1:26 - Old game of the Year (Remakes) 2:46 - Genre of the Year 4:08 - Overlooked of the Year 5:22 - Industry fad of the Year 7:07 - Campaign of the year 9:24 - Efka was wrong of the year 11:01 - Efka's game of the year 14:51 - Elaine's game of the year 17:46 - Bessie's game of the year
Phew, now I'm really glad I picked up a rare Belgian 3rd edition printing of Robot tied to a Sock on eBay a few weeks ago! It's been out of print for so long and no doubt this will cause the few remaining copies to disappear!
Me too. Covid killed my hobby and gaming group. We have only gotten together twice this year. We joke see you in six months. We played: empyreal spells & steam, level 7, and possibly one more session this year.
I've just found your channel for the first time. I'm extremely impressed with the thoughtfulness of your discussion about different board games and an issue like sustainability. It would be incredible if, as I watch more of your videos, I find that you highlight the more responsibly produced games whenever you review or discuss them. That would be very helpful! To highlight games which chose to use better practices was amazing and something that I feel like board gamers in general don't really consider. I've only ever sleeved one game which was so precious to me, but also it was the first really big game I'd ever got, Isle of Cats, and I've felt a bit guilty ever since for encasing cards in plastic which will just sit there for decades. I haven't bought any sleeves since then because we need to reduce our use of plastic. I'm not rough on my cards anyway, insist people wash their hands before coming to the table to play, and honestly if they see some wear and tear around the edges won't that just signify a well-loved and much-played game? Yes, yes it would. This video seemed to me to be of a much higher intellectual quality than the vast majority out there. Thank you, and I look forward to looking through a backlog of 9 years worth of content to discover more.
Hmm, thanks for mentioning the ecological part as well. Even though for groceries I do stop and look for less plastic alternatives, somehow for boardgames my mind just ignores it. It was a very good point to make and one I will keep in mind! Thanks.
Glad to see Kinfire getting some recognition! It was a great game and kept you on your toes, especially surprising since had such simple card check system that proved very versatile.
Woo! Trick-taking! I think it's just my social circles, but I have some difficulty getting my relatives who love traditional trick-taking games to try the new ones, and I have a hard time getting a lot of my tabletop-gaming friends interested in trick-taking games. That said, I've managed to sell a lot of them on The Crew, but I've had only limited success with Yokai Septet and none yet with The Cat in the Box.
It may be me, but Robot tied to a Sock felt like a masterclass in subtle undercutting of the entire GoTY practice or of how were constantly chasing the something new. I may also just be over thinking it.
So glad you're into Dune Imperium too! Thought my Dune fandom might have swayed me too much but has been a hit even with non-gamers - actually pretty quick to pick up.
Glad to see recognition for Kinfire Chronicles, we are really enjoying it so far, but I didn't see much hype or talk about it which is a pity. It is really good if a bit random at times (though there are ways to mitigate and plan for it)
5:12 As soon as Forest Shuffle got mentioned, I started to type a comment about balancing issues, but you mentioned that yourself directly afterwards :D In my opinion, the tl;dr of that entire discussion is that Forest Shuffle should be treated as a 4-5 player game only. Wolves and deer being vastly overtuned doesn't "break" the game, but it makes for a really boring meta where every game plays out almost the same - definitely when playing as two, sometimes when playing as three. Would recommend it at higher player counts though.
Scout is a climbing/shedding game. Trick-taking, climbing and shedding are three subgenres of the same uber-genre of games. They share a cultural geneology and frequently overlap with one another. Sometimes (perhaps out of laziness or for the sake of being brief), reviewers (including myself) will lump climbing and/or shedding games into trick taking. Way more on this in 2024, the history of these games if fascinating.
I had the exact same experience with Dune Imperium - wrote it off initially, tried the new version and immediately fell in love with it. Such a great game!
Hadn't seen Lacuna before, but it is now on my list; That's a nice fast setup, and could easily make it to the table for a 30 minute "filler" while waiting for people to show up to a game night, without being an actual filler. Just enough randomness to keep it from being "solvable," while not so much that someone can simply win by luck.
what a delightful video, I had my eyes on lacuna for some time now but it's really hard to get I think, I might look into forest shuffle as well as kinfire chronicles (though I have a problem with getting into and finishing campaign board games). Thank you very much for this year's content and see you in the next one.
