Best board games of 2022?

Its not a 2022 board game - but I would really recommend Carcassonne with these two expansions:

- Traders and Builders [1]

- Inns and Cathedrals [2]

The base itself is little limited - but with these two expansions you have one of the best sets for a nice evening with friends. You can also add River or River II expansion - but they only 'divert' the beginning of the game - so you can omit them.

The Carcassonne is really a simple game - yet it takes real thinking and strategy to really master it.

What I like the most about Carcassonne is its 'minimalistic' approach. There are roads/cities/grasslands/monasteries ... and nothing else ... yet taking someone else' city or road is very important strategic move - or splitting the work between X players.

You do not need cards, figures, notes, calculators, excel or dice. You just play and move the cones on the scoring board.

Regards.

[1] https://carcassonne.fandom.com/wiki/Traders_%26_Builders

[2] https://carcassonne.fandom.com/wiki/Inns_%26_Cathedrals

It's not new at all, but Cosmic Encounter blew my mind wide open. It's far and away the most chaotic board game I've ever played. I love it.

The object of the game is to occupy ten planets (you start with five) via combat, negotiation, or shenanigans. Each player drafts two unique powers, each of which breaks the rules somehow. Just for instance, in the last game I played, one player had the power "you start with ten planets, but your planets are only worth half." Eventually I won by causing this player to swap places, but not powers, with me. Some such BS happens every single game, and never the same way twice.

Of the games that came out this year:

- Mosaic (disclaimer, I know the designer), Bullet Star, Planet Unknown, Fjords, Long Shot: The Dice Game, Wonderland's War

2022 releases I have but haven't gotten to the table yet:

- Eleven (waiting for it to arrive), Vagrantsong, Resurgence, Caesar!, Mind Bug, Puzzle Strike II, Creature Comforts, Verdant

Best "New to me" games for 2022:

- Memoir '44, Imperium Classics, Ark Nova, Res Arcana, Trekking the World, Nemo's War, Scout, Downforce, First Class, My City

I finally played Memoir '44 for the first time, and man is it amazing. My new favorite game, edging out Spirit Island. I now have a regular person I play with online and have racked up 25 games of it just this year, working our way through all the scenarios (of which there's a ton). The online version at BoardGameArena is excellent.

Best board game-like video game I played in 2022: Inscryption. Basically a "Slay the Spire" style deckbuilder mixed with a creepy vibe mixed with an escape room mixed with...well, you should play it and find out for yourself.

Wingspan (2019) was my favorite new (to me) game. I like that you can strategize and compete without directly getting in each other's way. It's great if you're tired of making enemies during games.

Other long term favorites are Castles of Burgundy, Scythe, and Viticulture.

It’s funny how different everyone’s definition of “of 2022” is; I play enough board games that I expected this to be all about 2022 releases, but most of the conversation is about 5-20 year old games!

In 2022 I’ve been focusing on very fast games, to add to my group’s repertoire of mostly mid-to-heavy games. Nidavellir and Jumpdrive both have been fun, here.

My favorite game of the last 5 years is Res Arcana with or without expansions; it’s a fun enough engine builder to appeal to most folks, but has high enough returns to skill to feel like it’s worth investing more plays in.

The most surprising hit for me this year is Star Wars: Rebellion. I’m not generally an Ameritrash fan, and I usually prefer 3-4 player evenings, but if you’ve got 2-3 hours with a single friend and even mildly enjoy the Star Wars atmosphere, it’s an asymmetric game which has felt epic every time I’ve played, win or lose.

The Crew (2019). Approachable but interesting co-op trick taking with communication restrictions and 50 missions for replayability. If you liked Hanabi, you might end up spending more time on this.

Skull [1] has been my favorite one this year – it's basically a bluffing / negotitation game. The specific version I linked has particularly beautiful design of cards.

And while it's not exactly a boardgame, this year I finally got into DM'ing D&D campaign – it's more time consuming that I expected, but very satysfying.

