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If you’ve come into our Gameology retail store looking for recommendations, one of the first things our staff probably ask you is: “What other games do you like?” I’ve probably asked you (yes, you, reading this) that exact question! However, if you have never been to our retail store before, here’s a blog post full of board game recommendations based on what you already like! * If You Like...Catan You’ll Like...Bohnanza or Little Town If the trading and high level of player interaction is what you and your gaming group love about Catan, you’ll love the card game, Bohnanza. Your aim of the game is to plant large quantities of a specific bean variety (eg: chilli beans) and then harvest them to make the max amount of money. However, the trick of Bohnanza is that every turn, you are dealt two bean cards and, unless you can trade them away, you will be forced to plant them in your fields, harvesting your poor chilli beans before they had a chance to grow up. And here’s where the trading comes in. There’s shouting, undercutting, bribery--made all the more hilarious when you realise you’re arguing over derpy looking beans. If you love board games that, like Catan, get people looking not completely at the board but at their fellow players, Bohnanza will surely be a hit. However, if your love for Catan stems more from the resource generation aspects, you might find more luck with Little Town. This adorably small worker placement game places you as a team of builders and architects, tasked with collecting resources and money to build a town. Each turn, when you place a worker, you gain resources from all the surrounding spaces—similar to how Catan grants you resources depending on the tiles surrounding your settlements. With the resources you gain, you can create buildings. The interesting part is that both you and your opponents can utilise these buildings. Small and light but still strategic, Little Town melds the resource generation of Catan with worker placement, making it a perfect next step. If You Like…Ticket to Ride You’ll Like...Power Grid or Takenoko If you’re looking for a jump in complexity from the humble Ticket to Ride, look no further than Power Grid. In Power Grid, your goal is to supply power to cities—and do it better than your opponents. Will you power your city through free, but low-power green energy? Will you go all out and get uranium power plants? Or will you go the classic route with coal and oil? Each turn, you will bid on power plants for your company, buy the resources you need to run those power plants, and build out your network. There are a lot of more phases in a game of Power Grid than one of Ticket to Ride, but the reason I recommend this game is because you require the same kind of spatial mapping between cities, planning where you want to expand to next. The difference is in this game, you’re routing power, not trains. If you’re starting to get tired of Ticket to Ride and are willing to invest the time to grasp some new mechanics, Power Grid will be an extremely rewarding and strategic experience. Maybe Power Grid sounds like a bit too much right now, but you still want something offering fresh mechanics. Here, I will recommend Takenoko. At its core, Takenoko is a cute game about growing bamboo. Each turn, you will have a set amount of action points to spend on performing a variety of actions—be that irrigating a piece of land, growing a certain colour of bamboo, or even moving the panda to a plot of land and eating the bamboo! In Takenoko, what’s similar to Ticket to Ride are the goal cards you get throughout the game. Where in Ticket to Ride, your goal might be to connect London and Paris, here, your goal might be to have the panda eat four pieces of pink bamboo. Though this game has a different feel to Ticket to Ride, it offers a small jump in complexity while retaining a light-hearted theme that will appeal to kids. If You Like…Codenames You’ll Like...Concept or Mysterium Park Codenames is such a good board game because of how neutral it is. You can play it with people of all ages and it’s fit for all occasions and moods—whether that’s Christmas with the whole family or a simple weeknight. If you’re looking for a game similarly easy to get to the table, Concept is what I would recommend. Put simply, it is charades as a board game. Each turn, a team of two players choose a word from a secret card that the other players need to guess. Then, they start placing small cubes on the variety of icons on the board. Perhaps the word they need to guess is coffee. They might place a cube on the icon signifying food or drink and then another on the icon featuring the colour brown. Like Codenames, Concept has the same opportunities for clever clue-giving and subsequent fun discussions, bundled in a simple and inoffensive package, making it the perfect recommendation. If your group wants something a little more thematic though, your perfect next game is Mysterium Park—the newly released mini version of classic thematic co-op game, Mysterium. Where Mysterium can be tedious to set up and explain, Mysterium Park simplifies that with a setup quite similar to Codenames. In Mysterium Park, the fairground’s director has mysteriously disappeared. A ghost now haunts the park and a group of psychics are called in to help investigate its cryptic visions. Using only beautiful but strange illustrations (similar to those in Dixit), the ghost must communicate with the psychics and help them rule out potential suspects and locations, until they have narrowed it down to the true killer. Like both Codenames and Concept, Mysterium Park will have your group in deep discussion over cryptic clues. With its beautiful artwork and similar playstyle to Codenames, Mysterium Park is definitely one to put on the wishlist if you love Codenames. If You Like…Secret Hitler You’ll Like...Spyfall 2 or Human Punishment Social Deduction 2.0 For a social deduction game that’s a little lighter and shorter than Secret Hitler, try Spyfall 2. In Spyfall 2, a variety of location cards will be laid out in the centre of the table. A location will secretly be chosen and everyone will be dealt a card with that location on it and the job they have in this location. All except one person, whose card will simply read: “Spy”. This player will have no idea where everyone else is. Then the questions start. Players must ask each other any questions they can think of—from “What are we wearing today?” to “Why is the sky blue?”—trying to suss out who the spy is. Spyfall 2 is a brilliant next step from Secret Hitler because it encourages creativity and cunning in both the questions you ask and who you ask. There’s also a nice opportunity to roleplay your character—whether that’s a lion tamer at the zoo or a bouncer at the jazz club. Perhaps you want your social deduction more complex. For that, the perfect game for you is Human Punishment Social Deduction 2.0 (ignore its mouthful of a title). Rated 7.9 on BoardGameGeek at the time of writing, this is a social deduction game that goes beyond being a simple party game. It’s described as being more of a social experiment than a simple board game. Unlike many social deduction games where your role is fixed, in Human Punishment, your allegiances can change many times throughout the game. However, instead of there simply being a binary of good guys and bad guys, Human Punishment features Humans, Machines, Outlaws, the Legion and the Fallen, all of which have interactions and alliances far more complex than simply “I don’t like them, they should die”. A rich and tense experience, Human Punishment is the game to get if you want more from Secret Hitler. If You Like…Risk You’ll Like...Small World or Small World of Warcraft Now, this might be cheating a little bit since technically, Small World