Ranking My Fantasy Games

46: The Red Dragon Inn

This should be a game that I like more than I do, it’s basically a hand management game around drinking in a bar after you’ve been out adventuring and gambling to win money and getting in fights. And I suspect I do I like this game more than I think. I just don’t like it at high player counts. Most of the time when I play The Red Dragon Inn it is over the recommended player count, to me this is a 4 player game only. I don’t want fewer, I don’t want more. At four, it’d feel like good silly fun and not a slog.

45: God of War: The Card Game

God of War is another theme in a game that I should love, but the game around it wasn’t that great. The deck building was interesting in the game. But the card play and the monsters that you fight, those aren’t all that interesting. It feels like the game was meant for mass market without hitting mass market. Or it’s a weird area in between mass market and hobby.

44: Kodama: The Tree Spirits

This is one that barely falls into the fantasy area. Yes, it does have the tree spirits, but that’s barely part of the game. It’s more about building out trees trying to create runs of the different things that you want. In concept it’s not that bad, and in game play it is okay. Kodoma is one of those games where I think a lot of people will enjoy it, and it’s not a bad game, but it won’t be many people’s favorite game.

43: Stuffed Fables

This is a game, in Stuffed Fables, I should maybe have given more tries. The theme of a being stuffed animals and toys of a kid trying to get their blanket back that was stolen, super cute. And the game was cute when I played it, but also more complex than it should be. I get what Plaid Hat Games is doing with their adventure book games, but with changing rules it just made it more complex than I wanted.

42: SeaFall

SeaFall, people would probably put that to the bottom of their lists because it is not a good legacy game. Though, legacy games, to me, have higher standards than most other games. If I am only going to get a limited use out of it, it needs to be epic. I liked the mechanics pretty well though they needed to be less punishing. But the story was a bit too scattered, though, with some tweaking, could be made better.

41: Near and Far

Well, I just wrapped up Sleeping Gods, that isn’t on the list yet, so I like it better. For me, Near and Far is a cool concept, a cool world, and just falls flat. The game has story, and even vignettes of story like Sleeping Gods, but it’s more mechanics than anything. And I think since it’s competitive the game couldn’t get away from the mechanics as much as how you score points.

40: Legacy of Dragonholt

Legacy of Dragonholt is another one of those games that isn’t bad, but could have been better. The system for an RPG/Choose Your Own Adventure game is fun. The story is okay, and that’s what kept me from diving back into it. It wasn’t that the concept of the story wasn’t good, but the execution of it felt too YA (young adult) and not a well written YA story, but one that got published because other YA books similar were well done and popular. I’d love to see Fantasy Flight come back to this system, keep some of the ideas and just improve the writing.

39: Fae

Fae is a fantasy game in cover art only. It is really an abstract game where you are a fae creature who is then hidden from everyone else and you try and score the most points. The game is good, and I like the challenge of trying to score points but not make it too obvious so that people tank your fae’s scoring. A clever idea and very abstract.

38: Legends of Andor

Another game that was in my collection and then left. And another one that is fun, it is an efficiency puzzle of how you get through the story as effectively as possible so you don’t trigger end game too early. My issue with it is only a me issue, I have too many campaign games. I let it go when I realized I would only ever play the starting scenario at least for right now. When I have capacity for that campaign, then I might get it back.

37: Sword & Sorcery

Sword & Sorcery left my collection, but that’s because I did play through the campaign. It is a fun campaign but one that I knew I wouldn’t revisit. The depth of game play is fun for a lighter dice chucking game. And the story is also light, well, in terms of the decisions that you make. I wish the story branched more, and that your powers would change up more, because once you found a few good things, you just did those.

36: Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients

Shadows of Brimstone is one that hasn’t left my collection as a campaign game, but maybe should. The only issue is that I need to glue the figures back together. My first gluing didn’t stick as well as it should have, because I didn’t use the right glue. But also, it’s a theme that I don’t have games for, the weird west. So monsters and other worlds all messing with the old west. I love that theme and there aren’t many games or good books that I’ve found with it.

35: Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

Another campaign game, and another one that left my collection just because I wasn’t going to get to it anytime soon. But it’s Lord of the Rings, and app assisted from Fantasy Flight Games. The story was fun that I did play through. The writing was well done, which I appreciated, and you can see is something that’s important to me. Definitely a good one for Lord of the Ring fans, which I am.

34: Krosmaster: Arena

This is a skirmish game with fantasy characters casting spells, summoning monsters, and hacking and slashing away. I like that you pick and build the teams that you play with. I like the dice rolling and how you can play with secondary objectives so it’s not just knock out your opponent. But you can play just with knocking people out as well. Krosmaster is one I would keep but I didn’t have people to play it with, and now I have another skirmish game or two that I put over it.

33: Too Many Bones

This one will probably move up the list when my Gamefound comes in for the latest expansions. Not that I own any other Too Many Bones, but that might start me getting more. This is kind of a short campaign game where you fight some battles and then fight against a boss. But where the game really shines is how you build up your characters. Each of them do different things, and how you level them up gives you room to explore a character multiple times. Plus it’s a different fantasy world than anything else out there.

32: Lord of the Rings: Journey To Mordor

This is a roll and write game, but it is a fun little one. Not one that I own or one that I’d go and seek out to add to my roll and write collection. But Journey to Mordor basically has you advancing your Hobbit on their journey to Mordor while trying not to let the Nazgul get you. Very simple roll and write but it has a little more player interaction, so it feels different than some.

31: The Hobbit

Speaking of Hobbits, we have The Hobbit. This is a competitive game about dwarves trying to get treasure, which is kind of what the book is as well. I like the mechanics where you are leveling up skills based off of cards you play. But you want to balance it so everyone levels up because you can’t defeat the monsters all by yourself. So it’s semi-cooperative, but not in a way that someone is working against the group, it’s just that sometimes you let another person get the better thing.

30: Deadly Doodles

Another roll and write game, and this one I think has dropped a little on my list. It’s a good simple roll and write where you are trying to get treasures, find weapons and defeat monsters. And what you do gives you points. There are some different dungeons which add in more things to do as well, which I need to play around with.

29: The Lord of the Rings

And even more Lord of the Rings, this is the classic Fantasy Flight Game. I like how it plays through the books. And you play as the Hobbits taking the ring to Mordor. It is fairly abstracted, but the locations you go and the scenes you play through are all very Lord of the Rings, so it feels more thematic than just with what you are doing. Plus it’s a really tough cooperative game and I like those.

28: Titan Race

Normally I don’t love games that have a lot of in your face, try and mess the other person over, but Titan Race is a lot of fun. This is a fast game and a silly game with great fantasy in it. Titan Race is very silly and I like how the tracks work. You can either do a race where you loop over the same board over and over again, or you can do a grand prix and go over three boards and each board does different things. And those things make the game even sillier.

