Top 10 Food Board Games

10. Diced Veggies

This is a pretty simple game. And a lot of them that I own really do fall into that category. But Dice Veggies is a board game where you are completing recipes. To do that, you need to slice off veggies from a big block of dice. But the rule is that the veggies can only be up to, I believe, 10 total on their pips. So you might want to try and get a bunch at once, but you can’t get the color you really need because the value is too high.

The big selling point on this game is the chopping off the dice. You get a cardboard cleaver that you use to make you cut. The rest of the game is pretty light, though they try and add in a little bit with some modifier cards that you can use or bonus cards. But I like the game for what it is. It’s a silly little filler or family weight style game that is easy to get to the table.

9. Coffee Rush

Next up for our food themed games we have Coffee Rush. This is one that I have been enjoying on BGA. And you can find my review here. Coffee Rush is another order fulfillment game, this one though works with an interesting central mechanism. You move around a central board to collect ingredients and how far you move is limited each turn. Plus how you move, at least at the start of the game, is limited as well.

But you unlock more that you can do. However, there is a cost to that, if you want to unlock more to do you need to spend points that you already have. And in a game where the points are tight, it’s a very good decision.

Plus, this game comes with amazing artwork and coffee/tea cups where you make you drink. Not just that, but the ingredients that you collect are 3D as well, not just cardboard tokens or wooden cubes. This is a great one for your coffee fanatics in your life.

8. Cafe Baras

But Coffee Rush isn’t my favorite of the coffee or tea themed board games. I like a few better than it including Cafe Baras. The theme is really what gets me for this game, you are capybaras running a coffee shop, get it, Cafe Baras?

This game is from the same company as Dice Veggies, but I like Cafe Baras better. There is a bit more going on as you gather in different menu items that are going to score you points. And you are grabbing them so that you can then grab customers and score them for points. Sometimes you just grab a customer to get more money to get more items for your menu. Other times you try and hold off so you can get them as repeat customers.

This is another pretty simple game. But with a theme that is a ton of fun and very good artwork, it’s a nice accessible game. It is going to feel like a set-up for people who don’t play too many games, but not so complex and not too much reading to learn and play the game.

7. A Nice Cuppa

A Nice Cuppa is one that I played on the Malts and Meeples YouTube. If I didn’t play at night time, I might have had a nice cuppa Earl Grey tea with it. But this is a solo game where you are seeing if you can get the steps of making a cup of tea in the right order. But that’s harder than you think because the actions available to you are limited. I could say more about this one, but if you want to learn more, please checkout the video down below.

6. Vegetable Stock

Vegetable Stock is one that I debated about putting on the list. It is less about eating food, but it is about food. In Vegetable Stock you are manipulating the vegetable stock market trying to grab as many points as you can. As you see, like Cafe Baras and Diced Veggies, it’s another play on words.

The game is simple and I really like it for that. You play out a few rounds of drafting cards with the first player switching each round to draft. To draft you deal out one more card than there is per player. The last card is used to adjust the market. Any veggie symbols push the value of that veggie higher. But if you get too high it is going to bust and go back down to one. So are you able to balance that or bust something early and get it pushed back up by the end of the game.

5. Matcha

Matcha is probably the least known game on the list, this or A Nice Cuppa since that is solo, but Matcha is a two player trick taking and set collection game. You gain resources by winning tricks. But it’s not a standard trick taking game. You don’t play out a card to a single trick. Instead you play out I believe it’s four tricks at once. And where you add cards and how tricks are won is determined by the spots the cards are played. It’s a clever and enjoyable trick taking game.

Now, I do want to add in a caveat here. I like this game a ton. However, the rules are not great for the game. I think that they are overwritten and because of that it causes a bit of confusion as you learn the game. So if it sounds interesting to you, see if there is a how play video out there to learn from, it’s going to be easier than the rules.

4. Point Salad

Now we are to one of two board games that I’m sure everyone assumed was going to be on the list. Point Salad is one of the most popular board games with a food theme. Now, I don’t actually own the regular version anymore. I own the Eevee version because it’s Eevee and the theme is more fun. But Point Salad is a great food game.

Point Salad is an open drafting food game. What do I mean by open drafting? In an open drafting game everyone sees the cards available to take. But it is does something clever. On the back of the cards is scoring. So on your turn you either take two vegetables form six to add to your tableau of veggies, or you take a single scoring card. If you take veggies the scoring cards on top of the deck flip down. And now those are gone from the game.

I love that push and pull of when you grab your scoring cards versus when you just grab veggies. Too many scoring cards are not enough veggies, you won’t score well. Too many veggies and not enough scoring cards, likely the same case. But there are ways to get around both, but you need it play out perfectly.

3. Fromage

Now we have the cheesiest game on the list, Fromage. Yes, this is a game all about cheese and it uses some awesome mechanisms as you play that I don’t see in many other games. It’s a worker placement game about making cheese. The more cheese you make the better you’ll do in the game. But let’s talk about the unique element of the game.

The main central element of the game is this big wheel, not of cheese but locations where you make your cheese. And that wheel turns each round of the game. Now each round you can use two workers on the board and then potentially your other one, or a couple of them, on your player board as you unlock things. But on the main board everything has a timer. That timer is how long it takes to get back your worker. It is easy to tell that timer though, because when you wedge of cheese worker is pointed back at you, you get it back.

That element is so clever in the game. And the game does a good job of scaling itself for player count. You swap out board parts for each wedge of the board. And, I forgot to mention this, the board is modular. Yes, there are only four modules that make up the whole wheel. But how those go together changes up what comes after each other. I’d love to see this in more board games.

2. Homebrewers

Next up a game that I love to champion. We have Homebrewers a game about homebrewing beer. I love beer and I love homebrewing beer, so it’s a game made for me. But I also love engine building and Homebrewers is a fun engine building game.

In this game you want to be the best homebrewer, not surprise there. So your goal is to be the best at brewing four different styles of beers to gain medals and points as Summerfest and Oktoberfest. But as you brew, you gain ingredients. These ingredients modify your beers. They might give you more money or raise up how good you are at brewing that beer faster or an adjacent beer.

One of the elements that I love at the end of the game is you have a bunch of wild beers. Since I love beer, I always think, would I drink that beer? The answer is basically always, yes, I’d drink it once. But sometimes the flavors are a bit out there.

1. Sushi Go Party!

Finally, at number one, we have Sushi Go Party. This is my favorite food themed game that is all about drafting the best meal possible. Everything is going to score you points, potentially, as you draft them. And most of it is pretty simple set collection. Sometimes, though, you get a card with a special power that is going to let you break the rules and swap what you are drafting.

