00 through 91 here.

90 through 81 here.

80 through 71 here.

70 through 61 here.

60 through 51 here.

50 through 41 here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 40-31

40: So Clover!

So Clover is another party game on the list and another cooperative party game. In So Clover! you are trying to come up with a word that combines two. We’ve seen this before with Medium and Cross Clues. But in So Clover, each person fills out their grid. Then another card with more words is mixed into it. It’s easy to play, hard to explain without the game. But it is a step up of a party game but still not hard to play.

Buy on Amazon

39. First Rat

First Rat immediately stuck with me because of the theme. It’s about rats building space ships to go to space. But with that theme there is a really good and fun game. Mainly, a game of moving rats up a track, but it gives you different ways to do that. You move up the track collecting resources and getting what you need to build different parts of your rocket ship.

It has a cute theme and it leans into that. Plus it is a thinky game without being overly complex which I enjoy. I need to figure out my route but I can go a number of different ways. And how you build your route, while, we are fighting over scoring, so it will affect me, but not too much. And I went a very different strategy than the other players, and still ended up very close.

Buy on Miniature Market

38. Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

Next up one of two solo only games on this part of the list. Orchard made the list last year and it’s a great solo game because it’s extremely fast and just a lot of fun to play. In the game you are stacking, or layering, cards so that like fruit trees cover like trees.

The game is just nine cards per game. And the components and package are really nice. I like the game for the speed it plays. A game of Orchard takes me five minutes. If I’m bored or I want something fast to do, Orchard is a great option. Or if i want to multitask while watching a sporting event, that is great as well.

Buy on Miniature Market

37. Welcome To…

Welcome To has dropped some on the list but still a roll and write game that I really like. I say it’s about building your perfect Stepford neighborhood. All the white picket fences are in the right spot and it’s just set-up perfectly to build you little slice of town.

What makes this game work is that it scales to any player count. But also that with that, the game play isn’t too simple. You have three choices each round of what to fill in, and there is good strategy in that. Plus there are expansions of different maps that you can play with which are fun as well.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

36. Mesozooic

Mesozooic is going to be an overlooked game, and some of that is that it’s not going to be a game that works for everyone. It is a light drafting game where you are getting cards to build your dinosaur zoo, a theme that is really popular right now. The drafting part of the game is light, and then the other half of the game is a sliding puzzle. You move your cards around, like a sliding puzzle, to get the most points possible out of your zoo. It’s clever, it’s light, and it’s fun. And you can pick a more complex strategy in hopes you can slide it right, or go for the easy points.

Buy on Miniature Market

35. Potion Explosion

Another light and fun game, we have Potion Explosion. This game is all about cascading marbles so that like colors hit each other. You then use those marbles, you pick up all that cascade, to complete potions. Those potions in turn give you powers that help you get more cascading marbles and even more potions.

The game moves quickly, but it’s again one of those games that are simple to play, but you can master it. And that’s the fun of a game like that one, figuring out how you can best use your potions on a turn so that you can get more potions completed. Then use those potions to complete other potions the next turn. And when you can do that, the game clicks.

Buy on Miniature Market

34. Letter Jam

Letter Jam is an odd game on this list, now not like Mesozooic odd, but odd in that it’s a cooperative word game where you can’t see your word. In fact, you don’t know what it is or any of the letters, really any clue about it.

So, everyone is trying to give the other players clues. And the clues are done in a form of a word. So let’s say that my letter was ‘A’ and someone else gives the clue, each one corresponding to a letter in front of someone else of ‘F’, blank, ‘R’, ‘M’. It’s maybe a solid clue for someone, but for me, it could be ‘FARM’, ‘FORM’, or ‘FIRM’. It’s helped me some but not that much. Letter Jam gives you a chance to give really clever and good clues, which I like.

Buy on Game Nerdz

33. Final Girl

The other solo only game on the list is Final Girl. I won’t go into how it’s played too much, but the premise, along with fun game play, are what really sell it for me. In Final Girl you are the last survivor, or will be, in a horror film. Now, will the killer get you, the ghost track you down, the monster pull you into the swamp? Or will the final girl survive?

The game play, like I said, won’t go into it too much, is a nice hand management puzzle of playing cards to get things done, having enough to get more cards and repeating the process. Van Ryder Games is really smart with how they made this game. There are elements that are consistent across the whole game. But then other things, their feature film boxes, that give you a new final girl and killer and allow you to change everything up.

Buy on Miniature Market

32. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Lost Ruins of Arnak another new to me game this year. Or I should say, one that I played for the first time this year. It’s nice getting taught a game by someone who already knows it well. And that was my experience at Gen Con. But I’ve played it more since then.

Arnak is a game where you are exploring locations, buying better gear, you can find artifacts, idols and more. Now that makes it seem thematic, and I think that the theme does come through. But Arnak is mainly a worker placement game as you send out your explorer meeples. And then deck building which is how you can get more and more actions to do and push up the tracks.

It would be lower, probably in the 60’s if it weren’t for the Expedition Leaders expansion, though. It makes it so each player starts with a different power. Some of them are easy than another, a third explorer to place on the map. But others then have more complex systems but when you leverage them it turns negative points into positive effects or things like that. The game is really fun with the expedition leaders.

Buy From Game Nerdz

31. Super Mega Lucky Box

Final game in this section of 10 is Super Mega Lucky Box. This is another roll and write game and one that looks really simple, because it is basically bingo. But while it is simple, Super Mega Lucky Box is a lot of fun. The game has you going for a “blackout” fully filled sheet to score it. But as you complete rows and columns you get bonuses.

Sometimes the bonuses are just cross off another number on one of your other cards, you have three. Other times you get lightning bolts. And lightning bolts adjust the numbers of the card flipped that you are crossing off. You don’t have a nine, well, spend a lighting bolt and make it an eight. Spend three and makes it a six. Or stars where the more you get a round the more they are worth. Or moons where the person who has the most gets a bonus 6 points, while the least loses 6. All of those bonuses just make for a really fun game with such a simple premise.

Buy on Amazon

Upcoming Streams

If you are following along with the Top 100, you already know that the next one is going to be coming out on Monday at 8:30 PM Central Time. But if you want the link or the video you can find that here. Chat along, talk about your favorite games with me. See if we overlap as I get closer and closer to my Top 10 Games.

Then on Wednesday, no link for it yet, we have Chronicles of Drunagor. I kept this evening free so that I would have time to get it set-up and ready to be played. I’m excited to get it to the table and I hope that you’ll join with me as I play a new campaign game. Chronicles of Drunagor is going to be a big game and one that looks like a ton of fun.

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100 through 91 here.

90 through 81 here.

80 through 71 here.

70 through 61 here.

60 through 51 here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 50-41

50. No Thanks!

No Thanks is a small box game with a lot of fun to it. I think that it is almost a small box classic at this point in time. In this game you try and get as few points as possible by saying “No thanks” to cards by putting tokens on them. But run out of tokens you can’t pass and you need to take whatever number comes your way. So it’s a balance of how many tokens, which are -1 point each, are worth it to take a higher number to avoid taking a really high number?

Buy on Amazon

49. Sagrada

Sagrada has been higher on my list before. I think it’s just dropped a little bit because I hadn’t played it in a while, but I’d also just played it a lot at the start. I still really like Sagrada and the dice drafting. It is also one of those games that I was talking about. It is a relaxing game for me to play. I like the puzzle of drafting and dice placement.

