It's a great value, you just gotta see it as an investment and let it mature like fine wine. In a decade, those 5 boxes of an All-In kickstarter will be worth at least double!
There's no better feeling than not doing well in Can't Stop and then just running the table on a number and getting super hot with the dice.
Second may be your teammates actually understanding what you mean with your clue in Hanabi or understanding why you're doing something in The Crew.
That moment in the Crew when someone plays an unexpected card and then looks at you with a completely blank expression while you try and figure out what they're trying to tell you.
Hanabi is the most addictive game. Nothing like the thrill of pulling off a triple/quadruple finesse and everyone reaching the same conclusion from different information.
There's no game that has quite given me the same high as finessing a Hanabi play by giving a clue with 5 layers of logic under it and having my teammate understand exactly what I intended.
Some runner-ups:
* Getting elected as Chancellor in a tense game of Secret Hitler, where you are Hitler
* Winning a major contract in contract bridge
* Placing tons of tokens on the board in Spirit Island (Ocean Deeps, Many Minds, Keeper, Vengeance, etc)
I own The Mind, and it's a nice game night opener! Unfortunately, the constant shuffling of 100 cards is a bit tedious, and some of my more logic-minded friends are offended by the concept of the game (lol) so it doesn't see much play. I definitely prefer Hanabi as a whole, but Hanabi is only pulled out when we have 3-4 experienced players who are all down for a few hours of heavy thinking, so that doesn't see much play either.
Oh wow I didn’t realize Hanabi is such a long game. The Mind is my go-to game night warm up!! It is a curious game if you’re not into that kind of thing haha, I explain it like an “experimental experience” rather a game.
Haha it's not so much that it's a long game, but that we usually sit down and keep the game on the table until we win, and that can take multiple attempts. It's pretty short if people just play one game.
The Mind is what you make of it.
I've had so much fun playing with certain creative friends who know how to have a good time. The ones who didn't want to get into it or didn't like the concept were less fun to play with, haha.
I've had similar hits with Fuzzy Logic. Two teams each have a secret word (that are related in some way) to guess. Think of it like Codenames with just two words, but because the words are known to be related to each other in some way if you aren't careful your clues can help the other team. It's really fun when that happens and you stretch logic to it's breaking point.
Example: I'm on the guessing side, other team starts with "heavy". My sister gives our team the clue "tall". Within the next half second my brain ran through the logic of "heavy could be an animal like whale or elephant and if it's elephant a giraffe is tall and related ot the elephant by both being African." I guessed giraffe and got it right.
I've never played Fuzzy Logic, but it basically sounds like a shorter, simplified version of Decrypto! Definitely recommend checking it out if you're looking for a game that supports more players.
OP mentioned tactile components, and the deluxe tiles make the game absolutely perfect to me. Then again, at its price these days, it might be worth just trying the card version first...
Quacks BGG bits make a great game a damn near 10. Splurge on them. In November they do a Black Friday sale that reduces the expense. You won't regret the buy.
Good news for you:
[Quacks bits will be in stock in a few days!](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3280148/april-store-update-quacks-bits-will-be-back-in-sto)
worst case is you have to piecemeal purchase - i cant state enough how much they've enhanced the game for my family - especially the boxes with reducing set up time
Put these off for a long time because UK shipping was nearly as much as the bits themselves. Looks like they’ve sorted that post-covid but the total is still about £45 for only the base game bits. I got the base game for £25. Heck I bought Spirit Island for £50.
I get that they’re a deluxe component but that’s a hefty chunk of cash for some jingle jangle
Edit: nope, I’m also at the mercy of his majesty’s customs potentially adding VAT (20% of item and shipping) and handling (usually £8) to the import so probably more like £62. Could really do with a UK supplier of these.
Oh yes, there’s also other options like the 3D printed frames that the token fit snuggly into (picked up some of those at a game convention last year - not bad, not cheap though!). But the BGG ones look very nice indeed (tho even less cheap!)
2 player asymmetrical card game where one player plays a massive future corporation and the other plays a hacker trying to steal company secrets. Think cyberpunk 2077 for setting. Brilliant game with a bunch of traps bluffing and strategy in it. Currently it's being remade by null signal games as the original by fantasy flight was cancelled due to licensing agreements. Can print it all out yourself for free or buy it from them depending on your temperament
If you're talking tactile, I'd say Everdell and Honey Buzz because some of the resources look like candy and have soft texture.
I think Ark Nova does it pretty well by covering your own board and getting immediate rewards.
The red tile in Azul looks like a starburst.
I think it's good. it's on the medium light side which I think and the game feels fairly similar every time, but nonetheless I think it's good for the mechanisms.
I was waffling on it for awhile, I thought it might be too lightweight, but my local Walmart had it on clearance so I grabbed it. We ended up loving it, it’s just so cozy and cute, with just the right amount of thinkiness for when you’re not in the mood for a heavy game.
It''s a different beast than people make it out to be. I wouldn't even call it worker placement. We like breaking it out once a month and let our brains fire up.
Worthy of being in the collection.
I honestly didnt think about this game much. My gf who doesnt play board games much saw it and loved the aesthetic, and since it was surprisingly cheap for the quality we got it. I honestly kinda liked it. Its really easy to pick up and surprisingly cutthroat for the cutesy aesthetic. I think the biggest downside is being prone to AP since there are so many tiny little considerations per play, but when you go off it feels great
Recommend honey buzz. Everdell is think is very overrated. The quality is amazing but the building/citizen variability sucks out the fun for me. Sometimes you just combo off to infinity, other times its just waiting around with nothing to do
After several rounds of building your engine, you finally get THE round in Terraforming Mars that allows you to play the ~8 cards you have been waiting to get out to really accelerate things.
Crokinole.
It's fast, it's tactile and the noises the pucks make are amazing. Even passing a puck along the gutter is a joy. Takes 30 seconds to teach, anyone can play but it's hard to master.
Every game even if you lost you can feel the improvement happening in real time and it's so fast to have another match it doesn't even matter. Sinking a puck in the 20 slot is a wild feeling.
Yeah i had a midlife crisis and imported a board from Canada without having ever played it. Luckily it paid off and it gets played basically every single day for the past year.
Absolutely see if you can find someone with a board (there are some cafes with them too depending on location) and give it a go but I've yet to find anyone who didn't adore it instantly.
Can I ask what shop you got it from in Canada? I'm looking to purchase a good quality one at a decent price, and I'm in Canada, so i'm interested in where since you say it gets played every day, so it must be good quality
I got a Tracey board. They're basically the gold standard as far as I know. But I actually bought it off a guy in my country (Aus) who imports 5 or 10 at a time when he gets enough interest.
The Tracey boards are the ones used in all the big tournaments etc.
As mentioned above, a Tracey board is the way to go. I absolutely love mine! They are more expensive than others. I knew if I bought a lesser board it would just be a year or so before I stepped up to a Tracey. very glad I got it right the first time.
Similar thing happened to me. Saw the Shut Up & Sit Down YouTube video and ordered one instantly, even thought I’d never even heard of Crokinole before.