27: Claim

Claim is a two player trick taking game which is odd. Plus the first hand you play doesn’t actually give you a score, it is how you build your hand for trick taking. It’s such a clever idea and I like that it plays really fast. The fantasy theme comes in that the different suits are fantasy races. And each of those fantasy races has it’s own powers, or they might. Some of them there are just more of, whereas others have powers. A knight always beats a goblin, for example. So it puts even more of a twist on trick taking in a way I really enjoy.

26: Paper Dungeons: A Dungeon Scrawler

I don’t know where this one will end up, so middle of the list is good for right now. I don’t know where it’s going to end up because I’ve only played this roll and write game once. And I liked it a lot, it’s a dungeon crawler as a roll and write. But as compared to Deadly Doodles where you go into a dungeon and cross over stuff, you do a lot more in this game. You level up your heroes, you have powers and abilities, you craft items and brew potions. And the better you do in other things, better you can explore. A lot going on, but not too hard.

25: Skulk Hollow

Skulk Hollow is a game of woodland creatures, the Foxen, fighting against a Guardian. It’s a two player only game and one that is very asymmetrical. As the guardian my goal might change from game to game, depending on which guardian I am. And the Foxen, well they always want to beat down the Guardian. And the Foxen can change up depending on who their leader is. Really cute game and fast to learn and play.

24: Silver

I think I say this every time I talk about Silver, but it reminds me of a game I played growing up with a deck of cards. In Silver you have a village in front of you and you want the lowest score possible. You know what two of the cards are in your village. You don’t know the other three. So now you swap cards out or play them for powers to get rid of cards in your village and lower your score. It’s simple, it’s fun, there’s a lot of take that, yet it feels nostalgic in a good way.

23: Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure

Clank is a fun push your luck, deck building, dungeon delving game. You want to get the best treasure that you can, but as you get cards, make noise, and well, annoy the dragon because it’s their horde, now the dragon starts damaging you. So you could jump in, grab the first thing you see and run, but if someone else can make it out, now they have more points and better treasure than you. Really fun game and easy enough to play for most people.

22: Deranged

Deranged might fall more into a horror game. But there is a magical gate and fantastical monsters who are out to get you. And you yourself can become one of those fantastical monsters if you don’t deal with your curses and get out in time, why, because you might become Deranged. The game has a lot going on, but I like the dual use cards and the theme of the game. A little horror I’m most certainly interested.

21: Village Attacks

Village Attacks is another darker themed game because you for sure are the monsters. And after a long day of terrifying villagers, you are ready to settle down. But nope, here some villagers to break down your door because clearly you’re the monsters, not the people trying to trash your place. That sounds light, and I find it silly, but it is themed dark. Still a very nice tower defense type of game.

20: The Grimm Masquerade

Themed with Grimm Fairy Tales, The Grimm Masquerade is a deduction game. You are each a masked party goer, one of the Grimm characters. You are of course looking for something, a glass slipper for Cinderella, but also have something you don’t want. Can you get what you need or make everyone else bust before they figure out who you are?

19: Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

Another deck building game, Ascension is fantasy themed. Really, like most pure deck building games, it’s about building up an engine that gives you points. I just like this fantasy theme and variability of it better than something like Dominion. But that’s not what we’re talking about. This lets you get heroes and casters and sages and constructions to fight monsters, get more income and buy more cards. I like that it offers a ton of different strategy for the game.

18: Res Arcana

Res Arcana is another in theme only fantasy games. You are basically building out an engine to get points and who can do it better to get points faster. I like it though with the theme of brewing potions and dragons and places of power. It makes it feel different, and I also like that you only have 8 cards to make your engine with.

17: The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

The Dresden Files are my favorite fantasy series. I love the world that Jim Butcher has created. The game, it does a good job of giving you the pieces of that world. But you need to know the world to connect them together. So it’s not the best fantasy game or story game for everyone, but if you know the series, it’s a lot of fun to play.

16: Small World

Small World is Risk with fantasy creatures, crazy powers, and well, a whole lot more fun. What really works is that this is a small board. The game is in your face, but it’s in everyone’s face. The option of hiding away in Australia is gone that you’d have in Risk. Plus, you get crazy combos. Flying Halflings, Seafaring Giants, Wealthy Trolls, all of them are possible. Really accessible game too for most new gamers.

15: The Lost Expedition

This one is on the list because of the expansions and promo cards. I don’t think in the base game there is anything too fantastical, but werewolves, fountain of youth, yeah, those are fantasy. This is all about surviving to get to the lost city of Z. The game is a really good cooperative one that if you have someone who is a alpha player, it keeps them from being too much of one.

14: Century: Golem Edition

This is another one where the theme is fantasy, but game play doesn’t really shine through on that. Still, the artwork and gem pieces are great, and I wouldn’t want a different theme. It’s a hand management game where you are building up cards in your hand to use them to turn gems into other gems until you get the right combinations to get golems. And the golems at the end of the game give you points. What is so amazing about this game is that turns are super fast, so while there are good decisions to be made, it doesn’t take long to get back to your turn.

13: Potion Explosion

We’ve all probably seen the app games where you get like colors to touch and that removes them from the board and if more hit, those are removed as well. That is what Potion Explosion is. You are making crazy potions by pulling dice and trying to get the like colors to hit. Light game with a great table presence.

12: Root

Root was one where I was thinking, is this actually fantasy. Well, let’s see, it’s animals fighting and building, so yes, that seems like fantasy. But really, it’s a confrontational game where you fight it out with your group trying to get points to win the game with everyone trying to keep everyone else in check. Great asymmetrical game, just know it’ll take some time to teach. And don’t let the artwork fool you, this is not a nice sweet happy game.

11: Roll Player

Roll Player is a game about making your Dungeons and Dragons (or Generic RPG) character. You draft dice to put them into various stats for your class. It’s a lot of fun as you try and match up colors and get the numbers right to score more points. Plus you buy up gear and abilities which can influence your stats or points as well. And that’s the game, it’s about building up your character.

10: Spire’s End

Spire’s End, coming soon to Malts and Meeples is a story adventure game. In Spire’s End you wake up to find a spire has appeared at the edge of your town and many people are missing. You and others go into the tower, fight monsters, make choices, and generally go on a weird and dark adventure. Really like this one as a solo game.

9: Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl, it’s in the name that it’s fantasy. Super Fantasy Brawl is a two player skirmish game where you are trying to complete objectives in an arena and knock out your opponents. Complete objectives, get trophies. Knock out your opponent, get trophies. The first to five wins. What I really like is the turn speed, you play up to three cards, one of each color and do what it says on the cards. And the cards you play determine who moves. Light game but very tactical in how you play.

