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About OgreCave and its staff
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 12 Board Game Gifts in 2010 |
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Twelve Boxes for Christmas By Demian Katz, Matthew Pook, Allan Sugarbaker, Mike Sugarbaker, Lee Valentine, and Andy Vetromile What's that you say? You're ready to commit to a larger, possibly more complex game as a gift this year? Or maybe you just want a new game or two for your own boardgaming shelf? By now, you should know the Cave dwellers of OgreCave have you covered each holiday season. Whether for the board gamer on your list or for your own gaming needs, here's some strategically selected gift suggestions from 2010:
10 Days in the Americas
Lords of Vegas
Castle Ravenloft
If you think running through the halls of a monster-filled castle sounds like a good time, you're not alone. Read OgreCave's full
review of Castle Ravenloft.
Irondie
The Speicherstadt
Thinking of plying your wares? Then be sure to read OgreCave's full
review of The Speicherstadt.
Claustrophobia
Think you might descend into Hell this holiday? Don't answer that. Instead, read OgreCave's full
review of Claustrophobia.
Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements
See if you'd like to join the expedition – read OgreCave's full
review of Thunderstone: Wrath of the Elements.
Gosu
Dixit
Innovation
Sid Meier's Civilization: The Board Game
Dominion: Prosperity
That's the end of our third gift list for 2010, providing more
"centerpiece" gifts to wow the crowd in your gaming circle. But we have
many other suggestions if you don't see the perfect gift yet. Check our lists and look
at other 2010 gift lists for the
slightly pricier items we'd recommend.
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Armchair world travelers have another indulgence for their wandering
ways in the form of the 10 Days game series. Each player must
complete a ten-day trip plan, swapping out one destination or
transportation tile at a time from a few face-up options – much
like an extrapolation of Gin Rummy. In this latest set, prospective
travelers will reference the map board that covers North, Central and
South America and the Caribbean to make sure their trip plans are
possible. The first player to plot out an entire ten-day journey by
foot, plane, or the new cruise ships, wins the game. Gamers who can
adjust their strategy on the fly will find 10 Days in the
Americas to be quite a trip.
We always trust Mike Selinker and
James Ernest to come through with strong game mechanics that fit the
theme, and with Lords of Vegas, they've done it again. Players
are Las Vegas developers, competing to create the best, most profitable
casinos along a section of the Strip. Dice and counters mark each
developer's areas of influence, which determines the flow of cash and
victory points each round. No single approach is a surefire win each
time – being aggressive and moving in on a rival development can
pay off, as can a lucky die roll or two. That's Vegas, baby! 
Long is the shadow that Count Strahd von Zarovich has cast over
Dungeons & Dragons, so the opportunity to face the fearsome
vampire once again will be relished by many gamers. This finely
appointed cooperative boardgame lets stalwart adventurers venture into
the crypts below Castle Ravenloft to thwart the evil vampire lord's
plans. Its mechanics are a streamlined version of Dungeons & Dragons
Fourth Edition, making for simple rules, but this is a tough game to
beat – the danger never lets up, and who knows when strange things
might happen or the Count himself might strike! The cooperative element
is balanced by everyone taking turns to trigger traps and control the
monsters, so there is no need for a referee. Also a great introduction
to D&D 4E, the Castle Ravenloft Board Game offers challenging play
against a relentless foe, true to the misty realm of dread itself.
As collectible game fads go, collectible dice games didn't get far. But
for the right gamer, an Irondie set could be the perfect
collector's item. Dice fanatics will drool over the odd,
pseudo-futuristic shapes of solid metal, six-sided dice, which are easy
to read despite the strange configurations. There's even a combat
system, where each die has different abilities according to shape and
color (yes, Irondie really is a game). Note that only nine dice
are in each starter blister – one of each shape – and each
package is comprised of a single color of dice. Between that and the Euro
conversion rate, this makes Irondie a bit of a luxury item. But a
true dice addict won't care about the inconveniences, wanting only to
wield these unique cube-like items in as many different games as
possible.
This game has players running warehouses over the course of a year,
competing to earn the most victory points by managing resources
efficiently and avoiding fires. While it features the expected Eurogame
wooden cubes and revolves around a central auction mechanic, the game is
made distinctive by its use of cards. The resources up for auction each
round come from a deck that is ordered to reflect the passing seasons.
