Playing games is a year-round hobby for some, but buying and exploring new games is also a great holiday tradition. And games are an everyday endeavor for fiction and hobby game writer James Lowder. Every year he joins us to share his Games to Gift list, which includes everything from two-player games, RPGs, and tabletop games.
So whether you’re just curious about getting into gaming or looking for a gift for the serious gamer in your life, chances are Lowder has a suggestion for you.
TOP PICK
BOMB BUSTERS
Publisher: Pegasus Spiele; Designer: Hisashi Hayashi
2–5 players; 10 and up
From designer Hisashi Hayashi, known for his transportation-themed games Trains, String Railway, and Metro X, Bomb Busters is a cooperative deduction game of explosives disposal. Players work together to cut the numbered and color-coded wire cards in their trays in the correct order. Get your teammate’s wire card wrong and advance the detonator. Cut a red wire, the bomb explodes and the team loses. Role cards grant each player a special ability, and equipment cards can impact the defusing sequence.
"There are eight training missions and then 66 total missions, and each one of those missions has a very different goal, so gameplay varies wildly depending on what mission you play," notes Lowder. "That's one of the reasons this is a terrific general game that can potentially appeal to a lot of different gaming groups because you can just decide which ones of those scenarios you enjoy playing and your game group can focus on that. So if the conditions for this one mission are really great, play that one over and over again, if this one is no fun, you don't have to ever play it again. There's some tension to the game as with the two player airline game Sky Team we've covered recently, but it plays really fast and the cartoony art by Dominique Ferland keeps this game really fun and not fraught."
GATEWAY GAMES
UNMATCHED: SLINGS AND ARROWS
Publisher: Restoration; Designers: Noah Cohen, Rob Daviau, Jonathan Guberman, Jason Hager, Justin D. Jacobson, Brian Neff
2–4 players; 9 and up
The Unmatched series is a large group of accessible fighting games for two to four players as young as nine. Each character in the game has a special deck of cards used for attack and defense, as well as a health dial to track their status and a miniature, many with associated sidekick tokens, that moves around the battlefield. Each location board presents different challenges and requires new strategies to navigate effectively. Fights last around 30 minutes, with built-in mechanisms in place to exhaust character health so battles don’t drag on forever.
"This is really the cleverest game on the list, potentially. Simply because when we talk about what makes a great game, matching the mechanisms to the theme is one of the high points," says Lowder. "Unmatched is a series of [deck-based] combat games ... and they have a bunch of different sets. Some of them are Beowulf vs. Little Red Riding Hood, and all of them are combinable. This year they released Slings and Arrows, which is Shakespeare and his creations fighting for the Globe Theatre. Each one of the boards that you get in each one of these games changes the game play as well."
Quick mentions:
- FLIPTOONS
Publisher: Thunderworks; Designers: Jordy Adan, Renato Simões
1–4 players; 10 and up
"FlipToons plays in 15 to 30 minutes; it's a quick deck building game where you are recruiting animated characters to audition and star in a new animated project that you are a casting director for," explains Lowder. Thunderworks is a Wisconsin company, and this gateway game is accessible for ages 10 and up.
- A PLACE FOR ALL MY BOOKS
Publisher: Smirk & Dagger; Designers: Alex Cutler, Michael Mihealsick
1–4 players; 10 and up
HOBBY GAMES
CHICAGO ’68
Publisher: The Dietz Foundation; Designer: Yoni Goldstein
1–4 players; 14 and up
Chicago ’68 is a board game for 1-4 players covering the Democratic National Convention of 1968, a pivotal moment for the United States’ involvement in Vietnam and the evolution of party politics during the turbulent 1960s.
"[The Dietz Foundation's] overt mission as a game publisher is to provide educational content that's also brilliant game design, and Chicago '68 is a great example. It's an asymmetric war game where you are facing off as the Establishment and the protesters at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. You are playing to impact the delegate votes and trying to impact the public opinion around the events ... It's built around details about the actual historical events that are reflected in the cards ... so teachers can use this sort of creation in a classroom," Lowder notes.
