Episode 261 - Best of the Blitzies

Ambie and Crystal discuss a couple games they played recently, including Got Five! and dnup. Then we hop into our time machine to go back to all the 10 previous years of our Blitzies awards and see which games we still love!

Intro: 0:00

Recent Games: 0:41

Blitzies Look-back: 11:42

Outro: 30:44

Games mentioned this episode:

Got Five!: 0:41

dnup: 6:57

SCOUT: 7:50

2025: 12:46

2024: 13:59

2023: 15:26

2022: 17:00

2021: 19:41

2020: 20:46

2019: 22:36

2018: 24:48

2017: 26:40

2016: 28:16

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This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. Use the code "BLITZ2026" to get 10% off your entire cart.

[00:00:06:21 - 00:00:41:16]

Crystal:: Hello and welcome to Episode 261 of Board Game Blitz, a podcast about all things board games that you can listen to in less time than it takes to get any work done when a cat lays on you. It lives here now. Board Game Blitz is sponsored by Grey Fox Games. This week, we're talking about our best of the best games. First, we discuss a couple of games we've played recently, Got Five! and dnup. Then we take a trip through time and highlight our favorite games from 10 years of Blitzies Awards. And now, here are your hosts...

Ambie: Ambie.

Crystal: And Crystal.

[00:00:41:16 - 00:00:46:25]

Ambie: Recently, I got Got Five! I got a review copy and played Got Five! It's called Got Five!

[00:00:46:25 - 00:00:52:25]

Crystal: I love the box cover. If I saw that on a shelf at a game store, I would instantly be drawn to it.

[00:00:53:26 - 00:04:13:13]

Ambie: It's very exciting looking. It's Got Five! with an exclamation point, published by Blue Orange Games, designed by Yoann Levet. It's published 2026 for two to four players, 15 minutes, ages eight plus. This is a deduction game. It's like a family weight deduction style game. The way the game works is you have five tiles. You've got five. The tiles are colored. There's five different colors. They're numbered one through 60. There's one of each number. There's a little card that each person has. It's a dry erase card and it shows you what the numbers are and what each tile is or what all the tiles are. So there's one through 60. The green one is one or six or 11 or 16. And the pink one is two and et cetera. So each tile has a cute little face on the back. And then on the front is the number and it has either one, two, or three dots. And you will only see the back of your tiles. So you have one tile of each color. You do not see your own cards, tiles. You're just facing them away from you. And the other people will put them in order on your little rack. You have a little rack that you put the tiles in and the other people will put them in order from low to high. And so you see the backs of the tiles. You know like, oh, I have a red one, then a blue one. So I know the blue one is bigger than the red one numerically. You help the other people sort theirs.

And then on your turn, you're getting clues. So you're gonna flip over a tile in the middle. There are tiles flipped over in the middle at the beginning too. So there's one of each color flipped over in the beginning. You can cross out all those on your deduction sheet. And then you pick one of the tiles from the middle and you use that to give yourself a clue. So the clues are either, you can ask people to sort it for you. So they'll put it between the two tiles that it goes between. So if you have like a, you're like, oh, sort this 38. And so, and if you have like a 44 next to a 33 or something, then they'll put it between those two. And so you know, oh, these ones on this side are bigger than 38. And you cross off all the ones that are smaller, et cetera. So you do that. And then the other type of clue you can get is you take a tile and you say, does this tile have the same number of dots as my red tile here? So you pick one of your tiles and the tile, and it let's say like, it has two dots and you're like, okay, does it have two dots? And they say yes or no. So you can eliminate with that because each tiles, it's like one, two or three dots and they're evenly distributed.

So with those clues, we eventually will get all five of your tiles. And then you say, "Got five!" And whoever does that first wins. If they get it right, you get one chance. If you get it wrong, then you're out of the game. So similar to other deduction games. I think this is more family friendly than some other deduction games. All the information except for your own hand is open. So it's not as hard to give wrong clues because other people can see. Everyone else is giving you the clue, kind of like you tell one person to, but other people can verify that they're giving you the correct information and that things are in order and stuff. And then all of the clues also, they're gonna be left on your board. So they have little slots for ordering the tiles. So once you use that clue, it's gonna be left on your board next to your tiles. And so everyone can see what clues you were given. And so you're crossing all this stuff. The first time I played, I actually had, I think my tiles were like 52, 54, 55, 57, 58, or something like they were all...

