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.
> 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.
Endless Winter was super popular at Spiel, with endless lines of people waiting for the tables to play it, but I was a bit disappointed by it. "Mechanics soup" is a good description. I felt Ruins of Arnak was a lot more cohesive.
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.