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/92415/skull

It may be from 2021 but we have been playing Stella a lot lately.

It is (I think) a more strategic variant of the game Dixit and it is played with the same cards, so if you already own Dixit, you can use it as an extension to Stella and vice versa. The idea is that you have a randomly selected word and 15 randomly selected cards with surreal illustrations face up on the table. Each player has to chose a certain number of cards that he thinks represent the word. If you are the only one to pick a card, you lose, if someone else picked the same card, you both win points.

Favourite game from this year: John Company 2nd ed. Very complex, but in an interesting, understandable, and thematic way.

Favourite old game discovered this year: The King is Dead. An area control game with restrictions that interact in very interesting ways.

Perennial favourites:

Orleans - the most played game at my weekly board game group. Worker placement and deck building combined.

Concordia - a great resource collection game, plays well from 2-5 players with no rules changes

Hansa Teutonica - brilliant worker placement game. Looks bland, plays well, and now comes in a well-priced box with all expansions.

I played boardgames 251 times in 2022.

Here's the play counts of games we played at least 3 times in 2022, dumped from the BGStats app I use to track plays.

45: Azul

36: The Isle of Cats

36: Tsuro

22: Lost Ruins of Arnak

15: Luxor

14: Hive

9: Carcassonne Big Box 6

9: Forbidden Island

6: Everdell

6: Project L

5: Watergate

4: Endless Winter: Paleoamericans

4: Paint the Roses

4: Hidden Leaders

3: Paris

3: Lift Off! Get me off this Planet! Expanded Deluxe Edition.

All plays are with physical copies of the games.

The Isle of Cats quickly became our family favourite. We play it with our two kids (8 and 6) in "family mode", and in normal mode with our gaming group. Highly recommended.

Lost Ruins of Arnak is wonderful at 2, 3, or 4 players. The Leaders expansion is worth it to add some more depth.

Luxor is my 6yo's favourite game, but don't let that make you think it's only a kids game. We have all the expansions and there's really a heap of scope in the game.

The Everdell plays were with the New Leaf expansion, and it really brought back my enjoyment of the game. It solved a lot of the problems I'd had with the base game (mostly related to the meadow cards getting stale if no-one wanted them).

Endless Winter felt a little "mechanics soup" to me, but it's solid. Unlike Arnak, it also felt like it wasn't very well balanced across the various things you could focus on.

Hidden Leaders was the stand out 6 player game.

I really love Paris and want to play it a heap more.

Azul, Tsuro, Hive are all worth picking up as "lets just have a quick game" options.

Games we only played once so far but are very keen to play more: Mosaic, Rococco, Windward, Paladins of the West Kingdom.

Edit: my kids and I had a quick little "test play" of Forgotten Depths and I'm really keen to play it with them a heap over the holidays. A co-op dungeon crawler style game with 3 female characters. The design is really sweet.

New to me: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/317985/beyond-sun AKA "Tech Tree".

There's enough going on that it can hold my attention, but, each turn is super simple. And now that I think about it, while there's strong degree to which it feels like an engine builder, it mostly isn't. You do get combos, but they tend to be one-turn things. It's got the right mix of determinism and random; RNG won't win or lose you the game, but every game is going to be at least a bit different because of it.

Also new to me: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/342942/ark-nova AKA "Zoo Mars", since we like it for many of the reasons we like Terraforming Mars, although it's simpler, and turns go by faster. It does have a bit of an issue in that poor card draw on your part (or, in one game, excellent card draw on one player's) can lose you the game, as you do build an engine but not all cards will work with the specific engine you're building.

I like the «spiele des jahre» prices, they are always good references (https://www.spiel-des-jahres.de/aktuelle-preistraeger-2022/). This year it was Cascadia.

If you like games that you can always have on you, check oink games (https://oinkgames.com/en/). Scout (nominated to Spiele des Jahre 2022), Troika, Mask Men, Startups and Kobayakawa are my favorites.