8: Cartographers

The second game I have in the Roll Player world, won’t be the last. But Cartographers is a roll and write game where you are making a map of the land. And you get points for making it in certain ways. Forests surrounding mountains might give you a point or two, things like that. What makes it fantastical is that you put monsters on the map as well. And you don’t put your own down, you put them on your opponents board in the worst spot for them to make them score negative points.

7: Sleeping Gods

Sleeping Gods, well, you can watch me play this one I just wrapped it up over on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is a big adventure game where you, as the crew of the Manticore are transported to a new world. You want to get home, but in order to do that you must awaken the sleeping gods and all you know is that totems might help with that, not where to find them. So it’s really a sandbox game of exploring, finding quests, fighting monsters and more.

6: Roll Player Adventures

Roll Player Adventures, the final Roll Player world game, this is an adventure game set in the world of Roll Player, using mechanics or dice mechanics that feel like Roll Player, and it’s really good. I really like that Roll Player Adventures is an easy game to learn and a lighter game to play. A lot of the big adventure games can have a lot to keep track of and a lot of tokens. Roll Player Adventures has enough, but not too much. And the world you play in isn’t too dark.

5: Aeon’s End

Aeon’s End is another deck building game and the highest on the list. This is a cooperative game where you play as breach mages trying to fight off nemesis that come through. The game does two really interesting things for me. Firstly, you never shuffle your deck. So when you discard cards you can kind of put them in an order. And the other is that turn order is random. There is a deck, in a two player game, which has two activations for each character and two for the Nemesis. On a really bad draw you could go twice with each character and then two Nemesis turns, plus then shuffle that up again and two more Nemesis turns.

4: Lords of Hellas

Lords of Hellas is fantasy in the future, or mythology in the future. It’s a cyber world of Greek gods. An odd setting with some amazing miniatures and mechanical creatures. But a really good game with some rough edges and a lot of ways to win. To me that is one of the best parts of the game where you are able to win in a number of different ways. You might fight monsters or build and control a monument or take over areas, how you play is up to you and the powers you have.

3: Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail, if Roll Player is light fantasy or happy fantasy, Tainted Grail is very dark fantasy. The world of Avalon is falling apart, the Menhir that drove back the wyrdness are failing and you aren’t sent out to stop it. You are sent out to find out what happened to the people who are better equipped to do this than you. But the story in Tainted Grail is amazing and one that I highly recommend people track down, which can be hard. Also know that this is a survival game with a ton of story, if you want the story, play in storymode, I am.

2: Dice Throne

Odd one to put on the list but Dice Throne is very much fantasy. It is fantasy head to battling in almost a Mortal Kombat type setting but it is still fantasy. My Pyromancer is going to blast your Barbarian with fire or then there is a Seraph or a Treant or a Gunslinger, all sorts of things, and you can take any of them up against each other. I’m so excited, it isn’t that far out to when Marvel Dice Throne will be delivered, several months but not that far. And Marvel Dice Throne is compatible and can be played with everything else I already have.

1: Gloomhaven

Finally, my #1 game of all time, Gloomhaven, This is a massive fantasy game of dungeon crawling combat. It is amazing and what really makes it is the card play. You pick two cards to play, one will determine how fast you go. Then when you go you use the top of one card and the bottom of the others to move and attack, so you can set yourself up for some epic turns or make it flexible to cover a changing board state. And there are so many different characters that are interesting to play as.

Final Thoughts

I love fantasy as a theme. A lot of my favorite series are fantasy for books in particular. And for board games, there are a lot of games that use the fantasy theme. But when you get down to some of my favorite games of all time, the big fantasy games are hard to beat. I think that my Top 3 games are all fantasy games. And I even skipped some games, like stuff in the Lovecraftian Mythos because while they are fantasy, I feel they are more horror. Maybe I’ll do a horror game ranking soon.

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The Game – Sleeping Gods

Let’s talk about the ending. This is something I can’t talk too much about in a review, but if you’re reading this, I hope that you’ve watched the video. Because I am going to talk about how the ending system worked in here, and what my expectations were going into the ending.

So, the game end triggers when you’ve gone through the event deck three times. And from there, the game isn’t over completely, you still need to do things. And I suspect that there are other ways to trigger end game as well, I just haven’t found them yet. There was a final battle, and then decisions, I wasn’t expecting it to be as much as there was.

But was the ending satisfying? I did a lot of work in the game, sailed around a lot and figured out a way to get to and through a lot of story. And was that enough so that when I got a less than ideal ending, it was still interesting? I think that the ending made sense. It really built, in the ending, to the conclusion, and I want to find more endings to see what I can do better.

Now, the scoring, and I talk about this in the video, I got a 92, which seemed solid to me. But why does this game need a scoring system? My one knock on some of the other Red Raven Games, Near and Far in particular, is what there is story but it is too mechanical. Adding in points at the end, it makes it feel more mechanical again. I think an ending could just be an ending.

The Drink

So to wrap up the streaming I ended with some more Scotch. It’s a blended Scotch this time, Monkey Shoulders. The name Monkey Shoulders stems from the workers who would be turning the peat on the Scotch. This was a lot of work, basically shoveling all day, so they became stooped with really built shoulders.

The Scotch itself is a little bit sweeter than some. A blended Scotch often lends itself to be a bit sweeter. But it still makes for good sipping. I would say that it is also one that does well by being let to breath more. I think the first drink is a bit sharp for it, but the more that you have, the better it gets. And that’s not just from the fact that you’re drinking, but as the fumes dissipate it makes it smoother.

Upcoming Streaming

You can see a bit a state of the channel address that I did last week here. It’s not an ominous thing, it’s just something that I want to focus on a bit more this year. My written content is in a good schedule, though, might be changing slightly. The 10 Minute Marvel Podcast is coming out every week. And I do put out content basically every Wednesday. But I want to add more. So vote in the poll for what board game I should play next and video game I should start.

Let me know which ones you want me to start playing. And does additional content, like video game content, interest you for Malts and Meeples? Should I do that on YouTube or play around with that on Twitch?

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The Game – Sleeping Gods

Story without a direct focus is what we’re going to talk about today. And I’ll describe what I mean by that. This story can be explored in almost any order. New avenues will open up if you have keywords, but you can go anywhere and just explore. That is part of the game.

The question is, is that a good part of the game. I have played other games that do this, Near and Far as well as Seafall, and it can be a problem. In Near and Far, the little vignettes were fun, but the story overall for the game felt like it was lacking. The glimpses I got into the world made me want to explore it more, but also didn’t help me care that much about it. Especially in a mechanically driven game.

