Farewell 2023 – New-to-Me Games!

As the year comes to a close, I’ll do my usual end-of-year posts: My personal top three in a range of categories. As tradition commands, we’ll begin with the games that I played for the first time this year. Here are the best three.

Votes for Women (Tory Brown, Fort Circle Games)

Votes for Women is not a war game – after all, American women gained equal voting rights not by the force of arms, but as the result of a decades-long struggle in the arenas of public opinion and lawmaking. Yet the game shines in what has traditionally been the dominion of war games – the dedication to the specificity of its historical subject: Support for the suffrage movement begins in the northeastern United States, but finds an easier hold in the Plains and West (and not so much in the South). The success of the movement depends on finding the right balance between gaining public support and lobbying Congress. And the Suffragists might make compromises at the expenses of others to further their own ends… but not without consequences. As this specificity does not come with compromises to its straightforward rules and accessible playtime, Votes for Women is a milestone in the broadening of the historical conflict game world to encompass new topics and new players.

Only 14 states have adopted equal suffrage for women. Still 22 to go!

Love Letter (Seiji Kanai, Alderac)

I’ve played Lovecraft Letter (Seiji Kanai, Alderac) before, but never the delightfully simple original Love Letter. An oversight! It takes two minutes to explain Love Letter in all its detail, and thirty seconds to see why it’s become such a modern classic: Play is brisk, and everybody has a chance to win a round, be it by strategy, memory, psychology or good old-fashioned luck. There’s a little bit of take that, but everybody is back in the game for the next round. Plus, the art is gorgeous (I think that the original still beats all new editions). All of that makes Love Letter an excellent game to bring new people into the hobby. What’s not to like about that?

©AEG.

Two great entries! My favorite new-to-me game this year, however, was…

Weimar (Matthias Cramer, Capstone Games/Skellig Games/Spielworxx)

I have praised the other two games for their accessibility. Weimar is by no account an accessible game:

It’s inflexible. There is a solo scenario, but the game is clearly meant to be played with exactly four players. It’s complex. Less complex than other favorites of mine, but reading a 32-page rulebook (even though it is well-written and contains lots of examples) is not most gamers’ (let alone most people’s) idea of a good time. It’s long. Even the short scenarios take longer than a full game of Votes for Women (and probably as long as six games of Love Letter), and you will get the full experience only in the six-hour standard scenario. It’s expensive. The German version costs 129 €, the English one $165, and if you want an English version and live outside of the US, the full cost including shipping and taxes will easily make set you back a few hundred dollars. [Full transparency: I received a (used) copy from one of the publishers.]

For these reasons, I would recommend the purchase of Weimar only to very few people. For these select few, however, Weimar shows in its breadth and depth (and, frankly, the outstanding production values) what games can do to engage people with a historical subject matter. For me, at least, it was enough to make me read five books on the Weimar Republic this year and write a four-post series on the fateful year of 1923. What will Weimar do to you?

Weimar in all its 183-card, 292-wooden bit, cardboard chit-and-boards glory.

What were your favorite new-to-me games this year? Let me know in the comments!