Long time, no post, folks. Hope your new year has started well and that you are all gaming your butts off in celebration. I’m fairly bad at keeping track of the games that I’ve played but I thought I’d take a stab at throwing together a list of my top 5 games from 2014 for you. Here we go!

5. Abyss

Abyss is a gorgeous set-collection game that I have come to really enjoy. I’m not super great at it – I think I’ve only won one time, but even when I lose I just keep wanting to play. The components are really neat and the abilities of the various lords that you purchase add a fun element to the set-collection mechanic that the game is founded on. All of the graphics are excellent, too. All around, I think Abyss has become one of my favorite games, in addition to one of my top five games of 2014.

4. Marvel Dice Masters

We got many plays out of last year’s big hit, Marvel Dice Masters, and each was wonderfully enjoyable. As a big fan of Quarriors, it came as little surprise to me that I was delighted by this game. It is easy to learn and quick to play, and with the wide variety of characters and abilities, no two games are the same, giving it quite extensive playability.

3. Chimera

Chimera was an instant favorite for me. It moves quickly but it still allows players to employ some thought when throwing out tricks of cards as there is a very important element of deception. The cards in Chimera are bright, fun and sturdy, which is perfect because you’ll want to play again and again!

2. Star Realms

What a fantastic battle! Star Realms is a fast-paced, action-packed deck-building game that, while it can be played with more players, will kill hours for any pair of gamers. Star Realms is also quick to learn, and easy enough that it can be picked up by gamers of many levels.

1. Paperback

This game was a Christmas present from Buns, and, as you can tell by its ranking for me at #1, I absolutely love it. Paperback is a deck building game in which players compete to spell words in order to gather money for new letter cards and fame (a.k.a. victory points). Personally, I’m a Scrabble veteran so this game was immediately close to my heart. Unfortunately, as with Scrabble and Bananagrams, I think that my joy in spelling elaborate words has eliminated many possible opponents in this game.