The best game I played in 2022 was probably Northern Pacific (which was made by Tom Russel, the creator of Irish Gauge and Iberian Gauge.)

Northern Pacific is a surprising mix of train games (which are often long and complex) and a party game with surprising strategic space. You only have two options, but the impact on other players is real. However, as the game ends in 15 minutes, you don't get the same feelings of betrayal and anger that you'd get playing something like Chinatown.

I strongly recommend it. I also recommend Irish Gauge and Iberian Gauge, but those require a bit more of a time investment (1-2 hours) and Iberian Gauge is a bit too complicated for even well-behaved children under the age of 10 or so.

-edit- I just realized it was released in 2013, but I bought it this year so :shrug:.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/138704/northern-pacific

Spintronics! It's a puzzle game where you build mechanical equivalents of electrical circuits. It has capacitors, transistors, inductors, etc. Just got it this past weekend (bought it after the Kickstarter ended) and it's really cool.

> What are your favorite board games of 2022?

Res Arcana - I've learned it a couple weeks ago and been enjoying it. It's light enough to learn quickly, yet I still have lots of depth to discover, seeing how my friends always destroy me.

Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization - I've played it before a couple times, but really only got into it more this year. Never fails to create strong emotions for me. I play async online and suspect that playing live the game might drag out a bit.

> I think saboteur might be kind of old, but it ranks for my favorite this year

Eh, why? If you're a saboteur you can pretend you're a good guy but that's just bad play. You might like Bang too, it has a similar mechanic.

Not a board game… but highly recommend Magic Puzzle Company puzzles as gifts for family and friends who aren’t quite ready for intense games. A bonus is that Susan Kare (of Apple/Next fame) designed the logo and branding.

https://www.magicpuzzlecompany.com/

Personally a big fan of ones with co-op elements (I'd guess all of these were released earlier than 2022)

- Eldritch Horror

- Fury of Dracula

- Betrayal at House on the Hill

- Nemesis

- Spirit Island

- Pandemic

And for the not-so-complex list

- Hanabi (more of a card game)

Still love Pandemic. I find it really well done, and quite unique on being a cooperative game.

Honey buzz was my favorite (new to me) game of 2022. It's rare to find a game with this combination of both top tier strategic depth and aesthetics.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284742/honey-buzz

If I have to limit myself to the boardgames I learned this year I'd say Ark Nova and Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition. I think they are from 2021.

Been having fun with Azul, namely the Spring Pavilion and Stained Glass versions. Great family games

Here are a bunch of my favorites, in no particular order. I don't think any of them are brand new, though I only found some of them in 2022.

- I dissent

- Panamax

- Pandemic Legacy, Season 2

- Root

- Dice Hospital

- Cthulhu: Death May Die

- Food Chain Magnate

- Letters from Whitechapel

- Terraforming Mars

- Space Base

- Dominant Species

- Cockroach Poker

The Slay the Spire board game, which launched a kickstarter to ship next year, has a Tabletop Simulator version and has easily worked its way towards the top of my board game list, even before receiving the physical copy. In fact, it's the first game that's made me willing to tolerate TTS to play it, my board game group during the pandemic tried to do some TTS sessions but it always fell a little bit flat.

There's plenty of info out there about it so I'll avoid giving a detailed recap, but since it's a coop game and it feels best with 3-4 players, if folks are interested in trying it out, I'd be happy to host a session. E-mail is in my profile.

Too many great options in this thread already so I'll stray and focus on small 2-player games I discovered this year and enjoyed: - Trails - Jaipur - The Agora expansion to 7 wonders duel (added more of a unique take than Pantheon I think)

I tend to have a pretty eclectic taste.