I really like the game as a teaching game as well. I can tailor the difficulty to of the game to different groups. There are expansions you can add in to ramp things up. Or you can up the difficulty with the scoring things you can add in or the tools that you can use. It means I use it often as more of a basic game to teach people and get to the table. I want to mix in more of the things soon.

Buy on Game Nerdz

48. Ready Set Bet

Ready Set Bet is a game that I got to play and learn at Gen Con this year. Ready Set Bet! is a real time horse racing and betting game. And it just has infectious excitement around it as you play it. One person is calling out the the races while everyone else is trying to get their bets. There is a hectic nature to it, but because there is the excitement of how the horses are doing, I feel like compared to a lot of real time games, it is much less tense. And it’s just a game about how well you can do with getting your bets in.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

47. Arboretum

Another one of the really pretty games, Arboretum is not one of the nice games though. It’s a mean game of trying to get your trees in a row. What makes it so challenging is that you need to play out cards of tree types. But to score those trees you need to have the most, value wise, of those trees left.

So, you can hold trees, high value trees, in your hand to keep your opponents from scoring. That can block them from scoring, which is very much part of the game. You also then need to consider keeping enough in your hand of trees so you can score yourself. It is a very interesting and mean balancing act.

Buy on Miniature Market

46. Ohanami

Back to a more relaxing game, Ohanami is a game all about collecting different things like stones or plants to give you points. All of the artwork is beautiful in the game. Though, sometimes I don’t look at it that much, at least not until I play out my cards.

Ohanami is a card drafting game. You pick two cards to add to three columns. Those columns always need to be in numerical order. So you are picking cards that you can add while trying to make sure you can always add to them as you’ll draft 30 cards. What makes this one so strong is that you score different colors different rounds. So when you draft cards matters for scoring as well. It’s easy to learn and play but has fun strategy.

Buy On Amazon

45. Floriferous

Floriferous continues that beautiful game trend. And also the drafting trend that is in this section of games. Floriferous is open drafting where you can see all the cards you’ll be picking from. And all you’ll be picking from for several rounds of drafting.

Floriferous does two things that I think are fun. First you draft your scoring cards. It is like Point Salad in that way where you have a choice. You can draft cards to score with, or cards to help facilitate that scoring. But the bigger thing is that you draft cards from a column. And the higher on the column you take, the sooner you go in the next round. So there is strategy if sometimes taking a less ideal card one time to draft the perfect card the next time.

Buy on Miniature Market

44. Res Arcana

Res Arcana is another pretty game, but not in the same way, it is more cool fantasy artwork in the game. But Res Arcana is a very different type of game, it is a tight engine building game where you are racing to 10 points. Why is it so tight, because you have a limited number of cards, 8 that you start with, to build your engine. And while you can add a few, sometimes, you mainly are working with that limited number of cards. So who can get their engine of gathering resources and turning them into points going the fastest?

Buy on Miniature Market

43. Paint the Roses

Paint the Roses is another new one on the list that I first played at Gen Con. It is a cooperative deduction game. Players give clues by placing down flower tiles into the Queen of Hearts garden. The clues are to give direction so players can guess a color combination on a card, or color or shape, or color and shape combination. All the while the Queen of Hearts is coming to lop off our heads.

This game is very clever in what it does, and while I have yet to win, I really like the pressure it puts on. Each turn when you play down a tile, everyone has to come up with a guess for someone’s card. If you get it right, the queen advances slowly, if you get it wrong, she advances faster. And the further you get around the track, the faster she goes, no matter what. So can you fill it up, which will make her happy, or lose your head, which will make her happier?

Buy on Miniature Market

42. T.I.M.E Stories

T.I.M.E Stories has been on the list since the beginning. It is an escape room style game, but one that has more story. Now, I’ve heard that the overall story doesn’t pay off. But I really like every scenario that we’ve played through. And I think that’s one of things that’s so interesting about the game. Each scenario of TIME Stories can be really different.

In this game your consciousness is transported into the past, future, or some other dimension. And you are trying to keep the timeline in order. I would say this is a bit like that TVA in Loki. The goal is to get the timeline back to where it should be, but that isn’t always easy. The downside is, you don’t make it the first time, you go back through and do it again which can get tiresome.

Buy on Miniature Market

41. Twilight Inscription

Rounding out this section, we have another new game to the list. I got to learn and play Twilight Inscription at Gen Con as well. This is the roll and write version, kind of, of Twilight Imperium. It might not quite live up to that, but it is still a long and epic roll and write game.

I can’t really go through everything on it to explain how to play. More, know that there are four different boards. And on your turn, you pick one you want to activate. If you want to be good at war, well, you can activate that board. If you want to gather resources, or explore planets, there are boards for that. Do you need to do a bit of everything, probably, but you can pick what you want to focus on.

Buy on Miniature Market

Upcoming Streams

On Wednesday, I’m going to be unboxing Chronicles of Drunagor, and probably ISS Vanguard. So two big games, and with the unboxing of Chronicles of Drunagor, I am going to be picking out the two characters that I’m going to start my solo campaign with. Join me for that and help me pick out what characters I should start with.

Then next Monday I’ll not be continuing the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2022 Edition. Mainly because it’s Halloween. I foresee not having the time with taking a kid out for that and needing to do the podcast. Even without the podcast, it’ll be a busy evening, and I might want to watch a scary movie or show as well. But I’ll start up again the following week.

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100 through 91 here.

90 through 81 here.

80 through 71 here.

70 through 61 here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 60-51

60. Long Shot: The Dice Game

First of two roll and write games on the list, Long Shot: The Dice Game is a horse racing and betting game. It reminds me of Downforce, expect a roll and write. In this game you are buying horses, betting on horses, and completing other things which will get you money at the end of the game. The person who wins the most money, or has the most money, at the end of the game is the winner.

One aspect that I really like is how you can improve the odds of a horse moving forward. The lower number horses are on more cards so that they can move. But if people start to get behind a long shot, you can add movement to other horses cards for that long shot. So they start moving more consistently than other horses and have a shot. Mechanically, though, not the easiest to teach which keeps it lower on the list.

Buy on Barnes & Noble

59. Trek 12: Himalaya

The other roll and write comes up immediately, and one of the other new games on the list, Trek 12 is a mountain climbing roll and write. But really, it is a game of creating runs and sets to score points. It scores in a really clever way and has you placing numbers in a clever way as well.

The scoring is pretty simple, you score each set of a number and each run you have. But you take the highest number in the run or number in a set and that’s your base score. So a set of five twos scores as 2 (the number in the set) + 1 + 1+ 1 + 1. That’s not nearly as many points as a set of three with 9 (9+1+1). So it makes you want the higher numbers. But you also get a bonus for your largest set or longest run.

Then placing the numbers is interesting. You either take the highest or lowest value on the dice, or the difference, combined total, or multiplied total. And you have a limited number of each so you start to lose options as you go. It allows you to get numbers you want and higher numbers, but sometimes that locks you out from other things.

Buy on Miniature Market

58. The Night Cage

I’m doing the list in October, so have to call out the spooky games on the list. The Night Cage is a game where you are stuck in a labyrinth. Everyone in there is trying to find keys and get to the exit portal. But your candle just barely lights your way, so the labyrinth disappears behind you. And if you go back, it’s going to be different than before.

All of this which isn’t too hard, but then you have monsters who might pop up and want to eat the wax of your candle. If they do, not you can’t see around you at all. Or maybe it’ll it get more than just you. And as you use tiles your supply, represented by a candle, slowly burns down. It’s a very fun and stressful game as the candle burns down. But in a good way.

