Happy Thanksgiving from Don't Eat the Meeples

I don't have a long newsletter for you today, but I do have a happy one. I'm so pleased to announce the arrival of our second child. I'm writing this from the hospital room, where Ginny is recovering from a planned C-section and our new baby is sleeping.

I couldn't leave you without any discussion about board games — my board gift guide is in progress and should be out early next week, so I don't have much prepared.

I did find the beginnings of an article from a year or so ago talking about some great climbing games, so I'll give you just a very short list of some good ones, each of which should be available to purchase right this very minute.

• Haggis (Ross, 2010) — A great two-player climber with a great bomb setup — 3/5/7/9, so you sometimes have to decide if you want to disrupt a good run to play a bomb.
• Scout (Kajino, 2019) — A hit from Oink Games where you can either play or take a card into your hand. You can't rearrange your hand, so everything you play has to be ordered just-so in your hand.
• Five Three Five (Kabuki, 2020) — Play sets, singles and runs. Low-rank runs are better than high-rank runs, but otherwise high-rank cards are better. Plus, you can add cards to melds. Neat!
• Maskmen (Sasaki and Shinzawa, 2014) — Rankless cards means this game is all about determining the priority of each suit.
• Crisps (Bhat, 2024) — A suitless two-player climber that's all about figuring out the timing of when you play runs and sets, because after each trick, you'll be adding a card to your hand. Win the trick and you get to pick between a face-up card and a face-down card. Lose the trick and you get whatever's left.
• Bacon (Ross, 2024) — A six-player climber with two teams of three. (It's also playable at four, or without partnerships, but that's where this game is best.) The team whose player goes out first gets points for the round, but the points they get depends on when their teammates go out.
• Seers Catalog (Reiner, 2024) — Try to shed nearly all your hand, because when a player goes out, if you have five or fewer cards, you get points for your highest-value card, and you lose a point per card in hand.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday if you're in the United States or otherwise celebrate the holiday, and if you're not, I hope you have a wonderful Thursday!