Shannon’s Christmas ’13 Gift-Giving Guide

Last year, I published my first gaming gift guide. It was a look at new-ish board and card games that might make nice gifts for a variety of gamers. Last year’s listing may be a year old, but it’s still very relevant, and I still recommend the games on it. However, if you’re looking for things that are even newer, here are my top suggestions of games from the last year or two.


For the Family Gamer

These games might work well for the casual family that occasionally enjoys a game. I thought this category was particularly strong this year, with all the games in it being quick, light, original, and fun.

AugustusAugustus (Hurican, 2013, $40)
Super Short Play (< 30 minutes)
Designed by Paolo Mori

When I first saw this game, I was told that it was “eurogame Bingo”. That disconcerted me because it sounded really simplistic. However, it turns out to be a great description of the game and it’s a lot of fun.

In this game, a player gets a few different “BINGO” cards, each of which requires several icons to finish. Icon chits are then pulled from the bag one at a time. The game gains depth from the fact that: (1) you have to decide which card to place each icon on; (2) cards have special powers when completed that you can use to help yourself in the future; and (3) you’re also competing for achieving certain goals first. You add all thistogether and you have a colorful and evocative game.

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New to Me: Summer 2013

It’s been another quarter, and thus time for another listing of games that were new to me — mostly including new releases, but also including a few older ones that crossed my gaming table. As always this is an assessment of how much I like the games, rather than whether they’re great or not. I tend to prefer light to medium euros that don’t make me work too hard.

As you can see, there’s still a bit of emphasis on cooperative gaming; that’s because I was finishing up a complete book on the design of cooperative gaming. I hope to talk more about this in the future, but this could end up being the first “Mechanics & Meeples” branded game book! To keep up-to-date, I encourage you to join the Mechanics & Meeples page on Facebook that I’m now putting together.


The Great

Hanabi (2013). A cooperative game about playing fireworks cards to the table in the correct order. It’s a terrific game because it’s all about trust. The other players have to tell you what to play, but the language that they’re allowed to use is so deeply constrained that you have to have faith that what you think they’re saying is what they’re actually saying. Did I mention that it won the 2013 SdJ? I’d prefer to see the SdJ go to games with a bit more meat … but this game is so clever and innovative that I nonetheless have to say it’s well deserved.

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