Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Welcome To…

Published By: Blue Cocker Games
Designer: Benoit Turpin

Buy Welcome To

This one is a classic roll and write style game. I really like the decision space for Welcome To… of deciding what goals to go after and what combination of cards to write down on your board. The three choices of number and bonus works really well and has been fun in other games in the system, but the classic Welcome To is the best still.

49. The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Published By: Repos Productions
Designers: Antoine Bauze and Bruno Cathala

Buy The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Now, I like this and 7 Wonders Duel very similarly, but only one is staying in my collection and that is going to be the Lord of the Rings one. But both do similar things and are great games. This one, I find, cleans up some things like no end game scoring. And while I find the end game without the win in one of the three game ends if you get them situations isn’t 100% satisfying, going for those other goals is great. And they most of the time do pull of the win with them whether that’s getting the ring to Mordor or getting support from the various groups.

48. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Published By: Days of Wonder
Designers: Asger Harding Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pederson

Buy Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Not my favorite racing game, but Heat: Pedal to the Metal is up there. I really like how the game works pretty quickly, so it has that racing feel, but you still make a lot of meaningful decisions in it. Heat is all about managing the heat on your engine so that you can push the corners at the right time. But the more heat you get, the more it clogs up your hand and then you need to back off and let the engine cool down. It’s just a clever and enjoyable system that’s easy enough to teach and gives you a great racing feel.

47. Ohanami

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Steffan Benndorf

Buy Ohanami

Ohanami and the next game on the list are the two smallest ones. Ohanami is a great game for pulling out and playing a round or two of when you want a simple game to play. But it offers some fun with the twist that it provides on scoring and how you need to set-up the cards into the columns as you draft them. The drafting and adding always needing to be higher or lower than the top or bottom card in a column, at least if you want to play them, is fun as well. It’s not that common for someone to be stuck without something to play, but if you make that happen it’s fun.

46. Mind Up!

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Maxime Rambourg

Buy Mind Up!

Mind Up! is another one of those games that just really works for me. There is so much luck in the game as you try and get the cards that you want, it kind of feels like it shouldn’t work. But at the same time, you always have a decision to make that matters and just enough knowledge. The fact that the order of the cards and how you want to fill in to get points changes each round while the cards in your hand don’t as much is a really fun system. Because, yes, I am guessing what is going to work to get the card I wanted, but I might remember a little what you have.

45. Schadenfreude

Published By: Studio Turbine
Designer: ctr

Buy Schadenfreude

I guess Schadenfreude is the third small game on the list. But it’s a pretty different game because it’s a trick taking game and it’s a trick taking game that does some really interesting things. Mainly it’s about not flying too close to the sun and getting burned as you try and get points. You get points and lose points based off of what is played into the trick that doesn’t match your suit. The other piece is you want to get as close as you can to 40 points. If you go over and everyone who goes over, that causes you to lose. But someone has to because that determines the end of the game.

44. The Great Split

Published By: Horrible Guild
Designers: Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva

Buy The Great Split

I like the mechanisms of “I split, you choose” in games, one of my favorite two player games has that in it. And The Great Split is primarily that in a game. Each round you are splitting up your hand of cards and then your opponent on the left picks one of them. You are doing that at the same time with the cards passed to you. Everyone is trying to optimize the contracts that they are getting the points from the various arts they are getting. But at it’s heart, the game is “I split, you choose” and it just works.

43. ICECOOL

Published By: Brain Games
Designer: Brian Gomez

Buy ICECOOL

Two dexterity games in a row and my two favorite dexterity games. First is ICECOOL, this is a game that was around my Top 10 for a long time because it’s just a simple but fun game. It’s been passed as my favorite by the other because that one has more customization.

ICECOOL is all about either being a penguin sneaking out of class to get fish or the hall monitor who is trying to catch them. The flicking works well and the ability to jump the penguin over walls is fun, assuming you don’t jump too far. Plus the box set-up and how it comes together is really fast and fun.

42. PitchCar

Published By: Ferti
Designer: Jean du Poel

Pre-Order PitchCar

PitchCar is the other dexterity game of the two and the one that I like just little bit better. PitchCar is another racing game as well,. This one is about flicking race cars, discs, around a track and being the first to cross the finish. It’s another game that is very simple to play but so fun. And this one gets the nod because of the track and how you make as hard or easy a track as you want. Do you want a loop or an overpass, you can do that, or you can just play with straightaways and some turns if you want the game to be faster.

41. Metal Gear Solid

Published By: CMON Global Lmtd
Designer: Emerson Matsuuchi

Buy Metal Gear Solid

Finally we have Metal Gear Solid a game that took a while to come out, but that is so worth it. Metal Gear Solid is a cooperative game where you want to sneak around as much as go in guns blazing. And that element is a blast for the game because it makes it feel different than a lot of games with minis. I like that the game also has a campaign, which I need to play, and one off scenarios that you can try and complete. And to add to that, while the enemy movement takes a moment to understand, the player turns are streamlined really well.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition every Wednesday night at 9 PM Central Time. The next few videos have their links up, so you can click notify on them to know when I go live. Or you can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

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

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10 Played Games for My Gaming Day

10. Pirates of Marcaibo

I love this one on BGA. I want to play it in person and see how that goes. It’s a bit more of a rules teach, but it shouldn’t be too bad to get played. And I think once the game gets going it moves fast. Plus fun theme and easy sell.

9. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a game I love. I own everything for it. So I want to get it in the big box and try out the new tracks in the game and see how everything works together.

8. Mistborn

Another one where I really like the game and it’s been a while since I’ve played it. That is going to be the case for a lot of the games. I think the people who are invited thus far are going to enjoy a game like this as well.

7. The Great Split

See above, really. But after playing New York Slice for the first time it made me realize that I just want to play The Great Split because that game is a brilliant I split and you choose game.

6. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Yet another one where I just want to play it again. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is a great engine building game and good for a longer game day. Like Lost Ruins of Arnak, though, I need to get it sorted out.

5. Strike

I play this one a lot. It’s on the list because it’d be a great group game there. Plus it’s a good filler/take a break from bigger games game.

4. Can’t Stop

The same can be said for Can’t Stop. Though Can’t Stop can’t support as many people. But it works well and it’s an easy one to teach and play. A good filler for when maybe one group finished before another.

3. Trekking Through Time

I’ve played this one two players and I really enjoy it two players. I want to try it with more because it’s just a fun game. It’s also a simple one to learn and play.

2. Skyrockets

You might not even know I played this game. And it is kind of a cheat to be on this part of the list. Played it two years ago at Gen Con when it was still a prototype at the Floodgate Games event. But it’s a fun real time game, so I want to play it again.

1. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

I love this game. It isn’t the easiest I think to learn. But once you wrap your head around it, it’s pretty simple to play. And it is a good game because it plays a lot.

10 Un-Played Games for My Gaming Day

10. The Gang

Now we’re in the new games. This is a cooperative poker game, so I want to give it a whirl. Plus I know it plays at higher player counts so a good one for the list.

9. Critter Kitchen

Critter Kitchen has just been sitting there waiting to get played. I want to take it a lot and see if I can get it played, but I need to open and sort it for that to happen. And it is one I probably need to learn to take along.

8. Maple Valley

Maple Valley is the follow-up to Creature Comforts. I like Creature Comforts as a good simple worker placement game. I am curious to see what Maple Valley does. They are very different games, but same great artwork and in the “same world”.

7. Ruins

Ruins is one that people were talking about going into Gen Con. It is a reworking of Custom Heroes. It is a card shedding game where you upgrade cards throughout the rounds. So I am curious to know how that system is going to work.

6. Ito

Ito is going to be one of the bigger games or party games on the list. I want to learn this one and it seem easy to play. From what I know of it, it is a good ice breaker game as well. Or maybe more of an ice breaker than an actual game.

5. Emberleaf

Emberleaf is the card dancing game. Basically a game where you play cards into a grid and then you activate the grid. The cards then move in that grid, some dropping out, others activating various affects. I like the sound of the game and great cute artwork.

4. Ghosts of Christmas

First of three trick taking games. Ghosts of Christmas sounds like a brain burner of a trick taking game where you play three tricks at once. And depending on how the previous trick goes that determines the led suit for the next one. With a Christmas Carol theme, how will it work for the past, present, and future tricks.

3. The Six of VIII

The Six of VIII is going to be a fun one to try as well. It’s about the six wives of Henry the VIII. And each trick the trump suit is going to be one of the wives. But it is more than that because how long a wife was alive is going to impact how many rounds that suit is trump. I like how thematic they managed to make a trick taking game.

2. Tricky Kids

Now, Tricky Kids is a new game as well. I would have put both Tricky Kids and Cat in the Box on the list, but I’m playing Cat in the Box on BGA right now. It is very possible that Cat in the Box will come along as well. But Tricky Kids is trick taking game where the cards don’t have a value on them. So you need to set the value, but you only have 21 points to allocate over 7 cards.

1. Expeditions

Finally, let’s go with something different and big with Expeditions from Stonemaier games. I like the idea of trying this one in a bigger group, or maybe not with everyone but with some. And I believe that one person in the group owns it and has played it before. It is nice to bring along games like that so that I don’t need to learn the rules. Or more so, so that no one needs to learn the rules because I’m not going to learn them all.

Final Thoughts

Now that is a lot of games to bring along. And I know that all of them won’t make it, but I plan on bringing a big mess of games. There are other smaller games too that are going to be stuck in because they are smaller games. So stuff like Flip 7 or Push are really likely to come along. New games like First-Class Letters and Trinket Trove (as I want to play that one with more) will come along. But this is a good list for me to start planning on what to bring. But it sounds like a good gaming day to me.

If you were to do a full gaming day, what games are you going to take off of the shelf?