Crystal: Oh my goodness.

Ambie: And so like once I got the lowest tile, I was like, okay, sort 34. And then it's like the lowest one. I'm like, okay, sort 40 something. It was also the lowest one. I'm like, okay, uh-huh.

[00:04:14:19 - 00:05:19:16]

Ambie: Well, so once I got the lowest number, I had them all because I knew that the other ones had to be higher and there were only like one possibility for all of them to fit. So that was like, I got it really quickly, but I played it again and it was more of a normal figuring things out. But I like the deduction in this because there's a combination of figuring out the clues and like trying to get good clues of splitting up your tiles and sorting it, picking which numbers. But then also when you flip over a tile in the middle, you get to pick which color you're flipping over. So like in my second game, I knew a bunch of stuff, but like I wasn't sure how to get my orange because the other ones I had like the other colors next to each other kind of. And so I could kind of use them. Like I knew blue was this number. So I knew red was bigger than that number. And like, I could kind of like, if I get blue, then I'll be able to get red because I know one is bigger than the other. But then orange was just like by itself in the bottom and I had three options. So then I was just flipping over orange tiles on my turn and I like ended up flipping over one of the options and able to cross it out. So that's kind of cool that you get to pick which tile you're flipping over and that can help, but it can also help other people. Yeah, so I like the combination of deduction there. It is dry erase, so Toby does not like it, unfortunately.

[00:05:21:25 - 00:05:24:20]

Crystal: Toby and his dry erase thing will always crack me up.

[00:05:24:20 - 00:05:35:17]

Crystal: I do not understand.

Ambie: He says he doesn't like owning it because it's messy. So I guess we could just print out sheets. It's just taking notes on a sheet. So you could probably make sheets yourself and print them out.

[00:05:35:17 - 00:05:43:05]

Crystal: Yeah, that's like the opposite of what most gamers do. Everybody laminates stuff to make it dry erase and you're trying to make things not dry erase.

[00:05:44:16 - 00:05:48:27]

Ambie: Yeah, gotta de-, de-, de-deluxify.

Crystal: Yeah, what's the word for that?

[00:05:50:05 - 00:06:02:09]

Ambie: Just, just, luxify.

Crystal: Paperify the dry erase components somehowe, I don't know.

Ambie: Yeah, I did try to play Got Five with my six year old twins. It says age is eight plus. I think I agree with the eight plus rating here.

[00:06:03:16 - 00:06:22:18]

Ambie: So my kids were not quite old enough to get the deduction by themselves or like get the hidden part. They kept like trying to look at their tiles. I'm like, no, no, you can't look at it. And so I helped them, when I helped them, they were able to do it. I think one of my kids said it was fun, but they don't really quite understand the deduction part completely yet, I think.

[00:06:23:04 - 00:06:26:20]

Crystal: I mean, I think that's completely understandable considering they're six.

[00:06:26:20 - 00:06:52:25]

Ambie: Yeah, but yeah, I think it would be a good family game. Probably ages eight plus seems good. Maybe seven for like hardcore gamers. But yeah, I enjoyed Got Five. It's like a good family weight deduction game and it does have some interesting like thinking through the deductions. It's not just like crossing out what you get. You have to like think through the orders of things. And so I liked that. So yeah, that was Got Five, a review copy from Blue Orange Games.

Crystal: Awesome.

[00:06:52:25 - 00:07:31:15]

Crystal: The game I'm gonna talk about today is now known as dnup and that is spelled all lowercase letters, D-N-U-P. Although actually the BGG listing has an all capital letters, which doesn't make sense to me. So the reason it's D-N-U-P is because the logo on the box for the name is stylized. It's the word up twice, but the first instance of it is flipped upside down. So it looks like a lowercase D and then an N and then the up spelled normally UP. So dnop is the name of the game. When I first played this game, it was called Revolve and they changed the name when they printed it here in America.

