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2025 Recap
Though this New Year’s board game post is 3 weeks late, it’s still arriving earlier than Todd on game night. Get it together T-dog. 2025 was a great year for games and today I am handing out my annual awards! So with no further ado, here are the winners of my 2025 unsolicited opinions …
The Game I Need to Play More is ...
Dune: Imperium
It sucks when your #2 favorite game is a contender for “shot down the most on game night by Todd.” D*mm*t Todd! That is my experience with Dune: Imperium. I guess not everyone is down for sand cocaine and concubine love stories. Complete losers those dorks. Dune: Imperium has become my favorite deck-building worker-placement game and the only game I enjoy with an IP. Except Nemesis … but that IP is a felony so lets move on. Dune: Imperium’s three main concepts (Resource-gathering, dual-use cards, and unavoidable combat) all heavily rely on the 5 card hand you will draw each turn and makes each worker placement decision agonizing. A worker location may offer the resources you want, but will it help you battle that a-hole who dropped a dreadnought and 5 Saudukar into the desert wastelands? Not even a little. I guess I’ll just sacrifice those losers in the barracks NEXT turn.
The Best Game I Revisited this Year was ...
Summer Camp
I’ll be the first to admit it – Summer Camp is actually fun. No, not the kind where you have to eat bugs and stitch tiny picture trophies onto an unflattering vest, though I would like to earn my bear-mounted battleaxe combat patch some day. I’m talking about the shop-heavy, strategy-thin, deck-builder Summer Camp – the only good Phil Walker-Harding game (We can fight in the parking lot later). I had disliked this game tremendously after set-up. It has the biggest shop for the, well, simplest options (Duplicate cards aplenty in this one). But this year, it replaced Dominion as my “gateway Deck-builder.” Why the change up? It’s cause I can no longer deny a frustrating truth – new gamers love art and HATE abstraction. To them, Dominion feels like Escher’s Relativity. So I returned to Summer Camp and now see it for the racing game it is. I also have to admit you have more awesome turns in Summer Camp. Flying over three bridges feels so much more satisfying than dropping 8 coins for a province that ain’t helping your deck.
The Game I do not Want to Play Anymore is ...
Mission Red Planet
If you haven’t, you should play Mission Red Planet. But what was once music in my ears now feels like plastic in my stomach. The game uses Concordia/Last Light’s “Everyone has an identical hand of cards; play a card each turn; one of the cards allows you to pick up all your cards” system. The cards will load up your spacemen onto ships, launch the ships to Mars, and move your men around on Mars to collect points. For a hot 6 months, this was THE title for 4-6 players who wanted a quick game with meat and laughter. But then it happened – I saw through the theme. Every time I played, I did everything I could to stay away from my opponent’s space men. The game contains some attack cards, and if you even think about approaching them you will absolutely be blown up, stabbed, shanked, electrocuted, sued, flattened, launched, slandered, beaten, eaten, skippity-papped, and even mutated repeatedly. Also, Planet Unknown has totally replaced this game as the space game for 6 people.
The Game I'm Surprised I liked was ...
Dead of Winter
Just like the confounding birth of the IQ-hemorrhaging joke “six-seven,” Dead of Winter flew under my radar. I was quite happy to miss that complete b*llsh*t. I was told things like “Dead of Winter is too long” and “Nemesis is a better game” and “Stop punching kids who say six-seven.” Which is too bad cause Dead of Winter … is awesome. My first game was fittingly played in a cabin during the heart of Winter. The rules were explained, the characters were dealt out, and I took the first turn. I stepped outside and rolled the 1-in-12 instant death. We erupted in laughter. This game is unforgiving, but the idea of surviving a zombie apocalypse is just so ridiculous the chaos made sense. In addition, the traitor mechanic does a good job of forcingh those jerks to help the group for a while. Gameplay is a bunch of predictable concepts – gather resources, load up on weapons, and contribute to the food supply. But any problems I may have had were thrown into the burning trash bin once we loaded up old Sparky with 3 guns and sent him on a mission of destruction. Not as good as Nemesis, but fun in its own way. I can’t wait to play again.
I'm Surprised I Didn't Like the Game ...
Forest Shuffle
Forest Shuffle earns two awards this year. The first award is “Biggest unimaginable table hog.” You can not predict how this tiny box of cards will flood your dining room table. The second award is “biggest disappointment.” Forest Shuffle sounds like Point Salad, but with squirrel bits mixed with your tomatoes. You will play trees (Each scores in its own way) and then add animals and fauna to each tree (Each scores in its own way) which sounds like replayable fun. But in practice, if I choose to collect mushrooms, I’ll play like I did last mushroom game. That’s the same with collecting bats and butterflies. Combining different engines is what should have made Forest shuffle fun. But the game feels so insignificant when compared to the larger ones – Wingspan, Everdell, Terraforming Mars. This, combined with how unwieldy your player area can become, make this unfortunately a dud for me.
