Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
90 through 81

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 80 through 71

80. Flamecraft

• Published by Cardboard Alchemy in 2022
• Deliver on the most goals and score points as you play out adorable little dragons who help around the town

This game immediately grabs you with the artwork. The dragons are amazing, and Sandara Tang gives each of them such great personality. Beyond that the game is simple but fun, you go to a location and are either activating the cards and dragons there, or adding some, or spending resources to complete goals. As the locations get more and more dragons the more powerful they become. It’s a great ramping mechanism for a simple game. Though the game is not fast one, which might be my only knock on it.

Buy Flamecraft

79. Just One

• Published by Repos Productions in 2018
• Work together to get the guesser to the right answer with just one word

A party game on this section. I’m not sure, I expect that there are two more party games on the list, but we’ll see. I honestly have forgotten. But Just One is a great cooperative party game. One person is the guesser and everyone else needs to write down a one word clue to get the guesser to guess their one word. Sounds simple, right, but if you double up with anyone, now both those words are gone. That means that an easy clue can become very hard very fast. So you want to be obscure with your clue, but not so obscure that it won’t lead the person to the right answer.

Buy Just One

78. On Tour

• Published by BoardGameTables.com (AllPlay) in 2019
• Create the best route for your band to tour the map going from low to high numbers

This one is a fun roll and write. While I love a ton of roll and write games where they have a lot of combos, this one is a different type of puzzle. In On Tour two dice are rolled and players each place the numerical combinations on two spots on their board. But there are rules as to where they can go. And you may want to watch the city to gain bonus points, but if it won’t connect well to your route, is it worth it to push your luck?

Buy On Tour

77. Mythwind

• Published by Open Owl Studios in 2023
• Build up your settlement and play your mini game in this cozy gaming experience

Open Owl Studios went into making Mythwind with the plan of making a cozy game. So something that works well like a Stardew Valley or an Animal Crossing. They do that by creating a peaceful story world to play in, there are interesting elements to it though. And then each person plays their own little minigame. I demonstrate what the minigame for the farmer looks like. And One Stop Co-op Shop and Meet Me At The Table play some of the other ones. It’s just a unique feeling game that is fun, and relaxing to play.

Preorder Mythwind

76. Betrayal at House on the Hill

• Published by Avalon Hill in 2004
• Explore a haunted house but beware, someone is going to be come the traitor

This is a game that I still love though I haven’t played it in a few years. I fully recognize that the game has issues. When you sit down to play you know that the haunt may not work as planned because either the traitor is going to be overpowered or the other survivors will be. And the haunts themselves have janky rules. But I still love the game anyways because it’s thematic, silly, and just a fun time.

Buy Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd Edition

75. Clever 4Ever

• Published by Schmidt Spiele in 2022
• Another combotastic game in the Clever line of roll and writes

I don’t know what else to say about this one. Clever 4Ever offers a ton of fun combos and a few different feeling sections of your sheet. How Wolfgang Warsch keeps on coming up with different and interesting ways to handle rolling five dice, using one, getting rid of lower ones and then rolling them again, I don’t know. But he does and this one is great, I especially like the sections where you can fill in different shapes depending on the number rolled. That element really feels different.

Clever 4Ever is either new to my Top 100 Games (of all time) this year or it just made the cut last year. I know I hadn’t had the game for long.

Buy Clever 4Ever

74. SpellBook

• Published by Space Cowboys in 2023
• Learn spells and feed your familiar to get the most points

This is a really simple game. All it is when you boil it down is set collection. You collect materia, you get enough of a color, you learn that spell. Then you use that spell you learned to collect more materia or learn new spells easier. Each spell you learn gives you points, or you can just feed the materia to your familiar for more points as well. The is fast, and there is a fun puzzle as to how you can optimize your spell usage as you get into the game.

Buy SpellBook

73. Century: Golem Edition

• Published by Plan B Games in 2017
• Get crystals, upgrade crystals and get golems to give you points

Another engine building game. Century: Golem Edition again, like SpellBook, has quick snappy turns. In this game it’s all about hand management and using those cards in hand to get more and upgrade crystals. Then you use those crystals to grab Golems that are going to score you points. But you literally just play a card, trade crystals for a golem, pick-up all your cards, or buy a new card. One of those things on a turn and the game just flies.

Buy Century: Golem Edition

72. New Frontiers

• Published by Rio Grande Games in 2018
• Build out the grandest space empire by doing the best action for you

New Frontiers is another engine building game. In New Frontiers you are doing it at a space level though, colonizing new planets, getting new technologies, fighting and conquering planets. All of that done through action selection where what action you pick gives you a bonus. But, everyone else is going to follow along with that action as well. So what is the best action for you and maybe not a great one for other players? I believe that New Frontiers is new to my Top 100 Games (of all time) as well though it isn’t a new game.

