How to Play Land Vs Sea

Land Vs Sea is a simple tile laying game. You have two tiles in hand, and you try and complete groups of land or sea, closing them off kind of like the cities in Carcassonne. But the twist on this is that one person scores for sea sections closed off and the other for land sections. One point per tile used.

Now, this just seems like it’d be all about not closing off your opponents section. But in the basic version of the game, there are X’s on some of the tiles. The person who closes off the land or water mass scores for the X’s on the tiles. So even though I might be giving you points, if you are sea for example, if there are enough X’s, it makes it worthwhile for me to close it.

At the end of the game, the person who has scored the most points is the winner. There are advanced versions of the game, or versions for more than two players, but I haven’t played those yet.

What Doesn’t Work?

I have two issues with the game. One is minor, the other is a bit bigger. So let’s start with the minor one. I think that figuring out the scoring during the game is fine. But I also think that no one will ever play a game where they don’t mess up the scoring sometime. A large land or water mass is just hard to remember if you’ve already counted a tile. It’s not a major issue because scores are high enough it shouldn’t matter.

The one thing for me that is a downside is that as you build out this map, the game slows down. When you start there are two or three options that are good for you. The longer you go, the more options you have, and the slower the game goes. This might be fun for some people. But at that point in time, I want the game to feel like it’s ramping up, or something. And really it’s just the same game as before.

What Works?

Firstly, the scoring works. I like that one player is land and one player is sea. It adds in strategy that you just wouldn’t get if whomever closed off the section could score it. But because of the X’s on the board, it isn’t like you just try and avoid scoring anything at all costs. You want to close stuff off to get points. So the game doesn’t skimp on points which is nice.

I also like that the tiles are two sided. That means that even though you only have two tiles in hand, you have a lot of options. Now, I just said that there were too many options, but that’s on the map. I don’t mind having options in my hand. It’s just trickier when those options are also on the board with so much to look at. But double sided tiles means that you can look and think about options but not too many options in your hand. And you can maybe bluff your opponent.

Who Is This For?

I think the people who like a fairly easy game to get into, it at it’s basic level is a gateway game or an inviting game. It is also going to be a game that works well for couples or a date night. Or people who really like that head to head abstract game.

Final Thoughts on Land vs Sea

I need to play this one more, and in particular with some of the other rules in place. But I suspect my opinion might not massively change on it. Why, because it’s an abstract game that lends itself to going slower and slower as you play.

In my head, I put this game kind of in the same category as Calico. Some of that is the tile shape, but some is also because there is that abstract puzzle piece to the games. But with Calico, when you get closer to the end of the game, it moves faster. Fewer choices and you know what you want to do. In Land vs Sea, it just gets slower and slower and slower as you play. Decisions might matter more at the end of the game, but the game suffers with that slowdown.

But let me know if you think I’m missing something in the game? Or what do you think of Land vs Sea. It’s one I plan on coming back to, to try at least one more time, but I”m not sure if it’s for me.

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Quick Recap

The basic premise comes from how we interact with new people coming into the hobby. I might not own a game like Catan anymore, but that is a game that still brings hundreds if not thousands of people into board gaming. So when someone finds out about Board Game Geek, for example, or the Dice Tower, and they want a board game recommendation, they might ask on the Facebook groups. And I’ve talked about this idea before. If they say they own Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Catan, what is a good recommendation.

Too often I see games like Scythe, Gloomhaven, Brass: Birmingham, something that is way too big. But people are recommending their favorite games. Why is that? Because they want more people to love them like they do. And honestly, so do I, but those games aren’t accessible to new gamers.

All of us have a pathway that leads through a lot of different games to where we end up. And some people that might stop at the likes of Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, and Catan. For others that means that we end up playing through all of Gloomhaven. But what were the steps that got you there? I challenge all of you, myself included to write down or think about your board gaming journey to remember what were your steps.

Then, the next time someone asks for a board game recommendation, you can give them the name of the game that isn’t your favorite game, but was your next step. And I can do that as well.

Orchard: 9 Card Solitaire Game

This is a little solitaire game about stacking cards. The game play is simple enough, you are laying cards down so they overlap. Where they overlap colored trees, apple, pear, and plum, you put down a die. One overlap gives you 1 point per tree, two gives you three, and so on the more layers that you get. The goal is to get as high as score as you can. You got to see my high score last night as I got up to 56.

It’s a really good solo game. One it’s small so easy to take place. But when you pull it out, it’s still small in that it doesn’t take up too much space. Finally, it plays fast, but gives you good choices. There are some solo games that give you some choices and play fast. Orchard is a great puzzle that gives you great choices.

Next Weeks Board Game Stream

So next week’s stream will be a little bit different. It’s going to be the last stream for the year. And I’m going to ask for your help in figuring out what board game(s) I should stream at least to start the year. I have a number of campaign games that I’d love to have hit the table, and I’d love your help figuring out which one is the one that I should play next. So expect to see a poll going up with that, probably in the chat, to help me decide.

Then I’ll be taking off for the holidays. I think it’s just two weeks where I won’t be streaming. But it’s partially because I might not be around, and partially as a little bit of a break for me. So join me next week to see what games I’m considering.

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Eagle Gryphon Games Order

This one happened today. I normally wouldn’t have done it, but I got an e-mail from Eagle Gryphon game that they have their Black Friday sale going on, and there’s even extra off when you hit $50, $100 and $200 I believe.

PitchCar Expansion 8

One of two expansions that I don’t have. This one is cool in that it allows you to split your road. You can create two paths. If you think about games like Mario Kart or often Need for Speed games, there are a lot of the time shortcuts that you can take. Or the board game Downforce has tracks that split as well.

Well, now I can do that in PitchCar. And I’m probably never going to say no to even more PitchCar. PitchCar is just so much fun, and it’s in some ways easier to get to the table than Icecool, which does something similar with flicking penguins instead of cars. Racing is just a theme that people understand better than penguins in high school. And this I want to create that shortcut, or maybe a long cut.

Fleet: The Dice Game

To hit the point where I could get a bit more off I added a roll and write game to the list. For a lot of YouTube people I watch, The Brother’s Murph and Dr GloryHogg on the GloryHoundd YouTube Channel, they really like this one. It is a roll and write with a number of combos, but it is also a roll and write that it heavier. It’s one that has been on my radar for quite a while, it’s just been hard to find. So already on sale for Black Friday and pushing me to get 10% off, I’ll add it to an order.

All Systems Go Purchase

This is from a couple of times of going to ASG. The last game on the list I actually got when I finalize selling my RPG stuff that I talked about last time, which I talk about why I sold a lot of RPG stuff here. Buying stuff this last time with store credit I had left and paying for what was leftover pushed me to the point where now I can get a free $100 game with their rewards program. I just need to figure out what.

The Crew: Deep Sea Adventures

This is one that I might have talked about before, but it was a pre-order that came in. I didn’t actually realize it, but they rang it up when I was in the store even though I’d already paid for it. They caught that not me, so now I have store credit to use on my next purchase, which I’m glad they noticed. It’s something that could have easily been missed.

But onto the game, this is a trick taking game. It’s a cooperative one and that’s different. There was already another version of it that I own as well and need to get played. You’re limited in how you can communicate, and you need certain players to win certain things. I might need to win the trick with the red four in it, for example. And to go with that, you might be allowed to only win one trick. So it’s an interesting puzzle that I want to dive into.