That was three years ago now. Probably one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.
A Crokinole board is a large object that does not fold away, but what some friends of mine do is hang it on the wall as art. It's a beautiful piece of waxed woodworking, so that actually works!
I did look into those but mostly found that people who got them eventually got a higher quality one anyway.
I'm sure they're totally fine and probably a much more reasonable hobby expense in comparison lol.
Space Base is the game you are looking for. A dice rolling game where you get to feel your board get just a little better each turn punctuated with occasional big "jackpot!" vibes while waiting for other player's turns
They are a standard size I think. Don't cheap out if you get this game, the quality of the board effects how the game plays. Tracey boards are the gold standard. They do have wall mounts you can buy to get the board up out of the way. Got my board for free because UPS damaged it while shipping. Luckily it was cosmetic. Options were to pay shipping to return it for a new one or keep it w/ a full refund... very hard choice :P
I've still never played it, but regularly hear boardgamers rave about it online, so should try it at some point. It's not a thing people have generally heard about here (Australia).
Basically most any euro can do this for me, at least for a time. Well first off, the process of learning a new game is addictive as all hell for me. Probably because of how much dopamine I get out of those early plays when the game is opening up for me and I'm trying to grasp how to make those mechanisms sing. But especially euros, trying to tease out each unique puzzle is a joy for me.
Few things stand up to trading resources for other resources, components into other components. That tactile handling after getting resources in the first place and the grouping of them and organizing them, and then counting them out to pay for something. That's the good stuff. **Hadrian's Wall** might be one of the purest distillations of resource managing and converting, that game is a dopamine bomb for my brain.
**The White Castle** does an incredible job with its variable set-up, it's always a new and shifting puzzle of how you can get as many actions as possible out of each of your nine turns. And each game, you never completely know what the board is going to offer you when it comes to creating combos. Sometimes the game can be quite tight throughout, others, you can feel like all powerful god in the third round chaining five actions together all three turns.
Engaging with **Viscounts of the West Kingdom's** deck building and trying to maintain a strong river will always give me those dopamine spikes when things are working. I guess Garphill games in general just do this for me.
Later Garphill games do this for me, too. Trading in resources, spending workers, converting one resource to another, combo-ed on top of each other to build that card. It's like catnip for me.
White Castle is 10/10 game for us!! The combos and streamlined play is so satisfying.
Hadrian’s Wall has been on my list but there are so many more games ahead of it still. I want to try Garphill games but they have so many and I don’t know where to start! If we love White Castle, would you say Viscounts is a good place to start that has a similar feel?
We love euros too and want to dip into some of the tougher ones (lacerda, etc). I bought Darwin’s Journey based on recs from this subreddit but have yet to play it.
Terraforming Mars gets the more is more quality of gameplay. Sometimes you snowball into a ridiculous combo, maybe you are generating enough heat to raise it twice a generation... Even if you are excelling in just one small part of the game, the power curve of buying new cards that fit exactly into your engine feels sublime.
Oh yes!! I enjoy TM a lot, especially towards the end when my engine becomes fruitful. I didn’t buy the game though because it was rather long for 2 player (my main player count) and bought Ares thinking it would be similar but quicker and more card fun…but somehow my combos and engine doesn’t scale as well in Ares. Have you played Ares Expedition before?
I haven't and probably won't because I already have Race to Galaxy which has I understand is the inspiration for Ares Expedition. It is a longer game for sure. There are some variants that speed the game up, like increasing the temp/O2/ocean each round. I haven't played with those so I can't vouch for it.
Try playing some asynchronous games of TM on Boardgamearena.com. It'll remove the time element and is well implemented.
Captain Is Dead, when you start chaining actions and pull off a huge play that gets rid of several things or puts you ahead of the curve.
Spirit Island, when you get those big powers that get rid of a ton of things.
Everdell, when combos start firing off one after the other during mid to late game that score you a bunch of points. (Same for Race For The Galaxy and Terraforming Mars to an extent)
Star Realm/Dominion/Ascension/Shards Of Infinity, during late game when you start playing a bunch of cards on one turn resulting in a bunch of damage and money.
Knarr for me recently. Every turn something nice happens. Either you play a card, and get rewards from *all* the cards in the tableu you played it to, or you explore a new land and get some benefits, or you trade with one of the lands you've explored already and - wait for it - get more juicy benefits. You always feel like you're getting good stuff, but everyone else is too, so the game still feels tense. And the best part is the game lasts JUST long enough that usually you get a few turns with your engine running at max capacity before it ends. This game is officially one of my all time faves.
Right and that feeling when you play all three bracelets after having explored like 5 lands, and points and recruits shower down on you is just unbeatable. So addictive.
I Get this dopamine boost from getting awesome combo's in games. Games like **Lost ruins of Arnak** or **Spirit Island** you build your deck untill you make big powerful combo's in turn 3-4 for example and they are SO satisfying!
Suburbia and 7 Wonders. It's just nice seeing your city grow and stacking bonuses, especially in Suburbia where bonuses are based on how you placed tiles. I'm yet to win a game, but losing doesn't feel as bad because getting a lot of points or gold from carefully stacking cards or making a good adjacency with hex tiles will never not be satisfying, even if it won't be enough to win you the game in the end.
Not to mention that the game's don't have too many mechanics that are about screwing the other player's city rather than boosting your own.
Best tactile experiences: Azul: Queen's Garden's chunky hexagonal pieces, or shuffling up Wizards of the Grimoire's thick high quality cards, or drawing and placing homemade deluxe tokens in Bullet.
Best jackpot moments: Making a huge high-scoring word in Hardback, hitting 12+ Equilibrium in Mercurial, wiping out the entire enemy team in a single turn in Ascension: Tactics.
Perudo/Bluff is a great dice game.
Go is a classic abstract game but playing with a great set (Big table board, nice bowls, shell and slate stones) really feels nice. I cpuld never go back to plastic chips on cardboard. The sound of hammering down a stone!
Do we count card games here? Because Euchre is a dopamine factory. When you pick up a perfect hand, when you go alone, when you have the stopper, or (of course) when you and your partner execute a perfect Euchre, it just feels so dang good.
**Go** can infiltrate one's mind like nothing I've ever seen before. When Go hits for someone, it hits hard. They dream about it. It often does this because the game is hard to understand on the first few plays and so it occupies a space in their mind as they try to consolidate it into something that makes sense.
The game also has lovely tactile and aesthetic qualities that add to this experience.
I played a few online games and I love it so far. If only I had someone to play with in person, I’m sure the tactile nature of the game is part of the appeal.
I play at the home of a guy who went all in on the KS. There's an official soundtrack (far as I'm aware) that he got with all the stuff. Or got separately. We've listened to it each time we've played. Dark ambient kind of stuff.
(Raises hand) I have found *Hadrian's Wall* to be nice for a solo board game to get dopamine hits. The combo plays you can achieve in that (fill a box, get resources, spend resources to fill more boxes, get more resources, rinse and repeat...) makes me feel quite powerful.
