Spotlight Cast - Our Favorite Games of 2021

0:02 all right we are we're live we're live hey everybody it's derek and lizzy and we've got a lot of friends we're gonna go around the room i think if i go this way we'll go to uh that guy over there clockwise there's three of us i don't know if that means right here right here uh i think i mean james uh you may have remembered me below i think below me is ruelle yeah hi i'm ruel gabiola you can find me on the rotter runs through channel good looking kickstarter's rebecca scott and my own twitch channel tabletop tonight i'm going to throw it over to that guy right there jimmy hey i'm jimmy i'm over on board game closet and excited to be here today to talk about some good games let's do it huh yeah we're gonna we're gonna kick this off this is our favorite games of 2021 and this is going to be a little different we're not going to do a top 10 of each of us we're going to go around uh you know talking about probably we're hoping to get through five games but the rest of this list will be posted online to the social medias so if there's a game that you're like oh i can't believe they didn't talk about this well you know what maybe you know hold off you might see it on on the list when it's posted or yell on this that's fine too sure don't forget why we're wrong that's that's even better tell us in the comments what we missed uh james why don't you start us off what now do you do do you want to go five four three two one or do you just want to start off hot with your favorite that's what i want to do all right backgrounds in my book you

1:32 know we want to go around everybody do their number five everybody do number four and we just uh we break it up that way yeah yeah i like it so this is where you know if we had a really awesome graphics team or and it'd be like number five right so for me my number five was red rising um a big fan of the book series uh i actually only picked it up i actually it's really weird i bought the book before jamie announced this right and i wanted to read it because i was like ah dystopian space sounds cool uh but it said on my bookshelf forever and then when he announced it i was like okay i'm reading it got it read uh and then i've read the first i'm on the fourth book now there's f i think five in the series uh great series if you like that sort of thing it gets really good in book two so if you're like book one wasn't okay get to book two and book three they're like wow they're real good get your heart ripped out a few times specifically though for the for the game i you know i really enjoy the card play in the game it's really different it's really weird there's a lot going on every game is vastly vastly different it's easy to set up and get played and everybody in our house likes it so that made it a top played game right it was we probably played it 20 or 25 times and that doesn't happen with a lot of games for us wow that's a lot of plays it was just like we would just leave it out on the table right and like who wants to play tonight they're like yup so that's really cool remember number

3:05 five for me was red rising awesome next all right yeah what you got my number five is an expansion um for twilight imperium called twilight imperium prophecy of kings okay now this contributed to my longest ever play game i played this game for 12 hours back in november so i played it exactly one time and it was mind-blowing it was um i mean if you're a fan of twilight imperium i would say this is a must get but i'm not gonna lie you you've got to put some time into it i mean this is not a filler game this is not a three-hour game this is a full day of gaming you got a plan for snack breaks you need to plan for nap breaks you need all that yeah listen i gotta take 30 all right i'll be back exactly you know and the thing is like i played with um normally these uh twilight imperium games will take long because there's usually at least one new player i played a six player game with all veteran players it still took us 12 hours so yeah not to scare one anyone off but it is a commitment and maybe you can say that you need to be committed but no it's good but it's it's so good it's it's everything i love about toronto it's epic it's a space opera in a box and that's why it's my number five game of uh last year wow no i get it yeah that's it over here he gets it nap breaks they're essential oh yeah definitely hey we've got tom in my group not this time but my tom from my game group he takes naps when we explain rules so he gets them in whether no

4:36 matter the game and we just know that's part of playing games with tom you guys i love you tom don't yell at me jimmy what's your number five number five um is juicy fruits you all played this one right oh my goodness we were talking originally we were trying to figure out how we're gonna do this list and we we batted around an idea of all of us throwing in one game that had to be on the list and this was mine so it's not my number one game of the year but it's it was the game that i thought it's got to make it onto the list and it's just so good it's just this cool game about sliding these things around the board and it's so stinking satisfying to just slide it across the board and get a whole bunch of stuff and it's a it's almost like a puzzle where you're trying to figure out if i slide this one here and then i'm gonna slide that one over there to get what you need to turn it in to get you some amazing victory points that we all love it's just a great fun game with some really cool chunky components you know they're not necessarily special but they're just cool and nice and big right so it's a great game you should pick it up and you'll see you'll see that one on my on my top ten not in my top five but there's a little sneak peek but lizzy and i loved playing that one we did we enjoyed it we played it quite a few times yeah it was really fun and then we had to learn all the fruit because it's oh yeah you're right so like we're looking up what is a mango what is that what is it yeah so that was fun to like be introduced to some new fruits that we hadn't heard of before

6:08 i'll be honest i thought they made it up so now i'm i'm learning something right now i know i don't know one thing i did like about um juicy fruits as well it has a really cool solo mode uh if you if anyone's out there in the solo games it's really easy to implement you basically just turn over one of the player boards and you just have this little uh track that you go around and you have like a limited number of turns to try to get as many points as you can really fun solo mode i haven't yeah i've only played the basic solo mode there's another one that's a little more advanced but i lost to the basic mode so i'm just sort of like i need to slow down a few more times you admit it okay that's i like it i like it what was your number five um my number five is fun fair uh so we really enjoy unfair but i don't enjoy all the mean stuff so every single piece so fun fair just really fixes that problem for us it streams lines uh some stuff adds just a few new things to make it feel different and i think it's fantastic yeah i love the building up your park and then you can add like all the upgrades and all the things to your you know your roller coasters or your your side shows or whatever you have and it's a lot of fun it's really satisfying the card combos this it really is a very an unfair is the same in that way to me yeah but you're right there's definitely some like there could be some feel bad it can be mean it can be very mean and i do not like me that's true