Marvel Champions: War Machine and The Mad Titan’s Shadow

This is just more Marvel Champions. I say that like it’s not a big thing. The Mad Titan’s Shadow was delayed for ages because of the shipping crisis, at least in getting to the US. Well, it’s here now, so if you want to play through a Thanos focused campaign, you can do that now. And War Machine is another character to add into the pool to play with. I’m excited to play with them, and really, I need to play more Marvel Champions, I’m so far behind on the content.

Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write

If you’ve been watching my Top 100 Board Games (of all time) 2021 Edition, you know that there are a ton of roll and write games on the list. Well, here is another roll and write game. This is one from Pandasaurus who is known for a lot of different games but I love Sonora that they’ve done and they have games called Dinosaur Island and Dinosaur World. This one is a roll and write version of that first one.

And All Systems Go backed the Kickstarter. So this is the Kickstarter version of Dinosaur Island Rawr ‘n Write. I’m not sure what that adds in extra, but there are extra things in the box. That is just a fun bonus for me, because I’d have been fine with retail.

XenoShyft: Dreadmire

This one I picked up when I finalized my trade-in. Going back to my Top 100 Board Games (of all time) 2021 Edition, you’ll know from yesterday my #11 is XenoShyft Onslaught. It’s kind of tower defense deck building game with bugs. I call it Starship Troopers the board game because fighting bugs in space. I already know I like the system, this one adds in weather I believe to maybe make it even more difficult, and this game is already difficult. But I want to get it to the table, and it was used but NIS (new in shrink) at the same time which is fun.

Miniature Market Anniversary

Miniature Market does a good job of getting you to buy stuff. For my birthday month they gave me $10 credit to use. Anniversary month, I think for me making my first purchase but maybe theirs, $10 credit. Of course, I’m not going to let money to to waste, or since I already wanted these games, might as well make it cheaper on myself.

Land vs Sea

This is one that I blame Quackalope for telling me about, Quackalope is a board game YouTube channel, very good and highly recommend after Malts and Meeples. But they really loved this game, and to me it sounded interesting. Land vs Sea is kind of an area control game as you are building out areas of, well, land and sea. But depending on how you put stuff out, it can let you score even more points. And, this is key for me, you are building out a map, there is no set board. I have Carcassonne that does this, but I want another, well, I have one now.

The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged

I love The Dragon Prince. If you haven’t watched this show on Netflix, stop reading articles after this one on the internet, and go watch it. It’s from some of the same creators (or maybe all) as Avatar: The Last Airbender show. I personally like this one better.

The game takes the main characters from the show, both good and bad, and allows you to create teams. You draft them or pick them thematically and then fight. So it’s a skirmish style game. I don’t always love skirmish games, Super Fantasy Brawl being an exception, but the theme of this one I love. If nothing else I want to give this one a try and see if it is one that works for me. If not, it can move on from the collection, because I got it $10 off.

Crowdfunding Backing

Mythwind

I won’t talk about this one much because I’ve already talked about it a lot. If you’re just looking at this post, Mythwind is like Animal Crossing or Stardew Valley but as a board game. That is, it is a game where there isn’t a win condition. You are just seeing how well you can do and how big a town you can build. It’s an interesting concept and one that I’m sure some people will love. I think that I might love it as well. But if not, I can always sell it for what I backed it for most likely.

Boy Band Builder

This is one that my wife backed a while ago and just showed up. Guess what the game is about, that’s right, building a boy band. I think it feels a little bit like Marrying Mr Darcy, where it’s almost a take that sort of game, but really you care more about building up your boy bad to complete gigs and get as many points as you can. I want to play this one because I think it’ll be good for a laugh.

Too Many Bones: Unbreakable

And this one is from Gamefound. I haven’t gotten any Too Many Bones before, even though I work within a mile of Chip Theory Games, might be a mile and a half now. Too Many Bones is kind of a tongue in cheek with weird characters little fighting game. There are no minis for the fighting, though, it’s all done with poker chips which is weird and cool.

So, why did I jump in now? This expansion wasn’t a bad price, and it’s a standalone expansion. To go with that the characters seem more interesting. One is kind of a weather manipulating character, and I forget what the other one does, but some of the earlier ones are closer to your more standard fighter, cleric, etc. that you expect to see in a fantasy game. If I really love it Chip Theory Games does a solid job of keeping stuff in stock.

Level 99 Pre-Order

Almost forgot about this one, but it’s a pre-order so will come in eventually.

Bullet [star] and Wood Pieces

From what I can tell, this feels like an app game. You are trying to blow up different patterns of stuff, and it’s just hard to explain. But it looks cool. It’s real time too, which isn’t something I always love, but if I can play it solo and real time, then I might be more interested in real time.

The idea is that you are playing down cards to destroy bullets that are coming towards you. And you are different anime style heroines, I think each with how their own powers. You are trying to do some pattern matching so that you can destroy those bullets but you only have a certain amount of time. And I got the wood pieces because they just look cooler.

Alright, that’s it. Which one of these games that’s coming in or that I already have would you want to play?

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Current MSRP Increases

So let’s lay out a little bit of context. A number of board game companies are pushing up the MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price) because the price of creating a board game has gone up. Right now, there is lots of talk about how shipping costs are blowing up. And that definitely is the case which is delaying how fast things can ship but also when they do ship that cost can be moved onto the consumer.

But for board games that’s not the only cost increase to worry about. There has also been an increase in the cost of wood. If you’ve done a house project the past two years you’ll know that. So that means that wooden tokens and cardboard have all gone up in price. While they might all lower again over time, the MSRP increase is likely here to stay.

So Too Expensive To Succeed?

Now, this is not really the question I started with, but I think it’s the question that a lot of people will start thinking about. And I think it’s a question that a lot of gamers in the hobby are thinking about. Let’s take a look at a few games: Arydia: The Paths We Dare Tread, Black Rose Wars: Rebirth, and Descent: Legends of the Dark. All of these games, before or after shipping are sitting at $175+ which is a lot of money. These, however, are not all games.

Tom Vasel on The Dice Tower gets sales numbers from GameNerdz, I believe it is now, every month to show that games, for them are selling the most. And the ones that sell a lot are generally cheaper games. The game My City was on the list for the month of July and that’s a $30 game. So, no, not all board games are getting too expensive. But the cost of board games in general, might be rising because of shipping and material costs.

But Are They Too Expensive?

To me, this is a hobby board gamer problem, the increasing price of games. The average person who likes board games but isn’t into the hobby doesn’t go to Kickstarter. They won’t see Descent: Legends of the Dark in Target. For them, the price of board games might be high, but it’s not an issue. Ticket to Ride, Catan, Smallworld, Carcassone, all of those games are still a reasonable price. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition, still a normal price and that game just came out.

So it isn’t the modern classics that are only a good price. But for gamers who are more on the hobby, the price of board games does seem to be going up. Or more so, there are more good looking big games. For example, this year I have backed Marvel United: X-Men, Chronicles of Drunagor, Zombicide: Undead or Alive, and Primal, all of which had a price tag of over $100. And I bout Descent: Journeys in The Dark.

But Money

And this is what it comes down to. As board gamers we like our new games. There is this fascination with the “cult of the new” in board games. And I think in society as a whole, the new and the shiny are what people care about. Most of the complaints about board game prices really come down to the fact that we can’t afford every cool looking game.

When the original Zombicide came out with a big price tag for everything on Kickstarter, it was a surprise. But it wasn’t as hard a sell. Why, because there wasn’t a new $150+ game each week on Kickstarter. That price tag was a once in a blue moon level. When Kingdom Death Monster was on Kickstarter for $700 for an all in (or something near that), it was a ton of money, but again, not a game like that every week.

