Cooperative Games Rankings

So just be aware I’m going to talk less about these games because there are a grand total of 52 that I ranked. Expect a sentence or two on each one of them.

52. FUSE

Fast paced game of rolling dice and then using them to try and complete enough cards to diffuse the bomb. I don’t love games that are only real time, and FUSE is only real time. It plays fast, but the game isn’t that interesting the more you play it.

51. Magic Maze

Another real time game, this time taking adventurers through a shopping mall. This one is more interesting because you need to work together more. But it’s going really fast without talking and sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.

50. Forbidden Island

This one is a great introduction to cooperative gaming and gaming in general. It follows the standard, do something and then something bad happens. My issue is that the game is too easy and generally just an okay game.

49. Arkham Horror: Final Hour

Now, on the flip side of Forbidden Island, this game is hard as you try and guess some ruins to be able to stop ritual from happening. It basically takes Arkham Horror and tries to make it shorter. It succeeds on that, but it also just isn’t interesting. The couple clever things it tries to do are just misses.

48. God of War: The Card Game

And another game that was too easy when I played it. I wonder about playing a whole game if that would make it more challenging, but what I played was fairly boring. I also feel like the decisions weren’t that interesting in the game. Most of the time it was do the obvious thing.

47. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

I talked about this yesterday. It’s a fine deck building game. It is just too slow to get to the table and too slow to get to feeling powerful. If they were to come out with a second edition and make the game play ramp up faster, I’d probably like it a lot. But right now, the ramp is just too slow.

46. Forbidden Desert

I like this a fair amount better than Forbidden Island, it offers more to do and a more clever mechanism of figuring out where to get things. It follows that Pandemic formula for things of do good things and then bad things happen. Played it a few times, enjoyed it, and have moved on.

45. The Mind

This one is an interesting one. You try and play cards down in numerical order without talking. The concept is cool, and the game works, but only sometimes. This is one where it really depends on who is in the group. And I had some good times with it but moved on again.

44. Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellow

I need to try this one again, it’s been a little while. The concept isn’t bad, you are basically playing the boss battles from Sword Art Online the show, and it has the main characters. The downside is that the rules aren’t that great, and it’s pretty simple and lucky. That said, it is tiny, so I don’t mind luck as much.

43. Exit Games

Exit Games are fun, but any escape room game is always hard to rank. I’ve played less Exit Games, and I don’t love that you can’t pass it on. Granted, I did see it kind of work with them at Fantasy Flight Game Center (now GameZenter), but I don’t want to buy something I need to then replace.

42. Flash Point: Fire Rescue

This is basically Pandemic but with fires. You haven’t seen Pandemic yet on the list so you know it’s higher. I think that Flash Point: Fire Rescue might end up being one that I get. And that’s because it might replace base Pandemic for me, but we’ll talk about why later. Very standard cooperative game.

41. Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game

On yesterday’s list, it is one that I like the theme of. Firefly was a great show, and the game is playing through the episodes. The game isn’t that easy and the artwork is just okay. Again, the ramp speed doesn’t seem right for the type of game it is, but it’s better than Marvel Legendary.

40. Stuffed Fables

This is one that I had a good time when I played it, but ended up being one that I never wanted to come back to. The game has a cool story about a kid who has a blanket, I believe, stolen, and you play as animals going under the bed with all the broken toys to get it back for her. But the mechanics were not that well taught and things that changed up on each different storybook page were worse taught.

39. Legacy of Dragonholt

Another one that was in my collection and left. When I heard about an RPG in a box, I thought it was going to be great. And in all fairness, it is a fun game with a lot of story in the box. But the story and writing was just okay. The best I can compare it is that it was written like a YA novel, but not one of the great ones. I think the system was very good, but I wanted writing.

38. Marvel Battleworld

This is dumb little game. I know it shouldn’t be this high on my list, though we’re not even half way yet. It is just a game where you roll a die and advance a track. The fun of the game is buying blind packs and getting little Funko figures. So I have it this high because it’s a fun toy with a little game attached to it.

37. Ghostbusters: The Board Game

We’re still in the area of games that are just okay, but we’re soon to games that are still in my collection. I loved the minis in the game, and the translucent ones look cool. But the game play was just okay. While there were different scenarios, they weren’t bad, but it wasn’t all that interesting. I just wished there was more.

36. Elder Sign

Another one that left my collection, some of that was just because I had only the base game. I have heard that the expansions help improve the game, and add more to the story of what you are doing. The base game is basically a Yahtzee type game, and I wish that it played a little bit faster for what it is.

35. Legends of Andor

Story driven puzzle game, Legends of Andor is good. The reason that it left my collection is that I never wanted to just sit down and play through all of it. So when I did want to play it, I’d play through the introductory scenario again and I did that a few times. But I like the story and the mechanics are pretty cool.

