Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 30 through 21

30. Space Base

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designer: John D. Clair

Buy Space Base

This is a game that I should have played a long time ago. But it is one that left my collection and then I played it on BGA. Once I played it on BGA, I knew that I needed it back in my collection. Much like other games like Valeria and Mochi Koro this one is about activating spots based off of dice rolls. And then building up those spots so that you can activate more things. Space Base just ramps up in a much better way than those and offers some interesting choices and an interesting moment of when you change from money to points.

29. Symbiose

Published By: Subverti
Designers: Jeremy Partinico and Christelle Partinico

Not Available Yet

Symbiose is one of the new games on the list, in fact, I’m not sure you can get it in the US yet. But this is one I’ll be getting for sure. It’s a simple game where you try and get a two tall by four wide grid full of cards. And those cards are going to score you points based off of the other cards in the grid. But there is a simple twist that makes this work. You score your grid with the central four cards. But the ones to the left and right score your opponents to the left and right. And that is enough to make this a very fun game.

28. XenoShyft: Onslaught

Published By: CMON Limited
Designers: Keren Philosophales and Michael Shinall

Out of Print

I love cooperative and deck building games. XenoShyft does both of those things really as well as you build up your deck to fight off monsters. On the deck building side I like how you always get money to add to your hand. That means that you are always able to buy something which is good and rewarding. The other part is I can just give you a card, you need more troops, I can give you one. It is now part of your deck, and it’s not to the discard, it is straight to your hand. A very tough and rewarding game.

27. One-Hit Heroes

Published By: Wiggles 3D
Designers: AC Atienza and Connor Reid

Buy One-Hit Heroes

This one is a theme that I like a lot with super heroes, but it is doing something different. You are heroes who are glass cannons, kind of. By that I mean if you take a hit you are out, but the game gives you tons of ways to avoid them. So you need to manage your hand and what the enemy is doing. And each enemy is different and each hero is different, so there is a ton of replayability in the box. Plus you level up, so to speak, as you play and get to add in new cards to your deck.

26. Planet Unknown

Published By: Adam’s Apple Games, LLC
Designers: Ryan Lambert and Adam Rehberg

Buy Planet Unknown

Planet Unknown is one of my favorite planet terraforming games. In this one I love how you are covering up the planet and activating locations to move up on tech, and other tracks. The tracks are such a fun part of the game. And as you play the game more you play not with the starting abilities but with special ones. They make you unique, and of course there is the lazy susan. Being able to spin that and then pick where you want to pick from is great. You can set yourself up well, or you can try and mess over your opponents plans or ideally both.

25. Paper Dungeons

Published By: MeepleBR
Designer: Leandro Pires

Out of Stock

I think that this is the highest roll and write game on the list and one of the most complex that I play. Paper Dungeons is a “Dungeon Scrawler”, as they call it, where you level up heroes and explore the dungeon fighting monsters. But there is more than that, you need to manage your heroes health, make adventuring gear and find treasure. Of course, if you make it to the boss monsters that is another way to get even more points, but hopefully not at the expense of too much health.

24. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom

Published By: FryxGames
Designer: Jonathan Fryxelius

Buy Kingdom Legacy – note, there might be an additional tariff related shipping charge in the US.

I was not sure about Kingdom Legacy the first time I watched a video on it, but the more I watched the more I liked it. This is a legacy game of managing your deck of cards by destroying cards, leveling up cards, or even adding new cards. And as you go through, you need to decide which cards are best used for upgrading and points and when to use cards for resources to level up others. It’s a nice balance of multiuse cards, and a challenge to optimize your score.

23. Ready Set Bet

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designer: John D. Clair

Buy Ready Set Bet

I like betting and I like racing when it comes to games. Ready Set Bet somehow combines the two of them into real time fun and stand-up moments. Personally I like both parts of this game betting and being the person calling the race. As you call the race, it’s just to get into it and keep the race moving and watch everyone else stand-up. As a better it’s all about trying to make the right bets the fastest. If you wait too long the best spots are gone, and if you bet too quickly you’re more apt to make bad bets. It sounds chaotic, which it is, but it’s also so much fun.

22. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Published By: Stronghold Games
Designers: Sydney Engelstein, Jacob Fryxelius, and Nick Little

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Another game about terraforming a planet, Ares Expedition is a big engine building game of, well, doing a better job terraforming Mars. In this game it’s all about the action selection and how that works. I pick an action, everyone gets to do it, but I get a bonus for it. It might be a bonus of drawing more cards or a discount on building something. But then again, if my opponent(s) pick the same action, we all only do that action, and the other possible actions are skipped. So it’s always trying to guess what your opponent(s) will do to optimize your actions.

21. Hanamikoji

Published By: EmperorS4
Designer: Kota Nakayama

Buy Hanamikji

Finally is one of my favorite two player games. Hanamikoji is a game of trying to win the favor of Geisha by giving them gifts. Each one wants a certain gift and there is a limited number of them. You want to win the favor of four or eleven points worth.

But the biggest draw of this two player game is the action system. You only have four actions and you do one per turn and only once per round. They are simple actions like discarding two cards that won’t be used facedown, or putting one facedown that you’ll score. The other two offer a bit more with the “I Split, You Choose” mechanism in play, and makes you think about what cards you show your opponent for that.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition every Wednesday night at 9 PM Central Time. The next few videos have their links up, so you can click notify on them to know when I go live. Or you can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

And thank you for checking out the video and articles. Let me know what your favorite game from this chunk of 10 is and which one you would love to get played.

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Message me on X at @TheScando
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Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Welcome To…

Published By: Blue Cocker Games
Designer: Benoit Turpin

Buy Welcome To

This one is a classic roll and write style game. I really like the decision space for Welcome To… of deciding what goals to go after and what combination of cards to write down on your board. The three choices of number and bonus works really well and has been fun in other games in the system, but the classic Welcome To is the best still.

49. The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Published By: Repos Productions
Designers: Antoine Bauze and Bruno Cathala

Buy The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Now, I like this and 7 Wonders Duel very similarly, but only one is staying in my collection and that is going to be the Lord of the Rings one. But both do similar things and are great games. This one, I find, cleans up some things like no end game scoring. And while I find the end game without the win in one of the three game ends if you get them situations isn’t 100% satisfying, going for those other goals is great. And they most of the time do pull of the win with them whether that’s getting the ring to Mordor or getting support from the various groups.

48. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Published By: Days of Wonder
Designers: Asger Harding Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pederson

Buy Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Not my favorite racing game, but Heat: Pedal to the Metal is up there. I really like how the game works pretty quickly, so it has that racing feel, but you still make a lot of meaningful decisions in it. Heat is all about managing the heat on your engine so that you can push the corners at the right time. But the more heat you get, the more it clogs up your hand and then you need to back off and let the engine cool down. It’s just a clever and enjoyable system that’s easy enough to teach and gives you a great racing feel.

47. Ohanami

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Steffan Benndorf

Buy Ohanami

Ohanami and the next game on the list are the two smallest ones. Ohanami is a great game for pulling out and playing a round or two of when you want a simple game to play. But it offers some fun with the twist that it provides on scoring and how you need to set-up the cards into the columns as you draft them. The drafting and adding always needing to be higher or lower than the top or bottom card in a column, at least if you want to play them, is fun as well. It’s not that common for someone to be stuck without something to play, but if you make that happen it’s fun.

46. Mind Up!

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Maxime Rambourg

Buy Mind Up!

