What Board Games Are Leaving?

This time the games were in a number of different categories that are leaving. Some of them I was very excited for but as time has gone on my excitement has waned on them. Others are just classic games that I don’t play anymore. And I think that’s one thing I’m noticing about having bought a lot of games over the years. Stuff that I don’t get to quickly, that is more likely to fall out of my current taste in games.

Sentinels of the Multiverse

This is one that I didn’t buy too long ago. I mainly bought it because it was on a great sale. I think I got the base game and something like 16 or 17 expansions for about $80. My plan is to try and sell it for about the same amount. I thought I’d give it a whirl because it looked cool, but when it comes down to superhero themed games, I’m going to pick Marvel Champions over it.

Dice Throne Adventures

This one is only kind of out the door at this point. Again, it’s another one that I’d really like to get played. But with middling reviews for this Dice Throne expansion, that makes it into a cooperative game. I’m not that excited to try it anymore. Add in the fact that I love Dice Throne as a two player head to head battle or king of the hill fighting, it’s hard to want to try a new way to play it that’s so different.

Merchant’s Cove

Merchant’s Cove, a game in my Top 100 games, and could still easily be there this upcoming year or longer, also leaving. The reason for that is it’s a very big game, a very light game, and there’s a learning curve, but not a bad one, each time you pull out and play a new character. I love the level of production on the game, but it makes it harder to table.

Uno

Uno is not a fun game, it’s a classic game. And when I started my collection, I wanted to own a number of the classics. Now, there are other very simple games that I have that I’d play over Uno. Add in that Uno can take no time or forever to play, it’s just not worth it.

Phase 10

Phase 10 is another classic game, one that I don’t hate, but also one that I am not that likely to play again. If I do play it, it’ll be with my parents who have a copy. Phase 10 is a fine game that takes too long because it doesn’t progress. I want to replace mine with 5 Crowns. A game that does a similar thing with getting sets and runs, but with a more limited game length.

Chess

Chess is yet another classic, and one that I feel like I should have. But the game is not one that I play, so do I keep the tin around and let it take up space on a game shelf? Or do I let it go to someone who is excited to get a decent looking all wooden chess set? I think it’s smarter to let it go to someone else enjoy it and if or when I want to get a new chess set, I can always do that later.

8-Bit Box

Another game I picked up with store credit, and one that I really wanted to play when I got it. But then my interested in it waned over time because it’s learning basically a new game for each one that I’d pull out of the box. The whole 8-Bit arcade game thing, that’s pretty cool, but if it creates a barrier to entry, well, then it ends up leaving my collection.

Karuba: The Card Game

Grabbed this one from a local Goodwill, I wasn’t thinking about it, thought it was the board game. Should have been obvious that it was different. I wouldn’t mind giving it a whirl, it’s more that I’m trying to find that thrift store gem, and this wasn’t it.

Cat Cafe

Added to the pile last night from a section I’d already gone through. Cat Cafe is a fun enough roll and write game. And it has some cool things that I don’t mind with drafting dice and then a shared die that’s left. But the game feels like it should do more. And I don’t like the end game trigger. You get more points for completing towers and the first person who completes three ends the game.

The Drink

Islay Storm again for me. Finished off the bottle of this Scotch from Trader Joe’s. It’s a really good Scotch for the price it’s at, and a very peat forward Scotch. I really enjoy peat in my Scotch, so this is always a good one when I make it to Trader Joes.

Upcoming Streams

So what comes after this. Well, it’s going to be some smaller games being streamed up through the end of the month. Start of May, I want to kick off another campaign game. And I might be playing through some Perdition’s Mouth, or I have a few others that I’m considering as well.

But I do want to maybe play through more Paper Dungeons, I had fun playing two games last time. But I have a few other games, Village Green, Dinosaur Island Rawr ‘n Write, Welcome To Dino World, and others that I can play solo as well. And two of those are ones that I want to try out to see if they’ll stick in my collection.

If you want to know when I go live, you can go to the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel, subscribe, and click the notification bell. That’ll let you know when I go live or schedule a video.

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Ranking My Drafting Games

12. 7 Wonders

I know, this one is going to be very high on some people’s lists. And I get it, it’s a very solid drafting game and I like it a lot. But it doesn’t work great at two, and I have played it at that number a few times. I know, I need to play 7 Wonders Duel. For me, this game is a great pure drafting game, the theme doesn’t intrigue me that much, and often I want more going on.

11. Cat Cafe

This is another one that is just good, but it’s not a bad roll and write. In Cat Cafe, you draft dice to determine what you do. It’s a simple part of the game where you use the die you draft and one that is left at the end. It determines what cat feature you add as well as where on the cat trees you put them. It’s a nice little system and a cute game.

10. Magic: The Gathering

This one is tough for me to rank. Mainly because drafting in Magic: The Gathering, is a lot of fun, but I haven’t done it in ages. And I don’t plan to do it for a long time. It’s a good way to play some more relaxed magic, if you are playing with friends. I think that besides Commander, drafting or sealed are my favorite ways to play magic.

9. Truffle Shuffle

Truffle Shuffle is a board game that makes a good two player drafting game. It has the grid or layout for cards that you draft from, and you open up other cards. The game play is simple, take a card, and then you can put down a set of cards, kind of in poker hands. The poker hands give you points, plus there are some special power cards as well. If you want an easy game to play, Truffle Shuffle is a good drafting game.

8. The Isle of Cats

The Isle Of Cats really focused on drafting in a great way. Yes, it is a game about putting out cats onto a boat to rescue them, but the drafting matters so much. You draft scoring missions, you draft cards that allow you to rescue cats, and other types of cards as well. And what I like is that as you draft cards, you need to pay for them. So you wont keep all of them. But which ones do you keep, because you also have to bribe the cats with fish. It’s a clever system.

