or main actions that you can do and those cards are usually add voting cubes because there's a vote at the end of each day or put out your workers and places or whatever those might be selling items to the store whatnot but the how it's all interconnected is so smart and they had people who actually are political scientists look at this to make sure that it like made actual sense I feel like I'm learning as I play this game it is really interesting how asymmetric it is your goals for the group that

18:10 you're being are completely different and you have it's very dynamic because you need to respond to the various situation because there you know there'll be times when you realize that if you're the working class and all of your workers are on the capitalist buildings then you're benefiting them so you might want to like strike or move them over to the state buildings so it's not only thinking about how you can progress your people but also are you actually kind of accidentally or just by by happenstance benefiting the other members as well and so this is can be really long um at two players you are limited to just being the working class and the capitalists and we really wanted to try everybody so we did try introducing one bot then we tried introducing two Bots and it was like four hours with two Bots it was and it took a lot of our brain but it was still a cool puzzle and and uh and what you're saying too about how you've got to make sure you're not helping people too much but you always are going to help people some so everyone's kind of working together begrudgingly much like in life and so everything you do is gonna help someone and it's hopefully gonna hurt someone else a little bit but you just have to do it and you have to hope you get a little bit more out of it but it's so it's so interesting and so tightly woven and that it works as well as it does is amazing to me but that is our number two it was my number one but averages is our number two and that is hegemony

19:42 our number one which was really my number one is uh dwarf romantic and this just blew my socks off it it seems really simple you are cooperatively building out a town and you've got various goals that come up so you need to connect your wheat fields and your forest and you need to try and make a very long river and a long train track as you go but there is just something you cut very Zen about the experience I just chills me right out and I like the cooperation we work well together trying to decide you know do we close off this for us to get the goal or pass it to keep it open in case we get another Gold Tile we can use for it so I don't it it just hits everything I like I love Todd placement games I love Cooperative games I love Campaign games and so I think for you this probably would have been higher if we were talking about it the first time that we had finished the campaign yeah I think as we got we started our second campaign I still love it and everything you say is totally true it's so chill it's so Zen it's just it's fun to do and we're doing the campaign slightly different this time and it does feel a little different and I can see us doing this campaign three or four times honestly We're not gonna like rocket our way through it like we did the first time but it's one that we're gonna play regularly especially if we're stressed and we just want a board game as a de-stressor yeah this does that perfect yeah and this is one I'll always want to play so Sean just has to say he's up for it and we are bringing the box out and

21:13 that is why it is our number one and that is it that brings us to the end of this thank you so much for watching I hope the video is okay I hope the sound is okay like I say our our camera is off at the camera doctors hopefully we'll have it back soon but in the meanwhile we've got this and yeah it's it's fun to talk about these games kind of halfway through the year and then it'll be interesting to look at it and at the end of the year and see how many of these stayed on list yeah when we do the big list over looking the whole year I feel like the at least the top three I'm gonna say I think the top three are going to be shoe-ins for the top 10 at the end of the year but we'll see what comes at Essence yeah these 10 I felt were all really good so I am intrigued to what else comes out but please do let us know in the comments what you've played from 2023 that you've really enjoyed because I'm sure we've missed some great ones so yeah there's ones I desperately want to play there's a couple um that we just haven't played in real life and uh next Station Tokyo that I think we're gonna love but I don't like to talk about it too much so I've like held it in my hands and I know do all the bits work well but those two for sure yeah we've played those like a dozen times at least on on UTA um but please as usual do like and subscribe and hopefully we'll see you next time for another game