The wild economy of tabletop board game funding | Hacker News Reader

The wild economy of tabletop board game funding

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Board games are an interesting thing because it's one of those global trends that did not originate in the US. Instead it game from Germany but with quite a bit of delay.

The German version of settlers came out around 1995 IIRC and sparked a big revival of board games (and strategic board games in particular in Germany. Then some time around 2008 or so I had friends in NZ and OZ who used to not play board games tell me about this cool game the wanted to play. I was quite surprised that it was settlers which I had not played since moving overseas in 2004.

So yeah the whole revival originated in Germany, but took about 10 years to suddenly go global.

We were playing settlers already around 2000 in The Netherlands, Belgium and France, all neighbouring countries from Germany.

Got popular in 2005 - 2006 in California

That sounds exactly right based on my recollection.

To be clear, board games have been extremely popular in Germany for a very long time. They just got even MORE popular. I'm not sure there was a house in post-war West Germany that didn't have at least a "games collection", something more or less like this: https://www.amazon.de/Ravensburger-01315-9-Familienspiele/dp...

German boardgames became popular in the late 90s in the UK (although even before then several spiel de jarhes games were in mainstream shops like Toys R Us -- Hare and Tortoise and Scotland Yard come to mind)

Earlier in the 90s the games that were mainly for sale were games like Britania, History of the World, etc. Axis and Allies was always around too.

The German games brought in shorter games though, which didn't take an entire afternoon to play.

With the exception of board games that are related to existing games I already like, I treat Kickstarter as a negative signal for the first year.

Similar to a video game licensed movie, or a movie licensed video game; even if the title has elements I enjoy, I've been burned enough. Playing it is the only way I'll know I love it.

I can't even trust data collection on BGG, because typically the first wave of Kickstarter ratings are by people who have boarded the hype train. Followed by a re-alignment when people who are playing friends' copies step in.

Component quality bias, as well as cost bias are related (and typically compounded by Kickstarter) phenomena.

I stopped kickstarting games too because I've had like a 10% hit rate.

One clear signal to me now is if they offer additional game mechanics as a stretch goal. It's hard enough balancing the base game and making it compelling. If a designer thinks they can do this not once but twice, and in a modular way no less, I question their design sensibilities in the first place.

It's possible that this is a flaw of kickstarting board games in general. The platform incentivizes stretch goals and they don't map well onto most board games.

As someone who isn't a huge board game nerd, would additional cosmetics or characters be reasonable stretch goals? Characters might be harder to balance but if you have extra money, you might be able to invest more into it.

This is an approach similar to what a video game might do.

Even characters are a question mark in my opinion. Easier to balance than adding a game mechanic, but if you don't choose powers carefully, the synergies with other characters can be overwhelming or underwhelming.

Cosmetics would be where I would put the stretch goals at (like upgrading the coins to metal coins (remembering to adjust the shipping cost accordingly), upgrading the player tokens, etc), or very expensive t-shirts (as those print runs can also get complicated fast), or stickers or other "simple" swag.

Disclaimer: Have not run or funded a board game Kickstarter, only heard a podcast about one (https://www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes/threes-a-crowdsourci...)

I don't kickstart board games but I do play a fair few of them (these days on https://boardgamearena.com/ but under other circumstances as physical tabletop games)

What you describe is a fairly common "promo" incentive, once upon a time you might get it in the version bought at a big event or that sort of thing, these days it'd be for Kickstarter backers.

Yes, you can make small customisations that don't significantly change gameplay, for example Viticulture is a game about owning a small vineyard and to add variation you get a "Momma" and "Papa" for your vineyard which tweak how much money or starting equipment you get plus they have names and little illustrations to give them personality. Maybe Papa Phil gives you slightly less money than Papa Eric but a piece of equipment that's worth the difference if you need it - having Papa Phil saves you taking an action buying the equipment with money, but if you don't use that equipment at first you're still short of the cost whereas someone playing Eric can spend it how they wish. Clearly having one or two extra Mamas or Papas as a promo isn't game breaking (so long as the designer doesn't add Papa Scrooge who has twice as much money as everybody else put together or suchlike). In fact Viticulture went with event cards for Promos, which is a bit trickier to balance, but seems to have worked OK in practice.

But often the correct way to design games is to simplify until it's good, not add more and more until playtesters would rather say it's great than risk being asked to waste another six hours on one more test session. Promo features fight that. Would Viticulture work fine with no Mamas and Papas? Yes it would. Would Can't Stop be better with fancy cosmetic player pieces instead of the typical generic ones? Er, no, not really. So such promotional features aren't very good for the hobby as a whole.

