Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 80 through 71

80. Rock Hard 1977

Published By: Devir
Designer: Jackie Fox

Buy Rock Hard 1977

Do you want to be a rockstar? Rock Hard 1977 is all about being a rockstar and the designer is legitimately a rockstar. In this game you place out workers in day, evening and night activities that help take you from garage band playing little local shows to playing sold out stadiums. The player who can make the journey the best is going to be the winner of the game. And each part of the day is going to let you do different things, in the day you might record a record, evening perform, and night go hang out at a club.

79. The Night Cage

Published By: Smirk & Dagger Games
Designer: Christopher Ryan Chan, Chris McMahon and Rosswell Saunders

Buy The Night Cage

I like a good spooky game. The Night Cage gives you that spooky feeling by creating tension as you race to get out of an every changing labyrinth. Can everyone get their keys and get to a portal before the candles run out and the players are lost in there forever. That counting down of tiles as they leave the board and new ones are placed out as a timer is great in this game. And it is spooky, which is hard for a board game to do.

78. Cthulhu: Death May Die

Published By: CMON Global Limited
Designers: Rob Daviau and Eric M Lang

Sold Out on online retailers, look for sellers on the Board Game Geek Marketplace or eBay.

Maybe your spooky is better with lots of giant monsters and a scenario where you know an elder being is going to come eventually. Cthulhu: Death May Die, called CDMD or Death May Die in the hobby, is a big game with minis and madness. You want to push your insanity up a little bit so that you unlock new powers and abilities to defeat the ancient horrors. But too much insanity and you knocked out of the game. This is a good beer and pretzels sort of game.

77. Captain Flip

Published By: PlayPunk
Designers: Remo Conzadori and Paolo Mori

Buy Captain Flip

Moving on from the spooky games, we have Captain Flip. This is tile laying game about filling up your pirate ship with crew. Every crew member is going to give you points, positive or negative, in some way. When you draw a tile you see one side. Then you decide do you want to place that onto your ship, or do you want flip it? If you flip it you are stuck on that side and have to put that down. It’s this balance of optimizing your score, playing out pirates, and pushing your luck as you flip the tiles.

76. Cartographers

Published By: Thunderworks Games
Designer: Jordy Adan

Buy Cartographers

Cartographers used to be my Top Roll and Write style game. Now it is dropping a bit, some because there are so many roll and write games that I like, and some because I haven’t played it recently. But I really enjoy this one and really enjoy making a map. I like the interactivity of the monsters who I play it on my opponents board in the worst spot possible for them. And I like how you score four different things, but depending on the season you score two and the season determines the two. It’s one I need to play again.

75. Letter Jam

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designer: Ondra Skoupy

Buy Letter Jam

Do you like word games but it seems like some people are just better at them? Letter Jam is a cooperative word game, so everyone needs to work together. In this game you don’t know the letters or the word you have. But everyone else can see one letter of yours at a time, and you can see one letter of everyone else’s. You all need to give good clues of words so people can figure out what their letter is. Say you have an “O” if I give a clue that shows you that the word uses the letters “FR[your letter]M” you can figure out what it is. But everyone needs to figure theirs out and figure out their word.

74. Can’t Stop

Published By: Eagle Gryphon Games
Designer: Sid Sackson

Buy Can’t Stop

Can’t Stop is another push your luck game to make the list. I like a good push your luck game like this one, Push, or Flip 7. They are easy to teach and play. In this one you want to get to the top of 3 columns. If you do that, you win. How do you do that, well, you roll dice and then split them into two pairs of two. The twist is that you only move up on three numbers per turn. So I might roll and get a combo to make ten and eleven, if I am not going up on ten or eleven, I lose my progress. But if I play it too safe, I lose.

73. Under Falling Skies

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designer: Tomas Uhlif

Buy Under Falling Skies

Do you like the movie Independence Day? Did you grow up playing the game Space Invaders. Under Falling Skies is a game that gives me the feel of both of those things. You need to research how to stop the mother ship while keeping too many of the smaller ships from making it to earth. And it uses an interesting die system. The higher the die, the more powerful the actions you can take are. But also the faster those little ships descend towards earth. I love that balancing act puzzle of the game.

72. So Clover!

Published By: Repos Production
Designer: Francois Romain

Buy So Clover!

So Clover! is a cooperative party game. It is one that is easy to teach in person and hard to explain. Basically you create a grid of cards that have words on every side. So you need to connect the two words per side with another word. Then everyone else is trying to get those words back onto the board in the right order, but the twist is there is an extra word thrown in. Plus often times the words are not easy to match. The better you do that as a group the more points you get.

71. Rallyman: DIRT

Published By: Holy Grail Games
Designer: Jean-Cristophe Bouvier

Buy Rallyman: DIRT

Finally rounding out this 10 is Rallyman: DIRT. This is another push your luck game and a racing game. In it you plot you course down the track and then get a choice. You either roll one die at a time which allows you to stop before you spin out and bad things happen. Or you roll all the dice at once. Why roll all at once? Well, when you roll all at once, you take negative one second to your time per die rolled. So you can reduce your overall time if you don’t spin out.

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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Top 10 Crowdfunding Games I Backed In 2024

10. Luthier

This one I knew I was going to be backing. I’m pretty sure I met the designer who is friends with a good friend of mine years ago at this point. But the theme is fun as well, and from Paverson Games the company that made the hit game Distilled, I’m already intrigued. Luthier is about crafting instruments which is a unique theme as well. And the production, at least the renderings of it, look gorgeous and the whole aesthetic is great. It’s not my normal type of game, but with a cool theme and a great look, I’m very excited for it.

