When the end of a year approaches, it often becomes a moment of reflection for any hobbyist who has devoted countless hours to exploring new experiences, testing unfamiliar designs, and evaluating whether the time spent has been worthwhile. For me, this past stretch has been especially significant, because I had already decided that the games I had just encountered would likely be the last new-to-me titles before I shifted my focus toward building my annual lists of favorites, disappointments, and lasting treasures. Going into these plays, I felt the same mixture of excitement and trepidation I always feel when something I have waited for finally makes it to the table. The anticipation was particularly strong for one title in particular, Video Game Champion, which seemed almost perfectly aligned with my personal tastes. The concept of revisiting my childhood memories, stored away like artifacts in a cardboard box, felt like it would blend nostalgia with clever game design. Everything about the presentation seemed to promise a playful ride through video game culture, complete with drafting mechanics, magazines, cheat codes, and the constant thrill of beating titles as though one were working through a backlog on an old console. Yet almost from the first moments, that early excitement began to unravel, and the reality of the game did not match the joy I expected. The money economy was brutally tight, turning what should have been a fun and breezy experience into one of constant frustration. Instead of delight, I felt like I was fighting against the system, forced to discard resources I had just gained before I even had a chance to use them. It was one of the first times I ever encountered a game that compelled me to throw away progress before it even registered, and the decision to enforce limits immediately rather than at the end of a turn created an unpleasant cycle.
The experience of discarding to make space, then discarding more to beat a title, left me feeling like I was never actually working on multiple objectives in tandem, which undermined the core appeal of the drafting system. There were moments when the theme still shone through, when poker hands matched up neatly to the concept of playing games or when the magazines and goals aligned to create charming little stories, but these sparks of joy were dimmed quickly by the ever-present shadow of a constrictive system. My brother managed to squeeze out a win by wasting fewer tiles, and although that victory demonstrated that there were paths to efficiency, it never truly felt satisfying. I realized that even though I could return to this game for the theme alone, it was unlikely to become a permanent resident in my collection. What should have been one of the highlights of my gaming year became one of the sharper disappointments, a reminder that sometimes the best ideas can be undone by mechanical choices that choke.
After the frustration of Video Game Champion, the next discovery could have gone either way, but fortunately it delivered a much stronger experience. The Gang, described as cooperative texas hold em, sounded strange at first but quickly proved to be both clever and entertaining. I have played poker for much of my life with family and friends, and the idea of transforming a traditionally competitive card game into a cooperative challenge intrigued me deeply. At the table, the design unfolded with surprising clarity. We sat down at three players, and although the difficulty level was on the easier side, the game revealed enough depth and fun to keep us engaged. What impressed me most was how naturally the mechanics of texas hold em adapted to a shared goal. The poker chips, particularly well-made for such an affordable package, provided a satisfying tactile element, and the rule-changing cards introduced an unpredictable layer that kept every round fresh. Some cards tilted the game in the players’ favor, while others offered small but meaningful challenges, though I quickly felt there could have been more negative options to heighten tension.
Still, the combination worked, and as hands were played out, I could feel the same tension of normal poker but with the added joy of working together to overcome the game itself rather than one another. It was, in fact, one of the rare designs that managed to merge familiarity with novelty, taking something everyone at the table already understood and flipping it into a fresh cooperative puzzle. Of course, the limitations were visible as well. Without a knowledge of poker hand rankings and probabilities, the experience would likely be baffling, making the game less accessible to players outside that world. The absence of difficulty scaling across player counts also stood out as a flaw, since what felt relatively easy at three players could easily become punishing or chaotic at larger numbers without the rules offering a way to balance things. Yet even with these concerns, the game revealed itself to be a keeper, one that would likely find its way back to the table for years to come. I looked forward in particular to introducing it to my friend Roger, someone who has shared the poker table with me for countless nights across our lives, because I knew the blend of familiarity and novelty would speak to him instantly.
The Gang succeeded where the previous game faltered by staying true to its central conceit while ensuring that the mechanics reinforced rather than fought against the intended spirit of play. And in the middle of that success, I could not resist reflecting on one of my personal irritations with modern card games that still rely on traditional two-color poker decks. There was no need to continue clinging to a design convention rooted in the limitations of a century and a half ago when four-color decks offer so much more clarity, and I wished the designers had taken the step into modernity. Even with that complaint, though, the overall impression remained positive, and I left the table not only satisfied but eager for the next chance to play.
