2017 was a year of some absolutely massive board games. Massive in scope, in scale, and massive in sales. 2017 perhaps marks one of the most important years in recent board gaming history, because it seems to have introduced a number of games that have survived being just the latest hot new item.
Staying relevant for five years among gamers is no small feat. Of the top 100 games on BoardGameGeek, 11 date from 2017. (A staggering 13 are from 2016, and 12 are from 2015.) The top-rated game on BGG is still Gloomhaven, a position it’s held from Dec. 29, 2017. And that’s great, but I’m not here to talk about Gloomhaven. Nor am I here to talk about Twilight Imperium: Fourth Edition, Gaia Project, Too Many Bones or Anachrony. I’m sure there are many great games in the top 100 from 2017, but browsing through them reminds me of one key aspect of the BGG top 100: It doesn’t actually matter. It’s not a litmus test for what makes a great game, and there’s a selection bias that will inherently skew results toward the biases of enthusiastic, active users of BoardGameGeek.com. So, no, don’t expect Gloomhaven on this list, nor any number of other great games from 2017, of which there are so, so many.
Instead, I’d like to talk about some games from 2017 that I still think about. It’s not my top 10 — these are just Great Games™.
Three great abstract games
Azul is one of the real standouts here, not least because it found new audiences for modern games. It helped pave the way popularly for many games, and that’s so cool. Azul is an abstract game in which you draft tiles and place them on your board. It’s a game about tile-laying, but in a very literal sense: You’re placing tiles in the style of Portuguese azulejos on the walls of a palace. The premise is pretty simple to explain, making it an easy game to teach inexperienced players. There’s also a fair bit of strategy involved in the drafting and placement, giving it some real staying power at the table.
Sagrada is also a drafting game, but instead of drafting ceramic tiles for a palace, you’re drafting glass tiles for a church — namely the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. And it came out the same year, about three months before Azul was published. Sometimes, the universe just makes you chuckle. At any rate, in Sagrada, you’ll draft dice and place them on a board according to some rules. It’s another very cool game, and while it never reached the level of popularity that Azul experienced, it’s still worth your time.
NMBR 9 is a three-dimensional puzzle game in which you’re stacking classic polyomino number tiles atop other number tiles, earning more points for at higher levels. Every player at the table is playing the same numbers at the same times, so you can see how everyone has dealt with the same conditions at a glance. Some might call it “multiplayer solitaire,” but that’s not something I mind even a little.
Four great cooperative games
Pandemic: Rising Tide is a cooperative game in the Pandemic series that transports players to the Netherlands, where they’ll try to prevent historic floods by building hydraulic structures. Yes, unlike other games in the series, this one doesn’t deal with disease — but the spirit of cooperation and the basic gameplay mechanics remain intact. It’s a really interesting spin, with a design by Pandemic creator Matt Leacock and heavy, thinky game mainstay Jeroen Doumen. I wrote about Rising Tide back in Issue 20: Pandemic Deep Dive, if you’re looking for a bit more on the series.
Pandemic Legacy: Season Two is the sequel to 2015’s extremely well-regarded Season One — it’s a cooperative legacy game. The board and cards change over time, and unlike the first iteration, you start with just a small section of the map revealed. It didn’t garner the same rave reviews, but it’s a memorable game, and I had an absolute blast playing.
Spirit Island is still turning heads five years on, from its mechanics and theme (it’s got an ostensibly anti-colonial theme, and you play as natives driving away colonial forces) to its colorful board and near-constant stream expansions. There’s a wide array of variable player powers, and each game can feel pretty different as a result. I think this one comes together as a really nice whole.
Codenames Duet takes the very popular small-party game and turns it into something cooperative. The basic premise remains that you give one-word clues to guide players toward specific cards in a five-by-five grid, but rather than playing on a team against another team, you’re playing with a single partner, and you’re trying to solve the grid together. It’s technically billed as a two-player game, but with some care around discussion, you could also play with cooperating teams.
Two great two-player games
Fugitive is one of my very favorite two-player games. In this two-player game, one player is a fugitive from justice, and the other player is an agent attempting to apprehend that fugitive. The fugitive plays cards secretly, representing places they have moved — but they’re only allowed to move a certain distance away. The agent makes guesses at where they’ve been, deducing their possible locations, and making further guesses. It’s a great cat-and-mouse game.
Claim is a really nice take on two-player trick taking, with players going head-to-head competing for factions. I wrote about this one just a couple weeks ago, so give my guide to trick-taking games a read if you’re curious about Claim and others.
And five more great games
Wordsy is a light and fast card game in which players are making one single word in a 30-second timeframe, with players earning more points for using higher-value letters. Interestingly, your words aren’t restricted to the letters shown — you just don’t earn any points for letters not on the table.
Tribe is a small-box dexterity game in which you place wooden shapes on standing figures, earning points for forming groups among the other figures on the table. You’ll be interacting with the same figures as everyone else, which is a trait of so many great dexterity games. This one’s from the designer of my favorite dexterity game, Tokyo Highway, and if you find a copy, I think you’d have a great time with it.
Clank! In Space is a spin-off from the original Clank!, and the idea’s basically the same: It’s deck-building and push your luck combined. If you make too much noise, you’ll incur terrible consequences for everyone at the table, so your goal really becomes to do so with maximal gain for yourself. It’s a neat one.
Dinosaur Island is one of those Kickstarter darlings that caught everyone’s attention, and this one was for good reason. It’s a colorful, evocative worker placement game that balances a number of little mechanical bits on the table with surprising grace. It could have been a game that just crammed way too much into a little box, but, you know? Life finds a way.
Century: Spice Road is a lightweight game of fulfilling contracts, building a little bit of an engine to upgrade your cubes, and generally just trading efficiently and effectively. It was the first in a trilogy of games, and I think it’s a really fun way to start that: Build a simple, effective game, then expand on the ideas featured there in later games. One of the best features here is that the game’s easy to learn and easy to teach. It’s easy to forget just how important that fact can be.
Thanks for reading this week’s issue of Don’t Eat the Meeples! We’re coming up on the holiday season, which means I’ll be putting together a few different issues for you, including an annual gift guide. As I start writing that, I’d love to hear from you. Any specific recommendations you’re looking for? Let’s get a conversation going!
I’m also working on a couple new issues that I’m excited to share when the time comes — including a roll-and-write deep dive and a look at new and interesting trick-taking games.
Elsewhere: You can find me on Instagram at @donteatthemeeples, and like many of you, I’m trying to figure out what social media looks like in the future, so if you’ve got any recommendations, let’s hear it.