So, with that said, let’s look at the list of games. Just one extra note. I’m going to start to talk less about games that show up every month, and really focus on the new to me games, or games that are getting back to the table.

January Board Gaming

Orchard: 18 Plays

Not much to say on this one right now. It’s my favorite solo game. Super fast, but great puzzle to it. Plays super fast and I think for a solo game, it’s one that a lot of people could get into.

Super Mega Lucky Box: 12 Plays

Bingo, kind of. You fill in cards and as you complete rows and columns you unlock bonuses. I thought that the game might be too simple, but it’s a ton of fun. And it’s a super accessible game.

Village Green: 6 Plays

Another one where I didn’t think that it was going to be a great game. And honestly, the solo mode is just okay. I think that it needs a bit of tweak, more green and scoring cards available to pick from, but it’s still fun solo. Two player the game is a great puzzle of when you push for more points or when you push for the end game so that your opponent can score fewer.

Sleeping Gods: 4 Plays

Sleeping Gods is a great adventure game. You can see my play it every Wednesday over on Malts and Meeples. Last week’s audio got messed up, but if you just want a taster of the game, you can watch it below. I really like the story and open world nature of the game.

Tainted Grail: 4 Plays

Tainted Grail, still going through the Last Knight story and having a very good time with it. We’re cruising through it. Now, the advantage to that is we get through more story and campaign. Disadvantage, I don’t think we’re quite as leveled up as ideal right now.

On Tour: 2 Plays

On Tour, I’ve played this as an app before, but I like the physical version. The game play is a nice amount of choice, but not too much. And as the choices become more limited later in the game, they become tougher to make, but it doesn’t slow the game down.

Spire’s End: 1 Play

Just played around with this one a little bit. Great little story adventure game for one or two players. I think it’s mainly one player, but you can split up the characters. Easy to play, nice system for learning the game.

Catapult Feud: 1 Play

A fun game, was going to say little, but it’s simple and fairly big. You build a castle, the opponent does as well. And then you take turns trying to shoot rocks from catapults and other siege weaponry to knock down your opponents troops in the castle. There are cards too and they add to the game, but not needed.

No Thanks!: 1 Play

Great push you luck game. You don’t want points, so you can pass on a card, but you give up a chip. Those are worth negative points at the end of the game. And if you run out of chips, you are forced to take the card. There’s a puzzle to the game and a great group dynamic with it as well.

Let’s Go Fishing: 1 Play

This is a kids game. Toddler got it for Christmas, so it’s in the collection and I got a play of it. For a kids game it has a cool concept. You try and catch fish as they open their mouths. The downside is that the mechanics on this version of the game to rotate the fish are horrible. So you kind of have to help it along, but the toddler likes it.

Year Totals

So we’re up to 50 games played, over that now actually, but 50 in January. It’s a strong start. And seven of the games were ones that came off my shelf of unplayed games. That’s a fairly strong start. If I keep that up I should be good.

Though, here’s the trick with unplayed games. Right now I have Aeon’s End: Legacy of Gravehold and Project L arriving probably on Monday. Plus some that came in via orders or picking up at my FLGS. I’m still at 135, not counter the two coming. So I need to play 35 more games plus whatever else new I get to be at 100 or less.

Which of the games that I’ve played thus far would you want to play? What is your favorite?

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Ranking My Solo Games

So, one thing that I haven’t talked about when ranking is how I rank them in each category. And that’s somewhat because this is the category that needs this explanation. In a lot of them, I can just pick my favorite game, which game is my favorite roll and write. Here, I am trying to factor in a combination of what my favorite is, but also what my favorites for solo are. So if something is harder to get to the table, I might rank it lower.

I think that is important because solo gaming is a different beast. I think that some very complex games might be high on the list, if I could leave them set-up all the time. So I could go and play them for thirty minutes to an hour in an evening every evening. But when it takes twenty minutes to set-up, that isn’t an option.

28. Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellows

This might be the worst game in the group, and I still own it. I have played it solo a few times and it’s a fun push your luck sort of game. But when you’re controlling three characters, or two, it isn’t as fun. And the theme of the game, Sword Art Online doesn’t come through.

27. Legacy of Dragonholt

I think I I had streamed Legacy of Dragonholt, which I had thought about doing, I might put this higher on the list. The game is fine, the mechanics are solid, but the writing on the story was just fine. And when the game play is solid and the story is fine, it wasn’t going to stick. I’d love to see Fantasy Flight use some of their IP’s and create a story in this vein. Or even an Arkham game that uses the same mechanic.

