Top 10 Overlooked Games

The criteria for this list is pretty simple. I went through the games that I have rated on Board Game Geek. I sorted them by how I rated them, and then also looked at how many rating total they had. And with that I then created the list. It is not purely the highest rated for me, or the fewest ratings. Because some games I don’t think are super overlooked, they just won’t work for some people instead. And some games are so new the number of ratings is lower so they don’t count as they are going to go higher in terms of total ratings.

10. The Night Cage

There are so many games that I could put on the list, but I want to go with one that is dark and feels different to kick the list off. In The Night Cage players work together to escape this every changing labyrinth before the time runs out and there are no more tiles. But it’s dark, you can only crawl around and there are monsters.

On a turn players move looking for exit points and keys. Each player needs a key and then all the players need to be at the exit at the same time. As you move you illuminate the spots adjacent to you. This might cause a monster to appear. And monsters will blow out your light, or kill you if you have no light. And if your light goes out, well, then you can’t see the spaces around you so you move blind.

Plus, there is a timer in the game, the timer being the number of tiles. So while you want to stay separated to not potentially cause monster problems, if you stay separated, you are more apt to burn through tiles too fast. It’s a great game with a great theme that I think more people should play. It’s really a press your luck game, but if you play it Halloween with some spooky music on, candles, and dimmed lights, it’s great.

9. First Rat

In 2022 this game flew off the shelves at Gen Con. And content creators consistently had it as a high game on their anticipated list. But now, it’s still sitting under 5,000 ratings on Board Game Geek three years later. And I think that more people should play this game because it’s a ton of fun with the theme and with the game play.

In the game you are rats who want to build a spaceship because they believe the moon is made of cheese. First off, how can you not like that theme. Then the game play is really interesting. You collect goods by moving up a track. These goods you use to build your rocket. And you get points for completing parts of them. But there are other elements on the track such as lighting up your way. When you do that, you get more goods.

The game while keeping turns pretty simple offers a lot of fun choices. And while it looks like there is a bunch going on, it isn’t too bad at all. Maybe it’s because they didn’t have enough copies at Gen Con in 2022 that it kind of fell off when people couldn’t buy it. But more people need to checkout First Rat.

8. Medium

This one surprises me that people haven’t rated it more. Yes, I’ll talk about it more but Board Game Geek often times has more ratings for bigger games and non-party games. But Medium is a pretty simple party game was relatively available for a little bit. It even had an expansion. And it is a game that I think more people should try, because it’s silly and fun.

Now maybe the reason it’s less rated is that if you learn the rules you don’t really need the game to play it. The game is very simple in two people go at a time. Each plays out a word and then they come up with a word that connects to two words. If they get it right, they get some points. If not, they try again with the two new words. And if they get that right, it’s fewer points but they get points. And finally you get one more go for the lowest point total, always off of the new words.

I think if more people played it, they would enjoy it as a fun time. And it’s a great icebreaker sort of party game. Because who cares if you get it wrong, it’s always going to lead to conversation around “why did you say that word” or excitement if you get it on the first try.

7. The Reckoners

Why is this game not more rated and more popular? I really like that The Reckoners is a great cooperative game. Plus the theme is fun. Though that is probably some of the reason that it is less popular or rated as well as it being a crowdfunding game mainly.

In this game you play as The Reckoners. A team of humans who are going up against the epics. These are superpowered individuals. But there is a trick, every superpowered individual, when they get their powers, turns bad. So you need to take them down. You complete this in two ways, by damage and by research to find their weakness.

This game is also great because everyone does stuff at the same time. You all roll dice at the same time to set your actions. Then you discuss what you want to do as you roll the dice. And you keep some and reroll, Yahtzee style, to see what other actions you get. Then when you take actions you all do it at the same time as well. It creates a game with almost no downtime, which I know a lot of people like.

6. Paper Dungeons

I don’t want to only put smaller games on the list or roll and write games on the list, but I think that it is pretty common. Why, because a small box game, it’s easier for people to overlook them. Though Paper Dungeons isn’t the smallest box game on the list and it has a pretty epic cover. But it’s probably overlooked because it is a roll and write game.

This game offers a campaign as well, but it’s really a one off game where you are delving into a dungeon and trying to build up your adventuring party through leveling them up, fighting monsters, crafting gear and more. You roll a bunch of dice, and you try and use them the best you can by filling in spots.

But this game is more interactive than some roll and writes. You can all fight the same monsters, but gems are limited to who gets them first. And who does the most damage to a monster, or if you even make it through the dungeon to fight the monster. And that’s a nice added element to it. Plus with Paper Dungeons the complexity is higher than some roll and writes. So that offers more of challenge as you play.

5. Ohanami

Some games are just probably too simple looking to get a ton of ratings. If you play games and rate them on Board Game Geek you probably play a lot of bigger hobby games. Ohanami is one of those small games that I think more people should play because it’s great for playing with people who play fewer games.

The game is pretty simple, you draft cards to add to up to three columns. There is a trick though as you draft the cards, you need to play them to the top or bottom of a column. Now it doesn’t need to be the same column for each card you draft, you draft two at a time, but they need to be higher or lower than the card at the top or bottom of the column.

Along with that, I think the scoring helps make the game more enjoyable for people who play a lot of games. You score different colors of cards different numbers of rounds. You draft over three rounds, but only blue is scored each round. Then green is scored two and grey is scored one. But the points get higher, so it creates a strategic drafting strategy as well as drafting for the numbers.

4. Sonora

This is one that I am very surprised didn’t catch on more. Sonora is a roll and write game, but instead of rolling dice, you are flicking discs. After everyone flicks their discs you use them and the number on the disc from the quadrant where the disc landed.

I kind of understand why some people might not love this game. But it is such a fun time as you play and I love how combotastic the game is. But that is the reason why people might not love the game. It is so combotastic that you might feel overwhelmed as you fill in that part. Or you might not like the randomness of the flicking. But the game, to me, is just a lot of fun. And with how popular roll and write games were, I think this game should have gotten more love.

3. Xenoshyft

This one I’m a champion of, but I think more people should play it. This is a cooperative deck building tower defense game. You play as marines, or something like that, defending a base against bugs. Is this game basically Starship Troopers, yes, and that is great.

The biggest thing I think more people should play this game for three elements that I like a lot. First, it is a very cooperative and collaborative in nature. You help people when they defend their part of the base. And this really leads into the second element of how you do that. You might give them a troop that you bought. They add it to their defensive line. And when it dies, it goes to their deck which is a fun twist. The final one is that you always can buy. This game gives you money and let’s you thin money out of your deck in a way that is great and helpful.

2. For Northwood!

This one is my #2 game that I think more people need to play. Now, I know why the game is on this list. For Northwood is a solo game, and solo games tend to have lower ratings. I skipped over a number of campaign games for that reason to make the list. But Forth Northwood is just so good that I think a lot of people would enjoy it and more people should check it out.

