The best board games of 2023 so far

Board games have been slow in the first half of 2023. Many of the most significant releases won’t be available until the latter half of the year, during convention season. There are some new releases that deserve your attention. Though it’s only June, several titles have arrived with a fury, establishing their place among other recent stellar board game releases.

The list below is alphabetical. The titles are instead listed in alphabetical sequence. All of them are available and in stock.

City of the Great Machine

CrowD Games’ City of the Great MachineIt was a pleasant surprise. A steampunk, mechanized AI controls one player. Its grip over the floating sky-city has become tighter. The other members of the team are fighting against this technocratic power by causing dissent, and destroying the city. Goal is to cause three riots in the city before midnight when the machines will have sucked out the last traces of life.

The game is fantastic. While the Great Machine is trying to guess the plans of the players, the player plots their routes on the map with hidden cards. Each round, location powers and special capabilities are activated during an exciting reveal. The map can be reconfigured and sections of cities moved around. This allows for creative thinking. Furthermore, it’s a flexible design that includes an alternate rule set for the game itself to control the Great Machine, allowing for solitaire or cooperative play. It’s an underrated design worthy of greater attention.

Dark Venture: Battle of the Ancients

A wooded forest, with bridges and other medieval bits, covered with red and yellow dice. In the background a series of three comic-like books in bright, primary colors.

Gilded Skull Games

Dark Venture: Battle of the Ancients This is a crazy, heavy-metal game in which players take control of hordes alien creatures that battle it out on a postapocalyptic fantasy Hellscape. It’s an indie title that promises more than its small stature, offering competitive, solitaire, and cooperative modes of play. It’s a game where you command armies to fight in different scenarios. You can also use a simple AI program that will run your enemies.

The game is an exciting tactical adventure where players spend limited action time moving around the map to pursue specific faction objectives, such as eliminating enemies or gathering sufficient resources to create an overlord. Asymmetrical play is a key component of each warband. The core is relatively simple, with lots of extra features. There’s nothing quite like it on the market today.

Earth

A shallow depth of field focuses on a hand of cards that are largely unreadable. The front one sayw Eathquake Fissure. The larger game board in the background is illegible, but largely green.

Photo: James Paul Correia Photography/Inside Up Games

The tableau-building genre — where players organize tiles, tokens, or, as here, cards on the table — has been revitalized in recent years. Popular games include Terraforming MarsThe following are some examples of how to get started: Ark Nova have helped tableau-building games become more mainstream, and now Inside Up Games’ EarthThe next step is about to be taken. It’s a whole world better that its competition.

The goal is to create a self-sustaining ecosystem of plants and animals. The game has an open-world feel, supporting several different areas of exploration and allowing you to shape the environment however you’d like. It’s easy to play, but there are many interesting interactions among the cards and abilities. It’s also much less demanding than its peers, clocking in at roughly an hour for experienced players.

Frosthaven

The Frosthaven box by itself sitting on a coffee table.

Frosthaven has become so huge that they have hired a naval engineer to help fit it in the box. No, really.
Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Frosthaven The highly anticipated sequel of the acclaimed Dungeon Crawler Gloomhaven. The cooperative RPG game is identical in its spirit to the predecessor. However, it’s even larger than that previous monstrosity. Players control an adventurer band that dives into tunnels under a frozen landscape to the north Gloomhaven. There will be new encounters with creatures and characters.

Base-building is the most exciting new element. Between adventures, players manage resources and build an isolated outpost. You will need to do everything you can to keep your home from being destroyed by the elements. The classic mechanism of sophisticated card-based combat provides the same engaging gameplay we’ve come to love from the original. FrosthavenIt is a sight to behold.

Votes for women

Tory Brown’s Votes for WomenIt is truly a remarkable product. The product contains replica voting cards, newspaper stories, and letters that have historical value. All of this sets the tone for a card-driven area-control game focused on the struggle of the women’s suffrage movement in America. As a set of systems, it’s similar to a historical wargame; as an experience, it’s a sobering retelling of moral achievement.

It is a particularly unpleasant experience to play the opponent in this game. You use cards to stir up opposition for the 19th Amendment proposal and rally your opponents. Thankfully, the game includes an automated system to control this side of the conflict, allowing one or two players to lead the suffragist movement and fight for women’s rights. It’s a great release, comparable to the genre classics such as Twilight StruggleThe combination of fascinating mechanisms and a historical event creates a wonderful educational experience.

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