Top 100 Games (of all time) – 20 through 11

20. For Northwood! A Solo Trick-Taking Game

Published By: Side Room Games
Designer: Wilhelm Su

Buy For Northwood!

A solo trick-taking game seems like it shouldn’t work. But For Northwood! works really well. It’s a simple trick taker, you need to follow suit if you can. But the twist is that you need to win a specific number of tricks each time. You play over eight rounds and need to win between 0 and 7 tricks, exactly. That sounds impossible, but you get powers that help you manipulate your hand. It’s always a question of, which one do you go for, in terms of tricks to win, and as you get further along, can get manipulate your hand to make it work.

19. Marvel Champions: The Card Game

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Michael Boggs, Nate French, and Caleb Grace

Buy Marvel Champions

I love Marvel and this is the game that gives me the Marvel feel to it. You are a superhero and you want to stop the bad guys scheme and defeat them. But, thematically, when you are in your hero form the bad guy is going to fight you and you take damage. So you need to manage going between your superhero and alter ego form so you don’t get hit. Of course as your alter ego, the villains are going to be scheming away. And you can create all sorts of fun combinations of heroes and villains to face off.

18. Floriferous

Published By: Pencil First Games
Designers: Eduardo Baraf and Steve Finn

Buy Floriferous

This game is one that I think is really overlooked in the gaming community. It’s a clever drafting game that does two very interesting things. The first thing is how scoring works. You don’t have much scoring that just happens, instead you draft your scoring cards. So there is always a choice between, do I draft more flowers or do I draft scoring cards. The other is how the drafting works, and this it maybe a bigger twist. You draft from a column, how high you are in the column determines when you draft next round. So it’s very possible you want to draft a less ideal card to get a perfect card.

17. Stars of Akarios

Published By: OOMM (Open Owl Studios)
Designers: Brendan McCaskell, Jonathan Thwaites

Buy Stars of Akarios

I love my big campaign games, and Stars of Akarios is one of my favorites. This one works so well for me with the tactical space combat, the planetary exploration, and a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The tactical space combat really shines in the game as you use your dice to position your ship, attack, and avoid the enemies the best you can. And the exploration is a bit like The 7th Continent/Citadel where you flip over cards and create a map and really explore as you go.

16. Clank!: Catacombs

Published By: Dire Wolf
Designer: Paul Dennen

Buy Clank! Catacombs

While i just did sell all of my other Clanks, this Clank! Catacombs spot is for all of them. Clank! is a push your luck game where you build up a deck of cards to get into a catacombs, in this case, and get out with the most points and best treasure that you can. Of course, if you are too noisy doing that, you clank, and when the enemy activates it might knock down your health. So it’s this push your luck in making noise, and going deeper. I like, too, with Clank! Catacombs, the map gets built as you go, so the board really is different every time.

15. Roll Player Adventures

Published By: Thunderworks Games
Designers: Keith Matejka, James William Ryan, and Peter Andrew Ryan

Buy Roll Player Adventures

Another big campaign game here with Roll Player Adventures. This one is all about dice manipulation and a fun story. I had a great time playing through the first campaign, and the additional one that I have, I need to get to the table. The system works well, though I will say, with four players it becomes a bit easier than at lower player counts. But the simple map movement, the story, the skill checks and of course combat and leveling up make this a fun time.

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

Published By: Office Dog
Designer: Bryan Bommueller

Buy The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game

I like trick-taking games. Not a ton make it to my Top 100 games mainly because a lot feel similar. The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game is one that is different. Yes, it leans into a lot of standard things, but it’s also cooperative and story based. There are other cooperative ones out there, but the story based feels unique. Especially because this closely follows the books, so you get to chapters with Goldberry and Tom Bombadil as required characters which is fun. And the cooperative elements are challenging for the game.

13. Pirates of Maracaibo

Published By: dlp games
Designers: Ralph Bienert, Ryan Hendrickson, and Alexander Pfister

Buy Pirates of Maracaibo

The second of three new games on this part of the lit in a row. Pirates of Maracaibo is a pirate resource management game. I normally would want it to have more adventure, but this one is a ton of fun. I love building up my ship and seeing what strategy of building up ship, getting treasure, exploring, and competing quests can lead to victory. And it is great because all of them feel good to do. It isn’t a game where I feel like I need to go one way, though, I think some ways are more consistent.

12. Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game

Published By: Brotherwise Games
Designer: John D. Clair

By Mistborn The Deck Building Game

Another deckbuilding game on the list here with Mistborn. And I like Mistborn just a bit better than Clank! because of a little more pure deck building. But also it has a lot of fun elements to the game. It leans into Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn world and let’s you burn metals to play cards. I also like the turn track, you always bump up in power as you go up the track. This makes for a really great experience of feeling like the game is ramping up.

11. Sleeping Gods

Published By: Red Raven Games
Designer: Ryan Laukat

Buy Sleeping Gods

The final game on the list is another big one, though not a campaign game. Sleeping Gods is a sand box story game where you are dropped into an unknown world and need to find and deal with totems. Of course, it’s a new land, so you don’t know where those are. And there are monsters and other interesting things to deal with. You need to control 9 crew, but really, it’s one turn and you just need to remember a few key abilities as you play. So it sounds like a lot, either cooperative or solo, but it’s not too bad.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming new videos most Wednesdays. Let me know what you want to see me play next on Wednesdays after this list is done. You can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

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

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

10. Aeon’s End

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

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

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

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

Buy Aeon’s End

9. Roll Player Adventures

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

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

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

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

Buy Roll Player Adventures

8. Dice Throne

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

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

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

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

Buy Dice Throne

7. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge Rogue Angels

6. Floriferous

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

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

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

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

Buy Floriferous

5. Slay the Spire

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

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

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

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

Buy Slay the Spire

4. The 7th Citadel

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge The 7th Citadel

3. Stars of Akarios

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge Stars of Akarios

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

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

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

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

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

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven/Frosthaven

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

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

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

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

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

Buy Frosthaven

Upcoming Streams

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

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

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

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Top 5 Board Game Companies I Always Checkout

5. Awaken Realms

No surprise that Awaken Realms makes the list. They’ve made two games that I really like in Tainted Grail and ISS Vanguard. And while I did sell my copy of Etherfields, I am still regularly tempted to track it down and get a copy of it again. And I need to play my copy of Nemesis. Not all Awaken Realms games are for me. When they did STALKER, that one didn’t interest me. Or they do fancy versions of euro games, also not that interesting. But whenever they announce something new I’m curious.