ENDEAVOR: DEEP SEA
Publisher: Burnt Island; Designers: Carl de Visser, Jarratt Gray
1–4 players; 10 and up
This latest entry in the Endeavor line has players preserving and exploring the modern marine ecosystem. By recruiting experts and using their skills, you can spread knowledge through published papers and launch conservation efforts, even as you investigate locations and dive sites in this tableaux building game. You’ll find 10 scenarios and three modes of play—competitive, co-op, and solo—with a complete session running for an hour or two. Build reputation, inspiration, coordination, and ingenuity, all of which can influence things such as crew efficiency and the exploration opportunities available to your team.
"This is a good example of a game that is not as overtly education focused, but it's trying to teach people about taking care of the sea and creating sustainable ocean projects and exploring the ocean. It's a great tableaux building game that plays in about one to two hours and it's got lots of different paths to victory. So as a hobby game it works because you don't have to play it the same way every time," says Lowder.
UNSTOPPABLE
Publisher: Renegade; Designer: John. D. Clair
1–2 players; 14 and up
Kick around some evil minions to hone your skills and build your power on your way to confront the world-annihilating menace threatening your star system. Will you be unstoppable when you reach the final boss or will the universe need to wait, yet again, for a properly prepared hero to rise up and defeat the cosmic peril?
"It's best as a solo game, but it's essentially what you think of more as a current board game that is inspired by video games," notes Lowder. "This is a boss fight where you are putting together your deck to be able to fight increasingly dangerous cosmic threats to your local planet. The mechanics for it include a clever, clever card construction component where you're actually combining different elements to make the cards that you're playing. So the cards themselves are actually constructible, too. But it's a very difficult game and you will lose again and again and again before you start figuring out unraveling that puzzle on what you have to do, what resources you have to combine to defeat the bosses in this game."
TWO-PLAYER GAMES
STAR WARS: BATTLE OF HOTH
Publisher: Days of Wonder; Designers: Richard Borg, Adrien Martinot
2–4 players; 8 and up
"This is a combat miniatures game built around the famous battle from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and it's Rebels versus Empire. This is a hobby game really best for ages 14 and up... If you're looking for a quick introduction to what combat war games and combat miniature games look like, this is a great one to start with," says Lowder.
Star Wars: Battle of Hoth is built upon Richard Borg’s groundbreaking Command and Colors system, simplified wargaming rules that typically feature battle dice, a hex-map playfield divided into three sections, and a deck of two types of command cards. Section cards issue orders to units in the indicated part of the battlefield. Tactics cards activate special attacks. The game’s miniatures are high quality and include the familiar AT-ATs and snowspeeders from the film. Leader cards can be added to the fights, bringing Darth Vader or Princess Leia into the mix. 17 different scenarios and two multi-scenario campaigns are included, with battles playing in 30 to 45 minutes.
Quick mentions:
- AZUL DUEL
Publisher: Next Move; Designer: Michael Kiesling
2 players; 10 and up - EVERDELL DUO
Publisher: Starling; Designers: James A. Wilson, Clarissa A. Wilson
1–2 players; 10 and up
"[Azul Duel] was our top pick in 2018. It's a tile laying game and this is a two-player version designed by Michael Kiesling, the original designer. Everdell Duo is a streamlined version of the cozy worker placement builds your charming little village with sentient animals in the Everdell system, and both of these games are for 10 and up and play in about 30 minutes and are about $30. They're great adaptations of existing games," says Lowder.
PARTY GAMES
HOT STREAK
Publisher: CMYK; Designer: Jon Perry
2–9 players; 6 and up
In Hot Streak, four odd, off-brand mascots compete in a race. Players wager on the race’s outcome, using a snake draft mechanism to select betting tickets, and place side bets on possible events, such as a mascot falling down or veering off the track during the competition. Mascot movement is controlled by a central deck, which players can influence by adding cards from their hands that may or may not align with whatever deals they might have struck with the other gamblers. The player with the most cash after three races wins the day. Be sure to read the rulebook for details on each winner’s fate, coded to the dollar value of their haul, and the inventive backstories for the mascots, all crafted by writer Sophie Abromowitz.
