2023 Gaming Recap

Top New To Me Games of the Year

1. The Quest for El Dorado*

2. Tiny Towns

3. Orleans

4. Blood on the Clocktower

5. Unmatched

6. Heat: Petal to the Metal

7. Welcome To...

8. City of the Big Shoulders

9. Sea Salt and Paper

10. El Grande

*Games that made my top 10 of all time list.

Another great year of gaming as I have settled into more weekly plays with Katie and more friends wanting to play! I didn't attend the World Series of Board Games this year, I frankly am not good enough to spend the money but I did attend BGG and the MTG world championship in Vegas! This year MTG was refreshed to me and I think drafting is once again my new favorite way to play. I have built two cubes and am working on building a base to play with! Only one new game cracked my top 10 and it is because I think that El Dorado is a near perfectly designed game. Everdell coming off the top 10 was really sad but it was only a matter of time I think as I often would rather draft MTG than play Everdell. As a small side note, get ready for the launch of my first game in 2024! Now on to the awards:

Best NTM Game of The Year: The Quest for El Dorado. It is fairly simple but I do not think there is any fluff nor any balance issues at all! Super fun game that is very replayable. One of my favorite parts of playing the game was when Katie picked up on the better cards and started to out draft me! I love seeing when the light clicks in games and I am always down to teach/ play this game.

Most Played Game of The Year: MTG. I don't think I will ever play any other games as much as I play Magic. The game has taken some spins this last year with all the new Universes Beyond cards coming out but there has been a lot of joy found in opening packs to find The One Ring and tapping my Sonic Screwdriver.

Most Underrated Game of The Year: Blood on the Clocktower. I am not a big fan of Social Deduction games so this was a shock to me. I am very lucky to have a really good storyteller and because of that, we get very dynamic playthroughs and I leave wanting more every time. Good job and shout out to Joe for being so good!

Most Underwhelming Game of The Year: Horseless Carriage. The game was pretty fun but it is so much work to take it out and teach that I have only played it once and would rather play Food Chain when I am in a splotter games mood.

Most Anticipated Game of 2023: Last Light. This game looks super cool and I love the idea of 4x in one hour. Last Light reminds me of what Irish Gauge did for 18xx games. I wanted to play at BGG but the schedule was too full this year.

Honorable Mentions:

• Blue Lagoon

• Everdell

• Shobu

• Blood on the Clocktower

• Orleans

• Heat: Petal to the Metal

• Chronicles of Crime

• Ark Nova

• Unmatched

• Welcome to...

• Tiny Towns

EOY Top Ten list:

1. Magic The Gathering

2. Eclipse: Second Dawn for the Galaxy

3. Brass: Birmingham

4. Food Chain Magnate

5. Blood Rage

6. Tigris and Euphrates

7. Dune: Imperium

8. The Quest for El Dorado

9. A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition)

10. Chess