That sounds more reasonable. It depends a bit on what kind of game you are making.

What would be an interesting stretch goal is someone promising to take the extra money to spend more time thinking hard on how to remove and simplify mechanics.

Improved components: nicer card stock, thicker cardboard, wood, metal etc.

Piece organizers, additional players expansion are also good stretch goals.

An often overlapping problem is designers splitting a game into "expansions" that they sell at launch as part of the KS. "Here's the core game, it's everything you need to play! Not too expensive right? ....but here's an expansion with some new races. And another with a new hero. And another with some new missions. They're totally optional, but if you don't back them now you'll never ever find them in retail. How much do you trust that we've put all the good bits in the core?"

Awaken Realms has been one of the worst offenders with this (both fake stretch goals and fake expansions) but their newest KS (Nemesis Lockdown) actually abandoned all that for timed feature announcements.

Hopefully the start of a trend.

I think it's important to keep in mind that Kickstarter is not intended for purchasing a proven product, but to fund a product that you believe in, that you think needs to be made. It doesn't always work out that way in practice, but this is what it's intended to be.

For boardgames, stretch goals should indeed not be about adding or changing mechanics; that's a red flag. Stretch goals should probably mostly be about better quality components. Wooden or plastic pieces instead of cardboard, metal pieces instead of wood or plastic, a nicer board, more art, that sort of thing.

Extra options can work if options are already a big part of the game, and these are options the designer seriously considered but left out because they're not essential and too expensive to include. More money could mean they now can afford the non-essential options they originally intended but couldn't afford. But completely new game mechanics are a massive red flag.

It's worth noting that stretch goals are the area where a lot of Kickstarter projects mess up. Their original idea was good, but it was too successful and they promised too ambitious stretch goals which were just in the idea stage and never got properly developed, and suddenly they find themselves having promised things they don't have time for. I think this is one of the primary reasons why successfully over-funded projects end up being late.

Before Kickstarter existed I had read Brian Tinsman's The Game Inventor's Guidebook which explains how to navigate the business side of board game publishing. There's a lot of surprising hurdles a board game must pass, chief among them getting a publisher to agree to print and market your game. Kickstarter helped create an alternative path to publishing but didn't address other key takeaways from the book.

For example: the book talks about the economics of printing game components, warehousing product, and buyer price sensitivity. These all combine to create narrow bands of acceptability for game materials. Kickstarter doesn't change anything about these economics. But now there is no central publisher to steer you away from these predictable issues.

My point then, is that even fancier game components don't make good stretch goals. The high price a game can command on Kickstarter from enthusiasts won't translate to the avg shopper who sees it on a store shelf. And if you print a standard and deluxe edition of your game, you are not effectively capitalizing on Kickstarter preorders to de-risk printing, warehousing, and shipping costs.

It's best to make one game that meets the exacting demands of the Target store shelf if you want to maximize success. Exploding Kittens is probably the best example to date. And that game is not well received by the BoardGameGeek scene (for valid reasons) which highlights the disconnect between the social validation designers crave and market success.

Board games are uniquely well-adapted to the crowdfunding format because the game design can be 100% complete and playtested before any art or manufacturing has even started. (Of course, you need some art to sell the Kickstarter.) The upfront capital for developing a board game is about $40 at the art store.

In the extreme case, some campaigns link to a print-and-play version of the game so you can “try before you buy”. Try to do that with a video game!

There actually are similar things for video games: Steam Greenlight / Early Access for example.

Also: Even a long time ago, both Quake and Quake 3 Arena had free versions out in the open before their relase.

The thing is that Early Access has a very(rightfully so) bad reputation - because board game design needs to be finished prior to campaign, whereas you can drop empty game in early access, promise quite a lot.. and then abandon the project.

And you somehow can't run a crowdfunding campaign for a game that isn't actually worked out and playtested?

It's the same thing: look at what's already there, pay if you think that's good.

You likely can’t run a successful campaign for a non finished/play tested board game, no. There is too much competition for backers to take the risk.

It doesn’t stop people from trying, but there is a reason so many project never get funded.

I’ve backed a lot of board games. I would never back one that has not been throughly play tested, has the rule book basically finished (at least the text if not the images and graphic design), has a play through video, and ideally has some reviews of prototype versions from trusted reviewers.

And it's a good idea to apply similar ideas to early access computer games, which was my point. People will try sell you something that doesn't meet that bar, but you don't have to let them.

The point is that the business is very different - an almost-ready board game has spent just 5-10% of its total budget because all the big money is needed for manufacturing the production run; so an almost-ready board game can need crowdfunding to make it.