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Catch up on previous videos here

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 20 through 11

20. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

• Published by Days of Wonder in 2022
• Fly around the track and manage your engine so it doesn’t over heat to win the race

This is a great racing game. It is a nice blend of simplicity. You play cards equal to the gear that you are in for your movement. But also some complexity as you need to be smart with how you handle the curves, straightaways, how much you push your engine and when you cool it down. That cooling down part of the game is great as it really makes a difference in how you play and when you push it. Plus there are modules you use, like drafting some cards for your deck, that make the game even more fun, or you can do a series of races which is also great.

Buy Heat: Pedal to the Metal

19. Planet Unknown

• Published by Adam’s Apple Games in 2022
• Terraform your planet and increase your technology better than your opponents can

Planet Unknown is a polyomino game where you are terraforming a planet. You can play it in the basic mode where everyone is doing the same planet and same tech track, or you can do unique planets and tech tracks. I love the unique ones and I think that’s the way to go after the first game. But Planet Unknown has more than just laying out tiles, how you decide which tile is picked for you is amazing. Whomever is the leader that round turns a lazy susan full of tiles and whatever one is pointing to where you pick from, those are your options. So you can stick someone with something or sometimes get the perfect thing.

Buy Planet Unknown

18. Clank! In! Space!

• Published by Dire Wolf in 2017
• Race through a spaceship but don’t try and make too much noise as you grab a treasure and get out

This is a push your luck deckbuilding game, and I enjoy both of those elements to the game. I find that pure push your luck doesn’t always work for me, but add in deckbuilding a mechanism I love, it’s great. You build up your deck to move and grab a treasure, fight monsters, and buy more cards that are worth points. But you also need to be aware of how noisy you are. If you’re too noisy the villain, Lord Eradikus will start drawing out your cubes, if you clank, and dealing damage to you. And you might not make it out before you die.

Buy Clank! In! Space!

17. ISS Vanguard

• Published by Awaken Realms in 2022
• Explore a new solar system while you manage your crew and your ship

ISS Vanguard is a big campaign game and one that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples. Not the whole way through, but far enough to give you an idea of how it plays. The game is interesting because it plays over two parts. Part of the game is exploring planets and discovering why humanity was called out to this location in the stars. The other part is managing your ship. I was worried that managing your ship wouldn’t feel important, but it’s a great element to the game and makes it feel even more thematic.

Buy ISS Vanguard

16. Vampire the Masquerade: CHAPTERS

• Published by Flyos Games in 2023
• Enter a world of vampires and darkness as you play across missions and try and figure out what is happening in Montreal

Chapters is choose your own adventure RPG in a box. I love how it gives you this great story filled with depth and grit. And it also gives you tactical combat and dice chucking. It feels like a great blend of things that I love in board games and in RPG’s. The story is well written and while there are definitely issues with it there is an app that should be helping fix that and an upgrade pack for it. But even without that, the game is fun, and the app is free so the few spots it’s really busted should be fixed. Plus, I want to play a dark vampire game, and this gives me that in spades.

Buy Vampire: the Masquerade – CHAPTERS

15. Metal Gear Solid

• Published by CMON in 2024/2025
• Sneak around the base and battle only when you need to complete missions

Yes, there is a game on my list that isn’t out yet. Spoilers, there might be another one as well coming up in my Top 10. But that is because I’ve gotten to play the final version of the game and I feel like I’ve had enough time with it. I love this game as it’s a tactical minis game where you can fight. But fighting generally is going to be noisy and messy and you’ll be swarmed. When that happens, well, it’s probably game over for you. So instead you need to be smart, sneak around, and try and avoid the guards the best you can or lose them. All while being a pretty simple game to play.

Coming Soon

14. Lost Ruins of Arnak

• Published by Czech Games Edition in 2020
• Explore the lands, find treasure, fight monsters and discover what adventure awaits you

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deckbuilding game. It is a worker placement game, and it’s a exploring adventure game. For me all of those elements come through. And I love the puzzle of trying to manage your two workers you get place, knowing when and where to place them, buying cards, and risking fighting monsters. Because you need to do it all, and the game isn’t that long in terms of how many rounds it is. But if you’re smart, you can stretch it out for a lot of points and a lot of chaining actions. The Expedition Leaders even adds more fun to the game and more variability as well which I love.

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

13. XenoShyft Onslaught

• Published by CMON in 2015
• The base is under attack by bugs, you need to build up your defenses and work together to defeat them

I think I’m the champion of XenoShyft, but I really like the game. It’s another deckbuilding game, but it’s a cooperative one. And I think that cooperative element and how incredibly interactive the cooperation is, that is what makes the game stand out to me. Plus it does a clever thing where you’re never drawing dead with money, so you can always buy cards and bolster up your defenses. Because everyone needs to be able to defend their side of the base so the bugs don’t overrun it.

Out of Print, but you can find it on eBay

12. Marvel Champions

• Published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2019
• Heroes battle villains in this Marvel Superhero game

I love Marvel, we all know that. And Marvel Champions is one of my favorite, if not my favorite Marvel themed game. What I love about this one is that you feel like you are the hero. And not only that, you need to think about being the hero but balancing that with the alter ego. If you stay in hero form the bad guy will beat you up and probably take you out. But if you are in the alter ego side, they don’t know who you are, so they’ll go back to completing their scheme. And that’s not great as well because you can’t blow your cover in alter ego form.

