16 New Board Games Worth Checking Out - Board Game Buyer's Guide

0:00 Each month dozens of new board game releases and restocks reach store shelves. It can actually be pretty overwhelming, which is why we've compiled our top picks along with some games that are back with a new twist and more. If you're looking for some new titles to try out, well, you've come to the right place because this is our board game buyers guide. Hey, I'm Chaz Marler and whether you're a long-time viewer or this is your first episode of Board Game Buyers Guide, thanks so much for joining me to discuss some new games that are coming out starting with some honorable mentions like Carnuta, a fantasy card game where two to four druids from all across the druidsverse have gathered to help combine eight secret ingredients together in the hopes of creating the most exceptional potion among your peers. Potions are created by collecting, flipping, and exchanging the right mixture of sun and moon runes. And then, once created, each potion will not only score points on their own, but can also help other potent potions produce even more precious points. Achieving the highest score will require collecting and combining concoctions in correct combinations. And then, the game that's drifting into port next is Fortunes of Scoundrel Bay, a piratical adventure set in the archipelago of Scoundrel Bay where, amidst treasures, tides, and danger, fortune awaits any crew that's

1:32 daring, dashing, or foolish enough to seize it. Here, up to four pirate captains endeavor to collect the most gold in various piratey different ways. They conquer harbors, duck into hideouts, deliver dubious crates, dig up treasures, and gain reputation by hunting monsters. I did not see that last one coming. Captains must build up their crew to achieve their fortune and, of course, pirate captains must always be on the lookout for others on the prowl because every one of them is out to amass fame and fortune in the same roiling waters. And you'll also find roiling waters inside your washing machine, which, naturally, brings us to the game Oh My Socks.

2:19 Did not see that one coming, either. This is a card game for two to five players because, as we all know, socks come in pairs of two, but somehow they don't they don't stay in twos, do they? One of them always seems to go missing inside the washing machine. I get it. And that is why, in Oh My Socks, players set out to collect best pairs of socks before they enter the dubious washing machine to be forever separated. Are we collecting dirty socks, then? Best not to think about it, I think. This is a quick card game of collecting sets with special abilities where, each turn, you draw two cards, keep one, and give the other to another player. The sock cards are numbered and the aim is to collect sets of even-numbered sets of cards. You want to collect sets of cards where every card in the set has the same number, but if your set has an odd number of cards in it, it won't score.

3:15 So, you'll rack up the points with four socks, but you'll be out of luck if you've only got five socks in that set. What's also got five is the game Got Five. I see we've transitioned to another game already. This is a logical deduction game for two to four players. Now, through the power of observation and through keeping track of stuff, players compete to uncover five hidden numbers that they have in front of themselves, but they can't see. Each player can see everyone else's tiles, but never their own. It's kind of a board game equivalent of trying to lick your own elbow, but fun instead of being something that you immediately regret saying. Players have to rely on shared information, clever questioning, and careful note-taking to narrow down the different possibilities. Reveal a new tile from the supply and then ask clever questions to deduce which digits are yours before the other players can come to their own conclusions.

4:21 Next up are several well-loved games that have recently returned with a twist, such as the game Arkham Horror: The Card Game, which is Okay, this has been around for a decade, but recently the game has seemed to be on a campaign to reintroduce and revitalize itself with a revised core set, which introduces several quality-of-life improvements for ease of play, support for up to four players with just a single copy of the game instead of having to get multiple copies for four players, plus new player cards, new investigators and mechanisms, better organization for storage, and an improved rulebook while still remaining 100% compatible with all the game's previously published material, which there is a lot of. I mean, there's a decades' worth of regular expansions already out there for this game.