34. Sword & Sorcery

I played this one a lot, I got through the base game and one expansion. And I do like this game. Once I played that, though, I got rid of it. Even though I had more characters to play with, I wasn’t interested in going back through. The story doesn’t branch enough for that. And I wish that you could retire characters like in Gloomhaven.

33. Castle Panic

I almost culled this game, and I might, the board is a bit dinged so the FLGS didn’t take it. But the game is still playable. We’re not here to talk about that, though. The game is fun, and it’s a very light tower defense game. I like that I can play it with almost anyone, and while you rarely lose, it feels like you might. If I don’t lose a cooperative game fairly often, though, I will move on from it.

32. Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

This is a fun silly little game. I would say that it’s pretty much a solo game. Because you all play as one character and basically just do a choose your own adventure. You can make decisions as a group and pass around who is reading and rolling a die, but that’s how it’s cooperative. It is fun for that, though, because it’s so silly that everyone is laughing together.

31. Mysterium

Mysterium bounces all over for me. I think it was in my Top 100 games this past year and now with this ranking it wouldn’t be. If and when I play it again, it likely will move up. This is about figuring out who the murderer is. And there are rules about how that all works, but really it’s about giving clues as a ghost to everyone so they can figure theirs out. It’s cool concept that can get in it’s way with how it tries to be a game.

30. Unlock Games

The better escape room style board game. Unlock Games you don’t destroy anything, unless in a fit of rage. And I like how it counts down building up pressure versus Exit which is just see how long it takes you. And there are a lot of these with a lot of different themes. I want to play more, but it’s kind of a lot of a game night and works better with 3-4 people not 6.

29. Arkham Horror

This is the 2nd Edition, I haven’t played my 3rd Edition yet, but I need to. This is a grand epic game that takes forever to play. But it is a lot of fun. I felt like when I’ve played it that I get into what is going on in the game. The story is light, but the longer you play, the more story develops just from what you are doing.

28. Dead Men Tell No Tales

I like pirates, so that helps this game. And the supernatural twist on it is good. It again falls into that category of do some things and then bad things happen. What ended up causing this one to leave my collection is that it is that bit more. There are so many things to keep track of and the game isn’t as familiar, I didn’t pull it out over Pandemic.

27. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Another deck builder on the list, and one that I just got rid of as well. Why, because I own a lot of deck building games. This one I like the theme of it, and the mechanics are fun. The game gets a bit longer as you go, and I wish there were more characters in the base box. It’d be one I’d gladly get back when I have a group to play it.

26. Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

It’s odd how many leave my collection, and this is another. And I actually just realized that I forgot to rank Star Wars: Imperial Assault which also just left. So this counts for both. They are great games, The apps work really well, and you can pick your preferred theme. These are campaign games with a nice sense of adventure, but because they are campaign games, that’s why they left.

25. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

This one is still in my collection, huzzah. And it’s probably surprising because when it came out people didn’t love it. But I really enjoy this game. It is a tough cooperative game where you can play all sorts of one off missions with different focuses. Or you can do a mini campaign. And it has an app, not a great one, to handle a lot of the bad things that happen, which I like.

24. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

I really should buy a copy of this game. I played a few times at Fantasy Flight Game Center and really liked it. But never picked it up, and then played a bunch on the app. There is story, campaign, deck construction, and a lot of cool card play. I prefer the game that this is based off of, but I’d gladly have both in my collection.

23. The Lord of the Rings

While some might argue this game is fairly abstract, where you are pushing up on tracks as you go through the story of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I really enjoy this game. It is a very hard cooperative game, but it gives you rewards at just the right time. It’s one I haven’t played in ages, but now that I’m thinking about it, I want to play it again.

22. Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

My favorite book series in a board game. When talking about this one, I always want to to point out that it is abstracted. And while the theme is there, it is mainly there if you know the books. I love picking out one of the books to play and then characters from that book and trying to beat the game. I like it best, I think at two, though three isn’t bad either.

21. Just One

Party game on the list, Just One is a great game. And I really like that we are getting a number of cooperative party games. Here one person is trying to guess a word, and everyone else gives them a one word clue. But any duplicate words cancel. Simple game, clever idea, don’t need to play for points, and always a blast.

20. Cross Clues

Another party game, I told you there are a few, Cross Clues I like just a little bit better. Though, last time I played it I was so tired that I messed up a few times. Here you are giving a one word clue to get people to guess the intersection of two words. So it might be day and octopus, what word is between those two? Eight might be a good option. Simple and a lot of fun again. You can play real time, 5 minutes, see how well you do, we never do that.

19. Pandemic

Here are all the Pandemic games. And I have to say, I don’t know that I need to play base Pandemic again. Pandemic Legacy games just kind of ruined it for me. Still in my collection, but like I said, I might get Flash Point and replace it. If I want to play Pandemic again, I’ll play legacy, I think.