7:40 but here's the thing though like you're just a lot better at games so like if you're mean in the game you're just going to crush me even worse so i'm okay with let's play like i'm very focused on my own board so like when something gets messed up i'm like no i have it planned out for the next turn and now you've just like ruined everything so no you know i've heard that about fun fact i've heard a lot of people say it's you know it's a nicer version of unfair so do they just take out the take that stuff or is there like a new new elements as well they updated like a couple things they streamlined some stuff so it's not exactly the same game so cool if you've learned how to play unfair you can seamlessly slip into fun fair pretty easily but there are new things there are some changes yeah i would think one failure for me is is it is a streamlined is a great way to put it right like it's easier and faster to get to the table and it's a quicker teach but it is essentially the same game um i think for for me though unfair like with all the expansions that it has

8:46 you can yeah that's the world peace yeah like that's typically when we play we play with that yeah so i and i would just want to say like i've had a lot of people say oh do i want unfair fun fair i think there's room for both fun fair is more streamlined but if you want to go like massive like bigger presence with a lot of expansions and get unfair yeah there's so many choices there's so many combos i like having both my collections i just have to be prepared that people are my people there's a smaller box too so i can just throw the backpack and unfair it's kind of big so nice yeah yeah okay derek what is your name my number five game of the year is hadrian's wall from garfield games uh this one for me completely changed what a roll and write can do like or a flipping right whatever x and right like the fact that this was one of the heaviest flipping rights that i'd ever played and incorporated worker placement into it completely like flipped that genre on its head and i this to me is is a classic i i will have this in my collection for a long time mm-hmm it's about a game that made me take a nap hadrian's wall and it's not because i was bored it was because my brain turned to much like i literally need to power down for a little while and let my brain reset because that is but i love that i love the systems and the levers and all these like intricate

10:17 ins and outs and if you've played shem's other games right it is a lot easier to pick up because if you played architects and if you played uh paladins you understand his mythology and how it works together and so they always look like a lot and then as you get through you're like okay i see this that works together the savants do that they they say oh it looks like it is a lie and for us

10:46 i literally have a copy of hatred while on the way right now i can't wait yeah i've been dying to play it for a while i i just played three sisters which was another crunchyroll right and i was like james like my first game my mind steam was going on in my head yeah there was so many combos like in three sisters they literally have a space on your scorecard for notes you can take notes and i'm like oh my gosh it's like homework but i love it it's it's fantastic and that's why i'm looking forward to hadrian's wall as well i know it's kind of similar it is you're gonna you're gonna enjoy that really for sure number four james number four for me is cascadia um for me you know and there's a lot of games that do these mechanisms right the whole like we're going to pair up different things together and you're picking this combo of thing and then you're putting it down into your tableau in some way that's advantageous for yourself a lot of games that do this in a lot of different ways for me i think cascadia there's something special about it you know that really makes it stick out amongst everybody else and i can't other than this it's very pleasant to look at um and it's very easy to set up and get played um we and this is going to sound bad but that i've only ever played the family scoring version i've never played any of the other 87 different scoring combos they have in the in the game because we just really enjoy i'm

12:18 just mostly playing with sandra and parker and stella and so we don't we don't need to get more complicated um i've played it i i've seen the other game group play it with the game group folks and they were all like talking about like oh this doesn't it's like nope i'm just going to keep it nice and simple thank you very much so uh for me uh we that was also got played a a lot it's when we got it we picked it up for a while and played it a bunch so cascadia is my number four from aeg number four nice it's such a great game and i i may have something to say about in a picker that's one of the ones that got away that we didn't get a chance to play and i've seen a lot of people talk about it so it's going to go in the short list of things that we need to we need to check out do we have a copy no we don't have a copy but we really enjoy calico and i like child placement games i liked it better than calico only because calico for me i don't normally have ap but calico gives me ap yeah uh and cascadia just seems a little more fluid in the way that you place things and i've never had any ap for that so okay i agree i agree nice rewell number four my friend number four um terraforming mars aries expedition oh okay this i'm gonna i'm gonna just throw this out there let's i want to hear the comments um uh from folks but i think this replaces terraforming mars for me i love turn for mars but aries expedition does the exact same thing in a shorter amount of time

13:48 less setup less cleanup and it adds the race for the galaxy action selection you know i think it's just a really good combination of everything i mean i love terraforming mars i mean i i still have my copy but this is the one that's going to hit the table more often in the very near future i i think it's a winner all around what they did with the you know that action selection i thought was just brilliant and um i absolutely love it and that's why it's my number four yeah i got to play that one and i actually didn't really care for original terraforming mars it wasn't that it was bad it just yeah it didn't catch me but then i played errors and i said okay well this is the version i definitely if you want me to play i jump in on that one so yeah yeah yeah like terrifying mars the original like the og one i would say it's more of a slow burn especially if you don't have the prelude expansion it's like those first numbers come on you're there's you're doing nothing it's just like one little thing but aaron's expedition sort of you know cuts out a big chunk of that and it's like let's let's get to the game you know let's just start playing and stuff like that you do lose a couple of things um there are things that they've taken out and streamlined like some of the resources and stuff but i think it's all for the better and that's why i love it and another one that has a solo mode which i haven't cracked yet but i'm sure i'll lose to it real soon i love it all right jimmy okay uh my number four is uh fairy tale inn have you heard of this one it is yeah