[00:07:31:15 - 00:07:34:09]

Ambie: I thought I heard it's pronounced down up or something.

[00:07:34:09 - 00:11:37:16]

Crystal: Oh, I don't know. I've just been pronouncing it dnup because that is what it looks like.

Ambie: That's what it looks like, I know.

Crystal: If they wanted it to be down up, they probably should have spelled it differently. But dnup was designed by Kei Kajino, who also designed SCOUT. That'll become relevant here pretty shortly. And it is published by Asmodee. So dnup, similarly to SCOUT, and this is where the similarities are gonna end, is that the cards are reversible in that depending on which orientation they are in your hand, up or down, they will represent a different number. And those cards during the course of the game can be flipped. Unlike SCOUT, you don't have to keep your cards in a set order. During the game, the actions you're taking are very simple and your goal is also simple. You are trying to get all of the cards out of your hand in any given round. And the first two players to do that each round will get points. The first player will get two points and the second player to go out will get one point. And then when a certain point threshold has been met, somebody will win the game after a number of rounds. Oh yeah, four points.

So on your turn, when you have this game, you have a hand of cards again with numbers on both halves. And what you can do is you can either play a set of cards in front of you, you can add a card to a different set that's already on the table, you can take cards that are present on the table, or you can revolve all the cards in your hand, meaning you take your entire hand and you flip it upside down. So how do you get rid of the cards in your hand? When you play cards in front of you, you are just playing sets, no runs in this game. So it's a little simpler than SCOUT in that regard. And you have to beat any current set of the same number of cards that is currently present on the table. So if somebody has two twos on the table and you play two fives out, you've beat the two twos with your set of two fives. And the player who played the two twos out in front of them has to now pick both of those cards back up into their hand and flip them over. So they are no longer two twos, they're whatever the other two numbers are. If play ever gets back around to you while you have cards in front of you still that you've played previously, then they get discarded. So that's how you officially get rid of them.

One of the things I mentioned is you can add cards to other people's sets. So if somebody plays two twos and it comes around to you and you don't have a good set to play, but you have a two in your hand, you can add a two to their set, assuming that there isn't a higher three card set already on the table. Because again, anytime you play cards, for that number of cards, you have to beat the current highest set present. Also, you're helping that player potentially get rid of those cards. Because by strengthening their set, it is more likely that it'll come back around to them and they'll be able to put those cards away and not take them back up into their hand. So there's a surprising amount of strategy for how simple the actions are. I really enjoy this. I think while at first description, it's a little confusing to like get your head around. Once you realize what's going on, the gameplay is really simple. I think it is easier to understand and teach than SCOUT. So I think this is better for like more of an entry level game or for possibly for families. Cause it's pretty easy to understand. And yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's quite simple really.

The card, I like the artwork on the cards. They're very bright, like nothing special, just like really bright colors and pretty. Yeah. Oh, and the points are literally, like when you get points, they are the letters D N U P. And so once you've collected all four of them, like when you spelled "dnup" or downup or whatever it is, then you win the game. So I liked that they did that too. And when this one's also digitally on available on board game arena, and they do give you the little letters digitally on board game arena too, which I thought was pretty awesome. I was not expecting that necessarily, but it's pretty cute. So yeah, I really liked this game. I recommend it. If you like light card games, especially if you liked SCOUT, it's got some connective tissue there. So I highly recommend dnup slash down up slash Revolve.

[00:11:43:05 - 00:12:48:17]

Crystal: As we have mentioned in recent episodes, we are fast approaching the Blitz Podcast 10 year anniversary. This is not that episode, not quite, but we're close. And we realized that we've now done 10 years of the Blitzy awards, which is wild. So we thought rather than just highlighting last year's games that we love, like we did in our last episode, we are now going to take a trip through the Blitz time machine and travel back in time all the way back to the beginning via the games we've loved all these years. So we're gonna highlight a few of the games from each year that won Blitzy awards from us that we still believe are worth highlighting today. And that's not to say that the other games aren't, but these are kind of the ones that are still like really stand out games in our opinion or games that we play a lot. We still love, I'm sure all like most of the games on our list, but these are the ones that we wanted to highlight. And we are going to start with the ones that are the most obvious because they just happened. And that's the 2025 Blitzy awards.