El Grande. Just played it tonight. I just love it. Every time. Been in my top 3 for years now. So much fun. Quite harsh sometimes, but then you should have picked higher power card 😋
Could you please make a list of ALL the Trick taking games that were in your piles? I really love trick taking games and I saw a bunch in there I couldn't see the names of that I wanted to find out what they were. Thank you so much!
Akropolis from publisher Gigamic also has very clean and env-friendly production. 99.9% cardboard and prepunched tiles, which lowers box weight and shipping footprint. A single tiny plastic bag for cubes
Great video! But ugh it feels so bad to have all the expansions for Dune Imperium and then hear that Uprising is better... will have to wait for more expansions first I suppose
What a great video! However, we may be a little biased but we have to say Bessie has the most excellent taste. But tell her next year the Board Game Animals are sure they can rope her into a game of Dog Park at least. 😉
Will look for Dune. Played the original at this year's games EXPO and liked it a lot. I am however amazed that my two favourite channels (NPI and SUSD) have not covered Hegemony. I don't have a lot of boardgame exposure (limits of money and space) but Hegemony is my GOTY.
Ayy boss, have you considered opening up a ko-fi? It's like patreon, except they only take a flat rate of like 5 bucks. Or locals, which is more of a community kind of thing.
I am curious how much Uprising differs from the original Imperium? Did y'all get a chance to play Hegemony, Scholars of the South Tigris, or Nucleum? Those are three that I wonder where they fell.
Excellent video as always! Allow me some criticism, as well. One of the first adjectives that comes to mind about your reviews is "ïntellectual" - and not because of your use of "melange" or "millefeuille" 😀. But then you say "amount of publishers" and I cringe. I realize that the problem is in me: 1) I may well be a grammar Nazi 2) English is not my first language, decades have passed since I was learning it, and languages develop and norms change. In fact, I hear/read "amount" instead of "number" every day, but when it comes from NPI some of the magic is gone. This does not change the fact that you are the best channel about board games, congratulations on your amazing work!
I felt like uprising really messed up the flow of scoring with the ability of Sand Worms to double victory points from combat, it was rare that with the original there wasn't at least some tension around who had what intrigue cards in hand and how they might impact the final outcome, but often I see uprising end with someone scoring 4-5 points from a single combat and making it a foregone conclusion. It's unfortunate because I do think so many of the other new systems it introduced are really great, and it's not to the point that combats and sand worms are an unbeatable strategy, but when someone wins that way there's always very little tension and it feels negative for me.
That's unfortunate because a huge part of the fun in DI is the tension as everyone scrapes and claws for each point they can get until the end when someone is within 2 or maybe 3 points and there's a big conflict card that gets revealed. I'm not sure I can justify Uprising when I have and enjoy the original DI so much. If I did not have the game yet, I'm sure I would jump in with the new one but as-is, I don't feel like I need to own both.
Board games are far greener than video games. You just actually touch the carbon in board games but in video games the electricity and the power generation is invisible to the player
1:26 - Old game of the Year (Remakes)
2:46 - Genre of the Year
4:08 - Overlooked of the Year
5:22 - Industry fad of the Year
7:07 - Campaign of the year
9:24 - Efka was wrong of the year
11:01 - Efka's game of the year
14:51 - Elaine's game of the year
17:46 - Bessie's game of the year
Phew, now I'm really glad I picked up a rare Belgian 3rd edition printing of Robot tied to a Sock on eBay a few weeks ago! It's been out of print for so long and no doubt this will cause the few remaining copies to disappear!
I'm waiting for the inevitable expandalone sequel, Robot Tied to a Sock: Reupholstering
came to the comments early and ended up googling "Robot tied to a sock" 😭💀🤣
Somehow, reading this before, I started watching the video, didn’t spoil anything for me
I have a terrible feeling I ended up with a knockoff as I appear to have Sock tied to a Robot instead. I'm absolutely gutted.
I saw your comment before watching.
"What in the world?? ... was there some Stonemaier release I missed?"
What an absolute honour! Thank you so much! We're so happy you've been able to enjoy our game, it means the world to us.