Buy on Miniature Market

57. Meadow

Another new game to the list, Meadow is a game about observing nature. You are in a meadow or building up a meadow or observation. The theme really doesn’t matter that much. But the artwork takes what could be an abstract only game and makes it very pretty to look at.

In Meadow you build up a tableau in front of you. As you play down cards you cover up some symbols, so I need to match a tree to a tree, but my card that needs a tree now has a bird symbol on it. And you create this growing series of symbols that give you more points as you go. Also trying to take scenic pictures to remember where you’ve been. Basically everything gives you points but it’s fun to manage your tableau.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

56. Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker has been on the list for a while. It is a real time game, for part of it. And it’s a real time game without a timer. I never feel the time crunch because you flip tiles and build your ship. Only for the final person who is trying to get that last piece is there a time crunch. Otherwise the building is just done in real time as long as the group takes.

Then you fly off into space with your junky ship and watch it fall apart. But if you built it well you get points for picking up cargo. And you don’t lose parts of your ship to meteors, pirates, or anything else. It’s a lighter fun game, but it does give you that good real time puzzle as you build your ship.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

55. Pandemic

Pandemic is on the list as a placeholder for all of the Pandemic games. I personally prefer Season One of Pandemic Legacy, which keeps it higher on the list. I haven’t played Season Zero yet, which I want to. But all Pandemic falls into this one, because all version of legacy I’ve played and base pandemic are fun.

Pandemic is a game where you play as doctors cooperative trying to keep diseases in check and find a cure for them. On your turn you move around the world, trade information with other players, and remove disease cubes from cities. Then bad things happen, diseases spread and outbreaks might happen. It’s a good puzzle of a game. The legacy versions of the game just add great story, and I’d play them again gladly even though I know that story.

Buy on Miniature Market

54. Blood Rage

Pandemic, which I didn’t mention, was high on my list when I started and dropping. The same with Blood Rage which was one of my top games. I clearly like it less than I did before. But I’ve also played more games that I did before. Blood Rage is a fun drafting and area control game. It looks like it should just be Vikings and monsters on a map fighting but there is more going on.

What lowered it slightly is some experiences can feel similar. And some strategies even seem to be better that don’t lean into fighting. But it is fun to think about how to break up those strategies. Such as the Loki strategy where that person wants to lose fights and send everyone Valhalla. Or when to hate draft a card and block someone from getting a quest that they are setup for. There is a good amount going on, but not too much in this game.

Buy on Amazon

53. Root

Root also has dropped some from it’s highest. But Root tends to bounce around a bit more. Mainly it’s how excited I would be to play it again. And that’s because Root is a game that is hard to get to the table. There is a lot to learn in Root because each faction is different. And you need to know each faction to keep them in check during a game.

Root is basically an asymmetric war game. One faction is all about area control, another might be about completing little objectives or a grass roots uprising. All of this with cute animal artwork on it. The game is a lot of fun and is big in what it can do. One that I want to play more but you need a dedicated group to play it really that know the factions.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

52. Draftosaurus

This isn’t a roll and write game, but it does feel like one. Draftosaurus is a drafting game where you are putting dinosaurs in pens. And you have a handful of dinosaur meeples to pick one from. The game is really easy, light, and fun to play. It just works for the type of game that it is.

What really stands out, though is the tactile nature of holding the dinosaurs and then picking one. Like I said, how you score, it reminds me of a roll and write. But holding and drafting from those dinosaurs is unique to the game. And the closest thing you get in most roll and write games is rolling the dice.

Buy on Game Nerdz

51. Homebrewers

Finally, to round out the bottom half of my Top 100 Games, we have Homebrewers. Homebrewers is an engine building game where you are a homebrewer brewing your beer at home. You get different ingredients, flavors, to add to your beers that push you up on tracks. All in a goal to be the highest and score points at Summer Fest and OktoberFest.

I really like this one for the theme. Yes, there are a few things that are a disconnect in the game. That you never lose an ingredient that you’ve added to the beer. But it gets so many things right about homebrewing, it’s great.

Buy on Amazon

Upcoming Stream

So what is coming up next. I do plan on Wednesdays soon to start playing Chronicles of Drunagor. However, I am not quite ready to get that one to the table this week. Instead, it’ll be a smaller solo game. I have a few roll and write games that interest me, or maybe it’ll be Root on the app or Slay the Spire. You’ll have to tune in Wednesday at 8 PM Central to find out.

And then coming up next Monday, I have 50 through 41 in my Top 100 coming up. You can click the notification bell to know when I’m going live on the video over here.

Plus, I might have a surprise unboxing this weekend. I believe I have two different games coming in on Thursday and Friday this week. So maybe, if I have time, I’ll unbox them. Or it’ll be a bonus Monday video, we’ll have to see.

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But, like I said, the list is at the end, and I’m not sure how much I should stall before I get to the video and write-ups on the games. Streaming will continue next week, I’m not sure what I’m going to be streaming up until the new year. Probably some solo games and talking on some board gaming topics. But 8 PM Central will be when the streams continue, at least for now.

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 2021 Edition – 10 Through 1

10. Blood Rage

Higher on my list being as high as number two before, Blood Rage has slipped a little bit. The last time I played it, it was still a lot of fun, but didn’t land quite as well. Probably didn’t help with two new players and a four player game. I think I like Blood Rage best at 3, and I don’t mind it at two.

Still, I love Blood Rage because it has great action management, the area control is fun, but it’s the drafting that really makes the game. A different choice in drafting means that you score in a completely different way and have a different strategy. And, that might be some of it for me too, I just am used to drafting for a lower number of players, so I need to adjust my strategy, which is never a bad thing, when more emerges in how to play the game.

Buy on Miniature Market

9. Cartographers

The only roll and write in the Top 10, though, so many on the list, (stats coming later). But this one is my favorite for the theme, for the monsters, and for the scoring. It really does so many things in an interesting way. Cartographers is all about mapping out a section of a kingdom. You put in towns, fields, farms, rivers, and I feel like I’m blanking on one right now. But they all score differently and differently each game.

And the scoring is very good because you score four different things, but each of them only twice. So you build out your map to try and optimize that scoring depending on the season. So in spring you score something that isn’t then scored again until winter. It’s simple, but it’s clever, and then there are monsters. And monsters make Cartographers interactive. You put a monster on your opponents board in the least ideal spot to cost them as many points as you can.

Just that interaction is so different when it comes to a roll and write game. Most roll and writes can be played solo because what everyone else does doesn’t matter that much for you. With Cartographers, it doesn’t, completely, but that monster interaction is just fun to add into the game.

Buy on Thunderworks Games

8. Marvel Champions: The Card Game

Dropping slightly from last year, Marvel Champions has slipped just because I haven’t played it as much as I should. Marvel Champions is a life style game of battling your favorite Marvel heroes (X-Men eventually, hopefully coming), against your favorite villains.

I like that this is a deck construction game. I haven’t gotten too far into that, but it’s something that I miss from Magic: The Gathering. But for me, I think the game itself is more fun than Magic, Magic didn’t even make the Top 100, I don’t think, because I haven’t played it in so long.

The superhero/alter-ego thing also works so well for me. I like that I can play as Spider-Man and be flipped on the Peter Parker side and the bad guy won’t attack. Why, because Peter Parker, who is he? The villain just schemes away giving Peter a chance to recover. When you flip to Spider-Man, though, now the villain comes after you. But they scheme less, so it’s balancing the game in a very thematic way.

