Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 11

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

10. Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

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

Buy Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

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

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

9. Zenith

Published By: PlayPunk
Designers: Gregory Grard and Mathieu Roussel

Out Of Stock Currently

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

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

8. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

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

Buy Slay the Spire: The Board Game

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

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

7. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

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

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

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

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

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

6. Dice Throne

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

Buy Dice Throne

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

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

5. Aeon’s End

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

Buy Aeon’s End

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

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

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

4. Lost Ruins of Arnak

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

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

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

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

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

3. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

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

Buy Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

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

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

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

2. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

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

Buy Arkham Horror: The Card Game

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

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

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

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

Published By: Cephalofair Games
Designer: Isaac Childres

Buy Frosthaven

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

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

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

Thank You For Joining The Journey

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

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

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

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Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
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70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 10

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – Top 10

10. Aeon’s End

• Published by Indie Boards & Cards in 2016
• Defend the town of Gravehold against a Nemesis and their minions by slinging spells around

To kick off the Top 10, let’s talk about one that has been in my Top 10 for a while and one that I have basically everything for. I’m guessing I’m missing a few promo cards, but Aeon’s End is one of my favorite deck building games.

This is a deck building game, tower defense, and boss battler all wrapped into one. The name of the game in this one is variety. There are other elements I like too, but variety is huge. Each mage is unique, each nemesis is unique and the market of cards that you create is unique. Everything about the game can be mixed and matched and give endless replayability. I also like that this is a cooperative game.

And, finally, I like this game best as a solo or two player. I know that it can play more, but with the turn system, it works better at lower counts. You draw to see whose turn it is. In the deck there are two nemesis cards, and one per player at four players, or two at two players. So you get these fun moments where it swings from the players getting four turns in a row to the nemesis getting three and now things look dangerous. It makes the game feel more exciting, it just works best at two players though because of that.

Buy Aeon’s End

9. Roll Player Adventures

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2021
• Explore the lands, beat monsters and complete skill challenges in a world that remembers what you did

Now to a really big game we have Roll Player Adventures. They took the Roll Player system, tweaked it and gave us a story and adventure game. And I think that it works really well as a game, clearly, as it’s my #9. Though, like Aeon’s End, I’ll give a caveat that difficulty changes based on player count, which, isn’t a bad thing, but it something worth noting.

In this game you play through chapters of an adventure. To do that you are fighting monsters, doing skill checks, and reading story. Whenever it’s a right or a skill check you are spending cards and resources, your health, in different stats to try and complete a dice puzzle. You need to get dice of certain colors and certain numbers into specific locations. But, the game is smart and it limits you in how much you can do that, and it is what they try and use to scale, but like I said, I think that it’s easier with more.

The story is also a lot of fun. There are games on my list that have a bigger and darker story. And I like dark stories, dark fantasy can be a lot of fun, but it’s also fun to have stories that are maybe a bit sillier at times. And, I will say, they manage to create a story where it feels like it matters and continues along with the choices that you make.

Buy Roll Player Adventures

8. Dice Throne

• Published by Dice Throne Inc. in 2018
• Fight in a Mortal Combat style tournament by chucking dice and leveling up attacks

My #8 is “Battle Yahtzee”. By that, I mean that it is Dice Throne. This is a game that is played either as a head to head battle or as king of the hill. You get a hero, or character, that you play as. And they have specific abilities that you can activate by rolling dice Yahtzee style. By that I mean you get three roles, you keep some dice each time, and you see what you get at the end.

But Dice Throne is more than just a lucky game. Yes, there is an element of luck with rolling the dice. But the game often comes down to how well you can mitigate that luck. If you manage to get off your ultimate attack, well there isn’t much your opponent can do, of course that does mean that you roll all sixes. That’s very unlikely to just happen. But with cards and your combat points you spend to play them, you are able to manipulate dice, turn them to different sides, or get rerolls to try and land those attacks.

Plus the game offers a ton of variety. The first set is more standard fantasy. But then you get into other characters like a Tactician or an Artificer who do different things. And I own the Marvel set and am waiting on the Marvel X-Men set to come as well. You pick your favorites to get, or if you’re like me, you get them all.

Buy Dice Throne

7. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

• Published by SunTzuGames in 2025
• Change the galaxy with a unlikely group of heroes in an epic sci-fi adventure

Now for a game that isn’t even out yet. Why do I have it on the list, because I have in my collection a prototype of the game. And I’ve even played it on Malts and Meeples. The game is basically set, through there are elements of the game that will change, but that’s mainly around components not around actual game play.

I love Rogue Angels. You know that by now because it’s on every list of Crowdfunding game that I’m waiting for. And yes, it will be again at the end of this year, most likely. This is another story, adventure, and combat game. And I really enjoy the story in it. I like having some campaign games that aren’t just another fantasy setting, and Rogue Angels gives you a good sci-fi setting. And I love how the combat, or mission element of the game works.

I want to say that this isn’t a game where every scenario is a go and beat someone up. No, this is a game where you might want to dive into combat. Or you might want to sneak through, and it all depends on the scenario. I love that for a game because I don’t always want to beat up the bad guys. And with how the game activates the bad guys, well, getting rid of the wrong bad guys at the wrong time just means you’ll be dealing with the other ones all the time.

