Top 6 Gateway Games Not on Other Lists: Part 2

I like the pictures for these two posts, but neither HORRIFIED nor WINGSPAN will appear on this two-part list. I would, however, fully endorse Horrified as an excellent gateway–and superior (!!) alternative to Pandemic.

NOTE: Part 1 can be found here–and apologies this took a lifetime to complete.

Harbour (2015)

WTF is this OOP?; Complexity 2.09/5; BGG;

Mechanisms: Worker Placement, Set Collection, Variable Player Powers

I already said that, for many, worker placement is the evergreen mechanic, so I figured I’d turn two entries on this list over to it. Where Coal Baron was a slight subversion of the genre, Harbour is not. This is the prototypical game in that you place a worker, do an action, and block a space. In Harbour, believe it or not, you’re working in a… harbor. You, as a small gremlin-looking fellow visiting buildings to take actions, selling goods (cows, stone, wood, fish) in order to parlay those sales into purchasing new buildings in the harbor, thereby giving you new action spaces to do new cool stuff.

Harbour is a great entry into the inherently meaner side of worker placement because you only have one worker, so it’s not quite as overwhelming as games where you start with a heap o’ workers, but you can most certainly block action spaces. Not only that, but the market of the game is a simple system of fluctuating prices that are affected each time a player sells something. For a small box game, Harbour includes the idea of supply/demand, so things that aren’t being sold to market are worth more, while things being sold constantly tank in value. Buildings have varied and interesting special abilities, and there are a lot of buildings that will come out into play during any given game, as well as a huge host of special abilities that players will start with, making the game play slightly asymmetrical.

With its worker placement, fluctuating market prices, buying/selling, and special abilities, Harbour is an excellent small box introduction to a plethora of Euro mechanics, and the fact that all of these interesting aspects are encapsulated in such a cleap, small box is remarkable. I will say, however, that of the six games on this list, Harbour is the game I’m least likely to play because I’ve grown past it as a gamer. I’ve seen this jokingly referred to as Tiny Epic Le Havre, which feels very on the nose. That being said, it does a remarkable job of introducing a handful of popular Euro mechanics, so if this game piques your interests, it has plenty of bigger, meatier siblings out there.

For a game that I haven’t touched in a long while, Harbour is probably one of the best single small box game introductions to Euro mechanics I’ve played.

For those meat and potato worker placement fans (light to heavy): Lords of Waterdeep, Viticulture: Essential Edition, The Gallerist

If you enjoyed the market-based buying/selling/producing bits: Clans of Caledonia

Valley of the Kings (2014)

Try it and get the deluxe edition;

Complexity 2.19/5; BGG;

Mechanisms: Card Drafting, Deck Building, Hand Management, Set Collection

It was inevitable that I include deck building on here. For me, deck building is like the junk food of mechanics. When I first encountered deck building, it was all I wanted to do. There is something driving and compulsive about it. You have the feeling that all you have are options, with infinite combos laid out at your feet. I wanted to try every theme and variation possible. For a little bit, the hobby seemed to be exploding with deck builders of all stripes, with variations popping up everywhere.

Things have cooled now, and it seems deck building has found a more comfortable passenger seat behind (or partnered alongside) other mechanics in mid+ weight Euros, and I think that pairing it with additional mechanics in bigger games actually brings the mechanic to life. Deck building is the idea that all players will start with a small deck of very basic and underpowered cards–generally consisting of cards of different currencies, like attack and some kind of purchasing currency–that you’ll use to either buy or defeat other cards, adding them to your deck and thereby increasing the strength of purchasing or fighting, as well as the abilities available to you.

It’s a simple idea, but boy is it like Pringles when you first play it. We have a lot of deck builders, and a bunch more that we’ve since parted ways with. The problem is that many feel a bit themeless and similar, begging the question: If you’ve played one deck builder, have you played them all?

I would argue no. That being said, if you’ve played one, you’ve played… most. Dominion, Marvel: Legendary, Star Realms, Aeon’s End, Hero Realms, Nightfall, Paperback, Eminent Domain, Core Worlds, Ascension, Marvel Dicemasters (not deck but dice pool builder), Shadowrun: Crossfire/Dragonfire, and Thunderstone all feel pretty sorta similar. Granted, they each bring a little teeny bit of something different, but if you didn’t like one of these, you probably won’t like most/any of them.