15:14 so yeah i was walking through my local game store and i saw this thing that looked like tip or not tic-tac-toe connect four and i was like well no and so i walked by and i just kept looking around i said well i got to go back and see what this is about so it it literally has like the board like tic tac or connect four where you drop things in uh but you're scoring points so you're dropping in these tiles and then you're scoring points in all different kinds of ways and to be honest i can't remember what those are offhand specifically you know like there's a one that's all about who's adjacent to you and then there's one about if it's in a diagonal line or if you have the most of the same character on a row i think those uh anyways i can't remember what they are but it is such a cool game it is just such a smart idea that is so simple you're just choosing these tiles as they come out you could buy more expensive ones if you want and then you just drop them in and there's something very satisfying very childlike remembering you know back as being a kid and you drop that in and you score points and uh it's great because it is only a two player game which might not be a good selling point for some people but just like connect four you have that me versus you kind of across the table thing and you drop it in and um it's just it's easy to explain uh to kids but it's engaging enough for me as an adult that i would play this game with anybody it's i wouldn't just play this with my kids the artwork's great it's i can't remember i don't think it was expensive so it's well it was part of it was part of like one of simon's 10 million dollar

16:46 campaigns i believe oh right it was a scene one game it's a semen game isn't it yeah fairy tale yeah yeah they put it on kickstarter i think it raised like 10 million dollars because simon only does 10 million kickstarters right that's the only thing he's bringing the salt he's bringing the skull okay um

17:15 what's really cool that we liked about it is you get a bunch of these different the fairy tale characters but there's a different mix that you use in the bag every time and so you're drawing out the different like for the market and as you come out you know you're selecting what you want to take to then drop in on your side so jimmy's exactly right obviously i played this with the kids but i'd play this with adults and it's a great gateway game because everyone can connect to connect four and they have that memory of playing it right so you know you can be like you can if you're looking to inch some people over you know into gaming this is a this would be a really great game to have in your collection my only complaint is that it doesn't have that thing on the bottom to like drop down it's got to be like a patented thing or something but i just i kept wanting to hit the button and make them all drop but that's my number four oh that's great my number four is uh unsettled and i think it will be popping up again soon hopefully um but this is from orange nebula it's a cooperative game orange nebula designs just incredibly unique incredible experiences uh unsettled is unlike anything i've ever played before so you have your explorers in space you're landing on different planets and there's different scenarios each planet is different so we've done winora i think winora the first one they tell you it's like the spores and fungi yeah yeah i did a

18:45 water planet yeah i don't remember the name of that one they give you some kind of objective and you're just trying to complete whatever that is it's i mean it's an incredible experience and it's like one of those things where you discover as you go so i don't want to say anything and like ruin anything but sure it's fantastic yeah i'm not gonna say anything because i'm not talking about the possibly i'd like to say about orange nebula is they are a company company after my own heart um because i think you know as they design their their projects and their games the player experience is at like the forefront of everything that they're doing and that's that those are typically the games that's like really sing with me uh and it's something that when we make our games like that i really focus on is like how are we making a player feel do they feel epic do they feel like they're doing something cool you know um and they they do it they they may do it the best i don't know like they're unbelievable so that's cool yeah i've never played that i've never played anything by them so i need to jump on that train huh yes you should you should try it for me hold on hold on wait a second i i this isn't you've got to play vindication are you kidding me right now i hope thomas isn't watching this video you're fired like go play vindication until you go play vindication you know what i was going to remove you from the remove you from the video

20:15 kick them out that was all derek would talk about he was like calling people on the phone and talking to him for like hours because he's just playing vindication it is it is this sounds life-changing it's a it's an experience it's honestly kind of an experience come on jimmy oh no tom tom's here jimmy okay sorry sorry derek do you have a number four no of course i don't have a number four i i needed that thing of course i haven't one for him everything's a number one listen my whole list is number one uh anno 1800 from cosmos this is uh based on a game a resource management video game not necessarily civilization themed um because you are strictly staying to your own country for most of it and trying to build up your own infrastructure and you know make your civilization like your little country better so i really i really appreciate that aspect of the game and martin wallace did this version and knocked it out of the park we i actually this is the only game one of two games i took to origins with me i actually took it out of the box threw it in lizzie helped me like pack it so i could like get it into my luggage because i had to take bring it and play with some of my friends and it was so good lizzie and i played it a bunch of times and it plays pretty quickly that's one of the things i like about it is players turns are are pretty quick um so it goes around the table now the game itself is pretty pretty long

21:45 because there's a lot of things happening and different in-game triggers and such um but the way that you use your hand management and the resource management it all just sings together really well and it's uh it's a good it's a good game it is it's fabulous i've yeah this is another one that i've heard a ton of great things about haven't been able to play it yet uh just a little quick cross promotion over on the ronald rescue channel rado and i are doing our top 100 games of all time and i anno 1800 just made it on his list um already wow yeah and i'm a martin wallace fan so i i'm looking forward to it yeah yeah yeah and it uses worker placement too because you've got different stages of workers and um then it's got a really cool like worker upgrading system where you're trying to but you don't want to you need to diversify you can't just have all of like high society because if you have all high society then you're going to like you're going to need the worst of those lower the yeah the resources yeah so it's it's a really cool delicate infrastructure nice james number three three number three uh for me is ankh uh another simon game uh on the old list or come on whatever whatever oh sorry uh whatever the name of their company is you know this one i really i really enjoy what eric lang and the design team went for on this right they didn't they're there this isn't like a we're just going to reskin something that we