Seafall also tried to do little vignettes into the world. However, most of them were so generic that it felt like it really didn’t matter. And because they wanted to add reveals into the story, we actually, but poor luck, got a reveal of some of the mystery after the bigger reveal had happened. So the story that was there came out of order.

Now, this all sounds pretty negative. And I totally get that, I do often have issues with story written like that. But in the case of both Near and Far and Seafall, the story was treated as secondary. The mechanics going on were what drove the game, and the story felt more like an afterthought. I don’t believe it was, but that is how it felt. In Sleeping Gods, that isn’t the case, the game is about the story.

Mechanically, Sleeping Gods is still very sound. But the story is what drives the choices you make and what you do, not the mechanics. And that is why Sleeping Gods works as a game with story vignettes. Exploring the world is how you beat the game. Exploring the story is how you beat the game. Not by having the most points to trigger then end, as in Seafall, or get rid of all your tents in Near and Far.

Hopefully that distinction makes sense. Sleeping Gods is so driven by the story that I want to explore that. The mechanics are there to make it a game, but exploring the world and that story is what the game is about. And even if it’s not a grand epic fantasy story told in a normal format, it is still great.

The Drink

Last nights drink wasn’t anything too fancy. I went with a Mojito. The mixer part was in fact from a mix, which I generally don’t do, but I picked some up to try a while ago.

When I pick up alcohol for a mixed drink, I don’t think about it for that purpose. If I’m not willing to sip on the liquor, I’m not likely to buy it. The idea kind of comes from wine. Wine is often used in cooking and there is a mindset that you can get cheap wine for cooking. You aren’t going to drink it, just use it in cooking so why should it be good? But the flavor is what you’re going for, so a less appealing flavor in wine will make your cooking less appealing.

In a mixed drink, if I wouldn’t sip it, that means it’s going to negatively impact the flavor of my drink. Sure, something like Bulleit Bourbon or Whiskey I’m less apt to sip on, but I would. So when I make an Old Fashioned with it, I know the flavor is going to be good.

Upcoming Steaming

So Wednesday’s as always are going to be Sleeping Gods. Subscribe to the channel and click the notification bell to know when we’re going live. But if you don’t want pesky push notifications, I generally don’t, know it’s every Wednesday at 8 PM Central Time.

I honestly don’t know how much of Sleeping Gods is left. With the introductory scenario, I believe I’ve streamed about four and a half hours. So my guess is that I have at least another month to go of game play. But I know what game I’m playing next. Just coming in this week, from Favro Games, Spire’s End. I’ll talk more about it as we get closer to streaming, but it looks like a fun one.

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Join live every Wednesday in the chat, 8 PM Central time, to help me make these decisions.

The Game – Sleeping Gods

I could just talk about how the game works again, but I want to do a mini compare and contrast with another one of Red Raven Games, Near and Far. Near and Far is a game that I like, but also one I was really excited about and ready to play. And when I played it, it is a good game, but a bit of a letdown. Does Sleeping Gods fix that?

This really comes down to story. In Near and Far, there is a promise of this game with great story and great mechanics and great choices. For me, the game doesn’t manage to pull it off. There are fun little bits of story, but it’s like hopping around in tiny bits of the world. Really, though, the game is about getting as many points as you can.

On the flip side, Sleeping Gods is also just little vignettes of story. But the point of the game is the story. There are no points that you are going for. It is about the story, and the theming works well. The crew is lost in a mysterious world. You of course get random vignettes because you don’t know anything. And the more you play, the more you find out about the world.

The Drink

We were back to drinking Scotch Whisky again. This time it was a Highland Scotch which finished with a nice little hint of chocolate in the flavor. And I talked about how there are four different areas for Scotch. The two main ones that you’ll find will be Highland and Islay. And the main difference is how much peat something like Islay has compared to Highland. Highland is a cleaner taste profile, but often coming with more bite to it.

Upcoming Streams

As always, the next stream will be on Wednesday at 8 PM Central. And I will be playing some more Sleeping Gods.

And, my hope, is this weekend, or week to start filming my Crowdfunding content. If you have a good punny name, let me know. I am sure that I can come up with something as well. I don’t know when this will get released but the idea for it is that it isn’t live content.

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Sleeping Gods

This game is one that I almost backed on Kickstarter, but I didn’t for one main reason. Looking at the Kickstarter, I loved the artwork, I thought the game play looked interesting, I was just worried it would land for me like Near and Far did. I like Near and Far, don’t get me wrong. I think that that the game play is solid and the story is solid. But the story is lacking, for me.

So I was concerned that Sleeping Gods would kind of fall into that same line of things. And with a lot of other games out there to be back two years ago, I think, I didn’t jump on it. I also knew that the game would be available at retail as well. And then reviews for the game started coming in, and people really liked it. The game play seems more my style, and the story seems more focused. And, of course, the game sold out. Board Game Geek has it (or had) for pre-order, so I figured it was time to hop on it.

Ratcatcher

This one also was a Kickstarter that I wasn’t sure about. Firstly, it is a solo only game, which I have found out that I like more than I thought. But when it was on Kickstarter I wasn’t sure. And I’m a little hesitant to back, or was, a solo only game. This is one, however, I was less sure would actually hit retail.

In the case of Ratcatcher, what drew me in was a solo play on the GloryHoundd YouTube channel. I’ll put the video below. But that game play looked like a lot of fun. The game seems to do what I like in a solo game a lot of the time. It provides an interesting and shifting puzzle in a small package. Now, it does spread out on the table, but overall, I really think this one looks like fun.

Grove

Another solo only game on the list of things that I’ve pre-ordered. This one I did back on Kickstarter. You can read up on it in my Back or Brick article. This one I didn’t hesitate to back on Kickstarter because it’s a follow-up to a game that I already love, Orchard. Orchard is a great little solo game with a little footprint and super fast play time. Grove looks like it is going to be more of the same, and that’s very interesting to me because I’ve already played Orchard over 60 times. I can imagine Grove will get played as much.

Marvel Dice Throne

No shock on this one, I’d think. I love Dice Throne, it hasn’t been on my top 100, yet. But you take a game I really like and an intellectual property I’m clearly in love with, I’m going to back the game. It’s been under 24 hours and it’s just under $900,000. So it’s doing extremely well at a time when some Kickstarters are cancelling. I wasn’t really all that concerned about this one cancelling.

If you are interested in Marvel Dice Throne, it will be coming to retail. But the Kickstarter version does come in a single box, and the price point is going to be cheaper on everything. That means if you want to get the playmats, card sleeves, or the dice tray, the time to get it is now. I’ll be talking about it more tomorrow when I do a Back or Brick for it.

Similos Spookies

This one wasn’t pre-ordered, just ordered, so it’s in my collection, though it showed up a few days too late for the October board game night when it would have been perfect. Similos is a party game where you are working together to figure out clues as to what the groups card is. The game is a lot of fun and you can mix and match the different sets from Mythology to Animals and now to spooky monsters.

