Tabletop Season Three: Shall We Play A Few Games?

For the past several months, my producer Boyan, and I built a list of about 140 games that were potential candidates for Tabletop. We spent the last five weeks playing them to find our final list of games for season three of Tabletop.

It was a very fun process that was also very challenging and kind of exhausting. #GamerNerdProblems

Before I tell you what some of them are, I wanted to talk a bit about the selection process, because it comes up all the time.

I did a Not The Flog all about this, but the basic rules are:

  • I have to love the game.
  • It has to be in print.
  • It has to be teachable in roughly five minutes (there are some exceptions to this rule).
  • It must have a good ratio of luck to strategy.
  • It shouldn’t have player elimination.
  • It can not have simultaneous play.
  • It needs to have good production values.
  • It needs to play in under 90 minutes with four players.

I’m sure there are some others that I’m not thinking of at the moment, but those are the fundamentals.

We also put games into categories, like:

  • Worker Placement.
  • Area Control.
  • Bluffing.
  • Co-operative.
  • Co-operative with a defector.
  • Bidding.
  • Negotiating.
  • Storytelling.

And so on. If we end up with two or more games that we really like that fit into the same category, we pick the one that we think would look best on camera, or is in some way a better representation of the category for some reason.

There were games that I loved, like Daniel Solis’ Belle of the Ball, which just won’t work on our show (Belle joins Sentinels of the Multiverse, in that regard). There were games that were so infuriatingly awful, like [GAME THAT SHALL NOT BE NAMED], they made me literally angry with rage. There were games, like Escape, that were supremely fun, but feature simultaneous play, so we can’t use them. There’s Rampage — which really needs to be played at human scale at conventions using cardboard buildings and plushie Meeples — that we can’t play because it’s impossible for us to shoot. There were games that seemed promising, but just fell apart at one point or another.

So we took over 100 games that we thought looked promising, and eliminated the ones that broke one or more of those rules. I’d say that left us with about 45 games in all those categories, which we played many times. I guess we’ll call those games the finalists, because I can call them whatever I want, since this is my show. In fact, we’re going to call them Batman.

So we took the Batman games and played them intensely over a span of about five weeks, ending up with 23 games to be played in 20 episodes. They’re all really great games in their various categories, and I’m super excited to see how they play out when we film the show.

I thought it would be cool to share some of the games we’re playing before we get into production, instead of making everyone wait until the episode comes out, so anyone who is interested in them can pick up a copy before the Tabletop effect hits, and also because I like the freedom to be open like this that comes with our crowd-funded season.

So, here are a few of the games we’ll be playing this season:

Tokaido, by Antoine Bauza [Boardgame Geek | Website]

Tokaido

This is a gorgeous, perfectly balanced game, where players take a journey from Kyoto to Edo, along the East Sea Road.  It’s from the same designer as Takenoko and Rampage.

Libertalia, by Paolo Mori [BGG | WWW]

Libertalia

In Libertalia, we’re all pirates trying to outwit each other and bluff our way to the best treasure. It’s super fast to learn and play, has massive replay value, and allows us to talk like pirates. Yar.

Sushi Go! by Phil Walker-Harding [BGG | WWW]

Sushi Go!

We describe this as “7 wonders express”. We’re all trying to have the best meal in a sushi bar, passing cards around the table and trying to keep what will help us, while we try to mess up what everyone else is trying to get. I just love this game, and it’s one of many that are simply outstanding offerings from Gamewright, a publisher that is increasingly becoming one of my favorites.

Five Tribes by Bruno Cathala [BGG | WWW]

Five Tribes

This is one of the few “gamer” games we’re going to play this season. It’s published by Days of Wonder, a company that usually publishes “lighter” games (like Ticket to Ride and Pirate’s Cove). I’m most worried about how we’re going to make this game work, because it has a ton of meeples and the art on the game, while beautiful, may feel cluttered on camera. I love it so much, though, I am determined to make it work. I even had my editor come over yesterday to play it, so he could give us ideas on how we can best film it. Not that it matters, but this was my favorite game at GenCon this year, and is so far my favorite of 2014.

Oh, I guess I should tell you a little bit about it, right? All these different colored meeples are on the board, and we pick them up and drop them off like in Mancala, as we use them to claim spaces, score points, and collect resources. It’s a little complex to learn (just because there’s a lot of information to digest), but once you climb the steep learning curve, the gameplay is very intuitive and easy to understand. Because it’s set in ancient Persia, there are Djinn that can help players, and it’s heavily thematic.

Also, while we were playing it yesterday, I got up from my crummy card table (I’m waiting for my Geek Chic table to arrive), bumped the table leg with foot (well, maybe I kicked it really hard because DEX is my dump stat), and not only did I knock all the meeples off their tiles, I spilled my iced coffee over all the djinn cards, and knocked a bowl of almonds to the floor.

Five TribesOH GOD I ANNE WHEATON'D THE TABLE
Click to embiggen and get the full horror of my Anne Wheatoning.

