I wish they had an actual “advanced” category, with heavier games. Their advanced cateogory is honestly a joke.

I guess my question is, why would they need to expand? The reason SdJ is so big is because you can hand off the nominations and winner to a generic family in Europe and they go "ok, this is what to play at the holiday season" which is why one of the criteria is "it's widely available in Germany." Heavy games aren't going to have that fit that purpose, and the Jogo de Ano already sort of covers that niche if you're just looking for casual recommendations.

Big week for me given it was Origins:

Dien Bien Phu: The Final Gamble (2p) - This was my first game due to a confluence of events preventing me from playing earlier in the spring. I'd read the rules and sort of gotten prepped and did pretty well. The French suffered from terrible rain and thus has trouble countering my VM offensive on the North. In 6 hours we finished 1/3rd of the game. It's just sort of a monster. I have a copy, and I'll get it played some more, but because it's as much a sim as a game, I don't know that I'll end up keeping it.
Fire in the Lake (2x 4p) - Annual long scenario game with friends. Last year we squeezed in two in the 8 hours we had allocated and this was no different. My VC won on the first coup card cause everyone else screwed around and I triggered appropriate events. Second game I wasn't so lucky and the ARVN took it after a slog on a late 3rd coup. I think there are some real downsides to the COIN structure (bottlenecks of information planning, how the deck functions with initiative, etc), but we sit and shit talk and otherwise catch up (cause none of us live in the same area currently) so the time isn't bad.
Mushroom Eaters (4p) - this was my one weird contribution to the con. I go to Origins most years because I want to play games I otherwise can't play at home. I had a copy and few people do so I brought it. This was less like watching a tribe go on a spiritual journey, find enlightenment, and then select a new shaman (which is the thematic victory), and more watching Ren & Stimpy take drugs and get lost in the woods.
Container (5p) - This is my other annual obligation but this time it's with people that, at one time, all lived in town but many have moved away and we only get to see them at the con. I won by about $30. Newbies and rusty players almost always overpay at auctions and thus just hand victory margin to the shipper(s).
Two Rooms & A Boom (11 iterations) - The best game I had was the one where we helped (through an informal lieutenant system) everyone except for MI6 and Red Team all met their victory conditions. I love playing this at cons (because it's more about information trading than about raw deduction), but I'm tired of effectively babysitting a bunch of <10yr olds cause the parents deposit them there and then go play Werewolf or watch the Smithee awards.
Virgin Queen (6p) - TLDR: Abysmal start and then a slow climb out to what we all thought was a T5 victory, only to re-read the rules (after the fact) and someone else won a domination victory on T4. I like the story it makes when we play, but damn if the game isn't slightly overwrought...
Gardeners (2p & 3p) - Met up with another friend I only see at cons and we did the this and the two Japanese games which were new to him. Gardners is a cute riff on Magic Maze. I think it's best at 3, and cromulent at 4.
Madrino (3p) - This is borderline an activity but it's hilarious to play. We rolled 4 toilets the entire game for fixtures, so I plunked them all in the same room with one on one side and the rest all facing it and named my house the Evil Plumber Lair.
Izayoi (3p) - New to both my spouse and our friend. I lost it near the end of the game when I realized that I would get stuck with one of the trinkets which pushed me over my master's point limit. I really need to sleeve my cards for this if it's going to stick around.

I can understand that line of thinking. In this instance, I think I'm w/ @bionicjoey on this one. If it was a choice of use their app or pay, I'd have paid. I refused to use New Reddit on the PC. I know folks that have gone to using the new app though (even knowing what we know now) and I guess that's ok. Their choice and all that.

Light weight: 6 Nimmt

Medium weight: Ginkgopolis

Heavy weight: Fire in the Lake

Your most played game of all time: Wizard (we've worn out 3 sets, and everyone in the family has sets. There was a solid decade where we played it constantly)

Your favorite game of all time: That's a decent question. I have games that I'm quite fond of, a bunch of 9s on BGG but no 10s. There is nothing I have with over 10 plays right now that I'm of the opinion "wow, this is both a game I really like, and one in which I see as a clear first among equals."

The Root implementation is good. My personal favorite though is still Twilight Struggle.

This is closer to my process. I give the rulebook a first pass, push some pieces around, and then I look for something like a 10min video that goes over turn actions in detail or exceptions to check my understanding of what I did when I was playing multi-handed. A trick I find that works well is to "build the world":

1. Look at components, what does each piece represent, what are spaces on a map, what is the nuance between similar spaces/pieces. Are there things listed on the board that are tracks or warnings or things like that.
2. What's a turn look like; how are actions selected, what actions are options, etc.
3. What special things do I need to be aware of
4. How does scoring function.

3 gets short shift before watching the video, but I do it this way because what they talk about in scoring makes little sense if I don't know what the components are, etc.

THANK YOU.

I'm sort of peeved that boardgames has gone from a "hey, I get to sit in meat space not staring at a monitor and doing something fun with friends" into a consumerist dog and pony show.

I was hoping this was going to be "you take the PRR and run it over the B&O" and "you try and get your train company to Chicago" or "you never build, only auction or develop" but yeah, it's mostly about what you own and what you're buying.

I can understand that stance. I think what SdJ represents doesn't really equate to "this is the best game" so much as "this is a game that you should pick up and play over Christmas" because of the criteria that is involved in selection. That's why it has such sway in sales; because you have a bunch of families who are looking for a TtR level game and they run out and buy it for the rest of the year accordingly. Their advanced category is effectively "ok, you've already played a couple of boardgames, now here is the next level" which is still a far cry from Terra Mystica. How decipherable the rulebook is, stages at which planning for turns is done, all of that is criteria but on a culturally oriented level for just German families, not an abstract one for connoisseurs (ala BGG).

