Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 70 through 61

70. Sagrada

• Published by Floodgate Games in 2017
• Build the most beautiful stained glass window

This game is just a great drafting game experience. The ease of play is wonderful as well because you draft a die and place it while other people are going on drafting their own dice. Especially with the 5-6 player expansion, which can be worked into the lower player counts, it makes it so you don’t need to spend time with what others are doing. But both ways to draft the dice and place the dice are mainly the same and really good. Plus the way you need to play the dice to not have colors or numbers adjacent makes a great puzzle.

Buy Sagrada

69. Mesozooic

• Published by Z-Man Games in 2018
• Slide your dino-themed park together in this light filler game

Mesozooic has a couple of great elements to the game. Firstly it’s drafting, and I really love drafting. But the game is more than that. You also need to complete a slide puzzle. You see you draft 11 cards and shuffle them up to create a 3 tall and 4 wide grid with an open spot. Then you slide them around frantically for 45 seconds like a slide puzzle to get the best dino-park that you can. It’s silly, light, and a very fun time.

Buy Mesozooic

68. 7 Wonders Duel

• Published by Repos Production in 2015
• Draft cards and build wonders in this head to head game

I like this game better than 7 Wonders. Mainly because I played 7 Wonders a few times at two and it isn’t a good game. 7 Wonders Duel is great that way, as expected. But the game is more than just a better version, I think that the drafting is very clever. I love the trying to avoid revealing a card that is good for your opponent. And some of the cards being face down so unknown until they are revealed. And the two side ways to win with science and military add in tension to the game as well. You can’t just draft your best engine, even though you want to.

Buy 7 Wonders Duel

67. Icecool

• Published by Brain Games in 2016
• Help your penguins sneak out of class and get fish in this dexterity game

Yes, the theme of Icecool is that simple and I love it for me. I love the flicking element of the game, it’s just fun. And I really enjoy the silliness of the game. This is one of my favorites for a late night of gaming. Just sit around and flick penguins and have a laugh. It is possible to get very good at the game, but it’s also a game where players can just have a great shot by pure luck. To me that is what makes it a fun game for all ages.

Buy Icecool

66. Super Fantasy Brawl

• Published by Mythic Games in 2022
• Choose your team and face off against an opponent in an arena

This game is coming back, kind of. I say kind of, I expect that most of the game is going to be the same, but CMON bought it from the now defunct Mythic Games. So I want to see what CMON is going to do with it. Because I love the simplicity of the game. Super Fantasy Brawl has you activate three different colors of cards each round. And you can do some on defense as well, but that means you won’t do as much on your turn. Then you either try to knock out your opponents for trophies or complete goals, or most likely, do both. The game is strategic but also fast and easy to play.

Follow Super Fantasy Brawl: Reborn

65. Trailblazers

• Published by Bitewing Games in 2023
• Create the best hiking, biking, and kayaking routes

Another drafting game on the list. This is the last one for this time, but there are four and possible five if you count drafting your team in Super Fantasy Brawl. In this one you draft cards to create trails. I love the trail creation aspect of the game because you really need to strategize as to how you’re going to do that. And I like how the game becomes more complex in your trail creation throughout as you add in other hubs that you need to start and leave from for each of the three routes.

Buy Trailblazers

64. Mind Up!

• Published by Pandasaurus Games in 2023
• Play the right number to collect and create sets of colors

This game is so easy to learn and play. I actually wrote about it yesterday in that exact context, so you can checkout the article after this. But it’s simply play out a card simultaneously with the other players. Then you look to see who played the lowest number, they get the lowest number from the middle. And after that it’s about trying to get the colors you want into the highest scoring column you have. The whole thing is just a really easy to play and simple time. I explain it better in the video, by the way.

Buy Mind Up!

63. So Clover!

• Published by Repost Productions in 2021
• Can you find the right pair of words based off of one word clues?

This game is always tricky for me to explain. Basically you have cards with four words, one on each side. And you have four of them making this little four by four grid. Each side is going to have two words, if that all makes sense and you’re picturing it. You need to create a one word clue so people can guess and put it back into that same order. Not that hard, well, it is when the words don’t connect at all. And there is going to be a mystery fifth card added in. But if you give the right clues you can lead people down the right path to recreate it.

Buy So Clover!

62. The Castles of Burgundy

• Published by alea in 2019
• Take a new kingdom and turn it into a bustling land

A game that I wouldn’t have expected that I like. But I really enjoy The Castles of Burgundy, a game of using dice to purchase and place new things into your land. As well as using them to sell goods, and get workers that let you manipulate your dice. There is a bunch going on and I feel like I need to nail down my strategy for it. But I really enjoy what this offers and it’s a new type of puzzle for me to spend time diving into as a game. I even have the fancy version coming that alea did with Awaken Realms.

Buy The Castles of Burgundy

61. Letter Jam

• Published by Czech Games Edition in 2019
• Work together to figure out what everyone’s letters are because you can’t see your own

If you know what Hanabi is that will help with it. But Letter Jam is a game where you can’t see the letters that form your word. Other players can see one of them at a time but they can’t see theirs. So you give clues to help people narrow down what their letters might be for their jumbled word. Of course everyone needs to get theirs figured out by the end of the game, but it’s cooperative so the challenge is great but fun to tackle.

Buy Letter Jam

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule.

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition for another six weeks. After that expect this to be when I play my small games.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3

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.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Homebrewers

Homebrewers is a fun game about a theme that I love, homebrewing beer. It is something that I did for year and would love to get back into. We’ll see if it happens some day. But this game is about trying to be the best homebrewer when it comes around to Summerfest and Oktoberfest. Will your IPA, Lager, Porter, and Stout be the best ones?

This is done by rolling dice and taking actions on those dice. And that sounds like a lot of luck, but you can spend a dollar to change the face of a die, and you can build up an engine that gives you money to keep brewing beer. But you want to add in ingredients so that your beer gets better, you get more money, and if you build your recipe correctly, it can help level up your other beers as well. This is a fast fun game with a fun theme to play.

