The Library Police
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    • Episode 250: Endings
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    • Episode 226: The Dark Tower, Books 5-7
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    • Episode 223: Getting Into A Reading Groove
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    • Thanksgiving Throwback: Episode 128, Featuring Christopher Merchant
    • Episode 220: The Taboo Topics
    • Episode 219: SCBWI 2017
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    • Episode 217: A Primer for Thrillers
    • Episode 216: The Adventure Zone Balance Arc
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    • Episode 212: Beach Reading
    • Episode 211: Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
    • Episode 210: Interactive Storytelling
    • Episode 209: Audiobooks and Audio Storytelling
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#1: Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective

12/17/2015

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The games that I’ve featured on this list are all absolutely phenomenal, but I’m going to confess something. The concept of a top twenty board game list is kind of stupid. It’s stupid because board games are a completely personal experience. I hate Monopoly, but if that’s the game that brings a family together for a few hours where they aren’t arguing, but are instead remembering why they like being together in the first place? If that’s the case, Monopoly is a perfect game. Games are less about the pieces and rules that come in this cardboard box, and more about the experience that you have playing with these toys. Whatever helps drive that experience is a great thing. The idea that I’ve discovered a perfect formula for evaluating the relative quality of games is absurd. I love Pandemic Legacy because I loved playing it with my wife. I love Eclipse because two of my best friends and I have a blast sitting down to the table. I love Funemployed because of a moment of howling laughter as one of my oldest and best friends apologized for what he’d been doing with his feet for the length of the interview.

A year ago, I got lucky enough to marry my best friend. Jen and I have known each other for over seven years, and in that time, I’ve realized that my perspective on things has changed. Television, films, podcasts, books, they can all be great on their own merits. But when I get to share them with her, they become something even more special, a way that we can continue to learn more and more about each other as we explore the world. When I find something that I love, the first thing I want to do is tell her about it, to share it with her, to pour over every detail. Board games are a big part of our life because of that very thing. She’s my favorite person to sit across a table from and play a game. Games become more special when she and I both love them. It’s one more thing to add to the list of shared experiences, and I’ve known for a long time that I wanted to share as many experiences with this stubborn, brilliant, wildly enthusiastic woman as I possibly could. A while back, we opened up our copy of Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective together, and we got to share a something new.

We have two teenage daughters, and the parade of friends, boyfriends, and other stragglers keeps our house noisy and chaotic. Our dogs are lovable wrecking balls, always ready to pile up onto our laps for attention. But with this game, we retreated into our room, closed the door, and opened it up. We found a casebook, telling us the details about a murdered man outside a munitions factory. Jen was delighted as she unfolded a map of London, with hundreds of locations marked. A stack of intricately detailed London Times newspapers were paired along with the cases. When we began the case, we had a small reporter’s notebook to take notes. Within an hour, we’d pulled our family whiteboard into the room and had two yellow legal pads, both filling with details about evidence, witness interviews, and random theories. We sprawled across the bed, paced the room, laid on the floor occasionally while discussing timelines and witness statements.

For two hours, I watched my wife exclaim in delight as she recognized a name she’d seen in the newspaper, furrow her brow in frustration as she tried to fit pieces together, and nearly vibrate with excitement as we realized we’d figured out a key part of the case. For two hours, I got to appreciate this brilliant and tenacious woman who’d found her way into my life, and for two hours, the rest of the world was gone, and it was just her and me, experiencing something wonderful. It was a gift; a rare, wonderful thing that comes along so seldom in our lives of college courses, work, and kids.

I could talk about how brilliant of a design this game is, and it is indeed brilliant. I could talk about why everyone should own a copy of Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective, and they should. But those are incidental, and have little to do with why I call it the greatest board game I’ve ever played. It’s my favorite game because my wife and I escape from the world, and share something that makes us see each other in a new light every time we play. That’s why I love board games, that’s why I play them. For the few hours you give to this collection of cardboard and plastic, you can find something amazing about the people you love.

Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective helped give me two wonderful hours with my wife. That’s why it’s the best game I’ve ever played.

- ​Dietrich Stogner



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#2: Pandemic Legacy

12/16/2015

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Holy crap, this game.

I can’t talk about the moments in this game that make it one of the most overwhelmingly insane experiences I’ve ever had. I can’t talk about the moment that my wife and I literally were left speechless by a revelation in the gameplay. I can’t tell you about 90% of the details of this game, because Pandemic Legacy is a game that can be spoiled, and should never be spoiled.

I can tell you that buying this game will be one of the best experiences you’ll have this year, or any other.
Pandemic Legacy is a game that rejects the concept of a game being an isolated event. Every time you play chess, it begins exactly the same way. Every time you begin nearly every game, it begins essentially the same way. Every single game of Pandemic Legacy changes the game in fundamental ways, and every single game of Pandemic Legacy is different than any other.

The original game of Pandemic is a terrific game in its own right. Players work together as representatives of the CDC (Center for Disease Control), trying to stop the spread of four deadly pathogens exploding in cities around the world. The rules are tremendously simple, and the game wonderfully challenging. It’s a great game, and I’d recommend it to anyone. It’s also a pale and empty shadow compared to Rob Daviau and Matt Leacock’s newest evolution of this game. Pandemic Legacy tells the story of “the worst year in the history of the CDC”. While it begins as a standard game of Pandemic, by the end of the first game, the rules will have changed in a very shocking and fundamental way.

The game takes place over twelve months. If the players are victorious, the story progresses to the next month. If they fail, they get one chance to attempt that month again, with a second failure moving them to the next month. The game has an outstanding mechanic to constantly adjust the difficulty, making sure that it never becomes too simple or too difficult, and the constant evolutions to the rules and mechanics are flawlessly executed. Pandemic Legacy is a unique, dizzying, and thrilling experience that is unlike anything you’ve experienced. If I could, it would be my holiday gift to everyone I know, because I can’t think of anyone that wouldn’t be blown away by this game.

- ​Dietrich Stogner

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#3: Eclipse

12/16/2015

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There’s a wonderful board game convention in Nashville in the spring called Tennessee Game Days. It’s been one of the highlights of my year for the last four years, in no small part because I get to discover games I never would have tried otherwise. Fully a third of the games on this list came to my attention because of Tennessee Game Days, but none of them make me as giddy to sit down to as Eclipse, an imperial science fiction game that manages to be massive and streamlined at the same time, and as sprawling a piece of work as anything else out there.

Let’s get this out of the way first: Eclipse will make anyone who hasn’t played it before slightly dizzy when they see it sprawled out before them. It’s huge. Every player has a personal board with their economy tracker, technology tree, ship layouts, diplomacy tracker, and more. Each player has a pile of wooden tokens, a row of cubes, and a pile of ship figures. Oh, and then there’s the technology board, with dozens of tiles indicating plasma missiles, quantum computers, neutron bombs, and a whole host of other bewildering terms.

And that’s where Eclipse stands apart. This massive cluster of details and components somehow falls neatly into place as smoothly and as effectively as any other game I’ve ever seen, with the design of every single component showing how each piece flows into the next, how every one of the many choices dovetails neatly with countless possible strategies. The first time one of my friends played, he shifted smoothly from being confused to launching a multi-tier attack against another player, coordinating his technology development with ship construction to keep the assault hot and steady. Players will adopt wildly different strategies, with one choosing to sprawl across the galaxy, exploring every sector they can reach, while another builds their forces in a handful of strategically invaluable systems, and the amazing thing is that all of these strategies can be successful. Eclipse allows players to develop a play style that matches their own personality.