Buy Marvel Champions

11. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

• Published by Portal Games in 2018
• Take on the role of detectives and work together, take the notes, and try and solve the cases

Detective for me is my favorite deduction game. I like deduction a lot, but Detective just makes it really immersive. In the box I’m showing it has five cases that all connect into something big and impressive. And you use information that you took notes on from one case and use it in another. I think by the end of all five cases I had between 12 and 15 pages of notes that we’d look back at. And it uses a computer system as well to let you do things like compare DNA, interview witnesses, and more. The game is just this great thematic detective game for me.

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Upcoming Streams

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

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition. There is one week left, which is going to be two Wednesdays out. After that I’m planning on doing some look back and look ahead videos and smaller solo games or things like Balatro and Slay the Spire.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

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

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Top 5 Games I Want To Play Again

5. The Isofarian Guard

Let’s kick off the list with a big campaign game. I maybe could do a ton of those on the list. But I did limit it to just two. Why, because I know that I could put a ton on the list. But The Isofarian Guard is on the list for one main reason. I really want to play this one two player.

Yes, the exploration and all is built for single player. You move as a group always, the story decisions would be made as a group. So isn’t it better for solo? I think I’ve come to realize I really like to share games with stories with other people. And you play as two characters and control combat for two characters, so why not share the story and the upkeep and everything over this game with two?

4. The 7th Citadel

Another campaign style game. The 7th Citadel is one that I’ve played, like The Isofarian Guard, on Malts and Meeples. Both of these games have great stories. And with The 7th Citadel, it is somewhat similar, I’d say, to The Isofarian Guard. The game is great when it comes to solo play. Taking care of two characters in not hard.

But, on the other hand, I like the story a lot. And I like it when the group can make decisions in a game like this. The 7th Citadel could actually play up to four players and I think it would be solid that way. I think possibly at two or three the game would be better. But, that isn’t a big negative of any sort or hinderance for me suggesting a campaign with a bigger group of people. When will I find time, that is the bigger question.

3. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Now let’s move out of campaign games, kind of. Heat: Pedal to the Metal could just be a ton of a fun for a one off. But, it also has a campaign or I should say a cup to it. I want to play this game in cup format. Get a group of people together and play it every month. See if we get through a race or two in a time, probably can do two. Draft cards, mess around with it, and see who is the best after a number of races.

However, this is one that I can get to the table faster, I think . I want to do a racing game night coming up here this month. One of those would be Pitchcar, but Heat: Pedal to the Metal has so many cars that a lot of people can play which is a blast.

2. Aeon’s End

Let’s do another one that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples. I guess there is a theme. But this one it isn’t a campaign, though I do have the campaign, newest legacy of Aeon’s End. Okay, I guess there might be a theme that I wasn’t thinking about. But I love this boss battling deck building game. The game hits the table easily and is always a blast and a challenge to play.

I want to just face off against a number of the Nemesis who I haven’t yet. Plus it’d be a good excuse for me to put the characters together. And I really do like how there are so many characters and so many interesting ways to play them. I own it all, I want to explore more of it.

1. First Rat

Finally we have First Rat. This is one that I played for the first time at Gen Con in 2023, then I have played it since then. But I see it hiding on my shelf often and I really want to get to it again. I didn’t realize that this one had a solo mode. But that might mean it’ll come up quickly here on Malts and Meeples. When that happens I’d be able to have all of them up on Malts and Meeples I guess.

This is one that is such a fun puzzle of a game. And I think there are a lot of interesting ways that you can handle the progression of the game. I know which I prefer, but I want to play around with more of them. This is one where I also want to play with more people as well because I think there are a lot of interesting challenges when you play with more. And while I assume that playing solo will kind of do that, I want to try and see how it plays at high counts.

Final Thoughts

There are a ton more games i could put on this list as well. ISS Vanguard is another campaign and Star of Akarios yet another that I’d love ot play again. Calico for a one off game, and like I said so many more. Plus there are a lot of other games, things like Video Game Champion and Adulthood are two from Gen Con I want to get played. And then a number of legacy games as well.

What is on your shelf for games that you want to get back to the table?

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Often times, though board games find trouble when it comes to doing racing games. Part of a good racing experience often times is the tension at the end. Did I do enough to win? Can I get that last second pass in? I want to get that feeling from a board game. So let’s talk about what games give that experience for me the best.

Top 5 Racing Games

5. Tiny Turbo Cars

Let’s start with one of the more unique games on the list. Tiny Turbo Cars is an RC racing game. You play with a controller and everything. Except this is a crazy racing time as you race across a house and try to be the first one to launch across the finish line. I enjoy the house theme for this game. I find that it makes the game feel different.

But the biggest element that makes the game feel different is the real time element. And I appreciate that you get a burst of real time and then it’s not. So, like a Galaxy Trucker, it isn’t just doing things in real time all the time. But for the real time you are programming how your car and move. It’s a slide puzzle and it’s great and challenging because you activate the eight symbols in the middle two rows. Mess it up and you might find yourself crashing, a lot. But that’s some of the hectic fun of the game.