Buy on Miniature Market

7. Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

Another bigger game on the list, this one is all about exploring mysteries in an app driven game from Fantasy Flight games. Mansions of Madness delves into the world Arkham Files to deal with monsters, cultists, and Lovecraftian mysteries.

The app is great in this game, though, I know for some people that will be a turnoff. It means that everyone can be playing the same game, though, one person doesn’t need to run everything. The app keeps points of interest as mysteries as you unfold what happening in the mansion, town, or where ever you might be. And it means that they can introduce puzzles into the game in a great interactive manner.

It’s a fun game that has a lot of scenarios that you can play, and a lot of expansions that I’d like to own so that I can play any scenario out there. I like that it’s not campaign based but still gives me that immersive story feel that I get from some bigger campaign based games.

Buy on Miniature Market

6. Aeon’s End

Now, I already had Aeon’s End: Legacy on the list. To me, Legacy versions of games are different enough that they generally deserve their own spot. But as I play more don’t be surprised if Aeon’s End Legacy becomes lumped in with Aeon’s End and Pandemic Legacy becomes lumped in with Pandemic.

Aeon’s End is a deck building game where you are trying to drive back a nemesis from the town of Gravehold. Of course, that Nemesis isn’t going to be easy to beat as it attacks you, the town, and unleashes minions upon all of you as well.

The deck building aspect is a lot of fun. I don’t always love games with a fixed market, or at least competitive deck builders with that. It gives someone who can “solve” the buying puzzle the fastest an advantage. But in a cooperative game, that means that everyone can focus in on what they do best. And you need to, because, this is a hard game. If you haven’t played before I recommend starting with the easier version, Aeon’s End Legacy.

Buy on Miniature Market

5. Lords of Hellas

A big game from Awaken Realms this is my type of thematic, mechanical and just a little bit messy. Lords of Hellas has you in a Greek Cyberpunk Future, fighting mechanical monsters, building monuments and temples and taking over lands. There is a lot going on in this game, but also I don’t find it that hard to play. They do a good job with the actions, once you know what the actions are.

One thing I really love about the game is that you can win in multiple ways. If you control two of the large land groups, you win. Defeat three monsters, you win. Control five temples, you win. Or, if a monument is completely built, whomever controls it at the end of the third turn wins the game. So it has a nice variety of ways to win, and in a 5 player game, four of us were one turn from winning and the other person two.

Plus, Lords of Hellas has variable player powers, and that becomes even more variable as temples are built. You draft different powers and that can shape what you are doing. And what you are doing at the end of the game to win might not be the same thing at the start.

Buy on Amazon

4. Detective: A Modern Crime Game

Do you like Detective TV shows? This is it, but good. I know that’s not a selling point but Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game is an amazing deduction game. And the base box ties together a really interesting story.

Another game that uses technology which can’t be avoided. But it helps with the thematic immersion of the game as you look stuff up in the police database, or through a librarian to help hide information from people and spoiling the game. Plus, sometimes you get to look stuff up online because they tied in real world history to the main box of the game at least.

I like deduction and puzzles in games, and Detective, for me, does them the best. Something like the Unlock or escape room style games, those are fun to puzzle out, but Detective gives me the puzzles and the story. And the story is just interesting and brings it up that whole other level.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

3. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Speaking of story, Tainted Grail has the best story of a board game that I’ve played. Detective is close, but Tainted Grail, I think, is better. It’s a game that immerses you in exploring different parts of the world of Avalon and the legends of King Arthur all will a grim dark fantasy twist to them.

It is very much a survival game to go along with the adventuring, but it works so well. Now, I do recommend playing on story more. While the survival aspect isn’t bad, it can really extend your game if you need to maintain the Menhir as much and if the monsters are a bit more deadly. And like I said to start with Tainted Grail, I want the story from this game.

The card play in the game is fun as well. And when you get into it, it goes pretty fast. At the start, it feels like it’s a break from the story that you don’t always want to have. But it’s still a good time and it makes the world and the choices you make feel bigger as you go through diplomatic and combat encounters.

Not Available

2. Dice Throne

Now for a different type of game, Dice Throne is much lighter, though not much smaller in terms of how much I have for it. In Dice Throne you are fighting either head to head or in a free for all against your opponents. And this is done by upgrading abilities, playing down statuses, and then rolling dice, like Yahtzee, to do as much damage as you can.

The game sounds simple, but with 16 different characters, they manage to make each one of them feel different. The Pyromancer deals out a lot of damage and wants to keep the fires of their fire mastery going. The Shadow Thief is stealing CP, the thing that allows you to play cards. The Gunslinger is going to fight a duel with you to see how much damage they take and can reload to deal even more damage.

I like this game at two, and I know some people don’t like it with more, but I do and I’ll gladly play king of the hill style with three or four people. The game adjusts y our health, so it doesn’t add that much time to the length of what you are doing. And soon I’ll have Marvel characters as well, which I’ll never complain about.

Buy on Roxley Games

1. Gloomhaven

Finally at Number 1 we have the number 1 board game on Board Game Geek and what has been my number one board game for several years. I have a tough time imagining Gloomhaven getting displaced, though, maybe it’s sequel Frosthaven will do that.

I just love everything about Gloomhaven, how big it is, how the combat works, the story (even though it’s not the best) and the different characters. It’s also that first massive campaign experience I’ve had. I did play Pandemic Legacy Season 1 before, but Gloomhaven is just a different animal.

Let’s talk a little bit about combat. I don’t love combat where I have to roll dice as the only thing that determines combat. The card play of picking two cards and then using a combination of the top of one and the bottom of another is just so interesting. And picking cards that won’t run through everything too fast and knock you out is important. Also picking cards that allow you to be flexible as you don’t know the order you’ll pay in.

Buy on Amazon

Top 100 Board Games

But that’s it, that’s the whole of the list of my Top 100 Board Games (of all time) 2021 Edition. Let me know your thoughts on it down below. What games to I have too high or too low? What is your favorite from my list?

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Now, this is my top 100 games, not the 100 objectively best games, these are my 100 favorite games. To get this list, I go through all the games that I’ve ranked on BGG, minus a few, which I’ll get to in a second, and then using PubMeeple.com’s ranking engine, I go through and do the one versus one comparisons on the games until they are all sorted. This gives you a one to one comparison between the games and in my case was something around 1000 different comparisons. I could have done only my top ranked games, but this gives a chance for a game that I maybe haven’t rerated recently to show up on the list, even if I’ve rated it lower. So, I said this was minus a few games, and I don’t mean ones like Monopoly or Cards Against Humanity that I don’t like, those I actually rated, I’m talking about actually things like ICECOOL 2, Dice Throne Season 2, or Star Wars Destiny Two Player, because I have ICECOOL, Dice Throne Season One, and Destiny that I counted for those.

Next, when I do these lists, if the game sounds interesting to you, I want to give you a chance to pick it up. I always, and especially this year, recommend you order from your FLGS, but some of you might not have a local game store, some of them might be closed due to Covid, some local game stores aren’t friendly, and I fully recognize that sometimes you need a game, funds are tight, and online is cheaper, so don’t feel like you can use your local store, I hope you do pick them up online, more games to play, more fun options to introduce people to, no matter where they come from is great. I’m going to be linking to either CoolStuffInc or Amazon for where you can pick up the games immediately if you want.

Finally, this is obviously just my opinion. There are some games that you’ll hate that I love, almost guaranteed for some of you in my Top 10 even, and there will be some games that you love that won’t make my list, they were obviously my number 101 (all of them). And if it was on the list last year, I’m going to try and put down the number it was at before, just to see which ones move up and which ones move down and what new games have hit the list.