5:15 Fortunately, though, this new edition provides a brand new starting point for players that want to unravel an otherworldly scheme or perhaps just go insane while they do it. Insane is always an option because, when it comes to solving its ancient mysteries, this game doesn't spell out the answers for any of the players. Unlike the next game, Scrabble, which does spell out words and is back with a twist in Scrabble Texas Spellem, where the classic word game of Scrabble commingles with the king of all card games, arguably, poker. To play, two to four players roll three dice that are covered in letters, keeping the letters that they rolled a secret. Then, combining their own dice with five community ones, everyone comes up with the best word that they can while also attempting to capture potential bonus points in the process. Once everyone has their word, players then bet on who they think has the highest scoring word, and you can bet big even if you don't have a word at all, just as long as you can bluff your way to victory. Continuing the trend of a classic game combined with a dice-rolling twist, there's Connect Four Rolls. This is a new take on the classic game of championing checkers, but this time the disc dropping has been replaced with dice rolling, blocking, swapping, and flipping. Players now roll four dice, pick one, and place it on the board, aiming to, of all things, connect

6:46 four of them in a row. But things are a little more dynamic this time around cuz players can also take advantage of additional actions that are available to manipulate the playing field, keeping things pretty sneaky, sis. Pretty sneaky, sis. And as long as we're mashing up board game powerhouses, let's be sure to also mention the new King of Tokyo expansion for the game Mindbug. Now, this is not to be confused with the new Mindbug expansion for the game King of Tokyo, which, yes, does also exist, but they're two completely different things, which actually our co-writer, Matthew, discovered accidentally after after he returned from a recent trip to his friendly local game store. But don't worry, buddy, we've all been there. Mindbug is a two-player card battler where powerful creatures, replete with game-warping abilities, do battle, including the mindbugs themselves, which can be used to immediately take control of an opponent's creature. What's more, the all-new standalone King of Tokyo expansion for Mindbug allows players to take control of the powerful King of Tokyo monsters who have access to special dice, which can trigger wild attack effects. And, of course, in true King of Tokyo fashion, monsters can spend energy to buy unique power cards as well, providing unique abilities unlike anything you've ever seen in nature. And, actually, speaking of

8:18 nature, next up is a special selection of games that take place in nature, i.e., the great outdoors. It is no secret to me nor anyone I have known that board gamers tend to spend a lot of their free time inside where the board games are. Well, now, to balance that out, there are tons of great games about nature to play inside your house. Forestry is the first one we're going to talk about, and it kicks off our list of four great outdoor scores where one to four forest facilitators dedicated to sustainable woodland management balance harvesting resources against fulfilling contracts with an environmental impact. In Forestry, every action has a lasting impact on the forest's health, so it's crucial to make choices that are not only economically beneficial, but also environmentally responsible, such as deciding when to fell trees and replant saplings, how to improve your infrastructure, and optimize your water retention. The result is a great balance of demands to ensure that you meet the needs of both your contracts and the forest itself.

9:40 And then, narrowing our perspective down to pond level is the game Pondscape, which is not the next frog-inspired expansion for HeroScape, though how cool would that be? That would be focusing I am focusing on Pondscape, which is about creating your very own vibrant pond full of frogs that score points and insects that decidedly do not. The ponds themselves are a grid of cards placed hopefully in a layout that scores the most points. Friendly amphibians show up to add demands of their own, which if met mean even more points. And cards are there to be drafted from a shared pool of cards controlled by a central frog that's called the jumper frog, which the players can influence to gather insects, which in a very surprising non-twist can provide even more points. The careful planning and resourcefulness that's needed to win makes Pondscape definitely worth taking the leap to play.

10:43 And then, if you expand that pond out to a bit bigger, you have the sea, where our next game, Sea Scroll, takes place. Why did I go out of my way to work in the word leap? It's not even part of the transition. I did not write that well. But that's okay, because Sea Scroll is a quick-playing, deceptively strategic set collection card game where two to six players guide schools of fish from the reef to their personal habitats. The fish come in a variety of types, and the player with the most of each species scores points equal to that fish's value. Simple enough, except that when a player scores a formation of fish, everyone else loses that many points.