4. Pitchcar

Next up is Pitchcar. This one is a dexterity game. You flick your car along as track as far as you can. But you need to stay on the track so you can’t go purely with power. It’s balancing launching forward all the time while hitting turns. There is skill to this game and the more you play the better you’ll get. But it also has a great element of, sometimes you just get lucky with an amazing shot. And when you are a few cars back half way through the race and you hit that shot to catch up, or you got stuck somewhere and you blast through, people get excited.

I like that about the game because I want you to do well. Not better than me, but I want you to do well. And there is an excitement about the game that is heightened by the fact everyone is standing up. The experience is just a little bit different in this game when it comes to racing.

3. Dungeon Kart

Now, maybe you want a Mario Kart style of game. Dungeon Kart from Brotherwise Games is going to give you some of that feel. It’s a bit like Tiny Turbo Cars in that there are certainly a good amount of chaotic elements to the game. But this one makes the game simpler than that one is.

In this one you get a car and a driver with a power and what you are better at. You want to race around the track, collecting spells and using them to keep yourself in the front. You blast someone, well, that might be good, but there is no guarantee that will stop them from catching up and blasting you next turn. But it isn’t just pure chaos. You also need to plan out your movement because some lines are shorter, but is it worth it for hitting the brakes and going across grass?

2. Ready Set Bet

I only put one mainly betting game on the list. Others like Long Shot: The Dice Game and Downforce could hit the list as well. But I went with Ready Set Bet because it is a racing game that has stand-up moments in the game.

In Ready Set Bet one player is calling the game each race. And that is just done by rolling dice. Everyone else is betting in real time. You want to end up with the winning horse paying out well for you. But so does everyone else. So if the seven horse gets out to an early lead is that enough for you to go all in there? Or do you want to risk it for bigger odds on a less likely horse? I’ve seen horses in from every lane, so it’s crazy chaos.

And at the end of the game after all the bets are done, the players stand around and a pulling for certain dice rolls. There is actual tension to the game as it wraps up which I find amazing. How can just rolling some dice create so much excitement?

1. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Finally I want to add Heat: Pedal to the Metal, probably the most popular racing game as of late. This one takes hand management and push your luck in a really fun way. The coolest element to me is how you need to manage the heat on your engine. As you push to go fast on the straightaways and then need to slam on the brakes going into a corner, everything can heat up your engine.

So you need to know when to push it and build up that heat. When is it worth it to push around a corner faster than you should? It might cost some heat, but if you save a turn, is that a good enough reason to do it? That element of the game is just a ton of fun and a great puzzle to try and figure out.

Plus it makes sense, you push your engine too hard you risk running into issues. Or at least it is going to force you to cool down your engine. But if you can kind of hang out just by the leaders you can potentially draft past them at key times without exerting your engine as much.

Final Thoughts

I really like racing games. There are more racing games that didn’t make the list that I have really enjoyed or do really enjoy. The Quest for Eldorado might look like a deck builder, but it is a racing game where you are trying to build up that deck that let’s you race to the end faster than others. Titan Race has that Mario Kart feel to it and then the two that I mentioned with Ready Set Bet offer great betting and racing.

One that might make the list if I do it again in the future is Rallyman Dirt. This is a time trial race like rally racing is. And I really enjoyed my play, though it wasn’t a full game play at Gen Con. I think there are a ton of cool elements to it and the fact that you can do a series of races is also great. That one and Heat: Pedal to the Metal are ones that I’d love to do a race circuit of with friends to see who is the best racer out of all of them.

What are your favorite racing games?

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Top 5 Office Lunch Board Games

5. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

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

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

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

4. Dice Throne

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

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

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

3. Floriferous

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

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

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

2. My City Roll and Build

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

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

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

1. Star Wars Unlimited

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

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

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

Final Thoughts

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

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

Do you have a go to work lunch game?

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Heat: Pedal to the Metal Solo

So I also have my own thoughts on Heat solo. Because I like to play games solo means that it should be up my alley, but overall, I felt like it was lacking a little bit. That said, I like how simple it is to play the game solo. If I sit down and play it, I got in three games in under an hour. That is a fast game to play solo, so that works well for me. But it’s just less fun as a solo game than a multiplayer game.

Now, that isn’t fully a negative with the solo mode though. Or I should say, it isn’t a negative with the legendary drivers you can go up against. I thought they race really well. I think that I’d add in two in a three player game, probably three in a two player game. Get five cars onto the track, it allows for better jockeying for position from the racers. And there is more pressure and almost more need to push yourself around a corner because the legendary drivers can take it quickly.

I just think, for me, that a racing game works best when you are up against other people. It’s all about making smart decisions with what you’re doing and pushing at the right time. And you can try and guess what the other players will do. Well, for the legendary cars there is a bit less of that, which to me just takes away a little bit from the game. But, like I said, I think adding them into the mix could be and would be a lot of fun at those lower 2-3 player counts.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least a few more games of Rogue Angels. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. The reason for that is with how many campaign games I can play solo, I want to try more. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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How to Play Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Like I said, Heat is a racing game. It’s about getting around the track the fastest. And if you finish on the same turn, it’s about being the one that goes the furthest ahead across the finish line. It’s what you’d expect for a racing game.

