My Favorite Board Game Genre (& the Best Games in it)

My tastes are hard to explain sometimes.

• I like fantasy.
• I like adventure.
• I like dungeon crawl-y settings, exploration and combat.
• But I don’t like dice.
• Or modifiers.
• Or the Star Wars sequels. But that’s for another time.

I’ve tried and failed in the past to come up with a name for the board game genre I’m into.

Euro fantasy? Not bad, but it seems to include games like Vindication that are essentially Euros with a fantasy theme draped over it. I do like this style of game, but it’s not quite what I’m getting at.

Low-randomness adventure games, maybe? Other than being a mouthful, it’s probably more precise. My concern is it would include games like 7th Continent or Tainted Grail that are more narrative-based and choose-your-own-adventure in nature than the meaty puzzles I prefer.

Crunchy…crawls? That has potential. Let’s go with it for now.

A Crunchy Crawl Desert

There aren’t many games out there in this weird cross-section of a genre. There’s no category for it on Board Game Geek. There seems to be no Facebook group that focuses on them. It’s tough to find recommendations and even more difficult to research them yourself.

In other words, it’s a bit of a desert.

But that hasn’t stopped me from exploring it. For the past couple years, I’ve sleuthed about and used my less-than-considerable powers of deduction to search for games of my favored flavor. This effort has been (somewhat) fruitful.

The Best Games in this Genre

A few notes and caveats before we fill our canteens and venture headlong into our crunchy crawl desert.

• I like big games, but I have more time for (as well as a soft spot for) small box or micro games. You’ll find both on this list.
• I like print and play. Aside from the visceral satisfaction of crafting a game yourself, this is a cheap and quick way to get a game into your hands. Plus, you can sometimes get out-of-print games this way.
• I haven’t played a few of these, but I’ll warn you when this is the case. I don’t want to punish games I’ve heard good things about that seem to be a fit just because I haven’t had the opportunity to get acquainted with them yet.

Alright, let’s get into the list. These are in no particular order.

Mage Knight

So…I said these would be in no particular order but this is probably my favorite game of all time. Well, top two for sure. Mage Knight is the classic but as-yet-unequaled epic adventure game, and clearly one of the best in the genre. Often regarded the number one solo game of all time, Mage Knight offers a sprawling adventure with exploration, character progression, and complex, interesting card play. The most satisfying part of Mage Knight is spending ten minutes mulling over a single turn, trying to puzzle out a way to squeeze enough X (attack, block, move, influence) to accomplish what you want to on your turn. It’s there. It’s got to be there. Just keep looking.

Mage Knight is one of the more well-known features on this list (you’ll recognize the one that beats it in this category), so I won’t dwell on it too long. Just know it’s the heavy fantasy experience you’re looking for — if that’s what you’re looking for.

Mistfall

This is the single most criminally underrated crunchy fantasy game in existence. Full stop. Bar none. I’ll take the check, please.

Mistfall, and its superior successor Mistfall: Heart of the Mists, provide some of the most immersive, thematic, combo-driven and puzzle-like gameplay of any fantasy adventure I’ve ever had the privilege of playing. Unlike with Mage Knight, I actually care about the story and the lore in Mistfall. Each hero in Mistfall has its own starting deck, upgrade deck and upgrade gear (you can also get gear from a rotating market). There are so many effects, keywords and variations of effects in Mistfall that the opportunities to integrate the theme are virtually boundless. And the depth of the mechanics allows for a satisfying buffet of strategic options, as well as meaningful differences in how characters can and should be played.

I’ll give you an example. One hero, Sigraed, is basically a fire mage. She has a deep backstory that permeates both Mistfall and Heart of the Mists. Sigraed’s strategy, to oversimply a little, is to light everything on fire and hope the good guys are still standing at the end. She places Burning tokens on herself, her allies and enemies, creating an engine of damage that relies on savvy token management (better get those tokens off of yourself before too many resolve) and delayed gratification. You see, enemies get to hit you back before token effects are resolved, so even if you have enough fires raging to destroy an entire village, they don’t do you much good until after you’ve taken a hit from your enemies. This leads to a lot of difficult tactical tradeoffs. Is it worth me putting this burning token on myself to deal this damage, even though I have no way of getting it off of me in time? Should I just try to kill one or two enemies with my mace to ensure they don’t deal damage to me, or is it better to light this whole place on fire and try to kill everything–but take significant damage in the process.

