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
30 through 21
20 through 11

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

Published By: Bezier Games
Designers: Daniel Byrne, Jose Gerardo Guerrero, Kevin Pelaez, Tirso Virgos

Buy Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

The top trick taking game on my list is Hearts. Well, not completely Hearts, it’s Hearts with shenanigans and that is the element that makes it amazing. If you are familiar with Hearts, you know you don’t want to win the hearts because they are worth points. In this game, you are doing the same thing, but as princesses trying to dodge the proposals of the princes and of course the very dangerous frog princes.

But let’s talk about the shenanigans because that is where the game separates itself from Hearts. In Rebel Princess you each get a princess with a special power. It might be to force someone to lead a suit, or you take over the lead of a trick even if you didn’t win the previous one. They are once per round. The bigger shenanigans comes from the rule for each round. It tells you how to pass cards, but also then something special that round, like the number furthest from the led card wins the trick, to make the trick taking different.

9. Zenith

Published By: PlayPunk
Designers: Gregory Grard and Mathieu Roussel

Out Of Stock Currently

Zenith is the new one on the list, and it blew me away on BGA so much that I knew I needed to pick it up when it came out. Zenith is a two or four player, but really two player game where you are having a tug of war over different planets. When you get influence on a planet all the to your side, you get a token, and you win with three from one planet, four different ones, or five total.

But let’s talk about winning influence. The simplest way is to play a card down on your side of the table, that’ll move it one towards you and give you some other bonus. But to do that you need to pay the cost, so sometimes you need to do other actions to get more money. One of them is to discard a card for a bonus. Depending on the type of card, you get a different bonus for it, and you gain the leader token which means you get an extra card in hand. Finally there is technology which you use to gain bonuses but also move influence on planets.

8. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Published By: Contention Games
Designers: Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, and Casey Yano

Buy Slay the Spire: The Board Game

You know that I love Slay the Spire the video game and the same is true for the board game. In the board game it’s the same thing as the video game, but everything is scaled down. This is a very smart decision because I don’t want to do a lot of math, but I still want to play the same game I love. So you climb the tower, you fight normal and elite monsters, and you rest and add cards, everything that you love about Slay the Spire the video game.

But there is an extra twist for the board game as well. In the board game you also can play it cooperatively. And I love that for the game because there is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to. It levels up how much health the boss has, and each character gets their own row of normal monsters to face. The cool thing about that row is that I can help you attack your row if your monsters are attacking for too much. Or you can help with mine, but whichever row you attack, you get attacked by your row. So there is a strategic puzzle to figure out as a group.

7. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Published By: Portal Games
Designers: Jakob Lapot, Przemyslaw Rymer, and Ignacy Trzewiczek

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

I might be the person in the world like Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game the most. But I think it is worth talking about and I think at least the core box is one that more people should play. The core box is a series of intertwined cases that you need to figure out the leads and what to track down. The best way, and I mean this as compliment, I can describe the game is that it’s like NCIS or CSI but fun because you are the detectives.

The game has so much going for it. You need to figure out what lead you want to track down, you need to take evidence to the lab and get your results, or you need to spend resources pressing people for more information. All of that is going to cost time, so you need to get it done before time runs out.

And all the cases are different. Even in the core box where they link together, they are all unique. And the one off cases are all different as well and set in different time periods or different locations. Even the Batman version of the game is a ton of fun.

6. Dice Throne

Published By: Dice Throne Inc.
Designers: Nate Chatellier, Aaron Hein, and Manny Trembley

Buy Dice Throne

Dice Throne is probably always going to be game in my Top 10. Mainly because they keep on coming out with more Dice Throne and I keep on buying it. But the game is a great plug and play game that can be described as battle Yahtzee. But that is not fair to the game because Dice Throne is more than that. Yes, it uses the Yahtzee style rolling to deal damage to your opponent, but the cards, and dice manipulation and how you work that together is where the game is so fun.

Plus, each character in the game is unique and does something different. Whether that is with Marvel and Gambit who has his aces that he can play, Doctor Strange who has spells that he can cast, or Scarlet Witch who can swap out the dice that her opponent roles. Or it is unique for the non-IP characters as well with the Gunslinger having a showdown type of defense, the Treant having sapplings that do unique things, or the Pyromancer building up their flames.