Neat! I played near zero games 2023 but definitely tuning into this video
Me too. Covid killed my hobby and gaming group. We have only gotten together twice this year. We joke see you in six months. We played: empyreal spells & steam, level 7, and possibly one more session this year.
I've just found your channel for the first time. I'm extremely impressed with the thoughtfulness of your discussion about different board games and an issue like sustainability. It would be incredible if, as I watch more of your videos, I find that you highlight the more responsibly produced games whenever you review or discuss them. That would be very helpful!
To highlight games which chose to use better practices was amazing and something that I feel like board gamers in general don't really consider. I've only ever sleeved one game which was so precious to me, but also it was the first really big game I'd ever got, Isle of Cats, and I've felt a bit guilty ever since for encasing cards in plastic which will just sit there for decades. I haven't bought any sleeves since then because we need to reduce our use of plastic. I'm not rough on my cards anyway, insist people wash their hands before coming to the table to play, and honestly if they see some wear and tear around the edges won't that just signify a well-loved and much-played game? Yes, yes it would.
This video seemed to me to be of a much higher intellectual quality than the vast majority out there. Thank you, and I look forward to looking through a backlog of 9 years worth of content to discover more.
Cant wait for Robot tied to a Sock to get some expansions in 2024
I will never tire of your cheeky banter and brilliant insights. Just... perfect. And now I have to try Dune Imperium Uprising AND Lacuna!
GENRE OF THE YEARRRRRRR!!
OH SO WONDERFUL TO SEEE!!
Amazing video y'all this is such a lovely time!!
Hmm, thanks for mentioning the ecological part as well. Even though for groceries I do stop and look for less plastic alternatives, somehow for boardgames my mind just ignores it. It was a very good point to make and one I will keep in mind! Thanks.
Glad to see Kinfire getting some recognition! It was a great game and kept you on your toes, especially surprising since had such simple card check system that proved very versatile.
YESSS!! No one thought it would win it all, but Robot Tied to a Sock deserved all the praise its gotten! Congrats RTTAS team!
I listened to John Cage's 4 33 as a result of this video. No regrets. Well played.
However, it was smart to stop at less than 20 seconds of it, so as to avoid a copyright strike.
The twists and turns in this video were wild.
Glad to see Robot Tied To A Sock on this list. Too many review channels have let this gem sneak by them.
You all are such a pleasure to behold...beholden...great list, thank you!
6:55 Remember when Chip Theory played Too Many Bones underwater in scuba suits?
Woo! Trick-taking! I think it's just my social circles, but I have some difficulty getting my relatives who love traditional trick-taking games to try the new ones, and I have a hard time getting a lot of my tabletop-gaming friends interested in trick-taking games. That said, I've managed to sell a lot of them on The Crew, but I've had only limited success with Yokai Septet and none yet with The Cat in the Box.
It may be me, but Robot tied to a Sock felt like a masterclass in subtle undercutting of the entire GoTY practice or of how were constantly chasing the something new. I may also just be over thinking it.
So glad you're into Dune Imperium too! Thought my Dune fandom might have swayed me too much but has been a hit even with non-gamers - actually pretty quick to pick up.
Man i was just looking at Forest Shuffle wondering what it was like
Glad to see recognition for Kinfire Chronicles, we are really enjoying it so far, but I didn't see much hype or talk about it which is a pity. It is really good if a bit random at times (though there are ways to mitigate and plan for it)
5:12 As soon as Forest Shuffle got mentioned, I started to type a comment about balancing issues, but you mentioned that yourself directly afterwards :D
In my opinion, the tl;dr of that entire discussion is that Forest Shuffle should be treated as a 4-5 player game only. Wolves and deer being vastly overtuned doesn't "break" the game, but it makes for a really boring meta where every game plays out almost the same - definitely when playing as two, sometimes when playing as three. Would recommend it at higher player counts though.
Robot Tied to a Sock has a huge runaway leader problem and the rulebook is impossible to understand. It's not for me but congrats to the puplisher.
"Pushing the envelope" is the perfect way to describe a switch to paper packaging.
Hoplomachus Victorum! I'm not overwhelmed! You're overwhelmed!
Love the Jack Russell, we lost ours last year. How in the world did you get him to stand still and so quiet lol .