The final new arrival in this closing stretch of the year was Bardwood Grove, a game that had long lingered on my list of curiosities until a Black Friday deal made it possible to acquire the full all-in package. This included not only the base game but also expansions and upgraded resources, and from the very beginning, the presentation made an impact. Unlike the sharp disappointments of Video Game Champion or the clever subversions of The Gang, Bardwood Grove offered a tone and style that felt genuinely unique. Where many games lean on combat, conflict, or resource conversion, Bardwood Grove instead built itself on the notion of music and peace. Rather than fighting monsters, players soothed them with melodies, turning what could have been yet another combat-driven cycle into something that emphasized harmony and creativity. The deckbuilding, too, felt unlike its many predecessors. Instead of succumbing to the usual pitfalls of bloated decks and frustrating starting cards, the system encouraged meaningful decisions at every stage. Small choices accumulated until a song could be played, and when that happened, the feeling was distinct, almost like unleashing a carefully prepared performance. The characters, each with their own personalities and differences, made the experience feel varied and alive. Unlock boxes added further depth, slowly revealing new layers of content that expanded the game without overwhelming players from the start. I enjoyed the surprise of discovering new elements, even if some of the early boxes were predictable, and I remained curious about what the final ones might contain. The expansion added one-use powers and additional characters that enriched the diversity of play, and the upgraded resources and metal coins elevated the tactile experience into something luxurious. At the same time, the design was not without weaknesses. .
Discovering New Games with Anticipation and Disappointment
When the year begins, it always feels like there is an endless horizon of possibilities for what kinds of games will make it to my table, which ones will surprise me, and which ones will become lasting members of my collection. But as the months roll by, that horizon begins to narrow, and by the time the final quarter arrives, the sense of anticipation sharpens. Every new arrival feels more important because there are fewer opportunities left to test something truly different before the year closes and I begin the process of looking back. That anticipation was especially strong this year because the early months had left me somewhat underwhelmed. I had already been worrying that I would not have enough strong new discoveries to even make a proper top ten list, something that has never been an issue in previous years. With that in mind, when a game like Video Game Champion finally came into my collection, it carried with it the weight of expectation. The concept alone seemed to check so many boxes for me personally. It was pitched as a nostalgic dive into the culture of gaming I grew up with, something that mixed drafting with a clever system of building poker hands to represent beating video games, complete with magazines, cheat codes, and goals. On paper it sounded like exactly the kind of playful and thematic experience I love most, the sort of title that makes you smile at the table because the design and theme work hand in hand to remind you why you play in the first place. I opened the box with a genuine sense of excitement, the same way you might unseal a long-anticipated book or unwrap a holiday gift you have been waiting for all year. I wanted so badly for it to be great, and perhaps that made the disappointment sting all the more.
As we began to play, the initial impression was positive enough. The theme radiated charm. The magazines and cheat codes added little splashes of flavor. The idea of building poker hands to mimic the way you play through video games was whimsical and surprisingly clever. Even the goals pushed you toward a sense of narrative, as though you were carving your own small history of gaming achievements. But then the weight of the mechanics began to push against that promise, and what should have been a lighthearted experience quickly became something heavy and frustrating. The economy of the game was designed to be extremely tight, and while I understand that many designers like to inject tension through scarcity, in this particular case it did not match the tone or intention of the theme. Video games, especially when framed through the lens of childhood nostalgia, are not about being nickel-and-dimed at every turn. They are about exploration, fun, sometimes even indulgence. Here, though, I found myself constantly short on money, constantly pushed into IOUs, and it created an undercurrent of stress that was completely at odds with what the game wanted me to feel. That tension was not exciting, it was exhausting.