26. Second Chance

Second Chance is easy to get to the table, but the game plays out the same every time. And with roll and write games, when I play them solo, I prefer that I can then compare a score, or something like that. Second Chance you just see how well you do. Sure, you can use the empty spaces as a score, but it’s not that interesting solo.

25. Criss Cross

This one is also one where you can just see how well you can score. I have it lower on the list, even though it is easy to play, because I have played it a lot. I don’t think I’d pull out Criss Cross to play solo again. Other roll and write games, yeah, those are higher on the list, but Criss Cross I’ve played a lot.

24. Marvel Battleworld

This one is easy to play and has high toy factor. But it is barely a game, the rules allow you to play some sort of game, but they aren’t that clear. You really play Marvel Battleworld to open up the little “Thanos Stones” to get new heroes and do the blind buy. It’s not a great game, but fun toy value.

23. Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

Gravwell is a game that generally would be higher in my Top 100 games but drops so solo, not because of set-up, but because the game is much more random solo. It feels like mechanically the game isn’t as good. So I don’t want to play it solo all that often. I’d play it with people, but solo is just okay.

22. Floor Plan

Floor Plan is another one where the solo seems added on and not fully planned. You get a certain number of rolls for solo play and see how well you do. But it lacks the tension of racing to complete different features that people want.

21. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1

This one I played through solo on Malts and Meeples, and it is a blast to play that way. Technically, it doesn’t have a solo mode, but no information is hidden, so you can easily play solo. But I wouldn’t play it solo again after doing that once. I would play it for the third time because the story and game are fun.

20. Marvel United

I was a little bit surprised that this one was lower on the list. But I prefer to play it with others. It again comes down to a solo mode that is okay. And you can play it solo like you’re playing multiple people, and it’s good. But the game is more fun with more players and working together cooperatively and discussing how you can set up the next player.

19. Tainted Grail

This is fun solo, and I’d love to have it higher on the list, but even three player, the game is a beast to get to the table. I’d maybe come back to it solo if I could leave it set-up. And I’d love to explore it again that way, which maybe I eventually will. But right now, three player play is great.

18. Onirim

Actually just got rid of this game, but I really enjoy Onirim and I still own the app. Onirim is a nice little puzzle of a game with a lot of shuffling. And I feel like the decision space is good. But as I get more solo only games, that are higher on the list, I know that I’m going to play it less and less. So the app is good enough for me, for now. I can always pick it up again.

17. A Gentle Rain

The first solo only game on the list. I think technically you can do two player, but it just means you split up half of the stuff, which means it’s less fun. The game is simple, but it is very relaxing to play. And for me, that’s nice. It comes in a small box, but plays large, in area, on the table. I wish it played a little bit smaller, so it was more portable.

16. The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

Now back to a bigger game, The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game, I like to play that one at two best. But three is good as well. And the game while having a lot of cards, is pretty fast to set-up and get to the table. I think it works best as a game in general, if you know the books. The theme is there, but it’s hidden behind mechanics.

15. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

One that I’d love to play solo more. And I think the game works really well solo for keeping the game moving. But Arkham Horror: The Card Game, it takes effort to get to the table. There are a lot of cards, and setting up each scenario takes time. I’d love for a faster way to get it to the table so I could play it more often because the story is good.

14. Doppelt So Clever

We’re going to see a lot of roll and writes now. Which makes sense because they are easy to get to the table. Doppelt So Clever is on the lower end because while it is easy to play, it is less satisfying than some. Mainly because I feel like I’m not doing as well as I should be. That is a function of the game and scoring sections, but still, it’s less fun.

13. Deadly Doodles

Deadly Doodles is a dungeon crawler roll and write, kind of. I’d say it is a more like D&D where you go diving into a dungeon, get some treasure and be done. Maybe more of a classic thing, here you find treasure, get weapons and fight monsters. Very simple game, but a fun one to play solo.

12. Marvel Champions: The Card Game

Now back to a living card game that is easier to get to the table. Marvel Champions works very well as a solo game. I prefer it two player, but either works. You play as a hero trying to stop a villain and thwart their evil scheme. Deck construction is fine, but I just like that this is a mechanically fun game, simpler than Arkham Horror, but still thematic game.