Like I said, For Northwood is a solo trick taking game. You play it over a number of rounds trying to win different numbers of tricks. You go to different forest locations and depending on where it is that sets the number of tricks you need to win, that number exactly, no more or less. Fortunately there are woodland creatures who help you. But that is limited and you need to figure out how to use them best to hit that number.

For Northwood is just such a great puzzle of a game. And each time can be different as you play. If you feel like the base mode of the game is too easy too, it offers you challenges to play. Plus, I think this is a great game for people who want to game but maybe travel a bunch for work as it’s tiny and easy to take with you anywhere.

1. Homebrewers

Homebrewers is easily my #1 game on this list. And it makes me sad that more people haven’t played it and loved this game. Now, I know that I’m also an outlier on rating the game and I’m not sure why. This is a very fun game about brewing beer and seeing who can be the best homebrewer. Now the theme is probably some of why it is less rated, but still, I think it’s a fun theme.

In this game you roll dice for actions and then you can trade dice with your opponents. You do this because you want to brew the best beers so you can score the highest ratings during Summer Fest and Oktoberfest. And you need to do all the steps to brew beer that you’d do in real life, or at least the board game version of them. Plus you add in flavorings to your beers as you brew, and these cards stick around. It allows you to create a brewing engine which is a lot of fun and you can create some crazy beers to drink.

This game, like I said, didn’t do well, and now it’s been six years, so I don’t think it’s going to come back. The upside is because it wasn’t super popular, people don’t sell it for a lot. So if it sounds fun and you can find it, it won’t be too expensive.

Final Thoughts

Now, I know not all games are for all people. But these are some games that I just wish more people would try or could have tried. Because some of them, like Homebrewers, it’s just not going to happen until someone new gets the rights to make the game. Others, I think they have a chance to have more people find them. But I do think that more people would enjoy all of these games.

And I also no the reason that some are passed is just because there are so many. Paper Dungeons and Sonora both came out in the height of roll and write fever. So it is easy to have either been burned out on roll and writes or just skipped them in favor of others that were more popular. But now it might be the chance to try and find them and play them.

What is one game that you’re a champion for that is less than 5,000 ratings on Board Game Geek and has been out for a bit?

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And for other ideas check out the previous lists.

Two Player Games
Campaign Games
Solo Games

Party Games

Just One

Just One is the first of two cooperative party games on the list. That in and of itself is fairly unique. But these games are great for when you have that person or people you play with who get too competitive or into even party games.

In Just One you give a one word clue to the person who is trying to guess a single word. The trick comes that players aren’t able to know what the other people are writing. And you want to give a different clue. Clues that are the same, both of them are erased and the person guessing gets neither of them. I like that element of the game because you want to be unique, but if you are so unique and far out there it could point someone in the wrong direction. And it is possible that people will completely skip the normal clue or the best option as well.

So Clover

The other of the cooperative party games is So Clover. Both of these games are actually from the same company, Repos Productions, who makes an interesting party game seemingly every year.

This is one that is trickier to explain than Just One. But it reminds me of a Venn Diagram in some ways. You get two words and you need to figure out how those words overlap. But you do that four times, like the shape of a four leaf clover. Each overlap is going to give you a unique combination. And after you pick your words and write them down, you remove the cards with the words, which have four words on them, and add a random other one. The other players need to work together and figure out how to put it back in the right orientation.

This game also has a nice benefit of the flow of the game. Each player can write down their combinations at the same time. And then you just go around taking turns being the person to present your set-up of words.

Ready Set Bet

This is very different from what people think of when they think of party games. But it has the excitement that I expect when I play a party game. Ready Set Bet is a horse racing bidding game that is played in real time.

One person is going to be running the race. They, in real time, are rolling dice which moves horses down the track. The other players are all betting on the race in real time. Once someone takes a spot that spot is gone. So rolling two dice you think that 7 would win most of the time, it might, but if you roll the same number twice in a row, it causes it to surge ahead. And of course, there is luck of the dice.

This game is a bit more of a game than a lot of the other ones. Those tend to be experiences. Here you need to learn a few rules and be up for adding in a bit of complexity as you go. But it still has those stand-up moments as people are racing for a betting spot, or at the end of the race, everyone is holding their breath or cheering loudly for their horse, or the one they bet the most on, to win.

Medium

Now we go to more traditional party games, though this one is still unique. In Medium you and another player partner up for a turn. It isn’t a cooperative game, but you both want to match up. That is common for party games. But here, it feels more unique because you each pick a word to play, and then you both need to come up with a word that connects the two. If you don’t on the first try, you use the words you just said and try again. You get three tries with fewer and fewer points you get each time. After a few rounds, player with the most points wins.

I like this game because it leads to weird situations. You might go in two opposite directions with what connects or is between the two. Or you might both pick different synonyms and now you need to make that work for the next guess. And as the person who is watching people guess you always know what they should say. But as the guesser you second guess yourself so much.

Blank Slate

Finally for the party games we have Blank Slate, the most traditional of the party games. In this one you are filling in a blank, so it’d be like [your word] Slate for example. And you want to match with one person with the word you write down. If you watch one with person you both get three points. Match with no one and you get no points. Or match with more people and you all get one point. The game is a race to 20 points or so, and it’s a lot of fun.

I like this one better than a lot of games like it though. It almost has a Apples to Apples feel to it, but you get to be creative. You pick the word you want to play, not some random words that you have in your hand that might not match. And you play the people around the table as well. I might find a great sports word to fill in, but if that doesn’t match the interests of the people at the table, probably not the best play.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of good party games out there. I still even enjoy the classic party game of Scattergories. But a lot of people have played the few party games from the 80’s and 90’s a lot at this point. So these games are all newer, sometimes familiar and sometimes different, add them into your gaming rotation with friends and family around the holidays. Or give them to people so you aren’t always stuck playing the same games over and over again with them.

What is your favorite party game?

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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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That one is trickier, in some ways, to pick out games for. Because, it isn’t like I can pull out a heavy board game off the shelf to play with. It is often too many people to do that with. And I need to think about the different levels of gamer and numbers as well. I like to theme the nights, as well, so people know what they are getting into.

Top 5 Themes for Board Game Night

5. Racing Games

Kicking off this board game theme list is racing games. And this actually catches some games in other categories that I came up with as well. But racing games work well because racing is a theme that people understand. I want to finish the race first. Or, a lot of racing games, I want to win the most money because I bet best on the racing games. It might be more about the betting than the racing, but people understand it either way.

The downside to some racing games, Formula D for example, is that they can take a while. But then there are other ones that are fast and action filled. You might even decide to play a dexterity game like Pitchcar in this as well. And that one might take a bit, but it has some other benefits which we’ll talk about coming up. But racing games often play a number of people, you just want to make sure they are fast moving ones, as a race should be.

