My Top 10 Favorite Comfort Games

hey this is jamie with still minor games and today i'm going to talk about my top 10 favorite comfort games this is a term for a game that i don't think i'd heard until recently but someone asked me about my favorite comfort game and i didn't have an immediate answer so i've been thinking about it a lot and also i went to a game day one of my first fully vaccinated game days where everyone there including myself was fully vaccinated uh in a long time and i found that my endurance for playing a lot of games back to back has worn down a bit and that i fell back on some games that uh that i that i that i have to call comfort games that they were games that were easy to like intuitive to remember how to play them they were easy to set up um they were easy to teach i i am very familiar with these games so this is highly subjective i i'm very very familiar with these games they may not be um comfort games someone who hasn't played them and yet despite the ease of you know the setup and remember the rules they are still uh interested they still involve interesting decisions and uh they seem to offer a positive experience for the entire table so um they're it's hard i think for a player to have a really negative experience which i don't really want from a comfort game i want everyone to have a good time even in a competitive setting and uh so yeah let me let me jump into a few kind of honorable mention list one sub list that i want to put here is digital games and digital versions of games there are a few games that came to mind that are somewhat mindless games that i enjoy falling into if i just need kind of a five minute break from work or something like that um one is shards of infinity digital i really really love the shards of infinity digital implementation and it's so easy just to load up and start playing i think a lot of people might put star realms in that category starham is also really good but i just happen to prefer stars of infinity seven wonders on board game arena i think is one of those games where if someone brings it up at the end of uh at the beginning or the end of a game night that we're playing virtually it's so easy to fall into a pl and play interesting decisions but don't have to think a lot about it um but and it just plays so quickly on board game arena compared to real life and also slay the spire slate spire is maybe a little bit of a stretch for this list but it really it does feel a lot of fun to fall into a game of let's play the spire and play it for a little bit it can stretch out a little bit longer than i'd want to just take like a short digital game break but i do really enjoy it some honorable mentions these are really hard games to cut because i i have a number of comfort games i think i i i like playing comfort games um and so these games really could have made the list they are uh two of them are from stonemart games i would say red rising and wingspan are the two games from smart games that i would most consider comfort games for me personally and then from other publishers i have parks stone age just one dune imperium isle of skye clank scotland yard mysterium park the mind patchwork raw isle of cats glenmore 2 and draftasaurus so those are my honorable mentions so jumping into the list and really this list was incredibly difficult to rank um because i enjoyed all these games for different reasons i really tried to focus on the comfort aspect of it uh but it was more of like why why shouldn't i put this game higher on this list i had to think of it that way almost and uh so number 10 i have downforce downforce is a a racing game where typically i typically play this with six players uh you have one car that's assigned to you or that you choose during a little mini draft at the beginning of the game and then over the course of the game all you do in your turn is play a single card and that card indicates how far each card uh each car with that color will move if possible and you have to follow the order on the card so if it says like five red three green one blue you have to move the the red car forward five spaces if possible and then the green car three then the blue car one space and so i love that every or most players are involved and any turn you're engaged in kind of watching what a player will do on every turn because it will potentially impact your car and if not move your car it might impact your car's position or how they can move forward or not move forward and i also really like that there are reasons in this game to help other players um there are also reasons to kind of screw over other players and get them log jammed and let them not benefit from these cards you're playing that's a big part of the game but also there's certain times where you just need to move that green card out of the way and so you have to play a card that moves the green card first and farther than your own car just so you can get your car out of a a stop gap area on the on the course i also love the variety of tracks and downforce why is it a comfort game i guess for me is really the the real question is that it fits all these conditions it's very intuitive to teach and play what you're doing on your turn is so simple it doesn't take a lot of brain power but i'm still engaged with the decisions throughout the game i just have fun with downforce whenever i play so downforce is my number 10 game for this list oh man i did pull it off my shelf i have sagrada over there i totally forgot to pull it off the shelf sagrada is my number nine so granite i think a few of these games i think the theme plays a big part of it even though not necessarily but sagrada the the theme of making a stained glass window with simple dice drafting um and the puzzle of deciding where you want to put dice inside your your glass uh your your your stained glass just feels good feels good it's pleasant i it's it's welcoming um and it yeah i just i enjoy sagrada every time i play if i can highlight a few things about it that are somewhat related to being comfort i love the component of this the the thick big stained glass window i really should have pulled off my shelf the thick sting glass window where you slide a card into it um they could have done that component in a variety of ways but i like that they slide it in and that the inner compartment holds the dice in there kind of like a dual layered player mat really like that and uh the dice drafting is really nice but i really like the spatial puzzle of the game the special puzzle is very very satisfying to me so that is sagrada at number nine and number eight is tokaido i don't own tokaido