Buy New Frontiers

71. Meadow

• Published by Rebel Studio in 2021
• Create a beautiful tableau of nature through tricky card drafting

Meadow is another gorgeous game. I start out and end this section with beautiful games. In Meadow you want to score points by playing out creatures, taking pictures, and gaining trinkets. But to do that you need to build up your meadow from the land type up through bugs and maybe eventually all the way into deer, foxes, or other creatures. How you pick the cards you get is great. You use a fence post that tells you how far into a row or column you are picking. So you need to determine the best spots to play to get all the cards that you want and hope no one blocks you.

Buy Meadow

Final Thoughts

Firstly, let me know what your favorite of these games are. I obviously enjoy all of the tones in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition, so Meadow needs to be my favorite. But in terms of easily getting it to the table, I’m kind of feeling a big old stream and playthrough of all the clever games on Malts and Meeples. And let me know if there is one that you would want to get played as well that you haven’t tried in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition.

Join me next week for the next batch of games in my Top 100 Games. It’ll be starting around 9 PM Central on Wednesday if everything goes as planned. You can subscribe and click the notification bell to get notified when the video goes live. Thanks so much for watching.

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Top 5 Roll and Write Games to Play Solo

5. Paper Dungeons

Paper Dungeons is one that works well solo and multiplayer. So in terms of a lot of a few of the roll and write games on the list, I think it is balanced out a bit more. But this one really does work nicely solo because it makes the game faster. You roll the dice and take your dice actions and are done. The limiting factor on how quickly it goes is you. This is a common thing for a lot of these games solo.

There is a downside to it, which is why it is lower on the list. In Paper Dungeons you lose out on the bonus when fighting the different boss monsters along the way. No one can get the bonus for dealing the most damage because you aren’t playing against an opponent.

4. Cartographers

Cartographers is going to be one where I say that it’s also one of the role and write games where it works well with many as well solo. And Cartographers might be one of the most challenging solo games out there. The scoring objectives you have all have numbers on them. And that combined total is what you’re trying to defeat. Plus they give you negative points, so you need to overcome all of that to just get a positive score. And how you place the monsters on the board changes, but it’s a ton of fun either way.

3. Railroad Ink Challenge

This is the first where I think I really do prefer it just solo. Mainly because I’ve taught Railroad Ink a few times and it’s gone well, but people feel like there is a bit much to keep track of. I like it with everything in there, at least for the base game and the challenges because I think it adds purpose and direction to the game. But for some people, it feels like too much. So since I know the game well, I prefer it as a solo game that I can knock out quickly.

But the route connecting and everything moves along quickly. Even the challenges don’t change from multiplayer to solo. Either way you have a specific round to hit for getting the challenges. So if you get it on that round or sooner you score the max points. If you get it prior to the end of the game you end up with fewer points.

2. Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade

Another one that is better solo, I think. And Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade is one of the roll and writes that I’ve mainly just played solo. The reason I like it better solo is that players can get out of sync. So I might lose my ball sooner than you lose your ball. That is the way that pinball tables go. So I play my second ball and it’s unlikely I lose it super quickly, but if i do you may continue playing for a period of time longer.

It’s really that the game can let one person go a lot longer that I think creates a bigger challenge to the game. Especially on some of the boards where a player might end up in a special area of the board. If they do, then it’s possible that they can prolong their game notably. At that point one person might need an extra 10 minutes to wrap up the game. The pinball tables are a ton of fun, but there is a good reason to play it solo.

1. The “Clever” Games

Finally it’s all of the Clever games from Wolfgang Warsch. I really enjoy all of these games. And I think that they are best at two or solo player counts. Why, because at more you lose a little agency in the game. You always get something on an opponents turn, but when your opponents have more turns, you play fewer turns as the active player. So that loss of agency, I think, makes it better as a solo or two player game.

And when you play at solo or two players the rules don’t change. Since in solo you get the rolls of an “opponent” to go against. And that’s really just getting that selection on an opponents turn like you would on a two player game. The dice might be limited in different ways than normal, but the outcome is similar.

Also, yes I did cheat and put four games on the list there.

Final Thoughts

A lot of roll and write games work well solo. Though, so many now hare being made to keep that feeling similar no matter what. By that I mean that most of these games now rely upon everyone going at once. So when you take an action or roll the dice, all of us get to go on that roll of the dice or the flip of the cards. I love that about the games because it lets you really play pretty quickly without losing an interesting game and interesting choices.

