You need to shoot up the @lalunaverde signal
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After plying at the weekend Iād say itās a shame more people donāt know how good Noria is. Rhado said it was like a deck builder, itās got friendly looking soft Steampunk vibes and art, it plays more like a cube rails game. Deterministic and shared incentive/investments type game with an action selection mechanism that is brain achingly predictable and often wrong for your turn. So good, but doesnāt play how the box looks. Sad marketing snafu.
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Yeah, more than half my local gamers have bounced hard off T&E so Iāve never bothered with it.
Yup, your last comment is about where Iām coming down on it. Given T&E seems saleable for Ā£60+ now.
Probably not helpful for me to mention this, but if anyone hasnāt heard of it: Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation.
Unhelpful because it has been out of print for I donāt know how long. Itās an old Knizia (2002) built on the ruins of Stratego but has so many innovations for its time and remains one of my top 2-player games. Light vs. Shadow, obviously, but each side only has 9 pieces and the board is diagonal so the space is wide in the middle and draws to a point at both ends.
The game is wildly asymmetric, with the Shadow board having much more powerful pieces, but the Light side having a strong mobility advantage and a bag of stronger card and unit powers.
Let me expound on those cards - so like in Stratego you enter a battle blind and then reveal who is against who. Itās Gandalf against the Balrog! No, itās Pippin against the Balrog! Craaaap! You then each play a card, selected simultaneously, that either bolsters the strength of the piece or otherwise alters the encounter (retreat, sacrifice to ensure both pieces are destroyed, etc.) Each side has 9 cards and you have to play them all before picking them up, a la Cosmic Encounter, so the tension ramps up and the uncertainty drops as you each figure out exactly what the other person has left.
It suffers in a distinctly Knizia way, in that the opening is very vague and undirected. Itās often hard to start as every move seems bad. But once the board is developed and you enter midgameā¦ I mean, it shines. Games develop in a way where you can later say, āremember that game whenā¦ā and your favorite opponent will say, āYes. I hate you.ā
And when thatās done, every piece has a āBā side with a different character - different strength, different abilities.
I wish this game had a reprint clamor around it like Dune. Well, I have it. I wish everyone could have it.
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T&E is not gentle and is not a modern game. While it isnāt inherently snowbally, it is entirely possible to lose the game halfway through and never get back on your feet. The rules do nothing to point you toward a strategy. All I can say about it is that it rewards you for the effort you put in.
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I just played 3 rounds of Tash Kalar and despite a built-in catchup mechanismā¦ once youāre ānot winningā ā¦ youāre almost definitely losing. There are games like that.
I donāt think Tash Kalar qualifies for this thread? Itās a Vlaada game after all and well known and with a BGA implementation.
As for the lesser known ones from my shelves.
- I still think Obsession is not getting enough love, although this has risen far in the ranks since I first found it. Victorian tile laying at its finest.
- Leaving Earth has been mentioned frequently on these forumsā¦ but it bears repeating how great this is. You may need a spreadsheet.
- Miyabi is a beautiful tile layer with some stacking of tiles to make a nice garden landscape (I am wondering right now how many tile stacking games I haveā¦ 3 or 4 I thinkā¦). It is not a heavy game but it has a nice puzzly aspect to it. It takes four rounds with 5 turns per player where you pick tiles from the public round supply to place in your garden. Tiles come in different sizes and with different amounts of different garden features on them and you want majority of features per row but you need to also build up high to get more points per features you place and you need to place in all 5 columns each round andā¦ I should play and take some pictures to illustrate this.
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Itās sold out everywhere, even the upcoming new shipment has sold out preorders.
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Okok, Iāll take it backā¦ and really Dan Hallagan has earned that. If you saw those shaky videos he made for the Kickstarter updates that game is made from love and dedication 
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Dan Hallagan is absolutely the best publisher on the planet, in my book.
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Trial of the Temples and Jigūan: The Eastern Mechanist, by the same publisher, are also pretty good.
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Iāve got Trial as well as Mystery of the Temples (though I havenāt played the latter yet), as theyāre all meant to be kind of a trilogy?
Iāll have to give Jiguan a look.
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Same publisher and my favourite designer did Sorcerer and Stones. Also a game that should definitely go on this list. Euro/abstract hybrid area of game and so good. Mega tactical, mega fun. Almost makes me want to get Jigūan despite owning too many games.
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Power & Weakness (Macht & Ohnmacht) - one of the best two players Iāve ever played. And it is by Andreas Steding, who, for me, consistently made good games. (And then he made Gugong)
Intrigue - want to make alliances, haggling, and backstabbing in 30 mins? Get the small box version of this one. Igiari made a brilliant production of this game.
Santiago - it comes in a stupid size box that can be half size instead. But itās an old school negotiation game with very lean ruleset.
Goodcritters - Alas, more negotiation games. I will keep shouting on the roofs on how good this is, though.
Wildlife Safari/Botswana/Thor/Quandry/and so on - a filler stock holding game with shared incentives and screwage. And if you bought Wildlife Safari/Botswana, you get these adorable animal toys.
Agra - a heavy Euro that is borderline too much, but it gives a lot back. So itās aaaaall cool.
Tempel des Schreckens - if youāre in Europe, this one is a cheap card game. But the social deduction is so tasty that even the majority team have to lie to each other, otherwise, the minority team wins!
Letās Make a Bus Route - one of the rare roll and writes that isnāt flipping Bingo.
Age of Assassins - a card drafting game where, like Fairy Tale, you have to pay attention to other players. Itās been such a long time since Iāve played this (I donāt own it).
Yunnan - old school Euro that is highly interactive so it requires 4 or 5. Same publisher as the original edition of Hansa Teutonica.
Domaine - Very aggressive game, so if you donāt like take-that or mean games, stay away from this one. I havenāt played its predecessor though - Lowenherz
Terra Nova if you like dry zero-luck abstracts. Itās has Goās fencing element but with area control.
Medina - I wish this is more available in English speaking regions.
Polis: Fight for Hegemony - 2 player confrontational heavy Euro. Reimplemented as Polis last year.
Haggis - one of the best ātraditionalā card games other than Tichu
Panic Lab - Ghost Blitz but with logic puzzles
Tokyo Metro - so enamoured with this since @EnterTheWyvern introduced it to me.
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You and @chrislear spoke highly of this. Will need to kick myself into learning this. As it is a Knizia, it should be easy to learn.
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I really love Yellow & Yangtze, itās very dynamic and has a hell of a lot of depth. Maybe a weird comparison but it kind of feels like Age of Empires 2 to me, building out your kingdom/engine while occasionally lobbing rocks at your opponents. Would recommend.
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Also I have had a load of fun with Unearth by Brotherwise games. Itās not the best game ever but itās much better than the little blip of coverage it got made it out to be. The ābiddingā for lands is cheeky and the isometric art is really pretty.
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The thing I like about The Confrontation is that itās genuinely thematic. And it helps that I like the theme. Most Knizia games lack that feature.
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Ginkgopolis, which I know isnāt really obscure or anything. But it was hard to get hold of for a while, and has now been reprinted. One of my favourite games.
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Franchise an updated an better version of PfeffersƤcke.
Itās a viscous cube rails game that seems to have got lost in the deluge of games.
Regretting selling my copy, so on the hunt to replace it.
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