It’s June, so you know what that means? It’s Pride Month! A time to celebrate our queer peers and enjoy the wealth of love that diversity brings. It’s been a tough year for LGBTQ+ folk, especially trans people, so why not treat your best gaymer friends to a new board game to lift their spirits in these troubling times?
For some ideas, here is a selection of the games that are on my (neverending) wishlist with LGBTQ+ designers to show some love to this pride month. I’m not sure of the labels that everyone on this list identifies with, but they are all openly on an LGBTQ+ game designer list over on BoardGameGeek.
Finspan
Finspan is a game with Elizabeth Hargrave as a designer. It is another delightful addition to the Wingspan family of games, but instead of birds or dragons, this time it’s fish! In this game, players take their divers to new unexplored depths to find fish, possibly breeding them to create schools. Placing fish is a lot more freeform in this game, compared to the others in the series, you no longer work in one direction, but can place them in any area that they can go. I really like that the Finspan adaptations create a completely new experience, with new rules and encounters but still keeping the same warm heart of the original Wingspan. I am quite sad that the egg figures are an extra purchase, rather than coming with the base game. Unlike the other editions, where the egg minis are an integral part, in Finspan, you only get flat cardboard pieces unless you pay extra. Boo.
Caution Signs
Caution Signs is a party game with Danielle Reynolds as a designer. Players pick a random adjective and a random subject, then must draw a sign that would warn road users of their presence. A guesser player then collects all the cards together, along with some unused ones and must guess which pairings match which drawings. This game looks hilarious, regardless of artistic ability. I really like how the guessing mechanic works. It lets more people do the fun part of drawing each turn, creating wacky works of art (or abominations). Despite not getting to draw for a round, the guesser also has an enjoyable experience because it acts more like a puzzle than just straight up guessing, as you can use some deduction and the process of elimination to work out which is which.
Cretaceous Rails
Cretaceous Rails is a game with Ann Journey as a designer. In this game, players compete as rival tourism companies looking to gain the most tourists on their time-travelling train rides through the Cretaceous period, seeing all the dinosaurs on offer. Think Ticket to Ride, but with dinosaurs! However, there is a lot more to Cretaceous Rails than just Ticket to Ride with dinosaurs. I am really intrigued by the mechanism to pick actions, where you place cards in a square grid and put a token between two to choose which two actions you play that turn. It feels very unique and keeps the game fresh, as different cards and layouts will give you different options. You can also upgrade your actions by completing objectives which I also like as it gives you different mini-goals each game. I missed the kickstarter for this so now I’m eagerly anticipating its retail release!
The Fox Experiment
Maybe it’s cheating to have another game with Elizabeth Hargrave as a designer, but her games are so good, I want them all. The Fox Domestication Experiment is one of my favourite experiments in history (does it make me a really big nerd to have a favourite historical experiment?). In the second half of the 20th century, Russian scientists bred foxes for their tameness, to simulate thousands of years of domestication, but with more scientific controls. They found that domestication occurred relatively quickly over the generations and, even though they weren’t selecting for the traits, the foxes became more and more dog-like in their appearance, such as floppy ears or shortened tails. In this game, you play through the story of the experiment as the researchers, breeding foxes and gaining points for their tameness, with dice rolling to simulate the randomness of genetics. I adore this story and so I’m really intrigued by the ability to play through it as a board game.
Everyone Else Thinks This Game Is Awesome
Everyone Else Thinks This Game is Awesome is a trivia game with Matt Fantastic as a designer. This is another kickstarter that I missed, and I haven’t seen it in UK retail yet, but fingers crossed it’ll get here soon. In this game, players aim to work their way up the academic ladder, to become an emeritus professor by correctly assigning grad students to laboratories. Grad students are assigned based on the answers you think people have to trivia questions, scoring points if you assigned grad students to players’ labs who got the trivia right. You can also double your points if you correctly guess that either everyone got the question right or everyone got it wrong by assigning grad students to the conference centre or cafeteria. I love a good trivia game. Am I any good at trivia? No. But in Everyone Else Thinks This Game is Awesome, you don’t need to be right, you just need to be good at guessing if the people you are playing with got it right.