However, an almost ready computer game has almost all of the effort (and money) already invested. If it's 90% ready, then it needs some 10% extra money and some beta testing, so it can go on an "early access" sale but does not need crowdfunding to get released.

And if it is at a stage where it still needs 90% of the total budget and wants to gather it from crowdfunding, then you can't apply the same ideas as from a boardgame, because a computer game can't be ready for play until much (or most) of the work and money is already spent, like you can with boardgames.

I hear it has a bad reputation, but it isn't how I understand early access. I invested in a lot of early access stuff and some projects never saw release. That is the risk I took, because without this mechanism of giving people some financial advance, we wouldn't see as many games.

To me, people expecting too much from these investments seem to not have not understood the deal. It is small scale venture capital with no guarantees.

Creating art for such endeavors is not trivial and a lot of work. In case of computer games often more work than the coding. So it would have to be a pretty great idea if you can do with minimal effort in that department.

> It is small scale venture capital with no guarantees.

Kickstarter at least is not this, because if it was VC then backers would be buying equity, not product (often at close-to-retail price).

Fig is closer, since it is set up so that you can purchase shares in future revenue of the project (or just buy the product like Kickstarter), but IIRC you still don't get an ownership share, technically (I haven't looked into it closely since it's not my thing, so could be mistaken).

IMO either one is actually preferably for creators to a VC model since they get to maintain full ownership and their only (semi-) obligation is to deliver the product people pre-paid for.

Imagine if you could fund a tech startup by pre-selling product to customers instead of slicing up ownership of your company before it's even off the ground.

> Imagine if you could fund a tech startup by pre-selling product to customers instead of slicing up ownership of your company before it's even off the ground.

Isn't that (not quite literally) the story of early SpaceX? Admittedly a pretty unusual case, but they did get large long term contracts to fund their development.

Yeah - SpaceX got their first NASA contract after their first successful Falcon 1 flight, with 3 failures before that. The Falcon 9 needed for that NASA contract for ISS resuply was still on the drawing board back then.

"Imagine if you could fund a tech startup by pre-selling product to customers"

I know of a couple tech ventures that did exactly this...they (1) had established a minimum viable audience and then (2) queried their people for what they wanted and how much they would pay for it, and (3) developed technology that delivered above and beyond functionality at (4) less cost than people expected which resulted in (5) a lot of pre-orders that (6) they delivered on which (7) that was the genesis of how they raised $VC to scale rather quickly.

Bring back shareware?

When you can download anything of any size what's shareable about shareware? I feel like the social aspect of sharing it was as motivating as the freeness of it.

Its strange to me that the article says that board games are booming during the pandemic.

I haven't been able to have a regular board game night in months :-( I tried online but didn't love it (I suppose I should try it some more); I wish I could see how to do it in person and maintain physical distance, but it looks doubtful.

> Its strange to me that the article says that board games are booming during the pandemic.

Households of more than 1 member are probably looking for more things to do at home together.

Playing board games during the pandemic has finally allowed me to meet my roommates after like a year of living here. It's an introverted place.

Hijack. Has ANYONE found a way to play multiplayer Catan online? All the sites dont work it seems.

Tabletop Simulator is usually the go-to for basically any online board game.

TTS is a real last resort. It's the "Let's try hitting it with a hammer and see if that fixes it" of ways to play board games.

I have an ongoing Gloomhaven campaign inside TTS. 50% of every session is people wailing and yelling as stupid things are simulated that we don't care about. Oh you dropped that piece on the edge of a piece of cardboard so it fell over. Oh you put this token at the wrong angle so it doesn't count. Ugh.

When the same group of people play anything else we play it either in dedicated software or in https://boardgamearena.com/

Unfortunately BGA doesn't have Catan though its management have said they would cheerfully pay to offer Catan.

...Vassal?

https://colonist.io

I've played many times and it works great. Def worth having someone in your common circle that participates a lot to purchase the additional member pass (up to 4 players is free). The only thing is that it doesn't take into account extension pack rules for higher number of players but to me that's barely an issue let alone a deal breaker.

I played JSettlers a lot, ages ago. The (free) host moved around a bit, so would lose its critical mass of players. Looks like it lives on here: https://github.com/jdmonin/JSettlers2

I haven't tried colonist.io (cited in other reply), though from a brief peek it looks very polished. Am eager to try it.

You should try out Tabletop Simulator for board games, or Roll20 for tabletop roleplaying like D&D. Both of these offer good options for online gaming in this space.

For purposes of an industry being 'booming' I'd say those are computer games, rather than tabletop games.

I beg to differ - RPG's played via roll2d0 Fantasy ground etc are not different to those played FTF.