One element that I love about Sushi Go Party is how you tailor it for your group. I make really mean drafting combinations sometimes. When I say that you score points, it’s possible to score negative points. Or I can make it really friendly so that everyone is getting a ton of points. That to me separates it from the base Sushi Go where the game is going to be the same every time. This is one that I really recommend people checkout just for a fun time.

Final Thoughts

Now, I am sure that people are noticing a few missing board games. Food Chain Magnate is a food themed game that just isn’t interesting to me. It’s too big and too much going on that I don’t want to learn it, play it and then need to play it a few more times. Also Vihnos or Viticulture are likely ones people might note as well. I am actually interested in playing both.

I did on my list have a few board games that I didn’t put on there. Fruit Picking is a fun one. I like the mancala style mechanism of the game. Cacao is a chocolate creation game, I guess you could call it, and it’s fun with it’s tile placement element to it. And Charcuterie is another one. I like Charcuterie, the game and the food style, but it’s a super light game that I’ll gladly play but probably am not that apt to pick myself.

What are your favorite board games with a food theme? And which is your favorite of the 10 Food Board Games I listed?

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Checkout 100 through 91 first here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition 90-81

90 – The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

I really enjoy trick taking games, though not a ton of them make the top of my list. The Crew: Mission Deep Sea makes the list for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it is a cooperative trick taking game. So everyone works together to complete certain objectives. That is fun, but it is also fun because I can play the same scenario over again and I’ll have different objectives. That’s something that made me like it better than The Crew: Quest for Planet Nine which was fixed.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

89 – Too Many Bones: Undertow

Too Many Bones, a bit game from Chip Theory Games, is one that I think will move up higher as I get more characters and get it to the table more. I like it every time I play, but it’s a beast and I need to relearn the rules. But Too Many Bones is generally a tactical fighting game where you level up characters as you go. Eventually you face off against a big boss. What you level up are stats but then also unlock new dice and abilities to use. And then I like that fact that the characters aren’t normal. The Gearlocs aren’t cute, but what they do is different than a lot of standard fantasy games.

Buy on Chip Theory Games

88 – Downforce

Downforce is an interesting light and quick betting game. In this game you buy a car, race that car, and then get your points, or money, for who you place a bet on, where they finish, and where you vehicle finishes. There is one thing, there are more, but one in particular, that is so clever though. As the cars race along, that is done by people playing down cards. The cards have a list of car colors and how far they move. If you plan it well you can get a car trapped and slow it down, which offers more strategy than you’d expect from the game.

Buy on Miniature Market

87 – Fruit Picking

Another one that has been on the list before and another lighter game like Downforce that way. But otherwise it is more like Mancala with set collection. You move seeds around, figuring out how to land on spots where you can either get a lot more seeds or you can buy different fruit. All you are trying to do is figure out that puzzle as quickly as possible. And of course, to land in the right spot to get those fruit and collect your sets.

Buy on Amazon

86 – Atlantis Rising

Atlantis Rising is new to the list, and a very good cooperative game. As I say in the video, it’s almost an introductory or welcoming cooperative game. In this game you are trying not to keep Atlantis afloat, but as it sinks, get off the island by making technology and end up in another realm. What I like is how the board shrinks as you play, parts sink and you lose some of the better options for going out. Of course, if you want to more likely get what you need, you go out to the end of an peninsula, but there is also a great chance it’ll sink and you get nothing.

Buy on Miniature Market

85 – Flamecraft

Flamecraft is one of the prettiest games out there with all the cute dragons. But it’s a fun light game to play as well. It is a very good welcoming game because of the artwork, but because there isn’t too much going on as well. You are either adding dragons to shops to get resources on your turn, and use powers of the dragons or shop. Or you are completing goals and gaining points. It’s such a friendly game that is a lot of fun to play and look at.

Pre-Order on Miniature Market

84 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Arkham Horror: The Card Game has fallen for me a lot. Mainly because I just don’t play it or have someone to play it with consistently. For me, it is a fine solo game, but I like it better multiplayer. In this game you are an investigator looking into some strange mystery, probably dealing with an elder god or some great old one. Of course, that means weird things can happen, and Fantasy Flight Games has done a great job of putting something together that uses the cards to create really unique experiences.

Buy on Miniature Market

83 – Village Rails

Village Rails replaces Village Green for me on the list. So another new game. It is still laying out things in a 3×3 grid, but now you’re trying to connect routes and score points that way. Plus playing out train engines to get even more scoring opportunities. What I like about it though is that the route building is a bit simpler to grasp than how the greens work. It’s a solid filler style game, I’d say, where it offers good decisions but not that long a game play time.

Not Out Yet

82 – Isle of Cats

The Isle of Cats from City of Games, is a great big polyomino game where you are rescuing cats. The same for the Explore and Draw which I’d maybe rate higher but hadn’t rated yet by the time I did my list. In both you are filling up a boat with cats, trying to get families – colors of cats- next to each other on the boat. And then there are objective cards as well that you can draft and give you more end of the game scoring. There is a lot to the game but it’s a fun one to play both versions of it.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

81 – The Lost Expedition

The Lost Expedition is another one that has been on my list for a long time and has dropped some lately. Mainly because it got played a lot and there is less to see. But I still enjoy The Lost Expedition a lot. Mainly because it’s a cooperative game that is hard or even impossible for one player to really run for everyone. You’re trying to find the lost city of Z and explore along different paths every day. When making that path, each person needs to make the decision themselves and can’t discuss with other players. Eventually you make it, or often times you run out of food and your guides all perish.

Buy on Miniature Market

Upcoming Streams

Next Monday the Top 100 Games 2022 Edition continues. You can find the video below for that one. If you want to join live, it’ll be at 8:30 PM Central on Monday. Only week where it might not happen at that time is October 31st as it’s Halloween.

Then on Wednesday, it is time for more Stars of Akarios. This is assuming my internet is back by then. If not, I’ll tweet it out. But you can find that link here. The following week I will be out of town so no Stars of Akarios. But hopefully you are still having fun, and most likely there is a fair amount to catch up on after seven games.

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If you are interested in catching these streams live. Every Wednesday at 8 PM Central time from now until the week before Thanksgiving I’ll be streaming. There is only one more scheduled right now but I’ll get the rest up shortly. You can click the notification bell to know when I go live on Malts and Meeples.

