12 BEST DEALS on NEW Board Games

0:01 foreign good morning today we're going to look at the best deals for new board games and all of these deals come from Amazon now why Amazon well because as the programmer of the app that we're looking at today Amazon has a really nice API for making this information available otherwise doesn't have to be Amazon I just don't have access to other deals however if you go on this website of mine the perfectboard game.com here's the main website you can actually look up games organized by category that you select and it pulls those that information every single day so today is March 10th although just because it's March 10th doesn't mean that these deals are only going to last for today oftentimes they last for several days um or some of these games are on sale for weeks but what I'm going to look at is new board games so for new games what I mean is any games after 2020 and the reason you know 2020 you think that's not new that's three years old but thing is uh games that came out in 2022 a lot of them get a lot of hype from Kickstarter campaigns and they go out there and people get excited about them as soon as they're released they're sold for full price so a lot of the the newest games

1:32 aren't on sale yet um so we go back a little bit to 2020 and we still find some fantastic deals on what's available there that's just kind of an arbitrary filter though 2020 is the cutoff that I use for defining new and some of these games came out I think some of them came out in 20 I see 20 I think a couple of these games come out in 2022. anyway um let's go ahead and go through them one game at a time so a few of these games by the way are also categorized as family games and I actually did a review of the top 12 best deals for family games yesterday one of those games is Twin Palms so I will just briefly describe this one it is a trick taking game I think it's fantastic I own it um it's the trick ticking game where instead of playing one card on each trick you always play two cards and so you can construct whether you know you're going to play a good pair of cards or a bad pair of cards you can you have much more control over losing a hand if you want to it's really interesting how people try to Bluff in this game I think it's wonderful it's completely underrated game um for 9.95 I would absolutely buy this one I think it's a fantastic deal but we'll go to the next one here the next

3:02 game is what's next this one is also categorized as a family board game um and I talked about it yesterday but again this is a Cooperative Adventure game where you're going through uh cards a Choose Your Own Adventure but unlike other choose your own Adventures where it's all chance and you can run into a situation where you know tough luck you made a bad decision you lose everything is skill based so you you make a few choices and you get to a card and it says complete the following task and it's you know it's one of these like physical challenges the game comes with several components that you can use for these challenges or you can use other items that are very commonly found around the house like a pen or a cup or something um but I thought this was excellent it comes with three Adventures there is a lot of ways to play the same Adventure I think it's a an excellent game oh I'm and I do I do own it I I bought it myself so um for 30 bucks oh and also the component quality here let me just pull up some pictures of it okay so they've got a card here it's telling me what to do you don't lose the game based on luck you lose this game based on skill every time you fail at a challenge you're stacking these tiles here so um eventually when that Tower of peril collapse that's what triggers losing the

4:33 game but as long as you can keep stacking you can keep going even if you fail at other challenges and then um let's see uh here's a nice picture of what you've got so there's like some tiles that you can use for um build kind of like tangrams it shows you the silhouette you're trying to place the tiles in order to match a silhouette in this bag are pieces that you try to feel blindly you reach your hand in and you're trying to feel something that matches the shape on a piece of paper um and then the last one here this element is for a flicking a disk first rat yes so by the way if you do leave some comments I'll try to respond as I see them pop up but if first rat is on sale oh man I really want to try first draft let's take a look at it really quick let's see what the sale is

5:33 44 bucks it doesn't say that marked off as a sale but that's a it's a good game okay I'm gonna get back on track here back to Deals okay those ones I've talked about um let's go I didn't talk about this one yesterday in fact all the other ones are new since yesterday except juicy fruits which I can which I can talk about extremely briefly because I don't like it very much anyway Apollo this is a really fascinating educational uh no educational themed game uh it's about the Apollo space space missions it's best as a two-player game it says it plays more than two player but I I really think it's a fantastic two-player game what you have is on one side of the board are the astronauts there's a screen between the two players so they can't see each other's boards so you've got the astronauts they're in charge of all of the controls for the space missions that they're on and on the other side of the board is mission control which oh I said that yeah this is Mission Control so mission control is uh in charge of monitoring the astronauts systems mostly this is a dice placing game but the two players can't see the same information they have to strategically use um communication tokens um but there's like some excellent maps and um the cards have some great flavor text it's a really fun dice game that dice

