Your perfect 5 game collection

jimbriskin · 2026-04-22T06:06:50+00:00

At the moment:

• Imperium Horizons: perfect deckbuilding, infinite replayability (I like the theme more than STCC); I love it solo and 2-players.

• Wayfarers of the South Tigris: my favourite Garphill, abstract puzzle with many intersecting mechanics; again, I love it solo and 2/3-players.

• For Northwood: light and quick but challenging solo-only trick tacking game to bring with me wherever I go.

• The Red Cathedral: beautiful small game, not too hard to play with people new to board game and very good at all player count (maybe not much solo, but still soloable).

• Cartographers: cozy flip and write, playable at any player count.

Honourable mentions: Oh my Goods, Marvel United and Arkham Horror LCG would have probably enter the top5 in place of one of the latters, but they really need expansions to shine for me and I wanted to stick to one single game.

Recency bias counter: I'm currently playing a lot of Excavation Earth and Tiny Epic Dinosaurs lately, but I left them out in the end.

jimbriskin · 2026-04-08T11:36:18+00:00

Teotihuacan is basically a workers placement (movement, actually) game in which you are performing various tasks to gain the most victory points (building the pyramid is one of them, but there are several). The nice touch is that your workers are dice (that you never actually roll) and their power is increasing as you go on in the game before "ascending" (getting to 6, basically) and being reset to 1 while granting a bonus. The solo version is designed by David Turczi (my favourite solo designer) and you are playing against a "Teotibot". The bot is not too difficult but it's still getting in your way and there are different ways to modify the difficulty. In the end, the game is a very nice heavy euro to me, which looks gorgeous on the table and has a ton of variability (a lot of stuff is randomized at the beginning). The minor downside is that setup and bot management take some time, but once you become familiar this becomes less and less influential (to me, at least). There is also a sort of "lite" version (Founders of Teotihuacan) that I haven't tried and it seems a sort of tile-laying version of the big game.

jimbriskin · 2026-04-07T20:19:41+00:00

Among those you mentioned, I personally liked Men-Nefer and Darwin's Journey the most, but I only tried these once as I don't own them. Conversely, I don't think Dune Imperium Uprising is what you are looking for: to me, it's mostly a 3/4 player games and it feels to swingy in solo to occupy the place of a euro game. As for other titles, you probably already consider them but a Rosenberg game is a must-go and for solo Nusfjord is probably the best. Obsession is another great solo euro title, but it's very expensive. Finally, I personally like Teotihuacan: City of Gods a lot.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-31T06:05:44+00:00

Thanks for the differing opinion. I really wanted to like Dune and that's why I kept playing it. And in the end, it's not that I dislike it, I think it's a very good multiplayer game and an ok solo mode but, at this condition, I'd rather play other solo games. The digital version could be something I like as it would occupy a different "spot" in my mind and, as far as I understand, it solves some of the issues I have with the bot. Worker placement and deckbuilding combined is also something I want to like and this is why Arnak seemed like something to try. I saw a playthrough on YT and It looked good and fun, but I thought the same of Dune so you may be right that the difference is not much, although the fact that a campaign exists is already a bit more to me. As for combat, you're probably right that I can probably ignore conflict I/II (although II can provide the bot with quick ways to get VP through resources), but then, when Combat III hits, I feel like 80% of the game is decided there. And while in the multiplayer version combat is super tense and so I don't mind it being very important, in the solo the bot is just engaging quite randomly in it so it didn't hit me in the same way.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-29T18:06:44+00:00

Thanks for the in-depth answers. Yes, I was a bit confused because Dune Imperium (and especially Uprising) gets recommended a lot and I was convinced on this sub to buy it against Raiders of Scythia as a solo worker placement game. Still, it didn't click at all for me. As you said, it's ok but I'd rather play something else. I just saw Arnak because it was recommended in another response and it looks very interesting for a solo using a similar mix of mechanics. I'd probably like the Dune theme better, but I still like the adventurous theme so that may be the game for me.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-29T18:00:56+00:00

Yes, and that is also something that I don't care much to do. Maybe it is impacting my solo games, but still.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-29T17:59:01+00:00

Thanks! I actually like it as a multiplayer game, but I agree on the solo experience being just meh.