The game can most simply be broken down into three parts. Though the round structure has eight or nine, it is mainly three. First, you pick the gear you want to be in. You can go up or down by one for free, or for two with a cost. Then you play the number of cards for the gear you are in. Both of these are done at the same time.

Then, in turn order, players play out their cards and go that fast. There are several other things that can be done in this step. Sometimes you are flipping cards to go more of a random distance and pushing your luck that way. Otherwise, you might catch up to another card and draft off of them. Or things like cooling down your heat based off the gear that you’re in. All to push yourself past the turns and to the finish faster than everyone else.

How Heat Works

I think that the Heat in Heat deserves it’s own section. Mainly because this is how you break what you are doing in the game. I talked about the penalty of going up two on your gear shifter, that’s giving you heat. Heat also allows you to push yourself around a turn too fast. You spend your difference in speed to the corner speed as heat.

Heat then is your valuable resource for the push your luck element of the game. And every car only has a limited amount of heat. But as you are in lower gears, first or second, you return heat from your hand to your engine. Basically, as you push the car less it cools down so you are less apt to overheat it or spinout.

I really enjoy this mechanism in the game. It, I think, as well as as card play, are the crux of how the game works. If I push to hard and too fast early, I need to adjust my strategy at other times to get it back. But if I’m too cautious with it, now I drop behind and all that heat I have saved might not be enough to let me push around enough corners fast enough.

Stress Cards

So, heat clogs up your deck. But there are other cards that are in your deck of movement cards that can help, or they can hurt. Stress cards give you risk, but also might give you a lot of reward. You must play out the number of cards for the gear you are in. Sometimes that might mean playing a card that only moves you one. But if you’re on a straightaway, that isn’t that good for you. Moving one is only good around a corner if you come in with too high a gear.

Instead, playing out a stress card might be more helpful. They are supposed to be like a momentary lapse of judgement. Basically, you play out that card you and flip a random card from your deck. It is limited to what it can be, though. If I flip, I flip until I get one of my basic cards. So I know that the range can be from one up to four. So it might be worth it, of course, I might draw another one. Or I might draw a four that pushes me past a turn.

Turns

Before we kind of wrap up talking about the game in it’s parts, I want to talk about turns. Turns, as I’ve alluded to can give you heat. It’s pretty simple as to how turns work. As you reach a turn, it tells you how fast you can take that turn. I believe that the range of speed is as high of seven on some tracks and a low of two.

So as you reach turns, you need to maintain speed up to them, but then you need to shift down so that you can navigate the turn without going too fast. But if a turn has seven on it, and I go eight, I just gain a single heat card into my discard. So something that clogs up the deck, but not horribly. And if that gets me past a turn, it might be worth it. So it’s part of the push your luck of the game.

Basic Game vs Modules

So Heat offers you multiple experiences out of the box. You can play, and I recommend it, the basic version the first game. I ended up playing it the first two, just so that we knew what we were doing. That lets everyone keep their deck the same. It’s an even playing field and is a fun epxerience.

But as you gain comfortability with the game, you can add in modules. You might decide to add in weather which is going to affect how the track performs. Or there might be hazards or difficulties on the track you can add in.

But I think the big one is upgrades. Your deck contains twelve basic cards. Three of each card numbered one through four. In the basic game, everyone has a zero, a five, and an extra heat card that go into the deck. Drafting, those cards come out, and you pick your specific cards. Or you draft from cards three times so that you replace those cards. And the cards you draft might go faster, or offer more variability, or let you draft better. They change up how you might want to focus on the strategy of your game in a very fun way.

Plus, there are modules for racing a championship. So you might want to do that can run a few races. I haven’t played with those yet, but I’m planning on it.

Is It Fast?

So let’s answer the question that I asked at the beginning of the article. Is Heat a fast game? Often times racing games can run into an issue. I take my turn and my car moves. You take your turn, and if you play with five or six people, it can take a while to get back to my turn again. And that doesn’t feel like a car race. Watching Nascar, Indy, or Formula 1, they are all fast. And a car racing game should be fast.

I think that Heat improves upon this a lot compared to some other games. The first two phases, picking your gear and cards, those are done all at the same time. It’s only when you get to card play and moving distances that it goes in car order. And that is fast because it is just flip your cards and move that many spaces.

For the most part, I think Heat solves that issue. There might be some strategy or a couple of rounds in a game where it goes slower. Where someone wants to try and guess what other people have picked to get their right cards and right distance. But that is rare, so the game moves along well.

Who Is Heat For?

Heat is for people who want a fun racing game. It’s from Days of Wonder, so they tend to make more family weight games. They made games like Ticket to Ride, Small World, Five Tribes, and more. So it’s a racing game that I can pull off the shelf and play with anyone. I might not add in things like drafting or weather modules, but the base game is still a lot of fun.