Personally I don't like TTRPG as DnD precedes Computer based RPG's by decades and also TTRPG makes me think or more wargaming derived skirmish games 7tv or even Force on Force and so on.

An industry is booming if you're buying their products, and people use the same books to play D&D whether they're doing it in person or using a virtual tabletop. I admit this is more true for roleplaying games than board games, because you don't really need to buy a board game to play it on Tabletop Simulator, but Roll20 definitely sells a lot of WotC products, with their own value add (virtual tabletop integration) on top of it bumping the price a bit. Which arbitrary point you choose to start considering them to be computer games isn't important when it's the same industry either way.

As an aside, does anyone know where I could learn about Tabletop Simulator? I keep seeing it recommended, but when I got a copy I can't stand the UI. I feel like I'm always grabbing the wrong thing and accidentally losing pieces off the edge etc. I've tried playing the puzzle game and the Majong and both were terrible. I then tried a community version of Race for the Galaxy that nearly drove me crazy.

All I can say to you is that it takes a bit of patience to get good in TTS. I was very clumsy in the beginning. The community made games vary a lot in quality. You should look for mods that have a bit of scripting to help with setup and game admin, sometimes the scripts are broken, though. We do a voice call with all players during the game.

It has a tutorial function that works well enough. If you're playing with friends with mics you can just ask them if you don't know how to do a certain action.

Yeah, it seems insane to me that the whole thing is predicated on the idea that simulated physics is the best way to play a board-game online. (i guess this is the nature of current game engines, when you have a hammer everything lookslike a nail)

If you're used to navigating 3d space in video games or whatever you can probably pick it up but my gaming group is almost exclusively non-videogamers and the idea of getting them to play games through this thing is just a total non-starter.

Also it feels like a bit of a slap in the face to game designers that every player needs their own copy of TTS (~$20 each) yet designers -- whose wokr and IP is the pretty much the whole selling point -- will see none of that.

> it seems insane to me that the whole thing is predicated on the idea that simulated physics is the best way to play a board-game online

I disagree that's the approach of Tabletop Simulator. I mean, yes, it is a physics playground, but it is also much more. It includes some common actions like flipping, shuffling or drawing from a deck of cards. It includes grids to easily align game pieces. And most of all, it includes scripts which actually put some constraints on the "simulated physics" part, automating "maintenance" parts of a game, while also potentially enforcing game rules.

Yeah, I know that but it the physics and 3d first and the other stuff is optional -- the price of entry is being able to navigate a 3d world with pretty janky physics inside a computer. It's certainly a flexible toolset (though there are some real gotchas in there e.g. how bags work (they're decks so don't forget to shuffle them, you know, like you have to do with real bags)) but I find the approach of somethign like boardgamelab[1] more promising, particularly in terms of accessibility.

[1] https://boardgamelab.app

Your parents have probably bought more board games this quarter than they did last decade though...

Have a spouse and lots of kids ;-)

I also have some friends who entered into a quarantine pact. They don’t go around anyone else except each other. That way they can keep meeting up for board game night.

I'm lucky enough to have 5 other friends that decided we're the only people we will be seeing in person. None of us are in situations requiring interactions with other people (IE essential workers) and we're all in the same wavelength regarding hygiene.

So I went through a phase of backing a lot of board game Kickstarters, which probably started with Scythe, a game I missed out on (and bought off the BGG marketplace, at a premium). But I think Scythe is an outlier here.

I've gotten a number of mediocre games but some good ones (eg 7th Continent, Gloomhaven). In some cases what I bought ended up being cheaper at retail. I have gotten some reprints though, which are of course more of a known quantity.

I will say though that one nice thing to come out of all of this is "premium pieces". That's why I bought the Scythe Collector's edition. The game remains the same for those unwilling or unable to pay the premium but for people like myself with the ability and inclination to do so, it makes the gaming experience just a little nicer.

But I rarely back Kickstarters now. I'm glad it exists as a means of bootstrapping games.

I'd really like to get into more board games, but so many of them have an occult flavor to them.

Suggestions? I have Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Carcassonne.

Dominion

I'm not sure Dominion is a great choice if the OP is trying to avoid anything occult-related. Isn't the Witch a card in the base set?

OP, I would just go on BoardGameGeek and browse through the top-rated games. Just looking at a game's page should be enough to tell you if the content is acceptable.

Yes, that's why I linked to the list https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame?sort=rank directly.

Though honestly, as a newbie, you should probably look through one of the curated game lists: the bare rating that a game has seldom lines up with what a beginner might be looking for. For a start, it's mostly heavier games that have very high ratings.