Right now I’m waiting on Dragon Eclipse because it seems like a fascinating game that I really like the aesthetic of. And then they have a huge open world RPG type of game coming to crowdfunding later this year, also excited for that one. And they also have a one shot boss battler type of game with the Grimcoven as well, so many games that I’m intrigued by. Not always the cleanest games, but always something epic.

4. Chip Theory Games

Chip Theory is another one that makes a lot of epic games. But not with a lot of minis, instead with chips as the name suggests. I’m always intrigued by what they are putting out, though I rarely jump on their games right away. The only one I did right away was Elder Scrolls game that they have coming. And that was because it was a system that I knew already as it borrows from Too Many Bones.

But their games all offer something different and unique. And I also appreciate that almost all of their games can be played solo. One that I want to get to the table more after having an amazing time at GenCon playing it is Burncycle. I love the system of that game and the challenges of managing the burncylcle so that you can get the actions you want taken care of. It’s a tough balancing act of a game with a bunch of rules to learn to start, but not that bad when you get into playing it.

3. Open Owl Studios

Next up is Open Owl Studios and their games just really hit with me. Stars of Akarios has been one of my most fun gaming experiences with a big epic tactical space combat to getting down on planets and exploring the story. There are elements to that game that work so well for me. And then there is Mythwind a cozy game that feels like something different. It isn’t a game that I’ll binge all the time, but once that I will come back to a lot because it’s just easy to sit down and play. They call it a cozy game and it really is that.

Then there is Stonesaga their next one coming out. It helps, probably, that I know one of the designers. But he reached out to me because he knew it would be my type of game. And it really is. And I’m not sure what they have coming after that, there was just a reprint and expansion for Mythwind. But whatever it is, I trust that there will be a unique experience playing the game, because that’s what their games feel like to me.

2. CMON

Honestly, an odd one on the list, but I’m always paying attention to CMON. I could combine CMON and Steamforged here because I follow both of them for similar reasons. They both make beer and pretzel style games. Often that means grab a handful of dice and chuck them. But they also get a lot of interesting IP’s. CMON keeps on putting out Marvel games. And I know a lot of people will say it’s a cash grab. There is an element of that, but the games are also a ton of fun. Do I need all the characters and alternate sculpts, definitely not. But I want them, and like I said the games are a lot of fun.

CMON is also easier for  me to pass on. They revisit a lot of things. So when I hear something new is coming out, then I look to see if it matches something that I already have. And rarely do I replace it. Zombicide Undead or Alive go replaced by Marvel Zombies, but that’s because of the theme. I’d not replace Marvel Zombies with the newest Zombicide style game. I just pick the one that is best for me.

1. Pencil First Games

Finally we have the oddest one on the list. All the rest, easy to see what is similar. Big games, sometimes story and epic in nature. But Pencil First Games put out the first game that I crowdfunded and it’s a cute game. I got rid of my copy, but now they are putting out games that I really enjoy. Floriferous is the biggest, but then games like Skulk Hollow as well are great.

Why I’m always checking out Pencil First Games is that they tend to put a lot of interesting decisions into a package that isn’t too big or too complex. They are a company that is 100% on my radar for those games that are easy to travel with, easy to teach, but still really engaging. And while there are other companies who do that which I find their games interesting as well, Pencil First Games has a special place in my heart.

Honorable Mentions

Two honorable mentions, only. I thought about more, and maybe I should have done a Top 10. But the two are Cephalofair Games and Serious Pulp. I didn’t put them on the list because for both of them it’s a specific game line that I’m interested in. Obviously Gloomhaven, one of my favorite games. And you can see me playing The 7^th Citadel over on Malts and Meeples YouTube and I’m loving the game. But they have their lanes for their games and generally stick with them.

Who Do You Keep an Eye On?

Alright, a few more bonus board game companies. 25^th Century Games, Reggie Games, Indie Boards and Cards with Astro Knights and Aeon’s End, Roxley Games, though that’s mainly for Dice Throne, and Dire Wolf with their Clank games. And Thunderworks, probably should be a true honorable mention. Like I said, I could have done a top 10board game companies.

But let me know who you keep an eye on. I still even kind of keep an eye on Fantasy Flight Games. But for them it’s a bit more specific. I care about games in their Arkham Files line and if they do anything new with their IP’s like Marvel, Star Wars, or Lord of the Rings. They are a company that I wish I could keep an eye on more, but it’s been so hit or miss lately.

Let me know who it is for you down in the comments below. Is there a board game company that stands out?

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Top 5 Games More People Should Play

I’m not going to speculate as to why these games are overlooked, though it might come out in why I think it’s worth playing. But I want to tell you why you should give the games a try as that’s more exciting.

5. Draftosaurus

Draftosaurus is a really fun drafting filler game where you are drafting dinosaur meeples which should be enough to get people playing just with that. But the game offers a really fast play time and a set collection, almost roll and write sort of feel to it. It’s one of those games that is easy to sit down and teach almost any group. And with a theme of filling up your dinosaur park, it works really well for that.

4. Letter Jam

For Letter Jam, I need to say, I think it’s less popular because it’s a word game. People see that, and for a lot of people that’s a turnoff. But it’s not like other word games. Which sounds like the pitch for a word game that is like others, but in this case it isn’t.