23:17 like they went for something really ambitious with the whole um melding into the two the two last place players joining together and and forming together um i thought at first like that kind of put me off i was like i don't know that that sounds weird but then i was like well now i'm curious i just want to play it to see maybe it's so much better we've enjoyed it every time because typically in like if you're playing um rising sun and you're in fourth place yeah going into some of the last rounds you're not gonna win like you rarely got the hail mary set up to really come back him in um and and so i think it does a really great job of letting those last two players have the opportunity to really challenge the people that are in first and second and make them really think but uh it's it's so versatile there's so many different ways to set the game up there's uh i've played it i've played it i think five or six times at this point and we've played it with the expansion material gotta play it with the expansion material that makes the game the pharaohs um what is it pharaohs and politics politics and pharaohs those politic cards make the game 100 don't even think about playing the paper just forget it um so if you like minis on a map that is this is a this is a game you have to at least try i know these games are expensive and they take up a lot of shelf space so maybe you can't own them all but because it's doing something

24:47 super unique i think it's worth worth trying i i love that mechanism the melding thing right it's like the two last but i think to me that's like the ultimate catch-up mechanism right like you know you can literally be in last place team you know somehow you know with the other player who's uh in last and somehow have a shot at victory i think that's awesome and um i'm curious to see if that if we see that in other games in the next few years you know because it's you know eric black is a pretty influential designer who knows well maybe we'll see it again you know it's funny real i've seen a lot of obviously i read a lot of comments on like bg threads about it i think most people prefer to just be beaten uh and then really point out with other people there's something i think there's some sort of like feeling that a lot of players can't get over of like it it's not cheating but it feels weird to have to like be forced to team up when you weren't teamed up with somebody before um i don't know there's there's some weird emotional psychological things going on with it that i think some people are totally okay with and some people just literally can't get over that's interesting yeah because i find myself in last place many times when i play games and so i will i would like to see that get that shot right to come back i think it'd be right yeah i i really want to try it is something i haven't tried i haven't tried yet but i'd really want to i've heard really good things about it from multiple different people and it looks great right the the table presence for their games is pretty incredible yeah speaking of of last place i played merchants of the dark road last night and just got

26:19 thunked like yeah i did not get it i had a ton of coins but then they're like oh yeah that low pressed each part that was my first game and i was like oh look i'm doing so well no i'm not i'm not gonna put a record for like the biggest gap between the two things and they're like you totally didn't understand how this game worked did you it's funny i have a ton of prestige and like not as many coins but i i love that balancing act right to me it reminds me like a great like reiner canezia game you know you want to have everything sort of high and not just focus on one and i mean i was yeah i lost two but it was it was this is what this is what happens right gamers can't like we're here to talk about 20 20 games like guess what i played last night will it be on the 2022 list i don't know why don't you give us your number three number three this one surprised me i don't know if it'll surprise anyone else but i was i i was very pleasantly surprised by this game my number three is kubitos uh from aeg uh i'm a john d claire fan i love his games and this one the easiest the simplest way to explain it it's quacks of quinlenberg the dice version uh and it's literally you're building up dice it's this funky little and you know why it surprised me i looked at the box cover i wasn't really in it it looked like spongebob squarepants

27:41 what is this but then it turned out to be a really fun race game and it's a race uh bag building game you're rolling dice every turn you're rolling like a literally a fistful of dice every time which i love i'm a sucker from dice i love the tactical sensation of just chuck and dice and um you know each turn you can upgrade dice or you can you know trash dice and stuff it's very you know if you know bag builders deck doors you know how to play it but oh just the combination of dice racing i absolutely love it and the fact that is like every dice you can change up right some um play differently from game to game they have different conditions like the faces can change meanings uh it's such a blast and we played it a ton this year and that's why it's my number three kubitos yeah it's a lot of fun and the variable tracks too like the maps that flip over that's right there's so many like so many different there's so many colored dice and then each color dice there's multiple powers that you can give to it lots of variety endlessly replayable aeg is fantastic what they put out every year it's pretty great they're knocking it out of the park and again i'm i'm such a big fan of john declared i mean yeah you see i see his name on the box like it's still insta play you know gotta get it okay yeah that's all right number three what about you jimmy uh my number three uh james has already said it's red rising so i just i just enjoyed the game i i did a review on it earlier this year and it actually just kind of got a medium uh rating for me we do a buy it hate it on my channel but and i gave it a play at rating and uh and then i played it a lot and then i just loved