5. Aeon’s End

Published By: Indie Boards & Cards
Designers: Jenny Iglesias, Nick Little, and Kevin Riley

Buy Aeon’s End

I love deck-building and Aeon’s End is my favorite mainly deck-building game. I put it that way because I have another game that uses deck-building, but it is less of a deck-building game. This one is great because it gives you a boss battler as well as you play the game. You need to cast spells to deal with the bosses actions, minions, and hopefully knockdown the boss, the nemesis, if you can.

The game does a couple of fun things. Firstly, I like the turn order in the game, though I will say, I think that it makes it a two player game. The turn order is randomly drawn from a deck, so you might go twice in a row, if you have two of your number in there, or you might have the nemesis get multiple turns in a row. It keeps the game feeling tense and stressful. But I think it works best as a two player game because otherwise you might have a long time between turns.

Then the deck of cards. As you add cards and you need to draw again, you don’t shuffle the deck. Instead you just flip it and you draw from that. If you are smart, you can set it up so that you are drawing a strong hand. It is tricky, but it’s also a ton of fun when you get it right.

4. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designers: Elwin, Min

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

This is the other game that has deck-building, but it’s less of the game. Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deck-building, worker placement and resource management game that I just love. The theme really helps sell me on the game where you are exploring the jungle and trying to become the most famous explorer. Yes, that theme is hiding behind the mechanisms in some ways, but it’s there.

The game is really a great puzzle as you need to figure out how to explore new locations, defeat those monsters, and go up a research track. But they do it thematically in some areas, and I love that. You can buy new gear with money, but when you do that, it goes to the bottom of your deck of cards. Why, because it needs time to ship over. But if you buy a relic, that’s there, and you can use it immediately. Or on the research track as you advance, you need to discover, magnifying glass, before you can write about it, journal.

And the Expedition Leaders makes the game even better. It means that each player is starting at a unique spot. And it helps shape how you want to solve the puzzle. I thin the game is a 9 for me without this, but with it, and it’s an easy addition, it’s an easy 10 and in my Top 10 of all time.

3. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Published By: Awaken Realms
Designers: Krysztof Piskorski, Marcin, Swierkot

Buy Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Now a game that has been in my Top 10 for a long time with Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. I still think this game has the best story and writing of any game that I’ve played. It does an amazing job of weaving together a narrative over three different campaigns. And you want to explore and read all the story. It’s so good and the storymode fixes the issue, that even though the regular game is a grind when it comes to resources, this is still a game that I love.

I think that the game works so well too in what you are doing. The combat and diplomacy checks you come across offer interesting puzzles of card play. And then when you go to a new card and you find new choices, it’s really interesting. I also should mention with combat, I like how you sometimes just want to runaway. A combat is going to be too hard for you and instead of taking a ton of damage, if your draw bad cards, you should just run.

As an aside, I can’t wait to play the new game in the series. But it’s being waited on because of other campaign games to play. I’ve heard it is less grindy, so if you are worried about that in the base game, maybe check out that version.

2. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Nate French, MJ Newman

Buy Arkham Horror: The Card Game

At number two is a return to glory in some ways. I think that Arkham Horror: The Card Game was in the Top 3 or so when I first started the list. But it is back here because I’ve gotten to play more over this past year. I’ve done the story in the core box and started on another one. And I built my own character for that which is fun to do as well.

The game is just impressive with how it uses cards in such an interesting way. I love how they become a map for the house, city, or whatever you are in. And how they use simple symbols to help you know what connects to what in the game. And each campaign feels different. I played the Arkham Nights one at a game store, and that was super unique and fun, while the base box felt like a great introduction, and the Scarlet Keys is already shaping up to be different.

I also like that each character you build is going to be good at different things. So you need to balance the party. But you might want a challenge and create a different and unique combination of characters to go with as well.

1. Frosthaven, Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

Published By: Cephalofair Games
Designer: Isaac Childres

Buy Frosthaven

The final spot on the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition is the same as it’s always been. This is Gloomhaven, or Frosthaven, or Jaws of the Lion. They are all the same game, though Frosthaven does add in a city management phase which is very fun for the game as well. This is an amazing dungeon crawler game and very worth checking out if you haven’t played a dungeon crawler before. Especially Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion as a starting point for the game.