9. Floe

This game intrigued me for a lot of reasons. Mainly, the Brothers Murph had a great playthrough of the prototype. While the game has changed some, from the sounds of it, I’m still definitely excited for it. This is a travel the map, collect goods, fulfill contracts and do it again sort of game. And that is a fun type of experience to play. This is also a game with great artwork, so I’m excited to get something to the table that isn’t just a giant adventure of a game, but still has that sense of discovery with it as well.

8. Storyfold: Wildwoods

This is lower on the list than I thought it might be. Some of that is because it is a solo story adventure game. That should be higher, but it’s one that I know I won’t get for a while. I’m still waiting on Stonesaga from Open Owl Studios. And this one just wrapped up it’s crowdfunding in December. So my expectation for a timeline for the game is that I’ll get it in May or later of 2026. But the artwork, the card play, and just the overall aesthetic of the game is one that I’m really excited to get to the table and play and see what it’s all about.

7. One Hit Heroes

This is the first of a couple of superhero games that are on the list. This one Meet Me At the Table had a great playthrough showing how the game worked. I am excited for this one because it looked great on the table, but also easy to learn and play with a good amount of strategy. The strategy comes from how you make everything interact versus a lot of rules, and I love it when a game can pull of that. Plus it’s a boss battler game but one without a lot of minis to set-up, though it is a progression of games, and I have a boss battler on the list that isn’t coming up soon.

6. Super Squad High

This is one that I doubt is on many peoples lists of one that they anticipate from 2024. But I am excited for this game. It is about being a superhero, so that is fun. But it’s not just being a superhero. You are a superhero at a high school and you need to balance your real life of school, dating and more with dealing with a villain and figuring out who that villain is because it might be a classmate of yours. The whole theme sounds like a show that I’d watch and to get to play that game also sounds like a lot of fun.

5. Grimcoven

An Awaken Realms game, this isn’t the only one on the list. But I am very excited to get Grimcoven in, whenever it comes in. I don’t expect it for a little bit, I just got Dragon Eclipse which was a 2023 game. But Grimcoven is a boss battler game. But unlike a lot which are campaigns this one is only for that one shot game. The gothic horror look to it is awesome as well. So I suspect this is going to be one of those games I’ll stream from time to time and pull out for the game group when we want to just fight a monster.

4. Flash Point: Legacy of Flame

I love legacy games, and this is one that feels cool to be getting one. Flash Point is a game about stopping fires. Well, now they are making a legacy game about that. And I’ve held off on getting the base game because it’s kind of Pandemic like. And I find that I want more in that sort of game now, though I’ll gladly play them, so when they announced a legacy game, I was super excited. I hope that it’s going to be an awesome game with great story going through it and some fun twists along the way. But mainly, it needs to keep that game play that makes the regular game good.

3. Rove

Rove is another one of those big campaign games. There are certainly going to be a few of them on the list. And Rove is one that I’ve known about for a while and that it was coming to crowdfunding. This game is from the person who designed the fan expansion for Gloomhaven, which I still want to get my hands on. So when they branched out into something new and something they had designed I was curious. And the game looks like it’s going to be a cool campaign game. I hope that it’s a good design since the previous work was based off of something else.

2. Enormity

It’s a big campaign game, another shocker there, I’m sure. But Enormity is one that I had kind of glossed over until the Dice Tower crew was talking about it on Crowdsurfing. This one looks fun because it isn’t the normal. It is more sci-fi and horror, two things that I like. And it is supposed to be more modular as well as you play. I assume kind of like Shadows of Brimstone. You know your objective, that stays the same, but as you explore out the map could be different every time. And I like that for a game, though it does add to some set-up in the middle of the game.

1. Lands of Evershade

This one is at the top of my list for two reasons. Firstly it is an epic campaign game, and I love epic campaign game. But it is also an epic campaign game from Awaken Realms. I love games from Awaken realms like Lords of Hellas and Tainted Grail which is sitting as my #2 game of all time right now. So when they offer me a game like Lands of Evershade, a big campaign style of game, I know I will back it. And it is one of the more recent ones that I backed. I plan to add more on in the pledge manager, but even just the core stuff is going to be a lot to play.

What Else to Say

It was a great year for games on crowdfunding. I suspect that creators might have found it to be down slightly, but if you wanted a project, there is a project, just in my list, probably for everyone. Though a lot of them are going to skew more towards those heavily thematic games out there that I really love. And I know that there are more I could be talking about. I backed and got already some Button Shy solo games, some solo only games that come in basically a VHS case, and more. And I need to get those played as well.

Plus it is a great year for more content on crowdfunding for games you might already have. I have Agemonia, I got more for it. Mythwind, I got more for that game as well. Same for Stars of Akarios, and really there are even more that I could mention on that list. Now I just need to find even more time to play games because playing games is probably my favorite thing to do, that are eat great food with great friends, but who says that after you eat you can’t play games as well?

What games did you back on crowdfunding in 2024?

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Catch up on previous videos here

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 60 through 51

60. Medium

• Published by Greater Than Games in 2019
• How well can you and a partner connect two seemingly separate words?

This is a really fun party game. You are just trying to match up with your partner (for the round) on two words. But can you both land of the same word? If not, now you need to use those two new words. But, of course, those two new words might have gotten you further apart. This game is one of those party games that has a lot of great highs to it as people land on the same word. And also a lot of moments of just fun as you think it’s impossible to connect the words.

Buy Medium

59. Under Falling Skies

• Published by Czech Games Edition in 2020
• Battle aliens and defeat the mothership before it lands.

I love this as a solo game. I really enjoy the complexity and thought process of needing to manage how to alien ships are descending. Yet you also need to push to research. So it’s a balancing act of trying to get what you need done, but also not stretching yourself too thin that the smaller vessels are making it into the city scape and pushing the end of the game along faster. So the whole thing is a giant puzzle and a very fun one at that.

Buy Under Falling Skies

58. Final Girl

• Published by Van Ryder Games in 2021
• Be the final one standing in a horror film as you take on the roll of the Final Girl.

