And for other ideas check out the previous lists.

Two Player Games
Campaign Games
Solo Games
Party Games
Welcoming Games

Medium Weight Games

Now, I know that some of these games are going to feel pretty light to people who play heavier games. I mean Medium Weight Games as those next step level of game, where you know some games but you haven’t played a ton.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Let’s start out with a racing game for our medium weight games. While Heat: Pedal to the Metal follows a nice system of what actions you take, there are a number of actions to keep track of. That’s what kept me from putting it in my welcoming game list.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal, like I said, is a racing game. And it’s one that moves along pretty quickly as you gun it down straightaways, slam on the brakes and hit corners. You paly out cards for how far you want to go each turn, depending on what you have in your hand and what gear you are in. But if you blast around a corner, or need to accelerate or brake too quickly you build up heat in your engine. This clogs things up, and while you can drop down in gears and start to cool down, you’re costing yourself speed potentially.

This game is a great balancing act of trying to push it as fast as you can while managing the heat as well. And as you play more, you can do tournaments or cups through several races. It even has a solo mode which is fun to play as well.

Dice Forge

Dice Forge is a dice building game. There aren’t that many of that type of game out there. But you roll dice to collect resources and then spend those resources to buy cards or upgrade the faces of your dice so that they are better.

I like how this game has a nice pivot point. You want to improve your dice. But at some point you pivot to getting more cards for points. When do you pivot, though, is the question that determines how well you do in the game. And you also need to figure out the strategy that works the best with the faces of the dice you have. Some cards might be more unattainable than others, but you might be generating points in other ways.

I also appreciate that you do something on your opponents turns. You don’t do much, but you roll your dice. So it’s not a slow resource generation. You can generate a lot of them quickly, and there are rules for two players to roll more so that it doesn’t slow down the game there as well.

Asking for Trobils

Next up we have a worker placement game. But this one is a bit friendlier and goofier than most. It parodies a lot of classic sci-fi stories and shows.

Basically, Trobils are causing troubles. So you need to catch them, and you get points. But of course you need to build the traps to get them. And everyone is racing around to do that. The worker spots are limited, but the number of ships you have to place out is limited as well before you need to pull them back. And you can recruit pirates or do other things to mess with players, but it’s not really a take that sort of game.

If the idea of this worker placement and almost contract fulfillment, building the traps to get the trobils, interests you, Asking for Trobils is on the lighter side of worker placement games, but will still feel like there is a bunch to do.

Clank! In! Space!

Now we’re moving to a slightly heavier game in Clank! In! Space! In this game you are racing around, building out a deck and trying to get treasure before the evil Lord Eradikus takes you out. But of course, the faster you go, the noisier you are.

I like this game a lot because it offers fun deck building. You buy cards that help you buy more cards, or fight bad guys, or race around the board. And I like how in Clank! In! Space! the board is modular. I know that Clank Catacombs offers that as well, but I need to play that one still. You compete with the other players to get in, get a treasure and get to an escape pod. But if you just get to the bay, you are rescued and can win the game. But you might not even make it out and will be out of the running.

Any version of Clank is good. Regular fantasy, Clank Catacombs with it’s even more modular board. Or Clank! In! Space!. And there is a good app for it if you want to try out the game because you aren’t sure.

Slay the Spire

Finally a cooperative game to wrap up the medium weight games list. I put this one on here because it’s cooperative, it’s based off of a video game, and it’s a lot of fun to play, both the board game and video game.

This is a rogue like deck building game. You battle against monsters to gain more and new cards for your deck. You heal up, upgrade cards, and buy more cards as well as you go along. Can you climb all three levels and win the game?

The game is also a ton of fun because it takes what’s a solo computer game and makes it multiplayer in a way that works really well. I love how it builds up towards that. And it still offers you the unlocking experience that you get in the video game as well. There’s so much going on and it’s just a very fun time for deck building. And you play three acts, but it’s easy to stop between and save if it gets too long.

Final Thoughts

These are just some oft he games that I could put down for next steps. The list is long and there are a lot of great classic games that could work on here as well, things like 7 Wonders would make sense, for example. But which of these games would you want to get and play or do you already have that you love?

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Catch up on my Top 100 Games (of all Time) 2023 Edition:

100 through 91

90 through 81

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 80 through 71

80. So Clover!

So Clover! is a cooperative party game where players are working together to solve a puzzle. Of course, the puzzle is only as good as the person who created it. Now, that might sound mean, but everyone is put into the position of creating the puzzle.

Each player is given a two by two grid of cards that have words on each side of the card, top, bottom, left, and right. On each of the sides of that grid you’ll have two words. So each player writes down a word the best that they can which connects the two. So if you have “hot” and “dog” you might put down “ketchup” for example. Then the cards are removed and players need to try and put it back together.

That doesn’t sound too hard, but what happens if you have “dog” and “marshmallow”? How do you connect those two words? And that’s where the tricky nature of the game comes in. Plus, even if you got the perfect clue for that, there is a mystery card added in that the person writing the clues doesn’t know what that is. So your clue of “ketchup”, in the original example, is now way harder when randomly the new card has “mustard” on it. It’s a fun game which keeps everyone involved and working together.

Buy So Clover!

79. Small World

We go from a cooperative game to a game which is about taking your fantasy race or creatures and smashing your opponents. Of course, as you do that, they’ll be smashing you back in Small World. It’s an area control game where you are gathering gold from taking over areas and holding them. Of course, to get more areas, your friends need to take over your areas.

Now, it might get sucked getting your area knocked off the board. But unlike Risk, you don’t need to hide. Instead your fantasy race can go into decline and you can grab another fantasy race. Then with a new group of characters and a new special power, you can hop back onto the board taking over what your friends have built up.

The game is very in your face, but it makes it not bad because it is for everyone. And when you get beat down, you come back in with a vengeance. And, each fantasy race has it’s own power along with each special power to make them unique and different. So flying giants might work out great one game. And you’ll have underground halflings another time, or you might change from that into bivouacing trolls.

Buy Small World

78. Dice Forge

Now we’re onto a game that dropped a little bit. I think that this one dropped because I haven’t played it in a few years, but Dice Forge is a fun game. It’s a game where you are building out your own dice. Now, you don’t start from scratch you have basic things on your dice. But as you collect resources you can use them to buy cards, often how you get points, or add new sides to your dice.

Now that doesn’t take them from six sides to eight sides or mean that you get a new die. No, you remove the side of one of the dice you have and put a new side on it. It might give you more purchase power or more points, how you build it is up to you. And that is what makes the game fun, it’s a gimmick that really works. And there are a lot of strategies in what you can do.

Another thing that works really well is that when it’s not your turn you roll your dice. So on every other players turn you get a roll and collect resources. So it isn’t a slow build of adding sides. After a few rounds you can start to leap up in what you can buy. I also like that you decide where it goes on your dice. You might get more purchase power and ignore gold and point faces completely on the dice. Or you might load up one die so you always get something better.