But, without further ado, here’s my list starting with 100 through 91.

100. Lazer Ryderz

Lazer Ryderz is a game of goofy fun as it’s basically light bikes like you see in Tron and you are racing them around, leaving your path behind you hoping someone else will run into it, and trying to get goals. You basically have to go off of feel because you decide where you start at the edge of the table with your eyes closes, when laying down your track route, once you pick up a piece and put it over the top of the table, you’re committing to it. And it’s all in 80’s neon glory looking like a big four pack of VHS. So it has that goofy feel to go with what’s a very goofy game. Good one for when you want something pretty fast and very casual to play.

Last Year: 100

99. Ra

This game is interesting as it’s bidding, it’s set collection and it’s push your luck. I like the bidding mechanic in it a lot as you bid you put that number into the middle if you win the bid and take the number that was there, so it’s possible late in a round to hold onto a low number in order to be able to grab a high number from the middle and change your fate for a future round. There’s also some interesting push your luck because when you’re the last person who can bid, you can always draw more and more tiles, but if you get the wrong tiles you’ll bust. The game maybe plays a touch long for me for what it does, but I like the strategy in it, and I like the bidding in it.

Last Year: Not Ranked

98. Shadowrun: Crossfire

We’ll see a game very similar to this coming up, but this is one that I wish I had in my collection, but I want to find used. I like it for the theme a lot. I enjoy the cyberpunk setting that it’s in, and the idea of going on these runs, missions, to take down the evil corporations. It’s something that is very interesting. Plus it’s deck building, so you can specialize, but that might not always be the best because you don’t know who you’ll have to face off against next and that might not work with your skill set. But other people can help you some as well, which makes it interesting to see how that works. And it’s scenario building as well which is fun as well.

Last Year: 91

97. Legends of Andor

This is a dungeon crawl, kind of, really Legends of Andor is more of a scenario based puzzle as you try and rush to get everything done before the time runs out. And you can kill monsters, but that advances the timer, so you need to understand that is happening and figure out how to balance out killing monsters while trying to complete the mission while trying not to let the story advance too quickly so that you run out of time to complete it. The game does one thing I really like and that’s having both the male and female version of the heroes so people don’t feel like they are locked in playing a certain character because of the sex of that character. I think the one thing that might confuse people about this game is that it looks like it should be a big fight the monsters adventure, but really it’s a very tightly made puzzle where every decision really matters.

Last Year: 86

96. The Lord of the Rings: Journey to Mordor

So, first off, no link for this, it’s out of print from what I can tell and I couldn’t find it even on Amazon which is saying something. This is a little push your luck roll and write game where you are trying to get the ring to Mount Doom and by the first to throw it in. Thematically it doesn’t make sense because you can’t have one ring to rule them all and then four different groups each having the one ring, but as a roll and write, it was pretty solid fun. There are definitely others that I like better but this one was a good time and it plays fast. There is some take that to it which can be a negative thing, but it didn’t seem like there was too much and the game didn’t overstay it’s welcome to make the take that a big deal.

Last Year: Not Ranked

95. Takenoko

This game is a really cute game. Takenoko has adorable little panda figure, and you are stacking up different colors of bamboo. There’s really just a lot of fun stuff in this game. You are growing the bamboo, moving the panda and having him eat it, putting out and irrigating more tiles to grow even more bamboo all to complete different scoring base off of bamboo growth, title placement, or what the panda has eaten and you’re seeing how many you can get done before all the turns run out. This is a game that has an amazing table presence with the bamboo growing up and the panda and gardener figures, and it’s a very enjoyable game to boot without being too complex.

Last Year: 97

94. Dragonfire

So this is the game that is based off of the game system as Shadowrun: Crossfire. Whereas Shadowrun is a future cyberpunk setting, Dragonfire is classic Dungeons and Dragons setting where you are taking on monsters, fighting through scenarios, leveling up your characters and doing it all over again. I think that this game has worked out some of the kinks from the original and it has definitely gotten more support with a lot of scenario packs having come out for it. This just allows you to build into more and more game play and pick the scenarios that look interesting to you. Plus, deck building is always a plus in a game for me.

Last Year: 93

93. Yahtzee

Second roll and write on the list, and this is the original roll and write. I still enjoy Yahtzee today because everyone understands how it works and the rules are simple. In fact we’ll see other games on the list that use a similar mechanic to Yahtzee. But what I like is that I kind of have it down, now that doesn’t mean that I roll a Yahtzee always, but it means that I can look and see what I might want to be doing, what I’ll want to keep, what the odds are of me getting what I need, when it’s worth it to push for a large straight, when it isn’t and so on. Plus, I can play it with my parents and it isn’t as much of a game that plays itself like a lot of the more classic games that we’d play such as Uno or Skip-Bo, which are number 101 in case you were wondering.

Last Year: Not Ranked

92. Pandemic

Last year this was a fair amount higher on my list, but it’s dropped some just because of having played Legacy Season 1 twice and Season 2 once, and Season 0 is coming out soon-ish. Base Pandemic is still a good game, it just feels like the introductory cooperative game that it is. It’s easy to teach, it’s easy to play, but it can be fairly hard to win, depending on how things come up. The game is a classic game for a reason and it is one that I won’t turn down playing, though, I’m not sure it’s one I’d immediately pull off the shelf myself when it comes to introductory games at this point. I think that it really highlights, beyond being a cooperative game, is how every players part of the game can be different with the variable player powers, and I think for new players that is something that is cool and uinique.

Last Year: 50

91. Tsuro

This one also slipped for me because in some ways I’ve played it too much now. I think that this is a fun group game, and I think it’s one of a few games that plays fast and plays a large number but it isn’t just another party game. In this you are trying to be the last person on the board but you must follow the path that you lay out in front of you. And you have to be concerned about the other players as well. If you get to close, you could have to follow a path that someone else lays down, and that might run you off the board, in which case you’re out of the game, or it might hit another players pawn, in which case both of you are knocked out. So there’s some strategic avoidance but you also don’t want to stick yourself in a corner with no way out. It’s a fun game, just one that I’ve played a lot.

Last Year: 61

So we have a few movers in this section with three previously not in the Top 100 games, and two dropping a ways. Oddly enough, the very first game on the list, Number 100 was Number 100 the year before, good job Lazer Ryderz in being consistent.

Looking at this list, are there any of the games that stand out to you as ones that you want to play? If you’ve played any of the games, which is your favorite on this section of the list? Let me know in the comments on on Twitter.

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Deranged

So Deranged is the biggest one, this is a great free for all sort of game where you’re in a village and you are cursed. You have three days to escape the village or everyone loses, however, there can only be one winner. So you need to get rid of your curses. However, that can be easier said than done because there are monsters roaming the town, and they can get you, and if they do, they don’t knock you out of the game, but you will be cursed again. And then every night you have a chance of becoming deranged, a monster in your own right, and the only way to break that bigger curse is to try kill another human. The game is kind of a take that type of game because you are attacking the other players to get them more curses if they manage to get rid of theirs also while you’re trying to lift the curses on you and then race for the exit. The game was a ton of fun at GenCon, and I have just kind of described the theme, the game actually uses what I’d call a brilliant card mechanic where you can use the card to take actions, but if you spend a good card for that, you won’t then have that good card to play to defend if a monster or another player is going to attack you, so it offers a lot of interesting challenges, and then when you’re deranged you still use the cards, just in a slightly different way. This has a feel of something like a Betrayal at House on the Hill theme, but very different in terms of mechanics, almost has some of the vibe of the haunt, just everyone is the traitor.

