6 Hot Picks & Cool Recs - Which would you rather play? - The Anti-Hotness

I'm Chaz, and my co-writer Matthew and I invite you to join us as we recap this month's most played games along with recommendations for each one, which we think you may also enjoy. So, come along as we combine the latest hotness along with some cool recommendations, [music] such as the game that racked up the most new plays this past month, making it a top trending title on Board Game Geek, the game Excalibur.

A two to eight-player party style bluffing game about selecting swords and then backstabbing your fellow players with those swords. Simply put, on the table are a bunch of characters and items represented by tiles, each with a special ability. The players then start off with a hand of these tiles, one of which will be the classic cutlery, Excalibur.

Whoever ends up with the legendary sword at the end of the game will win. So, players will swap, bluff, double-bluff, and try to remember exactly where Excalibur is as the characters of Arthurian legend scramble for power. The game moves briskly, with everyone revealing the action they take at the same time.

And as a result, the balance of power is constantly shifting. There's actually two versions of this game that are available. The collector's edition, which comes with acrylic tiles and metal swords, while the regular edition, which is called the deluxe edition for some reason, has just standard cardboard components.

Now, part of Excalibur's charm is how simply and immediately everyone has a reason not to trust anyone else, which means that the bluffing and the accusations and downright deviousness can start right away. And a similar tempo is also what helps make 2014's Don't Mess with Cthulhu so darn good. Now, Don't Mess with Cthulhu, other than being wonderful advice in general, is a social deduction party game that's all about guessing each other's secret identities.

Now, the players are either investigators trying to keep Cthulhu from awakening or cultists who want to trigger a Cthulhu-powered Armageddon. Now, the intrigue here starts with the very first turn because each player has several secret cards laid out in front of them which will slowly be revealed over the course of the game.

Now, the intrigue here starts with the very first turn. Some of the cards have symbols on them that are bad for the investigators but good for the cultists. As a result, you might be a good guy that gets stuck with cards in front of you that would spell defeat for your team if they're revealed and vice versa.

So, now what you got to do is you got to trust that everyone around the table is being truthful about the unrevealed cards face down in front of them. But, spoiler alert, they won't be. This sets up and streamlines the chaos getting players right into the action making this game a lot of fun right off the bat.

Now, there have been several different versions of Don't Mess With Cthulhu. The original four-to-six-player version plus Matthew's actual recommended version, the deluxe edition from 2016 which ups the player count to eight and adds more layers to the subterfuge with its Necronomicon and Objects of Power expansions.

And before the game was even about Cthulhu and the heretofore mentioned not messing with, it was originally a Japanese import named Time Bomb which actually itself received a sequel in 2024 with Time Bomb Undercover which adds a new faction. There's actually also Temple of Secrets by Schmidt Spiele from 2016 which has more of an Indiana Jones theme and plays up to 10 straight out of its tiny cute little box.

But, whichever version you go with, the gameplay remains largely the same, bringing a group of friends together to immediately sow distrust among them. Hey, if you enjoy board games like these and having fun experiences, plus joining those two things together like some sort of tantalizing tabletop sub sandwich, well, then I want to share with you a shout-out for Grant's new series, It's All Funny in Games, which premiered earlier this month on his YouTube channel.

In it, Grant and some of his comedian friends come together to share a fun-filled game night together and invite us, the audience, along for the ride. Down in this video's description, you'll find a link to his very first episode, which features the game That Escalated Quickly, which combines a little bit of storytelling with a lot of silly creativity.

I think you may enjoy it because it is quite neat. So, check it out, give it a thumbs up, and an encouraging comment, and then mark your calendar to be ready when his second episode comes out on May 20th. Next, a top-trending title that's tallying up table time on the gamenightpicks.com website, The Game.

A- Actually, Flip Seven took this title, but since we don't want to talk about Flip Seven every single episode, we we looked a little bit further down the list of the most played games. And actually, we didn't have to look far to find The Game. The Game is actually a cooperative version of Texas Hold 'em with the theme being pulling off a really tense bank heist.

Each round, players bet on how good they think the hand of cards that they've been dealt is relative to the other players. Early in a round, and of course, without being able to talk to each other because board game, each player locks in a guess as to how good they think their poker hand is compared to everyone else's.

