Off we go.
Filler games
Kingdomino is one of Bruno Cathala's many new games of 2016. An excellent take on, well, domino. (Kind of.) This really clever 15 minutes filler is along with Deep Sea Adventure my choices of the year for this category. I had the latter on the radar before Essen Spiel this year because of it's amazing minimalist artwork and simple push your luck gameplay. This lived up to expectations and is one of my most played games from the loot of 2016. It has a fairly claustrophobic theme, so I guess it is not for everyone...
Party game
Codenames: Pictures, however, probably is for everyone. This visually oriented game manages to improve the hit formula from 2015's word based Codenames. Since it is image based it works better (but not perfect) in settings where players don't have the same mother tongue...
Gateway games
Fabled Fruit and Evolution: Climate share this victory in this category. The former for its simplicity and elegant ever evolving game play trough Friese's take on the legacy game concept, and the latter for its simple rules and tons of variability with the ever evolving species "naturally selected" by the players.
Solo game
Tiny Epic Galaxies is by far the game I have played the most solitaire last year. It's great fun to try to beat the, rather large, selection of "AIs". Especially with my 6 year old as a sidekick.
Enthusiast games
Roll for the Galaxy is the game of the year in my favourite category.
Ahead of the excellent Inis.
The Castles of Burgundy: The Card Game comes in as number 3. I haven't played the "original", but I love this card variant, and, as an added bonus, the solitaire rules are solid.
Honourable mentions
Mombasa, ah, Mombasa. I just got to play about one third of it at the last day of the Essen Spiel, so I can't really put it properly on this list... Amazing Pfister game! (although I am, for once, a bit put off by the theme.)
Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King is another Pfister game I got to play in Essen. Kind of. We improvised a six player variant with only new players, so it was far from ideal. Looking very much forward to play this again.
I have only played a kind of solitaire teach-myself-the-rules variant of Phil Eklund's Bios: Genesis, but I can't wait to play the whole thing.
Also, for reference, here's my list from 2015.
The game I look forward to the most in 2017
The Great Western Trail Voila. This game looks like it could be Pfister's best so far. I can't wait.Also, for reference, here's my list from 2015.