Letter Jam is a game where you are trying to figure out and unscramble the letters in your word. You can’t see them, and you don’t know what order they are in. But neither does anyone else. The twist, besides that big one, is that it’s cooperative. So no one person is going to be messed over, you need everyone to do well on getting their letters and word

The clue system is good as well. You pass out tokens to make words with the letters you see. But I don’t see my letter, so from what I see of everyone else’s letters is it enough for me to narrow down what mine might be?

3. Paper Dungeons

This game is one of my favorite roll and writes. You can watch me play through the whole campaign over on the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel, or the video below. But t his is a bigger and more complex roll and write game. Which I love for the game, why, because it does add in more complexity but it’s not too complex. And it works well with the theme. You need to balance your parties health with exploring in the dungeon and fighting monsters.

Plus there is a fun crafting system, a potion system and a character leveling system. All of those things sound like an RPG but not the dungeon scrawler part as the game likes to call it. So you have a map you go through as well and face off against monsters and fight boss monsters for glory and points. It just works well as a fun bigger but not too complex roll and write experience.

2. Hanamikoji

I talk about this one a lot. And whatever it is that makes it not show up on every list ever, I don’t know, but I love the game. In Hanamikoji you try and win the favor of Geisha by giving them gifts. If you play the majority of gifts of a Geisha on your side in a round, that’s how you win the favor. But the action system and win conditions are the best part of the game.

The action system is really simple. In the game you play four actions per round going back and forth with your opponent. You either split four cards into two groups and your opponent chooses which one they want. You give them the choice of three cards and they pick one. Or you discard two cards or keep one card. That’s it, super simple. But how can you make those tough decisions and make your opponent choose that works so well for this small game with a ton of decision space.

1. Floriferous

Finally another game that I talk about all the time. Floriferous is amazing. This is a flower drafting game with beautiful artwork. Which is one element that I love about the game, but also one that I suspect will keep some gamers or people from trying the game. But it’s so worth playing.

Floriferous is a drafting game. But how the drafting works for turn order is so much fun. So you randomly get placed out in rows of the first column to start the game. Depending on who is in the top row they go first to pick from that first column. But as you pick, the order in which you go will shift, because it’s always the pawn in the first row.

So the picking offers two interesting choices. Firstly, do I take a less ideal card to be able to get the card that is perfect for me next column? Or do I risk it that it won’t be snatched out from under me. And the other element with drafting is that you draft the scoring as well. So I might pass completely on a flower because I need to get some scoring. But scoring is always at the bottom of the row so you’ll be drafting last next time.

Which Will You Play?

Which of the games sounds the most interesting to you. I have more that I could put on the list, Ecosystem is a great drafting game that more people should play. It’s simple but fun. And I thought about Mesozooic, but I think the sliding puzzle element is going to be a reason it won’t and hasn’t worked for some people.

But from the list I put out which sounds the most intriguing? None of these games are super expensive or big. So is there one that you want to pick-up and give a try. I’ll even say, because they are overlooked, I think that they go on sale somewhat often which might make it more tempting.

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Top 5 Board Games That Feel Like Spring

5. A Gentle Rain

This one is available again, out of all of these board games A Gentle Rain was nearly impossible to get for a while. But it is back in stock or will be shortly. This game is a solo spring type of game for a relaxing and rainy day. All you do is build out a grid trying to get plants to grow. If you watch the symbols in the corners you get points. If you don’t, well, you just shuffle up the tiles and try again.

The spring elements for me, in the game, are the theme or rain which is very very loosely there. But it is more than just that, after coming out of winter, especially here in Minnesota, there is this idea of the first flower blooming as well. Things not being covered with snow or grime from the snow, but instead new life with the flowers and rain washing away that grime. So A Gentle Rain provides that feeling of spring for me.

4. Dandelions

Now we move on from a nice spring thing to another that could also easily be a summer theme in board games. Dandelions are a menace. But a lot of nature themed games seem to fit the spring theme.

Dandelions from All Play is clearly an abstract game with the theming of Dandelions. The closest thing that makes it feel like that is the artwork. But the game play you could argue simulates or works with the theme of dandelion fluff floating around as you try and collect the most of a number and the majority on tiles for the end game scoring. The game is simple and fun.

3. Meadow

Now we’re moving onto the biggest of the board games on the list. Meadow again has that nature theme to it that works well for summer. In Meadow you are building up your ecosystem of nature to score points. But as well shooting for certain combinations to take pictures and even get more points.

Meadow has some great mechanisms in the game. The biggest being how you get cards into your hand to play out. If you are familiar with Quadropolis, an older game, it does something similar. You play down a token that determines what row or column you’ll take a card from. So I might play a 2 down on the edge of column two. That means that I take the card that is two in from where I played my token. It’s a real puzzle to try and get what you want. And it can be prone, at times to analysis paralysis, especially towards end game.

2. Ohanami

We’re back into our simpler board games with Ohanami. This is a racko style game where you are drafting cards and then adding them to the top or bottom of three columns. The numbers always need to be in numerical order. Ohanami is a kind of cutthroat game at two, but a light fun game at four. Mainly because of how the scoring works where some cards score a few points every round and others score more in later rounds.

This one it is again that nature theme that makes it feel like spring. the flowering trees, the water, just everything gives it a spring feel. And like A Gentle Rain this is a relaxing game. Even with it being a bit more strategic and cutthroat in what you draft as a two player game, none of the decisions feel like they use too much brain space.

1. Floriferous

Finally we have Floriferous. This game is the first game I think of when I think of spring. It’s all about collecting beautiful flowers to get points. The main mechanism is an open drafting system where you draft from one column at a time. But you know what is coming up next, so that might impact how you draft one round. Because the row you draft in the column determines the order that you’ll draft in for the next column.

The game is one of those great balances of enough going on so it doesn’t feel like you’re just following a script. But there isn’t so much going on that you feel like you need your brain always engaged. It’s that good relaxing experience that I find I want with spring board games.