Something a friend of mine in Germany told me; you see more people playing boardgames, but a reduction in percentage of "heavy gamers" (which is an amorphous metric anyway once we cross cultures). SdJ meets their needs because that's what the populace by and large needs an award for (compared to heavy gamers who do their own research). That's why I also look at the Jogo; it's going to look at what Americans would consider "heavy" games.

Ngl... That Twilight Struggle app got me through a large chunk of covid. (edit: whether it's currently on sale or not is unknown to me at the moment)

My go to would have been Deception: Murder in Hong Kong which I think needs between 6 and 9 players to really shine, but discounting social deduction, I'd look at Captain Sonar. The downside there is the player count is brittle... I do agree with @Zipheir that Bohnanza works well from 4-7. If 6 is acceptable, Point Salad is fine and that means you don't have to sort cards as you use them all.

Really, after 6 people, we break up into two groups. I mean, sometimes we break up at 6...

We borrow like 90% of the time. In an overall group of approximately 35 people (and maybe 25 households), we strive for an overlap of about 2-3 copies except on really popular stuff (e.g. Just One) where I think there are 7 copies across the group. When we sell games, we give each other the first option so it doesn't leave the group and if nobody picks it up, then it leaves at a convention or sold on BGG. I think we have one, maybe two copies of Catan or Power Grid in the group, and a lot of games we just have one copy of.

In the realm of worker placement/action drafting games, I think Rosenberg is king, and of his WP games, O&L is the only one ** I've kept for multiple years now. The decision space for what to do on any given turn (especially late game) is absolutely massive is part of that reason. Also, kudos to @lolzy_mcroflmao for not wanting to overlap across friend groups. We do the same thing in our household.

If 2p is a requirement, then I would suggest The Colonists by Tim Pulz and once you play it once, start in era 3. It's a longer game in general though, but I find it's a much better 2p experience for the same proverbial question.

** (I have Rosenberg's newest Canal game, but it just arrived and I haven't played it yet. Also, I don't really consider Glass Road a WP game which is why it didn't make the list).

I skimmed the review looking for the answer of "but why this over Crokinole" and then got to the end and laughed.

Crokinole is our favorite dexterity game, and my recommendation is to go to a convention and play it and see if it's worth it to you. I know at Origins and Gen Con in the US that you find some nice boards available for use and people to teach. I think the Mayday boards are acceptable for learning and futzing around, but not for competitive play because of how they are finished and setup (IIRC, they sand, apply poly, and then paint the lines on, you should be doing it the other way around). If I was on a budget and could get a cheap Mayday board, I'd be willing to do it and then look up how to work on the board's glide.

I'll keep an eye out for Menara now though, thanks for the heads up.

We've played a snot-ton of 6 Nimmt, so much that we've worn out two decks and are on our third...

I stopped by the Amigo booth at Origins this year and said that we play a lot of 6 Nimmt, and what would they suggest to diversify. They pointed me to 2Can and we played a round and I can see the potential, especially at player counts under 4 or 5. I haven't gotten it to the table yet at home, but it's on the agenda for July.

The short answer is I've found you have to look at pathways to victory, and how those are accomplished. Is it raw card combos, is it an interaction of actions and cards, etc. "How would one string together points to make a victory, and how many different pathways are there to do that?" As part of doing this, you may find that you have an attribute (e.g. magic, or melee) that features more prominently in the first pass of pathways and you adjust those accordingly. Nothing is going to save you from playtesting though, there will have to be some brute force effort thrown at it to verify assumptions.

The biggest issues with card combo games is solving the deck size problem that exists (see Ark Nova, Pax Porfiriana, etc for games that exhibit the "big deck problem"). The smaller the deck, the more it becomes "how does the limited pool of cards get combined and associated with a player" in a brittle fashion vs at larger deck sizes, you get "will the cards I need show up in the game at all." There are mechanical ways of reducing blind spots associated with large and small decks, but understanding the problem is a helpful starting point.

My spouse adores the Ticket to Ride and (for a long time but not anymore after an update) Pandemic apps. I like the Twilight Struggle one as well and played a lot of that during covid when I couldn't see friends to play.

6 Nimmt has gotten an extensive amount of play in my group and I think I can explain it from scratch in 45 seconds.

That and Pennsylvania were the two reprints I was after. I had Pampas at one time and I'm curious to see how they do it without using crayons.

I paid my stuff, but only if I know I'm keeping the game/minis. For example, I have an Arcadia Quest set and I paint those cause I know I could repurpose them for other games if need be. Conversely, I'm not painting my Cosmic Frog set yet cause I don't know if it's staying or not.

The hassle of getting that green goo stuff to strip paint turns off a lot of buyers, and there is something about accepting your own mistakes vs mistakes of others...

I think one thing that is important to keep in mind on the topic of "when do I break this rule vs borrow" is that I think it matters how much notice you're willing to engage in. Speaking at a purely personal level, if I want to borrow Power Grid, it would be with a couple days notice and I'd either bus over or meet them somewhere for a hand off. Generally, once I want to borrow something, I'm willing to make some effort for it vs just hoping they bring it to a meetup. If I was driving 45min to get to a gaming location though, I'd rethink all of this...