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

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 11

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Let’s start off with Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game at #10 this year. Detective is deduction game where you and your teammates are trying to solve cases. The base box comes with five cases that take about 2-3 hours each. And you’re up against the clock, in the game, to solve everything and figure out what answers you need as you get quizzed on what happened and the who, what, and why of the case at the end. Plus little details that you might have missed or you can piece together.

This is like a crime television drama. I don’t love watching those, but playing in one is amazing. You actually get to put together deduction skills and piece together what happened. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times it is hard, but it’s always worth it.

And this game does a good job using technology as you play. Part of how you get information is interacting with a computer and a database to pull up details that might already exist on the case. Or it might be details that already exist on people in the case. It really helps make Detective into a great immersive experience.

Buy Detective

9. The Great Split

Next up we have The Great Split, a new game to the list and one that does a single thing well. In The Great Split, it is primarily an “I split, you choose” game. What does that mean? It means that I have a group of cards and I put them into two groups. You pick one of those groups and I get the other one back. Then we both use them for scoring, which is what everyone is doing at the same time. So, I love the simplicity and simultaneous nature of the game play.

Plus the scoring is nice in the game as well as it isn’t too difficult or too easy. What it mainly is, is pushing up on on tracks for artwork, literature, gems, and money. And each of them is going to score in a different way. Some of them score with how well you are doing against a market or against a scoring track. Others score, the gems, with your lowest of the two gem tracks. So it’s figuring out what you want to go for, because that’s not all the scoring.

There is also contracts in the game. Those are on the tracks as well, but you have other tracks that you want to push up on. Because they make the contracts you have, loaning your art pieces out to museums and stuff like that, worth more. But if you’re pushing up on those tracks, you aren’t on the main scoring tracks, so it’s a really good balance. And all of that with very simple rules teach and very simple game play.

Buy The Great Split

8. Floriferous

Now we have Floriferous, a game that has made it’s way higher up on the list from last year. And some of that is what I redid how I thought about the list, some. I now put more stock into the games that I want to play all the time and do play often, as well as the ones that give me a great experience when I play them. Which is why there are fewer campaign games in the Top 10, though, don’t worry, their are still several.

But Floriferous is a drafting game of building up your best bouquet of flowers. But how you draft and how you know what you are scoring is what I love about the game. You lay out the cards to be drafted from at the start of the round. And then players take turns drafting from the first column of cards. Where you draft in that column then determines your drafting order for the next column. It makes for great decisions as decide to take a less ideal card to make sure you get the perfect card next column.

And then there is the scoring. A little of the scoring just exists at the start of the game. Most of what you score you need to draft. So I need to draft a card that says “2 points for all purple flowers”, for example. And I can do that, but the scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column. That means when I take a scoring card I’m going to be going last next round which is a choice, as I said above, that I really love.

Buy Floriferous

7. Planet Unknown

Next up we have Planet Unknown a terraforming, polyomino laying game. And it’s one that is not that hard to teach, if you have the game in front of you. But it does some very cool things, which I’ll get to in a second here. But the game is about filling up your planet with tiles, clearing out meteors that have hit your planet, and building up on various tracks of nature, water, technology, rover mobility, and civilization.

The game is able to be played in two ways. The first way is a simple generic way where everyone has the exact same thing. I think it is a solid system if everyone is learning the game, and you have new to gaming people in there. But once people know the system at all, flip over the boards and the groups going to the planets. That is when the fun begins as everyone is working a little bit differently and has their own ways and timings as they go up the tracks while still playing the same game.

And the one thing I haven’t touched on yet is how you pick your tiles. There is a lazy susan in the middle with all of the tiles on it. And on your turn, you turn the lazy susan to the side you want facing you so you get the tile that you want. It’s a tough decision, and then everyone else takes from the side facing them. Or at least kind of facing them, because they’ll have a marker, placed at the start of the game, that determines where they take from. I love that mechanism as I can get what I want, or I might choose to mess with you.

Late Pledge Planet Unknown

6. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Then we have Lost Ruins of Arnak. And this one I do want to specify that it is a top 10 game for me with the first expansion. The second expansion definitely keeps it up this high as well, but the first one is needed, in my opinion. It takes Lost Ruins of Arnak from a fun game to one of my top games of all time.

So how does it play, and why do I like the expansion so much. Well, at it’s heart, The Lost Ruins of Arnak is a resource management game of going out, collecting resources and turning them in to move up a research track. But there are a number of twists with it as well. Because I also am building up a deck of cards that let me do more actions or power up the actions that I do take. And I love that aspect to it.

So let’s talk about what the expansion adds and why I think Expedition Leaders is very important to the game. In Lost Ruins of Arnak, base game, everyone has the same camp, same workers, and same starting deck of cards. And there are two tracks which you can go up on. It’s fun. But Expedition Leaders says your camp, your cards, how many workers you have, all of that can be unique now. Because you have a leader that makes you unique and I really love that.

Buy The Lost Ruins of Arnak

5. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is the next game on the list coming in at #5. And it is one that I haven’t played in probably eight months. I really need to get it back to the the table. But I love this engine building game and another game about terraforming a planet, but this time, I’d say, it’s way more about building up that engine to generate more resources and points.

