Tabletop Country – 5 Successful Hungarian Board Games

Nowadays, board games have gained a new popularity. Despite the fact that the video game market is full of entertaining multiplayer experiences, people still have the need to come together in one room, sit around a table and touch the game pieces and dices with their hands. That is why more and more new titles are appearing, and in many cases, we can thank Kickstarter for providing great opportunities for creative designers. Let us see five international success stories that were initiated by Hungarian creators.

1. Trickerion: Legends of Illusion

Let us begin with the greatest success so far: Trickerion’s Kickstarter campaign occurred in January of 2015 and it received almost ten times its planned 30,000 dollars of funding goal. The game was inspired by the 2006 movie Prestige as it puts the players into the roles of rival magicians from the 19^th century who are contesting for the favor of the audience. One of the game’s Easter eggs is that Hungarian champion magician of the world Soma Hajnóczy is one of the playable characters.

2. Saltlands

A little bit more than a year ago, three young men came up with the idea of creating a game in which players must survive the cruel circumstances of a Mad Max-like post-apocalyptic world: this is how Antler Games was founded and Saltlands was created. It is a competitive game in which players struggle with the drought, the extreme weather and the raiding bandits and try to escape from the salty desert by vehicles either run by oil or wind. The greatest advantage of the game is probably its unique world, which is made even more living by Soma Csátvák’s recently published novel Saltlands – Isten után.

Anyway, Antler Games recently finished the Kickstarter campaign of their second game Critters Below.

3. Days of Ire

Published on the 60^th anniversary of the Revolution of 1956, the game tells the story of Hungarian history’s two dark weeks and the desperate fight against the communist tyranny. It is a cooperative game in which players play as freedom fighters, who are trying to eliminate all ÁVH (State Protection Authority) and Soviet forces from Budapest and deliver food, medical equipment, information, ammunition and other necessities to the revolutionist. There is also a competitive mode in which one player takes the role of General Zhukov and tries to oppress the revolt through leading the Soviet forces, while the other 1-3 players fight against him.