Mind Up! is another one of those games that just really works for me. There is so much luck in the game as you try and get the cards that you want, it kind of feels like it shouldn’t work. But at the same time, you always have a decision to make that matters and just enough knowledge. The fact that the order of the cards and how you want to fill in to get points changes each round while the cards in your hand don’t as much is a really fun system. Because, yes, I am guessing what is going to work to get the card I wanted, but I might remember a little what you have.

45. Schadenfreude

Published By: Studio Turbine
Designer: ctr

Buy Schadenfreude

I guess Schadenfreude is the third small game on the list. But it’s a pretty different game because it’s a trick taking game and it’s a trick taking game that does some really interesting things. Mainly it’s about not flying too close to the sun and getting burned as you try and get points. You get points and lose points based off of what is played into the trick that doesn’t match your suit. The other piece is you want to get as close as you can to 40 points. If you go over and everyone who goes over, that causes you to lose. But someone has to because that determines the end of the game.

44. The Great Split

Published By: Horrible Guild
Designers: Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva

Buy The Great Split

I like the mechanisms of “I split, you choose” in games, one of my favorite two player games has that in it. And The Great Split is primarily that in a game. Each round you are splitting up your hand of cards and then your opponent on the left picks one of them. You are doing that at the same time with the cards passed to you. Everyone is trying to optimize the contracts that they are getting the points from the various arts they are getting. But at it’s heart, the game is “I split, you choose” and it just works.

43. ICECOOL

Published By: Brain Games
Designer: Brian Gomez

Buy ICECOOL

Two dexterity games in a row and my two favorite dexterity games. First is ICECOOL, this is a game that was around my Top 10 for a long time because it’s just a simple but fun game. It’s been passed as my favorite by the other because that one has more customization.

ICECOOL is all about either being a penguin sneaking out of class to get fish or the hall monitor who is trying to catch them. The flicking works well and the ability to jump the penguin over walls is fun, assuming you don’t jump too far. Plus the box set-up and how it comes together is really fast and fun.

42. PitchCar

Published By: Ferti
Designer: Jean du Poel

Pre-Order PitchCar

PitchCar is the other dexterity game of the two and the one that I like just little bit better. PitchCar is another racing game as well,. This one is about flicking race cars, discs, around a track and being the first to cross the finish. It’s another game that is very simple to play but so fun. And this one gets the nod because of the track and how you make as hard or easy a track as you want. Do you want a loop or an overpass, you can do that, or you can just play with straightaways and some turns if you want the game to be faster.

41. Metal Gear Solid

Published By: CMON Global Lmtd
Designer: Emerson Matsuuchi

Buy Metal Gear Solid

Finally we have Metal Gear Solid a game that took a while to come out, but that is so worth it. Metal Gear Solid is a cooperative game where you want to sneak around as much as go in guns blazing. And that element is a blast for the game because it makes it feel different than a lot of games with minis. I like that the game also has a campaign, which I need to play, and one off scenarios that you can try and complete. And to add to that, while the enemy movement takes a moment to understand, the player turns are streamlined really well.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition every Wednesday night at 9 PM Central Time. The next few videos have their links up, so you can click notify on them to know when I go live. Or you can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

And thank you for checking out the video and articles. Let me know what your favorite game from this chunk of 10 is and which one you would love to get played.

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Message me on X at @TheScando
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Top 10 Sneaky Party Games

10. Criss Cross

First of only two roll and write games on the list. And both of them are pretty similar in some ways. In Criss Cross you want to fill in a grid so that you score the most points in your rows and columns. This is done by filling in symbols on two dice that are rolled. The more like symbols in a row or a column, the better you do.

The twist on the game comes in that each time the dice are rolled you treat them like a domino. That means that the two faces of the dice always need to be played adjacent to each other. If you aren’t careful you might lock yourself out of being able to completely fill in your board.

The nice thing about this one is that it’s a short and simple. It is the type of game that you are apt to play a few times in a row which is a nice thing for a party game.

9. Knister

Knister is a fair amount like Criss Cross. You want to basically create Yahtzee style groups of five dice in rows and columns and on the diagonal as well. And this is done by rolling two dice and you place the combination of two wherever you want on your board.

This one I put slightly above Criss Cross for a party style game. Mainly because while both of the games are going to work great in a larger group, Knister is a bit easier to teach. Though the game itself is a bit harder to come by. But more people understand the concept of creating runs and pairs with numbers than doing so with symbols or pairs and sets. Plus there is not the domino type rule that people need to internalize.

8. PitchCar

I might have put more dexterity games on the list, but I wanted to keep it away from just being a list of that for alternative party games. PitchCar is the one I picked. It might be easier to get two copies of Ice Cool and play up to eight that way, it’s cheaper for sure. But I think that PitchCar is easier for players to understand.

This is a car racing game where to race you car you just flick it along the track. If you fall off, you go back to where you went. And when there is traffic you might run into traffic and push someone forward or off the track or into a spot where they don’t want to be.

The great thing about PitchCar is how everyone is engaged. In between your turn sure you are chatting, which is great for a party style game. But if someone makes a great shot, or falls off the track for the fourth shot in a row, everyone reacts. Especially for a great shot.

And there is a ton of PitchCar stuff you can get. If you play it a lot as a group, you can add in things like ramps and jumps, narrower tracks, or even a loop. Of course all that adds up and makes it even harder to store.

7. Strike

Strike is an obvious one for the alternative party games list. Mainly because it’s nothing more than rolling dice and taking pairs. Now, this is a game that only plays up to five. But if you want to play with more you can do like I did and buy another set of the game.

But the great thing, like some other push your luck games higher on the list, this game is simple. It is all push your luck. How many dice do you roll to get a pair? Okay, you didn’t get a pair or set of dice with the same number. Do you roll again or pass and not risk losing more dice. It has that egging people on, and those moments where you clear everything out that is exciting, or those moments where you roll a bunch of dice and somehow manage to get no matches.

6. Unlock Games

This does not need to be only the Unlock escape room style games. I think that Exit games work well as well. I will caveat this a little bit though. If you pick an escape room style game, it should be for when you need a party game at a lower player count. This one makes it on the sneaky party games list because it’s easy to get to the table and everyone generally understands the concept of puzzles and escape rooms. It’s just at higher player counts not everyone can see everything as easily.

The other nice thing is that you can scale or tailor multiple things to your group. Some of it is scaling how hard the puzzle is. They generally give you an idea from easy to hard. But you also can pick a theme. If you know you want to do this with a more casual group but they like The Pirates of the Caribbean movies, there is a pirate themed one. Or maybe they love Lord of the Rings, there is an Exit Game with the Lord of the Rings theme. It will all depend on your group.

5. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Now, a lot of social deduction games could go on the party games list. I think that most social deduction games are just party games without much actual game behind it. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is going to give you both deduction and social deduction as you try and figure out who the murder is.

But this game has a great twist on the normal social deduction games. Each player has four murder weapons and four clues in front of them. And the murder is going to, during the eyes closed time of the social deduction part of the game, pick one murder weapon and clue in front of them.

So how do the players know, the players can figure it out, with deduction, kind of, through reports sent up by the forensic scientist. Of course, the report might lead them in the wrong direction because they don’t know who the murderer is, so everyone is now suspicious.

It’s a great game to get people talking and engaging with each other. Even if it is just in the game it’s simple enough to keep things moving and works really well.

4. Fiction

People like the game Wordle online or at least they did. I don’t think it’s that people don’t like it anymore, I think that it’s more a lot of people just let it fall by the wayside. Fiction, though, is a one versus everyone Wordle style game. And that works as a party game because you can rotate who is the one. That one person is the keeper of the word. And everyone is going to be the guessers of the word.