Buy Dice Forge

77. Asking for Trobils

This is another one that as I talked about it, I want to play it more. Asking for Trobils is a pretty simple worker placement game of building traps to catch Trobils. All with a familiar but different sci-fi team on top of it. By that I mean that they take a ton of things from popular sci-fi culture and just tweak it slightly. You want classic UFO looking worker ships, you can do that. Or you can get Planet Express for the Serenity.

But I like how this game game is simple. What you do on your turn is place out a worker and take an action. Most of the time that is collecting a resource, like space carrots. Or you might trade in resources for credits or to get a trap that you need to help capture a Trobil. And once all your ships are out, you pull them back for at turn. But the game does add in theme with pirates or characters who you can hire that’ll help you and hurt your opponent. It’s not too in the face though, which is nice.

Buy Asking for Trobils

76. Just One

Now to another cooperative party game. I was going to say it’s the highest party game on my list, but I don’t think that’s right. I’m not sure if Just One is even my highest party game or not on the list. Just One, though, is the party game that I recommend most readily for people who maybe don’t like party games that well but have a group of people who like to enjoy them.

In Just One, one person is “it” they are trying to guess their word. Everyone else is going to write down a single word clue. And from the clues, the person is going to guess their one word. The twist to the game is that there can only be just one copy of a word for a clue. If there are two, or more, all of them go away and those clues will be lost. So you want to be creative, but if it’s too obscure, that might confuse things as well. It’s a great balance that way for the game that makes it better than other party games for me.

Buy Just One

75. Roll Player

Now we’re onto a competitive game where you’re trying to create the best RPG character. Roll Player is a dice drafting game where you use those dice to create the best character. Now, each character has certain things that they want. If you’re a rogue or a wizard, you wouldn’t want 18 strength now, would you? Or you might, but that’s not the stat that you care about the most and you get points for getting it in a range.

But it isn’t just about getting dice in the right places. Because sometimes you might not get the right number. You can also get points for getting the right colored dice in the right places. Or, you get money to buy equipment that gives you points. But some of my favorite is buying spells or traits to get your alignment to the right spot as well as to give you more control over the dice that you’re placing.

It does a good job of taking an element of making a character from the RPG and putting a fun game around it. So it’s two things that I enjoy.

Buy Roll Player

74. T.I.M.E Stories

Now another cooperative game, this section has a nice mix. I know for some people TIME Stories will be lower because they’ve played it all. I haven’t played all of the scenarios, but the ones that I’ve played I really like. TIME Stories is a time travel game where you’re an agent whose consciousness is sent back through time, or across the multiverse, or ahead in time to a point in time where someone is messing with time.

Yes, I said time a lot there. But in a lot of ways the game is like a puzzle or escape room that you can play through multiple times. And while you have to go back and collect items, because they drop you in at a point in time, that you’ve found before, the knowledge you gain stays with you. I really like how that works thematically.

Buy TIME Stories

73. Point Salad

All Eevee is the way to play this game, not really, Point Salad is a great set collection, open drafting game. And it’s really simple. On your turn you take two vegetables (or Eeveelutions) or a scoring card. And that’s the majority of the game.

What works well in the game, though, is that when you take your veggies (or Eeveelutions) those spots are refilled. And the cards that are used to refill it are the cards with scoring on them. The cards have scoring on the back and veggies on the front. So if you take from a column, there are three columns, it’ll flip down that scoring card. You can use that to get rid of scoring card someone else might need, but of course, they can do that to you. So when you take scoring and when you take veggies is an interesting puzzle for the game.

Buy Point Salad

72. That’s Pretty Clever!

Now we’re onto the roll and write game for the list. And the last one of the four Clever games to make the list. I’m not sure if Clever 4Ever will make the list, I need to play it more. But I really like That’s Pretty Clever as a roll and write game. It’s a good balance between a roll and write game that has enough in it and one that is too simple. It does give you a lot of combos to play with.

To me, I think that there might be elements of the others I like better. But in terms of being able to pull this game out and play it solo, That’s Pretty Clever! is the best. And I like that I can play it on an app but also that I can get people up and playing it quickly in person as well.

Buy That’s Pretty Clever!

71. No Thanks!

Finally we have No Thanks! a game about not getting points. You want to pass on the card, you have to put a chip on it, kind of a mini poker chip. But once you run out you can’t pass and you’ll have to take the card. Sot he game is a balancing act of when there are a lot of chips on a card, is it worth taking it?

The chips themselves are worth -1 point, so if you have a lot of them, you’ll counter some of the higher points. Or you can use them to avoid getting other higher cards when someone else might be stuck taking it. I really enjoy how each group sets this market, how many chips is enough to be worth taking a card that has a 30 on it, is it 10 chips or is it 20? That depends on the group you play with. You also can create runs which only score the first card in the run. But there is also a chance that the card you need in that run might not be in the round, so there is a push your luck element there as well.

Buy No Thanks!

Upcoming Streams

I’ll be doing more of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition on next Wednesday and Wednesdays for a little bit. That is always going to be at 8 PM Central. Next week it’s going to be 70 through 61 and we’re getting close to the half way point which always seems like it’s faster than I expect.

And then I also stream on Mondays at 9 PM Central time. That is going to be for smaller solo games. I’m hoping to do Number Drop next week after opening up some Doctor Who Magic the Gathering packs last Monday. So what I stream on Monday is always all over the map.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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How To Play Foodies?

In Foodies you are building out a food court of five different nationalities of food. All in order to have your food court gain the most popularity. You start with nothing, but you add more and more carts to your food court as you go. Each of them being activated when their number is rolled and them helping you gain more popularity until someone passes 20 points (in a two player game) and you trigger end game.

Each turn the active player rolls a die to activate one of nine locations in their food court. Players then take their coin or popularity for activating that spot. But the player who rolled the die gets to spend their coins in order to get another cart for their food court. Then the next player repeats the process.

As you place down a cart, you want to consider what is around it. Carts have stars on some or all of the sides. And as you place them onto your three by three grid you want to line up the stars because when you activate one of them, you gain more popularity. So there is an element of strategy where you place the carts that you buy.

And with the carts, you also consider the goals of the guest chefs you can get in. Some of them you can use any time 4 coins for a popularity. The others each player can score once. It might be four carts from one nation or three pairs of two carts from different nations. Each of those giving your three popularity. Until someone passes twenty popularity and then the round finishes so each player has the same number of turns.

What Doesn’t Work?

This is a very light game. Now, that is a negative because it’ll give the game limited shelf life, most likely. You roll and a die, get coins, by the thing that fits into your goal the best, and repeat the process. The biggest decision that you really make is trying to optimize a little bit of scoring. And making sure you line-up as many stars as possible. But those things are very obvious.