Late Pledge Rogue Angels

6. Floriferous

• Published by Pencil First Games in 2021
• Create the best scoring group of flowers in this drafting game

Now we have the smallest game in my Top 10 list. But Floriferous was there last year and it is staying there again this year because I love what the game does. I enjoy a good drafting game, and I think that drafting makes sense in a lot of different games. But how Floriferous does it works for me because it combines drafting with building out your own scoring.

And the drafting itself is clever. You either draft a flower or you draft a scoring card from a column. The scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column, though, which matters for drafting the next column. Because the turn order for that next column is determined by the previous column you drafted from, aka, the higher you are up in the column the sooner you draft again. So yes, you need scoring cards, but that means you draft later next time.

I also want to call out drafting the scoring. I like it when a game does that because it offers a great decision point. When I draft, I might want that scoring card, but if you don’t have enough flowers, it won’t do much for me. And on the flip side, if I draft too many flowers I’m not going to be scoring anything.

Buy Floriferous

5. Slay the Spire

• Published by Contention Games in 2024
• Climb the spire, fight monsters and can you defeat them all in this cooperative deck building game

Next up is a new one to the list and it’s debuting all the way up at #5. Now it’s not the last new one to the list, there is one higher, though just barely higher. Slay the Spire is a video game that I love to play. In fact I’ve been on a kick of playing it recently. It’s a rogue like deck building game where you climb a tower.

The board game is the exact same thing. But it takes a solo video game experience and makes it multiplayer. In fact, while the solo is fun, I think that it’s even better two player or two handed. And I want to play it with more. Because you figure out a strategy of who wants to attack which enemies. Because each player has their own enemies that will attack them, but you can attack the other person’s enemies. So you might have more defense and handle it as well.

With all of that said, the game does change one thing. How some things activate is changed, so you’re not needing to keep track of “every seven turns” or “every three times you shuffle” but it makes it easy to keep track of. And they scale down everything. I like that because I don’t want to be keeping track of six enemies with 50 health each. So while the math is very much the same, the numbers are just lower.

Buy Slay the Spire

4. The 7th Citadel

• Published by Serious Poulp Games in 2024
• The Citadels are in ruins. How can you rebuild society and deal with the threats?

The other new to the list game and debuting at #4 is The 7th Citadel. I should have put it at #7 just to make it a bit more fitting. But I love this game and you can see me playing it for some sessions on Malts and Meeples YouTube.

This is an adventure game. These Citadels have fallen and now in a dangerous and post apocalyptic feeling world, though uniquely so, you need to survive. You play as leaders of a settlement has has formed out of the 7th Citadel. And now you need to deal with some threat that is coming.

The main mechanism is the same as The 7th Continent. You spend cards to try and complete checks, fight monsters, and deal with challenges. And the cards are going to be your life. Plus you are flipping over cards and exploring areas of the map and dealing with encounters that happen. But the game gives you more direction than the 7th Continent does as the threat gives you missions to go on as you build up your settlement for whatever that coming threat might be.

Late Pledge The 7th Citadel

3. Stars of Akarios

• Published by OOMM/Open Owl Studios in 2022
• Explore space, fight battles, and unravel the story of why you were attacked

This is the one that launched into the Top 10 last year and it’s sticking around. I love this game, clearly, but it’s another one of those big campaign games, and it’s one that’s set in space. But this game feels different than so many others. I don’t know why, but it gives me the feeling of stories like Ender’s Game and Space Dandy all wrapped into one with obvious nods to other sci-fi stories as well.

I really enjoy how they created a game that is split into three different element. The one, space exploration, is a bit weaker. There is some randomness to it, and I feel like I never found anything major on it. But I love the other two element. You get to have a 7th Citadel/7th Continent style exploration on planets. But instead of playing cards for checks you roll dice. And it’s a really fun time, but the biggest part of the game is space combat.

And I wasn’t sure how much I’d love the space combat. But I really enjoy it, it’s this great tactical puzzle as you use special abilities that you can only use so much. And then you spend dice to maneuver and you need to figure out how to even get into range to shoot the enemy and ideally in a flanking position. I love sitting there looking at the dice and trying to figure out how to make it work.

Late Pledge Stars of Akarios

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

• Published by Awaken Realms in 2019
• The lands are returning to Wyrdness, you’ve been sent out to help Avalon survive, if you can

Now or one of a few campaign games that I’ve completed, at #2 we have Tainted Grail. And this is the base game and the two expansion campaigns. I love them all. I need to play Kings of Ruin as well, but I’m not sure when I’ll get to that because of, well, my #1 on the list.

But this game, let’s start off with the highest praise, has the best writing of any board game I’ve ever played. The story that it tells is amazing and for that reason we did play in story mode to be able to experience as much of that story as possible. I’ll talk about why in a little bit. This is a grim dark game, but it manages not to dwell on the darkness to the point where it’s overbearing but creates this amazing fantastical and dangerous world to deal with.

And let’s talk about that story mode and why we played that way. One of the criticisms of the game is that it’s too hard. There is too much grind and too much survival. That is what the game was advertised as, so why people thought it was bad, and not just not for me, when they got what they knew they were going to get, I don’t know. But story mode makes it easier, but not too easy. So you do need to engage with that survival aspect of the game, but you can delve into the story more so. If you find the game, get it, and I do recommend playing on story mode.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven/Frosthaven

• Published by Cephalofair Games in 2022
• Battle monsters, explore lands, and build up the town in this epic campaign

Finally the number one stays the same. The #1 on the list is really Frosthaven, Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. I don’t think it’s fair for them to be separate on the list. While Frosthaven does build on Gloomhaven and add in some elements like the town management, the core loop of the game is the same. I do think the added element of the town management would push it even a little bit higher than Gloomhaven for me though.

