New Year, Old Year: 2022 Revisited
Day Three! The Traumatics!
Another day in which my sense of ordering was all wrong. Okay, with some exceptions.
“Too long” might not be the most interesting complaint to invoke twice in a single retrospective, so how about we instead say that My Father’s Work was too fiddly? Although, hey, I still love the effort. A mad scientist simulator that plays out over three generations is a lightning rod of an idea, even if that electric charge doesn’t animate all of its monster’s limbs to an even temperature. I don’t regret playing this one in the slightest. But let’s bump it back one more space.
Here’s a different complaint: “too scorey.” Watch loses focus by spreading its points across too many categories, a perennial Eurogame problem, and it’s the one I most regret ranking so highly. I think I would still include it on this list, but in the last slot. Which bumps My Father’s Work up into its original space. Huh! Guess I wasn’t off by so much after all.
Honestly, there isn’t all that much to say about this list. Bloc by Bloc remains an excellent game about street action and mutual aid, including the uncertainty that comes with any community-building activity. It has since been outperformed by one of its designers’ later games, Defenders of the Wild, at least when it comes to the cooperative side of the equation. But I don’t think we get Defenders of the Wild without Bloc by Bloc, so I’m not about to wish it away.
That’s the tendency here. The Mirroring of Mary King is still a nasty piece of work, its metaphor of dysphoric identity veering between the euphoria of a good play and the panic of your alter’s good play. Some have complained about the game’s binary nature, that someone can (improbably) win on the first move, that its actions are counterintuitive… and I’m not convinced those are real detriments. So it is, too, with Persuasion, a game that’s ambiguous and knotty, but which thrives on that same ambiguity and knottiness. Apparently there will soon be a formally published version. I cannot wait.
Unsurprisingly, the most effective title of the bunch was and is Heading Forward. Message games sometimes get a bad rap, but, first of all, this is a list filled with message games, and two, not many message games are this effective at communicating their intended statement. This is the sort of game that comes closest to breaking through that artificial barrier between trash and art, both fully a plaything and fully an empathy-building exercise. I’m so relieved to see that I gave it the number one slot.
Next up, some history!
Posted on May 9, 2025, in Board Game, Retrospective and tagged Best Week!, Board Games, Retrospective. Bookmark the permalink. 4 Comments.
SPACE-BIFF! 
Curiously out of the games in this retrospective I tried my conclusions mostly match yours. I think the only notable divergence is that I’m not a huge fan of Bloc by Bloc, but I’m not especially into co-ops at best of times and I found that the cool moments it does have aren’t worth the tedious upkeep. I also got rid of both Red Flag over Paris and Stonewall uprising, because 2p games are essentially a non-starter, since I mostly only get to play games in a larger group. I agree that Acts is a really good game, but the combination of the theme and significant length/downtime makes it hard to get to the table.
Perhaps it’s telling that I don’t own any of the games listed and have played none of them. (Though I do own the boilerplate pirates version of one of them, which gets played often.) I guess not enough games are giving me that must-own vibe. It’s enough to make one wonder if we have reached peak-Syndrome in board games: “When every game is super, none will be.”
Sadly the different opinions I’ve read on Crescent moon point the same kind of flaws, but I still hope I’ll have the opportunity to play it someday, if only to enjoy the beautiful artefact it seems to be on a table.
John Company IS a masterpiece. Reading and understanding the rules was probably my best “game time” of 2024, and the first plays were marvelous (After announcing that it might take 3 to 6 hours, having a 45min teach followed by a 1 hour game due to our horrendous exactions in India was hilarious). I’m really eager to tackle the solo mode, just to see how the system can be twisted to accomodate one-player.
After a few plays (very enthusiastic), Resist! is waiting for a moment when I can dig into the history of the spanish war to resurface.
Imperium is still on my watchlist, as it seems that a new edition and/or expansion might be on the way after Dead Cells’ success. However, I doubt it could overthrow Quantum as our regular “space-game”.
Ten has been nagging at me from the boardgame shelf of the city library from 2 years now, I need to take time to give it a shot.
I played the digital demo of Lok months ago and had a blast, I didn’t know the full version was released! It tickles my brain in just the right way and I cannot wait to go back to it.
I hope to play more Shamans (and hpefully a bit of Turncoats) during the summer holidays. It ask for a few plays to get all of its subtleties, but it gives back a lot once you’re in its mental game space.
Wow, a nice array of thoughts, Chips! I hear the solo mode for John Company is surprisingly good.