Codenames: Pictures

Now, if you’ve read my Codenames review, you’ll know that I don’t like that game. I think that the one with words is pretty dull and while you can get creative and massive clues to work once in a while most of the time you’re giving a clue that ties maybe two words together or at most three. In Codenames: Pictures, you can use much more creativity when coming up with your clue. I’ve said “Flight, 6” and it worked, and in fact I could have said “Flight, 7” and that would have worked as well. So having those bigger clues to give is just great. Codenames: Pictures also is less language or knowledge dependent because it’s just a picture that’s a mash-up of two things. Whereas for regular Codenames, people need to know what the word means, and while the words aren’t the most out there, it is from CGE (Czech Games Edition), so not all of the words are the most common. But this will work well as another one of those bigger group games for a board game night where you don’t feel like splitting up, and one that I can play with family easily as well.

Welcome To… New Vegas

Welcome To… is my favorite roll/flip and write game, so when they came out with a new version of it, where you’re building up the Vegas strip, I was interested. When I found out that it was more complex, I wasn’t sure how interested I was going to be, because Welcome To… is a medium weight flip and write game. However, when I saw it played on Game Night by Board Game Geek (BGG), it looked like a lot of fun. It looks like it gives you a ton of choices, and I can see how it would build upon what people know from Welcome To… in a really good way. Plus, I’ve really been digging roll and write and flip and write style games because you can play some of them via streaming without much issue. This one might be too complex for streaming, but will work well in person. Again it’s a game that can handle a big group, which is a lot of fun to have games like that in the collection for when you don’t want to split up at a game night.

Tiny Towns

This game was so hot last year. And I can see why, it’s been one that’s been on my radar for a while. Cool Stuff Inc. has it for less than the standard MSRP, so I decided it was time to grab it. In this game you are building up a little town, to do that, you’re putting resources in a grid, going for certain patterns that then allow you to build a farm, tavern or other buildings and you score points depending where the buildings are built. There are a few interesting things about the game. First, when you build, you have to build in one of the spots that you removed one of the cubes from. So you have to plan your buildings well, because you don’t want to create pockets that are too small to build in. The other thing is that you pick the color you want to build on your turn. So you might want a red cube, that means everyone else has to put down a red cube somewhere on their grid as well. But it might not be useful for them, so you can balance really helping yourself or hurting another player, just don’t hurt yourself at the same time. That means, that only when you are it are you guaranteed of getting what you want. I like that, because it doesn’t mean you can plan it out perfectly, which means you need to adjust and adapt on the fly. The game seems simple but thinky.

Those are the ones that I’m picking up in this order. Which one sounds the most interesting to you?

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

10 – Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
I am not that much of a fan of hidden role games like Werewolf, Mafia, Secret Hitler. I don’t mind playing them, but for the most part, it feels like randomly guessing with no real information to go on. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is not like that. What makes this game seem different is that you have way more information to go on because of the role of the forensic scientist. They are handing up reports from the basement where they have their lab, unfortunately their reports are a bit generic. So you are having to guess a clue and murder weapon by the end of the game that the killer has in front of them. However, the murder has a an accomplice who is trying to help throw everyone off the trail, but without making it too obvious. Then there was a witness to the crime who wants to get people on the right track, they know who the murder is but not the clue and murder weapon, but not too obviously, because if the murder and accomplice can pin point the witness at the end of the game, they still win. The game is a ton of fun and it comes with a ton of different content. There is always a “How” and “Where” report that the forensic scientist sends up, but the rest of the reports can be the state of dress of the murder victim to being if there was noise made during the murder. It’s a really fun deduction game that has a ton of talking to it and people declaring that they couldn’t possibly be the murder. It’s a game that you generally sit down and play two or more times in a game night because it goes over so well, and it plays a large group.

9 – Clank! In! Space!
This one surprised me a little by being so high, but I do really enjoy the game. In Clank! In! Space!, you are racing around the spaceship of an evil alien overlord who has a ton of trophies in his compartments on the ship. And, as an adventurer, you want to liberate a trophy so that you can become famous. Now, you do this by building up a deck of cards that allows you to purchase better cards for the deck and move and fight things. Plus, you have to get a key code from the ship to be able to get into the trophy room. So there is a bunch going on in this game, but it’s basically a deck building game. What works well for me is that it has more going than that, and the clank mechanic. The clank mechanic is basically you making noise as you stumble around the ship trying to find your way to the treasures and this evil alien is paying attention to that. So you want to make as little noise as possible, because you make too much, he’ll get you and you’ll be out of the game. But if you don’t make much clank, you can possibly get in to the good treasure, but it also might take a lot longer and then there is a higher chance that your clank (cubes) will be drawn from a bag, the few that are put in there. The game has a nice push your luck element to go with the deck building aspect, and I basically always want to push my luck. The game also isn’t a serious game, the cards riff off of various sci-fi films, TV shows, and stories. I don’t know that this game would work with a more serious theme. It’s a bit longer of a game than some deck builders, but the rest of the game play doesn’t cause it to overstay it’s welcome.

8 – Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition
Yes, 2nd Edition is important here as that is the game with the app that allows you to play through the scenario without someone having to run the scenario. This is a Lovecraftian themed game where you take on the role of investigators in the 1920’s. You’re called to a mansion or some location to investigate something strange that is going on. And whatever it is, it’s strange. Maybe it’s a town that is controlled by deep ones, maybe it’s a ritual that is meant to summon an elder god, or maybe it’s time travel plus probably everything else mentioned. With the app, there are a lot of scenarios that you can play through, and because the app knows what expansions you have for the game, it can change up how the mansion you are exploring or whatever the location is, looks and move rooms around. In the game, you are fighting monsters, investigating the case, solving puzzle, and probably going insane. It’s like a lot of Fantasy Flight Games Lovecraftian games that way, but this game has so much to it that you feel like you can play a scenario a couple of times, and even if the overall story doesn’t change, your experience with it will. And with the app, there are a lot of scenarios, some that require expansions, and some that don’t. This game really gives you a nice feeling of tension as you have to balance investigating with fighting. The game is also nice, because it offers different scenarios of differing length, so if you want to play for an hour and a half, you can do that, but if you want to play a longer game, you can do that as well. I believe that the app even lets you save, though, I haven’t used that feature yet, because we’ve always played through a scenario. This game uses the app well in that it doesn’t take over the game, but it makes the game easier to play.

7 – XenoShyft: Onslaught
The highest deck building game on the list, XenoShyft is a deck building game that has more than just the deck building aspect. It is Starship Troopers the board game where you are on a mining planet dealing with a bug infestation. But the bugs aren’t little or medium sized cockroaches, these are giant bugs who are going to destroy your base. The base has more health with more players, but with more players, you are going to be dealing with more monsters in each wave. Each player has their own side of the base to defend. However, you can aid other people. So if I am in charge of the med bay, I can heal your troops, but I only have a limited number of cards, and each player can have up to four characters to defend their base per round, and there are four bugs coming to get them each round. While this game has a deck building aspect to it, I feel like it’s also just as much a tower defense game as you watch the bugs slowly whittle away the bases hit points. This game has a good amount of pressure to it, and while it feels like it shouldn’t be impossibly hard, I don’t have a high win percentage. In whatever player count you’re playing at, you feel like you never have enough things to deal with each players side of the base. And I really like challenging cooperative games. This game as a lot of things going for it, and the cooperative nature of the deck building and being able to build up your deck and what you are getting, but then being able to sh are that with others makes this game feel unique compared to most others.