But not just that there weren’t big price tag games each week, there weren’t good games every week. Kickstarter was still getting started into what it is today. Now, every week whether it’s a $150 game or a $20 roll and write, there is a game, at least, every week that looks interesting. Most weeks it’s two or three games. Even in the not peak times of right before Christmas, there are still big games out there.

So What Are We Seeing?

What we’re seeing is a hobby booming and growing. It used to be a very niche hobby. Now it’s still a niche hobby but it’s growing in leaps and bounds. I am trying to remember what the Dice Tower had on their news but the money in the hobby grows by about 10% each year, and I think last year, in a pandemic, it was closer to 20%.

This is exciting, but what that means is that there are more games coming to the market. Now, that means that there are more bad games. But on the flip side, it also means more good games and a lot more good games. I think that people forget, very quickly, about the good games and how few were coming out before. We were spoiled because there were ten great games that would come up a year around 2010, and we could buy them all. Now it’s 100 and they cost from $15 to $200 and we can’t afford them all.

So what we’re seeing is the hobby growing and booming and that is what we should want to see. It means that 10 years from now, we aren’t going to see no more board games, there are always going to be more to play.

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The Problem

So, there is a reason that I want to talk about this. This is something that I’ve been harping on for a little bit with people who are entrenched in the hobby game scene. We often forget what it was like to start playing board games. I know that I don’t love a game like Splendor anymore. Why, because I’ve played it enough times and it doesn’t offer enough variety for me. But Splendor is a great game to introduce people to.

It’s common to kind of turn up a nose at Catan now. And I get it, there are a million different versions and expansions of games like Catan, Ticket to Ride, and Munchkin, all games that a lot of people got started. I don’t get excited when they announce a new version of Catan, but again, Catan is a game that got so many people into the hobby.

And all of those games, we played them a number of times. It wasn’t like we played them only once. I played Catan probably 20 times at least while I was getting board games. The same goes for Ticket to Ride. I can’t even begin to think about how many times I played games like Skip-Bo, Dutch Blitz, Uno, and more while growing up. But now that I’m a game, there is a temptation to push people along fast.

So What Is the Right Pace?

Unfortunately, that depends on the perspective gamer. Some people move through games like Catan really fast. Others never stop playing Catan. Now, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t introduce new games, but it means that there is no perfect formula.

How Do You Know When?

1. Ask the person
   It can be as simple as that and it should be as simple as that. The person you play the game with, ask them. They might say no, and that is okay. Play those introductory games longer.
2. How often do they win
   Not everyone knows when they are ready to try a new game. So another sign can be how often the other player wins. If the person wins most half the time or often enough, maybe introduce a new game. Ideally one with similar mechanics but I’ll get to that more.
3. Amount/how often you play the game
   This might be the biggest one. Now not everyone wants to play a game all the time. But if you go from playing a game a lot to playing a game less, it might mean that they are ready for another game. They know the game and now they want to try something new.

What Do You Play Next?

This is another big question that you need to answer. What game are you going to play with them next. Now, I’ll point you back to that Top 10 list that I linked at the top and streamed yesterday. I think there are a lot of good options in there. But that doesn’t answer the question fully.

To do that there are a few things that you need to think about, the most important being, what do they like about the games they know? Do they like being really competitive, work that direction. Maybe they like solving a puzzle, lean that direction.

Let’s actually take a dive and look at Catan. What all does Catan have in it? Catan has resource management. It has city/route building. It has a luck to it and probability. Which of those elements does the person like? Let’s work off of my list of games from yesterday.

Resource Management

Century Golem Edition would be my top choice. It has you manipulating your resources more than Catan does, but you are pushing for certain groups of gems to get your Golem. And there is more control over what you are getting as compared to what Catan does. This will cut down on the randomness and add in more strategy for a Catan player.

City/Route Building

I think that Draftosaurus would make some sense for this one. You are collecting different groups of things, but it is fairly different. I also think that Marvel United oddly enough could be interesting or The Lost Expedition. You aren’t building your own city or route. But working together you are creating a chain of things, either actions or a path you take. But Draftosaurus would probably be the best.

The Odds

Sagrada would seem like the likely option. It has the dice rolling in it, but I’m not sure I’d put that at the top. In think that Silver might actually be best. With that game it has a bit more push your luck to it. And I think that is what some people like with the odds. So both Silver and Sagrada would be great options for the next step on that side of things for Catan.

So you can see how different games might work better. I think the big thing is give options, but not too many. And talk about what they like or maybe don’t like as well about a game when picking the one for the next step. And expect to play that next game a few times. I have friends who I can pull out a new game with them every time I play, but new gamers, those aren’t the people to do that with.

What do you do to pick a game? Any tried and true tips that you have for helping new gamers try new games?

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Numbers

A’s – B’s

C’s

Calico

This is a game that I kickstarted last year after seeing it, not really demoing it though, at GenCon. The creator had a very little table set-up that was piggybacking off of another booth, and this game was there and it just looked so cute. In this game you are drafting tiles and playing tiles onto your quilt. If you get certain color or patterns you score points, there are some that are shared objectives, like different cats will want different patterns by each other, and if you can do that, you’ll attract that cat, or there are ways to get buttons which give points as well. The game should be a really good puzzle but not a game that you have a ton of rules to teach.

Status: To Be Played

Camel Up

I’ve wanted a racing game for a while, and while I do have another one that will show up in a little bit, that one is a longer and bigger game, I wanted one that could handle a number of players and play fast and silly, and Camel Up does that. You are betting on what camel is going to be in the lead on various legs of the race. What makes it even sillier is that the camels stack. So you don’t have a particular camel that is yours but you are petting on the camel you want to win. If you for example, roll the red die and the red camel has the blue camel on top of it, so you roll a two, that red camel will move with the blue camel on it two spaces forward. And the camel on top is in the lead. Once in a while I’ve seen this game fall flat, but more often than not it is that silly stand-up moment of what die will come out, what camel will move forward, because the more you win on your bets, the more points that you’ll have.

Status: To Be Played

Captain Sonar

This is another big group game, but it pits two teams against each other in submarine warfare in real time. You have tow teams with a captain a sonar operator, first mate, and engineer. Each of them is doing something different. The sonar operator is listening to the other teams captain to try and map out their path and figure out where they are on the board, the engineer is keeping the ship running the best that they can, and the first mate is prepping systems to be ready for use. If you figure out where a ship is and are close enough you can fire off a torpedo to try and hit them. The game is interesting, it has more strategy and the fact you can play it with eight and it’s not just a party game is so much fun.

Status: Played

Carcassonne

This is one of those classic gateway games up there with the likes of Ticket to Ride and Catan that people might have heard of. It’s on the shelves in Target with them. This is a tile placement game as you build out a board collectively building farm area, roads, and towns. You score points for placing out meeples into roads, but you only have a limited supply of them, and most of the time you can get them back, but you might not be able to, so you have hold some meeples back. When a meeple comes off the board for a completed town or a completed road, you get points, at the end of the game you get points for them if things aren’t completed as well, so you are trying to have enough meeples to put them down to score if you need, but not too many so you don’t end up with leftover meeples at the end of the game. It’s easy to teach and play.

Status: Played

Cartographers

Another game in that roll or flip and write category. In this one you are making a map set in the fantasy world of Roll Player games. You’ve been sent out to be a royal cartographer, and are mapping the villages, farm lands, rivers, and forest while also mapping out where the monsters are. The big thing that this game does, which I really like, is that you score things by season. So if I were scoring in the first season I’d score cards A and B, next season B and C, and then in the fourth season D and A again. So you have to balance your scoring and think about what will help you now and help in the future, or what doesn’t matter, because after the second season you won’t score B again. The game is fast and fun, and I’m excited for more stuff that I have coming from their latest Kickstarter.