4. Roll and Writes

Roll and write style games work well for a board game night as well. Mainly, again, a lot of them play higher player counts. It might be a bit solitaire in what the players are doing, but it works because everyone is playing off of the dice on their own sheet of paper.

I think of games like Cartographers, or Paper Dungeons, though, that offer a little bit of interaction that makes it work. Or other games, though, like Trek 12, Welcome To… or Railroad Ink that offer less. So you can choose between a few options, but generally you’ll find that you play a few more of these that work well as competitive but non confrontational games.

3. Dexterity Games

Now, this type of board game might seem odd to be in there for an adult group playing games. But dexterity games really do work great for a board game night. They provide a party game atmosphere without having to play party games every time. And some of them definitely handle a high player count well.

And for me, one thing that I really love is that they are light and silly, but they offer feel good moments. For example, with Pitchcar, a game of racing disc cars around a track, when someone makes an amazing shot, everyone is excited. Why, because it is an amazing shot. And even if you play the game a lot there is an element of luck to pull off an amazing shot.

2. Drafting Games

Next I want to talk about drafting games, because they are an interesting sort of game for a game night. A good drafting game is going to stand out in that it can handle a lot of people. Why, because a lot of the drafting games are fairly simple and they keep everyone engaged at the same time.

I think of games like 7 Wonders, Sushi Go Party! or any of the Ecosystem games. They all run off of a similar systems. When I am drafting a card, so are you. Everyone is involved at the same time. And 7 Wonders and Sushi Go Party! both work with a higher player count. The others could as well, it’s just fewer cards, so that limits the player count. But because you all play at once, there is no downtime which makes it easier.

1. Party Games

This is an obvious one. However, I will say, this doesn’t mean Taboo, Balderdash, Catch Phrase, and Cards Against Humanity. Thankfully, now is a good time for party games. And it is also a time where there are several cooperative ones, so it’s easy to sit down with a group and enjoy without it becoming too competitive. Which is something that is needed for some groups.

When we play party games, I think of games like Doodle Dash, Just One, Blank Slate, Medium, and So Clover that top the list. All of these are solid games with solid theories behind them as to how they work. And they provide humor and a good time through the players versus something like Cards Against Humanity which tries to add that via the cards only.

Final Thoughts

There are a ton of different themes. And often times i look at it and I think, I could mix in another type of game, or it might change based on player count. If we end up with just a few people, sure, I’m going to pull out a couple of heavier games, or even a couple of games that play at a lower player count. We get ten players, it might pivot to party game night, or we might split into two groups. It is about knowing your group for a game night.

At the same time, it’s fun to give a theme or an idea of what games are coming. Why, because then people can decide if it’s a night for them or not. Maybe you don’t like roll and write games, that is fine, you skip the board game night where it is roll and writes. But as someone coming, you now know what is coming to help you make a decision.

Do you find that your game group gravitates towards different types of themes in board games?

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Party Games

Just a quick disclaimer. I picked party games for the party game list, that makes sense. What I didn’t do was pick games that work well in big groups, though all of these do. That’s because there are some games that work well in big groups but aren’t party games. That list will come up soon.

Doodle Dash

Let’s start out with a drawing game, and a speed drawing game. If you feel like you can’t draw, that’s fine Doodle Dash is about speed too. In Doodle Dash, one person doesn’t know what everyone else is drawing. And they want to guess it on the first try. But everyone else is vying to be that first try, so they are drawing as fast as they can to be the first one ready.

When you think your picture is good enough, you grab the first player marker. The second person, who will get their picture looked at next, grabs a die and starts rolling. That die has a stop on it, once that stop is hit, everyone else stops drawing. Then the guesser sees the first and fastest picture and see if they can get it. If not, they go to the second one, and if not, they go to the rest of them to try and guess it. But the points get lower the further you go.

This game will have everyone laughing as they play it. It’s light, it’s made to be silly, and it’s a drawing game where how good you are at drawing really doesn’t matter.

Fun Facts

Next up we have Fun Facts, a new party game as well. Repos Productions has two other games on the list coming up. Fun Facts is all about how well your group knows each other because this is a cooperative game. But it isn’t one where a single person can decide everything. Every player is making the choice on their own even though you win a whole group.

The game asks you a question about yourself, like on a scale of 1 to 100, how much do you like the season fall? I don’t know, maybe 47, I like the temps but not that winter is coming here in MN. Then the person who read the question puts theirs face down. Everyone goes around adding theirs to the column of face down. All the time hoping they are putting it in the right spot. The more in the right order you get, the more points you have.

It’s a simple game, it’s kind of an ice breaker, get to know you sort of game. But it works a whole lot better than a lot of ice breakers. You find out about people and there are some good laughs too as someone widely overestimates how much they like fall or how much more than everyone they’d pay to go actually visit Jurassic Park.

Medium

Now we’re onto a game that is about working together but is not in the cooperative party games category. Medium is about matching up with the person that you teamed up with. You play a word, I play a word and we need to come up with the word that connects those two.

It’s not bad if it’s “cat” and “baby”, we’ll both likely end on “kitten”. But if we differ, now we need to come up with a new word that connects are two new words. Hopefully we got closer than we were before. Because if we didn’t different directions on it, it might be even harder to connect now. And if we miss a second time, we have a third and final shot at it. The sooner you get it, the high points you get. And if you don’t match at all, no points.

Most points at the end of the game wins. But that’s not the fun of the game, the fun of the game is watching people try to come up with a word knowing you’re doing just as poorly when it’s your turn. And when people just miss by going robber and criminal when the words were “steal” and “burglary”, everyone one having a good laugh. Or wondering when the two people take it opposite directions how they’re going to get “cactus” and “car” to work together.

So Clover

Now we’re back for some more cooperative party games. The next two are that, actually before I end on a competitive one to make an even three and three in each area. But So Clover is a great cooperative party game of having a grid of words, might be “cactus” and “car” and needing to come up with a word that connects them.

This sounds a whole lot like Medium. But the player don’t just have one of those two do, they have four of them, one for each side of the clover. And on the card there isn’t just one word, there are four, one for each side of the square card. So you need to get four clues written down one for each. Then those cards come off, a random one is mixed in, and everyone else is trying to figure out how to put it back together.

It’s fun to see how crazy some of the clues have to be to try and connect things. Or how you figure out what goes on one side, like if it’s “steal” then “robber” and “burglar” might make perfect sense. But those cards share overlap with two other clues, one on the left and one on the right, so how do you get those clues to match up right?

Just One

Then there is Just One, which might be my favorite party game, for sure is my favorite in the cooperative party games category. Just One is about giving a one word clue, one per player, to the person guessing their single word without overlapping on any of the clue words.

You see, players write down their clues and without the guesser looking all the players compare. If there is any overlap, well, those two or more that overlap are all gone. The player then only gets to see the remaining words to guess as to what their word is.