In this game you play different scenarios and you need to figure out with your unique character how to defeat the enemies and complete the objectives. In Gloomhaven a lot of the objectives are defeat everyone. But Frosthaven adds in more variety, so you need to figure out the puzzle.

And how do you do that? You do that with playing cards from your hand. Each card has a top action, a bottom action, and an initiative on it. You pick one of the two cards to set your initiative and then generally you have a plan of which top of a card and which bottom you want to use. But, if the board changes, maybe the enemies move on you, you can adjust which top and bottom you want to use from the cards you play. And did I mention that each character is unique and feels different in how they play, because they do. And you get a try a lot of them.

Thank You For Joining The Journey

I hope that you’ve had fun with my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition. I always have fun putting together this list. And I apologize for it being a bit delayed in when the article came out as compared to the video on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. My schedule has been weird as of late.

So with that, be aware I will be streaming as I can. I still want to go through my 101 through 200, aka the games that I still love but couldn’t crack the Top 100. And really, I love a lot more games than just 200. But that video is going to come out when it can. And it might not come out live depending on what my potential filming schedule looks like. The same with other streaming like Legendary Kingdoms and Baldur’s Gate 3. And then I have other games I want to play too, like Regicide Legacy that are going to stream well.

So all of that is to say, thank you for watching. And subscribe and click the notification bell to know when new videos come up on the Malts and Meeples channel.

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Catch up on previous videos here

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Via Magica

• Published by Hurrican in 2020
• Beat your fellow magic students in a bingo-esque game and utilize your powers best

This is a great filler level game. It’s a ton of fun to collect materials and use them to open gates. And then try and figure out what games and what elements you want to focus on opening first to get benefits from either immediately or throughout the game. As as well you need to grab points, so it’s a fun balancing act in what you’re doing. This is not going to be for everyone as it’s a light game, but I really like Via Magica for a nice relaxing and fun time.

Buy Via Magica

49. Too Many Bones

• Published by Chip Theory Games in 2017
• Chuck dice and battle enemies as you level up your Gearlocks to faceoff against the final boss

This is a fun short campaign style game. It’s not a big story game, but you get that mechanical feeling of leveling up in Too Many Bones that makes it such a fun time. And each Gearlock is unique and plays differently. I think that is part of what makes the same so special. Each characters want to level up in their own ways. And sometimes you just want better stats. But other times, getting and using your unique dice is going to create for some really fun game moments. The game isn’t a story game, but it can provide it’s own story.

Buy Too Many Bones

48. Ganz Schon Clever (That’s Pretty Clever)

• Published by Schmidt Spiele in 2018
• Place dice, fill in spots, and gain combos to get your highest score

I’ve already talked about this system two other times. But this is the original one to use the system and it’s my favorite of them. I really like how clean the puzzle is for trying to solve this game and do best at it. And there are enough combos that you can end up with some awesome turns. But the combos don’t slow down the game too much which is one element that I can really appreciate about this design compared to others. Though the flexibility in how you play is a little bit more limited.

Buy That’s Pretty Clever

47. Dungeon Kart

• Published by Brotherwise Games in 2024
• Rev your engine, take off, and mess with your opponents in this fast racing game

Dungeon Kart is obviously trying to be a Mario Kart style game. And I think it does a good job of it. I’ve played other games that offer some of that, but Dungeon Kart I really enjoy. It does a great job balancing catching up, slinging spells at your opponents and just a fun time. You get behind, no biggie, you get more and better spells. You’re in the lead, well, it’s your own fault you are there and you’re going to get blasted, but don’t worry, you can still catch-up again.

Preorder Dungeon Kart

46. Super Mega Lucky Box

• Published by Gamewright in 2021
• Combo your way into a bingo victory

This is the second bingo like game on the list where something is drawn and all players use it. But this one is a flip and write game that is more bingo like than Via Magica and has you filling in a three by three grid. Of course as you fill in rows and columns you get bonuses that can give you more. And the game provides great offsetting of the luck of the slip with powers from lightning bolts. It’s just a really fun, easy to play and fast game.

Buy Super Mega Lucky Box

45. Cartographers

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2019
• Draw your best map as you explore the lands in this flip and write game

The theme is only kind of there, but this is a great roll and write style of game. You flip over terrain and figure out how you want to place it out on your sheet. But beware monsters because your opponents get to decide where that’s going to go and it’s going to be the worst spot for you. Plus the game has fun scoring that rotates throughout the seasons so that one of the scoring elements in spring is going to be scored for winter as well.