And another thing, while I like that you rotate the different nationalities so that you get different combinations each time you play, what you get from them is very limited. You basically have one resource in the game, coins, and you are trying to get two things, coins and popularity. The game would benefit from more choices around what you can get. There are menus, but your ability to get them is very limited.

What Works?

The speed that this game plays at is great. Turns go by really quickly. And with a few exceptions, I don’t need to think about what you are doing. The two exceptions are US and French foods where you want to have the most to get either money or popularity when you activate them. And that is barely glancing at what someone else is doing. But a two player game, taught and played two last night, took maybe just over and hour. So the game goes very quickly. But I suspect it might slow down a bit with more players.

I also think that while the variety of what the nationalities do work on a few basic things, I like that they give variety or variability. And it isn’t just the nationalities, you can swap out chefs as well. That does give you a lot of replayability before you repeat something. Now, on the flip side, it doesn’t actually feel that different, but for a gateway game, it is accessible and variable.

Who Is It For?

Foodies is for, well, a foodie who is interested in gaming. Or it is a good one for someone who wants to get into board games. If I were to compare this to other games, Machi Koro, Valeria: Card Kingdoms and My Farm Shop, I think it’s the second least interactive. Now, that can be a good thing with gateway games. It means that the player learning only needs to think about what they are doing.

And comparing it to My Farm Shop, also not interactive, I think that Foodies is a little bit simpler. And for some people that will work better. Plus, the theme, which I don’t think is bad on My Farm Shop, the Foodies theme is going to be more appealing. Most people like going out to eat, so it hits an accessible theme.

My Final Thoughts on Foodies?

Foodies is a fun theme for a game. And I think that it is a game a lot of people are going to enjoy. But like a lot of games in the genre, I think for me, I want there to be more. Machi Koro gave me good combinations and building up and engine but the engine was generally similar each time. And that had more cards to it, Foodies is going to do the same thing the more I play it. In fact, I don’t think it’ll be sticking in my collection.

Now, that isn’t to say that Foodies is a bad game, I find it fine. I think I probably prefer Valeria: Card Kingdoms out of all the ones in the genre that I have played. And Dice Forge for a game where I collect stuff on your turn. But in that case you are rolling your own dice. Foodies is going to, however, be a very good gateway game about engine building, and one that anyone can play. That’s what is tempting me to keep it in my collection.

My Grade: C
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: B+

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Why Might Dice Be Bad?

Dice add randomness to a game, that in and of itself isn’t inherently a bad thing. But where hobby board gamers often run into an issue with dice is when you can’t mitigate them. Let me explain that a bit more. In Monopoly when you roll the dice you move whatever amount you rolled. It could be two places, it could be twelve spaces. If twelve spaces ends with you on someone else’s property, there is nothing you can do to stop that.

Now, dice mitigation would say something like, pay $50 to the bank and roll the dice again, you must use that next roll. Or it might be something like pay $100 to the bank and increase or decrease the value of one of your dice by one. There is a cost, but it gives you more control over the dice.

So, the most common thing for hobby gamers is that they don’t like that a die roll can determine everything. In Monopoly, a bad roll or two could bankrupt you without you having choice over that. In Catan the statistically more probable numbers might not get rolled as often, it’s just the luck of the dice.

But Are They Bad?

I don’t think that rolling dice in a game is a bad thing. I don’t even think that sometimes just rolling a die and that being your result is a bad thing. Would I still play Catan? Yes, even though I might roll a three every time and give you resources, I would play it.

But I get why some gamers don’t like it. I generally do not want to play a game where dice determine everything. Monopoly, what you roll determines how well you do. I’d play it, but it wouldn’t be a high choice. Mainly because the decisions outside of do you buy a property or not, there aren’t that many. And generally you buy the property.

Most often though, hobby gamers want to have more control over dice rolls and there are a lot of good examples of games like that. Dice are not going away from games. It is often more about fairness in how you use the dice.

Hobby Games Examples

Let’s talk about a few games that use dice differently. I want to explain how different games might do this. And I think there is a good variety of ways and they often give some really interesting choices.

Ganz Schon Clever

Ganz Schon Clever is a roll and write. Roll and write games often try and deal with the randomness by giving everyone the same randomness. If I roll something, we all fill that in on our board. Ganz Schon Clever gives even more control than that.

When you roll and pick a die to use in Ganz Schon Clever, every die with a lesser value gets set on a silver platter. Your opponents will pick one die from that platter. To go along with that, you do that three times. So if I pick a 4 the first time and put two dice on the platter and roll again, I have eliminated dice that I can use. So yes, the dice rolls are random, but I pick what options I leave open for myself and what I give to you.

Dice Throne

Dice Throne is a head to head die combat game where you upgrade your character and can manipulate the dice. The character that you are using, generally, has upgrade slots. Before you roll for attack, you can pay for upgrades that might give you a better attack or, might give you more die combinations that work to attack with. That is one way you can mitigate a really bad roll, make those rolls harder to happen.

But you also have cards that allow you to change die values or reroll dice. They all cost combat points, the upgrades and the cards to change die faces, so that is the cost you pay to get more control. And I like the variety of ways you can change dice. You might get to reroll dice up to two times. You might be able to change a die to a six, or match another die, or increase or decrease a value by one. So there is a lot of versatility.

Plus, in Dice Throne, some of those cards work on my dice only. But sometimes, I can change the value of one of your dice. So I get a little control over what you roll as well. It adds to the strategy of do I want to play defensively a ruin your plan, or do I want to save it for a big hit?

Dice Forge

Dice Forge gives you control over you dice in a completely different way than anything else I’ve mentioned. You actually customize your dice in Dice Forge. Everyone starts off with dice that are the same. You roll your dice every turn, even your opponents, and you can buy cards for points or dice face one your turn. That then allows you to customize your die rolling engine.

Now, there isn’t anything that you can do to change your roll. But you are the one who built your dice the way that they are. If you still have rolls that go poorly, it probably means you need to upgrade your dice more and focus less on cards. If every roll is good, now you flip your focus, or at least every roll is better, and start buying cards.

Mansions of Madness

Mansions of Madness is a fairly basic way to mitigate dice. When you are doing checks there are success, there are almost successes and there are misses. When you roll and get say a success, two almost successes, and a miss, you can spend clue tokens. That turns the partial successes into fully successes.

So Do You Avoid Dice?

I think that some players have a really strong aversion to dice. They see a die getting rolled and they think that they roll poorly so it isn’t a game for them. I guess that could beg the question if some people roll poorly or not. I don’t think that players actually do or it does even out in the end.

Yes, it might not feel like that when a roll and the end of the game causes you to fall just short. Or maybe it is Dice Throne and I get my ultimate and you can’t do anything about it. But dice aren’t bad for most gamers. And your rolls aren’t bad, no matter what it feels like.