49. Trek 12

Then we have Trek 12 a roll and write game about climbing up mountains. I like this game multiplayer or solo, but not solo with the official rules. The official rules have you play for another character as well and it’s not exciting to play twice to try and beat that score. Instead, I just try and beat my previous score.

To climb up the mountain you are rolling dice and everyone uses those dice to try and create sets of numbers or runs of numbers. To do that, you pick from five options which you can only use five times each of taking the highest number, lowest number, the added together pair, the difference, or the multiplied value, but not higher than 12. And as you go, your options get more limited. Can you not orphan numbers on the mountain but keep them a part of a group to grab as many points as you can?

48. Letter Jam

Now we’re onto one of two cooperative games on the list. Letter Jam is a spelling game that takes from Hanabi where it has cards facing away from you. These cards are the letters that make up your word. One is facing up away from you so you don’t know what it is. Players, all the players, go around and give clues by spelling out words with the letters that they see and wild card ones. Of course, as that happens, I still don’t know what mine is.

That is what makes the game clever. As I create my word that I want to give as a clue, I want to make sure the word is unique enough that it makes sense. If you have an “o” and I make the word “form” then you know your letter is one of “a”, “i” or “o” because you can see “f_rm”. But if I pick the word “from” you see “fr_m” and it makes a whole lot easier. Now you often narrow down your letter and call it good enough to hope that with the whole word together or all the letters you’ll be able to figure it out.

47. Blood Rage

Next up a not at all cooperative game, we have Blood Rage. Blood Rage is a game of card drafting, combat, and area control. But really, I think that this is a game that brings all of those things in, but the card drafting is what makes the game. The card drafting determines what upgrades you get. It might be bringing a monster onto the board, or upgrading your troops so that they are stronger, it could be giving you new ways to score points. And that is where the game is fun.

And there are a lot of strategies that you can employ. You can go after just winning battles. You get in there, you take powerful attack cards, you win, and that is how you get your points. Or there is the option to do the exact opposite, the Loki strategy. You go into battle, you die, and you make points because when your warriors come back from Valhalla you get points. So there are ways for everyone to play even within area control and combat.

46. Betrayal at House on the Hill

Now we’re onto the second oldest game on this part of the list. Betrayal at House on the Hill is not everyone’s favorite game. And I get why people don’t like it, some of the haunts are hard to figure out with the information that they give you. They try and hide some of it both ways from the betrayer and those who were betrayed. That allows you to find out how it works as you go, but it makes it harder to get the rules right or feel like you understand what you need to do.

That said, I still really like the game. Why, because the game just works as a horror film of a game. You go explore an old haunted mansion where nothing makes sense. And as you explore, you stumble across weird omens. One that eventually triggers the haunt and then someone will betray you in the group, the scenario you land on says who. Then it’s a game of trying to figure out the puzzle whether it’s Rocky Horror Picture Show or hunting down talisman or playing chess with death, the options are all there. And I think that makes it really fun.

45. Marvel Champions

Now we have maybe the biggest drop from last year, and thanks to the person in chat who looked this up. I went from #4 to #45 for Marvel Champions. And the big reason for that, and why you see games move, is what I’ve gotten played this year. I play around 150 games a year and a lot of new ones, so ones that don’t get played drop some.

But Marvel Champions is still a great game. I love it as a Marvel themed game that makes you feel like the hero that you’re playing. When you’re Spider-Man you feel like you do Spider-Man’s moves. Same with Thor or Captain America. And that’s something great about the game that way.

But it also does other very cool things. Like when you are Spider-Man the supervillain knows where you are, and he’s going to attack you. And might suck and knock your health way down. But you can always flip back to being Peter Parker. Now the supervillain doesn’t know who you are, so they go to work on their scheme. It gives you a chance to heal up. But when you do that you can’t fight the bad guy or stop their scheme either. So it’s this interesting puzzle that you play with which I really enjoy.

44. Super Mega Lucky Box

Now we’re onto the second roll and write game, Super Mega Lucky Box. Which, I just found out there is an app for, so a great way to check it out. This is gamers bingo where you combo completing rows and columns to finish off your whole bingo card. The fast you do that, the more points that you can get. It’s a really fun game that way and a simple one.

I think that it looks more simple than it is, though. When you fill something in, you need to ask yourself, does this combo into something I need. And as you get more cards, you need to look to make sure you have a good variety of numbers, or a lot of lightning bolts to be able to manipulate those numbers that are flipped up. It’s that combination of things, with easy to follow rules, that puts it this high on the list.

43. PitchCar

Next up we have our dexterity game for this part of the list. Now I don’t have one per section, but I really do like dexterity games. And PitchCar is great because it’s a racing game. And how you race is you flick your car, a disc, around a track, it’s just as simple as that. But if you go off the track, you go back to where you shot from. Flip upside down, it is possible, you go back to where you shot from.

And a lot of the fun comes from how you built the track. You can build a long track with lots of straightaways, or you can put in a ton of turns, it is all depending on what you want to do. In fact, there are even expansions that add jumps, bridges, or crazy loops that you can use as well. So I like to tailor it to how I want to play that night, is it just a quick warm-up game, simple track. Is it the big event, a crazy track.

42. For Northwood

Next up we have a solo only trick taking game. That is a concept that feels like it shouldn’t work. Trick taking games are a lot of playing off of what other people are doing, but For Northwood makes it work really well. Yes, you have no one to play off of, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of good strategy in the game.

You play in different areas of the woods. Each of them with an animal ruler that you want to impress. To do that you need to win a specific number of tricks. So if I have to think about which section of the woods, from 0 to 7 tricks won, I want to go to with the hand of cards I have. Now, winning all of them is tricky, but you get assistance from the rulers. Some to start the game, others you get as you win locations. And they might add or remove cards from your hand to help you complete your goal. It’s a really good system of solo play and trick taking.

