Red Pages Podcast
Red Pages Podcast Games of the Year 2020
Gord's Picks
Justin says I can't pick Dwarf Fortress (I'm not even sure I played this year, but once it gets an official Steam release I'm sure gonna play the heck out of it).
You know what game did come out this year though?
Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
It took me a while to even consider this game just because of the degree to which it has sunk into my routine. Air is pretty important, but it's always there. Not being covered in ants? Big thumbs-up from me, but I'm not usually covered in ants. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion has fully displaced every other board game, including its big brother Gloomhaven Prime. That's not true. We played Unearth a couple months ago. Other than that it's been Jaws Jaws Jaws.
What is Jaws of the Lion?
It's part followup, part fleshing-out, part onboarding tool.
The one complaint about supergame Gloomhaven is the learning curve (we're still learning things we've been doing wrong since the start, see this extensive quiz about monster AI). Gloomaven Alpha drops you into a tough fight right out of the gate while you're still trying to figure out if you're holding your cards upside down, and some of you are going to sink rather than swim, and put the shelf-breaking box into a closet somewhere.
Enter Jaws of the Lion.
Jaws is a closed system that introduces the layers of game mechanics gradually over the first five or six scenarios, and makes some major changes to simplify setup and gameplay (like sizing the scenario maps up in the book so you place your units right on the page, a choice that allows for more artistic creativity, since the set pieces don't need to be repurposed for any other scenarios). Gloomhaven veterans will zip through these games while appreciating the new characters, and newcomers will be able to take their Jaws knowhow into the larger game with no trouble.
It takes all the tight tuning and great design that is evident in Gloomhaven and focuses it all in that precious first-few-games experience, without talking down to the player, and then delivers the best gift of all: more Gloomhaven to play.
Once we're done Jaws (complicated as that has become during the pandemic) we're bringing these compatible characters back to clean up the main game, then it's on to the Forgotten Circles expansion (one new playable character, some new mechanics, a self-contained storyline, and maybe some surprises) and then pining for Frosthaven (or maybe we'll dip into some of the extensive community-created content).
However that ends up looking, Gloomhaven and Jaws of the Lion have had a profound impact on my gaming life, easily securing the Game of the Year slot from me.
Runner-Up
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
Justin sure talked this game up, and it's good, but I felt like I was only giving it the title of Gord's Game of the Year solely by virtue of not having played any better games.
I like it!
I really enjoyed it. I love weird genre fusions, though I wish the combat part was more mechanically interesting, and that it tied back into story mode. And the story's really good! And there were some surprises. I'd certainly recommend that you play this game if you can. But I'm also glad that I remembered Jaws of the Lion because as good as 13 Sentinels is, it just can't compete with the breadth of my enjoyment of more Gloomhaven content.