11. Welcome To…

Back to roll and writes, Welcome To is a game that works as a solo game. Though, I will say that it is better with more players. And I’m not 100% sure, they might have improved the solo mode in a small pack. But base solo mode is go through the deck and eventually hit a point where it ends and see how well you did. It works, and the game play is still a lot of fun, just the overall experience doesn’t feel as robust.

10. Aeon’s End

Some people might disagree with me. You need to control multiple characters, I recommend only two. But I think this is fairly fast to get to the table. Use the randomizer, pick the market, grab two breach mages and a nemesis and get going. There is more than that, and there are tokens, but Aeon’s End is easy to control two at once. I think that’s a thing for a lot of bigger games, they might be better controlling two characters, but is that easy.

9. Clever Hoch Drei

The third of the Clever roll and writes, and the middle one on my list. It’s a good solo game and this one lets you feel like you can do everything. It is more rewarding than Doppelt So Clever, but almost too rewarding. You can do everything, like every track will be filled in a lot at the end. You can optimize it still, which is what I love about the game. But huge points.

8. Ganz Schon Clever

Last of the Clever trilogy or first if you read top down, Ganz Schon Clever is just fun. I still play it on the app. And I love the game two player. I think that it helps improve the game play and is less lucky than solo while still getting all the rolls and all the rounds. But at any player count, I always want to know what is going on during your turn. And the combos, it feels like the right amount.

7. Metro X

Metro X is a roll and write that has a great puzzle. It isn’t one that has many combos, but the game play feels so tight and restrictive. You try and complete routes, and as you fill in one route, it might help another route. But since you are filling in 4 spots, if you now only can do three before you hit a filled in spot, is that optimizing what you do. The game’s puzzle feels tense from the start.

6. Spire’s End

New to the list and new to me. When I did my cooperative games, I couldn’t put this one on the list. Since it technically is cooperative, though, it just splits it up so that a person controls each of the characters. I’ve even heard of three player with one person being the dungeon master. But Spire’s End, and I’ll talk about it more in the future, is a story driven game where you take characters into a spire for some reason. And you fight monsters in there, but game play is simple and smart.

5. Sleeping Gods

Hey, this is the one that I’m playing right now. You can what last nights stream here. For some people this might seem like a lot because there are nine crew you are in charge of. But you always control them as a group and I think makes it easier. Plus this game is so story focused that if you miss a mechanic, I don’t feel bad about it.

4. Super Mega Lucky Box

One that when I played it the first two times I thought might leave my collection quickly. But no, I really like this game. It’s basically binge, you draw a card, cross of a number. So roll and write mechanics with bonuses when you fill in rows and columns on your card. The game is very fast and so much fun. And there is depth to how you try and get combos working in the game.

3. Railroad Ink & Challenge

Another one that works well solo because you are just trying to beat your previous score. I like either version, so I think that Challenge adds some good stuff to the game. It’s mainly about connecting routes of rail and road. This one also has a strong puzzle to it and the right amount of luck, I feel. The app is a lot of fun too.

2. Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

Another true solo game, Orchard is amazing. Orchard is all about laying cards on top of each other and growing fruit. It hits that great spot of simple but interesting. The combination of layering cards, creating a few dead spots to try and score more, it’s interesting. And I can knock out games so fast while watching something from sports to cooking shows. If I don’t need to pay complete attention, Orchard is great.

1. Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade

Finally, Pinball. I love Super-Skill Pinball, I haven’t played multiplayer yet. But the roll and write works as a pinball game. It is maybe the most thematic roll and write game that I own. And there are a lot of boards, pinball machines, you can play on. The production quality is high and game play is so much fun, and I’ll 100% be getting the Star Trek version when it comes out.

Final Thoughts

Solo gaming is something I want to do more of. And I know it’s goin to be a way to help me get through my goal of getting under 100 unplayed games in 2022. Right now, the number sits around 130, and when I can learn and play it solo, it helps. I’m curious to see how two, Village Green and Floriforous play solo. Mainly because it’d let me learn the game to make it easier to teach to others, if I’ve played it.

What are your favorite games to play solo?

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Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game – 16 Plays

No surprise here that Orchard was my most played for the month. I suspect it’ll have another strong showing this year. But it still holds up after all of the plays. The choices are interesting in the game, and it’s the right level of light but challenging as you play it. This is my solo game of choice for sure right now.