Status: Played

Castle Panic

This one I’m a little bit surprised it’s still on my shelf and that I haven’t sold it, but it is such a good and simple cooperative game. I like that everything is played open, you have very simple zones for everything and where damage can be done. I don’t play this one often anymore, but I’m keeping it around because when the toddler is older it’ll be a nice simple game to play with them and something that we can play as a whole family, but I’ve had fun with it before, and there is a nice little bit of tension too it though you win more often than you lose.

Status: Played

Cat Cafe

This one is a true roll and write game, with a little bit of dice drafting. In this you are trying to make your best cat cafe. And you are scoring points off of certain things that the cats like, such as food dishes or toy mice. You also score points by filling up cat trees, the first person to get one filled in scores more points than the next person. There is some strategy in the dice drafting and the game works well. The game has a cute theme which was the big selling point, and some of the worst dice I’ve seen, but I replaced them with dice with cats on it, so it’s all better. Definitely a fun one that I need to play again.

Status: Played

Century Golem Edition

If I were to have a go to engine building game, Century: Golem Edition would probably be it. This is a fast and fun game where you are getting gems to collect golems. You do that by either taking a card to add to your hand on your turn, playing a card to get gems or upgrade gems, spending gems to get a golem, or picking back up all your cards. The game is simple and fast, but you can create some really powerful engines that will turn out a lot of gems fast if you can, and the game has great components, a great carrier for the gems, the gems themselves are cool, overall, such a fun and fast engine builder with a table presence that really sells the game.

Status: Played

Champions of Hara

I picked this one up after watching a playthrough on the Gloryhoundd YouTube channel. This seems like a fun game with a lot of depth of story to it without really being a story game. And the game components just look amazing. The modular board is cool, the areas of the world are very interesting, and the fact that you upgrade your character as you go throughout the game also helps sell it for me. Finally, the aesthetic of this game is just amazing, really a huge selling point when a game looks good and looks good.

Status: To Be Played

Charterstone

I still need to finish this one, there were several children that were born which derailed the game, and I think we have one or two games left of it, we’ll see if we get back to it, or I might buy a refresh pack and play it with another group. This is a simple worker placement legacy game that builds over time. It pretends like it has some story, but really it’s just a fun worker placement game, and I’m not always the biggest fan of worker placement. The rules do grow into more, but there are a lot of nice things about the game, and you won’t really be able to have a runaway leader through the game since it is competitive with how it’s balanced. Overall, this game is slipping for me a little bit, just because I can’t play it until we’ve finished it or I spend money to refresh it, and I need to group to play with then.

Status: Played

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

If you liked the goofy Choose Your Own Adventure books growing up, this game fits that perfectly. It’s a light silly and fun game, which doesn’t have you start over when you die thankfully. If you want something that feels like nostalgia, this is a good one, and I think that it goes over well with most groups. Definitely more of an experience than a game, but that’s what I waned from a game with Choose Your Own Adventure in the title.

Status: Played

Chronicles of Crime

Another one that I got to demo a little bit at GenCon in 2019, this one is an interesting tech assisted crime game. You use that feels like VR on your phone to look around a crime scene, you scan QR codes to investigate things, question people, take stuff to the lab and more all as you try and solve the case. I love the idea of this game as I really do love deduction games (keep in mind I said deduction not social deduction). This one is a bit lighter and simpler than some deduction games that might show up in different letters, but still such a good concept and excution from what I saw.

Status: To Be Played

Clank! In! Space! and Clank Legacy

I like deck building games, that’s why I have multiple versions of Clank. I don’t have the original version though where it is dungeon delving in a fantasy setting. Instead I went with the space version which has a lot of fun and silly sci-fi references sprinkles across the cards. And I knew when Clank! Legacy was announced with an Acquisitions Inc theme on it I was going to get that as well. The space game does enough more than just deck building to make it an interesting challenge and I like the push your luck in the game, even if I don’t always do the best at it.

Clank! In! Space! Status: Played
Clank! Legacy Status: To Be Played

Clue

A classic, but a good one. This is another simple deduction game that I mainly keep on my shelf because it is such a classic. I think that my copy of the game has been played maybe twice in about a decade. It does have roll and move which generally I don’t like in a game and only kind of works in this game because you basically always want to make an guess on something to see what information you can get. But if you already know everything you want from one room and roll poorly, you might just be stuck out in the middle. Still for a simple deduction game, it isn’t bad at all.

Status: Played

Codinca

This is an abstract game that I picked up a while ago. It’s all about manipulating/flipping tiles in order to try and complete patterns on cards. The first person to complete a certain number wins. I like the simple concept of the game, though the round cards are a bit weird. It falls into that category of a game that is simple to teach but could have some turns where you really have to think about what you’re going to do.

Status: To Be Played

Conan

This was a game that I bought because it was 50% off, I wasn’t sure when I’d get to play it I know that the rule book is very bad. But I liked the idea of this game. In it you are taking Conan and some other characters up against another person who is running the bad guys for the scenario. What is so interesting is the gaining and spending of energy and activating certain troops might be what you want to do, but when you do, you push them further down the river so it’ll cost more to do so again as the person playing the bad guys. Definitely a really interesting concept with a lot of cool looking minis and a Conan theme that is pretty fun.

Status: To Be Played

Cosmic Encounter

This is an old board game that plays a lot like a new board game. In Cosmic you are a wheeling and dealing alien race who is trying to colonize a certain number of planets. Now, you do that by on you turn picking what planet you’re going after, how many ship you’re sending, and then the fun starts. You can recruit other people to help you and you also spend cards to improve your total. You can negotiate with the person you’re going against to maybe go for a draw and getting something else in return besides knocking them off the planet, it’s a really fun idea. This game does depend on the group some, but when I have played it, I like it. Oh, and the alien powers can mess everything up.

Status: Played

Cowboy Bebop: Boardgame Boogie

This game caught my eye as Cowboy Bebop is one of my favorite anime, so I thought I’d give the game a whirl. Another one that I saw and purchased at GenCon. This is a cooperative game where you play as crew members and work your way through their story arcs, dealing with obstacles, having to bring in bounties and things like that. I like the theme and the game play while it doesn’t seem complex definitely seems like it should be thematic fun.

Status: To Be Played

The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine

This game has been on fire, figuratively, this year. It’s a trick taking game oddly enough, but it is a cooperative trick taking game where you are trying to get certain players to take certain tricks to get a card of a certain color or number, or someone might not want to win a trick, otherwise you’ll lose that level. It limits communication like most trick taking games do, but just seems like such a fun game and one that you can sit down, set-up a mission, play, and do another mission if you want or two even and be done within an hour at most.

Status: To Be Played

Cribbage

A classic game for a reason, I like Cribbage quite well, especially as a bar game. It’s so small you can pull it out at a brewery, throw it onto the table and play a few games while having some beers, it works really well. I like the card play and the scoring for it that you’re always thinking about. It’s a classic, don’t need to say much more than that.

Status: Played

Criss Cross

Another roll and write on the list, the smallest roll and write that I have. I really like this one because of how fast and tricky it is. Now this one has more luck than some because guessing right on what die face might randomly show up, is helpful, but how you place in the dice faces on your sheet is even more important. And how you place the dice is interesting. You need to use them almost as a domino so that they are touching, you can orient them however you want, but they need to be touching like the two halves of a domino. Then you score both vertical and horizontal by how many adjacent symbols you have in the row or column. Good, little, and fast.