The hobby gamer who should avoid dice are the gamers who want perfect information. What do I mean by that? Precisely what it sounds like, you know all that information. You know how everything will interact and there is little to no variability. It is about building your engine more efficiently than the other person. Or making the smarter moves in an abstract game. Chess is an example, you know all of your moves, you know all your opponents possible moves. If you need that, dice definitely aren’t for you.

Final Thoughts

This last bit is going to be more about what I like. Because I do like a little randomness in my games. I think that it can help keep the game fresh when it isn’t so much of a puzzle or a game where all the moves are available to see every turn. I like to react versus plan twelve steps ahead in a game.

So I like that I can save up in Dice Throne either to stop you from getting ultimate, if need be, or to shoot for one of my own. It makes for a more interesting decision making space for me. It is some of why I prefer Ascension to Dominion. With Dominion, yes shuffling is random, but it is more of a fixed puzzle in each game, versus Ascension which is more reactionary, like responding to a die roll.

That said, I am not going to go out of my way to find a random game. Something like Monopoly where you roll a die and then see what happens. That is not interesting to me. Like I said, I would probably play Monopoly if someone really wanted to, but I know I wouldn’t seek it out. So there is an element of control I want, but I don’t need that perfect control.

Oathsworn

I want to finish up by talking about Oathsworn to kind of demonstrate some of what I mean. In Oathsworn to make an attack or do a check you either roll dice, or draw cards. The cards give you the same randomness that the dice do. So if you roll dice you might get a 0, 1, or 2, let’s say. And the cards also have several 0’s, several 1’s and several 2’s. But the deck doesn’t reshuffle. So you can card count and either know that you’ve seen most of the 0’s so drawing cards and pushing luck that way is great. Or it might not have had any 0’s drawn so it’s cold.

To me that is a fascinating decision point of when you would push your luck with dice or with cards. The dice are always going to be more random. So on a fresh shuffle of cards, you might be able to get higher using the dice. But t here is also a better chance that you’ll bust and the check or attack will fail. It takes a push your luck mechanic and gives it so much more to be interested in the decision.

So to end on a question, do you like dice in games? And do you feel like you have good or bad luck rolling dice in games?

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If you need to catch up all the videos are over on the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. And The next part of the list will be live on next Wednesday, October 6th at 8 PM Central Time.

100 Through 91

90 Through 81

Top 100 Board Games – 80 through 71

80. Just One

This is an interesting party game in that it’s fully cooperative. A lot of party games have teams against each other, or everyone is vying for solo victory, but not that many are cooperative. In this game, one person is the guesser, the other people are giving clues for one word. The other people write down a single word clue. If they duplicate both those clues go away, and the guesser has less clues to guess from. So you want to give a unique, but meaningful clue, or maybe the most obvious one and hope no one else does. We do house rule it so you don’t get penalized for a wrong guess and the game is still great.

Buy on Miniature Market

79. Merchants Cove

It’s one of two highly asymmetrical games on the list, Merchants Cove has you taking on one of several different roles, building up your own engine of things that you do, to try and get goods to sell to merchants. The Captain uses a spinner in some of what they do, the Oracle does it as a roll and write, the Inn keeper is guessing how merchants are going to show up, the alchemist is playing a version of Potion Explosion. The game works well at 2-3 and the different characters are great. Not a complex game but a lot of fun.

Buy on CoolStuffInc

78. The Grimm Masquerade

I called this social deduction, but it’s more hidden role and deduction. In this game you are trying to collect your masquerade character’s gift. But there is a gift you don’t want to get because it’ll reveal who you are. The game is simple to play, you just flip a card and decide to keep it or give it away. You’re trying to get them to bust while getting your correct gifts. Once you’ve decide with your first card you flip and do the opposite with the next. So it might make you closer to busting, or help you, you don’t know. Plus you can guess who other characters are for even more points. Pretty simple game and great artwork.

Not Available

77. Dice Forge

Some games have a lot of toy factor and are just okay games. Other games have great toy factor and are really good games. Dice Forge is a really good game. It has really good toy factor too in that you change up the side of the dice. You build up an engine which allows you to get cards for points but also pull off a side of a die and get a new side. It’s fairly themeless but the artwork is really nice and game play is a lot of fun. What resources do you add to your dice, and how do you optimize to score the most points?

Buy On Miniature Market

76. Claim

I like trick taking games, I own a number of them, but I haven’t played a ton of them. Claim, though, is a really fun trick taking game. The game plays over two rounds, the first you’re playing to build your hand, and the second hand is your actual scoring hand. It is interesting because to build your hand you are trying to win or lose tricks based off of a card that is flipped up. So if it’s a low card of a suit you try and lose and get a blind card instead. Plus the suits have powers which are interesting as well. It also plays really quickly, which is what I want in trick taking.

Buy on Miniature Market

75. Small World

Small World is a game that I call Risk but fun. Plus Small World has you with special powers and fantasy races which let you be different than everyone else. And you are always fighting people, you can gang up on someone in a great position, but then they put their fantasy race into decline and come in with another and attack. There’s no getting stuck in a corner and just left alive in this game. It is faster than Risk, more entertaining and just a really good area control game.

Buy on CoolStuffInc

74. Star Wars: Rebellion

Star Wars in a box. This game is kind of the original trilogy where one player is the Empire and the other player is the Rebels. The Rebels are trying to complete missions to subvert the Empire to win the game. The Empire is just trying to find the Rebel base and wipe that off the map. The game has you moving troops, fighting battles, capturing enemy leaders, and more. It works well, it’s a big game, and even with dice combat it’s a whole lot of fun.

Buy on Miniature Market

73. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1

This is the game that has dropped massively. It was my #10 game overall last year, and honestly could probably be higher. This is how I want to play Pandemic, whatever Legacy season. The reason it’s dropped is that I’ve played through it twice already. So do I need to play it again, I could and I’d like it. But it’s also a legacy game, so I know a bunch of the story and the beats. The game I still highly recommend and if you’re looking for a fresh way to play Pandemic, it’s an amazing cooperative gaming experience.

Buy on Miniature Market

72. Root

Root is the more complex of the two asymmetrical games on the list. Each faction plays differently, but you need to know how the other factions work because that matters for how you play the game. You take on different groups of creatures in the woods from the Eyrie to the Marquise de Cat to a Woodland Alliance and more. The game has you fighting and trying to get area control in a lot of ways. Really smartly done game but harder to learn. I want to start playing it again more often because it’s really good.

Buy on Miniature Market

71. Medium

Another party game to wrap up this section of the list. Medium is amazingly fun. The game has you and a partner on a turn you try and guess the word between two words that you’ve played down. If you match up you get the higher point tokens, if not you try and come up with the linking word between the two that you just said. And now you see if you match again. It’s a good funny party game that has you thinking but it’s somewhat cooperative because matching helps you. And even if it’s not your go, you’ll be thinking of a word that connects just to see if you’d match.