Buy Cartographers

44. Res Arcana

• Published by Sand Castle Games in 2019
• Can you get your magical engine up and running faster than your opponents in this race to 10 points

I like how simple Res Arcana is, but how thinky it is as well. You need to really figure out how you want to leverage the cards that you have, or draft, in this game. And drafting really adds some strategy to it as you can try and figure out what your best cards are going to be how you can get them to turn out points. The game has this great build to it until suddenly you can get points and then the game just flies to the finish.

Buy Res Arcana

43. Railroad Ink Challenge

• Published by Horrible Guild in 2021
• Can you connect your routes better than your opponents can?

Another roll and write game, last one in this section. Railroad Ink Challenge is a great game of building out routes of both trains and roads and trying connect as many of them as you can together. Challenge adds in challenges that you can push for to score more points. But beware of leaving too many unconnected pieces, those can lead to your doom as they are negative points.

Buy Railroad Ink Challenge

42. Rebel Princess

• Published by Bezier Games in 2024
• It’s Hearts with Shenanigans, in the best way as you avoid proposals you really don’t want.

That’s really what Rebel Princess is, Hearts with shenanigans. But the shenanigans really do make this game. The princess powers are all game breaking in some way, and you want the ones everyone else have. And then the card that determines the special rule for the hand is great as it messes with everything. So you need to be quick to adjust how you are playing every time, and I think that’s great.

Buy Rebel Princess

41. Rock Hard: 1977

• Published by Devir Games in 2024
• Live your best rockstar life as you go from garage band to playing stadiums in this worker placement game

This game is really about living that 1970’s classic rocker life as you build up your band, gain reputation, write more songs all in hopes of playing on the biggest stage. I love how the worker placement is split up over three different times, day, evening, and after hours. And it’s fun that you need to worry about your job, at least for a little bit, and pay your producer as you become more famous because of course, while they help you, they also hurt you. It’s just very thematic for a worker placement game and a theme that I like a lot.

Buy Rock Hard: 1977

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule. It’s not just all my Top 100 Games (of all time).

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition for another six weeks. After that expect this to be when I play my small games. Only 5 more weeks left of my Top 100 Games, then likely this will switch to smaller solo games and video games.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

The best way to know when we go live, though is to subscribe and click that notification bell. I can’t promise, and in fact it’s pretty unlikely, that I’ll have events to click on ahead of time. Though I do want to get better at it. I hope that you can join a stream and hop into the chat. And let me know what games in this list are your favorite or that you want to try.

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How To Play Rebel Princess

The simple way is that it is hearts. But if you aren’t familiar with hearts, here’s a rundown of how it works for Rebel Princess. You get dealt a hand of cards. And then you play out one card at a time. The person who leads the trick picks the suit that everyone needs to follow. Winning a trick isn’t bad or good. But you want to avoid a trick with a prince in it, because they propose and proposals are bad. You especially want to avoid the frog prince because he is worth five proposals.

You play this out over several hands of cards, three for a short game and five for a full game. But let’s talk about the shenanigans because they matter as well. There are two elements that twist the basic game. The first is each player gets a princess. They pick between one of two dealt to them, and once per hand, they can use the princesses power to mess with things. It might turn a higher value card into a 0. Or it might let them pick the start of a trick.

The other thing is there is a decree each hand. Normally in hearts you pass a set number of cards a direction each hand. Well, in Rebel Princess that is variable. And how you figure out who wins a trick might change. It might be the greatest difference from the led card that wins the trick. Or it might be that you pass a card. There are a ton of different ways that the game gets changed up each hand.

What Doesn’t Work?

I don’t have much for this one because it is what it says it is. Rebel Princess is Hearts with shenanigans. If I pick something, it would be that since it plays from 3 to 6 players the game varies a lot. At 6 it is going to be considerably more random. So one thing I didn’t mention is shooting the moon. When you shoot the moon you take all the points. If you do that, you get negative points. This is only really a strategy for 3-4 players. If you get it at 5-6 players it is basically luck. That is something to aware of at different player counts. Not bad, but be aware.

What Works?