And that’s just one hero. Crow is your rogue-type. He sneaks around, trying not to attract too many enemies, and usually tries to find a way to beat the encounter without even firing a shot (but he has a couple daggers in his hands, just in case). Durgen is a big fella who looks like he should be a tank-like character, but he’s actually more about control and support. He relies on having a ton of weapons equipped for his attacks to work.

If Mistfall has a shortcoming, it’s exploration. If Mage Knight is 50% exploration and 50% combat, Mistfall is roughly 95% combat. But that’s ok, because the combat is really, really good. And adding too much exploration would put the focus where it is not supposed to be, like a movie that spends a bunch of time developing some B-story side characters you care nothing about. Ah, but I said I wasn’t going to talk about the Star Wars sequels. Let’s move on.

Gloomhaven & Jaws of the Lion

I’m going to spend even less time talking about Gloomhaven than Mage Knight, because I’m assuming most people have heard plenty about it. But I will comment that I think it’s the number one ranked board game of all time for a reason. The card play is so elegant that the game is actually incredibly easy to learn and teach. But the tactical decision-making goes as deep as you are willing to mine it, resulting in an experience that offers something for everyone. Mr. Childres’s Gloomhaven universe and lore is extremely original for a fantasy genre that typically follows the conventions of Tolkein. For the record, I like Tolkein-esque fantasy and I’m far from tired of it, but the fact that Gloomhaven creates an exciting world that unfolds and reveals more about itself after every play is a feat worth noting.

I only have two minor gripes with Gloomhaven. First, it’s not great solo. I realize this is not on everyone’s priority list and I don’t hold it against the game. Isaac made the game he wanted to make and I’m glad he did. Second, I’m not a fan of the combat modifier decks. They do add some excitement, especially in multiplayer play, but I think they go against Cephalofair’s own philosophy of zero dice and minimal randomness in games. But these are, once again, small complaints. I highly recommend Gloomhaven for any who have not tried it. Very rarely is a game so highly rated and yet not overrated.

The Dungeon of D

Here we start to get into hidden gem territory. The Dungeon of D is a print and play game from creator Jack Darwid. It’s nearly a decade and a half old, but features many mechanics that are frankly praised as innovations in more modern games. If you can get past the amateurish art and graphic design, there’s so much to be enjoyed in this game.

The Dungeon of D is a card-based dungeon crawl where you explore deeper and deeper into a dungeon, leveling up your character and making calculated decisions about where to move, when to fight, when to run and when to rest.

To back up my earlier claim, here are a few examples of mechanics in the Dungeon of D that offer at least a passing resemblance to those of more modern games.

• Your deck is your life (Mistfall)
• Draw a card-based attack modifier (Gloomhaven)
• Decide when to rest (Gloomhaven, Heroes of Terrinoth)
• Card-based map with orthogonal exploration (lots of games, but notably Chronicles of Frost)

The most praiseworthy aspect of the Dungeon of D is its character progression system. Your character has three skill stats: agility, intelligence and strength. I think the best way to describe the differences between these stats is the word meaningful. Unlike many games where the difference between different skill types is completely arbitrary (cough cough One Deck Dungeon), your skills in the Dungeon of D are used for very different things. Intelligence helps you flee from monsters and pass certain challenges. Agility helps with moving around the dungeon but also with ranged attacks, if that’s a strategy you pursue (you better find some arrows or this strategy is pointless). And strength, as you would imagine, helps with straight up combat, a more risky path in monster fights, but also more rewarding in terms of loot.

