We play a ton of board games every year, but some games make it to the table more than others. Some are old, and some are new, but they’re all favorites in our collection!
Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition
Hands down, this was the most played board game in 2022. It has been everything we wanted it to be. Strategy, combos, engine building, a space theme. Nothing but love for Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition. In fact, we love it so much I ended up buying a copy of Terraforming Mars too. That one is still in shrink, but it was on sale, so I couldn’t resist. *Slaps forehead in amused pain*
Meadow
My daughter is obsessed with this board game. She loves all the animal cards, and building her own meadow filled with them is a perfect way to spend an afternoon. The puzzly nature of needing to match the icons on the cards to grow your meadow keeps this one interesting.
Creature Comforts
Again, my daughter loves this one too. If she’s not playing Meadow, she wants to play Creature Comforts. We love the cutesy woodland artwork. It’s a quick play, with simple rules. A good example of a board game that’s simple enough for kids, but interesting enough to keep adults entertained too. We are looking forward to the release of Maple Valley, the sequel to Creature Comforts.
Everdell
Motivated by the start of fulfillment for the Everdell Complete Collection, we decided to pull our base game off the shelf and refresh the rules a bit. The game is very easy to learn, but it’s harder to be good at it. We keep pulling it out, desperately trying to improve our scores. The Complete Collection is sitting on the top of my bookshelf looking spectacular. Can’t wait to start stickering all the new meeples!
Splendor
My husband is the main driver behind Splendor. He loves to play board games, but he doesn’t love learning new rules as much as I do. If he picks a game, a tried-and-true classic like Splendor is always a winner. It doesn’t hurt that he wins this game 99% of the time. My kids never play Splendor though. It’s a theme thing. It just doesn’t appeal to them. We also own Splendor Marvel, but that hasn’t captivated them either. And despite my feelings that Splendor Marvel improves certain elements of the game, we still play the original the most.
Biggest regret of 2022
Ark Nova. I knew the second I saw it, I needed to play this board game. I love the theme, the interesting mechanisms, all of it. Unfortunately, it was incredibly hard to find during the first half of the year, and we were consumed by our move during the second half of the year. So, boo. Perhaps 2023 will bring this game to us!