and Small World of Warcraft are the same game. But I think it’s such a great recommendation after Risk that I had to put both versions in. Honestly, I don’t love Risk. The randomness of the dice rolls, the boringness of your units, it all feels a little outdated for me. However, Small World changes all that by giving you more consistent combat but, more importantly, wild, fun and wacky units to play with. In both Small World and Small World of Warcraft, you are trying to claim as much land as possible to earn the most coins. But if you want to take over the land, you’ll need units. In Small World, units are a randomised combination of a race and a trait. Perhaps you have Stout Amazons one game, but the next you’ll have Mystic Amazons. Each trait and race has their own power that, when combined, make for hilarious results. Even more interesting though, is that you aren’t stuck with the same units all game. Over the course of the game, you can acquire new units, putting your previous armies in decline. Don’t be scared though: if you love the satisfaction of claiming your opponent’s land and killing their units in Risk, you still get that with Small World, but with much more variety and fun. If you love the World of Warcraft theme, Small World of Warcraft is the obvious choice, but even if you aren’t a WoW fan, it might be worth getting this version because of the refined rules and mechanics that come with the newer version. However, even with the original version, you are getting a quick, competitive area control game that scratches the same itch as the classic Risk. And there we have it! Our board game recommendations based on what you already like! I hope this helps you and your gaming group find the perfect next game to play. Do you have any more recommendations to add to our list? Leave them in the comments below!
GAMEOLOGY IS FUNDRAISING FOR CANCER COUNCIL VICTORIA TO HELP STOP CANCER. Late last year we asked our community to nominate a charity that we could collectively help support. We heard many touching stories, that genuinely made us appreciate you all. The terrible impact Cancer has on families everyday is obvious. Being based in Victoria, we are raising funds for the Cancer Council Victoria. While we love the idea of bringing fun and joy into everyone's home, this is a different opportunity to help our community. Thanks in part to the work done by the Cancer Council, 7 in 10 of those diagnosed with cancer will survive five years after diagnosis, but there’s still so much work to be done. Cancer Council needs our support more than ever this year. Every dollar raised gives hope for a cancer free future. By supporting the Cancer Council you are helping to fund life-saving cancer treatments, prevention programs, and support services that ensure no one has to face cancer alone. https://fundraising.cancervic.org.au/fundraisers/gameology/gameology-cancer-council-fundraiser How do I make my donation? At checkout simply select the dropdown menu next to the Cancer Council logo and it will be added to your order total. What if the amount I want to pay isn't reflected in the pre-selected donation amounts? If you would like to donate an amount outside of the listed donation amounts you can visit our direct Cancer Council donation page at https://fundraising.cancervic.org.au/fundraisers/gameology/gameology-cancer-council-fundraiser and select a custom amount to donate. How much is Gameology contributing? Gameology will be matching all donations up to a final total of $2000 How long are you accepting donations for? We will be receiving donations up until the 12.02.2021 I need a tax receipt for my Charitable Donation - Can you provide me one? Yes we can - Please get in contact with our support staff directly via our contact us page or any of our social media platforms
Sleeves. Those little plastic thingies that protect your cards. With such a huge variety of brands and sizes and thicknesses, where do you begin? If you’re looking to start sleeving your games, this is the guide for you. The Purpose of Sleeves So...why do we sleeve games? Well, the obvious answer is to protect the cards. But what does that really mean? Cards, especially those that are shuffled or handled frequently, can soon show wear and tear, often so slowly you don’t realise until it’s too late. Frayed edges, oily fingerprints, water damage, bent corners. All these are what players try to prevent with card sleeves. If you are a TCG player or collector, this is particularly important as it ensures your valuable and highly sought-after cards are protected because at this point, they’re basically investments. Even for board gamers, sleeving is important. Sometimes board games go out of print or are just incredibly expensive or difficult to replace. Sure, if a copy of UNO gets messed up, it’s easy and cheap to replace. But your Kickstarter edition board games with exclusive promo cards? I don’t even want to imagine the horror. Of course, sleeving is not for everyone. Some people enjoy seeing the history and age of the cards as they play them, the same way that people enjoy seeing well-worn books. It speaks of the enjoyment and time surrounding the game. However, if you are someone that wants to start sleeving your games, read on. Check Size and Quantity The first thing you need to do is determine the size/s of the cards in the board game you want to sleeve and also how many cards there are. This can be done easily with websites like Sleeve Your Games, or by printing out a size chart from sleeve companies like Mayday Games (https://www.maydaygames.com/products/mayday-games-sleeve-finder) or Board Game Sleeves (https://www.boardgamesleeves.com/). Some games even have the sleeves you need listed on the back of the box, usually in some kind of colour code for a specific brand. If you come along to our retail store and bring a card from the game, we can even help you size it in-store. Usually the card size will have a name like Standard American, Mini European or Yucatan. Sleeve companies can be inconsistent with what dimensions they write on their sleeve packaging, but in general, all cards of a certain size (eg: Mini Euro) will fit sleeves labelled as that size, despite minor differences in measurements. If you can’t seem to find the correct size and its name, try checking the cards against other games in your collection or online. If the cards are the same size as another game, particularly a popular one like Dixit, Catan or Magic: The Gathering, that can help you on your search. Determine Budget After you’ve got your sleeve sizes and quantities (eg: I need 150 sleeves in European size), the next step is determining how much you want to spend on sleeving your game. Sleeves can range from dirt cheap to even more expensive than a big board game! Some things you might want to consider when allocating your budget are: How important is the game to you? Is it a game near and dear to your heart? Was it the first board game you ever bought? Was it expensive? How much are the cards handled during play? Is it a deck-building game with lots of shuffling? Or do the cards simply sit on the table in a tableau? Do they get passed between players often? Is it important if a card gets damaged? Will it reveal information that is meant to be hidden? Will it throw off the balance of the game if you removed a single card? Here are some personal examples to help you contextualise these questions: Dominion - Despite the fact that this is my favourite board game, it involves a lot of shuffling and I have invested a considerable amount of money into it and five expansions, I have not sleeved Dominion. Why? Because there are so many cards that even with the cheapest sleeves, it would cost well over the price of a new copy of the base game. Since the cards that get ruined fastest are the base game cards, I would prefer