One of the strangest design choices was the way the game enforced storage limits immediately after gaining resources. In most games, whether it is a hand of cards or a pile of tokens, you collect during your turn, enjoy the feeling of building momentum, and then at the end of the round you are asked to discard down to the appropriate limit. That rhythm feels fair and natural, allowing you to use what you gained before trimming back. In Video Game Champion, the opposite happened. You were asked to discard right after collecting, often before you even had a chance to use what you had worked for. That meant moments of progress immediately turned into moments of loss, which is not only mechanically frustrating but emotionally deflating. Imagine finally scraping together resources for something exciting, only to have the game demand you throw them away before they can even serve their purpose. It is the kind of design choice that makes you question whether the creators ever fully tested how their rules would feel in practice.
It did not end there. The act of beating a game, which should have been the high point of the experience, also required you to discard yet more tiles. So not only were you discarding when you went over limits, you were discarding again when you succeeded. Progress was repeatedly punished rather than rewarded. What this meant in practical terms was that you could not reasonably pursue multiple goals at once, because every victory stripped you bare, leaving you unable to build toward anything else. That decision gutted the potential of the drafting system, which otherwise could have been one of the most engaging parts of the design. Drafting thrives on the idea that you can pursue different strategies simultaneously, watching how the pieces might align across several goals. When the system itself forces you into a cycle of single-focus, discard, reset, it strips away much of what makes drafting so enjoyable.
My brother ended up winning our first play, and he managed it by simply wasting fewer tiles than I did, which was an unintentionally telling outcome. The game rewarded the person who managed to avoid interacting with its frustrating mechanics the most, rather than the person who engaged most deeply with its systems. That felt wrong, not because I lost, but because it revealed what kind of play the game incentivized. It pushed you not to explore, not to take risks, not to spread out and draft ambitiously, but to hunker down, minimize losses, and try to just make it through the cycle with as little pain as possible. That kind of mentality might work in a survival game or a tight economic simulation, but not in something that bills itself as a joyful celebration of gaming culture. It was the wrong tone, the wrong spirit, and it made me feel as though the designers had missed their own mark.
Despite all of this, there were flashes of what could have been. The magazines really did provide charming moments, and the cheat codes were clever little twists that fit the theme beautifully. The way poker hands translated into game victories was inventive, and I admired the ingenuity of that idea even as I disliked the way it was executed in the broader system. The drafting itself was smooth, the presentation was appealing, and I could see the outlines of a great game buried under the weight of its flawed choices. That made the disappointment sharper because it was not a case of a fundamentally broken design. It was a case of a good idea undermined by critical missteps, which is always harder to accept because you can imagine the version of the game that should have been.
In the end, I found myself conflicted. I wanted to love this game, and on some level, I still do. The theme is one of the most fun I have seen in years, and I could probably be persuaded to sit down with it again just to enjoy that nostalgia, just to appreciate the magazines and cheat codes, just to smile at the cleverness of poker hands representing games beaten. But I could not, in good conscience, call it a keeper. It would never be a regular part of my collection, never the kind of game I would choose to introduce to new players or bring to a game night when I wanted to impress. It was, ultimately, one of the most anticipated games of my year, and it simply did not deliver. That realization stung, but it also reminded me of one of the truths of this hobby. Not every game can live up to the promise of its concept, and sometimes even the best themes cannot save a design from itself.
What I took away from Video Game Champion was a blend of appreciation and regret. I appreciated the effort, the creativity, the spark of brilliance that inspired it. But I regretted that it was not tested with a keener eye toward fun, that its systems did not support the joy it wanted to create. As the year neared its end, that disappointment became part of my broader reflection on what it means to spend time with games, what it means to anticipate, to play, to evaluate, and to keep or let go. Sometimes the lessons come not only from the games that succeed but from the ones that fall short, and Video Game Champion offered a lesson in how fragile the balance between theme and mechanics can be.
After the letdown of Video Game Champion, I felt both cautious and hopeful as the next new game hit the table. I had been burned before by a concept that seemed brilliant on paper, only to falter in practice. The Gang carried that same sense of intrigue before we even opened the box because the description alone sounded so unusual: a cooperative take on texas hold em. To most people, poker is the ultimate competitive card game, a clash of bluffing, math, psychology, and bravado. The idea that this could be reimagined into a cooperative format felt strange, almost counterintuitive. But sometimes the strangest ideas are the ones that yield the most surprising results, and within a few rounds of play, it became clear that The Gang belonged in that category. From the beginning, the mechanics clicked, and what could have been a gimmick turned out to be a well-executed game that delivered genuine enjoyment, clever twists, and a feeling of freshness that was exactly what I needed at that point in the year.