It was the most epic and total destruction of a game I have ever witnessed, and I’ve been to France.

Not that it matters, but I ended up winning the game after we restarted with an entirely new setup. I’m really good at this game, so when I lose on the show like I always do, it’s going to be rough.

So there you have a few of the games we’re playing this season on Tabletop. Over the next few days or whatever, I’ll post some more of them. We go into production on Thursday the 8th, and we shoot until the 20th.

OH! And there will probably be a MAJOR AWESOME ANNOUNCEMENT ABOUT SEASON THREE in the next few days. I hope you’ll join me in getting excited about it.

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108 thoughts on “Tabletop Season Three: Shall We Play A Few Games?”

  1. Bo suggested Sushi Go to me when i asked about a gamew to play with my elderly parents. He also suggested ticket to ride which looks more their speed.

    I dont know what the technical term for this is, but what is the “You have to be a japanese schoolgirl under 15 to enjoy this” co-efficient of Sushi Go?

    1. Played Sushi Go with a bunch of late and post teen youths yesterday and they got seriously hocked on the light filler game that I aquired to make math a bit more fun for my seven year old niece. It’s just a simple and fun introduction to drafting games.

  2. what is the “You have to be a japanese schoolgirl under 15 to enjoy this” co-efficient of Sushi Go?

    Zero. I’m a 42 year-old white guy, who hasn’t been in school for over twenty years.

    1. Hey wil have you ever played the games Kemet, Boss Monster, or Cosmic Encounter? My gaming group LOVES these games and I’d love to see them get more exposure.

      1. I picked up Boss Monster a few weeks back simply because of the box artwork. It’s a great game. Similar to Munchkin but much lighter.

  3. I’m cracking up at that last picture. My family uses the “Anne Wheaton” term too. As in, “be careful your about to Anne Wheaton the game all over the place!”

    Can’t wait for season three. We’ve picked up several games from the earlier seasons and I’ve turned my kids into table top gamers. Gotta have something to do when their screen time is up.

      1. Guys, View Wil’s Not The Flog & Wil’s response earlier in the thread. Though a great game, it wouldn’t film well: its too inside the player’s head & the text on the cards is too integral to gameplay.

  7. I don’t know how you’re judging “in print”, but 3 of these are already not available for stores to order or very limited, waiting on reprints from the publishers:
    Tokaido
    Libertalia
    Five Tribes
    I’m not saying they’re bad choices, just seems to be breaking the second rule.

    2. In a very literal sense, I suppose you could consider those 3 games (and others) to be “out of print.” Those games however are still quite popular and are still well supported by their publishers, meaning they will be run another printing as soon as possible to meet the demand. His rule on games that are out of print must be referring to those which are not known to be printing anytime soon; games like Fury of Dracula.
      Games like Five Tribes which only just released at Gen con are probably better referred to as “out of stock” rather than out of print. They will make more, and I will be buying one 🙂

    3. There is a difference between out of print and out of stock. This year’s most hyped release, Five Tribes, is obviously a good choice. And Tokaido is a universally good seller… very glad to hear that’s included, being a huge Antoine Bauza fan!

  8. Please tell us some of the ones that didn’t make the cut. I promise I won’t cry or complain or even try to get you to change your mind. 🙂

  9. Any chance you’ll get the guys from the dice tower on the show. Between table top and dice tower’s podcast and reviews ive become obsessed with gaming.

  10. The title of “7 Wonders Express” was already taken by Fairy Tale. (Ignoring the inconvenient fact that Fairy Tale predated 7 Wonders by several years.) Sushi Go appears to be “7 Wonders Express, Express.”

  11. I’m glad to see you are getting close to publishing. Our entire household has been eagerly waiting for the new season. I hope you publish the entire list as we will probably buy most of them.

  15. My wife and I have the same table. We sit on exercise balls while playing games…

    Nothing is better than me with my ass on the ground, feet in the air, the floor littered with cards and meeples, and the air filled with the mocking laughter of my wife.

  16. One game that is really fun to play, I don’t know about the time it takes to learn and what not, is Dominion. Awesome game plays either fast or slow really fun.

  17. Most epic game related disaster I have witnessed was playing D&D with paper cut outs when “hurricane” Brian (me) decided to come through and blow things to hell. Was it a dick move…yes. Was it funny as Sh*t at 1:30 in the morning…yes

  18. can’t wait for season 3! have you ever considered combining your hobbies of home brewing and gaming into a show? or maybe doing a TableTop episode where you play a game about beer, while drinking good quality brews.

  20. Really glad that you are doing Sushi Go! I really enjoy that game every now and then. Although sad to see that Sentinels of the multiverse is on the won’t work on the show list. Ah well. Can’t wait for season 3!

  21. Interested to see the ‘balance of luck and skill’ idea. The monthly meeting I go to is populated by people who tend to reject any game where the use of dice is other than incidental to play. settlers of catan is about as far as they will go

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