This is one that is perfect for the Halloween season so great for me to talk about it this week. It’s a solo only game where you are taking on a killer, a ghost, or whatever the story is as the final girl. The one who is standing at the end of the movie. And who knows if you will survive or not, but that is the fun challenge of the game. Plus the action system in the game is really good as you spend resources to succeed on checks, but also need those to replenish the cards and actions you can take.

Buy Final Girl

57. Stonespine Architects

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2024
• Build out your best labyrinthian dungeon and show the you’re the best architect.

This is a really fun drafting and set collection game. And I think one of the elements that really stands out to me is how become unique in your scoring. You are able to stop buying stuff to grab a scoring card. And that scoring card is going to shape how you play the game, but you also don’t want to stop too early because you need to collect those tokens to bolster up how dangerous your dungeon really is. It’s a great balancing act and adds just a bit more choice to the game. Also this is a new one to my Top 100 Games list.

Buy Stonespine Architects

56. World Wonders

• Published by MeepleBR and Arcane Wonders in 2023
• Build out y our civilization and compete to complete wonders to make your lands the best.

I appreciate the ease of play. I say that knowing that World Wonders is not the simplest game to learn, but it is a game that as you get into it, to goes really fast. And I like the push your timing element of the game as well. I won’t call it push your luck, but you might be ready to build a wonder but have a lot of money to buy tiles left. Well, if you don’t build it now, someone else might snag it, but if you do, it might put you behind for the next round and the new wonders that come out. And I believe this is new, though maybe 2023, to my Top 100 Games.

Buy World Wonders

55. Homebrewers

• Published by Greater than Games in 2019
• Become the best home brewer and win awards at Summerfest and Oktoberfest.

This is a great little engine building game that I really like. I like it for the theme, but also for the game play as I always have fun with it. In the game you brew beer to get better at brewing beer. And some of how you do that is you get new ingredients to work with and add to your recipes for IPAs, Porters and more. Those ingredients are going to help build out your engine and might get you more money, move your up on tracks, etc. At the end, though, most of it just comes down to who is the best at brewing beer.

Buy Homebrewers

54. Potion Explosion

• Published by Horrible Guild in 2015
• Combo marbles together to create the most and the greatest potions.

This is almost an app game as a board game. And I mean that in the best way possible. There are a number of app games where you remove a “thing” and try to get matching “things” to touch because of it. Here you remove a marble and you want to get like colored marbles to touch. Because that cascades together and then you get to take those marbles. If you play it right you can create a bit change to get the marbles you need to complete a lot of potions in one turn. And that puzzle is the fun of the game to leverage your potions to complete more.

Buy Potion Explosion

53. Mansions of Madness

• Published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2016
• Investigate mysteries of the elder gods in this app guided game in FFG’s Arkham line.

This game is one of the first really big games on the list. And there is a lot that I like about it. But it did use to be higher on my list. I think it’s dropped because I haven’t played it as recently, and because I’ve played more story driven games. This one, though dynamically adjusts the story and the world as you play through multiple times and that is a fun element. But the different scenarios and missions are all fun, and I enjoy that variety in the game.

Buy Mansions of Madness

52. Ohanami

• Published by Pandasaurus Games in 2019
• Create your best Zen garden to score you the most points.

The last two games on the list are small. This one is great though for me because it’s a chill game, for the most part, and easy to learn and play. You collect cards, drafting them two at a time. And then you add those cards to three columns. But you either need to add to the top, higher, or bottom, lower on the column. And things can never drop out of numerical order. Plus how the different color score, as you draft over three hands, makes the game even more of a puzzle. And there is a fourth color as well that can be huge, but you are giving up points elsewhere. Overall a really fun little filler game.

Buy Ohanami

51. Vegetable Stock

• Published by Good Game Studio and Arcane Wonders in 2019 (and 2024 for Arcane Wonders)
• Collect vegetables and be able to sell them for the most at the end of the game.

This is a stock market vegetable drafting game, and I love the absurdity and double meaning of Vegetable Stock. This is another small game that is more of a filler than anything. But it’s a really fun filler as you draft over six rounds. Each round you draft from N+1 cards where N is the number of players. That last card is then used to adjust the stock market. So you need to be smart in what you draft. Draft too much of one veggie it’ll never move up, but if it moves up too much the market might just crash and make them worthless.

Preorder Vegetable Stock

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. Expect Final Girl next week for Halloween. 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 for another six weeks. After that expect this to be when I play my small games. Only 5 more weeks left of my Top 100 Games, then likely this will switch to smaller solo games and video games.
• 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 Horror Board Games

Again, no particular order, but let’s see the ones that made the list.

5. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Almost didn’t put this one on here. I own other games that are maybe more horror and less fantasy. But Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon created a world of both. It’s very grim dark in terms of fantasy with monsters, wyrdness, and more popping up around every corner. It definitely dabbles into the horror elements with the creatures that the wyrdness has twisted.

4. Spire’s End

Spire’s End, or Spire’s End Hildegard make the list as well. Both really are similar in what the world does. Greg Favro creates a world of unknown and horrific monsters. While also giving you a nice, simple game to challenge yourself with. Things don’t come easily for your characters, but the rules generally let you get into the game quickly and start playing and seeing what is happening.

Probably the truest horror in terms of how the story is written. It’s impressive how it develops the horror throughout the game as you don’t know what is going on. And I still have a lot of game and story to explore in both of them. Plus the artwork is amazing.

3. Betrayal at House on the Hill

A classic horror themed game at this point. Yes, it does have it’s problems where either the person who is haunting or the other players will have a massive advantage in the haunt. But when it works well, which it does, it’s an amazingly fun time.

