From cray-cray adorbs to insane horrors. I’m really not into horror. That’s a big “Nope” on horror movies, books, shows, and even haunted houses. It doesn’t matter how fake the gore or low-stakes the tension—not my jam. So I never would have pegged me for a cosmic-horror type of gal but, man, does the Lovecraft mythos capture my imagination. Watching my character’s sanity slowly sucked away by the sheer magnitude of our insignificance in the eyes of the elder gods fascinates me. Besides, Arkham Horror LCG is a magnificently written story—especially The Path to Carcossa, with excellent game mechanics—such as the chaos bag, and elegant illustrations of Lovecraftian horrors. Elegant how? I don’t know. Just go with it. That’s what I do as I slowly go mad.
Jay here. As I said, Arkham Horror is my number 2 pick, pretty much for all the reasons Em chose it as her top game. I love theme in games…the more story a game tells, the more I tend to like it, and Arkham Horror: The Card Game is all story. It’s probably the closest thing to a role playing game I’ve seen in a non-rpg, and that’s even taking Arkham Horror (2nd Ed.) into account.
I’ve talked about BSG several times now on OMO. It’s immersive, it’s tense, it’s thematic, and it pretty much redefined social deduction and traitor mechanics. When I got back into gaming after a 10-year hiatus, this game was in heavy rotation at the gaming clubs, and everyone knew that if Battlestar was happening, they should look for me because I would drop everything to play.
Of course, as new games come out, old games fall by the wayside, and it’s difficult to get 4 friends to agree o play this with me now that there are much faster games that do the same things, like The Resistance or Dark Moon (the latter of which started out as a fan-created “express” version of Battlestar Galactica). But I don’t want a quick version. I want to strap in for a 2-plus-hour ride through Cylon-occupied space. Part of what makes Battlestar Galactica so great is that it is a long, harrowing slog through space. It feels epic. I want epic.
I managed to get this game out at a boardgame party in the last year of the pre-COVID aeon, You know what? It holds up. For a 12-year-old game that can take 4 hours to play, it doesn’t feel awkward or clunky (if you are playing with EXACTLY 5 players), and it was just as much fun as I remembered. I own it and all three expansions, and even if it never hits the table again, it makes me happy to see it taking up half a shelf of my collection.
And those are our favorite games of all time? What are yours? Let us know in the comments, or find us all over the internet. Have a happy new year!
My favorite game, I feel like it has been forever since I played it due to life, and that is Die Macher. The original one, not any of the renditions. I love how it is all thinking and strategy with barely any luck involved.