Last weekend, we strapped on our most comfortable walking shoes, checked our gaming wishlist twice, and jumped headlong into the self-proclaimed "best four days of gaming"—the annual Gen Con tabletop gaming convention in Indianapolis, Indiana. This year's 50th-anniversary show was extra special: turnstile attendance for an estimated 60,000 con-goers reached a record-breaking 209,000, and for the first year ever, the con sold out well before the doors opened on Thursday.
With approximately 500 exhibitors, over 19,000 ticketed events, and entire convention halls and stadiums filled to capacity with board games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, and everything in between, Gen Con is a lot to take in. We couldn't get to all of it, but we skipped sleep, meals, and general mental well-being to bring you what we see as the best of the show.
Below are the 20 board games we think you should be paying attention to going into the last few months of the year (cube-pushing Eurogame fans will want to tune in again in late October when we hit the giant Spieltage fair in Essen, Germany). Most of the games below will be coming out over the next several weeks and months, but because of the vagaries inherent in board game releases, exact dates are hard to pin down. Your best bet is to head to your local retailer, boardgameprices.com, or Amazon and put in a preorder for anything that catches your eye. And if you missed it, be sure to check out our massive photo gallery of the show.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2017/08/the-best-new-board-games-from-gen-con-2017/
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 29 2017, @05:56AM (7 children)
My comment, is no comment. Until I can mod comments, comments mean nothing to me. It is not even grinding to post "no comment" if I cannot mod the comments that my comment spawns! Oh, the huge manatee, and the little buzzard bird. Aristarchus out.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:28AM (6 children)
While this may be off topic it's a serious allegation leveled at the people who run SN. Please do respond.
Was aris really deprived of his modding privilege? Is there a policy?
I believe SN was founded because we got tired of the BS at the old place. I don't expect to see arbitrary shit here.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:50AM (4 children)
Policy: https://soylentnews.org/faq.pl?op=moderation#spam [soylentnews.org]
Admission of guilt by aristarchus: https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=21305 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Insightful) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:55AM (3 children)
Evidently someone does not understand civil disobedience. DeathMonkey went here before me.
As did Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Henry Thoreau. We are in good company. And we point out the alt-right pseudo-libertarian bias of SoylentNews, and we will not be silenced!!! Or something like that. OK?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:05AM (1 child)
Yes. And that someone is you.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:12AM
Oh poor aristarchus! He just cannot understand that no one on SN really is in favor of free speech. And he is a jerk. A troll. Someone who keeps questioning everything that everyone says, in such a way as to make them appear to be idiots. I blame khallow for this. And Socrates. It is about time.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @03:48PM
Ghandi - dead.
MLK Junior - dead.
Henry Thorequ - dead.
Aristarchus - also dead. How about you STFU, lie down, and let us all have some peace?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @07:54AM
> Was aris really deprived of his modding privilege? Is there a policy?
Yes, and yes. The policy [soylentnews.org] is that abusing spam mods bans you from modding for one month. aristarchus admitted to abusing it in a reply to a post that he modded as spam, trolling for mod-ban. The only arbitrary shit in this particular case is being produced by aristarchus, which is a shame. I rather liked his in-character posts :/
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Tuesday August 29 2017, @05:58AM (5 children)
The best one is no longer made, they call it discontinued. I'm talking about Trump: The Game. In which it's not whether you win or lose, it's whether you win! It came in two editions, both of which are fantastic. Thinking about a third edition. In which the winner becomes President! #WINNING #PROTRUMP45 🇺🇸
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 29 2017, @06:06AM (4 children)
I can think of no better comment to follow my no comment, than a comment by the realDonaldTrump. The vacuity of SoylentNews is approaching the density of an event horizon. Pull back, eds, before it is too late an we all are spagettified.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday August 29 2017, @06:50AM (2 children)
So, what will the aristarchus spot special feature be, on the Great Soylentnews Game? The Water Works (sorry, that's GP), the Luxury tax (nope, that's Gewg), simply the Mediterranean Avenue?
(Score: 2, Funny) by aristarchus on Tuesday August 29 2017, @08:14AM (1 child)
I think I would rather be eaten by a grue, than mod-banned by a buzzard. Just saying.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @03:39PM
It is now pitch dark. If you proceed you will likely fall into a pit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @03:44PM
Hey, buttwipe. It ain't all about you. Please, go find yourself a hideous, excruciatingly painful death.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Tuesday August 29 2017, @06:42AM
There are some really interesting things happening in the co-op space right now. My friends and I played a heap of Pandemic a while ago, and I've introduced the kids to Pandemic's younger sibling, Forbidden Island.
Really keen to play The Thing (loved that movie and think that the traitor mechanic is perfect for that setting) as well as Spirit Island (which, from another review, sounds like it suffers less from quarterbacking* than other co-op games sometimes can).
* Quarterbacking: in co-operative board games, this refers to one player tending to tell the other players how they should play their turns rather than letting them decide for themselves.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:19AM (3 children)
I watched a few of them and a couple of them look quite interesting such as NMBR9 (puzzle tile laying game where you try and stack pieces higher and higher while building a solid base), Photosynthesis (growing trees while also trying to block other players from growing trees by blocking out their sunlight), Whistle Stop (an interesting tile laying game where you want to go collect resources and spend them to score various bonuses and points). I saw that there is yet another Civilization game from Sid Meier, seriously they have never been good. That last good Civilization game was the one that Sid blatantly ripped off but refused to acknowledge that he did so -- the Avalon Hill games Civilization and Advanced Civilization. That said I'm a complete sucker for the Civ games so I might (or will) play it a few times while I whine about how much better the AH games are compared to this.
Overall I prefer waiting for the Essen convention and find out what the Spiel des Jahres (game of the year) will be, Kingdomino which was the winner last year was great and so was Colt Express (two years ago). Beyond them we really enjoyed Pandemic Reign of Cthulhu (Pandemic with Cthulhu monsters).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:22PM (2 children)
Can't think of anything creative, game developers? Just add zombies or Cthulhu. Now, with lack of effort!
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday August 29 2017, @12:57PM (1 child)
There has without a doubt in my mind been a few to many zombie games the last decade or so. So many that infact it has turned into a bit of a joke. That said one can never have to much Cthulhu.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Wednesday August 30 2017, @12:04AM
It's not Cthulhu, but the board game that has me most excited right now is The Thing.
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday August 29 2017, @03:48PM
I plan on trying some of these on Table Top Simulator. As lame as it sounds, it is a first person board game video game. I can play with my friends remotely and try new games. I think the consensus is that it does drive sales as playing in person is so much more pleasurable, but TTS provides a method of trying a game before purchase (which is important now that games can cost beyond $100).