Now, does that sound like too many guessers? Yes, it probably does. But there is a nice little twist on the game. The person who is the keeper of the word can also lie. Yup, you heard that right, they can lie. But when they lie, they need to be consistent about their lie. So as you go you might be able to track down or figure out what the lie is in what they are giving you as a clue. then when you either win or fail, you pass that keeper of the word role along and keep playing.

3. Push

The next two games are both of the same type. They are push your luck games. And both of them work well. I put Push slightly below the other one because the other one is easier to learn. But I think I like Push as a better game.

Why does Push work as a party game? I know there is an upper limit of six players, but I’ve played with more. So it works well for that larger group. And with a good party style game people need to be invested or engaged in egging others on or giving them grief. And with Push, you are invested. You want the player to stop if you might get something ideal for your collection. Or you want them to push because if they bust, well that is great for you.

2. Flip 7

Flip 7 has many of the same attributes as Push. But it is simpler in what you do. There isn’t the three piles, you just decide on your turn to draw a card or bank the points that you have. That is as simple as it gets. But it still has the same fun of egging someone on to draw one more card. And if they manage to pull that off, then do they push their luck again. And the same goes for your turn. It’s simple but it works really well as that bigger group party style game.

1. Ready, Set, Bet!

I debated about putting it on the list at all, but if it’s on the list, it’s #1. This is a betting game where a horse race is happening in real time and players are throwing down bets in real time. It’s a chaotic time and you would think that watching two dice being rolled over and over again would keep people engaged. But every time I play the game people end up standing and are highly invested in those two dice roles.

The reason it almost didn’t make the list is that it can have a bit more going on in it. There are prop bets that players can bet on and you need to know how those work. But if you don’t want to learn how those work, that’s okay, you can do great by betting on the right horse at the right time to win big.

What Are You Playing?

Now all of these games are going to have different results for you. So I think you need to know your group. Some of them are going to be better for different player counts as well. But all of them will move you away from those more traditional party games.

Is there one that stands out that you’d love to play with your group? Let me know that down in the comment section below. Or do you have a game that you go to that aren’t traditional party games when you need a party game?

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Top 10 “It’s Been Too Long” Board Games

10. Xenoshyft

This one might be surprisingly low for some people. You know that I like this game a lot. But it’s low because I have played it a bunch. So while I haven’t played this deck building tower defense game recently, it’s one that I have played.

In this game you are cooperating with others to defend your base against alien bug attacks. You do this by creating a line of troops with armor and weapons to defend your sector of the base. Each player is going to defend their sector of the base, but you can help your teammates by giving them troops if you have too many and they don’t have enough. Or using items like grenades to blow up alien monsters or medpacs to heal them. I love how cooperative this game is, and challenging. Which makes me come back to it again and again.

9. Paper Dungeon

This is another game that I really love. But it’s lower on the list against because I’ve played it a bunch. But this is a dungeon crawler game that is a roll and write. You are exploring a dungeon, fighting monsters, finding bosses and trying to deal with those, all while leveling up your heroes and crafting items and health potions.

This is a roll and write game so the theme only comes through so much. But it’s really fun because there is a lot to do in the game. And this is one that I actually played through the whole “campaign” for it on Malts and Meeples YouTube. So you can checkout that video below. But the combinations just work so great that I really love this game, and I have an expansion for it that I need to get played.

8. Ship Shape

This is a funny little game but it’s been too long since I played it. It’s all about being the best pirate and not having too much contraband, but also getting that treasure as well. The main thing that sets this apart from other games, and puts it onto the list, is that you are bidding for what you want, but you can’t see everything you might need to know.

The game has you stacking tiles onto your cargo hold. Each tile is going to cover up certain parts of the hold. Now, all the tiles are stacked on top of each other as you bid, as well. So if you want the top tile you need to bid the highest number. But you can see some down the stack to know what might be on some of the lower tiles and if they might fit your hold better. But it’s unlikely that you can see everything, so do you risk it and bid lower. Of course, it all depends on what the other players bid as well to see if you get what you want or not.

7. Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition

This one falls into that category of I’ve played it a number of times. So do I need to play it again as much as some, probably not. But when it comes to engine building games, Ares Expedition is a great game. And I know that I have new content for cooperative and solo play to add to the game. As well as objectives to add to the game as well, if I want, so there is new stuff.

But I really love how Ares Expedition works. In this game every player is going to choose an action to do that round, and you choose it in secret. Then you reveal and you do the actions a particular order so it is building first and drawing cards, I believe at the end. Everyone plays every action that someone picked. But on the action that you picked, you get a bonus. And it’s possible that multiple people, or everyone, might pick the same action. So one round it might only be one action, which is interesting.

The game is then about building out an engine to gain points. You do this by terraforming Mars as well as getting points from cards as you build out that engine. The game is not super short, though, I’ve heard, shorter than Terraforming Mars. And it’s so much fun to play that I don’t mind it being a longer play.

6. Trailblazers

There are a few games on the list that I’m not sure why I haven’t played them recently Trailblazers is one of them. The big reason right now is that I don’t know where it is in my game collection. I know I own it. I know that I like it. But where is it, I’m not sure.

In this game you complete three different types of routes as you are out hiking, biking, or kayaking. Each of them creates a loop from the trailhead back to the start. You do this by drafting cards and playing them out. You draft over four rounds. And on the first round you only have one of the three trailheads out in play. Then the next round you add another and so on until the final round all of them are out. This helps you focus your building efforts a bit more.

But it’s fun because you gain points for all the sections of a trail. And sometimes a trail can cross itself and that gives you more points, or be crossed by another trail for more points. The game is simple and easy to play. And it’s not one that I find too stressful to play which is nice as well.

5. Calico

I’m not sure why Calico hasn’t been played in about two years. I really like Calico, though, I need to play Cascadia. The theme for Calico, for me, works better than Cascadia. We might have three cats in our house.

But this is a great tile placement game and I love the pattern matching element to the game. I think that the game is so much fun as you try and get matching colors together, matching patterns together, as well as the objectives that you set for yourself. And getting points for matching patterns to get cats, or colors to get buttons is fun.

The objectives are where the real puzzle and tension of the game comes into play. It might be something like AAA BBB and another one might be A BB CCC. You read those, first one as the example, as three of one color or pattern and three of another color or pattern surrounding that scoring objective. But if you can manage to get three of two colors and three of two patterns between those two colors, you score more points. So there are lots of ways to score points but it’s a really good tight puzzle of a game.

4. Chronicles of Drunagor

This is the only big campaign game on the list. I certainly could add more games like Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon, but I have completed that game. With Chronicles of Drunagor, I played one session and that is it. So I want to play more of the game because I really enjoyed that one play. The issue, I found, is that it wasn’t great for streaming. I want to stream big campaign games maybe for a couple of hours. But because of how Drunagor works, with setting stuff up often mid game, it made it harder. But I think I can play it in shorter bursts, especially if I leave it set-up.

I really like the core mechanism(s) to the game. Firstly there is darkness. Darkness is a negative for the players. So you need to keep ahead of it. I like that it is an element that you use as a timer for the game. It means you can’t sit back too long and heal up or anything like that.

The other thing is the activation cubes. Each character starts out with some cubes of various colors. You use that color to activate that color of action. Then you cover it up. You aren’t able to use that action again until you remove all the cubes. And when you remove all the cubes, you block off one of them “for good” with a black cube. Yes, you can get it back, but that is an action and turn in and of itself.