6 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game
I really like my Lovecraft board games, and this one really has a lot of story to it. You take one or two characters on an adventure as you try and solve the weird things that are happening in your town. This game, I guess, could technically be consider a deck builder, but you build the deck prior to the actual game. But each investigator has a unique deck of items. So the waitress, she might have a knife or something like that, but she’s not going to be as well armed as the FBI agent. In this game, which is a living card game, you are playing as a character or two and using resources to get cards and abilities into play, discarding cards to help you make checks to fight a monster or to investigate and gather clues while you are watching the bad guys schemes also count up until the point where you might have lost the game. One of the cool things about this game is that you have the ability to upgrade your deck in between games. You get experience points that you can spend, so maybe you have a decent revolver that has four bullets, you can get a six shooter that has six bullets now to replace it, so you can use it longer (that is a made up example). Along with that, this is a living card game, what that means is that there are more scenarios that can be made, and it is just more cards that are added to your game. You can play the game multiple times, though, through a story because you have different choices you can make as a group, and you have to decide which one is better. I like this game solo and I like it two players as well. I think that the living card game aspect could be a barrier of entry for some people, but the games aren’t long and you don’t have to play more than the base game if you don’t want to. And I realized I forgot one thing, in this game, you are trying to defeat challenges with various skills, pretty normal stuff for all the Fantasy Flight Arkham games, but in this one, instead of rolling dice, you are pulling tokens from a bag that can modify your result. It’s a fun twist that works like a die roll, but if you want to play a story focused game, you can make the bag easier, less negative numbers, or if you want to change yourself, you can make it harder. That ability to scale difficulty is really fun and make plays seem different.

5 – T.I.M.E. Stories
And now for something completely different, though still story driven. In T.I.M.E. Stories you are from an agency that is worried about the time stream and what might be happening and how people can use it for evil (I suspect I’m actually a bad guy or at least my boss is). You play through different scenarios that challenge you to explore locations, find clues, and solve the mystery that is happening. To do that, your consciousness is sent back into a vessel which can and probably will die or you’ll run out of time. But the good thing is, you can be sent back again and your boss will only be somewhat mad at you. T.I.M.E. Stories is a really cool game where you get little hints, from time to time, of a story that is going on that’s larger. And all the scenarios I’ve played thus far have felt different. The first one we were trying to stop something from happening in an Asylum. The next one we were trying to rescue someone during a zombie outbreak, and the final one we were in an alternate dimension in a fantasy world. And there was way more stories and locations than that, that I haven’t played yet. This game, is so much fun, the downside is that you can’t replay it once you’ve solved it, at least not for a while. You’ll probably always generally remember the puzzles, but the scenarios aren’t too expensive, you can play with up to four people, and you get more playing time out of each scenario than you would watching a movie, or at least we have. There are red herrings in there too that make the game harder as you are racing against a clock, time track, to be able to get everything solved before time runs out, and generally you have to reset at least once. I love this game, and I have the next scenario waiting for me, just need to schedule a time to play it.

4 – Betrayal at House on the Hill
I’m going to have this game higher than a lot of people, because there are some issues with the game. Mainly, when reading through a scenario for the haunting, which is the second half of the game, the betrayer or the other group, might have some issues clearly understanding their goal. Or their goal might be super easy. But that’s just part of the game and actually feels fairly thematic when it’s easy or when it’s hard. In this game, you are a rag tag group of ghost hunters, or thrill seekers, or just there because some dared you to, or a creepy child, who are investigating a creepy haunted house. You are finding rooms, finding items in rooms, and dealing with the creepy things that are going on. Eventually, you’ll have found a number of omen cards and a roll will happen and you might have a haunt happen. If it doesn’t, you continue until the haunt does happen because someone has found an omen card and failed their roll. Then you look up a scenario based on the omen and the room it was found in, and you play through that as the second half of the game, each side with a semi secret way to win. This game just drips theme for me and while it can be a bit stressful being the betrayer figuring out what you need to do by yourself, the game generally works. Each haunt feels different, and that’s some of the reason it doesn’t always feel balanced. The fact that a haunt can happen early in the game as only a little bit of the house has been explore or late in the game after almost everything is found is fun as well. This is a really good horror themed game for me, though I know it won’t be for everyone. I’d recommend you give it a try and try to get immersed in the story and feeling of the game, versus seeing if everything is fair and balanced.

3 – Pandemic Legacy Season 1
It was going to be on the list, and I’ve loved my experience with the game. I won’t go into too much on how it works, but as a legacy game, you are finding out new bits of story, new mechanics, and tearing up things as you go along. Pandemic is a game where you are part of a team trying to cure diseases and uncover what is going on in the world because there are those diseases spreading. The game is a ton of fun, and I’ve played it through twice. The story is linear and simple, but there is enough to it that it’s compelling. It’s also compelling, because Pandemic isn’t that easy a game as a the base game, and Pandemic Legacy Season 1 isn’t that easy a game either, plus you soon have to start balancing new things against the normal win condition which is just curing all four diseases. When I played through it a second time, a few years later, I played it solo on Malts and Meeples and I certainly didn’t remember everything for the game, though, I remembered the big plot points fairly well, just not when they would come up in the game. Each character that is played has their own abilities and you can improve them as time goes on, but you can also lose them if they get stuck in too many bad situations. The game really works well, and now it’s come down in price some. If you haven’t played this game, I’d highly recommend it, because there was a reason it was #1 on Board Game Geek for a while.

2 – Blood Rage
Most of the games in my top 10 have some story driven aspect to it. This game does not. However, this game has so many cool things about it. It has a great Norse theme to it as you are a Viking clan who are fighting for control over Yggdrasil and other sections of the nine realms. You start out in each age by drafting cards that help you with your strategy. Maybe you look to upgrade your clan leader so that they are more powerful. Or maybe you make it so that you get more glory if your clan members die in battle. Maybe you focus on being strong in battle or recruiting monsters. The drafting part of the game, while quick, really helps shape how you play the game. Then you try and take over areas of the map in order to improve your abilities, such as action points so you can take more actions, how many points you get for winning a battle or how many troops you can have on the board. Once everyone is out of action points, one of the realms is lost and you start again. Blood Rage plays fairly quickly for a game with a lot of minis and a lot going on in it. And the game feels different each time you play, because the cards that you draft are going to change up your strategy, and if you go too much into one strategy in an early age, players can block you from that strategy in later ages. And if you can focus on a single strategy, it might allow you to win the game, but there isn’t a strategy that seems too much stronger, whether your are fighting or peaceful. This game is just a ton of fun to play, and I finally got a copy, because right now it’s hard to find.

1 – Gloomhaven
My #1 game matches up with Board Game Geeks #1 game overall. Gloomhaven is a massive dungeon crawl game where you and a group of adventurers go through and fight monsters trying to figure out what is happening in the city of Gloomhaven and the lands surrounding it. This game is so much fun, because it’s a massive campaign game that has some legacy style aspects to it, mainly putting stickers on cards to improve them, but you can play it again completely. The combat and movement in this game are fun as well, as you play cards, picking them based on abilities, but also number at the top of one of them, because that determines how fast you act, and possibly if you are ahead of the monsters. Plus, with that, you get experience points which allows you to put in better cards, but the higher level you get and the better cards you have in there, the harder that the monsters get as well. You also have a goal that your character is going for, both overall and in each scenario. The scenario ones help you improve your character even more, but the overall one, that one causes you to retire and unlock a new character. Then you get to pick from all the unlocked characters and join the party again as a new character. There are a ton of scenarios in the game, as I’ve been playing it with a group of three of us and it’s taken us playing almost every other week for three hours in an evening, and it’s almost been two years. The game is amazing, it’s massive, and I think it’s going to scratch the itch for ameritrash players because it is so story driven, but the combat actually has a bit of a more strategic feel because you are playing cards and modifying with more cards, so it’s less random than rolling dice. I also think that, even though Gloomhaven is a massive game, it’s pretty straight forward once you have a few core concepts down, so while it might be intimidating to start, if you have someone who knows the game well, I think that more casual gamers would be able to join in the game and have a blast. This was an easy #1 game for me and as I was sorting I knew there wasn’t a chance anything would be higher.