The rest of the game works really well. I like how there is a different decree each time. Certain strategy elements, like trying to short suit yourself, they will always work. But How you lead out a trick really varies. If, for example, it is greatest difference from the led number wins, the frog prince isn’t a bad card. As long as there is one other green suit left, you play it from your hand you are guaranteed not to win it. You need to think on your feet each hand to adapt to the changes.

I also like that it changes from classic Hearts to only be five hands. Hearts, with good players, can drag out a while. You try to stick or not stick people with points. Here it is just a race over those five hands. You may know by the end of round four it is not possible for you to win. But some of the final round cards do offer some crazy point scoring. Even then, you always battle for second and third. But it’s nice to have that end.

And let’s talk princess powers. All of the princess powers have good uses. All of the princess powers have restrictions. They are great because they can all be used well, if you use them well. And when you use them well, they all seem game breaking. Being able to set the lead suit of a trick can be great. Or being able to swap cards, or set a 7 to be a value of 0. All of those are fun to play around with. They won’t win you a game, but they might help you avoid taking a trick.

Who Is It For?

I think this game can work for a lot of people. It’s a game I have played it with people who know hearts and those who don’t and people have fun with it. I think the theme makes it appealing because it is silly. Trying to duck proposals from princes is a goofy theme. And the frog prince works well.

But for people who play Hearts, it’s still going to enjoyable. It’s basically taking hearts and putting a challenge mode on top of it. So it will feel different enough from Hearts but also familiar enough that they can sit down and play almost immediately.

Final Thoughts and Grade on Rebel Princess

I find this game a lot of fun. This is one of the games I got to demo at Gen Con and I knew I wanted to pick it up immediately. I love the the familiarity with the twist. Hearts is one of those games that if you grew up from 1992 to the mid 2000’s you knew how to play because it came with Windows. That is how I learned to play the game. If you didn’t have a computer game to play or had a few minutes, Hearts was a good game for that.

This, to me, is just that much more fun. There is an element of nostalgia to it, but I love the new stuff added. The theme, the princesses, the decrees each hand, all of that makes for such a fun time. And I love it as a way to introduce people to a traditional trick taking game. Hearts might not interest them because it’s kind of basic. But give it a theme and it’s way more interesting.

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

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Silver Dagger

If the name sounds familiar, that’s because I have Silver Amulet, Coin, and Bullet as well. This is a game that uses a bit of memory and a bit of push your luck and bluffing as you try and build up your lowest scoring village possible. To do this can be a bit tricky though, because you have five cards in front of you and they are all face down. At the start of the game you can look at two of them, so you know a little bit, but not that much. Each card has a number and an ability. The number is how many points they’ll be worth in your village. The abilities can be one time use when you draw it, or it can be an ability that works if the villager is face up in your village. So already having three of them, why would I need another game that does the same thing? Simply for the variety. You can mix the cards from Silver Amulet, Coin, Bullet, and Dagger together, you just need one group of cards from 0 to 13. Needless to say, I’ll have more combinations than I’ll ever be able to play, but it’ll be fun as I can make it more “take that” if I want, or more focused on your own cards.

Roll Player

I could have just done a whole order of Roll Player with the Fiends and Familiars expansion and the Monsters and Minions expansions, and eventually I’m sure that I’ll get them. But I thought, let’s just start with the base game. Here’s a little secret, I’ve played this game only once with a physical copy of the game. Now I’ve played it more than that this year because of Tabletop Simulator. But only once with a physical copy. I like this dice drafting game a lot, I think that there are cool things about it and I love that you’re rolling up a D&D character, basically, and seeing how good you can make them. The game play is pretty straight forward and I love the variety of strategy that you can have based off of your background, class, and race, that’ll make you want to target different cards. Plus the traits that you can get can massively change how you’re going to score at the end of the game as well. This game has a good amount of replayability, and while I do want to get Monsters and Minions, because the game does seem like it ends before it could, and I think that getting to use your character will get me to get the expansions, and eventually Roll Player Adventure and being able to take my character through a whole campaign. But even without that, the game is a lot of fun, and hence why it’s in my Top 100 so it is one that I have felt like I’ve wanted to own for a while, and now was the time.