41. Sagrada

To round out these ten games, we have Sagrada. Sagrada is a game about making a stained glass window and one of the prettier games on the list. It’s also a game that has an app which is solid as well and does feel like you’re playing the game.

In Sagrada you draft dice to fill in your stained glass window. To do that, you need to the right colored dice or numbered dice in the right spots on the board. But it’s not just as simple as that. You also need to think about what is around that spot. What you can’t have happen is needing to place a six in a spot with a six to the left, right, above, or below it or the same with a color. And you don’t want empty spots because those are negative points.

The game also gives you goals when building your stained glass window. You might get points for the pips on all your blue dice. And then there are public scoring goals as well, like sets of 5’s and 6’s that you have, columns with no repeating numbers, or rows with no repeating colors. And that changes every time. And there are special tools that you can use which allow you to move dice or break rules in various ways. And those change each game as well.

Upcoming Streams

Let’s run through the stream structure like I normally do. You might already know the schedule but in case you don’t. Wednesday at 8 PM Central I stream either a campaign game, or with this time of year it’s my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. And join me next Wednesday for games 50 through 41, so hitting the half way point. It goes so fast, and now I have so many games that I want to play.

Then on Monday I stream at 9 PM Central time. It’s generally a solo game. Though I’ll also do pack openings for things But normally it’s a solo game and a one off for the game like a roll and write, or sometimes a game like Under Falling Skies or For Northwood, which was on the list today.

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.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

What Board Games are Leaving?

There’s no chance that I’m going to remember all of them. Mainly because, like I said, there are 17 games on the pile to get rid of. And surprisingly, there are several from my Top 100 games of all time. I won’t go into detail on why they’re leaving, I do in the video, but most of the time it is because I have others in the same genre or style that I will always play over it.

Claim

Two player trick taking game. I enjoy it, it can be a little bit swingy, but the game plays fast. So that randomness or the luckiness of the game doesn’t bother me much. It is more that for two player trick taking games, I now prefer Fox in the Forest and Fox in the Forest Duet.

Hanabi

Hanabi is a game with a fun concept. You have a hand of cards and you are trying to get them played out in order. But you can’t see you hand of cards. You only get and give clues. I like it for that, but it’s one I’ve played 10-15 times, I don’t pull it off the shelf anymore. For a game where you don’t know what is in your hand, I prefer Letter Jam now.

Skulk Hollow

Skulk Hollow is consistently in my top 100 games of all time, and I suspect it might stay for a while. But it is leaving my collection. Not because I am getting Maul Peak, the sequel, but because it just doesn’t get played. If I want to play a two player game, I pull others out first.

Tsuro

Tsuro is the poster child for, I liked this game, but I’ve played it enough. It’s a good filler game that can play a lot of people. But I went through a number of games like that. So Tsuro can find a new home.

The Terrifying Girl Disorder

The Terrifying Girl Disorder, I picked this one up because of the title and the artwork. And both still are still intriguing to me. But it’s been a long time on my shelf and I have yet to play it. It is one that I wouldn’t mind getting to the table sometime before I get trade it, just to see, but not enough to make sure it happens.

Call of Cthulhu: Living Card Game

I got this one recently, and now it’s leaving. It’s not because I’m not curious about it. I like the idea of a living card game around the Call of Cthulhu theme, but I already have Arkham Horror LCG and Marvel Champions LCG, I don’t want to try and track down old things for it. So as much as I’m curious about it, I know I will get sucked in.

Shadows of Kyoto

Shadows of Kyoto is another in the Hanamikoji themed game. But this one has more of a Stratego feel. And honestly, that’s why I’m getting rid of it. The whole hidden thing, trying to find your opponents, or maybe take them out, it’s not as interesting. And it’s two player, so why play it over Hanamikoji if I want a two player only game?

The Grimm Masquerade

Hidden role game that I find to be a good amount of fun. What I don’t love as much as that it’s a bit long. If I want to pull out a game where we’re trying to figure it out, then I am going to play two games of Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, if not three. And that’ll take the same amount of time and is just more fun for me. It’s a situation where I have another game I’ll always pick first.

Inbetween

Inbetween is another two player only game. You can see that I’m clearing out a number of those. One that I wanted to play because it had a Stranger Things-esque theme to it. But two player push and pull game as you fight over characters one to the “upside-down” and one to the “real world”. So, I could play it, but I don’t feel like it over Hanamikoji.

MonsDRAWsity

MonsDRAWsity is a party game that I picked up cheap, learned the rules to it, and then I realized that I wasn’t going to enjoy it as much. It is a party game of drawing what you think a character looks like based off of a description. That’s fun, but then voting on which one looks closest, that is way less fun. Any party game where it’s a vote or picking a favorite, it’s hard to keep those in my collection.

7 Wonders Duel with Pantheon

Yet another two player game. 7 Wonders Duel is just a game that’s been on my shelf for too long. I know it’s supposed to be a very good game. But the theme isn’t that interesting to me, I think 7 Wonders is just okay at best. And I have Truffle Shuffle that works for two person drafting, same with Ohanami.

Quiddler

A word game that has a 5 Crowns type feel to it as you build out bigger and bigger words or multiple smaller ones. It’s a fine word game, but like most word games, the bigger vocabulary, the better you do. It’s one I’ve played, had fun with, but I’m not going to pull it off the shelf again.

I think that’s 11 total games, so I’m missing six from the list. I guess that’s a sign that I’m not that interested if I don’t remember them. I’ll add them on in a separate article when I can look at them again.

The Drink

Just a cream soda and Orange Jameson mix again. Still a very good drink that goes down easily. One that I’d recommend. Though, as we were talking about in the chat yesterday, it’s not nearly as good straight. It’s a whiskey that I’d say needs to be mixed.

Upcoming Streams

I think Part 7 is going to be the end of going through my collection. And I want to do that on Wednesday. When we’re going to get back to playing some games. Probably some more roll and writes, or smaller solo games for a little bit before diving into the next campaign. But right now, I’m guessing I have 30-40 games and expansions that I’m getting ready to cull.