See the previous parts of the list below:

100 Through 91

90 Through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

Top 100 Board Games – 60 through 51

60. Tiny Towns

This game is a puzzle of optimizing what you have going on, on your board, so that you can build as many buildings as possible and score points. But it’s a fun puzzle because you are putting out resources based off of what everyone is picking out to use, not just what you want. And where you place every cube matters in order to optimize how you build. The game plays really fast and you’re always engaged.

Buy on Miniature Market

59. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

This game floats up and down on the list every year. I think I’ve come to realize that while I really like the game and the stories it tells, I like it better as a two player game versus a solo game. There is something about working with someone else and making decisions as a group that just works better in this game for me. This is a deck construction game that takes you through stories and mysteries in Arkham and the surrounding areas in a really fun way.

Buy On Miniature Market

58. Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl

As we all know, Chernobyl was caused by magical artifacts that have changed and twisted the land. At least that’s more of the story in Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl. This is a competitive game where all of you are racing to find clues to get into the core of Chernobyl and find the treasure or artifact that really caused the calamity. I like that this game has a lot of adventure to it and also has you racing against the game itself. It feels similar but it’s own brand of fun.

Buy On Miniature Market

57. Village Attacks

A tower defense game at it’s core, Village Attacks is a game where you’re the bad guys, the monsters from the stuff of legends really. And there are things going bump at your door and it’s the villagers who are trying to get in with their pitchforks and torches. I really like how simple this game kind of is to play, there’s enough going on as you level up your characters, but the base of the game is pretty easy to play. And it’s kind of fun being the bad guys, though, it is very straight forward tower defense.

Not Available

56. Fruit Picking

We go from a game with a dark theme to a game with a very light theme of Fruit Picking. This is basically a mancala style game where you are picking up things from one spot and dropping them off in locations as you go. It’s all about setting up turns that will get you enough seeds and end you in the right spot to buy the fruit you need. It’s really a set collection game as you try and get one of the winning groups of cards. Easy to play and a lot of fun.

Buy on the BGG Store

55. The Isle of Cats

Another game that has a really cute theme, The Isle of Cats is a bit more complicated than you might think. It’s primarily a polyominal game where you are rescuing cats to your boat. But there is a drafting phase that is really well done that determines a lot of your plan. Especially since you don’t get to just keep your cards, you need to pay for them with fish, which is also the currency that you need for getting cats. So it gives a very nice tension in the game. I’ve only played it two players and I think it might be even better with more.

Buy on Miniature Market

54. Apocrypha Adventure Card Game

Apocrypha wasn’t on the list last year, at least from what I can tell, but this is a game that should be. It is what the Pathfinder Adventure Card Game is based off of, even though that one came out first. Apocrypha has a very rough rule book, but it’s still so much fun. It’s a world of spiritual warfare with monsters around every corner. I give a good example for the type of game it is in the video. There is a card called basket of razor blades that is is a picture of a basket of apples. That’s the type of game it is.

Buy on Amazon

53. Ascension Deckbuilding Game

Ascension is my go to introductory deck building game. I know that a lot of people will like Dominion, but for me, Ascension is better. The big thing I really like is that it has a variable market. That means that you can’t plan out a strategy from the start of the game and stick to it. The card you need might be bought by someone else, or not show up at all. The game can take a bit with more players but it’s still a fun game that you can relax and play.

Buy On CoolStuffInc

52. Galaxy Trucker

The last two games on the list are a bit less strategic. Galaxy Trucker is a chaotic good time as you are building up your spaceship in real time. Then you send it off flying to deal with asteroids, pirates, and get cargo to make the most money as you truck across the galaxy. Those things, however, are probably going to be blowing up parts of your ship as you go, so can you survive. The game plays over a few rounds and is a lot of fun.

Buy On Miniature Market

51. PitchCar

And PitchCar is another chaotic light game. This one is all about flicking a disc, that is your car, around a big track that you can set-up however you want. I’ve made fast tracks where it is just some curves and nothing special. Other tracks go onto a second level and other tracks have a loop. It’s crazy, it’s chaotic and it’s so much fun. This is a good game for everyone, which is what I really love about it. And I really want to make a PitchCar league, get together once a month and play for the cup.

Buy On Eagle-Gryphon Games

The Next Ten

We’re hitting the top 50 next week. Streams are always at 8 PM on Wednesday evenings, central time. You can find the link to the next video here. You can also subscribe and click that notification bell to know when I am going live. Even when I’m not doing my Top 100, I’m playing solo games every Wednesday and I have been doing every other Monday but those have been on the backburner with this Top 100.

Also, let me know what you thought of the audio quality for this past stream. Did it sync up well, how was the background noise levels? I was using a new microphone so I want to know how that sounded to other people. I think that I have it dialed in pretty well but I want to keep improving the quality of what I do.

What’s your favorite in this group of 10, and which would you want to try that you haven’t?

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So let’s see what got played in July.

Tainted Grail – 4 Plays

No shock here that Tainted Grail is again towards the top of the list. It’s the campaign game that I’m playing quite often. And we got into Chapter 9 now, which is exciting. The story is still amazing and it’s progressed in some interesting ways. This is still a really tough game and if you want to see why you might want to buy it or not, I did a video on that.

Aeon’s End Legacy – 3 Plays

The other game that I streamed comes in #2 in terms of most plays. Starting Aeon’s End Legacy has been a blast. I love Legacy games and I really like Aeon’s End. You can see my playthroughs over on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. I really like deck builders and I think that Aeon’s End Legacy works really well for a cooperative deck building game.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – 2 Plays

This was a new game into my collection and a new game to get played, obviously, this month. I am bummed I didn’t back it on Kickstarter for some of the nicer pieces. But I am glad that I picked it up at Target. It’s a pretty big game for a card game, in terms of the combos and game length, but so much fun. You can find my thoughts for it in a TableTopTakes.

Dice Throne – 2 Plays

Dice Throne is always a blast when I play it. I got to play head to head once and three player king of the hill another time. I really like it head to head, but king of the hill works well. Mainly, I like that it incentivizes you to attack the person with the most health. There is no ganging up on a single player, which just normal 3 player could do.

Hanabi – 2 Plays

This was one that I hadn’t played in a long time but it was fun when I got it back to the table. We did okay in both of our games, but I like the concept of this one. You play with your cards facing away from you and are giving clues to other people as to what cards they have. Still need to get a perfect game on this one, but that might take a while.

Fruit Picking – 2 Plays

So, this one isn’t new, but it was the first time I played my copy. In 2020 I played this digitally for GenCon and I had a lot of fun with it, probably the second favorite game I played after Night Cage (which came in). Playing the physical version was a lot of fun. It’s a nice simple game in what you do, but there is strategy to it as you play. I like big games, but also simple games with good decision space.