7:05 mechanic has nothing to do with space exploration but the communication element in this game I think is very very cool I do think it's an underrated game I'm not going to say that it's extraordinary it is not a mind-blowing incredible space game but for 15 bucks oh man 38 off I would absolutely get this especially if you want a fun game that you can play with your family if you've got a a daughter or a son you want to play with this would go very very well um I've man I've put I say it like it's got to be played with kids I haven't played this with my kids I've only played Apollo with adults my own age and I've really enjoyed it okay juicy fruits I think is not very exciting it it looks attractive but mechanically there's not a lot that stands out about this game oh man it's you're you're sliding these tokens around you've gotta everybody has their own player board and you're trying to get resources they it looks good right trying to get resources to buy things worth victory points and the way you get resources is by sliding them on your board so for example if you look at this line here you slide the lime three spaces down and collect three limes um the banana though you only have movement up or down and it's only one space so if you were to slide the banana you would only get one banana so and you know the um mangosteen can slide three or if you slide it this way it can only slide one if you get enough fruit you can fill up

8:37 these boats and when these boats leave the island take off the delivery you gain more space so you know I kind of said I wasn't interested in it but the more I describe it the more interesting it sounds um I just think it's kind of a hollow game for looking super cute and mostly you know I use a lot of discretion when I buy games because I already have so many lost ruins of arnach for 33 off lost Runes of our neck is not a game that has greatly impressed me given how popular this game is this is the kind of game you can find at like Target right or Barnes and Noble it's a it's kind of got that Mass Appeal to it um and it's a deck builder Adventure game so what you're trying to do is buy Cards you're buying cards in order to help you get certain resources that will help you either Explore More locations on the map or move up on different research tracks to get points so there are several spaces that become available as you play the game and you've got a large research track on the right side that gives you bonuses as you advance on it it's the you know I'm always very critical of games that reach that very very popular um level you know where they become so uh

10:09 mass produced I guess but this is a good game I don't know if I would pay I would call 40 bucks on sale though I feel like lost ruins of arnac is worth 40 bucks hmm but I will say the nice thing about lost ruins of arnac is you can play it online and I have left a link in the description it is available on board game arena so the next game is Cape May this one hit my radar when I was browsing games on Amazon and again really attractive looking game oh I think I was looking at this one because of the birds I recently did a video on five games that are better than wingspan and this game has birds in it so I was like oh is this any good but um I I don't think this is a good buy especially for 41 41 I will briefly describe it just the same the idea of Cape May I was gonna look this up before the video I wanted to double check I believe it's dice rolling that moves you on this map but you've got like a grid and there are all these streets here and you have to follow the signs on the grid so you're moving through the neighborhood and as you move through the neighborhood you are um you're stopping at the buildings that get built by players throughout the course of the game and the buildings can give you things as you pass through them or if you land on a bird space you get

11:40 to randomly draw a bird from a bag there's no trading of these birds it's kind of like I guess thematically the the idea is you have a sighting you see a bird and um you don't control what kind of birds you see so there's no skill involved it's just randomly draw a bird from a bad oh look what bird I saw isn't that nice if you can collect a complete set of birds you get more victory points for that but you have no control over trading these at any point during the game so it really is just an element of luck I I really like when you add on a scoring mechanic like that it feels so tacked on and artificial it gameplay really isn't about the birds and you're you know you can try to make yourself land on a bird space but you can't control what bird comes out of it um man you know I might not have been dice I'm trying to remember what the mechanic is for moving through this grid it may have been cards but in any case you're moving through these little spaces and you're building constructions with the resources along the way um I think I actually wrote this anyway not for 40 bucks okay bitoku but toku I think is the the oh it's 2021. I was gonna say I think it's the newest game here that's on sale I

13:10 I've thoroughly investigated batoku when I was looking at my games that are better than everdell research I can show you which game I chose instead of butoku if you want to find a cool game take a look at arboria because arboria is the game that I ultimately put on my list of games that's better than everdelt it's a complex game um it's not available yet this is a 2023 game uh the kickstarter just closed so it's gonna be a while before you can get your hands on this anyway by comparison I think this is a poorly designed game look how complicated it is you look at this board and you think wow look like look how much stuff is going on this game looks so so rich there's so much here I bet this game is really strategic I bet this game has some really cool mechanics it's kind of a dice worker placement game where you place dice to perform actions and you can uh you augment the dice As you move them over the board but and it's kind of got this Japanese theme with like spirits um it certainly looks really cool you're buying buildings you're putting buildings on the board where the dice actions are performed you've got player boards there's a there's a lot a lot going on in this game and if you are the