to buy a new base game with that money instead of buying sleeves. Nemesis - This was the first game I sleeved, mostly because it was very expensive. I cannot fathom the idea of having to buy a brand new copy of Nemesis, so I would prefer to spend an extra bit of money now, instead of well over $200 later. Plus, the cards are mostly black so wear and tear would be extremely obvious. Villagers - This is a medium-weight card game. I think it’s a pretty good game, but it’s nowhere near a favourite. Why did I sleeve it? Because the cards are white. I feel a lot safer now bringing it to my friend’s house and eating snacks while playing because I am no longer worried about snack smudges. Assess Your Options There are so many sleeve brands it can be incredibly overwhelming. When I first started working at Gameology, I was overwhelmed too. What I have compiled here is a quick list of some of the brands we sell, divided into categories with estimate prices to help you make your choice. Tier 1: Inner Sleeves These include: Ultra Pro Pro-Fit sleeves KMC Perfect BCW Inner Sleeves Often priced: up to $6 per 100 sleeves Very thin and ultra-fitted to the card, these only come in standard size (like MTG and Pokemon) and are designed to go on trading cards before placing them inside a larger “outer” sleeve. Where most sleeves leave 0.5-1mm of plastic around the card to cushion it, inner sleeves fit tight, leaving the top edge of the card basically exposed. Recommended for double sleeving and for standard size cards that don’t get much play. Tier 2: Thin Sleeves These include: Mayday Standard (usually their 100 packs) Sleeve Kings Ultra Pro Board Game Sleeves Lite Often priced: up to $10 per 100 sleeves Thicker and more comfortably sized than inner sleeves, the benefits of these sleeves are that they protect, without adding too much bulk to the cards. They come in a wide variety of sizes and are much cheaper than their thicker variants. Recommended for games with lots of cards or games where the box does not allow much room. Tier 3: Thick Sleeves These include: TCG Outer sleeves (like Ultra Pro Deck Protectors and KMC Hyper Mats) Mayday Premium Dragon Shield Arcane Tinmen Board Game Sleeves (both the regular and non-glare variants) Fantasy Flight Gamegenic Ultra Pro Board Game Sleeves Often priced: up to $20 per 100 sleeves Unlike the thin sleeves, these will add considerable bulk to your cards. Decks can double in size when sleeved with thick sleeves. However, if you are looking for ultimate protection, these are the way to go—though they will cost you. Recommended for games where you want max protection. * And there you go—a quick guide to start sleeving your games. Do you have any other sleeving tips or insights? Be sure to leave them in the comments below!
To an outsider, Dungeons & Dragons seems impossibly complex. The barrier for entry appears an insurmountable wall, armored with rules and barricaded with the game’s long history. But today, that all changes. Today, we’re here to tell you about five products that will help you get started on your D&D adventure! 1) Starter Set The cheapest and easiest way to start playing D&D is to pick up the Starter Set. In fact, this was actually what my partner and I bought when we first started playing D&D. Contained within this box are: Five ready-to-play characters Six RPG dice One mini-campaign (The Lost Mines of Phandelver) One rulebook One blank character sheet Something I get asked quite often by customers in the Gameology retail store is, “What’s the difference between the Starter Set and the Essentials Kit?” (see below). Well, for one, the Starter Set is cheaper. But for me, the most important difference is that the Starter Set comes with five premade characters, with their character sheets already filled out for you. One of the most fun and exciting things about D&D is getting to make your own character and be as creative as you want. However, when you are new to the game, this level of possibility can be very intimidating (it was to me!). With the premade characters, it ensures you get into experiencing a real D&D session as quickly as possible. The included campaign is also fairly straightforward—awesome for new DMs. 2) Essentials Kit The newer, fresher version of the Starter Set is the Essentials Kit. In this kit, you get: A 64-page rulebook (including 1-on-1 rules for playing D&D with just a DM and a single player) One campaign (Dragon of Icespire Peak) 81 multipurpose cards in a tuckbox (used for magic items, sidekicks, conditions, etc) 6 blank character sheets Set of RPG dice One double-sided map One Dungeon Master’s screen Though slightly more expensive than the Starter Kit, this Essentials Kit is great value for money and definitely the preferable option if you would prefer creating your own character over starting with a premade one. The included rulebook contains rules and tips for character creation, unlike the Starter Set rulebook. If you are looking to be the DM in your group, this is packed with useful stuff for you in particular, like the DM screen to keep your notes secret and have a handy reminder of the rules, and the cards to help with the more fiddly aspects of running a campaign. Great value for money and a solid choice for your first step into the world of D&D. 3) Player’s Handbook Ask anyone: the Player’s Handbook is the essential rulebook for D&D. Even if you are looking to be a DM, you need this book. Contained within are all the core rules for D&D, everything from creating and levelling up characters to exploration and combat to spells and equipment. This is the foundation of knowledge that every D&D player has. Though it’s quite large and intimidating, you don’t need to read the entire thing. Treat it as an ultimate reference book and you’ll be smoothly sailing through your adventures. 4) Dungeon Master’s Guide If you’re going to be the DM for your D&D group, this is the book you need. Overall, it is excellent for DMs looking to create their own campaign, but even if you are running a pre-written campaign, it provides a deep dive into the rules and flow of D&D, from the perspective of a DM. Where players can bumble and fumble their way through the first few games, as a DM, you need to keep track of a lot of rules and most importantly, keep the session flowing. The Dungeon Master’s Guide, with its nitty-gritty ideas and notes, will give you the tools you need to be a great DM. 5) Core Rulebook Gift Set But...if you’re looking to go all out and dive straight into the deep end of D&D, your best bet is the Core Rulebook Gift Set. Packaged in a thick and luxurious textured slipcase, this gift set contains what I call the trifecta of D&D books: the Player’s Handbook, the Monster Manual, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide. Even though the image on the covers is the same as on the versions of these books that are sold individually, these gift set versions actually have a really cool matte-metallic finish, making them feel ultra-luxe. This gift set also comes with a DM screen to round out the collection. With this kit, you’ll be set for any campaign you embark on. BONUS: RPG Dice Set If you’re going to play D&D, you’ll need some RPG dice. If you bought the Starter Set or the Essentials Kit, you’ll already have a communal set, but eventually, you’ll need/want your own. The Oakie Doakie sets come in a variety of colours and finishes and contain all the RPG dice you’ll need to start playing D&D. However, if you really want to customise your dice set, come along to our retail store! There, we sell single RPG dice so you can mix and match to create a custom set! And there we have it! Our top recommendations for products to get you started with D&D! We wish you all the best on your adventures! Got any other recommendations for new D&D players? Let us know in the comments below!