And like many ratings sites BGG ends up weighted to novelty. Is this really the best movie / novel / video game / comic book / burger ? No, probably not, but it's the popular new one right now among people who watched a lot of movies, read a lot of novels, played a lot of video games, read a lot of comic books or ate a lot of burgers as appropriate.

Unlike built-in ratings (e.g. Uber, eBay) these ratings do at least provide some value at the low end. There are a fair few games on BGG with 5.0 or lower ratings and you probably just don't want those games, sight unseen.

BGG makes an attempt to correct for novelty: for their ranking their add a few hundred synthetic votes that give your game an average score.

Try Coup!

Dominion, Pandemic, Istanbul

Not Constantinople?

Puerto Rico, Agricola

Wingspan is really fun and is 100% based on birds.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/266192/wingspan

Modern Art https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/118/modern-art

I was ready to chide you for sending this person on a fruitless quest for a copy of Modern Art, only to find out they have been reprinting the proper version again since at least last year! I fell in love with it playing a friend of a friend's copy, but for years the only version in print had the auction elements removed.

Sagrada is one I've personally played and recommend. I've heard a lot of people recommend Sushi Go but I haven't given it a play myself.

Check out BoardGameGeek if you haven't yet, there's every theme and mechanic out there you can think of, and you can see games related to ones you already like, highest rated games, curated lists, etc.

Battlestar Galactica is a really good board game. It is a cooperative game with a traitor mechanic.

You're getting some downvotes for this recommendation it looks like.

My personal observations about BSG:

As a traitor-mechanic game it suffers severely if the traitor doesn't know how to play well or if someone gets bored and isn't paying attention.

Again in particular with coop-with-traitor-mechanic games, it is very vulnerable to loud alpha-gamer quarterbacking ("Hey! Everyone needs to support this plan because it's clearly The Best Plan, and if you don't you're clearly the traitor because you're playing sub-optimally.")

It takes a long time, 2 hours minimum and I've been subjected to 4 hour games.

Put simply, it is generally not fun for a rookie gamer.

Recommendation:If this game of cooperative play with traitor mechanic sounds interesting to you, I recommend the game "The Resistance: Avalon", which has similar mechanics but plays in 20 minutes optimally and 50 minutes for a slow game. Compare with 120 minutes to 240 minutes in my experience for BSG.

Disclaimer:I've played BSG twice (same group), I've hated it twice, and I refuse to play it anymore. I do not consider myself a rookie, and I personally prefer shorter (120 minutes or less), simpler games.

'Secret Hitler' is another interesting variation on Avalon.

I played both a lot, and like 'Secret Hitler' because they pared down the number of game mechanics a lot, and still left a meatier game.

I've played New Angeles which is the replacement for Battlestar Galactica using the Android setting instead of a licensed setting.

I hate traitor mechanics, and I'm not a big fan of the Android setting (Android itself I find not much fun) - but I found the mechanism in New Angeles acceptable. One player did indeed screw everybody else over, and it wasn't the most fun I've had in that amount of time, but I'd do it again some weekend I think.

The popular game I refuse to play is "Firefly: The Game". The friend who owns it says "Well it's flawed but it really captures the TV show". I hadn't enjoyed our first game of Firefly and hadn't seen the TV show, though I had seen the movie, so I watched the TV show. The next time I explained to him that he'd been correct. It exactly captures the TV show, in that the TV show's writer clearly doesn't understand that he's writing a story about the bad guys. Stories about bad guys can be fun. There don't even need to be good guys, there arguably aren't any good guys in "The Wire" for example - but the writer does need to be aware they're telling a story about bad guys. Firefly thinks these people are heroes. And so does the terrible board game.

That's a very hot take on Firefly. What did you think of Star Wars, a story about jihadi terrorists?

Star Wars is the story about Space Wizards right? It's like a Western, except it has Space Wizards for some reason and also the main hero wants to fuck his sister? Some of them were pretty OK, I liked the one where Indiana Jones is captured by Space Nazis. I didn't watch all of them, there are lots and it seems like the quality is very variable.

Saboteur is another simpler traitor-mechanic game with a quick play time.

> I'd really like to get into more board games, but so many of them have an occult flavor to them.

How did you come to this conclusion? It's... completely disconnected from reality.

If I go to boardgamegeek.com and look at the "the hotness" sidebar, there are 15 games (of which two, Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, would appear to be closely related).

In descending order of "occult flavor":

1. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

2. Spirit Island (in which you play as pagan deities trying to repel the forces of civilization)

3. Gloomhaven (perfectly ordinary dungeon crawler, as far as I see)

4. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

5. Lost Ruins of Arnak (makes some reference to "fearsome guardians" associated with the remnants of a lost civilization)

At this point, there is zero "occult flavor" associated with any of the 10 remaining games. So, in the order listed on the site:

6. Pendulum - "Players command their workers, execute stratagems, and expand the provinces in their domain in real time to gain resources and move up the four victory tracks: power, prestige, popularity, and legendary achievement."