Something I Realized about Gaming ...
I hate when someone apologizes
The act of apologizing is a wonderful tool our society has crafted to show our fellow man that we are empathetic and understand that our actions can hurt others. I think we, as a community, should always apologize when we have wronged each other. It is polite, sophisticated, and shows that we are an evolved species. But I will be D*MNED if you EVER find me apologizing to the losers I invited over for game night after crushing their brittle wills during a three-hour slugfest on Mars, in Egypt, or wherever the game brings you. I don’t make friends during games – I make them at gunpoint yelling “You ok drafting the opening ten project cards?” I’m here to get high off winning, get vengeful off losing, and look to replay any and all games with people who feel the same way. So if you backstab me in Twilight Imperium and steal my home world, I don’t want your sheepish apology. I want to shake your hand and promise you a coming death.
Achievement in Gaming ...
Ran Through my Shelf of Shame
Now look here, I have about as much self-control as a car with no brakes flying down an icy hill driven by another car with no brakes. I buy whatever game looks me in the eye and says “I volunteer as tribute.” This means my shelf of shame is a pile of who-even-knows-anymore games, all bought with shaky reasoning. Luckily this year, I aimed to shrink it. Unfortunately for my game groups, it meant I was fully in charge of what we played. They survived, and my shame games dissipated. I think I can confidently claim that I have learned more games this year than any previous year. I absolutely enjoyed the win-condition selection of “Let’s Go! to Japan,” suffered through a five player game of Parks (Never again), I forced Xylotar upon non-trick-taking folks, learned real quick why Karuba has a limited fanbase, and quickly regretted selling Underwater Cities after running through the confusing Evacuation. Also … Starship Captains needs an expansion or something. Fun system, but a dead-end System.
Most Fun Gaming Experience ...
Eau Claire Wisconsin's
Board Game Market
About 90 minutes away from my stronghold of cardboard and miniatures, near the edge of Wisconsin, sits a little town called Eau Claire. This beautiful college settlement has all the callings of the Midwest; Churches aplenty, a river to tube on, and a plethora of wandering drunks ranting about bears and …Packers. It’s honestly complete chaos over there. But also there is a board game group that hosts Board Game Markets. I went to both of these events this year, and let me tell you … my bank account might attempt to murder me. But heck are they great for finding games at great deals. These aren’t games you find at the bottom shelf of a good will. They are top tier titles being sold by passionate gamers that just couldn’t find the time or the group to play with. I bought The Great Wall for $40, Creature Caravan for $25, Maglev Metro for $20, and had Orichalcum thrown at me for free just for saying I love Five Tribes. It was by far my favorite time of being assaulted.
The Best Game of 2025 is ...
SETI
Everybody shut up! Listen here you maniacs. The following sentence has gone through rigorous vetting and is in fact a bonefide fact-ity fact fact – SETI was released in 2025. Since Essen Spiel is actually a conspiracy theory and probably a cover up of Reiner Knizia’s untimely passing 30 years ago, it isn’t real. This means that SETI’s release into the general market in 2025 makes it the greatest game of 2025. It is a game about using science to discover aliens, and then using the extra-terrestrial friendship to score as many VP as possible. You take actions to launch satelites, research planets, develop technologies and probe whatever needs a probin’. These thematic actions are so well intertwined that they justify this theme so satisfyingly. It’s a competition to find the two hiding aliens and then exploit – I mean frolic with – the ones you find.
The Best New Game to Me is ...
Let's Go! to Japan
Yes, yes, yes, yes it is obvious that SETI is my favorite new game this year … but this post is meant to spread love. So I am calling an audible and giving it to my #2. Therefore the best new-to-me game in 2025 is Let’s Go! to Japan. This weirdly punctuated game is a drafting, goal-selection point-salad about planning a trip to Japan. Each card is 20% symbols, 20% end-game goal, and 60% art and fun-facts. Not a ratio I normally like, but I can not deny that this game is a hoot. This is the game that onion-and-cabbage weirdo wants to be.
And My Favorite Game of All-time is ...
Terraforming Mars
According to Harvard scientists and caveman enthusiasts alike, the greatest invention of the last 10,000 years has been fire. With its ability to warm our families and keep streets alight, it has been the greatest thing our species has ever created. That was until Jacob Fresh-outta-the-fryer-ixilius smashed the heads of his enemies together to create Terraforming Mars, inadvertently curing numerous diseases and ending a handful of wars. And it made fire useless. I now heat my house, scorch my enemies, and cook top-tier steaks with inflamed copies of the greatest board game design since Chess, which I also light on fire because translating En Passant gives me a stroke. This hand-management, resource-management, hand-drafting, Miss America contestant, 5-time platinum recording, and JD Power and Associates Award winning point-salad is the entire reason I will never leave this hobby. I need to go change my pants. Happy 2026 everybody!