[00:12:48:17 - 00:12:54:11]

Ambie: Although I guess we probably don't need to say anything about the 2025 ones because that was like literally last episode.

[00:12:55:25 - 00:13:38:16]

Crystal: I agree. I don't think you need to say, well, and truthfully we're not gonna give long descriptions about any of these cause this episode would be really long if we did. So yeah, if you all want more information about the games we mentioned in this episode, you can go back to all 10 years of our Blitzies episodes and listen to the descriptions of these games and the other games we highlighted in those years. There's really some great stuff that we are not gonna mention today that are in those lists as well. So I will very quickly say that my top two that I wanted to mention for 2025, specifically were Wandering Galaxy, the crossroads game from Plaid Hat and Numberwang, the silly trick taking game that made me laugh that I love so very much and I want everyone to play.

[00:13:38:16 - 00:13:47:21]

Ambie: And mine were Jisogi: Anime Studio Tycoon, Workworkwork, and Herd - puzzle games, and Micro Macro Kids. It's great.

Crystal: Love it, love it.

[00:13:47:21 - 00:13:56:17]

Crystal: All right. *time machine noises* Okay, traveling back to 2024, Ambie did not know I was going to make time machine sounds.

[00:13:58:01 - 00:14:03:28]

Crystal: Go ahead, Ambie. We're back in 2024 now. Which games stood out for you in 2024?

[00:14:03:28 - 00:14:09:26]

Ambie: So my favorite game of 2024, Bomb Busters. Still, I like that a lot. I've mentioned it a lot.

[00:14:09:26 - 00:14:14:11]

Crystal: For the record, I would have mentioned this one, but I knew you were, so I just didn't pick it.

[00:14:14:11 - 00:14:49:10]

Ambie: Yeah, I also had, the best solo game was Morrison Game Factory, which was a Post Curious puzzle game that still, I think, I mean, I obviously haven't played it since. It's a one-time play through, but that's still like one of my favorite Post Curious experiences that I've had. Oh, I do want to mention 21 Hand Games. I had that as most innovative. That's a book of hand games, like Rock, Paper, Scissors, but not Rock, Paper, Scissors, like other games you can play with your hands. And my kids still like bringing that out once in a while. They recently like had Toby read, like, "Let's play another, let's play a hand game. Let's play this." And so they give him the book and have him play a game at bedtime. So that's cool.

[00:14:49:10 - 00:15:14:29]

Crystal: That's really cute. I love that. For me, my favorite game of 2024, Draft and Write Records, still definitely one of my faves. I really love it. And then my other that I wanted to highlight is Flip 7, which I still play all the time. I own a physical copy. I play it digitally. I do not have the new version that has come out, the Flip 7 With a Vengeance, which is, I'm very curious about. I have not played that one, but I do want to. So yeah, those are my picks.

[00:15:16:02 - 00:15:27:18]

Crystal: All right, beep, beep. *time machine noises* I'm just gonna try and make you laugh with weird noises and do each one. All right, we're heading back to 2023.

[00:15:28:23 - 00:16:03:28]

Crystal: I'll go ahead and name mine first. So my favorite game of 2023, Freelancers. It's another Crossroads game from Plaid Hat, y'all. And this won't be the last one on the list. Plaid Hat really knocks it out of the park with their Crossroads games as far as I'm concerned. I love the stories. I love the gameplay. I love the browser-based app that goes along with them. Super awesome. And then secondly, one of my favorite card games of 2023 was Surfosaurus MAX, which did get reprinted as Combo, which is a much more boring theme because it's just fruit. But I forever will play the version with surfing dinosaurs of that card game because it's the best version.

[00:16:03:28 - 00:16:13:13]

Ambie: I think 2023 and then previously through 2019-ish, I didn't play as many games. Due to young children.

[00:16:13:13 - 00:16:14:28]

Crystal: I mean, it's like you were raising children or something.

