MIKE’S TOP TEN ANTICIPATED BOARDGAMES OF 2017

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Thanks for the heads up on the DC game, I hope it will be something I can play with my 6 year old

I'm intrigued by Escape from 100 Million BC... great cover, a neat premise, and it's Kevin Wilson.

A couple of books that came out for the 30th anniversary

Art

Making of

I'm working through the making of right now.

hotseatgames wrote: I'm intrigued by Escape from 100 Million BC... great cover, a neat premise, and it's Kevin Wilson.

Right. The in-game art itself isn't great, though. Still, looks like it might be fun. Or dumb. Or dumb fun. One of those.

Eric Lang? Seriously? Mike Gray or Craig Van Ness holds that crown. I'd have figured you'd have said Chris Petersen for Twilight Imperium tho.

I'm only jazzed about a few games and one of these are them. I put all my chips in on Massive Darkness, which i'm sure I'll play four times, hate it, and make 150$ on later LOL

I hadn't heard of that Big Trouble game. I assumed you meant the Legendary one. This one has some excellent art and minis, but not much at all is known about the gameplay. Interested, though.

Grudunza wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: I'm intrigued by Escape from 100 Million BC... great cover, a neat premise, and it's Kevin Wilson.

Right. The in-game art itself isn't great, though. Still, looks like it might be fun. Or dumb. Or dumb fun. One of those.

I was about to post the same thing. That cover art is truly magnificient, but (and this is one of my board game aesthetic pet peeves) the interior art was clearly done by a different artist in a different style and is honestly pretty lousy looking. Cool premise though.

Hoping Shark Island won't have a similar problem, that game sounds fantastic!

The shark island cover does indeed compel me to buy it immediately upon viewing it. But that upper deck logo on the corner is a wet blanket on my firey loins. I hope it is as fun as survive is.

Escape from Dinosaur Holocaust is a grand cover too.

I really need some good games that scream "Fun!" this year. A few decent games came out in 2016, but only gorechosen was good enough to be a compulsory buy. I really need a lot more of that.

Motorik wrote:

Grudunza wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: I'm intrigued by Escape from 100 Million BC... great cover, a neat premise, and it's Kevin Wilson.

Right. The in-game art itself isn't great, though. Still, looks like it might be fun. Or dumb. Or dumb fun. One of those.

I was about to post the same thing. That cover art is truly magnificient, but (and this is one of my board game aesthetic pet peeves) the interior art was clearly done by a different artist in a different style and is honestly pretty lousy looking. Cool premise though.

On its own, I wouldn't necessarily call the interior game art "lousy." It's reasonably functional and fine, if a bit bland. It's definitely not comparable to the awful graphic design of something like the Defenders of the Realm/Last Stand games. And those games were fun enough to play despite their graphic/art issues. But with this one, what makes it seem so bad is the juxtaposition between that amazing cover and then what you see on the back for the actual components. I would almost wonder if I had the wrong box top for the game compared to what's inside.

Great list. Here are my random comments about each:

10. I find Big Trouble in Little China to be a frustrating movie. It looks cool but the pacing and dialogue often seems deliberately awkward, so it ends up falling short as either a comedy or an action movie or even a hybrid of the two. And yet a boardgame interpretation could potentially work well.

9. 4x always gets my attention, and hopefully this card-driven Alien Artifacts isn't just another deck builder.

8. You are completely right in saying that we need a definitive superhero boardgame. This one sounds promising, and is probably the most alluring game on this list for me.

7. I hate the cover art for Heroes of Land, Air and Sea. I know that I shouldn't judge a game by the cover, but I fear that this art will also be inside the box, and I wouldn't want to look at it for hours while playing a game.

6. Along with superheroes, we need a good game with dinosaurs. Hopefully this is it.

5. Shark Island has an awesome cover, and it sounds great that somebody plays the shark.

4. First Martians sounded potentially good until I got to the App-part. That's still a deal-breaker gimmick for me.

3. Rising Sun has an appealing pitch, but I find Lang very hit or miss.

2. Assault of the Giants as a D&D boardgame almost sounds like a boardgame version the old G-series modules. Huge minis sound expensive, though, so probably a pass for me.