Final Thoughts

I’m sure there are other games that might make you think of spring more. But these board games on the list are some that I associate with spring. I think for me a lot of it is what spring in Minnesota is a nice time to get outside. It’s no longer 10 degrees, it’s in the 60’s and 70’s. And it is before it’s 90’s with 90% humidity. So it is that chance to comfortably go see nature again after it’s been hidden under snow.

And for me, coming out of winter, it’s nice to have that mind space that is freeing up in what I’m playing. Towards the end of winter, the last snow storm that happens at the end of March or beginning April, the snow gets you down. So my brain space can waiver for playing board games. I gravitate towards games that are a bit simpler. So a lot of the spring games don’t overwhelm you with rules.

What are some games that make you think of spring?

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Top 5 Office Lunch Board Games

5. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

This one is iffy to have on the list. But I want some bigger board games on the list as well, because most lunch sized games are smaller. Heat: Pedal to the Metal is iffy mainly because the first game with teach might push that hour time frame. And the number of players, which this one can play more, is going to push that time frame as well.

Heat is a hand and deck management game as you try and get around the race course as fast as possible. However, if you push your car to hard you create undo stress and cause the engine to heat up, possibly overheating. So you need to balance that within the game so it’s not just go fast but knowing when to push around the corners.

This one works, because, as I said, when you know the game it goes fast. Actions are simultaneous for picking your cards and getting into gear. So some of the game just runs at the same time. And then moving cars, this is where the first game can take longer, it goes fast, once you know the system.

4. Dice Throne

Dice Throne is another one of those board games that maybe could take longer. If you play with more than two people. I think a three person game could get done in under an hour, but under that it’s less likely, even with the rules for King of the Hill rules for the game.

Dice Throne is mainly considered to be a head to head dice battling game. Where you take one character into battle against your opponents to see who can outlast the other. I think this one works well if you don’t have the battle chests. I do, so that makes it trickier, but you can get character boxes which aren’t big and are therefore easy to move around and transport.

But one of the benefits is that you can swap out characters as well. If you own a big box, you can change up who you play easily without learning massive amounts of new rules. So a box like the Marvel four character box which has been available at Target and other retailers might be the best fit. It gives you some options, gives you a familiar theme, and isn’t as big as the big chests to carry around.

3. Floriferous

Next up is a much smaller game. Floriferous is just going to be a small box with cards but it packs a lot of game. It’s a card drafting game with set collection and variable scoring to it. I like that it goes a lot in that little box without it becoming too bogged down or too slow.

This one I think you could probably get a 4 player game of done in an hour, but that’d be tight. As a three or two player game, you can for sure. And I think with work lunches that a lot of the time you are just playing with two, not with more.

In Floriferous, you draft cards from a center tableau. The twist is that you draft from a column at a time. And how high in that column, that determines when you’ll pick in the next column. So you might think, go high and get an early pick next time, but you also need to pick scoring cards which are at the bottom. It’s a fun puzzle of a game with a flower theme many will like.

2. My City Roll and Build

My City: Roll and Build is different from the rest of the board games here. This one is a campaign game. That means that you need a consistent group. But it is also a fast game. And it is a game where everyone does their actions at once.

In this roll and write style game, you try and build a town. Each chapter of the game is having your build the town in a sightly different way. And generally, some rules are being added to how you build it. Each player is building it on their own grid in an attempt to get the best score for that particular game and scenario.

This one I know works well as I’ve played it at lunch. And I know it works with more than two players. Again, as I mentioned with Heat, when you play at the same time, it helps it fit into a lunch hour better. And My City: Roll and Build leans into that. So it’s great for lunch that way.

1. Star Wars Unlimited

Finally, this could be a lot of TCG’s. I’d say that Magic the Gathering, Lorcana, or One Piece all work here. It’s more of a pick your flavor for what you want to do. I went with Star Wars Unlimited as my game as that is the one that I’ve been enjoying the most lately.

But any of these games really work well as you can play head to head or in bigger groups and battle it out. I think the nature of these games works well for a lot of people because it’s kind of familiar. And with all the ones coming out now, you can really tailor it to your audience.

I think that Star Wars Unlimited is the sweet spot for me because it is very fast. So is Lorcana and One Piece, but with Lorcana the decision making space is less interesting, to me. And with One Piece, it is a more obscure fandom. But Star Wars, people are going to know that which makes is a great lunch game.

Final Thoughts

There are so many games that I could pick. Faster escape room games, or about 30 different roll and write games. Small card games, simultaneous drafting games. You pick what you like best and play those at work. It’s all about what works best for you.

And I know with people working hybrid or from home now, it’s maybe less of a thing. But when you go into the office, board games can be a great team building thing. It’s a way to bring people together and chat with it being clearly not about work. It’s a chance to build that comradery that maybe has decreased over the past years or needs to be built with the new people who were never in office all the time.

Do you have a go to work lunch game?

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Top 5 Nature Themed Games

5. Arboretum

I’m going to start off the list with the meanest of all the nature themed games. And no, it isn’t because your animal might eat my animal because wolves do that to rabbits. Nope, instead it’s all about trees and building out your most beautiful arboretum. To do that you’re trying to create paths of trees that go from a low number to a high number. And the paths need to start and end with the same types of trees.

That doesn’t sound too bad. Where it gets mean is that in order to score your row of trees, you need the highest total of that tree in your hand as well. So not only are you playing them out to get points when you score them, you need to hold them back as well. And if I see you going for maple trees, I can just hold a 5 and a 7 in my hand and probably block you from scoring them.

But the game itself is a lot of fun. It plays fast and the blocking and meanness isn’t really about me doing something mean in the moment. It’s more a cat and mouse game of how much will you hold back in order to be able to score. So I like that tension a lot in the game.

4. Floriferous

Now Floriferous doesn’t have that much tension. And it’s a nature game because it’s about flowers. But I still really love the decision space in this game. It offers just enough choices to make it challenging and not so many that you feel stuck in them.