3. Tesseract

Tesseract is a game that I played twice completely at Gen Con in 2023 and once I got to sit in on the last few turns and take over for a person. The theme of the game is fun, though it only comes through so much. In the game a cube has come to Earth, and it is shrinking. If you and your team are unable to crack the code and understand what the Tesseract is before it disappears a singularity will envelop the Earth, or something like that.

The game is all about managing this cube of dice. It’s going to shrink each turn, of Pandemic like in you do your good stuff then something bad happens. And you need to create collections of dice and numbers to research all the different colors/symbols on the dice and their numbers. But to play out those dice to get it closer to the finish, you create sets or runs of dice that you can use. So it’s all about getting the right dice and manipulating the dice well.

2. The Great Split

Who is the best collector of arts and other things? Well, that could be you in The Great Split. This games main mechanism is simply, I split, you choose. And you use that for set collection to score different types of artwork and literature.

But let’s talk about that main mechanism. What does it mean when I say “I split, you choose”. It means that we all have a collection of cards. I split that collection of cards into two groups. You pick one of the groups to take for yourself and I get the other one back. So when I create that split of cards, I want to create a division that you’ll want, but is just okay for you, and one that I want, but isn’t too good for me that you take it so I can’t have it. It’s a great mechanism, and The Great Split makes it the focus of it’s game.

1. Ready, Set, Bet

I love the chaos of this game. It’s amazingly fun doing the real time bidding on a horse race. And it’s also a blast being the person who is calling the race as well. The whole thing is just chaos and good in a great way. However, I do think you need the right group for it and a large enough group. That is what I’ve been missing for it recently and why it hasn’t been played.

So let’s talk about how this game works. All players have bidding chips. And one player is the caller of the race. That player is going to be rolling two dice and moving the horses down the track. While they are doing that in real time, the players are throwing out chips onto different bidding spots. These spots are for winning, showing, and placing. But also for extra bets like the 7 horse finishing ahead of all blue horses or things like that. You get money at the end of each round, and the player with the most money wins.

Final Thoughts

There are so many more board games that I could put on this list. If it’s not obvious, I love board games. And it’s fun to see what new games come out and play them. But sometimes I really want to get back to some classic ones that I’ve enjoyed a lot. It’s something that I need to make space for in my gaming. So while I’m getting very close to 50 new games for the year, I also need to play through some of these games on the list and enjoy them again.

What are some games that you want to get back to the table?

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And for other ideas check out the previous lists.

Two Player Games
Campaign Games
Solo Games

Party Games

Just One

Just One is the first of two cooperative party games on the list. That in and of itself is fairly unique. But these games are great for when you have that person or people you play with who get too competitive or into even party games.

In Just One you give a one word clue to the person who is trying to guess a single word. The trick comes that players aren’t able to know what the other people are writing. And you want to give a different clue. Clues that are the same, both of them are erased and the person guessing gets neither of them. I like that element of the game because you want to be unique, but if you are so unique and far out there it could point someone in the wrong direction. And it is possible that people will completely skip the normal clue or the best option as well.

So Clover

The other of the cooperative party games is So Clover. Both of these games are actually from the same company, Repos Productions, who makes an interesting party game seemingly every year.

This is one that is trickier to explain than Just One. But it reminds me of a Venn Diagram in some ways. You get two words and you need to figure out how those words overlap. But you do that four times, like the shape of a four leaf clover. Each overlap is going to give you a unique combination. And after you pick your words and write them down, you remove the cards with the words, which have four words on them, and add a random other one. The other players need to work together and figure out how to put it back in the right orientation.

This game also has a nice benefit of the flow of the game. Each player can write down their combinations at the same time. And then you just go around taking turns being the person to present your set-up of words.

Ready Set Bet

This is very different from what people think of when they think of party games. But it has the excitement that I expect when I play a party game. Ready Set Bet is a horse racing bidding game that is played in real time.

One person is going to be running the race. They, in real time, are rolling dice which moves horses down the track. The other players are all betting on the race in real time. Once someone takes a spot that spot is gone. So rolling two dice you think that 7 would win most of the time, it might, but if you roll the same number twice in a row, it causes it to surge ahead. And of course, there is luck of the dice.

This game is a bit more of a game than a lot of the other ones. Those tend to be experiences. Here you need to learn a few rules and be up for adding in a bit of complexity as you go. But it still has those stand-up moments as people are racing for a betting spot, or at the end of the race, everyone is holding their breath or cheering loudly for their horse, or the one they bet the most on, to win.

Medium

Now we go to more traditional party games, though this one is still unique. In Medium you and another player partner up for a turn. It isn’t a cooperative game, but you both want to match up. That is common for party games. But here, it feels more unique because you each pick a word to play, and then you both need to come up with a word that connects the two. If you don’t on the first try, you use the words you just said and try again. You get three tries with fewer and fewer points you get each time. After a few rounds, player with the most points wins.

I like this game because it leads to weird situations. You might go in two opposite directions with what connects or is between the two. Or you might both pick different synonyms and now you need to make that work for the next guess. And as the person who is watching people guess you always know what they should say. But as the guesser you second guess yourself so much.

Blank Slate

Finally for the party games we have Blank Slate, the most traditional of the party games. In this one you are filling in a blank, so it’d be like [your word] Slate for example. And you want to match with one person with the word you write down. If you watch one with person you both get three points. Match with no one and you get no points. Or match with more people and you all get one point. The game is a race to 20 points or so, and it’s a lot of fun.

I like this one better than a lot of games like it though. It almost has a Apples to Apples feel to it, but you get to be creative. You pick the word you want to play, not some random words that you have in your hand that might not match. And you play the people around the table as well. I might find a great sports word to fill in, but if that doesn’t match the interests of the people at the table, probably not the best play.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of good party games out there. I still even enjoy the classic party game of Scattergories. But a lot of people have played the few party games from the 80’s and 90’s a lot at this point. So these games are all newer, sometimes familiar and sometimes different, add them into your gaming rotation with friends and family around the holidays. Or give them to people so you aren’t always stuck playing the same games over and over again with them.

What is your favorite party game?

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Catch up on my Top 100 Games (of all Time) 2023 Edition:

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 20 through 11

20. Hanamikoji

The list, this time, starts off with a two player only game and my favorite truly two player only game. Hanamikoji is an amazing game of trying to win the favor of Geisha by giving them gifts. There are seven Geisha and each of them has a point value and equal number of gifts assigned to them. If you win the favor, give the most gifts, to four of them or eleven points, you win.

But where the game is amazing is how you hand out the gifts. Both players have four actions that they can do. And a round to see who has favor ends when both players have done all their actions. But the actions are what make the game shine.

Two of the actions are close to each other. One is to put a card face down to save it for the end of the round to give as a gift. The other is play two face down that won’t be used. Then the final two actions interact with your opponent. One is to play three cards face up and they pick one to put in front of a Geisha on their side and you get the other two. The final one is to create two groups of two cards and your opponent picks one.

Those choices are tough and I love that about the game. I even use what I play out as sometimes a way to let me opponent help me know what way to do. Or to gather information. Highly recommend this as a quick two player game.

Buy Hanamikoji

19. Cartographers

Next up is my second highest roll and write style game, and you’ll see the highest very soon. But Cartographers is a game about making maps and building it out in a way that scores you the most points. It’s odd, in theme, because you’d think you’d want all the maps to be identical, nope, not really.