In Betrayal the game is split into two parts. First part everyone is exploring the house, together, but not together. You want to find good items, increase your stats and well, search until you trigger the haunt. But, you don’t know when that is going to happen. And when it does, one of you at the table is going to be the betrayer. So now what’s the new condition for the betrayer to win the haunt or the other poor characters to defeat the betrayer?

2. The Night Cage

This one sounds like an abstract game, and The Night Cage really is. But it’s an abstract game with horror at the heart. Players wake up in a labyrinth that they can’t stand up in. With only a candle they need to explore, find keys, and all get to an exit portal together. But no two players can share a spot, and monsters are lurking.

Plus, the game is counting down. As you explore and your candle no longer shows off where you’ve been, now those locations go away and the labyrinth will be different. So the pile of tiles is dwindling as you search. And you never know when that monster will pop up and steal your wax and light, leaving you fumbling in the dark.

1. Arkham Horror LCG

This one is on that horrors edge as well. Is it a detective fantasy story? Kind of. Are there elements of Lovecraftian horror through everything that you do, absolutely. And that’s where it makes it onto the list. The game offers you adventure as you explore Arkham or other locations. And you need to be setup to defeat monsters and cultists, and progress the story with finding clues. All of this to stop something, a ritual in the base box, from happening.

Mainly this game is just a really well balanced experience. There are some characters you can get to make you better or that have better cards. But that doesn’t ever make the game feel too easy. And Arkham Horror gives you ways to make it harder and really level it not to the story you want, but how hard a challenge you want.

Final Thoughts

I want more good horror games. I own a few more that I’d put into that range and a few that I need to try. Deep Madness would be the big one. Or Solomon Kane and Darkest Dungeon might also fall into that category as well.

But as I said a couple of days ago. Horror is a genre that I want to find more games. And when one comes out I’m interested in. And I will check it out, and a lot of the time I’ll be disappointed. Why, because a lot of them go with the gross and gore side of horror. Because elements like jump scares, or good psychological twists are hard to build into a board game.

What’s your favorite horror themed board game?

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The issue with that is that almost any game is going to have someone love it. And I catch a lot of the hype from places. If The Dice Tower, Man vs Meeple, One Stop Co-op Shop, Meet Me At The Table, Tablenauts, and more talk about it, I will hear about it. So I need ways to pick and choose. One way is theme. So what are 5 themes that will draw my attention?

Top 5 Board Game Themes

The list isn’t really in any order, not even the order I thought of them. Also, no game is a must buy if it falls into these themes, but I will pay attention.

5. Epic Space

Let’s start out saying, space games are great, because a lot of them are epic. But I specify that I appreciate the epic ones. The ones that just have a theme of space and are light filler, I’m not going to check out immediately.

But when a game like ISS Vanguard or Star of Akarios is announced, I want to know more about them. If it looks like it does something cool mechanically and can give me a big epic story, I am going to be interested in it.

4. Epic Fantasy

Next is epic fantasy. It’s basically the same thing just with magic instead of laser pistols. I want something that is big and epic and that makes it feel like I’m going on an adventure through a fantasy setting. Whether that is grim and dark or light and wholesome, I’m up for either.

So you have things like Gloomhaven, Oathsworn, Solomon Kane and more here. Even the weird west like Shadows of Brimstone catch my attention. And I listed off a lot of campaign games. But things like Village Attacks which isn’t an campaign, it tells an epic fantasy or maybe horror story and adventure in one shot.

3. Marvel

Probably is my #1 to get me to look at it. And I could put down superheroes here, but it is really Marvel. I want to know when a Marvel game comes out so that I can check it out. Marvel theme is what got me into Unmatched. I play Marvel Champions, have Marvel Remix and Age of Heroes. But even with me loving Marvel, I still am picky. The Fantasy Flight Marvel game that used, kind of, Elder Signs mechanisms didn’t interest me. Or there is one about cleaning up after the heroes, Damage Control, I’d play it, but I’m not running out to try it.

2. Anime

This one hurts me to put on the list. I want great games around anime or even with just that anime/manga style to them. When a game comes out, I check it out, and I don’t buy almost all of them. It is an area that gets what feels like Hasbro level games made for it a lot of the time. Yes, there are exceptions to that rule, but the games aren’t as good and polished as they should be.

I say Hasbro, and that isn’t fair. It’s more that the rules consistently from the companies who make games with anime themes, aren’t as good or polished as they should be. And the games themselves are often more simple than they need to be. It feels like a minimal effort situation.

1. Horror

Finally, we have horror. I love horror, and I will say, horror is hard to get right in board games. So much of a good horror book or movie is the setting and feel that it creates. In a 30+ minute board game, that can be tricky to do. You don’t have a first chapter to lay out the setting. You can’t make jump scares. But I still want to find great horror games.

Campaigns, or grim dark work well for thise because you can build into it. Things like Oathsworn have horror type elements. Or Deep Madness and the Lovecraftian realm of games. But a lot of those don’t feel too scary. But then you have something like Night Cage which somehow gets the closest to creating a jump scare as you add tiles hoping not to flip a monster.

Final Thoughts

There are so many great themes out there, or great games that fall into those themes. I am going to do a list of my favorite game for each of the themes coming up here. It might take a week or so to get through it all, but expect one for each one of them.

And as I was doing this, I was thinking, there are other ones, like being a detective, cyberpunk, or nature that could easily make my list as well. Action movies would be up there too. I maybe could have done a top 10. But with the Top 5, it is specifically ones that I will stop and look at. Others I might gloss over more so.

What are some of your top themes for board games?

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The Game – Spire’s End

So, I wanted to touch on basically how dark Spire’s End is this time. And I’ve talked some about story but is Spire’s End too dark? Does Spire’s End Hildegard give you enough that is creepy but not become too dark? It’s an interesting question because, I think that for some people Spire’s End is going to be too dark.

Spire’s End really leans into that darker side of things. There is a lot about blood, destruction, things like that which are going on. And it’s happening consistently throughout the story. Now, does that mean that it is too dark for me? And how would I phrase it to others?

