This game prioritized neither beauty or practicality - it managed to be absolutely terrible at both. I suspect that this is the game which no one would ever argue with appearing on one of these lists. IIRC the game also features a great player aid which is just a wall of text. Everything is super clear to read and parse, which it might not have been if the cards were cluttered with pictures. They went entirely for function over form. And yet ugly as it is, I don't entirely hate Rio Grande's decision here. Okay there's a bit of graphics on the tiny galaxy board. It's like Rio Grande played the prototype for so long and got so used to it that they just said 'screw it, let's just print it like this'. I dare you to find a modern game which has a card for developing space lasers and doesn't have a picture of a space laser. There are lots of cards, and all they have is texts and symbols. Other than a vague background image on the main board, there are hardly any graphics, colors, or images anywhere. Beyond the Sun is the 18xx of sci-fi games. I still think it looks better than TGOME, although I slightly prefer TGOME's gameplay, which feels like players have more agency.Ĭriticizing the graphic design, colors and imagery of Rio Grande's tech tree game from last year is actually difficult to do, since to criticize something it would have to exist. The colors aren't as muted, but everything about the game's graphic design feels generic and uninspired. I feel like Kingdom Builder also bears some similarities to The Guild of Merchant Explorers - the gameplay is somewhat similar and the different terrain types one fills are also dull. But don't let any of that discourage you - the game is wonderful. And the cover is equally dull, almost as dull as the game's name. Let's make it more muted.' Beyond the colors, the art doesn't really pop either. It's like someone looked at the original Castles of Burgundy and said 'that's a nice color palette, but it's too bright and shiny. Don't get me wrong I generally like old timey maps, which this game uses as personal player boards. Those who like spatial puzzles and reaching destinations in flip/roll and write/place games should love this one - it reminds me of both Trails of Tucana and Tiny Towns.īut boy is it ugly. This flip and place game from AEG is a delightful mix of special powers, competing scoring objectives, and balancing results now with achieving milestones which will make results easier in the future.
What really inspired me to make this list was reviewing The Guild of Merchant Explorers on our podcast.
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