But the main part of the game is going into scenarios and trying to complete their objectives. This almost always includes killing some bad guys, and often times the win condition is kill all the enemies. Though in Frosthaven that is less often, though still the most common scenario goal.

The element that is the best about the game is the characters though. I love how every character is unique. And from the cards that you get to play, it feels that way. Sometimes you want to be that tanking character, or a fast damage dealer, or a support or healer character. And the games offer all of those.

And then the card play where you might want to go fast, so you can get in and out dealing damage quickly, or maybe you want to go slow to draw the enemies towards you, there is a lot of great strategy. I love picking cards, too, where I might plan to use the bottom and top halves in one way but then give myself the flexibility to change it. Needless to say, I love my #1 game.

Buy Frosthaven

Upcoming Streams

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

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to be my 200 through 101 next week. After that I’m going to do some videos looking back on 2024. So expect to see my Top 10 Games of 2024 and probably Top 10 crowdfunding games I backed in 2024 as well.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

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

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Top 5 Board Game Companies I Always Checkout

5. Awaken Realms

No surprise that Awaken Realms makes the list. They’ve made two games that I really like in Tainted Grail and ISS Vanguard. And while I did sell my copy of Etherfields, I am still regularly tempted to track it down and get a copy of it again. And I need to play my copy of Nemesis. Not all Awaken Realms games are for me. When they did STALKER, that one didn’t interest me. Or they do fancy versions of euro games, also not that interesting. But whenever they announce something new I’m curious.

Right now I’m waiting on Dragon Eclipse because it seems like a fascinating game that I really like the aesthetic of. And then they have a huge open world RPG type of game coming to crowdfunding later this year, also excited for that one. And they also have a one shot boss battler type of game with the Grimcoven as well, so many games that I’m intrigued by. Not always the cleanest games, but always something epic.

4. Chip Theory Games

Chip Theory is another one that makes a lot of epic games. But not with a lot of minis, instead with chips as the name suggests. I’m always intrigued by what they are putting out, though I rarely jump on their games right away. The only one I did right away was Elder Scrolls game that they have coming. And that was because it was a system that I knew already as it borrows from Too Many Bones.

But their games all offer something different and unique. And I also appreciate that almost all of their games can be played solo. One that I want to get to the table more after having an amazing time at GenCon playing it is Burncycle. I love the system of that game and the challenges of managing the burncylcle so that you can get the actions you want taken care of. It’s a tough balancing act of a game with a bunch of rules to learn to start, but not that bad when you get into playing it.

3. Open Owl Studios

Next up is Open Owl Studios and their games just really hit with me. Stars of Akarios has been one of my most fun gaming experiences with a big epic tactical space combat to getting down on planets and exploring the story. There are elements to that game that work so well for me. And then there is Mythwind a cozy game that feels like something different. It isn’t a game that I’ll binge all the time, but once that I will come back to a lot because it’s just easy to sit down and play. They call it a cozy game and it really is that.

Then there is Stonesaga their next one coming out. It helps, probably, that I know one of the designers. But he reached out to me because he knew it would be my type of game. And it really is. And I’m not sure what they have coming after that, there was just a reprint and expansion for Mythwind. But whatever it is, I trust that there will be a unique experience playing the game, because that’s what their games feel like to me.

2. CMON

Honestly, an odd one on the list, but I’m always paying attention to CMON. I could combine CMON and Steamforged here because I follow both of them for similar reasons. They both make beer and pretzel style games. Often that means grab a handful of dice and chuck them. But they also get a lot of interesting IP’s. CMON keeps on putting out Marvel games. And I know a lot of people will say it’s a cash grab. There is an element of that, but the games are also a ton of fun. Do I need all the characters and alternate sculpts, definitely not. But I want them, and like I said the games are a lot of fun.

CMON is also easier for  me to pass on. They revisit a lot of things. So when I hear something new is coming out, then I look to see if it matches something that I already have. And rarely do I replace it. Zombicide Undead or Alive go replaced by Marvel Zombies, but that’s because of the theme. I’d not replace Marvel Zombies with the newest Zombicide style game. I just pick the one that is best for me.

1. Pencil First Games

Finally we have the oddest one on the list. All the rest, easy to see what is similar. Big games, sometimes story and epic in nature. But Pencil First Games put out the first game that I crowdfunded and it’s a cute game. I got rid of my copy, but now they are putting out games that I really enjoy. Floriferous is the biggest, but then games like Skulk Hollow as well are great.

Why I’m always checking out Pencil First Games is that they tend to put a lot of interesting decisions into a package that isn’t too big or too complex. They are a company that is 100% on my radar for those games that are easy to travel with, easy to teach, but still really engaging. And while there are other companies who do that which I find their games interesting as well, Pencil First Games has a special place in my heart.

Honorable Mentions

Two honorable mentions, only. I thought about more, and maybe I should have done a Top 10. But the two are Cephalofair Games and Serious Pulp. I didn’t put them on the list because for both of them it’s a specific game line that I’m interested in. Obviously Gloomhaven, one of my favorite games. And you can see me playing The 7^th Citadel over on Malts and Meeples YouTube and I’m loving the game. But they have their lanes for their games and generally stick with them.

Who Do You Keep an Eye On?

