After receiving some Kickstarter pledges this year, I came to the conclusion that I will stop pledging board games. Buying a game blindly, without knowing how it plays, turns out to be a disappointment for me most of the time.
From the many crowdfunded games I’ve backed, I’ve only kept two thus far (ARCS and Sleeping Gods). The rest just didn’t deliver for me. So I will try to play before I buy more. I’ve already reserved my hotel in Essen, and the focus at Spiel will be demoing instead of buying. Having said that, a lot of games have their start on platforms like Kickstarter and Gamefound, so I cannot ignore them completely in a list like this. But I’ve left out a lot of interesting ones like Deep Regrets, Sea Beasts, Avalon and TEND.
How did I get to this list, you might be asking? I’ve ploughed through BGG and watched some of the early board game YouTubers that are already looking ahead instead of looking back at 2024. This resulted in these 15 games. The list could have been longer, but I’ve tried to make a balanced mix of different genres and mechanics. Enjoy!
Luthier (1-4 Players)
On my hunt for board game releases for 2025, Luthier is without a doubt the game that has been mentioned the most by the different board game YouTubers out there. Everybody has an eye out for this new game by Paverson Games, the spiritual successor to their smash hit Distilled. I haven’t played Distilled, but Luthier should be similar but heavier than that game.
In Luthier players are crafts people of 17th century music instruments. It is game with secret auctions, contract fulfilment and worker placement in which players will have to find patrons, collect resources and build those instruments so these patrons can perform. Designers Dave Beck and Abe Burson promise a variety on different playable strategies. The graphic design by Vincent Dutrait and Guillaume Tavernier is a little too Baroque for my personal taste, but that might be fitting for the theme.
Eternal Decks (1-4 players)
Eternal Decks by designer Hiroken is a puzzly and cooperative card game with communication limits. The game plays as kind of a rogue like game. Players have to lay out certain patterns with their cards in order to unlock new decks that can be used. Each new deck offers new cards but also casts a curse on the players, that needs to be lifted (by again playing a certain sequence of cards. The game has little rules. Players cannot talk about their cards or strategy, they play one card at a time and have to follow the patterns of each track and – most importantly – if one player runs out of cards, all players lose the game.
The stunning artwork of this game is what pulled me in, but the gameplay looks very abstract and so the theme of wandering through a an underworld filled with spectral creatures is just that. Which sometimes is just fine. It looks gorgeous and it feels like this is a game that you want to try again and again and again.
Raas: A Dance of Love (1-6 Players)
The first time I’ve heard about Raas: Dance of Love was during Spiel when I watched a demo game. From the sideline the game looked beautiful and colourful, yet very abstract. Now I’ve educated myself a little more into the cultural phenomena Raas, I can see the thematic link of this game more clearly.
The Raas Leela is a traditional Indian dance, where a big group of men and women dance together in celebration of their love for the god Krishna. The movement of this dance is beautifully translated into the game by the 7 turning wheels on which players place their coloured dancers (dice) in order to match the best dancers on the these turning wheels. Matching dice score points, as do certain sponsor objectives.
Speakeasy (1-4 Players)
I’ve mentioned before that I am not necessarily a fan of the games of Vital LaCerda. Or let me rephrase that: I am not a buyer of his games. Personally I do like the complexity, but the games are far too expensive for the amount of times I can get them to the table. So this means I still do not own a single LaCerda game. But that might change with the arrival of Speakeasy.
The theme of the 1920’s Prohibition, Manhattan mobsters and distilling and selling Moonshine, sounds like so much fun! Mechanically Speakeasy also aligns with my preferences, with worker placement and card management as the main mechanics. All this combined with the art of his loyal partner in crime Ian O’Toole and the fact that Speakeasy should be on the lighter side of the difficulty spectrum, might convince me to spend more than 100 dollars for one box filled with cardboard.
Floristry (2 Players)
In 2024 we had Dani Garcia’s ode to my home country The Netherlands, with the strange title Windmill Valley (since a ‘valley’ is the lower part between two mountains and we don’t those in our flat country. There are some hills in the south, but our flowers are grown in the flat area). Buy anyway…
With Floristry – designed by David Gordon and TAM – players can dive once more in one of the biggest export products of The Netherlands. In this cute 2-player auction and tableau building game, players are running a floristry and are trying to buy domino-like flower tiles via the famous Dutch auction. A Dutch auction is an auction combined with a game of chicken. A product starts at a certain price, that price starts dropping until one player accepts the price by pushing their button. Wait too long and you are missing out, push too soon and overpay.
The game aesthetically looks far too sweet for my tasting, but I am intrigued by the Dutch auction mechanic which I haven’t seen in a board game before.
Revenant (1-4 Players)
I’ve tried frantically to play a demo game of Revenant during the last edition of Spiel, but it seemed impossible. The stand of publisher Mindclash Games was always crowded, for Ironwood and Revenant, the sequal to their 2023 monster of a game Voidfall. Revenant is a worker placement game, with hidden information and allegiance majority control.
After the events in Voidfall a small fleet of space ships is fleeing the scene, carrying the last survivors of the great houses. Humanity’s hope. Each space craft in this fleet belongs to one of the houses and acts as a spot where players can place their workers. And by doing so, you can take that action and your allegiance with that house increases. But of course the Void are interfering and attacking the fleet from outside and from within. Revenant promises to be a little less heavy than Voidfall. The beautiful art is once more done by Ian O’Toole.
Unmatched: Mohammed Ali vs Bruce Lee (2 Players)
I really love Unmatched, but I really dislike how many sets Restoration Games is putting out for that game. But if it makes them money, who could blame them, right? For that reason, I have made a promise to myself that owning the Battle of Legends, Vol. 1 and the Cobble & Fog (which has been discontinued) sets is more than enough to enjoy this game.