I knew I was going to get this one when it became available. The game play is a ton of fun, and if I can add in something spooky or spoopy to my game collection, I’m probably going to do that. And as replayable as Similos already is, I’m not going to say no to having even more sets that I can mix and match together.

Which game would you want to get to the table first? Are you backing either of the Kickstarters, Grove or Marvel Dice Throne?

Point of Sale

Normally I’d do a bigger article as I did sell a fair number of things recently, but they were all RPG books, so I wanted to talk about them in one lump, because there’s really one reason I’m getting rid of all of them. While I do like a lot of different RPG’s and I’ll gladly play them, I’ve come to realize I’m just running D&D. Dungeons and Dragons is the game that I know best. It is the game I buy the books for new character classes or settings for.

I am always going to have more D&D content to run. And I haven’t kept up with other games. While I have run some Star Wars games, I am not that likely to again. The same goes for the other systems, while they are fun, I won’t be playing them over Dungeons and Dragons, so might as well sell them.

Now, I did keep one non-D&D thing. That was the Fate core book and Fate Dresden Files. I haven’t ever used those books. I am not sure that I ever will, But I love the Dresden Files, so I wasn’t ready to get rid of that one right now.

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Normal Games

It is what it sounds like, these are your normal games. The Tickets to Ride, Pandemic, Catan, Carcassone, Monopoly, and any game that you can sit down, you play it once and you get the full game experience. These games are meant to be played in a 30 minute to 6 hours, if you’re playing Twilight Imperium or other big 4x games. But even with those games, you get the full experience of the games without having to do anything else. These are the type of games you’re probably going to get to the table most often, though, you’ll probably play a specific game less than in some of the other categories. Even as someone who likes some of the other types of games just as well, most of my collection is made up of one off games that I use for board game nights and just pulling out and playing a game.

Story Games

This one is the next step in, in my opinion. The others are larger in terms of what type of game they are as I’m going to define story games as any game that tells a story. Now, that can encompass other games, Gloomhaven has story elements, but is primarily a campaign style game, but definitely fits in this category as well. But games like Near and Far, Above and Below, Arabian Nights, all of those games have story and you can play them as a one off game. The story doesn’t have to be the only thing in the game, but it’s going to be a heavy focus for the game. These games can take 200 hours, like Gloomhaven but Near and Far can be played in a couple of hours or less. This is starting to get into those bigger games. Whereas what I call normal games can have story, again Above and Below and Arabian Nights are played in a single sitting, they are more focused on the story and telling the players a story than something like Pandemic where the game has theme and story as it plays, but it doesn’t provide story beyond how the game mechanically plays out.

Campaign Games

Next step up, and probably the second longest, or longest, of the games. These campaign games are going to be steeped in story. This is where a game like Gloomhaven or Sword and Sorcery falls. It’s going to be chaining scenarios together, telling you story as you go, and each time you play, you are possibly progressing the story and finding out more as to what is happening in the world and game that you’re playing. Some of them have simpler stories like the two I’ve mentioned, and some more more emerging stories like Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, where you have some ideas of what you need to do at the start, but the ending of the game is less clear. This is going to push two things, first, you are going to see more character development and leveling up, so it leans into an RPG like feel. The other thing is that this is going to be more of a time commitment. Gloomhaven has been 200 or so hours for me, and Sword and Sorcery is probably nearing 24 hours or so of game play. There are going to be shorter campaign style games, Near and Far technically has a campaign of 6-7 games, I believe, never played it, but that’s 12-20 hours, let’s say for the whole campaign, but a lot of them are going to fall into that longer format because they want the RPG like feel for the game.

Legacy Games

This one is a sister to the Campaign Game. It is going to be a campaign game, but it adds in a destructive element. You are going to be adding stickers to cards, destroying cards, changing the map, and unlocking new things. Now, you might be able to go back and do it again, Charterstone, and play through the legacy experience again, but that requires an additional purchase. Legacy games are meant for you to play through the campaign once, generally, and then some of them allow you to continue to play the game without the legacy elements. Charterstone, Betrayal Legacy, and Clank! Legacy are all games that you can come back to and play again. Pandemic Legacy Season 1 and 2, however, once you’re done with them, you’re done with that game unless you put in a lot of extra effort to make it replayable. While campaign games raise the stakes because you are going further and further into a story so you don’t want to hit a point where you’ve lost and have to restart (and most do a good job of keeping you from having to do that), Legacy raises those stakes even higher. You’re probably always going to progress at some point in time in a legacy game, even if you didn’t win, but you don’t feel like you can go back and try again because of the legacy nature of the game, so even with less story the stakes can be higher. Charterstone is the only example, I have, of a legacy game where the stakes don’t feel that high.

RPG

This one I’m saving for last, because it moves away from a board game experience and into a role playing game. RPG is that step where you want that massive campaign, that massive legacy feeling and story experience. But you can also do a one-shot which would just be a 3-4 hour single sit down experience. So you can tailor and RPG to whatever you want, but, I personally prefer an RPG when it takes those bigger campaign, legacy and story elements and turns it into that epic experience which is guided by the GM and created by the GM and players. This can be the biggest time commitment of them all, because a campaign could, theoretically, take forever if you wanted to continue playing with the same characters in the same world and didn’t care about leveling up. But for me that’s part of the fun of the game is coming up with ways and reasons for your character to progress and grow through the game, and leveling up is part of that progression.

That’s an overview of what I’d consider to be the five types of games. As someone who likes all of them, I think that there should be a space for most of them on people’s shelves. If you haven’t jumped into RPG’s, consider it if you really enjoy campaign style games, because it’s a freeing experience in terms of being able to craft and create your own story with even less confines. If you love RPG’s, consider adding a campaign game, something like Aeon’s End Legacy or Clank Legacy would have that RPG bit of a feel to it as you level up characters (especially Clank Legacy which is based on Acquisitions Inc. a D&D game), but that would give you something new to try. And if you’ve only played that I termed normal games, try a story game, a stepping stone into a potentially more epic gaming experience and see how you like something that a little bit of that RPG flavor lightly added to it.

I don’t think that there’s a right type of game to play, or that you need to have all of them in your collection, but it’s certainly something you can consider for expanding your collection. I have something like 4-5 legacy games, 5-6 campaign games (which is a lot), 150 normal games, and probably a handful of story games that I’m forgetting about right now, and a ton of stuff for D&D. But that’s just what my collection is. Maybe you have a consistent group for D&D or any RPG so you just focus your collection on that, or maybe you just have changing groups over for playing board games, so you have more normal games, and that’s a great collection as well.