Status: Played (a lot)

Cross Clues

I picked this one up for playing on digital board game nights. Cross Clues is a fun game where you have a grid. You might have in row A the word stick, and in column 4 the word witch. So if you have the A4 card in your hand, you have to give a clue to get people to guess it, it might be something like broom. Broom handles are sticks and witches ride on brooms. But if the word in row B was clean, now that clue isn’t as good. So you’re trying to find that clue that works for that one right spot for the card you have. You can play it with a timer, which I think would work well in person, but digitally we play without.

Status: Played

Cry Havoc

This is a game that I really do want to play more. It’s an interesting area control and fighting game all at the same time. Like Blood Rage, but also really not like Blood Rage in a lot of other ways. You are coming to an alien planet to get a resource, it’s a very classic movie trope, and there are natives there. What is really interesting is how the different factions play. There are mechs, humans, pilgrims, and the natives, and the natives start out with the best board presence and will score more gems, the pilgrims are trying to just collect gems and create their own pool of scoring that no one can take away, humans and mechs need to spread out and win more battles. The combat is interesting as well with how you allocate your troops to different areas of majority control, killing, and capturing.

Status: Played

Cthulhu Fluxx

If you want to find a version of Fluxx on any topic, IP, anything, you basically can. Fluxx is what you hope will be a fast little filler card game where you are trying to get the right set-up of cards in front of you to win the game. And the rules are always changing. The game can be a bit of a mess to keep track of the rules, but that’s part of the silly fun of it. Definitely doesn’t get played all that often, because while it should be a short filler it can sometimes run long.

Status: Played

Cyclades

Final one that starts with the letter C, Cyclades is another area control, influence game where you are fighting to build and control a number of a cities. All of this while bidding for your power and turn order as to what god will shine their face on you that round and what actions you can take. It’s an interesting idea and I think one that I’d really enjoy, however, it hasn’t hit the table after quite some time. I’m not ready to get rid of it though because it does seem like a really good game.

Status: To Be Played

That was a lot of C’s, what is your favorite game that starts with the Letter C? Is there one based off of my list thus far of what I own that you think I should get for hte letter C?

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100 to 91

90 to 81

80 to 71

Plus a few notes on how I’ve put together the list:

• These are my favorite, you want what people consider best, see the Board Game Geek Top 100
• If a game you love isn’t on the list, it might be be coming, I might not have played it, and if I have, it’s 101
• If a game looks cool, I have links to buy it from CoolStuffInc or Amazon, or you can grab most at your FLGS
• There are a few games, Destiny 2 Player versus regular Destiny where if they are basically the same thing, I only do one of them

70. Marrying Mr Darcy

This is a smaller and less known game than a lot on the list, but I like it because it is pretty simple and quirky fun. At the heart it’s a set collection game as you collect different skills so that when the first part of the game is done, you can get your ideal suitor and marry them. But because it has a Price and Prejudice theme to it, and because the theme itself is just a little bit goofy, the game is a lot of fun and the set collection almost becomes a background to the randomness of everything else. This is not a highly strategic game, but it is fun. I do think that while the game needs a lot of cards just so you can build up your wit and cunning and other skills, it does overstay a little bit for a game where most of the fun comes from the silly randomness. If there was more variety in the parties and how those worked, it might be higher on my list as well.

Last Year: 98

69. Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

Battlestar Galactica is a massive hidden traitor, hidden role game. The theme works amazing in this game as you are trying to escape the Cylons and get to Earth, but you’re not sure that you can trust everyone and who might be a Cylon and who might not be. So you’re pushing forward, you’re seeing who might be doing something suspicious and there are times when you just can’t help either, so that makes you look suspicious. This is a long game and a big game, but it feels tense the whole time you’re playing, and eve if you can figure out who the Cylon’s on board are, will that help you enough? Does knowing the show help for this game, most certainly, but it’s still an extremely well built game so it’ll still be fun even if you don’t.

Last Year: 55

68. Carcassonne

Another one of those modern classic games and gateway games to make the list. Carcasone probably introduced a lot of people into modern board gaming as you placed tiles down, used your meeples smartly to score, and built out a nice looking map on the table. This game plays fast, and it is still fun to play even though it’s a little bit older at this point. The only negative I have with the game is the farm scoring just because that can be a bit odd, so it’s a bit harder to teach that. Even with that, I like the building of the landscape and I think that the scoring is interesting as you can lock up a meeple to score points in a bigger thing, but that might mean you don’t have enough meeples to score something else. So there’s a balancing act with that and then with making sure you have all your meeples out at the end for scoring then as well.

Last Year: 90

67. Clank! A Deck-Building Adventure

Won’t be the only Clank! on my list, but one that’s a good time. This is the fantasy themed game where you are going down into a dungeon, trying not to disturb the dragon and make too much noise as you go around in your armor, fighting goblins, and then eventually grabbing a treasure and racing out of there. All of this while you are making noise which might attracts the dragon to you and if you take too much damage you’re done. So there’s a push your luck element to the game as you push further into the depth of the dungeon to grab a better treasure. And you do this with deck building, which is fun as you can be risky and get better cards but it might cause you to clank more. I love deck building and I like this game a lot, the only issue I have is that the end game message is a bit abrupt and can punish players for trying to push too deep if someone barely goes into the dungeon and gets out with the cheapest treasure they might be able to screw everyone else over. But if people don’t try and play that way but play more in the spirit of the game, I think that the game works well.

Last Year: Not Ranked

66. Dice Forge

Dice Forge is an interesting dice construction game where you are rolling dice and getting resources to buy cards and buy more dice faces to put on your dice. I think that the game is really interesting that way because you are literally changing up the dice. The different combinations of cards and how you build your dice can really change the strategy of the game as you play. You can go for buying tons of cards, you can go for getting the best dice possible in terms of coins or resources, and you can just go and get victory points from the the cards and dice. There’s one thing that really makes this game work. On your turn you roll your dice, get resources and can buy cards and dice face, but not on your turn, you still roll your dice and get resources.

Last Year: 53

65. Cosmic Encounter

This game is hard to explain but it’s a lot of fun. People could take this game seriously, but the game is best when it’s played in a silly way. Cosmic Encounter is all about getting your bases onto various planets, but to do this, on your turn, you pick a planet to attack and you and the person you attack can play cards to augment how much your attack/defense are. But, there’s more, you can get people to help you and add their ships into their attack, so they can get onto the planet with you as well. But the numbers the players can play can change up the attack greatly, so you can negotiate with the person you’re fighting, maybe if they play a low card for you, you’ll give them a good card, or something like that, so you can really work together for the best of everyone, but of course, you can also lie. But that might not work out, because you might owe someone something, or they might have a special alien power where they win with a lower number than a higher. The game should be played really goofy and with lots of negotiation, so won’t be for every table, but for me, it’s a lot of fun.

Last Year: 49

64. Parade

This game has an Alice in Wonderland theme, but really it’s a abstract game. In this you are trying to get the fewest points and you do that by playing down cards into a line, you look at the number of cards equal to what you put down and you get the cards that match the color or are a lower number, so you can potentially get none, but you might get a lot and they might be high points. If anyone ever gets all the colors, that ends the game and you score, or if you run out of cards in the deck to draw from. The scoring is simple, it’s the total of the numbers of your cards, unless, of course, you have the most of a color. If you have 4 green cards and that’s the most in everyone, you get 1 point per card, so you can push for a lot of a single color or you can try and only get low number cards not really caring about the color. I like how the different in strategies work and it makes for an interesting game.