Where were you a decade ago? Were you graduating university? Getting married? Having your third child? Here’s a better question: Were you even playing board games ten years ago? This last decade has been a period of flourishing growth for board gaming and its community. So as our tumultuous 2020 comes to a close, let us reflect on ten of the best board games this decade brought us and why I love them so much. Spirit Island Creative, ethereal spirits and asymmetric cooperation. Playing Spirit Island is something truly beautiful. At once deeply strategic and thematically rich, the two, sometimes three, hours it takes to play feel like mere minutes. And that makes sense for a game about spirits who have existed on this fictional island for longer than time can chronicle. The asymmetric spirits play beautifully off each other in cooperation, with each spirit’s strengths filling in another’s weaknesses. A strong blend of asymmetry, cooperation and theme that, like the spirits themselves, will stand the test of time. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 Bringing the legacy mechanic to a franchise with a legacy of its own. For a while, I was under the impression that all legacy games were long and heavy, laden with complex strategies that would take hours to wrap my head around. In 2015, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 released and introduced the legacy mechanic to the thousands of fans of the original game. Preserving the core of Pandemic gameplay, but adding lasting impact to each of your choices, Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 lets players form their own stories in the familiar cooperative game. Will your scientist survive the whole story? Will London fall to the virus? In Pandemic Legacy, you’re simultaneously the authors and the characters. Decrypto No other party game makes you and friends feel quite as clever. Word games are among some of the most common party games but there’s something special about Decrypto. Maybe it’s the components—red-scrambled cards which you slide into your screens to reveal secret words. Maybe it’s the mechanics—not only do you have to guess your own team’s secret codes, you have to try and intercept the others. Or maybe it’s the feeling you get when you write a clue like “the poetry of crashing waves in springtime” and watch your team’s eyes light up in realisation while the other team descends into confusion. Yeah. That’ll be it. Underwater Cities Traditional and classic, but finely crafted—like a vintage cheese. It’s not the flashiest of board games. It’s kind of long, the only pretty things are the city dome components, and it often pales in comparison to Terraforming Mars. Heavy and strategic, part worker-placement, part hand-management, Underwater Cities is a Euro-style game, quite solitary, full of miniscule choices that build up into big results. But there’s something devilish in those details—how each turn, you both place a worker and play a card that matches the space’s colour. How the green actions are powerful but the matching cards are weak, and vice versa for the orange. How you need to balance the need for steel to build cities with the need for kelp to keep those cities alive. Out of all the games on this list, this is probably the most traditional—it’s just a city builder with worker placement. But the intricacies of those mechanics and the fine balance between the various elements, that’s what makes Underwater Cities shine. Wingspan The bird-themed board game so beautiful I wrote my final university essay on it. With the aesthetic and artwork to appeal to non-board-gamers and the inherent satisfaction of an engine-building game, Elizabeth Hargrave’s Wingspan is a true beauty. While playing, you’ll often find yourself gazing at the intricate illustrations, reading off the little facts on the bottom of every card. The elegance of the theme even extends into the smoothness of the engine-building mechanics, how filling your wildlife preserves with different bird varieties feels like preparing to take flight, accelerating with every action. A wonderful blend of elegance and engine-building. One Night Ultimate Werewolf A reimagined, app-driven classic. I have fond memories of playing the traditional social deduction game, Mafia, in high school drama class. We would sit in a huge circle in the theatre and the teacher would act as the Storyteller. Most of the time I just sat there while other people killed and healed and investigated, but I loved the concept. Years later, at a board game night, I played One Night Ultimate Werewolf. With its app, short playtime and dozens of hidden roles, it felt at once familiar and fresh. This game takes everything that sometimes sucks about the traditional Mafia or Werewolf and makes it fun and modern. A great reimagining of a classic. Nemesis A semi-cooperative chonker loaded with tension and minis. At first glance, this game might look like a bloated Kickstarter board game packed with unnecessarily fancy components but not much substance. But something I realised in my first playthrough is that there’s a reason we like nice components, beyond simply aesthetic. In my playthrough with my boyfriend, the first time we ran into the Queen alien and plopped her humongous miniature onto the board, taking up the entire hexagonal room tile and completely dwarfing out itny human minis, I’ll admit it, I was actually kind of scared. Rolling the noise dice and getting the icon that makes you place the thick yellow plastic noise markers in every surrounding corridor, each one making a faint but ominous click, fills you with genuine fear to leave that room. Even the rulebook comes with an introductory short story that walks you through the flow of