14:41 kind of person who likes a complex game because you just enjoy complexity that's all you like you like having lots and lots of factors to consider when you make decisions if you like that you would love bitoku but for me personally I love complex games but I want to see the payoff I wanna I want the gratification of either like the theme is really good or the mechanics are unique or or the player interaction is especially Dynamic and interesting game is Just complex for complexity's sake then that doesn't impress me and I end up being disappointed so I read through the rules of this I really wanted to understand it I I to understand it I wanted to play a game that's this beautiful and I just didn't want to when I was done learning all the rules for 51 bucks and 31 off I would totally buy it if I only wanted to play games that were super super complex that brings me to the next game Prague training

15:52 so so is also a complex game and maybe even for complexity's sake this is a puzzly game it's basically tile placement you're building out the village in Prague and you are also contributing to are you moving along the university different tracks you know I'm not going to go too much into the theme about this game there's a really cool rondelle in this game uh what's happening is every time you take an action you pull off one of these tiles from the rondelle and then you rotate the Rondell and put the tile that you placed in the back so what that does is it causes all of the tiles that weren't placed to advance when the rondelle is rotated and as they Advance they enter into the blue sections which make them provide a better bonus when you take the tile actions that were most recently taken have a greater cost you're paying to take actions that people have taken more recently and then where they are in the Rundell there's a bonus there as well this is what I'm talking about when I say I like a complex game if it has a mechanic that I find really interesting I think this rondelle is fantastic the tile placing everything else there's nothing super remarkable about this I do think that the attention they put into

17:23 the artwork and everything is really a love letter to the city of Prague I think it's beautiful this is the King Charles bridge here you can see these like three-dimensional tracks the cathedral and the University it's a it's a pretty game but it's very very puzzly oh and it does one more thing that I really like about it uh it has a set number of turns I think it's a the entire game is exactly 16 turns I believe and I I find that really satisfying when you know exactly how long a game is oh I put my 60 second review on here okay um that's the player board I think this is great but my huge caution is this is a puzzly game with a cool mechanic so if you don't like puzzly complex games you certainly wouldn't like it I do that's all there is to it okay the next game is her story boy is this contrast with praga and batokyo this is not a complex game this is a simple game this is like Ticket to Ride simple or yeah in complexity um I will also say that as the father of two daughters this is the only game that I regularly tell other parents about I tell them about this game even if they don't even like board games I'm like man we have this board game it's all about women in history and so you've got tons of unique cards 120 it says right

18:55 there 120 icons for women throughout history and what you're trying to do is build a book by completing chapters about each of these women so if you want to complete a chapter on Joan of Arc you need to have very abstract here two um what is I think it's investigation tokens and three interview tokens why investigation tokens and interview tokens it doesn't matter they're just arbitrary resources two blues and three greens whatever this one requires I can't even say that name Henrietta perfectus Walsh uh two yellows and three blues whatever you're taking resources on your turn or you're building out these cards but what I really like about it is at the end you get to read the biographies so when I play this with my kids we actually make a bigger deal out of reading the biographies than we do of playing the game like we make an event of it we sit on the couch everybody takes the cards they've collected in the game and we all read it together and through doing that we learn a lot in fact there's a ton of characters in here that I've never even heard of I love it but it's definitely because of its family appeal all right oh question that just dropped was have I ever bought any of the root expansions I have not bought any root expansions I actually rarely buy expansions

20:27 but I have played at least one with people who come to the board game Gathering that I attend um yeah I get really excited about learning board game rules and then it stops there I don't want to learn the extra rules with the expansions I just like how each game is distinct in its design um gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion okay so gloomhaven jaws of the Lion I I feel like I'm going to explain it as if you've never heard of it before because I think that's the best way to do a review like this this is one of the most popular board games on Board Game Geek and it is because of its thematic appeal it is essentially an introduction to gloomhaven which is a much bigger box with a ton more components and it has a little book and in the book there's a map and a mission for every single page and you play every mission right there in the book I have a picture of that so you build these characters you have character sheets and you have your um miniature and so you're you're really just playing a campaign with your manager this is an RPG kind of like you know Dungeons and Dragons or something but what they've done that I think is so exceptional for gloomhaven and um you know I would throw it in there like

