Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 30 through 21

30. Space Base

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designer: John D. Clair

Buy Space Base

This is a game that I should have played a long time ago. But it is one that left my collection and then I played it on BGA. Once I played it on BGA, I knew that I needed it back in my collection. Much like other games like Valeria and Mochi Koro this one is about activating spots based off of dice rolls. And then building up those spots so that you can activate more things. Space Base just ramps up in a much better way than those and offers some interesting choices and an interesting moment of when you change from money to points.

29. Symbiose

Published By: Subverti
Designers: Jeremy Partinico and Christelle Partinico

Not Available Yet

Symbiose is one of the new games on the list, in fact, I’m not sure you can get it in the US yet. But this is one I’ll be getting for sure. It’s a simple game where you try and get a two tall by four wide grid full of cards. And those cards are going to score you points based off of the other cards in the grid. But there is a simple twist that makes this work. You score your grid with the central four cards. But the ones to the left and right score your opponents to the left and right. And that is enough to make this a very fun game.

28. XenoShyft: Onslaught

Published By: CMON Limited
Designers: Keren Philosophales and Michael Shinall

Out of Print

I love cooperative and deck building games. XenoShyft does both of those things really as well as you build up your deck to fight off monsters. On the deck building side I like how you always get money to add to your hand. That means that you are always able to buy something which is good and rewarding. The other part is I can just give you a card, you need more troops, I can give you one. It is now part of your deck, and it’s not to the discard, it is straight to your hand. A very tough and rewarding game.

27. One-Hit Heroes

Published By: Wiggles 3D
Designers: AC Atienza and Connor Reid

Buy One-Hit Heroes

This one is a theme that I like a lot with super heroes, but it is doing something different. You are heroes who are glass cannons, kind of. By that I mean if you take a hit you are out, but the game gives you tons of ways to avoid them. So you need to manage your hand and what the enemy is doing. And each enemy is different and each hero is different, so there is a ton of replayability in the box. Plus you level up, so to speak, as you play and get to add in new cards to your deck.

26. Planet Unknown

Published By: Adam’s Apple Games, LLC
Designers: Ryan Lambert and Adam Rehberg

Buy Planet Unknown

Planet Unknown is one of my favorite planet terraforming games. In this one I love how you are covering up the planet and activating locations to move up on tech, and other tracks. The tracks are such a fun part of the game. And as you play the game more you play not with the starting abilities but with special ones. They make you unique, and of course there is the lazy susan. Being able to spin that and then pick where you want to pick from is great. You can set yourself up well, or you can try and mess over your opponents plans or ideally both.

25. Paper Dungeons

Published By: MeepleBR
Designer: Leandro Pires

Out of Stock

I think that this is the highest roll and write game on the list and one of the most complex that I play. Paper Dungeons is a “Dungeon Scrawler”, as they call it, where you level up heroes and explore the dungeon fighting monsters. But there is more than that, you need to manage your heroes health, make adventuring gear and find treasure. Of course, if you make it to the boss monsters that is another way to get even more points, but hopefully not at the expense of too much health.

24. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom

Published By: FryxGames
Designer: Jonathan Fryxelius

Buy Kingdom Legacy – note, there might be an additional tariff related shipping charge in the US.

I was not sure about Kingdom Legacy the first time I watched a video on it, but the more I watched the more I liked it. This is a legacy game of managing your deck of cards by destroying cards, leveling up cards, or even adding new cards. And as you go through, you need to decide which cards are best used for upgrading and points and when to use cards for resources to level up others. It’s a nice balance of multiuse cards, and a challenge to optimize your score.

23. Ready Set Bet

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designer: John D. Clair

Buy Ready Set Bet

I like betting and I like racing when it comes to games. Ready Set Bet somehow combines the two of them into real time fun and stand-up moments. Personally I like both parts of this game betting and being the person calling the race. As you call the race, it’s just to get into it and keep the race moving and watch everyone else stand-up. As a better it’s all about trying to make the right bets the fastest. If you wait too long the best spots are gone, and if you bet too quickly you’re more apt to make bad bets. It sounds chaotic, which it is, but it’s also so much fun.

22. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Published By: Stronghold Games
Designers: Sydney Engelstein, Jacob Fryxelius, and Nick Little

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Another game about terraforming a planet, Ares Expedition is a big engine building game of, well, doing a better job terraforming Mars. In this game it’s all about the action selection and how that works. I pick an action, everyone gets to do it, but I get a bonus for it. It might be a bonus of drawing more cards or a discount on building something. But then again, if my opponent(s) pick the same action, we all only do that action, and the other possible actions are skipped. So it’s always trying to guess what your opponent(s) will do to optimize your actions.

21. Hanamikoji

Published By: EmperorS4
Designer: Kota Nakayama

Buy Hanamikji

Finally is one of my favorite two player games. Hanamikoji is a game of trying to win the favor of Geisha by giving them gifts. Each one wants a certain gift and there is a limited number of them. You want to win the favor of four or eleven points worth.

But the biggest draw of this two player game is the action system. You only have four actions and you do one per turn and only once per round. They are simple actions like discarding two cards that won’t be used facedown, or putting one facedown that you’ll score. The other two offer a bit more with the “I Split, You Choose” mechanism in play, and makes you think about what cards you show your opponent for that.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition every Wednesday night at 9 PM Central Time. The next few videos have their links up, so you can click notify on them to know when I go live. Or you can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

And thank you for checking out the video and articles. Let me know what your favorite game from this chunk of 10 is and which one you would love to get played.