Shadowrun: Crossfire (Prime Runner Edition)

Another one in my top 100 that I want to play more. It’s a deck building game, but I like the setting that it is in so much. Shadowrun is a cyber punk world, mainly known for an RPG, where you are going on runs, hacking into big corporations, trying to keep from being found out. This makes it into a card game where you are taking on missions, defeating bad guys, and it’s interesting, because you are playing cards to deal with your own bad guys but also others. You also, slowly, level up your character as you play through what is basically a campaign. The setting is what drew me in and I have Shadowrun: Sprawl Ops to play as well in the same world, but I’m excited a lot for this one, because I’ve played it before. It’s one that I think has been a hit or miss for some people, or because of the original having a fairly poor rule book might have just flown under the radar. I think this one might take more time to get to the table, but I know I’ll be glad to have it.

Those are the new games that I’ve ordered. I’m definitely excited for all of them, and I really think that there are some interesting games in there. One thing I forgot to mention with Silver Dagger, since each game is a standalone, I’ll be able to play it with a larger group, have a few groups playing the game at once, maybe do a mini tournament, something like that.

Which of these games seems most interesting to you?

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The downside to that is, of course, that once you have a strategy locked in, the game might not change that much for you. And as someone who has played the Silver app a lot, I can say that my strategy doesn’t massively change at this point in time on the app, in person and at different player counts, I think it can, but on the app, I basically understand what I want to do and will do the same thing as much as possible every time. That might have eventually happened to the physical game itself as well. Instead, I picked up

Silver Bullet and Silver Coin

Both of these are standalone expansions, which means that you don’t need to have the base game to play them, they come with their own 0 through 13 sets of cards. That’ll be fun as it will give me some different ways to play the game just straight out of the box. But there’s a bigger reason for picking both of them up and that’s the fact that you can mix and match. I compare this to Sushi Go vs Sushi Go Party. In Sushi Go, you have one set of cards that you’re drafting from, so super simple, only one set of scoring to teach. In Silver, super simple to teach, only one group of cards, and you don’t even need to teach them because the rules are easily explained. In Sushi Go Party, the game is simple because the drafting doesn’t change, you might need to teach a different scoring as you swap out sets of cards you’re drafting. With the stand alone expansions for Silver, Silver Bullet and Silver Coin, the basic rules of the game stay the same, but the powers on cards are going to change. This means that you can play those sets right out of the box, or you can play with them mixed together, as long as you have one set of each number, 0 through 13 in the deck you’re good to go.

This is going to allow the base cards to feel different and create a lot of unique combinations, I am not that good at doing the math but there are a lot. That means if I want to play something that maybe has the simplest rules, I’m not sure, I could just play the base set, if I want something that maybe makes it more challenging, or just something different, I can swap out one thing and I got a different game. And that can be done over and over again with all the different card sets, and I can even increase the number swapped, so maybe out of the 14 different sets it’s five from Silver, five from Silver Bullet and four from Silver Coin, that’s possible, so it makes it that I might get a favorite combo that I like to play, but I can randomly pick and probably not see the same combination for a long time, thus increasing the replayability by a ton.

Have you had a chance to play either Silver stand alone expansion?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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In Silver you have a village of five cards in front of you. These cards are face down and at the start of a round, there are four, you look at two of them. Then you take turns either taking cards from the discard pile to put into your village – face up, drawing a card to put into your village from the draw pile – face down, drawing a card and playing it for its special power, or calling for a vote. You call for a vote when you think your village has the fewest points left in it. Each villager has a point total, and while you don’t want to get a 12 in your village, using it to steal a good card from someone else and giving them a high value card always works out nicely. There’s one trick for calling for a vote, though, and that’s that your village has to have fewer than five cards. To get rid of cards, you can trade in two cards of the same number when playing a card from the discard or that you drew into your village. When the vote happens, whomever calls for the vote, if they have the fewest points, they get zero points for the round, everyone else gets what is one their cards, but if they don’t have the fewest points, they get ten plus their total while everyone else just scores the total points on their cards. After four rounds, the person with the fewest points wins.

There are some things that I really like about this game, but I didn’t love it the first time that I played it, which was at GenCon. The concept of the game is quite simple, and I hadn’t picked up on the amount of depth that you might need for the game. Knowing what cards are strong when is interesting, and knowing to just discard a card sometimes and do nothing with it, because it isn’t worth the risk. There’s more depth to it than you’d initially think. That said, just the base box with the base set of cards, that is enjoyable, but for long term replayability, I think that you need some of the stand alone expansions. Silver Bullet and Silver Coin I haven’t actually played yet, but from what I know of them, they mainly add more villagers that you can play with.

