Best Games of 2017!

You know the rules. They don't have to be published this year, just New To You.

I just browsed through the last year and jotted down all the new games worthy of consideration for my own top ten. Ended up with quite a few...

Many of them I didn't want to leave out. But for brevity's sake, let's keep it to ten. I found myself adding extra criteria (different types of games) just to help me make a decision though! Starting with three who have to be here on account of getting played so many times it seems weird to leave them out.


1. NMBR9 - the vertical version of Take it Easy. Always guaranteed some swearing. I rarely play a game by myself, but I kept doing so with NMBR9 - I found it addictive. Easy to teach, quick to play, zero set-up. Lovely.


2. Flamme Rouge - a hit with almost everyone who played it. Always enjoy this game and love the way the play genuinely resembles a race: to break or not; if so, when? Pushing on will tire you out, and someone far ahead at the halfway stage is usually caught as they run out of puff...


3. Near and Far - this is the game I play a lot with Stanley. It's very simple to teach and the mechanics by themselves are a reasonably streamlined get-stuff-to-do-stuff. What elevates it into the ten is partly the story element: not as absurdly silly as Arabian Nights, but fun all the same. And partly - mainly - its presence here is down to the joy I've had with Stanley.

The Euro. Let's get it out of the way. I really enjoy Clans of Caledonia but for it's big, bizarrely abstract great behemothiness it has to be...

4. A Feast for Odin. When I first played it I thought Uwe had had some kind of episode, but I then I found myself wanting to play it more and more. Until I played Adam.

The co-ops. Not a massive player of co-ops, but I think I will be hanging onto...

5. Black Orchestra. Perhaps not as elegant a design as Pandemic, but Andrew and I have really enjoyed playing this. Like Lord of the Rings, it suffers from the actual moment of victory or defeat not quite having the fireworks that the rest of the game does, but I like it all the same.


6. Flipships. Just genius. We played it again last night. As with Lost Expedition and Insider, I'm grateful to Flipships being a game (little) Joe asks to play.

The (other) silly one.

7. Polterfass is one I'm always happy to play and just about bumps Auf Teufel Komm Rass.

The wordy one.

8. Montage just sneaks in ahead of Paperback and Movable Type, even though I am shambolic at it. All three are great.

The hidden identity one.

9. Chameleon. I love Insider too, but Chameleon avoids some of Insider's occasional lop-sidedness, where the Insider can win just by being quiet.

The new one.

10. The Quest for El Dorado. There had to be a new one! And it was this or Azul. Though I have also been enjoying losing at Stanley to Pulsar 2849 and been impressed with the beige-looking Council of Four.

Bubbling under:

Voodoo Prince, Jorvik, Eggs of Ostrich, Hit Z Road, Ethnos, Kingdomino, Downforce, Alchemists, maybe even... Time of Crisis?