7. Draftosaurus

And in Draftosaurus, you are drafting dinosaurs, probably the most unique thing to be drafting. Especially because we see dice, and we cards, but these are dino meeples. You basically are building out a dinosaur park putting dinosaurs in spots that will give you points. In a lot of ways this feels like a roll and write to me, but with dino meeples. The game plays really fast and easy and is a lot of fun.

6. Sushi Go Party!

I thought that Sushi Go Party might be higher when I started ranking, and it’s not that I don’t like the game as much anymore, but it’s more that there are a lot of fun drafting games. Sushi Go Party is adorable, and a lot of fun. The anthropomorphic sushi and other foods are cute. And I like how the drafting works. That you draft over rounds, but you score and reset at the end of each. Except for desert, and those only score at the end of the game.

5. Ohanami

Slightly above Sushi Go Party! is Ohanami, another simple drafting game, but one that I love to pull out. The game is so easy to play. Ohanami has you drafting two cards and putting them into any of three columns. The trick is that the columns and cards added, always need to increase or decrease. It’s a really fun puzzle, not that hard a one, and I like how scoring works, in that scoring grows over time.

4. Roll Player

Now we have another die drafting game, but in Roll Player you are drafting dice in order to build out an RPG character. This is a theme that I really love. I don’t get to play D&D, but I’ve rolled up a lot of characters for fun in my time. I just get to run games. And Roll Player does a good job of simulating that and getting equipment and spells. It’s a cool idea that I want to play more of, and some good drafting.

3. Sagrada

But better die drafting for me is Sagrada. Sagrada is a little bit simpler but not too simple. You draft dice to build out a stained glass window. But you have specific scoring conditions that you are going for. And a hidden scoring condition. The game also scales well with some of the things that come in the 5-6 player expansion. So I like it can play that big a group.

2. Blood Rage

Blood Rage looks like a dudes on a map game. And there is that element to it, you are vying for control of areas to get increased prowess in combat, more action points, or to be able to put more dudes on the map. But the game shines when it comes to drafting. Drafting is how you determine your strategy. And it is how you become more unique as you go. You might focus on getting monsters. Or you might want to improve your troops or to let them die. A lot of great options and good decision making that comes from drafting.

1. Lords of Hellas

Finally, Lords of Hellas. The drafting in this game isn’t a huge part, but at the same time it is very impactful. You start out with a leader/hero power but otherwise you’re the same. Then as temples are built, you draft new powers. So being the one to build a temple gets you first pick, so there is a rush to get some of them built at times. And those abilities can really shape what you’re going to do, because they might make you better at defense, fighting monsters, or building more temples.

There are a lot of things that are cool in Lords of Hellas. And the drafting isn’t the biggest part. But it is a part that keeps the game feeling fresh. Everything feels powerful, and you kind of want to draft them all. But how can you draft what’s going to be best for you?

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy drafting in most games. Some of them like Ohanami, Sushi Go Party, and 7 Wonders mean that you’re all playing at once. That is one feature that I really like. Other times you go separately but then it creates tension for what is going to be left for you. And there’s probably one, maybe two things that you really want.

The downside to drafting can be that people hate draft. And I don’t think that hate drafting is bad, but if that’s all someone is doing, it can be an issue. Mainly because it can ruin the run of a game. But when drafting is done well, and people are trying to optimize their own score, it is great.

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The Roll And Writes

19. Second Chance

If you want to play about the most accessible roll and write I’ve played, Second Chance is that. It is very simple, flip two cards, everyone fills in one of those two shapes on their board. And you try and fill in as much as possible. If you can’t play either, you get a second chance card you can use. If you can’t use it, you are out of the round. So extremely simple, but works well. And it is fun to doodle and fill everything in.

18. HexRoller

HexRoller should be just as simple, but for some reason it a bit more confusing. In this roll and write, you fill in spots with numbers trying to connect paths and fill in hexes. It gets confusing when you try and add in the straights that can score you points based off of the dice you pick. It is a good puzzle of a game, but doesn’t feel like it has that much diversity to how it’ll play.

17. Cat Cafe

Cat Cafe I think should be higher on my list. It just isn’t one I pull off the shelf all that often. It is a fun roll and write game about building cat towers to attract cats to your section of a cat cafe. And it has drafting in the game. I really like the everyone goes at once but everyone is slightly different. The die you draft determines half of your action. And there will be one die left that determines half of everyone’s action. So there is strategy in how you build things out. Plus it’s about cats.

16. Criss Cross

This one is also on the list this low, like Second Chance, because it is so simple. Now, that simplicity means that it gets played often, or did. But it also means that it isn’t as interesting as some to play over and over again. Basically you want matching symbols in rows and columns. And you need to put two dice adjacent to each other as they are rolled. More more likely symbols you have adjacent in a row or a column the more you score. I like this on also because it’s very easy via Zoom/Hangouts/Facetime, even if you don’t own the game.

15. Yahtzee

The OG roll and write game. Yahtzee still works well as a game. It is a simple push your luck rolling game to get as many points as you can. But it works. And it works well for people who want a bit more casual of a roll and write. It is another one that I don’t need to play a ton more of because I already have a lot. But it is also one that I can play with anyone. Some because they likely already have played it, and some because it is that easy to teach.

14. Floor Plan

This one has dropped a fair amount since my Top 100. I actually got rid of it from my collection. Granted, that’s to make room, eventually, for Floor Plan: Winchester Mystery Mansion. A theme that I think works better for this game. In the game you make a floor plan. It is fun because you end up with crazy houses. The downside is you end up with crazy houses. I wish the rules made it so you built more of a house. Like negative points if you didn’t have a living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom all with doors. But if you want to build a crazy house, it is a lot of fun.

