Games We Wish We Liked More | What Holds Them Back?

There are games out there that, for one reason or another, we WISH we liked more or as much as others do. However, certain things about them hold us back from enjoying them as much as we could or we want to.

Do you have games that you wish you liked more? Ones that others clamor about or love to play, but don't seem to resonate as much with you? Games you like, but not enough to own or revisit often? Let us know!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
✨Official AYCB Discord Community✨
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
👕The All You Can Board Merch Store👕
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
🌟If you'd like to, support us on Patreon!🌟
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
🙏Or if you'd prefer, send us a tip!🙏
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
0:00 Criteria
1:08 Evolution: Climate - Dylann
9:27 Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North - Carlo
17:26 Dominion - Dylann
22:30 Lisboa - Carlo
32:29 Spirit Island - Both
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

[AllYouCanBoard]

What's a game you wish you liked more and what's your reason?
We'd love to hear from you!

[Pdhooge]

During your description of Spirit Island, I was confused - having a very different experience with the game - untill you mention that you've played it without adversaries (the countries). If you play without, you will almost always win around turn 7, it is very predictable. Although great to have one or two learning games without a lot of distraction, I'd absolutely recommend trying it with an adversary and a healthy island/blighted island card. Those two things combined change the arc of the game completely. I'd elaborate, but if you are willing to try again, I'm pretty sure you'll have fun discovering how the game changes and I don't want to spoil it - discovery is one of the great things about this game.
The scenario's (not the countries, but same sized cards) I feel are mostly there for when you've played most of what the game has to offer and you want to force yourself out of your "Spirit Island comfort zone".
The expansions are mostly just more stuff to play around with. I love them, but they won't change your mind about the game unless you are planning on playing it solo. The most impactful thing the expansions add are event cards, which give a necessary tension breaking point for solo games. The events also add more unpredictability, forcing you to look up from your own things, re-evaluate plans on the fly, etc, but in a multiplayer game I feel that still just counts as "more stuff" :).

Couldn't agree more on Imperial Settlers Empires of the North though. I really want to love that game, but it usually devolves into a repetitive resource conversion chain without any real tension.

[stevewithington]

Stick with Lisboa. My wife and I were under 2 hours after two plays. The only thing you really need the player aid for is checking what the clerical tiles do but even then, they have such good iconography that you can normally figure it out without the book. It might not be a game we particularly want to teach but it plays great at two so there’s probably never going to be a need to. It’s my #3 game of all time and my wife’s #1.

[paulhamrick]

Another quibble about wanting a huge deck of unique cards (a criticism you made of Evolution), what’s great about having a more repetitive deck of cards is that you actually can have a set of strategies to employ, instead of just the luck of the draw.

[chauveet]

Thanks for another great video! My favorite discussion by far was about Lisboa.

As a hobbyist/collector, there is a small number of games that I love and enjoy, but at times I have decided to sell or give away certain larger games because of the very reasons that you stated. No matter how great a game is, you have to be mindful of what you will actually get to the table. A variation of a saying I am trying to model my life after is "When you buy a book, you are also imagining that you are setting aside the time to read it." Anything we purchase, whether tools for a hobby, a video game, or a board game, should be done with a mindfulness of whether we are making time for it.

A few games on my shelf that I should probably sell or give away as I am unlikely to actually get to the table: Through the Ages, The Banner Saga: Warbands, Civilization (FFG), Myth, Pathfindand basically any campaign game (Charterstone, Pathfinder Card Game)

[candle]

If giving Spirit Island another go, 100% suggest playing on steam solo. quicker on both fronts (setup and not waiting for other players). One of my favorite solo games (next to marvel champions / aeons end / Too Many Bones) As others mentioned, the branch and claw expansion adds events every round, making it less "we win in 3 rounds". But yeah, can still feel anticlimactic. All very valid points. Great video as always!

[draheim]

Wanted to add some thoughts about Spirit Island in case y’all ever give it another shot:

1) The base game and with no adversaries/scenarios is easily the worst way to play the game. It’s basically how you learn how to play and once you find it to be easy it’s time to up the difficulty.

2) Relatedly, the expansion content helps a lot. Many of the original spirits have some well-documented design flaws and the newer spirits (Horizons and Jagged Earth) have a lot to offer. The land tokens added in the expansions also enhance the experience quite a bit.

3) While the anticlimactic ending is an issue people raise, playing with adversaries and the event deck (introduced in Branch & Claw though the events in Jagged Earth are generally better) help this to some degree. They also help address the predictability and not utilizing the Dahan. Specifically, the events add unpredictability and interact with the Dahan/expansion tokens and many force you to make an (often difficult) choice. Adversaries provide more consistent, and even ramping, pressure throughout the game to help counteract that your spirit gets stronger as the game goes on.

