New Year, Old Year: 2022 Revisited
Day Four! Corrective Tradency!
Sometimes I can’t help but get cute with these things. John Company maaaybe should have been my number one game of the year. But it tickled me to reveal it on this second-to-last day, hinting that there was at least one game that was even better than Cole Wehrle’s magnum-opus-before-his-next-magnum-opus.
Because, yeah, John Company is amazing. It’s so good that I have another article or two tumbling around the hopper, and might even bother to write them if I didn’t suspect you were getting fatigued with me writing about Wehrle’s stuff. So, that’s it. We need not say any more. We circle back around to where we began. Amazing is John Company. Chiasmus: complete.
The weakest of this batch is, unsurprisingly, Crescent Moon, but symmetry demanded that I include a sixth game. At a conceptual level it hits the right notes, with its interlocking factions and competing interests, but is somewhat too hidebound by the actual grass-roots design of the factions themselves. Everyone has a way forward, and unless everybody pursues their path according to the narrowest of parameters, the entire thing begins to spin apart.
On the other end of the spectrum, Resist! is already showing wrinkles, although in this case that’s because its kid Witchcraft! is so much smoother. Ironically, this was much the same process that Red Flag Over Paris inflicted on Mark Herman’s Fort Sumter, offering a clearer-headed and more dynamic spinoff that leaves the older game in the rear-view. The Young Turks shaking up GMT’s usual catalog is a much-needed injection into the hoary uncle of wargaming. I hope these things are moving enough copies to keep the market trending in the right direction.
In terms of rhetorical and devotional stances alike, Stonewall Uprising and The Acts of the Evangelists are uncomfortable bedfellows at best, although they approach their subject matter with similar directness. I think I pegged them right from the beginning. They’re both solid games, willing to take risks and trust that their audiences will understand their motives. Acts is the better of the two, as I figured in 2022. I’m glad to see both of them here, like a note from friends in some old yearbook.
All right, this one made for a dull retrospective. “I agree with my previous sentiments.” Fie! On the next page, I promise I’ll get into more of a wrassle with Younger Dan.
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.