The Best Board Games of PAX Unplugged
The weekend before Thanksgiving this year was jam-packed full of nerdy happenings: the season finale of HarmonQuest aired, Enterplay ran prereleases for the latest set in its My Little Pony CCG, and the first-ever PAX Unplugged tabletop gaming convention happened in sunny Philadelphia.
I'm going to focus on that last one, because really, who gives a damn about the others? Like when I reviewed the best board games of GenCon 50, these are in no particular order.
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Shiba Inu House
Board games of late have been tailored to appeal to millenials, and what's more enticing to the generation that's killing <insert industry here> than home ownership? In this dexterity game, players race to construct houses according to the whims of a squinty-eyed canine.
The game lacks any real depth or strategy, but its family friendliness and pictures of dogs makes it perfect for people who can't think and like dogs.
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Celestia
Sharing a name with the crown princess of Equestria, there are, sadly, no colorful talking equines in this game. Instead, it's a simple-but-fun risk-taking game where each player takes turns captaining a flying bath tub and inevitably crashing it.
Part of the strategy is deducing the cards in players' hands by tracking what sorts of hazards they could and couldn't handle. You score the most points by jumping ship at the last possible moment and avoiding going down with the ship.
Also, you get to build the little cardboard tub-boat, and it even comes with spare parts, which is great production value.
------
New York Slice
This game has you strategically divvying up slices of pizza to maximize points. While there aren't too many steps in a turn, and the overall rules are rather simple, there's a tendency for the player responsible for dividing the pie to go in the tank for a long time. In fact, that's more or less the life lesson of the game: leaving it to minimum-wage food service workers to figure out how to evenly distribute wealth.
The game does an amazing job fulfilling the millenial fantasy of having a job by forcing all the hard decisions on one player every turn while everyone else gets to eat. And to make sure things hit as close to home as possible, the score pad looks like a stack of diner checks and the instruction manual looks like a menu.
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Stir Fry Eighteen
A simple, vaguely racist bluffing game, Stir Fry Eighteen has players constructing stir fry using the ingredients in their hands. Of course, not every hand will have all the proper ingredients, so players will have to discard cards in order to draw more cards. Discards are done face-down, but a player must announce what they are discarding (or lie about it). If your bluff is called, you lose your hand (of cards).
The main appeal of this game is its elegance. Mechanically, there isn't much going on, as there are only 18 cards. The core of the game is the bluffing, meaning you're playing the players more than playing the game (always a good thing).
The other appeal is that it comes in a convenient takeout box.
------
Sharknado: The Board Game
PAX Unplugged featured many Kickstarter'd board game projects at various levels of completion, and Sharknado was among them. Based on the movies inspired by real-life events, this fully cooperative board game is somewhat reminiscent of Dead of Winter, except with no betrayal mechanic.
The artwork on the cards and player placards were still a little rough around the edges when I played, but the little rubber sharks and the plastic 'nado itself were perfect. The sharknado game piece is especially clever: it's shaped like a chalice that scoops up sharks as it moves around the board, carrying them until certain game effects cause it to dump those sharks out at inconvenient locations.
------
Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1
Much like Sharknado, this is another fully cooperative board game based on an existing IP with a niche following. Also like Sharknado, the game captures the flavor of its source material very well.
The components weren't quite finalized yet, but there was enough to get a feel for how the game would play out. It's an intimidating game that supposedly takes about two hours per session, and like many licensed board games (think Battlestar Galactica and Firefly), it relies on its fanbase liking the series enough to overcome that initial rules hurdle.
------
Destiny Aurora: Renegades
Yet another board game from an existing IP, except this one is somehow even more niche. Based on a series of sci-fi novels written by Frank Zanca sold pretty much only through Amazon, Zanca himself was at PAX Unplugged to show off the Renegades board game.
Renegades makes me think of what might happen if you combined the original Firefly board game with the upcoming Firefly Adventures board game. There is both a ship-based traveling component and a tactical minis game component, and it's pretty overwhelming (but largely entertaining, if you're a fan).
Granted, I know nothing about the Destiny Aurora franchise, but I do know that people love detailed figures and models in their board games. The ships, characters, and aliens are easily the best, most eye-catching parts of this game. It almost makes me want to read the books. Almost.