[00:16:16:00 - 00:16:54:04]

Ambie: So my favorite games weren't as like, not as many will stay through to today, but my favorite of 2023 was The Secret of Langton Manor, print and play escape room game, which I still think is really good. I love escape room games. So that, yeah, and it has multiple episodes. So I played through four episodes of there and I liked that. I also have gotten some for free review copies. And then also in 2023, new to me, it wasn't a 2023 game, but new to me that year was Riichi Mahjong, which I still, like I have a Mahjong set, and I still like Mahjong. So that was the year that I learned to play Riichi Mahjong.

[00:16:54:04 - 00:17:04:01]

Crystal: That was the year that Mahjong happened for you.

Ambie: Yeah.

Crystal: All right. *time machine noises* Okay, we're back in 2022, Ambie. Which games would you like to highlight?

[00:17:04:01 - 00:17:20:10]

Ambie: All right, so my favorite game of 2022 was Décorum, which is a deduction, cooperative deduction game. I love it. I haven't played it that much. Like I want to play it more. I keep wanting to play it and I really like it, but I haven't played it that many times. Even then I hadn't played it much, but yeah, I need to play it more. But yeah, I love that.

[00:17:20:10 - 00:17:26:07]

Crystal: Well, once the kiddos skip better with deduction with the Got Five! game, then maybe you can move them up to Décorum.

[00:17:26:07 - 00:17:32:15]

Ambie: Yeah, maybe. But I mean, it does have the two player scenarios that I should play with Toby, but we just don't play many two player games.

[00:17:33:22 - 00:18:01:17]

Ambie: Décorum was a review copy. And I also wanted to highlight Connected Clues, which was also review copy. It was a party game. It's just like a very casual party game that we play where you're connecting clues.

Crystal: I mean, that sounds right up both of our alleys.

Ambie: Two different phrases where like the last word of one phrase matches the first word of the second phrase. And so like you say them all together, but you're giving clues for each one. And so it's just a casual party game when you just want to fill some time. And that's been a good one for us for like just a filler.

[00:18:01:17 - 00:18:57:11]

Crystal: For me in 2022, I mentioned it earlier in this episode when I was talking about dnup, but it's SCOUT. I still love SCOUT. I still play it a lot. It's on the Oink Games app. I own a copy. So I play it both physically and digitally and I still play it with some regularity. I think the last time I played it was literally like two weeks ago. So yeah, all the time. And then my other from 2022 was Make the Difference, which was published by Oink Games and blew me away because it literally takes the game from Highlights magazine where you're looking at two pictures and trying to tell what's different between the two of them. And it somehow turns that into a board game that you and your friends can play. And I always use that as a way to describe it to people. And if they're not Millennials or Gen X, they do not know what I'm talking about when I talk about Highlights magazine. So, because I always start my teach of, okay, you know that thing from Highlights magazine? And I've had some Gen Z folks be like, mm.

[00:18:58:12 - 00:18:59:18]

Crystal: Like, I don't know.

[00:18:59:18 - 00:19:04:25]

Ambie: Highlights magazine still exists, I think. Like I've seen that they exist. I just haven't gotten anything.

[00:19:04:25 - 00:19:15:05]

Crystal: Where are they though? Cause like when I was a kid, it was in every waiting room, I'm pretty sure. Like every waiting room had highlights and now like, where would you even see them?

[00:19:15:05 - 00:19:22:24]

Crystal: I don't like, do you have to order it?

Ambie: I think I saw one at the library, but they have like magazine orders still. But I don't know who gets them.

[00:19:22:24 - 00:19:37:06]

Crystal: Basically you get to change a picture with a little black marker and somehow your friends will not be able to spot the gigantic line that you added to it. I don't know how that magic works, but it does. So yeah, make the difference was a really, really good one as far as I'm concerned.

[00:19:38:08 - 00:20:11:17]

Crystal: *time machine noises* Okay, we're back in 2021. My favorite game from that year happens to be my favorite game of all time at this point. And that's Return to Dark Tower. So yeah, that one definitely still getting mentioned cause I love it. It's great. And then the other one is one of my favorite roll and write games. I would say it's probably number two to Draft and Write Records or maybe they tie, I don't know. But that's Riverside. I love teaching Riverside to people. It's one of my favorite roll and writes cause it's very different than a lot of others and it's very thematic. So I enjoy it quite a bit.