13. Deadly Doodles

This one is another one that I feel like moves around. I like it as a dungeon crawl roll and write. Basically, you go into the dungeon every day, fight some monsters, and get weapons and treasures. All of that in a goal to get the most points possible. The expansion makes make the game more difficult or give more options, but the base game is a lot of fun. It is another one of those games that I really like because of how fast it plays. And you get a story as you play of what is happening in your dungeon.

12. Patchwork Doodle

Now to move away from theme again, Patchwork Doodle is a very abstract roll and write. It is about trying to create the biggest quilt that you can. It reminds me a ton of Second Chance, you start with a shape and then add more adjacent to it. Patchwork Doodle, though, has more going on with it. And that little bit additional just adds enough to the strategy that it make sit more fun for me. And the big thing that Second Chance has going for it is how relaxing it is to play, I think Patchwork Doodle is just as relaxing.

11. Doppelt So Clever

One of a few combo focused games coming up on the list. Doppelt So Clever is my least favorite of the Clever trilogy or roll and writes. And it’s not because it’s the only one that I don’t own in German. It feels like it’s just the most punishing and locks you into lower scores a lot of the time. But the mechanics are great, and you do still get a lot of combos to play around with.

10. Clever Hoch Drei

Now we’re up to another Clever game. As compared to Doppelt So Clever, Clever Hoch Drei is the easiest to do well at. That means you get even more combos going, and that is because a lot of the tracks are so littered with combos you can’t avoid them. It feels good to get a lot of combos and all of a sudden what looked impossible to do is possible.

9. Super Mega Lucky Box

This is the newest roll and write on the list, and Super Mega Lucky Box is one that I wasn’t sure how high it’d get when I first played it. It is a very easy game to play. A card is flipped, you fill in that number on one of your bingo cards. But the more you play it, the more you can see how there are interesting decisions and combos as you finish off rows and columns. Whenever you finish a row or column, you get a bonus, and how you leverage those bonuses really matters for the winner of the game.

8. Metro X

How do can you maximize your bus routes, or subway routes, is what this game is all about. But it is clever in what it does, and I really like it for that. Multiple routes might go through the same station. And you are just trying to fill in stations. But you always fill in from the first empty spot down. And you can’t skip over filled spots. It’s hard to explain, but it works well, and makes you think about how to optimally fill in your routes so you can complete as many as possible.

7. Ganz Schon Clever

The final of the Clever games, and the original. I really like Ganz Schon Clever. This is even with knowing generally how to optimize the puzzle. I always push to see if I can do a little bit better. And the app for the game works well. I might not play it as much as I used to on the app, but it is still the one I go to first when playing any Clever game. And in person, I think it’s even more fun. There is something about hoping for the perfect die rolls in person that is more compelling than an app.

6. Welcome To…

This, I think, was originally at 10 in my Top 100 Games (of all time) and clearly with five more roll and write games above it has slipped. I really like Welcome To still. It mainly has slipped because I haven’t played it recently. And while I enjoy it every time I play it, I also do think I want to start mixing in the expansion maps. I think that it’ll change up the game enough that it’ll feel refreshing. This is also a roll and write with a theme that I like a lot.

5. Sonora

This is the final one that is all about the combos. And compared to any of the Clever games, this one has more combos. Plus Sonora has you flicking discs around a board to determine how you fill in things. Each quarter of the board fills in a specific spot on your scoring sheet. And as you fill in spots you get scoring bonuses, but then, basically, extra discs that you u se as well to fill in. And that can lead to more. Sonora gives you a great rush of feeling like you can do almost everything, every time you fill in on the board.

4. Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade

Probably the most thematic roll and writ eon my list, Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade and the expansion(s) give the feeling of playing a pinball machine. Everything bounces in a way that makes sense, and while your flippers are limited, which isn’t the case in actual pinball, for a game it makes sense. And the boards are all so different. I really like the hacking board and the special that is on there. It can ramp a score like crazy, but will you fail because you push your luck too far?

3. On Tour

On Tour maybe should already have been in my Top 10 Roll and Writes and Top 100 Games, but I held off on ranking it until I played a physical copy. Why, because sometimes that’s different. And with On Tour, where you are making your best route for a band tour, I was worried it’d be hard to score the best route. Turns out, it isn’t that hard. But let’s talk about the game.

You make a route of low to high on states, but depending on what is rolled and cards flipped out that becomes tricky. You are limited to where you can play down the numbers. And everyone is limited in the same way. And as you fill in more and more spots, you become more limited. I think that is one thing I like best, the game becomes so much more tense at the end of the game, and each decision matters so much. But because you have fewer available spots, the game doesn’t slow down. It’s a great game arc.

2. Railroad Ink/Railroad Ink Challenge

So, in my Top 100 I had these two games separate. Now I put them together because they really can be together in that their mechanics are mainly the same. In both you build out train and road routes and your goal is to connect exits. Railroad Ink Challenge adds in challenges that you want to complete at certain points to score more points. Some people find it more complex, or too complex, but I like that it gives an additional thing to focus on. It makes my decisions faster generally as well. Really good roll and write with a very high production.

1. Cartographers

At the number one spot, not a big surprise, is Cartographers. The theme is a lot of fun in this game. I like making a map. There is player interaction as you put monsters on my board. But what really makes the game is the scoring. You score for A and B the first round and then going through rounds, in round four you score D and A, so you come all the way back around. It makes for an interesting puzzle to solve and try and optimize your points. And like most games on my list, everyone goes at the same time, so nice and fast to play, while offering great decisions.

What is Your Favorite?

I have so many that I need to play still. I own Copenhagen Roll and Write, Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write, Imperial Settlers Roll and Write, Welcome To Dinoworld, Welcome To New Las Vegas, Fleet: The Dice Game, and more on my shelf that I need to pull out. A lot can be played solo, so maybe I’ll do a big solo roll and write stream or day of playing coming up here.

Let me know what your favorite is down in the comments below. Or you can let me know on Twitter or Facebook as well.