I’ll leave you with a question, do you have a preferred game style? For me, I love Legacy Games and Campaign games, though I play Normal Games more because we play more on a board game night, but I’ve played so much of some games. What do you play most of as well?

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These rankings are the opinion of yours truly, and if you don’t like them, that’s okay. We all have different tastes in games and that is great. There are some games that I’ve only played as a demo, and I felt like I got enough of a feel to put them on the list, thanks GenCon for all the demos. These are living rankings so next year I’m sure that things will change, so I’ll probably be doing another one next year. Thanks to Board Game Geek for letting me enter/rate my collection and games I’ve played. Thanks to Pub Meeple for creating a tool that pulls in those games that I’ve rated and creating a ranking tool. Again, the numbers and names will be linked to Cool Stuff Inc and Amazon if you’re interested in the games.

80 – 7 Wonders
One of the things that makes 7 Wonders such an enjoyable game is the fact that it scales well. You actually can play it up to 7 people and it works well like that, and the same with lower player counts. In this game you are building up your society and trying to build one of the 7 wonders of the ancient world. To do this, you are drafting cards, building up your tableau, and scoring points in a lot of different ways at the end of the game. I have this lower than some other drafting games simply because the theme isn’t that exciting. Also, 7 Wonders encourages hate drafting, because if you don’t, science can be a run away strategy for a win.

79 – Risk Legacy
Regular Risk won’t be showing up on this list. That has player elimination and the game ends when someone controls the whole world. Risk Legacy, fixes some of that and gives you some fun stuff to open. In the game you play one of several factions who are trying to take over this new planet. But instead of wiping everyone off the board, you just need to get enough points. Generally, this is done by taking over a couple of the HQ’s that your opponents control, but there are other missions as well that can give you points. This keeps the game time much lower and when or if you are knocked off the board, you can come back on your following turn, probably won’t win, but you won’t just be sitting there. As compared to other legacy games, this doesn’t have story, but it doesn’t need it and it’s enjoyable to play without it.

78 – Dice Throne: Season 2 Cursed Pirate and Artificer
There will be more of this game higher on the list, and I could have maybe clumped it all together. But this is stand alone that you can play yourself. The reason that I have this one a bit lower is that while they are a ton of fun to play, they are also a bit more complex. So I don’t know that they would be the two that I’d pull out for beginners. Dice Throne, which will continue to show up throughout, is a Yahtzee style dice game, but instead of using those combos of dice to score points, you’re using them to defeat your opponent in 1 on 1 battles, 3 player free for alls, or you can team up. The game plays pretty fast and is generally easy to understand, though, as I said, these two characters are a bit more complex. I consistently have a good time when I get it to the table.

77 – Mysterium
There has been a murder in this deduction based game. In it, most of the people are playing investigators who are trying to determine who committed a murder, but to figure it out, they need clues. These clues as to who, how, and where are being given to you by another player, the ghost, who can only send you visions. This means that the ghost is giving you some cards that you are then comparing to, lets say early game, different possible murders, and you are trying to interpret these cards to determine who your murderer is, and each player is trying to find a different one. It’s a fun almost party game where there’s more going on than your traditional matching a word or image to another word or image. The spooky theme works, and we’ve house ruled a little bit with how the end of the game works, because it tries to keep it competitive to some extent, but those rules just slow down the game and don’t add to the enjoyment.

76 – Gloom
Not Gloomhaven. In Gloom you are telling the story of your family. But this isn’t a nice and happy family, this is a family that you want to die off. In fact, you want them to die off being as unhappy as they can be, because that’s how you win the game. On your turn you play a card either on one of your people, telling the story of how something bad happened to them or on someone else’s characters telling how something got better for them. While there is definitely scoring and a winner at the end of the game, the biggest part of the game is telling stories that twist together as to why your characters are getting more and more miserable, and just the humor that comes out of that. A cool part of the game is that as you are playing down the cards, you play them on top of the character, but you can still see the character since the cards you’re playing down are see through. So you can see how they have been made miserable before. It plays best when people are into the story telling, but most often people have been.

75 – Codenames: Pictures
I do not like Codenames, if you are expecting it to be the list, you won’t find it there. Codenames, with words, tends to be an anti-party game. People just sit around and look at the cards thinking, whereas with pictures, it encourages more discussion, because of the weird artwork. In Codenames Pictures, you are split into two teams, each team having a clue giver and guessers. The clue givers give a one word clue and a number. The number is the number of the pictures the clue relates to. Then the guessers are trying to figure out which ones match and make guesses on that. The first team to get all of their images guessed wins, but there’s more. If you guess the opposing teams, they get that as a correct guess. And if you guess the assassin, your team loses, so you have to think about that as the clue you’re going to give. It gives some clever moments for guessing, and some clever moments for giving a clue when you can tie a large number of the images together. The added discussion makes this game much more enjoyable than the original in my opinion, and you don’t run into a situation where someone might not know what a word means.

74 – Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancient
This is a game that I really need to play more. It was one of the first campaign games that I got and I’ve enjoyed the little play I have gotten of it. This game is a big box game with minis that need to be put together, but once you’ve done all that and learned the rules, which there are a lot, you start a dungeon crawl through the weird west. This wild west combined with monsters and other dimensions really gives this game a pretty unique theme that I’d love to see more of. What keeps this game from being at the table more is that it’s a beast to get to the table and at this point in time it’s been long enough that I’d have to spend the time to relearn the rules as well. But the unique t heme and the fact that I really like campaign style and dungeon crawl games, Shadows of Brimstone is a game that I’ve kept and that I’ll probably keep on my shelf for a long time, even if it isn’t played too often.

73 – Quoridor
This is a pretty straight forward abstract game that I really like at 4 players. In the game, you are racing from one side of the board to the other. Your opponents are doing the same thing from other sides of the boards. What makes this game interesting is that you can block off peoples routes with a few boards that you have. When doing that you can’t block them from the side of the board that they need to get to. What I like about this game is that I can see how it’s going to work fairly into the game. Now, I don’t win all that often because my wife tends to make it her mission to keep me from winning, but it’s still fun being able to see how you can up walls in such a way and cause other people to do the same thing so that your path stays clearer. It’s also a very fast game, even with some thinky decisions in there.

72 – First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet
This game I was super excited for because it was going to be like Robinson Crusoe, which I own but haven’t played, in space, with an app. And I feel like it fell a bit flat for me compared to what it could have been. I still really enjoy this game, but it was hyped up a ton, and it didn’t live up to that. In this game you are on Mars trying to keep your base up and running while also completing whatever missions you need to, plus the app causes things to happen and things to break down on your base. It works well, but the app part only works okay. It’s a bit clunky, and the game itself has a lot of bits to keep track of. There is a campaign aspect to the game that I haven’t played yet, but there are a lot of fun one off games you can play as well that seem challenging, though I have had pretty good luck on them. I think that with the house keeping in the game, just keeping track of everything working and how things break down, it might be a bit much for some people, but I enjoy it.

