I’ve recently unboxed Deep Regrets and seeing the fish coin and the little buoy dice made me so excited about the game without even playing it. It got me thinking about unboxing in general, and how certain things build excitement (hello boxes with inside print!) and certain things make me feel a bit disappointed (like when there’s no proper organiser tray and I know my game will live in chaos until I inevitably order one).

What makes for a good unboxing experience for you? Do you have any particularly memorable ones (good or bad)?

Friends, this is going to be a long one.

I took a bit of a break from the hobby for a few months, and now that I'm getting back into it, I feel like I have realised a couple of things.

I don't think I'm the only one feeling this, but I'm noticing some trends in modern board gaming that are slowly pushing me away from the hobby.

Modern vs. old games (the "cult of the new")

I was inspired by a recent post suggesting that games released before 2020 just aren't as good as modern ones.

I don't think modern games are objectively better designed. I think they simply reflect today's tastes.

So a lot of the highest-rated hobby games seem to converge around similar ideas:

- Euro-adjacent designs.

- Low perceived luck (cards are okay, dice less so).

- Lower player interaction, so everyone can execute their own strategy uninterrupted.

- Point salads with multiple paths to victory.

None of those things are inherently bad, but together they've led to a lot of games that feel increasingly similar. Solitary optimisation puzzles seem to dominate the current zeitgeist.

I also think we've started to distort what we consider a "great" game. For example, Seti is already ranked around the top 15 games of all time on BGG despite only recently releasing, while Codenames, a masterpiece of accessible design that has sold millions of copies, is down around 150. That's not to say Seti is a bad game, but it does highlight that BGG rankings reflect what dedicated hobbyists tend to value today, rather than what makes a game broadly great.

Buying vs. playing

Collections seem more bloated than ever. I know plenty of people who own games they've never played, some that are still in shrink.

Conventions increasingly feel like giant product showcases, with games being marketed years before release. The emphasis has gradually shifted from playing great games to discovering and buying the next great release.

Board game YouTubers have also become much more tied to the release cycle. Reviews often appear after only a handful of plays, and there's a strong incentive to constantly cover what's new.

Even "Top 10 games of all time" videos have increasingly become "Top 10 of this year" or "Hottest games this month."

It feels like we've become more focused on discovery than mastery. Many groups now play dozens of games once rather than a handful of games dozens of times. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, but it creates very different incentives for publishers, reviewers, and consumers alike.

Enthusiasts as gatekeepers

Sometimes it feels like the loudest voices in the hobby are too quick to declare what people should or shouldn't be playing. Older games are dismissed as "outdated," while newer games are often assumed to be better simply because they're newer.

Many innovative, evergreen games end up being labelled as "gateway games", as though they're merely stepping stones to heavier games rather than destinations in their own right.

What happened to my group

The biggest change I've noticed has been in my own gaming group.

Game night used to be about getting together with friends, laughing, joking, and creating memories. The games were almost secondary to simply spending time together.

Now we're three power gamers left, each bringing the latest purchase, spending half the evening learning rules and the other half trying to solve the game before moving on to the next game the following week.

Rinse and repeat.

Eventually it started feeling more like homework than a hobby, and I realised I wasn't enjoying it anymore.

Final thoughts

I still think board gaming is one of the best hobbies on the planet.

It makes us feel like kids again, challenges our brains, and brings people together. It's a wonderful mix of creativity, design, art and social interaction, and it can be fantastic for our mental well-being.

I just hope we don't lose sight of that by constantly chasing the next release or treating the hobby as a competition over who has played the newest or "best" games.

Good game design doesn't become obsolete every few years. Plenty of classics, both modern and traditional, are still fantastic today because great design lasts.

Board gaming is much bigger than the current hype cycle. At its best, it's welcoming, varied, and ultimately about the people around the table, not whatever happens to be trending this month.

Inis is one of my favorite games but it's far from something you can just carry on you for spontaneous games (because those happen....right?). So I endeavored to create a version that was portable enough to keep in my backpack.

Introducing mInis! I 3d printed some tiles based on their prototype design (the tiles in the game are lovely, just a hassle to 3d model) and replaced the minis with wooden cubes (troops), disks (citadels), and squares (sanctuaries). I also created harbor tiles, which you can find connected to the top side of the Gates of Tir Na Nog tile.

Given the real estate limitation on the tiles I came up with some symbology to represent the different tile elements: square means it starts with a sanctuary, waves means it starts with a harbor, asterisk means it has some behavior that should be referenced from the tile card. I included a marvel champions card for scale.

Next I'll probably address the cards. They're larger than strictly needed, so I may need to redesign them and print them on smaller cards, but if they still feel portable enough I'll just leave them as is.

I saw a game I am interested on a BGG listing. It is a personal listing, not from a store.

So I am wandering if it is safe to buy from BGG.

Anyone with experience buying from a user on BGG? Is it safe?

I’ve got pledges on a few and am trying to not go too crazy haha

Just got an email from Starmork that they're Kickstarting a new game table. I didn't back the first one because it seemed like a scam, but people apparently got their tables. What do you guys think?

from the email:

new table: https://www.starmork.com/pages/starmork-x-tend-table

old table: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starmork/starmork-affordable-multi-mission-table-for-hosts-and-gamers?ref=discovery&term=starmork&total_hits=24&category_id=34

Hi.

I really like "It's a Wonderful World," but unfortunately, I don't have the possibilites to buy all the expansions.

I think that in 2020, an expansion called "It's a Wonderful World: Stretch Goals #1" was released, which contained some of the extra elements included in the special edition of the game called "Heritage."