Alright, a few more bonus board game companies. 25^th Century Games, Reggie Games, Indie Boards and Cards with Astro Knights and Aeon’s End, Roxley Games, though that’s mainly for Dice Throne, and Dire Wolf with their Clank games. And Thunderworks, probably should be a true honorable mention. Like I said, I could have done a top 10board game companies.

But let me know who you keep an eye on. I still even kind of keep an eye on Fantasy Flight Games. But for them it’s a bit more specific. I care about games in their Arkham Files line and if they do anything new with their IP’s like Marvel, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings. They are a company that I wish I could keep an eye on more, but it’s been so hit or miss lately.

Let me know who it is for you down in the comments below. Is there a board game company that stands out?

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Why The One Was Bad

I’m going to give an example of this from the real world, something that you might have seen in other places. I see it not too often, but it depends on the person. Someone comes in with a request. They need a website, let’s say, to process a transaction on part of a page. The developer creates a page that processes a transaction, but the usability is very low.

They made sure to meet the requirements of the request. But the requirements don’t get to the need of the usability of the process. For the developer, it is a case where they created only what was asked for. They didn’t spend the time or might not have thought they had the time to ask questions like “Why?” or “What’s the use case?”.

The insert I got with Frosthaven, I got the Folded Spaces one, felt the same way. Does everything fit in the box, yes, then our goal is complete. Does that mean it’s useable? No, it is not.

Structural Integrity

Now, I will say, some of this was on us when we glued it together. We should have used more glue. But even that wouldn’t have made a massive difference. Part of the issue with the structural integrity and the glue is that you are trying to glue to a shiny surface. I get how the glue adheres to the foam side, but the shiny finished side, even the ones I glued more heavily, the glue hasn’t held.

And it isn’t just the glue. You can get around some of that with hobby nails. But there are large trays to hold cards. The Frosthaven box is large, and the large trays are about a foot long. There are seams, where two pieces meet, in towards the middle of those. So a major point of failure is in a really risky spot, and it will fail. And that is not something that is easily fixed with hobby nails.

Monster Sorting

Then there are the monsters. And this is the area where I have the biggest issue. I think the structural integrity can be worked around, but needs to be worked around by choices you make to go above and beyond.

But the biggest issue is how the monsters were sorted. In the insert I got for Gloomhaven, which I really liked, all the monsters laid out so you could see them. This is where I really see the issue, and the seam on the long box, of the requirements being met, but functionality not being considered.

All the monsters are put vertically into three different bosses. For the bosses, that isn’t too bad. You don’t need them too often, and there aren’t that many. But for the medium and smaller monsters, there are a ton. And when cardboard standees are packed vertically, shockingly, you can’t see them. So you need to paw through them all and hope you don’t accidentally miss them. It’s a horrible and completely non-functional design choice.

So I Bought A Better Frosthaven Insert

Now, when the insert wasn’t holding together, I got annoyed. Quite annoyed in fact, at both Folded Spaces, for the reasons above and at Cephalofair Games. I don’t know if they rushed through the process, or thought that it was fine, either way, I got an insert, but not one at the quality I’d have wanted to pay for. And, because of it, I needed to get another Frosthaven insert.

I found a much better insert. So much better it’s basically a night and day difference. Why, because this one doesn’t have seam problems. And it is set-up to handle the monsters in a way that works really well. I found a 3D printed Frosthaven insert that I bought and had shipped from Australia.

The Insert.

3D Printed

Let’s start by talking about the 3D print quality. I think that is the concern, besides time about 3D printing an insert. I would likely print one myself, but getting this one, I have no quality concerns. And I think that the creation of this insert went above and beyond what is needed.

Mainly, the person 3D printed moveable dividers for everything. And when I say everything I mean everything. They make it so that you can split up each item type and crafted footwear versus purchasable footwear, it’s a lot of effort. And they built them as standing inserts so not just between the cards but actual divides that slot in and support themselves in the box.

And the quality of the 3D print is very good. It is not a thin printing. That is my biggest concern when I get something 3D printed, it is going to be done as thin and in as flimsy a way as possible so they can print more faster. That is not the case here.

Monster Storage

And I complained a lot about monster storage for the old one. Though the card boxes were actually the worst part. The monster storage made it so much slower to get a scenario together. Well, this insert fixes it.

It actually is about as ideal as you can get. Especially for us using the Frosthaven app, but overall it is lightyears ahead of what the Folded Spaces one was. It uses the initiative tracking tokens on the top of the monster boxes to show what monsters are in the box. And then each box holds the monster activation cards (though some like scout are shared) and the monster stat block cards.

In fact, the stat block cards are used as the cover. It is a super clever way to save on plastic and create a really functional and visible system. So it makes setup of a new scenario that much faster. And for Frosthaven and Gloomhaven setup speed matters, especially when trying to get two scenarios into an evening.

Use Of The Frosthaven Box Space

Now this takes up more room in the box than other it does in the other system. But because of other smart design decision and usability decisions, it still has more room in the box while being useable. Let’s move on to that, though.

That is something that just boggles my mind. How is there more space now in the box with a custom 3rd party insert that I could fit in the tiles. Now, I won’t because that is one thing that Folded Space got right, a nice little envelope system (that doesn’t fit in the box), but that sorts the map tiles as well as you could.

I get some of how it can do that. It doesn’t have special boxes for the player boards that you have active. We kept the ones from Folded Spaces. But missing out on player storage is a minor complaint, and not really even a complaint. We never had player character storage besides the character boxes that came with Gloomhaven for Gloomhaven. So going back to that would have been easy. This is just a bit nicer.