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Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Welcome To…

Published By: Blue Cocker Games
Designer: Benoit Turpin

Buy Welcome To

This one is a classic roll and write style game. I really like the decision space for Welcome To… of deciding what goals to go after and what combination of cards to write down on your board. The three choices of number and bonus works really well and has been fun in other games in the system, but the classic Welcome To is the best still.

49. The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Published By: Repos Productions
Designers: Antoine Bauze and Bruno Cathala

Buy The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Now, I like this and 7 Wonders Duel very similarly, but only one is staying in my collection and that is going to be the Lord of the Rings one. But both do similar things and are great games. This one, I find, cleans up some things like no end game scoring. And while I find the end game without the win in one of the three game ends if you get them situations isn’t 100% satisfying, going for those other goals is great. And they most of the time do pull of the win with them whether that’s getting the ring to Mordor or getting support from the various groups.

48. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Published By: Days of Wonder
Designers: Asger Harding Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pederson

Buy Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Not my favorite racing game, but Heat: Pedal to the Metal is up there. I really like how the game works pretty quickly, so it has that racing feel, but you still make a lot of meaningful decisions in it. Heat is all about managing the heat on your engine so that you can push the corners at the right time. But the more heat you get, the more it clogs up your hand and then you need to back off and let the engine cool down. It’s just a clever and enjoyable system that’s easy enough to teach and gives you a great racing feel.

47. Ohanami

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Steffan Benndorf

Buy Ohanami

Ohanami and the next game on the list are the two smallest ones. Ohanami is a great game for pulling out and playing a round or two of when you want a simple game to play. But it offers some fun with the twist that it provides on scoring and how you need to set-up the cards into the columns as you draft them. The drafting and adding always needing to be higher or lower than the top or bottom card in a column, at least if you want to play them, is fun as well. It’s not that common for someone to be stuck without something to play, but if you make that happen it’s fun.

46. Mind Up!

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Maxime Rambourg

Buy Mind Up!

Mind Up! is another one of those games that just really works for me. There is so much luck in the game as you try and get the cards that you want, it kind of feels like it shouldn’t work. But at the same time, you always have a decision to make that matters and just enough knowledge. The fact that the order of the cards and how you want to fill in to get points changes each round while the cards in your hand don’t as much is a really fun system. Because, yes, I am guessing what is going to work to get the card I wanted, but I might remember a little what you have.

45. Schadenfreude

Published By: Studio Turbine
Designer: ctr

Buy Schadenfreude

I guess Schadenfreude is the third small game on the list. But it’s a pretty different game because it’s a trick taking game and it’s a trick taking game that does some really interesting things. Mainly it’s about not flying too close to the sun and getting burned as you try and get points. You get points and lose points based off of what is played into the trick that doesn’t match your suit. The other piece is you want to get as close as you can to 40 points. If you go over and everyone who goes over, that causes you to lose. But someone has to because that determines the end of the game.

44. The Great Split

Published By: Horrible Guild
Designers: Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva

Buy The Great Split

I like the mechanisms of “I split, you choose” in games, one of my favorite two player games has that in it. And The Great Split is primarily that in a game. Each round you are splitting up your hand of cards and then your opponent on the left picks one of them. You are doing that at the same time with the cards passed to you. Everyone is trying to optimize the contracts that they are getting the points from the various arts they are getting. But at it’s heart, the game is “I split, you choose” and it just works.

43. ICECOOL

Published By: Brain Games
Designer: Brian Gomez

Buy ICECOOL

Two dexterity games in a row and my two favorite dexterity games. First is ICECOOL, this is a game that was around my Top 10 for a long time because it’s just a simple but fun game. It’s been passed as my favorite by the other because that one has more customization.

ICECOOL is all about either being a penguin sneaking out of class to get fish or the hall monitor who is trying to catch them. The flicking works well and the ability to jump the penguin over walls is fun, assuming you don’t jump too far. Plus the box set-up and how it comes together is really fast and fun.

42. PitchCar

Published By: Ferti
Designer: Jean du Poel

Pre-Order PitchCar

PitchCar is the other dexterity game of the two and the one that I like just little bit better. PitchCar is another racing game as well,. This one is about flicking race cars, discs, around a track and being the first to cross the finish. It’s another game that is very simple to play but so fun. And this one gets the nod because of the track and how you make as hard or easy a track as you want. Do you want a loop or an overpass, you can do that, or you can just play with straightaways and some turns if you want the game to be faster.

41. Metal Gear Solid

Published By: CMON Global Lmtd
Designer: Emerson Matsuuchi

Buy Metal Gear Solid

Finally we have Metal Gear Solid a game that took a while to come out, but that is so worth it. Metal Gear Solid is a cooperative game where you want to sneak around as much as go in guns blazing. And that element is a blast for the game because it makes it feel different than a lot of games with minis. I like that the game also has a campaign, which I need to play, and one off scenarios that you can try and complete. And to add to that, while the enemy movement takes a moment to understand, the player turns are streamlined really well.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition every Wednesday night at 9 PM Central Time. The next few videos have their links up, so you can click notify on them to know when I go live. Or you can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

And thank you for checking out the video and articles. Let me know what your favorite game from this chunk of 10 is and which one you would love to get played.

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Message me on X at @TheScando
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And if you want to know the criteria that I’m using, or the conversation starting point, you can read that article here.

My Trick-Taking Games

Let’s start out by just listing off the games. And these are the ones that I own and I maybe have played.