i have played it on board game arena number of times and in life a number of times and um and i'm getting the uh the sequel called the miji so perhaps nimiji will take its spot on this list in the future but it's this one-way action selection time track that you you move forward as far as you want up until a certain point and gain the benefit that you really want on this track and so there's this the art is beautiful the theme is very pleasant it's this japanese this walk along a japanese path and i just i love how simple the decisions are basically you know how far forward do i want to go on this path but in doing so you're giving up all these other points of interest that you could be stopping at it's just it's a very pleasant stroll through uh through the the japanese countryside um and yeah it just it feels i i it's hard for me to entirely describe why all these games go on this list but takaido is just so comforting it's like a warm blanket of a game uh and that's why it's my number eight on this list spacebase is one that i would say maybe wouldn't have been on this list a few times a few years ago but i've really really found a lot of enjoyment for space base even given that i almost never win it i think i i may have never won space base space base is one of these games maybe kind of originated with katan where one uh all players uh one player rolls their dice um on on on their turn and all players can benefit potentially from those dice so if they roll a two and a three i can if i have cards set up in the right way on my mat i can gain the benefits of a two or three or i can have the numbers together and gain the benefits from a five there are so many great decisions points you can make over the course of the game mostly involving which cards do you add to your tableau um and the the decision point you have to make every turn of do i choose the two and the three or do i choose the sum of the numbers the five and activate that instead and on your turn when you're the one actually rolling the dice you are gaining kind of the best benefits from the cards on your mat it's just it's it's a it fits all these requirements i would say the only one that's a little bit of a stretch is that the setup does take a little while because you're putting out a lot of cards on the table but if you have more than one person helping out it really doesn't take that long to set up space base and it's just uh it's just a joy to play it just it feels good to play feels rewarding in fact i had to look at my my list of rewarding games because i think a lot of these comfort games are very rewarding they're not very punishing and space space is definitely a very rewarding game that's why it's at number seven on this list and number six kind of related to the previous two or related to space based and sagrada is role player role player is one that i only recently acquired even though it's been a comfort game for me for a long time if someone brings role player to game night i am excited to play because it's so easy to get to the table and so easy to have a satisfying experience from playing the game i this was actually the game that made me think about this list because i at the game night that i mentioned at the beginning of this recording uh role player was the game that i brought to the table because i was like you know i i'm happy to teach a game but i don't want it to be difficult to teach and i want to be able to pay attention to my own thing while other players are still learning the game and because it's so easy to learn and pick up i didn't have to constantly monitor the other players i could just kind of just relax and focus on my own dice placement and role player and that was the experience that i had that was it was exactly up the up the alley of what i was looking for and uh yeah i i love this game the the theme of the game is that you are building a character kind of a dnd style character but in a very abstract way you're using dice on your mat to uh to fill in all these various characteristics and meet these goals of like where certain colors of dice are placed or the total value of different dice in a row um and you have this alignment chart that you're moving around i love how the theme is mixed with mechanisms that are otherwise very abstract um and it just feels so satisfying to build this character but that may be another common theme with these games it's satisfying to end up building something in these games to look back with a sense of accomplishment at the end of the game that's a lot there's a level of comfort to that as well and that definitely happens for me in role player that's why it's number six on my list so we are at the top five now here number five azul summer pavilion definitely my favorite azul and uh just a really really nice rewarding pleasant game to play so the theme is pleasant the rules are very easy to remember uh setup hardly takes any time at all and it is the most rewarding of the azules in my opinion because over the course of the game not only are you scoring points for the end of the game but over the course of the game as well you are finishing certain sections on your map maybe you zoom in you can kind of see it here you're finishing certain sections of your player mat and when you do you gain a bonus tile or even up to three bonus tiles that you immediately get to place so there's this uh sense of progress and even a little bit of sense of of engine building and completion over the course of the game that actually means something more than points and that's why i really really love ozzie wilson more pavilion and why it is definitely a comfort game for me and number five on my list and number four is lords of water deep and this is kind of a duel award because this definitely could have fit into my digital game category for a long time i had it on my ipad my ipad's too old to use at this point but for a long time i would i would just take a break and play 10 minutes of lords of water deep on my ipad now i have it on steam on the pc i guess i could still do it there but i i love getting lords of water deep to the table as well it is just uh this this warm comfort of a worker placement game because it's so easy to get into and play uh everything about it is streamlined and intuitive and i love the sense of progression of the course of the game is as players kind of work together uh to to add new action spaces via the buildings of the board and um yeah it's just it's just a pleasant warm game to me and especially in the worker placement genre that's lords of water deep at number four and actually i should probably should mention one favorite