What are your favorite roll and write games to play solo? I know that I need to learn and play Hadrian’s Wall solo as well as there are others like Metro X, Fleet the Dice Game, that I like solo or still others like Three Sisters, Motor City, and more that I know people like solo. So I want to get even more to the table.

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Clever 4Ever

Let’s talk about where Clever 4Ever is taking this series of games. Because I think that the system has had it’s ups and downs along the way with what it does. The first one is very nice and straight forward, that’s why Ganz Schon Clever (That’s Pretty Clever) is my favorite. But then you have Doppelt so Clever (Twice as Clever) and the game is a bit more complex. And it requires the player to do a bit more to get the points. Clever Hoch Drei (Clever Cubed) keeps some of the complexity, but makes a number of the areas more straight forward.

Complexity

Clever 4Ever is a bit more complex again. So it feels like the even number ones are ramping up the challenge a little bit with the scoring. Mainly here there are so many little things to keep track of. If you use a 2 through 6 on the pick section, what is the bonus, and how do those work. It’s not that complex, but there is a level of complexity to it. The yellow section with the subtraction versus addition versus points in columns. Green needing two numbers, or grey filling in shapes.

But, with that said, I think it feels a bit better than Doppelt so Clever. Mainly, as I play, I feel like there’s a bit more chance to explore. It might come down to the fact that unlike in Doppelt so Clever, nothing uses other dice with it. The grey or silver section in Doppelt so Clever wants you to discard dice. So you need to push at the right time for that. In Clever 4Ever, it’s all single uses of dice, just how efficiently can you use them and get the bonuses and scoring.

Luck

On the downside, it does seem a bit more luck centric. Mainly in the pink section, you get bonuses to points or get to use the bonus symbol based on what you roll. That means most of the time I really want to have a 5 or a 6 that I play. Yes other bonuses can push you higher, like the 3 filling in two spots. Technically that can push you to the end fast, but that’s not what people will want.

And the yellow section. Only roll high yellows, it’s going to be hard to complete that top row, or even work on it. Because you need to always increase numbers and it doesn’t reset on a six. So now that’s a challenge of just rolling the right things. Now you can use other bonuses to fill in that section, and that’s probably the smart way. But it’s also true for the middle row, you want low numbers. So the luck factor, to me, feels a little bit higher.

Upcoming Streams

On every other Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. And I do small solo game plays. Expect to see a lot more small solo games as I work on my goal of getting to 100 new to me games this year. I’ve started off strong, but there are a number of solo games that I can play to work towards that number. I had hopes of painting but with the new schedule, it’s harder to do now. So when I do a painting stream, it’ll be more random.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least 10 games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. My goal, play four different campaigns 10 times each. It’s tricky, but I think that I can do it. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games. The next part of Rogue Angels can be found coming up here.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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Top 5 Board Game Apps

Disclaimer, of course, I haven’t played them all. Some are for games that don’t interest me that much. So, like Dominion just has an app in beta or just out on Android, haven’t played it, probably won’t. And list is in no particular order.

5. Fleet: The Dice Game

Let’s start with the one that I’ve been playing the most of recently. Fleet: The Dice Game has a nice and simple app for playing their game solo. No pass and play multiplayer, but when I play a board game on an app, multiplayer is low on the list of things that I care about.

This one takes what’s not that complex a game to run solo in person, but takes up space on the table. So it makes it much more compact. And it makes me want to play the game again, and actually try it multiplayer in person. So that might not be the best sign for the app. But the app lets you get in a game much faster, as an app should, and let’s you mess around with strategies easier.

4. Super Mega Lucky Box

Next up is another roll and write style game. Actually, I could do a top 5, possibly Top 10, on this type of game. Why, because a lot of them end up with simpler rule sets and thus are simpler to program into an app. And Super Mega Lucky Box is another one without a pass and play, at this point, but one that you can play solo.

Now, I give this solid marks as a board game app not because it’s that much easier than the board game. No, I give it that because it’s more portable. I can play Super Mega Lucky Box solo easily enough in person. But there is a minor amount of set-up. With the app, it’s pull it out and play. And they give you a few ways to play which are fun to mess around with. Honestly, it’s a really good way to learn how to play the game.

3. Sagrada

Now one that isn’t a roll and write. Though, Sagrada does have rolling dice as you roll each time for drafting. This one does have multiplayer, which I have yet to use. But it also has a challenge/campaign mode. Not like the Sagrada Artisans legacy game, no, the campaign is just progressively better AI opponents. I like that sense of progression, and it walks you through the different ability cards and scoring cards.