As the game proceeds through the nine rounds, a unique and detailed galaxy of wormholes, hostile aliens, strange planets, and ancient artifacts will constantly throw up barriers to the player’s efforts. Players will negotiate alliances, betray one another, develop technology to leap across the galaxy and flank opponents, and create a story that they’ll be talking about for days. Once players become comfortable with the rules, they’ll be able to take control of alien empires, each with their own unique strengths and weaknesses, giving the game more replayability than anything else on this list. And, as if that wasn’t enough, the expansion Rise of the Ancients fleshes out the few weak points of the game to make it truly sing.

Eclipse holds a special place in my collection, and it’s a game that I plan out the chance to play for weeks in advance. I would play this on a weekly basis if I could, and I’d do so knowing that a year from now, I’d still be learning new and amazing things about this excellent game.

- ​Dietrich Stogner



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#4: Carcassonne

12/16/2015

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There are simple games, and there are great games, and there are games that are nearly universally loved by those who play them. There aren’t many that tick all three boxes. Ticket to Ride is entertaining, but not really deep. Settlers of Catan is an amalgam of stodgy mechanics that have all been done better by many other games. Dominion may have started the deck building craze, but that craze has led to many better versions. Carcassonne? It’s simple, approachable, and somehow manages to make me smile every time I play. It’s a beautiful set of mechanics that work with beginners and experts, and has a raft of expansions that add depth in surprising and remarkable ways.

Carcassonne has players place meeples on an ever-expanding board of pastures, rivers, chapels, and castles. Each turn, players will draw a new tile, place it on the board, and decide whether to place one of their meeples. As various roads and castles are completed, whichever player has control earns a chunk of points. At the end of the game, players will earn a paltry few points for incompleted structures. That’s essentially the game. But masked in these simple rules is a pile of challenging decisions. Do you risk going for a larger structure, knowing that the pile of unused tiles is dwindling? Do you quickly snap up several small castles and roads, gobbling up tiny chunks of points? Is it okay to tear your hair out by the roots when your opponent gets the tile you’ve been waiting through the entire game for, and places it in a stupid stupid place that is stupid?

With a flawlessly executed iOS and Android apps, Carcassonne has probably drained my phone’s battery more than any other app, but if that’s the only way that you’ve experienced this game, you’re missing out. The sense of creation is one of the most compelling elements in board games, and sitting with your friends and watching a lovely pastoral landscape sprawl across the table is tremendously satisfying. It’s such a simple experience, but in every place of a tile is a scramble for position and advantage, a fight to force the world to develop in the way that suits you best.

Carcassonne might not have the flash of many of the games on this list, but it has one simple advantage: it’s essentially perfect. It’s a beautiful blend of mechanics and theme that works on every level, and it’s as approachable as any other game out there.

- ​Dietrich Stogner

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#5: Archipelago

12/16/2015

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As I said before, Dead of Winter is an incredible mix of mechanics, a collection of outstanding ideas that come together to create something special. But it’s not the best example of a semicooperative game I’ve ever seen. Dead of Winter may be excellent, but the bigger, more serious older brother of this game is a masterpiece, a series of disparate elements that come together like the pieces of a Swiss clock. Archipelago manages to do a lot of things at once, and it does it with an effortless elegance that surpasses nearly any other game.

Archipelago sees each player working to colonize a steadily expanding cluster of islands in the South Pacific. It’s a true worker placement game, with players assigning workers to explore further, harvest resources, trade goods domestically and internationally, and build churches, towns, and harbors. Throughout the game, various crises will pop up, with the natives growing ever more restless as players juggle food shortages, simmering rebellions, demands from the crown back home, and much more. The players will have to work together to resolve these issues, the game's mechanics push for sneaky, Machiavellian maneuvering to constantly figure out the minimum you can do to keep the island stable without giving up your own advantage.