So you want to be creative as you play, you want to give a clue that others won’t likely think of, but also not too obscure that it throws off the whole guess. It’s possible to get a really confusing one in there if you aren’t careful, one that makes everything else feel different to the guesser.

Just One has those moments where you’re really happy with a clever clue that you’ve given. Or those moments where you wonder if the guesser will be able to get it because there could have been six clues and now it’s down to just two. Are those two enough for them to be able to get it? And then the moments of elation when someone gets some weird clues but still gets it anyways. A great fun time.

Blank Slate

Finally we have Blank Slate, and I think that Blank Slate is one of those party games that works well with everyone. The system is simple and it feels familiar so it’ll work well with people who maybe played games like Balderdash before or others along those lines. But this time, it’s even simpler.

In Blank Slate you are given a word and either a blank spot before or after it. You might get the world “truck” followed by a blank. Everyone writes down a word to fill in that blank. If you match with no one, you don’t get any points. If you match with just one other person both of you get three points. And if you match with more than just one person, all of you get one point.

I really like this system of wanting someone to match with you but not wanting everyone to. It’s that question, like with Just One, of how obscure do I go or how much of a stretch do I go for, versus do I play it so safe that I’ll likely overlap with more? You just never really know how it’s going to go because you might find that you’re just thinking too much like everyone else.

Final Thoughts

I know that as someone who likes board games a lot, you’re probably reading this or looking at this list wondering if these games are for you. Or you remember when party games came out before and how disappointing they were. Well, I do want to say that these aren’t your parents party games, they aren’t like Taboo or Catch Phrase or the dozen other games that were about the same.

I think that party games have come a long ways in a lot of good ways. These all feel familiar, but add in more fun. And I think with party games, that is a big thing. You want the game to be fun without being repetitive. And with the cooperative games in there, it’s a chance for even very competitive people to join in.

Do you play a certain party game around the holidays? Do you think that any of these could bump that one from the rotation?

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

100 through 91

90 through 81

80 through 71

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 70 through 61

70. Medium

I suspect that I am reaching the end of where I have placed party games. But there are a lot of good party games on the list up to this point, and Medium is one of my favorites. Medium is a simple word but it offers some good laughs, it offers chances to feel clever, and it’s an easy one for everyone to play.

In Medium you and your partner, for that turn, each play out a card with a word on it. And then, at the same time you try and come up with a word that connects the two. So if the words were “duck” and “goose” options like “bird” or “fowl” would make sense. If you don’t match the first time, then you try again with the new words that you said. And the faster you match, if you do at all, the more points that you get. You get three rounds to match.

This is a game where when it isn’t your turn, 75% of the time you immediately have the “perfect” word pop into your head. As soon as it is your turn, you’re hoping that if you play down “goose” your partner for the round doesn’t play down “taco” and when they do, your mind goes blank. It’s as fun to play in a round as to watch.

Buy Medium

69. Under Falling Skies

Under Falling Skies is the first of a few games that can be played solo and the only true solo game on the list. I think I said two, but it’s the one true solo. Under Falling Skies is a combination of Space Invaders with alien ships coming down and Independence Day of trying to take out the other mothership. All of this before the mothership comes to Earth and it is too late.

I like how simple this game is, but also how complex it is. What you try and do each turn is pretty simple. You are placing dice to slow down an enemies ships descent, gather more power, blow ships out of the sky, build out your bunkers, and research how to stop the mother ship. That is a lot, but it is all just dice placement. You place dice down and that determines how strong your plane is to blow up alien ships. Or you place a die down to add power so you can actually send out that ship.

But the game has a great twist on it. You want high numbers to make your actions better, but by doing so it makes the enemy ships come down faster. If the little ships reach Earth, then the mothership starts to come down faster, I believe. Or it is getting another end game trigger. So you need to be strategic in what you are doing, like a good cooperative game, to fend off your impending doom.

Buy Under Falling Skies

68. Blank Slate

Another party game for the list, Blank Slate is a newer one to me, though was on the list last year, and one that just always works. A good party game should always work, and it should be simple to sit down and start playing within a couple of minutes.

In Blank Slate you are filling in a blank around another word. It might be “truck [blank]” and you need to fill in that second word. Your goal is to match with one other person. Because, if you watch with one other person only, you get three points each, but if you match with more, each of you get one point. And if you don’t match with anyone, you don’t get any points. And that is the game, it’s the first to twenty I believe, and it moves fast.

So it is about being creative but not too creative. I like party games like that because, like I said, anyone can play them. And Blank Slate might not have as many “haha” moments, but it has some fun game moments that party games which are just there for laughs often don’t have.

Buy Blank Slate

67. The Quacks of Quedlinburg

Now we’re on to The Quacks of Quedlinburg, a push your luck bag building game. And this is one that has a number of things going for it as well. It’s not a party game, but it’s pretty simple. With it being pretty simple, brew your quack potion each round and try not to bust, there is strategy to it. Each ingredient that you get has a power to it that may or may not trigger depending on its condition.

So, the powers are one fun element. I also like that Quacks of Quedlinburg adds in more to the game to balance that push your luck. If you bust, you aren’t out in the cold with nothing to show for it. You get to pick either purchasing new ingredients or scoring points. New ingredients means that it’s harder to bust, theoretically, depends on how much you push your luck. But you get behind in points you need to catch up.

And I didn’t mention this on the video, but there is a catch-up mechanism in the game. The further you are behind the leader the more of a boost you get to start the next round of brewing your potion. It isn’t a massive catch-up mechanism, but it helps you get back into the game, and when you do, it goes away. A nice little piece to the game to make it more fun.

Buy Quacks of Quedlinburg

66. Pandemic Legacy Season One (and all Version)

Now the first game that is just a group of games, this is Pandemic. I put Pandemic Legacy Season One up as the picture because that’s been my favorite experience. If you’re not familiar with Pandemic, it’s a game about trying to control diseases until you can find a cure. If you can get the cure for all four diseases the players win, run out of cards, have too many epidemics, or run out of disease cubes, you lose.

The legacy version adds in some story and a campaign that you play through. That story adds just a enough new things from new objectives to new rules and components to make it a really fun time. Though, I don’t know that you can really go wrong with any version of Pandemic. The base game is a lot of fun as well, for me, I don’t know that I need to play vanilla Pandemic again because of Pandemic Legacy. And Pandemic Legacy, the story, is replayable with a new copy and as fun the next time.

Plus now they have World of Warcraft game in the system and a Star Wars version, so if they keep on doing that, soon there will be a version of Pandemic for everyone.

Buy Pandemic Legacy Season One

65. Skytear Horde

This is the other game that I accidentally called a solo game. And I do think I would lean towards playing it solo. Skytear Horde is a tower defense, lane battler game where you are trying to take out the horde and their leader before they can wipe out your base.

I really like the different factions you can have to play as. I also like that the hordes come in different power levels so I might go for a harder challenge or a harder combination sometime. So the game really does scale to the level of difficulty that you want to play at. And it also means that it won’t get stale.