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I’m not going to go through all of them. There are just too many, 503 would be a lot to talk about, even ignoring expansions it’d still be a lot. Instead, I want to pull out and highlight some games or expansion that I want to pick up.

Essen Spiel Games

Paper Dungeons

This is one that I actually own, it’s a roll and write, hack and slash dungeon crawling game. I need to play it still. But it’s my type of game with the roll and write aspect to it. I’m going to be curious to see how complex this game is because I like my roll and writes to be somewhat complex but not too complex. Alley Cat Games, the production company, also made Cat Cafe which was a nice balance of stuff, but not one that I consistently go back to.

Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect looks very intriguing. From Arcane Wonders, you set-up the perfect group picture. This is not one that I’ve bought, and not one that I’m sure I will buy. You are trying to figure out how everyone wants to be framed in your picture. And each character wants to be in a certain spot in a certain way, will you get the picture set-up correctly? The concept sounds really good, but I wonder how much I’d actually play the game, once I’ve played it a few times.

Welcome to the Moon

This is another game in the Welcome To system of games. I have Welcome To… and Welcome To New Las Vegas. From Blue Crocker Games, this one sounds interesting because it is a campaign game as well. I’m not sure what that means, but a short campaign of 8 different sheets sounds cool. I’m guessing that we’re still building up a city, but beyond that I’m not sure. You might even be launching off to the moon, which would be cool. And I really like the aesthetic of these games.

CoraQuest

This was a demo only for a kid focused dungeon crawl game. I talked about this one before when it was on Kickstarter. The game was developed by Dan and Cora Hughes as what started as a school project for Cora. The game looks like it’s pretty fun but simple dungeon crawler, which is a cool concept. I didn’t back it on Kickstarter because I’m a few years away from wanting a game like that. I am really glad that Bright Eye Games picked it up though because the concept is fun. It makes dungeon crawlers more accessible to more people.

Lost Ruins of Arnak: Expedition Leaders

I still need to play Lost Ruins of Arnak, but this expansion definitely is on my radar. From Czech Games Edition, the game is a combination of deck building and worker placement. And I really like the theme of the game where you are exploring some lost ruins, I like that Indiana Jones style feel to the game. This adds in some unique leaders which means that you start with a unique starting point, which I always like it when games do that.

Hanamikoji: Geisha’s Road

I’m a very big fan of the original, Hanamikoji from EmperorS4, and I really want to know about this one. It still has area control or majority in it which I like. I also like that it’s still only two players because that is one that works really well in the original game. It means that it should hopefully play fast still. Instead of trying to win the favor of Geisha, you want your favored Geisha to progress the fastest at tea houses on Geisha’s Road.

Hibachi

Another game that I almost backed on Kickstarter, this is a game from Grail Games. In it you flip out disks to get ingredients and that determines what ones you can use. Of course it also determines how much they might cost and there is strategy to what you are doing. I ended up not backing this one because I want to try the game before I would buy it. It’s a fun sounding concept but it’s one that I question if I’d play long term.

Similo: Spookies

I’ve talked about Similo before, it’s one that wasn’t on my radar for a long time. It’s from Horrible Guild and I like their games. But Similo is just a simple party style game, except that it’s not. It’s a clever little game of getting the players to eliminate the right characters or creatures. The Spookies version can be used with everything else, but it has a nice “spooky” theme to it. Or at least uses spooky monsters. It’s a great little game and this makes it great for Halloween season as well.

Ramen! Ramen!

Japanime Games are hit or miss for me. They unfortunately use a lot of anime IP’s (intellectual properties) that I like but often the games are okay or disappointing. This one isn’t like that, but it looks like a simple little game. The artwork looks very cute and the theme is fun. It is about building out the best bowl of ramen by getting the most points possible. There does seem to be some take that in the game with people being able to steal ingredients. But I’m hoping it’s light, fast, and fun.

Detective: Signature Series – Petty Officers

So, you might read the name of this game in the Detective line and assume that it’s going to be about military police, and it might be. But it’s more than that, it’s animal assistants, you know the types that you pet. I got know clue how it’ll work, but I have everything for the Detective system of games, including Dune: House Secrets, and I have loved everything I’ve played thus far. So I will get this at some point because animal offers is just cute.

Plus Many More

So, obviously, that’s not that many games. Those are the ones that I know some about or that jumped out at me. And there are a lot that I’d love to try but maybe less interested in buying. What games showing up at Essen Spiel looked interesting to you?

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10 – Criss Cross

This was one of the first roll and write games that I picked up. I saw it on the Brothers Murph YouTube channel, found here. I really like the simplicity of this game, and how it plays so incredibly fast. All you are trying to do is get like symbols in columns and rows, which is easy enough to do in one of them, but in both can be a bit tricky. And the more you get the more points it is. The main thing you have to pay attention to is that you aren’t blocking yourself into a single spot in two places on the board because you have to place the rolled symbols adjacent to each other. This one also works really well over Zoom or some other meeting software. You can find my full review here.

9 – Metro X

The newest game to the list is Metro X, this one I just wrote my review about yesterday, you can find it here. I like how this game makes you think for something that is pretty straight forward in what you are doing. I think that it works well solo as the game is really a multi-player solitaire as a lot of these games are. Some of the excitement that comes from the game is seeing what cards are going to be flipped over, especially when you really need a skip or maybe that free space card to show up way more often than they do, or they show up at the wrong time where it really doesn’t help you that much. And the components are really nice for the game.

8 – Second Chance

Another one of the first roll and write, or really a flip and write, that I got. Second Chance is a lot of fun and a very peaceful game. I don’t think there are that many board games that I would consider to be really peaceful. Now that isn’t to say that I don’t fine most games to be pretty relaxing or destressing anyways, because I just love games, but Second Chance is really peaceful, which is great. You flip two shapes, and everyone places them on their board, and then repeat that. It is peaceful as you doodle on your board, filling in the shapes that you’ve placed, and while you can plan ahead a little, most people don’t too much. Just a good game overall that you can find my review of here.