7. Dead Reckoning - "is a game of exploration, piracy, and influence based in a Caribbean-esque setting. Each player commands a ship and crew and seeks to amass the greatest fortune."

8. Imperial Struggle - "is a two-player game depicting the 18th-century rivalry between France and Britain. It begins in 1697, as the two realms wait warily for the King of Spain to name an heir, and ends in 1789, when a new order brought down the Bastille."

9. Terraforming Mars - "Giant corporations, sponsored by the World Government on Earth, initiate huge projects to raise the temperature, the oxygen level, and the ocean coverage until the environment is habitable. In Terraforming Mars, you play one of those corporations and work together in the terraforming process, but compete for getting victory points that are awarded not only for your contribution to the terraforming, but also for advancing human infrastructure throughout the solar system, and doing other commendable things."

10. Godzilla: Tokyo Clash - "you play as the Earth's most fearsome Kaiju — Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah, and Megalon — battling for dominance as the most terrifying monster in Japan."

11. Wingspan - "You are bird enthusiasts—researchers, bird watchers, ornithologists, and collectors—seeking to discover and attract the best birds to your network of wildlife preserves."

12. Maracaibo - "is set in the Caribbean during the 17th century. The players try to increase their influence in three nations in four rounds with a play time of 40 minutes per player."

13. Brass: Birmingham - "tells the story of competing entrepreneurs in Birmingham during the industrial revolution, between the years of 1770-1870. As in its predecessor, you must develop, build, and establish your industries and network, in an effort to exploit low or high market demands."

14. Everdell - "the time has come for new territories to be settled and new cities established. You will be the leader of a group of critters [forest wildlife] intent on just such a task. There are buildings to construct, lively characters to meet, events to host—you have a busy year ahead of yourself. Will the sun shine brightest on your city before the winter moon rises?"

15. Root - "The nefarious Marquise de Cat has seized the great woodland, intent on harvesting its riches. Under her rule, the many creatures of the forest have banded together. This Alliance will seek to strengthen its resources and subvert the rule of Cats."

I was inclined to disagree with the OP, but if a third of the top board games could reasonably be described as having an occult flavor, they seem connected with reality. That’s high enough that it seems okay to ask for help choosing a game.

Gloomhaven is full of demons and Lovecraftian monsters to fight, by the way, and the player characters use summons and dark magic. Great game; we’re on roughly our 40th play session tomorrow!

> if a third of the top board games

I don't think it makes sense to consider Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion independently. There are other issues with this count -- for example, Lost Ruins of Arnak doesn't appear to, technically, exist yet -- but that would be the main one.

If, instead of the "the hotness" sidebar, I look at the top 20 games by rating, then those with more than zero potential occult flavor are:

1. Gloomhaven

13. Spirit Island

19. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

(with potential honorable mentions going to Star Wars: Rebellion and War of the Ring: Second Edition, depending on your opinion of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings.) This is 15%, not 33%.

You have to know what it is you're trying to count. A Feast for Odin (#23) might be objectionable on the grounds that you are thematically honoring a pagan god. But it involves no supernatural phenomena whatsoever. Mage Knight (#24) is a war game in which you use magic.

I would mentally classify Mage Knight in the same genre as superheroes rather than occultism, but somebody else might differ. But my larger point is, it's a mistake to look at those two games, acknowledge that they both meet (very different) definitions of occultism, and then conclude that occultism is extremely prevalent. First define what occultism is, and then you'll notice that the number of games actually meeting that definition is much smaller than the number of games potentially meeting any definition.

I’m fine with your revised criteria but still think it shows the OP was somewhat reasonable to ask for help. You insulted them pretty badly. They’ve gotten good recommendations from other users, though.

It’s not a third of the top board games. It’s 5 out of 15 games.

I’ve played enough games to realise anything in the top 200 is probably quite good. Probably anything from 201 to 500 is is also good.

Erring on the side of caution, maybe 20% of the top 200 may have magic or occult elements. I have far too many board games. I maybe have 5 that are occultish, have magic or pagan religions. I’m actually really surprised. I thought it would be more. I have more games about farming.

I don’t know if I would use the hotness list. Some of those games, like Pendelum, don’t even exist yet (or aren’t for sale).

I would take a look at the list of family games instead.

https://boardgamegeek.com/familygames/browse/boardgame?sort=...

How is it "completely disconnected from reality" if a third of the games in your random sample fit the description?