18. Village Attacks

A bigger tower defense game, I am still waiting for my Kickstarter to come in. It funded in 2019. But I am excited for it when it does. Village Attacks has you playing as the bad guys with the villagers coming with pitch forks and torches. You might be grotesque or horrifying, but the theme is just funny to me, so while it’s a dark game, it doesn’t come across.

17. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

I really need to play more of this game, it’s another one that I just really love. Arkham Horror: The Card Game, is the living card game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight, and it’s so cool how they can do so many different things with the game. Great card play and fun deck construction that I want to do more of. I prefer it two player, I think, but it’s good solo as well.

16. Similo

Final party game on the list, but not final light game. Similo is game where one person is it. That person is giving clues of either a card being like or not like the secret card. Then the rest of the players eliminate cards. Simple concept for a game and a ton of fun, especially to mix decks. How do you tell players that a chicken is or isn’t like a vampire or medusa?

15. Apocrypha Adventure Card Game

This is the game that the Pathfinder Card Game was based on, though the Pathfinder one came out first, it’s confusing. But I like the dark theme of this one, there is warfare going on between supernatural forces, and not everyone can see it, but you can. So how can you stop it in the different scenarios. Good game, great art, and my sort of them. Horrible rule book.

14. Say Bye to the Villains

Definitely the hardest game on the list, at least in terms of winning. The play is simple, spend time to improve your stats, look at what a villain is doing, and hope that you can win when you run out of time. And there isn’t enough time to do everything in the game. I’ve come so close to winning so many times, I’m sure eventually I will.

13. The Reckoners

Pretty high on the list for limited plays, but I love the theme of the game. The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson is a great series. And I love the game play, it’s tough, even on easy, but it has a lot of good choices. And you feel like you can do a lot on your turn as you roll dice and every face on the die is probably something you need.

12. Marvel United

Marvel United is a pretty easy game, but I love it a lot. In the game you are playing down cards to stop a super villain. As superheroes you all work together. So the last card you played, if I’m next to go, I’ll get to use as well. The villains also feel so different in this game, and while I have everything for it, the grab and go get it to the table is great.

11. Letter Jam

A game that just made me realize I forgot to rank Hanabi, I play a lot of cooperative games, Letter Jam is a game where you are trying to guess your word. But you can’t see the letters that make up your word. Only through clues and words given by other players can you infer what your letters are. There is some good strategy in figuring out what are good clues. Loads of fun and one that I think a lot of people will like.

10. TIME Stories

The highest escape room style game on my list, though this one has more going on than that. I really like TIME Stories for the puzzles that it gives. I haven’t played all of them yet, and I have heard that some are weaker than others. But every one that I’ve played thus far I really enjoy.

9. Roll Player Adventures

I’m really excited, I get to play into a campaign of this in February. Roll Player Adventures is my highlight from GenCon in 2019. Getting to playtest it was great. In the Roll Player universe, this takes characters you might have rolled up, or pre-made ones, and lets you take them on adventures. The adventures are fun, and the combat is interesting. It’s a lot of choose your own adventure and so good at that.

8. Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition

Another Lovecraftian game, and another cooperative one. All of Fantasy Flights games in their Arkham Files line are cooperative. Mansions of Madness is app assisted and so much fun. Like Arkham Horror The Card Game, the game can be so different depending upon scenario. Some might have you stopping a ritual in a mansion, others exploring a town. One that I want to play more of to see what else they can do with it.

7. Sleeping Gods

You can watch me play this tonight, Jan 26th, on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is a big adventure game that I’m playing solo right now where you are the Manticore, a ship, and sailing around with crew that go on adventures. The game has an amazing aesthetic and story. Even though the story isn’t linear, it works well. And the world it’s set in is really cool.

6. Marvel Champions

I like Marvel a lot, and for me Marvel Champions is the best Marvel game. The different heroes feel like that hero, and you can take them up against any bad guy. While Marvel United you play as one hero they are a bit more generic. And Marvel Champions gives you that alter ego side, so you push and pull to keep the villain at bay. And there are so many heroes and villains already and there can be so many more.

5. Aeon’s End

Another one I talked about yesterday. Aeon’s End is a cooperative deck building game where you try and stop a nemesis. A great solo and two player game. There are so many set-ups and so many cards for it. Now this does include Legacy as well, which is a great introduction to the game. And I like that the randomness in the game isn’t shuffling your deck, it is turn order and what the monster does.

4. Xenoshyft: Onslaught

Another deck building game, this one is Starship Troopers and tower defense. I like how collaborative the game is. I build my deck, but if I have an extra troop and you need one, I can give it to you to defend your part of the base and it goes into your deck. It allows everyone to really balance out what is going on and have a chance, which is good, because it’s a tough game.

3. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

I feel like this one I talk about and always describe it in a way that doesn’t sound that fun. But in this game, I feel like I am a detective. It’s a bit like a detective TV show, but fun is how I put it. You get into the case and the theme and if you allow yourself to be immersed in figuring out the story going on it is a great time.

