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2020
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Best Game from a Small Publisher 2014
Some important links: The Official FAQ, the Unofficial FAQ, and an Automa (solo and 2p) Overview

Dune: Imperium is a game that finds inspiration in elements and characters from the Dune legacy, both the new film from Legendary Pictures and the seminal literary series from Frank Herbert, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson.

As a leader of one of the Great Houses of the Landsraad, raise your banner and marshal your forces and spies. War is coming, and at the center of the conflict is Arrakis – Dune, the desert planet.

Dune: Imperium uses deck-building to add a hidden-information angle to traditional worker placement.

You start with a unique leader card, as well as deck identical to those of your opponents. As you acquire cards and build your deck, your choices will define your strengths and weaknesses. Cards allow you to send your Agents to certain spaces on the game board, so how your deck evolves affects your strategy. You might become more powerful militarily, able to deploy more troops than your opponents. Or you might acquire cards that give you an edge with the four political factions represented in the game: the Emperor, the Spacing Guild, the Bene Gesserit, and the Fremen.

Unlike many deck-building games, you don’t play your entire hand in one turn. Instead, you draw a hand of cards at the start of every round and alternate with other players, taking one Agent turn at a time (playing one card to send one of your Agents to the game board). When it’s your turn and you have no more Agents to place, you’ll take a Reveal turn, revealing the rest of your cards, which will provide Persuasion and Swords. Persuasion is used to acquire more cards, and Swords help your troops fight for the current round’s rewards as shown on the revealed Conflict card.

Defeat your rivals in combat, shrewdly navigate the political factions, and acquire precious cards. The Spice Must Flow to lead your House to victory!

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Year Published: 2020
Designers: Paul Dennen
Publishers: Dire Wolf
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Year Published: 2020
Designers: Michal Mikeš
Publishers: Boardcubator
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Paul Salomon
Publishers: Elf Creek Games
Year Published: 2019
Designers: Dan Kazmaier
Publishers: Steeped Games Ltd.
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Vladimír Suchý
Publishers: Delicious Games
2020
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Best Game from a New Designer 2014
On an uninhabited island in uncharted seas, explorers have found traces of a great civilization. Now you will lead an expedition to explore the island, find lost artifacts, and face fearsome guardians, all in a quest to learn the island's secrets.

Lost Ruins of Arnak combines deck-building and worker placement in a game of exploration, resource management, and discovery. In addition to traditional deck-builder effects, cards can also be used to place workers, and new worker actions become available as players explore the island. Some of these actions require resources instead of workers, so building a solid resource base will be essential. You are limited to only one action per turn, so make your choice carefully... what action will benefit you most now? And what can you afford to do later... assuming someone else doesn't take the action first!?

Decks are small, and randomness in the game is heavily mitigated by the wealth of tactical decisions offered on the game board. With a variety of worker actions, artifacts, and equipment cards, the set-up for each game will be unique, encouraging players to explore new strategies to meet the challenge.

Discover the Lost Ruins of Arnak!

—description from the publisher

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Year Published: 2020
Designers: Elwen
Publishers: Czech Games Edition
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Year Published: 2020
Designers: Joe Hopkins
Publishers: Grand Gamers Guild
Year Published: 2020
Designers: David Alberto Diaz
Publishers: Kids Table BG
Year Published: 2019
Designers: Dan Kazmaier
Publishers: Steeped Games Ltd.
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Dennis K. Chan
Publishers: Rio Grande Games
2020
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Best Welcoming Game
The Isle of Cats is a competitive, medium-weight, card-drafting, polyomino cat-placement board game for 1-4 players (6 with expansions).

In the game, you are citizens of Squalls End on a rescue mission to The Isle of Cats and must rescue as many cats as possible before the evil Lord Vesh arrives. Each cat is represented by a unique tile and belongs to a family, you must find a way to make them all fit on your boat while keeping families together. You will also need to manage resources as you:


Explore the island (by drafting cards)
Rescue cats
Find treasures
Befriend Oshax
Study ancient lessons


Each lesson you collect gives you another personal way of scoring points, and 38 unique lessons are available. Complete lessons, fill your boat, and keep cat families together to score points, and the player with the most points after five rounds wins.

Note: The Isle of Cats: Kickstarter Edition is a compilation item consisting of The Isle of Cats base game and The Isle of Cats: Kickstarter Pack, each of which are available as separate items and listed individually in the BGG database.