1. I agree that Gale Force Nine is the all-time best at making licensed games, but Doctor Who is a franchise that I primarily associate with shouty exposition. Would need to try this one before buying.

Shellhead wrote: 10. I find Big Trouble in Little China to be a frustrating movie. It looks cool but the pacing and dialogue often seems deliberately awkward, so it ends up falling short as either a comedy or an action movie or even a hybrid of the two. And yet a boardgame interpretation could potentially work well.

As a dramatic presentation, it's fucking awful. From Kim Cattrall shoutcasting the plot to Kurt Russell chewing scenery, it's just bad. If you accept it as a B-movie, then it's worth sitting in front of a time or two. As a boardgame, it holds the potential to be hilarious, however.

Shellhead wrote: 9. 4x always gets my attention, and hopefully this card-driven Alien Artifacts isn't just another deck builder.

Read the description of this on BGG and the label "4x" may be generous, since it sounds a lot like Race for the Galaxy (symbol system for the cards, etc.) I'm not enthused.

Shellhead wrote: 7. I hate the cover art for Heroes of Land, Air and Sea. I know that I shouldn't judge a game by the cover, but I fear that this art will also be inside the box, and I wouldn't want to look at it for hours while playing a game.

As much as I loved the Warcraft games, I keep thinking that playing a boardgame version of them would just lead to me wanting to play the video game and getting frustrated by the slower pace of what's in front of me.

Shellhead wrote: 3. Rising Sun has an appealing pitch, but I find Lang very hit or miss.

Loved Chaos in the Old World. Am really enjoying The Others. Haven't tried Blood Rage, but the mythology behind Rising Sun appeals to me, so will probably try it.

Shellhead wrote: 2. Assault of the Giants as a D&D boardgame almost sounds like a boardgame version the old G-series modules. Huge minis sound expensive, though, so probably a pass for me.

When I saw the thread here last week, I went and looked it over on BGG. It essentially does take elements of G-1-2-3 and reproduce them as a DoaM. There's six factions and each of them has a different goal to work toward, in addition to the main one of collecting VPs. You compete with each other directly (giant v giant combat) or by using the roving giantslayer mercs that move around the board. Supposedly each faction (storm, cloud, stone, hill, fire, frost) plays differently via their different decks and it has an interesting card play mechanic. It all sounds really good, but I'm really cagey about stuff that strikes me as "overproduction on nostalgia", especially at the price tag that they're asking ($80.) Maybe.

Great list Mike. I am excited to play each and every one of these games!

I'm only playing Shark Island if I get to be the shark. Looks like a blast

Yeah, I was hoping to highlight stuff that most sites weren't really covering. I could have easily made a list filled with Massive Darkness, Gloomhaven, Swords and Sorcery, Near and Far etc...

I basically took a glance at stuff and judged them PURELY on potential fun factor. Like how can I NOT want that goddamn shark game??? Yeah the fact that it's Upper Deck has me worried, but it's being co-designed by Richard Launius and I tend to really like his stuff. I don't expect many of these games to land on any "best of 2017" lists, but that just fine with me. I'd rather track down some ridiculous or interesting designs at this point and then chase after the huge releases long after the hype has died down a little.

Also, little shameless self plug, but this article was originally published over at The Wolfman's Lounge which is a silly little website that I started with Josh Look. We don't typically cover boardgames, but when we do we will try to post the articles over here. The Wolfman's Lounge is sort a tribute to all of the absurd and ridiculous things that Josh and I both seemingly love. Basically stuff that we talk about in the trash talk forums. We'll have articles on retro video games, comics, superhero films, b movies, boardgames, junk food, toys from 80s and 90s and more. It's a hell of a lot of fun and we'd love it if you checked it out or liked us over on facebook !

I'll still being doing exclusive articles here at the Fort. The Wolfman's Lounge stuff tends to be a little bit sillier in tone and more focused on entertaining rather than informing. Still based on what you guys like chatting about on the forums I'm sure you'll find stuff that amuses you over there as well!