[00:20:11:17 - 00:20:42:02]

Ambie: For my 2021, my favorite game was The Book of Rituals which is a escape room type puzzle book. That's still one of my favorite puzzle books I've done, like escape room puzzle book things. So that was cool. That was a review copy. Also that year, I do want to mention that Micro Macro, like regular Micro Macro, I had as my best kids or family game or something. That was before Micro Macro Kids, yeah.

Crystal: Before there was even a kids version of it.

Ambie: So I knew then like-

Crystal: You were predicting it. You knew it was coming.

Ambie: Yeah, but I still like regular Micro Macro too.

[00:20:43:16 - 00:20:50:01]

Crystal: *time machine noises* All right, 2020. Oh God, oh God, it's a pandemic. What do we do?

[00:20:51:23 - 00:21:14:25]

Crystal: Ambie, get us out of here. Hurry.

Ambie: So my number one game from 2020 was Rolling Stock Stars. I haven't played it in forever, probably since before 2020 because I had actually played it before it got released and stuff. I had met the designer, I had an interview with the designer very early. So yeah, Rolling Stock Stars, it's a heavy economic card game, but yeah, I haven't gotten to play it much.

[00:21:16:01 - 00:21:18:19]

Ambie: Also there were more escape room stuff.

[00:21:19:24 - 00:21:31:22]

Ambie: Curious Stairs of Mr. Hinks was my favorite escape room from that year.

Crystal: Oh, that was so good.

Ambie: Yeah, that one was good. It was a good, had lots of like physical things and cool thematic elements.

Crystal: We love Mr. Hinks.

[00:21:33:09 - 00:21:41:17]

Ambie: Yeah, that was also the year of Rosetta: The Lost Language, which we both liked. And that was a very unique-

Crystal: Did I not rank that one? Why did I not put that on my list?

Ambie: You did, I think.

[00:21:41:17 - 00:21:48:15]

Crystal: Oh my gosh, I must've, I don't know if I just didn't see it when I was looking at that episode. So yeah, consider that. That's my number one probably.

[00:21:49:23 - 00:22:29:27]

Crystal: Other games from 2020 that are definitely worth highlighting, Forgotten Waters, which is the other Plaid Hat Crossroads game that I referenced earlier. So that's the third one on this list. And yes, they are all worth highlighting as far as I'm concerned. If you like one of them, you will like all three of them. So yeah, amazing game. And I actually played through Forgotten Waters on a live stream during the pandemic. And that was really fun to get to play it kind of with the audience on a live stream. They were helping influence my choices and things like that. So that was really neat. The other one I wanted to mention is Sovereign Skies. I actually mentioned that in an episode recently. It is an underrated game that everybody should go check out.

[00:22:31:15 - 00:22:36:12]

Crystal: Boop, boop, beep, bop, beep, boop, bop, beep, bop. Okay, 2019.

[00:22:38:15 - 00:23:34:14]

Crystal: I know the noises are getting less. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to keep it up, we'll see. 2019 for me, there are three games that I wanna highlight. So I will go through them very quickly. Detective Club is one of, if not, my absolute favorite social deduction game because it is less pressure on the person who is the "it" person for the social deduction part of things. It's way less stressful than a lot of other social deduction games, making it more approachable. Remember our trip is from Sashi and Sashi and is a really cool game where you are using polyomino shapes to fill in little tokens on a board, but you also have a shared board with the other players that things get filled in on. And then Letter Jam, which is one of my favorite word games of all time because not a lot of word games are cooperative and that one is, but lest you be confused, people used to refer to Letter Jam as a party game and it really isn't a party game. So just know that going in.

[00:23:34:14 - 00:24:44:13]

Ambie: Yeah, Letter Jam was on my list too. That one's good. Also, Wavelength came out that year.

Crystal: Wavelength, yeah.

