Inkognito: A Carnival of Spies in Venice

Inkognito is a deduction game that has been reproduced after being out of print for many years. First produced in 1988, it won the Spiel des Jahres for most beautiful game. The original game was for 4 players only; the new version has added a 3 and 5 player variation, though most reviewers say that the 3 player game is not very good, the 5 player is okay, but the 4 player is still the best.

Inkognito could be seen as an advanced variation on the game Clue. The difference is that you play in partnerships but you don't initially know who your partner is. On each turn, a player moves one of his “agents” and may approach another player and ask a question. That player then secretly reveals a number of cards, one of which provides correct information. As in Clue, a notepad is used to keep track of answers in order to narrow down the correct clues.

You first have to discover who your partner is (as your partner is trying to do as well). The two of you next have to determine what your mission is — each of you has half the information required to determine the mission. You and your partner then try to complete your mission, as the other team is trying to complete theirs.

A device unique to this game uses coloured marbles to randomly determine the moves possible on a player's turn.

There are a couple of good videos explaining the game: Tom Vasel at The Dice Tower and Marco at OmniGamer.

WS Gaming Co.

Maker of deluxe versions of popular games, WS Gaming models give a luxury feel to the game. Some are made of glass, and some of wood to give high relief to the board. Others are redesigned with custom layouts.

Clue Luxury Edition

Monopoly Prisma Glass Edition

Monopoly California Dreaming

They also make deluxe versions of Scrabble, Risk, Sorry and others.

Summit

From Canadian game designer Conor McGoey comes a complex but exciting game based on the challenges of ascending a mountain. The players have to contend with climbing gear, food supplies, oxygen, blizzards, ice fields and all the hazards of mountain climbing to reach the top and return to base camp. A great feature of the game is that it can be played as a solo game, a cooperative game or as a competitive game.

There are a couple of expansions available. Teams adds new cards and characters, and a new playable tile type: ladders. According to the website, the Yeti expansion “brings a new level of excitement and distress to your expedition as you, your friends and your rivals are stalked across the frozen landscape by an unrelenting foe.”

Teams

 

Yeti

And there will soon be a new expansion: Sanity, which challenges the climber's mental fitness to conquer the summit. Planned for release sometime in 2023. 

                 Sanity

Here are a couple of good videos by the creator of the game, Conor McGoey, explaining the Cooperative/Solo version and the Competitive version of the game. And here is another video of a full play-through of the game.

Ready Set Bet

This new game from Alderac Entertainment has been very highly rated and is a top game in many online reviews. It is essentially a horse track betting game and the excitement comes from the bets changing as the race progresses and the variety of bets available.

One player is designated as the race runner who uses dice to advance the horses down the track (though an app can be used to replace this function). Other players place bets as the race progresses. The winner is the one with the most money after four races.

Martin Wallace

Martin Wallace is a renowned designer of economic board games who has created over 40 games and has brought out some of the most popular games of the last 20 years. The following are a list of his games with BGG ratings in brackets. His first success was Age of Steam (7.8). Then came the extremely popular Brass Birmingham (8.6) and Brass Lancashire (8.2). The follow up, Tinners' Trail (8.2), which I have played, is a great game. London (7.5) is an interesting historical game and is highly rated. The latest, soon to be released, Daimyo: Battle for Japan (7.6), looks interesting.

2022 Games

Some of the new and yet to be released games for 2022 that have been highly anticipated are Virtù: The Art of Governing, Elite, and the card-based game Kompromat. Kompromat has a 7.1 rating on BoardGameGeeks, and Elite has an 8.5 rating.

Kompromat is available from Amazon, Virtù will be released in the spring of 2023, and Elite is available from the manufacturer.

PnP Games

Print and Play (PnP) games are simple card-based games that one can make oneself. The idea is to download the game card pages (usually PDFs) and print them at home or by using a printing service like Print & Play. The cards can then be cut out manually or with a programmable cutter like CriCut Explore Air 2. To get professional looking rounded corners on cards the Kadomaru corner-cutter works great.