2. Tainted Grail

Another one from yesterday, Tainted Grail is an amazing story adventure game. You take these characters and build them up through a grim dark storyline. And the writing on the game is just so well done. In terms of thematic games, I feel like this one might top my list, though, not my favorite cooperative game.

1. Gloomhaven

For my favorite cooperative game, no shock, it’s Gloomhaven. I love this game. I love the leveling in this game and the card play in this game. And I love that you retire characters and get new ones. I think that the mechanics are amazing and the story is interesting. But overall it leads to a great cooperative experience.

Final Thoughts

I’m guessing since I missed Hanabi and Imperial Assault that I likely missed others. And I also found it interesting how many I’ve gotten rid of. I think a lot of that has to do with me having so many I’ve played. It means that they are fighting for playing time. So only the top ones stick around. Especially when you get down to campaign games, for those it’s even a tighter field because of Kickstarter games coming in and time.

What is your favorite cooperative game?

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Before we get to the list, let’s start by talking a little bit about how the list is made. You can see some of the process that I go through in this article earlier this week. But as to the games on the list, these are all games I’ve rated on Board Game Geek.

To go along with that, the games that are in my Top 100, I’ll have links to where you can buy them. I tend to do most of my board game shopping online through Miniature Market and Coolstuff Inc. I’m going to try and use their links over something like Amazon, but I do want you to be able to find these games if they look cool. Let’s get to the list.

Board Games 100-91

100. Skull

This is a great little bluffing game. Normally bluffing games aren’t my thing. I am not the best at bluffing in them, but this one works for me. It is small and it’s simple. When it comes down to it, I think the simplicity of what you are doing in the game is really what works for me. And I like the twist on it that when you bid to flip you have to flip your own stuff first. That means sometimes when you bluff you don’t have a skull in your like you’ll end up flipping our own and beat yourself.

Buy on Miniature Market

99. Takenoko

This game is just a really cute one. Takenoko has you trying to complete objectives to get the most points. The game is just maybe over a gateway game level but really good. The cute factor really sells this game for a lot of people. I like that you have three different ways that you can score points in the game. The fact you can go for panda, gardener or tile points is nice, allows for different players to have different strategies.

Buy on Miniature Market

98. Shadowrun Crossfire: Prime Runner Edition

This is one that I really need to play again. It’s a fun game where you are building out a deck of cards while trying to defeat different threats. You each also start out a different way, so like the RPG it’s based on, Shadowrun, you are building up special skills that only you have. A challenging game for sure, but I like it when my cooperative games challenge me.

Buy on Amazon

97. Photosynthesis

This is a game about trees. It looks like it should be a nice and friendly game, it is not. Photosynthesis is an abstract game where you are planting your trees, figuring out how to maximize your sun points, and blocking your opponent from getting their own sun points. It’s a good puzzle of a game though because the sun rotates around the board. That means you can set yourself up for some really good turns, but on the flip side you might end up with some turns with no points, if you aren’t careful. Fun game, but very mean.

Buy on Coolstuff Inc

96. Mysterium

Another game I haven’t played in a while, Mysterium. This one really is because of the pandemic because I think it works better at a higher count, and I don’t own the game. But in this game one person is a ghost trying to give everyone else clues so that they try and figure a murder, weapon, and location. We don’t play it quite right but we play it in a way that I think is more fun, and it keeps the base of the game the same.

Buy on Amazon

95. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

This one I think would be lower on the list for a lot of people because of a bad taste from the app for the start. But the game itself is a good time and you can get it cheap now. The app is definitely better than it was, but you’re trying to survive on Mars. You station might be breaking down, the :44supply ship might have crashed, or something like that and now you are trying to survive the scenario. It’s a challenging game but it feels good when you win. Think of this as The Martian the board game.

Buy on Coolstuff Inc

94. Pandemic Legacy: Season 2

I like my legacy games, and Pandemic Legacy Season 2 is a very good one. The Pandemic games really do a great job of giving you tons of new stuff to unlock during the game. And the story in this one is good. I will say you do need to play the first season of Pandemic Legacy first. Also that while the mechanics are similar to Pandemic they feel different and the game feels unique as you play it and explore the world.

Buy on Miniature Market

93. The Lord of the Rings

Another very challenging cooperative game. The Lord of the Rings is a good book themed Lord of the Rings game that is pretty abstracted. But the artwork is great, the challenge level is great, and you feel the pressure of trying to get the one ring delivered. There was a new edition that came out not too long ago, but I prefer the older version without the extra plastic in it. And I like that you play only as the Hobbits because that’s fun as well.

Buy on Miniature Market

92. Wits & Wagers

The first party game to hit the list. This is my preferred trivia game to play because you don’t need to be great at trivia. Every answer is number based and that means that you are just trying to bet on the right number without going over. So if it’s something about a movie and you know the most about movies, maybe bet on your own, but if you know nothing about sports, bet the other person who knows sports answer. Being close is just as good as being right and knowing who might know best.