Played:
The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
The Fox in the Forest
Cat in the Box
The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game
For Northwood! A Solo Trick-Taking Game
The Fox in the Forest Duet
Scahdenfreude
9 Lives
Rebel Princess
Pumafiosi
Matcha

Unplayed:
Jekyll & Hyde vs Scotland Yard
Ghosts of Christmas
Jalape-NO
Lunar
Pies
FORK
The Six of VIII
No Loose Ends
Tricky Kids

The Unplayed Games

To start off with, the unplayed ones are staying. In particular Ghosts of Christmas, Tricky Kids, No Loose Ends, and The Six of VIII are ones that I really want to get played. I could say that maybe FORK, Lunar, Pies, some of those might be redundant to the other trick-taking games that I have in the played section. But the thing is, I want to get these played to know for sure. And the good think about trick-taking is that most of the time they are easy to get played.

The Played Games

Now let’s talk about the played games. And I think that I might mainly disappoint myself. But I think I’m going to be keeping most of them if not all of them. Because while a few of them do duplicate things, like cooperative play, I think they are different enough and fit different reasons to keep them in my collection.

Cooperative Trick-Taking

For the cooperative ones let’s talk about the difference. Firstly Fox in the Forest Duet is two player only. And it is not about winning certain objectives to advance. The other two are both about objectives. But with the Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game, that one is a “campaign” of sorts. Or at least it feels like it has more story to it. The Crew is a campaign as well in that you can ramp up the difficulty, but it is easier to jump into a higher level without feeling like you missed some of the game.

Bidding Trick-Taking

Now this is where a few things could maybe move over time. The bidding trick-taking games might feel a bit more the same. Right now I just think of two that are in the played section with 9 Lives and Cat in the Box. And Cat in the Box does something different completely where you can short suit yourself whenever you want because nothing has a suit. That is a step more than 9 Lives. But, as I play others that have that bidding for how many tricks you take, I could see 9 Lives leaving.

Two Player Trick-Taking

Finally, let’s talk two player trick-taking. And this is where I think I maybe should get rid of a game. I’m not sure that I need Matcha and Fox in the Forest and Fox in the Forest Duet. Now, the question is which one is going to stay. I think that Matcha is really interesting but it’s maybe a bit harder to teach. For that reason that is probably the trick-taking game that should leave.

Final Thoughts on my Trick-Taking Games

This is obviously not ideal. I want to clear out more games. Though this isn’t because I don’t want to keep all the games around. It is more a situation where I need more space for games and culling and going through my collection helps with that a lot. But smaller games are easier to justify. But with trick-taking, I want to go through this list again after I knock off a handful more of the games on the list. Because I think that a number of them might get culled.

Why will they get culled then versus now? Because I want to come up with what my favorite five to eight of them are. Some I know will always stick around, Rebel Princess for example, but others are good but I’m not 100% sold that they’ll stick around like Cat in the Box. But I want to spend more time with my trick-taking games, and then I’ll revisit them.

Next time I want to look at my drafting games.

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How To Play The Gang

The Gang is a cooperative Texas Hold’em style poker game where instead of bidding on how strong your hand is, you are trying to get the hands of all the players in order after the river. But you work off of the knowledge from how strong people think their hands are prior to the river. If you get it correct three times you win, if you get it wrong three times, you lose.

The Texas Hold’em

The Gang follows Texas Hold’em style poker when you are building up your best hand of cards. For those who aren’t familiar, I’ll cover it briefly before we get into the rest of the game. You get a two card hand. Then more cards are played out into a communal pool. They are the flop, the turn, and the river. The flop is going to add three cards and the turn and river one card each. The player with the best hand between their cards and the communal cards wins the hand.

Getting the Order Right

So let’s talk about how you get the order right. In The Gang, let’s say for a six player game, you want the player with the best hand to have the poker chip worth six when you rank hands after the river and the player with the worst had having the one.

You are allowed to discuss how strong you feel your hand is. But you are not able to say specifics about your hand. An example might be: “My hand got better with the flop.” Or another example would be “I have a scoring hand now.” You are not allowed to specify how it got better or how it is scoring just that it is.

So after the initial hand of two cards is dealt, the flop, the turn, and the river, players take chips as to how they think their hand is. This is all after the discussion. But it is just the ranking of the hand on the final round that is going to determine if your order is right.

Tie-Breaking

I thought about putting this up in the Texas Hold’em section, but let’s talk about tie breaking. When you think of a scoring hand, for example two pair, you think of that being your hand. But it is possible to have the same thing as someone else. So you use standard tie-breakers like in poker. The higher pair of the two pair is compared, if one person has higher than the other, they are ahead. If they are the same, you check the next pair.

Now let’s use the example of a single pair. If you have a single pair and someone else has that pair, how do you decide the tie-breaker? Well, in that case you look at the kicker. That is that you look at the highest single card that you use to make your hand. If those are the same, often the case if they are in the communal cards, you keep comparing until you get through your hand of five scoring cards. If it is still a tie, the order doesn’t matter because they are the same.

Increasing the Challenge

So it is possible that you’ll find it gets too easy over time. So the game offers ways to make it more challenging or easier. One being positive and negative modifier cards. So if you win one round you flip a negative modifier card, such as a single player must take the one for the first three rounds of discussion. Or it might give you an extra card for your hand if you lost the previous time. This is going to add just a little twist to what the game is already doing.

What Doesn’t Work

The game can skew a bit easy at times. This is something that you can control with how much communication you allow. If you keep that to very general terms it is going to be more difficult. If you reference previous hands or things like that, it is going to be a bit easier. Also player count is going to make it harder or easier depending on how many players you have, the more the harder.

