Coolest new game

Suburbia is another title that got a new edition this year, and this one adds bright, colorful art to a classic city-building tile game. For instance, building a massive garbage dump might be lucrative, but nobody wants to live next door to it.

The tiles that nobody wants to add to their town gradually become cheaper until that expensive university is practically free, making it very attractive. Suburbia was one of the first longer board games we played; before that, we had mostly been dabbling in games that took less than an hour.

To win, players must create an appealing region to rule by gathering cards that allow them to play tiles that provide extra actions, bonuses, or even another turn.

The cool thing about The Castles of Tuscany is how these actions and bonuses chain together to provide points in different ways. The player with the most points after three rounds wins. Ravensburger did a good job balancing complex and interesting gameplay without making it overwhelming for new players.

In this cooperative trick-taking game, players leave hearts, spades, and euchre behind as they try to journey to the edge of the solar system and discover a new planet. The Crew has missions to complete, each with their own task. In one, you may be required to make sure a certain player wins a trick with a specific card in it. In another, you may have to take certain cards in order. And in a third mission, you may have to ensure that one player takes no tricks at all.

As the missions increase in difficulty, you may end up with more of a challenge than you bargained for. Usually when you play a mystery-solving game, the winning player is whoever is the fastest. The Key: Sabotage at Lucky Llama Land complicates that a bit by challenging players to instead be the most efficient.

Players choose a case color to solve and then take cards from the center in real-time to try and puzzle where the sabotage happened, who sabotaged the ride, and what they used. But not every card in the center is relevant to your case. And not only will you be penalized for grabbing the wrong card, you might get led astray.

Sabotage in Lucky Llama Land is geared toward fans of deduction games who are looking for something competitive to contrast the more cooperative escape rooms and puzzle box games that have been rising in popularity. Players take on the role of astronomers trying to figure out the location of a mysterious planet against the backdrop of the night sky. Planet X also uses a free app to drive gameplay, ensuring that the night sky will be different with every game.

Umbra Via manages to stick out as a pretty unique theme, as it challenges players to build a shadowy road in an ancient garden to reunite the missing pieces of their souls. Players do so by drawing tokens from their bags and placing them on tiles to bid on which tiles they want to take.

As players win tiles, they place them into the center area so that they can try and create or cut off paths that they control, allowing them to collect special double-value tokens from a reserve. Bidding and area-majority games can be difficult to get into, if you have difficulty determining the value of a tile or a location.

But Umbra Via is different. Part of it is almost certainly the art and the theme, as it manages to be mysterious and somber but not spooky. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, or any combination of the four.

The character miniatures look fantastic as well, with great details. The Unmatched series as a whole boasts fantastic gameplay and high-stakes combat for two or four players, so we were glad to see this iteration on the series adding in even more well-known characters.

Plus, with Marvel-themed sets also on the way, players will finally be able to make Little Red Riding Hood fight Deadpool, if they so desire. Like a cardboard reincarnation of the sci-fi horror classic Aliens , you and up to four other Sigourney Weavers are jolted awake from cryosleep on a starship and quickly discover that, oh god, something horrible is happening.

As you move from room to room, rediscovering the sections of your ship in a haze of delirium, you start to realize Then they attack. You need the help of your companions to flee, fight, hide, and survive. But everyone also has a secret objective. Most are harmless, like beaming out a message home in the communications room, or getting to the control room to make sure the ship is headed to Earth.

But some objectives are delightfully nefarious, like making sure that one specific player dies before the game ends. Prospective players should be aware that Nemesis is both very complicated and brutally difficult to win. Nevertheless, we found Nemesis to be incredibly immersive. Abandon All Artichokes solves this problem in a number of ways, both by being a great title for players new to board gaming and by being pretty easy to set up and playable in under half an hour.

Abandon All Artichokes is a simple and tightly competitive deck builder, or a game in which you are playing from a deck of cards and trying to increasingly add good ones to and remove bad cards from your hand.

