CMON Feature Friday: Holiday Gift Guide
It can be tough to find great gifts for the people on your list. You don’t want to commit to something only to find out they already have it, or worse, they’d never have wanted it in the first place. The best thing to do is get inside their heads. Find out about their personality and then go into shopping mode armed with that information.
For this week’s CMON Feature Friday, we’re giving you some ideas on games that will be perfect for someone you know. Not everyone can be boiled down to simple descriptions, but these are some good starting points.
The Smarty Pants
Whether you work with them, they’re in your game group, or even a family member, we all know someone who is a logical thinker. Someone who is almost annoyingly intelligent, to the point where they’re looking for a challenge to their cranial dominance. For the Smarty Pants in your life, you want to get them a brain burner, a game that is going to tax their mental facilities and make them feel as if their head has been given a good workout by the end of it. In Lorenzo il Magnifico, players have to lead their noble families to more prestige in Florence during the Renaissance period. Over the course of six rounds, players gather resources, construct buildings, conquer territories, make powerful allies, and pay homage to the church. It’s a game where you always feel just one action short of what you want to accomplish. It’s perfect for the person who always seems to have a plan. If you don’t feel like competing with an intellectual marvel, join forces with them and travel back to the front lines of World War I with The Grizzled. You’ll work together as a team in one of the toughest cooperative games ever made. Surviving through the war and living until the armistice is no easy task. You’ll be happy to have a strategic master on your side, and they will appreciate the mental challenge that the game offers.
The Art Lover
There are many different aspects of board games for people to enjoy. The strategic elements are definitely there, but so, too, are the artistic ones. A big draw to many games that are coming out these days is the incredible artwork on display. A natural choice for the art lover in your life is Modern Art. This game places players as the head of a museum buying and selling art pieces in order to make the most amount of money. It features actual art from five of the world’s best modern artists, making each game a gorgeous experience. The rulebook for Modern Art is also an art book, featuring biographies and art samples from each of the artists in the game. Dream On is another title that will appeal to the artistic creative side of any gamer. In Dream On, players share a lucid dream, telling the story together, one card at a time. From their hand of beautifully illustrated abstract cards, players will tell parts of their dream by adding the cards to the pile. When the timer runs out, the dream is over. Now it’s time to see how memorable to the adventure was. One at a time, players have to remember the next step in the dream. Depending on how good the collective memory of the players is, they will receive a score. The better the story they tell, the easier it will be to remember. It’s perfect for the creative minds on your list.
The Adventurer
You probably know someone that is always up for an adventure. Someone, who shouts, “I’m in!” before you’ve even finished your sentence. For this person, Massive Darkness is the perfect gift. Packed full of incredible miniatures, beautiful dice, and an engaging story that will keep you hooked through the entire campaign, Massive Darkness is a great choice for those that embrace adventure in their lives. You take on the role of Lightbringers working together to end the reign of terror the Darkness is trying to bring about. You’ll enter the catacombs that the Darkness calls home and do battle with its minions in ten different Quests. With tons of expansions and add-ons already in retail, you’ll have lots to choose from if the game is a hit. Maybe you want to introduce some competition in your adventuring. In that case, Gateway: Uprising is an excellent option. You control a rebel faction in the city of Gateway, a location once known for its use of magic. The evil Chancellor Gideon has outlawed magic, but you’re bringing it back in a bid to free the city. Not only do you have to contend with the city guards and other rebels, you’re also under threat by the Drueggar Hordes, a pack of giant monsters just outside the city walls. With cunning, strategy, and a little bit of luck, you can free the districts and return order to the city.
The Social Butterfly
Parties can be a lot of fun! However, gaming parties can be hard to plan for. When you have a large group of people coming over to get their game on, you’re forced to either break up into smaller groups or pull out a title that will accommodate a crowd. In Raise Your Goblets, you take on the role of a noble in the land of Otravia, gathered with others from the upper crust for a dinner party and to name the next King of the land. The problem is that everyone wants the position, and they’re willing to kill for it! Every round, you’ll drop deadly poison, healing antidote, and harmless wine into the goblets as they’re swapped and rotated around the table. Once someone calls a toast, there is one more round of actions and then everyone drinks! Surviving the round, killing your target, and drinking the most wine earns you points! If you have a crowd over, but you’re looking for games with less of a regicide theme, Sherlook might be the solution you’re looking for. In Sherlook, you play master detectives trying to solve a crime. You step away from the scene for one second and some rookie beat cop makes a mess of it. Now you have to spot the differences between two nearly identical crime scene photos. It’s a race to find the anomalies for up to six players. Use your keen powers of observation and you just might solve the case.
This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it might come in handy when you’re braving the holiday crowds to go shopping for the important people in your life.