If you want to know when I go live, you can go to the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel, subscribe, and click the notification bell. That’ll let you know when I go live or schedule a video.

Send an Email.
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

Cooperative Games Rankings

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

52. FUSE

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

51. Magic Maze

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

50. Forbidden Island

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

49. Arkham Horror: Final Hour

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

48. God of War: The Card Game

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

47. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

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

46. Forbidden Desert

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

45. The Mind

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

44. Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellow

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

43. Exit Games

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

42. Flash Point: Fire Rescue

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

41. Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game

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

40. Stuffed Fables

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

39. Legacy of Dragonholt

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

38. Marvel Battleworld

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

37. Ghostbusters: The Board Game

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

36. Elder Sign

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

35. Legends of Andor

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

34. Sword & Sorcery

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

33. Castle Panic

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

32. Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

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

31. Mysterium

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

30. Unlock Games

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

29. Arkham Horror

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

28. Dead Men Tell No Tales

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

27. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

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

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

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

25. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

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

24. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

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

23. The Lord of the Rings

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

22. Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

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

21. Just One

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

20. Cross Clues

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

19. Pandemic

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

18. Village Attacks

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

17. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

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

16. Similo

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

15. Apocrypha Adventure Card Game

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

14. Say Bye to the Villains

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

13. The Reckoners

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

12. Marvel United

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

11. Letter Jam

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

10. TIME Stories

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

9. Roll Player Adventures

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

8. Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition

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

7. Sleeping Gods

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

6. Marvel Champions

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

5. Aeon’s End

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

4. Xenoshyft: Onslaught

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

3. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

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

2. Tainted Grail

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

1. Gloomhaven

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

Final Thoughts

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

What is your favorite cooperative game?

Send an Email.
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

Let’s get to the games:

Marvel United – 5 Plays

Marvel United only got played one evening. But we played it a lot because the game is so fast to play. It’s great to pull out whatever hero you want, whatever villain you want and just get going on the game. And it was fun to play around with other villains and heroes. The different villains in particular really change up the game.

But one really nice thing that I’ve found about this game is that I can get it to the table in a minute. Finding a villain figure and their cards, and then heroes and their cards is so fast, and there’s so little set-up for the game. It is extremely accessible and I’m excited to get it back to the table, though, thus far in November, I haven’t.

Werewords – 4 Plays

Werewords is a word based social deduction game. It’s basically playing twenty questions, but you can ask more, with someone being a traitor, or werewolf. I wrote up my thoughts on the game here. For me it was an okay game. I actually want to sell it, either to a friend or my FLGS (friendly local game store) because I don’t see pulling it off the shelf more.

Yes, it has more interesting going on than a game like Secret Hitler, The Resistance, and One Night Ultimate Werewolf. But it is still kind of a guessing game based off of no real information, in the end. And for me, that doesn’t work all that well. I want something with more meat to it, like Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, if I’m going to play a social deduction game.

Hanamikoji – 3 Plays

There is a new version of Hanamikoji on Kickstarter right now that I’m backing. It seems to add in some level of area control, more so than the base game has. And there are mini expansion for base Hanamikoji, which I’m tempted to get as well.

This is an abstract game about winning the favor of Geisha. The game plays so fast and only at two players that it’s one I need to break out more often. It’s a good filler to either end an evening or start and evening. And I have even brought it into work because it’s a nice lunch break game.

Tainted Grail – 2 Plays

Less plays of Tainted Grail than normal. We finished up Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon campaign, so we took a week off to just play other gamers. That is where five plays of Marvel United came from and some plays of other games as well. But we’re back to playing Tainted Grail, this time playing the Last Knight campaign.

This one we’re doing in story mode again, and honestly, I think this one needs to be played in story mode. I’ll write about it as a whole later after we get a few more plays of the game with what the new stuff is. And, the new stuff in the game is interesting. It is extremely challenging but again the writing is good and the story is good.

The Night Cage – 2 Plays

Of course had to play The Night Cage around Halloween. This is a cooperative game where you are going through a labyrinth but you can’t see much. Only the spots around you and as you lose site of spots they drop off the map and it twists and changes.

This game is fairly abstract, but it does create a good sense of tension. You carry candles which illuminate the board around you. That can go out and then you are moving around blind. But also all the tiles sit in a candle holder so as you remove tiles it looks as though the candle is burning down. The tension of it burning down works really well.

Dice Throne – 2 Plays

Dice Throne got a couple plays in. One king of the hill and one two player. The more I play King of the Hill style the more I enjoy it that way. I know I talk about Dice Throne quite often but mainly in the two player context. In King of the Hill, you get a benefit, an extra card, for attacking the player with the most health. It’s a nice twist and a good way to keep players from ganging up on a single player and knocking them out.

Hats – 2 Plays

Another game that hadn’t hit the table in a long time. Hats is an abstract game that I prefer at two players. It can play more, but with more players it becomes way more chaotic. With two players you can plan and push for things to go your way. The game play is a lot of fun for it, and it’s one that is tricky to wrap your head around. Especially the idea of the cards you play down influence what scores but aren’t the cards that you score.

Cross Clues – 2 Plays

This party game only had been played on Zoom before. Playing Cross Clues in person is a lot of fun. You are trying to come up with a one word clue to get people to guess the intersection of two words. It could be something like cat and taco, what word would link those two.

When playing with a big group, you only get one coordinate card. That means that sometimes you are stuck without giving a clue for a while. But the game moves quickly enough that you never feel like you are holding up the game. And sometimes you need something else, another clue to be given, before you can give one as well. It’s a newer party game, but one I highly recommend.

Clank! In! Space! – 1 Play

I busted out Clank! In! Space! again, this time with an expansion. And I have to say, the expansion we played with is fun. The black cubes that you pull now matter in the expansion. Basically it is a mission that can happen which makes your life harder as the game goes on. So, a game where you can already die and have zero points at the end of it becomes even tougher. But it is still a good game with that expansion and it’s a nice twist.

