It’s not my intent to make my blog into a bunch of game lists, but I have been thinking about that a lot more lately, and so I’ve come up with another list of games. These are all games that I want to play to find out if they are something I’m interested in, but I don’t want to take the effort of getting them and being the first person in my group to learn them. A lot of the games on this list are ones that I’m not sure that I would like, or would necessarily make the time to play, while others I think I would like, but want to find out more so I can decide whether the expense and/or difficulty to acquire would be worth it.
With that, here are my top five games that I want to play before I decide whether to get them or not:
#5 – The GIPF Project
The GIPF project is a series of games by the same designer that are all abstract strategy games. Generally, I bounce off abstract strategy games, so I haven’t really looked for any of the titles in this group explicitly – I assume I could find them if I tried, but I really want to play something in this series before I go looking.
Core to the GIPF project is that they are all 2-player abstract strategy games. Now, I have a lot of 2 player games in my collection, with varying play times and weights (everything from Hive to Fallen), so it would seem like there’s not a lot of room for these in my collection. However, if they were good enough to knock out something else or get me into abstract strategy games in general, that would be worth it.
#4 – Battlestar Galactica or Unfathomable
These two games, both by Fantasy Flight Games, are different implementations of the same core concepts in two different intellectual properties. Battlestar Galactica was first, and is based on the 2005 Battlestar Galactic TV series, while Unfathomable takes place on a boat crossing the Atlantic and being threatened by Lovecraftian creatures from the deep. I’m typically not a huge fan of IP based games, but Unfathomable has been getting a fair bit of buzz, and I’d like to give it a shot to see if that has any weight and whether I should try to chase down the old Battlestar Galactica game (because, if I’m being honest, that’s the one that interests me more, primarily due to theming).
Both of these games are semi-cooperative games where one or more players are “traitors” trying to sink/destroy the ship while the rest of the players are trying to fend off the invaders while getting the ship to safety. From what I’ve seen, it’s a bit lighter weight than Nemesis (the tasks system is much simpler) and so could be something I could play with less hard-core gaming fans.
#3 – Dune Imperium & Lost Ruins of Arnak
I’ve got two different games in this slot because both would likely fill the same needs from a game for me, though I admit to leaning toward Dune a bit more. I haven’t been able to get Dune Imperium as it’s out of stock in all the places I’ve looked, so I really want to give it a try before I chase down a copy (either for a markup or just by looking at more places). I’d also like to play Lost Ruins of Arnak to see if maybe it’s something I like better, which could also sway which direction I want to go with this choice.
From what I’ve heard, both of these have a lot of action economy and worker placement aspects, though what they do with those core mechanics can be very different. I don’t really have a lot of worker placement in my current games (except for large-scale games like Anachrony and Trickerion), so this could fit into a nice mid-weight game in that category for me. The catch for me, is that I’m not huge on this style of game, so I’d like to give it a shot before I pick it up.
#2 – Malifaux
I’ve seen Malifaux played a couple of times from afar, and every time I look into the game, it looks really cool. However, figuring out how to start playing has been… …inscrutable for me. I’ve picked up the free rulebook and the model cards, but I just don’t know how to start putting together an army to play. This, combined with the unknown factor of whether it’s a game I would enjoy more than, say, Warmachine/Hordes makes me hesitate – getting into a new miniatures game is a big investment in money, time, and energy (buying and building models as well as learning a new ruleset). So, I’ve never really gotten into this, as I wanted to wait to play a game or two to find out which faction I might like to play and whether I even like the game at all.
The things that draw me to Malifaux are the art style (a dark fantasy style that looks cool but creepy), the small-squad miniatures experience, and the card deck as a randomizer. This last thing is what sets Malifaux apart from many other games I’ve played, with Relic Knights being the only one that seems close (though, admittedly, I don’t know for sure how similar it is in practice). Dice chucking is always fun, but that aspect of some ability to predict/control the randomness is something I’ve been keeping an eye on as it seems like it could add a lot to the experience.
#1 – Vagrantsong
Vagrantsong makes it to the top of my list, and, yes, I know, it’s another game by Wyrd. I’ve heard about this one more recently, and it’s a little bit of a cheat because I think if I could get this game (reasonably easily), I would probably just get it, but I’ve not been able to find it anywhere. Playing it, for me, would tell me whether it’s worth the effort then to really chase this down.
The things that drew me to Vagrantsong are the art style (typical of Wyrd, just one step toward odd, but in a way I like), the dark fantasy setting and themes, and the bag-building elements for a boss battler. It reminds me a bit of Etherfields in some aspects, but sounded different enough that it would be a new kind of experience for me.
I’m not sure why Vagrantsong is so hard to find – I have to assume it’s because of a small first-print run and shortage of supplies for a second run, but I do hope that a second run comes soon so I can get my hands on this one. Until then, if I get the chance to play it somehow, I may make the effort to find it if it is something I like.
Honorable Mentions
There were a number of games I thought about for this list that just dropped off because their time has passed for me or my interest is more passing. Closest to the list is Unmatched by Restoration Games – as a reimplementation of Star Wars: Epic Duels (dropping the Star Wars IP for different IPs) this is interesting to me, but is also a two-player head-to-head game which I’m not so sure about. Shadows over Camelot is an older semi-cooperative game that comes up from time to time and I’d still like to give it a shot, but not so much that I’d run out and get it, even if the play through was good. Finally, Thunderstone is another old game that I’ve thought about a lot; it was always something I wanted to replace Dominion with. Since I recently got rid of Dominion, I’m not sure whether I actually need something in this genre still, but I’d be interested in playing it at least.