Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 100-91
It’s that time of year again, time to go through my Top 100 Games of all time and see what has moved up, down, or into the list for the first time. Last night the list kicked off over on Malts and Meeples with 100 through 91. And the plan is every Monday night at 8:30 PM for the next 10 weeks. It might be 11 weeks because of Halloween falling on a Monday this year.
Top 100 Games – 100 – 91
100 – Silver
Silver I believe has been on the list every year that I’ve made it. Last year it was on the list at #84 and now it is barely hanging out with #100. A lot of that is that I just haven’t played it recently. If I were to play it more, it might move back up.
But in Silver you are trying to get the fewest points possible in your village. The trick is that you have five cards, all face down, to make your village and you don’t know what they are. You look at two to start the game and then after that, you play down cards that allow you to look at and swap out your cards, or your opponents. Until someone calls for a vote and you see who is lowest. But that can only be done if you’ve got fewer than your five cards, which you can do if trade in two cards of the same number on a turn.
Overall a solid fun time. It’s one of the more take that sort of games on the list. You can put high number cards into your opponents village or steal cards from them. But it’s fast and offers a ton of variety, so I appreciate it a lot for that.
99 – Merchants Cove
This one was much higher last year at #79. I played a lot of new games this past year, which is why we’re seeing some drop. Merchants Cove also suffers a little bit by being a really big game to table for a game I prefer to play with two players.
But the game does a ton of cool things. Each player has a mini game that they are doing, whether it’s a roll and write, spin and move, or playing with marbles. All of these mini games gives the players goods that they can then sell. And you want to sell for as much money as possible as the merchants come into the docks along the cove.
Each mini game is quite light, and how the merchants come in is about the most player interaction, quite indirect that there is in the game. But I found each mini game to be fun, and there is some strategy and puzzle for getting the merchants into the boats you want them in and getting those boats to the dock. Downside is for being light, it takes a while to play.
98 – Quadropolis
New to the list in 2022, Quadropolis is a city building game from Days of Wonder. It’s not a heavy game but it does a lot of very interesting things. And that’s what really stands out to me about this game and got it to the list. Just how you get your buildings for your town and how you can place them in your town is really interesting.
You have tiles that you place along the edge of the board where you are getting the city buildings. It tells you how far in, the third tile for example, that you need to go and take that tile. So there is interesting strategy there. Plus, because I put down a three, now on my city board, I can only place in a row or column with a three.
Since you score points by where you put buildings, the whole placement puzzle becomes really interesting. What you do on your turn is very simple, pick up a tile and place it onto your board. But there is a good amount of thinking that goes into what tile you pick and how you get to pick it so you can place it where it’s best for you.
97 – Small World
Dropping from #75 last year, Small World is one of the few classic games, or modern classics left on the list. Ticket to Ride, Catan and Carcassonne are all off the list now. But Small World sticks around because of the variability to it. The combos or the races and powers make the game stand out.
This is a game that I describe as Risk, but fun. Small World has you conquering areas to score points over a number of rounds. But the board is so small that conflicts will happen. And when conflicts happen, you might get wiped off the board, nearly. So instead of being out of the game or in a horrible position, you go into decline and get a new race and power combo and come in and wreck everyone.
This is something that’d be a fine game if it wasn’t, though for the races and powers. Those combos really give each game a different feel. You might be flying giants or underworld halflings or wealthy tritons. And different combos each game mean that you’ll never play the exact same game.
96 – Hero Realms
Another new to the list game, Hero Realms is one that I got to play for the first time at Gen Con this past August. Since then, I bought it and I have played it a whole lot more. There is an app for it as well, which is great. Hero Realms is a deck building game and one that pits you head to head against your opponent trying to knock down their life.
Like most deck building games, it works with factions and those factions play off the other cards in their faction. Some factions are better at maintaining your health, others are about getting more purchase power, others are all about combat. So you can really tailor how you build, but you need to build fast.
Hero Realms is not a deck building game that takes a while to build up your purchase power. You can buy powerful cards fast, and when you hit for 10-15 damage a turn after four turns, the game is going to be over fast. So it’s very much a race to build up as fast as you can, and because of that one you can play a few times in a row.
95 – Ascension
Another deck building game, Ascension is my introductory deck builder. It does a lot of things well, gives you fun factions and combos that play off of each other while being fairly basic. Down from #53 last year, that is again because I haven’t played it as much recently. And probably because I played the app a ton for about a year or so, and it’s a solid app.