Point Salad – 2 Plays

Another game that is simple. Now, I don’t think the decision space is as good on this one but still fun. Point Salad is a great drafting and tableau building game, especially with two players. I play it really fast at two which means two plays in a sitting. I also like that even with the same set of cards if feels different when you play it. Good filler game.

A Gentle Rain – 2 Plays

Two plays of this solo game while watching the Olympics. I should pull it out some more and get it played that way. I really do like this game as a relaxing game and a mind clearing and refocusing game.

Similo – 2 Plays

Another new game for me, this one I picked up from Horrible Guild recently. It is a really nice party style game. I really like mixing sets together because it’s fun to use animals to try and get people to guess a mythological figure or the other way around.

Calico – 1 Play

And yet another new to me game. This one I didn’t buy recently, but I hadn’t played to this point. The game play is a ton of fun in this one. It is in the category of games that are simple but have a great decision space. No full review of it yet, but if you want to see Beyond the Box Cover on it, I did write about that on Friday.

Icecool – 1 Play

Game night game and I am so glad to get this back to the table. Icecool is just a game of silly fun and flicking penguins around. Had an amazing time playing it as I always do, and with eight players it is just a little bit hectic and crazy. If you want a simple and cheap dexterity game, Icecool is it.

PitchCar – 1 Play

On the other side, this is a simple and expensive dexterity game, but also a ton of fun. We had 7 players, I believe, flicking our cars around in this game and it was a blast. The look for it is amazing and so much fun to play with. I loved playing it with more people as compared to two or three. Everyone was just having a great time and I want to get it out again soon.

Yearly Stats

So, like I said, I didn’t get as many plays in as I wanted to. I am at 191 plays which isn’t bad at all. But to hit my target it would be 174 plays in 151 days, which is doable for sure. I’m over 50% of the way to the goal. One cool thing is that it tells me what % of my collection I’ve played. 20% of the games that I own I’ve now played. And six of those games I’ve played 10 or more times.

So which of those games would you want to play from this past month?

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What Do My Ratings Mean

The baseline that we should get started with is looking at what the numbers means. Obviously a 10 is the best and a 1 is the worst. However, it is more nuanced than that. I do use the half point scale as well. So right now I have everything from 10’s to 1’s, but no 0.5’s in there.

A 10 is a game that is as close as perfect for me as you can get. And I say for me, some board games are objectively good and some are objectively bad, but when rating games, so much as to do with taste. So a 10 is a game that is as close to perfect for me as you can get.

A 9 is a game that I love, and I’d always want to play it. 8 is a great game for me and I’d likely not say no to playin that game. 7, I like and I’d play, but I won’t seek it out. 6 is a decent game but I probably am not that interested in playing it often. 5 is okay and I’d play it if people want to. 4, I’ll try and recommend another game to play. 3, I don’t want to play it. 2, I actively don’t like the game. 1, I wouldn’t play that game again ever.

The Breakdown

10’s –

I have 12 games that I rate a 10. That is 4% of the games that I’ve played and rated. I’m sure that I’ve missed a few games, but likely not tens. There is also a wide variety of games in there, I have a massive dungeon crawler with Gloomhaven and then I also have a dexterity game with Ice Cool. But 67% of the games really immerse you in the story and world of the game, which I think will be a trend for these high spots.

9.5’s –

21 fall into the 9.5 category, this 7% of the game that I’ve played. We again stick with a lot of story with games like TIME Stories and Arkham Horror: The Card Game. We also get some lighter games like Sushi Go Party and The Lost Expedition and our first party game with Just One in this category.

9’s –

38 games fall into the 9’s, all the way up at 13%. I wonder if this might be one of the higher percentile groups out there. This is where we start to hit a lot of roll and writes with games like Clever Hoch Drei, Doppelt so Clever, and more. We also get a lot of games that aren’t as story driven anymore. More games like Letter Jam and Super Fantasy Brawl that give you more of a classic board game experience. We also get A Gentle Rain in this section.

8.5’s –

16 out of 283 are rated as 8.5’s. That is about 6% of my rated games. The trend holds pretty steady from the 9’s with a lot more of the classic board game experience. Another party game with Wits & Wagers makes the list. And we have a new game that I just played recently a few times with Merchant’s Cove.

8’s –

We likely have it the big number here, 50 games that are 8’s, which is 18% of my collection. So as you add up the percentages, keep in mind I am rounding up or down so it might not equal 100% in the end. But I feel like in the 8’s we get a number of games that are in that lighter category, more filler games. Things like Skull and Fruit Picking are easier to play and teach than a lot games earlier.

7.5’s –

At 20 games in the 7.5’s, we are at 7% of the collection again. While other sections have had games that were previously owned, with the 7’5’s, I definitely noticed a few more. Machi Koro, Winter Tale, Krosmaster: Arena and at least one more were in my collection and have left. It’s not because they are bad games, but I have other games that do it better. And with Krosmaster: Arena, I got rid of that before Super Fantasy Brawl, but I just didn’t have anyone to play it with.

7’s –

Sitting at 12% with 34 games out of 283, we again see a number of previously owned games. But we also see games that I grew up playing. Set, Dutch Blitz, and Scrabble all make it into this category as well as the party game Scattergories. I obviously have some level of nostalgia with these games, but at the same time, I’d still play them again right now.

6.5’s –

13 games in this number, for 5%. I think this is where we’ll start to see the numbers dropping off in terms of number of games rated in the area. It is also a lot of games that I don’t own but have played in this area. I guess that means that I buy games that I like a lot. Donner Dinner Party and Flapjacks and Sasquatches are two that I’d definitely play again, but I have games that I like better that do something similar, especially with Donner Dinner Party.

6’s –

A tick up here with 24 games which is 8%. Most of the time the whole numbers seem to have more than a half numbers ,I guess. I own a few games in this section, though some of that is nostalgia, or with a game like Splendor, it’s because I know other people who like it a lot. I probably won’t ever pull Splendor off the shelf to play myself, but I know my wife likes it, so I won’t remove it from the collection.

5.5’s –

5 games make up the 5.5’s which is just barely 2%. We are reaching the social deduction game area, I feel in the 5.5’s, and 5’s. Where I would play them again, but I won’t seek them out. They tend to be the very simple social deduction games like Secret Hitler, While that game does have a little double blind fun going on with it, the theme doesn’t interest me, and it’s just a fine game.