Buy on Amazon

91. Criss Cross

This one has dropped a long ways. A lot of that is that I’ve played a lot of roll and write games since I did the list last. There are games that I’ve played which has pushed this one down. That said, Criss Cross is still a really good game. It’s pretty lucky as to what comes up on the dice, but how you put in that combination of two really matters, since everyone is using the same dice. It’s a good quick game and one I wouldn’t say no to playing, but I might not pull off my self as much anymore.

Not on Amazon, Miniature Market, or Coolstuff Inc

There we have the first 10 games on the list. I really like all of these. I think on my list as a whole that 7 or 7.5 is about the lowest that can make my list in terms of rankings and most will be 8’s or higher. Let me know which of these games you like best or which one you want to try.

The Next Ten

And if you want to catch it live, you can do so over on YouTube. Checkout the Malts and Meeples like at the top of the article. I have the next four videos scheduled. So you can subscribe and click that notification bell to know when I’m going live. But if you’re catching this later, 8 PM Central Time every Wednesday from now until the week before Thanksgiving, November 17th to see what games make the list.

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Marvel Champions

This is probably my favorite solo game right now, and it’s fun because you can customize it for the person you are getting it for. Marvel Champions is a Living Card game put out by Fantasy Flight Games, where you take on the roll of a hero (or you can play up to 4), and you face off against a villain, their henchmen and their schemes. You have two sides you can play as a superhero, you are either in your alter ego side, T’Challa, Tony Stark, Peter Parker, etc., or you are in your hero side, Black Panther, Iron Man, Spider-Man, etc. When you are in the alter ego side the villain only schemes and won’t fight you, when you are in your hero side, they’ll scheme slower, and fight you. It’s a balancing act changing between the sides of a hero. What works well in this game, is that it’s a living card game, that means that Fantasy Flight is supporting it by putting out new heroes, villains, and scenarios for it. So if someone is a huge Black Widow fan, you can grab the base game and the Black Widow expansion pack and customize for them. And there are a ton of different character options. Great for a superhero fan if you life, but also just a really good game.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game

So, I’m going with another living card game here. If you try and get someone everything for these, it’ll get extremely expensive, but Arkham Horror: The Card Game, is a great solo game, and worth talking about. In this game you are taking an investigator through a series of story where the choices you make can and will make a difference. If you kill a monster, save a person, find out all the cultists, that’ll adjust your scenario, story, and rewards going forward. This game is a really nice puzzle of a game where you are trying to find clues, pass tests, and fight monsters, using cards that are either equipment or abilities, or spending them for resources to make it more likely you’ll pass a test or so that you can buy one of the cards. It’s a really interesting game system that allows itself to tell so many stories in so many different ways in something that is just a card game. Very smartly made and really enjoyable. This is for someone who loves to try and optimize and solve a mystery/challenge the best that they can.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

While the other two have been good gamery games, Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger, is basically just a choose your own adventure book, with some cards and some challenges. This one has a ton of nostalgia to it as you play through what is a completely insane story seeing how well you can do, trying not to die, and reading great story. And by great story, I mean that it’s very crazy story but that it’s a lot of fun. It’s written in a very light way and really interesting and enjoyable. This one works well solo because you can kind of just flip through the cards, make decisions quickly, roll dice when needed for the challenges, and continue. None of the decisions you make seem like they have a massive difference in how the game will go, they mainly will get you stuck in areas or having to deal challenges which you’ll probably eventually defeat. This one is good light fun for a solo gamer who is just looking to have a good time.

First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

For your sci-fi solo gamer out there, there is First Martians. In some ways this is almost Martian, the book and movie, the board game. You are on Mars, setting up the first colony there, and things are going to be breaking down. You need to think about food, oxygen levels, you might be out exploring the surface, building things to improve your base. This is a pretty challenging game with a not that well written rule book. Fortunately you can learn to play by watching it on the Watch It Played YouTube channel, Rodney Smith does a great job there. First Martians also gives you a number of ways to play. You can pick one off missions focused on different things, such as exploring Mars, building and adding on to the station, or just trying to make a broken station survive. But then there are also campaigns where you play through a few games in a row. Overall this game, while it has it’s flaws, is so much fun to play and offers quick experiences and longer campaigns depending on what you want.

Aeon’s End Legacy

So I mentioned campaign games above, and I think it’s fitting to wrap up this list with a game that has a campaign to it. There are a lot that I could have picked, Mage Knight, Deep Madness, Folklore the Affliction, Sword and Sorcery, Reich Busters, and a whole lot more, but I’m picking Aeon’s End Legacy because I like deck building games, and I think that the game play offered in Aeon’s End is really interesting and easy to solo. By that I mean that in lot of these games you can’t just play them true solo, even something like Gloomhaven you have to control two characters, so you’re doing more “house keeping” and keeping track of leveling up multiple characters. Aeon’s End Legacy isn’t true solo, you do have to control at least two characters, but the game play is much simpler. You don’t need to think about 10 different stats, what weapon or dice to use or roll. Instead, you are just playing your hand of cards when the turn comes up. I’m a big fan of Aeon’s End: War Eternal, so Aeon’s End Legacy is one that I have on my shelf that I need to play, but that I’ve heard great things about and that I can recommend knowing the system well.