71 – Near and Far
This game is interesting because it balances some tough mechanics with an interesting world building and story element to the game. In it, you play through a campaign on maps where you are finding out the story of the world, but also building up your engine so that you’re able to go out and exploring and find more story. The game looks amazing with great art work. The game, though, because it has the more game mechanics and the story aspect, can seem like there is almost too much to do. I enjoy the complexity of the mechanics and planning ahead, but it won’t be for everyone in a story game and there is a lot to teach for that. I’ve played through a few different scenarios and I’ve always enjoyed it and the fact that a decision in a story at one point can lead you down a different branch at another point is a lot of fun and makes the world seem much more like it is living.

There’s another 10 done, still a lot to go, but thank you for staying around with my list. I hope that you’re enjoying it, are there any standout games on it thus far that you love or that you really want to play?

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Story games are interesting because they care as much about the story and theme as they do about the mechanics a lot of the time. But for a long time there weren’t a ton of story games. Games, for a long time, were pretty straight forward either luck or logic games. A game like Chess or Go doesn’t really tell a story because it’s all been abstracted away. Even though you have two armies facing off in chess, they are just pieces that have specific movement rules, not like they are tied into the different types of characters and why they move the way they move.Or you would have luck based games. A game like Monopoly seems like it has some more story that is going on, but the game is so random that you can’t really tell a story in it.

Then there started to be some story games, but they weren’t your regular board games. RPG’s were the first games that really told stories and really focused in on story telling. There was story in some games prior to that, war games for example told the story of a battle, but D&D and RPG’s were the first to really create those story gaming moments. But even they had a lot of rules at the beginning, now we’re seeing the loose story based RPG’s that don’t care nearly as much about the rules or have abstracted most of the rules away into a single, simple roll of the dice for anything.

But in board games there were games that tried to delve more so into story, and we’ve actually seen the idea of story telling board games really take off as of late. A lot of this can be attributed to the growth of the hobby, but some of the earlier ones also helped the hobby grow. While games like Catan or Ticket to Ride have abstracted away all of the story and are some of the biggest ones for growing the hobby, story based games helped the hobby continue to grow into the big hobby it is today. Finding that sweet spot of where people could play a game the way that they want while still having some rules and structure makes gaming a lot more appealing to a lot of people.

There are a number of different story telling games. There are some that are basically light RPG’s and some that are board games that tell you a story. We have a number of interesting examples to look at though in board gaming.

Tales of the Arabian Nights and Near and Far are two interesting games where you are going out exploring. There are plenty of game focused parts to what you are doing and you have some skills, but the main focus of the game is going out exploring and getting a little bit of story. So that’s what most people are playing them for, being able to make those few decision bits in their story. Now, I personally enjoy both of these games, but they do have a bit of a flaw to them. That’s in both games the story while being loosely connected at items, especially in Near and Far, are random bits of story that you are reading from a book. The story isn’t cohesive as it goes along so while it starts to feel like a story game, it is missing a little bit.

Take that in comparison to a game like Sword and Sorcery. Now I haven’t played Sword and Sorcery, but it is one that I’ve seen played. In that, and in Tainted Grail, you are finding story events for various scenarios that unfold the story for you. A certain card or a certain place might trigger a different bit of the story. So while you don’t have to find the story in a specific order, always, you are figuring out the story and what’s going on in the world as you go. These games are newer than either Tales of the Arabian Nights or Near and Far (though Near and Far is quite new), and they can get away with it, because you are playing through chapters and scenarios.

That leads us into other scenario games. In particular, I’m thinking of Legacy games here. I don’t know that you’d consider Pandemic Legacy to be a scenario based game, but as you play through and find out more information about the story, it feels like it’s a scenario based game for how you have to win each game. In this case, they are handing out specific story points at very specific points in the game. And that works really well for a game like Pandemic Legacy or even a game like Gloomhaven which isn’t a true legacy game or is the new wave of legacy game where you can play it repeatedly without buying a new copy.

Seafall in comparison gives you a different story feel. While in Pandemic Legacy you can make choices that will affect the game, you are following a pretty linear story. In Gloomhaven you can go further afield from the story, but you are still focused on the story and you get the main story to unfold in a certain order. What Seafall tried to do was too ambitious in creating a story that unfolded in whatever order you read it. The issue is that it doesn’t really work, because you have to be so vague about it. That turned the story into a bit of a mess.

So, what other ways are we seeing stories besides these scenario games?

We’re also seeing story in games where the game is about making up your own story. Once Upon a Time and Gloom are two examples of this. In Once Upon A Time you are trying to create a fairy tale by playing cards while telling a story and eventually leading the story to your own ending that you got at the beginning of the game. This works okay as a game, but does run into a run away leader problem and the rules are just very loose, so it isn’t going to work for everyone. Gloom on the other hand is a depressing story as you try and kill off your family of characters while they are miserable. But the more miserable they are, the more points you get, so you are playing a card each turn and telling a story as you play the card as to why your character is more miserable or someone else’s character is less miserable. These games take the story telling away from the game itself, and mechanically add the story telling element to the game with what the players need to do. The downside to this is that if you don’t have a creative group, or more so, if you don’t have a group that is just going to be silly, the game isn’t going to work as well.

On the opposite side of things you have games that basically are only story. I did an article on them recently with RPG Lite. But two great examples of this are Legacy of Dragonholt and Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger. Both of these games are really just Choose Your Own Adventure, with a couple of mechanics added in so that you can’t quite just only do it as a book.

On the opposite side of things you have games that basically are only story. I did an article on them recently with RPG Lite. But two great examples of this are Legacy of Dragonholt and Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger. Both of these games are really just Choose Your Own Adventure, with a couple of mechanics added in so that you can’t quite just only do it as a book. That takes away the pressure of the story or the pressure of learning a lot of rules from the players and puts it back onto the game designer, but when you strip away most game mechanics, you can basically just worry about writing a story, it works well.

So, where do I fall with story games?

For me, if a game doesn’t have an interesting theme, I’m less apt to enjoy the game. There are some games where the look is nice enough or the mechanics are good enough, that I like it without having an interesting theme. But most of the time I want theme, and because of that, it means that I want heavy story as well. The story is one way to get a lot of theme into the game. So you’ll see what are commonly called Ameri-trash games showing up on my reviews more likely than a Euro Game because Euro Games tend to be pretty themeless. Even Euro Legacy games, like Charterstone, the story is 100% outside of the game and doesn’t impact what you do or how you play the game at all.