The other thing, and this more of a to be aware of, some knowledge of poker and Texas Hold’em does help. In particular with knowing how strong a hand is in Texas Hold’em can be important. A good pair might be the best overall hand. The game does give you a cheat sheet to know the ranks of hands but if you are a poker novice, this is going to be a notable learning curve.

What Works

The game is fast to set-up and play. While the discussion at times can take a bit, it isn’t generally that long. Because you care about getting it right at the end, only after the river is the discussion highly important. But for getting the game to the table, it is shuffle up and deal cards and that’s about it to get it to work. Especially if the players have played the game before, it is going to instantly get to the table.

The cooperative nature of the game works as well. That was my big concern going into the game. But I like how it works and the challenge of ranking the hands is good. We got better at it as we played. It is common, though, to end the game with a discussion around how strong you feel a hand is and for two players to have extremely close hands. That challenge works well for the game.

I also like the benefits if you fail or the negatives if you pass. And I think I could see even making that more challenging by playing on some of the harder modes. But they offer just a little twist or variety to what is happening in the game. Is it needed for the game, probably not if you don’t play too many times in one sitting. As the group changes, the dynamic is going to change. But with a group playing a few times in a row, it adds in some good variety.

Who is The Gang For?

I think The Gang is a good game for a mixed group of board gamers and maybe poker players or cards players. If you play a lot of cards, you probably have dabbled with poker of some variety. The trickiest part is going to be if you play with someone who doesn’t play poker. And by that I mean more hasn’t played poker. I don’t play poker often, but I know how it works as I’ve played some. But if it is completely new, maybe play a couple of hands of real poker first to get them familiarized.

Final Thoughts and Grade on The Gang

This one is interesting for me. Firstly, I want to say that I really like what it does for a cooperative poker game. And you will find that I rate it highly. However, on the flip side, I think it is a game that I want to play only so often and with varying groups. If I play it with one group over and over again, I suspect I will want to play it on the hardest difficulty. But I want to play it again, so there is that.

The other thing is that I think people who like The Gang are going to like it a lot. The people who doesn’t like The Gang, it is going to be a strong dislike of the game. Mainly because it is cooperative, limited communication, and poker. Somewhere in that combination there is a chance for a lot of players to dislike it. You might dislike cooperative games. Or you might dislike games where it limits what you can say. Or you might dislike the luck of poker. But if you are cool with all of those things, then it is a very good game.

My Grade: B+
Gamer Grade: C+
Casual Grade: B-
Strategy (out of 10): 0
Luck (out of 10): 2

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Top 10 New To Me Board Games of 2025

10. Schadenfreude

One of the few games that I didn’t play first or only play on Board Game Arena (BGA). Schadenfreude is a trick taking game but one with some weird rules. You want to be second in the game. If you win the trick you aren’t getting the points. Instead whomever comes in second gets the trick and scores their card and any that don’t follow suit. Some cards are going to give you positive points and some are going to be worth negative points.

But what I really love beyond that with the game is that as you get points you are trying to get as close to 40 total points as you can. This is something that might take a few hands. But the game is over in the hand where someone goes over forty points. If you go over forty points, you lose the game, you can’t win anymore, instead it’s the person who is the closest without going over who is the winner of the game. It’s a neat little twist on trick taking.

9. Pirates of Maracaibo

The biggest of the board games on the list just in terms of what is going on, Pirates of Maracaibo is the first of three games that I just always have a game of going on BGA. That’s because I constantly play it with one other person and it’s just always going. I love it when I come across someone who wants to keep playing a game so I can really learn it.

Pirates of Maracaibo is all about being a pirate, getting treasure, hiring crew, upgrading your ship, and exploring lands. There is a lot going, but almost all of it is pretty simple to learn and play. There are a few things that I want to get better at with the game, and that one person, I still haven’t beaten them. But I have gotten close so I think I will one day. But the game, when you know it, is thinky but fast to play and I really enjoy the theme and different strategies in the game.

8. Space Base

I owned Space Base and then I sold Space Base, why because I wasn’t playing it. I like to try a game before I sell them, but I just wasn’t playing it. And I had played games like Machi Koro and Valeria and those were fine. Then I played it on BGA and now I love it. I love it so much that I got it back into my collection and I have played it already.

The game is roll dice, activate spots, get income, buy cards and upgrade those spots. But I really like how as you play, you improve what you do on your opponents turn. When you upgrade a spot, the old cards flip vertically and now they activate a different ability on your opponents turn. And it is a race to see who can get points the fastest.

There are some trickier cards to teach in the game. But I think you can teach them as they come up. And once you know the handful of basic cards, the game is easy to play. And I like it a bunch more than Machi Koro which is fun, but feels slightly limited. This one feels like it was created with more purpose.

7. Symbiose

The second of three games that I have a standing game on BGA. Symbiose reminds me of games like Silver or games that I grew up playing with a deck of cards. In those you start with face down cards and you want to get rid of them and get rid of points. In this case, you start with face down cards and you want to build out an optimized scoring set-up.

I love how scoring works in this game. It’s a two by four grid, so two high and four wide. And the middle four cards, the middle two in each row, they are the ones that score for you. So the scoring on the bottom half of the card is what matters. And they score your whole grid. But to the left and right, those score your opponents to your left and right. So you need to decide when you flip those cards over and swap them. It’s simple but such a fun game.

6. The Guild of Merchant Explorers

I thought at one point that The Guild of Merchant Explorers could end up as #1 on this list. It is the game that I have played the most thus far this year. And that is because I love it on BGA. I often set-up a number of two player games because they go really fast and you don’t feel like you lose anything. Plus I play with a group of two others where we just have a standing game. So when one game ends a new one begins.