Tiny Towns – 1 Play

First game, not of Tiny Towns, but of Tiny Towns with more than two players. Two player Tiny Towns sometimes ends up with one player controlling everything. With three players, it makes the game more random but in a good way. Players diversify what they do more in a three player game which is good. It means that there are more things you can get stuck on, but also more interesting decisions to make. I still need to play with expansions.

Letter Jam – 1 Play

Another game that sat on the shelf for a long time. I love Letter Jam. It’s a cooperative word game that uses some of the mechanics of Hanabi. You can’t see your cards. But everyone else can. And you give clues that are words putting a marker in front of each letter that makes up the word. So if you did FROM, and my letter was the M, I’d see the word FRO* and need to figure out my letter.

The number of clues is limited. So you need to be smart about how you give them. And everyone needs to figure out their letters and words, so one person can’t give all the clues. The game works really well and doesn’t require a massive vocabulary or knowledge of how to game the game like a lot of word games do.

Calico – 1 Play

I played Calico with my wife and parents, and we played it in the simple version. That means that instead of having quilt blocks that determine any scoring, you only score buttons and cats. To me, it made the game too simple. But it is a solid way to learn the game. The basic concept of matching colors and patterns isn’t that hard to get. But adding in the scoring from quilt tiles adds a lot to think about.

Zombie Dice – 1 Play

Zombie Dice makes a great filler for a Halloween game night. Well, it was the October game night, but I did horror themed. That is why it came off the shelf. Zombie Dice is a basic push your luck dice game. And if things go poorly. people push too far, it can take way too long. But it is fun to pull of the shelf. And it is an easy game to teach and play. It is even easy to have people join part way through the game. I don’t own expansions for it, and I’m not sure I’d want to.

Yearly Gaming Stats

So, in October I added in 27 more plays. Slightly less than a play a day, but I was over that threshold already, so I am still on target. Currently, I am 98% of the way to completing the challenge, so a chance that even this month I finish it and then everything else is a bonus.

Now, because we are mid month, I do have plays on the list from November. But Orchard is still my most played game, up to 90 plays. And for all 356 plays that I have, there are 71 different games that I’ve played. Hitting 100 different games played would be great, but I doubt it will happen.

I have enjoyed this challenge a lot. I think that next year I will try it again, but also might put a focus on playing games in my collection that I haven’t played before. There are lots of games that need to get played on my shelf. Some are getting played, but I have 31 Kickstarters coming in and I’m sure more games than that, so a lot to get to the table.

Which of these games would you like to get played from my October plays?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

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

Top 100 Board Games – 70 through 61

70. Point Salad

A game about making a salad, this game has you getting as many points as you can. You do this by drafting either cards to add to your salad or cards to help you score your salad. The game is very easy to teach and play. And it plays differently every time, you don’t always play with all of the cards, so while the number of vegetable cards is the same at player counts, what cards are drafted and what scoring is used can change up. It’s a nice twist on drafting.

Buy on Miniature Market

69. Twice as Clever! (Doppelt So Clever)

The most complicated of the three “Clever” games. This one has you scoring points in a lot of different ways, I won’t go into detail because without context it means nothing. It’s an abstract roll and write game where you try and score the most points. It’s really based off of combos and foxes. As you score more points and fill in things in areas you unlock bonuses to fill in spots in other areas. And the foxes, they score with the number of foxes times your lowest in all areas. It’s a nice way to make you focus on everything.

Buy on Miniature Market

68. Hanabi

This game won the Spiel Das Jahres I believe, and it’s a game that still holds up. You are trying to play down cards in ascending order, but you can’t see your cards. Instead everyone else is giving you clues. But you are also giving them clues, and you have a limited number of clues you can give. The game works because of how you give clues, you can either tell people a color or a number. But you need to point to all the cards of a color or a number when giving the clue.

Buy on Miniature Market

67. Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

Most social deduction games are little, this one is big. In it you’re trying to get the Galactica to Earth after Cylon attack. But the Cylons, while most are toasters, some look like people. And some of the Cylons might not even know they are Cylon. This game works because it’s a game with the social deduction and hidden traitor aspect to it. Can you read who is the player or players who are suspicious? It’s a long game but an epic experience. I could see this getting replaced, though, by Unfathomable for me.

Not Available

66. Cross Clues

A game with a grid and a cooperative party game. This has you coming up with clues to get people to guess your junction on the grid. Clues can only be one word and need to tie together two words on the axis. So if it goes ABCD on the top and 1234 on the side, you might have A3 which gives you the words Kite and Cat. What one would would you give to get people to guess A3? Maybe tail? But what if B3 is Dog and Cat, would people think you mean that? And everyone is trying to come up with a clue to give. Fast paced and a lot of fun.

Buy on Miniature Market

65. Parade

Parade is an abstract game where you are creating a line-up of characters from Alice in Wonderland. It’s not that the theme is great on this one, it is that the game play is a lot of fun. You are playing cards from your hand to the parade. The number on the card determines how many cards you skip over. Then the number and color tell you what cards in the rest of the parade you will take, low numbers or cards of the same color. You want low points but if you have the most of a color instead of being face value for points, each card counts as one point, so some really good choices.

Buy on Miniature Market

64. The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game, besides having a very long name, is an interesting game because it has theme. But you bring the theme to the game. What the game does, with the scenarios being books, how the characters play, the investigations and the bad guys all are thematic, but the story doesn’t emerge unless you know it. Then the game makes more sense as you overcome obstacles, gain advantages, solve cases and defeat villains. It’s a solid mechanical game that’s great for Dresden Files fans.

Buy on Miniature Market

63. Hats

Another abstract Alice in Wonderland themed game. In Hats you are trying to collect the hats that are worth the most points. But to do that, you are taking cards off of the table at the Madd Hatters tea party. The cards you play out from your hand have to go to the table and the ones coming off the table are your scoring. Each spot at the table scores a different number of points. If there are two hats of the same type on the table at the end, hats of that type are worth the lowest. It’s a good abstract puzzle of a game.

