Here is a look at several board games I have played recently, including some new releases and a few older titles.
EAST INDIA COMPANIES (2023): Rank 2700, Rating 7.4
This is a game about buying goods cheap and selling them high. The player with the most money after five rounds wins. In each round, the players with the highest revenue see their company stock price go up, and you can invest in those stocks too. The main choices involve investing in ships. Some ships sell first at the best price but cannot hold many goods. Other ships sell later at a lower price but can carry more. You must decide each round which goods will give you the best profit based on your ship’s abilities. You also have to guess which player will do well this round so you can buy their shares. Everything worked fine, and the decisions on how to use your three actions each round were good. However, it feels like another standard buy-low, sell-high game with a random market price. I have played about 300 games like this one.
Rating: 6
FARM HAND (2025): Rank 7073, Rating 7.5
This game is a unique version of the card game Oh Hell. It lasts six rounds, starting with one card per hand and going up to five or six cards. The first unusual thing is the deck. Each of the six suits has a different number of cards and different values. It is very common to have a short suit. The second quirk is that two cards of the same value cancel each other out. This creates surprise winners for the trick. You can mostly figure out what will be played because the back of the cards shows the suit. You know who must follow suit and who needs to win or lose tricks. You can also guess if someone might deliberately cancel a card to mess things up. The third quirk is the harsh scoring. Missing your bid in the final rounds is a disaster, no matter how you played earlier. Still, the game is short, fun, and different. I am happy to play it.
Rating: 7
FIBONACHOS (2023): Rank 14357, Rating 6.3
This is a trick-taking game with three suits. You must follow suit if you can. The twist is that the second Fibonacci number played to a trick turns all the Fibonacci cards into trumps. This makes hand management, short-suiting, and counting cards almost meaningless. You never know if a trick will become a trump trick or not. The points for winning a trick (0 to 5) are revealed at the start of the trick, which adds more randomness. There is a big reward for going misere, but it is easy to be forced to win a trick you did not expect. You will be thankful it only lasts three rounds.
Rating: 5
RA AND WRITE (2025): Rank 7805, Rating 7.1 – Knizia
The deck is similar to the Ra bag, with gods, rivers, pharaohs, civilizations, and monuments, plus nine Ra cards. The sheets have places to mark off each type. The active player draws three cards, chooses one for themselves, and marks their sheet. The other players choose from the remaining cards and mark theirs. The sheets are simple—perhaps too simple. They provide bonuses for filling out sections and normal rewards or penalties for being first or last in certain things. Scoring happens when the third, sixth, and ninth Ra cards appear. This matches the tension of the original Ra game. But this version feels dull. You just keep marking things off, whatever you get. Since it plays in a similar amount of time, I would prefer the original game.
Rating: 6
POWER VACUUM (2024): Rank 4525, Rating 6.8
This is a trick-taker where the best card wins a point, and the lowest card allows you to move end-of-hand points around a central board. You move points from one player to another to meet your personal goals. These goals might be having the most or the least end-of-hand points. These goals are big but can be very swingy. It makes managing your hand interesting. I also liked the “trump suit that trumps the trump suit,” which adds a nice level of uncertainty and extra tracking. Most hands provide a balance, but a hand of average cards leaves you hoping for better luck next round. The game fits a nice timeframe, and considering the ups and downs, I would be happy to play it again.
Rating: 7
SCHADENFREUDE (2020): Rank 1948, Rating 7.6
A neat trick-taker where the winner of the trick is the player with the second-highest card of the led suit. They win the point values of the card they played and all off-suit cards. The twist is that if you win two or more cards of the same value, they cancel each other out. Also, if you break the game points limit, you cannot win. You want to be lying in second place then, too. The focus on being “second” means there are many avoidance plays and forcing opponents to take unwanted cards. The title fits the game perfectly. It is a step down from the directed nastiness of Sticheln, though, because there is significant randomness in the card spread and the lead, especially near the end of a hand. Still, it is interesting to navigate, fun to play, and offers chances to learn. I am happy to explore it further.
Rating: 7
TICKET TO RIDE: AMSTERDAM (2020): Rank 2626, Rating 6.9
This is a speed version of Ticket to Ride. The rules are identical, but there are only 16 trains instead of 45. The longest route is four trains, and the game is over in 15 minutes. I do not see much point to it. The map is tight, and you do not have enough turns to recover if someone steals a key route. You also cannot recover if the card colors you need do not appear. You only have time to complete one to three tickets. You are in trouble if your starting two tickets are not complementary, or if the game ends too quickly. Even one missed ticket is a disaster given the score swing. The Ticket to Ride system is always playable, so you might find a place for this, but I would rather be doing something else.
Rating: 6
ZHANGUO (2014): Rank 903, Rating 7.5
A solid mid-weight Euro game that feels old-school but is enhanced by a card-driven engine. Each round you receive six cards and play one each turn. The first option is to play a card to your board. This boosts a future action type with bonus effects. The second option is to play a card for an action to get resources. You can also spend resources on building walls, palaces, and governors on the central board to earn points in various ways. Playing to your board comes with penalties that you need to manage. Choosing what bonus effect engine to build versus actually doing actions is a large part of the game. There is not a lot of variety between games because the points goals are variations of the same thing, and the cards are abstract action effects. However, it is enjoyable to make plans based on what you get and carry them out.
Rating: 7
Thoughts of other Opinionated Gamers:
Larry: Schadenfreude is a blast! It is a trick-taker where the second highest card of the suit led wins the trick, but that is not the end of the weirdness. When you win a trick, you take the card you played, along with any off-suit cards that opponents played. You keep these face up, and their sum is your score for the hand. The game ends when someone’s total score exceeds 40, and the player closest to 40 without topping it wins. But the real rule is that if you ever win two cards of the same value, they are both discarded. So your score can bounce around like a pinball, thanks to the machinations of your opponents! The game starts slow, but as scores approach 40, it really shines. Each player’s status rapidly goes from safe, to winning, to the brink of elimination. Despite all that chaos, there is a lot of scope for skillful play. It has a unique feel, and every game I have played included much gloating, cursing, and laughter. It is definitely a game to check out if you enjoy innovative trick-takers.
Fraser: I have not played the production copy of Farm Hand yet, but I played the prototype, which was dinosaurs, a few times. It is a nice variant of Oh Hell.
