Great board game experiences in 2024
Wishing you a Merry Christmas from Don't Eat the Meeples
Ah, hello! I’d like to wish all of you a happy holiday season. Today in particular is Christmas, and if you read the newsletter last week, you’ll know that I’m writing this as a sort of celebration with you all. I’m going short and sweet, and really, I just want to talk about some of my favorite gaming memories of the last year. If you have some you’d like to share in the comments section, please feel free to do the same.
Over the last few days, we’ve had family visiting, and it’s made for some great gaming memories. There’s nothing particularly unusual about the games, but it’s a great reminder that it’s so often not about the game when you’re playing with family, but it’s about the time spent together. Of course, having a game that doesn’t get in the way is really valuable — you want something that’s fun and helps foster memories, but you don’t need something that is entirely memorable on its own.
Simple games with young family
By way of example, I played several games of a little dexterity game, Tinderblox, with my eight-year-old niece on Tuesday morning. The premise is simple: You’re building a fire out of little wooden blocks using plastic tweezers. (Not a real fire, mind. While I bet you could burn the pieces, you’d find it’s sort of a legacy game, and not a long-lived one at that.) On your turn, you’ll draw a card showing the blocks you must place on top of the existing fire blocks. If you knock over the pile of blocks, you’re eliminated. It’s a simple game, and there’s nothing particular special about the way it executes the dexterity conceit. That didn’t change the fun for my niece, and it didn’t change the fun for me. I hope in the next year I can maintain such joy in my gaming, even when games aren’t perfect or innovative. Tinderblox was designed by Rob Sparks — if that perfect name is really to be believed for a game about building a fire — and published by Alley Cat Games.
We also played several games of Panda Panda, one of the new tiny box Allplay games. It’s a new version of Cat Poker, a Japanese release from 2023, and it’s another great simple game. Using cards with letters from A to G on them, your goal is to construct a hand that meets one of the listing winning conditions. You might be going for AAAABBB, CE, or BBCCDD, among others — there are a lot of options. My niece and I traded wins, and she picked it up really easily. Designed by Kaya Miyano, published by Allplay.
Later, she asked me to bring some card games to her grandma’s house. That’s proud uncle territory right there. (And, for the record, I did. We’ll see what games we play over the next few days. I brought, uh, way more than I needed to.) Being able to connect with my niece in that way has been a really cool thing. Over the last five years or so, I’ve been able to see her gaming ability grow, going from My First Orchard and Animal Upon Animal to Can’t Stop and Qwixx. It’s the best.
Great games with my wife
While we often have plenty to do after the little one (who, I should say, is increasingly not little, which is great and terrifying in equal measure) goes to bed, we will occasionally play a board game together rather than reserve it for a more social occasion. We’ve recently been playing Dorfromantik: The Board Game, which has proven to be one of my very favorite tile placement games. It’s so breezy but strategic — I don’t know how they managed to strike that balance. It’s a great game.
It’s been really nice being able to sit down and play games together, and it’s something that gets both of us off our phones. Games like Stamp Swap, Fit to Print, River Valley Glassworks and Wyrmspan have been welcome additions to our evenings, among others. There’s nothing quite like quality time together with a bunch of cardboard.
TTUTCON 2024
It had been a long time since I’d attended a gaming convention, and I’d never attended one focused solely on play. TTUTCON (Trick-Takers of Utah Convention) 2024, a convention in Utah focused solely on trick-taking games, was an incredible time. I met some great people and played something like two dozen different trick-taking games over the course of the weekend. I played trick-taking games with two game designers whose work I admire, too. TTUTCON was definitely one of my gaming highlights of 2024.
Diving deep into virtual gaming
One of the difficulties of moving in mid-2023 was leaving my established gaming communities behind. Between friends, family and coworkers, I often had opportunities to play games in person. Leaving that behind was hard. While we’ve played plenty of games with folks where we’ve moved, those connections are perpetually missed. While there’s no replacement for the physicality of gaming, being able to play some great board games virtually has been a tremendous thing, whether that’s using PlayingCards.io or Board Game Arena — or even simply playing an escape room game over Zoom.
As a result, I’ve been able to spend time with folks I’ve missed, even if it’s asynchronous. (Even if I’ve lost every game of Hive I’ve played against Michael! Maybe I need a training montage. Hmm.) Virtual gaming has made a positive impact on my life.
Hey, Merry Christmas, folks. I hope you’re well. I’ll send out next week’s newsletter on either Wednesday or Thursday — we’ll just have to wait and see. I’ll be going over some of my favorite games of the year and, hopefully, a lot more. See you then!
Glad you liked TTUTcon so much. We almost have things firmed up for this year and hope to have an announcement out soon.
Dorfromantik is a fun game I found online during the pandemic. I'm so glad to know there's a board game version! I'll look for it. Thanks.