- John Company II edition

- Root: The Marauder Expansion

- Horse and Carriage, splotter games

I love board games! I do a list every year! These are "new to me", not strictly published in 2022, for example Heat: Pedal to the Metal was in 2022, but Cuba was published in 2007. I play a lot of obscure euro-style games, I'll place a * for games that are more accessible to the general public.

1. Little Town *

2. Cuba

3. Splendor Duel *

4. Hellas

5. Anno 1800

6. Heat: Pedal to the Metal *

7. Fast Sloths *

8. Scout! *

9. Faiyum

10. The Estates

I'm writing up a BGG Geeklist for these. You can find all kinds of "top" lists here: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklists?sort=recent

Do you want favourites of 2022, or classics that are still great? Because Saboteur is 18 years old.

Some of my favourites from this year include:

CombiNations - a very quick tile-laying where you score points by making large contiguous fields of the same type, with added depth coming from bonus points and the way you can choose what tile to lay.

Clockworker - a kind of worker placement game with a twist: you can place lots of workers at once, but they only produce when they return home one at a time, giving the feeling of winding up devices that slowly wind down. Great concept slightly hampered by the iconography describing the various bonuses that the purchasable artifact cards provide.

Lost Ruins of Arnak -- significantly bigger than the other two, giving a real Indiana Jones adventure/treasure hunter feel. You need to have the right vehicle to travel to interesting locations where you can discover treasures, generally guarded by some monster. You're going to need some tools or weapons to defeat it. You collect stuff that you spend to get bonuses that help you get more stuff. Great atmosphere, great mechanics.

Revive -- After a big catastrophe, humanity finally crawls out of their caves and starts exploring the world again, hopefully gaining knowledge on how to operate these ancient machines. Beautiful board, clever mechanics.

Starship Captains -- Not about Star Trek at all! Honestly! Perfectly encapsulates the experience of captaining a starship on a 5 year mission to explore strange new worlds.

Etherfields is one of the best board games I've ever played. Beautiful, thematic, exploratory, unique, great mechanics.

Seventh Continent is also fun from an exploratory point of view, though it has a bit more self-similarity in its gameplay loop such that the mechanics can get old, but the exploration doesn't.

On the other end of the spectrum, Jaipur is a two-player quick card game with great style and fun, great mechanics, and much of the "reading another player" of a gin/pinochle/etc style game.

A timeless oldie but goldie is Sid Sackson's "Can't Stop" and, speaking of Sid Sackson, his book "A Gamut of Games" is still my most favorite collection of ideas of simple (in the sense of no complicated or costly materials needed) and timeless games.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Can%27t_Stop_%28board_game%29

If you like to work together, The Crew (both editions) is a good choice.

I also played a lot of Flamecraft and is fun and cute. Doesn't scale up to large player counts well though.

It's a bit old but more people need to know about Tigris and Euphrates.

Not a game that launched in 2022, but new to me in 2022: Tokaido.

As much as i love medium and heavy weight games, the world needs good light games too.

On a different note, what are the best non-games a person could spend time "playing"? I have family members with whom I would like to spend relaxing time playing games, but they're not interested in "wasting" time. Maybe something like sports-betting, stock-picking, or even budget-balancing[0] could be, behind the right interface, "played" ad nauseam of an evening.

Board games have the right form-factor (sit around the table, colorful pieces dedicated to the simulation, clear rules easily referenced) but the wrong teleology. Any suggestions?

Edit: Heck, something like "doing our nails" might be seen as having sufficient utility.

Edit2: Folding proteins? Isn't that a game, somewhere?

0. The State of California "Budget Challenge" simulates exactly what it says on the tin, and I might try it at my next visit: https://www.budgetchallenge.org/

I made a boardgame in 2021 and got it fully funded on Kickstarter. It's a faster version of UNO where players can play out of turn.

https://www.swiftwave.io/

My other favorites are Pandemic Legacy (Season 0 came out in 2020) and The Crew (2019)

Zendo[0] has been a great find for the whole family. Hoping to get the whole pyramid arcade soon

[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/6830/zendo

I have picked up solo board gaming as a hobby this year. It’s been great. I’ve been trying to get friends to play board games with me for years, no one is really interested. So. I decided. What the hell. I’ll just play myself. Totally underrated.