The game, like I said, is about building up that engine and determining when to activate everything, and when to pick an action to do based off of what you think your opponent is going to do. How does that work? Well, the game has five actions and the actions that are played out by the players that round are the ones that are going to happen.

The actions also fire off in a particular order. So if I pick research it’s action #5, so it’ll go last. Someone else might pick activating actions, and that’s #3, so it goes in that order. Which ever one you pick, you get a special bonus for it, while your opponents get whatever the basic action is (which you do as well). So it’s about trying to not match with your opponents to get more actions done and to figure out what benefits you the most. Of course, if everyone is doing that, well, then no one might pick that one action everyone wants.

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

4. Stars of Akarios

Now we’re onto one of the big campaign games. And you can see game play for this one on Malts and Meeples. Stars of Akarios is a game that I absolutely enjoyed all that I did. Some parts are better than others, but as a whole, I think the game is a ton of fun. It’s a big space adventure that gives me vibes from Enders Game and Space Dandy, two really different things, but it works for this game.

The game is split into three parts, but we’re going to talk about two of them. First part is planetary exploration. This has a 7th Continent type feel to it with flipping over locations and interacting with places. Plus there is a lot of story that you can find as well for the different planets. There are skill checks and things like that, but a lot of it is story and the choices you make in that story unlocks new things that you can do.

The main part of the game is tactical space combat. It’s about using your dice to flank and out maneuver the enemies so that you are in the right spot for a big hit and they can’t hit you back. I adore the puzzle that this game provides in this space combat. It is good enough to just be a game by itself, but the story and the world/universe that is being built in the game is just amazing. I can’t wait to get back to it, and maybe it’ll be a campaign game that I come back to and try and play through solo sometime.

Buy Stars of Akarios

Note the 1.5 version of Stars of Akarios is coming out. There should be a late pledge available soon.

3. Dice Throne

Next up is Dice Throne. I believe that my #2 and #3 flipped spots from last year. Dice Throne is a battling game of taking characters up against each other and rolling dice, Yahtzee style, to deal damage. You get a better roll, like a large straight or all sixes and you get to do more damage.

The game really shines in two areas. The first is how they manage to make all of the characters feel different. I have Marvel Dice Throne pictured here, but in the video I have Dice Throne Season 1 and I figured out coming soon there will be 35 different characters. And all of the characters do feel different. They come with different tokens that change up how they interact with the enemies or how they ramp up to deal more damage themselves.

And then there is the card play in this game. What doesn’t make it just pure dice chucking are these cards. Some of them are upgrades to your attacks that offer better results and more damage when you roll them. Other times, and I’d say most often this, it’s about getting better results on your dice. You don’t want to end up being stuck doing nothing if you try and shoot the moon and go for all sixes. So you keep cards to manipulate the dice. It’s a great system that offers more depth than you’d think from the initial description.

Buy Dice Throne

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Now we have Tainted Grail at #2. This one moved up, I think, because I made it through all three campaigns, wrapping up the third one this year. And all of them offer something unique and fun that is really enjoyable to play. I love how you start in the middle with the first campaign and then the second takes place 500 years later and the first 500 years before it. It offers a lot of interesting storytelling, which the writer really takes advantage of.

The game play is also pretty slick once you get into it. The combat and diplomacy checks are done through card play. And while that is an important part of the game, it’s not too hard to build up something that is powerful enough. Or players with specialize in different areas. One element about the combat that I really like is that you need to pay attention is to the enemies attack. How much damage you deal determines the enemies attack. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to take a lot of damage.

But the game really shines around the exploration and survival aspects of the game. I think it’s best on story mode because the story is so good. But you always need to be keeping track of the menhir that you have lit. Because if they go out, then you start to lose parts of the map as the wyrdness takes over. And that limits where you can explore. And as I said, exploration is the best part of the game. It is a chance to dive into that story. So it’s a balance of story, resource gathering, and then just surviving that makes Tainted Grail work so well.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven

My #1 hasn’t changed, it’s still Gloomhaven. Though, you can say that it is Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, and Frosthaven all rolled into one. Jaws of the Lion might be a game that I show off here on Malts and Meeples. And I’m now playing through a campaign of Frosthaven.

This is a classic dungeon crawling game where you go into a scenario and need to tactically move around and kill all the bad guys. Or at least that’s the objective in a lot of base Gloomhaven’s scenarios. The other ones offer more variety. But it’s also a game of leveling up your characters, unlocking more abilities, and then eventually retiring and getting a whole new character to play with.

And getting those abilities and playing them out is where the game is amazing. You play out two cards from your hand each turn. They have abilities on the top and bottom. And you’ll activate one of the top abilities and one of the bottom ones. Plus you need to figure out where in initiative that you want to go as well.

And the variety in them and how different the characters are is impressive. It’s like a lot of the games in my Top 10, I like the variable player powers and variability in what you are doing. Gloomhaven and all the following games offer a ton of that. And it’s sad to lose a character to retirement that you’ve spent time with, but exciting to unlock something new. This is just an amazing game that deserves the love it gets.