The big Unmatched hype for 2025 is the crowdfunded TMHT edition of Unmatched Adventures that will be released this year, but that won’t be the set that will make me breaking a promise to myself. Heck no! That honour will go to the Bruce Lee vs. Mohammed Ali small box that also will be released this year. I’ve been on the hunt for the limited edition Bruce Lee set since it was released, but it has been too expensive. Until now! I apologise, future me…
Vantage (1-6 Players)
A new Stonemaier game is always news, whether you like it or not. Esspecially when it is Jamey Stegmaier who did the designing. Having said that, my personal relationship with their games is kind of hit or miss. I love Euphoria, Scythe and Tapestry, but I am not a fan of Wing and/or Wyrmspan, or their 2024 release Stamp Swap.
Vantage promises to be a card based open world exploration game (without a campaign element), taking place on an unknown planet with over 800 different locations. The game has been in the making for 7 years, since the release of Nintendo’s Breath of the Wild, Stegmeier’s main inspiration for Vantage (as we can read in the design journal on Stonemaier’s website).
Whether this game will be for me, we will have to see, since I’m already in possession of Sleeping Gods and The 7th Continent and I’m having an eye out for Earthborne Rangers, which fits me way better thematically. Vantage is set to be released in July, 2025, so I’ll definitely try it out at Spiel!
Yield (2-5 Players)
I absolutely adore Hidden Leaders. It is one of my go to light weight filler games on board game nights. It is an easy teach, it plays quickly and with many player and I love the artwork by Satoshi Matsuura. I still need to pick up the expansion.
Yield narratively is a prequel to Hidden Leaders. The King of Oshra is going slightly mad and five renown houses are fighting to take over power. Players will do so by playing a game of area control, hidden information and card playing. Each players has three armies of variable and secret strength, and players can move there armies across the map to conquer fortresses (the main win condition of the game) and battle rivalling armies. When battling, armies compare their hidden base strength and the game of chicken begins: one by one players can decide to up their army’s strength by playing a card from their hand. Or they can decide to yield. This battle continues until all but one player has yielded. Sounds easy, sounds fun.
Nova Era (CMON)
CMON is mostly known for big box games filled with plastic mini’s, so I was kind of surprised when I ran into their upcoming game Nova Era. It has no miniatures! Not one!
Nova Era is a civilisation building game with dice drafting, action selection and tableau building. Each turn players draft a set of 3 coloured dice, which they then get to use during their turn. You can buy technology or leader cards or advance on one of the five development tracks. It’s a race to enlightenment but you don’t want to advance to quickly, because the population might start revolting then. Mechanics like cards going obsolete by buying other cards, introduce a certain level of interactivity, which hopefully makes it less of multiple solitary game.
Imperium is one of my favourite games out there, but is for some of my co-players a little too heavy, and Nova Era sounds like the perfect back-up game for them.
Point Galaxy (1-5 Players)
My daughter and me played the heck out of Point Salad. It’s an easy teach and is interesting enough for people that are not that much into heavy gaming. So follow-up Point City was an easy buy. Unfortunately that game turned out to be too complexe for a simple card game and not interesting enough for players that like the more heavy games.
In comes the third game in this line: Point Galaxy. The rules seem quite similar to those of Point Salad: get a card from a grid of cards and build your tableau. Instead of simple set collection like in Point Salad, the goal here is to make numeric sequences with planet cards to score points. Sounds like it will be a different kind of Point Salad, which is a good thing.
The Anarchy (1-4 Players)
TEND was one of the most hyped Kickstarters of 2024. This beautifully produced farming simulation must be the most fancy flip and write ever produced. And because of that it has a price to show for it: $69 ex shipping for the base edition. Ouch!
In comes The Anarchy, the new roll and write by designer Bobby Hill, from Hadrian’s Wall fame. This box packs a punch and will set you back only $41. In The Anarchy players play as English nobles fighting the usurper in order to get the rightful heir to the throne back on it. The game looks very similar to Hadrian’s Wall but seems to bring even more to the table. Chaining and comboing is the main name of the game. What really pulled me in is the solo campaign that counts 20 chapters. Because let’s be honest: games like this are best played solo.
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick taking Game (1-4 Players)
What can I say. I am a big fan of everything Lord of the Rings related. I mean, I even like The Rings of Power! And the first games that I’ve played were traditional trick taking card games. You know, the ones that are played with a regular deck of cards. Since then trick-taking has been my favourite mechanic, and definitely the kind of games that I am quite good at.
The Fellowship of the Ring trick taking game is a cooperative trick taker like The Crew. Players play 18 chapters from the the famous story by JRR Tolkien. Every round the cards determine who plays what character and each character has different objectives that need to be reached to end the chapter successfully. Sound like my kind of trick taking game.
I C E : Second Edition
My two favourite demo’s during Spiel 2024 were those of SETI and of ICE. The first one I have played multiple times since then, but the redesigned second edition of ICE wasn’t for sale in Essen. But the game can still be ordered through Gamefound and should be arriving around July.
ICE: second edition is a streamlined (and cheaper) version of the game first released in 2023. The game combines multiple innovative mechanics which results in a game that has a huge amount of player interaction. Players are looking for artefacts in this arctic plain. They do so be excavating the layered board with these little white archeologists populating the board. These little meeples are a shared resource. By moving their expedition leaders players can rally up up to three archeologists and have them work for you. But keep an eye out for those other leaders because they can snatch your workers anytime. I am telling you, it is such an interesting mechanic!