29:13 it um and so it really did it kind of just rose up on the list and it got higher and so uh i don't know everything that james said i i read the first three books and uh just fell in love with the um just the the content of what the story and um the lore of it all and then so then when i play the game i'm just i get sucked into it so every time i see it on the shelf i'm thinking yeah we could play another round of that put it on the table and it plays easy like he said and so it's just it's a good game and uh i enjoy the whole trying to get the best hand at by the end and just the the pain of trying to get rid of something and hoping something comes back around it's just a lot of fun i i i enjoy it it's really like it's fantasy realms if you're familiar with fantasy realms the card game it's like fantasy realms on steroids right because it yeah adds a board presence and some more some resources that you can manipulate um actually we have red rising on the floor down there we should try we do someone loaned it to us i have a book person so i'm like i haven't read the book it doesn't matter yeah but i had to do it that's what i had to do i had to read the first one before i could crack it open so series and then i get sucked into a series and i'm like that's so much commitment yeah

30:35 no i have seven books out from the library currently across my different platforms that's a lot of like yeah that's a lot why don't you tell us your number three um my number three it's also an eg game it is whirling witchcraft yes so this is a super fun where you you each get like a witch power and then you are crafting spells and they give you cubes so there's a bunch of different colored cubes and you are passing them to players around the table and you're trying to fill up their cauldron because when you fill up someone else's cauldron it bubbles over and they lose and that ends the game um so you really are paying attention to what's going to fill up each cauldron so you're trying to use the ones that you're given to make the ones that's going to cause theirs to overflow so it's a really unique mechanic in that way and that you're not focusing on what you have and what you can do and you're trying to figure out what's going to ruin someone else's right or you're trying to figure out like how they're you're trying to get you know well you're just playing ketchup and you're like okay i need to get rid of all of these white cubes how am i gonna do that what spells can i use it's fantastic it starts out really quick like from the get-go yeah we've had a lot we've played this one a lot and it's probably one of our most played in 2021 there's little like cauldrons that you pass around that are so cute and there's such a great addition to the game yeah i i'd love it it could have easily could have made my list um i love it the the way i learned it and the way it was

32:06 explained to me i i always remember this they explained to me it says this is basically that classic i love lucy episode with the chocolates and that's what you're doing you're just trying to force all the chocolates onto someone else i think good analogy right yes i mean it's a it's such a quick engine builder and yet you're trying to wreck everyone else at the same time which it's like the is a take that game but it doesn't feel mean at all you know it's just just part of the game and yeah it's it's a wonderful design again we're talking aeg is just killing it these days it's a fantastic game yeah i love it yeah all right my number three is mind management uh this is a game that we we've played quite a few times we got to check this out a few years ago and it was on kickstarter it's actually back on kickstarter now so if you have not a chance to try it out i highly recommend it it is to me the best hidden movement game that i've played ever uh because and i played most if not i play most of the hidden movement games because i really like the the mechanic like the genre but they take so long sometimes like i think uh letters from white chapel seems to be like the one that's kind of like not as long when you're looking at like fury of dracula lord of the rings like there's a bunch of those um but for me mind management it's like in a four playing two player game 45 minute 45 to 60 minutes and it's for us for well i'm just saying if you're playing two players you're in and you're out and you get a really really great experience out of it the way that the

33:37 uh trying to remember the names of the of the people but the secret agents uh the way that they interact and move is just it's very interesting and unique in the way that you have to program your movement to try to recruit as many agents as they can and you're trying to stop them before they can do that and man this is just it's just great and they've got this really cool unlocking system where depending on if you're winning or losing you get to unlock things out of these uh boxes that can either help or hinder so it's a little bit like so it's got some nice campaign and some nice ketchup mechanisms included in it so it's it's very very fun i i love it you're seeing uh sin and jay up at shucks 2019.

34:22 yeah i don't remember this was in the before times um and they were there showing that game off in its prototype form and i remember them talking about how excited they were and so it's it was really cool to see uh shut up and sit down cover it and really get a lot of attention and now you know which has turned into a reason to relaunch it and get it out wider to the get it out wider to the world so good for them they've already they've already made more money on this kickstarter than they did the first time and he said he decided last week he's like oh we need to do another kickstarter yeah they're awesome i'm just really really excited for them and like i said if you get a chance to play this or or you can you need to go try it out for sure yeah okay james dude number two uh and this was this this was my number two and number one were like like which one do i have to pick you know i have to pick one um the crew mission deep sea um okay if you like the crew to begin with you can literally throw it in the trash and get this version you don't need the first one anymore because they this is how much they improve the first game with this with this version of the game mission deep sea what it really does is it has a deck of these cards and they put a point system on um how difficult your tasks are gonna be and so you might have like five points worth of difficulty and it'll tell you

35:52 to get a four and a one or a three and two ones and so as you uh lay those out they give you much different things that you like layers of difficulty that you have to do to pull up the next mission uh it's it's brilliant from a design standpoint it's absolutely brilliant i've told any designer like you need to play this you need to play both of them and just see you can see how their brains went oh there's a better there's a much better way to do this it's more more intuitive more more interactive more dynamic and it just it just kills it and we have like it's always one of those like in the game night we're like well let's let's get a couple rounds in because we're on like you know mission fifteen or seventeen and we end up like an hour's worth of mission it only take like 10 minutes to try right and you're like all right that one do it again all right we got it let's move on to the next one you know uh it's just like watching the previews on netflix you just keep watching right now i'm going to borrow your phone what was that called again james i got to put that on order now mission yeah we don't have that one all right that's going to be a purchase