7 – Twice as Clever!

There are going to be a number of games from this series by Wolfgang Warsch. While there are older roll and writes out there, Yahtzee missed my list but an obvious forefather, this line of roll and writes definitely brought them into the board gaming spotlight. You are rolling dice in all of them, picking one, setting aside anything lower, repeating the process until you don’t have any dice to roll or you’ve used three dice. Then the other players pick a die to use from those that you didn’t. This version is my least favorite just because I feel like it’s a bit more complex, but mainly for complexities sake. This one has combos but it doesn’t feel like the combos do as much.

6 – Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade

A newer game to me, though not as new as Metro X, this one has a theme that I was really excited for. I like playing pinball machines, though in 2020 it hasn’t happened as often. So when there was a roll and write pinball game coming out I thought it’d be interesting. I’ve written some opening thoughts on it here, but I want to play it more to give it a full review. What works so well for me is the flow of how you fill in spaces. There are the bumpers in the upper section that you can just ping around on for a while, but once the ball drops out of that, it will start falling, so you need to figure out, best you can, how to control that fall, hitting the sides along the way, before you flip it back up. Point scoring is nice and easy, for the most part, and the components are really good.

5 – Clever Hoch Drei

The next of the series by Wolfgang Warsch , and actually the most recent of the roll and writes, Clever Hoch Drei, which I’m getting from Germany, has been a blast to play. This one returns you to a ton of combos in the game, something I feel like is missing slightly in Twice As Clever. But it actually has some really interesting choices in it with how you fill in the sections. I like that this and Twice as Clever also incentivize going for specific things, like rerolls or plus ones, to get even more bonuses. The main mechanics stay the same as well, so it makes teaching it easy if someone already knows either That’s Pretty Clever or Twice as Clever.

4 – Cartographers

I almost missed this one when I was ranking my roll and writes because I have it on another shelf. This one is set in the Roll Player world, which really doesn’t matter. It’s about making a map, but that’s fairly weird how that works or doesn’t work, because there are monsters on the board. But it’s still a lot of fun. There are two things that stand out to me, the first being the scoring system where you play through four seasons and in the first season you are scoring objectives A and B, then in summer, B and C, but when you get to Winter, you are scoring D and A. So each thing gets scored twice, and you have to balance how much you go for scoring, because if you push hard for B in rounds one and two, you might not score as many points later. I also find the monsters interesting. It makes the game less multi-player solitaire because your opponents place the monsters (unless you’re playing solo) and they are going to try and place it in the worst spot possible for you. You can find my full thoughts on Cartographers here.

3 – That’s Pretty Clever

The first and my favorite for the roll and writes that are part of what currently sits at a trilogy of games. I fully expect that there could be more because they are certainly popular enough. I like this one for a couple of reasons better than the others. Firstly, it was the first that I really played of them, which there is a nostalgia factor. But I also like it because it is the simplest. It makes it the easiest to teach in a lot of ways, and playing it over Zoom works well because while it takes a minute to draw out the board, it can be done easier than the others. The dice mechanics are the same, and overall, just a game design that I really like. You can find my full review here for more information on the game.

2 – Sonora

Now, for something completely different. Flipping cards or rolling dice to fill in stuff on the boards is common and normal, Sonora, by Pandasaurus Games, is a flicking game and then you fill stuff in. I think it might be possible to get good at the flicking aspect of it, but you don’t need to be great. No matter where you end up with flicking, you will score points, and that’s fun, and you can generally land it into the large area that you want, you might not get double the area if you can’t flick as well. This game is all about the combos when it comes to filling things in, and there are four areas to do it in. If you wanted, you can really focus on one area, or you can diversify to some extent, and the scoring seems really balanced in all of them. Definitely a really fun game to checkout, and you can find more about it here.

1 – Welcome To

Finally, my number one, still, though, I think that all of the top 4 could be my number one on any given day, is Welcome To. I really like this game, and I’m not even always that great at it. I like building my perfect Stepford neighborhood, with it’s white picket fences and most definitely not anything crazy that will go wrong there, but that’s for someone else to deal with, I’m just building Helmouth on a Hell Mouth, a pet cemetery and probably more cursed things, and that’s just the flavor I add to the game. This game has a lot of different ways to score points and you can push your luck as well, but there’s also strategy as you consider how many of each number have passed by, I always seem to find something else that I want to think about or try in the game each time that I play it. I’ve had this one in my Top 100 games since I’ve played it and it’s stayed strong, you can see why I love it so much here.

Now, I have a few more roll and writes on my shelf to try. I have the Red Box for Railroad Ink, Booomerang, Floor Plan, Welcome to New Las Vegas, and Patchwork Doodle all to try as well. And I had two, Cat Café and Yahtzee that just missed the list. Yes, I still do enjoy the original, Yahtzee, as well, though that game mainly plays itself now.

What is your favorite roll and write game?

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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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Fox in the Forest/Fox in the Forest Duet

Two different versions of a trick taking game. But both are two player only only games. In Fox in the Forest, you are trying to take tricks, but scoring is more challenging than just taking all of the tricks. Certain cards have certain powers on them. In Fox in the Forest Duet you are working together, trying to keep the fox moving along the board and picking up tokens, more tokens you get the better you do, but it’s still trick taking. There are paw prints on the cards, or fox symbols I forget which, and that is how much the fox moves, but which direction depends on who wins the trick. Both of these are clever little games and good for 2020 if you have a limited number of players you can play with.

