I’m continuing my slow walk through the alphabet and choosing a few of my favorite games that start with the letter B.
Bunny Kingdom
Bunny Kingdom is a card-drafting game where players use their cards to place their bunnies out on a board, add cities or resources, and collect game-end scoring opportunities. The goal is to control regions of the board that have both resources and large cities to score the most points.
I’m not going to lie … the little bunny figures are one reason I love this game. As the game progresses and you have this map of different-colored bunnies populating the spaces, it is just a joy to look at. Drafting is also one of my favorite mechanisms, and I love the agonizing decisions that come with it — do I take the one with the plot of land that would connect two of my areas of bunnies, or hope that no one takes it and it comes back to me because there’s an end-scoring card that could get me a lot of points. The only down side to the game is the amount of math at the end of the game, as one or two players pulls out a dozen game-end scoring cards. But even that doesn’t really bother me.
Bärenpark
Bärenpark is a tile-laying game where players are building out a zoo filled with bears (and one non-bear). As they play tiles, they’ll cover different symbols that grant them various benefits, like taking a specific-sized tile or adding a new zoo-board to their tableau. There’s a race-element as players want to be the first to completely fill each square board in their zoo to get the highest-point bear statues. At the same time, they are working to be the first to complete various goals.
It’s no secret that I love zoo-themed games, so this one was a no-brainer for us to pick up. I really like looking at all the available pieces and which symbols on my board I could trigger with each one. It’s a puzzle to maximize each tile placement to get additional tiles that will help you out to fill your boards and complete goals. We’ve also added the expansion to our game, which has two modules you can add — monorails that pose another puzzle on top of the polyomino-placement puzzle and grizzly bear tiles that are massive and bizarrely shaped. And I love this game with either expansion module, both, or none.
Beyond the Sun
Beyond the Sun is a tech-tree building game where players collectively build out a board with better and better actions while also exploring and colonizing exoplanet systems for their resources and … well, points.
Beyond the Sun isn’t the prettiest game, but what it lacks in looks it makes up for in game-play. The resources in this game are always tight, and while the number of available action spaces grows during the game, it can be hard to activate the best spots if you haven’t built up your engine for producing coal and recruiting people to your company. This can be a super-thinky game, which is just the type of thing I love.
—
What are your favorite games that start with the letter B? Or is there one from my list that you love or are hoping to try? Let me know in the comments!