And then the Picts attack the wall and I tense up as I check where they will strike. Surviving that and getting a bit more Valor for my strong defenses makes me feel powerful, too. (Lowers hand)
Play wingspan with a cup of tea while listening to bird sounds and you'll feel like someone has snuck up behind you with one of those tingly metal head scratchers.
[Hegemony: Lead Your Class To Victory -> Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory (2023)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/321608/hegemony-lead-your-class-victory)
^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call
^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
The addicting high, for me, came when I pulled off a monster round as the State. The sheer number of things that have to go RIGHT for that, along with the table politics needed to make it come together is SO gratifying. Outside of that, it is a fabulously crunchy economic game chock full of important and meaningful decisions. If you can get the Kickstarter edition, the Crisis & Control's extra cards to promote player interactivity really send it into the stratosphere as well. I cannot speak highly enough of this game and CONSTANTLY want to play it at almost any player count. Had it for maybe a month and am pushing 20h of play time with it. It's pretty much all I do with my free time these days.
I would agree that it doesn't perform AS well at two players, but it is still quite enjoyable. At two, it's closer to Scythe or other economics games. It loses a lot of the interplay (logically, since you are only playing the two most interdependent factions and not a four-way web of madness). At two players, my personal favorites are (in no particular order):
Watergate - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/274364/watergate
Hive - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive
Targi - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/118048/targi
Undaunted: Normandy - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/268864/undaunted-normandy
Sky Team - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/373106/sky-team
If I were going to buy only one of these (EDIT: specifically for that dopamine hit), it would be Undaunted.
Great crunch, and heavy shared economy interactivity. They've got the right amount of stuff happening with each card played where it feels meaningful most turns but you can't absolutely torpedo the game state on your own.
That’s great. I find a lot of heavier strategic games always leave me wanting more to do or more turns, glad to hear this one gives a satisfying turn!! On my watch list now
My last game of Fantastic Factories with Manufactions expansion was certainly giving me huge shots of dopamine. I'm a sucker for engine-building combos (like getting a good trading engine in Century), and this game gave me a whopper.
Factories fundamentally works with a worker placement with dice mechanic. You roll 4 dice, and depending on value there's certain places you can place them to do things.
The factions in the expansion gives you certain unique player powers. The one I drew for the game was the ability to activate Training buildings (which manipulate dice values) twice per turn and for 1 energy cheaper. Turn 1 I was able to draw and drop a Dojo building, which for 1 energy let's me flip a dice to its opposite side. With my faction power, I can do that twice per turn for free. I also dropped a couple of buildings that can produce vitamins, which can be used to modify a dice value +1/-1. I built up a small stock of those.
Then the crazy dropped. I built a building that has an incredible effect (2 VP + 2 more dice to roll and use), balanced by being hard to activate. It requires a 4-straight (4 dice is sequence, like 2345) to activate. Normally that would be very hard to activate, but with all the dice value manipulation I had at my disposal I was able to activate that card every turn until the end of the game. That was 5 or 6 turns in a row. Roll! Now I can flip these two, adjust this one a couple...BOOM BABY we're in business!
I had already liked Fantastic Factories base, but the Manufactions expansion just blew it up so much.
I bought Race for the Galaxy, but I'm having a harder time bringing that to the table since the iconography scares my mother away. It looks promising though. Does that have the same potential for dopamine smashing combos?
That sounds so fun!! I love big combo games that give a satisfying payoff. I’ve heard great things about Fantastic Factories, your comment makes me want it now! I like the theme too (a reason why I never got Race for Galaxy because I can’t get into into it..)
Elder Sign has possibly the most interesting Yahtzee dice mechanism there is. I absolutely adore it. I wish this system would get a reimplementation somewhere without losing depth.
I loved collecting all of Elder Sign, but the amount of "special convention rare promos" was just too high. I know I should not care, as the game still works, but it just felt disappointing.
It's the only game I have two copies of. One just base and the other with expansions mixed in. Most of the time I just want the base game. I know some of the expansions "make it better" but I played the base game so much, I found myself just craving it by itself.
I got dopamine wow effects after
Santa Maria
Raiders of the North Sea
Tigris and Euphrates
Hansa Teutonica
Penguin
Power Grid
Bloom
And very rarely Splendor, Newton, Concordia, Viticulture EE, because I suck at those or haven’t played them enough.
Honestly, my go to for that is bullet chess. Learn an opening for white and black that you like playing, practice some puzzles and then just play back to back to back to back games of bullet chess.
It’s the perfect combination of dopamine hits and self-loathing. And the fast format means that even if you blunder your queen, you get to try again with a fresh start in a few minutes.
Battlestar Galactica. So many tense moments both when playing as the cylon or when making the decision to brig/execute someone suspected of being a cylon.
I love BSG, but tension isn't really dopamine in my opinion :D I guess there is some rush when playing as a traitor and being able to get away with things, but human side is definitely not on a train of dopamine.
If weighted chips and components are your thing then you gotta check out Too Many Bones... Or anything from chip theory games (the names a pretty good clue lol). It's a 100% a tactile experience between the dice, chips, cards and mats.
Something about knocking down those towers of health is just super satisfying. Not too mention the 'gotta get em all' feeling of the gearlocs lol
100% Giga-Robo. Giant customizable robots beating the snot out of each other across a destructible, dynamic game board. From replacing the 3D buildings with things like floods, infernos, and arc hazards to calling out move names, all of which end in an exclamation point, of course (Ionize Fire! Corrosion Cutter!), it's pure delight for you and your inner 12-year-old. Plus, each battle lays out its own story as it goes along, usually following Tyson's dictum, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth."
Also, Colt Express. Never had a game where everyone wasn't laughing along with the various twists of fortune and shattered plans.
I dont think of it as a war game first. Its much rather a political, negotiaton and alliances. Sure there are some battles but just everything hits for me. The theme is also a big turn on for me.
I'm a competitive person in general, so playing against other competitive types provides my biggest boardgame "highs".
But playing 4-player Agricola at a high-level table is the peak dopamine hit for me. It's such a tense and tight game, and despite naysayers who don't understand the difference between direct and indirect interaction in games, it is a HIGHLY interactive experience (starting during the initial card draft). Agricola will always be my favorite game and I can't wait to play it again.
We have agricola but as 2 player carebears, we don’t play super aggressively, so it misses that bit of “edge” for me. I imagine the blocking gets more intense with more players.
I think a lot of deck builders do this. You start with a weak deck often with zero abilities. When you purchase cards and see them go off, and a turn 6 is drawing 2 extra cards, having 6 buy and 7 fight, also first purchased card goes to top of deck. Is very satisfying when turn 1 was just 3 buy 2 fight.
My favorite is probably Clank! when it comes to this. Like most build at the start deck builders your first 4 hands are quick and simple. But after that you can really get some fun combos going and accomplish a lot on a turn. That has an added aspect of "movement" since it involves a board as well.
