Here are my thoughts on some of the board games I have played recently that were new to me.
EAST INDIA COMPANIES (2023): Rank 2700, Rating 7.4
This is a game where you buy goods cheap and sell them high. The player with the most money after five rounds wins. Each round, the players with the highest revenue see their company’s stock price go up, and you can invest in those stocks too. The main decisions involve choosing which ships to use. Some ships sell first at the best price but cannot hold many goods, while others sell later at a lower price but can carry more. You have to figure out each round which goods will give you the most money based on your ship’s capabilities and what the other players are likely doing. You also need to guess which player will do well this round to buy their shares. Everything worked fine, and deciding how to use your three actions each round was nice. However, it is just another game about buying low and selling high with a semi-random market. I have probably played 300 games like this one.
Rating: 6
FARM HAND (2025): Rank 7073, Rating 7.5
This is a quirky version of the game Oh Hell. It lasts 6 rounds, starting with just one card per hand and going up to five or six cards. The first quirk is the deck: each of the six suits has a different number of cards and different values. Short suits are common. The second quirk is that two cards of the same value cancel each other out, which creates surprise trick winners. You can mostly figure out what will happen because the backs of the cards show their suit. This means you know who has to follow suit, who needs to make or lose tricks, and the chance of someone deliberately canceling a trick to mess things up. The third quirk is the harsh scoring system. Missing your bid in the final rounds is a disaster, no matter how well you did earlier. Still, it is short, fun, and quirky. 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, but there is a twist. The second Fibonacci number played to a trick turns all the Fibonacci cards into trumps. This makes hand management, short suits, and counting cards almost meaningless because you cannot know if a trick will be trumped or not. The points for winning a trick (0 to 5) are revealed at the start of the trick, adding 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. Thankfully, the game only goes for 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, monuments, and nine Ra cards. There are appropriate areas on the sheets to mark these off. 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—providing bonuses for filling out sections and normal rewards or penalties for being first or last in various things. Scoring happens when the 3rd, 6th, and 9th Ra cards appear, matching the tension of the original Ra game regarding how long it will last. But this feels like an insipid copy. You just keep marking things off, whatever you get. Since it plays in a similar timeframe, I would prefer the original.
Rating: 6
POWER VACUUM (2024): Rank 4525, Rating 6.8
In this trick-taking game, 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, aiming to meet personal end-of-hand score conditions, such as having the most or least points. These conditions are big but can be really 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 middling cards leaves you hoping for better next round. It came in at a nice timeframe, and considering the swings, I would be happy to play again.
Rating: 7
SCHADENFREUDE (2020): Rank 1948, Rating 7.6
This is a neat trick-taker where the trick winner is 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 the game. You want to be lying in second place then as well. The whole “second” thing means there are many avoidance plays and sticking opponents with cards they do not want, making it a beautifully titled game. It is a level down from the directed nastiness of Sticheln, though, because there is significant randomness in the card spread and the lead, especially towards the end of a hand. Still, it is interesting to navigate, fun to play with some nice groans or cheers, and has scope for learnings. 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 4 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 from someone stealing a key route or if the card colors you need do not appear. You only have time to complete one to three tickets, so you are in trouble if your starting two are not complementary, or if the game ends too quickly. Even one missed ticket is a death knell given the swing in scores. The Ticket to Ride system is always playable, so you may have a place for this, but I would rather be doing something else.
Rating: 6
ZHANGUO (2014): Rank 903, Rating 7.5
This is a solid mid-weight Euro game that feels old-school but is embellished with a card-driven engine. Each round you receive six cards and play one each turn. The first option is to play it to your board, where it will boost a future action type with bonus effects. The second option is to play it for an action to get resources or spend them on building walls, palaces, and governors on the central board for various ways to earn points. 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 inter-game variety as the points goals are variations of the same thing, and the cards are abstract action effects. However, it is enjoyable making plans for what you get and carrying them through.
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 to the trick. 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 who is closest to 40 without topping it wins. But the real “schadenfreudy” 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 loving opponents! The game starts slow, but as scores approach 40, it really shines, as each player’s status rapidly goes from safe, to winning, to the brink of elimination. And despite all that chaos, there really is a lot of scope for skillful play. It has a unique feel, and every game I have played in has included much gloating, much cursing, and a great deal of laughter. 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 played the prototype which was dinosaurs a few times. A nice variant of Oh Hell.
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