Floriferous is a game of drafting flowers to score points. You mainly score points for having a lot of a color of flower, or all the colors, you typical set collection type of things. But you aren’t passing around a hand of cards, you’re drafting from an open grid of cards that everyone can see. And you aren’t just drafting flowers, you also draft the point scoring cards you’ll use. So it’s always a tension of, do I take this flower, but if I do, then I won’t get that scoring card, so which is worth more.

And the drafting system works well. Like I said the cards are in a grid. So you can only draft from the column that is coming up. And which row you draft from, that determines turn order. The higher in the column the sooner you’ll be going next round. And sometimes you might have a perfect card in that following column, so you pass on the previous one. It’s a fun twist and challenge.

3. Forest Shuffle

Now we’re going back into the trees with Forest Shuffle. Forest Shuffle is a tableau building game where you’re building out a forest. In this forest you are growing trees and then putting flora and fauna, mainly fauna around it. And each tree has four spots, top, bottom, and left and right sides where you can add in these animal cards but generally one per side.

The game is a nice balance of playing out cards, and discarding other cards from your hand to pay for them. And then collecting back up and repeating that process. It’s a push and pull of how long do you collect cards to maybe get all the ones that you need for better scoring. But at the same time, the other players are now playing out points, so you’re getting behind that way. And when the game is getting close to ending, well, it’s going to end quickly. So how do you squeeze out a few more points?

2. EcoSystem

Next up is another drafting game. And EcoSystem is a more traditional drafting game. In EcoSystem you have a hand of cards that you are picking a card from. And then you build out a four tall by five wide grid of nature. That’s it, it’s not a complex game. You build out your grid over two hands of ten cards, and that’s kind of it.

But EcoSystem for me is a lot of fun because of how everything scores. And everything does score. Deer want to be in separate rows and columns, basically creating their paths. Bears want to be next to bees and trout, trout, obviously want to be in streams. Everything meshes together in a unique way that you are trying to optimize.

EcoSystem is definitely the breeziest game on the list but it’s still a lot of fun. And there is a Savanna and Coral Reef version as well. So if you feel like you’ve played one enough, get another one and keep playing with the same basic system but now different scoring challenges to figure out.

1. Meadow

Finally we have Meadow. Another nature game that can be a bit mean. But this is the most brain burning of all of the games. That is mainly because of the main mechanism of the game. In Meadow you are building out a tableau again in front of you. And everything you play out builds on top of what was there previously. A fox can be played out, but only if it’s on a rabbit, or a bug can be played on a berry. Those sorts of food chain type of things.

That is a challenge figuring out how to build it all up and get to the point scoring cards. But how you get the cards if the bigger and more brain burning part of the challenge. The game gives you a four by four grid of cards to pick from. But you have specific tiles you get to help you select your cards. How do you do that, well, you are placing your tiles around the edge of the board. Each tile has a one through four on it and depending on where you place it, that row or column, that number is the distance you can go.

So it offers a very big challenge in figuring out how you can get all of the pieces you want. You can’t just jump into it, always, and grab your preferred card. Your opponents might block you out from getting another one. I love that tension in the game, but also the puzzle in a lower player count game of how do I get everything I want. Or do I end up being blocked out somewhere.

Final Thoughts

Nature themed games are fun. I know when Wingspan came out a lot of people wondered, why would I want to play a game about birds. But nature themed games, in my opinion, are more welcoming than orcs and monsters in a fantasy themed game. Or going off into space in a sci-fi game. Now, I personally prefer those themes to nature, but I get why others don’t.

What are some of your favorite nature themed games?

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

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 11

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Let’s start off with Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game at #10 this year. Detective is deduction game where you and your teammates are trying to solve cases. The base box comes with five cases that take about 2-3 hours each. And you’re up against the clock, in the game, to solve everything and figure out what answers you need as you get quizzed on what happened and the who, what, and why of the case at the end. Plus little details that you might have missed or you can piece together.

This is like a crime television drama. I don’t love watching those, but playing in one is amazing. You actually get to put together deduction skills and piece together what happened. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times it is hard, but it’s always worth it.

And this game does a good job using technology as you play. Part of how you get information is interacting with a computer and a database to pull up details that might already exist on the case. Or it might be details that already exist on people in the case. It really helps make Detective into a great immersive experience.

Buy Detective

9. The Great Split

Next up we have The Great Split, a new game to the list and one that does a single thing well. In The Great Split, it is primarily an “I split, you choose” game. What does that mean? It means that I have a group of cards and I put them into two groups. You pick one of those groups and I get the other one back. Then we both use them for scoring, which is what everyone is doing at the same time. So, I love the simplicity and simultaneous nature of the game play.

Plus the scoring is nice in the game as well as it isn’t too difficult or too easy. What it mainly is, is pushing up on on tracks for artwork, literature, gems, and money. And each of them is going to score in a different way. Some of them score with how well you are doing against a market or against a scoring track. Others score, the gems, with your lowest of the two gem tracks. So it’s figuring out what you want to go for, because that’s not all the scoring.

There is also contracts in the game. Those are on the tracks as well, but you have other tracks that you want to push up on. Because they make the contracts you have, loaning your art pieces out to museums and stuff like that, worth more. But if you’re pushing up on those tracks, you aren’t on the main scoring tracks, so it’s a really good balance. And all of that with very simple rules teach and very simple game play.

Buy The Great Split

8. Floriferous

Now we have Floriferous, a game that has made it’s way higher up on the list from last year. And some of that is what I redid how I thought about the list, some. I now put more stock into the games that I want to play all the time and do play often, as well as the ones that give me a great experience when I play them. Which is why there are fewer campaign games in the Top 10, though, don’t worry, their are still several.

But Floriferous is a drafting game of building up your best bouquet of flowers. But how you draft and how you know what you are scoring is what I love about the game. You lay out the cards to be drafted from at the start of the round. And then players take turns drafting from the first column of cards. Where you draft in that column then determines your drafting order for the next column. It makes for great decisions as decide to take a less ideal card to make sure you get the perfect card next column.