For me, I don’t see it as too dark. It is an interesting story that is being told. And I appreciate that it feels unlike basically anything that I’ve played before. It’s also not like stories that I’ve read before.

So while I don’t mind it, I can also see why people might. There is body horror written about. This whole idea of blood everywhere, ooze, etc. is not a pleasant one. And even for me, I think that sitting down and playing all the chapters in one sitting would be a lot. I’d still do it, but I’d want a pallet cleanser. So, if you don ‘t enjoy horror and dark, this isn’t for you.

Spire’s End Hildegard, on the other hand, while it has dark and plenty of creepy. It isn’t dwelling on it as much. And I like that about it. There is an innocence to Hildegard. That might get shaken throughout the story, but it is fun. And the whole game is lighter when it comes to tone.

Upcoming Streams

So Wednesday, I want to get through a bunch of Spire’s End Hildegard again. Maybe even into or through Chapter 3 so that I can wrap up another play through by the end of the year. 8 PM Central is when I will start that stream. And the following week, Monday at 8:30 PM and Wednesday at 8 PM, I’ll be wrapping up the year with more Spire’s End and Spire’s End Hildegard.

Starting next year and not on the 2nd, that’ll be a topic or random stream, but on Wednesday the 4th, I’ll be streaming Lands of Galzyr from Snowdale Design. It’s one that I think will be a fun solo game and a pretty relaxing game to play as well. I still need to clean up Chronicles of Drunagor off of the table before that can happen. But I’ll have time to do so.

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00 through 91 here.

90 through 81 here.

80 through 71 here.

70 through 61 here.

60 through 51 here.

50 through 41 here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 40-31

40: So Clover!

So Clover is another party game on the list and another cooperative party game. In So Clover! you are trying to come up with a word that combines two. We’ve seen this before with Medium and Cross Clues. But in So Clover, each person fills out their grid. Then another card with more words is mixed into it. It’s easy to play, hard to explain without the game. But it is a step up of a party game but still not hard to play.

Buy on Amazon

39. First Rat

First Rat immediately stuck with me because of the theme. It’s about rats building space ships to go to space. But with that theme there is a really good and fun game. Mainly, a game of moving rats up a track, but it gives you different ways to do that. You move up the track collecting resources and getting what you need to build different parts of your rocket ship.

It has a cute theme and it leans into that. Plus it is a thinky game without being overly complex which I enjoy. I need to figure out my route but I can go a number of different ways. And how you build your route, while, we are fighting over scoring, so it will affect me, but not too much. And I went a very different strategy than the other players, and still ended up very close.

Buy on Miniature Market

38. Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

Next up one of two solo only games on this part of the list. Orchard made the list last year and it’s a great solo game because it’s extremely fast and just a lot of fun to play. In the game you are stacking, or layering, cards so that like fruit trees cover like trees.

The game is just nine cards per game. And the components and package are really nice. I like the game for the speed it plays. A game of Orchard takes me five minutes. If I’m bored or I want something fast to do, Orchard is a great option. Or if i want to multitask while watching a sporting event, that is great as well.

Buy on Miniature Market

37. Welcome To…

Welcome To has dropped some on the list but still a roll and write game that I really like. I say it’s about building your perfect Stepford neighborhood. All the white picket fences are in the right spot and it’s just set-up perfectly to build you little slice of town.

What makes this game work is that it scales to any player count. But also that with that, the game play isn’t too simple. You have three choices each round of what to fill in, and there is good strategy in that. Plus there are expansions of different maps that you can play with which are fun as well.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

36. Mesozooic

Mesozooic is going to be an overlooked game, and some of that is that it’s not going to be a game that works for everyone. It is a light drafting game where you are getting cards to build your dinosaur zoo, a theme that is really popular right now. The drafting part of the game is light, and then the other half of the game is a sliding puzzle. You move your cards around, like a sliding puzzle, to get the most points possible out of your zoo. It’s clever, it’s light, and it’s fun. And you can pick a more complex strategy in hopes you can slide it right, or go for the easy points.

Buy on Miniature Market

35. Potion Explosion

Another light and fun game, we have Potion Explosion. This game is all about cascading marbles so that like colors hit each other. You then use those marbles, you pick up all that cascade, to complete potions. Those potions in turn give you powers that help you get more cascading marbles and even more potions.

The game moves quickly, but it’s again one of those games that are simple to play, but you can master it. And that’s the fun of a game like that one, figuring out how you can best use your potions on a turn so that you can get more potions completed. Then use those potions to complete other potions the next turn. And when you can do that, the game clicks.

Buy on Miniature Market

34. Letter Jam

Letter Jam is an odd game on this list, now not like Mesozooic odd, but odd in that it’s a cooperative word game where you can’t see your word. In fact, you don’t know what it is or any of the letters, really any clue about it.

So, everyone is trying to give the other players clues. And the clues are done in a form of a word. So let’s say that my letter was ‘A’ and someone else gives the clue, each one corresponding to a letter in front of someone else of ‘F’, blank, ‘R’, ‘M’. It’s maybe a solid clue for someone, but for me, it could be ‘FARM’, ‘FORM’, or ‘FIRM’. It’s helped me some but not that much. Letter Jam gives you a chance to give really clever and good clues, which I like.

Buy on Game Nerdz

33. Final Girl

The other solo only game on the list is Final Girl. I won’t go into how it’s played too much, but the premise, along with fun game play, are what really sell it for me. In Final Girl you are the last survivor, or will be, in a horror film. Now, will the killer get you, the ghost track you down, the monster pull you into the swamp? Or will the final girl survive?

The game play, like I said, won’t go into it too much, is a nice hand management puzzle of playing cards to get things done, having enough to get more cards and repeating the process. Van Ryder Games is really smart with how they made this game. There are elements that are consistent across the whole game. But then other things, their feature film boxes, that give you a new final girl and killer and allow you to change everything up.