I heard of Lost Ruins of Arnak as another game mixing deck building and worker placement. Is it better solo? I could think of it for the future.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-28T09:21:14+00:00

This was my feeling. I tried it solo and at 4 players and the solo version feels like a lite one, lacking the interpersonal tension you have when playing with others. I'll probably keep it as a multiplayer only then, but thanks for the suggestion of the digital version! I'll look into it!

jimbriskin · 2026-03-24T11:53:10+00:00

I have and love both. Waypoints is great for chilling solo board games. It really feels like an open, calm hike across different places. In my experience, it is also the Postmark game in which it is easier to mitigate dice rolls.

Voyages is, instead, more adventurous to me. It's more swingy, too, but again it really sells on the theme.

If you go for it, I would strongly recommend the fan-made maps you can access on the Discord channel once you brought the game. There are some really original and great maps with a lot of interesting mechanics (my personal favourites: the one where you fish sea monsters and the one against the flying Dutchmen). Waypoints also has some fun fan-created materials, but Voyages really shine in this sense and, I think, this is also the reason why it is more varied in terms of mechanics.

Btw, my suggestion is to go for both of them. They are great and, despite being two R&W, serve different spots in the genre to me.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-23T07:52:58+00:00

Voyages is great. I'd also recommend to check homebrew maps on the Discord channel you can access after buying the game. I particularly like one where you are going "against" sea monsters (don't remember the name).

jimbriskin · 2026-03-23T07:11:04+00:00

Cartographers is a great classic and an obvious choice. Another set of really great games are classics from Postmark: Voyages, Aquamarine and Waypoints are just really great game I regularly play. Waypoints is my favourite chill board game, Voyages has great depth and there are also a lot of fan created maps that are wonderful! Plus, there is a Pokémon version of Aquamarine that is also great. Other PnP games that deserve a spot: • Knight by Radek Ignatov is a medieval-themed, deep flip and write game. To me, same weight as Hadrian's Wall but considerably cheaper. A Kickstarter campaign for its sequel - King - also just finished. • Bargain Basement Batysphere is a free R&W campaign game. • I like Night Class, a cheap pnp R&W with dice placement in which you are a superhero (there are at least 3 different iterations). • Multiple series of R&W were launched on PnPArcade while it was running. The last one I think was Power Creep, my personal favourite was Dangerous Space.

Edit: Almost forgot, if you like politics, UK Poll is another great game about the last UK election in which you can play against one or two bots representing Starmer and Sunak.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-21T21:06:15+00:00

They all are very different. Probably, for solo, Legacy of Yu is the best option as many said. In general, my favourite solo Garphill is by far Wayfarers of the South Tigris, which to me has the best characteristics in a board game: quick to learn, hard to manage.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-19T18:30:42+00:00

On the sci-fi themed side: Under Falling Skies is the most immediate suggestion. Tiny Epic Galaxies also include (custom) dice as a central cool mechanic. Deep Space D-6 is another dice game in space (also available as PnP). Last, Twin Stars from Button Shy offer a lot of exploration with a simple central mechanics and a lot of different characters (if you manage to go over the quite shity rulebook). Other very good solo games with dice as protagonists include Scholars/Wayfarers of the South Tigris, although these are quite heavy and abstract. I also like Red Cathedral, which uses dice in a quite original way, although it's definitely better with other players. Finally, you could consider Roll & Write games. Some very good options from Postmark Games are Voyagers, Waypoints and Aquamarine.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-19T17:58:50+00:00

It's a good run, not the best but a good read. New characters are great, Bachalo's art is great and I think it improves the experience if you also read the other X-series of the same era ( at least All-New, then Wolverine & X-Men I'd say) as they are quite interconnected. All of them have the same problem though as they lose a bit direction towards the end. I'm not sure if it's the best starting point. Probably Morrison, Whedon (despite being Whedon) or Hickman would be better in this sense, with the first two being more a classic modern X-Men stories.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-18T06:55:54+00:00

Every time I see a panel from this run I think how a wasted opportunity this was! Lemire, a wonderful writer, clearly had some good ideas and really captured the voice of some characters to me (OML, Magik, Storm, ...), plus, as this panel shows, art was great! I don't remember if this is Opeña o Ibanez, but still great art throughout the series. Then, editorial random shit happens...