Now, there are obviously a lot of other games I could mention, Mansions of Madness, which I’ve talked about before, really most cooperative games can be played solo. I’m even playing through, or will be soon, Pandemic Legacy Season 2 solo. So even games that aren’t truly solo, as long as there isn’t hidden information, can be played solo, but I think that hopefully these are some good options. I basically went with cooperative games, but there are solo variants for things like Alien Artifacts and Scythe out there as well, they just need a bit more house keeping in what is done.

What solo game would recommend for a solo gamer? Or if you are one, what would you want to get?

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• 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

90. Small World Underground

Now, I like Small World of all varieties so the other might be higher on the list, but Small World Underground does a lot of fun things. Mainly, I like that it adds in some new combinations and it adds in landmarks or buildings that if you control the area, you get a certain added power. It encourages even more fighting but also keeps it from picking on a player. If you aren’t familiar with Small World, it’s a nice introductory style area control game, I like to call it Risk but fun, it doesn’t overstay it’s welcome, you have fun and goofy combinations and you still get all of that in this version as well, it just adds in a little bit more, which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 65

89. Scattergories

First party game on the list, and as a spoiler, there aren’t a ton of party games. But this one is a classic party game that I think works well still. What I like is that with the randomness of picking different lists and rolling to see what letter you get, and just playing with a different group, you can really see a wide variety of answers. I also like this one because it’s extremely easy to play on Zoom or over video chat. You just need one person with the game and everyone else with paper and pencil. You just show off the list and the letter each time and let people work off of that, it makes it a lot of fun and works extremely smoothly.

Last Year: 69

88. The Hobbit

This game is a pretty simple game, but one that I think is pretty fun, what I like about it is that it’s a semi-cooperative game and I think one that works. You are trying to collect the most gems possible, all while getting to the end before Smaug comes out of the Lonely Mountain and makes it to Lake Town, but the member of the party who has the most gems and money is the winner of the game. So you’re leveling up and then facing off against challenges, but if everyone can’t handle the challenges, that means that Smaug is going to advance and you don’t want that happening. So it’s trying to help people level up their skills enough, but also making sure that you’re in position to get the most and the best gems. I think the combination works and the game plays pretty fast for looking like it has a pretty big board.

Last Year: Not Ranked

87. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Plant

Some games are extremely challenging and have a lot of moving parts, this is one of those games, in fact it can feel like there is more going on with upkeep throughout the game than playing the game, for some people, but I like it, not the upkeep, but the game in general, as it’s my number 87. In this game you can play through a series of tied together campaign story as you try and survive in a habitation station on Mars, which The Martian, or you can play one off scenarios that are focused on different things, getting the habitation station up and running or you can go out and explore the planet. The variety of the game works nicely and it feels like there is always more to do than you can. reasonably get done. It’s a good challenging game that might not be for everyone, but is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 72

86. Quoridor

So just higher than a big heavy game, we have a small little abstract game. This one is a lot of fun because of how simple it is. You want to get to the opposite side of the board. To do that, you move your pawn one space in any direction on your turn, or you place a wall that creates a blocker for your opponent. And that’s the game, but there’s more to the game than that, as you try and set-up traps and let the other person get close and then make them back track a long ways, it’s a very interesting game and one that plays quite quickly. I think it works good at two, but I like it at four because there’s a bit more randomness to the game as you have to plan and keep track of more, but there’s also more teamwork that needs to happen as you need to work to stop people at times.

Last Year: 73

85. Root

Now we’re back into bigger games with Root, an asymmetrical war game, basically, with different factions of woodland creatures vying to complete their goals in order to win the game. I like how the different factions play, the cats are all about building up and out, the woodland creatures need to take over areas and don’t start really with a board presence, the birds follow a very specific pecking order (all puns intended) of actions that build up over time. And the Vagabond just builds up their own things and can ally with people or become enemies of them. The game has an extremely long teach as you need to explain how each faction works, and that’s definitely a negative for it, but the actual actions and how to play each faction is pretty straight forward. It’s a big game but one that’s very cute on the table and doesn’t bog itself down when it comes to game play, which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: 70

84. Age of War

Age of War is a small little dice game where you are trying to get the correct combinations on your dice in order to get control of castles, creating sets of them, and scoring points. It’s basically a luck based dice rolling game, but there’s something about it that just works for me. First, the game doesn’t generally take too long. If everyone is unlucky, getting the last castle could take a bit, but I haven’t really seen that happen and turns are very fast. What I like about this as compared to just a random die rolling game like a Farkle or something along those lines is that when you get a castle, it isn’t yours, it could be stolen from you, but it’ll cost just a bit more in terms of dice that you need than it did to take it from the middle. But if you get a full set of the yellow, or grey, or whatever color castles, they flip over and give you a few more points and are locked in for you and can’t be stolen. So if you see someone getting close to a set, it could be worth it to steal from them. That just gives the game a little bit more strategy which is a lot of fun.