the game! Nemesis is a game of atmosphere and tension that’s completely worth the price. Scythe Mechs are sick. When my boyfriend was first getting into board games, Scythe was one of the games he was instantly drawn to. I mean, just look at that artwork. Those beautiful paintings integrate mechs like they were always there, just part of history like any other war machine. Something Scythe does incredibly well is balance scale and flexibility. Though it may look like a wargame on the surface, with its giant mech minis, there are many ways to win in Scythe, many of which are not at all violent. Additionally, Scythe does something similar to Wingspan in that its theme—dieselpunk 1920s Europa with mechs—offers a smooth gateway into its mechanics—area control and resource management. An eye-catching and well-constructed game, both inside and out. Azul Strategy, sophistication, and handfuls of stunningly tactile tiles (clink-clink). If you’ve ever felt Azul’s colourful tiles rolling between your fingers, you’ll know the appeal of tactility in board games. In an abstract game like Azul, these tiles help you link the strategy in your mind, to the board beneath your fingers. As you build up your wall of tiles and patterns, you can get lost in both the warm colours and the strategies of placing those warm colours in specific rows and columns. It’s this mix of tactility and abstraction that make Azul a perfect little gateway game. Gloomhaven The RPG that weighs as much as a car tyre—both mentally and physically. I wince every time I have to pick this game up. And yet, there is no denying that Gloomhaven was one of the most popular board game releases in the last decade, holding the number 1 rank on BoardGameGeek for years on end. This is a game that could become a lifestyle. It could become your routine to play some Gloomhaven every Saturday night, or every single night. With 100 scenarios and an average of 180 hours of gameplay, it’s like a video game RPG! It’s undoubtedly a commitment but its unique cardplay combat, plethora of sealed packets to open up, and compelling world and story make it undeniably worth it. - And so the year—and the decade—comes to a close. Take a moment to reflect: what were your favourite games of the decade? We welcome your comments below! Here’s to another great decade of board gaming!
Though 2020 has been a tough year, one thing that kept us going was board games and the new releases that came out despite the pandemic. Walk down memory lane with us as we recount 5 of the best new games from 2020. 1) Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion This standalone storybook campaign game I lovingly call “mini-Gloomhaven” was undoubtedly one of the best new releases of 2020. While we all suffered through the long lockdowns (plural), this 25 scenario campaign, designed to be more beginner-friendly than its heavyweight predecessor, was the perfect thing to play with roommates and partners to keep the days rolling. With its easy setup, thanks to the storybook maps, and its gradual tutorial, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion left its mark on board gaming in 2020. 2) On Mars This big box strategy game from the master of heavy board games, Vital Lacerda, graced our table this year with brain-melting complexity and a demand for our table’s real estate. The board is, quite frankly, ginormous and the brainpower tax immense, but I say all this with the utmost respect because On Mars is a cerebral experience. Though from afar this game might just look like a bigger Terraforming Mars or a mishmash of mechanics, the tight weave of those mechanics is what grants On Mars a spot on this list. 3) Fort A common complaint with my most adored deck-builder, Dominion, is how it can slog with any more than 2 players. You can spend the entirety of everyone else’s turn just sitting there, thinking, “...is it my go, yet?” But like a breath of fresh air, Fort is a deck-builder that thrives on player interaction. In Fort, players are kids trying to make friends, eat pizza and build the best fort. But with its thematic mechanics where you can claim other players’ friends if they don’t play with them, or benefit from the actions they noisily and publicly play (as kids do), it solves many of the issues that deck-builders suffer from. And with that iconic artwork by Kyle Ferrin (also the artist for Root), Fort was a small but mighty 2020 release. 4) Mariposas The new butterfly-themed light strategy game from Elizabeth Hargrave, designer of the sought-after Wingspan, released in 2020 to once again bring unique and original themes into board gaming. Taking place over three seasons, in Mariposas, whose name constantly evokes nostalgia for the Barbie movie with a similar name, players will guide monarch butterflies from Mexico across northern America and back again, evolving through multiple ephemeral generations. Like 2019’s Wingspan, 2020’s Mariposas is a gateway game with a sophisticated theme and gorgeous production. 5) Mysterium Park And now for the wildcard of the list—it’s the late 2020 release, Mysterium Park, a lighter version of its 2015 counterpart. With its simplified setup and smaller box, in many ways Mysterium Park is Mysterium-lite. At its core, gameplay is the same, with one player as the silent ghost and the others as investigative psychics to whom the ghost can only communicate through cryptic (but gorgeously illustrated) vision cards. By retaining the heart of Mysterium but placing it in a smaller, easier to pick up package, the elegant theming of Mysterium can be appreciated anywhere by anyone. And there we have it! Five of the best new board games of 2020! What do you think? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below!