I had two dates of restock/publishing of games marked on the calendar: Lacuna and Dune Imperium Uprising. I skipper both but now I catch up
Love Dune and Forest Shuffle, I didn't realize there was a new version of El Grande maybe I will finally get a copy
Made of 100° real game, so you know it's authentic!
Is Scout actually a trick taking game? There’s no trump or following suit or taking the trick afterwards, you just take the previous set/run.
It is most definitely not a trick-taking game.
Scout is a climbing/shedding game. Trick-taking, climbing and shedding are three subgenres of the same uber-genre of games. They share a cultural geneology and frequently overlap with one another.
Sometimes (perhaps out of laziness or for the sake of being brief), reviewers (including myself) will lump climbing and/or shedding games into trick taking.
Way more on this in 2024, the history of these games if fascinating.
Looking forward to hearing more about it!@@NoPunIncluded
@@NoPunIncludedsounds like a really fun video topic! I really enjoyed your similar video on social dedication games with BotC!
i really love seeing your vidoes! up to the next year and have a good holiday
I had the exact same experience with Dune Imperium - wrote it off initially, tried the new version and immediately fell in love with it. Such a great game!
Glad you’re enjoying Dune Imperium! The expansions are excellent too, don’t sleep on ‘em! (I’m fairly certain that they’re compatible with Uprising)
I was so happy to learn Bessie's game of the year! Worth the wait :)
Awesome mélange of games 😉😉 Merry Christmas to you❤
Absolutely love you guys! Merry Christmas!!
Hadn't seen Lacuna before, but it is now on my list; That's a nice fast setup, and could easily make it to the table for a 30 minute "filler" while waiting for people to show up to a game night, without being an actual filler.
Just enough randomness to keep it from being "solvable," while not so much that someone can simply win by luck.
I was blown away how out of print forest shuffle is over here where I live
The original Dune Imperium expansions are compatible with Dune Imperium Uprising.
what a delightful video, I had my eyes on lacuna for some time now but it's really hard to get I think, I might look into forest shuffle as well as kinfire chronicles (though I have a problem with getting into and finishing campaign board games). Thank you very much for this year's content and see you in the next one.
Lacuna sounds wonderful 😭
Well done! Very interesting format. I like it batter than just choosing one game. Thank you!
Thanks for the recommendations I picked up the top two to try.
And here I just picked up Uprising last week. Didn’t make it 2 mins into Lacuna’s review and it was already in my cart.
Excellent game content aside, your green hat caught my eye and now I need to know if it was hand-crocheted! Very pretty color
Pamela Borksley was very excited about that one category. Wonderful list.
I’ve been playing Robot Tied to a Sock on Steam a lot lately and I really enjoy it.
El Grande. Just played it tonight. I just love it. Every time. Been in my top 3 for years now. So much fun. Quite harsh sometimes, but then you should have picked higher power card 😋
Kinfire Chronicles is dangerously close to Kingkiller Chronicles.
Perfect video! Agree so much on trick taking genre for this year!
Great video! Thanks a lot. Happy christmas.
I bought a t-shirt many years ago that reads:
" "
-John Cage
i love it when people get it.
The ending cracked me up! Great video!
Love you guys... and love your emphasis on games being more environmentally friendly
Could you please make a list of ALL the Trick taking games that were in your piles? I really love trick taking games and I saw a bunch in there I couldn't see the names of that I wanted to find out what they were. Thank you so much!
You can play the original D:I expansions with Dune Imperium Uprising.
Wow, our tastes align a lot. I got a lot of these games this year. If i wasn’t looking at a new crokinole board I would look into Lacuna. :)
Elaine pointed at the upvote button instead of the subscribe button!
Love the inclusion of environmental angle/category. Awesome video!
The two expansions to Dune Imperium are compatible with Dune Uprising. ;)
Akropolis from publisher Gigamic also has very clean and env-friendly production. 99.9% cardboard and prepunched tiles, which lowers box weight and shipping footprint. A single tiny plastic bag for cubes
Great video! But ugh it feels so bad to have all the expansions for Dune Imperium and then hear that Uprising is better... will have to wait for more expansions first I suppose
thank yall for putting this list together! #moleintights
Thank you for your video, it's always fun and very interesting. Long life to NPI !