37:15 same same i was just going to say that derek like i love the crew and i i have mission deep sea over here on the shelf of opportunity it's gonna have to come out out of there real soon but anyways my number two is a game that my friends derek and lizzy um introduced me to when we met up last year it is furnace and hey what i mean i knew from that again when we met up there and we you you all taught me that game i was like this is immediately one of my top five of the year it's just wow it's it's that wonderful tension right every round where am i gonna place where am i going to you know place my bid and then that the added thing that makes it brilliant is like i don't really want that i just want those resources so i'm hoping someone puts a different number there and then when you eventually get it and you eventually get hosed which i learned really oh no i didn't want that and then you have to find a way to make your engine happen it's oh it's it's such a great great game and what i love about it every single turn has that tension and yet the game plays in like 45 minutes yeah give me those type i love how fast it plays um i had michelle my wife joined me for a game the other day and again with her she was instant love so it's a big hit that's why it's my number two of last year furnace and it's only like four turns and you're like yeah four

38:40 yeah it's so so good you'll probably see that on on some other lists throughout but nice other time you know probably not james probably not james's butt no i like you playing it the way you were reacting i was like does he not know i love the auction the option for those cars yeah the bidding is so so clever yeah the bidding is great jimmy two uh number two is uh well i guess i'll preface this with it is amazing to me that where i'm at kind of in my game loving stage right now i went from uh loving like ticket to ride then i went real heavy with my friends and now i feel like i'm coming back to this middle range uh something that's been said a whole bunch is it it hits the table a lot um and uh it's easy to teach uh people ask for it like that this is the kind of zone that i'm in right now and so this one definitely hits all of those it's an abstract strategy grinto by cranking skills um it's just so good it's so easy uh to teach this is a tile uh or a tile choosing game i guess and so you put all the tiles in the bag you lay them out and then you're moving one from the edge and placing it in the grid and then based off of what color that tile is you get to choose around it in a certain way but then it kind of builds so however many of those color tiles i'm getting lost in the explanation but you end up taking more and more tiles as the game goes along and so it gets very

40:10 satisfying in trying to figure out what you're going to move and then um uh each round a point score in a different way and then at the end of the game you score points on two specific colors anyways it's just super easy to teach super easy to play and uh it has hit the table a lot and my family which is definitely a medium weight family game group they ask for it all the time so it's gonna be high up on my list i really really for intel it's it's solid it was one of like probably one of the best abstract strategy games i've played the last few years when we got a chance to play it it actually is in my top 10 just a little bit it was so close it was right on the edge for me i was like i was trying to sort all that but it's it's a great great game and if you're into abstract strategy games because that's the best thing about him like the the complexity level for teaching you know it's not bad and then once you get in there though the depth of the game is what keeps you coming back jimmy there's something you said there that i think resonates at least with me and i think it's that that arc of like i think the last two years have been so stressful and so rough like i've i've needed my board gaming to be a warm thumpy blanket i haven't i haven't gravitated to like big rule books or complicated games because i need something that's going to relax me and like i've bet i've played my most played game over the last 16 18 months is 100 patchwork because if i go

41:41 up to stella hey you want to play patchwork she's like yep yeah yeah i think i think at least for me when you were talking about that it was almost a little bit of an epiphany not the same right because i really enjoyed playing heavier games there for a little while but then i just think the stress of the last two years i've reverted back like just give me my warm comfy blanket right yeah yeah you know just to echo that uh james i was going to say the exact same thing when jimmy brought that up i think of the same thing where you know a couple of years ago i'm playing a lot of heavier games because i can meet with my gaming group on a regular basis but now with the pandemic and everything you know the majority of the places you know with my wife and our daughter and you know they like more casual stuff and it really gave me a really it opened it just re-showed me it gave me a new appreciation for gateway and gateway plus games like those are there's some excellent games out there and you know i do have you know the twilight imperium expansion because i got to play it one time this last year that's the the the heavy of the heavies for me but i found so much joy and so much like uh james has said comfort in those games patchwork you know that as a classic but yeah i find myself you know doing the same thing where i'm coming sort of coming back you know you start with ticket to ride your gateways and you get to the heavier stuff but it's like you know let's come back a little bit you know stuff like you know furnace or kubitos you know um but yeah it resonates with me as well uh jimmy and james same here mid-weight vibes man i love them give me those midway card games and stuff i i love it 45 you know 30 45 minutes that's a sweet

43:13 spot that's sweet spot now that's right sweet spot of gaming what was your number two my number two fits in this like light medium perfectly wow look that was perfect we did that for you

43:35 so we have the acrylic games they came out they had to reprint it and they did just cardboard but the acrylic with the fish and the beautiful flowers so good it's just a gorgeous game it's very simple you take two tiles one fish and one something else and you can play anywhere you just build this beautiful koi pond koi pond and it's so relaxing it's so satisfying it's gorgeous it's like one of my favorite games ever we played it this was one of the games that like this was probably i want to say yeah this was our 20-plus time of the year yeah i've shared it with like i honestly have probably sold 20 plus copies of it and i posted about it and like everyone's like oh yeah i went and bought it and i was like yeah yeah i think it's a game night and then i think everybody every household bought the game after they like midway through they had phones out right like where can i get there you know that's that's a good sign right it is yeah yeah and it's one of those games it's unassuming like you see it on the shelf you see the titles and you just don't i mean normally when you look at a game you're like oh there's some depth in that i think that's gonna be great but even when you just read this synopsis on the back or whatever it's called you're just like i don't know but once you play it then you're like yep then you're hooked yeah yeah yeah it's and those acrylic tiles like oh gosh when you're playing the game you know what's special but then after you're done like looking at your koi pond yeah you take a picture of it yeah totally instagram worthy yeah yeah