We all know the horrors of seeing family at Christmas and having to fend off mundane questions from in-laws and distant uncles. You know something that makes family gatherings (in any season) more palatable? Food. But also board games (plus they’re non-perishable). To prepare you for the holiday season, here are our top 5 games to play with your family this Christmas—or any family event! 1) Mysterium Perhaps your family is a fan of Cluedo, but there’s that one cousin that’s just too good at it and always wins. The 2-7 player cooperative deduction game, Mysterium, might be just the game for you. In this thematic party classic, one player acts as ‘The Ghost’ and the other players are psychics called to this house to investigate who murdered this person and turned them into a ghost. Each psychic will be following their own line of questioning, identifying a suspect, location and weapon from information the ghost gives them. The catch? The ghost is not allowed to talk throughout the entire game. The only way they can communicate is through cryptic but beautifully illustrated ‘vision cards’. Since everyone at the table is working cooperatively to solve the mystery, there’s little risk of saltiness. Though the ghost cannot talk, the players can, and you and your family will discuss these mysterious images, wondering whether the ghost meant for you to choose the barber (because of the scissors in the image) or the gardener (because the card is green). With gorgeous components, from the moody DM-style ghost screen to the crystal ball shaped player pawns, Mysterium’s atmosphere and cooperative play will bring the family together. 2) Decrypto Just like Mysterium was a fresh family alternative to Cluedo, Decrypto is a fresh take on Codenames. Like Codenames, Decrypto is a team-based word game, however—in my personal opinion—I think it’s even better. Each team will get a high-tech screen with red plastic-covered slots to slide in word cards. Though the word cards at first look like garbled red images, slide them into the slots and the red plastic will reveal your team’s four secret words. It’s a little touch, but one that perfectly matches the ‘high-tech’ aesthetic of the game. Say your secret words are ‘France’, ‘wolf’, ‘coffee’ and ‘man’, in that order. Each turn, one person on your team will draw a card with three numbers on it and look at it secretly. Perhaps their code is 3-4-1. So now, they say to their team, ‘morning, moustache, art’. The team will look at their secret words, associate the clues with the numbered words, and hopefully (if they’ve interpreted it right), say the code ‘3-4-1’. It’s a little more complex to explain than the easy-to-pick-up Codenames, but the extra effort is absolutely more rewarding. Because, oh, I forgot to mention, the other team is listening to your clues and they can attempt to intercept you and guess your code (and vice versa, of course). So, yeah, you could use ‘Eiffel Tower’ as a clue for France, but that would make your code very, very easy for the other team to intercept! The fun of Decrypto is trying to make clues obscure enough for the other team not to guess, while at the same time, not confusing your own. It’s a family must-have, in my opinion. 3) Sushi Go Party My mum ADORES this game. When my family and I go on camping trips, this is the game we bring. We play it around the breakfast table, we play it after dinner, we play it in the mid-afternoon, it’s just the perfect, light family card game. So what is Sushi Go Party? In this adorable little game, you and your family will be at a sushi train restaurant. As the sushi whizzes past, you are trying to grab the best combination of sushi to score you the most points. I absolutely love how this game imitates the movement of a sushi train. Each turn, you will choose one card to keep from your hand of cards and pass the rest along! Each type of sushi scores differently. Too much eel will score you negative points, but just the right amount will score 7! If you have more maki than everyone else at the table, you get 6 points! If you put wasabi on your nigiri, that’s triple points! Though Sushi Go Party does have a smaller non-party version, I highly recommend this bigger tin as it contains more sushi varieties and hence, more replayability. What’s also great about Sushi Go Party is that it introduces the card-drafting mechanics, potentially opening your family up to playing more strategic card-drafting games like 7 Wonders or Bargain Quest in the future. 4) Bohnanza This set-collection game is severely underrated. Yes, the art is a little old-fashioned, but Bohnanza itself is a surprisingly hilarious game of bidding and yelling. In essence, all you are trying to do in Bohnanza is grow and sell large quantities of bean varieties. Each turn, you must plant the first 1-2 cards in your hand into your two available fields. Then, you reveal the top two cards of the deck and you decide whether you want to keep them, in which case they get planted directly into your field and you must harvest whatever was already there, or trade them away. It doesn’t matter if you were setting up to plant the next three chilli beans in your hand, if you don’t trade away those beans in front of you, you’re forced to plant them. And here’s where all the fun of Bohnanza is. More often than not, those cards you have to reveal off the top of the deck are cards you do not want. But other players might want them quite desperately. Maybe Aunt Lisa is going to offer you two chilli beans for that one stink bean in front of you. But your dad can give you one chilli bean and take both the stink bean and that cocoa bean in your hand that you don’t want. Let the chaos and the arguing ensue. Though Bohnanza is a confrontational game, it is backed by strategy. Since you’re always watching other people’s trades, wondering if you can jump in and get rid of some of your unwanted cards, there’s no downtime! Playing up to 7 people, Bohnanza is a chaotic card game that, if anything, is hilarious to watch your family play. 5) Pandemic All the games we’ve covered on this list so far are more party-oriented games. Games that are fairly light and breezy to play. That changes here. For a more strategic and ‘board game-y’ experience, look no further than the cooperative crisis-management classic, Pandemic. 2-4 players are working together as members of the Center for Disease Control, tasked with stopping outbreaks of four diseases across the world. Once all four diseases have been cured, you and your family win the game. At the beginning of the game, each player will select a role, from the Scientist to the Researcher to the Dispatcher, each with their own unique ability. Each turn, you perform four actions, which involve anything from curing a disease by spending five cards of the disease’s colour to flying to a research station across the board. Then, you draw up cards from the player deck and reveal infection cards to see where the diseases spread to next. The theme is a little on-the-nose for what’s been happening in 2020, but regardless, Pandemic is a revered cooperative strategy game that’s heavy enough to provoke strategic thinking and problem solving, but light enough that even kids can play. Buying Guide In summary, if you’re looking for... An atmospheric cooperative deduction game? Mysterium. A clever team-based word game that’s not Codenames? Decrypto. An adorable card-drafting game approved by my mum? Sushi Go Party. A chaotic game of bidding over beans? Bohnanza. A strategic and cooperative game about curing diseases? Pandemic. And there we have it! Our top 5 board games to play with family this Christmas! What do you think? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below! 2021 Update 6) Paris Travel to Paris during the La Belle Époque Period, just after the World's Fair, and the construction of the Eiffel Tower, where prestige and architecture rule. In Paris, players are tasked to purchase some of these magnificent Parisian buildings in order to make a profit and invest in the development and upkeep of some of Paris’ most iconic buildings and landmarks Paris is a medium-weight Eurostyle-game with straight forward gameplay, short player turns, and an ingenious point-salad-like mechanisms. You mainly score points by obtaining the right buildings and collecting the right bonus cards. The simplicity, elegance, and art makes this a wonderful game for your family to crowd around and enjoy this Christmas. 7) Tumble Town If you're looking for something less refined and more dice stacking fun, then look no further than tumble town. In Tumble Town, players become the mayors of their own western township. Players must strive to build the latest and best buildings for their settlers, with each building providing a different ability. These abilities work (or don't work, depending on player skill) to create an engine to ultimately score you more points. Tumble Town is a simple and wonderful engine building game that will have any avid board gaming family pleasantly surprised. 8) Steampunk Rally Fusion Play as a Standalone or alongside the Original Steampunk Rally, Steampunk Rally Fusion utilises newly-discovered Fusion technology and time travel to make the zany race a little zanier! Take on the role of ingenious inventors from history. Draft cards to invent your racing contraption. Power your creation's abilities with combinations of steam, heat, electricity, and Fusion dice. Use cogs to augment bad dice rolls and upgrade certain machine parts. Smashing through damaging terrain spaces may cause parts to fly off your machine, constantly forcing you to adapt your strategy and discover new card synergies. Perfect for the overly competitive family who loves to dabble in dice rolling madness!