Last Year: 62

63. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

As I’ve said many a time, I really like deck building games, and this one is a pretty straight forward game, but has a theme that I like with Harry Potter. I think this game does a good job with some nods to the books and movies and I like how this game builds over time and becomes harder but offers more specialization and diversity in what the characters can do. Between the theme and difficulty of the game and this is actually a decent gateway deck building game especially if you have more complex ones you want people to learn. Overall, just a fun game and a good straight forward and cooperative deck building game.

Last Year: 59

62. Galaxy Trucker

I’ve talked about a few goofier games in this section, and I think this qualifies as one as well. In this game you are trying to build a space “truck” and get enough crew and enough cargo spots so you can go fly around the galaxy, get the most money at the end of the flight. But the goofy parts are, first, that you build your ship in real time, so you’re going nice and fast as you’re trying to get everything built and you have to think about the weapons, shields, and engines on your ship. Because if you’re the fastest you can get to planets first and get the stuff you want, but if you add in too many engines or too much energy to fire your engines, you might not have enough to deal with asteroids and pirates. And the asteroids can just blow up part of your ship if you can’t shoot it down or you don’t have a shield that can stop it. After a few different builds and runs to get and deliver cargo, the person with the most money wins. It’s a game that is quite random, but it plays pretty fast and is just good fun.

Last Year: 56

61. Fruit Picking

This one for sure is new to the list because I just got it recently and I played it for GenCon online, but I really like this game already. The game has some very fun things in it. I like how you move the seeds around and how you store the seeds so that you can purchase fruit cards. And you just use those cards to complete sets, like a full house, three pairs, four of a kind, or one of each and once someone has one of those, the game is over and that person won. But to get the seeds, you move them around in a circle, Mancala style, banking seeds but where you end, that’s what you can buy and it gets you more seeds. Just a lot of fun and very much a gateway game. The game is also interesting because it’s from Korea as well, and I don’t know much about the Korean board game scene, but this one was a lot of fun. If you’re in search of a new gateway game, this one works well, though it’s only available via BGG in the US.

Last Year: Not Ranked

What’s your favorite from this section? Any that stand out, any based off of my taste that you think I should try or you think will be higher on the list?

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Most of these games are going to be pretty simple and easy to play with a range of ages and are often called introductory games. While, if you are a seasoned gamer, these might be a little bit lighter than you’d want to play all the time, but it’s a good compromise with family who might only want to play very light games or “classic” games like Uno and Monopoly.

Carcassonne – This game can actually be a bit more challenging for new players when it comes to placing out their meeples. When do they do it, where should they do it, how do farmers even work? But the tile playing piece is something that is very easy for people to pick up on and fun for people to do. It’s a fun game for that tile laying aspect, and once they have down the basics of the scoring, and scoring at least towns and monasteries are easy to understand, Carcassonne is a good game for the whole family.

Castle Panic – This game skews a little bit younger, but maybe you have a younger sibling or niece of nephew who you want to get into gaming or a grand child. Whatever the relationship might be, Castle Panic is a fun game. It’s simple as to how it works, it’s cooperative, so you can all plan out things together and that makes it easier to teach as well. Definitely, once they start to get the idea of the game hang back and let them take the lead, but this tower defense card game is a lot of fun, and easy for younger kids to pick up. There is also My First Castle Panic for even younger kids.

Century: Golem Edition – I picked this one over the normal version, Century: Spice Road, because the gems in this game are cooler than cubes in Spice Road. It’s a pretty simple game of collecting gems, getting cards, using those cards to get other types of gems, and turning in gems for golems. This game has a bit more going on to it, but the turns are very fast, and since you can only do one action per turn, it makes it easier for people to figure it out as they go along. The table appeal is great for this game as well.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger – Now, this one is completely different and might be too silly for some people in your family. But in Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger, you are going through chapters of this story, making choices and rolling dice once in a while to see if you can complete a challenge. This is really a story telling game, and it would be an easy one to play just sitting around a living room without needing a table. This game is light, easy and cooperative.

Dice Throne Season 1 – This game is just silly in a very different way than Choose Your Own Adventure. This one is also about the opposite of a cooperative game as you’re having different contestants fight against each other in a dice chucking game. But it is also familiar because it’s yahtzee style rolling, just with more added onto it. It would be a fun one to face off different characters against each other and see who can do the best. The games also play fast, so you could do a small tournament if you wanted and had the right group. The art in the game is also fun, and the dice are great. I’d recommend the first season of the game though, as the second season has more complicated characters.

Draftosaurous – Draftosaurous is a game that I’ve only played once, but it was a ton of fun when I did. In it, you are drafting dinosaur and scoring them in different ways. The ways are simple and you can easily explain them as often as you want in your game without slowing down the game. Plus, the dinosaurs are meeples, which look amazing. So it has a cute factor going for it as well. The game also plays very quickly, so you might end up playing a few in a row. But the game isn’t so simple that people will get board with it fast.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle – People will be drawn to games with an intellectual property (IP) that they recognize. And Harry Potter is a very popular IP that most people are at least familiar with, even if they haven’t seen all the movies or read all the books. This is a deck building game, so it has a little bit to teach with deck building if people aren’t familiar with it, but the first few games, which have bad guys from the first few books, keep the game simple so that people can understand it. Eventually you get more complex things, but by then, people should be familiar with deck building enough that more won’t complicate it for them. It’s a good fun game, and has a little bit more than some other games.

ICECOOL – This one, if you’ve followed my top 100 and my thoughts on the game, shouldn’t be a surprise to you. Icecool is a great family game that anyone can play. Even younger kids can play with only possibly needing to make the rules simpler just for scoring, and go with more of a tournament rule style. This game is just about flicking penguins around and having a silly good time. If you want to play it on a table, you can, if you want to play it on the floor you can. Adults might find it a bit too simple, but it is meant to be silly fun more than a strategic match.

Just One – Yes, it showed up on the stocking stuffer list, but it works well here also. It’s a cooperative party game, and instead of just pulling out the old ones at your parents or grandparents place, Just One offers something new. The game play is easy and the components are nice. The concept of the game is also easy to teach. This game should work well in most settings and with a wide age range, from Grandma and Grandpa to your 10 year old cousin.

Lost Expedition – Another cooperative game, but I really think that for family weight games, cooperative games are great. They are good introductory level and for people who might not like conflict in games, they work well. Lost Expedition is all about going and trying to find the lost city of Z. However, there are plenty of challenges you have to get through each morning and evening as you hike. If you don’t ration out your resources, you might die before they get there, but with some clever path construction, you can rush to the end before you run out of resources. The game is quite easy to explain and the artwork is nice. This game also helps keep alpha players from running the table.

Machi Koro – I’m not going to suggest any Machi Koro in particular, but if you think people will like the game, I recommend the legacy version. For me, that game seemed to play faster than the base game and being able to make the game unique to the person who is getting it, that’s something that is cool and most games don’t do. This is a tableau building game, but you can more easily explain it that you are trying to build up the best town by getting buildings and building monuments. Turns are pretty fast in Machi Koro, especially when people start to become familiar with the cards. And the cards are pretty simple, so it shouldn’t take too long. While not my favorite game, it’s a good one that is easy to teach to a lot of different levels of players.

Pandemic – I’m sure you expected this one to be on the list, but it’s a good and straightforward cooperative game. It’s also one that even if people aren’t gamers, they might have seen before. It’s also challenging enough that the person you give it to won’t get bored with it or beat it too often right away. And when they start to, there are expansions that can be added to change up the game to make it more challenging. This game of player powers and curing diseases also has a theme that people will be able to understand quickly, even if the game is fairly abstract.