It is just so rewarding when you turn a hand of 5 cards into 8 cards played 1 discarded, and 1 trashed. Were able to obtain 1-2 cards, move far on the board, and trigger 2-3 effects. And usually (unless someone rushes the game) you end up with a handful of turns like this end game. Compared to some other deck builders which sometimes I feel that you only really get 1 maybe 2 turns of actual fun combos before game over.
I didn't see much about bigger campaign games in here, but for me a big dopamine hit in those games is when i get new cards and/or abilities. The problem with a lot of them is that the stretch between that hit is SO LONG. It motivated me to start working on my own game to address that very thing! (and others)
Planet Unknown. The puzzly tetromino pieces, filling in empty spaces on your planet to complete rows and columns, moving up on multiple tracks every turn and getting bonuses a lot of the time you do, spinning the lazy Susan and getting the perfect piece when you are the Captain -- everything about that game is just satisfying.
**Dune Imperium.** Setting up that perfect turn, with intrigue, surprise plays, giant combats, and stealing an alliance with some underhanded play. It hits the "wheels within wheels" vibe hard. Big dramatic turns.
In Paladins of the West Kingdom occasionally everything coincides and you get this cascading "Mega Turn". It's really satisfying when you can pull that off.
Easy answer: Any of the Dice Throne games, notably the battle chests. Having a big ol’ box with 8 characters each in their own little tray replete with their own board, tokens, cards, and (of course) dice = so damn satisfying. Right from the moment you select a character and slide it out of the box, you know you’re in for a fun time
Arkham Horror LCG - Enjoy the game - hate the price yet I still buy it. They really get me with that "just 1 more expansion. That will be enough" and it never is.
* Android Netrunner
* Bagged & Boarded (my own game)
* 2p Dominion (speciifcally online because shuffle/setup/cleanup is so easy)
* No Thanks (this has become a staple filler for our board game nights)
* Ricochet Robots (advanced variant where you flip two tokens and have to bid a number for getting to both)
* Agricola (been playing this a lot more recently)
The *took my Adderall for the first time in awhile* vibes are so strong here, and I love it.
Theres a game called Leaf that has amazing leaf pieces. The spacing is such that all 6 differently shaped leaves have most of their leaf tips touch when laid next to each other (how you get points). The leaves are a sweet texture and color: laminated and marbley greens/oranges/browns/reds.
It's pretty low complexity, but it's a fun low key game.
For me those games are definitely Can’t Stop (the rush of risk and luck), Splendor token sounds that make you feel like a casino master, Potion Explosion’s candy-crush like feature (marble drop and pattern making), and maybe Steampunk Rally and Sagrada splitting the place for successful dice rolls and placement.
If you like Forest Shuffle give Vale of Eternity a try. Both of those games have so many different combos it's very fun.
I think Coup has a lot of Dopamine bursts for how short it is. The challenge moments always lead to bursts of dopamine
Also I think very few games can match the shock and awe caused by the zombie reveals in Mall of Horror. So many crazy moments there.
[Here](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1299501738/quacks-of-quedlinburg-ingredient-chips?ref=share_v4_lx) you go! Haven’t received them yet so can’t vouch for quality, but they are the cheapest nice ones I found.
A plan coming together to take you to victory in Twilight Imperium, after eight hours of plotting, politiking, scheming, negotiation and betrayal is a rush like no other...
Playing Dune with my friends, going for a last minute play to win, only to have it blow up in my face and have someone else win.
Only to come up against Bene Geserit schemeing and having had them set up the whole thing.
a funny little game called Add to Cart
Would also recommend Thank you for your purchase!
I started googling "Add to Cart" but didn't get a good result so I tried "Add to Cart boardgame", still nothing. Then it hit me. I'm fucking stupid.
The replayability of this game is off the charts!
Haha I’m a pro at this game. Worst value for money tho.
It's a great value, you just gotta see it as an investment and let it mature like fine wine. In a decade, those 5 boxes of an All-In kickstarter will be worth at least double!
Hahaha. It's true.
I feel like this was a good game for it's time, but more modern games like Pledge Now have really overtaken it.
There's no better feeling than not doing well in Can't Stop and then just running the table on a number and getting super hot with the dice. Second may be your teammates actually understanding what you mean with your clue in Hanabi or understanding why you're doing something in The Crew.
That moment in the Crew when someone plays an unexpected card and then looks at you with a completely blank expression while you try and figure out what they're trying to tell you.
Yes! Oh man, Hanabi and the Crew are games either for insufferable optimists or masochists.
Hanabi is the most addictive game. Nothing like the thrill of pulling off a triple/quadruple finesse and everyone reaching the same conclusion from different information.
There's no game that has quite given me the same high as finessing a Hanabi play by giving a clue with 5 layers of logic under it and having my teammate understand exactly what I intended. Some runner-ups: * Getting elected as Chancellor in a tense game of Secret Hitler, where you are Hitler * Winning a major contract in contract bridge * Placing tons of tokens on the board in Spirit Island (Ocean Deeps, Many Minds, Keeper, Vengeance, etc)
I have yet to try Hanabi! I really enjoy The Mind, have you tried that?
I own The Mind, and it's a nice game night opener! Unfortunately, the constant shuffling of 100 cards is a bit tedious, and some of my more logic-minded friends are offended by the concept of the game (lol) so it doesn't see much play. I definitely prefer Hanabi as a whole, but Hanabi is only pulled out when we have 3-4 experienced players who are all down for a few hours of heavy thinking, so that doesn't see much play either.
Oh wow I didn’t realize Hanabi is such a long game. The Mind is my go-to game night warm up!! It is a curious game if you’re not into that kind of thing haha, I explain it like an “experimental experience” rather a game.
Haha it's not so much that it's a long game, but that we usually sit down and keep the game on the table until we win, and that can take multiple attempts. It's pretty short if people just play one game.
The Mind is what you make of it. I've had so much fun playing with certain creative friends who know how to have a good time. The ones who didn't want to get into it or didn't like the concept were less fun to play with, haha.
I've had similar hits with Fuzzy Logic. Two teams each have a secret word (that are related in some way) to guess. Think of it like Codenames with just two words, but because the words are known to be related to each other in some way if you aren't careful your clues can help the other team. It's really fun when that happens and you stretch logic to it's breaking point. Example: I'm on the guessing side, other team starts with "heavy". My sister gives our team the clue "tall". Within the next half second my brain ran through the logic of "heavy could be an animal like whale or elephant and if it's elephant a giraffe is tall and related ot the elephant by both being African." I guessed giraffe and got it right.
I've never played Fuzzy Logic, but it basically sounds like a shorter, simplified version of Decrypto! Definitely recommend checking it out if you're looking for a game that supports more players.
Interesting chain of logic and word connections! I hadn’t heard of this before but sounds fun. My family loves codenames.
OP mentioned tactile components, and the deluxe tiles make the game absolutely perfect to me. Then again, at its price these days, it might be worth just trying the card version first...
Quacks BGG bits make a great game a damn near 10. Splurge on them. In November they do a Black Friday sale that reduces the expense. You won't regret the buy.