Zombie Dice

While the previous ones were for casual gamers, I think that this one is one you can pull out with anyone. It’s a simple push your luck game where you are grabbing three dice from a cup, rolling them, keeping brains, seeing if you’ve been shot, and then deciding if you want to draw more dice and roll those. There is a bit more going on than that, but that’s basically it. Once someone hits the point total to win, everyone else get’s one shot to push their luck. It’s like a simpler version of the game Farkle, and it has a theme. I think that the theme and the simplicity of the game is going to draw people in, even though the theme is just goofy fun versus involved in the tactics. It also is really small and needs about no table space, just enough to roll the dice, so it’s good for at a bar, or a picnic.

Onirim

I’ve done two player, any number of player, and now a solo board game. Onirim is one of the best known solo games. It’s all about playing out cards, matching colors and changing symbols so that you can get doors out and escape the nightmares. It’s really an abstract game, but it’s a lot of fun. Plus, the new printing has all the expansions in the base box, which I need to learn all of them. The game is clever in what it does, because there are very powerful key cards, key cards can be played like any other card to find a door, but if you flip a door from the top of the deck and you have a matching key color, you can just spend the key and immediately get that door, or you can use it to look at the top five cards of your deck, discard one, can’t be a door, and order the rest how you want, or finally you can use it to stop some other affect from a nightmare being drawn. And the nightmares have as many things they can force you to do as the keys. It’s a really interesting puzzle to see if you make the right decisions with those really important cards.

Hanabi

Maybe you like the idea of a cooperative game, Hanabi is a very small box cooperative game where you are trying to put on the best firework short. You want to display all five colors of fireworks from 1 to 5, playing down their cards in order. However, you can’t see all the cards, in fact, you can’t see your cards, but you can see everyone else’s cards. On your turn, you can do one of three things. You can spend a clue token to give another player a clue as to what they have in their hand. The clues would be something like “This and this card are blue” or “That’s a two and that’s a two”. You have to give the person all of the information for a given color or number. You can also play down a card to one of the rows of fireworks, but if you get it wrong, the fuse gets shorter. Or you can discard a card to get another clue token to use. The game is somewhat lucky as you try and give specific enough clues to be helpful, but are stuck some on the draw. But the more you play, the more you know how to give good clues that mean something, even if it might not be as obviously straight forward.

Ganz Schon Clever

There are so many roll and write or flip and write games that I could say. Silver & Gold, Railroad Ink, Patchwork Doodle, Floor Plan, Second Chance, Cross Cross, Cat Cafe, and Cartographers are all ones that would pretty easily fit into a stocking. But I’m picking Ganz Schon Clever because that’s the one that I’ve been playing a lot of recently. It’s an interesting little puzzle of a roll and write, where you have five different areas where you are placing die values. Each of them scores in their own different way, and each of them has their own way you want to place the dice. It’s an interesting challenge and it’s based so much off of combos and how you can fill in a spot in one row to then be able to fill in a spot in another. It’s very satisfying that way.

Now, there are a lot more small games out there that’d work well, obviously I tossed out a bunch of roll and writes. But if none of those work for you, you can also find games like Stipulations, Parade, The Lost Expedition, Not Alone, Love Letter, Hanamikoji, Marrying Mr Darcy, Point Salad, Gloom, Arboretum, and so many more. There are a lot of good small games out there that are a lot more than just just a take that sort of game, or the classics like Uno, Skip-bo, and Pit.

What small game would you like to find in your stocking at the holidays?

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100 to 91

90 to 81

80 to 71

70 to 61

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

60. Hanabi

Hanabi is an interesting game, because it’s a twist on a fairly simple board game concept. There are a lot of games where you are trying to put out numbers in ascending order, in this case 1 through 5. In this one, you can’t see your cards, so you have a hand of cards and they are all facing away from you. So you can give clues to your fellow players, such as what cards in their hand are a given color or what cards in their hand are a given number, but you can’t give both. And you have a limited number of clues but you can get more, you just have to discard a card to get one back. The game is an interesting push and pull of how much you know and how much you don’t. It is also a game that works well at all player counts, so that is fun as well. Cool concept, good execution and just good fun.

Last Year: 44

59. Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

We go from one kind of tricky game to wrap your head around to another with Gravwell. In this game you are trying to escape from a black hole and get to a wormhole before it closes. To do that, you are racing against your fellow players using whatever you can find as fuel to power your ship. Now, I make that sound fairly thematic, it is quite abstract. But what makes this game is the playing of fuels, they are all elements, so you go in alphabetical order of the element as everyone plays their fuel for the round all at once. And most of the fuel, it causes you to go towards the nearest object, whether that is in front of or behind you. There are some fuels that repel you from the nearest object and others that draw the other ships towards you, so it’s a guessing game of what you think other people might have and how quickly they might be going, because maybe the person behind you will go fast and get too close so if you go towards the object you’ll get pulled towards them, or maybe they want to go a ways and will go with one later in the alphabet, so you’ll want to be pulled by the person in front of you. It’s really a game about reading and guessing what your opponents will do.

Last Year: 66

58. Photosynthesis

This is a mean game about growing trees. Which, that sounds kind of odd, but it’s mean because you can block your opponents trees from getting sunlight. Now, that doesn’t seem all that mean, except that is how you get your action points to grow trees, harvest trees for points, and plant more trees. So if the sun is positioned right and your tree is tall enough, you can cast a shadow on shorter or like height trees. It’s an interesting thing as you plan out where the trees are going to go so you’re not only going to be set-up for your next turn but will be set-up for futures ones as well. And you have to ask, is it worth it to maybe have a really bad turn if you can set-up a great turn down the line. You can plan this because the sun moves each turn around the board, and you have a certain number of times around the board for the game, so you know where it’s going to be all of the following turns as you plan. And I say that this game is mean, it’s more that it can be mean, most of the time you aren’t thinking about blocking as much as you are planning out your turn.

