At SPIEL Essen 24, Candice Harris and I stopped at a used game vendor's stall and yakked about old games for an hour, with me doing most of the yakking as I described old games that she had never seen before:
We've continued to talk about old games on and off since then, with the most recent conversation taking place for the seventh episode of her Kickin' It Creative podcast:
How did this episode come about? In late 2025, we talked about forming an "Old Game of the Month" club, with us inviting others to join us in playing a specific old game each month, then getting together online to discuss that game, which we would ideally have played several times. The idea would be to choose an old game, e.g., at least a decade old, that wouldn't be too ubiquitous — no El Grande, no Pandemic, etc. — but that wouldn't be too hard to acquire either.
In May 2025, I published a written and video review of Venedig, a 2007 release from Klaus-Jürgen Wrede (Carcassonne) and AMIGO. After owning Venedig for at least fifteen years, as I used to make a habit of buying cheap games on eBay.de, I finally pulled it off the shelf, playing it four times and loving its old-school charm. Why not do this more often, I said?
Then I didn't.
Now Candice and I are collectively making a push along these lines, using the time-honored technique of getting a buddy to link arms with you and make you feel like you can't let the other person down.
For the podcast, we each chose two older titles, with mine being Leo Colovini's Aztlán, which Ares Games released in 2012, and Reinhold Wittig's Wabanti, which debuted in 1974 and which I've owned for approximately twenty years in a 1986 edition from Franckh, the precursor of KOSMOS. Those two games were going to hit the game table today...
...until a fifth person RSVPed. Time to change plans! Here's the new line-up for game day on Friday, March 13:
I've played Lumberjack, a 2002 title from Alan R. Moon, Aaron Weissblum, and Schmidt Spiele twice — once in 2007 (which I don't recall) and again in January 2026 on an in-shrink copy that I purchased cheaply at some point and opened umpteen years afterward.
I'm more familiar with Andreas Steding's Scottish Highland Whisky Race, which he released in 2004 through his own MOD Games brand. I've played nine times since buying it at SPIEL '04, but not since 2011, so in a way I'll be relearning this game at the same time I'm teaching it to others. We'll see. Maybe it will all come back to me as I'm deciding how much malt to sock away in my hand to determine my movement bid for the turn.
The other two titles — Big or Bang from Peter Jürgensen and Korea Boardgames, and DNUP from Kai Kejino and asmodee — are both review copies that accommodate five players, so they're possibilities as well. We'll see what happens once everyone arrives.
What old game recommendation would you have for me — or for yourself should you be willing to undergo this challenge as well?