Watch me play it below and see if it’s for you. But I love how simple it is once you know how the game works. I think it’s even a very simple teach.

5. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom

You saw me play through this on Malts and Meeples. And you can catch-up on that and watch it down below. This is a solo legacy game where you want to build out the best kingdom possible. You flip out cards and then you spend those cards to upgrade other cards. It’s all about managing your deck and setting it up so that you gain stronger actions. Of course there is a lot that you want to manage and you decide what scoring and what paths you go down in the game. I already bought another copy to play it again.

4. The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

Do you love Lord of the Rings, this game is steeped in theme. Do you love trick-taking? Well this one is cooperative and pretty different in how it plays. Because you play through The Fellowship of the Ring with different characters depending on where you are in the book. And each character is going to want to win tricks in a different way, maybe a certain number of tricks, maybe a certain suit. So it is very tricky and changing and works really well. I want to dive into this more with a group of people.

The one thing I will say is that I think that The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game is not an introduction to trick taking. It is a very good game, but because there isn’t communication you need to have some idea of how trick taking works. It is too easy, otherwise to just repeat the same chapter over and over again. Because like a game like Euchre, you want to tell your teammate, in this case everyone that you have or don’t have.

3. Zenith

Zenith is a great two player game where you are battling for favor on planets. But there is more going on with it than just that. I really like how you battle for one of three different planet victory conditions. You can gain favor three times from one planet, once from four different planets, or five total favor tokens. But you do that by card play to gain favor, going up a technology track, and then spending cards to manage other things like gaining more income or more cards on your side of the board.

I really feel like every time that I play Zenith the game is different. And that is what I love about it so much. I don’t feel like I found a strategy that is going to work every time. I sometimes go for all favor from a single planet by playing cards. Or I might try and get a lot of technology/research done and manipulate the board that way. But the game is really good at making you adapt as you go and it is tense as you battle for favor with your opponent.

2. Clank! Catacombs

The last two are kind of “cheats” so to speak. Clank! Catacombs is just a new version of Clank a game that I already know I love. This push your luck deck building game is really now just modular. The game does change in a few other ways but it is mainly that it now adds in a modular board. And I like that element that the game is going to be different each time you play it. In base Clank you might find your optimized path and strategy. Here the game is going to be different each time. And you decide how it is going to be different based off of how you explore it.

1. Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men

It’s almost unfair to have this on the list. I know that I love Marvel. And I know that I love dice Throne. So of course I love the combination. But it’s still new to me this year and I still really enjoy it. Plus I get to play as Gambit which is always a win for me. I won’t spend much more time on it than that because you know what Dice Throne, battle Yahtzee with special powers and cards. But yes, the new X-Men stuff is good. And I’m excited for even more of it to be coming in.

The Whole List

Thoughts on the Board Games Outside of the Top 10

I like most of the board games that I’ve played new this year. I think that beyond maybe the bottom 11 of them I want to play most of them again. Karvi is an interesting one and it’s on that edge. I played it once and I need to play it more. But I’m not 100% sure that I understood everything and I messed up my first play. There is an interesting track where you go around and take your actions. But you can go as far forward as you want. I didn’t understand where the starting point . So I’m not sure if it is a game that I’ll love or not.

But just outside the Top 10 I want to highlight a few board games. I just wrote my review for Scratch & Catch, which is #17 and I think the game is a really fun filler game. I like the different strategies and plans that players can have in the game. Also Knister and #13 is such a simple roll and write game, but while it is very lucky, as a lot of roll and write games are, I think it’s a very good one to play.

And one final one because I’m not sure where it will and is Apiary. Right now it is sitting very much in the middle at #36. But I think it could rise. I also think it could drop. I just don’t know because I need to play it in person. And when I play it in person that means that I need to learn the rules better so I can teach it. And it feels like a game where nothing is too complex but there is a lot going on. So that is a bit intimidating for the teach.

Final Thoughts

My goal at the start of the year was to learn 50 new board games. I’m well past that at this point. And I plan now to shoot for 100 new board games. If I keep up a pace of 1 per week I won’t quite make it there. But already this week I learned three new board games, all of them on the list. So it isn’t like I’m running behind on that and running behind on learning new board games.

That is a new game that you really have loved this year? It doesn’t have to be from 2025, it just needs to be a new game for you. Let me know that down in the comment section below.

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How to Play MicroMacro

In Micro Macro you want to solve cases. To solve these cases you need to find particular things on a giant map of Crime City, yes, the first box is called MicroMacro: Crime City. But there is a ton going on. So the game gives you clues as to where things might be on the map and then you need to identify the ones that go with your case.

The person in charge of the clues then verifies that you found the right thing. If you did, you go to the clue. If not, the other players, since the person who verified now knows where and what it is, continue to look for it. When they find the right thing, you progress to the next bit of story or question for the case. You continue that pattern until you’ve found everything for the case.

Then you can play a new case. Each box of MicroMacro comes with a number of cases that you can play. And you even can get an expansion that combines all the maps into a giant map for a larger experience.

What Doesn’t Work

Firstly, is this a game? I think that is going to be something that people struggle with when they talk about it. Not whether or not it’s fun, though some will maybe not find it fun, we’ll talk about that, but is it a game. There is no real lose condition. The clue reader stops playing possibly if you don’t identify the clue on the map. But it’s more of an activity than a game.