Buy on Miniature Market

32. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Lost Ruins of Arnak another new to me game this year. Or I should say, one that I played for the first time this year. It’s nice getting taught a game by someone who already knows it well. And that was my experience at Gen Con. But I’ve played it more since then.

Arnak is a game where you are exploring locations, buying better gear, you can find artifacts, idols and more. Now that makes it seem thematic, and I think that the theme does come through. But Arnak is mainly a worker placement game as you send out your explorer meeples. And then deck building which is how you can get more and more actions to do and push up the tracks.

It would be lower, probably in the 60’s if it weren’t for the Expedition Leaders expansion, though. It makes it so each player starts with a different power. Some of them are easy than another, a third explorer to place on the map. But others then have more complex systems but when you leverage them it turns negative points into positive effects or things like that. The game is really fun with the expedition leaders.

Buy From Game Nerdz

31. Super Mega Lucky Box

Final game in this section of 10 is Super Mega Lucky Box. This is another roll and write game and one that looks really simple, because it is basically bingo. But while it is simple, Super Mega Lucky Box is a lot of fun. The game has you going for a “blackout” fully filled sheet to score it. But as you complete rows and columns you get bonuses.

Sometimes the bonuses are just cross off another number on one of your other cards, you have three. Other times you get lightning bolts. And lightning bolts adjust the numbers of the card flipped that you are crossing off. You don’t have a nine, well, spend a lighting bolt and make it an eight. Spend three and makes it a six. Or stars where the more you get a round the more they are worth. Or moons where the person who has the most gets a bonus 6 points, while the least loses 6. All of those bonuses just make for a really fun game with such a simple premise.

Buy on Amazon

Upcoming Streams

If you are following along with the Top 100, you already know that the next one is going to be coming out on Monday at 8:30 PM Central Time. But if you want the link or the video you can find that here. Chat along, talk about your favorite games with me. See if we overlap as I get closer and closer to my Top 10 Games.

Then on Wednesday, no link for it yet, we have Chronicles of Drunagor. I kept this evening free so that I would have time to get it set-up and ready to be played. I’m excited to get it to the table and I hope that you’ll join with me as I play a new campaign game. Chronicles of Drunagor is going to be a big game and one that looks like a ton of fun.

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100 through 91 here.

90 through 81 here.

80 through 71 here.

70 through 61 here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 60-51

60. Long Shot: The Dice Game

First of two roll and write games on the list, Long Shot: The Dice Game is a horse racing and betting game. It reminds me of Downforce, expect a roll and write. In this game you are buying horses, betting on horses, and completing other things which will get you money at the end of the game. The person who wins the most money, or has the most money, at the end of the game is the winner.

One aspect that I really like is how you can improve the odds of a horse moving forward. The lower number horses are on more cards so that they can move. But if people start to get behind a long shot, you can add movement to other horses cards for that long shot. So they start moving more consistently than other horses and have a shot. Mechanically, though, not the easiest to teach which keeps it lower on the list.

Buy on Barnes & Noble

59. Trek 12: Himalaya

The other roll and write comes up immediately, and one of the other new games on the list, Trek 12 is a mountain climbing roll and write. But really, it is a game of creating runs and sets to score points. It scores in a really clever way and has you placing numbers in a clever way as well.

The scoring is pretty simple, you score each set of a number and each run you have. But you take the highest number in the run or number in a set and that’s your base score. So a set of five twos scores as 2 (the number in the set) + 1 + 1+ 1 + 1. That’s not nearly as many points as a set of three with 9 (9+1+1). So it makes you want the higher numbers. But you also get a bonus for your largest set or longest run.

Then placing the numbers is interesting. You either take the highest or lowest value on the dice, or the difference, combined total, or multiplied total. And you have a limited number of each so you start to lose options as you go. It allows you to get numbers you want and higher numbers, but sometimes that locks you out from other things.

Buy on Miniature Market

58. The Night Cage

I’m doing the list in October, so have to call out the spooky games on the list. The Night Cage is a game where you are stuck in a labyrinth. Everyone in there is trying to find keys and get to the exit portal. But your candle just barely lights your way, so the labyrinth disappears behind you. And if you go back, it’s going to be different than before.

All of this which isn’t too hard, but then you have monsters who might pop up and want to eat the wax of your candle. If they do, not you can’t see around you at all. Or maybe it’ll it get more than just you. And as you use tiles your supply, represented by a candle, slowly burns down. It’s a very fun and stressful game as the candle burns down. But in a good way.

Buy on Miniature Market

57. Meadow

Another new game to the list, Meadow is a game about observing nature. You are in a meadow or building up a meadow or observation. The theme really doesn’t matter that much. But the artwork takes what could be an abstract only game and makes it very pretty to look at.

In Meadow you build up a tableau in front of you. As you play down cards you cover up some symbols, so I need to match a tree to a tree, but my card that needs a tree now has a bird symbol on it. And you create this growing series of symbols that give you more points as you go. Also trying to take scenic pictures to remember where you’ve been. Basically everything gives you points but it’s fun to manage your tableau.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

56. Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker has been on the list for a while. It is a real time game, for part of it. And it’s a real time game without a timer. I never feel the time crunch because you flip tiles and build your ship. Only for the final person who is trying to get that last piece is there a time crunch. Otherwise the building is just done in real time as long as the group takes.

Then you fly off into space with your junky ship and watch it fall apart. But if you built it well you get points for picking up cargo. And you don’t lose parts of your ship to meteors, pirates, or anything else. It’s a lighter fun game, but it does give you that good real time puzzle as you build your ship.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

55. Pandemic

Pandemic is on the list as a placeholder for all of the Pandemic games. I personally prefer Season One of Pandemic Legacy, which keeps it higher on the list. I haven’t played Season Zero yet, which I want to. But all Pandemic falls into this one, because all version of legacy I’ve played and base pandemic are fun.