Buy on Amazon

62. Deadly Doodles

Another new game to the list, Twice as Clever! was the first. Deadly Doodles is also a roll and write game. In it, you are delving into a dungeon to fight monsters, find weapons and get treasure. The game in it’s base is a pretty simple roll and write game. But you can make it more complex with Deadly Doodles 2 and the different dungeon types in there. You do need both of them to be able to play those more complex dungeons. But it’s a nice one to stream and a good solo or group roll and write game.

Buy on Miniature Market

61. Similo

Another party game and another cooperative party game and another new game. Similo was a game I knew about but wasn’t interested in until I saw Horrible Guild play it on their channel. Similo is a game of giving clues to get players to narrow it down to one thing. The trick is that the clue giver can only tell you if their card they play down is or isn’t like the target card. And you have to eliminate more as you go on. What makes this so much fun is that you might be using mythical figures to get people to guess animals, or the other way around. Good simple party game to start a game night.

Buy on Miniature Market

The Next Ten

Like I said at the beginning the next ten are going to come out on Wednesday. The streams are always at 8 PM Central Time and you can click the notification bell for it here. And you can always subscribe and click the notification bell on the channel as a whole. I hope that you can join me then.

Monday streams will start coming back probably after the Top 10 list is done. Though, if I decide to do some solo gaming some Monday, maybe I’ll have a surprise stream and just go with that. Let me know what small solo-able games you want to see me play.

What is your favorite game from this group of 10, and which one do you want to play most?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

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?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.
Support us on Patreon here.

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?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s – G and H’s – I, J and K’s

L’s

Lazer Ryderz

We’re starting off with a light and silly one, this one is basically light bikes from Tron the board game, with all of the 80’s gloriousness. In fact, the box even looks like a VHS tape collection (though slightly too large for one). This game has you basically creating light trails, trying to knock other people out, but more so trying to get to objectives before everyone else does to claim them as points. It’s a bunch of silly madness but works well, and it’s one of those board games that gets you up and has you moving around the table as you try and strategize. Now, not all games need to do that, but I like simple games that do for a nice bit of filler.

Status: Played

Legacy of Dragonholt

This is an RPG as much as it is a board game, but Fantasy Flight created what is basically a simple RPG in a box. Oddly enough, not the only one that will be on this part of the list, that kind of has that choose your own adventure feel. This one caught my eye because of how simple it is to play, you aren’t rolling dice, you’re basically just making decisions, and if you have skills, you can use them to open up other paths that might have been closed off if you didn’t have them. The game tells an entertaining story from what I’ve gotten through, and I think there is plenty to explore, I really need to just sit down and knock this one out.

Status: Played

Legends of Andor (Journey to the North Expansion)

Legends of Andor caught my attention a while back as a simple fantasy adventure game. Now, it isn’t extremely simple, the game has good challenge to it, but it is a lot of fun to play. Legends of Andor is very much a puzzle game as compared to a normal fantasy dungeon crawl-esque game, you want to kill off all of the monsters, but here if you do that, it progresses the story too fast and you’ll end up losing. So it’s a balancing mechanic of keeping monsters out of areas that they can do damage, while also completing objectives but not rushing the story along too fast. I like it for a game that feels like it has a lot of traditional board game mechanics, but gives it a bit of a different feel with the puzzle like twist.

Status: Played

Letter Jam

Another GenCon game that I got to try there, I couldn’t pick it up because it was sold out. Let me say that the first experience I had with the game was questionable, this is a cooperative word game, and I don’t think that all the players knew it was cooperative because the gal giving a demo did a very bad job demoing the game. But I’ve gotten to play it since then, including a second demo of it at GenCon and that one was much better, and I have enjoyed the game every time that I’ve played this. This game borrows from Hanabi where your cards are facing away from you, but in this one, it’s a word game, you are trying to figure out what word you might have, but everything is all mixed up in front of you and only one letter of yours is up at a time. People are giving clues that use letters that they can see (so not their own), plus any additional letters that there might be or a wild letter so that people can narrow down what their letters are and figure them out before the end of the game so they can unscramble their word. Overall, a really fun and clever game, it also plays up to six which is awesome.

Status: Played

Lift Off! Get me of this Planet!

This was the first game that I ever backed on Kickstarter. Lift Off! is a cute little game with a million little meeples whom you are trying to get your color of meeple off the planet before it explodes and before your opponent does. To do this you have to prepare you launch sites by getting fuel, gear, etc. to them, and get meeples there ready to launch and wait for the right time of the day (or night) to launch. It makes a really interesting timing puzzle as you look to maximize how quickly you can get off the planet by what you can actually launch, and sometimes a spaceship, for example, might need a lot to launch so you’ll have to leave room on the ship for your opponent so that they can help you get it launched, while others, like a slingshot, might need basically nothing. It’s a fun family weight game or just a bit heavier that looks really cute and plays well.

Status: Played

The Lord of the Rings (Sauron Expansion)

This is an older Fantasy Flight game that they just reprinted with a fancy anniversary edition, and I think the older edition looks better. This game has you playing through the Lord of the Rings trilogy and it’s kind of a puzzle and push your luck game as you try and advance down the boards, playing through the major moments of Lord of the Rings, but you need to do the right combination of cards, and you need to keep your characters away from Sauron as well. This game is a bit like The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game, not in game play, but in how it handles the theme, where if you know the source material, that knowledge brings the theme more than the game play does. The Sauron expansion allows someone to play as Sauron against the group as well, which is a fun edition.

Status: Played

Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-earth

Another Lord of the Rings game, this one, while it has Lord of the Rings characters like Gimli and Aragorn, isn’t about the trilogy. Instead, you are playing through a campaign that comes before the trilogy as Bilbo is also a character you can play. The game is app assisted which allows it to do a lot of the house keeping for the monsters in the game. This feels like it’s based off of Mansions of Madness, and I know it uses the same base programming for the app as Mansions of Madness, but it gives you more exploration as well as then tactical combat. The game really plays in two types of scenarios, that exploration and then combat, which is fun, as you get something for all types of players. It also moves away from dice chucking like Mansions of Madness to a card system which works well.