For me, I do think it’s a better solo game. I look at it, and I want to control what is going on. Because while it does scale, the game is not that difficult to learn your faction and play them. Even playing two isn’t the hardest thing out there. So I look at it, and I think, might as well just play it solo and have more of the decision making on my shoulders versus spread out across the group.

Buy Skytear Horde

64. Marvel United

Marvel United is a really fast and fun superhero game. And that combination is what puts it this high on the list. You can grab a character to play as and a bad guy to play against and be ready to play in a few minutes. There aren’t that many games that you can do that with. Add in that I have about 200 different characters, slightly over, between heroes, anti-heroes, and villains to pick from, that is even more impressive.

The game play is quite simple. You try and beat up thugs, take down henchmen or schemes, and rescue bystanders. When you complete two of those three things, you can start beating up the bad guy. Of course, who the bad guy is might change up what you need to do, and the heroes you take in change up what you can do.

I also like a lot how the heroes work. Not that the heroes are always that unique, they get more unique with the X-Men expansion, but how they promote teamwork. What you play down for your actions is boosted by what the player before you played down. So maybe they take a less optimal turn to set you up for a great turn of beating down on the bad guy. I think that works super well in the game and is a ton of fun. It also feels so much like being super heroes or the comics which is great.

Buy Marvel United X-Men

63. Lords of Hellas

From a very simple game to a complex one and honestly one that is a bit messy. But that is some of what makes Lords of Hellas so good. In Lords of Hellas you can win in four different ways (possibly five if I’m forgetting one). You can control a certain number of temples, areas, or a statue after it’s been built, or you can defeat three monsters. And all of them are viable ways to win. But because of that, it adds complexity to the game design.

Then, not shying away from that, Awaken Realms put in a pretty simple but action selection. Mainly, you can’t repeat actions and need to clear them off to be able to do them again. But to add to that, the character you start as, your leader, has a special power. As temples are built, drafts are done for new and more special powers. It’s just a lot of special powers and great time, but, obviously, that makes it more complex as you play. But that doesn’t keep the game from being a blast.

Sold Out

62. SpellBook

A new game to the list, we now are back to a much more simple game. This is a game about set collecting spell ingredients to learn spells and add them to your spellbook. Then you use those spells to improve your future turns and either get more materials to feed your familiar or learn more spells.

This game has a good progression and good decision space for a pretty simple game. How you learn spells and chain them together is an interesting puzzle. You can only learn each spell once and they have certain points on them. So do you wait for better points, or do you grab one or two early that will help you do better on spells later. And the game ends when someone has cast all their spells, or when someone has fully fed their familiar. And both options work to win, which I appreciate as well.

This is a game that won’t be for everyone. And I think if it just had one set of spell cards, it’d end up being pretty standard. But the different combinations offer room for expansion but also offer room in the base box for different games and different experiences as you play.

Buy SpellBook

61. Draftosaurus

Finally we have Draftosaurus. This is the closest to a roll and write game on the list. That is what it feels like to me. And it’s a light and fast game that is just a fun time. In this game you are drafting dinosaur meeples and putting them into pens to build the best dinosaur attraction out there. The game is super simple with pens having simple scoring rules. But that is what makes the game fun, grab your dinosaur and go.

And the pens are all different. So some of them you want to get all matching dinosaurs, some you want all different and some you want pairs. The not so twisty twist for the game is that you are limited to where you can place them. A die is rolled and what determines where, unless you were the person to roll the die and then you can play anywhere. It just adds a little bit of strategy and random structure to the game without slowing it down. So a light fun, filler of a game.

Buy Draftosaurus

Upcoming Streams

Let’s run through the stream structure like I normally do. You might already know the schedule but in case you don’t. Wednesday at 8 PM Central I stream either a campaign game, or with this time of year it’s my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. And join me next Wednesday for games 60 through 51, so hitting the half way point. It goes so fast, and now I have so many games that I want to play.

Then on Monday I stream at 9 PM Central time. It’s generally a solo game. Though I’ll also do pack openings for things, like I should have a Lord of the Rings Collectors box coming for the new cards. But normally it’s a solo game and a one off for the game like a roll and write, or sometimes a game like Under Falling Skies which was on the list today.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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Board Game Holiday List – Top 12 Group Games

12. Hues and Cues

Hues and Cues might be a little bit more group dependent than some of the other games. It’s about giving one and two word clues to guess a color. Let me start out by saying that this is not at all colorblind friendly, so that is some of the reason. The other is that coming up with a one or two word clue for a color can be hard at times.

But when it works, it’s a ton of fun. Because what does baby blue mean to you? That is a fun question to ask and answer. But it is also a fun game. The scoring is good for Hues and Cues as well. If you get it right, it’s 3 points and then around the spot 2, and around those 1. But as the clue giver, you score points for people being close, but only in those 3 and 2 point ranges. So it encourages everyone to try their best.

11. Cross Clues

Cross Clues is a very fun party game as well, less group dependent than Hues and Cues. In Cross Clues you have a grid, I generally play 5 by 5. The columns are letters and rows are numbers. And each column and row has a word assigned with it. You draw a coordinate, for example A2. If the ‘A’ word is “brick” and the ‘2’ word is “wolf”, you might give the clue “pig”. Then everyone else discusses where they think it might go. And your goal is to get as many right as possible. If they don’t, well, they don’t know what they missed.

What I like about Cross Clues is that it can make you think more than just what word works best. Because while “pig” might be a good clue for “brick” and “wolf” it might also work for another pair of words, and now which one do people guess. So there is an element of being clever in what you pick.

10. Medium

Medium I talked about already. You can see it on the Stocking Stuffer list, it and the next one Similo. Medium has some of the same things that Cross Clues does, trying to link two words. But instead of it being on a board and everyone guessing where, you and the person you are paired up with, you are trying to match the difference between your two words. So it might be “brick” and “wolf” still, and I might say “pig”, but I need to hope that the person I’m paired up with also says “pig”. If not we try again two more times, each time from the last words we said. Light and good for laughs.

9. Similo

Also on the stocking stuffer list, like I said. Similo is another small party game that you can play. In Similo one player is the clue giver trying to get the other players to eliminate cards based off of a card that is either similar or not to the chosen card.

It’s simple to play, but what makes it work is that I have a deck of historical figures, and I need to think, is John F. Kennedy more or less similar to Genghis Khan? But then you can also mix sets together. So now is John F. Kennedy more or less similar to a ghoul? And they have a ton of decks from historical and mythological figures to spooky monsters, woodland creatures, or Harry Potter.

8. So Clover

So Clover, continuing the list of party games, really, but there is what I’d consider a non-party game or two on the list as well. Like other games So Clover is a clever game of trying to find the connection between words again. So like a Cross Clues or Medium that way. But instead of just doing it once, you are doing it four times.