Admittedly "occult" is a bit vague. Does it refer to everything with a fantasy or supernatural theme? Then it's undeniable that it's a popular theme for games. Fantasy, magic, horror, superheroes; there's plenty there that sparks the imagination of gamers and game designers, and if that's a theme someone dislikes or objects to, then that's a pretty big chunk they're losing out on.

Still, there are indeed a lot of games that don't touch on any of those topics at all. Shop around a bit, look into different kind of games.

Or use BBG's advanced search[0] to filter out all the themes you don't like[1]. (In this search, I filtered out everything fantasy, horror, religious or mythological.)

[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/advsearch/boardgame [1] https://boardgamegeek.com/search/boardgame?sort=rank&advsear...

Azul / Brass / Flamme Rouge / Barenpark!

That's honestly not enough info to go on.

What do you mean by "occult" - as in, like, literally they seem to tie into subjects you have a religious objection to? Or just that they seem like they're designed by and for spooky people who hide in basements?

Who are you playing with? Kids? Adults? Do you have a regular group? How large is the group? How often are you looking to play, and how long into the night?

What do you like about Catan, TTR, and Carcassonne? What older boardgames did you like before?

Like, I can say if you like the mechanics of TTR and the leveling-up feel of Catan, you should get Splendor... but if you're hungry for just more Catan, with deeper and more elaborate gameplay I'd say jump to Cities and Knights of Catan, the expantion that makes the game level up higher.

Do you love the tile laying of Carcassonne, but want something where you feel like you have more control? Get Kingdomino.

If you love tile laying but want less control and more mayhem, and love the exasperated agony of watching your hard work collapse? Including real-time rushing? Like, ever tried playing Jenga with a chess-clock? If that sounds fun, get Galaxy Truckers.

Want to explore the social side? Have a large group? Resistance Avalon. The game is pure social deduction - figure out who among you are traitors before they take control of the game. If your group is in for black comedy, there's a Weimar Republic themed game that's similar called Secret Hitler.

Ever tried a co-op game? Want something thematic to our modern pain? Pandemic - you and a bunch of specialists run around the world treating cities and hunting for cures.

Two quick games that qualify, that are liked by people who like the games you have:

Azul: (lovely) tile laying reminiscent of stained glass. Games take 30-45 minutes and explaining the game takes just a few of those.

Kingdomino: tile laying around a castle to connect different types of lands for points. Has an effective mechanic to trade off getting better tiles against future opportunity. Children play this game easily but adults also like it.

Note that Azul is a masonry game but the sequel, Azul: Stained Glass Sintra, is about stained glass. Both are excellent, but I personally find the sequel just overall a better experience.

Thank you! My mistake.

Also, in the 'abstract games about stained glass' category, Sagrada is a 100x better than Azul 2: The Glassening. It's a fantastic little puzzle game that's a bit different every playthrough.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/199561/sagrada

I’ve only played the original Azul and Sagrada, but Sagrada didn’t really do it for us (while we love Azul). What are you seeing in Sagrada that we are not?

I find that Sagrada is a better game when you've got players of mixed ages and skill levels playing -- it tends to be much more of a level field because the strategy doesn't matter quite so much between rounds unlike Azul. The scoring system in Sagrada is also a little more straightforward in that its pretty obvious how to maximize your points. The game is also generally less adversarial than Azul, which is good if you're trying to do a couple rounds after a family dinner or something. It ends up being a little more of a game you can share a drink or a dessert over -- whereas Azul quickly turns competitive.

Basically, Sagrada's the game I bring to family gatherings, Azul's the game I bring to board game nights for a warmup/cooloff game.

You’ve sold me on Sagrada. I’ve the same two needs you distinguished between in your last sentence.

With Azul, it's basically the same puzzle every time, and you're dealing with the particular order in which things are available. Sagrada's goals and special moves switch out every game, which makes each game its own puzzle. This adds a lot of replay value for me, though there's also a lot of random variance in the puzzle difficulty: sometimes it's a very easy puzzle and everyone gets near-perfect points, and sometimes it's deliciously difficult.

Root

I think personally I wouldn't say having a "witch" as a character in a game would make it occult related, but assuming that you do find it that way, then here are some games I've enjoyed that I don't think even remotely touch on the occult.

- Photosynthesis, a competitive puzzle game where you are a species of tree. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/218603/photosynthesis

- Flash Point, a cooperative game where you are a team of fire fighters. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/100901/flash-point-fire-...

- Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra, a game where you make stained glass windows. https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/256226/azul-stained-glas...

Hanabi is a good cooperative puzzle game based around a fireworks factory.

