It’s time for one of my favorite posts each year: our Best Board Games list!
As you know, here at GeekDad we love our tabletop games–whether it’s playing games with our kids, going to a big convention like Gen Con, backing games on Kickstarter, or watching Wil Wheaton lose over and over again on Tabletop. Here are the games that topped our lists in 2014.
Just to be clear: this list is, of course, not comprehensive–we certainly didn’t play all of the games published in 2014 (not by a long shot) and sometimes we miss out on big releases. And, of course, sometimes we’re just finally getting around to older games. But here are the games we most enjoyed playing during the year.
Jonathan Liu’s Picks
I wrote up my 10 x 10 Tabletop Challenge so you already know the games I played the most times, so all of those get an automatic mention on this list (though technically 20 Express was on my “best of” last year.) My top picks from that list are Pathfinder Adventure Card Game and Robinson Crusoe for the longer games, Machi Koro for a great medium-weight game, and Eggs & Empires and Good Cop Bad Cop for quick games for more players. (And on a side note: both Eggs & Empires and Good Cop Bad Cop were Kickstarter success stories: funded in 2014, and delivered on time or nearly so.)
For the games that didn’t quite make it to 10 plays this year, there were still a few that stood out, ones that I’m excited about playing in the coming year (if all those Kickstarter prototypes don’t get in the way).
Tragedy Looper
This is a puzzle game that toys with your mind, whether you’re the Mastermind or a Protagonist. The Mastermind is trying to manipulate characters to cause various tragedies and plots to unfold; the Protagonists are working together to prevent them. The trick is that you get to loop back in time, carrying with you the knowledge you’ve gained from previous loops. I’ve only gotten to play Tragedy Looper a few times so far, but each one has been a blast. Here’s my original review.
Read the rest of GeekDad’s favorite games at their site.