This is also a game where you need to like the idea of Where is Waldo. MicroMacro is a big one of that with some story that ties things together in a given case. But it’s really Where is Waldo, so you know if you like the sound of that or not.

Finally, the map is huge. Now, this is a good thing, because there is a ton of detail. But it’s a bad thing because it’s a table hog of a game. So you need to know that and you need space.

What Works

Firstly, the artwork works in the game. And it’s actually pretty awesome how much detail they fit into the huge map. And it’s black and white, so you can color in elements of cases if you want to create kind of your own map. I put it as a negative with how large the map is, but it’s also a positive because with a giant map, you also get so much detail which is awesome.

It is a game that works well for a good medium group of people. This is not a six person game, but it’s a good 3-4 person game. Why, so everyone can see the map. And that’s a positive in my book. It’s something to keep in your head though, as you play. But it makes it a really good collaborative experience as you search around the map.

It is also pretty fast, even the long cases with ten cards don’t take too long. And the short ones can just fly by. So it’s great for playing a few cases. And when it’s something like Where is Waldo, you generally don’t want to do just one. I also like that it is faster the more you play. Why, because you just see things on the map. You spot someone crushed by a piano in case two, good for you, that is going to come back in a later case. And it’s fun when those elements come back around.

Who is MicroMacro For?

This is a great activity/game for people who maybe don’t play as many board games. Or for those who do, it’s great to play when you want a little filler. To me, this is an end of the night game when you want to play a little more, but learning a new game or thinking a lot isn’t in the cards. So if you play like that in your game group, MicroMacro might be great for it.

All of that said, if you dislike Where is Waldo, MicroMacro is not going to be for you. It’s as simple as that, because that is what the game is. And you need to be fine with that as will the people you play with, otherwise it’ll go over like a lead balloon.

Final Grade on MicroMacro

I enjoy this experience. And I think it’s important to talk about it as an experience. Because it isn’t so much of a game as a cooperative Where is Waldo that tells little stories. But that is a concept that for me is fun. So I enjoy it quite well.

Now, I don’t love it. I don’t think it really has major flaws. It is exactly what it looks like. But it’s one of those things where will I want to play it all the time? The answer is going to be no. But some game nights where it’s maybe three or four total of us, sure, it’s going to be great to pull out and play again with the cases we haven’t done yet. And what’s what it should be, it shouldn’t be the greatest game of all time, but it is something that is a lot of fun.

My Grade: B-

I’m only giving my grade here. No casual or gamer grade. I think this is something that everyone knows if they like or not. So I’m just going to keep it simple and say how much I enjoyed it. And luck or strategy make no sense, this is a game of persistence.

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How To Play Astro Knights

Astro Knights is a deck building and boss battling game. Your end goal is to defeat the boss. You need to do that before the boss runs out of level cards, we’ll talk about those, knocks out both characters, or destroys the home world that you are defending.

Player Turns

Turns consist of players firing weapons that they have in play. Playing out weapons and spending the currency to buy more cards. The weapons you fire go into your discard pile. Then any cards you buy go into your discard. Finally, you set the order of the cards going into your discard pile that you play out. While most of them are just currency, there are tech cards as well that might be in the mix.

When you spend your currency there are three things that you spend it on. The first is buying more cards. These are weapons, more currency, or tech cards. You also can unlock more slots to hold more weapons. And finally, you can power up your character. Each character has their own special ability that needs varying number of power-ups charged to make it work. Each power up costs two currency, and each slot coats three. Cards depend on that card.

Then you draw up to your hand size of five cards. If you run out of cards to draw, you flip the discard pile. You don’t shuffle the discard pile, you just flip it, and you draw from there. So if you plan things out, you can set-up combos for yourself or keep a good distribution of purchase power and weapons.

Boss Turns

The boss also gets a turn. Each boss is going to play differently and have some unique rules. But there are some elements that are always the same. First, you activate anything, either on the boss or minions, that says activate. Then you draw a new card. It is either going to be a minion, which goes into play, or an action card. If it is an action card, do what it says and discard it.

If the boss is out of cards you shuffle up the boss cards. And you play out the next level of card for that boss. Generally bosses have a few levels that you play through. The levels generally add a new condition, like the boss powering up, and additional health to the minions. And as I said, if the boss needs to shuffle to draw a card and there are no level cards, you lose the game.

The final thing here, with one thing for the differences between Astro Knight and Aeon’s End coming later, is that turn order is random. In a two player game there are two cards for player one, two for player two and two for the boss. You shuffle those up and randomly flip them out. It is possible to get the boss going four turns in a row. Or it’s possible for the players to go eight turns in a row.

What’s Different from Aeon’s End

The Boss Cards

There are are a few differences between Aeon’s End and Astro Knights. The first being what I talked about with the boss. In Aeon’s End, the boss never reshuffles their cards. I like this element of the game because it gives the boss an interesting timing mechanism and a chance to beef up in power as they level up. Now it isn’t the cards that level up but the boss and that makes it easier to table.

In Aeon’s End, you would need to pull out boss cards and other cards to mix together to make the boss deck. Here, each boss has their own deck. And you only need to sort the cards in there a little bit to create the starting deck. Because the starting deck is determined by the player count. So fewer players, the faster the boss is going to shuffle up their cards.

The Card Market

One element that I glossed over in the how to play is purchasing cards. I think if you are familiar with a deck builder you know how that works. But the market is a bit different. In Aeon’s End you have nine cards. There are three piles of currency, two of artifacts (or tech in Astro Knights terms) and four for your spells (weapons in Astro Knights). All the cards in each pile are going to be the same.