The Adventure of D (Second Edition)

This is another, more recent game from Jack Darwid. Mechanically, it’s quite similar to the Dungeon of D, but in a different setting and a few other tweaks. The end result is a faster, slicker game playable in thirty minutes or less. I won’t spend much time on this one since it is so similar to the Dungeon of D, but I do want to say that of any game I’ve played, Adventure of D comes the closest to capturing the feeling of Mage Knight in a quick, light game.

I also want to mention since I haven’t already that both Dungeon and Adventure of D are completely card-based, a feat I admire and a level of portability I can certainly get behind.

Games I Haven’t Played, But Look Promising

Well, we’ve already reached the end of my list of favorites I’ve played personally. Below are a few more on my radar. Obviously take my opinions for what they are worth in that case, but before you count them out, know that I’ve done research on each of these games and have looked for opinions on them from others that I trust.

• Dungeon Alliance. Whenever I see the question, “What can I get that’s like Mage Knight but isn’t Mage Knight?”, this is the recommendation that pops up first. So that’s worth something. Dungeon Alliance uses a fun mechanic where you choose a team of adventurers and shuffle their character-specific cards together and play from one single deck. Combat certainly seems to be puzzle-like and rewarding. What has held me back so far is I don’t really love the look of the game. I also am not the biggest fan of square grids (for whatever reason) and the game is a decent-sized investment. But it remains on my radar.
• The City of Kings. This is another one that comes up as a deterministic adventure game. I was pretty excited about this one for a while, but the more I investigated it, the less I felt it would be a game for me. It comes highly recommended by many, but as I watched playthroughs I felt like it was a lot of going and gathering resources and bringing them back to your storage barn. Combat seemed less intricate and crunchy than I tend to like as well. But for those who want to see a mashup of fantasy adventure and resource management, I think there are enough people who recommend this one that it’s a fairly safe bet. Plus it looks gorgeous.
• Vindication. I mentioned this earlier in the post and I think if I can find it for a decent price one day I’ll invest in it. For one thing, Tom Vasel loves it, and it’s hard to go against his recommendations. Vindication is more Euro engine building than adventure. Combat is even less thematic than in the City of Kings and significantly more rare. But despite all that, it still looks awesome. And I don’t just mean the production value, which is off the charts. It’s a sandbox game where you try to engineer a way to build various engines that can get you points and resources to lead to a victory. It supposedly plays pretty quick and is a decent weight for someone like me who struggles with true heavy Euros but can manage a middle weight game with thematic tie-ins.
• Ruins: Death Binder. I know less about this one than others on my list. What I do know is it’s a reverse deckbuilder. You start out with all the cards you’ll ever get in your deck, and part of the strategy is trashing your weaker cards to make your deck stronger as you go. It looks pretty grindy but also fairly strategic for a rogue-like. It’s got a super dark vibe that is a bit of a turn-off for me, but I can’t help but be fascinated by the mechanics.
• Chronicles of Frost. I’ll be honest, part of the reason this is on my radar is it exists in the Misfall universe. Many consider Chronicles of Frost the game that Shadowscape tried to be. It’s a deckbuilding exploration game where you race against other players to complete your quests. I can say that in true Mistfall fashion, the publisher scrimped a little on art investments (I still love you guys), and the somewhat bland and art-less action cards are not the most desirable to look at. But I’ve heard from many, include some top-tier reviewers, that Chronicles of Frost is a relatively speedy and satisfying game, and does exactly what it sets out to do.
• Hand of Fate: Ordeals. This is an oddly obscure one and is getting hard to find. I don’t understand how Hand of Fate: Ordeals is not more popular. From what I understand, it’s based on a revered video game. It also features the art of crowd favorite Ian O’Toole. I don’t love the look of this game personally, but the gameplay seems very interesting. It’s another card-based map like Chronicles of Frost, with three levels of increasing difficulty to complete. You move around, building up your stats and fighting enemies. The game seems to center around your equipment–where it’s slotted, whether you discard it, how many cards you can play to boost it. This is near the top of my wishlist. If it wasn’t for the fact that I don’t care for the art, I think it would be alone at the top.

What Games Did I Miss?

Well, that’s my list! Let me know your favorite crunchy crawls and others I need to look into.