As the year comes to a close, I will do my usual end-of-year posts. I will share my personal top three in a range of categories. As tradition commands, we will begin with the games that I played for the first time this year. Here are the best three.
You can read all of the Farewell 2025 posts here:
- Farewell 2025 – New-to-Me Games!
- Farewell 2025 – Historical Fiction!
- Farewell 2025 – Non-Historical Games!
- Farewell 2025 – Historical Non-Fiction!
- Farewell 2025 – Historical Games!
- Farewell 2025 – Best on the Blog!
On the box: A close finish! ©Days of Wonder. Heat: Pedal to the Metal
I am not much of a Formula 1 fan. From my point of view, not much happens during the races after the start. In many years, the championship is a bore because one driver and car combo is just too dominant. This year has been excitingly different in that regard, however.
Heat, however, takes just the exciting parts of racing and puts them together in an enthralling package. It has evocative mechanisms like downshifting before corners and upshifting afterward. There is also the delicate balance of how to deal with the psychological stress on the driver and the physical stress on the car. This is the eponymous heat. As the main planning phase is done simultaneously, there is minimal downtime even with the full six players.
Vijayanagara
I am excited to learn new things from and with games. One topic I knew next to nothing about is the 14th century in India. That, however, has changed a bit now due to Vijayanagara. This is a COIN-lite treatment of the collapse of the Delhi Sultanate’s hegemony. This happened under the challenge of invasion from the north, which was Timur’s Mongols, and centrifugal forces in the south. These forces were the nascent Bahmani Kingdom and Vijayanagara Empire. Every game of Vijayanagara tells a variation of that story.
I was happy to play several games of this intriguing debut design with my fellow board game bloggers. These were Dave from Dude! Take Your Turn and Michal from The Boardgames Chronicle.
And my favorite new-to-me game of the year is…
Time of Crisis
Chaos is something some games hate. Others, like Time of Crisis, embrace it. Whoever wants to be Roman emperor in the tumultuous third century must be prepared to deal with a whole whirlwind of challenges. Angry mobs want to drag your governors into the gutter. Barbarian tribes stand ready to cross the border into your provinces. And worst of all, the rest of the Roman elite wants to be emperor too. They will gleefully take whatever you possess.
I have been thwarted in my imperial aspirations by my fellow bloggers Alexander and Grant from The Players’ Aid. Also Dave and Michal have stopped me. I have been loving every minute of it. Time of Crisis has been my most-played game overall this year. It has 14 individual plays of it. It rightly takes the crown in this category.
What were your favorite new-to-me games this year? Let me know in the comments!