And then there is the scoring. A little of the scoring just exists at the start of the game. Most of what you score you need to draft. So I need to draft a card that says “2 points for all purple flowers”, for example. And I can do that, but the scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column. That means when I take a scoring card I’m going to be going last next round which is a choice, as I said above, that I really love.

Buy Floriferous

7. Planet Unknown

Next up we have Planet Unknown a terraforming, polyomino laying game. And it’s one that is not that hard to teach, if you have the game in front of you. But it does some very cool things, which I’ll get to in a second here. But the game is about filling up your planet with tiles, clearing out meteors that have hit your planet, and building up on various tracks of nature, water, technology, rover mobility, and civilization.

The game is able to be played in two ways. The first way is a simple generic way where everyone has the exact same thing. I think it is a solid system if everyone is learning the game, and you have new to gaming people in there. But once people know the system at all, flip over the boards and the groups going to the planets. That is when the fun begins as everyone is working a little bit differently and has their own ways and timings as they go up the tracks while still playing the same game.

And the one thing I haven’t touched on yet is how you pick your tiles. There is a lazy susan in the middle with all of the tiles on it. And on your turn, you turn the lazy susan to the side you want facing you so you get the tile that you want. It’s a tough decision, and then everyone else takes from the side facing them. Or at least kind of facing them, because they’ll have a marker, placed at the start of the game, that determines where they take from. I love that mechanism as I can get what I want, or I might choose to mess with you.

Late Pledge Planet Unknown

6. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Then we have Lost Ruins of Arnak. And this one I do want to specify that it is a top 10 game for me with the first expansion. The second expansion definitely keeps it up this high as well, but the first one is needed, in my opinion. It takes Lost Ruins of Arnak from a fun game to one of my top games of all time.

So how does it play, and why do I like the expansion so much. Well, at it’s heart, The Lost Ruins of Arnak is a resource management game of going out, collecting resources and turning them in to move up a research track. But there are a number of twists with it as well. Because I also am building up a deck of cards that let me do more actions or power up the actions that I do take. And I love that aspect to it.

So let’s talk about what the expansion adds and why I think Expedition Leaders is very important to the game. In Lost Ruins of Arnak, base game, everyone has the same camp, same workers, and same starting deck of cards. And there are two tracks which you can go up on. It’s fun. But Expedition Leaders says your camp, your cards, how many workers you have, all of that can be unique now. Because you have a leader that makes you unique and I really love that.

Buy The Lost Ruins of Arnak

5. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is the next game on the list coming in at #5. And it is one that I haven’t played in probably eight months. I really need to get it back to the the table. But I love this engine building game and another game about terraforming a planet, but this time, I’d say, it’s way more about building up that engine to generate more resources and points.

The game, like I said, is about building up that engine and determining when to activate everything, and when to pick an action to do based off of what you think your opponent is going to do. How does that work? Well, the game has five actions and the actions that are played out by the players that round are the ones that are going to happen.

The actions also fire off in a particular order. So if I pick research it’s action #5, so it’ll go last. Someone else might pick activating actions, and that’s #3, so it goes in that order. Which ever one you pick, you get a special bonus for it, while your opponents get whatever the basic action is (which you do as well). So it’s about trying to not match with your opponents to get more actions done and to figure out what benefits you the most. Of course, if everyone is doing that, well, then no one might pick that one action everyone wants.

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

4. Stars of Akarios

Now we’re onto one of the big campaign games. And you can see game play for this one on Malts and Meeples. Stars of Akarios is a game that I absolutely enjoyed all that I did. Some parts are better than others, but as a whole, I think the game is a ton of fun. It’s a big space adventure that gives me vibes from Enders Game and Space Dandy, two really different things, but it works for this game.

The game is split into three parts, but we’re going to talk about two of them. First part is planetary exploration. This has a 7th Continent type feel to it with flipping over locations and interacting with places. Plus there is a lot of story that you can find as well for the different planets. There are skill checks and things like that, but a lot of it is story and the choices you make in that story unlocks new things that you can do.

The main part of the game is tactical space combat. It’s about using your dice to flank and out maneuver the enemies so that you are in the right spot for a big hit and they can’t hit you back. I adore the puzzle that this game provides in this space combat. It is good enough to just be a game by itself, but the story and the world/universe that is being built in the game is just amazing. I can’t wait to get back to it, and maybe it’ll be a campaign game that I come back to and try and play through solo sometime.

Buy Stars of Akarios

Note the 1.5 version of Stars of Akarios is coming out. There should be a late pledge available soon.

3. Dice Throne

Next up is Dice Throne. I believe that my #2 and #3 flipped spots from last year. Dice Throne is a battling game of taking characters up against each other and rolling dice, Yahtzee style, to deal damage. You get a better roll, like a large straight or all sixes and you get to do more damage.

The game really shines in two areas. The first is how they manage to make all of the characters feel different. I have Marvel Dice Throne pictured here, but in the video I have Dice Throne Season 1 and I figured out coming soon there will be 35 different characters. And all of the characters do feel different. They come with different tokens that change up how they interact with the enemies or how they ramp up to deal more damage themselves.

And then there is the card play in this game. What doesn’t make it just pure dice chucking are these cards. Some of them are upgrades to your attacks that offer better results and more damage when you roll them. Other times, and I’d say most often this, it’s about getting better results on your dice. You don’t want to end up being stuck doing nothing if you try and shoot the moon and go for all sixes. So you keep cards to manipulate the dice. It’s a great system that offers more depth than you’d think from the initial description.

Buy Dice Throne

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Now we have Tainted Grail at #2. This one moved up, I think, because I made it through all three campaigns, wrapping up the third one this year. And all of them offer something unique and fun that is really enjoyable to play. I love how you start in the middle with the first campaign and then the second takes place 500 years later and the first 500 years before it. It offers a lot of interesting storytelling, which the writer really takes advantage of.