45:08 it's it's just the best we could just talk about it forever but let you go with your numbers i agree with you i agree with you i know you do uh my number two is final girl from fan writer games so i have to preface this with i'm not much of a solar solo gamer uh and i'm not much of a horror fan however i gave this a shot and i am extremely glad i did because i like the hostage negotiator uh and i thought you know they're going to revamp that there's going to be a new re-implementation and i actually got to see it at tantrum con back in like 2019 i want to say no yeah right before the world collapsed we got to see a prototype of it from evan derek and it really just blew me away with what was happening and just the the way the systems were working and you know i've seen a lot of people complaining about it because there's like bad dice rolls but it is in its purest form a hand management game and the hand management mitigates your bad roles and allows you like freedom of like trying to figure out the puzzle of how to save these civilians who are being dumb and running towards the the you know the guy the threat the guy who's trying to un-alive them uh but it's just it's a really good game it was just back on kickstarter for new new stuff um and i i really enjoyed it so it got me into solo gaming a little bit because now i'm intrigued to try more solo solo games hi welcome welcome welcome to the club i love solo gaming you know i think it's

46:39 important too that you know um i mean i love seeing more designers um you know adding on or you know creating solo uh games but especially the last couple of years i mean we haven't been able to meet in our gaming groups so i see a lot of more of my friends we've you know we talk about hey what games are you soloing these days you know and there are a lot of you know a lot of times there's variants that you can find on bgg but i mean a game like final girl or you mentioned the hostage negotiator another great one that is specifically for solo gaming i yeah i love seeing it i i think it's it's warps edge and i

47:17 yeah yeah all right james now land it let's land the plane has been what you've all been waiting for this is it number one uh for me this was a big surprise for me um because the theme on initial is not something that i normally would gravitate for toward even though i'm a nerd whatever uh but christina was like so excited about this game and she's like you got to play it we've got to play it and then i saw it and i'm like okay i guess it's genotype okay it is you know pundit squares and um you know scientists studying peace you know in the genotype within pea culture like james this is right up your alley man the game is so clever um you know and i've tried some other genius games where you know they're trying to teach you some science while you're playing a game and they've all been fine nothing wrong with them uh but this one i don't even care about the i mean things fine but the game is so good it's a replacement and it's tight like it's super super tight um and it makes you feel really clever um in several different ways so it was one that you know i'm glad i

48:47 got over my initial whatever that was and uh played it because then it there were several more times that uh throughout the year like we would have a a game night or whatever like what can we play i'm like you wanna play genotype again and christina was just like she was like so proud she was like so uh yeah my number one last year was genotype way cool i like it i've never played it but you got me interested so i guess that's gonna be a purchase so and for all of our science parents permanent squares that's what i've been missing awesome is this like a mangosteen thing are those real are these real birds well you know in february sixth grade we learned all about pundit squares but we probably forgot so yeah long gone all right you're number one my number one it was touched upon earlier this is this is our my most played game especially in uh in my household it's a cascadia um this is randy flynn designed uh best solo art um this it's a tile lane game and it is absolutely fantastic and what james had mentioned earlier uh you have the family variant then you have the other scoring variants i mean there's a ton of replayability and there's you know these we i think i i think we're talking about how these like solar dual tile lane games so you have not only a tile but you also have a token that you're placing at the same time on different tiles and it's really neat they've done

50:18 that on the game over boss uh a year ago they also did it here and calico has it as well but i think for my money this is the one for me because it's where calico felt really constrictive this seems like it's a little more open world like okay i'm gonna build my habitat this way you don't have we're not on the same board we can build it the way we want and but the the combination of like set collection and the spatial puzzle to it i mean it's absolutely fantastic

50:50 it's just that's all you got to say you know it gives another i see beth solo i'm like all i'm all about but it's it was my favorite game of last year that's cascadia nice wow that's one that we got into it yeah they taught you you sold me on it so i need to try it cool i love calico and for solo gamers there's a really easy solo mode that um you can implement as well and you know if they even have it online you can play solo for free there there's uh you could easily that's cool yeah cascadia and calico um there's a third one in the series coming out verdant which is probably that's that yeah it's probably that one's probably the most puzzly of the three sweet but i i enjoy all three but cascadia is my choice out of the trilogy but yeah and uh cascadia with the tile placement games like i love cat you know calico and cascadia and i feel like i don't know if cascadia is going to board game arena but i would love to see a game like that on board game arena because that type of thing is really easy to do um on that system so i don't know if you've i've been on a huge board game arena kick recently and they've got a great library of games over there they're really impressed really amazing it is it is fantastic i i don't know if they have any plans to put it there but hopefully they do because it's it should be played by more people it's yeah it's the best game of 2021 folks there you go jimmy what's up what's what's the best game with 21 for you okay james is going to love this but let me uh let me set the stage for you first so uh i love this game so much it's a solo game and uh so what i i did this the