Ascension does what you expect a deck building game to do. You buy cards, and factions cause combos to happen. But as compared to Hero Realms, you fight monsters not your opponent and that fighting, which isn’t in Dominion, I think makes the game more fun. It’s, unlike Dominion, not about ramping purchase power only. You need to fight, but it’s not only about the fighting. You get points for killing monsters but also for the cards you buy. So it’s a nice blend of scoring.
94 – Ra
Ra is a game that is on the list and then will drop off and come back on. I recently picked it up, so hopefully that’ll mean it gets more play. But it floats around because of how interesting the auction is for the game.
In Ra you are doing set collection, basically, to score points. But how you get those tiles that you collect is through an auction. And the auction is the meat of the game. When you bid on something in the auction, you use a tile with a number, not money. So if I someone has bid a 5 and I only have a 8 to bid higher, if I want it, I bid that 8 and there is no change back. But along with losing that 8 tile I get the number, left over bidding tile, in the middle. And that might take me from a 8 to a 10, or an 8 to 1. And that can determine if you want to bid or not as well.
The game is pretty simple, I feel. But the auction mechanic definitely creates a unique feel to the game. And the auction being the main focus is a lot of fun for the game.
93 – Similo
Similo also has dropped on the list. Honestly, most will have unless they are new on the list. Similo is a party game that offers a solid cooperative experience. At #61 last year, it has moved down because party games tend to drop over time. The more you play a party game, or at least for some of them, the more they feel the same.
Similo, though, does a solid job of being different. In this game it is cooperative where one person is giving clues to the other players. Those players are trying to eliminate the wrong answers, until it’s down to two and then players pick between those. But the twist on the game is that you might have woodland creatures and use other woodland creatures to say if your creature is similar to dissimilar. And the more rounds players don’t eliminate your choice the more they need to eliminate with the clues. So you start with one and eventually are getting rid of 4 cards out of 6.
What makes it more fun, though, is taking woodland creatures, having them as the choices and then using monsters, or historical figures, or mythological creatures to give the clues. Is a bear more or less like Zeus? Or how do you keep a mummy around with the option of some woodland creatures? The mix and match part adds a lot of variety to the game.
92 – Asking for Trobils
Another one that I got to try and Gen Con and got a solid play in, hence slipping onto the list is Asking for Trobils. Clearly new to the list with trying it this year, but Asking for Trobils is going to be a worker placement game. A genre that doesn’t show up too much on my list.
In Asking for Trobils you fly around space, go to different worker placement locations, build ships, get resources and ultimately are trying to trap Trobils. The Trobils that you are dealing with give you points for scoring at the end of the game.
I really appreciate the goofy nature of the game. But to go along with that, it’s also a fast worker placement game. There aren’t that many spots to place and when you do, there isn’t that much to do with it. Each action is simple and fast and I like that to just make a game a lot of fun.
91 – Parade
Finally wrapping out this part of my Top 100, we have Parade. #65 last year, Parade is another one that I should really get played again. I like a lot how it works and how it’s this light but interesting puzzle. It’s one that gives you a bit of brain burn, though.
In Parade you are playing down cards and then based off of the number you played, you can ignore some cards, and take cards of the same color or equal or lower numbers. It’s a lot to think about as you try and get as few cards from the row as possible and as few points as possible. And that is a fun twist as well for shooting for low points.
One twist that I really enjoy in the game is that if you have the most of a color, the most cards not highest total on them, each card is worth one point each. So a 5, 6, 8, and 10 instead of being 29 points is 4 points instead. It’s one that’s been harder to find, but when you can, I definitely recommend grabbing a light card game. If it’s between prints, like it is now, probably wait to grab it until it’s cheaper though.
Upcoming Streams
Well, Wednesday it’s more Stars of Akarios. You can click the notification bell for that one here. And join me for some planetary exploration as we have a pretty new bit of story and world to explore. We’ll see if I make a poor choice or not.
And then next Monday the Top 100 2022 Edition 90 – 81 is going to be streamed on the channel. Again, click that notification bell. And the rest of the videos through the bottom half of the list are up as well. So click on the notification bells for them. Right now the only Monday I’m not sure that I’ll be streaming this is Halloween, but we’ll see, it might be a stream just slightly later in the day.
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