Status: Played

Lords of Hellas (Dark Ages Expansion)

Another big and epic game, this one from Awaken Realms, it is an interesting game in that it does so many things in it. There is a drafting piece to the game, happens when you build temples, there is area control, there is fighting monsters, or fighting other players for control of the areas, you can build temples and statues, unlock new powers and go on quests. This game has a lot going on but really plays in a pretty straight forward way. I like all of what you can do because it feels like what you’re doing and what you can focus on is different than everyone else. I also like that it has four win conditions, controlling two regions and all of their sub regions on the map, controlling a number of temples, killing three monsters, or controlling a statue after it’s been built. This game is also really well balanced, we had a five player game and all of us were in a couple of turns of winning when the game ended and all of us had switched what our goal was for winning by the end as well. Really love the game.

Status: Played

The Lost Expedition (The Fountain of Youth & Other Adventures Expansion)

The Lost Expedition is one of my go to filler plus games. It feels like it’s just a bit more because it takes just a bit longer than some games, but definitely is straight forward enough to be considered a filler and it’s cooperative. You are creating paths in this game for your adventuring group to go down, during the day everyone plays down two cards (generally) and they go in numerical order, and you work together to traverse that path. In the evening, you go for another hike, this time it’s playing down the rest of the cards in your hand, but they don’t go in numerical order, but the order that you play them in. This creates some interesting game play, and for people who feel like there is an alpha gamer problem in cooperative game, The Lost Expedition counters that by not allowing that much sharing of information or really any during the card playing phase, and that’s the part that really sets up what you’re going to do.

Status: Played

Loup Garou

This is another choose your own adventure style game, more so than Legacy of Dragonholt. It has you playing through a graphic novel basically. Van Ryder games has put out a lot of them which have been quite popular. I grabbed this one at GenCon and I still need to get it played, but I like the concept and I’m very curious to try it to see if this is maybe something that I’d want to get more of. They really have about one play through per book per person, but it should be something you can then pass off to another person to play as well.

Status: To Be Played

Love Letter

Another early to my collection game because of seeing it Wil Wheaton’s Table Top, though, I think this was played on the first International Table Top Day if I remember correctly. This game is a little micro game where you are trying to get a Love Letter to the princess and you are doing that by trying to have the highest value card left in your hand when all is said and done, as long as it’s not the princess. But you can also knock other players out of the round, and if you do that, that can also cause you to win the round. It’s played over a series of rounds, but even playing up to 4 wins in a two player game, that goes extremely fast. It’s a nice tiny little game that has had a lot of versions of it put out.

Status: Played

I impressed myself there, out of all the games that start with the letter L that I own, I’ve only not played one of them. Granted, with another one I haven’t played my copy, Lazer Ryderz, but I want to once I can have more people over again. There is really such a wide variety of games in here, and I am going to go through at the end and do my favorite game for each letter, though for some that might be obvious.

What’s your favorite game that starts with the letter L? What game starting with L should I add to my collection?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

You can find my whole collection here.

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s

G and H’s

Gloom

This is a fun little story telling card game, and one of the earlier “new” games that I picked up after watching it played on Wil Wheaton’s Table Top show. What drew me to this game was how creative and morbid they were with everything, and how a game could have such a silly objective, such as killing of your family for the fewest points possible to get the win. What keeps this on my shelf, even though I haven’t played it in a few years, is that it’s just such a fun time when you do play it. You get into the morbid absurdity of it and collectively tell such a tragic but absurd story.

Status: Played

Gloomhaven (Forgotten Circles Exp and Jaws of the Lion)

Gloomhaven is my favorite game of all time, so clearly I’ve played it a lot, and I’ve beaten it and the Forgotten Circles expansion, I haven’t beaten Jaws of the Lion yet. What I love about Gloomhaven is just the large, sprawling story that it tells and the very Ameritrash feel, but also the Euro game sensibilities in the combat and combat cards come through, and no dice. Now, I like dice chucking, but I’ve found that I really like that tactical nature of the game play in Gloomhaven where it is much more buttoned down than a pure dice fest. This is a massive game with a massive rule book, but not that difficult when you get into it.

Gloomhaven and expansion Status: Played
Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion: To Be Played

Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

This is a game that I picked up in San Diego because I had a few hours to burn before seeing family and after I was out of my hotel, so of course I went to a game shop. This is one that I had seen played on Rodney Smith’s channel, Watch It Played, and that looks like it was a lot of fun. I’m glad I made the purchase as I’ve had fun with it, trying to time out things so that I can rocket forward by spending the right fuel as you try and get your spaceship to escape a black hole and get back to your own dimension. What makes this one fun is trying to read what the other players are going to be doing, you know half the cards they have, but what else might they have to power their ships, how fast will it go compared to yours will that move them closer or further from you. And I like how some fuels move you closer to the nearest object while others push you away or pull them all closer to you. It’s a clever idea that works well in a game.

Status: Played

The Grimm Masquerade

I almost missed this one, but you wouldn’t know that had I not said it. This game I like as a deduction/social deduction game. I think what works well is that it really is more deduction than anything else. In this game you are at a masquerade and you’re trying to guess what Grimm’s Fairly Tale characters everyone is. Now that should be obvious, Rumpelstiltskin and The Beast form Beauty and the Beast should be pretty obviously in why they are, but let’s say magic. What I really like about this game is the two cards you give or keep each turn. You draw one and you have the choice of giving it to someone or keeping it for yourself and they have an item on it that you might want, because if you collect enough of one, you can win, if it’s the right one for your character. The second card you do the opposite thing from the first one, so if I give it away, I have to keep the second card. But the downside is that you have a weakness and if you get enough cards of that type, you are out of the round and can’t get the rose which is worth a bunch of points. I like the push and pull of that as you have to consider, do I take something that’s just neutral for me because I know if I get another of a certain item I’ll be out? It’s just a really good and quick deduction game.