Black Friday sounds like the best time for these type of boardgame upgrades!! I hope they restock…
Good news for you: [Quacks bits will be in stock in a few days!](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3280148/april-store-update-quacks-bits-will-be-back-in-sto)
Oh man… I just purchased the etsy capaules though 😫😫
worst case is you have to piecemeal purchase - i cant state enough how much they've enhanced the game for my family - especially the boxes with reducing set up time
Put these off for a long time because UK shipping was nearly as much as the bits themselves. Looks like they’ve sorted that post-covid but the total is still about £45 for only the base game bits. I got the base game for £25. Heck I bought Spirit Island for £50. I get that they’re a deluxe component but that’s a hefty chunk of cash for some jingle jangle Edit: nope, I’m also at the mercy of his majesty’s customs potentially adding VAT (20% of item and shipping) and handling (usually £8) to the import so probably more like £62. Could really do with a UK supplier of these.
They used to have some issues with the images on the white pieces (IIRC, I’d been a while) - has that been fixed?
You can also deluxify it for cheap with coin capsules… looks great : ) just search 100 Pack 25mm Coin Capsules
Oh yes, there’s also other options like the 3D printed frames that the token fit snuggly into (picked up some of those at a game convention last year - not bad, not cheap though!). But the BGG ones look very nice indeed (tho even less cheap!)
Oh cool, another netrunner thread!
At the expense of sounding dumb…what is netrunner because I’ve legit never heard of it…(not sarcasm, really curious)
2 player asymmetrical card game where one player plays a massive future corporation and the other plays a hacker trying to steal company secrets. Think cyberpunk 2077 for setting. Brilliant game with a bunch of traps bluffing and strategy in it. Currently it's being remade by null signal games as the original by fantasy flight was cancelled due to licensing agreements. Can print it all out yourself for free or buy it from them depending on your temperament
thanks for the description!
Would hundred percent recommend with the post you've written above
Links for doing each?
Https://nullsignal.games/players/purchase-guide/#:~:text=You%20can%20buy%20Null%20Signal,card%20stocks%20available%20from%20MakePlayingCards.
https://gprivate.com/6aiis
There is no higher rush that avoiding that one white spore on Quacks!
Love this game so much! Have had games where I’ve seen grown men pout over exploding and throw a fit 🤣
Why would they even call it a cherry bomb? The white token must be garlic! That's how we call it XD
If you're talking tactile, I'd say Everdell and Honey Buzz because some of the resources look like candy and have soft texture. I think Ark Nova does it pretty well by covering your own board and getting immediate rewards. The red tile in Azul looks like a starburst.
Honey Buzz resources look amazing, sadly I’ve heard only middling reviews for the game itself.
I think it's good. it's on the medium light side which I think and the game feels fairly similar every time, but nonetheless I think it's good for the mechanisms.
I was waffling on it for awhile, I thought it might be too lightweight, but my local Walmart had it on clearance so I grabbed it. We ended up loving it, it’s just so cozy and cute, with just the right amount of thinkiness for when you’re not in the mood for a heavy game.
It''s a different beast than people make it out to be. I wouldn't even call it worker placement. We like breaking it out once a month and let our brains fire up. Worthy of being in the collection.
I honestly didnt think about this game much. My gf who doesnt play board games much saw it and loved the aesthetic, and since it was surprisingly cheap for the quality we got it. I honestly kinda liked it. Its really easy to pick up and surprisingly cutthroat for the cutesy aesthetic. I think the biggest downside is being prone to AP since there are so many tiny little considerations per play, but when you go off it feels great
Recommend honey buzz. Everdell is think is very overrated. The quality is amazing but the building/citizen variability sucks out the fun for me. Sometimes you just combo off to infinity, other times its just waiting around with nothing to do
I'm not saying Everdell is amazing, just from a sensory perspective the resources are really good.
Yeah, superb honestly. Honey Buzz is on the same level (or close I think) and honestly surprisingly cheap for the quality
ALL of the tiles in Azul look like Starbursts
After several rounds of building your engine, you finally get THE round in Terraforming Mars that allows you to play the ~8 cards you have been waiting to get out to really accelerate things.
Crokinole. It's fast, it's tactile and the noises the pucks make are amazing. Even passing a puck along the gutter is a joy. Takes 30 seconds to teach, anyone can play but it's hard to master. Every game even if you lost you can feel the improvement happening in real time and it's so fast to have another match it doesn't even matter. Sinking a puck in the 20 slot is a wild feeling.
Great one for this category! I’m dying to try this game…
Yeah i had a midlife crisis and imported a board from Canada without having ever played it. Luckily it paid off and it gets played basically every single day for the past year. Absolutely see if you can find someone with a board (there are some cafes with them too depending on location) and give it a go but I've yet to find anyone who didn't adore it instantly.
Can I ask what shop you got it from in Canada? I'm looking to purchase a good quality one at a decent price, and I'm in Canada, so i'm interested in where since you say it gets played every day, so it must be good quality
I got a Tracey board. They're basically the gold standard as far as I know. But I actually bought it off a guy in my country (Aus) who imports 5 or 10 at a time when he gets enough interest. The Tracey boards are the ones used in all the big tournaments etc.
As mentioned above, a Tracey board is the way to go. I absolutely love mine! They are more expensive than others. I knew if I bought a lesser board it would just be a year or so before I stepped up to a Tracey. very glad I got it right the first time.
Similar thing happened to me. Saw the Shut Up & Sit Down YouTube video and ordered one instantly, even thought I’d never even heard of Crokinole before. That was three years ago now. Probably one of the best purchases I’ve ever made.
A Crokinole board is a large object that does not fold away, but what some friends of mine do is hang it on the wall as art. It's a beautiful piece of waxed woodworking, so that actually works!
Mayday is launching another $99 crokinole board on Kickstarter next month!
I did look into those but mostly found that people who got them eventually got a higher quality one anyway. I'm sure they're totally fine and probably a much more reasonable hobby expense in comparison lol.
Space Base is the game you are looking for. A dice rolling game where you get to feel your board get just a little better each turn punctuated with occasional big "jackpot!" vibes while waiting for other player's turns
Ooh sounds fun, love a big payout moment.
Crokinole- one game to rule them all
I really want to try this, but the board seems like a mega space hog! (At least the premium nice looking ones I’ve seen)
I got a beautiful woodestic board that I hang on the wall when I don't play, so it's not that bad.
Ohh neat idea!
They are a standard size I think. Don't cheap out if you get this game, the quality of the board effects how the game plays. Tracey boards are the gold standard. They do have wall mounts you can buy to get the board up out of the way. Got my board for free because UPS damaged it while shipping. Luckily it was cosmetic. Options were to pay shipping to return it for a new one or keep it w/ a full refund... very hard choice :P
I've still never played it, but regularly hear boardgamers rave about it online, so should try it at some point. It's not a thing people have generally heard about here (Australia).