Last Year: 28

57. Five Tribes

A gateway style game that has just a bit more going on, this is also a point salad game as well. By that I mean that everything gives you points. You place a camel, you’ll get points for that tile, there’s a palm tree or a palace on it, points, viziers, points, collections of spices, points, and so on and so forth. This game uses a fun mancala style meeple movement. Whatever meeple color you decide to end up with is what you end up doing, it can be shopping, buying a Djinn, or a few more options such as just getting money. I like this game because you can set-up some great turns, and in two player, you could even find a couple of great turns in a row if you wanted or you could move stuff to set-up yourself for a good turn. You can do this because turn order is bid upon. If you find a great turn, you can bid higher for it, and while it’d have to be a really great turn to bid too high, you can go for something or block someone from getting something if you see what they are after. This game works well because you can score points in so many ways, so most of the time you can focus in on one or two of them as well, so someone learning the game doesn’t have to have a whole grasp on the strategy for everything. And for gamers, it feels like there is more going on to be paid attention to than your standard gateway game.

Last Year: 47

56. The Lord of the Rings

One of the earlier cooperative games, this game is all about getting the Fellowship to Mordor and tossing the ring into the fire. But you’re doing this by playing through the whole trilogy of The Lord of the Rings. You get gifts and cards along the way as you advance all while trying to keep Sauron’s eye off of you. There are a lot of boards in this game as you play out cards to advance upon different tracks and play through different things, it might be the mines of Moria or Helms Deep, but you are playing through the story and you can potentially get stuff along the way such as at Rivendell or from Galadriel. The game is really hard as you push your way through all of the story and the different maps. You need to balance card use so that you can make it down the main path, but some of the other paths do offer good things as well and you want to try and do them also. Overall, a fun and hard cooperative game that is really expensive in that link, but there’s a new printing coming out soon, so wait for that.

Last Year: 85

55. Small World

I’ve talked about Small World Underground already, this is just basic Small World and I like it better. I think that the game, while being slightly simpler, is easier to play and grasp onto and since I have an expansion for that, it adds in some additional fun that way as well. This game is all about rushing in with one group of fantasy creatures, beating up and getting beat up, going into decline, picking a new group of fantasy creatures, and doing it all over again. I always call this Risk but fun, and that’s because Risk can gang up and knock one person out quickly, whereas in this game, you can always come back in again so you’re never truly out of the game. And the game plays faster as well in comparison to Risk. This game works because it doesn’t take itself seriously, so you get your fun combos and even when you get beat down, who knows, maybe the flying halflings will come in and save the day for you.

Last Year: 24

54. Cat Cafe

An interesting roll and write, this one is all about attracting the most cats to you in the cat cafe. You do this carefully curating a creative collection of cat toys, beds, and food. They all score in different ways, the toy mouse will score more points for the largest group of them that you have, while the cat bed wants different things around it on all sides to score you more points. Plus, you’re also working on filling up cat trees so that they score you the most possible points for having them completed. The end game is trigger when one person completes their third cat tree. What works nicely in this game is that everyone is doing things at the same time. You draft dice, and then you, using the final dice, place something on a cat tree at the level of the number on either your drafted dice or the group die, and then an item with the other one. You have ways to adjust the numbers which works well, and you can score the cats at times as well to get you more points in game. Overall, a fun and cute roll and write that has a fair amount going on all things considered.

Last Year: 54

53. Titan Race

If you’ve ever wanted to race on the back of monsters this is the game for you. A light dice drafting, take that, monster racing game, this is all about completing three laps or the grand circuit of three maps, faster than anyone else. But while you’re doing that you’re trying to stay out of lava on some maps, make a sweet jump to move faster on other maps, or sliding across ice. All of this while jostling for position. You roll dice for the number of players and then players take turns drafting dice and making their move, and so the last player doesn’t get stuck with one die, come their turn, they pick them all up and roll them again. This game is somewhat random because of the dice rolling, but you can plan as bumping into someone deals them damage, and pushes them further forward, but might be what you need to push them into lava which will knock them out for a round, which might get you past them. The game is silly fun and a very good time for a light racing style game.

Last Year: 48

52. Potion Explosion

People are pretty familiar with app games where you try and get like colors touching, and if they do, they disappear, and if those make a like match, they disappear and so on and so forth. Potion Explosion is like that with marbles. In this game you are trying to complete potions, use their powers, and score points from them. You do this by collecting ingredients. You pull out one marble, if the marbles that hit are the same color, you get all of those color that are touching, and if that causes more to hit, you do it again. Then you can store a few ingredients for later, but you’re mainly trying to put them into potions and get as many of those done as possible. The game is nice because it has a great toy affect. It also works well because as you get more potions done, you can really start to combo stuff using the powers of the potions to have big turns. This is a game that’ll attract people to it because of how it looks on the table, and it’s basically gateway level.

Last Year: Not Ranked

51. Skulk Hollow

Generally I don’t have a ton of two player games. My wife and I do play a few two player games sometimes, but this one caught my eye when it was on Kickstarter. The company is one that I am familiar with and they always make beautiful projects, and this one seems like an interesting balance of strategy and cuteness on the board. In this game one person takes on the foxes of the forest who have built up a settlement in this town. Another is an ancient guardian that has awoken. The guardians are all trying to do something different to win the game it might just be take out a lot of foxes, or it could be placing tentacles on the board or something like that. The foxes on the other hand are all about getting to the guardian, hopping on it, and chopping away at their health, doing that can take out different actions for the guardian. The game has a good and different feel as you play it because of how the guardians change and how the different leaders can affect play for the fox player as well. It’s one that I think works well for people because it is pretty simple and it offers some good choices with how the game play works.

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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I have played new games, and will things have changed much, you’ll have to see… but the answer is NO! So if you want to see my top 100 games of all time, check out that link above, and now onto this list, where I’m going to go with 5 games from 2019. This is a bit different than normal lists where anything goes, but I just did my top 100 games, so I thought, to make this more interesting, I should just go with 2019 games.

