The Best Games of 2016

So here we are. The last day of 2016. And a few days ago, I found an article on Ars Technica entitled Game on! The Best Board Games of 2016. They list the 20 games that they played most often in this past year.

Sadly, I don't have as much time to play games as I would like. And what time I do get is often spent on older games that I've played before. Which is not a bad thing; getting to play a great game more than once is always a good thing! So before I get to the main part of my article, a quick overview of the games that I played most often in 2016, regardless of when they were first published:

• Ghost Stories
• Labyrinth
• Sushi Go Party!
• Red Dragon Inn
• Tsuro
• The Resistance: Avalon

Most of these are because they're games that I own and other people enjoy. When I'm at other people's places, we usually end up playing something I've never played before. Which is also not a bad thing.

But that means that I've not had a chance to play many of the games that were published this year. I went to Board Game Geek and pulled up a list of all the games they have in their database that were published this year. There were nearly 3,200 such games. That's a ridiculous number!

To be fair, many of those were foreign games. Many more were reissues (such as Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition) or reworks (like the many different variant editions of Rory's Story Cubes, which had several new versions released this year) or reimplementations (like Pandemic: Reign of Cthulu). Still others were releases that were so small and unknown that they don't even have any photos in their entry.

On the other hand, some games aren't in the database at all yet. I was recently sent a free promo edition of a game that was released on Gamecrafter called Geoquest. This game doesn't yet have an entry (though I know the creators have submitted it; it's simply not been accepted yet).

The point is, 32,000 is not an exact number.

But even so, that's a lot of games. And of those, I've played exactly 13. One of those (Sushi Go Party!) is already included in the list above. Geoquest is, of course, another one mentioned previously in this article. But here are the other games from 2016 that I have played:

• Quadropolis
• Imhotep
• Tyrants of the Underdark
• Oceanos
• Tides of Madness
• Evolution: the Beginning
• Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China
• Plague Inc.
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Board Game
• Simon's Cat Card Game
• Tell Me a Story

Some of those I've reviewed, either here or at PinkFae. The reviews have been linked.

But that's not a lot from which to choose.

Here's how I'd rate those, given the small number available:

• Games I'd like to own (if I don't already):
• Sushi Go Party!
• Tides of Madness
• Tell Me a Story
• Games I'd like to play again, but don't feel the need to own:
• Imhotep
• Tyrants of the Underdark
• Oceanos
• Evolution: The Beginning
• Plague Inc.
• Games I'd be willing to play again, if others wanted to:
• Geoquest
• Games I don't feel any particular desire to play again:
• Quadropolis
• Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China
• Bill & Ted's Excellent Board Game
• Simon's Cat Card Game

There are lots of games from 2016 that I'd love to try, but haven't yet had a chance. This includes games like Clank, Secret Hitler, and Cry Havoc. And, of course, some games that just don't look appealing to me at all. At the top of this list is Scythe, which from what I've seen, looks like a long and boring tactical game along the lines of X-Wing.

Maybe I will try to make a greater effort to try new games as they come out in 2017. But we'll see how that goes next year at this time. For now, that's a quick look at the new releases of 2016, from my perspective. I'll see you hear next year! Until then,

Game on!