The easiest thing to do will be browse the BGG Top 100. Almost all of those are in the 4 to 5 out of 5 for weight, and most of them are somewhere between good-to-spectacular if you can handle the complexity.
The big jump from mid-weight to heavy-weight, in my opinion, isn’t on you: it’s getting everyone else around the table to read and learn the rules themselves, because everyone has to be on the same footing in order to have a chance. You can’t really “teach” a 4/5, because you will forget something critical and everyone will think you were cheating or doing it intentionally. And, of course, most of the rule sets take a bit of practice and a few hours of pondering to really get, so assume your first game (even if everyone learns on their own) is going to be a bit of a mess.
That stated, “Mage Knight” is fantastic, “Gloomhaven” is of course solid as a co-op, and “Twilight Imperium 4th Edition” is the greatest game ever crafted by human hands.
If you’re looking for something more Euro: Brass Birmingham, Food Chain Magnate (I didn’t care for it, but I totally understand why others do), or Lisboa might be worth a look.
Thank you for putting words to the phenomenon
I hadn’t quite realized that.
In any case. I have made an additional resolution. I want to present my collection in a way that I can show it to my friends to convince them to play those heavier games with me. To that purpose I plan on documenting the games I own with photos and a few comments on my personal website. I already started by grouping my ~100 favorites into my own personal categories and taking pictures of the covers and I actually copied over some comments on new games I made in the Recent Games thread. I don’t plan writing full reviews. Just a better overview that may also help me weed out the collection and prevent me from buying more dudes on a map games.
I think my gaming goal for 2021 is just “play more games” but in particular to play more solo games if I can’t play them with other people. I really enjoyed my recent solo games while on holiday, and keeping that going (at least a little bit) would mean I spend less time at a keyboard, which is a good thing. Who knows whether this will work out once I’m back at work, but right now it seems like something to aim for.
This might be a bit of a curious add to my resolutions for the year, but the “Japan-only” Giant edition of Rhino Hero is back at the BGG store and I am going to need to drop the bux for that one ASAP. I had finally convinced myself to grab it early last year, but within moments of deciding, the last copy went out the door.
Rhino Hero would be twice as good if it could be reliably played outdoors. This is the big draw here. That, plus it’s ridiculous.
Of all the giant editions of games I’ve learned exist, the one I want the most is Giant Flick’em Up.
I own giant Kingdomino and giant Queendomino, chosen specifically because I occasionally play games with my in-laws and I hoped the bigger tiles would help their age-faded eyesight… They are big by comparison to the original, but the boxes are only slightly larger than a normal Ticket to Ride box
It’s interesting to hear that so many of you are slowing down this year. I’m kind of headed in the opposite direction.
This year I have 3 challenges for myself regarding boardgames. The first two are personal and the last one is for the boardgaming podcast I make. (The Meeple in a Gamestack podcast, I’ll put a link below if you’re interested.)
I’m starting a 10x10 challenge this year, it’s my first time trying one so I have no idea if I’m biting off more than I can chew but I think I’ve balanced things to be do able. I put the list in the thread about 2021 10x10s.
My second challenge is I’m going to try to play all of the games in my collection once, in an effort to really get the value out of them and to see if my feelings about any of them have changed. Also to combat the cult of the new effect and appreciate what I have. This may be difficult, but I have almost 50 games so it’s less in numbers than the 10x10.
The last challenge is to play 25 new games (or new to me). For this I’m trying to play ones from 2020 and 2021 to be able to keep the podcasts feature games relevant as I can but of course older games that I haven’t tried count.
So yeah lots on the go for this year. Of course things are turbulent these days so something could absolutely come up that scatters these goals to the wind, but I’m hopefull of my chances. I’m aiming high and going to try my best to get them done. Wish me luck!
Yeah that’s fair. It’s been a tough year for playing boardgames. I’ve been very fortunate that I have a few gamers in my bubble hence being able to be ambitious with my goals.
So Yokohama Deluxe is in hand, Feudum is in the works (discussion happening) and I’ve decided to nix Forbidden Stars from the list entirely, so… not too bad, goal-wise.
This is pretty much my goal too. Not that I have a shortage of people who play games locally, it’s just that lack of free time and an overabundance of ambient virus means I don’t get to meet anyone for games.
A secondary goal is to try and play some games online in real-time. It was quite a shock to find that even when I had a miraculous block of 3 weeks of 9-5 time alone, I totally failed to schedule even one online game. Nobody I knew was free at the same time, and tentative steps into other online communities revealed that my tastes in games and online platforms are not shared by many. I ended up programming nearly the whole time. And now I find myself with no free time again, and wondering how I could have used my time better.
I feel that. I’m just finishing three weeks of holiday which have comprised about 1 week of lovely relaxation (but achieving none of the useful things I’d intended), followed by 2 weeks of immense stress from house-hunting. We might actually end up with a new house as a result, but a big part of me still wishes that we’d spent this second fortnight (before going back to some fairly stressful jobs) in a much healthier manner.
I’m going to add a simple one: log my plays! I’ve never done it, and I don’t really know why. I love useless statistics!
[EDIT] I’ll beef this up a bit. My partner uses Instagram and, since March, had been participating in some kind of thread related to posting unique plays. Ostensibly, I am “on” Instagram but I find the general level of engagement on those platforms pretty banal; I think it’s pretty neat that she got to engage a little with some of our (now distant) friends who game, but otherwise it felt a bit like showing off game collections to the wider public to me.
With that said, she logged 28 unique titles played since March 2020, and just knowing that was delightful to me. So, I’ve backfilled my plays since NYE (31-12-20) and will henceforth attempt to log every play going forward, with added detail when time allows. Hopefully this will provide some fun annual insights.
… Particularly now that my collection is frozen! I don’t think I updated here (just in new purchases), but my grail game purchases finished up fast (amazing what a focused shopper can do) and I’m on a new game lockdown for at least a few years.
