It will be held in Indianapolis from 4th to 7th August 2022 the Jan Con, the annual American fair dedicated to boardgames, role playing, card games, wargame and live role playing games. its first edition dates back to 1968, and was organized by Gary Gygax. Taking a cue from the boardgamgeek preview, let’s do a brief analysis of the 10 most anticipated games of the fair, to get an idea of what will also arrive in Europe and Italy in the coming months.
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10: Skymines
In tenth place in this ranking we find a title of Alexander Pfister And Viktor Kobilke: Skymines is a reimplementation of Mombasaa glorious management title that has not been found for some time now.
The setting has been completely revised: in this sci-fi game we will have to invest our funds on the various mining companies that are involved in the extraction of Helium-3 from the moon and asteroids.
9: Last Light
Funded in a popular campaign Gamefound, Last Light is a 4x title of Roy Cannaday (famous content creator of The Dice Tower).
Last Light players will lead their alien race to conquer the last star left in a dying universe, fighting for their survival with other alien civilizations. Although the game mechanics aren’t particularly original, Last Light it stands out for its components of the highest level, with dozens of miniatures, 3D resources, and two rotatable discs on the game board.
8: Terracotta Army
There Boards & Dice will present instead Terracotta Armya worker placement from 1-4 players of Przemysław Fornal And Adam Kwapiński in which players will have to model the terracotta statues to be placed in the tomb of the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang, to protect him in the afterlife.
The peculiarity of the title is the placement mechanics: three concentric (and rolling) circles are divided into segments, and a bonus is indicated on each segment. The workers are positioned on the outer circumference and the player receives all three bonuses of the segments corresponding to the placement space: it is also possible to rotate one of the three circles for the cost of two coins, to modify the bonus provided by its segment.
7: Turing Machine
The most original title of this top ten is definitely Turing Machine from Fabien Gridel And Yoann Levetpublished by Le Scorpion Masqué.
Turing Machine is a deductive title that simulates an analog computer, running without power, and the aim of the players is to discover a secret code before the opponents by asking questions to the machine. This happens through the use of some particular punch cards, with a system that makes Turing Machine a title unique.
6: Planet Unknown
Planet Unknown is a planetary colonization game funded on Kickstarter and looking very similar to Terraforming Mars.
On their turn, the players of Planet Unknown they can select a polymino (a tile with different shapes, Tetris style) to place on their board, depicting the planet to be colonized.
Based on the illustrations on the chosen tile, they will get advancements on the various tracks, which in turn provide special actions to be exploited to win the game. This is not exactly an original title, but intriguing in its making.
5: Ra
Published by Ravensburger, Ra is the new edition of the homonymous game by Reiner Kniziaauction title and set collection, a classic for over 20 years.
Adding to the hype for this new edition are definitely the updated, high-quality components and incredible illustrations of Ian O’Toole.
4: Starship Captains
The new title of the Czech Games Edition is a space-themed (actually, Star Trek-themed) eurogame in which each player is in command of a spaceship and will try to complete different missions, moving in space, fighting pirates and managing their crew in an optimal way.
We confess that this Starship Captains is the title that most intrigues us in this ranking, and we can’t wait to try it at the next one Essen Spiel.
3: Ark Nova
About Essenwe had already talked about the title that we find in third place in this ranking: in this report of the last edition of Essen Spiel we presented Ark Nova as a title we would have heard of for a long time.
Time has not proven us wrong, given that the game (although it is no longer a novelty) according to users of boardgamegeek is the second most desired title of Gen Con 2022.
2: Septima
The new game of the Mindclash Gamesrecently funded on Kickstarteris a management system in which each player will have to move the witches of his coven to collect resources, create potions, cure the sick, and all while trying to avoid the witch hunters.
The title is based on an interesting simultaneous action selection mechanic, in which each player will get a bonus to the action he chooses if other players have also selected it, but at the same time it will attract the suspicion of hunters, increasing the risk of be caught and tried.
1: CoraQuest
Completely unexpected, BGG users vote CoraQuest as the most anticipated title of Gen Con 2022.
CoraQuest is a title suitable for the whole family: designed by Dan Hughes and his daughter Corathis is a cooperative Dungeon Crawler aged 6 and up, funded on Kickstarter (the late pledge is still open at the time of this writing). In short, an important outsider is positioned in the first place of this ranking: we are very curious to discover the post-fair opinions on the game to find out if this first place is really deserved.
Bonus: Great Western Trail Argentina
It does not fall by a whisker in the top ten, but for us it is one of the most anticipated titles of the year: we are talking about Great Western Trail Argentinaone of two stand-alone spin-offs announced for Great Western Trail (The second one, Great Western Trail New Zealandwill be published in 2023).
Great Western Trail is a famous game of deck building And set collection from Alexander Pfister: in this new version the farmers have been introduced, moreover there is no longer a single road leading to the city (no longer Kansas City but Buenos Aires in this version), the viable roads are different and there are shortcuts that will be possible to travel. We look forward to the arrival of our copy!