5’s –

Down in the 5’s we have 21 games at a whopping 7% again. Again more social deduction games like The Resistance and One Night Ultimate Vampire. These two really do what I don’t like about a lot of social deduction games, they don’t give you anything go on right away or in general much to go on at all. We also have all of Red Dragon Inn, a fun game but often is played with too many people. I think 4 is about my max for that game, maybe 5.

4.5’s –

1 out of 283 which is 0% for those keeping track at home. And it’s Seafall. I feel like it’s fair that Seafall falls into this spot by itself. It is a game that I want to like more, it is a game I can see the potential of it. It just ends up being a flop. The story doesn’t play out as it should, it is a just a bit too random, and the games are way too long. And the more you play the longer the games get. Yet, it’s just on that cusp of I’d play it again without an AP players.

4’s –

9 games or 3% of what I’ve played. This is where we get into a lot more of a mass market or mass market adjacent games. Not that there haven’t been some before, but we have stuff like Guesstures, Forbidden Island and Dominion. Yes, I have Dominion as a 4. It is a game that I’d play if you twisted my arm, but it is also a game that if you know the game extremely well you will win, and it’s not interesting enough for me to know it that well.

3’s –

You might be wondering where my 3.5’s are, the answer is there were none. Instead we have 10 3’s. That is 4% of what I’ve played. Again a lot of mass market games, and a lot of games I grew up with. This goes back to growing as a gamer, stuff like Malarky and Pit had their place getting me into the hobby, but I don’t need to go back to them.

2’s –

3 games or 1%. Monopoly falls into this group. It isn’t the worst of the worst, but it is very bad. Another super popular or at least well sold game, Exploding Kittens lands here as well.

1’s –

Finally, I have 5 1’s, or 2%. I really don’t like these games, and most people won’t like most of them. The two that will probably surprise people are Cards Against Humanity and Concept. Cards Against Humanity at one point in time I would have rated higher, but now I consider it a worse version of Apples to Apples because the jokes are created for you and often not funny. Concept is one that I know a lot of people like. It just didn’t work for me. It has this group feel to the game, but ends up just being boring.

Alright, there we have it, all the games in my collection rated. What do you think should be rated better? Or what do you think that I should rate lower?

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In terms of ranking, I picked games that I felt like having a bigger punch for the size they were higher on the list, even passing some games that I liked better. This list is about the depth of game that you can get and really the depth of decisions that you have in the game. These are also going to be all games that I have in my collection, because remembering the size of every game that I don’t have can be tricky.

10 – Ganz Schon Clever

One of two roll and write or flip and write games on the list. A lot of them offer interesting decisions, and I probably could have put more on the list, but I also just did my Top 10 Roll and Writes. I think Ganz Schon Clever really provides and interesting puzzle to try and figure out. The reason it’s lower on the list is simply because you can figure out the puzzle. From that point on with the games in the series, it’s about how well you can optimize the puzzle. That, however, is still fun, and still offers a challenge. I am glad that I’m keeping track of my scores, just to see what numbers I can try and beat in the game.

9 – Skull

Some might find this game as an odd one for the list. It’s a push your luck bluffing game. That might seem too simple, but there is depth there as well. In Skull you are putting down either roses or a skull into your own pile, and eventually someone will open up a bid. Such as, I can flip four tiles without busting, then everyone bids, but the trick is, you have to flip all of your tiles first. You need to be able to read the people who are bidding to see if they are bluffing and they have a skull in there, or not, because you know you don’t have a skull, you can get through their stack and a high number of cards. Or, you might be bluffing by bidding to make someone else thing you don’t have a skull in your stack, when, in fact, you do.

8 – Silver

I’m going to say every version of this game, and all the combinations there of give this game a lot of staying power and a lot of bang for a small box size. There is also strategy to how you play as you try and figure out what cards you have in your village and how many points you have and also figure out what your opponent might have so you can call for scoring at the right time. There’s strategy to how you put in cards into your village, what cards you give your opponent, and how you manipulate the size of your village. Like Ganz Schon Clever, there is a puzzle you can figure out, but there are four versions of the game, each with different sets of cards numbered 0 to 13, and you can mix and match, so that’s a ton of different options you have and a ton of different puzzles.

7 – Say Bye to the Villains

Say Bye to the Villains is an extremely hard cooperative game. You are Samurai who are going to fight against some Villains in ten days. You are building up your health, speed, and attack, but also trying to figure out what the Villains are up to, so that the correct Samurai are assigned and can beat the correct villains. What makes this game feel so big is that you can’t quite do everything you want in the game. You are always pushing your luck with that last villain that you aren’t quite sure you can beat. I also like the strategy that goes behind either having enough health to survive an attack or enough speed to attack before a villain. The game is one that I have yet to beat, but I still really like the challenge.

6 – Hats

Welcome to the Madd Hatters tea party, you are trying to collect your best hat collection. This game twists off of normal card playing games. Normally you play cards in your hand to score or manipulate placement of things, but in this, you are placing them down on the table at the tea party. You then take the hat that was there. The rules for placing a hat are simple, it either needs to be the same color or the higher number. At the end of the game, the hats score based off of where they are on the table. The challenge comes in setting it up so that you can score at the end of the game in the hat colors you want, so leaving one of that color out that someone else can’t take so that you can score, but also collecting enough to score well. The balance is great because you mess it up, another player might remove the last pink hat from the board, and now all those pink hats won’t score. Or maybe, instead, the make it so the lowest scoring pink is now one point instead of six. It’s a fun and chaotic hand management game.

5 – Onirim

The only true solo game on the list, Onirim is my go to for a fast solo game. The basics are simple, play down three cards of the same color in a row and don’t have any matching symbols next to each other, you get to put out a door card, get six out you win the game. The big part of the game comes with the key cards. These cards are extremely powerful and can be used for a lot of things. You can play them down as another symbol to get out a key, you can hold onto them and use them if a nightmare comes up, or a door of that color comes up, or you can dig through the draw pile with them. The strategy for how to use them can go all over the place, and depending on the game state, you might need to do one over the others. Plus the game, in the Second Edition, comes with a lot of modules as well to add in more and different challenges, but those are all just a few cards.

4 – The Lost Expedition

Another cooperative game on the list, The Lost Expedition’s game play is interesting and challenging. The big part comes from the adventure that you are on, and how you go on your hikes, or explorations for the day to reach the lost City of Z. A lot of cooperative games an alpha player can take over the game. In The Lost Expedition, it gets around that issue by players not being allowed to discuss what card they are playing. And the order cards are played changes depending on morning or evening. In the morning, you can pick and choose your path, which means the cards go in numerical order, at night it’s whatever order the cards are played in. After that the group discusses and spends resources to go down the paths they have created, always trying to push closer to the city. There can be a lot of good discussion in this game and lots of hard decisions.