4) I strongly prefer to play it solo. I think it’s fine at 2p but it’s great as a head-down solo puzzle that, once you’re familiar with the rules, you can consistently play in 30-60 minutes.

5) I didn’t like my first couple plays of SI (or my first couple plays of SI with the B&C expansion). It takes a few plays to get comfortable with the rules and rhythm of the game, then it gets fun when you hit that comfort level, find spirits you connect with, AND tune the difficulty correctly to make it an actual challenge.

6) Finally, related to some of the previous points, the content that is in the first expansion was actually intended (and designed) to be part of the base game. Late in development the publisher had some concerns and wanted the content separated out, but if you feel like SI is lacking or deficient in some ways it very well may be because the base game itself is really only around 60% or so of what the full base game was supposed to be. Many SI players feel you aren’t playing “real” SI until you’re playing with the B&C tokens, events, a blight card, and an adversary.


So the tl;dr is I think playing just the base game and at low difficulty (i.e., no adversary/scenario) doesn’t provide a great experience except to initially learn the game. it’s definitely worth another shot in my opinion, especially solo, with an adversary, and some expansion stuff.

PS - Prussia is a great adversary to start with since there’s little rules overhead. They only affect setup except for their escalation effect.

[itsGabrielaCristina]

I have played Spirit Island a few times and I love it, but I do agree that sometimes winning catches you off guard, especially when the fear level increases and then you automatically meet the win conditions. We almost missed it last time as we didn’t realize we won 😂 I still adore playing that game

[malvinafis]

I really like all of the games you talk about (have not played Lisboa). Regarding EotN, I agree a bit, we rarely exhaust an opponents building.

[matthelion]

Great video! I think Lisboa is Lacerda’s best game

[johnmills]

I ordered myself a copy of Dominion two days ago as I have never played it but absolutely love deck building games and then I watch this video.
Ouch.

[Meaulnes]

Regarding Lisboa Player aid you are very unfair. Yes it is a 8 pages booklet but it includes 1/ the player aid per se : rules summary 1 page and detailed actions 2 pages + a very useful « How to … » missing in nearly every other game ( I write one for myself for any new euro game I play ) : 1 page + a glossary of tiles and cards ( something often found in 1 copy to be shared among all players ) : 3 pages + 1 cover page.
It is much more than a player aid and we should thank the editor for such a good tool rather than criticize it.

[JJEMcManus]

When Dylan mentions A Feast for Odin, take a shot. It was a dry show but still, it was bound to happen.
Spirit Island, I still want to try it.

[stevefratus]

I got you guys beat. Lol. Not only am I Portuguese but I also live in Lisbon, Connecticut. I’m dying to play Lisboa! I will own all of Lacerda’s games.

[jinsoloboardgames]

What a coincidence! I just sold my copy of spirit island today. I really also wished that I loved the game more. I love the heavy strategy, asymytric spirits, deck building! Love those aspects so much. I played it solo about 10 times to dive deeper, but if anything, the game was more frustrating than fun. I generally don’t like pandemic games as they feel like playing difficult wack-a-mole games. It feels like “clean up”. I find myself cleaning up the board, trying to reduce the amount of bad things. I don’t want to be “cleaning up” - as it feels like doing chores instead of a game. I want to feel like fighting not cleaning up :( that is why I never got to enjoy the game and I decided to sell it. It breaks my heart because it was one of my first big games I bought.

[wiktormonfilsgustafsson]

Branch and claw made spirit island more exciting, would not play without it.

[HGlife]

I Loved Evelutions: Climate, was a top 5 for a LONG TIME but now have Oceans and don't see a situation I would "go back" to Climate. Its so much more smooth and flavourfull and makes your ecosystem engin more stable. I love that everyone is a carnavor and the insane amount of symbyotic/parsitic relationship just like a real ecossytem. looking forward to the compairson you do. *also they already did a flying game, it was a expansion for the base game but did not work with cilmate.

[windyhillbomber]

Lisboa is immensely satisfying. Simple play, deep deep strategy. Fiddly rules aside, a standout masterpiece.

[andrealmeida]

Não acredito que vocês são portugueses! Aos anos que vos sigo e nunca associei a serem portugueses. Triplicaram o meu gosto no vosso canal, parabéns!

[ManL]

I know what you mean about Lisboa. My friend is from New Zealand and we played Moa (set in NZ) but it just wasn't fun. She was trying to defend the game, I finally said it was because she was from there. Her husband agreed and she finally agreed. But she looked like she felt bad lol