Alright, now that I’ve gotten your attention with crazy zombie filled headline, it’s time to talk what this is actually about. I watched, yesterday, a video on the Foster the Meeple YouTube Channel. And they were answering a question that has been posed on their Discord. It is an odd question, no doubt, and they took it to an odd place. The basic idea is what if you could only play 5 games ever again, all others disappeared, what would they be. They added in the zombie part. But checkout their video below.

So what would my five games be?

5 Games in the Zombie Apocalypse

The rules for this are as follows. The zombies have eaten all the other games in the world besides these five. And anyone tries to make a game, the zombies eat that game. And any expansions for that game, yeah, the zombies eat those too. So what five base games would I bring from now into the apocalyptic future of zombies eating board games?

5. Aeon’s End

Now, I don’t know which Aeon’s End, there are a few core boxes I could use. Probably War Eternal because that is the one that I’ve played. Though, if it counts as an expansion to the base game, so be it. Aeon’s End is a great deck building game for solo play, and it can play up to four. Now, at four you do less, so I think it’s mainly solo or two player.

But I wanted to have a deck building game, and Aeon’s End jumped off the shelf at me more than others. Plus the solo play is almost a must for a game. Granted, there will be one on the list that can’t be played solo, because I need variety.

4. So Clover

No solo in this one, but So Clover is a great little party game that can play up to 6, I believe. And you’d be able to play with more, just not everyone writing stuff down. Or you could do it in teams. But this is the party game entry on the list.

So Clover has you writing down words that connect two words that can be really separate. It could be turtle and banana. And then those words are shuffled up and the other players need to try and put them in the right spot. It’s a clever idea and it has a nice challenge to it as you play.

3. Cartographers

Technically this can be played solo, but it’s a bit heavier for a roll and write, though not too heavy. And it is more interactive than a lot of roll and writes. Which might sound odd since you can play it solo. But the base game has good game play value in it. And it can play solo, like I said, but also go infinite. That means that it’ll fit almost any player number.

I really like this one too for scoring. Just the different combinations and how you can focus on things is great. Plus you score two things in each season. Including something coming back around at the very end of the game. For all the roll and writes that I own, this one has teeth for decision making, but it isn’t too heavy either.

2. Gloomhaven

I thought about not putting it on the list. And were Frosthaven out, that’d make the list because I haven’t played it. But it is my favorite game. And I still have a lot of characters to play. Yes, I know the story, but there are elements that I’ve forgotten.

And I think that Gloomhaven works well at different player counts. Solo is two handed which is nice, and it isn’t too much. I’ve played at 3 which works well. Gloomhaven is one that I would pull out and play with one group after another after another. And it’s long enough, plus I have a few other games, that I think I’d be interested in that over and over again.

1. Sagrada

I wish this one came with an expansion. But it doesn’t. The expansion I want would be the 5 to 6 player. But I think Sagrada fills that nice family weight game. One that people will be happy to sit down and play. And, honestly, I could make it 5-6 players just by getting a 2nd copy. Maybe not having everything in there, but having most things.

I really like Sagrada for the dice drafting. And the fact that the dice are rolled means that you have variability. Plus you don’t know what is going to be drawn out. I’ve probably played Sagrada 10-15 times and I enjoy it every time. My hope is that it’s one that since I haven’t played with all the tools and with all the windows, it’d generally stay pretty fresh.

Final Thoughts

This is purely crazy situation time but it’s kind of fun. I definitely have some high on my Top 100 games there. Though, So Clover is new to me, but should give you an idea that it’ll be high. The hardest part is trying to figure out how to cover everything and you really can’t. It’s five games.

My closest euro style game is an abstract in Sagrada or the card mechanics in Gloomhaven, but not really even that. So I wanted to pick games that could be flexible and cover a lot of things. But it is hard to do that. I doubt with five games it’d ever be possible.

So what five games would you pick?

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