11:32 And while it's easy to see what fish everyone has collected in front of them, players don't know what fish are still lurking in each other's hands, preventing everyone from knowing exactly which fish are going to be added to everyone's schools at the end of the game. So, be sure to keep a close eye on everything the entire time so you don't flounder at the end. See, that one made sense. Wrapping up our adventure in the out-of-doors and fresh air is the game Fia's Swamp. Though, this is technically uh actually another game that has returned with a twist, because Fia's Swamp is a re-implementation of Cave, Cavay, Cavay. It's a re-implementation of a game from 2005, but now it's in a swamp. So, its tiles are green instead of blue.

12:19 Big difference. In this swampy setting, two to four clans compete to become the most illustrious swamp dweller around. And they do this by adapting to their surroundings, finding the best fishing and settlement spots, choosing the right trading partners, and possibly venturing off into nearby abandoned temples where powerful deities lie dormant waiting to be awakened. Whether or not a player is assisted by a drowsy demigod, the goal is to contribute the most to the development of Fia by meeting various goals that are specific to each individual session of the game.

13:02 And now it's time for this month's best bets. If you are in the market for a new hobby board game, well then, and at least in my opinion, any one of the following is going to be worth looking into, such as Heat: Rocky Roads, which is the latest expansion for the consistently popular card-driven racing game Heat: Pedal to the Metal. Rocky Roads follows in the footsteps of Heat's previous expansions, Heavy Rain and Tunnel Vision. And the Rocky Roads expansion introduces two new racetracks. In the South Africa Grand Prix, racers face treacherous gravel on the track, requiring not only careful management of their car, but also nerves of steel. And achieving victory on the Germany track will hinge on how players deal with the fast pace of the track's long straightaway, combined with its winding corners and slightly wobbly bit there at the top. But then, once you cross the finish line, you can continue pressing your luck in all-in predictions, a poker-inspired game of memory and forecognizance, which combines hand management with strategic foresight. By crafting the best poker-inspired hand, players attempt to be the one to go all-in and then score more points than a Pondscape jumper frog. However, the real fly in the ointment here is that the players can then bid on who they think will have the winning hand at the end of the game, which really can turn the tide

14:32 substantially. Additionally, the cards are bestowed with various special powers, which may very well change a player's hand, earn them bonus points, or even gain them some hidden information. And let's hope that the next game on the list isn't information that's been hidden from you, because it's the game Castle Nightingale, a castle that looms in the night, stoic, intimidating, and full of both promise and silverfish. Now, on this very night, three ninjas have slipped inside the castle searching for the fabled treasure hidden within it. However, a vigilant samurai is in there patrolling the castle halls, watching and listening for intruders. To assist the players, there's specialized equipment that can be gathered and used as players use their hand of cards to either capture all three ninjas or steal five of the six relics that are randomly hidden among eight vases in the castle. Also, I have been instructed to clarify for you that Castle Nightingale has been free of silverfish since the Clinton administration.

15:41 Which brings us to our bestest bet that we've selected this time around, which is Nippon Zaibatsu, the new remake of the game Nippon from 2015. Nippon Zaibatsu is a fast-paced economic game that's full of challenging decisions for one to four players, set during a crucially important time in Japanese history when the empire sent emissaries to foreign nations to bring in technicians and scholars from the west to build and work on a network of railroads to power a rapid industrial revolution. Apparently, that had to be all put into one huge, colossal, mega sentence for some reason. Regardless, though, players control the different zaibatsu, mega corporations, and it's imperative for them to develop and maintain a web of power by investing in new industries, improving their technologies, and shipping various goods, all while growing their influence and power by controlling strategic areas of the board. Also, a very long sentence. To come out on top and to gain the most influence over the revolutionized Japanese islands, your zaibatsu must carefully choose which types of industry that you're going to invest in. And if you'd like to find even more games that might be worth investing in, well, continue on to the latest episodes of our new High Roller show and our Anti-Hotness.

17:08 There are lots more games out there to discover and enjoy as your next game night pick. Until then, thanks for joining us, and take care.