Well, here we are again: the Great Geeky Gift-Guide and Giveaway – 2024 edition! This year, we’ve gone for a bit earlier so that you can get them in plenty of time for the season, with a whole host of goodies to be won to fill your stocking as well! Check out the giveaway details at the end or head over to Instagram @big_geekingout! We’ve already featured our best Miniature / Big Buy, Star Wars: Shatterpoint last month, and you can check out the winner of that giveaway over on insta as well!
But, without further ado (or adon’t):
BEST GATEWAY GAME
Akropolis
It’s always a challenge to find a game that gets your less gamer-y pals into the more crunchy side of the hobby, but luckily Akropolis is an excellent, accessible tile-laying treat. Each turn, players draft tiles from the centre of the board, trying to group colours to unlock points combos – green for parks, red for military, yellow for markets and so on. Some colours work better together in different formations (parks together, military along the edges), some spread apart (markets need to be scattered across the city).
A key element is covering up existing Hexes, initially to produce raw materials (by covering Quarry hexes). Sometimes, you’ll want to cover less advantageous tiles, but at others you’ll have to cover something good to leave open a multiplier (the star tiles) or set up a later game strategy.
As the city tiles build up, it gains physical height – a literal akro-polis that’s a visual delight (and makes scoring immediate and obvious). It even has a delightful wooden column first-player token! An absolutely outstanding game that is ideal for 10+ and will be sure to have everyone arguing post-Turkey (wait… the Akropolis is Greece, not Turkey… sorry, cracker joke).
BEST ALL-AGES GAME
Stomp the Plank!
Warning: this is a very silly, loud game involving balancing barrels and making elephant pirates walk the plank. It’s a great mix of dexterity and push your luck, as you reveal treasure from the captain (giraffe) ’s chest and hope not to reveal 2 the same. Stop in time and you add barrels to everyone else’s plank; get two the same, and you move closer to the brink; but get reveal 7 different and you win! Although it’s a bit more You Lose than I Win, it’s a lot of fun and gets everyone from 5+ playing and having a good time. And the box is itself a pirate ship with magnetic planks! So much to love.
BEST FAMILY CARD GAME
Wednesday: Misfits and Outcasts
In Wednesday, you are aiming to score the lowest hand in each of 5 rounds. You start with 10 cards and either play 1 low to high or discard sets of more than 1 (the term SET is not defined in the rulebook, actually, which is rather annoying). 4 copies of Cards are numbered 1-10, plus a single each of Zero and 13 (Wednesday herself). Some cards have abilities when played (eg 4 also steals) or discarded (eg 4×10 ends the round)
However, after the first round there’s the added twist of characters, which might allow you to play extra cards, change the sequence, and so on.
Elder spawn didn’t love this, but younger two absolutely did. Partly this is simply because it’s a better game at 3 or more, partly because little miss in particular is a big fan of the show. The theme does feel a bit bolted on, I’d have loved them to do more with the Stoners – even if Alex had frozen cards rather than Thing. Nevertheless, a great card game with a bit more challenge that’s still engaging for younger players!
BEST LIGHTWEIGHT GAME
Monkey Palace
Seriously, who doesn’t love Lego? Well possibly anyone who’s struggled with any of the many notoriously awful lego boardgames of the past. Happily, Monkey Palace is an absolute delight: a gem of a boardgame that is all about the building experience!
Players take turns building staircase shapes with arches and blocks; the bigger you build, the more you get to build on subsequent turns. Your starting square is either light green, dark green or gold, which determines the assortment of bricks you can pick from next, as well as scoring (in the form, of course, of bananas). At the end of your staircase you place matching coloured leaves or a gold cylinder, which further raises the level – however, starting from gold also allows you to place the monkey, which effectively blocks a square for the next player.
My boys are 14 and 16 and loved it, and my 40 something bestie plans to buy 3 copies after a single demo!
It’s delightful and devious, embracing the theme and the sheer haptic joy of clicking bricks. The baseplate with overlay is reminiscent of Minotaurus (aka the GOOD lego game of old) and the multiple double sided overlays allow for scaleable difficulties.
BEST MIDWEIGHT GAME
River of Gold
This beautiful game set in the Feudal fantasy Japan of Legend of the Five Rings catches the sweet spot of medium weight Euro Worker placement with a short timescale. Being playable in under an hour really caught our attention & it doesn’t disappoint.
The game revolves around merchants trading for goods down a mighty river, sailing your elegant wooden boats down beautifully embossed in gold foil on the board itself. But this is not, as you might think, a pick up & deliver – whilst it has some elements of that, as you deliver goods (Silk, Rice, and Porcelain) to your customers. However, it is the bonuses that they unlock that are key: artisans reduce the cost of building, monks increase your Divine Intervention, nobles improve your boats, etc. And building along the banks of the river, & reaping those rewards, is the key to victory.
You have two ships that you sail down the river, but all turns on the roll of the die. The number on the die corresponds to the region you may interact with, or the number of spaces you may move. A ship gathers the resources of the 4 adjacent locations, but each player can build and potentially gain better benefits as taxation, gaining influence in that area. So the game becomes a Push/ pull of influence & construction, stopping at harbours along the way to gain Koku (funds) to build. As befits the setting, you can modify the dice with divine intervention, but this itself is a limited resource – better deliver to the monks after all!
This game is FANTASTIC. It’s incredibly fast, as you are constantly back & forth – a turn lasts a minute or two at most. I love the setting, my son has no interest – & we both thought the game was superb. It even comes with a mini expansion that adds sponsor benefits, though again, you don’t need to be invested in the theme to enjoy the machinations of the Great Clans.
BEST CLASSIC BOARDGAME
Survive the Island!