5 – Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale
A fun roll and write game that I really enjoyed this year. The scoring is a lot of fun as you score for A & B first, then B & C, C & D and finally D & A. And, it does something else that’s unique for a roll and write (flip and write) game that when a monster shows up to be placed onto the sheets, you pass your sheet to another player and they can put it into the worst position for them, while someone else does that for you. It’s a bit more interactive than a lot of roll and write games. The game plays fast, and while I wish the map making theme was more of a part of the game, it is lightly there, and the rest of the game is fun.

4 – Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl
Now, this game I only got to play a chunk of at GenCon an while it is a 2019 release, I expect it to get more of a release in 2020. But it was a blast to try out, and the mechanics of the game were interesting. A game where you’re exploring the irradiated lands around Chernobyl, but not in some grim way, but there is a secret in the heart of Chernobyl and you’re exploring ruins, fighting against mutant monsters and scavenging food. And you might be magical. The experience of playing this was great and the game seems to have some nice theme while engaging mechanics. I also like that it’s a competitive game, but it’s possible that the game will just beat everyone.

3 – Letter Jam – While Zona was a massive game, Letter Jam is a much smaller package as you are trying to figure out a word that is in front of you. However, you can’t see your letters, and the only way you can figure them out is if your letter is used in a clue where you can see the other letters of the word being formed. And, it’s a cooperative game, so you need to be helping people guess their letters and words while you are getting clues as well. This game scales up well and is a lot of fun, even with a rocky first experience playing it, I’ve had a lot of fun with it since then. The puzzle level of the game is good, and the fact that no one knows their letters means that if you have a larger vocabulary it doesn’t help you.

2 – Hats – An Alice in Wonderland themed abstract game, I really like Hats. In it you’re trying to collect the best collection of hats at the Mad Hatter’s tea party that is determined by what you have in front of you, but also by what is on the table at the end of the game. So it’s a push and pull game of playing down cards onto the table, trying to make it so that your opponent doesn’t score well, at the same time protecting where you are scoring so that they can’t screw you over. The game has a cute cookie in it as well. Now, that seems pretty cutthroat, and it can be, but the game is fast, and it is less direct in terms of feel of the conflict. It’s a well done game that forces you to think about how you play your cards in a different way than you’d normally do for scoring.

1 – Deranged – While the last two games have been small, this game is a big game that is coming to the US in 2020 from Ultra Pro, but it came out in 2019 technically in other places. I got a chance to play this at GenCon, and it was amazing. It’s a horror themed game where you go to a cursed town, end up cursed and you need to break your curse before time runs out. But along with that, you have other players who are trying to do that, and if they escape before you, you still lose. And, then, there is a chance that you’ll become deranged, which means you turn into a monster, and then you have to kill someone else to get your humanity back. The damage being done by cards that have multiple uses is great, and how everything works is done really well. I’m really waiting for this to come to the US so that I can pick up a copy, it scratches the same itch as Betrayal at House on the Hill, just in a tighter package, but with less story.

Now for some honorable mentions, I might have had one or two of them in my top 5 had I played it earlier because it’s a ton of fun. But the games above were all on the list from the top 100.

Honorable Mentions:
Point Salad
Cat Cafe
The Grimm Masquerade
Skulk Hollow
Draftosaurus

Are there any cool games that you’ve played from 2019 that you think I should check out. I’ve played more new games, and I have Tainted Grail sitting there ready to be played, I just haven’t found a time to play it yet. Let me know in the comments below.

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In Second Chance, everyone is getting their own unique starting shape which they have to fill in on the center of their grid. After that, two shapes are flipped which players then get to pick one and add it to their grid, touching a previous one. This continues until someone can’t put one of the shapes on their grid. A card is flipped for only them, giving them a second chance. If they can’t use that, they count up how many empty squares they have, and that’s their score. Other players then continue until someone has either filled up their board or until no one can play a shape. At that point in time, everyone counts up the number of empty spots they have, and the person with the fewest remaining open spots wins.

Second Chance is technically a flip and write, but it falls into the genre. And it falls into a nice spot where people who aren’t board gamers can pick it up quickly. Most people are familiar with the concept of Tetris, and this game has a bit of that feel to it as you try and optimally place shapes. That helps get this game to the table a lot and helps get multiple plays in of the game. The game also plays fast, so that helps keep the non-board gamers attention as well.

As compared to some other games in the roll and write games, Welcome To…, Cartographers, or Cat Cafe, Second Chance is a bit of a simpler game. The strategy of the game basically surrounds deciding if you want to go early with larger shapes in hopes that the smaller ones needed to fill it in will show up later. But that’s a bit more luck based than anything. Now, that’s not much of a knock on the game. It’s 100% a filler game and while there are times that I want to play a bit more strategic roll and write game, the fact that Second Chance can play a larger number of people as well works nicely.

But that is also a knock on the game. I think that it’s very much targeted for the casual gamer, and while that’s great, it isn’t one that gamers who like those heavier decisions are going to love for as long a time as a casual gamer. The tactics are light, the interaction doesn’t exist, and while that’s perfect for that introductory style game, it will feel like you’re doing something similar over and over again the more that you play it. For me, I haven’t found this to be an issue, as I do like a fair number of lighter games, but I can see how it could be. The other thing that helps keep the game from feeling like there isn’t enough going on, is that the game is fast. Once you know how to play, you can play in ten to fifteen minutes. The game definitely doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, even with playing a couple of games in a sitting.

Overall, this is a roll and write (or flip and write) game that I really do enjoy. I personally like some of the bigger roll and write games better, but Second Chance, because it plays so fast and you can play it with almost anyone, because it’s so simple, has a spot on my shelf. It’s one that I can take to a family gathering, or that I can pull out at board game night and get rolling (flipping) in a few minutes without any questions once the rules are taught. If you are looking for that light weight roll and write game, Second Chance is a great choice.

Overall Grade: B+
Casual Grade: A+
Gamer Grade: C

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