Below are my ten favorite new games from 2014… of the 15 new releases I played. For the sake of completion, I might as well mention all 15.
Honorable Mentions
Below the cut you’ll find both Professor Layton offerings this year, Azran Legacy and vs. Phoenix Wright, which were the usual yearly offering and an interesting (if somewhat flawed) experiment, respectively. Super Smash Bros for 3DS was a fun appetizer for the main course that would arrive about six weeks later, but was never seriously going to contend thanks to hardware limitations. Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire surprised me by how much I enjoyed revisiting Hoenn, although the inherent problems with the originals weighed down the experience a bit. Finally, Shovel Knight (which I played on the 3DS, if that matters) was a fun retro romp but not really my cup of tea; not enough Mega Man in its otherwise-rich gameplay DNA mix, I guess. READ MORE
As is apparently tradition, it seems that my analog gaming year was much better than my digital one. Writing my official Staff Picks list (running tomorrow) often feels more like a question of “do I even have ten games to list this year?” than it is which ones were my legitimate favorites. That is never the case for this list, as I usually keep a year-long draft on my BoardGameGeek profile that changes constantly as new games arrive and older ones fall out of favor. This list is also not always entirely about the current year, due to vagaries concerning actual US release dates versus European releases, Kickstarter bonuses or even when I simply first become aware of the game in question. At least this year, I have already talked about every game that made the list, which has rarely been the case in the past! READ MORE
Emergents: Genesis is a new deckbuilding game currently finishing up a successful Kickstarter campaign. Designer Anthony Conta took some time out of his schedule to talk to us about the game.
Snackbar Games: To begin, tell us a little about the Emergents Universe.
Anthony Conta: The Emergents Universe is a world where individuals have begun to realize powers that lay dormant within them. As the storyline unfolds, peoples’ powers emerge and they start to become extraordinary. The first emergent, Zeroth, uses his powers to recognize and fend off an alien invasion, with the help of several others he gathers to fight. The others that fight also have powers, and after the battle, the four go on to form a school to teach others These four others — Helios, Moxie, Billy Stopless and The Abyss — were each members of the Genesis Squadron, the first team of Emergents. Thus, we’ve named this game after them: Emergents: Genesis. READ MORE
When you first sit down to a game of Five Tribes, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. A grid of 30 tiles, representing five different types of district in the sultanate, each begin with three randomly-assigned colored meeples, representing the titular five tribes. A market of cards representing various goods are laid out to one side, and a selection of djinn on the other. Your mission is to maneuver the meeples to specific tiles to best take advantage of both the tribes and the tiles. Sounds simple, and it is, but it sure doesn’t seem that way when starting out. READ MORE
The “4X” (explore, expand, exploit and exterminate) genre is one more familiar and accessible to PC gamers (e.g., Civilization, StarCraft) than it is to the cardboard crowd. The most well-known 4X board games are usually epic, sprawling affairs like Twilight Imperium, Age of Empires, Eclipse or even Civilization: the Board Game. These games have their devotees, but turn away many with their intensive session times, excessive number of pieces, intricate rules, or any number of other factors.
Combining traditional 4X gameplay with the recent design trend towards “micro-games” — games with minimal components that can be played in under 20 minutes — has resulted in Scott Almes’s Tiny Epic Kingdoms, published by Gamelyn Games (Dungeon Heroes). TEK actually has a play time of about half an hour, but that’s still at least one-eighth the time commitment of a normal 4X so the “micro” label still fits. But can you really condense 4X gameplay into a box the size of about two DVD cases stacked on top of each other? READ MORE
