Tier 1 plus Tier 1 = Tier 2 ; Recommendations

Erik Twice had a great takedown of Roll Player the other day.*. I played it with 4 last night, and the other 3 clearly dug it. And I'm all like, "WHY?!" But I didn't say anything.

*

So I went home thinking of what two games are sign posts for that game. Which two well known games are necessary and sufficient to find someone who has a decent chance of enjoying Roll Player? Castles of Burgundy was clearly one of the two, but I didn't think of the second until after I took the kid to summer camp this morning and I slept on it. Lords of Waterdeep is what I decided. So:

IF you like Castles of Burgundy + Lords of Waterdeep = You might also like Roll Player.


I chose these two because they're both Euros in roughly the same level of complexity, although Roll Player is shorter. Castles of Burgundy features dice that are not dice as well, and LoW finds out who's pretty comfortable with putting D&D on a totally thankless exercise.

I was trying to think of other combos like this.

If you like Faster than Light and Final Fantasy Tactics, Into the Breach. (honorable mentions for slot 2: Front Mission 3, Band of Bugs, disqualified because they're possibly less well known than ITB)

Magic: the Gathering and Race for the Galaxy, Final Fantasy Trading Card Game (just about any Final Fantasy game is actually probably better than RftG here, but paying for cards by discarding cards is a great mechanic and central to this one)

Any TCG , any Blizzard title : Hearthstone

Galactic Emperor and Ascension : City of Remnants (I also thought about Puerto Rico and Star Realms)

I think this can be a way of finding some more off-beat titles and deeper cardboard cuts. I remember when I used to read Game Informer back in the 90s, a lot of my favorite games were in the 8's. (basically BGG 7s), because reading the article and knowing the genre allowed me to avoid putting too much stock into things like graphics or sound quality that they felt they had to quantify to show the overall production value.

Could even do it for spectator stuff:

Soccer + Overwatch = DOTA 2

I'd like to see some other examples of this, and I'll also offer two games that I like that are kind of disparate, to see if someone can come up with something I haven't heard of.

Chrono Trigger (SNES) + Heroscape = ???

For some reason I decided to do it this way.

If you like Conquest + Auctions = you might like Cyclades.

If you like Losing + Deserted Islands = you might like Robinson Crusoe.

If you like Map-gazing + Epic Fantasy = you might like War of the Ring.

If you like math + waiting = you might like Power Grid

If you like setting up an economy and worker placement, you might like Monopoly.

If you like dice-driven combat and dudes on a map, you might like Risk.

If you like hidden traitors and narrative, you might like Clue.

If you like Ponzi schemes and pyramid marketing you might like Kickstarter.

Jexik wrote: Chrono Trigger (SNES) + Heroscape = ???

If someone figures this one out, please check on me in a few days to see if I’m ok. Seriously, whatever that equals, give me a straw and I will fucking snort it.

ChristopherMD wrote: For some reason I decided to do it this way.

If you like Conquest + Auctions = you might like Cyclades.

If you like Losing + Deserted Islands = you might like Robinson Crusoe.

If you like Map-gazing + Epic Fantasy = you might like War of the Ring.

Haha, it's another way to distill it. I especially like the second one, even though I've not played Robinson Crusoe yet.

Black Barney wrote: If you like math + waiting = you might like Power Grid

I feel like Power Grid is super accessible, but I'm a weirdo who likes arithmetic. I could see it as Monopoly + Thurn & Taxis.

Josh Look wrote:

Jexik wrote: Chrono Trigger (SNES) + Heroscape = ???

If someone figures this one out, please check on me in a few days to see if I’m ok. Seriously, whatever that equals, give me a straw and I will fucking snort it.

CT + Clue is Tragedy Looper, but yeah, this one is tricky. Maybe we just need to co-design it.