Ambie: That's the one that I still like a lot and I play it with a lot of people. It's a good party game of trying to match up your wavelength with other people. Another party game is TEAM3 GREEN, which I had as my most underrated game. This is a team party game where you're building polyomino blocks to match a shape, but one person sees the shape but cannot talk, like sees the card that you're trying to do it. The other person can see what they're gesturing and then they can talk and then the other person is the only one that's actually building the shape but their eyes are closed. So it's very hectic. I haven't played it that much actually since having kids, but my kids actually like playing it, just seeing the shape and trying to build it up themselves, not actually playing. So it's like got a cool toy factor too. And I would like to play it again if I ever get, you need a lot of people. And then also I wanted to highlight another new to me game so it did not come out 2019, but it was Indonesia was my favorite new to me game then. That's a Splotter game. And that was probably the last time I played like a had a heavy new to me game because 2019 was when my kids were born. So yeah.

[00:24:44:13 - 00:24:53:10]

Crystal: Jugga, jugga, jugga, jugga, jugga, jugga, jugga, jugga. It's 2018 time. All right, what you got for 2018, Ambie?

[00:24:53:10 - 00:25:01:03]

Ambie: 2018, this was before my kids were born. So back when I still played heavy games and my favorite game of 2018 was The Mind.

[00:25:02:22 - 00:25:13:05]

Crystal: That's funny. I mean, I know you love The Mind so it does make sense, but it's just funny that like the year before your kids were born, it's the year that like one of your lightest favorite games came out.

[00:25:13:05 - 00:25:15:20]

Ambie: Yeah, and The Mind is still one of my favorite games.

[00:25:15:20 - 00:25:16:27]

Crystal: It's freaking fabulous.

[00:25:16:27 - 00:25:43:10]

Ambie: Although I don't play it as much.

Crystal: I've only, yeah.

Ambie: Yeah, so The Mind and Decrypto were also, Decrypto was my second favorite.

Crystal: So good.

Ambie: Decrypto was a party game, team party game, like word guessing game. It's like Codenames, but for more hardcore gamers. And then, yeah, The Mind is you're just playing numbers in order without talking. And then Cryptid was also on my list. That's a deduction game, which I haven't played as much, but like I still have it and I like it.

[00:25:43:10 - 00:26:31:27]

Crystal: I had not played Cryptid at that point, but I have now and I agree it's a really good deduction game. My games for 2018 are Just One, which simultaneously feels like it came out a thousand years ago and also yesterday. Like, I don't know how it was eight years ago that Just One released, that's wild. But we've talked about this one ad nauseam, I will not add. Welcome To... which like, when I think about Welcome To... there's nothing about it that like immediately jumps out, it's like, "Ooh, amazing." But guess what? I still play Welcome To... all the time. And that means something. I really like that game. It holds up, it's solid, it just works. And then the last one is Castell. You all know how much I love Castell, and I will always champion that game forever and ever and ever. Aaron Vanderbeek, please design more games.

[00:26:33:06 - 00:26:37:05]

Ambie: So that was 2018, wow.

Crystal: Doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop, doop.

[00:26:38:03 - 00:27:25:07]

Crystal: That's apparently the music for going to 2017. For me in 2017, we had a couple of great ones that I wanted to highlight. Wordsy, which was Gil Hova's word game that came out where, guess what? If you don't have the letters you want, you could still use them anyway. You can use any letter you want. You just wanna use the ones that are on the table to score you some points. But if you need other letters to help them along, you can do that. So more flexible than a lot of other word games are, and I think that is a boon for it. And the other one is Dice Forge. Dice Forge, to me, the worst part of it is it takes too long to set up for how long the game lasts, but guess what? I still play it anyway. I literally played Dice Forge a week ago. I still play Dice Forge a lot. So that's nine years ago, and I still play it all the time. That's crazy, so yeah. I love them.

[00:27:25:07 - 00:27:46:26]

Ambie: So for my 2017, a lot of the games on my list actually I don't play anymore. The ones I still own are Codenames Duet and Azul. And I do like those

Crystal: Codenames Duet, I still love.

Ambie: Yeah, those are... yeah. But then other ones I have culled. I still liked Kitchen Rush a lot, but I culled it. I got rid of it because we didn't play it that much. But then my top two games in 2017 were both Exit games.

[00:27:48:07 - 00:27:50:28]

Ambie: Because I had them split out then. So yeah, I still like Exit a lot.