Then, as the flop, turn, and river cards are revealed, everyone has the chance to reassess their previous estimates. At the end of the round, everyone's hands are then revealed, and if everyone at the table did indeed assess their hands correctly, the group continues on to the next level. Otherwise, well, you fail and you trip an alarm.

If you succeed three times before tripping three alarms, your gang wins the game. But, fail to do so, and well, then you have just had the exact same experience that I and everyone that I know have had every single time that we've played this game. So, you can join that gang now, I I suppose. Regardless, though, the game is light and charming, and there's a bunch of options that can be added into the mix to make it even more devious.

For example, Tools of the Trade, which replace the specialists for the base game, give each player a secret special ability. Then, there's also 2026's More Players expansion, which brings the player count up to a whopping 10. And I can't even imagine trying to put 10 players' secret poker hands into the right order.

That's But, be aware that these little expansions are actually currently pretty hard to find. A couple of them were exclusively available at Gen Con, but they are all being included in the brand new deluxe edition, which also has fancy ceramic poker chips, casino quality cards, and a custom playmat.

Now, The Game also inspired Matthew to make a whole gang of recommendations, starting with Bomb Busters, a cooperative campaign-style game with limited communication as well, which ramps up the tension each and every round as players work together to disarm bombs, which are represented by two-sided tokens in front of each player.

Additional layers of complexity are then introduced over the course of the campaign. It gets pretty tricky as it goes along. So, if you would rather prefer more of a party game environment for your cooperative deduction experience, well, then Eito might be a good fit for you. Because this is another game where communication between players is kept to a minimum as players attempt to line up their secret numbered cards in ascending order based on a specific prompt that they're given.

Now, this prompt could be anything from like where you would like to go in a time machine to animals that you'd take on a Ferris wheel. Whatever the category you're given, you then provide your answer while placing your secret number down on the table face down hoping that everyone catches your drift about how appropriate your answer was.

Then, after everyone has placed their numbered cards, they're revealed to see if they actually were placed in the correct ascending numerical order. Then, they won't be. Oh, sometimes they will be, and that is actually a wonderful moment. Let me know how that feels. I would like someday to experience that.

But, still, there's more because if you want a much heavier deduction experience, well, then that's on the docket, too, with the cooperative card game Infiltrators, which you may find worth exploring. Now, over the course of 20 missions, players must identify spies based on their cards' number and suit.

And to be honest, it may take a little while to get into this game's specific deduction style, but once you do, it it can be really rewarding. Plus, while it does support up to five players, it actually does work really well at two players, too. Moving on now from the tabletop to the desktop, we have a game that's logging the most plays on the Board Game Arena website this month.

And this month's frontrunner, which actually kind of came out of left field, is Quibbles from 2023. No one ever suspects Quibbles, but its digital counterpart is getting a heap of plays logged on Board Game Arena, and for good reason. Quibbles is a fast-paced and very tactical set collection card game with lovely, if not a little bit surreal, quibble-based art.

It's still a little frantic, but still offers genuinely interesting choices to make from turn to turn. All you got to do is be the first to collect cards with a total value of 21 points. And this is achieved with a clever combination of playing cards from your hand, selecting sets from the table, and strategically building collections.

Whatever strategy you employ, the end result's the same. You'll want to end up with 21 points right there in front of you. So, for being a whimsical-looking light card game, Quibbles still has a tense and meaningful decision space. Another quirky game that might surprise you is Duck and Cover from 2024.

Uh just like Quibbles, Duck and Cover is a bright, welcoming, simple racing card game, self-described as a goofy 20-minute card game that's based on bingo. Players try to have the least water around their bathtub at the end of the game. That, yes, that is the theme. Have the least bathtub water. So, to make the fewest splashes, the game's two to seven players will need to pay attention to the numbers that come up on the cards.

When a number is announced, players have the option to move that card to cover up one with a higher value, or just move it in general to keep options open for better cover-ups later on. It's direct and simple. You're just doing your best to cover high cards to have a low score at the end. But, as the game goes on, you'll find that past decisions you've made will come back to haunt you.

And after three rounds, the player with the lowest score wins, and the other players, well, the other players are down the drain. And if any of these game recommendations have made a splash with you, well, then you may also enjoy our other recent videos including our board game buyers guide and our new high roller series which tracks primo performers in a variety of rotating categories each month.

And until the next video, thanks for joining us and take care.