Not good at picking favorites, here is a bunch we like a lot but I am probably forgetting some of my favorites:

Midweight euros: Teotihuacan, Beyond the Sun, Lorenzo il Magnifico, Tzol'kin, Marco Polo II, Troyes, Rajas of the Ganges, Lost Ruins of Arnak, Concordia

Tableau/engine builder: Res Arcana, Deus, Race for the Galaxy, Gizmos, Everdell, Wingspan

Deck/bag builder: Ascension, Tyrants of the Underdark, Clank, Dominion, War Chest

Polyomino: A Feast for Odin, Barenpark, Isle of Cats, Patchwork

Roll & write: Hadrian's Wall, Welcome To, Troyes Dice, Ganz Schön Clever

Misc: Kingdom Builder, Babylonia, Space Base, Hive, Santorini, Dice miner, Cascadia, Air Land & Sea

So Clover (2021) is a really nice game that you'll love if you liked Code Names. It's very social, at times hilarious, many times very puzzling, and people can join and leave at random.

Have been super impressed with Taelmoor, a new take on the board game RPG genre that uses a smartphone app as the DM. For a small kickstarted game it plays really smoothly, the build quality is excellent, and the app/physical board interactions are perfect.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/delvebros/taelmoor-the-...

Spirit Island (and its extensions) remains a favourite of mine. Very cooperative, quite asymmetrical, fair but hard (at least if you play in harder difficulty levels).

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/340466/unfathomable is fantastic, and since this is a great thread.

I'm building a "roblox for online board games", and if anyone is interested in learning more then you can email me at boardgames@mathgladiator.com

This is all I talk about online, for the most part...

Being a fan of MLB baseball since I was a kid, I've recently rediscovered my love for tabletop dice baseball like I used to play as a kid in the 80's. Been introducing my son to it as well.

I'm a) surprised that some of the pretty older games (strat-o-Matic, etc) are still going strong and b) there are many newer games that improve on the concept and bring better accuracy and flow to the game.

Moonrakers, we had so many fun game nights especially with people who don't typically play board games due to the forced interaction of the game.

Mysterium (like a mix of cooperative Clue with Dixit, everyone is a medium getting weird messages trying to find the killer)

Not 2022, but at our home the following games have a great success on the table, as in, actually have rotation instead of the usual “oooh neat, let’s give it a try and never play again”: - Undaunted Normandy

- Quacks of Quedlinburg

- The Crew - Ruins of Arnak

- Dune (remake from GF9)

On BGA, personally I’ve really enjoyed Barrage (new!), and I keep going back to Jaipur (since forever!).

If you're in the mood for a co-operative family-friendly experience, take a look at Forest of Radgost.

Terraforming Mars, with all the expansions. Not a new game, but one of the best nevertheless.

Dominion (dominion.games) - I must have played a thousand games since the first lockdown.

Playing Demeo, a VR board game, has been a fun way to hang out with remote friends.

ISS Vanguard! The UX of the game is wonderful given how ambitious it is.

I wanted to like Gloomhaven but it’s terrible setup time and complexity made that impossible. ISS Vanguard is the best giant coop thing. Digital gloomhaven is good.

Chess, just like every year since 1497 [1]

1. http://history.chess.free.fr/papers/Calvo%201998.pdf [pdf]

https://www.laboitedejeu.fr/les-tribus-du-vent/

If I’ve never done board games before, and don’t have local friends who do either, but I want to start and maybe do game nights…

How do I figure out what I like? Is there a bluffers guide to board games? A top-3 covering set

Not released this year but I still play a lot of Terraforming Mars which is a good game. From this year I have played Ark Nova and that was great as well.