In Silver there are villagers numbered from 0 to 13. A 0 is just a normal villager, no special power, unless both are face up in villages, at which point you just score. But other numbers have powers. A 13 is a doppelganger of any other number when trading in two for one (or even three for one or four for one if you can set it up). A 2 face up in your village allows you to peak at one of your cards each turn so you can figure out all the numbers that you have. A 7 lets you look at two of your cards once, if you discard it after drawing it. And every number has something that it allows you to do. However, in the base game there is only one set of cards from 0 to 13. 12 is an exception to that, but you pick which set of the 12’s you want to play with. Silver Coin and Silver Bullet give you more sets of cards of various numbers. That means that you choose which set of 1’s, etc. you play with and you can create your own combinations. This is very much like having Sushi Go and then getting Sushi Go Party! which gives you more possibilities, this just creates them as stand alone expansions so you don’t have to buy everything.

But even with that said, I do like Silver a lot. I think that while the expansions would make it more playable over time, just the base game is nice because it’s easy to teach and it plays quickly. Once you have a concept of what you can do on your turn, you just need to learn the cards, and as the teacher, I don’t need to teach all of them. I can just show you what a few symbols mean and you can learn as you go. Now, learning as you go can sometimes suck because that probably means you’ll lose the first game, and in Silver, that’s no exception, except for the fact that the games are short. Maybe a four player game would take 60 minutes, which isn’t that short, but a two player game, even the first one with me teaching someone, maybe took twenty minutes, and after that, probably could play a game with two players in fifteen minutes. And I think with four, maybe 45. So as a two player game, it can really fly, with more, it does add more time, but the more comfortable people get with the game, the faster it goes. And even if the person is picking stuff up in the first round to figure out the game, rounds two through four will go much faster. Plus, as I’ve said, it’s so simple to teach, it’s easy to get to the table.

Overall, I think this is a good family weight, almost party game. Yes, it can only play up to four, but it’s one of those games that I’d use as a filler between bigger heavier games, and that people can really get into because of the simplicity of the game. If you’re looking for something with longer term strategy, I do think you’ll need the expansions, but for a good game to pull off the shelf with your more casual gaming friends, I really like Silver as a new game to do that. And I do now, after teaching it once, think I could teach it in five minutes to new gamers.

Overall Grade: B
Casual Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B-

Have you had a chance to play Silver, is it a game that you like?

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Point of Order is going to be me running down the game(s) that I ordered and why I picked them up. The reason for doing this is kind of a sneak preview as to what’s going to be coming for reviews in the future, but also help show why I thought some games might be a good fit for me and maybe, give you some insight if into if they might be a good fit for you.

So let’s run them now, it’s a bigger order this time, so it’ll be a bit of reading to get through it, but hopefully enlightening.

Silver
So, this is one that I got a chance to play at GenCon and since it was such a small game, it kind if paled in comparison to some of the other games I played there, and I thought it was just okay. But then I downloaded it to my phone, and I’ve had a lot of fun just knocking out a fast game of it against the computer. What keeps drawing me back to it is the simplicity of the game. In Silver, you are trying to get your village to score the fewest points, there are werewolves because it’s Bezier Games, but that’s a mute point to the game. You do this by swapping cards out from your face down group of five cards. However, you don’t know what all your cards are. At the start of each round, there are four, you look at two of your cards. Then on your turn you look at the top card and either swap it with a card in your five or use it’s power, or you can use the top card of the deck to swap into your row. Now, the swap is 1 for 1, unless, you have two of the same card from the five in front of you that you can swap. So if I had two sixes, I could swap it for a five, now I’d have four cards in front of me and be scoring 7 less points. Once you have less than four cards, you can call for a vote if you want, and if you have the fewest points on your villagers, you get 0 points, but if you’re wrong or you didn’t call for the vote, you get the points on your villagers, and plus 10 if you were wrong when calling for the vote. It’s a push your luck, bluffing (kind of), and memory game. It plays fast over four rounds and because of enjoying it more on my phone, I decided to pick it up.