21:57 a few every now and then you see how a Dungeons and Dragons type inspired Fantasy game that's implemented so well as a board game gloomhaven did it Mage Knight did it if I sat here and thought long enough I'd think of some more examples but um there are some just really interesting mechanics on how you go through these campaigns um you go through your hand of cards and at the end of each round of playing your kind of cards you have to discard something in order to become stronger which strengthens your character but weakens your hand at least I think that's right I have act so hit but here's the confession while I have looked at this game and I admire this game for everything that it offers I have not played this game because this game does not interest me and that's why I'm also struggling to remember exactly how the carbon mechanic works it is super cool I have no interest in fantasy campaign style games I would play it if somebody brought it and said hey you know play play Jaws the line with me um oh my gosh it's 34 bucks I'm not gonna buy it but that's a really good price all right oath here's what I can say about oaf if you're watching this video and you aren't already familiar with oath

23:28 then don't buy oaf that's all there is to it because oath is not an entry-level game the people who need to play Oath are the people who are so into the hobby that they knew about Oath before it came out oath is made by letter games letter games it has made root which is very popular they make all their games are like four letters long like Ahoy and fast and root and oath and they all have a steep learning curve the rules are very complex to learn the gameplay isn't nearly as complex as the rules themselves because they love the designers the company that produces these games they love asymmetry and replayability and variation so oath in fact let me open that up again oh the board that you play on you can see or it's it's matte actually um is built out of cards that players play so it's not just like a map but the game setup it depends on the players uh how they play cards during the game and each game is different from the previous game because how you play changes the um the objectives and the map so there's a ton of variability here uh what the game is about is trying to be the dominant power in this land so

25:00 there is a leader I think it I think they call it the chancellor if I remember correctly they are the leader and then you've got other people who are trying to either usurp the chancellor or secede uh the chancellor and so you've got all kinds of different objectives that can come out during the game um and it's about getting influence and trying to throw other people off so that they can't become the dominant power but you can instead there is it's a very very complex game to learn um and that's probably all I need to say about that and lastly Pan Am this is killing me I really want Pan Am but I am trying to restrain myself I keep buying too many games and I feel like this game is so underrated it just seems like I'll always be able to buy it because people don't want to play it I don't know it's always on sale so Pan Am for well first let me tell you why I'm so interested in it for whatever reason I love games that have like a stock buying component to them I think they're fascinating because I like it when your best interests aren't always your own personal agenda you can invest in other plans and possibly come out ahead that's what I think is really cool about this game so in this one

26:32 you are a small airline company and as you build out your routes and own more um what do they call them hangers airports I can't remember what they are called you're trying to spread out your influence on the map but if you are successful at this then the overarching like all powerful Pan Am will buy your routes and you'll make money from being acquired by Pan Am Pan Am is not a player Pan Am is the I guess it's the game itself and so at the end of the game basically everyone is going to be bought out by Pan Am and what it will come down to is how much money you made from selling your work as you as it was being acquired um this is just a really smart thematic game and whenever I see games that are so thematically well done it I get really excited about them so a lot of stock buying route building and bidding there's a the way that you do everything is through bidding you're bidding actions all over the map so I think it's really cool um and this game has has had so little attention which I think is a real shame for a game that's so smart I don't own it I haven't even played it every time I look at it I'm like I really should buy that game and I keep not buying it because I have

28:06 I'm because I'm I'm uh behind in making all my reviews ever and this come out 2020. anyway those are the 12 best deals on new games but it doesn't stop there no no no you can click this little button more deals and you can just keep going and keep going so many deals um there there are some that you know I just I'm not going to go into them in depth but beyond the sun I find beyond the sun is fantastic that's available on board game arena as well I think Gutenberg is a wonderful auctioning game or bidding game um there like some of these are just so cool but the purpose of this video is only the top 12. so I'm going to stop there I do want to ask that if you found this video useful and if you're going to buy any of these games anyway will you please buy them on or through the site because when you do that the affiliate link helps support the existence of this page and it supports me and my channel and all my other content so it helps out a lot local Target had juicy fruits in arnak for half off wow so arnac for 30 bucks yeah I would buy arnac for 30 bucks

29:35 I think I've been too hard on juicy fruits because it is because it is thematically so uninspired but the tile sliding mechanic probably is a lot of fun maybe I should try it someday I'm not going to buy it if I'm gonna buy anything first I'm gonna buy pnm all right

30:06 thanks for watching