In Astro Knights the market is a bit different. You still have piles of cards that are specific types of things. Two are going to be piles for currency, cheap and more expensive, one for tech, and then three for weapons. The big thing is that the piles are not all the same card. Instead, they are cards in a range. The first weapon pile, for example, is weapons that cost two or three. Then the next one is four through six. And the last one is even or higher.

So, you won’t know what is going to be flipped. But if one weapon or tech doesn’t synergize well with a character, you don’t have a whole stack of only that weapon like you do in Aeon’s End with spells.

But these are the two big differences for the game. Now back to the normal review. I just wanted to call these out so if you’re like me and love Aeon’s End, you’ll know if the differences are enough for you.

What Doesn’t Work

I think the one thing that I’d say here is that the market can sometimes not be great. If you end up with cards either that don’t work with your character that well, or are on the upper price of their pile, you might have a turn where there isn’t much to buy. Now, that is when you power up or buy a new slot. But you can’t assume or plan that a card is going to be there to buy.

The game is also like Aeon’s End where I think that it is probably better as a solo or two player game. The reason for that is that at higher player counts the turn order deck is going to change. You always have four player cards and two boss cards. So at a four player game it is possible that someone could be first one shuffle and last the next shuffle. That means that they have ten turns between their turns.

What Works

Now as a two player game, I want to say, or solo, this is great. Because it is an even number of turns you never way too long. Plus, there is an element of excitement that can come going back to back. Or even having three or four player turns in a row. Because it means you can do a lot of damage to the boss.

I really like how the bosses work. This is one area where I definitely see it as a step above from Aeon’s End. But I think this is one area where it is nicer. I like how each boss has it’s own deck of cards. That means it is easier to play any given boss. But it’s also fun with the level up. You feel like the game is escalating in difficulty. And while I get that feeling in Aeon’s End as well, Astro Knights is a bit smoother.

I like the ease of set-up of the game as well. I just said that the boss is easier to get out and play, it is very true. But it is also easier for the market as well. For me the changes to the market are kind of “meh”. I like having the fixed market in Aeon’s End because you can create some interesting strategies around it. But at the same time, this is faster to set-up. I don’t need to look for specific piles or cards, are just shuffle up and go with them.

Who Is Astro Knights For?

I think this is a game for people who like Aeon’s End but want a game to get to the table easier. Or people who like Sci-Fi and deck building and maybe don’t like fantasy as well. It isn’t enough of a change from Aeon’s End that Astro Knights would be a game you like if you don’t like Aeon’s End. But if you like deck building, I think that you’ll enjoy it. And it is probably great, like I said, for that ease of getting it to the table compared to Aeon’s End.

Final Thoughts on Astro Knights

I enjoy this game a lot. I’m not sure that I like it better than Aeons’ End though. Some of that is that Aeon’s End has had a legacy version, and I enjoy a good legacy game. Plus I own so much for Aeon’s End that I have an insane amount of variety.

But I do think there is a difference between the two that are going to keep both in my collection. Mainly, Aeon’s End is a game that I need to plan out when I’m going to play it. For that reason, it is more likely that I will play it solo. But Astro Knights, on the other hand, with the ease of set-up and ease of getting the boss ready, that is going to be a game where I can see playing it randomly and just pulling it off the shelf. Both, though, still have the limitation that I would probably only play them as solo or at two.

My Grade: A
Casual Grade: B
Gamer Grade: B+
Strategy (out of 10): 7
Luck (out of 10): 5

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

10. Aeon’s End

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

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

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

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

Buy Aeon’s End

9. Roll Player Adventures

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

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

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

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

Buy Roll Player Adventures

8. Dice Throne

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

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

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

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

Buy Dice Throne

7. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge Rogue Angels

6. Floriferous

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

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

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

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

Buy Floriferous

5. Slay the Spire

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

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

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

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

Buy Slay the Spire

4. The 7th Citadel

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge The 7th Citadel

3. Stars of Akarios

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge Stars of Akarios

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

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

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

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

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

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven/Frosthaven

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

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

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

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

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

Buy Frosthaven

Upcoming Streams

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

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

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

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And for other ideas check out the previous lists.

Two Player Games
Campaign Games
Solo Games
Party Games
Welcoming Games
Medium Weight Games
Thematic Games
Deck Building Games

Trick Taking Games

For Northwood!

We’ll start off with the most unique trick taking game. This is one that already is on a list, but it deserves to show up twice. For Northwood is a solo trick taking game and if that sounds odd and unique it should. How do you make a solo game work for trick taking?

Firstly, you play against the game itself. But it’s not just about getting the most tricks. You need to win at different forest locations all which require a specific number of tricks to be won to succeed there. If you succeed you gather points and allies to use at other locations. Because you play against a random card, you need to use different helpers, you start with a few, to limit or increase the number of tricks you win so you succeed at the location.

The game itself is a great challenge. But then it also comes with some challenges that you can do as well. So once you are done with the regular game and feel comfortable with your strategies in that, let the game challenge you even more.

The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

The next one on the list is The Crew. I put down Mission Deep Sea, but you also can pick the space one. The Crew is a cooperative trick taking game. And you need to complete certain objectives to win each hand. However, you are not able to communicate which is going to be provide a bit of a challenge.

I like how it works because the challenges change for each hand. And for Mission Deep Sea they can change each time you play a certain level or hand. And it might be that I don’t want to win any blue colored cards. You need to win the red six. And another person has another thing they need to do. So how do you play out the hand to keep me from getting any blues. How do we get the red six at the right spot? That is the challenge in this game, and without communication it’s a fun puzzle and really teaches you trick taking strategy around how to win and lose a trick.