What a great video! However, we may be a little biased but we have to say Bessie has the most excellent taste. But tell her next year the Board Game Animals are sure they can rope her into a game of Dog Park at least. 😉
Photoshop lenseflares are tight 😂
That poor mole in tights. 😳
Loved the John Cage insight 🥸
Great video 🎉 I love dune as a game; but have to say that the previous dune imperium with the IX and Immo expansion is way superior to uprising.
All praise to carteado games \o/ ( "carteado" is a portuguese term for trick-taging / climbing /shedding etc...)
I like this format :)
Will look for Dune. Played the original at this year's games EXPO and liked it a lot. I am however amazed that my two favourite channels (NPI and SUSD) have not covered Hegemony. I don't have a lot of boardgame exposure (limits of money and space) but Hegemony is my GOTY.
You are correct. Long live the fighters!!!
wonderful vid as always. may i ask what brand Elaine’s shirt is from, the one with the flowers?
I'm still trying to find the game of the year from last year!!!
Ayy boss, have you considered opening up a ko-fi? It's like patreon, except they only take a flat rate of like 5 bucks. Or locals, which is more of a community kind of thing.
My pick for best use of silly musical interludes of 2023.
I played trick taking burnout. Hard.
Uprising is amazing.
El grande got a new version?! Where the hell have i been!?
Surprised you feel Legendary Encounters: Alien is boring... it is still my favorite pure deck-builder. :-)
I thought I was the Old Game of the Year.
yes, you are the El Grande.
Aš jus dievinu.. tobuli video. ačiū!!
😃a reel marvel (not the films) DELIGHTFUL celebration of board games and ze peoples that do and play them ... HEALTH and marvelous yule time X
I am curious how much Uprising differs from the original Imperium? Did y'all get a chance to play Hegemony, Scholars of the South Tigris, or Nucleum? Those are three that I wonder where they fell.
How about "Best Delayed 2020 Kickstarter to be Released (finally) in 2024?" (The 7th Citadel!)
Another game to mention for pushing the enviro envelope, kinda as you say (but not from this year but I'll mention it anyway) is Theurgy.
seems it's time for a trick taking engine builder xD
(or is there already one...?)
Bessie has the best taste in games out of the three of you.
Gutted that Infiltraitors isn't on this list.
What a shame to see all those tricktaking games, and not one copy of Tichu. It is head and shoulders above the rest and imo the best of the bunch.
Yeah, but it didn't come out in 2023 lol
but ... what is the BEST trick taking game?
That’s a fun way of doing this
No Voidfall ... but overall a good selection of games.
I was hoping you would nominate one game from the genre of the year. Or are there just way too many good ones?
Lacuna sounds amazing, so glad you chose that to share! I hope there are more simple deep geometry based games like that on the future
Excellent video as always! Allow me some criticism, as well. One of the first adjectives that comes to mind about your reviews is "ïntellectual" - and not because of your use of "melange" or "millefeuille" 😀. But then you say "amount of publishers" and I cringe. I realize that the problem is in me: 1) I may well be a grammar Nazi 2) English is not my first language, decades have passed since I was learning it, and languages develop and norms change. In fact, I hear/read "amount" instead of "number" every day, but when it comes from NPI some of the magic is gone. This does not change the fact that you are the best channel about board games, congratulations on your amazing work!
I felt like uprising really messed up the flow of scoring with the ability of Sand Worms to double victory points from combat, it was rare that with the original there wasn't at least some tension around who had what intrigue cards in hand and how they might impact the final outcome, but often I see uprising end with someone scoring 4-5 points from a single combat and making it a foregone conclusion. It's unfortunate because I do think so many of the other new systems it introduced are really great, and it's not to the point that combats and sand worms are an unbeatable strategy, but when someone wins that way there's always very little tension and it feels negative for me.
That's unfortunate because a huge part of the fun in DI is the tension as everyone scrapes and claws for each point they can get until the end when someone is within 2 or maybe 3 points and there's a big conflict card that gets revealed. I'm not sure I can justify Uprising when I have and enjoy the original DI so much. If I did not have the game yet, I'm sure I would jump in with the new one but as-is, I don't feel like I need to own both.
I am slowly going into same conclusion as You and probably will stick to Dune:Imperium especially with Rise of Ix expansion ;)
Omg can I borrow Bessie?!
Board games are far greener than video games. You just actually touch the carbon in board games but in video games the electricity and the power generation is invisible to the player