After a fairly slow January for board games, things are beginning to speed up. We’ve got a delicious selection for your delectation this month. The board game releases range from raucous party games, through classic board game revamps to fresh new ideas. And we’ve got expansions to two of the very best titles from last year, a great reminder to check them out if you haven’t already.
These are all picked out of this month’s new releases with a likely-looking pedigree. So buckle in and read on for the highlights of February’s release round-up.
Board Game New Releases
In the Hall Of The Mountain King
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Optimization games are often cloaked under a drab theme, but in this one you get to be a clan of trolls, carving tunnels and statues deep beneath the earth. Players recruit new trolls to their team with a novel pyramid mechanic that can get you bonuses from existing workers. Then they’re set to work making burrows from a stack of polyominoes, adding spatial strategy to the mix. After enough delving, you score by erecting various statues to adorn your new hallways. It’s a tight, challenging mix of game elements that appeals across genres. Digging has never been more diverting.
Wavelength
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Wavelength is the latest hot party game to wow your friends and family and hobby group all alike. Divide into two teams — or one to play co-operatively — and players on each team take turns being psychic. This involves showing a card with two extremes of the same thing — say dystopia and utopia. They use the clever plastic wheel included to secretly choose a point between these two, then give a one-word clue. Their team-mates use this clue to try and match the chosen point. Wavelength has the usual fun guessing common to party games but its genius is that wheel. It allows leeway between right and wrong, giving more margin for error and keeping everyone engaged in the game.
Letterpress
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Word games are another wide crowd pleaser and Letterpress is no exception, with its smart tweaks to every stage of the formula. First, you get a hand of letter cards by draft, picking one and passing the rest on. If you win the round with a high scoring word, you get first pick of the letters used, plus a challenge letter if you’ve met the conditions, to add to your stash. Then it’s all on the fraught fifth round where you use what’s in your stash to make one final word, with the winner taking the game. This buildup of letters from round to round gives it a keen strategic edge its peers lack.
Sanctum
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From the fiery face on the box to the red and blue globes on the player board, it’s clear Sanctum is a homage to the classic video game franchise Diablo. Players advance across different areas, accumulating hordes of demons to stop and fight. Strategy comes from the clever skill and inventory system which demands tough decisions on what to upgrade and when. The rest of the game propping up that core is rather flat and repetitive, though. And it feels like a co-operative game with an awkward win condition shoehorned on at the end.
Rallyman GT
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This is a sweet revamp of 2009’s Rallyman, with all new components and rules. It’s a dice-based racing game where you go head to head around a twisting rally course you’ve built from the included pieces. Movement means rolling dice according to your current speed and using the results to plot your way around the course. You’ll need high gears to overtake your competitors but beware: hit a corner too fast and you’ll spin out of control. A risk-versus-reward game with a vicious edge to punish the overzealous, it’s a thrill ride to the finish line.
Sorcerer City
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Time pressure is becoming a more and more popular way to spice up stale genres. Sorcerer City brings the tyranny of the timer to tile laying as you compete to make the best district of a fantasy city from your stack of tiles. This isn’t just a race for points though: that’s only one reward you’re seeking as you struggle to slot your tiles together. There are other resources allowing you to buy new tiles for your stack and player order, making each round a balancing act. You also need to beware of the monster tiles that slip into your stack and cause havoc with your well- (or badly-) laid plans.
Board Game Expansions
Tiny Towns Fortune
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Tiny Towns was one of the best board games of 2019, an apparently simple and benign game of picking resources and making patterns out of them. One play revealed it as an infuriating, unforgiving, vicious game full of spatial puzzles and hate-drafting. Fortune adds a new resource — money — and building cards which use it. The catch is that you can’t pick it like other resources: it’s earned by saving cubes to make two builds at once. Cue even more spatial puzzles and hate-drafts as everyone’s town plans fill up with unfinished buildings.
Unmatched: Bruce Lee and Unmatched: Robin Hood vs Bigfoot
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Unmatched is fantastic skirmish system, stripped to the bare essentials yet still full of tactics and variety. Its schtick is that it pits heroes from across time and space against each other. Bruce Lee is the latest legend to join the lineup with a snazzy sparkling base and dragon logo. His deck feels like a Kung-Fu manual, rewarding combos and sequences, a new feel for the series. Robin Hood vs Bigfoot has been out a bit longer, facing English archery against the melee might of the hairy hominid. It’s a bit more like the base set but is playable in its own right, with rules and a new board.
New Board Games on Kickstarter
Gladius
Take your seats in the gladiatorial arenas of ancient Rome, and aim to walk away with the biggest purse. Gladius is a fast and furious betting game of stacking the odds in your favor. A random fight gets drawn from different events and gladiators and you’ve got to weigh up their chances and bet on the victor. Then comes the fun part where you plot, bluff, and backstab to try and influence the outcome. Already riding high on a slew of pre-publication awards, the production version boasts wonderful cartoon art.
Public Market
Fish markets aren’t the most promising subject for a board game. But what stands out here is the clever recombination of standout gaming mechanics. First, there’s a classic auction where you bid for the best fishing spot. When you’ve landed your catch, you’ve got a spatial puzzle to solve to make sure you can get the lot into your frozen hold. Finally, it’s time to face the market with a challenging combination of demands to match against your haul of fish. All the parts fit neatly together into a new game in a classic mould.
Source: IGN.com The Biggest New Board Games Out This Month