My City – 6 Plays

One of four new games to the list, and this one got played a lot of times. My City is one I’ve wanted to play for a while because it seemed like a good, light, legacy game. And thus far it has been. The play is simple, flip over a card and everyone places their matching tile like it onto their board. But the game is adding in more challenges as you go. I think of it as a legacy-lite game. With legacy I want story, and this one doesn’t have any. But the game play is so fast that it was easy to table.

A Gentle Rain – 4 Plays

Another solo game on the list. I didn’t enjoy A Gentle Rain as much my last few plays. I think that the game is still good, but there is definitely a limited decision space. This one is less when I want a distraction for my brain, and more something fairly mindless to do. I definitely want that at times, but there are a number of other games I’m looking at trying solo. So A Gentle Rain, I expect, will see less play in 2022.

Kohaku – 3 Plays

Another one of the new games, Kohaku is a tile selection and laying game. You draft each turn a tile with a koi fish and one with a scoring objective. It was a lot of fun, and the game looks amazing on the table. You can read more about Kohaku here. It is a nice game, simple and easy to play, but feels like good decisions.

Super Mega Lucky Box – 3 Plays

Yet another new to me game, this one is a 2021 release, which I believe Kohaku is as well. This is a very simple roll and write game, Like Kohaku you can find an article already on it here. I actually got it to the table a few more times yesterday, and it is improving for me. The game play is so fast, that I can knock a game out in minutes. And it is one that fills that spot with solo game play where it it requires just enough brain effort to feel like a good refreshing activity.

Tainted Grail: The Last Knight – 2 Plays

I forget what chapter of Tainted Grail: The Last Knight we are on. But we are making our way through it and I am still enjoying the game a lot. Tainted Grail is one of those games that is just a bit messy but also so thematic that the mess makes sense and is just enjoyable. And I feel like three is a great spot to play it at where we can all work together, and make decisions together. And the game keeps moving along well, granted, we do party up most of the time.

Just One – 2 Plays

I did play this one previously this year, but it has been a while. Just One is definitely, after these plays, one of those good party games that easily gets to the table. And it is always a good time. A simple game where one person is it and trying to guess a single word based off of one word clues. But any duplicate clues are thrown out. And it is a party game where everyone is working together. One that works really well.

Hanamikoji – 2 Plays

Still my favorite two player game. Hanamikoji is so fast to play and gives you such good decision making. I didn’t do great the last few plays, but I still had fun with it. Mainly because everything you do matters, every action you take matters. And most of the time, you are done after a single round, you shuffle up and play again.

Cross Clues – 2 Plays

Another game that hadn’t gotten played in a while, Cross Clues is another cooperative party game with a one word clue. Here you are trying to get people to guess the intersection of two words. This again works so well with almost any group of people. And the game play is fast, even without using the timer which would make it incredibly hectic. A good fun time.

The Reckoners – 1 Play

I got The Reckoners a long time ago. If I remember correctly, I ordered it the day my son was born as it was on a good post Thanksgiving sale. And it has sat on my shelf for a few years, waiting to get played. And now it has been played. It is a game that was worth the wait. Cooperative game play, trying to keep epics, evil super heroes in check, and then take down the big bad guy works well. I want to play it again soon, either in a group or solo.

Medium – 1 Play

This is a great little filler game. And I really like playing and teaching Medium, mainly because I don’t teach Medium before I play it. If someone else knows the game, I just start playing with them and explaining as I go along. It is so simple, like Cross Clues, trying to come up with the word between two words. But now you are matching up, or trying to, with the person you are paired up with. Great fun, and offers some good laughs and absurd word combos.

Sagrada – 1 Play

Finally a game I haven’t played in a very long time but I still love it, Sagrada. The game play is so simple and enjoyable. And this time, we played with the private dice pool to draft from. I don’t know I needed a 3 player game of Sagrada to go faster, but it works well. Definitely with four or more people I’ll be using that new thing. I still need to mix in some of the expansions as well.

Yearly Board Gaming Stats

Alright, let us see how the year ended. A total of 421 game plays were had with 77 different games, which is great. Considering that I played Orchard 116 different times, and Tainted Grail another 38, I got in a lot of different games. I had 9 games that I played over 10 times, so including Orchard and Tainted Grail, Dice Throne, Ohanami, A Gentle Rain, Deadly Doodles, That’s Pretty Clever, Metro X, and Hanamikoji. Generally short games minus Tainted Grail. And then 19 total games I played at least 5 times.