Buy on Amazon

The Next Ten

The list is now 30 games in, and we’re getting close to that mid point. The disclaimer as always, while I like the games higher on the list more, the games on this list are all really good in my opinion. So if you want to see what the next ten are live you can join me next Wednesday. And in general to know when I go live, you can subscribe and click the notification bell. That’ll alert you when I am going to go live or when I put up a new video.

Thanks for checking out the list. Let me know which of these games you’d like to get to the table most? Any that you haven’t tried or that you know you already love?

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Ticket to Ride

Ticket to Ride is probably the most popular Modern Classic board game right now. I think that Catan, or Settlers of Catan, has fallen out of favor where as Ticket to Ride is generally better liked. Ticket to Ride is a route building game and a set collection game. Now, the game that I’m picking isn’t so much of a route building game, but it does have those goals that the players are looking to complete. And you are collecting things, but not cards, marbles. This game isn’t much more complex than Ticket to Ride, but Potion Explosion adds in a level of toy factor to the game. You are pulling marbles out of the tray trying to get like colors to hit so you can get those marbles as well so that you can complete potions. That level is basically the same level as Ticket to Ride, it adds in complexity by giving each potion a power you can use as well, so you decide when you need to get that triggered.

Potion Explosion

Catan

Catan is a game that is known for rolling dice, getting resources, spending resources building more things and repeating the process. You can block people from going places, you can trade things, and while the trading is important to how I play the game, it isn’t for everyone. So when I looked to pick a game, I picked a legacy game, actually, that can still be played after it’s done, and I went with Charterstone. Charterstone is a worker placement game where you get resources which you spend to build more spots to go. It has a similar feel to me as you build out through the legacy campaign. The fact it adds more slowly as well, seems like it’d be a good way to build from a pretty simple game to a game with a lot more going on in it.

Charterstone

Carcassone

Carcassone is one of those games that surprises people when they see it. If they just know classic board games, the idea of building the board as you go is so cool. And that’s the area that I really focused on. I could focus on the meeples and how you play them to get points and get them back. If you love that part but want more, see Charterstone above. But I went with Galaxy Trucker. This game has a real time element to it where you grab tiles and fit them together to make your ship. Then it flies along and you hope to get the most and best cargo and not have your ship be blown apart. It’s a very different theme, but if people love the tile placement, this game has it, just faster. Though, I should be clear, there isn’t a hard time limit for parts of the real time aspect, and the tile placement part is the main part of the game.

Galaxy Trucker

King of Tokyo

This one will probably be obvious to most people who read my articles what game I am going to pick. In King of Tokyo you roll dice to try and get points and energy to get cards, but mainly, you roll dice to hit everyone else trying to knock them out. A game that takes that combat and that dice rolling is Dice Throne. This removes that middle board and makes it so anyone can hit anyone whenever they want. I’d say it’s primarily a two player game, but it does work well with King of the Hill play for three players and keeps people from ganging up on one player. The dice chucking is great, and the unique characters are amazing. I always want the monsters in King of Tokyo to be more unique.

Dice Throne

Small World

A lot of the board games have been a small step up, for Small World, I am going with a bigger step up. Small World is an area control game that I say makes a great replacement for Risk. It’s Risk, but it’s fun and way faster. The game that I’d use as a next step up from it is my second favorite game of all time, Blood Rage. Blood Rage has more than just fighting and area control, there are missions you can do, you draft cards, and you upgrade your clan. I really like the game, and while there are a lot of moving pieces with it, the game just works really well. And if someone wants, they can really lean into combat for getting their points and win, just don’t let someone get all the Loki cards.

Blood Rage

Dominion

Dominion, this is a game that I can get why people like it, but I really don’t. Most of the time, if you have a good player who knows the combos, they will win. That’s no fun to know that you’ll lose before the game starts. You could just explain the combos and whoever has the best one wins without playing the game. Instead, I prefer my deck building games to have a variable market. And the game that I picked to be the next step has that. Clank! In! Space! is a deck building game with more. There is a push your luck element as you try and get as far into the ship as you can to grab the best treasure you can. But the deck building is the big part of the game. The market works great, and the game doesn’t have amazing artwork, just like Dominion, but it has a much more fun theme.

Clank! In! Space!

Pandemic

This is my copout one, what do you play if you like Pandemic but are done with the base game. Pandemic Legacy Season 1, then Season 2, then Season 0. You have three versions of Pandemic to continue with. Season 1 is similar to the base game but then adds more and more. Season 2 is a major twist on how everything works but still feels like Pandemic somehow. And Season 0, I have yet to play that one, but I’ve heard amazing things about it. Pandemic is a good game and a good system, so dive into the more complex version with Pandemic Legacy.

Pandemic Legacy

Five Tribes

Five Tribe is what is known as a point salad style game. You do something, you get points for it. It might be now, it might be at the end of the game, but it’ll give you points somehow. There are plenty of Euro games that do that, but I don’t want to dump someone into a big Euro after they have played Five Tribes. Five Tribes doesn’t feel that euro to me, it’s more puzzly. So I went with Dice Forge for the next game to play. In Dice Forge you are upgrading your dice by changing out sides. It has that cool toy element to it, you are buying cards to get powers and get points. And the big thing is, you are always getting something. You roll the dice for your resources, you roll your dice on your turn and your opponents. And you are always getting resources to spend on your turn, so no turn ever feels wasted, just like in Five Tribes.

Dice Forge

Splendor

Splendor is an interesting one, it really is an abstract game as it’s heart of collecting gems to get more gems to spend those gems to get more gems. And as you go, it gets easier to get more gems as you build out your tableau. The game I went with doesn’t have a tableau, but it does have you getting gems. In Century Golem Edition you are getting cards in your hand to convert your gems into more gems and better gems, but also the right combo of gems to get golems. On your turn you either play a card from your hand, get a card to add to your hand, spend gems to get a golem, or pick up the card you’ve played. It’s a very simple and fast game, but there is more of a puzzle to figure out than Splendor has to get your engine going.

Century Golem Edition

Cards Against Humanity/Apples to Apples

No shocker to the game that I’ll pick here. There are a ton of games that I could say fit into that Cards Against Humanity and Apples to Apples category. The game where you play down cards and someone picks the best. Well, the issue is that once you’ve seen the jokes, you’ve seen them. So how do you get around that? Cards Against Humanity tries to add in a million expansions. My pick, Stipulations, makes your write down your answer. I also like Stipulations because it is flexible for your group. If you want to make it dirty you can. If you want it to be clean, it can be. Plus the categories such as super power are a lot of fun. It’s trickier because it requires creativity of the players. But because it requires that, it makes it much more replayable.