I haven't gotten a chance to break into it yet, but I anticipate Frosthaven blowing everything out of the water for me.

Our party starts tomorrow!

I've upvoted some comments.

First what I did not see:

- Dune: Imperium, maybe plus Expansion. Nice mix of deckbuilder and worker placement. Only thing that bothers me is the (missing) redraw mechanic for the pool of cards to buy (if there's only crap in the pool, some sucker needs to buy something for good stuff too show up; which the next player then buys). The expansion reduces this because the player can do other things and there are more cards causing cycling/trashing, but I'm still pondering a house rule (auction mechanic).

- Unfathomable: Did not play!!, but this reimplements the Battlestar Galactica board game, which we played a lot during university (maybe a bit too much? Naaa, who needs sleep). Social deduction/traitor mechanic. This is on my wish list, since BSG with all expansions costs about 500 bucks these days (and we only have one copy in my peer group). Drawback: The vibe of BSG is awesome, a lot of aspects of the show are well captured, and I only saw the show much later. Compared to that, Lovecraft [Unfathomable] feels a bit generic. But the principle is still great. And it seems to be streamlined, which is great if you don't have 4 to 8 hours (depends on number of expansions used). [oh, mathgladiator was quicker than me. Well^^']

- Hidden Leaders - played the demo in Essen and liked it. I don't recall details on the mechanics (except: card game), but it's still on my list.

I also got relatively new:

- Goetia, nice worker placement in which you summon demons.

- Galaxy Truckers, which was out of print for a while and is back as a second edition.

Classics:

- 7 Wonders, new edition. I love how it trades player interaction (which is limited in the base game) for scaling well into 7 players (less downtime).

- Power grid, also a new edition. Great auction mechanic. And there is no clear winner until the end (or unless everyone but one player plays bad).

- Hanabi. Cooperative card game in which you only see the other player's hands and can give them tips. The goal is to play cards 1 to 5 in 5 different colors. The basic variant is easy to master, but the real fun begins once you're playing with special colors (e.g. rainbow receives all color tips), or combinations of these. Can also be played at hanab.live - I've got close to 1000 games there. Best (at least imho) is to start playing as a group and develop your own way to play, guided by logics and experience. (And now you know how friends and I spent our time during Corona shutdowns).

The ones I upvoted included

- Root: mixed results with friends, but I like it. There is also a good online adaption in Steam, nice to try it before committing to buying the physical game.

- The Crew, as well as Mission Deep Sea.

- Secret Hitler

I also liked Caverna (again, worker placement).

From other people's posts, think I'll reconsider Betrayal at the house on the hill legacy (need to setup a group for that) and the revised Arkham Horror (we played the original plus various expansions a lot, still have it, but always felt the experience varies wildly between "wow, gg, had a great time" and "meh, what a waste of time", at least after dozens of plays).

Marvel United is the best board game I got into this year.

It's fun, I love the IP, and it doesn't take 45 minutes to set up.

My favorite new-to-me games this year have been Bullet, Canvas, Long Shot: The Dice Game, and Imposter Kings

For a different set of games that I haven't seen so far in this thread:

1. Secret Hitler (or maybe Avalon, which is the strategically marginally richer, but harder to pick up, cousin of Secret Hitler). It's a highly adversarial, intense and fun game. The main downside is that you can't have a relaxed game of Secret Hitler and it tends to expand to take up the whole night (people always want one more game).

2. Code names; more relaxed game, fun even when losing. The main drawback is that it's language focused and everyone needs to have a good command of the English language (at least in the base version of the game), which can be a problem in more international groups.

3. Chinatown; easy to pick up and play even for people with no board games experience. The core of the game involves bargaining with other players and trying to strike various deals to trade resources. The game is designed in such a way that you rarely feel like you're losing - all trades generate surplus for both parties, so the core activity of trading feels very satisfying.