If you’ve ever come into our retail showrooms, you’ve definitely met some of our staff. For this *special edition* (ooh) blog post, we’ve asked five of them for two of their top board games. Let’s get to know some of the Gameology staff! Amanda Bargain Quest If you’ve ever met me in the showroom, chances are I’ve raved about Bargain Quest. In this game, players are shopkeepers trying to sell heroes the gear they need to defeat the monsters in town. The theme of this game is why I adore it so much. When you play a fantasy game, you generally don’t take notice of the shopkeepers. Getting to play as these overlooked characters is so unique and compelling to me. The theme is so well integrated into the mechanics, it creates moments of hilarity while playing that feel so natural and lived. It’s this cheeky light-heartedness melding so well with strategy that makes Bargain Quest one of my favourite board games of all time. Dominion Dominion was the game my older cousin left at my house one Christmas and, arguably, it is the reason I am interested in board games today. Players will try to improve their starting kingdom (deck) by purchasing better cards from a shared marketplace. Though the theme doesn’t quite carry through and it suffers at higher player counts, the mechanics more than make up for it. There’s nothing quite like whittling your deck down to a perfect engine and watching it rake in points every single turn. With all the expansions and different combinations of cards you can place in the marketplace, no two games of Dominion are ever alike. Eugene Scythe The first board game I was really excited to buy was Scythe and to this day, I’d still consider it an awesome game. Scythe has a dieselpunk/steampunk theme and is set in an alternate 1920s Europe with five different factions vying to build huge battle mechs to expand their control to the coveted Factory. I like this game because of its asymmetric war mechanics. Each faction has their own unique abilities so you can take on a different playstyle for each one. Plus, the expansions, ranging from new factions, to blimps, to a modular campaign, are great. Stockpile When I wanted to get into economic games, the first game I looked at was Stockpile. Players act as stock market investors hoping to make big money by bidding on ‘stockpiles’ comprised of shares from various companies. This game is buying and selling economics but dumbed down for quick fun. Games are fast—only about 45 minutes. Since each player gets hidden ‘insider tips’ on the market movement at the start of every round, there are even some social aspects in the background, creating tension and unease. This was my intro into stock market style economic games and I’d highly recommend it for anyone wanting a fast stocks game. Jon Welcome To This little roll and write game is simply brilliant. Welcome To places players as architects in the 1950s, tasked with building the best town. Where other roll and write games will use dice, Welcome To uses cards that players flip over each turn to reveal randomised results. For those who may not have much time for gaming because of kids and work and other commitments, this is a great option as it plays in only 25 minutes and is fast-paced and easy to set up. The Quacks of Quedlinburg The Quacks of Quedlinburg. Love the game, but geez, do I hate the name! In this game, players are ‘quack doctors’ making potions by adding ingredients to a pot and praying their whole potion won’t explode. Effectively, Quacks is a very simple and user-friendly deck builder—just without cards. Instead of a deck of cards, players will have a bag of ingredient chips which they pull from and add to each turn. The push-your-luck mechanic is great fun and the easy rules and catch-up mechanic keep everyone invested in the game, regardless of skill level. Jack War of the Ring War of the Ring is an in-depth, area control strategy game based on the Lord of the Rings universe. Lord of the Rings is one of my favourite books and playing War of the Ring throws you right into the thick of it. Playing as either the Free People or the minions of Sauron, you will be constantly making sacrifices and grabs for victory points. The level of depth and intricacy will mean that long after you’ve left the table you will still be thinking of what you could have done better. Brass: Birmingham Brass: Birmingham is heavy, economic euro-game, where you take on the role of an iconic entrepreneur during the Industrial Revolution. You will be vying to make the most money by selling coal and iron. My favourite aspect of this game is that you are able to use other people’s resources. This will give them benefits for “selling” their product but it can also be devastating if that was a resource that was critical for their plans. Constantly weighing the pros and cons leaves you in a position where succeeding in your plans can make you feel ingenious. Matt Aftermath Words cannot express my love for Aftermath. In this adventure book RPG, players are a misfit band of small critters, scavenging, surviving and trying to build their colony. What do I love about Aftermath? The minis in this game are the most detailed I’ve ever seen in a board game. The entire RPG is laid out in a storybook, meaning the book becomes your game board and you physically play on the surface of the pages. Not only does it make setup so quick and simple, it makes the whole campaign easy to pack away and pick up again later, much like saving a video game. Wingspan Birds are sick, yo. Like seriously, birds are cool. All the hype you’ve heard about Wingspan? It’s absolutely warranted. From a thematic standpoint, Wingspan places players as bird enthusiasts and researchers looking to attract the best birds into their wildlife preserves. From a mechanical standpoint however, it is an extremely well-designed engine-building game, where you are constantly trying to improve the efficiency of your actions. You’d think that birds and engine-building wouldn’t really go together but it manages to bridge this gap very well. And there we have it! Some of our staff members’ favourite board games! What do you think? Did we miss your favourites? Let us know in the comments below!
