My Top 10 Boardgames Published in 2023

    

Here's a look at my 10 favorite games published in 2023.

(Or else made available in North America so late in 2022 that there was no way to really play them before the calendar flipped.)

#10

ATIWA

First of three (!) Rosenberg games on the list. Much simpler than most of his "big box" games, with a cute theme and adorable bat meeples. You're building a village, tending to families and their environment, all the while trying to grow and maintain the fruit bat community.

Atiwa features a very original turn-to-turn mechanic that morphs the main action into another and—together with other design levers—ensures that each play shows a different aspect of the game's personality.

#9

MIND UP!
Mind Up! is very much in the 6 nimmt! mold—complete with exclamation point—but it takes things one step further without making the rules more difficult to master.

A row of cards is laid out on the table, in ascending order. Players simultaneously select and then reveal a card from their hands, grabbing from the tabled row the card that matches the position of the card they played. So if you want to grab the first card in the row, because its color is worth more points to you, then you need to play a card with a low value; but if someone else plays a lower card, well then you're stuck with the 2nd card in the row...

Not only do the just-played cards become the new row of cards up for grabs on the table (think ahead!), but all the cards you win (and score at the end of the round) form your hand for the next round.

Cleverer and cleverer.

#8

APPLEJACK

Designer Uwe Rosenberg does big & complex and short & sweet equally well, always offering a challenging and rewarding experience. This time around, players are invited to each create their own orchard, making sure they have enough connecting apples of each color when it comes time to score that variety. 

For a game that clocks in at 30 minutes and can be explained in five, the depth of the decision space boggles the mind.

(You can read my flash review here.)

#7

GREAT WESTERN TRAIL: NEW ZEALAND

Herding sheep—instead of cows—in kiwi-land, you hire builders to construct your buildings, shearers to profit from the wool before you ship off the actual livestock, sailors to move your ship around and open new markets, and shepherds to handle the beasts themselves. Throw in a little deck-building and a lot of planning ahead, and you've got another winner.

This third and last incarnation of the GWT engine is an excellent game, but it falls a little short of its two older brethren. Call it less elegant or slightly more convoluted: there's a little something that prevents it from reaching the dizzying heights of the original game or the Argentina incarnation.

(You can read my flash review here.)

#6

SKIES ABOVE BRITAIN

Five years ago (already!?) I reviewed Skies Above the Reich, a brilliant solo wargame about breaking up formations of Allied bombers flying towards Germany with ill intent. And while designer Jeremy White said that he didn't see how he'd adapt the system to cover the Battle of Britain, Gina Willis showed him how and jumped in as co-designer.

This new incarnation of the system turns the tables and sends hordes of German bombers over Britain, which the player must defend at all costs. The rules overhead is slightly heavier but well worth the additional investment, for a game that's every bit as thrilling as its predecessors. (Yes, there were two!)

#5

HEGEMONY
I've been burned by enough Kickstarter projects to learn to disregard any kind of hype surrounding a new game being peddled on that platform. Most of the time I'm right; once in a while I'm wrong.

Hegemony proved to fall in the latter category.

It's an ambitious design, pitting asymmetrical roles against each other: the Worker Class, the Middle Class, the Capitalist Class, and the State. Everyone plays by their own rules but must come together to make it all work, and the game truly shines. I don't own a copy myself, something I'll remedy as soon as the 2nd edition comes out.

#4

ORANIENBURGER KANAL
Third and final Rosenberg game on the list; I'm frankly surprised something like this hasn't happened before. Now this might be his driest looking game ever, what with its generic cards and sterile grid of a game board, but I think it might also be one of his best. It's strictly a two-player game, with each opponent attempting to outbuild the other while optimizing the paths, roads, canals and railways that connect everything together. 

The game borrows the clever resource wheel from Ora et Labora and offers a real brain burner, with surprisingly few rules and a play time (90 minutes) that's more than fair for a game of this depth.

#3

PLANTAGENET

The Levy & Campaign series of games has long fascinated me, but there were always a few irritants that prevented me from truly loving what was on the menu. Plantagenet, the fourth L&C title, fixed them all.

Levy troops, raise money, gather food—then go to war! Of course, it won't hurt if you manage to convince a handful of lords and vassals to join your cause, and gain control of critical towns and cities.

(You can read my review here.)

#2

SKY TEAM

How many cooperative games do you know that play in 15 minutes, offer meaningful decisions, feature a generous helping of scenarios in varying levels of difficulty, come with fantastic components, and prove to be a nail-biter to the very end?

Just land the plane. Everything's going to be fine...

(You can read my flash review here.)