There aren't many duplicate cards in the deck, and each season is
characterized by different options, so the game has a strong sense of
progression, and players are forced to think on their feet since the
same opportunities rarely present themselves twice. While this probably
isn't a great gift for beginners, it may be a good choice for
experienced strategy fans – it's a bit distinctive, but chances are they
haven't heard of it yet... unless they read our review earlier this
year!
If Space Hulk and Hell Dorado had a child with simple
rules it would be Claustrophobia. The year is 1634. New
Jerusalem is under assault from the forces of Hell. A warrior priest
called the Redeemer is sent into Hell along with a chain gang of
condemned criminals to teach the demons a lesson. The game features
fun, fast gameplay and wonderful components, including 17 pre-painted
miniatures. Claustrophobia is played on a varied map composed of large,
full-color tiles, creating tremendous replay value. The designer, Croc, and
the publisher, Asmodee Editions, release new scenarios regularly for
free on the web, keeping the game fresh. You could do much worse than to get Claustrophobia.
Those of you
who know Thunderstone (possibly from 
Gosu (short for "Goblin Supremacy") is a unique style of game. It is
not a deck-building game or a CCG, but it is driven by card drafting and
card combo mechanics. From a common deck of 100 goblins, players draw
hands and begin to draft goblins into their armies. Each army will be a
maximum of 15 cards at any one time. There are 75 distinct goblins plus
25 more duplicates to form a deck of 100 cards. The game has great
artwork, though the fonts are pretty small. It also has a nice mechanic
that feels something like a single deck CCG draft where every card
enters play the second you draft it. Gosu is reasonably priced and
portable. It's a really different sort of game that could find a happy
home with fans of deck building games and CCGs.
A picture is worth a thousand words, but in Dixit you can't
afford to be too chatty. Following in Apples to Apples' footsteps,
it uses a deck of surreal, hand-painted images – goldfish-filled
crystal balls, cyclones springing from the hand, and rabbits in knightly
armor, to name a few. Actually, naming them is your job: three to six
players take turns being the active player, who secretly chooses a card
from his hand and gives it a title. Everyone else takes from their hand
a card they believe could be mistaken for that name. These are shuffled
and revealed, and everyone secretly votes for the card they think
belongs to the active player. If some players, but not all, get it
right, he and those who chose it receive points – he wants his
title to be suggestive enough to garner some votes, not obvious enough
to get all of them. Votes for incorrect cards give the owners points.
Dixit is an excellent inroad for getting kids to game, think, and
create, and handicaps aren't generally necessary for any but the
youngest players. It's clean, harmless fun.
At first blush, Innovation is a little less than winsome with its
plethora of big blocky colored icons on big blocks of color. Get the
cards under your hands, though, and get them moving with the game's
mechanics of directional splaying, and the game's beauty and depth shine
through. Pile up resources to buy your way up the technology chain,
manage them to minimize vulnerability to other players, score
achievements, and make unreasonable demands of the other players.
Innovation is, well, innovative – and arguably does
Civ-in-a-nutshell gameplay better than any of the competition.
Truly, it is morning in Ameritrash. There are games of SidCiv's scope
out there that might be more elegant, but who could resist a mashup of
FFG's greatest hits – including designer Kevin Wilson's criminally
underrated WarCraft Board Game and some highlights from StarCraft –
into a sweeping, epic civilization builder plus some nice, detailed
dice-chucking fights? No one Santa wants to know, that's who. In our
ogrish experience this one has been quick to learn, tight and tense to
play, and scrumptiously flavorful.
Nothing says "holidays" like rejuvenation, and nothing rejuvenates a
game quite like a whole mess of treasure. The card-drafting CCG-ish game
Dominion, having faded a bit from obcession to fond favorite,
needed this shot in the arm. Prosperity is borderline-ridiculous
in the amount of money it puts into Dominion decks, but
borderline-ridiculous is an improvement over some of the
cartoonish interactions introduced by the prior two expansion sets.
Above all, Prosperity feels like a return to the basics of what
makes Dominion fun: buying stuff, making your friends groan with
anguish, and buying more stuff. If you know a former Dominion
fiend who's cooled off on it, Prosperity might just do them the
favor of restoring their past investment to an active presence on their
game table.