Stipulations

Which of these board games if your favorite modern classic? Are there any that you want to try, or that you want to try the next step up from? What games do you recommend to people who want that next game after Ticket to Ride or Catan?

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So how do you keep this from happening?

Now, I could talk about analysis paralysis players here, but often they can cause some of the problems. But I just want to touch on that type of player briefly. It’s hard to remove downtime for any game that they are playing. It is going to be somewhat incumbent upon that player themselves to fix the problem simply by having an internal clock and being aware that they need to make a decision. And even then, it can be hard for some analysis paralysis players to make a decision.

The other big thing that you can do is play game where everyone takes their turn at the same time. Or at least there are things that people do on the other players turns. There are a lot of roll and writes that I’ll be using as an example here. Welcome To…, MetroX, Railroad Ink, Criss Cross, Second Chance, Dungeon Doodle, and more, all have players doing things at the same time. Then there are games like Ganz Schon Clever, Twice as Clever, and Clever Hoch Drei for games where players take actions or use dice on their opponents turns. For a non-roll and write game, would be something like Dice Forge where you are rolling dice every turn, even when it’s not your turn.

But You Want to Play Other Games?

There are a ton of board games out there, though that aren’t great for people playing at the same time. But it’s hard to not play some games in your collection because they don’t work for everyone in your group. So how do you get them to the table?

For me, I think it’s about creating time and space with the people you want at the table for that game. Fairly often, or the goal anyways, is to do a couple of board game nights a month, as well as some of my campaign stuff. I look it my board game nights as two different groups. There is a casual group where I focus on games with limited downtime or limited strategy so that we can chat through them for at least a little bit of the night. Then I have another game night where the point is to play a larger game. And that group, I tend to pick players who can get through a big game in a night. I know that some games would just not work in a night with some people, and no real knock against those people, but knowing the audience is important.

The challenge can arise, however, if you don’t have a ton of people to play with. And to get these other games you have to play with people who get distracted or take a very long time on their turn. There are a few things you can do to help.

Set the Expectation that you are there to game.

Too often the confusion arises because people who show up to play games distract themselves with non-gaming things. Now, I’m not a stickler on this one, I don’t make people turn off cellphones or keep them away from the table. But the expectation is that people might glance at their phone, but no scrolling of Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook while playing a board game at the table, no playing an app game while you play another board game. The majority of the focus should be on the game and the people at the table. Just doing that will mean you don’t get as much downtime as people won’t be as likely to miss when the turn moves to them.

Set the Expectation that you try and win but winning isn’t everything.

This focused more on those analysis paralysis players. But it can be for competitive players as well who might try and quarterback other peoples moves in a cooperative game. Games work best when all the players are trying to win. But winning shouldn’t be everything. So having some chit chat around the table, letting people take their turns, and not taking too long on your turn to get the perfect turn help a ton with the downtime. I’m not always the best at letting chit chat happen at the table, but my goal is to never slow down the game, especially early game, with long turns. Maybe if there is an important decision if I try and win one way or another way, I might take longer, but make decisions faster, most of them don’t matter that much.

Play a Variety of Games.

This one can be the hardest thing for some people. They are stuck with only liking certain types of games, and I talk about playing the bigger games. But sometimes you need to just play those littler or lighter games with no downtime. Yes, someone can AP over what to do in Welcome To… but not nearly as much, and there is overlap in players doing actions. Also, when a player is creating downtime, it stands out more so than just then taking a turn amidst a lot of other turns that they are taking longer, if everyone is always waiting on them. And this can be a learning experience for other games as well. But sometimes just go towards games that help remove it.

Those are just some thoughts on downtime in board games, it certainly is something that can push some players away from board gaming who might be interested. So when thinking about your games, think about how you can limit it and how it can be made more fun as you play for everyone at the table.

What are some of your favorite games with no or little downtime?

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Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition

A roll and write game, no surprise there, one that comes with it’s own dry erase boards, that’s cool, and a game that I kind of already have. I have the red edition of it, and the different editions add in different mini expansions, so that’s why I’m grabbing the Blue Edition. From what I know, this will allow me to play either of the games with more people because I don’t believe that the boards change, just the mini expansions change it up, so I believe it would allow me to play with a higher number of people, up to 12, I think. So I’m a fan of games that can get a lot of people to the table, and it’s a roll and write.

Dice Forge

The biggest game on the list this time, but one that I’ve had a chance to play I believe four times now, and I really enjoy it for one main thing. In this game you are crafting dice, or upgrading dice more so. The sides of the dice pop off so you get better sides to put on and can upgrade the dice, make dice roll and get more specific things, all while trying to get as many points as possible. One of the things that I really like about this game is rolling dice on other people’s turns. So while you are only getting resources, not being able to spend them, it is something to do, and this is also how you build up to being able to get the really expensive cards that do cool things or give you lots of points. Overall a fun game with toy factor that’ll be in my collection now.

Narabi

This one was on a deep sale, so I decided to pick it up. It’s a small card game that I’d watched played on the dice tower. It’s a fairly simple game about passing and taking cards to get them in order, or at least it sounds simple. The tricky bit is how you can pass the cards. If I remember correctly there are rule cards that either go into the numbered sleeves, or vice-a-versa. These rule cards can only be looked at if the card is in front of you, and that is going to determine how you can pass cards. So it’s an every changing puzzle to try and get it done, and I believe get it done in a certain amount of turns to win, or at least to get a better score. It seems like a quick little filler/bar type game that will be nice to grab once breweries open again, go play it with someone while having a beer and stick it back into a hoodie pocket.

TAGS

A party game and one that I would say builds off of some of those classic party games. It has a timed element like Catch Phrase or Moniker and you’re trying to get points by shouting at words at intersections of things. So it could be a color that starts with the letter B, K, L, and R and then a breakfast food starting with those letters, and so on, and you’re trying to get as many as you can and get the ones that are worth the most points. It’ll be a fun game, one that can maybe even work via Zoom. And it can be played in teams as well. It will just add another one of those group party style games to the collection for more variety which I kind of want/need after playing so many party games via Zoom this past year.

Welcome to Dinoworld

I almost backed this one on Kickstarter, and I’m not too sad that I didn’t with picking it up now. The price is basically the same, and maybe cheaper because I have free shipping. This is a roll and write game where you are trying to manage your dino park. Of course, in Jurassic Park style, things might go horribly wrong, dinosaurs might get out, and guest might be eaten. For something that sounds like it should be light, it does seem to have some depth in game play. I also like that it comes with two modes, one for a simpler game play and one for more complex. I’m curious to see which one I’ll like best.

So those are the five games that I can talk about that I got, we’ll talk about the other one coming up here eventually. Which of them sounds most interesting to you?

