Top 10 Board Games of 2023 - Expansions, Remakes, and Sequels

0:00 welcome to allies or enemies I'm Jess and I am Sean and today we are talking about our top 10 favorite expansions remakes and sequels of 2023 yeah there were so many great games that got released this past year so we already did a top 10 games of 2023 and we had enough of these to just make a separate list yeah there were just there were too many games and there was a bunch that we're like can we put this on this list but there's so many great new games so we thought you know what we'll just make a separate list for all that other stuff that had already existed and you'll note that there's a few big games that aren't here especially Brussels I really want to play Brussels if you see something that's not on here and you think what why isn't almost certainly we just haven't played it but let's get right to it with our honorable mention so we are starting out with an honorable mention and that is horrified Greek monsters and this is only only an honorable mention because we only played it once at Essen and it just didn't feel like enough to put it on the top 10 list but we really liked it the one time that we played it so we thought you know we still do want to talk about it yeah we love horrified and we play it all the time and I just really like the Greek theme as well and when we played it it felt different enough and not too like fiddly either yeah I liked American monsters but some of the monsters do feel a little bit fiddly and I think this fixed that problem and added some

1:30 other cool stuff to it as well so we'll definitely pick that up and we will definitely be playing that more our number 10 is furnace interbellum and our copy was provided by the publisher for review and furnace is an auction game and interbellum adds a few interesting things one thing it adds is for the two-player it makes different versions of like the bot player and so instead of playing the same way they all play a little bit differently it also adds a another secret dial so you don't necessarily know if you're going to win a card because somebody might be able to just spend more than you with this other dial yeah I I think interbellum is terrific first of all the name interbellum this a word I had not heard of and then John Wick in this game brought it into my Consciousness I still don't know what it means but furnace interbellum just it adds that little bit to furnace I think and it really does make it it makes it a lot more interesting especially that dial that you can set and you have to you spend the coal and you change the dial but that adds just this interesting little Dynamic to the bidding and the bidding is already great but that like I don't know what what they've got there and I'm saving my for but they could spend five I really like what that adds and the two-player game so much better with interbellum we only played the base game like twice before we brought in interbellum I can't imagine playing without it yeah I think we'll always play with it going forward and we know on be G it says 2022 but you couldn't

3:02 actually get it until 2023 which is why it made this list at number 10 our number nine is tapestry fantasies and Futures and this is the third and I think final expansion that's coming out for tapestry and it doesn't change the game as hugely as the first two did especially the second one with the Arts track in it but this is kind of a more stuff expansion and the stuff's generally good it's got bunch of new civilization it's got a bunch of the city maps and I really like those a lot and it's got this little charms thing where if you kind of line up tapestry cards that they give you a little bonus but it's kind of it's more subtle but I liked it a lot yeah and I just like the themes as well cuz it draws on science fiction it draws on things like from comic books as well X-Men are in there yeah so anytime you get one of those cards it's really exciting and I love that now everything is in one rule book which makes it so much more streamlined cuz we're always playing with everything everything anyway this is the first time that a rule book was probably the most exciting thing from an expansion the rule book has saved me so much like papers around the table so yeah I I like this one it just makes a game we like just a just adds a little bit more and that is our number nine our number eight is sea salt and paper extra salt and we have played a ton of sea salt and paper it's this fantastic set collection card game and the EXP Manion only adds eight cards and it doesn't seem like a lot but

4:33 those eight cards just shift the Dynamics a little bit and makes it super interesting and this is one that we won't take out now that it's in this might be our most played expansion the only reason this isn't higher on the list is we were like it's just eight cars we can't it just feels like we can't put it higher but in our hearts maybe it is but yeah it makes the crabs more interesting it makes the sets more interesting it makes the swimmers more Dynamic with the the jellyfish if you haven't played it all of that would be nonsense if you played this game you'll understand what I mean but yeah it's a game we love and this it it does it just it adds that little bit of extra salt yeah it was one of the first things we picked up in Essen and I'm really glad we did and it is our number eight our number seven is Final Girl season 2 and when I say hour I really mean my because Jess has played like one of these I think I helped you out with two games right yeah sometimes we'll play at Co-op which just means we kind of make the decisions together but final girl is really a me game I play this a lot I love horror movies I love final girl and the new ones have some of my favorites it's got things for the thing and for alien and it's got the Invaders which is kind of like a stranger Straw Dogs um The Purge kind of situation and all of them I think add just slightly different Dynamics the alien one is one of my absolute favorite final girls and it's not like it's hugely different from season 1 but it's it's a lot more of a

6:03 game I really really love and I've played a lot I've played 20 games of it this year so I play a lot of final girl and I don't have a lot to add cuz I just haven't played Final Girl if it was just your list I think you would have it much higher but because it's a combined list it's our number seven our number six is my Island and this copy was provided to us by the publisher but we loved my city we played it through twice so we were so excited to get my Island and it's very similar it is a campaign tile placement game but it's a different campaign it introduces different things the way it shapes the tiles you're placing all of those are totally different so if you like my city you'll like having a very similar but different experience with my Island yeah and the biggest difference here is the hex's too because the original was the polyomino shapes this has the hex's but it's cool because it's not just like it's a hex shape but each of the hexes have like different clusters of hex's on them and so now instead of just placing out the shape you're trying to place the shape plus match the shapes within the shape with matching shapes in the other shapes and it it does add a cool little layer of complexity and I really like this I think this Builds on is even better than my city yeah and I don't want to give any spoilers but I think the stuff in the envelopes were more interesting as well and that makes my Island our number six our number five is Ark Nova Marine