#1

MR. PRESIDENT

The most complex and longest game on the list, Mr. President puts you in the White House right after inauguration. Can you deal with everything your cabinet, your country, and indeed the world can throw at you?

I'm amazed at the scope of the package, at the stories it tells, at the palpable tension it generates from beginning to end. Yes it takes at least 10 hours to finish, and yes it's a solo game (which means you're sitting alone in your corner for those 10+ hours), but if you enjoy the sort of engine roaring under this particular hood, you're in for a ride like no other.

(You can read my review here.)

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DISAPPOINTMENTS
I define disappointments as games I expected a lot from, and which failed to deliver.

Here are the "top" three from 2023.

I'm a big fan of Mike Fitzgerald's other rummy games, namely Jack the Ripper and Wyatt Earp. So this one sounded like a great new variation with a fun theme.

Turns out the game's tortured mechanics barely manage to avoid the "broken" label, and the whole thing's a sad and sorry bust. I played one game and knew this was going on the trade pile. Fast.

This case was a bit different: I felt no real desire to play Ark Nova, but the hype surrounding it was so over the top that I just had to see what everyone was talking about. 

And sure, it's a fine game, but it's not doing anything all that different from what I can get out of Terraforming Mars, for instance. I understand if you like the theme better, but people treated this like the Second Coming, which I thought it was not.

This is another case of "best game ever" that I had to investigate. And once again, it's a fine game with good-looking components, but it's another tableau builder that falls flat for me. I found myself missing the feeling of shared construction I enjoy in—yes, that one again—Terraforming Mars.

Hey, maybe I'm just not a tableau builder enthusiast? Wingspan also left me pretty meh.

* * *

STRAGGLERS
Let's end on a high note with three games that would have made the list had I encountered them back in the year when they were published.

A solo WWII tactical war game with a bunch of scenarios, tons of units, and an automated opponent that—while pretty random—generates fun situations and gives the human player a run for their money. Why didn't I play this sooner?

Granted, my being late to the party meant that I could benefit from the revamped maps of the 2nd edition, and spare my retinae some graphics-induced searing.

Merlin feels the way great Eurogames did back when they were simple and efficient. While I love complex games, there's something satisfying in a well designed system that's straight to the point and super fun. 

A classic Feld that's a blast with just the basic game, and which becomes a tasty feast when you start mixing in some of the expansion modules.

I really enjoy trick-taking games with a twist, and Diamonds delivers in spades. You earn diamonds in four different ways that correspond to the suits of each trick you win, but you also trigger the suit ability of a card you play when it doesn't match the current trick!

It's a great example of what designer Mike Fitzgerald can do when he's not busy destroying his rummy legacy.

# # #

Flash Review — Great Western Trail: New Zealand

Players: 1-4
Works well with just 2: Yes!
Age: 12+
Playtime: 75-150 min
Complexity: 8/10

As a fan of both the original Great Western Trail and its Argentina variation, I had very high expectations when it came to the third and last entry in the series, New Zealand.
Did it live up to its pedigree? Yes and no.

Cattle is replaced by sheep, the workers you pick up on your journey don't exactly behave the way their predecessors did, but overall you're playing GWT. The main differences are as follows:

1. You can shear your sheep (instead of shipping them off), using their wool value to gain cash and eventually victory points.
This addition works really well, introducing the shearer to your roster of workers, and making it possible to earn quick cash while you're still on the trail, before you get to Wellington (your shipping-off port in this game).

2. Your train is replaced by a ship that travels to open up new business avenues (similar to the Rails to the North expansion for the original game).
The more sailors you hire, the farther your ship can move; and although you are not required to move your ship, it can provide you with significant benefits you'd be remiss to ignore.

3. Your deck can now be home to a variety of cards that are not sheep, adding a bit more of a deck-building feel to the proceedings.
And it's this change in the rules I'm not convinced I really like. It sure adds variety (the cards are not the same from game to game), but what they actually do is lukewarm at best. Some are sheep (admittedly sheep types you can't get anywhere else, but still), some are objectives (again, exclusive ones, but hey) while others are cards that you play for some resource (gain 1 pound, earn one certificate, etc.) before discarding them and drawing a replacement.
You might see why I'm dubious here: after a handful of plays, I still don't know if those cards bring a vital new mechanic to the game or just add noise to the system, providing resources players could have garnered through other means.

So two excellent gameplay twists, and a third one that leaves me a bit cold.

GWT: New Zealand is still a solid game, but it doesn't feel as refined as its Argentina brother—which to me stands as the pinnacle of the whole series.

Most easily forgotten rule: Contrary to both previous GWT games, you don't have to reveal all of your sheep cards when you reach Wellington. The cards you do reveal all need to be different, but you can hold some of them back if you want.

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