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100 to 91

90 to 81

80 to 71

Plus a few notes on how I’ve put together the list:

• These are my favorite, you want what people consider best, see the Board Game Geek Top 100
• If a game you love isn’t on the list, it might be be coming, I might not have played it, and if I have, it’s 101
• If a game looks cool, I have links to buy it from CoolStuffInc or Amazon, or you can grab most at your FLGS
• There are a few games, Destiny 2 Player versus regular Destiny where if they are basically the same thing, I only do one of them

70. Marrying Mr Darcy

This is a smaller and less known game than a lot on the list, but I like it because it is pretty simple and quirky fun. At the heart it’s a set collection game as you collect different skills so that when the first part of the game is done, you can get your ideal suitor and marry them. But because it has a Price and Prejudice theme to it, and because the theme itself is just a little bit goofy, the game is a lot of fun and the set collection almost becomes a background to the randomness of everything else. This is not a highly strategic game, but it is fun. I do think that while the game needs a lot of cards just so you can build up your wit and cunning and other skills, it does overstay a little bit for a game where most of the fun comes from the silly randomness. If there was more variety in the parties and how those worked, it might be higher on my list as well.

Last Year: 98

69. Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

Battlestar Galactica is a massive hidden traitor, hidden role game. The theme works amazing in this game as you are trying to escape the Cylons and get to Earth, but you’re not sure that you can trust everyone and who might be a Cylon and who might not be. So you’re pushing forward, you’re seeing who might be doing something suspicious and there are times when you just can’t help either, so that makes you look suspicious. This is a long game and a big game, but it feels tense the whole time you’re playing, and eve if you can figure out who the Cylon’s on board are, will that help you enough? Does knowing the show help for this game, most certainly, but it’s still an extremely well built game so it’ll still be fun even if you don’t.

Last Year: 55

68. Carcassonne

Another one of those modern classic games and gateway games to make the list. Carcasone probably introduced a lot of people into modern board gaming as you placed tiles down, used your meeples smartly to score, and built out a nice looking map on the table. This game plays fast, and it is still fun to play even though it’s a little bit older at this point. The only negative I have with the game is the farm scoring just because that can be a bit odd, so it’s a bit harder to teach that. Even with that, I like the building of the landscape and I think that the scoring is interesting as you can lock up a meeple to score points in a bigger thing, but that might mean you don’t have enough meeples to score something else. So there’s a balancing act with that and then with making sure you have all your meeples out at the end for scoring then as well.

Last Year: 90

67. Clank! A Deck-Building Adventure

Won’t be the only Clank! on my list, but one that’s a good time. This is the fantasy themed game where you are going down into a dungeon, trying not to disturb the dragon and make too much noise as you go around in your armor, fighting goblins, and then eventually grabbing a treasure and racing out of there. All of this while you are making noise which might attracts the dragon to you and if you take too much damage you’re done. So there’s a push your luck element to the game as you push further into the depth of the dungeon to grab a better treasure. And you do this with deck building, which is fun as you can be risky and get better cards but it might cause you to clank more. I love deck building and I like this game a lot, the only issue I have is that the end game message is a bit abrupt and can punish players for trying to push too deep if someone barely goes into the dungeon and gets out with the cheapest treasure they might be able to screw everyone else over. But if people don’t try and play that way but play more in the spirit of the game, I think that the game works well.

Last Year: Not Ranked

66. Dice Forge

Dice Forge is an interesting dice construction game where you are rolling dice and getting resources to buy cards and buy more dice faces to put on your dice. I think that the game is really interesting that way because you are literally changing up the dice. The different combinations of cards and how you build your dice can really change the strategy of the game as you play. You can go for buying tons of cards, you can go for getting the best dice possible in terms of coins or resources, and you can just go and get victory points from the the cards and dice. There’s one thing that really makes this game work. On your turn you roll your dice, get resources and can buy cards and dice face, but not on your turn, you still roll your dice and get resources.

Last Year: 53

65. Cosmic Encounter

This game is hard to explain but it’s a lot of fun. People could take this game seriously, but the game is best when it’s played in a silly way. Cosmic Encounter is all about getting your bases onto various planets, but to do this, on your turn, you pick a planet to attack and you and the person you attack can play cards to augment how much your attack/defense are. But, there’s more, you can get people to help you and add their ships into their attack, so they can get onto the planet with you as well. But the numbers the players can play can change up the attack greatly, so you can negotiate with the person you’re fighting, maybe if they play a low card for you, you’ll give them a good card, or something like that, so you can really work together for the best of everyone, but of course, you can also lie. But that might not work out, because you might owe someone something, or they might have a special alien power where they win with a lower number than a higher. The game should be played really goofy and with lots of negotiation, so won’t be for every table, but for me, it’s a lot of fun.

Last Year: 49

64. Parade

This game has an Alice in Wonderland theme, but really it’s a abstract game. In this you are trying to get the fewest points and you do that by playing down cards into a line, you look at the number of cards equal to what you put down and you get the cards that match the color or are a lower number, so you can potentially get none, but you might get a lot and they might be high points. If anyone ever gets all the colors, that ends the game and you score, or if you run out of cards in the deck to draw from. The scoring is simple, it’s the total of the numbers of your cards, unless, of course, you have the most of a color. If you have 4 green cards and that’s the most in everyone, you get 1 point per card, so you can push for a lot of a single color or you can try and only get low number cards not really caring about the color. I like how the different in strategies work and it makes for an interesting game.

Last Year: 62

63. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

As I’ve said many a time, I really like deck building games, and this one is a pretty straight forward game, but has a theme that I like with Harry Potter. I think this game does a good job with some nods to the books and movies and I like how this game builds over time and becomes harder but offers more specialization and diversity in what the characters can do. Between the theme and difficulty of the game and this is actually a decent gateway deck building game especially if you have more complex ones you want people to learn. Overall, just a fun game and a good straight forward and cooperative deck building game.

Last Year: 59

62. Galaxy Trucker

I’ve talked about a few goofier games in this section, and I think this qualifies as one as well. In this game you are trying to build a space “truck” and get enough crew and enough cargo spots so you can go fly around the galaxy, get the most money at the end of the flight. But the goofy parts are, first, that you build your ship in real time, so you’re going nice and fast as you’re trying to get everything built and you have to think about the weapons, shields, and engines on your ship. Because if you’re the fastest you can get to planets first and get the stuff you want, but if you add in too many engines or too much energy to fire your engines, you might not have enough to deal with asteroids and pirates. And the asteroids can just blow up part of your ship if you can’t shoot it down or you don’t have a shield that can stop it. After a few different builds and runs to get and deliver cargo, the person with the most money wins. It’s a game that is quite random, but it plays pretty fast and is just good fun.

