Issue 14: 10 great board games from 2016
2016 was a massive year for board games — but how did some of its best games hold up?
It is hard to believe that 2016 was five years ago now, but here we are. It was. Amazing how time keeps marching on, isn’t it?
2016 was a big year for games in my life. I played a lot, I explored a lot, and I still love a lot of games released that year. I even started my Instagram account that year, which is quite remarkable to think about.
All that is why I wanted to come back to that year for this week’s newsletter. In any year, I think there’s real value in looking toward the past, and especially after the year we all had, I think there’s something valuable about reflecting to a different time. See, I’ve looked at games released in 2020, and the list of games that I still want to play but haven’t been able to is towering. The list of games I’m excited for in 2021 is similarly long. (I’ll include some links below.)
Before we get into the games, some housekeeping, off-topic and fun.
First up: If you know somebody who you think might enjoy this newsletter, please — send it their way. I’ll even put a little button below. Look at how nice that button is. (This is my ‘like, share and subscribe’ portion of the newsletter.)
Second: So many of these games are great to share with people you work with, with your family, with your friends, and with all manner of folks. But, you know — be safe! If these games have waited five years for you to play, another few months won’t be the worst thing. You can do it.
Third: I’d love to hear from you. What do you want from this newsletter? I’d love to share what I want, too (though my designs here are still a work in progress.) Let’s chat!
Pandemic: Iberia
I’m a big fan of Pandemic. It’s a series that’s given me hours upon hours of cooperative entertainment. The Pandemic Legacy games are some of the most exciting, engaging games I’ve played, and I assume Season Zero will be the same way when it’s safe to play with friends in person again.
Pandemic: Iberia is very nearly the height of the series. It takes some of what emerged in Pandemic Legacy Season 1, puts in a more solid state, and gives it a good polish. The addition of railroads is a very welcome addition, especially without being able to take direct flights, and purified water gives you just a little extra protection beyond the base game.
All of these concepts just really come together in fantastic ways. This, for me, takes some of the best of the first Pandemic Legacy game and combines it with some lovely, thematic art, and makes it feel just a little bit like a relic.
Kingdomino
I suspect that lighter games are more likely to hold up over time than heavier games, and Kingdomino is a good example of that. The mechanics are simple — tile placement in a domino fashion in a constrained space, plus some light drafting — but it’s quick, easy to teach, and fun.
Kingdomino became one of those games I kept at work — until 2020, of course — as it was an equally easy one to play with coworkers who were big into games as well as ones who weren’t quite so inclined.
Exit: The Game series
These are truly some of my favorite game experiences I’ve had. In 2019, I played several of them over a series of nights with a friend I was visiting in Seattle, and the immersive puzzle-solving is just so compelling here. Few games match what’s being done in this series, and that’s been the case since their release.
It should also be noted that these actually play very well remotely — as long as all involved parties have a copy of the game in front of them. It’s a very physical game (though not in the ‘get up and move’ sense, thankfully) and interacting with the components is an important part of play.
Flamme Rouge
I have watched only a little bit of bicycle racing (the Tour de France was exciting to read about and to watch, though I suspect the pandemic played a small role in our collective wonder at the thing), but I actually felt surprisingly well-prepared to understand it because of Flamme Rouge.
A bicycle-racing game where you take on the role of two cyclists, a Rouleur and a Sprinteur, as you sprint up and down the hills of the French countryside. The key problems: When will you expend energy, and when will you conserve it? When will you stay in a pack to conserve energy, and when will you burst out for a stunning victory? It’s a tricky thing pulled directly from the sport.
Inis
It has been a long time since I got Inis to the table, and hopefully 2021 is a year when it’s a bit more feasible to get this game played with four of us around a table. It seems outwardly like a game about direct conflict, but it doesn’t always end up so aggressive: It can instead be about maneuvering to find the best time to rise to power without being noticed, and that’s a strategy I find exciting and compelling.
In this game, you can win through three distinct means, all of which revolve around the number six: leadership, by having more units than other players in six territories; land, by being present in six territories; or religion, by having your units in territories containing six sanctuaries.
Other notable games
So, the above are probably (maybe!) my top five from the year, but they’re hardly the only good games from the year. Let’s take a look at even more games from 2016, which, for a variety of reasons, didn’t make the list above.