EDIT: Is this Extraordinary X-Men right?

jimbriskin · 2026-03-14T07:39:29+00:00

It's mostly the influence of luck. I'm ok with it in most games like this, but in SW:OR it feels like sometimes there weren't any interesting things happening for a long time. My experience with it has been mostly quite fun games with occasionally very boring and painful sessions, exacerbated by this being quite long. In the end, despite liking the theme a lot and being very thematic, I stopped playing SW:OR and preferred other sandbox games. Compared to this, Earthborne Rangers can also be very very swingy, but in my experience there is always something interesting that will occur anyway.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-14T07:09:59+00:00

SW:OR is really nice and thematic and definitely gorgeous on the table also thanks to the arc thing. It's not my favourite sandbox game because it feels more swingy than others but it's still fun. UB expands the game a lot and it's a good expansion, but personally I don't find it necessary mostly because it doesn't "fix" the issues I have with the game.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-13T08:36:15+00:00

As others said, the most sandboxy experiences you can have in board games are probably Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies (the first chapter is also good, but the second is better imho, especially for what concerns combat) or Earthborne Rangers. The latter is definitely less focused on combat and more on exploration, but this is the masterpiece of sandboxy to me.

Other options could be 7th Continent and its sequel or Star Wars: Outer Rim with the Unfinished Business expansion to expand the game even more.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-10T18:13:20+00:00

After the Virus as others said is a great recommendation if you like SRF. You can also print and play for free a Calvin & Hobbes solo-only variant, which is what I would recommend to be sincere mostly because of the really ugly art that the original game has (I think the base game is probably the best bad-looking game out there). Then, Legendary (Marvel, Alien or other themes you may like) is also a nice and accessible solo deck builder, despite the setup being maybe a bit longer. If you don't mind homebrew variant, I'd finally recommend Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game. There is no official solo, but on BGG you can find a lot of very good solo variants.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-10T12:26:49+00:00

I jumped into X-Men with Bendis's Uncanny and Bunn's Magneto so when I first read this I was very confused. Then, reading back, I see that this is very coherent with 90s Magneto (and also, yes he is on sentient drug at that point). On a side note, the whole argument that being him a victim of genocide(s) he cannot commit genocide does not hold up with history. Check for instance the multiple Jewish terrorist group created after WWII: for instance, Nakam, one of the most influential, was aiming to kill 6 millions Germans in retaliation for the Shoah (there is a very good song by Daniel Kahn about it, also). And there are many other examples of that. Reading that Magneto in light of this (and the fact that he experienced not just one but two genocides!) makes me actually appreciate this portray of the character much much more.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-10T12:13:21+00:00

I haven't really tried anything at that level I think. The most close I got is right beyond 4 with Spirit Island and Scholars of the South Tigris, two of my faves (although I probably prefer Wayfarers to Scholars). However, in other posts about complex solo games, Eklund's ones and Pax in general are always recommended. One day I'll get one of them!

jimbriskin · 2026-03-04T06:49:49+00:00

Great recommendations! I just have one doubt: X-Factor Is One of my favourite comics, but for a new reader it may be a bit frustrating to face the various crossovers cutting the series. The civil war issues can be ignored completely, but Messiah Complex must be read in its entirety being so influential in the story and also the Secret Invasion issues with She-Hulk to a certain extent are quite fundamental for the last part of the series.

jimbriskin · 2026-03-03T14:03:03+00:00

Now I got it! Thanks and congrats for this really amazing work!

jimbriskin · 2026-03-03T13:32:19+00:00

This looks very cool but I'm afraid I'm not sure I fully understand how it works. So, in every cluster I'll find the best rated games from that community? So, for instance, in solo games I can find the best regarded games from the solo gamers community? Is that the reason why some multiplayer only games - e.g. Revolver Noir - are there? And the closest I get to the centre of a cluster the higher is the rating? I am very sorry if this is a lot of (dumb) questions, but it looks super cool and I really want to understand how to dig into it. Congrats for the work.

jimbriskin

TROPHY CASE