The game play is also pretty slick once you get into it. The combat and diplomacy checks are done through card play. And while that is an important part of the game, it’s not too hard to build up something that is powerful enough. Or players with specialize in different areas. One element about the combat that I really like is that you need to pay attention is to the enemies attack. How much damage you deal determines the enemies attack. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to take a lot of damage.

But the game really shines around the exploration and survival aspects of the game. I think it’s best on story mode because the story is so good. But you always need to be keeping track of the menhir that you have lit. Because if they go out, then you start to lose parts of the map as the wyrdness takes over. And that limits where you can explore. And as I said, exploration is the best part of the game. It is a chance to dive into that story. So it’s a balance of story, resource gathering, and then just surviving that makes Tainted Grail work so well.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven

My #1 hasn’t changed, it’s still Gloomhaven. Though, you can say that it is Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, and Frosthaven all rolled into one. Jaws of the Lion might be a game that I show off here on Malts and Meeples. And I’m now playing through a campaign of Frosthaven.

This is a classic dungeon crawling game where you go into a scenario and need to tactically move around and kill all the bad guys. Or at least that’s the objective in a lot of base Gloomhaven’s scenarios. The other ones offer more variety. But it’s also a game of leveling up your characters, unlocking more abilities, and then eventually retiring and getting a whole new character to play with.

And getting those abilities and playing them out is where the game is amazing. You play out two cards from your hand each turn. They have abilities on the top and bottom. And you’ll activate one of the top abilities and one of the bottom ones. Plus you need to figure out where in initiative that you want to go as well.

And the variety in them and how different the characters are is impressive. It’s like a lot of the games in my Top 10, I like the variable player powers and variability in what you are doing. Gloomhaven and all the following games offer a ton of that. And it’s sad to lose a character to retirement that you’ve spent time with, but exciting to unlock something new. This is just an amazing game that deserves the love it gets.

Buy Gloomhaven

Thanks for Joining Me

Thank you for joining me as I went through all of the games on this list. I really have fun doing this every year. And I hope that you have fun watching along. I appreciate everyone who has been in the chats and watched the videos. It means a lot to me to see that people are enjoying it. Let me know what some of your favorite games are.

Upcoming Streaming

And join me for future upcoming streams. I made a comment that my Monday streams might be changing. We’ll have to see on that, it might just be less often, or it might move to a different night, it depends on some variables as I look at the new year. Right now, though, that it’s changing. I plan on streaming Monday nights at 9 PM Central. I won’t have some on the 25th of December, I will be around next week.

Then on Wednesday, I generally stream a campaign game. I won’t be doing that this upcoming week. And I’ll be missing the following week. But as I start 2024, I plan to stream Rogue Angels. A game that I think will be in my Top 100 starting next year. One of my rules was that I needed to have played a physical copy. And thus far I only have played it digitally. Now I’ll be able to play it in person, which I’m really excited for. So join me for that starting in 2024. And Wednesday streams start at 8 PM Central time.

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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5 Board Games to Bring to Gen Con

Each one of the games is going to be for a specific situation. Some might overlap what they can cover but you want a variety of games. The other big thing is that they need to be small enough. They might not all fit in a backpack at once. But if you know your plan for the day, you’ll know which ones to have in a backpack.

The Drop In And Out Game

This game is one that people can join or leave as they come and go between events. One that could really be set-up on a table and as people are able, it just continues throughout the day. But, again, it needs to be a small enough game to easily fit in a backpack.

My choice for this game is Just One. This is not the smallest box on the list. But, and this might be sacrilegious to you, you don’t even need the box. All the components could fit in a Ziploc bag half the size as the box.

But Just One works well for people to drop in and out of. You play cooperative in this party game of trying to guess the word. Rounds take three to four minutes. And at the end of the day you’d just have a pile of words that you got, or didn’t throughout the day.

Waiting by Yourself Game

Sometimes, though, you have a few minutes where you have downtime. Normally I just wander a random part of the dealer hall. But that’s not always an option. And you want to play a game that takes the five minutes between when one event has ended and your next one starts. That is what this game is for.

Grove is the solo game that I recommend. A lot of people would say any Button Shy Game as well. Which that’d be high up there for me because Sprawlopolis fits into a pocket better. But I always have a backpack at Gen Con, so Grove fits in there and it’s a fast solo game of layering cards. There are other small games, so it’s more, what small solo game do you like.

Everyone Can Play Game

Next up is a game that everyone can play. Doesn’t matter if you have two players or fifteen players or thirty players, everyone can play. For this I want a game that isn’t too difficult but there is no requirement that this game is short or just a party game. Something like Wits and Wagers works well as a team game. That is if you want to go the party game direction.

But I am think that Cartographers (though owning the big box makes it harder) is a great option. This is more of a game and a bigger roll and write experience. You are making a map, as the name would suggest, and scoring based off of the season that it is. The cool thing with this roll and write style game is that there is player interaction. A monster card is flipped, we all pass our sheets and you put that monster on my sheet. That way you can mess over your opponents as you can.

Brain Burning Filler

This category is probably an overlooked done. And I think some of that is for fair reason. But last year I got to play a game that probably should have been a crunchy filler length. This is a game that won’t take too long, doesn’t need to play a lot of people, but it has meaningful and tough decisions.

My brain went to a roll and write game where everyone is playing stuff out at once. But one with a higher complexity and shorter time than Cartographers. But I ended up with Hanamikoji as the game. This won’t always work as it’s a two player game, So an honorable mention is Ganz Schon Clever or one of the games in that type. But either game can play fast, there are good decisions. And with Hanamikoji it’s a ten minute game or a twenty minute game, rarely more. And it’s a brain burner with the amount to read your opponent and what they want.

The Let’s Play A Game Game

Now, the final category is a game where you just want to play a game. One that doesn’t need to take twenty minutes or less. One that doesn’t need to handle a large crowd of people. This is for when, in the evening, you want to play a game, you don’t want to learn new rules, so you pull this one out of your backpack and you’re good for an hour or so.