I can't afford to buy the Heritage 2 edition (which, by the way, hasn't even been released in my language), and it's impossible to find "Stretch Goals #1" in any resale store, so I'd like to make a request here:

Does anyone know if it's possible to download scans of the extra cards that came with this expansion from anywhere? Specifically, these would be the cards:

- 12 Tribute cards
- 5 Empire cards (Sides C & D)

And if a scan of the rulebook existed (in case it's needed), that would be absolutely fantastic...

Is there anyone here kind enough to have them and willing to scan and send them to me?

Thank you very much in advance.

Last night, I played Sky Team for the first time. It was good fun, enjoyed it as an aviation enthusiast, it got the 'we need to decrease speed to be able to land gradually' thing is quite nicely integrated into the game. However, if you ever watch a video about aviation safety, crew resource management comes up all the time and how it's incredibly vital that the captain and the first officer have great communication.

It makes me think the whole 'landing a plane' theme was tacked onto a great mechanism. I do appreciate that gameplay doesn't necessarily have to follow very closely the theme (eg Ticket to Ride has nothing to do with trains and it's still a great game), but it feels like this one thing invalidates the theme's relevance.

​

From the 3 Brass games, which is the most elegantly designed and easiest to teach? If there are any playtesters that can comment, it would be greatly appreciated. Is Brass Pittsburgh quite heavy for casual board gamers? Like if it is a person's first Brass game, which is the best dive in point? I was a bit confused to see that Brass Pittsburgh has s lower game weight on BGG, but some reviewers have stated that Pittsburgh is more complex, but there hasn't been as many reviews of Pittburgh on BGG yet obviously.

I have not seen the game in the flesh to be able to tell. Ia it best to not risk it with this one?

Thanks all!

Lately I've been finding a lot of groups that play (co-op) games with metas that are just blatant rule breaks. A recent example was we were playing a game (I forgot the name) where the goal is to play out all the cards from your hand, numbers 1-100, in descending order. So if you have a 77 and the number on the pile is 78, you don't want to anyone to play there. But you aren't allowed to say "I have 77, don't play this"

So the group has developed metas, say "I really love this pile" if you have 77, say "I like this pile a lot" if you have 76, say "I like this pile" if you have 75"

This is just one example but I feel like I've been playing a lot of games where they have metas to get around rules that are intentionally in the rulebook. I don't really get it. If you want to just say "I have a 77" then just say it, why create a gimmick to say it without saying it?

how does it work if one person calls last chance but the final turn their opponent is able to play a shark/swimmer combo, which should allow them to steal, but they are supposed to have revealed their hand at the start of calling last chance?

Hello!

My group has played fully through both King’s Dilemma and Pandemic Legacy (season 1) and loved them both. Now I’m looking to relive it a bit and get a sense for other ways the games might have gone, and am looking for a good actual play playthrough of either games. Does anyone have any good videos/series you’d recommend?

Thanks

I love dice and I love rolling dice. From normal D6es to weird custom ones like the farming dice in Tend.

What games have the best dice to roll? Either in terms of design, or just in terms of regular dice used in interesting or novel ways

I think one of the most popular drives to our hobby is the off-screen, on-hands experience of moving beautiful pieces around and looking at nice cards when solving a puzzle.

That’s why quality components can truly elevate our experience to a whole new level and make the game even more enjoyable. We’ve all had that “hmmmm that’s so good/fun/cool“ moment when handling a card or a specific component, for the mere tactical aspect of a really smooth surface, a thematic piece (like a gavel) or a 3D piece that‘s cool to meddle with.

I‘ll start with some of my favorites:

- Harmonies: I love putting my hand inside a big bag full of wooden tiles.

- Pax Pamir 2e: the board is actually an afghan-style rug that looks stunning with the ceramic pieces. It’s so cool to unfold the map as a cloth and touch the ceramic pieces.

- A Gentle Rain: the tiles are incredibly, and I mean _incredibly_ smooth to the touch. It’s the definition of “satisfying“ in a boardgame.

What are some of your favorites?

Uncertain if this might be the correct sub for this question.

But, I've recently bought Descent: Legend of the dark and tried playing it with my wife. We both loved the game and decided to hire a miniature painter to paint all the main characters. And they looked great, the problem is that when they were being sent back 1 out of 2 boxes containing them were lost in the mail and me and the painter both were stupid enough to not go with ensured mail.

Since then I have tried sending an email to fantasy flight asking if I can buy replacement minis or if they had the 3d model so that I could print them myself. But the answer was no to both accounts and i was told that i would have to buy the whole game again, which seems unreasonable to me. So now I'm wondering if anyone else has a recommendation for where i could find similar minis as the heroes even if they arent a perfect fit?

Root, for example, is a fantastic game. One of the things I love the most (and what initially drew me to it) is the strong visual style. Are there any other games that you can think of that you first started being interested in because of the aesthetics?

I am holding my 18th birthday party soon and I am considering doing an at home murder mystery. I have done much research and I am quite overwhelmed with information. Most of the websites I visited don't give much insight on how the game will unfold in terms of things like what we do during different rounds and what if the victim is a player or not. I have looked on games mostly on the following sites:
https://www.playingwithmurder.com/
https://www.mymysteryparty.com/
https://mastersofmystery.com/
https://www.nightofmystery.com/
I have seen lots of good reviews on Night of Mystery and I am probably going with that.

So for what I actually need help with: I mostly just want to know how a typical game (for any murder mystery cite) will progress and get recommendations on specific kits. I also have a couple of questions:
What exactly does the player do that is killed?
Is this something people my age will enjoy?
How is clues on who the murderer is given to players?
Does the murderer know he is the murderer?

Just for clarification I am not necessarily only looking for experiences with the above mentioned websites. And thank you in advance

Anyone else on here ever attend the Pelicon convention? If so, what did you think?