Have you got a friend, partner or family member who plays Magic: The Gathering? Do you have absolutely no clue what to get them because you can’t tell the difference between a planeswalker deck and a booster box? Never fear, because here is our Gameology Magic: The Gathering gift giving guide! For the beginner... Planeswalker Decks or Commander Decks If your recipient is still fairly new to Magic: The Gathering, the best choice is a planeswalker or commander deck. At Gameology, there are several different sets to choose from, all with two or more planeswalker or commander decks in each! These decks are ready to play straight out of the box and help new players get familiar with the different mechanics. Perfect for those looking to learn the game! We recommend: Innistrad Crimson Vow Commander Decks (Pair) D&D Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Commander Decks (Set of 4) For the intermediate... Bundles These bundles are packed with tons of stuff and are the perfect gift for intermediate Magic players. Not only do they contain several boosters, but also foil (shiny!) basic lands, regular lands, a promo card, a spindown life counter, and a reusable storage box! Though the regular bundles are great, if you want to go the extra mile, go with the Gift Edition bundles! We recommend: Innistrad Midnight Hunt Bundle Magic Modern Horizons II Bundle For the seasoned... Set Booster Boxes Perhaps your Magic player already has it all. Well, that’s not true because any Magic player knows you can never have enough booster packs. And a booster box, which can contain over 30 individual booster packs, would be a Christmas dream come true. Imagine the anticipation and mystery of opening a Christmas present, multiplied by 30. No matter how long you’ve played Magic, you still get that feeling, every time you open a pack. This new set booster box for Crimson Vow is designed specifically for those who love to open packs and see what’s inside. We recommend: Innistrad Crimson Vow Set Booster Box Collector Booster Boxes However...if you really want to go all out, there are the vastly more expensive but insanely more valuable Collector Booster Boxes. These glorious shiny boxes contain 12 collector boosters (different from draft or set boosters) which are basically shortcuts to the best cards in the series. Open hundreds of other boosters and you won’t even get close to the cards in this box. We recommend: Innistrad Crimson Vow Collector Booster Box For everyone... Draft Boosters and Single Boosters These little packs are the bread and butter of Magic: The Gathering. Priced from $6 and up, they’re perfect for small gifts or stocking stuffers. We recommend: Innistrad Midnight Hunt Draft Single Booster And Last but not least - specifically designed by Wizards Of The Coast for this holiday season is... D&D Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Gift Bundle With all the customary Bundle goodies, plus special packaging and a Collector Booster, the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Gift Bundle is the go-to choice for shoppers looking to purchase a gift for their favorite Magic fan. A note... Something to keep in mind for all Magic: The Gathering purchases are the current sets in the Standard mode of play. Certain sets will rotate out each year and if you’re not careful, you could end up giving your recipient cards they won’t be able to use! Since Standard is such a popular way to play Magic, it is always preferable to gift your friend/partner/relative products from the current Standard sets which are (as of writing this): Innistrad: Crimson Vow Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Strixhaven: School of Mages Kaldheim And there we have it! Our Magic: The Gathering gift giving guide! What do you think? Did we miss anything? Let us know in the comments below!
What time does the Gameology Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale start and finish? The Gameology Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale Starts at 12am 27th November and will run for 4 days finishing at 11:59pm on the 30th November. When does the discount get applied to my purchase?The Discount will be automatically applied at checkout for all the valid items in your cart. What contributes to me getting a higher discount amount? All items that are not a Trading Card Game product go towards earning you a higher discount level. Does the Black Friday/Cyber Monday discount apply to already discounted items? Yes it does! You get to take an additional percentage off whatever the price is listed on the website at the time. What is a TCG item that will not be eligible for the discount? Any product that falls under the TCG collection or Trading Card Game collection of our website is NOT eligible for the 5% discount. This includes products like Pokemon TCG Magic The Gathering YuGiOh Dragon Ball Super TCG Keyforge Final Fantasy TCG Digimon TCG And other games not listed above - if you would like to check a particular product feel free to contact us directly. Please note that as TCG items are not included as part of the sale the cost of these items does not go towards a higher discount amount Is there anything else not included in the sale? There is no additional discounts applied to gift cards. When will I receive the items I purchased as part of the Gameology Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale. In order to get your games on the table as soon as we can, we strive to process all our orders as quickly as possible. Orders made before 8am will be shipped from our warehouse the same business day. Orders made after 8AM will be shipped from our warehouse the next business day. All of our orders are shipped by our team directly from the Gameology Warehouse located at 12 Eileen Road Clayton South, VIC 3169. Please note that due to the expected volume of orders we do anticipate a delay of up to 3 business days on items leaving the Gameology warehouse. Standard shipping can vary from 2 to 7 business days, but in most cases you should allow approximately 5 business days from the purchase date. Express shipping should usually be 1-2 business days but on occasion can be delayed. What if the item I want is out of stock? The discount is only valid on in stock items or available to pre order items Any items that are listed as out of stock are not eligible to be purchased with the Black Friday/Cyber Monday discount at a later time. Does the shipping cost count towards my total for calculating discounts? No the discount amount applied to your order is only based on the cost of products.Does the discount apply to shipping? No the discount is not available on any shipping levels. If you have any other general questions about Gameology they may be answered under our FAQ section here If there are any questions about the Gameology Super Frenzy that we haven’t answered above please feel free to contact us at contactus@gameology.com.au or directly via our social media pages and we will be more than happy to help.
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