Pandemic is a game where you play as doctors cooperative trying to keep diseases in check and find a cure for them. On your turn you move around the world, trade information with other players, and remove disease cubes from cities. Then bad things happen, diseases spread and outbreaks might happen. It’s a good puzzle of a game. The legacy versions of the game just add great story, and I’d play them again gladly even though I know that story.

Buy on Miniature Market

54. Blood Rage

Pandemic, which I didn’t mention, was high on my list when I started and dropping. The same with Blood Rage which was one of my top games. I clearly like it less than I did before. But I’ve also played more games that I did before. Blood Rage is a fun drafting and area control game. It looks like it should just be Vikings and monsters on a map fighting but there is more going on.

What lowered it slightly is some experiences can feel similar. And some strategies even seem to be better that don’t lean into fighting. But it is fun to think about how to break up those strategies. Such as the Loki strategy where that person wants to lose fights and send everyone Valhalla. Or when to hate draft a card and block someone from getting a quest that they are setup for. There is a good amount going on, but not too much in this game.

Buy on Amazon

53. Root

Root also has dropped some from it’s highest. But Root tends to bounce around a bit more. Mainly it’s how excited I would be to play it again. And that’s because Root is a game that is hard to get to the table. There is a lot to learn in Root because each faction is different. And you need to know each faction to keep them in check during a game.

Root is basically an asymmetric war game. One faction is all about area control, another might be about completing little objectives or a grass roots uprising. All of this with cute animal artwork on it. The game is a lot of fun and is big in what it can do. One that I want to play more but you need a dedicated group to play it really that know the factions.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

52. Draftosaurus

This isn’t a roll and write game, but it does feel like one. Draftosaurus is a drafting game where you are putting dinosaurs in pens. And you have a handful of dinosaur meeples to pick one from. The game is really easy, light, and fun to play. It just works for the type of game that it is.

What really stands out, though is the tactile nature of holding the dinosaurs and then picking one. Like I said, how you score, it reminds me of a roll and write. But holding and drafting from those dinosaurs is unique to the game. And the closest thing you get in most roll and write games is rolling the dice.

Buy on Game Nerdz

51. Homebrewers

Finally, to round out the bottom half of my Top 100 Games, we have Homebrewers. Homebrewers is an engine building game where you are a homebrewer brewing your beer at home. You get different ingredients, flavors, to add to your beers that push you up on tracks. All in a goal to be the highest and score points at Summer Fest and OktoberFest.

I really like this one for the theme. Yes, there are a few things that are a disconnect in the game. That you never lose an ingredient that you’ve added to the beer. But it gets so many things right about homebrewing, it’s great.

Buy on Amazon

Upcoming Stream

So what is coming up next. I do plan on Wednesdays soon to start playing Chronicles of Drunagor. However, I am not quite ready to get that one to the table this week. Instead, it’ll be a smaller solo game. I have a few roll and write games that interest me, or maybe it’ll be Root on the app or Slay the Spire. You’ll have to tune in Wednesday at 8 PM Central to find out.

And then coming up next Monday, I have 50 through 41 in my Top 100 coming up. You can click the notification bell to know when I’m going live on the video over here.

Plus, I might have a surprise unboxing this weekend. I believe I have two different games coming in on Thursday and Friday this week. So maybe, if I have time, I’ll unbox them. Or it’ll be a bonus Monday video, we’ll have to see.

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Pros

• Theme – both horror and drop bears
• Components
• Cooperative Game
• One Pledge Level
• Fulfilled A Game Already

Cons

• Rulebook Issues on Previous Game

The Page

This is a really fun looking page and game. They lean into the absurdity of drop bears and how they look like koala bears. And they have a good amount of content on the game. They have a good amount on the rules and theme of the game right away which is nice. I don’t need to go digging for that information on the page.

I also like that they explain what drop bears are. I fear that most people would assume that they are just koalas and be in big trouble. It definitely helps the game theme come through. And for a game with a silly theme that is very regional specific, I think it’s a nice little nod to have that in there.

Price point and shipping seem in line with everything that I’ve seen. I like that they aren’t trying to make it too deluxe. The components look good, but I’m glad that the campers are just tokens. A lot of campaigns would make them minis but that adds tot he price. This feels like a game that doesn’t need that higher price point.

The Game

The game itself seems interesting. A horror survival game as you build out the map, deal with the drop bears, and get gear. What stands out to most about game play is that you have a pool of campers. You might have a camper die, but as long as there is another camper, you add them into the game and keep playing. You run out of campers, you lose the game.

It’s also interesting that this is a game where it’s more about survival than it is about beating up the drop bears. Another thing that I like. There are a lot of games where it is go in and beat up the monster and when you do you win the game. Drop Bears is about survival and I think that is what interests me most.

Back or Brick

I’m very torn on this one. I absolutely adore the theme, and if I saw this in a brick and mortar store, I’d immediately go over and look at it. But is it one that I’m going to back? Right now I think this is a Brick for me. Mainly because I’m just being a little bit pickier on what I back right now. And I know that there are some things coming up, I’ll talk about one next week most likely.

But everything about this game screams of one that I should back and I might end up backing it. I love the theme as I said. Not just the horror element but the drop bears as well. And the game looks amazing. My main concern will be if it has issues with the rule book. And that might be fine when all is said and done. I do have it saved, so I might come back and get this one yet.

How about for you, is this a Back or Brick?

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Anticipated Crowdfunding Games

10. Quantum Shock

The one that I consider least likely to come out. The latest that they have said about it, this was in 2021 mind you, that they were going to be launching in 2022. The game is still in that get notified at launch stage. And when asked in January and June about a timeline, there is no response/information.