Basically most any euro can do this for me, at least for a time. Well first off, the process of learning a new game is addictive as all hell for me. Probably because of how much dopamine I get out of those early plays when the game is opening up for me and I'm trying to grasp how to make those mechanisms sing. But especially euros, trying to tease out each unique puzzle is a joy for me. Few things stand up to trading resources for other resources, components into other components. That tactile handling after getting resources in the first place and the grouping of them and organizing them, and then counting them out to pay for something. That's the good stuff. **Hadrian's Wall** might be one of the purest distillations of resource managing and converting, that game is a dopamine bomb for my brain. **The White Castle** does an incredible job with its variable set-up, it's always a new and shifting puzzle of how you can get as many actions as possible out of each of your nine turns. And each game, you never completely know what the board is going to offer you when it comes to creating combos. Sometimes the game can be quite tight throughout, others, you can feel like all powerful god in the third round chaining five actions together all three turns. Engaging with **Viscounts of the West Kingdom's** deck building and trying to maintain a strong river will always give me those dopamine spikes when things are working. I guess Garphill games in general just do this for me.
Later Garphill games do this for me, too. Trading in resources, spending workers, converting one resource to another, combo-ed on top of each other to build that card. It's like catnip for me.
White Castle is 10/10 game for us!! The combos and streamlined play is so satisfying. Hadrian’s Wall has been on my list but there are so many more games ahead of it still. I want to try Garphill games but they have so many and I don’t know where to start! If we love White Castle, would you say Viscounts is a good place to start that has a similar feel? We love euros too and want to dip into some of the tougher ones (lacerda, etc). I bought Darwin’s Journey based on recs from this subreddit but have yet to play it.
Getting that perfect chain reaction set up in Gizmos.
I have to check Gizmos out! I haven’t heard much about it
There's a [free digital version on BoardGameArena](https://en.boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=gizmos)
Root. I've never experienced table talk like that.
Terraforming Mars gets the more is more quality of gameplay. Sometimes you snowball into a ridiculous combo, maybe you are generating enough heat to raise it twice a generation... Even if you are excelling in just one small part of the game, the power curve of buying new cards that fit exactly into your engine feels sublime.
Oh yes!! I enjoy TM a lot, especially towards the end when my engine becomes fruitful. I didn’t buy the game though because it was rather long for 2 player (my main player count) and bought Ares thinking it would be similar but quicker and more card fun…but somehow my combos and engine doesn’t scale as well in Ares. Have you played Ares Expedition before?
I haven't and probably won't because I already have Race to Galaxy which has I understand is the inspiration for Ares Expedition. It is a longer game for sure. There are some variants that speed the game up, like increasing the temp/O2/ocean each round. I haven't played with those so I can't vouch for it. Try playing some asynchronous games of TM on Boardgamearena.com. It'll remove the time element and is well implemented.
Captain Is Dead, when you start chaining actions and pull off a huge play that gets rid of several things or puts you ahead of the curve. Spirit Island, when you get those big powers that get rid of a ton of things. Everdell, when combos start firing off one after the other during mid to late game that score you a bunch of points. (Same for Race For The Galaxy and Terraforming Mars to an extent) Star Realm/Dominion/Ascension/Shards Of Infinity, during late game when you start playing a bunch of cards on one turn resulting in a bunch of damage and money.
Knarr for me recently. Every turn something nice happens. Either you play a card, and get rewards from *all* the cards in the tableu you played it to, or you explore a new land and get some benefits, or you trade with one of the lands you've explored already and - wait for it - get more juicy benefits. You always feel like you're getting good stuff, but everyone else is too, so the game still feels tense. And the best part is the game lasts JUST long enough that usually you get a few turns with your engine running at max capacity before it ends. This game is officially one of my all time faves.
This is my favorite recent go to filler game or starting the game night up. Love it to death.
Right and that feeling when you play all three bracelets after having explored like 5 lands, and points and recruits shower down on you is just unbeatable. So addictive.
I Get this dopamine boost from getting awesome combo's in games. Games like **Lost ruins of Arnak** or **Spirit Island** you build your deck untill you make big powerful combo's in turn 3-4 for example and they are SO satisfying!
Texas Hold 'Em. I play a 25$ live tournament every month. Very exciting.
Oh yes. That may just be the king of dopamine rush.
Suburbia and 7 Wonders. It's just nice seeing your city grow and stacking bonuses, especially in Suburbia where bonuses are based on how you placed tiles. I'm yet to win a game, but losing doesn't feel as bad because getting a lot of points or gold from carefully stacking cards or making a good adjacency with hex tiles will never not be satisfying, even if it won't be enough to win you the game in the end. Not to mention that the game's don't have too many mechanics that are about screwing the other player's city rather than boosting your own.
Wonderland war multiplies quack hit by 2.2
Best tactile experiences: Azul: Queen's Garden's chunky hexagonal pieces, or shuffling up Wizards of the Grimoire's thick high quality cards, or drawing and placing homemade deluxe tokens in Bullet. Best jackpot moments: Making a huge high-scoring word in Hardback, hitting 12+ Equilibrium in Mercurial, wiping out the entire enemy team in a single turn in Ascension: Tactics.
Perudo/Bluff is a great dice game. Go is a classic abstract game but playing with a great set (Big table board, nice bowls, shell and slate stones) really feels nice. I cpuld never go back to plastic chips on cardboard. The sound of hammering down a stone!
The dice rolls in 878 Vikings are just exciting.
Do we count card games here? Because Euchre is a dopamine factory. When you pick up a perfect hand, when you go alone, when you have the stopper, or (of course) when you and your partner execute a perfect Euchre, it just feels so dang good.
Yes! I find card games often unlock the dopamine factor. Something satisfying about knowing you maximized a hand or trick.
Trying to solve in Cryptid. Selecting a tile on the board and having everyone around the table confirm, that it is valid.
Keeping a single King in **Of What's Left**
Ready Set Bet has the same highs as a horse race if you play it with the app
Combos on Hadrian's Wall ! with this i build that, and with the reward i build the other thing and with that reward the other thing over there....
**Go** can infiltrate one's mind like nothing I've ever seen before. When Go hits for someone, it hits hard. They dream about it. It often does this because the game is hard to understand on the first few plays and so it occupies a space in their mind as they try to consolidate it into something that makes sense. The game also has lovely tactile and aesthetic qualities that add to this experience.
I played a few online games and I love it so far. If only I had someone to play with in person, I’m sure the tactile nature of the game is part of the appeal.
If you ever want online lessons I generally provide them for free by voice on OGS+Discord.
Nemesis
Soaked in its intense theme, especially if you've got the soundtrack.
Which soundtrack?
I play at the home of a guy who went all in on the KS. There's an official soundtrack (far as I'm aware) that he got with all the stuff. Or got separately. We've listened to it each time we've played. Dark ambient kind of stuff.
(Raises hand) I have found *Hadrian's Wall* to be nice for a solo board game to get dopamine hits. The combo plays you can achieve in that (fill a box, get resources, spend resources to fill more boxes, get more resources, rinse and repeat...) makes me feel quite powerful. And then the Picts attack the wall and I tense up as I check where they will strike. Surviving that and getting a bit more Valor for my strong defenses makes me feel powerful, too. (Lowers hand)
Hegemony Lead Your Class To Victory.
