Winter is coming soon, why not grab a big box of board games on this theme, to spend good evenings with friends?
As winter approaches and the evenings get longer, there’s nothing like getting together around a good board game. What do you mean we already do it all year round? All excuses are good, right? In any case, this season offers the perfect opportunity to discover these icy and inhospitable worlds, in the comfort of our living spaces powered by nuclear electricity. So I’ve put together a small selection for you!
Dead of Winter: everyone together against the cold (well except the traitor)
Dead of Winter: At the Crossroads stands out as one of the best semi-cooperative games, in a post-apocalyptic universe populated by zombies. Problem: zombies are not the main threat, because the lack of resources, the cold or the problems of jealousy between humans will give you a lot more trouble.
However, the players will have to help each other to achieve a common objective, with a small caveat: each secretly pursues their own objective. Including a traitor, in love with nihilism, ready to sabotage the group’s efforts to feel like they exist.
Dead of Winter is above all a unique atmosphere and mechanics based on the consequences of your decisions. Each player leads a group of survivors, and each decision made can have dramatic consequences for the colony. The “Crossroads” cards add a narrative dimension by triggering unforeseen events: moral dilemmas, incidents, critical situations.
Rich in interactions, Dead of Winter happily mixes cooperation and suspicion, each player becoming suspicious even to go get bread. Ah but no, there are more! Too bad, it’s still fishy!
The management of dice to perform actions, the risk of loss of survivors and the delicate balance between the accomplishment of personal and collective objectives give Dead of Winter good strategic depth. Lots of scenarios await you, and therefore good replayability too.
Endless Winter: come to my cave, there are already 4 of us
We take the Delorean to go to prehistoric times, more precisely to -10000, with Endless Winter. A good big expert game created by the author of the future Minos and Resurgence. It’s an ice age, and unfortunately, you’re a clan leader. You will have the difficult task of guiding your tribe across unforgiving icy expanses.
The game shines in its ability to recreate the authentic challenges of this period: the hunt for mammoths becomes a perilous but necessary enterprise, while the erection of megaliths symbolizes the birth of human civilization (and it keeps the people of the tribe busy, instead of trying to impeach you). Living is hard enough, but surviving disguised as a squirrel with the only distraction of knapping flints is even harder.
The strength of Endless Winter lies in its resource management system. Should you favor nomadism to exploit new resources, or sedentary lifestyle to develop your culture? Interaction between players is very present during negotiations for hunting areas or construction sites. Alliances are made and broken with the seasons, and you can count on your “friends” not to honor their promises. The main mechanics mix worker placement and deckbuilding.
Frosthaven : l’immense dungeon crawler
Frosthaven represents the ultimate achievement of the dungeon crawler genre, with an ambition beyond belief: 16 kilos of material, 2500 cards, and 138 scenarios potentially offering hundreds of hours of play. The box is literally a T2 with mezzanine, we can live in it. Frosthaven is the sequel to the legendary Gloomhaven, and Cephalofairits development studio, didn’t just cram in more content. It reinvented and refined every aspect of its predecessor.
The story takes place in the icy outpost of Frosthaven, where your group of mercenaries must not only survive but also contribute to the development of the colony. The tactical combat system, already brilliant in Gloomhavenhere reaches new heights of sophistication. Each character has a unique deck of cards representing their abilities, creating synergies.
Of course a huge progression of your character is to be expected, and the scenarios will take you very far, sometimes with impossible choices for the good of your camp/city. A ton of figurines, scenery, and boards await you, you still have to find the box. I pledged it and it proudly sits in my living room. Under cello. Shame.
The game will be available one day via Asmodée I imagine, for now your best solution is the second hand or the original version.
Frostpunk: grandma is compost
Adapted from 11 bit studios’ masterful video game, Frostpunk: The Board Game brings the oppressive atmosphere and heartbreaking moral dilemmas of the original into this big box. We remain in a post-apocalyptic set-up, where you had the bad idea of wanting to lead your little colony of survivors. You rule a city, nestled around a coal-fired reactor, one of humanity’s last bastions against the deadly cold.
The game’s central mechanic relies on a precarious balance between survival and morality. Saving lives in the short term is nice, but it can have disastrous consequences: more mouths to feed, more housing to provide…
Should child labor be imposed to increase coal production? Is it acceptable to ration food at the risk of creating social tensions? All this adds up to a cooperative resource management game, and each player will have to manage the reactor, or the buildings, the expeditions…
If the board game has difficulty matching the excellence of the video game, hampered by some of the heaviness inherent to its medium, it will still leave you with excellent memories. The game is hard, very hard in fact, and you will have to fight, in cooperation, to complete the proposed scenarios.
The game is out of stock everywhere (until mid-December), I just my own box with painted generator which I sell second-hand (contact me).
The Thing : tiens, Roger a 8 bras ?
Last but not least, I also wanted to talk to you (in my opinion), about the best game in this very cold selection: I named The Thing, adapted from the immense film by John Carpenter. In The Thing, you arrive at a scientific base in Antarctica, which is supposed to be quiet. Problem #1: Your helicopter half-crashed while landing. Problem #2: The scientists in question have discovered a hungry shapeshifting alien.
The game offers you absolutely brilliant gameplay based on hidden roles: you play humans, who try to repair the base and the helicopter to get lost. One player will play “the Thing” (from the start) and try to kill everyone. For humans, it’s about not dying from the cold, not dying from being bitten by a contaminated dog, not dying from hunger, not dying from being bitten by the Thing.
Every time you want to go to a room, you will exchange tokens with the other player. The Thing can decide to contaminate this player or not. To blend in with the crowd or to recruit… Suspicion will be at its peak, horrible paranoia. Blood tests, like in the film, will be present…
Really The Thing is very cool, it can be super subtle and full of finesse, betrayals and paranoid. Or become pulp and go into battle with kerosene, flamethrowers and grenades. Enjoyable!
That’s it for this selection! While some will watch lousy football matches, scroll through the nothingness of Tik-tok under a blanket or watch F1 with ExpressVPN for Mac, you will have 5 winter-themed games to sink your teeth into! Face hordes of zombies in the cold, guide your prehistoric tribe, explore frozen dungeons, manage a steampunk city of survivors or survive the Thing… Good immersion guaranteed by Campustech, and memorable moments between coop and betrayal. Winter is coming!
