My Top 10 “New to Me” Games of 2024

Welcome to this week’s gaming post! As I mentioned in my 2024 Year in Review, I managed to play 85 different games last year. While a decent chunk of those were games that I had played before, many were also new to me as of last year. This week, I’ve decided to rank all of the games I played for the first time last year to create a Top 10 “New to Me” list.

Before we get into the list, one game that would have easily topped the charts, potentially even my number one, was Great Western Trail: New Zealand. While New Zealand feels like the biggest deviation in the franchise, it still retains the core Great Western formula. Therefore, I decided to remove New Zealand from the consideration. With that out of the way and without further ado, let’s jump into the games!

Earlier this year, I wrote about how much I enjoyed Carnegie’s follow-the-leader system that has you moving your workers around and activating your own departments here. The game certainly surprised me when I played it, especially how smooth the gameplay was for the amount of complexity. The only thing keeping it back from making it higher up my list was that I only played the game that one time. However, there’s plenty of room for Carnegie to climb up the rankings with more plays. 

One of my most recent reviews for the blog, Black Forest just managed to sneak onto the list after playing the game quite a few times over the holidays. As I mentioned in my review, the resource wheels won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I enjoy the interesting twist on the resource management genre. It also helps that the game is one of Uwe Rosenberg’s most streamlined among his big-box designs; plus, it is a breeze to teach, and the game doesn’t overstay its welcome.

I recently talked about how The White Castle feels like a game that is more than just the sum of its parts in my recent Year in Review, where it appeared as one of my most played games of the year. The game manages to hit that perfect sweet spot of feeling crunchy, but not overly complex, while still maintaining a relatively short runtime for a medium-weight euro. I also wrote a review of the game here if you’re interested in reading my in-depth thoughts on the game. 

As with most of Ryan Laukat’s narrative games, I feel like I’ve only scratched the surface of Near and Far. So far, I’m really enjoying the character stories and its refreshing blend of both euro mechanics and storytelling. There’s just something incredibly enjoyable about building up your party before adventuring through the game’s world.   

As I mentioned in my PAX Unplugged recap, Civolution was one of my favorite games I played at the convention. While the game certainly has its flaws, like its long teach and runtime, I have to give the game credit. Once we got going, the dice selection mechanism, along with upgrading your techs and building out a tableau of cards, was extremely satisfying. Like Carnegie, I could definitely see this one climbing with more plays.

As a huge Lord of the Rings fan, I still can’t believe that last year was the first time I played War of the Ring. Playing as Sauron and the Shadow Armies, I managed to conquer enough strongholds just before the Fellowship reached Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring. This game manages to capture the feeling of playing through the original Lord of the Rings trilogy, and I can’t wait to jump back in sometime to try playing as the Free Peoples.  

In addition to being my most played game this year, Arkham Horror LCG was also one of my favorite games discovered last year. I played through both The Path to Carcosa and The Forgotten Age campaigns which was previously discussed on the blog here and here. For a card game, Arkham Horror LCG manages to excellently capture the Lovecraftian theme. Also, while the deckbuilding can be overwhelming as a new player, it’s very enjoyable once you get the hang of it.

One of the first games I covered on the blog here, Earth is a simultaneous, tableau engine-builder that allows you to build out satisfying combos. Plus, the simultaneous nature of the game ensures that there’s very little downtime. While the amount of options can be a bit overwhelming to new players, once you get a handle on how everything links together, the game becomes a very enjoyable tactical experience.

Wayfarers of the South Tigris is another tableau-building, dice/worker-placement game that puts an interesting spin on the dice-placement mechanism. I love upgrading the icons for your dice, and combined with building out a tableau of dice-placement actions, the game offers tons of replayability. I have talked about the game quite a few times here on the blog, but if want to learn my more detailed thoughts, you can check them out here.

Going through my first campaign of Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies was one of my favorite gaming experiences from last year (detailed write-up on it here). I am a huge fan of story-driven, open world video games, and Distant Skies is able to replicate a similar feeling in a board game. Writing this post also reminds me that I still need to play a campaign of the original Sleeping Gods – more to come on this!

I recently wrote a full review of SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence here, and spoiler alert, I really liked the game. I always appreciate a design that leverages multi-use cards, and SETI is no exception with each card being able to be used in four different ways. Plus, the theme and variability that the unique alien species add only enhances the overall enjoyment. SETI set a high bar in 2024 for me, so we’ll have to see if any game this year can top it.. 

With that, I’ll wrap my top 10 “New to Me” games I discovered last year! It’s always fun to talk about my favorites, but now I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the games I’ve mentioned or future content suggestions in the comments below! Let me know what your favorite games you discovered last year are. Happy gaming!

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