And speaking of character storage. This fits all of the characters. Folded Spaces didn’t fit up to two of them, I believe. Possibly three to make it actually comfortable. So this had more room in the box and can fit all the character boxes.

Final Thoughts

I have a bit of an issue with what Cephalofair has done and said about this insert. I know that a number of people have massive issues with this insert and how functional it is. And Cephalofair has been, generally, radio silent on it. Which is odd for them, they tend to apologize often for things beyond their control.

This is something that they controlled. Maybe not fully, maybe Folded Spaces provided this option and they just thought about speed. But radio silence or basically as much is not a great look. And what can they do after the fact? Nothing but apologize. I already got a product that is not great, they can’t fix that. I agreed to get that product. But say that they are revisiting it repeatedly, say you want to make it better, that would be nice. And maybe they have, but it’s been hidden away, in a lot of ways, for a company that apologizes and takes a front facing stance on most other things.

But I don’t need to worry about that anymore. I own a better insert and the Folded Spaces one is going in the trash. So it isn’t really an issue for me anymore. But I want you to know, there is much better insert out there. If you buy Frosthaven now, buy that one from Etsy. It will be so much better and more useful. Only after a play or two I see the difference already. And it is too good not to share because of how much of a difference it is.

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I have a few companies like that where I generally will pay attention. And for me, that doesn’t mean back or buy everything. But it does mean that I will always check it out in detail. Rarely, if ever, will I just gloss over a game from these companies. So here are my Top 10 companies I’m always interested in

Top 10 Board Game Companies

10. Fantasy Flight Games

Fantasy Flight Games is probably a company that’d have dropped off for a lot of people. They used to come out with a whole lot more games and a whole lot bigger announcements. But I still am interested. When I saw a Twilight Imperium Roll and Write, I was interested, even with a long play time. And Marvel Champions I still buy everything for that.

I wish they would come out with something more. A new version of Star Wars Imperial Assault? I would love to see that. Or something more original from them. Maybe a smaller version of a Descent 3.0 to go along with Descent: Legends of the Dark.

9. Thunderworks Games

Thunderworks is also just on that edge if I check everything out. I will look at any announcement because I am curious about anything set in their Roll Player World of Ulos. However, anything, like Tenpenny Park, those I’ll look at, but generally aren’t what I’m interested in. But I see them because I am curious if it is more stuff for Roll Player, Roll Player Adventures, or Cartographers.

8. CMON

CMON is either on your list or not. There is no in between I feel. Some people wait anticipating what CMON is going to announce next. Other people pledge $1 so that they can complain. That is basically how it goes on everything that CMON does. And I understand some of the complaints, I also don’t care on some of the complaints. They end up being complaining for the sake of complaining. But that isn’t the point of this article.

I wait to see what CMON comes out with next. And there is no company where they can announce a game and I will always back it or buy it. But when CMON announces a Stranger Things Game, see here, I get really excited. On the flip side, I like the idea of a big Dune battling over the planet game, but it is not one that I will back.

7. Chip Theory Games

Chip Theory Games is moving up the list for me. The more I see and mess around with their games, the more interested I am in their games. I enjoy Too Many Bones, and I think the more I dive into it the more I will like it. Then I almost backed Hoplomacus Victorum because it was a solo version of a game that I thought looked cool. And Burncycle, after watching a Brother’s Murph play through, see below, I really want to get it. Their games aren’t cheap though, so I need to pace myself.

6. Horrible Guild

Probably the biggest break or one of them, from the big games on the list is Horrible Guild. Horrible Guild does some campaign or legacy games with King’s Dilemma and then Queen’s Dilemma coming to Kickstarter. But I like their small games. Stuff like Potion Explosion, Railroad Ink, I’m so excited to be getting Tiny Turbo Cars, stuff like that.

They make games with amazing toy factor to them. And I just really enjoy sitting down and playing them. They also make games that are accessible. Railroad Ink is a bit challenging for a roll and write with Railroad Ink Challenge, but it’s not hard to teach. Same with Potion Explosion or Similo. Plus with so much fun in their games, I always want to see what they make.

5. Mythic Games

Getting back to big games, we have Mythic Games. Mythic Games has made such games as Reichbusters and Solomon Kane, but the one of theirs I play the most is Super Fantasy Brawl. I really love that game, but I mainly pay attention to their big games. Now, with that said, I don’t back a ton of their games on crowdfunding. I have backed Super Fantasy Brawl and HEL: The Last Saga, but that is it.

One of the reasons is that their rule books first time around tend to be poor. You need to get, and they do send out, a new rule book. But also because their games are big and epic and tend to have a lot with them. They are like CMON in some ways, I might want to back all of them, but I certainly don’t have room to back and store all of their games. Just between Super Fantasy Brawl and Solomon Kane that takes up a lot of space on top of a Kallax shelf.

4. Roxley Games

Last game on the list that makes that many smaller games. Though, when you get everything for Dice Throne, it certainly isn’t that small. And Dice Throne is the reason Roxley is so high on the list. They have some heavy euro games, I am not interested in those. But I want more Dice Throne. And their lighter games, I am interested in.

I really only own two games from Roxley, Dice Throne and Radlands and I need to play Radlands still. But when Santa vs Krampus came out, I backed immediately. When Marvel Dice Throne was announced, I knew I’d be all in. That is going to be case whenever they come out with anything new.