Fox in the Forest

Now we get to one of the two two player trick taking games on the list. Fox in the Forest is a head to head game where you want to get points by winning certain numbers of tricks. Win too many it can be bad, win too few, well the points vary across the range. So how can you manipulate the tricks and your opponent to get the number you want.

I enjoy the strategy of not always going for the most tricks. In fact, if you shoot the moon, so to speak, that can be bad. I also like how in the game, you do more than just play cards for their number. Some cards have powers as well. This might let you swap cards with your opponent, or change what the trump suit is. It offers a good puzzle to see how you can control what is going on so you can lock in that number of tricks.

Rebel Princess

Next up is the newest one on the list. It came out in the United States at Gen Con this year. And I really enjoy this game. It’s shot up my list of games that I always want to pull out and play because of h ow enjoyable it is. And because it’s probably the most familiar of the games on this list.

Rebel Princess is just Hearts in disguise. But it is a really good disguise. Like hearts you don’t want to take a certain suit, in this case the princes, because you are princesses and you are rebels. So you want to avoid them if you can. And you certainly want to avoid the frog prince, in the animal suit, because that’s a lot of proposals that you’ll have coming your way.

So all of that is normal, but let’s talk about what isn’t normal. Each player has a princess that they can use once per hand that gives them some sort of power. It might change the number of the card they play, or steal leading a trick, or several different things. And at the start of each hand how you pass the cards and some other rule are added to the game. It might be that you will win the trick if you are furthest away from the card led out. Or it might be the lowest card wins the trick and even more oddness as well could happen. All of those things make the game silly fun and good.

Claim

Finally another two player trick taking game. I believe there is a way to play with more, but this one works really well at two. Claim is played over two hands. And instead of counting tricks, you want to get majority in the suits. But each suit has it’s own power and the first hand you play, well it’s not going to help with that majority too much.

The first hand is going to be about building your second hand. You play out cards to win a new card from the deck of cards. And it might be a face up one, or it might be face down. If you win the trick you get the face up card. So sometimes you want to lose that trick because the face up card isn’t that good. But you also are taking the tricks that you win, because sometimes those cards will help later or give you some other ability to use right then.

The second hand plays out more like a traditional trick taking game. But you are trying to still get that majority. And again, there are a lot of powers and abilities of the suits that you need to keep track of. Like some suits just beat others, so you need to be aware of that. Or sometimes if you lose with a suit, you still get to keep that card you played to help get majority.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy all of these games and there are a lot more that I want to play to get onto the list. So let me know your favorite trick taking games. And are there any from this list that you want to add to your holiday list or maybe you want to give to others this holiday season?

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Mistborn Solo vs Multiplayer

I won’t be doing a full review on Mistborn Deckbuilding Game yet, I need to play it more. Mainly, I want to play a couple more times solo, a time or two cooperatively, and of course some more competitive games as well. But let’s talk a little bit about it and how the cooperative/solo works.

Added Solo Mode

First off, it is more thematic for it to be a cooperative game. I found it odd that it was a competitive game to start. Kind of like Call to Adventure with the Stormlight Archives, though that one makes more sense. But with Mistborn and the characters you play, it always made sense to me that it should be a cooperative game.

The risk, of course, is that it is designed as a competitive game. So I worry about a game that has something tacked onto it. Is it still a good mode? Or is it something to get people who wouldn’t buy it to buy it? I feel like this solo mode is well thought out. As you watch the play through, I am sure you see that I was worried about if I would win or not. It wasn’t until very late in the game that I felt comfortable. And I like that about the game, it feels like an intended way to play it.

Combat

Now, I think that both ways are pretty different. The combat as a multiplayer game is part of the game. And I think in a two player game, the combat is going to be a key element to it. In higher player counts, you might lose the game because of combat, I’m not sure you win the game with combat. But the combat against the Lord Ruler is interesting mainly because he heals so much.

In fact, I feel like the game is almost split into two parts. The first part of the game is a race up the tracks to stop the Lord Ruler from healing. Next you want to deal out damage once the healing is gone. The constant part between that is that you need to heal a ton as well.

I think that it is possible to beat the Lord Ruler with just two of the tracks done. In my play, I believe I could get out damage quickly enough end game to make that work. If he is only healing ten, and not every turn I like my chances. But you definitely need to complete two of those tracks.

Variability

So is the solo mode going to be variable enough. I think there are elements that make me believe it will be. Firstly, the characters that you play are asymmetric. So Vin is different than Marsh who is different than Kel. But I think that difference is minor.

Next is the variable market. That element is going to change up the game each time you play. You might ramp slower to the big cards because of what is available. Or you might find that going up the tracks is harder because of the cards you are able to buy.

I also think those tracks provide variability to the game as well. I picked some with pretty consistent leveling up. The game is going to be different with the other ones. Some give you fewer bonuses. And things like less damage than I had, I think that would make the game a lot harder.

Finally is the Lord Rulers deck. Yes, the composition of that deck is not going to change. But when you draw cards, that is going to be an element that changes. I got lucky with the Kadra and House Lords at the end of the game. If I find an obligator or inquisitor that late, no chance that I win the game. So it is balanced on an edge there.

Upcoming Streams

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

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition. There is one week left, which is going to be two Wednesdays out. After that I’m planning on doing some look back and look ahead videos and smaller solo games or things like Balatro and Slay the Spire.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make. We will skip this Friday because of the Holidays.

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

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