This game challenges players to, at the end of their turn, successfully draw a hand of five cards with zero artichokes in it. You may end up playing a broccoli card to compost remove from the game an artichoke if you have more than three in hand, or using an eggplant to compost an artichoke and then pass two cards to an opponent. Abandon All Artichokes is quick, straightforward, bright, and colorful, making it an appealing addition to your game shelf and a great title to get players excited about modern board gaming.

There are many different reasons to like a board game. Adventure Mart does a lot of things really well. A dventure Mart also allows for a lot of different avenues for success accumulating money, collecting valuable items, or just making a nice store , giving players a real feeling of ownership as they play.

Each team has their own secret board of four hidden words. For example: 1. Pizza, 2. Duck, 3. Vampire, and 4. Each turn, one team member privately pulls a card with three numbers on it, and then gives three clues that lead their team to pick the correct words matching those numbers. Your opponents are always listening, and they get a chance to intercept first. If you correctly intercept your opponents full code twice, you win the game.

Who knew medieval Portuguese artisans were such a cutthroat bunch? Azul is a brilliant abstract game for two to five players. But this is no solitaire. With simple—but not simplistic—rules you can explain in less than three minutes, Azul is a delight for all ages. Because it moves so quickly, relies so much on strategy, and is so easy to explain to new players, breaking out Azul is always a hit.

Res Arcana is a fantastically dense strategy game that you can pull out, play, and pack up in as little as 30 minutes. In the game, you and your friends take on the roles of various practitioners of the occult and alchemical arts. Each turn feels important, and each decision feels potentially game-ending.

Each player places two trees in a hexagonal, game-board meadow. You spend your sunlight like a currency to grow your trees taller; thereby collecting more light and making a longer shadow to cast on your opponents. Or you can spread and grow seeds to make more trees.

To gain points, fell your giant trees faster than your friends. Because of its sheer logicality, Photosynthesis is an absolutely perfect game to lure in folks new to the world of modern board games.

Veteran gamers will find much to love as well. Planet is a hands-on, tactile game for two to four players with simple rules but mind-bending geometric play.

At the beginning of the game, each player holds aloft their inchoate planet: a giant, faceless dodecahedron basically a blank, sided die. Each round, players will flip over a stack of magnetic tiles that snap onto their planets. These tiles have biomes on them—deserts, mountains, oceans, jungles and arctic tundra.

After a few rounds players start to compete for animal cards, each printed with the rules for who nabs them. For example, the giraffe might go to the current planetholder with the biggest desert that touches a jungle, and the blue whale might go to the planet with the most unconnected oceans.

Usually the planet with the most animals wins. While the game is quick and simple to learn, Planet demands a creative spatial awareness that we found fantastically challenging. This makes Planet great for players of all ages or ideal to break out on family game night.

In Dinosaur Island , you compete with up to three friends to build the most lucrative and exciting dino park. There are routes to victory for numerous styles of dino parks, but the best part of Dinosaur Island is just how dismissively the game treats security failures and dinosaur breakouts.

Much like in the movies, it seems that no amount of escaped raptors or decaying former customers will stop future investors and park attendees from lining up at the gate. In Root , you and up to three other friends will battle to conquer the woodland as one of four furry or feathered factions.

Will you choose the overextended feline Empire, a massive force struggling to dominate through sheer might? Or an aging warrior caste, the avian old-guard aiming to retake lost territory in spite of the limitations of their rigid code? Or will you go full Lando and become a wily rouge, raccoon agent and play all sides to your benefit? Root has it all: soldiers, rebels, and rogues. Combat, resource management, and diplomacy. Players must balance the many and diverse needs of each unique and challenging faction while ensuring a steady accumulation of victory points, which are achieved through building structures, spreading influence, fulfilling quests, or establishing control of territories.

But to us, A Game of Thrones has always been about the board game. The first edition debuted back in , and with its characteristic mix of head-to-head warfare, short-lived alliances, and diplomatic backstabbing, it became an instant classic.

The biggest change is that the player count has been upped to eight, with the addition of House Arryn and the Targaryens. Now you and your friends must balance cutthroat, Seven Kingdoms fighting with strategic cooperation to restrain the growing power of the Mother of Dragons across the Narrow Sea.