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Ex Libris
Problem is, I hate books. But I like Ex Libris, because it's less about books and more about ordering little library gnomes around to do your bidding. You're ostensibly trying to build the best book collection ever, but at no point does the game address fair wages or work hours for the gnomes you employ.
The mechanics are basic worker placement in the vein of Agricola and Lords of Waterdeep: place a worker, do a thing, and no one else can do the thing, unless there's still room on the thing. The key difference in Ex Libris is that the things you can do (and the maximum number of workers that can do those things) continually change every turn. Factor in that everyone has different, hidden objectives (which are easy to deduce) and it becomes a delicate balance of fulfilling your agenda while blocking others from theirs.
------
Circle the Wagons
A fast, head-to-head game where players are trying to construct the best city by drafting cards from the circle. Points are earned by controlling the largest continuous sections of each terrain type and fulfilling (or failing to) three special objectives that change every game.
While not my favorite game of the bunch, I do like that it comes in a neat wallet thing.
------
Happy Salmon
This is a simple, frantic party game where everyone is racing to discard their deck of cards. In order to do so, they have to perform the action on their top-most card with another player who is also showing the same action.
With commands like Pound It! and Switcheroo!, there's probably an adult version of this game designed to turn cold fish into happy salmon (Bonus: I just used two irregular plurals in the same sentence!).
Also, I like the zippered pouch it comes in.
------
Flipships
This game's logo reads the same upside-down, which is very clever. Then I found out it's paper football (aka finger football or flick football) with extra steps, which is not as clever.
------
Japanese: The Game
Well, do you?!
------
Evolution
When an asteroid carrying extraterrestrial life crashes into Earth, it's up to a group of scientists to save the planet from an ever-adapting alien threat. Starring David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, and Julianne Moore.
I'm going to focus on that last one, because really, who gives a damn about the others? Like when I reviewed the best board games of GenCon 50, these are in no particular order.
------
Shiba Inu House
 |
| Sadly, the plush doge was not for sale. |
Board games of late have been tailored to appeal to millenials, and what's more enticing to the generation that's killing <insert industry here> than home ownership? In this dexterity game, players race to construct houses according to the whims of a squinty-eyed canine.
The game lacks any real depth or strategy, but its family friendliness and pictures of dogs makes it perfect for people who can't think and like dogs.
------
Celestia
 |
| All aboard the flying hot tub! |
Sharing a name with the crown princess of Equestria, there are, sadly, no colorful talking equines in this game. Instead, it's a simple-but-fun risk-taking game where each player takes turns captaining a flying bath tub and inevitably crashing it.
Part of the strategy is deducing the cards in players' hands by tracking what sorts of hazards they could and couldn't handle. You score the most points by jumping ship at the last possible moment and avoiding going down with the ship.
Also, you get to build the little cardboard tub-boat, and it even comes with spare parts, which is great production value.
------
New York Slice
 |
| New Yorkers aren't exactly unfamiliar with cardboard pizza. |
This game has you strategically divvying up slices of pizza to maximize points. While there aren't too many steps in a turn, and the overall rules are rather simple, there's a tendency for the player responsible for dividing the pie to go in the tank for a long time. In fact, that's more or less the life lesson of the game: leaving it to minimum-wage food service workers to figure out how to evenly distribute wealth.
The game does an amazing job fulfilling the millenial fantasy of having a job by forcing all the hard decisions on one player every turn while everyone else gets to eat. And to make sure things hit as close to home as possible, the score pad looks like a stack of diner checks and the instruction manual looks like a menu.
------
Stir Fry Eighteen
 |
| Just needs chopsticks and a fortune cookie. |
A simple, vaguely racist bluffing game, Stir Fry Eighteen has players constructing stir fry using the ingredients in their hands. Of course, not every hand will have all the proper ingredients, so players will have to discard cards in order to draw more cards. Discards are done face-down, but a player must announce what they are discarding (or lie about it). If your bluff is called, you lose your hand (of cards).