3. OOMM

OOMM is a very new company to the list. And honestly, I should likely keep them lower on the list, but we’re not talking about backing everything, we’re talking about being interested. I bought Stars of Akarios because of what it looked like after the fact. I backed Mythwind because the game looked so different.

OOMM really does something that I love in creating games that feel unique. Mythwind seems really different than anything else out there. Stars of Akarios is a big space campaign game. Do I need more space campaign games, not really but I want them. And the new legacy game they announced looks very cool as well.

2. Awaken Realms

Awaken Realms maybe could be #1, but it’s at #2 because there is Awaken Realms Lite, technically it’s own company I believe, but a lot of the same people and process. But the last two on the list, I will always look and almost always back whatever they do.

There are two exceptions for Awaken Realms. I didn’t back The Great Wall as it is a massive euro game. It looks cool, I’d love to try it, but I wouldn’t buy it. And I didn’t back Lords of Ragnarok from them. Why, because I already own and love Lords of Hellas. Lords of Ragnarok might be better, but I don’t need to own both.

1. Cephalofair Games

I doubt that this is a shock. I went all in on Frosthaven. And I love Gloomhaven. I never looked at Founders of Gloomhaven once I realized it was a euro. But Cephalofair announces something, I am interested. I hope it is more for Frosthaven, after that has been out for a bit. Or another big box game, but really, anything at this point. Even with my #1 company that I will be intrigued to hear whatever they announce, not every game will be for me.

Still, I can’t wait until Frosthaven gets here. And I even started a campaign of Gloomhaven Digital recently. It is just a fun experience to play that game and it is fun to dive back into it. And I will for sure dive heavily into Frosthaven almost right away when it shows up. I suspect we’ll be done with the final Tainted Grail expansion by then, but we’ll see.

Final Thoughts

Firstly, I’d love to know what companies you are generally interested. Which ones make games that seem fun to checkout or different. I want to know what gets you excited. And as I said, I don’t like every game from all of these companies. In fact, there are some that just miss completely for me, even though I love the company.

And that is very fair to not like everything. I talk about how CMON is polarizing, the people who love CMON don’t like everything from CMON. The people who dislike CMON will never know what they are missing out on. I think it’s more important to remember that some games are going to be for you and some won’t no matter the company. And even if you enjoy all of them, some will be better than others.

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Why Is This Happening?

Firstly, because there is money in board games. Maybe not as much as some people speculate and hope. But for crowdfunding platforms, there is money in board games. Board games have made up almost $2 billion for Kickstarter. So if Kickstarter takes 10%, I believe, that’s $200 million just on board games. And $2 billion is out of $7 billion total for Kickstarter.

So you can see why Gamefound, IndieGoGo, and Backerkit would want to get in on things. Add in Kickstarters stagnancy it created opportunity. Kickstarter, while having a smooth interface, hasn’t updated their navigation or anything in several years. And with the advent of pledge managers, ways to collect shipping, do add-ons and allow people to find it later, Kickstarter just didn’t keep up.

Where Did Backerkit and Gamefound Come From?

Both Backerkit and Gamefound started out as pledge managers. With Backerkit, I’m not sure it was really their intention to ever start being a crowdfunding platform. For Gamefound, I do believe it was. But basically, they are already doing a lot of the heavy lifting needed.

They could process cards, they had ability to do add-ons, get people’s addresses. Work with the board game companies and the logistics and distribution companies that handle sending out crowdfunding games. So for them, it was a fairly simple shift to add in, now, some features that track money, that track stretch goals, and that add conversations, a piece they might have already had in progress.

Which is the Best Crowdfunding Site?

Right now, I do not think that there is clearly a best one. And Backerkit is just getting into the crowdfunding side of things. So we haven’t seen a pledge, but we can talk about what they do have in the limited pictures and pieces in place.

Kickstarter

Kickstarter does well at letting you see everything, fairly easily. Yes, for me to get exactly where I want to be – games sorted by newest – it takes a few clicks from the home page. I wish that their system allowed you to pick how you default looked at things, none of this “magic” I want newest. I dislike “magic” whenever it’s an option, and I’m talking about Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram doing that as well.

But I can easily bookmark the page that I want and I know that I’m just going to see active projects in order that they are coming out. It’s great for on Tuesday, I can see what the newest things are and if any big things have dropped.

Gamefound

On the page, though, Gamefound destroys Kickstarter. Kickstarter offers no navigation. And Gamefound lets you put in headers for sections and creates navigation to get to them. That means if I want to see game play, it can be all the way at the bottom and I can easily get to it.

Their development for pulling up pledge levels and seeing everything in them is a lot better as well. There are more single page features that they have without you needed to reload something. On Kickstarter it takes you to the pledge page where you can do add-ons. For Gamefound it is more like a shopping card and you can add everything from that one page.

On the flip side, though, I have yet to find a great link that I can save for projects. The big issue with it is that I want to filter to just active crowdfunding projects. I can get to active projects but that also has anything that is available to late pledge in the pledge manager. Sometimes I want to see what I can late pledge, but not all the time. Or make it really obvious which ones are active and which ones are late pledges.

Backerkit

Now, finally we have Backerkit, and like I said, I can’t tell you much about it. Mainly because there aren’t any active projects yet on it. But I will say that out of all of them, I think that currently Backerkit is the most dated. Now, that doesn’t mean that they might not have more features than Kickstarter, I fully expect them to. Their pledge manager piece has more features than Kickstarter does.