But undoubtedly the best addition in this expansion is the new vassal system, which turns the troops of unplayed houses into thralls under the holder of the Iron Throne.

This has two benefits. Now you can play a fulsome game with less than a full table of friends almost impossible before. But even more importantly, losing players can now drop out when all hope is lost, without completely throwing the game. Given that the play time can reach well into eight hours or more, this is a beautiful and rare mercy in the A Game of Thrones universe. Jaws is a cinematic game in two acts.

In the first, three players take the reins as Brody, Hooper, and Quint to race across Amity Island as the lurking shark your fourth player gobbles up luckless swimmers like soggy popcorn. As an hour-long, weeknight family game, Jaws is an absolute must-buy. The rules are few and easy to grasp, turns move quickly—especially for the players working together—and trying to remain hidden as the shark is gigglingly devious.

Strangelove collectible card game? Each time you play a biome, your birds have a chance to use special abilities, often times creating long, clever chains of well-laid actions. This game has more birds than a Hitchcockian horror. You can play three separate games of Wingspan and never see the same bird cards twice. Along with brilliant artwork and extremely high-quality components, the best part about Wingspan is discovering strange new avian engines to soar into victory.

Claustrophobia is an asymmetric, two-player strategy game of survival, hellfire, and demonic combat. The game consists of 20 different unique, playable scenarios—each of which lasts between an hour to an hour and a half.

One player takes the reins of the infernal forces of hell, the other roleplays a rag-tag group of humans, and you both face off in a battlefield of twisting, tunneling catacombs. Dozens of reviewers specifically used these potato sacks for outdoor parties and describe them as great fun.

I hope to use these products for years to come. Reviewers appreciate that this ring toss comes with a mix of rope and plastic rings, along with movable pegs, making it an adjustable activity for players of various ages and abilities. Sturdy as a wood product can be expected. Should survive my rambunctious children and outdoors well. They love it! These rubber horseshoes have a good weight to them, not super-light like the other cheap plastic ones.

Among the dozens of customers who vouch for the quality of this set, many reviewers also point out the reasonable price. Totally worth the price, and quality is great. This set while not expensive has thicker PVC tubes and will last longer. Others have also found that this is a game suitable for players for all ages. The set was easy to put together, and once assembled, was very sturdy.

I was surprised, the bolas were actual golf balls. The Strategist is designed to surface the most useful, expert recommendations for things to buy across the vast e-commerce landscape. We update links when possible, but note that deals can expire and all prices are subject to change. Alternatively, a game can offer a New Game Plus mode to persuade players into a further playthrough.

In New Game Plus, players start from the beginning but with all the weapons and upgrades from their previous play - but the game's ready with a much tougher challenge.

The best games don't just have New Game Plus - they turn it into a wildly different experience. The Dark Souls series is well-known for two things: an insane level of difficulty that rewards careful play, and having a near-essential New Game Plus mode. While players are always just a few hits from death, they can get better weapons and magic, stronger armor, and boost their health and stamina so it's possible to survive - or at least dodge a lot more.

Carrying all this over should make a New Game Plus easier, except enemies scale to match and some things even change location. It's also one of the few games where New Game Plus mode stacks so it's possible to replay it time and time again - and it's harder every time. Previous games in the Batman Arkham series have had New Game Plus modes, but Arkham Knight takes it to the next level where it feels like a whole new game.

The fight to free Gotham from the threat of both Scarecrow and the Arkham Knight is challenging enough the first time around , but despite having access to all Batman's cool upgrades, the second time is a lot more difficult. Enemies hit harder and the safety net of the icons that tell the player when to dodge or counter have been removed. Some scenes even play out differently under New Game Plus, such as the opening cremation of the Joker, where he wakes up and starts laughing - to the shock of everyone playing.

The recent remake of Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was not as well-received as the remake of Resident Evil 2 , and part of that was down to the game's length. Whereas RE2 offered two campaigns with more exploration, RE3 seemingly only had one shorter, linear experience.