A quick look at the nominees for 2018’s “Board Game of the Year” | Hacker News Reader

A quick look at the nominees for 2018’s “Board Game of the Year”

arstechnica.com

70 pointsTomte8 comments

> A polarizing title, The Mind is either a work of minimalist genius or "not even really a game." Essentially, you get a deck of cards with numbers from 1 to 100 on them. Each player gets a certain number of cards each round (it increases each round), and then everyone must play those cards to the table, in ascending order, without speaking or signaling.

As children, my siblings, friends, and I played a game very similar to "The Mind". Starting at one, the group had to count by ones up to as large a number as possible. Anyone could speak at anytime, but if you said a number when someone else was speaking you all lost.

The mechanic is slightly different than "The Mind", but the tension from deciding when to speak was similar to the tension of deciding when to play your card.

To me, "The Mind" feels a bit too simplistic and childish to win game of the year. But perhaps others relish its simplicity.

Ars has been an excellent and in-depth source of board games and (!) space launch coverage. If you are into either, it's definitely worth following their feed.

An example of their Rocket Report - https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/rocket-report-small-...

Mind actually sounds like a game version of those many ‘island of logician’ logic puzzles, where you have some absurd scenario where a bunch of people are unable to communicates but have some non mutual information and you need to figure out how many nights it takes for them all to figure out what happened.

I was thinking more that it sounds like it exemplifies 'yomi'. The real game is the meta-game.

For any newcomers to the hobby looking for a semi-complex game-night staple, I'd recommend "7 Wonders". Works with 3-7 players, and is absolute genius.

There is also a two player version, 7 Wonders: Duel, that is lot of fun. My wife and I have been stocking up on the two player games since our son was born.

Any others you can recommend?

Absolutely! There are not many, but we have got lots and lots of hours out of these:

- Mr. Jack: My highest recommendation. One player is "Mr. Jack" (one of, I think, eight characters) and the other player is trying to find/arrest him. Some very fun mechanics and generally seems like an evenly matched game.

- Rivals for Catan: Great if you are in to Settlers. Lots of expansions as well.

- Patchwork: Relaxing, fun little "quilt building" game. We always take this one camping for quick plays.

- Boss Monster: A very basic dungeon building game not specifically for two players. We bought this randomly from a book store while on vacation and have been pleasantly surprised by it, though not much depth overall.

- Takenoko: Also not specifically two players, but still very fun with only two. This is a very clam little game about planting and eating bamboo (:

- Terra Mystica: If you are in to longer, complex games, this is probably my favorite game in general. The two player setup is a little forced and it's definitely way more fun with four, but I highly recommend it in general.

Have fun!

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