And while the other games on the list are definitely faster in an app, Sagrada flies speed wise. I really like it for that, if I were to play a game of Sagrada solo, well, I haven’t before, but I imagine it might take a little bit. On the app, it’s about five minutes to play a whole game.

2. Railroad Ink

Now, yes, another roll and write game with Railroad Ink. This is another one that take a roll and write game that isn’t hard to play solo and makes it even easier. Railroad Ink is a game of connecting routes, which is not hard in person. But the app highlights were you can put railroad sections and makes it easier for you that way. And it keeps track of your round to help with scoring the challenge cards.

This is another one that is only solo. But it works slick, and games are definitely a little bit faster than playing solo in person. Out of all of these, I think that Railroad Ink probably saves you the least amount of time. But, it’s fun to be able to play it on a small screen in your pocket.

1. Clever Games

Finally, yes, this is a lot of games. Four games actually, though, I hope that they’ve improved the fourth one, Clever 4Ever on the app because, well, it doesn’t size correctly to all screens. But the other three are great ways to play and learn the various “Clever” games. And all of the apps work nicely.

It is only solo play, but it handles some of the solo elements like which dice end up on the platter on the “opponents” turn. No more guessing, though, the rules for that are simple in the real game. The nice thing is that it highlights what you can do when you click on a die, and shows you the options well. It’d be nice if it had a tutorial mode, but the rules are on there so you can read them as well. And mainly, if you know how to play, you just need to learn the scoring and new ability.

Honorable Mentions

Let me wrap up with some honorable mention board game apps.

Ascension – this has a nice app for the deck building game. And it comes with the base game and an expansion. You can pay for more to unlock them. The downside to this one, is it’s small on a screen. So until you know the cards it’s a bit fiddly. But it does have pass and play.

Hero Realms – Another deck building game, Hero Realms is a head to head battler. The AI is strong in this one, and you can set it and unlock more cards as you go. The system works well in this setting and it helps you remember everything, like if you haven’t attacked your opponent or your opponent has a blocker.

Potion Explosion – Finally, I want to end on Potion Explosion. This one you do lose some playing it on the app. Obviously you don’t have the tactile thing of pulling out a marble and watching everything else fall into place. That said, it still is slick and it does some of the work, auto placing ingredients if you want. I like it for that, and I like the challenge it offers.

What are some of your favorite board game apps?

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Arcane Wonders

Senshi

In Senshi you are trying to raise your characters stats so that you are the strongest warrior monk. It looks like a quick little filler and I used it to get to a shipping threshold so not one that I know a ton about. But if it’s a good filler while waiting for game night, I’m interested in it.

Four Gardens

Four Gardens is one that I have seen played, and part of the appeal is a giant stacked pagoda in the middle that rotates. That determines what resources you get and then you use those resources to create paintings which at the end of the game score you points. It again doesn’t sound like a heavy game, but one with a cool mechanism to it and hopefully interesting enough game play.

Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect is one that I looked at for a long time before it was on sale with Arcane Wonders. This is a game about trying to setup the perfect picture. Each person has information about how characters want to be setup. And you try and keep track of all that information so that the lady of the house doesn’t have to be too close to the dog and the dog is next to the potted planet, and the potted plant is, well you get the picture – all puns intended.

But then at the end of the game, you snap a picture of your display and you see with all the clues out there, how well you did. That just seems unique, but I didn’t pull the trigger before now because I want to know it’s a game I’ll like. I think it is one that will work well, but it has more risk to it for myself and my group.

Smartphone Inc

Finally, Smartphone Inc is going to be a heavier game about building up your smartphone empire. You produce smartphones and you need to know when is the time to sell them, and when is the time to hold back. I like that as an idea, but heavier euro style games get played less. So I am curious to know if this is one that I will like. I generally hear very good things about it, so I’m excited to try.

Noble Knight

Arkham Horror LCG Characters

Last time, I said that there would be more characters coming up. Instead of listing them all off, just know that there were three more of the original characters that I can mix into the game now. I want to find some time soon to sit down, pick a character or abilities and spend some time using all the cards I have now, as I own a couple different investigator boxes plus these packs, to build a character to use.

Aventuria

This is supposed to be a card driven adventure and story board game. One that I looked closely at their latest Kickstarter but I couldn’t quite pull the trigger. Noble Knight sells used games, so when this was available to grab used, it made a lot of sense to get it that way to try. And if I enjoy it, I’m confident that they’ll run another crowdfunding campaign that I can jump in on. But card driven adventure and campaign, I want to know more.

Medieval Academy

The Dice Tower played this one on their 36 hour marathon. And Medieval Academy is not a new game. But it is one that as I watched it played, I thought it looked interesting. It is a mechanism that I like, drafting. I want more drafting games in my life. And this one lets you draft and push up on tracks to try and score points. The game is one that looks simple, but it is different than a Sushi Go Party!. And did I mention, I like drafting.