The aesthetic and art of Wingspan hits the right spot, no matter how good of a game I end up having.
Play wingspan with a cup of tea while listening to bird sounds and you'll feel like someone has snuck up behind you with one of those tingly metal head scratchers.
Haha love that feeling and vibe!
[[Hegemony: Lead Your Class To Victory]] has its claws deep in me.
Great game, but I don't feel like it is full of dopamine hits? What am I missing? :D
[Hegemony: Lead Your Class To Victory -> Hegemony: Lead Your Class to Victory (2023)](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/321608/hegemony-lead-your-class-victory) ^^[[gamename]] ^^or ^^[[gamename|year]] ^^to ^^call ^^OR ^^**gamename** ^^or ^^**gamename|year** ^^+ ^^!fetch ^^to ^^call
I really want to try this one! Though I’m curious what about it is the “addicting high” part, or is it just a great crunchy strategic game?
The addicting high, for me, came when I pulled off a monster round as the State. The sheer number of things that have to go RIGHT for that, along with the table politics needed to make it come together is SO gratifying. Outside of that, it is a fabulously crunchy economic game chock full of important and meaningful decisions. If you can get the Kickstarter edition, the Crisis & Control's extra cards to promote player interactivity really send it into the stratosphere as well. I cannot speak highly enough of this game and CONSTANTLY want to play it at almost any player count. Had it for maybe a month and am pushing 20h of play time with it. It's pretty much all I do with my free time these days.
How do you think it plays at 2? It’s my main player count but heard it may not be as good for 2.
I would agree that it doesn't perform AS well at two players, but it is still quite enjoyable. At two, it's closer to Scythe or other economics games. It loses a lot of the interplay (logically, since you are only playing the two most interdependent factions and not a four-way web of madness). At two players, my personal favorites are (in no particular order): Watergate - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/274364/watergate Hive - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2655/hive Targi - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/118048/targi Undaunted: Normandy - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/268864/undaunted-normandy Sky Team - https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/373106/sky-team If I were going to buy only one of these (EDIT: specifically for that dopamine hit), it would be Undaunted.
Thanks!
Great crunch, and heavy shared economy interactivity. They've got the right amount of stuff happening with each card played where it feels meaningful most turns but you can't absolutely torpedo the game state on your own.
That’s great. I find a lot of heavier strategic games always leave me wanting more to do or more turns, glad to hear this one gives a satisfying turn!! On my watch list now
My last game of Fantastic Factories with Manufactions expansion was certainly giving me huge shots of dopamine. I'm a sucker for engine-building combos (like getting a good trading engine in Century), and this game gave me a whopper. Factories fundamentally works with a worker placement with dice mechanic. You roll 4 dice, and depending on value there's certain places you can place them to do things. The factions in the expansion gives you certain unique player powers. The one I drew for the game was the ability to activate Training buildings (which manipulate dice values) twice per turn and for 1 energy cheaper. Turn 1 I was able to draw and drop a Dojo building, which for 1 energy let's me flip a dice to its opposite side. With my faction power, I can do that twice per turn for free. I also dropped a couple of buildings that can produce vitamins, which can be used to modify a dice value +1/-1. I built up a small stock of those. Then the crazy dropped. I built a building that has an incredible effect (2 VP + 2 more dice to roll and use), balanced by being hard to activate. It requires a 4-straight (4 dice is sequence, like 2345) to activate. Normally that would be very hard to activate, but with all the dice value manipulation I had at my disposal I was able to activate that card every turn until the end of the game. That was 5 or 6 turns in a row. Roll! Now I can flip these two, adjust this one a couple...BOOM BABY we're in business! I had already liked Fantastic Factories base, but the Manufactions expansion just blew it up so much. I bought Race for the Galaxy, but I'm having a harder time bringing that to the table since the iconography scares my mother away. It looks promising though. Does that have the same potential for dopamine smashing combos?
That sounds so fun!! I love big combo games that give a satisfying payoff. I’ve heard great things about Fantastic Factories, your comment makes me want it now! I like the theme too (a reason why I never got Race for Galaxy because I can’t get into into it..)
Fantastic Factories is great with the expansions. We play it with "How It's Made" playing in the backdrop, which brings it up to a whole new level. 😁
For me it's push your luck games because the stakes are high. My favorites are Raxxon, and Elder sign.
I didn’t realize Elder Sign is a push your luck kind of game. I generally like anything with dice (probably for the high and low of the luck factor)
Elder Sign has possibly the most interesting Yahtzee dice mechanism there is. I absolutely adore it. I wish this system would get a reimplementation somewhere without losing depth. I loved collecting all of Elder Sign, but the amount of "special convention rare promos" was just too high. I know I should not care, as the game still works, but it just felt disappointing.
It's the only game I have two copies of. One just base and the other with expansions mixed in. Most of the time I just want the base game. I know some of the expansions "make it better" but I played the base game so much, I found myself just craving it by itself.
*The Alchemist* When you deducted a 1 or 2 ingredients and it just goes into some kind of meltdown, where every ingredient comes together in one sweep
Probably Menara for me. The game is very difficult and the tension is high the entire game, but winning is one of the best experiences I can remember.
I have board games I like more…but to this day, nothing hits quite like a critical 4-way re-org in Lords of Vegas.
I got dopamine wow effects after Santa Maria Raiders of the North Sea Tigris and Euphrates Hansa Teutonica Penguin Power Grid Bloom And very rarely Splendor, Newton, Concordia, Viticulture EE, because I suck at those or haven’t played them enough.
Honestly, my go to for that is bullet chess. Learn an opening for white and black that you like playing, practice some puzzles and then just play back to back to back to back games of bullet chess. It’s the perfect combination of dopamine hits and self-loathing. And the fast format means that even if you blunder your queen, you get to try again with a fresh start in a few minutes.
Battlestar Galactica. So many tense moments both when playing as the cylon or when making the decision to brig/execute someone suspected of being a cylon.
I love BSG, but tension isn't really dopamine in my opinion :D I guess there is some rush when playing as a traitor and being able to get away with things, but human side is definitely not on a train of dopamine.
If weighted chips and components are your thing then you gotta check out Too Many Bones... Or anything from chip theory games (the names a pretty good clue lol). It's a 100% a tactile experience between the dice, chips, cards and mats. Something about knocking down those towers of health is just super satisfying. Not too mention the 'gotta get em all' feeling of the gearlocs lol
I have 20 Strong and super impressed with the quality of it all despite being their cheaper game.
Super Mega Lucky Box! It is the dopamine hit that keeps on hitting! Light, fun, combotastic!
Paku Paku
100% Giga-Robo. Giant customizable robots beating the snot out of each other across a destructible, dynamic game board. From replacing the 3D buildings with things like floods, infernos, and arc hazards to calling out move names, all of which end in an exclamation point, of course (Ionize Fire! Corrosion Cutter!), it's pure delight for you and your inner 12-year-old. Plus, each battle lays out its own story as it goes along, usually following Tyson's dictum, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." Also, Colt Express. Never had a game where everyone wasn't laughing along with the various twists of fortune and shattered plans.