But Quantum Shock very much falls into that category of a game that I’d be interested in. It is cooperative, sci-fi, and horror. Three things that I really love. And the aesthetic, at least of the box artwork is interesting to me. I’m poking about to find more information on the game because I’d love to see what the whole look and play of the game is.

9. Moon

From the company that brought us Villagers and Streets, they now have a new game coming, Moon. I don’t know much about the game or about their games in general. But I know the look of the games, and Moon looks amazing in terms of the artwork and graphic design. That is what has me interested. Generally, I feel like my thoughts have been with Villagers and Streets, try before I buy, but Moon, if it looks interesting enough, might be a spot to jump into Sinister Fish Games.

8. Sea of Legends: Vengeance of the Empires

An expansion for a game that I own, Sea of Legends. This is going to be a big pirate adventure game. I love the idea of a big sprawling pirate game. And while I haven’t played this one yet, because I’ve heard the app was getting improved upon, I do really want to play my copy. That is likely going to determine if I back this game.

Sea of Legends, like I said, is a big pirate game. You pick a Captain, Lover, and Nemesis, and that drives your story in the game. It is a competitive game, but I like that the story of each character weaves together which intrigues me. I hope that when I play it, I’ll love it. I thought that Merchants and Marauders might be the big pirate game for me, but that one fell flat. And Seafall didn’t seem like pirates.

7. Drop Bears

You heard about this one last week. Drop Bears, based off of the Australian legends for tourists, are basically bears that look like koalas. But instead of being all cute, they drop out of trees and attack with big pointy teeth and claws, if you aren’t careful. I’m very curious about this one. Again, a horror them, which I like and I really like the legend. I’m hoping to get my hands on some press release content if I can to cover it before it launches.

6. Globetrotting

Globetrotting is on here because of the toy factor. But from the same company that makes Canvas, Globetrotting seems to be a roll and write where you are connecting things on a 3D globe. Just that toy factor is great, so I want to see it, play it because of that. A game with good toy factor might not be a great game, but it does make me interested. And Canvas has very good toy factor as well with it’s artwork and is a good game. So I want to see what this one is.

5. Cyberpunk 2077: Gangs of Night City

Again, another one that I’ve mentioned before. CMON is doing a game set in the Cyberpunk world. I don’t know a ton more about it than that. I’d guess this game will have a lot of minis, a lot of expansions, but probably be a fun beer and pretzels type of game.

For me, I wish that it sounded like it had more story. But the theme of cyberpunk is cool. I like games like Shadowrun, or that setting, for that reason. So I’ll be curious to know what this one looks like. Area control is also a mechanism that I like quite well. However, I want more going on in a game than that, so one that I’ll be keeping an eye on.

4. Trick Shot

This one is a reprint of a game that is already out. Trick Shot is a hockey game, very hard to find right now, that comes with minis. I don’t know a ton about how it plays, but generally reviews seem pretty favorable. And the idea of a game where you play hockey seems like a good amount of fun to me.

I would love to watch a video of this being played. My main concern about the game is that it’ll be too slow. Hockey, as a sport, is a fast moving game. Baseball works okay for board games because it is a slower moving sport. But Hockey, Basketball, Soccer, and Football are all harder for me to get behind because they move fast. But we’ll see with Trick Shot, because it looks fun.

3. Stonesaga

OOMM games is putting out a lot of things that interest me. I backed Mytwind. I want Stars of Akarios eventually but it is spendy to get right now. It isn’t that I expect it to get cheaper, but it hopefully will be available for a bit. But Stonesaga is a cooperative legacy game. That right there makes it interesting to me.

Plus it has a story that unfolds over time, also interesting to me. And it can be played solo. It seems to be about building up a society and your world over generations. But of course, as a legacy game, the world remembers what you do and changes and grows the story as you go.

2. Tainted Grail: Kings of Ruin

Top two were easy to pick. Firstly, an expansion, though I believe a standalone expansion, for Tainted Grail. I love Tainted Grail. I am playing through the third of the stories in the original crowdfunding campaign right now. And I love each story.

Kings of Ruin is something I didn’t know I wanted. And I do not need Kings of Ruin. But I absolutely want it because I love Tainted Grail. This is a story driven game in a grim dark fantasy world around Arthurian legend. It just works well for me and more story in that world isn’t a bad thing, there is just so much content.

1. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

Rogue Angels is my easy #1 game coming to crowdfunding hopefully in the next few months. And I should soon have some more content coming out on it. I just need to split up some video that I did with a couple other content creators and the designer playing a scenario of the game. You can already see Rogue Angels game play on Malts and Meeples (or below).

But I adore my plays thus far of Rogue Angels. The characters are great. The story is fun, and it is a challenging game. The best way I can describe it and this is a very high compliment is that it is a game that isn’t too complex to play. But, every decision that you make has a ton of depth. You can’t just walk into a room full of bad guys and expect it to work perfectly for you. So how do you plan what is best and work together as a team?

Final Thoughts

I am sure that I missed some big Kickstarter or Gamefound campaigns coming up. I looked for what I could. And I didn’t do anything that you can still late pledge or is out on Kickstarter currently. There are some strong games coming up, and I know there will be a lot more that I don’t know about. That is what them monthly content is for. Plus then the videos that Tantrum House and BoardGameCo put out twice a month or monthly on upcoming Kickstarters.

One that I really would love to put on the list is Slay the Spire by Contention Games. I know they want to get it right before it launches. But Slay the Spire is another game that was supposed to be in 2021, like Quantum Shock, and I haven’t heard anything recently about it. Looking on Board Game Geek it appears they still plan for this year. But it’s not on the list because it was Spring of 2021 and then on and on delayed and reworks. But if they get it right that’ll be awesome.

Is there a Gamefound or Kickstarter you are looking forward to?

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