That is a great amount of gaming. And I think it is a number that I can push even higher in 2022. I think that some things, going to GenCon for example, and more in person gaming to start the year will push it clover to 475-500 range for plays. And I’m excited to try new games that will be coming in as well. So yes, I will be back with more of these recaps in 2022.

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Honorable Mention Board Games

There are a lot that could go on here. Downforce has been great fun as well as Night Cage, I’m not sure, but I think I played Super Fantasy Brawl for the first time this year. So that one isn’t getting added to the list. Aeon’s End Legacy which I streamed. I’m not sure which all roll an d write games, but I think Metro X, for sure Deadly Doodles, Patchwork Doodle, and maybe Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade. Tiny Towns would be this year and has been played a number of times.

And I think that’s it, there might be more for the list as well. I have played a lot of new board games this year and I’m sure I’m missing some. Unfathomable is one I just saw on my shelf, as well as Similo or Ohanami. And I just did my Top 100, so I could just pull from that list, which you can see here.

5. A Gentle Rain

A small little solo game, this is one that I’m thinking might slowly drop on my list, which is a weird thing to say for a game that is my Top 5 for 2021. I got to game more with people this year, but not as much as I wanted. I didn’t get to cons and things like that, which gave different gaming experiences. So some small solo games got a lot of enjoyment this year.

A Gentle Rain is a very relaxing game to play. In it you are flipping out tiles trying to place them down in a way that all four sides can match. In fact, all four sides need to, to get fully surrounded – like Carcassonne. But if you get a square of four tiles, that corner you create you put in a disc matching one of the flower sides you matched.

It’s very simple, flip a tile and play it. It’s more of an activity in some ways as you are just trying to see how high a score you can get, or can you get all 8 discs out. But there is some strategy as to how you create your pond to optimize how you can finish those squares. So it’s not just luck.

4. PitchCar

This is a game that I keep adding more to. Whenever Eagle-Gryphon has some of it on sale, I buy more of it. I think I own all but one expansion which allows big PitchCar to connect to mini PitchCar, and I still want more. I wouldn’t mind another base set to just get more of some of the basic shapes.

But PitchCar is a simple racing game. You flick car discs around the board trying to be the first one to complete a circuit. The game play is simple but a lot of fun, and half the fun is building crazy tracks. I even have a loop for it that you can go around, and yes, flicking a disc around a loop is possible.

3. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

I love this vesion of Terraforming Mars. I still need to play actual Terraforming Mars, but this one works well for me. It’s still about Terraforming Mars, but it does so in a smaller package. You just keep track of resources and then playing out cards to raise the oxygen levels, flip ocean tiles and raise the temperature. So stuff you do in the bigger game.

But it does it with very slick card play and action selection. Each round everyone selects an action from five different actions. It can be building, doing research, getting resources, but it’s always done in a specific order. If I pick an action, I get to do it and you do as well, but I get a bonus. It’s a fun system that keeps everyone involved the whole time.

2. Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

Another solitaire game. I think I’m up to 110 plays of Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game, just because it’s so fast to play. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t offer good decisions and isn’t fun. It’s a lot of fun and a really good puzzle as you try and beat your previous high score.

You are layering cards, matching the different fruit tree symbols of apples, pears, and plums. The higher you stack and overlap the more you get. So, for example, if I get a pear on a pear, that gives me one fruit, or one point. Another layer, I’m up to three fruit. And you can go as high as ten. But getting the cards, with nine cards, to overlap that much is hard. It’s a great little puzzle of a game.

1. Railroad Ink Challenge

Finally, I put down Railroad Ink Challenge. I really like this game, because it’s fun in person and great on the app.This is one where the app gives such a fast experience it’s almost as good as playing in person. I already liked Railroad Ink a lot. It’s a good roll and write game about connecting routes along the edge of the board. You get points for filling middle spots and lose points for having roads or train tracks not connect.

But Railroad Ink Challenge takes it up a notch. It adds in, well, challenges. These are basically things like, on turn three have a complete row or column filled in. On turn five have five spots in the middle filled in. I like that better than the base game as it gives something more to focus on. When a route doesn’t easily connect to an exit, now you know what to do with it.

It’s a great roll and write and really high quality. I own a ton of tiny little expansions that I really need to play with. Even the base game without mixing in any expansion is a ton of fun, though. Highly recommend this game and the app. It’s a roll and write that I think is accessible, but also very thinky, a really good combination.

Final Thoughts on 2021 Board Games

It was so nice to play a lot of board games again this year. For my birthday I did a full day of board gaming. That is probably what I missed most in 2020, sitting around a game table and playing with friends. And I didn’t even start doing much in person gaming until almost half way through 2021.