Last Year: Not Ranks

83. Star Wars: Imperial Assault

If you want to play a Star Wars dungeon crawl, this is the game. You play through as heroes adjacent to the main story of the original movies, at least out of the core box, as you can be a Jedi in training, a wookie, or one of several other characters and you face off against the Empire. This game can be played with someone running the Empire side or, which I’ve done, there is an app that works well with a good tutorial that walks you through everything so you can play solo. I like that flexibility for the game play, and I like that it feels like Star Wars without it being so closely tied to the main characters or feel like you’re changing the movies, but it still gives you an engaging story. Overall, this is one that I want to play more of.

Last Year: 30

82. Ticket to Ride

Dropping down a bit this year, I still like Ticket to Ride a lot, it is just a bit lower on the gateway game list. This is one of my preferred gateway games, though, and it gives a lot of options for play. I think that it works well for introducing people and while there is some to keep track of in the game as you are planning and building your routes, what you are doing on a given turn is extremely simple and that makes it very accessible. In terms of truly simple gateway games, this one takes the crown for me as the best of them that people have heard of and I can pull out with basically any group. It’s hard to say more about this one, most people know it, and it’s a fun time. Plus there are lots of different maps if you get board with the base game.

Last Year: 38

81. The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

So, this one is higher than Star Wars: Imperial Assault, but it feels a bit like a sequel to it or one that is built upon it, and it has smoother game play, but it does one thing I don’t love. Just to quickly talk about it, you can play major characters from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, it doesn’t make a ton of sense thematically, in my opinion, I wish they had gone with the archetypes like Imperial Assault did. That said, I like the game play, I like the card play and the deck construction and upgrading it gets that feels like it’s borrowed from Arkham Horror LCG, I think that the combat works well, and overall, it’s just a fun time. The story is cool, and while I haven’t beat it yet, I need to go back and start again and enjoy. I also like that there is part of the game that is on a bigger exploration map and you get to explore new areas, find clues, and things like that as well as fighting, but then there are tactical battles as well in between the explorations. The game feels like there is a ton it can do, so I want to play more. And it has an app that works very nicely.

Last Year: 94

As always, what is your favorite out of this group? I have quite a variety, we have some big games, some small games, party games, and gateway games. So possibly, a little bit of something for everyone.

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

80 – 7 Wonders
One of the things that makes 7 Wonders such an enjoyable game is the fact that it scales well. You actually can play it up to 7 people and it works well like that, and the same with lower player counts. In this game you are building up your society and trying to build one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. To do this, you are drafting cards, building up your tableau, and scoring points in a lot of different ways at the end of the game. I have this lower than some other drafting games simply because the theme isn’t that exciting. Also, 7 Wonders encourages hate drafting, because if you don’t, science can be a run away strategy for a win.

79 – Risk Legacy
Regular Risk won’t be showing up on this list. That has player elimination and the game ends when someone controls the whole world. Risk Legacy, fixes some of that and gives you some fun stuff to open. In the game you play one of several factions who are trying to take over this new planet. But instead of wiping everyone off the board, you just need to get enough points. Generally, this is done by taking over a couple of the HQ’s that your opponents control, but there are other missions as well that can give you points. This keeps the game time much lower and when or if you are knocked off the board, you can come back on your following turn, probably won’t win, but you won’t just be sitting there. As compared to other legacy games, this doesn’t have story, but it doesn’t need it and it’s enjoyable to play without it.

78 – Dice Throne: Season 2 Cursed Pirate and Artificer
There will be more of this game higher on the list, and I could have maybe clumped it all together. But this is stand alone that you can play yourself. The reason that I have this one a bit lower is that while they are a ton of fun to play, they are also a bit more complex. So I don’t know that they would be the two that I’d pull out for beginners. Dice Throne, which will continue to show up throughout, is a Yahtzee style dice game, but instead of using those combos of dice to score points, you’re using them to defeat your opponent in 1 on 1 battles, 3 player free for alls, or you can team up. The game plays pretty fast and is generally easy to understand, though, as I said, these two characters are a bit more complex. I consistently have a good time when I get it to the table.