Archipelago should be a much more complicated game than it is, but the design and layout of this truly beautiful game somehow make it flow so much better than you’d ever expect. Every component has its place, every action fits within the narrative that’s developing every turn. As more and more tiles are revealed, the islands develop a character, with volcanoes, rich jungles, and oceans teeming with fish. The economy of the island feels vibrant and alive, with surges in supply driving prices down, and rare tropical fruits bringing in piles of coins. A mechanic that allows players to bid to decide the turn order allows for wheeling and dealing, with players bribing, cajoling, and threatening each other for position. Archipelago is an organic, fluid experience that feels wholly unique and completely innovative every time you play.

Archipelago is something special, a game that creates a layered, complex experience and yet never feels overwhelming. It’s a worker placement game that doesn’t feel like a worker placement game, a cooperative game that feels sneakily antagonistic. Everything it does, it does beautifully, all the way down to the plastic inlay that holds the components. The game is a symphony, something extraordinary that I’ve yet to see matched.

- ​Dietrich Stogner



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#6: Dead of Winter

12/15/2015

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It’s cold outside. There’s someone clawing at the window, but they can’t get in. We have enough food, but just barely. We sent Susan to the school to find fuel, but she hasn’t been back in hours. There’s only a few of us left, and someone’s stealing medicine. We’re desperate, hungry, freezing, and frightened, and the zombies outside are the least of our problems. This is Dead of Winter, and it’s going to let you and your friends tell one hell of a story.

Dead of Winter is what’s known as a semicooperative game that asks every player to take control of a small group of unique survivors trying to endure a frigid winter with limited supplies and a zombie horde at the door. Players will send their people out into the town to fight the undead, scrounge for supplies, and search for survivors. Every turn, there’s a crisis, demanding food, fuel, medicine, or tools, carrying a heavy penalty for failure. Every turn, your increasing numbers need to eat. Every turn, you risk someone getting bitten and turning on the rest of you as the zombie virus tears its way through your colony. It’s absolutely relentless.

Oh, and one of you might be a traitor trying to bring the entire thing down in bloody flames.

Dead of Winter is a masterwork of mechanics. Even if you’re not a traitor, you have your own private goal. Maybe you’re a hypochondriac, and are desperately hoarding medicine for yourself. When the crisis demands that everyone pitch in and contribute, you want to help, but instead, you look at the medicine in your hand and calmly lie, explaining that you just haven’t found any yet. When you find a group of survivors huddled in the town’s gas station, do you bring them back, knowing that your colony barely has enough food as it is, or do you leave them to freeze to death or be devoured? When you find that you failed a crisis because of someone’s sabotage, do you wait until you’re sure who the traitor is to exile them into the frozen wasteland (giving them the chance to wreak more havoc), or do you risk sending an innocent person to their death? What if you’re wrong?

As if this wasn’t compelling enough, every turn features a wonderful mechanic known as the crossroads card. These cards add a chunk of story, forcing the player to make tough decisions that affect everyone. When you find an abandoned fuel truck, do you drive it back to the colony, bringing the horde with it, or do you leave the invaluable gasoline behind? When you come across a band of hostiles, do you risk a fight, or give in to their demands? I don’t want to spoil any of these incredible cards, but I’ve yet to find one that wasn’t incredibly well done.

Dead of Winter is one of my favorite games of the last few years, and has been a genuine hit with everyone who’s played it with me. Each game tells an intense and unique story, and even failures in this game are fascinating. Dead of Winter is bursting with potential, and never fails to amaze me.

- ​Dietrich Stogner



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#7: Panic on Wall Street

12/15/2015

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If you’re looking for a quiet night at home, go away. This game is not for you. This is a game of frantic shouting, of bullying, of shoving people aside and bellowing at your friends. This is a game of waving fistfuls of money in the air and demanding someone’s attention. This is a game where seconds matter, chaos reigns, and nothing’s going to stop you from getting what you want. If Lords of Vegas simulates capitalism well, this game rolls it neatly up and shoves it straight down your throat. This is Panic on Wall Street, the loudest, most frantic game you’ll ever play.

