Top 100 Board Games 2021 Edition – 40 through 31
This seems faster than normal, but it’s that I didn’t get the last Top 100 Board Games (of all time) 2021 Edition posted until Monday. I’m still streaming every Wednesday at 8 PM Central time, at least through the remainder of the Top 100 list. More on some potential changes coming up. But hopefully you get a chance to checkout this list and let me know what your favorites on the list are.
The next 10 are going to be on Wednesday at 8 PM Central Time. You can join me over on Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. You can flick the notification bell, here, to know when I’m going live. I hope that you can join as we get higher into the Top 100 list.
Top 100 Board Games – 40 through 31
40. Not Alone
This is a one versus all game, and normally I don’t gravitate towards that type of game. The one is either playing a different game orrunning the game. But in Not Alone, while the game they are playing is a little bit different, it is a lot of fun. The one is the planet trying to kill off the crew of a crashed spaceship before they can be rescued. Everyone else is trying to survive and signal the ship to get there faster. The group can discuss but it must always be done so that the one can hear. The card play works well, the game play fast, and overall a fun time as crew or planet.
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39. Downforce
I think this is the highest racing game that I have on the list, or at least racing themed game. Downforce has you bidding to get cars and race them around the board, as well as bet on who you think is going to win. The game actually is more about. how well you can tell early in the game who is going to win? because the betting is where you make the most money.
The card play in the game is very clever as well. You play down your cards and you have to move every car on the card in order from fastest to slowest. This can create bottlenecks and strategic card play. The game feels like a racing game, but it doesn’t take too long. Some racing games can feel more drawn out but Downforce doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. And keeps you engaged as other people are moving all the cars as well.
38. Sushi Go Party!
Another good big group game, in fact all of these games work best, thus far, towards their higher player counts. Sushi Go Party is a drafting and set collection game as you build out your ideal meal to score points. All the cards score in different ways, and Sushi Go Party allows you to swap around the cards that you use every game. It means that you can create some very unique combinations that either give a ton of points or can cause people to go negative in points. And you can really tailor it to your group.
37. Roll Player
A dice drafting game, in Roll Player you create a Dungeons and Dragons, or RPG character. The whole game is about how well you can build your stats for the character. I really like how the game works and I really like building up D&D characters. My one knock on the game is that you don’t do anything with the character, you just build it. Monsters and Minions expansion is supposed to help with that. Plus then Dice Throne Adventures is coming which I know helps with my issue.
When it comes to this or Sagrada, I do think that there is enough difference between to the two to keep both. Sagrada is more family friendly in how it plays in that it is easier to play. Plus the theme is much less nerdy, not that a nerdy theme is bad. Roll Player with creating a character for an RPG, that is a theme that specific groups will enjoy better but also one that some people won’t be interested in at all.
36. Homebrewers
Homebrewers is a nice and fast engine building game. In it you compete to be the best brewer of beer at Summerfest and Oktoberfest. Mechanically this is a pretty simple engine building game. You roll dice and can trade them around to determine what actions you get to take in a round. You can brew, sanitize, add ingredients to your pantry or beers or use them to get an advantage.
For me the theme of brewing makes this game very appealing. I homebrew my own beer and it’s fun to come up with crazy ingredient combinations. Would I want to drink a full point of a smoked oyster porter, most certainly not, but I’d try it. And at the end of the game I like to look and see what is the best one that I’ve created, even though that doesn’t determine the winner.
35. Clever Cubed
The only roll and write on this section of the Top 100 games, Clever Cubed, or Clever Hoch Drei, is part of the Clever trilogy of games. This one follows the same standard as the others with rolling dice, taking one and discarding all the ones lower. But this one gives you the most points as you play. It’s fun because the pink section really lets you lean into combos, filling in lots of other spots on the board. Yes, the game is themeless, but I really enjoy the puzzles that the Clever games bring.
34. The Night Cage
If you want a game for Halloween, The Night Cage might be an ideal one for you. You are trapped, as a group, in an ever changing labyrinth that you can only crawl through. You only illuminate the spaces directly around you and if you go backwards to where you were before, the labyrinth will have changed. Plus there are monsters in there, and you need to avoid them if you can. You all are searching for keys and then a portal to be able to escape, but all of you need to find a key and get to the same portal to activate it. All this as your candles burn down.
This is really kind of an abstract game, but it is still thematic as you deal with the monsters and search for keys. The game also has a really nice tile holder which looks like a candle that is burning down, so as you put more tiles onto the board, the more that the candle will have burned down. It’s a very easy game to play, but it has an amazing tension as you get further into the game.
33. Orchard: A 9 card solitaire game
I talk about Orchard fairly often, and I backed it’s successor Grove on Kickstarter recently. It’s still up for backing if you want to check it out. But Orchard is a great solo game. It’s a game that has you stacking cards and matching up fruit tree symbols to grow as much fruit as you can. The more you overlap cards, the more points you’ll get from the fruit you grow.
Orchard is an extremely fast play and generally I’ll play it several times in a single sitting. It also has a little footprint and easy set-up and pick-up. The game isn’t too mindless, but I call it a good mental reset game. I always feel like can refresh my brain and distract myself for a little bit while I play to then have fresh eyes to look at some work problem again.
32. Ohanami
Ohanami is a very simple game. You draft two cards and then you put them into three columns split up however you like. But you always need to put down higher or lower numbers. The game is a lot of fun at it’s high player count of four or low of two and changes a lot as you play between those two. At two players it is much more strategic. At four players you only see two cards from that original hand come back to you. So drafting changes up greatly at higher player counts.
But there is also the scoring that keeps the game interesting. You draft over three rounds and score at the end of each. The first round you score for blue cards, the second blue and green, and the final, blue, green, grey and pink. Blue cards are worth less overall, but if you get them early, they can be the most lucrative to have drafted. So while the game is very accessible to any type of gamer, it isn’t too simple for heavy gamers.
31. T.I.M.E Stories
The biggest game on the list T.I.M.E Stories is a campaign style game but also an escape room. You work together to try and figure out how to stop timing from being changed off of the proper flow that it’s supposed to be going. Your consciousness is sent back in time or across timelines so that you can investigate. If you can’t get it done in time, you can always restart armed with the knowledge that you now know.
I know that some people don’t love every scenario, and the scenarios aren’t always consistent. The game also promises are story throughout it linking each different scenario, and that doesn’t really exist. But the game is a lot of fun for me. I don’t mind going back and taking another run at things. The stories have all been enjoyable, some more so, but I’m always ready to see what the next puzzle or scenario is going to be when I finish playing.
The Next 10
If you want to catch any of the remaining Top 10’s live, you can check them out and my normal streams on Wednesday at 8 PM Central time. If you subscribe and click the notification bell you’ll know whenever I go live or upload a new video to Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. When I’m not doing my Top 100, you can find me on Wednesday playing board games solo on the YouTube channel.
Now, I did say I wanted to talk about my streaming times. Through the Top 100 list, I am going to keep my 8 PM Central time on Wednesdays for streaming. However, this might be changing. A channel that I like to watch and be part of their live chat, the GloryHoundd channel is adjusting their schedule. And I know I have crossover viewers from their channel. If they take that 8 PM Central Wednesday spot, I might look at making my main streaming day on Monday. Be aware that change may come.
But what game do you like best out of this part of the Top 100? Are there any that you want to get to the table that you haven’t played in this bunch?
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