Our first play was at three players, which I later realized is probably the easiest count for this particular game. At three, the challenge is manageable, almost forgiving, and that allowed us to really absorb the mechanics without feeling crushed by difficulty. The pace was brisk, the flow natural, and within minutes we were all invested in the shared puzzle of making the best possible hands to beat the game together. The poker chips included in the box were surprisingly high-quality given the game’s price, and that small tactile detail elevated the whole experience. There is something satisfying about the weight of a proper chip in your hand, and it immediately reinforced the idea that we were not just dabbling in some flimsy re-skin but actually engaging in a thoughtful, complete product. The fact that the designers understood the importance of presentation gave me confidence that they had given equal care to the game’s internal structure, and in this case, that faith was rewarded.
Experiments in Cooperative Poker and Unexpected Successes
When I sat down to play The Gang for the first time, the memory of Video Game Champion was still fresh in my mind, and that meant I approached this new title with cautious optimism. The idea of cooperative Texas hold ’em sounded almost too strange to be real. Poker has always been defined by its competitive nature, by the subtle tension of bluffing, by the personal battle to build the strongest hand while hiding your intentions from the others at the table. Turning such a game into a cooperative experience seemed like it might undermine everything that makes poker what it is. Yet at the same time, the idea was fascinating, because poker is also about reading odds, assessing probabilities, and using limited information to make the best collective decisions possible. By reframing that tension into a battle against the game itself rather than against other players, The Gang attempted something unusual, and in doing so it created a cooperative puzzle that felt both familiar and fresh. At three players, which was the count of our first session, the balance leaned toward the easier side, but it was a blessing in disguise. That lower difficulty allowed us to focus on how the system worked, to explore the cooperative mechanics without feeling overwhelmed. Within a few hands, we were already laughing, cheering, and strategizing together, something I had not felt from poker in years. It was a revelation to realize that this game—something I had approached with skepticism—was actually fun.
The component quality only reinforced that positive first impression. Too often, small-box games with unusual themes cut corners when it comes to tactile presentation, leaving players with flimsy cards or plastic chips that feel out of place. But The Gang surprised me by including solid, well-made poker chips that carried just enough weight to feel authentic. It is a small detail in the grand scheme of design, but it mattered. Poker, after all, is as much about the ritual of handling chips, shuffling decks, and stacking winnings as it is about the numbers and hands themselves. By giving players those chips to handle, the designers showed that they understood the importance of atmosphere. From the very beginning, we were not just pretending to play poker in a cooperative setting—we were really playing poker, with the feel and rhythm of the game intact, only redirected toward a different goal. That decision to invest in the right components elevated the experience and made it easier to buy into the conceit.
What impressed me even more was how the rule-changing cards added unpredictability to the proceedings. In normal poker, the rules are static, and the excitement comes from the randomness of the draw and the psychology of the table. The Gang injected another variable: event-like shifts that altered the conditions of each hand. Some changes were helpful, granting small advantages or bending the rules in our favor. Others were obstacles, handicaps that forced us to rethink strategies we had just begun to feel comfortable with. It was, in many ways, the beating heart of the game, because without those shifting rules the cooperative format might have quickly grown repetitive. By giving us a new twist each round, the designers ensured that we were always engaged, always thinking, always adapting. I did wish there had been more negative modifiers, because after a while the balance tilted toward the easier side of the spectrum, but that criticism did not negate the joy of seeing how each new card could reshape the familiar structure of texas hold em. It was clever, it was fun, and it kept us on our toes.
Still, I could not help but recognize that The Gang is a game built with a very specific audience in mind. If you know texas hold em, if you understand the hierarchy of hands and the rough probabilities of draws, then the game feels natural and intuitive. You slip into the rhythm effortlessly, because the foundation is already second nature. But if you do not have that background, the game suddenly becomes opaque. The rules do not spend much time teaching the basics, because they assume you already have that knowledge. That makes sense for someone like me, someone who has played countless poker nights with family and friends, but it does mean that the game has a limited reach. It is not something I would put in front of a group that had never touched poker before, because without that cultural literacy the entire experience would likely collapse into confusion. And yet, that limitation is not necessarily a weakness—it is simply a design choice. The Gang was built for people like me, people with poker in their blood, and for that audience it delivers something rare: a way to rediscover poker in a completely new light.