In a game of Panic on Wall Street, half the players will take on the role of stock brokers, trying to sell stocks to the other half, the investors. For two minutes, negotiations will take place, with investors bidding higher and higher to buy more valuable stocks. After the two minutes, a dice roll will inform the table as to whether the stock’s value rose or fell. Investors will either gain or lose money, they will then pay the brokers for the stocks, the brokers will pay a flat fee for every stock they have to sell.

Okay, that’s the description, and it’s about as exciting as watching paint dry. When you explain the rules to people for the first time, you can see their dubious expressions. You’ll start the first round, flipping the timer. Someone will tentatively offer ten for a blue stock. Another investor will start to offer fifteen, but will be interrupted by another broker offering a blue stock for ten. Two investors will both speak up to claim it, but at the same time, another broker has a good deal on yellow, and now four people are speaking at once, but those red stocks are a great value, and it’s at a great price, and who wants this green stock at five, all of you, well maybe it costs twenty, what do you mean he’s selling green at ten, OH GOD TIME IS NEARLY UP I’LL SELL IT TO ANYONE PLEASE WHATEVER PRICE I HAVE KIDS TO FEED.

The first round will start quiet, and will build to a cacophony of screaming and yelling. The following rounds will not start quiet. As soon as the timer starts, the room will explode, and it won’t subside for the entire two minutes. As soon as the time stops, everyone will fall deathly quiet to watch the dice that determine the fate of the stocks bounce across the table. It’s an agonizing moment, and you will hear howls of triumph when the price goes up, and the horrified groans when a stock you dumped way too much money in drops like a rock.

Panic on Wall Street is an intense, overwhelming experience, and is unlike anything else I’ve ever played. Playing this game at a convention still ranks as one of my favorite gaming experiences ever, as hundreds of attendees stopped what they were doing to stare at the dozen people screaming over one another. It’s something I get visibly excited about playing whenever I have the chance to bring it out, and it’s the game you’ll be talking about for days after it’s over.

- Dietrich Stogner



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#8: Skull

12/15/2015

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Want to know the game I’ve played more than any other? It’s Skull. Want to know the only game I’ll teach to drunk people? It’s Skull. Want to know the best bar game ever made? If you haven’t figured this out yet, you need to lie down. Skull (also known as Skull and Roses) is the best bluffing game I’ve ever played. It’s what’s left of poker after a diabolical surgeon takes her scalpel to all the parts people get bored with. It’s a game that was supposedly created by the Hell’s Angels, and feels as gritty, ruthless, and tense as you would expect.

It’s also a game made up of nothing but beer coasters. Really nice beer coasters, but yeah.

Skull arms up to six players with four beer coasters emblazoned with tattoo art. Three feature a rose, while one features a flower. The players take one round to place one coaster face down in front of them, and then have a choice: Stack another face-down coaster on top of their pile, or make the challenge. If they say, “I can flip four,” they’re saying they can flip four coasters, beginning with their own, without revealing a skull. The next player can either pass, removing themselves from the round, or raise, announcing, “I can flip five.” When all players but one have passed, the remaining player has to make good on their claim.

This moment, where everyone at the table has passed and is watching you, is heart of this game. Who do you choose? Were you bluffing, hoping that Josh wouldn’t realize that your skull card is sitting atop your pile? Can you trust Jen, knowing that she started the bidding? Why in the world did you invite Rachel to play, she’s a shifty bastard that is just waiting to ruin your day?

Skull is a streamlined, vicious little game that draws crowds of spectators, and generates incredible moments of triumph and agonizing moments of schadenfreude. It’s cheap, easy to teach, and a game lasts about ten minutes. But more than that, this game will make you and your friends scream at each other in anger and triumph, and any game that can do that is something wickedly special.