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Year Published: 2019
Designers: Frank West
Publishers: The City of Games
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Year Published: 2020
Designers: Charlie Bink
Publishers: Underdog Games (I)
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Reiner Knizia
Publishers: KOSMOS
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Jay Cormier
Publishers: The Op
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Kevin Russ
Publishers: Flatout Games
2020
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Best Expansion 2014
"You are Abelard Lavel, a knight sworn to King Charles VI the Beloved. You live in the city of Paris in a family mansion not far from the famous Notre Dame cathedral. Since you were a child, you had strange, prophetic dreams in which you saw violent scenes of past crimes or even ones yet to be committed. Over time you learned that your unusual gift could be put to good use and you started to solve cases that nobody else could crack. This earned you some reputation in the city and now people seek your help whenever a mysterious crime is committed."

The Chronicles of Crime: 1400 standalone game brings back well-known mechanisms of the original Chronicles of Crime game while adding some new twists. Now you can deduce not only from the evidence you find or the testimonies given by various characters but also from the mysterious scenes depicted on new Vision Cards. These scenes can be either from the future or from the past and they usually involve characters and objects yet to be revealed.

During your investigation, you can also count on your family members to share their knowledge with you. You can ask your uncle, a monk who has a wealth of knowledge about written texts, your sister a merchant who knows something about almost any object you’ll find or even your brother, a king’s spy, who knows a story or two about many of the people you will meet. Finally, your faithful dog is always willing to trace a suspect for you, just bring him an item belonging to the person in question and he’ll track them down!

Part of Chronicles of Crime - The Millennium Series
Chronicles of Crime is back with a range of games called "The Millennium Series". Three brand new standalone Chronicles of Crime games, working with the same great system but providing interesting gameplay twists and refreshing universes that span an entire millennium from 1400 to 1900 and finally 2400. All three games are standalone but will offer connecting narrative threads for players to discover.

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Year Published: 2020
Designers: David Cicurel
Publishers: Lucky Duck Games
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Year Published: 2020
Designers: R. Eric Reuss
Publishers: Greater Than Games, LLC
Year Published: 2021
Designers: Mattox Shuler
Publishers: Keymaster Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Elizabeth Hargrave
Publishers: Stonemaier Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Rob Daviau
Publishers: Mondo Games
2020
In the co-operative trick-taking game The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, the players set out as astronauts on an uncertain space adventure. What are the rumors regarding the unknown planet about? The eventful journey through space extends over 50 exciting missions. But this game can only be defeated by meeting common individual tasks of each player. In order to meet the varied challenges communication is essential in the team. But this is more difficult than expected in space.

With each mission the game becomes more difficult. After each mission the game can be paused and continued later. During each mission it is not the number of tricks but the right tricks at the right time that count.

The team completes a mission only if every single player is successful in fulfilling their tasks.

The game comes with 50 missions, with three additional missions published in spielbox 2/2020.

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Year Published: 2019
Designers: Thomas Sing
Publishers: KOSMOS
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Year Published: 2020
Designers: Joe Hopkins
Publishers: Grand Gamers Guild
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Andrea Chiarvesio
Publishers: CMON Global Limited
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Mr. Bistro
Publishers: Plaid Hat Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Rob Daviau
Publishers: Z-Man Games
2020
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Best Board Game Production
Dwellings of Eldervale is an epic worker placement game set in a once lost magical world. Giant elemental monsters roam while dragons, wizards and warriors battle for dominance over 8 elemental realms. Players control unique factions seeking to adventure, battle, grow in power and ultimately dwell Eldervale, shaping it to their vision.

Dwellings of Eldervale blends worker placement, area control, engine building and unique worker units. Players take turns placing a worker in Eldervale or regrouping and activating their tableau of adventure cards. Action spaces include realms key to power: a summoning portal, an ancient mill, the lost fortress, deep dungeons, and a crumbling mage tower and the elemental lands of Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Light, Dark, Order and Chaos! Magic cards grant spells, quests and prophecies to players.

In the end, the players with the most elemental dominance among the multiple paths to victory will reign over Eldervale.