If you like games with an economic component, the Power Grid franchise is fun to play. Each map has a special twist on the rules, such as not being able to buy uranium on the North Korean market, and you can only buy from the North or South market each turn (not both).

Sure. But other than "no occult" you didn't give much indication what you want. So, how about a push-your-luck game: Can't Stop.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/41/cant-stop

Too pure a "game" and you'd prefer a bit more theme? Maybe a chance to see how history might have been different if you'd been in charge during the Cold War?: Twilight Struggle.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamefamily/51380/game-twiligh...

Better to stay away from politics as well as the occult? Is it OK to make wine (you are not obliged to drink the wine)?: Viticulture

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/128621/viticulture

If it's OK to make wine, how about whisky?: Clans of Caledonia

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/216132/clans-caledonia

If it's not OK to make wine (or whisky) how about electricity?: Power Grid

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2651/power-grid

Are we playing the same board games? There's only a small minority that has an occult flavour.

Have a look at eg the full list of games on boardgamegeek https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame?sort=rank (sorted by rating).

Splendor: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/148228/splendor

FYI I was kind of surprised when I saw that game only received a 7.5, but then I checked Catan for reference an that only received a 7.2 rating so make of that what you will.

Yeah, one moment the kids are playing Dominion and the next they’re summoning Beetlejuice instead of attending Mass.

Pandemic [0] is a fantastic co-op game with a relevant-to-the-times theme. If you like the base game, then consider Pandemic Legacy [1], which is probably the best board game I've ever played.

And if you just want some chaotic fun, Magic Maze [2] is a real-time, co-op game where the division of labor is split along actions (move up/down, move left/right) rather than across players. There's a very short time-limit, so games are quick but stressful, if you take them seriously, or hilarious, if you don't.

[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/30549/pandemic

[1] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-s...

[2] https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/209778/magic-maze

Magic Maze is brilliant, but not suitable for people who are stressed or burned out.

Agricola

Generally: Mechs and Minions, Zombicide Agricola and Pandemic

For family fun 'Bang'

Munchkin' is the go to game when we have annual holiday with some uni friends. Great speed of game, the betrayal element is great for that crowd plus kids 10+ enjoy and get in on the adult banter.

Occult is just one of many, many popular themes in board games. Others are:

* trains (Trans America, Ticket to Ride, Empire Builder, 1830)

* animals (Wingspan has been mentioned),

* building (Catan, Pillars of the Earth, Argicola),

* trading (Le Havre, Cuba) (note: trading as a theme, not necessarily a game mechanic)

* evolution (Primordial Soup, Evolution)

* space combat (Core Worlds, X-Wing)

* history (Through the Ages, Civilization)

(I've tried to order the games roughly from easy to complex)

It's certainly true that fantasy, horror, and occult are also popular themes. Perhaps more so in Anglo-Saxon-style games than in Eurogames, which can be about extremely mundane things, like maintaining a garden or sewing a patchwork.

A couple of other interesting non-fantasy games:

El Dorado (finding your way through the wilderness)

Power Grid (generating power and supplying it to cities)

Terraforming Mars (theme is obvious)

Twilight Struggle (the Cold War)

Check on BoardgameGeek[0]. Also pay attention to complexity, time and age requirements. Some games are very big, complex and time-consuming, others are quick and easy. Catan, Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne are all classics that fall somewhere in the middle.

[0] https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame

Some we like are Azul, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Kingdomino, Splendor, Castles of Burgundy, Pandemic: Iberia, Lanterns, Isle of Skye, Concordia, Kingdom Builder, and Potion Explosion.

Given the ones you suggest in your post, I'd say:

  Agricola
  Race for the Galaxy
  Tiny Epic Galaxies
  Splendor

Would all be good for the same kind of player counts as them, without any occult theming.

I’m a fan of Citadels. If you can, get the version with the original artwork. The new artwork just isn’t the same.

There's been some amazing games to come out recently. Here's a few I'd suggest based on the ones you like.

- Quacks of Quedlinberg: https://www.boardgameatlas.com/search/game/M7r9tO1GbX/the-qu...

- Wingspan: https://www.boardgameatlas.com/search/game/5H5JS0KLzK/wingsp...

- Tiny Towns: https://www.boardgameatlas.com/search/game/iEEoo9hTRo/tiny-t...

- Welcome To: https://www.boardgameatlas.com/search/game/I77I9HybTm/welcom...

Each of them are widely popular recent games that have a similar amount of rules to the ones you own and still offer some good strategy and fun for nearly everyone I've played with.

Most of the more "euro" games would fit the bill. Two of my favorites that are on the lighter side of complexity are Ulm and Imhotep.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191862/imhotep https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191876/ulm

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