Buy Gloomhaven

Thanks for Joining Me

Thank you for joining me as I went through all of the games on this list. I really have fun doing this every year. And I hope that you have fun watching along. I appreciate everyone who has been in the chats and watched the videos. It means a lot to me to see that people are enjoying it. Let me know what some of your favorite games are.

Upcoming Streaming

And join me for future upcoming streams. I made a comment that my Monday streams might be changing. We’ll have to see on that, it might just be less often, or it might move to a different night, it depends on some variables as I look at the new year. Right now, though, that it’s changing. I plan on streaming Monday nights at 9 PM Central. I won’t have some on the 25th of December, I will be around next week.

Then on Wednesday, I generally stream a campaign game. I won’t be doing that this upcoming week. And I’ll be missing the following week. But as I start 2024, I plan to stream Rogue Angels. A game that I think will be in my Top 100 starting next year. One of my rules was that I needed to have played a physical copy. And thus far I only have played it digitally. Now I’ll be able to play it in person, which I’m really excited for. So join me for that starting in 2024. And Wednesday streams start at 8 PM Central time.

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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Magic The Gathering vs Board Games

Let’s start out with the biggest factor and thing to know about your LGS and CoolStuffInc, but it’s pretty simple. Magic the Gathering, Pokemon to a lesser extent, they make more money for a store than a game does. Being able to buy and sell trading cards is generally how that works.

They buy for less, giving them a profit margin on something that is in demand because of tournaments and sell it for more. And then the people who sold their cards are buying the cards they need for their decks generally at that time, with store credit or money and possibly buying more. So cards more fairly fluidly.

But also cards take up less space. Frosthaven takes up a whole else, it blocks out the sun, it’s a massive box. Magic cards and packs can take up room. But generally packs are behind the deck. And look cards, there are binders or boxes that hold them. So while it takes up room, it is a smaller area. And LGS’s are good at not having too much bulk on hand. Enough that people can find what they want most of the time, but not so much that it’s a chore to keep and maintain.

Storage

This one I touched on a on a bit as I talked about how large Frosthaven is. But for CoolStuffInc, an online and LGS, you need to be able to store a largest backstock of games. That means that you need a lot of room. And space can be expensive.

And some of this might be that CoolStuffInc also runs QML (Quarter Master Logistics). QML is a fulfillment company for crowdfunding games. I believe that has been quite busy right now, and if that is a shared warehouse space, a fulfillment company is going to be more consistent at moving product into and out of the warehouse.

Final Thoughts on CoolStuffInc and the Change

As some people have talked about in the discussions I’ve been a party of, CoolStuffinc has not had a great selection of board games for a while. I suspect some of this is board games have been harder to keep a consistent stock of games. Also that as QML grew, that ate up space as well.

But mainly, it sucks to lose an online retailer. It is a lot of work, and an extra cost for keeping up a backlog. So I wish them best with the TCG (trading card game) market and hope that they stick around for a long while.

Where Else To Buy Now After CoolStuffInc?

So, where in the end will you want to buy board games from. I know I have a few that I use as online stores. As always, there is a plug to shop local as well, if you can. I know that won’t be the case for everyone. So let’s talk about them. And that is for the US, just be aware that they might not ship internationally.

Miniature Market

Probably my most used. It generally has the best available stock, or the largest stock. And they do a number of sales. Is it always the best price when it comes board games, not always, but generally very solid pricing and consistent pricing. Plus there is a $0.01 matching reward system, which is not that great, but something. And free shipping at $100.

GameNerdz

GameNerdz, and the rest below that I use, generally have solid deals, deals of days, and sometimes sales. But generally, because they can sell a bit more in volume that their prices are good. They do have a reward system, and it’s not always just a few cents off, but it is better as you hit levels. And then $75 for free shipping so a better price.

Boardlandia

Honestly, not one that I’ve used a ton. And I’m still waiting on my Heat: Pedal to the Metal to ship. But my experience has generally been good with them. They do some fun sales with it being live for ding and dent games which you can sometimes get a solid deal on, but it’s just a fun experience. Shipping is solid, I believe they have free shipping around $100. And they have solid prices.

Noble Knight

Finally is Noble Knight. I don’t use them too often, either, but when I do it’s because I want to get a used game. Noble Knight buys and sells used games. So it’s a spot to find harder to find games or out of print games. However, they do sell, as they should, used games at used game prices. And they do have free shipping, but I believe it’s at $200, so that means, if you want to hit that, you need a big order. I’ve done that once.

What’s your favorite online board game shop?

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Arcane Wonders

Senshi

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

Four Gardens

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

Picture Perfect

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

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

Smartphone Inc

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

Noble Knight

Arkham Horror LCG Characters

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

Aventuria

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

Medieval Academy

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

Beyond the Sun

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

Boardlandia

The Legacy of Yu

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

Heat: Pedal to the Metal

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

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

Amazon

Inside Job

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

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

Clever 4Ever

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

Set

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

Dorf Romantik

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

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

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