Potion Explosion – The toy factor to this game is high with all the marbles in it, but the game itself is pretty simple. You are collecting marbles to complete potions to help you get more marbles. The game play is simple just pulling out a marble, if like colored marbles hit, you get those marbles, and it can cascade onward. These marbles you then use to complete potions, and the potions give you more things that you can do to get more marbles. But the game is really about pulling out those marbles and letting them hit and getting a whole bunch of marbles when they keep on doing that. Turns are pretty fast, and the concept is easy to grasp, especially with so many app games doing something similar.

Sagrada – A game about making stained glass windows, this looks great on the table with translucent dice that actually help make it look like stained glass. Another drafting game, this one you are taking dice that match specific colors or numbers to try and fill in your stained glass windows. The scoring for the game is pretty simple, and while there are some powers that are a bit tricky, there are plenty of simple ones you can start with, and I often choose those for the first game. The concepts are simple, like numbers and colors can’t go next to each other orthogonally (in rows and columns), and you have to place the die you drafted next to another one, diagonally or orthogonally. Definitely one that most people will pick up on fast.

Second Chance – Another one from the stocking stuffer list, but this is my roll and write (or flip and write as the case might be) for the list. Second Chance just works well because of the Tetris like shapes and people understand trying to fill in an area as much as possible. It is pretty solitaire as what other people are doing won’t affect you, but the game is pretty when it’s completed and a fast game to play. Generally I don’t see people only playing a single game of it, you at least play two, one for each side of your sheet before being done.

Small World – Another classic modern game, Small World is an area control game where you get points for all the areas that you have and other scoring, such as what type of area you are in. It’s a silly game that can be a bit mean, but the nice thing about how this game can be mean is that if you are almost kicked off the board, you can go into decline, get a new race next turn and go onto the board. That’s the only tricky part about the game, in my opinion, knowing when to go into decline and understanding that it is your whole turn. The combinations of races and powers are what then make the game stand out, because who doesn’t want flying halflings or maybe seafaring dwarves. You never know what combination you might get or want.

Sushi Go Party! – Now, this is a bit more complex than just normal Sushi Go, but because of that complexity, if offers variability which will keep it coming to the table longer. In the game you are drafting different types of foods to create the best meal and scoring points over three rounds. Depending on what type of food it is, it’ll score you points in various ways. Maybe you want three sashimi to get 10 points, but will get three of them, whereas tofu scores you points for two of them, but if you get a third, you don’t get any points, because you don’t want to fill up on tofu. The game can take a little bit to get into, but if you play a pretty basic set-up to start, people will catch on fast.

Ticket to Ride – The Train Game, as a lot of people call it, is a classic family weight game where you’re trying to complete various routes. This game has a little bit of strategy in it, mainly in picking your routes to help create the longest route, but beyond that, it’s collecting sets of cards and building your train routes. What works well in this game is that the rules are simple and you only do one thing on your turn. This helps people not be bogged down by all the options available. While this game doesn’t have a ton of variety in the base box, there are other maps you can get for it that’ll change up how the game works once you’ve played through the base game enough. But this one is a good one to add to parents or grand parents collection and play once or twice a year around the holidays.

Wits & Wagers – Final game on the list, and other party game. This one is my favorite trivia style party game, because you don’t need to be great at trivia. You just have to know, who in the group, might know the answer or be closest to the answer, without going over. All the questions have answers that are numbers, so you put down your answer and then bet on what answer you think is right. If you are correct, you get your money back plus some, depending on how close to the middle it was, so you can bet on your answer, if you think you are right, or you can go with the person who you think might know more about it than you do. It’s a fun and sometimes funny game that is good for a whole family and because of how it works, can play with younger kids.

Now, there are so many more family games out there. I left some off the list that I like, simply because I had something similar on the list. Dice Throne could have easily been left off the list for King of Tokyo that has a similar mechanic, but I also wanted to provide some different options as well. Hopefully you can play some of these with family or friends over the holidays, and maybe give them to them as a gift so that they can introduce them to their friends and grow the board gaming hobby.

What are some of your favorites from my list? Is there a game that you’ve found works well as a gift?

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These rankings are the opinion of yours truly, and if you don’t like them, that’s okay. We all have different tastes in games and that is great. There are some games that I’ve only played as a demo, and I felt like I got enough of a feel to put them on the list, thanks GenCon for all the demos. These are living rankings so next year I’m sure that things will change, so I’ll probably be doing another one next year. Thanks to Board Game Geek for letting me enter/rate my collection and games I’ve played. Thanks to Pub Meeple for creating a tool that pulls in those games that I’ve rated and creating a ranking tool. Again, the numbers and names will be linked to Cool Stuff Inc and Amazon if you’re interested in the games.

90 – Carcassonne
First classic game on the list, I’d say. This is a tile laying game that has been around for a long time, though, not as long as games like Clue and Monopoly that didn’t make my top 100. In Carcassone, you are trying to connect roads together and build cities, monasteries, and farms. All of these things give you points and when all the tiles have been played you tally up any final scoring and the person with the most points wins. What’s interesting about this game is that as you complete cities and roads where you have placed a knight or a robber, which are just meeples, you get those meeples back, so you are trying to balance getting a lot of points in a single road or city, and not having all your meeples on the board so you miss scoring.

89 – Dead of Winter: The Long Night
So, this is technically an expansion. But it’s also technically stand alone, so I’m placing it on my list because you don’t need Dead of Winter to play it. In this game, like Dead of Winter, you are protecting your base against zombies, however, they add in a few things, like a bandit module, a building module, and a Umbrella Corporation, I mean Raxxon, expansion. This game adds more to a game that already has a bunch of stuff going on in it, hence why it’s a bunch lower than the original, plus, it’s just hard to beat the original. I’d definitely play with any of the expansions though.

88 – Splendor
We’re going away from a more thematic game and going into a game that is purely tableau building. The “theme” of this game is that you are a gem merchant who is buying single use gems to get other gems that you have all the time, okay, that doesn’t make sense. But that’s what you’re doing in the game. Some of the gem cards that you’ll buy will have points on them, and the first person to 15 points wins. This is a great introductory tableau game that looks nice on the table. The game comes with a bunch of cards but what most people notice are the power chips that represent the single use gems that you’ll be getting early in the game. They are nice and weighty and give the game a good tactile feel. This is game that I’ll always play and have a good time with, there are other games higher on the list that fit a similar niche that I prefer though.

87 – Stuffed Fables
Your girl has had her favorite blanket stolen, and as her fearless stuffed animals, you are going to go into the depths of the world under the bed to get back that blanket without waking up the girl. This is a very cute game with cute stuffed animal minis. It’s what is known as a storybook game where you flip to different pages in the book, depending on what you do, and play through different chapters of an adventure by playing through the little scene that is in the book. Stuffed Fables definitely is focused for children, though feels like it’s a bit too complex for most younger children that the story targets more so. The game looks great though, and because it’s cooperative, you can work together as a group, which would be how you can get younger gamers to play and understand what is going on. Eventually this will be something that I play through with our baby.

86 – Legends of Andor
We’re into one of the first story driven fantasy games on the list. I’ve played this one a few times, and what is interesting about this game is that killing monsters causes the story to progress faster. Each round advances, and eventually you run out of turns, and you’d lose the game, but if too many monsters get to the castle, you lose the game, if you kill too many monsters and use up the rounds, you lose the game. This is a fun fantasy puzzle story game, because beating the monsters isn’t always hard, but knowing when to beat the monsters and when to focus on story elements, it’s a challenge. There are a bunch of different scenarios in the game, all of which seem interesting, and there are a bunch of expansions for it. It’s a big fantasy game, but at the same time, it’s not a complex fantasy game, so it’s a good introductory one for younger gamers.