But the game does two things that I really like. The first being that it has monsters, and why are monsters great, you might ask? Well, monsters are great because they are a negative to what you are doing. But it isn’t a negative that you control, it’s a negative that someone else plays on y our board. And I like that player interaction that often doesn’t exist in roll and write games. In Cartographers you got it because I want to add a monster that will mess you up.

Then the other thing is how Cartographers does the scoring. Scoring is done via seasons and each season scores two of the four areas. This isn’t that unique to Cartographers, but it is a fun twist to the game. It is also unique to roll and write games, at least the ones that I’ve come across. So in spring I score, let’s call them, A and B. Well, A isn’t going to come back around until winter when I score D and A. So there is a balance about which goals you are going for. And after summertime, B isn’t going to be scored again.

Buy Cartographers

18. Railroad Ink Challenge

And let’s go onto the top roll and write style game for me, Railroad Ink, though in particular, Railroad Ink Challenge. I love this game, and the app definitely helps, though I haven’t played it in a while. Railroad Ink is primarily about connecting railroad and road points around the edge of the board.

Railroad Ink Challenge builds upon that with a few different things. There are now stations where if you build a connection that connects roads and trains, which is a certain side of the dice, there, you get more points. And there are special sides of dice that you can use that often have those stations. Plus you get more points for traveling through the middle. And there are spots that when you cover them give you other bonuses as well. I like those additions to the game.

The one that I really like for the game, though, is the new challenge cards. The challenge cards offer different objectives on rounds three through five, that you can score. Now, you are able to score them later, but if you do that, they are worth fewer points. So it is a push to get those scores, but not too much of one to mess up your connections and longest routes because those are going to give you the most points.

Buy Railroad Ink Challenge

17. Xenoshyft

Now we’re onto the first of several games with deck building that make it towards the top of my list. I really like deck building and Xenoshyft is some of the best cooperative deck building out there. I love it for that, and for the theme which feels a whole lot like Starship Troopers as you’re fighting off wave after wave of bugs.

But let’s talk about what I really like about this deck building. There are a number of things that I cover in the video, but I’ll just hit the highlights. The first being that every turn you get money. So there is no hand where you’re not going to be able to buy a card. You will always be able to add a card, which is great because another thing I like, the cards you buy go to your hand, not into a discard for future rounds.

The other element that I really like is the amount of cooperation in the game. As you play and deal with the waves, you might end up with a hand with too many weapons or not enough troops. Well, someone can give you a troop if they have extra or to balance out the defenses better. You can pass off a weapon to someone else. They change decks they are in now. And there are consumables. I can use a consumable item, it stays in my deck, on the lane that you’re defending from the bugs just as easily as mine. So it’s a puzzle that all players work together on to solves very cooperatively.

Buy Xenoshyft

16. First Rat

Now we’re onto a game, two in row actually, that my first experience was at Gen Con in 2022. First Rat was one of the hottest games that year, and I got to play it, demo it, the very last day there. Since then it is one that has hit the table more times because of the fun theme and because it’s a thinky game, but it’s easy to play. For me, a game that makes me think but isn’t too complex to play is what I really like.

In First Rat you are rats who are trying to build rocket ships to make it to the moon, because the moon is made of cheese, obviously. To do that you need to collect resources, like baking soda, vinegar (propulsion), coffee can (fuselage), or a calculator (navigation) to build parts of the rocket. But there is more than just that going on because you are going up a track that only moves forward.

So you need to balance the speed that you go as well as pushing up other things, like lights. If you light an area that now offers doubles the resources for you. And you don’t just have one rat that goes up, you have multiple. Plus how the rats move is fun. One rat is able to move farther on a turn, but if you move two and land on the same color with both, you need to in fact, you get resources for both. It’s a fun twist and as you unlock more rats that is fun as well to figure out your engine for that game.

Buy First Rat

15. Ready Set Bet

Now the other game from Gen Con 2022 is Ready Set Bet. Ready Set Bet is not a game that immediately grabbed my attention. It’s a real time horse racing and betting game. That sounds like chaos, and in all fairness, there is a bit of chaos going on. But it is so much fun.

The game is pretty simple, one person (or an app) is calling the race. Rolling dice and moving the horses along the track. Everyone else is throwing down bets on horses to win, or get 2nd or 3rd. Plus there are other bets, that you can make. Those are going to be something like, if the 5 and 9 beat the 7 horse. Because rolling two D6, 7 is the most likely number to come up.

So how does the 7 not win the vast majority of the time? Well, because there are special rules for how horses move. All horses will move one if their number is rolled. But the less likely the number is to be rolled, the further the horse moves, if the same number is rolled twice in a row. So that can help one of those edge horses rocket up into the lead just because their number was rolled a couple of times.

I love Ready Set Bet because of that catch-up mechanism of balancing mechanism. The game is just a blast to play. And almost always a race or two throughout the game ends up with a late lead change and stand-up moments as players really want a horse to finish and with a couple of rolls they might be able to, as long as another number doesn’t come up.

Buy Ready Set Bet

14. Sleeping Gods

Now we go to a run of three bigger story driven games. The first being Sleeping Gods, and soon I’ll have Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies to add to the list as well. But this is an open world adventure and exploration game from Red Raven Games. In Sleeping Gods you can go anywhere, but you’re trying to find totems so you can get back to the real world instead of this one you blew into during a storm.

You play as the crew of the Manticore, or really as the Manticore itself. You travel around and then taking the crew to shore or other locations you interact with story. And Ryan Laukat and everyone involved did an amazing job with the story. You get to experience a chunk of it, but not too much so it’s replayable. And the story is not in any order, but the story all works because it’s exploring the world and there are a few spots where it pauses with big events no matter what.

I also like the game system. I didn’t talk about it too much in last nights video, but it is great. It’s simple in what you’re doing, spending icons, basically, a boost roles. Or some characters have icons built into them that you can use. And the combat mechanism is a bit odd, but I really enjoyed it as you try and figure out how to cover up damage spots on a monster.

Buy Sleeping Gods

13. ISS Vanguard

Now another one of the story games and another one that I played on Malts and Meeples. ISS Vanguard is an epic experience of a game. I don’t know, yet, if I can call it an adventure, but the experience of the game is amazing. Humanity has decoded coordinates hidden in human DNA for someone in the stars. So a crew has been put together to go out there, what will they find?

That’s the premise for the game and everything. Now the crew of the ISS Vanguard find themselves at those coordinates, and what they find is not what they expected. So you get to explore planets and find out what is really going on. And then you spend time maintaining and improving the ship, finding and researching new technologies and breakthroughs. Plus memorializing crew who have died and healing the injured.

I love that about this game. It offers two parts, planet and ship, and both are equally as important. When they announced the ship part, I thought it might be too much just maintenance. But there is story, there is progression and there are real decisions to be made. So I love both parts, in some ways, I almost prefer the ship part because it’s so interesting and smooth to play.

Buy ISS Vanguard

12. Roll Player Adventures

Now another campaign game, though this one shorter than ISS Vanguard. Roll Player Adventures is 11 chapters, I believe. And there is a side quest that you can do. But set in the world of Roll Player, a character creation game, and Lock-up from Thunderworks Games, this is the big adventure that you can take those characters you created or pre-generated ones on an adventure.

This game has a lot of story to it and choose your own adventure elements. But each map you play, each scenario you play, is going to continue that story. The main mechanism in the game is completing challenges or defeating monsters by dice placement and manipulation. And that is a fun element of the game. I think it’s a bit easier with more players though, so just note that.