77 – Mysterium
There has been a murder in this deduction based game. In it, most of the people are playing investigators who are trying to determine who committed a murder, but to figure it out, they need clues. These clues as to who, how, and where are being given to you by another player, the ghost, who can only send you visions. This means that the ghost is giving you some cards that you are then comparing to, lets say early game, different possible murders, and you are trying to interpret these cards to determine who your murderer is, and each player is trying to find a different one. It’s a fun almost party game where there’s more going on than your traditional matching a word or image to another word or image. The spooky theme works, and we’ve house ruled a little bit with how the end of the game works, because it tries to keep it competitive to some extent, but those rules just slow down the game and don’t add to the enjoyment.

76 – Gloom
Not Gloomhaven. In Gloom you are telling the story of your family. But this isn’t a nice and happy family, this is a family that you want to die off. In fact, you want them to die off being as unhappy as they can be, because that’s how you win the game. On your turn you play a card either on one of your people, telling the story of how something bad happened to them or on someone else’s characters telling how something got better for them. While there is definitely scoring and a winner at the end of the game, the biggest part of the game is telling stories that twist together as to why your characters are getting more and more miserable, and just the humor that comes out of that. A cool part of the game is that as you are playing down the cards, you play them on top of the character, but you can still see the character since the cards you’re playing down are see through. So you can see how they have been made miserable before. It plays best when people are into the story telling, but most often people have been.

75 – Codenames: Pictures
I do not like Codenames, if you are expecting it to be the list, you won’t find it there. Codenames, with words, tends to be an anti-party game. People just sit around and look at the cards thinking, whereas with pictures, it encourages more discussion, because of the weird artwork. In Codenames Pictures, you are split into two teams, each team having a clue giver and guessers. The clue givers give a one word clue and a number. The number is the number of the pictures the clue relates to. Then the guessers are trying to figure out which ones match and make guesses on that. The first team to get all of their images guessed wins, but there’s more. If you guess the opposing teams, they get that as a correct guess. And if you guess the assassin, your team loses, so you have to think about that as the clue you’re going to give. It gives some clever moments for guessing, and some clever moments for giving a clue when you can tie a large number of the images together. The added discussion makes this game much more enjoyable than the original in my opinion, and you don’t run into a situation where someone might not know what a word means.

74 – Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancient
This is a game that I really need to play more. It was one of the first campaign games that I got and I’ve enjoyed the little play I have gotten of it. This game is a big box game with minis that need to be put together, but once you’ve done all that and learned the rules, which there are a lot, you start a dungeon crawl through the weird west. This wild west combined with monsters and other dimensions really gives this game a pretty unique theme that I’d love to see more of. What keeps this game from being at the table more is that it’s a beast to get to the table and at this point in time it’s been long enough that I’d have to spend the time to relearn the rules as well. But the unique t heme and the fact that I really like campaign style and dungeon crawl games, Shadows of Brimstone is a game that I’ve kept and that I’ll probably keep on my shelf for a long time, even if it isn’t played too often.

73 – Quoridor
This is a pretty straight forward abstract game that I really like at 4 players. In the game, you are racing from one side of the board to the other. Your opponents are doing the same thing from other sides of the boards. What makes this game interesting is that you can block off peoples routes with a few boards that you have. When doing that you can’t block them from the side of the board that they need to get to. What I like about this game is that I can see how it’s going to work fairly into the game. Now, I don’t win all that often because my wife tends to make it her mission to keep me from winning, but it’s still fun being able to see how you can up walls in such a way and cause other people to do the same thing so that your path stays clearer. It’s also a very fast game, even with some thinky decisions in there.

72 – First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet
This game I was super excited for because it was going to be like Robinson Crusoe, which I own but haven’t played, in space, with an app. And I feel like it fell a bit flat for me compared to what it could have been. I still really enjoy this game, but it was hyped up a ton, and it didn’t live up to that. In this game you are on Mars trying to keep your base up and running while also completing whatever missions you need to, plus the app causes things to happen and things to break down on your base. It works well, but the app part only works okay. It’s a bit clunky, and the game itself has a lot of bits to keep track of. There is a campaign aspect to the game that I haven’t played yet, but there are a lot of fun one off games you can play as well that seem challenging, though I have had pretty good luck on them. I think that with the house keeping in the game, just keeping track of everything working and how things break down, it might be a bit much for some people, but I enjoy it.

71 – Near and Far
This game is interesting because it balances some tough mechanics with an interesting world building and story element to the game. In it, you play through a campaign on maps where you are finding out the story of the world, but also building up your engine so that you’re able to go out and exploring and find more story. The game looks amazing with great art work. The game, though, because it has the more game mechanics and the story aspect, can seem like there is almost too much to do. I enjoy the complexity of the mechanics and planning ahead, but it won’t be for everyone in a story game and there is a lot to teach for that. I’ve played through a few different scenarios and I’ve always enjoyed it and the fact that a decision in a story at one point can lead you down a different branch at another point is a lot of fun and makes the world seem much more like it is living.

There’s another 10 done, still a lot to go, but thank you for staying around with my list. I hope that you’re enjoying it, are there any standout games on it thus far that you love or that you really want to play?

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