7:34 worlds and Arc Nova Marine worlds adds a bunch of cool stuff but the interesting thing about it is it adds stuff while also somehow speeding up the game so the stuff it adds first of all it adds these asymmetrical player Powers which are really cool so you have different action cards than other people have and I like that a lot but also it adds the marine animals and one of the problems some people had with the base game was they felt like the deck wasn't going through quickly enough and this adds more adds a whole bunch more cards but makes that deck move really fast cuz they've got this mechanic that when they come out they they move through the deck they move the cards along so you're seeing a lot more cards even know there's more cards in the game and I love that and I just really like the marine animals as well it's super cool to add those and the new types of enclosures that you have to get too but I also just like the tokens as well of having the purely aesthetic not mechanical at all of being able to be like the Penguins or the monkeys those are fantastic and the like you say though the cards really are the best part about it and it makes each game feel different so not only does it feel different against each other but every time you play it feels a little different yeah this is one of those expansions that once you've kind of mixed it in you're just never taking it out and I know you say that they're not mechanical but I don't think I've lost yet with the Penguins so they must make a difference and that is our number five our number four is unmatched Adventures

9:04 Tales to a maze and unmatched Adventures Tales to amaz takes the original game and makes it Cooperative so you could get just unmatched Adventures as its own Standalone tails to amaz as its own Standalone game but the very cool thing is if you already have a whole bunch of unmatched which we do you can use those characters to fight the monsters cooperatively in this and I like unmatched but you love unmatched and I just don't really like playing like the combative one versus one so this has brought like a whole bunch of new life into unmatched as we've tested out all the characters that we've had trying to beat this together yeah I just I love that I get to play on Match now it's great we have played it quite a bit you're a really good sport with it but yeah this is this is really breathed new life and we're going through everyone in our set and some of the ones that weren't very good are now suddenly very good like I had good luck with Robin Hood in this we've and some of the ones that were very good are not nearly as good like Sherlock Holmes has not done well for us so that's really cool and both sides of the map too like I like The Moth Man but I really like the UFOs all the bits to it look great this is It's it really is a terrific expansion yeah and it's been super fun to just play the characters again in this Cooperative way and it makes it our number four our number three is lost ruins of arnac the missing Expedition and this is back to back we've got games

10:36 that take a competitive game and make it into a Cooperative game but with unmatched it was a game I really liked and now I'm getting you to play with lost ruins it's a game that Jess like dominated at but now she's getting me to play it more and I liked Lost ruins but I love missing Expedition it is a co-op mode it is a campaign mode I love love both of those things and it's a campaign that makes you focus on the game in these cool different ways and I love that about it yeah it introduces different challenges with each chapter of the campaign and it's already a really tight difficult puzzle so these challenges really will push you in different directions and it feels incredibly difficult but it's been really fun to take this game that I love so much play it differently and have all of these different versions to play and it's been like unmatched a great opportunity to just try all the different characters as well cuz we got all these different explorers and there's only kind of a few that we were mostly playing but now it's like you know I can try a little bit of a weaker one and we can have a bit of a cool challenge with it and I really like that and the two and this I think are really interesting too yeah the mechanic especially is really interesting and all of that together makes it our number three our number two is Village big box and Village big box just takes everything from Village all the expansions and puts it all in one big box and adds a new expansion the marriage expansion and it means that you can play with as many expansions as you

12:08 want and I think that's a really crucial part for Village I really like the base game but a key part of the fun is being able to play it slightly differently every time yeah having those little modules it's such a it just works so well as a modular game and bringing those bits in and out bringing in the like water map and bringing in the in and BR in the marriage and having two out of the three three out of the three will melt your brain but it's great and the art as well like I like the old art the old art is really Charming but the new art is just so clear and functional I'm kind of torn but the more I play the new version the more I appreciate the clarity of that art too I really like the art in the new version and Village big box is our number two and our number one expansion remake or sequel of 2023 is Great Western Trail New Zealand and I'm going to be honest with you this wasn't even close Great Western Trail New Zealand is phenomenal I love Great Western Trail Great Western Trail is like a top 10 top 20 game for me Great Western Trail New Zealand is by far the best version this takes everything I love about Great Western Trail and just it makes it smoother but it adds more it's got this great Island board that feels a lot like the um I think it's rails of the north from the original and I thought that was a you have to always use as expansion but does it better and smoother and then it's got these little modules and we've been talking about modules and I love them but it's got these different cards you switch in it

13:39 adds a deck building mechanic it changes the cows to sheep it's great yeah cuz it already is a bit of a deck building mechanic but the new cards that has lets you be able to get a bonus without taking up a card slot in your hand which is such a nice addition and I just prefer sheep they are so adorable and it's great when you you can throw in like the sheep dogs and then the shearing that you can do cuz that adds a new worker of shearers and you can get a lot of money by shearing that wool yeah there are more paths I feel like in this than the other two and we've got all three I'm glad to have all three I think Argentina kind of to me it feels the heaviest I don't know if it is the heaviest the original still I will play that because I just I love having like the light quick version but this if I got to pick one out of the three this is it and it's not even close and I I love it and that makes Great Western Trail New Zealand our number one and that is it that is our top 10 remake sequels and expansions of 2023 and like I said we have not played everything so ask us in two months there's probably going to be two or three other ones that we find out there that we would have put on this list thank you those so much for watching and please let us know what your favorite remake sequel or expansion of this past year was and as usual please please like subscribe and hopefully we'll see you next time for another

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