**Dune**. Masterpiece.
What gives you dopamine in Dune? I would not think that a war game is a source of dopamine - but people are different of course.
I dont think of it as a war game first. Its much rather a political, negotiaton and alliances. Sure there are some battles but just everything hits for me. The theme is also a big turn on for me.
Nemesis
Age of Steam. I play the entire game on the edge of my seat.
I'm a competitive person in general, so playing against other competitive types provides my biggest boardgame "highs". But playing 4-player Agricola at a high-level table is the peak dopamine hit for me. It's such a tense and tight game, and despite naysayers who don't understand the difference between direct and indirect interaction in games, it is a HIGHLY interactive experience (starting during the initial card draft). Agricola will always be my favorite game and I can't wait to play it again.
We have agricola but as 2 player carebears, we don’t play super aggressively, so it misses that bit of “edge” for me. I imagine the blocking gets more intense with more players.
Agricola is okay with 2 and fine with 3, but it really really shines at 4.
**Tapestry** is as if shooting dopamine into your veins every turn.
I think a lot of deck builders do this. You start with a weak deck often with zero abilities. When you purchase cards and see them go off, and a turn 6 is drawing 2 extra cards, having 6 buy and 7 fight, also first purchased card goes to top of deck. Is very satisfying when turn 1 was just 3 buy 2 fight.
Any you would recommend?
My favorite is probably Clank! when it comes to this. Like most build at the start deck builders your first 4 hands are quick and simple. But after that you can really get some fun combos going and accomplish a lot on a turn. That has an added aspect of "movement" since it involves a board as well. It is just so rewarding when you turn a hand of 5 cards into 8 cards played 1 discarded, and 1 trashed. Were able to obtain 1-2 cards, move far on the board, and trigger 2-3 effects. And usually (unless someone rushes the game) you end up with a handful of turns like this end game. Compared to some other deck builders which sometimes I feel that you only really get 1 maybe 2 turns of actual fun combos before game over.
I love Parks for just how high quality and happy everything this. Beautiful art, nature theme, animal pieces, what’s not to like
I didn't see much about bigger campaign games in here, but for me a big dopamine hit in those games is when i get new cards and/or abilities. The problem with a lot of them is that the stretch between that hit is SO LONG. It motivated me to start working on my own game to address that very thing! (and others)
Campaign games intimidate me 😬. Love the idea but Such a commitment!
Planet Unknown. The puzzly tetromino pieces, filling in empty spaces on your planet to complete rows and columns, moving up on multiple tracks every turn and getting bonuses a lot of the time you do, spinning the lazy Susan and getting the perfect piece when you are the Captain -- everything about that game is just satisfying.
After Us is designed just to be dopamine chit grabbing simulator. Every turn in just monkey brain get fruit and battery. good .
**Dune Imperium.** Setting up that perfect turn, with intrigue, surprise plays, giant combats, and stealing an alliance with some underhanded play. It hits the "wheels within wheels" vibe hard. Big dramatic turns.
Scythe and Clank!
In Paladins of the West Kingdom occasionally everything coincides and you get this cascading "Mega Turn". It's really satisfying when you can pull that off.
Secret motherfucking Hitler
Easy answer: Any of the Dice Throne games, notably the battle chests. Having a big ol’ box with 8 characters each in their own little tray replete with their own board, tokens, cards, and (of course) dice = so damn satisfying. Right from the moment you select a character and slide it out of the box, you know you’re in for a fun time
Project: Elite! Definitely a dopamine rush but not so sure about it being relaxing lol
The last few turns of any War of the Ring game
Perudo and Boonanza immediately come to mind! Two absolute classics that I bring to almost every board game night with 4 or more people.
Arkham Horror LCG - Enjoy the game - hate the price yet I still buy it. They really get me with that "just 1 more expansion. That will be enough" and it never is.
Briscola
I love winning, so yeah, Splendor, Space Base, and Castles of Burgundy tend to deliver me the most dopamine
* Android Netrunner * Bagged & Boarded (my own game) * 2p Dominion (speciifcally online because shuffle/setup/cleanup is so easy) * No Thanks (this has become a staple filler for our board game nights) * Ricochet Robots (advanced variant where you flip two tokens and have to bid a number for getting to both) * Agricola (been playing this a lot more recently)
Black rose wars or mysthea
The *took my Adderall for the first time in awhile* vibes are so strong here, and I love it. Theres a game called Leaf that has amazing leaf pieces. The spacing is such that all 6 differently shaped leaves have most of their leaf tips touch when laid next to each other (how you get points). The leaves are a sweet texture and color: laminated and marbley greens/oranges/browns/reds. It's pretty low complexity, but it's a fun low key game.
The Last Bastion!!!
For me those games are definitely Can’t Stop (the rush of risk and luck), Splendor token sounds that make you feel like a casino master, Potion Explosion’s candy-crush like feature (marble drop and pattern making), and maybe Steampunk Rally and Sagrada splitting the place for successful dice rolls and placement.
If you like Forest Shuffle give Vale of Eternity a try. Both of those games have so many different combos it's very fun. I think Coup has a lot of Dopamine bursts for how short it is. The challenge moments always lead to bursts of dopamine Also I think very few games can match the shock and awe caused by the zombie reveals in Mall of Horror. So many crazy moments there.
The Search for Planet X - when you realize you got it, and the app confirms with that awesome sound. Ah yes.
i just knew QUACKS OF QUEDLINBURG was gonna be in this list, it's like gambling, i absolutely love it
Check out a new game, Harmonies. Might check all your boxes.
Can you link to the quacks captuels from etsy plz?
[Here](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1299501738/quacks-of-quedlinburg-ingredient-chips?ref=share_v4_lx) you go! Haven’t received them yet so can’t vouch for quality, but they are the cheapest nice ones I found.
Thank you! Looks great! They seem to have great reivews on Etsy!
A plan coming together to take you to victory in Twilight Imperium, after eight hours of plotting, politiking, scheming, negotiation and betrayal is a rush like no other...
Shogi
I had to google this one. It looks like a beautiful game! I’m surprised I have never heard of it before… seems like a classic
Its basically Japanese chess with the crux that you can place captured pieces instead of making a move.
Yup... chess with paratroopers! Way more exciting, way less draws, way less memorized opening lines etc.
Im pretty sure Japanese pros got their opening lines memorized... but Im a Go player, what do I know...
Of course they do, but at the amateur level, you don't need to spend years studying openings to play Shogi.
Celeste, it gave me the serotonin and the dopamine. I would’ve beaten it way more if I discovered it back in the panini.
Heat Pedal to the metal. Theme is strong, playing with background racing music pumps me up!
Playing Dune with my friends, going for a last minute play to win, only to have it blow up in my face and have someone else win. Only to come up against Bene Geserit schemeing and having had them set up the whole thing.