—description from the publisher

Link to Unofficial FAQ

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Year Published: 2020
Designers: Luke Laurie
Publishers: Breaking Games
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Year Published: 2020
Designers: Francesco Testini
Publishers: ThunderGryph Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Tim Eisner
Publishers: Druid City Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Vital Lacerda
Publishers: Eagle-Gryphon Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Paul Salomon
Publishers: Elf Creek Games
2020
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Game of the year
In the co-operative trick-taking game The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, the players set out as astronauts on an uncertain space adventure. What are the rumors regarding the unknown planet about? The eventful journey through space extends over 50 exciting missions. But this game can only be defeated by meeting common individual tasks of each player. In order to meet the varied challenges communication is essential in the team. But this is more difficult than expected in space.

With each mission the game becomes more difficult. After each mission the game can be paused and continued later. During each mission it is not the number of tricks but the right tricks at the right time that count.

The team completes a mission only if every single player is successful in fulfilling their tasks.

The game comes with 50 missions, with three additional missions published in spielbox 2/2020.

Read more Read less
Year Published: 2019
Designers: Thomas Sing
Publishers: KOSMOS
Image
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Luke Laurie
Publishers: Breaking Games
Year Published: 2019
Designers: Frank West
Publishers: The City of Games
Year Published: 2019
Designers: Thomas Sing
Publishers: KOSMOS
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Shem Phillips
Publishers: Garphill Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Mr. Bistro
Publishers: Plaid Hat Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Elwen
Publishers: Czech Games Edition
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Rob Daviau
Publishers: Z-Man Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Kevin Russ
Publishers: Flatout Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Paul Dennen
Publishers: Dire Wolf
2020
Image
Best Artwork 2020
On an uninhabited island in uncharted seas, explorers have found traces of a great civilization. Now you will lead an expedition to explore the island, find lost artifacts, and face fearsome guardians, all in a quest to learn the island's secrets.

Lost Ruins of Arnak combines deck-building and worker placement in a game of exploration, resource management, and discovery. In addition to traditional deck-builder effects, cards can also be used to place workers, and new worker actions become available as players explore the island. Some of these actions require resources instead of workers, so building a solid resource base will be essential. You are limited to only one action per turn, so make your choice carefully... what action will benefit you most now? And what can you afford to do later... assuming someone else doesn't take the action first!?

Decks are small, and randomness in the game is heavily mitigated by the wealth of tactical decisions offered on the game board. With a variety of worker actions, artifacts, and equipment cards, the set-up for each game will be unique, encouraging players to explore new strategies to meet the challenge.

Discover the Lost Ruins of Arnak!

—description from the publisher

Read more Read less
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Elwen
Publishers: Czech Games Edition
Image
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Tim Eisner
Publishers: Druid City Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Michał Oracz
Publishers: Awaken Realms
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Nick Bentley
Publishers: North Star Games
Year Published: 2020
Designers: Mr. Bistro
Publishers: Plaid Hat Games
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In this episode, Tom, Suzanne, and Eric discuss Three Sisters, Cascadia, Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, Lovelace and Babbage, For Science! and Danger Park. Geoff enters the world of NFTs, we answer questions from the mailbag, and we look back 15 years with a Top Ten Games from 2006.

Support for The Dice Tower comes from The Op, at TheOp.games.

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This episode, GenCon is on, White Wizard gets wise, Lucky Duck has ducklings, and we all escape from Middle Earth.

 

TOP STORIES:

  • GenCon 2021 is a go.
  • France's As d'Or Awards announced.
  • R&D Games teases new titles in the Key series.
  • "Founders of Teotihuacan" announced.
  • White Wizard Games renames to Wise Wizard.
  • Asmodee to distribute ThunderGryph, Fantasia, and Tabletop Tycoon Games.
  • Lucky Duck partners with GameTrayz and launches Lucky Duck Kids.
  • Z-Man cancels Euro Classics line.
  • "Villagers: Shifting Seasons" announced.
  • Card game "TEN" coming from "Point Salad" designers.
  • Celebrate 5 years of escapes with "EXIT: Shadow over Middle Earth" and "EXIT: Return to the Abandoned Cabin."
  • GAMA officer, publisher, and retailer Brian Dalrymple passes.

 

KICKSTARTER:

 

NEW & UPCOMING RELEASES:

  • Red Rising from Stonemaier Games
  • War Chest: Siege from AEG
  • Steampunk Rally Fusion from Roxley Games
  • Forgotten Waters: Kraken's Eye from Plaid Hat Games

 

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