You have a four leaf clover which holds 4 cards in a square. And on each leaf you need to write down a clue for the two words that are facing that side. So back to the example, “brick” and “wolf” for “pig”. And you do that on all four sides. Then you add in a fifth card and everyone tries to put back together how your cards were on your clover. It’s a ton of fun and a good cooperative game.

7. Blank Slate

It’s word matching again, but different this time. Instead of coming up with a connection between two words, Blank Slate has you filling in the blank. So it might be ________ “cream”. You need to fill that in. And you want to match with others. Because if you match with two or more people, you all get one point. But, you really want to match with just one person, because then you get three points.

So in the example, “ice” might be the most obvious word. But “heavy” or “whipping” or “whipped” all could match with someone. Or “moisturizing” or a lot of different options. So what is most likely to get you points, but also isn’t going to match everyone. A good fast game that is just fun to sit down and play.

6. Scattergories

To flip the script we go with a classic game of Scattergories. Scattergories you don’t want to match with other people. If you can avoid it, well, then you get points for your word. If you can’t, you both cross it out.

In Scattergories you get a list and a letter. Then in a time limit, everyone writes down answers for the list, starting with that letter. You want to be unique so you don’t match other people. But sometimes, being too unique, well, if someone thought the same way you did it, you cross it out. Or, maybe you can’t think of anything unique. But if no one else puts down “grape” for a “fruit” that starts with ‘G’. You get the points. Or if only one other person did, you block them from getting points.

5. Wits & Wagers

Wits & Wagers, not as old as Scattergories is another is another classic party game. And it’s a trivia game that works because it isn’t about how knows the most. All of the trivia questions in Wits & Wagers are number based. So everyone writes down a guess and the “winner” is the closest without going over, like The Price is Right.

However that is just trivia where someone knows the most. Wits & Wagers fixes that issue by then letting people bet on what they think the right answer is. So if you know more about cars than I do, say the question was what year was the first Model T produced, I might bet with your answer if I have no clue. So it’s about knowing the people you play with as well as knowing the answer.

4. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Now for a non-party game one, Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. Now this sounds like a big game, and it’s not, it’s again pretty simple to play. But it’s a game of hidden roles and a murderer. The goal is to figure out the weapon and clue from the murder to know who the murderer is. But as detectives, we know it’s one of us, and we only get clues from the forensic scientist who is sending up reports, which may or may not be useful.

I don’t like social deduction games, and Deception: Murder in Hong Kong has that element in the game. I don’t like them because often you are just guessing about what is happening, especially early in the game. But with Deception, you start talking you have information from the forensic scientist. So it blends in some deduction to go along with that social element of trying to point people away from you if you’re the killer or even if you’re not because you know it’s not you, but do others believe you?

3. Codenames Pictures

Back to more of a party game and this one I know a ton of people love it already, so someone might have it to bring to the holidays. Or one of the many versions of Codenames. Codenames or any of the versions, are a game where you have two teams trying to guess all their cards before the other team can. And this is done by a clue giver giving a clue and a number. It might be “Taco 2”, there are two words that pertain to tacos that you need to guess. The first to get all of theirs wins.

Now, I put down Codenames Pictures because that is the version that I prefer. The original version is just words on the cards. And sometimes you can combo words together but often times, you’re down to basically doing “synonym one”. And that isn’t that exciting.

Pictures gives you more chances to be clever, because the pictures are generally two things. It might be a cat shaped like a donut in one picture. A building with a fish coming out of the chimney in another. I like that better because it’s more chance to give clever clues and to make a light game that you’ll likely want to play again go faster.

2. Just One

We now have another game that kind of blends some of the other party games together. Just One is a guessing the word game where one person is it, and they get a word. But they don’t know what the word is. Instead, everyone else writes down one word clues and then the guesser needs to guess their word off of that.

Now that isn’t too difficult, but if I overlap my word with someone else, both of those are cancelled out. And we hide them and the guesser can’t see them. So now maybe a clue that would have made it really obvious has been cancelled out.

For example, in a game I played, the word was Karate. I wrote down “style” and my wife wrote down “discipline”. So far so good. The other two people wrote down “kid”. Those two clues cancelled out and the poor guesser had to guess “karate” from just style and discipline. Or the word was “Cookie” and two of us put down “Snickerdoodle”. So you can end up with situations where you can get it from a great clue, or where you’ve lost too many. It does that balance of wanting to go obscure but not too obscure.

1. Sushi Go Party

And finally we have Sushi Go Party. You could put in Seven Wonders as well where. Both are drafting games that play a pretty high number of players. But I prefer Sushi Go Party because for me the theme is more fun.

In Sushi Go Party you are drafting cards to create the best meal you can. Really, you are doing so to score as many points as you can. And you do that over three hands. Each type of card scores in a different way. So some cards just score a set number of points. Others, if you have more of them, they score more points. And some you want to have two, exactly two, or they are worth less points.

And Sushi Go Party offers a good amount of variety to the game. While you have one type that you need to keep in the game. You can swap around the rest to make it higher scoring, lower scoring, meaner, or however you want it to be. Or just so that you can swap stuff out again and play with a whole new set of scoring objectives.

Final Thoughts on Group Games

There are a lot of them out there, and a lot of not so great ones out there. Or a lot that just go for a different audience than works for me. Social Deduction games, for example, play well with a high player count. But I don’t like social deduction games, nor does my wife, so I don’t have them in my collection or on the list. But they might work for you.

And there are a ton of party games out there that I didn’t mention. I didn’t put down games like Apples to Apples or Cards Against Humanity, but there are a plethora of games like those two. And while I did pull in two from the stocking stuffer list, I didn’t from the roll and write list. And a lot of those games can play higher player counts as well, like Welcome To… , Trek 12, and more.

So what are the games that you bring to play when you get together with family or friends around the holidays?

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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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This year we are digging deeper, or being a bit more thematic, depending on how you look at it, but what are the Top 12, you know 12 days of Christmas, for each category. I’m going to get through them all quickly over the next two weeks, so join with me on making your list and checking it twice.

Board Game Holiday List – Top 12 Stocking Stuffers

List is in no particular order.

12. Orchard

Orchard is the only solo only game on the list and a fun one. The game is pretty simple, you are taking two cards and stacking them onto an existing card. Where you cover up a card, matching fruit trees, you place a die. And the more layers you can get, the higher that die value goes. But because you are getting random cards, it makes it tricky to layer them too deep. Can you create patterns that are easy enough to build on. Because you can “cheat” twice, but that blocks off those non-matching spots from being built on.

Orchard is a great little solo game. And it does two things that I like. Firstly, it does make you think, because you want to figure out good ways to stack the cards and cover up parts of the other ones. But at the same time, you are limited in options, so you can’t over think it too much. And it is a fast game. You play out nine cards total, so you can sit down and play a number of times in a single sitting.

