Chaos & Confetti

I’m wrapping up my reviews of 2024 media with board games and video games.  If you missed them, make sure to go back and check out my look back on books, television, and movies.  

This is a review of my personal consumption of media during 2024.  What that means is that I’m pulling from my own opinions and experiences. I’ll talk about games that came out in 2024, but I’ll also touch on things that I finally got around to playing during 2024. Either way, hopefully you find something you’d like to check out too.

Let’s get started

BOARD GAMES

For this category, I tried to stick with board games that were new to me this year.  Otherwise, I’d be tempted to throw in old favorites like Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game.

1. Lorcana

Okay, so Lorcana as a whole isn’t a new-to-me game, but with new cards being released a few times a year, and the game barely hitting its one year birthday a few months ago, it still felt fresh enough to throw on this list.  This is especially true as Lorcana continues to expand in new ways: store Set Championships, the regional Disney Lorcana Challenges, and the cooperative play Illumineer Quests.  Lorcana is also my most played game of 2024, so it’d feel weird ignoring it completely.

Lorcana is a trading card game from Ravensburger that pulls from Disney’s animated catalog.  Players race to collect lore as they battle with characters from Mickey Mouse to Aladdin to Elsa, all while using songs like Be Prepared, Let It Go, and Under the Sea.  This is a fun and approachable card game that keeps getting better. As the game expands, there is more room for different types of decks for both casual and competitive play, and there is more variety within those deck archetypes.

Ravensburger has sanctioned official store leagues, so it’s been a great way to get off a few times a week, and a fun way to build a new community network.  

TCGs can be an expensive and time consuming hobby if you let them be, but Lorcana has felt worth it so far.  Fingers crossed that this game runs for years and years to come.

2. Sail

As much as we enjoy competitive games, it’s usually good for our relationship if the wife and I get plenty of cooperative play time as well (mostly joking).  It’s always fun to play as a team, and Sail is a small box game which hits the table quickly while still providing some good depth (like the sea).  

In Sail, players are trying to navigate their pirate ship across the ocean. They must work together to progress, avoid obstacles, and fight sea creatures.  They must also move fast enough to avoid storms and running out of cards.  The twist with Sail is that it’s a two-player trick taking game.  Players move the boat based on who wins which tricks and which cards are played. Along with mechanics that change the draw deck, ones that damage the ship/fight the Kraken, and different player powers, Sail proves to be a good time.

The experience is enhanced with the game’s several scenario cards that allow players to ramp up the difficulty.  There are also a few more scenarios and mechanics introduced through an expansion.

I enjoyed hitting the high seas with Sail.

3. Gloomhaven: Buttons and Bugs

My wife and I are huge Gloomhaven fans.  Together, we’ve played through every scenario of Gloomhaven, Jaws of the Lion, and Forgotten Circles.  Add to that a bunch of the promo and online campaigns for Gloomhaven. Of course, we’ve also completed Frosthaven’s main campaign, and have played most of its scenarios as well.  This equals hundreds of plays and countless hours. Again, we’re big fans.

So, when we found out that Cephalofair Games was releasing a solo campaign version of Gloomhaven, we backed it immediately.  Before too long, Gloomhaven: Buttons and Bugs arrived at your home, and we jumped right in.

Button and Bugs captures all the dungeon crawling, combat fun of regular Gloomhaven but condenses it into a mini campaign that fits in a small box.  Scenarios (story, directions, set up, and maps) are all presented through a deck of cards, making set up and tear down super quick and easy.  Even player and enemy character cards, attack modifiers, and more are all found on a few cards.    

Buttons and Bugs is as compact as Gloomhaven can be without losing any of the magic of its scenarios. It even has a handful of characters to play as, which each come with their own combat cards and mini miniature.  

While the game can’t compare to normal Gloomhaven in terms of scope, story, and epic campaign, the trade off feels worth it for quick bursts of Gloomhaven goodness.

Honorable Mentions

• Wandering Towers
• Decorum
• Sky Team
• The Gang

VIDEO GAMES

1. Astro Bot

Playstation 5 consoles all came pre-installed with Astro’s Playroom, both a platformer and a demo of what the the PS5 system and controllers could do.  It was a simple but polished platformer that gained a lot of charm from its cute robot protagonist and a lot of fun from its easter eggs to other Sony Playstation properties. I have fond memories of the game, playing it while my less than a month old son slept nearby (my awesome wife bought me a PS5 as a congrats-you’re-now-a-father present).  That was my introduction to Astro Bot.