I also like how you have three tracks in the game. That shows how much or little favor you have with a group. That is one way where the game is going to be vary variable. And I like it for the game because some elements of the map and how you interact are going to stay the same. But as your favor changes that’ll open up or close off some options to you.

Buy Roll Player Adventures

11. Aeon’s End

Finally we end with another deck building game, this one is also cooperative, and it is Aeon’s End. Aeon’s End is a game of defending the town of Gravehold from a nemesis that is coming through. Can the breach mages stand against it or will the nemesis and it’s minions overwhelm?

This is all of Aeon’s End stuff. I have played it on Malts and Meeples as well. So I’ll drop in the video below. But I love this game for it’s cooperative play and for it’s unique turn order. However, I think the turn order probably means it should be a two handed solo game, or a two player game. You put six cards, two for each character and two for the nemesis into pile at two players. Then that is shuffled and you draw your turn order randomly. Once all six are drawn, you shuffle it up again. I love that.

I also love how much the game offers for you to do with your money. You might want to buy more spells and more powerful spells to hit the nemesis or their minions. Or you might have a special power that you want to power up. But you also need to think about spending the money (gems) to open up more breaches. Because you are only able to prepare and cast spells for the numbers of breaches that you have. It’s a good system where you want to do everything but probably can’t quite, realistically.

Buy Aeon’s End

Upcoming Streams

Let’s run through the stream structure like I normally do. You might already know the schedule but in case you don’t. Wednesday at 8 PM Central I stream either a campaign game, or with this time of year it’s my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. And join me next Wednesday for the Top 10. It goes so fast, and now I have so many games that I want to play.

Then on Monday I stream at 9 PM Central time. It’s generally a solo game. Though I’ll also do pack openings for things But normally it’s a solo game and a one off for the game like a roll and write, or sometimes a game like Under Falling Skies or For Northwood, which was on the list today.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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How To Play – Ready Set Bet

Ready Set Bet is a real time horse racing and betting game where the goal is to have won the most money by the end of the game. The rules are pretty simple, but there is a fair amount to keep track of in the game.

You play Ready Set Bet over four rounds. Each of them being a race that you can bet on. One player is the caller, this can rotate, who will be rolling two dice which the combined total determines which horse moves. Everyone else is placing down bets on a betting board. You want to go quick to get in bets on the better numbers, but not too quick so you don’t know which horse is going to win, place, or show.

Caller

The caller during the race is going to be rolling the pair of dice. Like I said, that determines which horse moves. The horses go from 2 and 3, 4, 5, and all the way up to the combined 11 and 12. So while the odds are more favorable than normal on the 2 and 3 and 11 and 12, they still aren’t good.

The caller rolls, calls out the horse moving and moves it along the track. They also keep track of when a horses number if rolled the second time in a row. If it is, then the horse will move some extra distance depending on the number of the horse.

But the best callers call it like it’s a race. You get into that frenetic excitement of horses passing each other, someone coming from the back of the pack. Warning when betting is going to be closed and more. A good caller improves the quality of the race.

Bettor

As for betting, each player has tokens that they can use to bet. The tokens are between 2 and 5 with one of each number except two threes. And betting takes place on a number of different areas. You have exotic finishes that up to 3 people can bet on. You can bet on horses to win, show and place. Plus, you can do prop bets on certain finishes like a red horse winning, a red horse beating all the blue horses, or more. Each of these allows one person to bet on them.

The tricky bit is that some of the spots have negatives as well as positives. If you bet and win, it’s great, you don’t pay back to the bank. But if you don’t win that bet, you might find yourself owing money. So bet early, bet often, and bet well.

Along with all of that there are VIP cards. After the first race cards are drafted that let the owner maybe gain a stronger betting chip. Or get some money on specific bets like snake eyes and box cars being rolled. It adds to the game and the complexity for the betters with more to keep track of.

What Might Not Work

This is an interesting one because I do think there are a few things that will make the game not work, and probably not work for a specific individual which hopefully you know if you are one of them. It’s not a knock on the individual, it is be aware of this coming into the game.

Firstly, the game is real time. That is going to be a negative. Some people might get frustrated over a few things because of that. They might lose out on a spot because someone bets faster. Or the decision making might take longer and when the horses hit the red line, well three of them do, all betting stops. So you might be stuck with chips left in hand.

Next, calling a race might not be what you like to do. It is a spotlight position in the game. The game does offer a work around for this. There is an app which has various callers of the race and moves the horses for you. This will take off the pressure, but I also know that some gamers don’t want technology at the table as board gaming is a chance to unplug for a little while.

Finally, there is a lot of luck in the game. This is a betting in real time horse racing game which uses dice. That sounds like a lot of luck to me. You can wait until the last second to bet, but if you do that, you’ll miss out on a lot of the betting locations. So you might win money more often, but in much smaller quantities.

What Works

Energy

Firstly, let’s say, all of my potential negatives work for me. And they have consistently worked in the games that I’ve played whether people are betting or calling the game. It is fun, because of the randomness in the game you are hoping for specific things to happen, and you get into the dice rolls. And as the roller, the energy of the players and betting does come back to energize you. And a big move by a horse is a lot of fun to talk about.

Game Length

Also, the game doesn’t vary much in length from two players to nine players. The big thing that might take longer is figuring out money. But if players do that by themselves and just grab the coins or ask for the coins needed from their bets, then that doesn’t add too much time. So games will be consistent in length and teaching the game doesn’t add in too much time.

Memories

Ready Set Bet is also a game that brings its own excitement and memories to the game. I talk about games telling stories, sometimes with story books, well, Ready Set Bet tells a story by what happens in the game. Just last play we had the 11/12 horse get a couple of last rolls in a row to pass everyone to finish. They came back while 10 was a space away from winning the race and had been for a few rolls to finish. It was memorable and swung the results.

Player Count

Finally, the game plays up to 9 players. That is a lot of people and it’s great for being able to do that. Like I said, not longer at higher player counts. But most high player count games are going to be the classic style party game. Or games that take a much longer time to play. Ready Set Bet is a party game, don’t get that wrong, but it’s more of a game as well. So it offers something unique at that player count.

Who Is It For

I think this is a great game for groups that maybe don’t love party games. But they like games where they can beat someone to something. There is enough going on to make it complex enough to feel like you optimize. And still it’s easy enough and fast enough to fall into that party game. So really, this is probably a game for mixed group of people who do and don’t like party games but all want to play something.

This is also an amazing game for people who go to conventions. Set this out on a table and you’ll have a group of people watching besides those who are betting. The experience is noisy and fun and great for those big groups that maybe you can’t find anywhere else but at a convention.

Final Thoughts on Ready Set Bet

Let’s enjoy this experience, that’s what I have to say about this game going into it. It is an experience of a game which I haven’t met other games that really match up to this. And that’s a good thing. Yes, there are going to be reasons why some people might not like the game but in all the games I’ve played I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t enjoy it. Some might not have loved it, but they still like it.

It really is a game that tells stories while being a simple game. And even though everything might be a little bit crazy and frenetic, it leads to memories that are just unique in the gaming space. And I don’t generally like real time games. There are some, Galaxy Truckers and Mesozooic that I don’t mind too much, or Tiny Turbo Cars because that isn’t the whole of the game. And with two of them it isn’t a hard timer. But Ready Set Bet has that loose timing mechanism of horses passing the red line. And then the real time of rolling dice and placing bets. And it is just fun because of the racing energy it gives the game.

For me, I love this game. I didn’t play it for a while and I thought maybe it might not work all the time. I am cure that it won’t work every time. But I don’t care, if I can find a group to play it with, I will because the game is just amazingly fun.

My Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: B+

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Top 5 Board Games of 2022

5. Village Rails

Village Rails is a game that stands out to be because it takes a concept I like in Village Green and iterates upon it. In Village Green, by a different designer, it is a tough puzzle to crack. With Village Rails you are still filling out a grid of cards completing rail routes, but it’s not as restricting. You decide how much you want to optimize how you score points on the route.

And I think the whole concept of route building is a lot of fun. This distills it into something that’s much smaller than a big train game, and offers more interesting decisions than a game like Ticket to Ride. All with just a deck of cards. You score points for the routes and the engines that you place on them, and it’s really just a clever and enjoyable system.

4. The Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw

This is one that is more built upon another game than my first one. But Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw is a roll and write version of Isle of Cats. The game plays in a much faster time and offers interesting other choices that the board game version can’t because of how it’s set-up. I think I like it better than the big box version, but it is close and I need to play the bigger box more.

In this you are still trying to rescue cats from the island. But you activate a column of three cards each round. Those cards can be cats to place on your boat, same rules for that as Isle of Cats. Or you can get scoring cards which you track which ones you’ve activated on a sheet. The game plays much faster, that is for sure, and offers still a lot of good choices. Plus you have powers you can use to break the rules and optimize a turn, which is fun as well.

3. Ready Set Bet

I own this one now, I own all of them on the list, but it took me a while to get Ready Set Bet. Ready Set Bet is a horse betting and horse racing game. There is an app that can call the race for you, but otherwise, someone does and everyone else is tossing down bets as the race goes on hoping to make as much money as they can.

There is a real time aspect that is needed for this game. It gives you that tension that I can only assume is like being at the track. You are watching trying to get a bet in at the last second on a sleeper who is making a move towards the end so you can win big. But if you hold onto your bets too long, the odds of betting on the favorites becomes worse. It’s a clever, light, and exciting system.

2. First Rat

First Rat is a game that I think the Dice Tower crew talked about well, it looks like it shouldn’t be that thinky a game. But First Rat, a game where you are collecting pieces to build a rocket ship as a rat to get to the moon that is made of cheese, it works really well.

You get a lot of options of how to move and optimize your strategy. But each player can have their own strategy. I pushed up on the lights track because I wanted, when I moved up the main track, it to be even more powerful. To collect resources faster. Other players pushed up for resources faster but had to be okay with getting fewer. There are a lot of fun things to play around with on the system. And the theme makes what is basically a resource collection game so much more fun.

1. Stars of Akarios

Finally, you got to see me play this one on Malts and Meeples. We have Stars of Akarios. An epic, massive, space exploration and tactics game. I love this game because it does so much. You want tactical space combat, it does that. You want to explore a planet, you can do that. And it has choose your own adventure story in there as well.

I’ve talked about this game a lot. I thought that I’d like it, and I do, indeed, like this game a lot. The story is engaging. It isn’t as polished or deep as some, like Tainted Grail for example, but it is a fun story. It has that early 2000’s SyFy channel vibe to it, or something like Farscape which is just fun to play in. And the tactical space combat is so cool and puzzly to figure out. And then you get little breaks with the story and exploring planets before you launch off and try again.

What Are Your Favorite Games from 2022?

I had 16 different board games on the list. And I did exclude Marvel Dice Throne from my rankings because it is just more Dice Throne. But that would be my number one otherwise. I love Dice Throne. But it has been a really good year for games. I don’t on my list have Oathsworn because I haven’t played it yet. I want to play Lands of Galzyr. Just missing was Batman: Everybody Lies the Detective System game and Long Shot the Dice Game. So it has been a story year for games. What is your favorite?

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Checkout 100 through 91 first here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition 90-81

90 – The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

I really enjoy trick taking games, though not a ton of them make the top of my list. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea makes the list for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is a cooperative trick taking game. So everyone works together to complete certain objectives. That is fun, but it is also fun because I can play the same scenario over again and I’ll have different objectives. That’s something that made me like it better than The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine which was fixed.

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89 – Too Many Bones: Undertow

Too Many Bones, a bit game from Chip Theory Games, is one that I think will move up higher as I get more characters and get it to the table more. I like it every time I play, but it’s a beast and I need to relearn the rules. But Too Many Bones is generally a tactical fighting game where you level up characters as you go. Eventually you face off against a big boss. What you level up are stats but then also unlock new dice and abilities to use. And then I like that fact that the characters aren’t normal. The Gearlocs aren’t cute, but what they do is different than a lot of standard fantasy games.

Buy on Chip Theory Games

88 – Downforce

Downforce is an interesting light and quick betting game. In this game you buy a car, race that car, and then get your points, or money, for who you place a bet on, where they finish, and where you vehicle finishes. There is one thing, there are more, but one in particular, that is so clever though. As the cars race along, that is done by people playing down cards. The cards have a list of car colors and how far they move. If you plan it well you can get a car trapped and slow it down, which offers more strategy than you’d expect from the game.

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87 – Fruit Picking

Another one that has been on the list before and another lighter game like Downforce that way. But otherwise it is more like Mancala with set collection. You move seeds around, figuring out how to land on spots where you can either get a lot more seeds or you can buy different fruit. All you are trying to do is figure out that puzzle as quickly as possible. And of course, to land in the right spot to get those fruit and collect your sets.

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86 – Atlantis Rising

Atlantis Rising is new to the list, and a very good cooperative game. As I say in the video, it’s almost an introductory or welcoming cooperative game. In this game you are trying not to keep Atlantis afloat, but as it sinks, get off the island by making technology and end up in another realm. What I like is how the board shrinks as you play, parts sink and you lose some of the better options for going out. Of course, if you want to more likely get what you need, you go out to the end of an peninsula, but there is also a great chance it’ll sink and you get nothing.

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85 – Flamecraft

Flamecraft is one of the prettiest games out there with all the cute dragons. But it’s a fun light game to play as well. It is a very good welcoming game because of the artwork, but because there isn’t too much going on as well. You are either adding dragons to shops to get resources on your turn, and use powers of the dragons or shop. Or you are completing goals and gaining points. It’s such a friendly game that is a lot of fun to play and look at.

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84 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Arkham Horror: The Card Game has fallen for me a lot. Mainly because I just don’t play it or have someone to play it with consistently. For me, it is a fine solo game, but I like it better multiplayer. In this game you are an investigator looking into some strange mystery, probably dealing with an elder god or some great old one. Of course, that means weird things can happen, and Fantasy Flight Games has done a great job of putting something together that uses the cards to create really unique experiences.

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83 – Village Rails

Village Rails replaces Village Green for me on the list. So another new game. It is still laying out things in a 3×3 grid, but now you’re trying to connect routes and score points that way. Plus playing out train engines to get even more scoring opportunities. What I like about it though is that the route building is a bit simpler to grasp than how the greens work. It’s a solid filler style game, I’d say, where it offers good decisions but not that long a game play time.

Not Out Yet

82 – Isle of Cats

The Isle of Cats from City of Games, is a great big polyomino game where you are rescuing cats. The same for the Explore and Draw which I’d maybe rate higher but hadn’t rated yet by the time I did my list. In both you are filling up a boat with cats, trying to get families – colors of cats- next to each other on the boat. And then there are objective cards as well that you can draft and give you more end of the game scoring. There is a lot to the game but it’s a fun one to play both versions of it.