11. No Thanks

No Thanks is more of a classic game in terms of how long it’s been around. But it’s one that holds up really well. It is a push your luck game of trying to get cards with the fewest points possible on them. You have chips which you can use to say “No Thanks” to a card, so a 22 is flipped you pass on it, but then everyone else does too, and you keep on putting chips on it until someone takes it.

Why would you take it, a few reasons. You might be getting low on chips. All the chips on it come to you so that means you can pass on higher numbers. Or because there are enough chips on it, because chips are worth -1 points to your total at the end of the game. If there are 11 chips on it, now that 22 is only worth 11 points, when you take it. Also, it might be part of a run. If you have the 20, 21, and 22, you only score the first number of a run. So getting the 22 doesn’t change the fact you’re scoring 20 points, plus you got some chips.

It’s a light game, but really fun to play. And it is an easy one to pick up as well, which I really enjoy. Of course, it also comes in a really small box, just some chips and cards, so easily fits into a stocking.

10. The Crew: Deep Sea Adventures

The Crew, either version, is a great option, as it and the next one are both cooperative trick taking games. This works best if you are playing with more than two, the one is a two player game only. But The Crew: Deep Sea Adventures, is going to give you a series of challenges. It starts out easy and then builds up over time as you level up doing better, the challenges become harder.

The first game you might have something like, the person who takes the challenge needs to win the green four. That is pretty easy, but requires some thinking. It becomes trickier a few challenges down the road when a person needs to win the green four. Another person can’t win any pink tricks, and maybe a third person can’t win the first two tricks. How do you figure all of that out at once with limited to no communication.

9. Fox in the Forest Duet

The Fox in the Forest Duet is also trick taking, but for two players. Limited communication, you are trying to move a fox around a board and pounce on leaves. How far the fox moves is based on the difference in fox paws of the winning card to the losing card of the trick. And the fox always moves towards the winner. If you can collect all the leaves in three hands, you win the game.

Again, this works because of limited communication. It also works because if you go off the board, you block off a space on the board. Now you are even more limited in where you can move. So any mistake might push you off the board again, and too many times you lose. But until then the board becomes even tighter. That might seem very challenging, but you also can manipulate the trump suit and other aspects of the game with powers on the cards. So can you get that balance right?

8. Similo

Similo is one of two party games that work well as a stocking stuffer. In Similo one person is a clue giver to get you to narrow in on their card and eliminate the ones that aren’t their cards. But it’s not as easy as you think. If you get one pack, say historical figures, you are using other historical figures to say if your card is or isn’t like other historical figures.

And the first round isn’t too bad. The other players just need to pick a game to eliminate. But the next round it’s two, then three, and finally four. And by the time you eliminate four that is going to only leave two options. And the clue giver can just play down a card to say if their card is or isn’t like that figure. It can get even more challenging. Maybe you have historical figures out on the table, but now you give clues with animal cards. Is or isn’t Bonaparte like a bear?

7. Floriferous

Floriferous is one of a few very pretty games on the list. This is a drafting game and a bit bigger because of how it works. Now, don’t worry, it’ll fit in a stocking just fine, but in terms of what you are doing, you’ll need to think more. The game is set-up in columns and players are drafting a card from a column at a time. That might be a flower card, or it might be a scoring card. Say, a card that says I get 1 point per daisy at the end of the game. Each time you take a scoring card you pass on a flower, and vice versa.

Plus, there is one really cool mechanic in the game. The drafting isn’t too different from something like Point Salad, just missed the list, but as you draft you place your color on the column where you took the card. The higher on the column, the sooner you’ll be drafting next round. So maybe you take a flower that is just okay for you because the next scoring card is perfect for you. Or do you hope that you can draft it later? The game can be a bit mean, but mainly it’s pretty.

6. Arboretum

Arboretum on the other hand is a very mean game. You are picking up cards and then building out numerical rows of trees. It really only matters that you start with a low number of a tree type and end with a high number of that tree type. As long as the number in between count up, you are going to be doing great. But, of course there is a twist.

To score a type of tree you need to have the highest point value of that tree remaining in your hand at the end of the game. If you don’t, well, then you don’t score any points. So you have to hold onto cards, which means that you might not get as many points but you do that to guarantee that you can get any points. That is where the game is mean, you might have a great collection of trees of one type, but if I have the most at the end of a game, you can’t score it.

5. Medium

The other party game on the list, Medium is in the biggest box out of all of these games, or at least the squarest box. In Medium you try and get the most points by matching words with the other players, on your round. But it’s not as easy as guessing what word they’d write down to a question. Now, instead you both play out a word, well, let’s give an example.

If I play out the word “stick” and you put out the word “wind”, we need to come up with a word, and the same word that links those two together. I might say “kite” if you say “kite” we both get a point tile from the highest point section. If I instead say “rustle” and you say “kite” now we try again with the new words. It’s a great party game that leads to a lot of laughs.

4. Ohanami

Ohanami is another drafting game on the list, but this one is more simple than something like Floriferous. In that one you think about how or when you are going to draft next round and when to draft scoring. Here you are just drafting two cards at a time to put them in columns in numerical order. You can only ever add to the top or bottom of a column though.

There are two areas that this game offers some really interesting fun. The first being the scoring. In the first round only blue scores and only a few points. But any blue you get scores each round those few points. Green scores more but only the second and third round. And grey only the last round. And finally pink only scores the last round, but the more you have the higher that they score.

The other area is when you “flip” columns. Now you don’t flip over the cards, but you want to keep numbers close together. But as one columns low gets closer to to another columns high when do you make the jump so that instead of going up 40, 42, 43, do you jump it up to 52 or even 62 going past a 60 in another column so you can optimize your points. Wait too long, you will score lower, do it too soon, you might lock yourself out of being able to play certain numbers.

3. Hero Realms

Hero Realms is another bigger game on the list, only in the number of cards that the game has. Size wise, it’ll easily fit into a stocking. Hero Realms is a deck building game and a head to head fighting game. You buy cards to either get money to buy more cards or to deal more damage to your opponent. Your goal, get them to zero health.

One thing I really like about Hero Realms is how quickly it ramps. You can play a strategy where you gain a lot of life to keep from dying, but you don’t take long to buy powerful cards. So even with health starting at 50 or 60, you can deal out 10-15 damage by turn five. And when you can deal 20% of someone’s life total in a turn, you need to build up fast.

It doesn’t do a ton unique. If you can combo factions you can get more money or damage. We see that in a lot of deck building games. But for a small one and a good two player one. Hero Realms is tough to beat. And I haven’t played Star Reams to compare.

2. Silver

Silver I think makes the list fairly often. This is a bluffing game, kind of, mainly it’s a hard to explain game. In Silver you have a village of cards in front of you. You know what two of them are to start the game. And you need to manipulate them to get as few points as possible in your village.

The fun bit comes from each card having it’s own power. It might be allowing you to peak at another card. Or it might be giving your opponent a higher value card into their village. The whole thing is that tricky puzzle to figure out. And the round doesn’t end until both 0 cards are face up in a village or someone calls for a vote.