As a fan of platformers and as someone with a soft spot for the Astro Bot series I jumped into this game ready for some fun.  Astro Bot delivered exactly what I wanted from it.  It’s a fun and solid platformer set in a visually appealing setting.  The astro bots stay both cute and nostalgia-tastic.  The story wasn’t complex, but it was silly and endearing. The game is easy to pick up but also builds in difficulty, especially if you’re completing some of the extra challenge levels. It played into my love of collecting and trying to 100% a game.  I couldn’t really ask for much more. 

By itself, Astro Bot deserves a spot in my top games of 2024, but what really elevated it was something personal.  I mentioned meeting the Astro Bot series when my son was barely born.  Now, three years later, my son did more than exist around the game.  I handed him the controller and he loved getting to play too.  He ran around the homeworld amongst the other collected bots, learning the controls and giggling whenever he punched another robot.  He had a blast hopping and spinning around the stage.  To my shock, he unlocked an achievement within minutes of playing (a simple one for spinning enough), and another one later. Yep, I might have some video competition coming in the near future.  

2. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

Following up the two previous entries in the series, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 puts players into a world where both Peter Parker and Miles Morales operate as Spider-Men.  The main story involves antagonists Kraven and Venom, while the side plots involve a number of villains including The Chameleon, Mysterio, and the Sandman.

I’m a huge Spider-Man fan, so I was so excited that Insomniac’s original Spider-Man game included both great story and gameplay (even if the gameplay mechanics heavily drew from other games like the Arkham Knight series).  The Miles game worked as a quality interlude and mini-chapter between the two main entries of the series.  After five years of waiting, I went into the second game with high hopes.  

Did it deliver?  Yes and no.  The game itself is another solid entry with a lot to like.  While staying true to the game’s original great gameplay, it adds layers that improve the quality. Even though Peter and Miles are both Spider-Men, the game does differentiate them enough to make them feel unique.  Spider-Man 2 is fun, and if you enjoyed the first, you’re going to find more of what you already enjoyed.

My only real complaint is the game’s length/depth.  Like the first game there is both the main story and a decent number of side quests, but it felt like there should have been more (is wanting more of a game a real complaint?).  The entire experience felt like it ended too quickly and with no planned DLC to lengthen the game, I just wish there was more to chew on while waiting years for the next installment.  Hopefully their Wolverine game and rumored Venom game will help tide me over.

Even if I didn’t agree with every story beat of the game, I understand that it’s hard to recapture the highs of the great story from the first game, so I don’t hold that against them too much.  Again, some added length may have let some story elements breathe a bit more instead of feeling rushed (can’t say too much without spoilers, but several characters lack as much time to shine and the evolution of characters feel like they jump a few steps).  

I liked Spider-Man 2 plenty, and I hope that the third installment continues a great game series and comes ready to give players a whole ton of content.

3. Tunic

Tunic is an action-adventure game heavily inspired by The Legend of Zelda series (a series I love) in which players take on the role of a fox hero who is trying to free a fox spirit.  Anyone that enjoys classic Zelda adventures like A Link to the Past and Link’s Awakening, is going to find a lot to like about Tunic.

At first glance, Tunic may seem like a bit of a Zelda clone or at least a standard action-adventure game with the classic tropes of leveling up and gaining new gear and abilities, while dungeon crawling and fighting progressively harder enemies and bosses.  However, Tunic sets itself apart in a very meta way.  The game starts with no direction or instructions.  Players must figure out the story, their objectives, and controls by themselves.   The game is full of words in a made up alphabet, and players will collect pages to an instruction manual (also in the made up language), but figuring all (or any) of it out is up to the player.    

How much a player gets out of Tunic is partially up to their determination to delve deeper into the game’s lore and secrets. To a degree, the game can be played as a basic adventure game, but deciphering clues from collected instruction manual pages, figuring out secret puzzles, and pushing the boundaries of what’s expected will yield a lot more to Tunic than originally expected.  It’s an interesting game design that draws from children having to figure out games of yesteryear with nothing but the game itself, and sometimes even a lack of yet developed reading skills.

That’s why I like Tunic so much.  It appealed to my love of puzzles, exploration, and games like Zelda. 

Honorable Mention:

• Mario Wonder

Thanks for joining me during my look back on what I enjoyed during 2024.  Here’s looking forward to a lot more highlights from 2025!