[00:27:50:28 - 00:27:53:18]

Crystal: Well, they were kind of newer then too, right?

[00:27:53:18 - 00:28:03:28]

Ambie: That was the first year I played Exit games. And so yeah, they made my top two because I like escape room games. I still do. I liked them then and I loved them. And yeah, I was looking forward to them too.

[00:28:06:10 - 00:28:09:05]

Ambie: So yes, I still love Exit games.

[00:28:09:05 - 00:28:18:11]

Crystal: All right, let's see. I gotta type in our last coordinates. Beep boop, bop beep, bop beep boop, beep bop beep boop. And 2016 time.

[00:28:19:14 - 00:28:22:00]

Crystal: What you got for me, Ambie?

Ambie: Our first year

Crystal: This was the first year of the Blitzies.

[00:28:22:00 - 00:28:32:02]

Ambie: Yeah, I think I didn't play that many new 2016 games. I think maybe the first two years probably, I didn't play that many new games that came out that year.

[00:28:32:02 - 00:28:37:02]

Crystal: Yeah, we hadn't gotten to full content creator, play all the games mode yet, I think.

[00:28:37:02 - 00:28:59:10]

Ambie: So I think that's also why a lot of the games, I kind of forced the list on some of these. Okay, this is by default. So I think the only game that I still own was the best party game, which was Insider.

Crystal: Yeah, I like that.

Ambie: That's 20 questions, but with a traitor. I haven't played in a while, but I still like it. But my best new to us game, new to me game was 18xx genre.

[00:28:59:10 - 00:29:09:16]

Crystal: Yep, yeah, a lot of people don't remember that when the podcast started, you had never played 18xx games. Because that just became your identity for a little while, like on the podcast.

[00:29:09:16 - 00:29:13:04]

Ambie: That's how people knew me, yeah. So yeah, that was my best.

[00:29:13:04 - 00:29:14:03]

Crystal: But it didn't start that way.

[00:29:14:03 - 00:29:27:23]

Ambie: Yeah, and I think also because that was, I played a lot of 18xx games in 2016 and 2017. Those are not, definitely do not come out. Those years, they weren't new. So it was harder to get the new games for the Blitzies.

[00:29:27:23 - 00:30:16:29]

Crystal: Yeah, for me, 2016 was Star Trek Ascendancy. I will admit, I barely play this game. It's really hard to get to the table because it takes like an hour to teach it properly. And it really just is hard to get to the table. But if you are a fan of Star Trek and you want to feel like you are having an adventure or you're doing stuff in the world, in the universe that Star Trek exists, Ascendancy is one of the best games for that. There are some newer ones that I think also are worth exploring, but for just this year, going out into the galaxy and visiting planets and meeting people and doing things, Star Trek Ascendancy really, really, really does the experience well. And I still own it. And while I don't play it often, I don't think I'll ever be able to get rid of it. All right, the time machine's shutting down. Pew!

[00:30:18:28 - 00:30:44:02]

Crystal: We're stuck in 2016 now.

Ambie: We have to get back to 2026 first.

Crystal: Yeah, we'll get back eventually, it's fine. But yes, those were some of our favorite games that we've highlighted in the Blitzies Awards over the past 10 years. Were any of them surprising? Are you surprised we left any of them out? Let us know in the Blitz discord or on social media. And tell us what some of your favorite games that we've highlighted in the past Blitzy episodes have been.

[00:30:45:11 - 00:31:40:20]

Ambie: And that’s it for this week’s Board Game Blitz. Visit our website, boardgameblitz.com for more content and links.

This episode was sponsored by Grey Fox Games. The new Gods and Prophets expansion for Reavers of Midgard is available on Kickstarter now! Forge new paths to greater glory and get exclusive component upgrades by pledging today! And as always, Blitzketeers get 10% off everything at GreyFoxGames.com when you use the code BLITZ2026 at checkout!

Join the blitzketeer community on discord for game nights, discussions and more by following the link in the show notes.

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Our theme song was composed by Andrew Morrow.

Until next time,

That move was unpredictable

But now our troops must fight

I hope mine come away with their life

Bye everyone!

Crystal: Bye!

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