New Year, Old Year: 2022 Revisited
The wheel has turned once more. Continuing with our sporadic tradition of revisiting previous Best Weeks in order to assess my ever-changing feelings about the year’s best board games, not to mention the mutable nature of artistic taste, today we are plumbing the dark ages of 2022. Wow, what a throwback. What did I like back then? Has any of it held up? Did they even make board games that long ago? Let’s find out together.
Day One! Go Go Gimmick!
Wow, Blaž Gracar really made out like a bandit that first day, huh? I’m not surprised to see his games listed — both LOK and All Is Bomb are fantastic — and since this inaugural day of Best Week 2022 was about celebrating gimmicks, they certainly fit the bill.
That said, I got the ordering wrong. Way wrong. All Is Bomb has a certain timelessness to it. As when I wrote my review, it’s a perfect game for a quick bite, and I still harbor a soft spot for its goofball bomb-people. But LOK… LOK is perfect. Maybe it’s fresh in my mind because I played LOK Digital last year, Gracar’s aptly-titled digital implementation. I agree with Amabel Holland that it’s a fundamentally different experience when played on a device rather than with a dry-erase marker, but its inventiveness is on full display no matter the medium. Both great games, but LOK is the king of this jungle.
Two of these games had faded from my memory. Twilight Inscription was another attempt to craft a “roll-and-write but big,” and while I don’t think it was a bad game by any stretch, there are so many other smurfs I’d rather spend time with. Fliptown, Hadrian’s Wall, and The Anarchy all leap to mind. The same goes for That Time You Killed Me, a very funny game by a very funny designer, but one that lacks the abstract-game legs to warrant more than a once-over.
The remaining titles are both solid. The Adventures of Robin Hood isn’t the sort of game you replay, but it’s the only game of its stripe to my knowledge, and I still think back on it fondly and occasionally recommend it to people. I handed off my copy to somebody who had no idea what it was, which strikes me as the way a game like this should be experienced: played, appreciated, and passed along to somebody who will light up at all the clever things it has in store.
Return to Dark Tower, meanwhile, deserves its spot at the top of this list. In terms of replay, it’s certainly the one that’s stuck around like glue. My eleven-year-old requests it periodically, and even tried to deploy it at her birthday party, although her friends didn’t prove quite game enough. It’s nice knowing that there’s a game we can break out and enjoy at any point, whirling lights and screaming doors and all.
On the next page, we’re going thrill-seeking…
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.