Beyond the Sun

Another game that is here because I could get it used. But it is also another game that has been on my radar for a long time. Beyond the Sun is a space game, kind of. Really, it is a game where you get techs. I like that the game is described as a giant tech tree. So you look to improve your ship and build out your tech more efficiently than others are doing. Mainly, that is something that sounds different. I own a number of space games, but nothing like this.

Boardlandia

The Legacy of Yu

This is one that I can thank the Man vs Meeple Discord for getting me to pre-order. The Legacy of Yu is a solo only campaign game. As I look into it more, I like the sounds of the puzzle. This struggle to build out enough buildings, build up enough troops or power to resist the enemy, and keep the enemy from progressing too quickly. It is a puzzle that you complete with worker placement and getting characters for powers.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

And Heat is not here yet. This is a pre-order that should ship at the end of the month, or maybe start of the next. It is hard to know, shipping makes everything interesting. But Heat is a racing game, and one that is fast. But it is also tactical as you try and push up to turns and not go around them too fast so that you wreck.

And you can push yourself sometimes. But when you do that, you gain heat which clogs up your hand of cards. So Heat plays with that idea of hand management as well. I love racing games, so I’m glad that the game is at least getting out there more as it was hard to find for a while.

Amazon

Inside Job

This is a game that I will fully admit, maybe shouldn’t have gotten it. Why, it is my genre of least favorite games. It is a social deduction game. But, unlike most, you do get information to go on. Because Inside Job is a trick taking game as well.

The good guys need to win a certain number of tricks will fulfilling objective. The bad guy needs to win a certain number of tricks before that happens. But it is possible that neither of those conditions will be fulfilled. So the bad guy can still win if the good guys can figure out who they are, and the majority vote for them. That end part is as expected. But I want to know if that trick taking experience gives me enough information to work on, or not.

Clever 4Ever

And I finally found this, in German. But this is the fourth game in the Clever collection of roll and writes. I love Ganz Schon Clever, Doppelt so Clever, and Clever Hoch Drei (or their names in English). And that means that I tracked down two from Germany before. Thankfully there is an app, so I can learn the rules in English that way. I need to spend more time learning Clever 4Ever that way. But I am so excited to get this one here.

Set

This is a game that I played growing up. I wanted to get a copy of it. It’s basically a pattern recognition game where you try and find sets of three. You either need to match everything or not match at all across those three cards. So I can match three purple circles and then have their fill be different. But the second something overlaps they all need to overlap. And the second it doesn’t, they need to all be different. I am good at pattern recognition, so I like it, but we’ll see how well it goes over when I pull it out.

Dorf Romantik

This one is based off of a video game. I know nothing about the video game. But the game itself is a cooperative Carcassonne that I’ve heard described more as an activity. But that activity sounds fun, so I want to give it a try. And it is a game that was just nominated for the Spiel in Germany. So that makes me more curious about it.

That’s the next part of the list. You might be wonder, there is more? I do believe that there is. But I need to track down what those are because I might have covered them. And you might wonder about shelf space. Well, I have about 45 games that will be sold this weekend. So there is going to be a Point of Sale soon. Which game from this list would you want to try first?

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Clever Board Games

I really enjoy this series of roll and write games. I think I’ve played on the app all of the games at least 30-40 times and well more than that for Ganz Schon Clever. And the apps for these games are solid. It is odd to me that there aren’t asynchronous games or other options to play with people, but it’s a solo game. Not even pass and play.

The upside is that you only play a couple of minutes when you play the game. Which I think that works really well. It is also a very good way to learn the game(s). Not just because the rules are in English. I expect most people will get rules in their language. But I bought two German versions so the app is a great spot for rules.

It is also nice because it shows off the moves that you can do. That means that you don’t need to think what is possible. You click on a die and it shows you where it is going to go. That also makes it very good for learning how to play all of the games.

Upcoming Streams

Next week I am back to my normal time. That means Wednesday stream will be at 8 PM Central time. You can find the link for that here. The plan is to wrap up exploration if possible. Though, while I suspect I’ll be able to this time. In future streams some of the planetary exploration might take longer to complete. But join me for that and for the ship phase as well as I stream.

And then next Monday, I keep on promising smaller games. I have a couple new roll and writes I could try or other smaller games to get to the table. So that’s going to be the plan, it might even be revisiting a roll and write which I’ve already enjoyed. The next game that I want to try I mentioned yesterday, Planet Unknown and see how the solo play goes with that game.

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