My choice is Floriferous a set collection, card drafting game. It’s a small game, smaller than some of the other ones on the list. In it, you are collecting flowers and scoring cards to see who can score the most points. It’s not a complex game, but there are some fun twists on it. When you draft a card from a row that determines what order you draft next turn. And you choose between drafting or maybe more when you draft scoring cards. So you might not have many and just flowers that work well, or will you get higher scoring?

Games at Gen Con

Now, you might be done with gaming by the time your day ends. So you might not need more games for playing at Gen Con. But I find that I often have that group to play with in the evening, though, not every evening. And some evenings are just earlier to bed, because, well, sleep is needed.

The other reason you might not want as many games is that you’ll buy games. Maybe this is more of a buy list for you at Gen Con to fill in those categories. That way, as the weekend goes along, you find more and more games to play with people. I know that’s some of what happened last year. I played Mythic Mischief was a game game because someone picked it up that day. And I played Ready, Set, Bet as a bigger group game as someone had that one.

So, determine what you need. Determine, if you meet up with a group who is bringing games. It’s a little bit awkward to be at a gaming convention and for no one to have a game on them.

What games do you find work well to carry and play at conventions?

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Top 5 Quick and Cute Board Games

5. Gasha

Gasha is some of the reason that I’m thinking of this topic since I played it earlier this week. This is a cute set collection game about getting toys from a Japanese vending machine. You can see my whole review of it here.

This one definitely makes the list because the mechanics or action on a turn is very simple. You draw two cards or you trade in a matching set of cards for a scoring card. That is it. But there is some fun to what you do. You need to decide when to try and match up tickets, if you should push for that bigger scoring card, or maybe if you collect for a little bit so you can knock out scoring cards and maybe surprise end the game.

But mechanically it is simple and offers choices and fast choices. And theme wise it is very bright and welcoming. But because it comes in a small box and has kid like artwork (for kids not by kids) it is going to be apt to looked over.

4. Ohanami

In even a smaller box is Ohanami. This one is even simpler in how it sounds, you draft two cards and you add them across three columns. The columns go from highest to lowest, and you always add to an end, either higher or lower. That is very simple.

Where this game stands out, though, is in the scoring. It is not a simple game of just see how many you can get in a row. No, the first round the blue cards score, then green and blue, and finally pink, grey, green, and blue. So blue is the fewest points, but if you get them in the first round, the most points. So it does become a puzzle of how to maintain your columns to be able to play cards, but not take too many cards that won’t score many points.

I sometimes forget that the artwork is really pretty in this game. Why, because it is fast and fun to play, so I draft and go. But if you want, you can spend time to study and enjoy this peaceful artwork in Ohanami. Again, the small box and pretty artwork is going to hide the interesting decision making in the game.

3. Century: Golem Edition

This one I almost didn’t put on the list as I wonder if it might be a little big. But I again played this one recently, and Century: Golem Edition has snappy quick turns, great and cute artwork, and at two players, especially, doesn’t play in much time at all.

This is a hand management game as you manipulate the gems that you have in order to get golems, for points. But building up a hand of cards that you can play out and pick up to manipulate your gems is all of the game. It fits for this list, though, because you do one of four things on your turn, play a card, pick up your cards, get a new card, or get a golem.

It is that simple and while there is great strategy, for some it might seem at first look the game is going to be targeting a younger audience. But it also fits for this list because it is that quick game to play. No one said it needed to be too light, it just needs to be quick and cute.

2. Via Magica

Via Magica is kind of gamers bingo. Super Mega Lucky Box could make the list as well, as a gamers bingo. But Via Magica is cuter as you collect different elements to open portals. When you open a portal it gives you some bonus and some points.

What is going to trip up most gamers is that this is a bingo like game. By that I mean, I draw a element from a bag and everyone covers up that element on one of their portals. And you need certain elements to come up to complete those portals. The mechanics of the game are simple. But if you plan it out well, you get some good benefits for completing a portal. If I complete one that allows me to cover up two water on another one immediately, I want to make sure I have something to cover.

There are a few things that will get this one skipped over. The small box, the cute artwork, and this idea of bingo. It sounds like it is going to be random. But I think it is on par with randomness for something like Quacks of Quedlinberg, which is a bigger game, but doesn’t offer that many more choices.

1. Floriferous

Finally we have a game that might be a bit slower with more people, but it is a fun drafting game. The pretty flower theme and small box, you see a theme here of small boxes being overlooked, are going to be why gamers would skip it.

But Floriferous punches way up with the amount of game in the box. It is a drafting game where you are not only drafting flowers and things for your guardian, you are drafting your own scoring. So if I draft a scoring card, that means, for that round, I didn’t draft a card that would score. But draft too few scoring cards, you won’t score that many points.

Plus, the turn order adds to the puzzle of the game. When you draft a card, you are doing so from a column of cards. If I draft at the top of the column, I will draft first the next round. Likewise, if I draft from the bottom, where the scoring cards are, I go last. So sometimes you draft a bad card to get a card that would complete an arrangement and match up with two scoring cards for sure the next round.

This is one that I think if it had a playmat in the box, and was in a bigger box, people would be playing way more than they are. Which is a shame because Floriferous is a really fun game. And I hope that people will start seeking it out, because it is worth it.

Final Thoughts

Now, as I wrap up, I totally get why people often times will pass over these smaller games. Often times in a game store it is harder to see them all with how they are displayed. Or if it is a mass of small box games so it’s easier to overlook one game out of a group.

The box size also, so often, is a factor with that cuter artwork. But I encourage gamers to look at these games. And maybe it won’t be for you, maybe you really only play big box epic adventures or heavy thinky euro games. But I often make the argument, it is good to have some lighter games for when people wrap up and don’t have time for a big game. Or people finish a game and wait for others to finish another.

So what is your favorite game that is quick and cute? Let me know in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter.

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