I have introduced the games above to multiple groups and, generally, everyone loved all of them. The one exception being Secret Hitler, as some people found it a bit daunting at first or didn't enjoy the intensity of the game. (on the flip side, others absolutely loved it)

is not from this year, but this year i discovered Shobu.

Some day we need to do a list of MegaGames, that is funnier.

Blackjack 21 and Romanian 'Macao'. Super simple.

We acquired quite a few games this year as a result of games I kickstarted before/during the pandemic finally coming in, but apparently much of them are not even considered as released in 2022 on Board Game Geek. :shrug:

And in classic board game enthusiast fashion, we are acquiring games faster than we can play them.

Disney Villainous Badder & Badder [0]

A 3-character expansion to Disney's Villainous game series. I like the game because the rules are pretty easy to learn so kids and adults can understand and play it, and with the ever-expanding universe, there are more and more favorite characters coming out. This one in particular includes Syndrome (The Incredibles), Lotso (Toy Story 3), and Madam Mim (The Sword in the Stone). I actually haven't played all the characters, but it seems to be pretty well-balanced.

Future Me Problems [1]

A game by a web comic artist whose work I enjoy (Sarah Anderson). It's super simple to pick up, and the art is cute, and the premise of the game is just how hard you can slack off. Good for kids and families.

Hand to Hand Wombat [2]

I can't leave a review of this game because this game is a 3+ player game and my wife and I haven't gotten around to hosting a game night. But the premise is that everyone is supposed to build a tower with their eyes closed, and the "bad wombat" (whose identity no one knows) must sabotage. Sort of a mix of tower-building and mafia, I suppose.

Dune Imperium Rise of Ix [3]

My boss actually bought this for me and I haven't gotten around to playing it, but its an expansion to Dune Imperium, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Mechanically it's pretty deep, so not recommended for non-gamers, but it's a fun twist on the deck-building genre.

Marvel Dice Throne [4]

I've never played a Dice Throne game before, but Marvel Dice Throne is pretty fun. With 8 characters to play as and lots of ways to sabotage your opponents, no two games are ever the same.

Verdant [5]

This is a pretty easy game to pick up, we've played with my in-laws. It's a spatial competitive "puzzle" game (aim is to optimally place your rooms and plants such that you maximize the favorable conditions for each plant and room). A nice blend of strategy and min-maxing. Somehow, despite my min-maxing strategies, my mother-in-law managed to win in our last game, which either says a lot about the game, or about my strategies.

Mind Mgmt [6]

OK, not technically a 2022 game for some reason, but this is a super fun deduction game. One player secretly moves their piece around the map and the rest of the players has to "interview" various tiles to determine where/when the character is. We haven't played past the training mission, but once you start playing the real game, there's a system they call the "SHIFT" system which adds more mechanics to the game depending on which team won. I like the idea, and the game itself is super fun and the art is nice as well.

Honorable Mentions: not board games, but puzzles!

Vizzles [7]

A regular puzzle with themed "riddles/puns" (the ones we've done so far were plays on words of movies and books)

Odd Pieces [8]

Construct a puzzle that is _slightly_ different from what you see on the box (the "lore" is that the puzzle you construct is at a moment in the future of the scene played out in the box).

While video games are enjoyable (just finished collecting all 400 Pokemon in Pokemon Scarlet), sometimes you can't beat a nice screen-free night with friends/family.

[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/352764/disney-villainous...

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/360177/future-me-problem...

[2] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/356909/hand-hand-wombat

[3] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgameexpansion/342031/dune-imp...

[4] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/348406/marvel-dice-thron...

[5] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/334065/verdant

[6] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/284653/mind-mgmt-psychic...

[7] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samuelmilham/vizzles-vi...

[8] https://oddpieces.com/

Top games I've enjoyed this year:

Crew Mission Deep Sea

Wingspan

Azul

Lost Ruins of Arnak

Root

Macao

Viticulture

Castles of Burgundy

Ravine or Space-Team

Chess for me.

Chess.