"It's sort of the Twilight Zone version of the sausage race at American Family Field," jokes Lowder. "It's a really fun and different party game - the miniatures are terrific and in addition to the game itself, the rule book has marvelous back stories for the mascots."
Quick mentions:
- FLIP 7
Publisher: The Op; Designer: Eric Olsen
3–18 players; 8 and up - CAUTION SIGNS
Publisher: Wacky Wizard; Designers: Scott Brady, Danielle Reynolds
3–9 players; 8 and up
KIDS GAMES
CASCADIA JUNIOR
Publisher: Alderac, Flatout; Designers: Fertessa Allyse, Randy Flynn
2–4 players; 6 and up
Cascadia Junior is a simplified, but not overly simplistic riff on the award-winning Cascadia (2021), a tile-laying game themed around the habitats and wildlife of the Pacific Northwest. In this version, players draft tiles and place them to align wildlife markers and group habitats to attract animals and gain sighting tokens. At the end of 10 turns, which speed past in 15 to 30 minutes, everyone flips their sighting tokens to count victory points. The Beth Sobel art is charming, and the advanced option where more patterns are required to gain sighting tokens will keep Cascadia Junior engaging if younger kids develop beyond the basic game but are not yet ready for the full, ages 10-and-up version of Cascadia.
"Doing adaptation of an existing license used to be just slapping the brand on the new game and just saying, 'Well this is a kids version,' and doing some unconnected kid mechanic for a game. That's not true with Cascadia Junior, which is a tableau building nature game in the Cascadia series," notes Lowder. "In and of itself, it's a great game for kids. If your kids play this and enjoy it, they can eventually move up to the more complicated and different and more sophisticated Cascadia series which play for ages 10 and up and have a much longer playtime."
CORGI PILEUP
Publisher: GameHead; Designers: Steve Ellis, Paul Salomon
2–7 players; 7 and up
"Kids love animal games and this is great one — it's a trick taking game where the last hand counts. You're trying to get 15 points, but you don't want to be the first corgi atop the pile because the first corgi atop the pile falls off. So as a trick taking game you're aiming to be second corgi in the corgi pile, it's a nice mechanic for that," explains Lowder.
CAT SAYS MOO
Publisher: Wacky Wizard; Designer: Matt Fantastic
2–8 players; 6 and up
"It's really sort of a kids party game, it's very chaos-shouty kids having a ball out loud kind of game designed by Matt Fantastic," says Lowder. "It's a matching game of animals and sounds — so when you get sounds that match you are supposed to yell the animal, when you have animals that match you're supposed to yell the sounds they make. But the cards are designed with the art so that the animals look a little similar."
ROLE-PLAYING GAMES
WEIRD HEROES OF PUBLIC ACCESS
Publisher: Get Haunted Industries; Designer: Joey Royale
2–6 players; 13 and up
"It's set in a strange sort of alternate 1980's. The 80s were weird enough on their own, this kind of amps that up to an eleven," says Lowder. "[It's set in the small town of] Fairhaven, where the players have soul-crushing day jobs but at night they get to work in the public access television shows and also fight local cryptids and other strange things that are happening around [town]."
Outside the requisite eight hours at their soul-crushing day job, the wannabe heroes staff tiny local TV station WHPA, channel 13, putting together shows such as Lunch with a Luchador and Saturday Night Seance.
"They have powers that are related to the type of show they host and they're not superpowers, they're just weird things that occasionally they can do," adds Lowder. "It leans heavily into the 80s zine structure in culture — the game itself is put together like a zine; it's got a lot of supporting zines, it's got a community built around it where lots of people are creating these sort of low-fi supplements and additional material for it. So it brings all of that aesthetic together - that sort of SCTV meets weird Twin Peaks vibe."
Quick mentions:
- RIVERBANK
Publisher: Kobold Press; Designer: Kij Johnson
2–6 players; 13 and up - THE REVENANT SOCIETY
Publisher: Van Ryder; Designers: Banana Chan, Sen-Foong Lim
3–5 players; 14 and up
