I also really like asymmetrical games. In particular the various Tafl[0] reconstructions. Some are unbalanced, but some are very balanced and fun to play as either attacker or defender. There are various versions with rule variations to accommodate various board sizes too.

I have not played Unlur. Looks like a cool hex variant. I like the initial phase where who plays white is decided. It is a neat way of working that out.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tafl_games

Thanks for the suggestions! Guest accounts are definitely a necessity. I had been looking at some asymmetrical games like Adugo and Viking Chess, myself.

Thanks!

I haven't added a commercial game before, but I will reach out to the owners of the game and see what I can do.

Thanks! Will try to figure out a version that I can get permission to add to the website.

The most important subjective criterion, IMO, and the one from which all other objective criteria are just approximations, is that the game be as rules simple and as strategically deep as possible. If there are any superficial criteria, it's that the theming be "austere" (which is what makes Zark City stand out slightly).

is there a game that is an abstract version of D&D?

i've always been curious about the gameplay, but have absolutely no interest in reading past words like "wizard", "mage", or "eldritch", and i won't look at anything where i have to see or imagine that somebody is wearing a cape, or even play with gamers who are willing to imagine they are wearing capes in other games.

> I'm very hopeful that the problem is simply lack of general awareness of these games, and that once there's enough content surrounding them, we'll have a healthy population of people playing more abstract strategy games.

Possibly, but my takeaway from COVID is that games like chess and go (which experienced a bump in popularity during the lockdowns, and have since been dwindling back down) are not merely gems waiting to be rediscovered, but instead appeal to outdated tastes in gaming, and are unlikely to be replicated given market realities. You need approachability for game-one beginners, you need vivid and eye-catching visuals, you need progression systems and content drips to keep players hooked, you need monetization to milk the whales, etc.

I'm not an expert by any means, but there isn't much to draw people to other games aside from curiosity. When it comes to Chess and Go, there is significant money on the line. Chess was also a proxy fight during the Cold War.

I love Spirit Island! Probably played more hours of that game than any other in my collection. Granted, it's purely a cooperative game, and much more artificially complex ("fiddly") than any abstract. It's the immortal simplicity and competition of games like chess and go that I was looking to rekindle, but I guess they aren't well suited to modern gaming tastes.

Dominion is also great, and in its simplicity literally invented the deck building genre. But it, too, is too artificially complex to become immortal, even before you get into its 16+ expansions. The proliferation of the deck builder genre also makes it less likely any individual game is going to be deeply studied.

Credit to games like YINSH, anyway, that specifically try to appeal to competitive, deep, and mathematically simple foundations. They just don't have what it takes to thrive in the age of monetized bright flashing lights.

Yeah, that's another nice one. I've got a Quoridor set myself.