Because of their small size they make great travel games. Many are for solo or two players, and many are free or cost only a couple of dollars. Typically there are only a few cards but there may be a dozen or more. Some of the download sites are Button Shy Games, PNP Arcade, PnP Paradise, Good Little Games and BoardGameGeeks. The site Solo Board Gamer also lists some PnP games. Pub Meeple has many resources for PnP construction.

Some popular free games are Black Sonata, Orchard, Empire, Ragemore, Rove, and Mini Rogue. 

Kadomaru corner cutter

Travel Games

It's nice to have some small games to throw in your suitcase to have while you travel or to have at your destination. Some are miniature games with multiple playing pieces (like Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies), others are dice or card games. I've selected a few interesting games to include in your next travels. Most of these are in a container about the size of a deck of cards (or two).

• Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies - the ultra small version of the already small and extremely popular Tiny Epic Galaxies game.
• Sushi Go! is smaller version of the popular card drafting game Sushi Go Party!
• Coup is a very popular bluffing game of intrigue.
  
• Hive Pocket is a tiny travel version of the tile placement game Hive.
• Fugitive is a card based chase game.
• Saboteur (3+ players) or Saboteur: The Duel (1 or 2 players) - a mining game.
• Love Letter is an historical strategy game.
• Sea Salt & Paper (highly rated by Foster the Meeple)
• Nana (highly rated by Foster the Meeple)
• The Mind is an unusual game requiring coordinated card play without communicating!
  
• There are two card deck versions of the board game Clue or Cluedo (as it's called in the UK): Clue Card Game and Cluedo Shuffle. I think they are the same other than the name.
• Monopoly Deal is a card deck version of the game.
• Catan Dice Game is a dice variation on the game.
• Struggle For Catan is a card based variation on the game.
• Palm Island is a resource management card game.
• Dustrunner is a "Mad Max" themed card game.
  
• Jeopardy! card game.
• Scrabble Slam! is a card deck version of the game.
• Pocket Games Test Cricket is a small dice cricket game.
• Quiddler, a word card game, is sort of a combination of Scrabble and Rummy.
• Five Crowns is a good rummy-style card game (invented by the same person who invented Quiddler).
• Star Realms is an advanced space-themed deck building game.
• A regular deck of playing cards, of course, provides a multitude of games.

Some other games that also come in small packages (about the size of a deck of cards but slightly thicker) suitable for travel (from Oink Games):

• Scout (a Spiel des Jahres nominee)
• Insider
• Startups
• Deep Sea Adventure
• In a Grove
• Town 66
• Nine Tiles Panic
• Moon Adventure
  
• A Fake Artist Goes To New York – a party game for 5-10 players

Here and here are a couple of good video reviews of Oink Games.

Ticket To Ride: The Card Game is larger than the pocket sized games listed above but is much smaller than the standard board game version. Rummikub Travel is also not as small as those above but could still be a travel game (7.5" x 5" x 2").

There are a few card based games that are really small – the cards are the size of standard playing cards but there may be only a dozen or so cards. Most are two player and some with a solo option; a few are solo only. Some of the most popular are produced by Button Shy Games:

• Skulls of Sedlec
• Revolver Noir
• Ugly Gryphon Inn
• Ragemore
• In Vino Morte
• SpaceShipped series
• Avignon: A Clash of Popes
• Rove
• Circle the Wagons
• Unsurmountable
• Sprawlopolis
• Tussie, Mussie
• Hierachy
• Agropolis
• The Family Dinner - an 18 card RPG
• Stew

Another maker of tiny game is Perplext whose games are about the size of a couple of chewing gum packs (about 4" x 1" x 3/4").

See also my Print and Play (PnP) page.

Tiny Epic Galaxies

The most popular of the Tiny Epic game series, Tiny Epic Galaxies, though small, is an interesting and complex game in a small package. The game primarily involves colonizing planets from your home galaxy to add the victory points required to win the game. It is, amazingly, available in an even smaller package called Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies, which is the same game in a package the size of a deck of cards which makes it an ideal travel game.

Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies

Ultra Tiny Epic Galaxies

There is also an expansion called Beyond the Black that adds more features like pilots, exploration cards and additional planets.

Tiny Epic Galaxies: Beyond the Black