52:21 other day and it was just a total vibe but i came upstairs where i'm at right now put a record on little little candle had the music going and then i played this game and i just enjoyed it so much my son came upstairs and looked at what i was doing and said dad what are you doing it looked just like work to him but hadrian's wall is my number one guy and uh and i totally get it it is such a like it looks like my friend called it uh the spreadsheet the board game you know and that's all that it is just and uh but i don't know there's something about that you know we played this at the gamers ranch and that was yeah i got introduced to it and i just i just loved it i loved you know moving the little meeples back and forth you know and i okay i get this guy and then i turn him in and then i get this guy instead and i just love exploring all the stuff i'll be totally honest i don't even understand how a few of the tracks even work yet like i just i've gotten to some of them and like i'm doing the thing down at the bottom and then i'm building the theater up at the top but i just like exploring this game and just figuring it out and so i played it a ton now and um i just i love that you can play multiplayer it is almost seamless to play it solo and like i said i get into that whole buy where i just kind of turn some music on get in the zone and i'm just checking stuff off and the other day i got uh uh i got distracted had to go downstairs for something and

53:51 then i just came back up and just jumped right back in i flipped over my it's just a great uh it's a very chill relaxing game to me and i know i know that your brain can melt on it too but it's i don't know i just really enjoy it so that's my number one of the year nice it's a good pick what's your number one of the year wonder what uh it has been mentioned have i played it i don't know uh it is mind management um yeah i mean and i have i'm just going to preface it i know you can talk i've never seen her so smitten over a game than my management legitimately do not like the what is it like like whatever uh hidden movement movement we would play letters from white travel and i would just like sit back because like there were so many alpha gamers and like if i was not playing jack i was miserable and i was like you got to the point where you're like i'm not playing unless you let me be the killer i want to be unalarmed like my friend had a kid i was like i'll go watch the baby in the other room you guys like whatever like i'm not into it at all so when we got this game for kickstarter i was like okay that's fine like we can play it'll be fine our most played kickstarter prototype ever yeah hands down like nothing even comes close um anyone that we could get to come to our house we're like come play this game they all immediately backed it it's fantastic it's streamlined it's just like the perfect game for me you always play the the secret you know agent and so it's hard she's super good at it so i i it's tough for

55:23 me but it's a good challenge well i have a great poker face and derek is just always like i know you were there and i'm gonna like check you down you have to have been there here and i'm like yeah she just laughs i'm like okay i just let him believe whatever he wants and at the end he's always like show me your route he's like show me how you did it i don't believe you well i went here and then i went there and then you thought i went here but i actually it was like so close and there's been times where he's been like on top of me and i'm just like not saying anything so that's my cool thing about this is that you can actually share the same spit like no other hidden movie games like that where you can share the space and unless i have deduced she's there i have to take the action to arrest her so it's it's pretty tough but it's a great challenge it's fantastic see y'all everybody keeps saying how great it is and i've been holding back because i've played some hidden movement games and i'm like yeah i get the sure the feel of that yeah i've done that a few times but i didn't know if i really needed another one but y'all y'all this is the only one that i have in my collection at this point so i i sold the fury of dracula like we've gotten rid of everything except for for this one so until another one comes along this is it this is online oh nice okay okay here bring it out all right you taking us off uh my number one game of 2021 is unsettled from orange nebula it is it's a masterpiece to me and i know some

56:54 you know some people consider not every game is for everybody but for this this seems to me in no other way than another game has the narrative the way that you cooperate and i'm not a huge fan of cooperatives but the way that this forces um players to kind of like it's an introspective look at like how group groups manage and i love like with vindication it was like a self-study and like redemption and like like vindication and like there's a lot of like personal growth in that story with this one it's more about group trust like there could be situations that happen that cause you to flip a tile where now you are like standoffish or you're you know it just changes the group dynamic as situations arise the fact that all the planets are asym asymmetrical have multiple scenarios and it's not a campaign so it's all self-contained in that planet uh the writing i'm sure tom if you're watching this if you did some of the writing for this you had to have because there's some narrative is amazing the narrative is fantastic uh the first one i think is winora where you've got the plants there's uh some subtle um innuendos in there i was like whoa i was not ready for that i think i was like like what is going on i kept like looking at derek was like are they serious right now um honestly there's there's no better way that i want to un-alive myself in a board game than playing unsettled so i just love derek you found so many ways to squeeze on a live into this uh yeah it's kind of my thing it's all because of tick-tock because you can't say that word

58:26 uh but no seriously it's it's a great great game um they're coming back to kickstarter um in this year yeah yeah end of the month this month some new planets and surprises and stuff so yeah yeah i cannot wait for the new planets i can't wait to find new ways to yeah to what i don't know

59:01 that was the fastest game to paint that i've ever done like game came painted like within 24 hours yeah so it was pretty i was pretty excited about it because we wanted to play and i wanted to take pictures would not play super extra you know

59:21 well folks thank you so much for watching with us like i said we will be posting this top five and actually a top ten of all of our picks we just uh wanted to make sure we got at least our top five here in this video uh you'll be able to find us on the board game spotlight instagram twitter and our facebook page so if you're not that's right james i'll be there

59:49 because those are the number one and number two games of next year yeah well i mean this year but 2022 yeah yeah but next year's list um but yeah please please go go check out title blades too super super excited for that game it's it's phenomenal what what the team's done with that one um you know it's it's decent it's decent all right everybody um i don't have anything else anybody want to sign off what do you got any other words before we before we break i can't believe we kept this to an hour that's that's what i'm saying it's incredible nope yeah yeah we did good you know we did it you got yourself on the back you did good yeah all right everybody well thanks again for your time and we will see you on the internet happy gaming bye everybody