Because of that, one of my first thoughts after finishing our initial play was that I could not wait to share it with my friend Roger. He and I have been playing poker together for as long as I can remember, countless nights spent around tables with chips and cards and all the banter that comes with them. To sit down with him and show him that poker could be cooperative rather than competitive would be a joy. I imagined us laughing at the strangeness of it, marveling at how the familiar mechanics felt so different in this new context. For him, and for me, The Gang promised not just entertainment but a reframing of something deeply ingrained in our friendship. That thought alone made me realize that this was a keeper, not just a curiosity to be shelved but a game that would see play again and again, especially with the right people.
That said, the design was not without its frustrations. The lack of scaling for different player counts stood out as a glaring oversight. At three players, the game felt manageable, almost easy. But I could see how at higher counts it would become significantly harder, not because of smarter design but simply because more people meant more complexity and chaos. That kind of imbalance can lead to experiences that feel unfair, and it baffled me that the rules did not provide any adjustments or scaling mechanisms. Similarly, the inclusion of a traditional two-color poker deck felt like a step backward. Modern poker has already moved toward four-color decks in many circles because they make the game clearer, faster, and less prone to errors. In a cooperative setting, where one person misreading a card could derail the group’s entire plan, clarity becomes even more important. To cling to the old red-and-black standard felt unnecessarily archaic, like refusing to use modern tools simply because tradition dictates otherwise. It did not ruin the game, but it did frustrate me, because a small change could have improved the experience meaningfully.
Yet even with those flaws, my impression of The Gang remained overwhelmingly positive. It succeeded where Video Game Champion had failed because it never lost sight of what it wanted to be. It was not trying to be everything at once. It was not trying to juggle theme and mechanics that worked against each other. It was, simply, cooperative poker. And it worked. The fun was immediate, the laughter genuine, the strategy engaging without being overwhelming. It was light enough to be accessible to veterans of poker but clever enough to feel like more than a gimmick. In a year where many of my anticipated games had left me disappointed, The Gang stood out as a highlight, a reminder that sometimes the best surprises come from the strangest ideas. It was a game I knew I would keep in my collection for the long haul, not because it was perfect, but because it was memorable, enjoyable, and endlessly replayable in the right company.
If The Gang had been a pleasant surprise, then Bardwood Grove was something altogether different, a game that I had been circling with curiosity for quite some time, and one that promised to marry the richness of theme with an intricate set of mechanisms. The idea of playing as bards, weaving together melodies and lyrics in a fantastical woodland setting, was so unusual in the landscape of board games that I was intrigued from the outset. Too often, games fall back on the same recycled tropes—trading in the Mediterranean, farming in a vaguely European countryside, or conquering medieval kingdoms. Here was something that tried to be genuinely different: a tableau-building game where song became the medium of strategy. That alone made it stand out. But as with any ambitious project, my excitement was tempered with caution. Theme can elevate a game to greatness, but it can also serve as a gilded frame around mechanical shortcomings. I wondered whether Bardwood Grove would truly deliver a new kind of experience or whether it would collapse under the weight of its own concept.
When Music Meets Mechanism in Hardwood Grove
When Bardwood Grove finally arrived at my table, I felt a wave of anticipation that was almost disproportionate to the game itself, though perhaps that was inevitable given how unusual its premise was. After years of playing games where the core verbs were harvesting, building, conquering, or trading, here was something that invited me to take on the role of a bard in a whimsical woodland world, constructing songs out of melodies and lyrics and then performing them to create a lasting impression. The theme alone set it apart from most other releases in recent memory, and while I tried to temper my expectations, I could not help but feel curious, maybe even a little hopeful, that Bardwood Grove might become one of those rare experiences that manages to integrate theme and mechanism so thoroughly that the two become inseparable. Yet as soon as we began our first play, I could sense the duality at the heart of the game: on the one hand, a genuine attempt at innovation, and on the other, the weight of complexity that always accompanies such ambition. It was clear that Bardwood Grove was not going to be a breezy, casual experience like The Gang, nor a half-baked disappointment like Video Game Champion. Instead, it was going to demand patience, engagement, and a willingness to immerse fully in its systems.
