Five Board Games That Surprised Us!

Intent: Inspire you to try new games and be open to new experiences!

Have you ever picked up a game not really knowing what to expect, only to be pleasantly surprised by how much fun you had or how you simply couldn’t stop laughing? Did the mechanics deceive you? Did you expect the same old tile placement game like the ones you’ve played before only to be shocked with a new twist? I love surprises, especially a well thought out surprise, it’s one of my absolute favorite things.

As the year wraps up, we thought it’d be fun to reflect and chat about some games that surprised us this year. Now, you might wonder: What does that even mean? We often do lots of research before buying games, so it’s not too common for us to be surprised by the mechanics or the experience the game has to offer. Some games still manage to catch us off guard so we wanted to share the games that surprised us, all in great ways.

Is there any games that surprised you? Let us know by interacting with us in our social media, we love hearing your thoughts.

Let’s learn about some of these games, shall we?

Pecking Order

Designers: Richard Garfield

Artist: Doug Kavacs

Publisher: Immortal Eyes Games

Player Count: 2 Players

Length: 15 minutes

Overview:

It is you and your opponent, fighting for control of the Pecking Order. Your overall goal is to maintain control of the board by scaring your opponents birds away. In order to win the game, you must score the most points by the end of the fourth round. You will have thirteen cards, birds numbered one through twelve and a jaguar. You will shuffle your deck and begin to play drawing one and placing it on a perch you select in turn order until all the cards have been placed, which marks the end of the round. There are eleven perches in the game, as you play cards facedown on various perches you will check if there is a birds on the opposite end, if so, both you and your opponent reveal your birds and the one with higher value stays. Essentially, you’ll want to bluff your opponent and scare them off the higher numbered perches to claim those points at the end. Be careful of the jaguar though, as it scares away any bird but quickly runs off as well. Will you be cunning enough to claim the Pecking Order?.

Surprise Factor:

We got this game as part of a mystery box, what surprised us is how quickly it became one of our favorite two player games. The combination of bluffing, area control and deduction is incredible in this game, we've brought it out to a cabin getaway with friends and it became a spectacle as our friends kept challenging each other to see who truly maintains the Pecking Order.

Mystic Vale

Designer: John D. Clair

Artist: Kiki Moch Rizky, Jess Alphonso, Jack Baker, Storn Cook, Amber Debelak, Martin de Diego, Andrew Gaia, Krzysztof Hain, Yogesh Joshi, Heather Kreiter, Jeff Porter, Kezrek Laczin, Kiri Leonard and Matt Paquette

Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group

Player Count: 2-4 Players

Length: 45 minutes

Overview:

Don’t you just hate when your lands get spoiled? It is time for you to restore the cursed lands and bring fertile soil back! In this game, you will be bring life back to your land, which in turn will grant you power to keep growing and allow you to revive your Mystic Vale. The goal of the game is to score the most victory points! How you get victory points? Well by crafting new cards, using elements to purchase vale cards and plan out your lands strategically. This game has a little bit of everything, deck building, card crafting, push your luck mechanism and set collection. You’ll be invested in your vale, but before you know it the game will end, which will keep you coming back for more, after all there’s lots of land that needs revitalizing. Will you spoil the land or enrich your soil celebrating the Mystic Vale?

Surprise Factor:

Card crafting game? This game is so much fun to play. You’re essentially making your own cards by combining various transparent sections to make a full functioning card! How neat is that? The box certainly explains this, and we knew what to expect, but it still surprised us how neat and innovate this mechanic is. What surprised us too is the tie in of many other mechanics, the whole experience is just wonderful. This game certainly keeps us coming back for more!

5-Minute Mystery

Designers: Connor Reid

Artists: Cam Kendall

Publisher: Wiggles 3D

Player Count: 1-4 players

Length: 5-30 minutes

Overview:

Have you ever wanted to be a world famous detective, solving crimes and using that brilliant wit? Do you have a keen sense of your surrounding and do you often find shapes in the most bizarre places? Well this game may be for you. Your objective is to solve the mystery of the stolen MacGuffin before it is too late! You will have a set amount of time (ranging from three to nine minutes) to explore various crime scenes featured as beautiful illustrations, find clues, check for matches and rule out suspects to identify the culprit responsible for the crime. The mechanics are fairly straightforward and the gameplay flows quickly. There are various case files ranging in difficulty, and trust me, the difficulty certainly ramps up providing quite a challenge. Do you have what it takes to be a world class detective?

Surprise Factor:

We kickstarted this game, the videos and explanations certainly prepared us on what to expect, but this game still blew us away. Real-time, fast paced games aren’t always our favorite, but this one surprised us with how much fun we had! It was great to work as a team to solve various mysteries and the fact that a game can be as short as five minutes but as long as you want it to be is great! The art is just a delight as well.

Call to Adventure

Designers: Johnny O’Neal and Christopher O’Neal

Artists: Matt Paquette

Publisher: Brotherwise Games

Player Count: 1-4 Players

Length: 30-60 minutes

Overview:

Have you ever wanted to go an adventure, not really knowing where the path will take you? In Call to Adventure, you will guide your hero from their origin, through various adventures building a immersive backstory for them so that they can claim their destiny. Every hero has a great story, but only one will win over the hearts of the people and claim victory as the greatest hero. Throughout your journey, you will gain traits, face challenges, claim allies and grow your abilities. The primary mechanic of this game is “rune rolling” You’ll have various runes that have two sides, that will determine your success through your storyline, as you acquire more cards, more runes will be rolled, really creating that thematic achievement of destiny at the end of the game. Will you hero’s story live through the many years to come?

Surprise Factor:

The mechanics is what drew us to this game, what surprised us was the storytelling element of this game. Each time you play, you create a rich narrative of your character’s backstory and Call to Adventure, it’s fun to play this game regardless if you win or lose because of the neat and immersive story that goes alongside it.

Pixie Queen

Designer: Rudy Seuntjens

Artist: Jochem Van Gool

Publisher: Game Brewer

Player Count: 2-5 players

Length: 60-120 minutes

Overview:

The Pixie Queen is certainly to be feared, make sure you disappoint her the least and you may just be fine. Pixie Queen is a worker placement game, in which you compete to please the Queen. The Queen is certainly not easily satisfied and will grant you many penalty points along the way. Your goal is to score the most points by the end of the game and not dwell too much in the negative. You’ll take turns stealing, taking actions, giving the queen your offerings, taking rewards and also many penalties. You’ll likely be in the negative points for quite some time and that’s okay! It certainly is possible to please the Queen enough to win over her cold heart. Will you outsmart your pixie opponents and win the Queen’s favor?

Surprise Factor:

We got this game as part of a board game mystery box, we were pleasantly surprised with how incredible this game is. The theme is absolutely wonderful as you’ll likely score in the negative as the Pixie Queen is just incredibly hard to please. What surprised us so much is how fantastic this game really is, from the components, the artwork all the way to the neat mechanics, it’s a game we certainly love to pull out and introduce folks to.

What Surprises Us?

• When we have significantly more fun than we expected, which happens more often than not

• Innovative mechanics that can’t really be described in a video or a review.

• Fun twist on mechanics that exceed set expectations. Theme integration is always a plus!

• Mystery box games that immerse us in the theme and keep us coming back for more.

What games surprised you? Let us know by connecting with us on social media and commenting on various platforms!