Status: Played

Hanabi

This is a weird game, in that you have a hand of cards and they don’t face you, so you can’t see your cards, but you can see everyone else’s cards. This is also a game about hold information in your head, not just for yourself but what clues other people have been given already about the cards in their hands. You’re trying to play down cards from 1 to 5 in different colors, but you are limited in how you can talk, and of course you can’t see your own cards. It’s a nice simple game, but one that has a lot going on when you really get down to it.

Status: Played

Hanamikoji

I was going to say that this probably my favorite game to play with two, but there is one that I like better, but it’s the best two player only game that I have. This game has you trying to win the favor of Geisha so that they will come to your restaurant, you do that by giving them gifts. But what works so well in this game is how you give the gifts, each player, per round, does four actions, put down two cards face down that won’t be used for gaining favor, one face down that will be used for gaining favor, giving your opponent the choice of 3 cards which they get one and you get two for gaining favor, or giving your opponent a choice between two sets of two cards for gaining favor. That’s it, and both of you can do those actions in any order, if you can figure out what your opponent might have, you can make them have some really hard choices as to what to take, but it’s always a bit of a risk. Great two player game.

Status: Played

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

This is Harry Potter in a deck building game, as you face off against the different bad guys from the books with the characters of Harry, Hermoine, Ron, and Neville. What is really interesting about this game is that as you start you’re playing through the first book, then they add more cards and of things from the second book and you get more, and then the third, fourth, and all the way up through the 7th. It’s basically a campaign game that takes you through the whole Harry Potter series Now that does mean that the first game is pretty simple but later ones are longer and more challenging, but you can do cooler and different things than before.

Status: Played (partially)

Hats

This was one of my most anticipated games from GenCon 2019 after seeing it played by Man vs Meeple. This is an interesting game with an Alice in Wonderland theme, but really it’s a unique card game. in this game your hand of cards are cards you’re playing onto the table in the middle of the game, the cards you take off the table are the ones that you use for scoring. And scoring is fun as well, because there are more suits than there are spots at the table, and the table might have brown in two different spots, not everything will be scored, so you need to push for some colors, sometimes, and then hold one or two back so you can play it down and that color will be scored. But a card on the Mad Hatters table can be replaced if someone plays the same color or a higher number over that card, so it’s a real balancing act and puzzle, great at two very thinky, fun at four, but much more random.

Status: Played

Hearts

Yes, I own a deck of cards. Hearts is a pretty fun trick taking card game. I don’t play it often, but I won’t say no to a game.

Status: Played

Heaven & Ale

This is a game that I talked about recently in a Point of Order post. It’s a euro game which normally isn’t my cup of tea, or pint of beer in this case. However, because of the beer theme, and a reviewer who I like their reviews and generally like their taste said it was one of their top games, and because it was deeply discounted for Black Friday, I grabbed it. This is a game that you can basically call a puzzle as you are putting out tiles, getting resources, trying to get the most victory points, I’m interested to try it when I can play with people in person again.

Status: To Be Played

Heroes of Terrinoth

There are some YouTube channels that you’ll see often on my posts, Rolling Solo is one of them. He highlighted this game a while back, and when I spotted it used at my FLGS, All Systems Go, I decided to grab it. In this game you are playing as heroes trying to defeat scenarios, which might be searching for something, going to different places and fighting monsters, and eventually dealing with a big boss. What I thought was interesting was how you had four abilities and you’d have to reset them at times, so it isn’t just about doing the same thing over and over again. Plus, you can upgrade those abilities, and how that lets you focus your character in a few different ways, just in the scenario itself.

Status: To Be Played

The Hobbit

I like Lord of the Rings a lot, so when The Hobbit game from Fantasy Flight was on sale, I decided to pick it up. This is a really interesting game as it’s almost semi-cooperative in nature. As a group you need to deal with a series of challenge points, and you can raise your stats to do that. But not one player will be able to deal with all of the challenges, so you need everyone to have raised their stats as well. To do this you are playing cards from your hand with numbers on them, the higher the number the further you’ll move in your group of travelers. But going the furthest doesn’t always mean you’ll get the best thing, but you also might not want to always get the best thing, because if someone is lagging behind too much in their stats, it’ll make it more likely that Smaug will move forward and everyone will lose the game. It’s a clever system that I enjoy.

Status: Played

Homebrewers

Have I mentioned that I like beer? Homebrewers is a game all about being a home brewer and in a home brew club where you are trying to brew the best beer to get points at Summerfest and Oktoberfest. You do this by getting ingredients, putting them on your beers, brewing those beers, and then each ingredient has some power of some sort, it might be you get $2, or you could move up another beer on how well you can brew it, it all depends on the ingredients that you have on the beer. So if you’re smart with how you do it, you can brew one beer to influence more or to make things easier. It’s a nice engine building game that gives you a lot of fun options and things you can do, and it also plays well at two players.

Status: Played

Hues and Cues

Final game for the letter H, Hues and Cues is a fun, new, party game from The Op, formerly USOpoloy. What I like about this game is that it’s a different kind of party game. In so many you are trying to make people laugh, or something like that by what you do or write, Hues and Cues challenges you to give good one word and then two word clues to get people as close as possible to the color you want. I like that you want people to guess right, but also for the players, guessing close works as well. But you can’t just say something like Sky Blue, as that tells you that the color is some shade of blue, but your one word clue could be sky, so what do people consider sky, or maybe you give a clue that has people going in the wrong way, you then can give another clue to get people closer again. It also works pretty well via Zoom, just everyone should be looking at a monitor to get the colors as close as possible to each other.

Status: Played

What’s your favorite game from the G’s and H’s? Is there one that stands out as one that you’d want to try or one that I should try that I don’t have in this letter range?

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.