3 – Hanamikoji

Hanamikoji is a very simple game. You have four choices of actions per round, and you do each of them once. You play down a card face down that you’ll use to win favor, two face down to not use to score, three face up and your opponent picks one, or two sets of two face up and your opponent picks one. Each player wants to win the favor of four Geisha so that they will grace your restaurant or eleven points worth of Geisha. Which cards you present to your opponent are always a pains taking decision. You want them to be equally as good for you no matter what your opponent picks. But, you don’t know all the cards your opponent has, what cards your opponent has played face down, or what card isn’t in the round. I feel the struggle hoping that I won’t give my opponent the game every time I play Hanamikoji.

2 – Hanabi

Hanabi is an odd game, but one that makes you think a lot. The challenge of this game comes from the fact you can’t see your own cards. And you, as a collective, are trying to put down fireworks in ascending order for three different colors. That seems impossible, but you give each other clues. The downside is that the clues aren’t as specific as you’d want. If my hand is a red three and four, a green two, and a blue one and two. A clue could be, “That card is a one” or “Those two cards are blue” or “Those two cards are twos”. We only complete one one through five of each color, so we need to give good clues, but you point out all the cards of a color or a number. As the player who receives the clue, that means you are keeping track of all that information in your head and by moving cards around in your hand. Clues are also a limited resource, so eventually you discard cards to get clues back, and that is a risk as well. Extremely challenging, Hanabi plays fast and has a lot of game to it.

1 – Cartographers

My number one big game in a small package is Cartographers, my other roll and write, or flip and write, game on the list. Cartographers shines because of it’s scoring. I talk about it a lot for that reason. In Cartographers you score four different scoring cards, A through D, but in any season you only ever score two of them. So Spring has you scoring A and B, then Summer, B and C, Fall, C and D, and Winter, D and then A again. You really need to plan out and balance your scoring. If you focus too much on one of them, you might not score well in other rounds. For example, if you focus too much on A, you might score poorly in Summer because you aren’t scoring B, but then come Winter you’ll score A again, so there’s an interesting balance of how you place everything on your map to score. I always feel like my time scoring for card Bis wasted, but without it, I’d have two early bad rounds. The game has a whole lot more thought to it than it’d seem.

There are other games I considered as well. Letter Jam, a Hanabi like word game is amazing, but I considered it just a bit too big. Draftosaurus and Fruit Picking are family-weight games that pack a little bit less punch but are great as well. And on my shelf are so many more games I need to try, like Claim, The Crew, Arboretum, which I’ve heard packs a big punch, and more. What are some of your favorite small games that pack a big punch?

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You can find my whole collection here.

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s

E and F’s

Escape the Room: Mystery at Stargazer’s Manor

This is an escape room style game in a box. So the fact that it’s on my shelf/still owned should tell you the play status. I was given this one as a gift, and I’m excited to play it, but I haven’t gotten to it yet, mainly because I like escape rooms but I like playing with with 3-4 other people so that you can all puzzle through the game together. Right now that’s a bit tricky, and most often when I had game nights prior to Covid we’d have a larger group, and larger groups don’t work a well with escape room style games. I am still really excited to play this game though, I do enjoy escape room game a lot.

Status: To be Played

Fae

This is an interesting game, I like it because it has a hidden element to it. In this game you are trying to get the most points for your color of druid, you do that by moving them around on the board, grouping them together and then pulling them off of the board. But it’s done in an interesting way where you have a certain color of druid and it’s hidden, so you can try and get it so that your druids are pulled off in the highest scoring rituals to return from the fae realm, but if you do that, it might be too obvious so someone else might then tank the rest of your druids, so you want to score well, but not too well, all while trying to figure out what color of druid the other players might have in order to keep them from scoring too much. The game is simple, looks decently well n the table, and has a nice bit of a puzzle to it.

Status: Played

First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

This is basically The Martian the board game as you try and survive on Mars as your space base falls apart, events happen, and all of that while trying to complete your goal to win the game. This game has an app which is okay, but needed, for keeping track of the ship status, and for a wider variety of events that can happen, some of the events are just a bit too crazy. I like this one though because it does feel tense as you try and keep everything working and complete your objective. There is a campaign mode that I want to play as well sometime.

Status: Played

Five Tribes

Five Tribes is a great looking game that uses a mancala style movement of meeples on the board to create one big puzzle that you’re trying to figure out and optimize your way through. This game is what you’d call a point salad game, get blue workers off the board, get coins, which are points, get more vizers than someone else, points, get collected sets of different items, points, get to place a camel on a tile, points, get a palace or a palm tree on the tile, points. And while there might be more optimal plays, it’s fun to try to get the points in different area in different games. This one works really well with all player counts, and the way they make it work for 2 is really good.

Status: Played

Floor Plan

A roll and write all about building a house, and trying to do so in a way that pleases the real estate agents or whomever it might be that the scoring cards are for. This, of course can create some really weird houses. But I like this one in concept because it is making a blue print/floor plan for a place. It reminds me a bit of what I like about Cartographers and Welcome To… that you are building out something that makes a lot of sense versus the more abstract roll and write games like Criss Cross and Second Chance. I hoped to see this one and try it at GenCon last year, but no luck, wasn’t there, but I’m excited to have it in my collection now.

Status: To Be Played

Folklore: The Affliction (and Dark Tales Expansion)

This is a an RPG in a board game. You have standard RPG like dice that you’re even rolling. But it takes place in a DM’less system and a dark world with lots of werewolves and vampires, you know the monsters that can cause afflictions. The game has two parts, one is more story driven where you are basically getting your next quest and the other is more of a tactical combat portion of the game. This is one that I got introduced to by Rolling Solo YouTube channel and I’m glad that I picked up, I just need to actually play it.

Status: To Be Played

Foodies

This is one that a playthrough of the game on the Dice Tower sold me on it as a light engine building game. You basically are building our a restaurant menu in order to impress some food critics or meet certain criteria, but you are also rolling a dice which then allows you to activate certain spots on your menu. It’s a 10 sided die and your menu is a 3×3 grid, so as you add in food items you can upgrade what you are getting when things are rolled. It seems to fall into that level of something like Homebrewers which I love a lot as well as a nice simple but fun engine building game.

