January 2025 Newsletter

AMA, Culled Games, 2024 Game Play Awards, and more!

Author

Ryan Langewisch
January 10, 2025

Hello, and Happy New Year! đź‘‹ 

🎬 New Videos

Here are all the videos posted to the Rolls in the Family YouTube channel in the past month:

🎲 Board Game Recommendation Updates

Here are all the updates made to our living guide of board game recommendations in the past month:

  • Added Agricola to Medium-High Complexity Recommendations for 6 Players

    • While we have often recommended Agricola, which is one of our favorite games, we had always capped that recommendation at 5 players. However, I had the chance to play a 6-player game this past year using the 5-6 player extension for the revised edition, and was amazed at how well it went! Heavier games that play well with 6 players are hard to come by, but I am happy to add Agricola to that list.

  • Replaced Splendor with Splendor: Duel for 2 Players

    • Daniel and I were able to try Splendor: Duel, and were impressed! Daniel is a big fan of Splendor and has enjoyed it two-player, but has since acquired Splendor: Duel as his preferred 2-player experience — and we think it will likely be the preferred version for most people looking to play exclusively at that player count.

🎯 What’s Hitting Our Tables

Here is a sampling of games that we have played in the past month:

Wow… Slay the Spire: The Board Game is outstanding. Will definitely be talking about it in some upcoming videos. -Ryan

Tried Age of Innovation 2-player for the first time, and it continues to solidify itself as my favorite in the Terra Mystica line, after really enjoying both the original and Gaia Project. -Ryan

We got to try Faraway a couple of times and it immediately feels like a strong entry in the “gamer’s fillers” niche. Fascinating process of building a journey with resource dependencies in reverse order. Fantasy Realms is a game we’ve reviewed that fits this same category: quick sub-20-minute games that pack more of a punch with their strategic decisions. -Ryan

Forest Shuffle was one of the games I was gifted for Christmas and I was able to get it to the table a few times. My first impressions were very positive! This feels like one that will only get better as you play it more and more, learning the cards and the available combinations. My only complaint… no tie-breaker rule! (Ryan and I tied our first game haha) -Daniel

Gave Captain Flip to our 7-year-old nephew for Christmas and had a lot of fun trying it out. A super quick and fun game based around a brilliant mechanism where you can either take the tile you draw, or flip it to see what is on the back — but if you flip it, you have to take the new side. Great option in the category of games that play well with both kids and adults. -Ryan

Happy Gaming! 👋🏻

-Ryan & Daniel

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