The production quality was the first thing that struck me, and in this regard Bardwood Grove did not disappoint. From the lavish art that brought the woodland setting to life to the tactile components that invited handling, it was a feast for the senses. Each bard felt distinct not only in artwork but in mechanical flavor, as though the designers wanted to give players the sense that they were stepping into a character rather than simply piloting a generic pawn through a point-scoring engine. The act of combining melodies and lyrics to form songs was cleverly designed, and though the mechanics boiled down to tableau-building and resource conversion, the thematic integration gave it a spark of uniqueness. Each performance felt like more than just a way to gain points; it felt like the manifestation of an idea, a little piece of story told through the cards you chose. That interplay between narrative expression and mechanical optimization was one of the game’s strongest achievements, because it meant that strategy was never purely dry calculation. It carried flavor, color, and imagination, and those qualities made the game linger in my mind long after the table was cleared.
Yet beneath that surface charm, the density of Bardwood Grove revealed itself quickly. This was not a game to be explained in a few minutes, nor one that could be absorbed fully in a single sitting. The layers of interconnected systems—deck-building, tableau-building, area control, and resource management—all demanded attention, and while they were not individually complicated, their combination created a learning curve that was far steeper than I had anticipated. Teaching the game to new players required patience, because each mechanism needed to be explained both in isolation and in relation to the others. Even once play began, the iconography sometimes felt overwhelming, a forest of symbols that had to be decoded before decisions could be made. It was the kind of game where the first play was inevitably a stumble through discovery, where you did not so much play optimally as fumble toward understanding. That is not inherently a flaw—many deep games share that characteristic—but it did limit the contexts in which Bardwood Grove could reasonably be brought out. It was not a filler for game night, nor a casual diversion for friends; it was a main event, requiring time, focus, and commitment from everyone at the table.
What kept me invested despite the heavy learning curve was the way the theme and mechanisms intertwined during play. Building songs out of melodies and lyrics, then performing them, carried a sense of artistry that was unusual for a game of this type. It was not just about efficiency, though of course efficiency mattered; it was about expression. Each card combination told a little story, each performance felt like a moment of creative release, and while those stories were abstracted into victory points and resources, they nevertheless gave texture to the mechanical puzzle. I found myself caring about the compositions I created not only because they were strong strategically but because they felt satisfying narratively. It reminded me of the best moments in thematic euro-style games, where the optimization puzzle and the narrative dressing reinforce each other instead of pulling in opposite directions. In Bardwood Grove, that reinforcement was clear, and it made the experience richer than the sum of its parts.
Still, I could not ignore the imperfections that accompanied such ambition. Some of the bards felt noticeably stronger than others, not in an insurmountable way, but enough to create imbalances that tilted certain plays in favor of particular strategies. The iconography, as I mentioned, was sometimes a barrier, creating pauses in play as we checked references or clarified meanings. And though the songs were thematically engaging, not every subsystem tied into the music theme as tightly as it could have. There were moments when it felt as though the designers had tried to cram too many mechanisms into the box, as though afraid to leave a good idea unused, and the result was a system that occasionally buckled under its own weight. These were not fatal flaws, but they were reminders that ambition comes with risks, and that innovation often means exposing rough edges that a safer, more conventional design would avoid.
Yet for all of those criticisms, I found myself charmed by Bardwood Grove in a way that I rarely am by games of this scope. It was not flawless, but it was memorable, and that counts for more than perfection in many cases. I can play dozens of well-polished euros that deliver smooth experiences but leave me with little to remember afterward. Bardwood Grove, by contrast, left an imprint. It made me think about the relationship between creativity and competition, about how games can frame strategy as performance rather than as conquest. It gave me moments where I felt like I was not just optimizing but creating, and those moments are rare enough to be treasured. Even as I acknowledged its flaws, I wanted to revisit it, to explore new combinations of songs, to see how different bards shaped the game’s arc, to discover whether mastery would make the systems feel smoother over time. It was a game that demanded commitment, but in return, it promised depth and discovery.