Status: To Be Played

Forgotten Waters

This pirate themed storybook game comes from Plaid Hat Games. And pirate themed and the story book actually both really drew me to it. It also has a nice app integration which has solid voice acting on it for some of the story elements which is fun as well. I haven’t played it, but I’ve heard it works well over Zoom or other digital platforms, I mainly haven’t played it because I think that my wife would like it and right now we’ve been doing a little bit less gaming obviously due to Covid with other people and Forgotten Waters plays up to 7, I believe, so I’d love to play through it with a group of people.

Status: To Be Played

Formula D

I’ve wanted to have a racing game for a while, so now of course I have two with Formula D and Camel Up. While Camel Up is a lighter and sillier racing game, Formula D has you shifting gears around corners, trying to adjust your speeds just right, push your luck at the right time, and see if you can be the first one to the finish. This game has a ton of maps, though my used game is a base game copy and doesn’t have the additional maps you can pick up. This one is just one that’s always seemed like an interesting challenge to play and could have some solid stand-up moments as people push their luck around the turn.

Status: To Be Played

The Fox In the Forest and The Fox in the Forest Duet

I’m lumping these two together though there is a major difference between the games. The Fox in the Forest is a competitive trick taking game where as Duet is a cooperative trick taking game. But both of them are trick taking and based off of the same theme. In the competitive game you are trying to take as many tricks as you can and get right up to that threshold where you haven’t taken too many. Fox in the Forest Duet is a game that’s a balancing act as you try and collect tokens over some number of hands, and there is a fox that moves around on the board toward the person who won the trick based off of the number of paws on the card, so can you coordinate well to keep from going off the edge of the board and losing potential scoring spots.

The Fox In the Forest Status: To Be Played
The Fox In the Forest Duet Status: To Be Played

Fruit Picking

This was game that I got to try digitally from Korean Board Games during the online GenCon this year. I liked the game a lot as a simple puzzle of a game to figure out. In it you are moving around tokens from various plans to get seeds into the store house to buy cards to complete basically an end game set collection. You can also buy cards to block someone from winning. But you have to plan it out right because to buy a card of a fruit type you have to be able to mancala your seeds around to end up on the right spot. I like how the game has changing puzzle as well because where the fruits are on the board can be different every game.

Status: Played Digitally

Now we’re back to another section that I need to play more games form. The fact that there are a few campaign style games definitely meant that I would have less played. I really do need to et back to streaming on Malts and Meeples as that’ll help me get through my backlog and I do want to do it more. Right now motivation has just been hard.

What’s your favorite game that starts with E? And F? What do you think I should checkout in those letters?

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But we all know about all of those things, sometimes it’s just tricky to remember.

Instead, I want to look back on 2020 thus far, and call out things that I have been thankful for in the nerdy realm.

I’m thankful for finishing Gloomhaven. It took a while, but we got through all of Gloomhaven, and as much as I love that game, and as much as it’s not terrible on Table Top Simulator, I was glad to play the last few sessions in person, outside, and wrap up that game. I’ll miss playing it, but next year I will have Frosthaven eating up space on my shelf as well to play.

I’m thankful for the virtual game nights that I’ve had. I’ve done a few with different groups of people Yes, it isn’t the same as in person, but I’ve made a lot of games work via video. Ganz Schon Clever, Criss Cross, Scattergories, Cross Clues, Just One, Hues and Cues, and I’m probably missing one or two. And beyond that we’ve played Jack Box Games as well which works nicely via Zoom. We had a few months with moving where we didn’t game, but overall it has been good to do that.

Starting Tainted Grail. Tainted Grail is not a game that should work that well via Zoom. However, we made it work, getting a few rules wrong in Chapter 1, and with a slight change on my end, I think it’ll be even better for us. I’ve been wanting to play this game in a group as it was good solo, but I love sharing an interesting story with people.

I’m thankful that I got to do a few games with the virtual GenCon. Probably my biggest disappoint was not being able to go to GenCon in terms of nerdy things this year. As an extrovert that was just so incredibly fun last year. I didn’t do a full slate of things like I would have had I been going in person, but I got three games in, which was a lot of fun. I got to play Night Cage, which I was backed on Kickstarter at the time, Fruit Picking, and The Librarians, which I almost backed because of playing it on Kickstarter. It was different, but I did have fun getting to play those games and be a part of the community that way.

I’m also thankful for the Mandalorian. We haven’t gotten much in the way of nerdy things on television or in the theaters this year. We will have nothing from Marvel and DC, honestly, I just kind of ignore at this point. But we did get Season 2 of the Mandalorian which is still just as good as the first season. It’s nice having that Friday evening fun back again.

All Systems Go is another thing that I’m thankful for. It’s a little local game shop that I get my Marvel Champions stuff from and where I trade in games. It’s been nice to be able to swing in there, look at their trades and chat for a few minutes once a month or so when I pick up the next hero or villain pack for Marvel Champions. And they delivered when businesses were shut down in Minnesota this spring into early summer. So even though I might not be playing quite as many games, I still have a steady supply of them.

I am thankful for GloryHoundd YouTube channel and community. I don’t watch many live YouTube videos, but every Friday at work, I join to watch their Kickstarter stream and it’s been a blast interacting with GloryHoundd and DrGloryHogg there and on their Discord and with the other people who are showing up to watch as well. It’s been a really nice way to have community even without being able to get around people.

Finally, I’m thankful that I was able to get a D&D game going via Zoom. I hadn’t been running a D&D game for a bit, and there was a chance I was going to play in one, but with Covid, that game didn’t happen. So instead I took up running a game and I’ve been a lot of fun, I have a lot of Friday Night D&D written about it the Tower of the Gods game, if you want to catch up with where I’m at. But D&D works well via video, sometimes we talk over each other, but I’ll try and get back to someone if that happens, and it’s a good time that I’m very thankful for and thankful to have friends to play with.

So with 2020 coming to a close in a month or so, what are some of the things that you’ve been thankful for?

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100 to 91

90 to 81

80 to 71

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

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

70. Marrying Mr Darcy

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

Last Year: 98

69. Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

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

Last Year: 55

68. Carcassonne

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

Last Year: 90

67. Clank! A Deck-Building Adventure

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

Last Year: Not Ranked

66. Dice Forge

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

Last Year: 53

65. Cosmic Encounter

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

Last Year: 49

64. Parade

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

Last Year: 62

63. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

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

Last Year: 59

62. Galaxy Trucker

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

Last Year: 56

61. Fruit Picking

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

Last Year: Not Ranked

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

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Fruit Picking

Fruit picking is an Mancala style game where you are taking seeds, moving them around your own player board until you have enough in a storehouse to buy what you want from the market. All of this while you’re racing to collect the right fruits in combination to be able to complete one of four different hands as a winning condition. This can be one of all five different fruits, a full house, three pairs, or four of a kind.