That said, the game still works for more experienced gamers. It isn’t just a light filler game, there is strategy in what you are doing. And if you want to mess around with that you can. But it’s never so heavy and complex that it would keep more casual players from playing it.

Final Thoughts on Heat

I really like Heat. The expansion came out today and I pre-ordered it already. I want that seventh car and I want two more tracks. I’m sure it’ll come with more as well, but that’s mainly what I want from it. Heat works really well as a racing game, and I think it does hit that sweet spot of feeling like you are racing while not being too chaotic. But it’s also not bogged down int he game play either. For me all of that just works.

I do think that now that I’ve played with the drafting, I want to draft. Getting cards that really change up how you can attack the track is awesome. I might even teach with drafting. Especially if players are familiar with gaming at all. The drafting and those cards don’t offer too much additional complexity. But they add in just a little so that you can feel unique.

The one thing that I want to do is play with the dummy players. It is possible to play Heat solo. And maybe I’ll do that on a stream, or tonight, I might have some time to try it for myself. So my review is incomplete because I haven’t done that. But it would be fun to try that out and see how well that works for me.

Let me know your thoughts on Heat: Pedal to the Metal. Have you gotten it to the table? Do you enjoy it’s racing feel?

My Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B+
Casual Grade: A

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Arcane Wonders

Senshi

In Senshi you are trying to raise your characters stats so that you are the strongest warrior monk. It looks like a quick little filler and I used it to get to a shipping threshold so not one that I know a ton about. But if it’s a good filler while waiting for game night, I’m interested in it.

Four Gardens

Four Gardens is one that I have seen played, and part of the appeal is a giant stacked pagoda in the middle that rotates. That determines what resources you get and then you use those resources to create paintings which at the end of the game score you points. It again doesn’t sound like a heavy game, but one with a cool mechanism to it and hopefully interesting enough game play.

Picture Perfect

Picture Perfect is one that I looked at for a long time before it was on sale with Arcane Wonders. This is a game about trying to setup the perfect picture. Each person has information about how characters want to be setup. And you try and keep track of all that information so that the lady of the house doesn’t have to be too close to the dog and the dog is next to the potted planet, and the potted plant is, well you get the picture – all puns intended.

But then at the end of the game, you snap a picture of your display and you see with all the clues out there, how well you did. That just seems unique, but I didn’t pull the trigger before now because I want to know it’s a game I’ll like. I think it is one that will work well, but it has more risk to it for myself and my group.

Smartphone Inc

Finally, Smartphone Inc is going to be a heavier game about building up your smartphone empire. You produce smartphones and you need to know when is the time to sell them, and when is the time to hold back. I like that as an idea, but heavier euro style games get played less. So I am curious to know if this is one that I will like. I generally hear very good things about it, so I’m excited to try.

Noble Knight

Arkham Horror LCG Characters

Last time, I said that there would be more characters coming up. Instead of listing them all off, just know that there were three more of the original characters that I can mix into the game now. I want to find some time soon to sit down, pick a character or abilities and spend some time using all the cards I have now, as I own a couple different investigator boxes plus these packs, to build a character to use.

Aventuria

This is supposed to be a card driven adventure and story board game. One that I looked closely at their latest Kickstarter but I couldn’t quite pull the trigger. Noble Knight sells used games, so when this was available to grab used, it made a lot of sense to get it that way to try. And if I enjoy it, I’m confident that they’ll run another crowdfunding campaign that I can jump in on. But card driven adventure and campaign, I want to know more.

Medieval Academy

The Dice Tower played this one on their 36 hour marathon. And Medieval Academy is not a new game. But it is one that as I watched it played, I thought it looked interesting. It is a mechanism that I like, drafting. I want more drafting games in my life. And this one lets you draft and push up on tracks to try and score points. The game is one that looks simple, but it is different than a Sushi Go Party!. And did I mention, I like drafting.

Beyond the Sun

Another game that is here because I could get it used. But it is also another game that has been on my radar for a long time. Beyond the Sun is a space game, kind of. Really, it is a game where you get techs. I like that the game is described as a giant tech tree. So you look to improve your ship and build out your tech more efficiently than others are doing. Mainly, that is something that sounds different. I own a number of space games, but nothing like this.

Boardlandia

The Legacy of Yu

This is one that I can thank the Man vs Meeple Discord for getting me to pre-order. The Legacy of Yu is a solo only campaign game. As I look into it more, I like the sounds of the puzzle. This struggle to build out enough buildings, build up enough troops or power to resist the enemy, and keep the enemy from progressing too quickly. It is a puzzle that you complete with worker placement and getting characters for powers.

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

And Heat is not here yet. This is a pre-order that should ship at the end of the month, or maybe start of the next. It is hard to know, shipping makes everything interesting. But Heat is a racing game, and one that is fast. But it is also tactical as you try and push up to turns and not go around them too fast so that you wreck.

And you can push yourself sometimes. But when you do that, you gain heat which clogs up your hand of cards. So Heat plays with that idea of hand management as well. I love racing games, so I’m glad that the game is at least getting out there more as it was hard to find for a while.