But speaking from a purely aesthetic point of view, the site is dated. It looks like it was created about 2010 and hasn’t been updated much since. Now the page that they used to announce their partnerships or first projects is nice. But the rest of the site, the notification for when things are going live, the emails you get when you sign up to get notified, all of those look bad.

Backerkit had an nice announcement. And I am guessing they are working on updating the aesthetic before things launch. But the pieces that they did show off still needed work. Like I said their upcoming projects page, the notifications page, the notifications email. So I hope it looks better because right now it is the worst of the three.

Will You Need to Use All Three?

Most likely yes. Kickstarter still has CMON and a few other big companies on it. Gamefound has Awaken Realms and Lucky Duck and a few others. And Backerkit already has upcoming projects from Cephalofair (Gloomhaven and Frosthaven’s company) and Restoration Games. If you want to keep abreast of crowdfunding, I think that you will need to keep an eye on all of them.

But with there being three now, I think this is an opportunity for people like myself as well as then others Tantrum House, BoardGameCo, Liege of Games, and more to be a resource for you. I think I’m going to start covering more crowdfunding on Malts and Meeples. In particular looking at projects. Why, because you shouldn’t need to look on all the sites. Not if all of us are putting out content to help with that. And it will make it less likely that you’ll miss the next Leder Games expansion for Root because it was on Backerkit and not Kickstarter.

Final Thoughts on Crowdfunding Platforms

As a consumer this is going to be good. It should force companies, all of them, to put out better and better products to entice creators to come to their platform. But I know that it is a bit of a struggle as well because as consumers we are used to just going to Kickstarter.

Overall, I think that Kickstarter has shown, to this point, that it won’t do the quality of life improvements that it should. Stuff like navigation for their pages. Instead they are focusing on the blockchain and more secure transactions but costly in other ways. And also means more likely to encourage fraud because of how that all works. Now, not fraud in someone getting access to your accounts but someone taking the money and leaving.

I hope that Gamefound and Backerkit don’t reach that point where they are become lax. I doubt that they will for a while, but it is certainly a concern that it could happen. And I think it behooves them to remember why this is happening to Kickstarter in the first place. But competition should be good, and hopefully good for the consumer and for the smaller companies that are having troubles now with Kickstarter.

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No, to go into more than that, why do I need Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion when I have Gloomhaven and Frosthaven?

First part of it is being a completionist for that game. I have everything else, or it’ll be coming, so I want that, but there’s more to it. Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion is like Gloomhaven lite. Or maybe Gloomhaven introduction. What is cool about the game is that it’s all new content, but it’s not as big a thing on the table. You have new playable classes, that you can bring into the main game of Gloomhaven. But you can also use them in the introductory scenarios for Jaws of the Lions.

That’s another really cool thing, there are twenty five different scenarios in Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. Three of those are an introduction to the game, where you start with really basic things and then you eventually build into playing Gloomhaven as I’ve been playing it. So for a new player you can get into it gradually. Which is one of the barriers of entry for Gloomhaven.

Another barrier for entry that Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion improves upon greatly is set-up and teardown. Because it’s a smaller game, there’s just way less stuff. But, one way there’s less stuff is that you’re playing on smaller maps in the scenario book itself. You aren’t finding tiles, putting them together and doing all of that before the scenario, you can flip it down, put some items and monsters on the map and be ready to go.

So besides being a completionist, that’s why I’m getting Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. And if Gloomhaven seem like it’s too big for you, this might be a good starting point.

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I’m not going to even start out pretending, this was an instant back for me, and considering it’s almost 24 hours in and at 5 million, it was a back for a lot of people. Now, it’s a fairly expensive back, so let me go through a few pros and cons.

Pros

• Massive campaign
• Pedigree of game, Gloomhaven which it’s based on is #1 on Board Game Geek
• RPG Lite/Like game
• Legacy Style game (but can be replayed)

Cons

• Massive campaign game
• Cost or game/all in
• Shipping

Thoughts on the Campaign
So, let me start out by saying that this is a bit different campaign than some others that you’ll see. Yes, a big campaign style game is pretty normal for Kickstarter at this point in time, but Frosthaven is different in that it’s based off of a previous game, so it has some pedigree that a lot of them don’t, but beyond that with how Cephalofair Games runs their campaign is different. It’s not a plethora of minis, it’s not a ton of stretch goals, it’s not extremely vague on it’s shipping, it makes all of that clear. For some people that’s a detriment because you know a whole lot more what the cost is going to be going into it, so you know that you’re going to be putting down an extra $40-50 for shipping for everything and adding that to a $240 price tag is a lot, but it’s also more honest than most. With backing the 2nd printing of Gloomhaven, I can see why it would be a surprise, but shipping was also subsidized by previous sales of the game in that campaign where as this is a first printing of Frosthaven, besides that little thing, this is a very nicely and professionally done page.

Back or Brick
Back. For me it’s as simple as that, even if I wasn’t done with Gloomhaven having beat main quest of the base game and over half way done with Forgotten Circles the expansion, I’d still back this game. I like Gloomhaven that much, it’s #1 on Board Game Geek and my #1 game as well when I did my top 100 last year. I know that even if it’s delayed slightly, it’ll come out and it’s going to be a good project and a good game. I personally think that the insert is going to be worth it so the extra cost to get the extra things like metal coins, the Foreteller app, removeable sticker pack, to get the insert is going to be worth it. But if you’re just jumping in, you can grab Gloomhaven as well in the campaign as just an add-on or you could just just straight into Frosthaven, and you don’t need to get it all, you can just start out with the base game and call it good.

