We’ve ‘touched’ on the sense of sound in board games… so let’s try a different one, how about games that are tactile and just feel nice.
We’re of the opinion that quality feeling components raise a good game to another level and so here are some games that aren’t just good, but great!
Glideballs, ceramic markers and a microfibre mat?
A purple box with a slide out drawer… a stylised golden ‘O’ on the box. Omshanti was always going to be something special.
The beautifully soft microfibre mat looks striking on the table and just asks you to stroke it. This alone would mean this game would make this list. The gildeballs are the icing on the cake.
What is a glideball? Well… kind of magical. When you glide the ball across the mat, it doesn’t look as though it’s rolling, by a clever use of a weighted floating inner sphere and a clear outer sphere, this is a treat to touch and roll.
The game itself is simple, get your ball in the next zone along and move your beautifully weighted ceramic token up a spot, get to the end, win. With three balls a round you can move three zones, but if you manage to get all three in the next consecutive zones, you get another go.
Beautiful. We’re going to say that a lot in this blog.
A block of dice, a frame and a cleaver?
What is it about rolling lots of dice that is so pleasing? It has to be that combination of anticipation, the feel of the heft of them in your hand, even the sound of them when they clatter and tumble against each other. In Diced Veggies you’ll throw the dice into a frame and then drag the frame so all the dice sit in a nice pleasing 5×7 block that represents a big old block of veggies!
Here’s another cool bit, you’re allowed to cut dice off the block, rules must be obeyed but you get the nice cardboard cleaver in hand, make a slice and slide the dice you want away from the block. What a treat for the fingertips!
Ooo… that’s nice. The aim of the game? Use veg to make meals, hype them up with special modifiers, make a bunch of meals and score the most for your culinary concoctions.
In my 1st play I was lucky enough to pair the ‘Bruschetta’ recipe card with the ‘You will never ever find better’ hype card. Love me some great alliteration!
A cloth mat, metal pawns and wooden flowers?
Not many games that I can think of describe themselves as ‘cosy’. In fact Lacuna is the only one I’m aware of.
A beautifully designed tube shaped container with the components that make up the ‘mystical geometry’ are nestled inside.
The cloth is black and mysterious, with gentle lapping waves surrounding the pool and flowers outside. But, this is not about the look of the game, it’s the tactile nature that we’re interested in today.
This comes from various areas, firstly in setup you will sprinkle the wooden flowers across the pool. There is something beautiful about this action, even spreading them out manually is pleasing to the fingertips. Once you are playing you’ll be placing shiny gold and silver pawns to collect pairs of flowers, these have a satisfying heft to them, even the little bag they come in is smooth and pleasant to the touch. The flowers themselves are also wonderful, their different petals means they feel subtly different when rolled in your palm or just taking them from the mat.
The game is indeed cosy and delightful, I love the fact you use a ruler in the last part of the game to determine ownership. You really should give this modern 2-player game of judgement a go, it’s only 10 minutes and just all kinds of great.
Gem chips… just gem chips?
Heft, clear and simple. Splendor didn’t need to use poker style chips for its gem tokens, it could have just used pop out cardboard discs.
True… but there is something super satisfying about these beautifully weighted, smooth faced darlings. Just how good is Splendor? Well, it was another Spiel des Jahres nominee in a particularly tough year (2014), up against Concept and Camel Up of all games. All these games are still very popular today and still in print. Arguably Splendor has been the most successful of these three, just looking at their ranking on Board Game Geek (the go to place for all your online board game queries), Splendor leads the way and it’s ‘Duel’ spin off is ranked even higher (and is soooo worth a play!).
It truly deserves a deeper dive at some point as it is such an amazing ‘engine builder’. But for now, those wonderful poker chips, as I say, beautiful. Also, new edition just out… can’t wait to get our hands on that!
A neoprene mat, more dice and a strangely coated box?
The first thing you will notice about MLEM: Space Agency is the box. It’s coated in something delightful, some kind of rubbery texture, your fingertips know that they are in for a treat. As you open this smooth box you first notice a rolled up neoprene mat. Now, I’m a sucker for a nice neoprene mat and have far too many add-on ones in my collection at home, here though, it’s standard. It’s colourful and playful to look at and, again, beautifully smooth and pleasing to the touch.
The dice are a nice size and weight, bigger than your usual dice and so again, have a nice weight in your hand. You’ll be rolling them a lot as this is a push your luck game by Reiner Knizia. Very much one of the styles of games that he excels at. The aim? Gather more points than anyone else as you send joint missions up into the cosmos, or to moons or planets… Oh yeah, cats in space. Yeah, I forgot to lead with the selling point…
Cats.
In space.
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Pretty much all of these games we mentioned today are a treat for the eyes as well as the touch. You owe it to yourself to give these a go if you haven’t previously, you will not be disappointed.
In fact, visit one of our sites and just lay your hands on a great game, you deserve to treat yourself.