Cartographers
This one one will be way shorter to write about, because I’ve already don’t a TableTopTakes review of it. This is a flip and write map making game with some fun scoring. The map making part is pretty loosely themed on there, but the scoring puzzle is a lot of fun, and the fact that it’s an interactive flip and write is great. So for the scoring, you have four different scoring things, A, B, C, D. And you score two each season, for A & B, then B & C, C & D, and eventually D & A. So you have to think about both short turn and long term scoring. Plus, then, you have your own board, but if a monster comes up (and they will) you have to pass your board to the left or right and that player will put a monster somewhere on your board in spot that’ll surely mess things up for you. I really enjoy roll/flip and writes, and this one stands up as one that has a fun theme and some more interactivity going on.

Ascension: Delirium
Now, some of why I got this was because I needed to make it to $100 for free shipping and nothing was jumping out at me. But I really love Ascension, in my Top 10 Gateway game list, it was #10, because for me it’s an ideal introduction to deckbuilding for the base game. And the expansions add more and can be combined with it. So I’m excited to try out this one and to try out Dreamscape the other expansion that I have. I’m curious to see how the strategies might change, and sometime play a massive six player game with one of the expansions mixed in. This is one where I know I’ll enjoy the expansions, and even if they don’t come off the shelf a lot, I’ll still get them played once and a while.

Silver & Gold
So, this isn’t related to Silver. Instead it’s a flip and write game where you are drafting island cards and trying to fill them in, which scores you points, and combing covering up palm trees, treasures, and I think more to allow you to cover up more things. This game was interesting to me after I watched Board Game Geeks Game Night Youtube Show with it. What was interesting about it was that you don’t have your own play sheet that you’re filling in. You are drafting/taking island cards and actually writing on those cards. The cards are dry erase so that you can play, score, erase, and play again. That just seems like a novel idea and I’ve really been digging roll or flip and write games recently.

Clank! Acquisitions Inc Legacy
Multiple things drew me to this game, first it’s a legacy game. I think I own, have owned, or have played most legacy games out there. They are just a blast generally in my opinion, and are very fascinating to see how they end up working. With Clank! Legacy, I already know that I like Clank! In! Space! and while this is fantasy themed, that’s fine because I love Acquisitions Inc. podcast/video series that Penny Arcade does at their #PAX conventions. From what I’ve heard about this, it implements it really well and creates an interesting story throughout while being a really fun game to play. And while none of the others take themselves seriously in the Clank! line of games, this one I’ll get more of the in jokes because I’ve watched all of Acquisitions Inc. And easy purchase, just was waiting to have a group to play it, but it was on sale, so I decided to pick it up anyways even before having a group lined up.

Forgotten Waters
This one I’m really excited for, but it’s a pre-order. So one of my favorite games is Dead of Winter. And what makes it a lot of fun is that it uses crossroads cards. These cards get triggered sometimes where you go some play, do some action and all of a sudden you’re interrupted because you triggered this crossroads event where you have to make a decision that will affect the game in some way, but you don’t know how. Forgotten Waters is a pirate themed game that uses that, plus it has an app that tells you things to do and helps you set-up scenarios, plus you’re using a storybook type thing, similar to Mice and Mystics, Aftermath, and Stuffed Fables. I think all of that combined together sounds really cool, and I’ve been looking for a cool pirate themed game that is a bit more tongue in cheek than something like Merchants and Marauders which is a fun game, but a bit heavier.

Marvel Champions Neoprene Playmat
Final item on the list, and it’s not a game. There are several reasons that I wanted to get this, the first is that it looks cool, and it’s big so you can play with a bunch of people using mat. The other is that whenever I cut my finger nails, I can never pick up cards. So on a neoprene mat which I’d be able to use for other games as well, though it does have a layout for Marvel Champions, I won’t be trying multiple times to pick them up or scooting them to the edge of the table so I can grab them. I won’t say that this really makes Marvel Champions that much easier to play, but it can help keep the table neater, plus easier to pick up cards.

So, that’s the order that I have coming in. I’d say that some of that is thanks to Covid-19 because I’m bored and I think that some of these games will be good ones that I can play with my wife while waiting for board game nights to happen again.

Are there any of the games that seem the most interesting to you? Any that you’ve picked up or want to pick up?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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