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One of the YouTube Channels that I follow, Rolling Solo, is doing a Kickstarter preview for Frosthaven. He’s doing a bigger preview but starting with the component overview. I’m not going to share all of his videos, but definitely worth checking out.

I’m glad I had something to talk about because we have to wait an extra week for it to come out to Kickstarter

I’ll do highlights, but it’s very visual so it’s worth checking out.

• The map looks amazing. The artwork is beautiful for it.
• We have Radiant Forest, Frozen Pass, Imperial Mountains, Frosthaven, Coppernet Mountains, Whitefire Woode, Crystal Fields are areas
• A-R and 1-12 Grid (216 squares)
• He talks about 1 per square in terms of adventures, but Gloomhaven didn’t do that, so I don’t think it’ll have that many more scenarios
• So many buildings in the outpost
• 10 buildings already built, probably another 30 or so that aren’t built
• The outpost artwork is amazing as well, feels like it’s somewhat a Norse and Celtic feel to it
• Characters look great, smallest handsize is 7, which is the Geminite, but it’s two hands of 7, otherwise 10.
• Lowest health is 14 for Deathwalker and Necromancer
• Minis are definitely prototype level, but the sculpts are pretty well polished in terms of general sculpt
• Monsters look the same in terms of the monster card
• Ruined Machine stands out as an interesting character and different
• Punch boards for lands, overlays, and monsters look similar to Gloomhaven
• Looks like a ship location
• Detail is definitely higher than the previous punch boards
• Fairly limited in terms of tiles, but enough to get a good idea
• Have character cards, monster cards, but most interestingly a few loot cards to look at
• In the demo stuff that was sent out, a lot of the monsters are using elemental
• Monster cards are fairly limited, I expect more diversity possibly later
• Loot cards can give you single, two, three, or five coins
• Loot cards will be in a created 20 card deck per scenario
• Loot cards can be herbs and other building supplies
• Art on the loot cards is solid, but not as good as the updated art on the tiles
• Shows Level 1 and Level X cards for each character
• Necromancer can get a lot of shambling skeletons out there
• Focused on getting your summons to attack for the Necromancer
• Geminate has a new symbol on it
• Geminate uses a lot of elements
• Geminate has a state, so ranged or close combat and the new symbol lets you know when you can switch
• Banner Spear is a little more straight forward from the look
• Blink Blade has interesting combo of faster speeds and slower speeds
• Really interesting how the slow and fast works ,including details for it
• Deathwalker has a Shadow keyword
• Shadows seem like they can move
• Deathwalker can teleport
• Shadow seems like it might work somewhat similar to the voids from the Forgotten Circles expansion

There’s a bunch to pull out of here but not a ton that is massively new, but we will get to see a bit of a playthrough of how it works coming up. There are more previews as well from the likes of Quackalope Games, and I believe that Tantrum House is going to have a preview as well. If you’re on the fence, this will certainly be a spot to check it out.

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Now, normally when I do these posts, I’m writing up information from a video so that you don’t have to watch an hour long video or a twelve minute video. In this case, I’m still going to hit some highlights, but reading his post is probably going to be as about as fast.

So let’s talk about this in my normal bullet point fashion.

• You start with 1-12 items that you can craft
• Crafting items for loot drops versus gold
• Buildings can be upgraded with crafting items
• Alchemist/Apothecary you can make potions
• But you won’t know what potion, use Pandemic Legacy style dossier
• Rare loot/crafting supplies
• Do you use them to upgrade buildings/buy awesome items
• Character unlocks can unlock new buildings or characters
• Unlock retirement quests in batches so never takes too long

There’s even more in there as well, but a lot of stuff that we’ve already known. We’re a week away from the launch of the Kickstarter which is crazy to thin and I’m really excited for it and for getting this game in my hands come 2021. So next week keep an eye out for that and my breakdown of the page.

So if you just wanted the highlights, there they are for you, but I’m going to continue talking about this a little bit longer, just nothing new.

What intrigues me about this post is that there is most certainly going to be more of legacy aspect to this game. Now, you’d be able to play scenarios again and go through the main story, but unless it comes base with a reusable sticker pack or as part of the kickstarter addons, you’re going to have a city that is too built up to start another play through of it just like it is. Now, I love legacy games, and if this is another 100 scenarios, it’s going to take me two years to get through, so it’s not a problem, but if you know you’re going to play this 6 hours a week every week, you’re going to get through it way faster.

But, I love that legacy aspect, and I love the idea that you are going to get something brewed and it might be poison or it might heal you, or it might be bog water that does nothing, you don’t know. And as you unlock more you’re probably going to get, minor health, power, and stamina potions or something like that unlocked, do you then push further in to see if you can get better potions faster, earlier in the game? And the fact that resources are used for both upgrading the town and making items gives you another point of decision.

I also like that the unlocked characters (buildings) are being released in batches. We started out in Gloomhaven with a Cragheart who retired after every other character because of the quest that they pulled to start and we just didn’t have the ability to do a quest that they needed completed. In this, it sounds like that problem is being taken care of, which is really nice. Granted, it wasn’t too bad, but to know that we’re not accidentally going to run into a situation like that, that’s cool.

Needless to say, I’m stoked for this game and ready to see what the Kickstarter page is going to look like. What do you think of the new news about Frosthaven, are you down for crafting?

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