To call for a vote you need to have less than your five cards in your village and the only way to get rid of a card from your village is to trade two of the same number. So there is some sneaky strategy with that as you might trade out two lower numbers for a slightly higher number if you can then trade out even more next turn. How you do that with all the cards is a lot of fun.

1. Age of War

Finally we have Age of War. This one is a die rolling game that has been out for a while. But it’s a good little game of set collection, push your luck and trying to get as many points as you can. In Age of War you roll dice to get symbols that match those on different castles. If you match all of the castle that you are going for, then you get to take it. However, even when you take it someone can steal it from you, it is just a bit harder.

But if you get all of a type of castle though, red, green, etc. you flip them over. That makes them worth slightly more points. But the big thing, is once they are flipped, they can’t be stolen. So that means that you end up with direction as to what you want to do in a good way. And it also means that you might really want to “fight” someone else on your turn to get their castle that’d complete your collection, of course they might do the same to you.

Happy Holidays

Hopefully this list gives you some ideas. There are a ton of good small box games out there that work wonderfully for stocking stuffers. I could have picked probably 12 roll and write games which is why I haven’t done that. Since I can pick 12, well that is going to be the next list that I create. A lot of those will work on both lists but it’s fun to split them up.

Let me know what sort of game lists you want to see covered. And my goal is to do a good 8-10 of them so you have a ton of options, probably around 100, for different games. But depending on who you are buying for, or asking for a gift from, you’ll be able to find a list that works for that.

Happy Holidays!

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100 through 91 here.

90 through 81 here.

80 through 71 here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 70-61

70 – Just One

Just One is the first of the party games in this section. This game works well because it is a cooperative party game. And it follows one of my keys for a solid party game, it needs to give players the ability to make choices. Not like something like Cards Against Humanity, where you don’t need to be creative. Here you are trying to give clues but each player only is allowed one word. If you match with another player, both your clues cancel out. So you don’t want to get too obvious, but also a too obscure clue might point them in the wrong direction.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

69 – Cross Clues

Cross Clues is another party game. Again a cooperative game, but this time, you want to give a clue that lets other players figure out the combination of two words. You get a grid of 5×5 (or 3×3) where each row and column has a letter or number assigned. So you might get A3, and if A’s word is wood and 3’s word is flying, you might give the clue kite. But kite might work for something else, say tail and wind. So now you need to figure out if your clue is good or not. It’s a simple, but fun game.

Buy on Miniature Market

68 – Marvel United

Yet another cooperative game, Marvel United is not a party game. Marvel United is a Marvel comics and superhero game where you play as heroes to defeat a villain. The game play is pretty simple, you need to complete two objectives before you can take down a villain. All the while the villain is trying to get you out by causing you to expend cards and lose the game. What works in this game is that you play down a card you give symbols to help the next player. And you also get symbols, punch, move, or heroic action, to aid in what you are doing. It gives that superhero team up feel in a simple game.

Buy on Game Nerdz.

67 – The Reckoners

Apparently this section also has a lot of cooperative games. The Reckoners is another cooperative game and another game with super powers. But the super powered people aren’t the good guys in this, they are known as Epics and bad. You play as a team, the Reckoners trying to take them down and eventually take down the big bad Steelslayer. I like that there is no downtime in this game. Everyone rolls dice at once and discusses as they build up their pool. Then everyone plays out their actions at once. It’s a nice game because of that and being a harder cooperative game.

Buy from Nauvoo Games.

66 – Blank Slate

Blank Slate, we’re back to party games. Blank Slate is not the newest (or highest) party game on the list, but it is new to me this year. In this game you are trying to fill in a word and match with other people. The twist comes that you don’t want to match with too many people. If you match your word with one other person, it is three points, if you match with more than that, it is one point. And all you are doing is a fill in a blank like “Truck______”. You come up with the second half, it’s simple and a lot of fun.

Buy on Miniature Market

65 – Clever Cubed

Clever Cubed is a roll and write game from the Clever line of games, which there are four of now. Clever Cubed is the one that I think gives you the most combos. I like it a lot because it’s fun to get a ton of combos and a lot of points in the game. If there was a knock, it could be that it takes away some strategy. But I do think there are some real things you need to think about as you play. And it does have a lot of combos which I really like.

Buy on Amazon (Note German Edition)

64 – Five Tribes

Five Tribes, maybe my highest of the classic Days of Wonder games, I’m not sure if i have any above it. But Five Tribes is a great game with mancala style movement of meeples. By that I mean you pick up all of them from one spot and drop them off one at a time. I talk about it with Fruit Picking as well.

What makes Five Tribes so interesting, though, is the bidding for turn order. Mainly because money at the end of the game is points. So you are losing points to go sooner. Do you have a spot that for sure is going to get you more points back? Or maybe you need to block your opponent from getting a lot of points.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc.

63 – That’s Pretty Clever!

That’s Pretty Clever is the first of the Clever games and so far my favorite. I need to get and play the fourth more. I have played it on the app. But That’s Pretty Clever I always enjoy because it is a bit simpler. But also because I kind of know how I want to take on the puzzle of the game. I think that’s my issue with Twice as Clever, I haven’t quite gotten clever enough to figure out my strategy, or it seems to score lower. Here I know what combos I want to create, can I do it in a way that will give me the most points is the question.

Not Available

62 – Medium

The final party game for this section of the list. Medium follows a common trend. You want to match words with the person you are paired up with. But with Medium, you do that by each playing down a word. Then you try and come up with a word between. So it might be Mouse and Quesadilla and you need to both land on the same word. You probably could in that time with the word Cheese. But if you miss, you now use your new words and try again. It’s a lot of fun, and leads to a surprising number of laughs.

Buy on Amazon

61 – Century: Golem Edition

To wrap out this section we have Century: Golem Edition. I do think I’d enjoy Spice Road version, but the Golem Edition is just cuter. So that is the one that I want to play. This is an engine building and hand management game. I like how simple the game is, you either play down a card which will get or manipulate the games you have, pick up all your played cards, grab a card to be played, or get a golem. And no action is going to take too long. It’s a very fast moving game with an opportunity to create a really fun engine in your hand.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

Upcoming Streams

Next Monday is the continuation of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2022 Edition. I am going to be going through games 60 through 51, getting to that mid point of the list. Here is a link to the upcoming video. If you want to catch it live, click that notification bell.

And coming up next Wednesday, I don’t know what I’ll be streaming. I think I have two different options, firstly, Chronicles of Drunagor is sitting on the shelf waiting to be unboxed and played. I could dive into a game of that, or do some smaller solo games. For those I have games like Set a Watch, Black Sonata, and Final Girl that I could get to the table as well.

Let me know what you want me to stream next? I am leaning towards Chronicles of Drunagor, if I have time to learn the rules but if not, what small solo game would you want to see?

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