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10 Red Flags When Buying Board Games
🕑 Added 2025-02-28 15:54:47 +0000 UTCHappy Friday! Let's have a bloody video.
These are my board game red flags - the warning signs that a new game might not be worth your time, learnt from a decade of buying the wrong ones.
AND - with it comes the launch of https://actualol.com/search - a new way to search Actualol videos by game title. So you can find in which videos I spoke about High Society, for example, (the answer is all of them). AND, it includes Patron newsletter and exclusive video mentions too! I hope you find it useful. I made it for you* :)
Actually yours,
Jon
*with the help of my friend Neill, who did all the important bits
Comments
Fernando
Is the video not available now?
Mighty Mac
Great humor, as always. An interesting list of red flags, which is a unique view point on game selection. For every red flag there is always the exception, from our experience we have a few self-published and first time, or at least very early in their careers, designer games we enjoy playing: Boop, Abandon All Artichokes, Kelp, Distilled, Trolley Problem Slap, and Speculaas. My wife and I do tend to avoid games with tons of components and big boxes. I think some of the red flags can be avoided with patience - which game purchasers often lack. Having patience allows us to hear what early adopters are saying and then following up with our own research. It's always good to have some early adopters, or others in your gaming circle with different gaming likes, so you can experience a game before buying. The popularity of games, combined with other economic factors, is pushing the cost of very basic games higher, and having a list like this in mind can help everyone avoid making a purchase we later regret. Clicked on and saved the new Actualol search function to my favorites - excellent idea. Thank you for your insights and all our best! Mighty Mac and E.
Stephan Kyle
Sorry Jon, Cascadia is not combinatorial (no hidden info, no randomness) but it is abstract (mechanics divorced from theme). Is it a useful categorisation? Maybe, maybe not, but that's a separate contention.
Jim Preston
There's a quirk of pop music where there are a disproportionate number of classic seventh albums. It's when a band or a musician are often comfortable, established, but still courageous enough to try something new. Revolver, Blonde on Blonde, Beggars Banquet, Violator, In Rainbows, etc. I wonder if the same is true in board game designers? Is it, say, the fifth game where they hit their stride? Or in the case of Knizia, their five hundredth and fifty fifth game?
Shazirah
Handy! Too many people are moving away from having site hubs.
