By now it’s no secret that if there is anything that I love spending my money and time on more than video games and food, it’s board games.
There is something so enticing about knowing that alongside purchasing a new game comes game nights with friends and family and a form of entertainment that load-shedding has no hold over.
Over the last week, I’ve been closely following Gen Con 2023, which is, for those who don’t know, E3 but for board games. It’s one of the world’s biggest tabletop game conventions, and it features everything from traditional pen-and-paper games to board and card games.
It’s also a great way to get a feel for what board games I need to save up for and keep my eye on. If there is one thing I enjoy more than feeding my board game addition, it’s getting others involved as well.
So with that, here is part one of my most anticipated board games from Gen Con 2023 – enjoy.
Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends
Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends is inspired by the hit video game. At its core, it’s a competitive seafaring game of piracy for 2-4 players.
Explore the high seas with your friends on voyages packed with danger and excitement, but remember – only one of you can be crowned a Pirate Legend.
Sea of Thieves: Voyage of Legends replicates and reimagines aspects of the video game to create an authentic tabletop experience.
The game takes around 90 to 120 minutes to play in total. It features seven game board titles, 24 standees, ten dice, four rules reference cards, 18 unique crew cards, 20 event cards, 52 fortunes cards, 52 voyage cards, 12 ship cards, eight enemy cards, and over 300 tokens.
If this seems like the game for you, you can check it out here: Steamforged
Steam Up: A Feast Of Dim Sim
Steam Up: A Feast of Dim Sum is a competitive 2-5 player lightweight Dim Sum set collection and action management game offering a delicious culinary and cultural experience.
Steamers, filled with different types of Dim Sum, are stacked and placed on a Turntable at the beginning of the game. Each player takes turns performing two different actions each round.
Actions include gaining and spending food tokens to purchase Dim Sum in Steamers within their Feast Zone. Players may also play Fortune cards to benefit themselves or affect their opponents.
Starting the 2nd round, a Fate card is revealed each round to trigger an event that may affect all players.
The game ends when a specific number of Steamers are purchased, or the Fate deck is emptied. Final scoring is then calculated. The player with the most Hearty Points wins.
If this seems like the game for you, you can check it out here: Kickstarter
Tales from the Red Dragon Inn
Published by SlugFest Games, Welcome to Tales from the Red Dragon Inn is a cooperative dungeon crawl adventure for one to four players,
Players will take on the role of a character tackling their day job of being a hero, and the game’s multi-scenario campaign will pit players against game-controlled enemies tailor-made for each brilliantly illustrated game map.
Each scenario will take players to a new map, with new foes and puzzles to solve. Enemies also behave differently depending on which map players are playing, adding a layer of complexity and strategy to keep the game entertaining game after game.
Tales from the Red Dragon Inn come with multiple scenarios, covering everything from door-busting dungeon exploration, chase scenes, rescue missions and tugs-of-war against foes.
Players will need to band together, and with some luck and manoeuvring, they might be able to make it out alive.
If this seems like the game for you, you can check it out here: Kickstarter
The Last of Us: Escape the Dark
Since the release of The Lasy of US HBO TV adaptation, the video game franchise has become more popular and beloved than ever before. So fans were undoubtedly and understandably excited when it was announced that it would receive a board game adaptation.
The Last of Us: Escape the Dark uses the time-tried and tested game system as the other Escape the Dark horror board games, with players working together to survive against a series of dangers by rolling dice-on-skill checks.
This time, the core difference is that The Last of Us: Escape the Dark looks to expand on this concept dramatically. The game will see players exploring a series of locations on their travels while gathering supplies, upgrading weapons and surviving encounters with dangerous Runners, Clickers and other threats.
As players spend more time in locations, they’ll risk more infected arriving and possibly spreading to other areas making the game more challenging the longer it lasts.
If this seems like the game for you, you can check it out here: Kickstarter
Ticket to Ride: Legacy of the West
Since the monumental success of Pandemic Legacy, released in 2015, legacy games have remained popular.
Likewise, Ticket To Ride has earned itself a global following with multiple variants, expansions and collector editions. The game itself is simple. Players draw cards, then use cards to build train lines and attempt to link destinations.
There is also a significant level of strategy as players score points by securing railway lines between certain cities on the map and blocking other players’ routes, which happens while you play.
Now with Ticket to Ride: Legacy of the West, the legacy aspect is coming to Ticket To Ride. For those who don’t know, legacy-style games change every time players play them. As of now, all we know is that players will take on the role of 19th-century pioneers, meeting challenges and unlocking new frontiers and rules as they play.
The game will support two to five players and includes plenty of plastic train cars, event cards and newspaper clippings, and an overarching story that ties together all 12 of its 20- to 90-minute episodes.
If this seems like the game for you, you can check it out here: Days Of Wonder
Tokaido Duo
Once again designed by Antonie Bauza and Published by Funforge, Tokaido Duo is a two-player version of the famous travelling board game, Takaido.
After Journeying the Tokaido road, it is time to discover the island of Shikoku in Tokaido Duo, a game with the art and gameplay of the original but now tailored for two players.
In Tokaido Duo, two players pace the smallest isle of the Japanese archipelago and discover its many sceneries through the eyes of three different characters.
As the Pilgrim, players will visit temples, forests, seashores and hot springs. As the Merchant, players will craft and sell wares, and as the Artist, players will be tasked with painting a variety of sceneries and gifting them to passers-by.
Players will earn points by playing through all three characters’ adventures as they slowly make them their own. Each potential action space in Tokaido is laid out on a linear track, with players advancing down this track to take actions.
The player who is currently last on the track takes a turn by advancing on the path to their desired action and taking that action, so players must choose whether to move slowly to get more turns or to travel more rapidly to beat other players to their desired action spaces.
If this seems like the game for you, you can check it out here: Board Game Geek
Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze
For those who don’t already know, the Unmatched collection of games is essentially a 1v1 card-driven brawl between various characters, like King Arther, Invisible Man and even Alice from Alice In Wonderland, matching off against each other.
The newest entry into the Unmatched franchise changes everything, down to the genre. Published by Funforge and Designed by Antoine Bauza, Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze is a co-op board game inspired by the adventure stories of your childhood.
Players will take on the role of various characters, forming a team that must prevent either the mysterious Mothman or Martian invaders from executing their twisted and wicked plans.
Gameplay will operate like regular Unmatched, with players using their decks of cards to move across the board, attack enemies and try to take out all the villain’s minions and, ultimately, the big bads themselves.
In Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze, every character’s deck is crafted to fulfil a particular playstyle, with some being categorised as support, some tanks and even some focused on dealing damage and players will need to strategise and optimise their respective decks to the best of their abilities.
If this seems like the game for you, you can check it out here: Kickstarter
Queen by Midnight
Published by Darrington Press and designed by Kyle Shire, Queen by Midnight is, at its core, a deckbuilding/management battle royale game featuring an all-female cast trying to murder each other to take the throne.
Queen by Midnight challenges players to build decks to outsmart and outplay their opponents. Taking on the role of one of several playable princesses, players will need to utilise their cards to win the Rule by Midnight, a trial of combat in which only one princess can win.
Throughout the game, players will roll dice using a dice clock tower, which will spin to face the active player, count down to midnight and provide cards for players to buy and add to their decks.
However, players will need to think carefully about which cards they want to put into their decks because they’ll be choosing from nearly 200 cards themed specifically to their princess.
If this seems like the game for you, you can check it out here: Darrington Press
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And there you have it, part one of my top games at Gen Con 2023 that should be on your radar. Which of these games stood out to you?