Thoughts on the 8 New Games I Played Over Christmas

So I got to play a lot of new games over Christmas time and it was fantastic and I wanted to give my some of my thoughts about them. I'll rank them at the end or something probably. I have a lot of games to go through so probably won't go suuuper in depth or anything.

1. Cat in the Box

Eric and Becky both got a copy of this. Absolutely stellar trick-taking game where you decide what color your cards are as you play them down. Definitely one of my favorite games I played over this Christmas and now definitely amongst my favorite trick-taking games ever.

Ben and I do question if it legitimately has legs or not. For now, it's still golden, though.

2. Scout

Joseph and I both got a copy of this. Another stellar trick-taking game; this time around you can't organize your hand. I think I prefer Cat in the Box, but they definitely feel different enough that you don't really need to compare them.

3. Dead Reckoning

Eric got this a while ago, but we played it for the first time this Christmas. Had tons of fun with this card-crafting, exploration, pirate game. There's still a lot to dig into here replayability-wise, and I'm excited to do so. I'm afraid of too much "take that" in games, but I think this hit the balance well.

4. Alice's Garden

Becky gave this to Aunt Kathy. This was a huge hit this Christmas, with Uncle Gary notably playing it a ton. He even, after a game of spades, whipped it out and taught Uncle Alan how to play. Kind of legendary.

It's a fun point-salad, tetris-like, drafting game. Definitely had fun with it and would play again. Mildly concerned about balancing, but it hasn't ruined the experience (yet). A fun game practically anyone could get into.

5. Trekking through History

Becky gave this to Uncle Gary. Solid set-collection, ¿time-management? game with a fun theme. You're hopping through time doing really cool things, but you only want to hop forward in time, so you're trying to pick up cards that make that happen.

6. Ark Nova

I convinced Mom to get this for Eric. Super popular game (currently #4 on bgg) for a reason. Love the theme. Had a lot of fun with this one and played it quite a bit. It is commonly compared to Terraforming Mars, which I think is fair. I will say I prefer Terraforming Mars thus far. I just feel cooler when I'm playing Terraforming Mars -- just having more raw fun, if that makes any sense whatsoever. Ark Nova is fantastic regardless and I will absolutely continue to play it and hopefully get my parents to buy the expansion for it.

7. Khora: Rise of an Empire

Becky gave this to Sarah. I have mixed feelings on this one. It felt snappy and nice, but almost too quick? I felt like I didn't really have time to do much, idk. And I have more than mild concerns about balancing in this game. It's got a really cool base with some neat mechanisms, but it just didn't land for me.

8. Survive!

Joseph got this (not sure from whomst). A riot of a game that you can't take too seriously. Had a lot of fun with this one. If you just ignore how luck-based it is and just have a good time with it, it can be a blast.

If I had to rank the games it would be something like this (tiers are ordered):

S: Ark Nova, Dead Reckoning, Cat in the Box, Scout

A: Survive!, Alice's Garden

B: Trekking through History

C: Khora: Rise of an Empire

Survive! and Alice's Garden is a toss up. Ordering #1-3 is also tough, but I feel good about where it stands.