85 – Lord of the Rings
This is the classic Fantasy Flight game where you play as up to five Hobbits traveling to Mount Doom to throw the one ring in. Yes, you read that correctly up to five Hobbits. If you have five players, one person can play as Fatty Bolger. Who is Fatty Bolger, he’s the hobbit who they invite along after add in Merry and Pippin but who declines, if you’ve read the books you’re apt to remember him. This game feels fairly thematic, but mainly feels like a puzzle as you try and play combinations of cards to advance through different locations before time runs out. It’s not a very heavy game, but there are interesting choices, and anyone can hold the ring, so Sam does, always, because he’s steadfast and hard to move. They made a lot of expansions for it as well. If you don’t want a big card game or a big minis game for Lord of the Rings, this is a fun option.

84 – Pandemic Legacy Season 2
We’ll see Season 1 higher on the list, but I did enjoy my playthrough, just not as much as the first season. I won’t go into spoilers, because this is a legacy game, but Pandemic Legacy Season 2 has a bit less direction while having a few clear things to do as well. It’s confusing with how I wrote it, but it still tells a good story. I feel like with the story, though, you’re waiting for the twist to happen like there was at some point in time in season one. What is cool about this one is that the mechanics are different, but they still feel like Pandemic. I’ll be playing through this at some point in time on Malts and Meeples, so if you want spoilers, that’s where it’ll be. Even though it’s a story driven legacy game, I feel like there’s plenty that you can play again with it after a bit of time. Downside is that to do that, you need a new version of the game.

83 – Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game
This is a massively bloated game at this point with 20000000000000 different expansions, and that is only using half the characters that Marvel has. In this game there is a villain whom a group of players with hero cards are going to attempt to defeat. It’s pretty standard in how you deck build with a changing market, but it gives you some interesting things like trying to build up enough damage to take out the villain enough times, while also trying to keep a handle on the different henchmen that are coming out. What makes this game tricky is that there are literally too many options now for the game. If you just pick what Marvel superheroes you like, you might end up with a group of heroes that don’t synergize at all, and then the game is going to take way longer than it should be build up the combos that you’re generally looking for in deck building games. However, if you just have the base game, you have enough to keep yourself busy for a while. This is a game that I’ve grown to like more as I’ve played more deck building games.

82 – Arkham Horror 2nd Edition
Yes, this is not the new edition, in fact, the new edition that I’m stoked to try, it’s not on my list, because I haven’t tried it yet. It’s sitting on my shelf just waiting to get played. But this is the massive older version where you are going around Arkham and adventuring and closing gates, fighting monsters, and then probably losing for up to six hours. Like I said, it’s a massive game and that’s without any of the expansions. I’ve really only played this once, and not even my copy, but it was blast, it’s just hard to carve out that much time. I am probably going to keep this game, because it’s the first massive epic game I bought, but also because it seems different enough from the 3rd edition that I probably have room on my self for both. If you like that older grind of a game, this one still holds up well, and there are tons of expansions for it, but you’ll also need a giant table for it.

81 – Dead Men Tell No Tales
I was hoping that this game would replace Pandemic in some ways or be another cooperative option, and I think that it almost does that, but you’ll see where Pandemic falls on my list. In Dead Men Tell No Tales, you are a group of pirates who are going onto a ship that is haunted by ghosts, on fire, and has a skeleton crew, but you’re willing to brave all of that, because the captain will make you walk the plank, and there’s treasure on this burning ship. You take your turn, dealing with fire, taking out those skeletons, trying to build up so you can fight the ghosts, but doing all of that while the ship continues to burn, and you hope that it doesn’t get too bad so that you can’t get to where you need to. It’s like Pandemic in that you have a ton of things that you can do and you never feel like you have enough actions. Or that your actions won’t do anything, and that’s one cool thing about the game, if you only have two useful actions out of your four or five, you can pass your unused ones to the next player so that they can get more done. If you want something that’s cooperative and the theme seems more interesting than Pandemic, I think you’d enjoy Dead Men Tell No Tales.

We’re through another ten, I’m planning that next week, besides Wednesday which will be Halloween focused, I’m going to continue going through my top 100, otherwise it could take a while.

What game from this section looks the most interesting to you? Is there one that you’ve wanted to play? Is there one that would be higher on your own list?

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5. Risk Legacy
Yes, I could have put normal risk on the list, but I think that Risk Legacy is a way more enjoyable game. You could win a game of Risk Legacy by conquering the whole world, but you don’t need to, so it takes a game that can be a long slog and having players getting knocked out early, and turns it into a shorter and more focused game where someone might be knocked out, but they won’t be out completely. The dice are still extremely fickle, and with all the games higher on the list, there are ways to mitigate the dice, if there are even dice. Spoiler, only one more of them has dice. I don’t mind dice in a game, and in a shorter game like Risk Legacy, it works. There isn’t a ton to unlock in the game, but what you do unlock is fun, and creates some interesting choices as to what to play.

4. Cry Havoc
A game that I’ve only gotten to the table once, and it has a bit of a euro game feel for something that is heavily focused on area control. It is fun because the different actions trying to get gems on the planet all work differently. The Pilgrims don’t care about controlling as many areas because they score points better off of gem production. Whereas in a four player game, the Trogs just swarm out over the board very quickly, but can get spread thin if the player isn’t careful. Each faction handles area control just a bit differently, but they all seem balanced which is great.

3. Star Wars: Rebellion
While arguably a better game tactically than the next game, Star Wars: Rebellion does have the downside of being a two player game. There is a lot more going on in Rebellion than just area control as well, but controlling certain areas, getting troops built and deployed in areas that you do control, especially as the Empire really helps you lock down the position of the Rebels. With that, you also have the option of trying to slow down production by sabotaging different planets. This game has a lot going on in it, but it works really well and feels like an epic Star Wars struggle between the Rebels and Empire.

2. Smallworld
The silliest game on the list, but Smallworld really has a nice streamlined area control mechanic. It really does push for a ton of conflict, and that’s fine, because you are swapping out race and power combinations throughout the game, Mary might attack Tom to start the game, but in a few turns, Tom will be attacking Mary and destroying all of her troops. It does a good job of making the combat and wiping another player off the board seem not personal. The goofy theme and fun combinations does really help that aspect of the game as well.

1. Blood Rage
To me, Blood Rage might not do area control the best, but put together in the package of the whole game play, it’s area control and everything work extremely well. I also like that it’s area control can be known in some ways, but there are strategies that are fine if you die because you get more points or because you can take something from your enemy as well and as the player you get to decide how you want to focus in on area control. But you can’t lose all the time because you’re letting other players get points for upgrading their troop totals, action points, and other things.

What games could fall on a honorable mention list, and I really only mention some of these because they have a little bit of area control:

King of Tokyo – Technically you are vying for control of Tokyo. However, this simple dice chucker could just have you win without going into Tokyo at all, and there is only one area to control.

Carcassonne – Another one that doesn’t have much area control, you could argue that the original farmer rules are area control, because it’s who ever has the most farmers in an area.

Smash Up – Definitely are control, but I just got rid of my copy. Not because it’s a bad game, but because there are a million expansions. Also, it’s a game that seems to sit with a sweet spot of three players and more or less makes for a less enjoyable experience with it.

What are some other area control games that I should check out? I have Scythe sitting on my shelf waiting to be played, so eventually, I wouldn’t be surprised if that makes the list.

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