There were a few things that I really enjoyed about this game, first there was the speed of the game. Even on Tabletopia, and digitally they always go slower, the game was really fast. Turns are very simple, you pick your seeds from one location, move them, and if you have enough seeds in the storehouse and there is a fruit card you can buy in the market of the fruit you landed on, you can buy it. But, while turns and the whole game are fast, you can still do some awesome combos, and this is the second thing I really enjoyed. When moving the seeds around, if you place your last seed in the storehouse you immediately go again, so this is a spot that you can really strategize in the game, and honestly, there is probably an ideal strategy from the beginning with only the market messing things up. But if you don’t strategize from the word go and just enjoy the game, you can find yourself in some really great turns of building up your storehouse so that you’re ready for the whole game. That’s basically what happened to me. Finally, I also like that there are multiple win conditions, four of a kind needs the fewest cards but is easier to block by buying up what someone needs, and is the most dependent upon what cards come out. I won by getting a full house, bu we had a player close to four of a kind and a couple other players who were lagging behind a little bit.

Final thoughts on the game, I really enjoyed it, the game play was slick and had a good family weight to it. I could see playing this with my parents who don’t play a ton of games, but I think because it’s fast, I could see playing it as almost a filler in a board game night. The one downside is that the US distribution is limited right now. It is coming to the BGG (Board Game Geek) online store, and right now that’s it. If you are looking for a new family weight game, though, I’d definitely recommend it.

The Librarians Adventure Card Game

Let me preface by saying that I really like The Librarians movies and TV show. They are goofy and campy, but a lot of fun. If you aren’t familiar with them, the Library here is not just a place for books, it’s a place for lost and magical artifacts in the world that could cause catastrophe if you aren’t careful with them.

In the game you are doing basically the same thing, with the base game going to have you playing through season one and an expansion for the first movie coming in the kickstarter as well. This will be kickstarting either in September or October, and sounds like everything is done and playtested so it’ll kickstarter and then go to print right away, which is fun. In the game you are dealing with a scenario, in the case of the first scenario, it starts with the library being broken into, and you are one of three librarians or a guardian tasked to stop it, you have different skills that you can use. You start by putting into play any sidekicks, attachments, or artifacts that you want an can afford. This is done via spending energy. Then you, for each player, flip over a card from the event deck, this might cause you to flip a bad guy or an obstacle that goes onto the board and you have to overcome it. Or it might be a complication which is a one time thing you have to deal with right then. Then, as a group in whatever order you want, you take actions to overcome the obstacles and defeat the bad guys. To deal with these things you are generally using a skill and rolling dice. But you can give yourself successes on the blank sides of dice by discarding cards.

This game did a number of things that I enjoyed. First off, each character has their own unique deck of cards, so playing Jacob Stone, I would get different cards than the person playing Eve Baird, and so on. And each of the characters has a skill they are stronger at than the other players and a skill that they are weaker at. I also like that basically everything, minus drawing the events for the scenario, can be done at the same time. I can play my sidekicks and artifacts while you play yours and it doesn’t matter. Now, I will say that the main actions, fighting, dealing with obstacles, etc, should be announced when you are taking them because sometimes order can matter for those things. But it allows you as a group to optimize what you are doing. But the game plays fast because people can do things at the same time. I also liked the scenario, there was a main scheme that the bad guys were trying to do and in the actual scenarios I have to imagine it might be a multistep scheme, and there are then things that you are trying to do as well. It is pulled straight from season one of the TV series and it works well. There are four scenarios in the box that can be played a campaign and unlock new cards for your decks and things like that, but you can also just play a single scenario.

Final thoughts on The Librarians Adventure Card game, this was heavily prototyped though the cards themselves had the right information. So I can’t really comment on the look of the game, but the game play is what matters and I really enjoyed it. If you are a board gamer and a fan of the show, it’s worth checking out the game. If you are a fan of Warehouse 13, probably worth checking out the show and then the game. And I think if you haven’t watched either, it’s still a good game, if you don’t like the show, it won’t be for you. Overall a lot of fun and coming to Kickstarter in September/October.

The Night Cage

Now, I’m going to say that this was a bit of an odd experience. Some of that was because I was quite familiar with the game having watched a Gloryhoundd Playthrough of it. Some of it because the other four people in the game were physically sitting around a table with each other on their laptops. So early on there were some communication issues because they’d be talking muted or showing on their screen to someone what they were thinking by pointing but not using the mouse pointer.

In The Night Cage, you wake up in a labyrinth that is constantly changing and you have only a candle and a little bit of nerve as you crawl your way through tunnels searching for a way out. You are trying to avoid monsters and find not only keys but also a gate so that you can all escape. Every player needs to get a key and be at the gate before you run out of the tunnel tiles and can’t all make it to a gate. And if you get hit by a monster, your candle goes out so you’re moving one space at a time, and if you get hit again, you die. So if anyone can’t make it to the gate, you lose, if anyone can’t get a key, you lose, and if anyone dies, you lose, so there are plenty of ways to lose.

So, I don’t think that my experience was fully representative of how the game works. Like I said, I came in knowing how it worked already and since it was towards the end of the day and Gen Con online, I feel like only some of the people at the other table were paying full attention to the rules, or how to use Tabletop Simulator. With that said, the game was still fun. I like the push and pull of wanting to spread out and find a key as quickly as possible and then having to race back together before time runs out, as spreading out means you’ll see more of the board faster and burn through tiles faster, or you can stay closer together, move around slowly, but the risk of that is that someone is going to get hit by a monster if one pops up. There’s also a good amount of pressure because you can see the number of tiles you have left dwindling, in TTS via a counter, but in real life it’ll be removing them from a stack of tiles that is your candle burning shorter. So you feel the pressure you’re up against and you know that you only have 4 gates and 7 keys, I believe, for a five player game, so you can’t afford to lose too many keys or gates, or you risk not being able to complete.

The Night Cage was a good time to play, like I said, some stuff made it weird. But got to learn more about the other monsters in the Kickstarter and how they’ll work and how they can change up the game and how it works. Overall, it was a fun time, and I think this game in person when you can see the stack of tiles getting shorter and shorter as the candle burns down, it’s going to e great. I’m really glad that I had played it and definitely confirms that I want to back it, as it’s on Kickstarter right now.

So that’s what I played over the weekend. Which one of the games sounds the most interesting to you? Did you do any Gen Con online events?

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