mechanism thing since these videos are for designers but lords of waterdeep i think has one of the best mission systems in any game i really love the mission system in games because not only are you offering any points from the missions you complete or the i think their quest quests that you're completing but you're also gaining resources that you can use then for the next mission or you gain a permanent bonus an ongoing bonus or there are various things that you're gaining so every mission you complete uh has something that leads into the next step of the game so you're saying okay there's almost an order of the mission you're saying okay i'm going to complete this mission so i can gain this benefit and then do this thing next that feels really really good in lords of water deep that's number four on my list and number three is castles of mad king ludwig i love this game i love this game again it's a very rewarding game because in in as you are placing tiles in your zany crazy castle in this game you are often gaining two benefits you're getting a benefit for placing the tile usually points and then you're gaining if you complete all the all the uh if you're completed tile complete a room in your castle that means you close off all the entrances you gain an additional bonus based on the tile type for that room itself and that feels really good too so often in turn you're getting these two rewards that feels really good also there's the sense of completion you're building something over the course of the game there is uh the simplicity to to learn the game to play the game the rules are very intuitive and so really the only thing i ever have to look up in this game is uh how many cards do we put in the deck and i believe it's 11 per player so if i have that right i don't even i don't ever need to look at the rule book for this game the rules are so streamlined and intuitive the only thing i think holding it back from being a little bit higher is that the setup is a little arduous you have to put out the tiles in certain space places you have to shuffle certain tiles you have to shuffle the cards it's really not that big of a deal also i love the uh the i i price you choose mechanism this game has so many favorite mechanisms that i love and it's just it it yeah it's it's a it's a wonderful game i can't wait i'm getting i don't own it i'm getting the uh the special deluxe edition from kickstarter and that might actually solve the the setup issue issue is a harsh term to use for this the setup is really not bad in this game but compared to some of these other comfort games it does take a little bit longer number three on my list castle's american ludwig and number two quacks of quendlenberg this is another one that if a friend brings up hey do you want to play quacks and i just i'm not in the mood to like learn something new or teach something i just fall in the quacks again it's this warm blanket of a game quacks is a dag building bag building game where you're pulling tiles from a bag um and uh hoping that you don't put your luck so it has pusher lock has bag building i love that there's engine building within bag building of course and um there's also this variable setup in the game so every game the the meaning of the different tokens in the game changes uh based on a random setup choice that you make and it's just very pleasant i think in the past i would have put this this game a little bit lower on the list because i thought the setup took a long time but then i learned that there's a clever setup hack where instead of separating all the token types by type separate them by number and so that means that you don't have to set up i believe like instead of having six or seven different pools of tiles you have to sort through it's just three because there are only three different numbers on the different tokens in the game and that really that one thing makes setup so much easier because you're you you it's it's just super super easy to set up that way so with that that one little hack it setup is so much faster and hacked and quacks not hacks cracks this up at number two on my comfort games list and number one is a little game probably the shortest game on this list and that is fantasy realms i love fantasy realms this is one that fits so many things on this list it's super easy to set up it's so easy to to teach and get to the table you get to build such a satisfying combo of hands they're interesting decisions throughout the game the game doesn't oversay it's welcome but you can still play back-to-back games if you really want to i've done that many times i have the expansion now and i really enjoy the expansion and actually even the expansion is comforting because the expansion is not hard to teach at all it's easy to seamlessly always leave in the game and if you don't want the the rules overhead of teaching how the uh the what are they called the cursed items how how those items work then you just don't play with them it's not a problem just to not play with them but fantasy realms yeah this was the inspiration for red rising a game that i put in my honorable mentions um but uh fantasy round it's just such a comforting warm game to get to the table it's so easy to get to the table it just yeah it feels good to actually one of the nice things about famous arms is that you you start out with a random hand of cards that already feels good so right away from the beginning of the game you feel like you have done something even though you've done nothing the sense of endowed progress and then over the course of the game you hone that in you make it better and better over the course of the game maybe you take some chances you go after certain combination cards that that may or not may not work out so there's a little bit of tension there too but then it's over in 15-20 minutes and so yeah it's just it's it's a wonderful game i love fantasy realms and that's why it is my number one comfort game so i'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic maybe there's some some stipulations about comfort games that i haven't thought of i'd love to hear your thoughts on that and if you have i don't know a top three games that that you just fall into that they're warm blanket games where you just feel wrapped and comforted and happy when these games get to the table let me know what your top three comfort games are in the comments below thanks you

Channel: Jamey Stegmaier

Views: 9,884

Rating: 4.9768114 out of 5

Keywords: game design, board games, tabletop games

Id: GZWOoHz2gGY

Length: 17min 37sec (1057 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 18 2021