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81 – The Lost Expedition

The Lost Expedition is another one that has been on my list for a long time and has dropped some lately. Mainly because it got played a lot and there is less to see. But I still enjoy The Lost Expedition a lot. Mainly because it’s a cooperative game that is hard or even impossible for one player to really run for everyone. You’re trying to find the lost city of Z and explore along different paths every day. When making that path, each person needs to make the decision themselves and can’t discuss with other players. Eventually you make it, or often times you run out of food and your guides all perish.

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Upcoming Streams

Next Monday the Top 100 Games 2022 Edition continues. You can find the video below for that one. If you want to join live, it’ll be at 8:30 PM Central on Monday. Only week where it might not happen at that time is October 31st as it’s Halloween.

Then on Wednesday, it is time for more Stars of Akarios. This is assuming my internet is back by then. If not, I’ll tweet it out. But you can find that link here. The following week I will be out of town so no Stars of Akarios. But hopefully you are still having fun, and most likely there is a fair amount to catch up on after seven games.

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Top 10 Games I Want To Get My Hands On

10 – The City of Kings

Originally a game that I learned about from Rolling Solo, I think realized it is from a company that I like their stuff, City of Games, such as Isle of Cat and Isle of Cat Explore & Draw. Basically a company I’ll always be paying attention to. This is one that I could order, but it’s not a cheap game, because it’s a big kind of adventure game.

But it’s doing adventure in a different way. While you are still going out, fighting monsters, completing goals and things like that, so much of The City of Kings is about leveling up your character. Much of what you do is in preparation to face off against the big bad guy when they show up. It’s also more contained as well which I like.

9 – The King’s Dilemma

I’ve almost bot The King’s Dilemma from Horrible Guild a number of times. And it’s fairly surprising I haven’t because it’s a legacy game and I love legacy games. But the main reason that I haven’t is I don’t know when I’ll play it. And with it being in stock a lot of the time, it’s one that I plan on picking up when I know I’m ready to play it.

The King’s Dilemma is an interesting sounding game where you take on different factions in a kingdom. And then through the games you open up envelopes, deal with the dilemma’s that come out, voting on what your faction wants in the game. It seems like a big narrative experience and negotiation experience which sounds fun. Also seems like it needs a fairly specific group.

8 – Die of the Dead

I almost backed Die of the Dead when it was on Kickstarter from Radical 8 Games. And now it is hard to find, though I have seen it once used. This game just looked colorful and different which is what drew me to it on Kickstarter. And while it doesn’t look to be that heavy, it does seem to do some different things.

In this game you are trying to be the first player to get your souls back to the land of the living. You load up dice into coffins, roll them and try and place them on this three dimensional stairway. The whole idea of going back up to the land of the living with your souls. I don’t know a ton more about game play, but the table presence is amazing.

7 – MicroMacro: Crime City

From one that is hard to find to one that is easy to find we have MicroMacro: Crime City, and the standalone expansion. Both of those generally are fairly easy to get your hands on. And I’m mainly waiting for a time when I know that I want to play the game.

The basics of the game is a “Where is Waldo” type of scenario. You are looking around a giant map to try and find the specific clues for your case. And as you find some details you open up others which lead you down a path until you find the criminal.

Calling this a game is a bit tricky, but as an activity, it sounds like a lot of fun. Besides wanting to get it when I can play it, the other reason I’ve hesitated is I don’t know if I would play all the cases with it still feeling interesting and unique. If you’ve played it, let me know how it holds up after playing a lot of cases.

6 – Monumental

Another Kickstarter that I wish I had backed, but on Kickstarter it just looked good not amazing. For me, I think that this is a game that probably would work really well. But of course, now it’s hard to find because it has not come to retail.

In Monumental you play over two different areas. The first is a board where you are doing area control of sorts, fighting enemies, things like that. But what really intrigues me about the game is the deck building, a mechanism that I love. And the deck building seems interesting as well because you are playing down cards into a grid and then activating a row or column of cards. That just seem unique way to activate everything.

5 – Star Wars: Rebellion

Star Wars: Rebellion is a game that I’ve played, actually the rest of them are. Rebellion is a very fun two player game that is Star Wars in a box. It offers just such a good experience of the cat and mouse game of the Empire having a strong presence trying to find the rebel base. And the Rebels look to get planets on their side, build up their strength but really weaken the enemy.

There are two reasons that I don’t own this one yet. It is a long game that is two player only. So I feel like it won’t hit the table too often. Also, I know someone who owns it, I play with them. That last reason is definitely the bigger of the two.

4 – Village Rails

One that isn’t out yet, actually a few aren’t quite out yet. But Village Rails from Osprey Games is one I got to demo at Gen Con this year. And this feels like a simpler version and maybe more fun version of Village Green. The idea is similar between the two in what you’re doing.

In Village Rails you are building out rail routes and scoring points for those routes. You can buy and play engines that are going to give you more points as you place them on the routes. But you only have a limited amount of money. And the further something is down collection of engines the more it costs. Plus you are building out this grid of routes which can give you points in other ways as well. It feels like it offers just a bit more freedom in what you are doing.

3 – Asking for Trobils

Another one I played at Gen Con and actually just in my Top 100. Asking for Trobils from Breaking Games is a light and light-hearted worker placement game. Can you mess up your opponents, sure, but the artwork and everything about the game is just means to be fun and it comes through.

I like how fast the turns go in Asking for Trobils. You can go to a good number of spots, but generally you place a ship down, you get a thing and it’s on to the next turn. All the while you are working to get groups of stuff to be able to get Trobils. You might be buying more ships to get more actions, but whenever you want, you can spend your turn to pull you ships back. It’s fast and fun.

2 – Ready Set Bet

Ready Set Bet will be purchased soon. Ready Set Bet, a racing betting game, is coming out soon, in fact I might pick it up this weekend. Another one, actually these last four are, that I played at Gen Con this year. Ready Set Bet is a great experience and I think it’ll work in most groups because it’s a game that breeds excitement.

In Ready Set Bet one person is the caller, this can rotate or there is an app, for a horse race. They are rolling dice, moving the horses on the track. Everyone else, in real time, is betting on the horses. That might seem chaotic, and it is, but it’s chaotic in a good way. You really are just trying to guess right. But there are other bets, like the 4 beating the 7, or all horses being out of the gate, or close finishes, all things you can bet on as well in an attempt to make the most money.

1 – First Rat

And finally we have First Rat. While Ready Set Bet was more of an experience at Gen Con, I think that First Rat is the game that I want to get my hands on the most. And it’s not my normal type of game, yes, it has a great theme with rats building rockets to get to the moon because the moon is made of cheese. But at it’s heart you are pushing up a track, getting resources and trading them in.

But how you do that is really interesting and every different strategy you can have. When I played, I was pushing up my lights, the lights basically make the collection of other resources more powerful. But it meant I was collecting resources slower early on. Other players shot ahead to get resources as quick as possible to complete their rocket parts. The game is thinky but a nice balance of thinky and quick turns for me.

What Is On Your Wish List?

Let me know what some games that might be coming out soon to retail or are already out that you really want to get your hands on? There are so many games out there that it’s hard to keep up, and I think most gamers shouldn’t try and keep up. Looking at my list, I have a few games that are not old but not the newest and hottest games.

And then other games are new and exciting. But the ones that are the newest, those are also the ones that I’ve already tried. And even those, with the exception of Ready Set Bet, I’m fine waiting for the right time to get it. I want Ready Set Bet now because I think it could be a good game night game with that party nature to it. But others, Monumental especially, I’m probably unlikely to pick that one up, unless I find it for a really nice price used. And that’s okay, I don’t need to try every game, even though I’d love to.

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