More 2022 Wrap-up: Games I Missed

The end of the year is a great time for making lists.  I’ve seen a ton of 2022 top game lists this month, and I realized that I haven’t played many games that were released this year.  In fact, only 9 of this year’s games hit my table.

Bottom to top, these include Skull Canyon Ski Fest, Long Shot Dice Game, Dog Park, Keystone North America, Railways of Sweden, Beaches for the Brave, Fjords, Splendor Duel, and Dandelions. Yes.  My top game of the year is a tiny roll and move game.  Deal with it.

I thought it might be fun to make a top five list of games I missed but want to play.  I haven’t seen anyone else doing this.  So!  Without further kerfuffle.  Here we go.

5.  Twilight Inscription

I’ve been watching this friggin’ HUGE roll and write game with a loose Twilight Imperium theme since it was announced.  Now, I’ve played TI4 once, and it was a great time, but I’m not sure I ever want to play it again.  This game, however loosely tied to the base game, looks like a great time with lots of fun choices to make.  All the sheets tie together, and your choices are limited enough to not be overwhelming.  I dunno.  It just seems ludicrous to make a 2-hour space opera roll and write game and have it work and be fun, but I guess this one is doing just that.

4. Hamburg

Hamburg is Queen Games’ reimplementation of one of my favorite games of all time, Bruges (spoiler alert).  I’m not sure if I would like this new version better than the original, but I’d love to give it a try.  They’ve changed the card draw mechanism so you can draw from any color deck instead of only having 2 randos to choose from.  And they added a black color meeple that does some neat stuff.  The theme seems the same flavor of bland European civic thing. I just wanna see how it compares.  Simple as that.

3. Ready Set Bet

Chaotic, real-time, dice-rolling, horse-racing game?  Sign me the fuck up! This just looks like a great time.  I love horse racing games, and the hooting and hollering end of this game seems like the perfect way to end a game night.  Lots of complex betting options let you set up some interesting bets during the race.  I guess there’s an app that can run the races, too, so everyone can play along and no one has to be the horse dice roller.

2. Tidal Blades Banner Festival

I didn’t pay attention to the original Tidal Blades game, as the theme and mechanisms didn’t interest me even a little.  And the theme of this doesn’t really grab me either, but it’s a fun take on trick-taking, so I’m interested in giving it a go.  You get to move your little jet skis around the stadium, playing cards to win or not win tricks, which decides end of round bonuses. And I think there’s area control, too?  It just looks like a cool little knot of a game, which, if you’ve been paying attention, is one of my favorite things.

1. Turing Machine

Deduction games that I can play solo are my absolute jam.  And this one can play even more people.  Basically, it’s an analog computer in a box, and you have to figure out the 3-digit code that serves as the puzzle’s solution by proposing solutions and seeing what the computer has to say about them.  It might tell you that the second digit is even or that the numbers all increase to the left.  It’s up to you to ask the right questions to lead you to the single correct solution.  There are 50 puzzles in the box, if I remember correctly, and there are an infinite number more online or with the app, with daily puzzles.  I just have to get my hands on this one.

I’ll most likely get to these top 5 games within the year, if I can find a copy of them.  Below are the 5 honorable mentions (at the top of a list of about 20 games I wanted to play this year).  

Honorable Mentions:
Mosaic
Guild of Merchant Explorers
Cat in the Box
First Rat
Return to Dark Tower

Thanks for your attention, and I hope you get to play something great in the new year! I’ll have one more post this year, the top 10 of my favorite games of all time list, FINALLY.  See you there!

Happy holidays!
~Justin