12 Days of Christmas 2022 Countdown: Day 5 - Top 5 New Board Games I Played this Year

Welcome to this year's edition of my 12 Days of Christmas.  This theme will run through Christmas Eve with each day's topic somehow related to the number of days remaining until Christmas itself!  

In the beginning of my 12 Days of Christmas countdown, I went through the 12 Board Games that I was hoping to play over the holiday season.  Today, I'm going to countdown the 5 new-to-me games that I've already played in 2022!

#5:  Scooby-Doo:  The Board Game

A cooperative board game designed for families, Scooby-Doo:  The Board Game is a fun romp starring all the most popular characters (good guys and bad guys) from the classic Scooby-Doo cartoons.  I ended up backing this one on Kickstarter and that was a good move since the Kickstarter version comes with way more bad guy miniatures (fully painted).  It's not the deepest game out there but I enjoyed my first play of it and I'll definitely be returning to the game in the future (I think it'll be great when my son gets just a bit older).

#4:  Sagrada

The dice-drafting game where you try to make stained glass windows using various criteria.  This is another game that I've only played once thus far but will definitely be giving more plays to in the future.  The theme isn't for everyone but it's undoubtedly a pretty game.

#3:  Splendor Duel

Splendor is one of my favorite "classic" games (see my original review here) so I was excited to try out the two-player only version called Splendor Duel.  This game basically takes the essence of Splendor and adds on some special abilities to certain cards as well as a trio of different possible win conditions.  I'm still not certain which version of Splendor I prefer (original or Duel) but the fact that there is even a debate in my head should tell you enough about this game!

#2:  Unfair

Probably the game I've played the most thus far in 2022 (not counting all the "kid games" I've been playing with my son), Unfair is a theme park building game with a bit of "take that" in it.  Generally speaking, I don't like take that as a mechanism but Unfair isn't as heavy on the take that bit as I initially thought.  In fact, you can play the game with basically no take that using a special card or you can simply select themed decks that are less mean.  The card illustrations in this game are tremendous fun and I find the game to be fun as well!

#1:  Arboretum

Easily the best new-to-me game of the year, Arboretum is a simple card game with excruciating choices.  This game has been described as a game where all you want on your turn is to do absolutely nothing.  You've got a hand of 7 cards and on your turn you pick up two cards (either from one of the available discard piles or from the face-down draw deck).  Then you play one card from your hand and discard one card from you hand.  In that simple rule set though lurks a true brain-burning game!  I'll definitely have to do a proper review of this game sometime on the blog, maybe in early 2023.

That does it for my list.  Honestly, the fact that I got to try out five new "adult" games this year feels like a big victory since I haven't had much time for non-kid games lately.  That being said, I'm actually super happy that my son is enjoying playing his games so much, hopefully he'll continue that love as he gets older and then I'll have a game playing buddy in my own household (my wife wants no part of board games)!  If that comes to fruition in a few years, I'm guessing I'll have much more to say on the board game front.