- ​Dietrich Stogner



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#9: Funemployed

12/14/2015

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There are some game themes that make sense, that allow players to act out roles they could never enjoy in real life. Want to be a swashbuckling pirate? Libertalia has you covered. Want to command massive armies in the invasion of D-Day? Hello there, Memoir ‘44. Want to reenact that really awkward job interview that you were in no way prepared for? Uh, that’s a little strange, dude. You’re sure you don’t want to be a space… No? Job interview? Okay. Well, you may be a really weird guy, but fortunately, Funemployed has you covered.

Funemployed sees players interviewing for a wide array of jobs, ranging from restaurant manager to bounty hunter. Players are required to give a short, two to three minute pitch for this position to the player taking on the role of interviewer, explaining why they’d be the best dictator / stuntman / televangelist  out of all the candidates. The only hitch is that you have four qualification cards in your hand, and you have to incorporate them ALL into your pitch. So if you can figure out how an addictive personality, purple drink, sweat, and a telenovela make you the best person for that masseuse position, you’re in great shape.

A few years ago, a party game known as Cards against Humanity became insanely popular, and many people still play it today. The first time I played CAH, I loved it. The fifth time, I was tired of it. I haven’t touched it in years. Games like CAH have the jokes baked into them, and all the players get to do is present them to the judge. Funemployed is a better party game in every way. The game isn’t shoving inappropriate jokes into player’s hands. It’s giving them a set of tools to be their own unique brand of crazy, and it works so much better. Two people with the exact same hand of qualifications will produce two wildly different pitches.

It’s always amazing to me to see who reacts so well to this game. Playing it at lunch with some coworkers, we all watched in amazement as one of the most soft-spoken members of our office consistently reduced us to gasping laughter with his deadpan delivery. My sister tried this game for five minutes, and promptly demanded to borrow it, resulting in numerous games with her children. When my inimitable co-host Josh played this, he managed to produce something simultaneously more adult and more hysterical than anything we’ve seen since. Funemployed is the most universal game on this list, and has a flexibility unlike any other party game. It’s an absolute must-buy for anyone who loved CAH, Taboo, or any games of that sort, and it takes no time at all to earn its place on your shelf.

- ​Dietrich Stogner



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#10: Tales of the Arabian Nights

12/14/2015

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Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books you read when you were a kid? (If you haven’t seen the cover of the space vampire books, you truly haven’t lived.) Imagine if someone took every one of those books, jammed them in a blender, and injected the results into the carotid artery of a truly talented and slightly OCD game designer. The result (other than the massive medical bills) would be Tales of the Arabian Nights, one of the most unique and engaging storytelling games ever developed.

Tales of the Arabian Nights seems eye-crossingly complex to any new player, particularly when you bring out a tome that looks like the textbook assigned by a slightly psychopathic history professor, but is actually quite simple. On a player’s turn, they move towards one of the goals they’ve selected at the beginning of the game, and the player to their right opens this massive book of tales, and begins to read, triggering a series of choices.

There’s no possible way that I can explain just how intricate, detailed, and completely freaking INSANE the stories that this game creates will get. In one game, a player met a beggar, tried to rob him, found a giant gem, took a ship through a fleet of pirates, got married to one of the pirates, was marooned on a deserted island, found a fountain, drank from the fountain, and she promptly switched genders from male to female. That covers perhaps 0.00001% of the possibilities in this game, and everyone at the table will be completely engaged while you discover that the princess you just married was actually a djinn with anger management issues, and, oh look, he just turned you into an alcoholic dog. With a bum leg. Obsessed with finding his family’s goat.

I don’t know that I’ve ever played another game where victory was the least interesting thing about it. You can complain that the mechanics of this game are overly simple or too random, or that the game takes too much time to set up, or that the choices you make don’t result in what you intended. You could make those complaints, but you’d be completely missing the point. Board games are extraordinary because they bring families and friends together around a table, and create stories, and Tales of the Arabian Nights does this with a dizzying ease. It’s probably the most unique game on this list, and I promise you, it’s going to surprise the hell out of you.

- ​Dietrich Stogner

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