In the end, my experience with Bardwood Grove was defined by dualities: delight and frustration, charm and density, artistry and calculation. It was not a game I could bring out with just anyone, nor one I would expect to hit the table frequently. But it was a game I was glad to own, glad to have played, and glad to think about afterward. It represented a kind of ambition that I respect deeply in design, the willingness to take risks and to try something genuinely different. Where The Gang succeeded by simplifying the familiar and making it fresh, Bardwood Grove succeeded by complicating the new and making it resonant. Together, they captured the spectrum of what makes gaming as a hobby so fascinating: the capacity to surprise, to challenge, to delight, and to provoke thought in equal measure. Bardwood Grove may not be perfect, but it was undeniably unique, and in a sea of sameness, uniqueness is sometimes the greatest achievement of all.
Conclusion
As I look back on this year in gaming, I am struck by the sheer range of emotions that different titles have inspired, from the disappointment of unmet expectations to the thrill of unexpected discoveries and the complexity of ambitious experiments. Video Game Champion, with its promise of nostalgic immersion into the golden age of gaming, should have been a slam dunk for me, yet its harsh economic restrictions and frustrating discard mechanics turned what could have been a celebration into something of a chore. The Gang, by contrast, arrived almost as an afterthought, a curiosity I was not sure would even work, only to surprise me by reframing something as familiar as poker into a cooperative challenge that left me grinning and eager to return. And Bardwood Grove, the game I had long anticipated, proved to be a study in dualities: gorgeous, ambitious, and deeply thematic, yet dense, imperfect, and sometimes overstuffed with systems. Taken together, these three experiences reflect not just the diversity of modern board game design but also the range of responses a single hobby can evoke. It is a reminder that board gaming is not merely about finding the best game or the most polished design, but about the journey each play offers, the conversations it sparks, and the memories it leaves behind.
In many ways, this arc mirrors my broader experiences this year, not only at the table but in life. I have noticed that the games which once brought me unqualified joy now sometimes feel a little worn from repetition. Old favorites, beloved for years, still hold their magic, but that magic has dulled ever so slightly, as though the colors have faded from overexposure. It is a natural evolution—no experience, no matter how wonderful, can remain endlessly fresh—but it has left me craving novelty and innovation more than ever. That is perhaps why Bardwood Grove held such allure despite its flaws, why The Gang resonated as strongly as it did, and why Video Game Champion’s missteps stung so much. In each case, I was looking for something to rekindle that spark, to remind me of what drew me to this hobby in the first place. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but in every case it was part of a larger conversation with myself about what I want from gaming and how it fits into my life.
Beyond the tabletop, these reflections extend into the other worlds I inhabit: television, video games, even my ongoing rewatches of old wrestling storylines. Watching Last Man Standing reminded me of the simple comfort of familiar sitcom rhythms, where humor is light and characters feel like old friends. Revisiting classic WWF–WWE arcs reminded me of the drama and theater that first captured my imagination as a child, even as I view them now with more critical, adult eyes. And in video gaming, the highs and lows mirrored those of the tabletop: the surprise joy of Indiana Jones, the anticipation of Split Fiction, the ongoing disappointment with once-beloved studios that seem to have lost their way. Each medium brought with it echoes of the same themes—expectation, nostalgia, discovery, and the bittersweet recognition that time changes both us and the things we love.
This year also underscored how deeply personal gaming remains, regardless of the form it takes. My dad’s reluctance to engage with heavier games reminded me that play is always contextual, shaped by mood, comfort, and circumstance. My brother’s victories and jokes about new games at the end of the year added levity to even the most serious plays, reinforcing the importance of companionship over competition. And my thoughts about sharing The Gang with Roger carried with them the weight of decades of shared poker nights, a lifetime of camaraderie crystallized into a single cooperative experiment. These relationships are the real heart of gaming, the reason rules and components matter at all. Without them, the best-designed game in the world is just cardboard and ink. With them, even flawed designs can become cherished memories.