I also think that story is something that is important to games in terms of getting new people into games. There are some games that are simple enough that they don’t need story, but it’s easier to pitch a game to someone where they get to be a hero fighting against the evil corporation, versus a game where they are collecting gems. Even if the second game is a better made and balanced game, it’s still harder to get people to play it.

So, let me toss it out to you, what are some games that are story focused that you really like? How much story do you need in the game?

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My first suggestion would be a game by Fantasy Flight, Legacy of Dragonholt. This game has you create your own characters, but then with your character, which you could probably create five character in under an hour, you take them through various scenarios and adventures. by reading passages in a book and taking turns making decisions. What I like about this game is that it is inclusive, both in the NPC relationships, but also in the fact that it isn’t a dark and gritty game, so you could play it with younger children and have them make decisions for their own character easily as well. You’re not getting the gory or graphic descriptions of death, and in fact, it can be fairly hard at times to actually kill a goblin instead of just knocking them out. But it’s a fun game, and while parts are fairly linear, if you go into it expecting to have goofy fun, you can definitely succeed.

Next, Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger. Now, you could just get the book, but the game is actually a ton of fun. Especially if you take turns reading the text, and making decisions as a group, but whomever is going to read next has the final say on the decision being made. This game is much faster to get up and running then Legacy of Dragonholt, but that’s because you are a generic investigator. So it loses the individuality of your characters as you are all playing the same person. That makes this game easy to solo play, and you can solo play Legacy of Dragonholt as well, but because you have characters with skills, you can miss out on some skills and paths just with playing my yourself.

Finally, there is a series of books, these are again more solo play focused books, though you can pass them around and let people take turns making decisions. The books, put out by Van Ryder Games, are graphic novels where you are creating your own character and have skills, it changes depending on the book, but you can play through a lot of different scenarios, with one scenario per book. You could take on a case with Sherlock Holmes, travel to Japan, or take on a Werewolf. With these being graphic novels, you might think that they would, like the other two, be solid options for kids or maybe even focused more so that way. I would say that these are the least kid friendly of any of the games, and while I’d strongly consider the other two with kids, from what I know about the graphic novels, I wouldn’t recommend these until they are older teenagers, but that will depend upon the kid.

There are certainly more options out there as well in the Choose Your Own adventure style of game. A game like Near and Far gives you that opportunity in a heavier board game. Most dungeon crawl style games put you in the roll of a certain class of character and you can get into the role playing aspect of that. However, with both Near and Far, and a dungeon crawl, it is going to have that longer set-up time than any of the games mentioned here, with the exception of Legacy of Dragonholt, but that, even, is only before the first game.

What I like about these games is that they are more accessible to get people into role playing than jumping straight into something like Dungeons and Dragons. Especially with Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger, people remember those books and how goofy those are, and because of the nostalgia they are going to be more apt to jump into playing that game.

One final thing to add in, there are games like Fiasco and Dreamchaser. These games are much more of the classic RPG. Fiasco doesn’t have a game master, so that is nice, while Dreamchaser does. Both of them, however, the character creation is really important and part of the game creation as well, so you feel like you’re playing more so immediately as compared to just something like Dungeons and Dragons where your character might not directly tie into the main plot of the game. These games can end up having a longer total time commitment though as compared to some of the other games, though Fiasco does focus itself down pretty well. These games also require a much heavier involvement in role playing.

When you get that RPG itch, what games will you be looking to fill that need? Have you had any experience with any of these games and preferences with them?

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Gloomhaven
The poster child for the big box game, Gloomhaven has all the components and tons of hours of game play. The game mechanics are smart as the card play is clever and adds a lot of strategy to the game. It is a beast to take down and set-up, but if you can afford the game, for someone who is looking for that combination of a big game with a lot of strategy and story, Gloomhaven is amazing.

Near and Far
Another one that’s been mentioned before, this is a story driven campaign game, but they do a really good job of keeping part of it was a game and part of it as the story aspect. There are definitely a lot of decisions to be made as you go out and explore and as you spend time in the town trying to build up your party to explore. You can even technically win the game without doing any of the story part.

Mansions of Madness
This game again has a lot of story, but there is an epicness to the game as you explore through houses and other locations as you try and unravel the mysteries and madness of this Lovecraftian game. As compared to some of the other Lovecraft games, it tells a tight story and the app integration into the game works really well and makes the book keeping aspect of the game a whole lot easier.  You get to feel like you’re investigating these mysteries.

Arkham Horror LCG
Another Lovecraft game on the list, this game is a whole lot smaller and faster than the rest of the games. In fact it’s just a card game. However, this card game still feels big because you are going through a cool story and the decisions you make and the level of difficulty you play the game at, makes the game tough. This is the epic Lovecraft game for when you don’t have as much time.

Shadows of Brimstone
This one you could argue borrows or Lovecraft adjacent, but really it’s trying to be its own thing as it’s a big box game with a lot of rules and you are trying to complete missions, role play your characters, and save the town of Brimstone from the dimension that is opening up around it. What I like about this game is that it is Weird West, which isn’t a theme that I’ve seen used that much before in board games or any media and I want to see more of. The game does, however, have a beast of a rule book, though the rule book is laid out pretty well.

Pandemic Legacy
Probably the easiest of all of the games on the list to set-up and get into. The rules for this game are probably the simplest of any of the games, but the story of this game gives it an epic feel. Now, it’s probably the game thus far on the list that you can get the fewest number of hours game play and only Arkham Horror LCG plays in as short a time, though with Arkham Horror LCG, there are more scenarios to play through. However, this game is epic, both seasons of it, and they are both definitely worth playing, especially as their prices are a bit lower now.

Root
This asymmetric game is definitely an epic struggle between the factions with a lot of interesting decisions to be made by the players as you try and be the first to the victory point total. The fact that each factions in the game plays differently means that it’ll give the players a lot of different experiences as you play in different roles through multiple playthroughs of the game. And it’s pretty easy to teach all things considered because the basic actions for each faction end in the same result.

Star Wars: Rebellion
This game has been described as, by the Dice Tower, “Star Wars in a box”. I think that’s a very apt description. While Imperial Assault might be boots on the ground, Star Wars: Rebellion is the epic galactic struggle between the Rebels and the Empire. You get to try and complete missions, build troops up, defeat the enemy and if you’re the Empire, track down where the rebel base is hidden. The game play is fairly long, but the decisions and turn structure means that there isn’t much downtime. This game is only really a two player game though.

Now, there are ton more epic games out there. I have yet to play Twilight Imperium 4th Edition (or 3rd Edition) and those are some of the most epic space games. I also have games like The Reckoners and Scythe that I’ve picked up recently but haven’t gotten to the table yet. What are some other epic feeling games that I’ve missed?

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