It’s just possible that you’re very old like me and remember battered copies of the 80s classic Survive! Escape from Atlantis, probably grudgingly included by older cousins. A cut above your standard rainy-day boardgame, this was strategic and cutthroat (no, not like Monopoly is), where you have to get your high-value pieces off the island grabbing as much treasure as you can before you are consumed by terrors or lost into the sea. Well, it’s back and better than ever, whilst scratching that nostalgic itch.
Each turn you can take up to 3 move actions (though individual meeples can only swim a single hex), take a tile (they are of differing thicknesses, thinnest sinking first – genius) and rolling to move a monster. The tiles also have effects on the reverse, either immediate (red) or usable in a later turn (green) – simple, clean icons and a good player reference make this a cinch for all ages.
It’s a bit more streamlined this time, making it properly accessible to ages 8+, comes with fantastic chunky meeples – the shark is a particular delight – and will have you hooting with joy. It’s always a challenge to find a game that the youngest one in our house can legitimately beat the eldest sibling, and the game’s runtime of 30-45 minutes (with minimal setup) means you’ll be playing this again and again (and again..)
BEST STOCKING FILLER / SECRET SANTA
Cat Days/Woof Days/Dino Days
It’s always hard to find those wee extras to tuck in the giant sock, or buy for a person you’ve met twice at the photocopies, but fear not we have you covered.
These 3 games all share the same basic engine, though Woof Days is the most straightforward, Cat Days slightly more complex (me and the 2 lesser spawn preferred this) and Dino Days marginally more complex and certainly more vicious (maybe that’s why the eldest loves it).
Each player has 7 days of the week to fill with animals from their hand of 5 cards; each turn you can play or draw a card. However, all animals have preferences: Poodles can only be played on a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday, Jumpy cats must be placed to the right of another, the two ends of a Diplodocus must be placed as a pair, and so on. Some can be played on an opponent’s board, scaring away others with a feral cat or a gigantasaurus, or you can lure others with Dog Treats or a nice cardboard box. It’s all very fun, cute without being cutesy, and extremely accessible. Pop that in your stocking this season! Available at farplacegames.com.
PLUS the games are made by animal welfare charity Farplace Animal Rescue, so you’re doing good in the process!
BEST IP/COMIC TIE-IN
Marvel Splendor
The Splendor (still can’t get used to that American spelling) franchise has shown its durability over recent years, but the Marvel version of the game still stands out as distinct yet simple and accessible. In this tile-based collection game, you aim to collect the Infinity Gems, gradually building your collection of characters until you meet the requirements of a Gem. However, there are also key locations to be won that can speed your path to victory (much like Cities of Splendor). For the uninitiated, the familiarity of its IP makes it highly intuitive; for the veteran gamer, it’s a fresh twist on the familiar theme.
BEST BOARD GAME EXPANSION CONTENT
7 Wonders: Architects – Medals
This is one of those games that I go on and on about. Whilst there’s several excellent entries in the 7 Wonders canon, only in Architects do you actually get to sit and BUILD the physical Wonders of the ancient world piece by piece in front of your eyes. The Medals expansion acts as a nice rules tweak, providing extra shared goals to compete for and balancing the power of cats (mao) which can dominate the basic game – as well as giving them a city of their own to build! An absolute gem of a game, and I would argue an essential expansion simply because it’s just so much fun.
BEST IP/COMIC MINIATURE CONTENT
Star Wars: Shatterpoint – This is Some Rescue / Certified Guild
Whether or not you’re into the game itself, there are wealth of sets for all fans of the franchise – and the models themselves are an absolute joy to build and paint. But I’ve picked these 2 out very specifically (even if a lot of white is… less fun to paint). They are both iconic moments from the franchise, the classic episode IV scene of the slightly bungled escape from the detention block and Din Djarin, Grogu and IG-11 standing their ground from S1 of The Mandalorian. They are beautifully engineered sets (the way the child-pod seems to hover is remarkable) and make for fantastic display pieces in their own right, as well as being fully playable standalone sets in game.
BEST MERCH: CLOTHING
Shirts’n’Merch
Purveyors of the finest geekery to strap on to your chest (um…) you can’t go far wrong with a shirt from the brilliant Shirts’n’Merch. Whether you have a favourite meeple colour, want to share you love of Wing (or Wyrm) span, tell everyone that you’re the Final Girl or, like me, prefer the great indoors to the so-called great outdoors, there’s something for you! Also, the quality of the shirts themselves cannot be overstated – no cheap polycotton that falls apart after a couple of wears.
BEST MERCH: OTHER/CUSTOM
Geeketched
And after – or with – a hard day’s gaming, you need to declare your alignmet with your glassware right? Pick your class on a glass, warn players of the smiling DM, or get some pop-culture references old and new (curse your sudden yet inevitable betrayal!); Geeketched has a huge range of geeky glassware and meme-tastic coasters to choose from (I mean, who doesn’t need a Prince Adam coaster in their life?)
GIVEAWAY TIME!
Bearing in mind we’ve already given away the Shatterpoint Core Set (splitting into 2 giveaways to spread the love!), this year in the fat man’s sack (me, the fat man is me), you can win a mighty stack thanks to our many lovely friends. The haul includes:
– Akropolis
– Marvel Splendor
– 7 Wonders: Architects – Medals
– PLUS a T-shirt of your choice from Shirts’n’Merch!
So drag yourself over to @big_geekingout on Instagram and check out the pinned post to enter, but as ever you can blag some extra entries RIGHT HERE.
Just tell us in the comments below what’s on your Geeky Xmas Wishlist and you’ll get 5 extra entries (to the tune of 5 gold rings)!
The Writer of this piece was: Sam Graven
Article Archive: Geeking Out
You can follow Sam on Instagram at @big_geekingout
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