Valley of the kings subverts a lot of the classic expectations of a deck builder. First of all, the market is spatially interesting. Not just a flat row of cards that randomly come out, these cards form a pyramid, and you’re only able to purchase cards on the bottom row. For the first time, maybe it would behoove you not to buy a decent card on the bottom, because once you do, the card above it will “fall” down and become available to the next player. But maybe you should do it anyway, because there are plenty of cards that let you slightly manipulate the arrangement of the pyramid, anyway. More interesting than the pyramid, however, is the end game scoring. Most cards are not worth flat rate points, but rather points based on how many you were able to squirrel away. And by “squirrel away,” I mean you’ll literally need to start removing them from your deck, one at a time, and adding them to your “tomb” (errr, thematically-named scoring pile) in order to score. Great cards in your deck or hand at the end of the game are worth nothin’. Timing is everything. If you realize that the other player is burying way more cards than you and accelerating the speed of the game, you really need to get on your horse and get those cards into your tomb, otherwise you’re going to be out a lot of points. But by removing the cards from your deck, you will become less powerful. So… when do you do it?

Tough choices are the queen in great games, and for a tiny box that is not expensive, this game packs a lot of difficult, interesting decisions.

For excellent straight-up deck builders to get you shufflin’ everyday: Legendary Encounters: Alien and Arctic Scavengers

If you want a little bit of deck building in your slightly heavier Euros: Great Western Trail (most Alexander Pfister, really), Orléans (not deck, but pool building), Time of Crisis, Newton, Concordia, Founders of Gloomhaven, Undaunted: Normandy/North Africa

Welcome To…

$20ish depending on the day; Complexity 1.82/5; BGG;

Mechanisms: Roll & Write, Bingo, Pattern Building

Roll and write games are like the little subgenre that could. So small, so simple, and so popular. For the past few years, roll and writes have fought for a place at the table, and at this point, I think they’ve done it. Heck, they even have entries that are skewing heavier in weight (Welcome to Dino World). That being said, lightness permeates most roll and writes, and that’s not a bad thing. Light doesn’t necessarily translate to SLIGHT.

Roll and writes are games where players begin with the same, or very similar, starting sheets of paper, at which point some randomizing thingy like dice (see: roll and write) or cards are used to present variable restrictions or requirements that players must work on accomplishing. As you draw or write or fill-in boxes on your little paper, your sheet will begin to look quite different from everyone else’s. At the end of the game, you’ll calculate scores and the highest wins. Yay.

Roll and writes have a great tactile nature, which for some reason is easier to teach than more abstract ideas you’d find in an equally light game. Being able to draw routes or write down numbers or shade specific areas feels oddly familiar, which makes roll and write games very family friendly. They also generally have a small footprint, small box, and low price tag, without sacrificing replayability. We have a few roll and writes, and I can say that they all seem to have high replayability–if roll and writes are your thing. I’ve read plenty from people who don’t seem to like roll and writes, but the myriad options that clever designers have managed to get into these tiny games are remarkable. In Railroad Ink, you will roll dice that show sections of track, and slowly you will draw tracks on tiny dry erase boards, working to score specific features before your turns run out. In the aforementioned Welcome to Dino World, you’ll be building dinosaur pens, powering electric fences, building features for your park, and trying to prevent the dinos from busting out and devouring people your score.

But what about Welcome To…? This game is a small, card-driven roll and write where you flip three double-sided cards so you’ll be showing a trio of pairs baring number on one side and a feature on the back of another card, forcing you to choose one and add it to your map of a minute subdivision. Your working to meet end game objectives for points, as well as build specific features, like parks, to make sure you have the best neighborhood around.

Welcome To… brings the simple gameplay and high replayability along with a charming theme and low price tag. I could always play Welcome To…, and it does everything without falling into a roll and write pitfall of being too vaguely mathy or themeless. We’ve played with family who have not moved beyond Scrabble, and they loved it. And we’ve played it more than our fair share at the end of the night with a cool adult beverage in hand.

Roll more and write more, too: The Cartographers, Railroad Ink, Silver & Gold, On Tour, Imperial Settlers: Roll and Write

I want something a smidge heavier than that Welcome To… game: Welcome to New Las Vegas!

If you just want a taste of this because it sounds a little juvenile: Get the app for Ganz Schon Clever, which technically may be my most played game ever considering how you just want to get a higher score. You can do better. No, you can do better! Play again! No, now!

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SORRY this took so long to complete. The problem with taking a long time to write about some games is that now a handful are hard to get. Go figure. Check your local store, older games have plenty of life.