The main appeal of this game is its elegance. Mechanically, there isn't much going on, as there are only 18 cards. The core of the game is the bluffing, meaning you're playing the players more than playing the game (always a good thing).
The other appeal is that it comes in a convenient takeout box.
------
Sharknado: The Board Game
 |
| Trufax: Hexes are better than squares. |
PAX Unplugged featured many Kickstarter'd board game projects at various levels of completion, and Sharknado was among them. Based on the movies inspired by real-life events, this fully cooperative board game is somewhat reminiscent of Dead of Winter, except with no betrayal mechanic.
The artwork on the cards and player placards were still a little rough around the edges when I played, but the little rubber sharks and the plastic 'nado itself were perfect. The sharknado game piece is especially clever: it's shaped like a chalice that scoops up sharks as it moves around the board, carrying them until certain game effects cause it to dump those sharks out at inconvenient locations.
------
Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1
 |
| I'll be honest: I can't tell all these Gundams apart. |
Much like Sharknado, this is another fully cooperative board game based on an existing IP with a niche following. Also like Sharknado, the game captures the flavor of its source material very well.
The components weren't quite finalized yet, but there was enough to get a feel for how the game would play out. It's an intimidating game that supposedly takes about two hours per session, and like many licensed board games (think Battlestar Galactica and Firefly), it relies on its fanbase liking the series enough to overcome that initial rules hurdle.
------
Destiny Aurora: Renegades
 |
| Sci-Fi: The Board Game |
Yet another board game from an existing IP, except this one is somehow even more niche. Based on a series of sci-fi novels written by Frank Zanca sold pretty much only through Amazon, Zanca himself was at PAX Unplugged to show off the Renegades board game.
Renegades makes me think of what might happen if you combined the original Firefly board game with the upcoming Firefly Adventures board game. There is both a ship-based traveling component and a tactical minis game component, and it's pretty overwhelming (but largely entertaining, if you're a fan).
Granted, I know nothing about the Destiny Aurora franchise, but I do know that people love detailed figures and models in their board games. The ships, characters, and aliens are easily the best, most eye-catching parts of this game. It almost makes me want to read the books. Almost.
------
Ex Libris
 |
| It's Latin for, "Extra Liberal." |
Problem is, I hate books. But I like Ex Libris, because it's less about books and more about ordering little library gnomes around to do your bidding. You're ostensibly trying to build the best book collection ever, but at no point does the game address fair wages or work hours for the gnomes you employ.
The mechanics are basic worker placement in the vein of Agricola and Lords of Waterdeep: place a worker, do a thing, and no one else can do the thing, unless there's still room on the thing. The key difference in Ex Libris is that the things you can do (and the maximum number of workers that can do those things) continually change every turn. Factor in that everyone has different, hidden objectives (which are easy to deduce) and it becomes a delicate balance of fulfilling your agenda while blocking others from theirs.
------
Circle the Wagons
 |
| Not to be confused with, "Paint Your Wagons." |
A fast, head-to-head game where players are trying to construct the best city by drafting cards from the circle. Points are earned by controlling the largest continuous sections of each terrain type and fulfilling (or failing to) three special objectives that change every game.
While not my favorite game of the bunch, I do like that it comes in a neat wallet thing.
------
Happy Salmon
 |
| This game is extra challenging for people in wheelchairs. |
This is a simple, frantic party game where everyone is racing to discard their deck of cards. In order to do so, they have to perform the action on their top-most card with another player who is also showing the same action.
With commands like Pound It! and Switcheroo!, there's probably an adult version of this game designed to turn cold fish into happy salmon (Bonus: I just used two irregular plurals in the same sentence!).
Also, I like the zippered pouch it comes in.
------
Flipships
 |
| I was never really good at this. |
This game's logo reads the same upside-down, which is very clever. Then I found out it's paper football (aka finger football or flick football) with extra steps, which is not as clever.
------
Japanese: The Game
 |
| You think this is a game?! |
Well, do you?!
------
Evolution
 |
| Is that Wash's lucky dinosaur? |
When an asteroid carrying extraterrestrial life crashes into Earth, it's up to a group of scientists to save the planet from an ever-adapting alien threat. Starring David Duchovny, Orlando Jones, and Julianne Moore.
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