Amazon

Inside Job

This is a game that I will fully admit, maybe shouldn’t have gotten it. Why, it is my genre of least favorite games. It is a social deduction game. But, unlike most, you do get information to go on. Because Inside Job is a trick taking game as well.

The good guys need to win a certain number of tricks will fulfilling objective. The bad guy needs to win a certain number of tricks before that happens. But it is possible that neither of those conditions will be fulfilled. So the bad guy can still win if the good guys can figure out who they are, and the majority vote for them. That end part is as expected. But I want to know if that trick taking experience gives me enough information to work on, or not.

Clever 4Ever

And I finally found this, in German. But this is the fourth game in the Clever collection of roll and writes. I love Ganz Schon Clever, Doppelt so Clever, and Clever Hoch Drei (or their names in English). And that means that I tracked down two from Germany before. Thankfully there is an app, so I can learn the rules in English that way. I need to spend more time learning Clever 4Ever that way. But I am so excited to get this one here.

Set

This is a game that I played growing up. I wanted to get a copy of it. It’s basically a pattern recognition game where you try and find sets of three. You either need to match everything or not match at all across those three cards. So I can match three purple circles and then have their fill be different. But the second something overlaps they all need to overlap. And the second it doesn’t, they need to all be different. I am good at pattern recognition, so I like it, but we’ll see how well it goes over when I pull it out.

Dorf Romantik

This one is based off of a video game. I know nothing about the video game. But the game itself is a cooperative Carcassonne that I’ve heard described more as an activity. But that activity sounds fun, so I want to give it a try. And it is a game that was just nominated for the Spiel in Germany. So that makes me more curious about it.

That’s the next part of the list. You might be wonder, there is more? I do believe that there is. But I need to track down what those are because I might have covered them. And you might wonder about shelf space. Well, I have about 45 games that will be sold this weekend. So there is going to be a Point of Sale soon. Which game from this list would you want to try first?

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The interesting thing that comes from this is how it drives the secondary market. A game that is being printed again, Heat: Pedal to the Metal, sells for $150+ on eBay. It’s a $70 retail game. But it got popularity so that everyone wants it. So what games do I want that are out of print or had to find?

Hard To Find Board Games

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

This is one that is on my list. Heat is a racing game that is actually about racing. A lot of racing games are about betting on races. That is fun. I really enjoy Downforce and Long Shot: The Dice Game. I hope that Heat, though, it going to give me more of a racing feel. And, from what I can tell, it looks like it should. The card system is intriguing and turns our fast so you won’t feel like you bog down.

Aeons Trespass: Odyssey

This one is between print runs as they just announced a new Kickstarter campaign for it. And you will find that a number of these games are Kickstarters or crowdfunding games. It isn’t uncommon for them to completely disappear. They only come back if a new crowdfunding campaign happens.

Aeons Trespass: Odyssey is a big adventure, story, campaign game that I almost backed the first time around. But I felt like I didn’t need more. I should feel like that now, but it is getting great reviews. That’s the one thing nice about waiting. I often grab second printings of a game that gets a great review and miss out on some duds. But I want Aeons Trespass: Odyssey for sure this time around.

The Crimson Scales

This one is an interesting one as well. I hope that it will get reprinted. But The Crimson Scales is a fan expansion with classes, adventures, monsters, and more in the Gloomhaven system. And it comes in a massive box like Gloomhaven and is compatible with Gloomhaven. So a fan expansion for my favorite game, that is something I want to pick up.

But I wonder how I will track this one down. It is out of print, they have done two print runs. But, the creator of this expansion is making his own game, Rove, that is on my watch list. So is that going to mean the end of The Crimson Scales and I will have missed my run. Or is there enough demand to bring it back again?

Euthia: Torment of Resurrection

This is another Kickstarter game which means it is harder to track down. Though, it is interesting because the company that made it went under. Or they were close to, I don’t want to assume they are fully gone but I believe they are. They sold the rights to Euthia to another company, that company has produced a reprint. I skipped out on that one, but it is still a game that I want to get my hands on. I might even be able to late pledge it still, but it’s one that I want, but a campaign, so do I need it?

Vegetable Stock

This one is a different type of game. It isn’t a big game, but a small set collection, stock market game about vegetables. I know more about this one and how it works because of how simple it is. You draft vegetables and then the leftover vegetable pushes the value of that vegetable higher. It’s a clever and simple system that I hope will work for me like Point Salad works or something like that. Yes, they are both vegetable games, but I meant in weight and complexity.

Final Thoughts

I could spend a lot of money to track of these down. And the fact that Heat is selling for $150+ on eBay means that people are. But in that case of that one, especially, I know it is going to come out again. And when it does, I buy it then, I don’t need to pay extra just to have it sooner.

That said, I do have it on a watch list. If someone lists it for $80 with free shipping buy it now, I might get it. And with some of the others, or games that I left off the list, I might need to stumble across them in the wild. Or I might need to hope that my FLGS (friendly local game store) gets them in used. But is it something I need to track down, certainly not.

What is a game or two that you really want to track down?

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