Ok I’ve decided to do a fourth and final instalment in this end of 2018 wrap up. So you have this one final post to endure.

Previously I’ve chosen my game of the year from the exclusive list of my game of the month winners from through out the year. But since stopping those month by the numbers posts that proved so popular and caused such an uproar when stopped, I needed another way to short list the games to choose from.

Luckily enough I did that yesterday with my Top 9 New To Me Games of 2018 post yesterday.

So for those who didn’t read it, and can’t be bothered to scroll down the page (although that would ruin this post because you’d see who the winner was). I present the Top 9 once more.

This was a really hard decision for me. There are some great games here, covering a spectrum of genres, mechanics and challenge.

The runners up after a lot of heart searching and deliberating are…

That leaves just one game as the winner, and it was a really hard decision.

My game of 2018 is…

This is what I said about the game back in June.

“It would be fair to say that I liked Outlive. For starters I love the theme, the post apocalyptic setting isn’t an over used theme like say zombies.

…

Does the theme come through? To some extent, you do feel that you are scrambling for scarce resources to survive. It’s not super thin and could be any theme, but it’s also not super heavy.

I like the use of leaders to give each player a unique feel and starting setup.

Once out of the box this game with all the components sprawls across the table. So you will need a bit of table space. The component quality is ok, lots of small bits of cardboard for the resources. I’d have preferred thicker player boards. I do like the meeples used to represent your workers who go out scavenging for your community. Having them stand up when used during the day phase and lie down to signify resting from the night phase. Brilliant mechanic that shows which has been used, it also thematic.

Being able to get “power ups” in the form of equipment, that needs to be repaired before you can get the benefit is cool. Plus if you have 2 pieces of equipment repaired and with matching symbols you get a bonus point at the end.

The radiation mechanic, which can kill you, forces you to either have survivors in your airlock to mitigate it during the night phase, or force you to reduce radiation by either visiting a specific location first, or get lucky scavenging in one of the city locations.

I like that each of your scavenger meeples has a number on the side to indicate the number of actions you can do with it at a location. These range between 3 and 5. These numbers are also used for hunting at specific locations, and to intimate other scavengers to get resources from your competition.

There is a lot to this game, and I’ve only scratched the surface. There is a whole resource management mechanic I’ve not talked about.

It’s a fun game, I’m hoping Gavin’s wife doesn’t like it so I can pick up a bargain. If not this will be in the collection at some point.”

In fact I couldn’t wait for Gavin’s wife, and got a copy, plus the parts of the Kickstarter that I liked the look of. Which if I remember correctly was the improved player boards.

It’s a great game, and deserves more love from the gaming community.