So there it is, my top 100 games. I know that I’ve played a game since this started or since they were ranked that would probably be on the list. So this is definitely a living list. Thanks for coming along on this ride with me.

Let me know what games in the top 10 and top 100 look cool to you. Are there any that you love as well or love more than I do? Are there any that you really want to try?

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When I created this list, I determined that about 116 is where on my list of games (192) that I wouldn’t be always up for playing them. At 180, I hit the point where I probably wouldn’t play them again. So there are some games I enjoy that didn’t make the list, Castle Panic, Love Letter, and Forbidden Desert are probably some of the biggest names. If you’re wondering what the bottom of the list is, I’m not telling. Let’s just say it was a bad experience playing it because of some of the people and tactics to get me to try it, and the game wasn’t exciting. Also, be aware that there are some GenCon demos on the list, I feel like I got a good feeling for them, so I can rank them where they fit for me, this is also a living list so things are likely to change when I do this next year or even a few weeks from now. Finally, if there is an Amazon link for it or CoolStuffInc, I’ll share it.

100 – Lazer Ryders
Lazer Ryders is a silly game with an amazing look. The best way to describe this is that you are on light bikes and trying to get through certain spots before other people. But the game is highly reflective and silly. In this game, like I said, you are trying to get through spots, and you are creating a track as you go. But you can’t plan out your moves, once you have a piece in your hand and it’s over the table, you’re playing it. And if you crash, you start from the edge, and when you start at the edge of the table, you do so with your eyes closed. The look for this game is the best part, there are four players and the player pieces look like they are in a VHS case. It’s very 80’s-tastic, and just a fast and fun game that’s good for a laugh.

99 – Skull
I enjoyed this game as a bluffing game where you are trying to push your luck. In this game everyone is playing down coasters, face down, that have either a skull or a rose on them. Then eventually someone is going to bid as to how many of these coasters they can flip over and people take turns bidding higher until only one person is left. Then they have to flip that many coasters. But the trick is you have to flip all of yours, so are you bluffing in hopes that someone thinks that yours are safe to flip so they bust. It’s a small game, it’s a simple game, but it’s interesting and it’s very portable.

98 – Marrying Mr. Darcy
This is a game that my wife kickstarted, not me for once, huzzah! But it’s a very fun little game, especially if you enjoy Pride and Prejudice, and I like it’s snarky feel. The game keeps some snark as you build up your Bennett sister or other characters so that they are able to get their ideal suitor. It’s a very simple game and you really just flip a card and play that card. But that’s not a bad thing, my only downside to the game is that there are a few too many cards that you flip, if that was reduced by 25%, it would be great. Still, it’s not too long, so it’s a fun time and everyone always enjoys the sarcastic and goofy nature of the game.

97 – Takenoko
Sometimes you just want to eat bamboo. In Takenoko, you control bamboo growing, panda eating bamboo, and gardener growing bamboo in order to please the emperor. This game for being very cute is actually somewhat complex as you take different actions to complete objectives that you’ve drawn. It’s really a game that’s about completing sets of bamboo or growing bamboo in a certain way. The game has a nice chibi panda in it, and the bamboo pieces are cool because you set them up. It’s also a game that Kristen has enjoyed so that makes it fun to play as well, even though we don’t own the game. I don’t know that I would say it’s an introductory game, which I feel like it should be though, as there is a bunch going on.

96 – Qwirkle
Some games are good because you can play with with basically anyone. Qwirkle is one of those games, I can play it with my parents, and I can play it with siblings, and I can play it with my wife, so all different levels of gamers. It’s a good puzzle sort of game that is all about pattern recognition, but because of the luck of the draw of tiles, those who are good at pattern recognition won’t always win. In this game you are playing down tiles that have various colors and shapes on them. You score points for adding to rows of colors as long as the shape is unique or shapes as long as the color is unique. It has a bit of a scrabble feel without being a word game.

95 – Telestrations
This is a game similar in appeal to the one above, while that is more of a strategy game to be played with anyone, Telestrations is a party game for anyone. It also goes by the name Telephone-Pictionary if you are playing it without the actual game. In this game, each player has a pad, everyone rights down a phrase, word, whatever, then they pass it, the next person draws, pass it again, next person writes, and so on. Then you flip through it and laugh at how it’s changed over time. And fairly often it’s completely different. This is really more of an activity, like The Mind, because no one keeps score, but it’s a fun activity that anyone can join in.

94 – The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth
When I was saying that there were some games that I expected to move on the list, Journeys in Middle-earth is one of them. I think as I play more and get more into the story this will go up on my list. What I like about it is that it has an app that helps and you get a story because of the app. What I don’t love about it is that you have an app and the app does almost too much so you almost feel like you could play it as a computer game with just a slight tweak tot he game. It looks cool on the table, and if you wanted to take characters from the Lord of the Rings, plus a few new characters on an adventure, you can do that, though, I wish it was only new characters.

93 – Dragonfire
Every time I’ve played this game I’ve lost. But I still like it, this is based off of the Shadowrun: Crossfire system but instead of being cyberpunk, this is D&D. You get your character and class and start fighting off waves and waves of monsters, buying new cards and building up your deck. I actually grabbed this used not too long ago, so I’m excited to stream it solo, because, though it doesn’t have a true solo mode, it’s cooperative, that means I’ll be able to play through the stories that it has. I like deck building as a mechanic, and I like the scenario based game and the adventuring feel of it, and I really like D&D, so it’s a good fit for me.

92 – Charterstone
The first legacy game on the list, and no, Seafall won’t be making the list. Charterstone is really a worker placement game where you get to build the board as you go, and then in the end, you can play a worker placement game. For me, this is a good and simple game that you can play quickly, thankfully, because I don’t feel like there are massive things going on in the game, and there isn’t story. Now, I know there is technically story, but there really isn’t story that matters, so instead I just enjoy it as a straightforward worker placement game with some fun combo building. I still need to finish it, but three of us had babies in the past year who were playing it, so who knows when it will happen. If it doesn’t, I might just make the board and add in the last few buildings, we’ll see.

91 – Shadowrun: Crossfire
I could just say, see 93, so I will, see 93. That’ll give you an idea of what this game is, but what I like about this game better is that it is cyberpunk. Yes, I love D&D, but sometimes you want to play something different, and you can do that in Shadowrun: Crossfire. In fact, that’s why I kickstarted and got another Shadowrun game, because I like the cyberpunk setting. I don’t always love sci-fi, but cyberpunk style of sci-fi is great. I don’t own this one, and I don’t think that I’ve won this one either when I’ve played, but that’s fine because I never felt like I was just getting crushed by it.

Alright, that’s the first 10 games. Only 90 more to go. I’m guessing that people can probably get my top game, but there are a lot of fun games on this list still to come and probably some surprised with how high or low some games will be in my top 100.

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