Vast: The Crystal Caverns
I can’t say that Vast is one of my favorite games from 2016, but I do think it had a particularly strong influence on games for a few years, and I think its success led directly to the development of Root, which has had some real staying power.
Vast: The Crystal Caverns is a heavily asymmetric game revolving around — well — a crystal cavern. You might play as a knight, looking for glory in battle; you might be the goblins, trying to kill the knight or a dragon; a thief, trying to steal the dragon’s loot; a dragon, trying to escape the cave; or even the cave, trying to collapse on everyone inside.
In part by its asymmetric nature, Vast is a game that requires a lot of rules explanation, especially as the rules that overlap between roles are minimal. It’s a problem they accounted for really well in Root, and they may not have got there without Vast, recognizing that Root has its (I’m sorry about this, but) roots in war games.
Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle
The common logic has long been that licensed games, especially with photos from a movie or TV series, are often garbage. That’s still the case, but Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle showed a different side of things. A deckbuilding game with ramping difficult, this is a fun spin on the genre that fits the theme nicely. It might have even made my top 10 if not for the photos-from-a-movie artwork on the cards, but alas, here we are.
Scythe
Scythe is not a perfect game. It’s sometimes overly long. Faction combinations can end up terribly unbalanced. It can often end with a whimper. But when it works, it really works, and the action selection mechanics are almost always fun to grapple with.
This is the game that really put rockets on Stonemaier Games, and it’s what enabled the company to publish Elizabeth Hargrave’s Wingspan with some truly great production quality. (Except that weird dice tower, but that’s neither here nor there.)
Terraforming Mars
Let me be clear here. I like Terraforming Mars. I do not love Terraforming Mars. I am still a little perplexed at how it became the game to own, but I am glad people enjoy it and that it’s been a good entry point into the hobby. In my experience, the systems never quite clicked together, the stock art never captured me, and the player board was an absolute disaster. Still, it’s a fun game, and I think it’s one I should probably play a bit more, mostly for the first of my issues listed.
Some other noteworthy games
A Feast for Odin is a really great Uwe Rosenberg title that merges worker placement with a grid and polyomino tiles
Beyond Baker Street is a spin on the core conceit of Hanabi, in that you can’t see your cards but everyone else can, and it’s a great cooperative card game.
Clank! took deck-building to something bigger, with a map and tokens and a goal: Don’t make too much noise.
Codenames: Pictures took a game that was having mass-market appeal and gave expanded on the idea — but I actually think this is best alongside standard Codenames.
Cottage Garden launched Uwe Rosenberg’s ‘puzzle trilogy’, with Indian Summer and Spring Meadow following, and it, alongside A Feast for Odin, really pushed his polyomino play into high gear.
Explorers of the North Sea helped establish Shem Phillips as a designer to watch, especially after the innovative worker placement game Raiders of the North Sea. Why didn’t this make my list above? It is a really good game — but I think it might suffer a bit from comparison to the other North Sea and, later, West Kingdom games.
Kodama: The Tree Spirits is still one of my favorite light card games, especially with the physical arrangement of the cards on the table being a real eye-catcher. It’s a great filler game from Daniel Solis.
Imhotep is a fantastic core game about being the best architect among your opponents, and it’s both approachable and interesting.
Santorini is a great two-player, three-dimensional game, but it’s been around in one form or another since 2004 — this is certainly the definitive, most popular edition.
Some games from 2016 I never played, or maybe only played once or twice
I’ve ranked these by their ranking on Board Game Geek as of Wednesday, which is when I wrapped this section.
Star Wars: Rebellion (#8) is probably a great game, but I’m not a big Star Wars fan. Sorry. (Star Trek, though. Yeah. I’m 100 percent in.)
Great Western Trail (#11) is one I think I played once, and I should probably play it more, but I haven’t, and that’s that.
Arkham Horror: The Card Game (#22) is just thematically not something that speaks to me. The same can be said for Mansions of Madness: Second Edition (#33).
Mechs vs. Minions (#41) seems like it was actually pretty hard to find, so it’s something that I never really had a chance to play. I’m not too worried about this one, especially given the price tag, but tell me if I’m wrong.
Aeon’s End (#69) is probably something I’d really get into, but I haven’t to date. This was quite the year for games launched on Kickstarter, huh?
Lorenzo il Magnifico (#98) is probably fantastic. I dunno. It’s just not one that ever ended up on my table.