Last Year: 56

61. Fruit Picking

This one for sure is new to the list because I just got it recently and I played it for GenCon online, but I really like this game already. The game has some very fun things in it. I like how you move the seeds around and how you store the seeds so that you can purchase fruit cards. And you just use those cards to complete sets, like a full house, three pairs, four of a kind, or one of each and once someone has one of those, the game is over and that person won. But to get the seeds, you move them around in a circle, Mancala style, banking seeds but where you end, that’s what you can buy and it gets you more seeds. Just a lot of fun and very much a gateway game. The game is also interesting because it’s from Korea as well, and I don’t know much about the Korean board game scene, but this one was a lot of fun. If you’re in search of a new gateway game, this one works well, though it’s only available via BGG in the US.

Last Year: Not Ranked

What’s your favorite from this section? Any that stand out, any based off of my taste that you think I should try or you think will be higher on the list?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

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10 – Potion Explosion
Now, Potion Explosion is not that unique in terms of video games, but for a mechanic in a board game it has something very cool. You are taking/collecting marbles to mix together in your potion. That piece is pretty standard set collection fare that you see in a lot of games, but it has a mechanic where, because you are pulling marbles from a tray and then more marbles drop in, that if you pull a marble and then like colored marbles hit, you take those marbles, and if more like colored marbles hit, you can take those, so you can set-up a big chain reaction of marbles to use on your potions. It’s a simple mechanic to add into the game, but they execute it well with the tray that holds the marbles and allows them to roll. There’s also more strategy than it feels like there would be, but is still a simple game to teach.

9 – Captain Sonar
This one is interesting to have on the list, because I don’t know that it has a single completely unique mechanic, but the combination of trying to figure out hidden movement, breaking down and repairing systems, and navigating all at the same time, and getting systems loaded, there’s just a lot going on in this hectic game. But they work together extremely well. You get that pressure of trying to hunt down the enemy sub and figure out where they are and what they are up to. And if things go poorly and you need to resurface, all of a sudden they have a chance to find you. This game is also interesting because it’s a big group game but doesn’t have a party game feel.

8 – Dice Forge
I believe that there are a couple other games that have done this, but none, in my opinion, as successfully as Dice Forge, and that is dice customization. In this game, which is basically just a seeing who can get the most victory points over a few rounds, you are swapping out the faces on your dice so that you can get more of several different resources, whether it’s to purchase more and better cards that give you points, or if it’s money that you can spend to get more points, or maybe even just more points. The game gives you a number of strategies for it. But the most fun part is popping off the side of a die and replacing it with something better which really then allows you to customize your strategy going forward.

7 – Hats
Hats is an interesting one to put on the list because it’s just a very small card game and all you’re doing in it is collecting hats in front of you and trying to keep what you want for scoring on the table at the Madd Hatter’s tea party. But how it works is interesting because the cards you get for scoring are from the table. So if you aren’t careful, you could set it up that a color of hat you’ve been collecting might not be able to be scored anymore. So it’s a give and take of collecting a variety of hats but also keeping a lot of scoring options open. It can be pretty thinky at two players. Just the play of the table and how you get cards in front of you feels different and unique to me. So many games you use your own hand for scoring, but in Hats, what you have in your hand, you might not use for scoring at all.

6 – Photosynthesis
First the theme is quite unique, growing trees is not that common a theme, but it has one really interesting and cool mechanic and that’s the sun. In this game the sun rotates around the board and there are games that do that with the moon as well, but the sun rotating can determine if you’re tree is going to get any sunlight and give you points to grow your trees more so and eventually remove your biggest tree which will get you points. But the game is played a certain number of rotations of the sun, and there are a number of spots it can be, but the taller the tree is, the more shade it casts, so it’s a balancing act of blocking your opponents trees at times while getting your own to get the sun in a lot of situations or consistently getting energy to use from the sunlight.

5 – Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game
Not the most unique mechanic anymore, because they’ve come out with two more Crossroads games, though only one of them has been well received. But Dead of Winter is a zombie survival game where you have a main objective, personal objectives, and possibly a traitor, but what makes it unique is that there are Crossroads cards. These cards will only get triggered in certain situations, maybe if you take a certain action or go to a certain place or have a certain character. But that’ll immediately interrupt your turn and you’ll be given a little bit of story and then have to make a decision, it can be something that might help the colony, but most of the time it isn’t and you’ll have to choose between a couple of bad options. It’s a fun mechanic that adds more theme into the game and makes a pretty tough game considerably harder.

4 – Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension
You’ve been sucked through a wormhole and are being pulled into a black hole, so you really need to get out of the 9th Dimension. Fortunately you have a bunch of random elements on the ship that you can use for fuel, unfortunately you’re not sure how well they’ll work. What makes this unique is that the elements do different things, they’re all going to move someone, but some might move you towards the nearest ship, some might push you away, or some might pull ships towards you. And when your ship fires off is completely dependent upon the element that you’re using. The elements fire in alphabetical order, so you might have a card that’ll move you a long ways but it’s later in the alphabet, so you need to use that when you’re confident that it’ll pull you towards a ship that’s ahead of you, and not the wrong way. It’s a simple mechanic but one that works well and causes a lot of tough decisions to be made.

3 – Cartographers
This flip and write does a fair number of things that other flip or roll and write games have done before, or even other board games with the scoring set-up. And combined those by themselves are pretty unique, but there’s one very unique thing that this game does. It causes you to pass your sheet and someone else will write on it. As you are creating your map, monsters might show up, and when they do, you pass your sheet either left or right and that other player puts the monster in the least useful spot possible. And you get negative points if you can’t completely the map around the monsters. Just that screwing over of your fellow players is very interesting and normally roll and writes can be a bit solitaire so this adds in some more interactions.

2 – Xenoshyft: Onslaught
So, in the introduction I gave an example of how a lot of deck building games aren’t that unique. I think that Xenoshyft: Onslaught does something unique in how you can use the cards. In most deck building games, even cooperative ones like Aeon’s End, there are certain steps that you have to do to help the other players at the table. In Xenoshyft, however, you can simply pass them a card while you are setting up your defenses. This means that the person in charge of the armory who can get weapons cheaper can pass the medic a weapon, or maybe someone has six troops in their hand, they can pass an extra to another player to add to their line of troops. Compared to other cooperative deck building games, and actually many cooperative games in general, this one allows you to cooperate and collaborate more on what you are doing.

1 – Betrayal at House on the Hill
Now, this one I’m putting here because of the two halves on the game. There are other games that have multiple distinct parts, Galaxy Trucker for example, but with Betrayal at House on the Hill, you go from a tense cooperative game of exploring a house, mainly tense because you don’t want someone to get too much stuff or too powerful, to a game where it is one versus all as someone becomes the traitor. It does a good job, in my opinion of balancing the tension. There’s less to say on this one, because the mechanic is pretty simple, find enough omens, have a bad enough roll and bad things will happen.

Now, I’m sure I’m missing some that I’ve played and many that I haven’t played that could be unique or do a twist on some more common mechanic. What are some of your favorite games with unique mechanics?

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