If you’re reading this, you are probably a board gamer. But maybe you are here to see what new games might work well as a gift for a board gamer in your life. I really recommend all of them, though if they don’t play solo, I wouldn’t recommend Orchard or A Gentle Rain. But for a lot of us board gamers in the past two years, what we want is more time to play board games. And more time to play with people, so that’s a great gift to give.

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Tofu Kingdom, Brewcrafters Travel Card Game, The Mind & Cthulhu Fluxx

I lumped these together. They are all smaller games, I gave them a chance, and while they aren’t bad, I have a number of smaller games that I’m going to pull off the shelf before them. And often that’s why games leave, something like Cthulhu Fluxx was a great gateway game for me, but now I have others.

I think that most people might be surprised by the Mind. My experience with that was just okay at the best. The game with it’s, you can’t share information is fine. But also leads to long chunks of time of people not talking. I wish there was more fun and funny going on for a game that is so simple. The Mind is like Cosmic Encounter for me as well, where it is very group dependent.

Gloom

Gloom is a very fun game. It has transparent cards and you are trying to kill off your family with them having the most miserable lives possible. And you tell stories as you do it. It’s a blast to play, and I haven’t played it since before I was married. I was dating now wife but we were maybe engaged. That’s over 7 years.

So, you can guess why this one is leaving. I just don’t play it often enough, or at all anymore. If someone else has it and pulls it off the shelf to play, I will play it and love it. I might even buy it again at that point. But right now, even though it’s a small game, it opens up room for other small games to try and play.

Werewords

This one came into my collection not that long ago and now it’s leaving my collection. I am always trying to find a second social deduction game that I like. I even watched on Board Game Geeks YouTube channel Werewords played and thought that it’d be it. It’s a game of twenty questions with a traitor, the concept even sounds fun.

But it’s like so many social deduction games, when it comes down to it, you are just guessing. If you don’t guess the word you will take a random stab at whom the traitor is and probably be wrong. If you’re the traitor and the word is guessed, you’ll give a random guess on the seerer unless they were extremely obvious. I want more deduction in my social deduction is what it is, I guess.

Werewords is a solid game, it’s just not for me.

Onirim

This one might surprise people. I like Onirim as a solo game. But it’s going away for three reasons. The first being Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game, then A Gentle Rain – another solo game, and finally, because I own the app. I can still play Onirim, but I’ll do on the app. And there will be much less shuffling.

I know that a lot of people even like the app better because it does all the shuffling. I still think I prefer the physical game, but if I’m going to play a solo game right now, it’s going to be Orchard or A Gentle Rain. They are easier to get out and play, so sorry, Onirim, you’re leaving the collection. Again another really good game and this one is for me, but I just have others to play now.

The Siblings Trouble

This is one that I never actually played. I picked it up because when it was on Kickstarter, I had backed the companies other game, Lift Off! and wanted to back another one of their projects. It’s a kind of RPG like game that is tailored for kids. But it came out at the same time as No Thank You, Evil! A kids RPG that has more support. And I likely would just play D&D with my kid eventually.

Hex Roller

I got this game quite recently, I played it, and I’m selling it. Hex Roller is not a bad roll and write. But it isn’t a game where what you do will change much. The dice rolls will change things up, but the mechanics don’t change. So I’ve played it, and I’m passing it on to someone else.

My knock on Hex Roller is that while the scoring is simple, the teach is not. The rules are a little bit weird for how you take dice and use them. It just teaches harder then a game that doesn’t have that much going on should. I understand that they wanted the game to be clever and give you lots to think about, but it’s just a solid game. Not good enough for me to come back to.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

This is a really fun and goofy game. It is also a story game that has limited replayability. Now, I am not done with the story, so why am I getting rid of it. It’s easy, I know two maybe three people who own it. If I want to play it again or play it the whole way through, I can.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger is a great time. It’s goofy and fun to sit around and play. If you play lighter games, I definitely recommend it. But most likely, like me, you’ll end up selling it once you’re done with the story. The downside is I won’t get much for it, the upside is, someone can play it and enjoy it again.

Blossoms

Blossoms is a two player push your luck game. You are trying to grow flowers and then harvest them at the point that it’ll give you the most points. It’s a pretty little game, though in a larger box than really needed. But it is a two player game, so the question I asked myself, how many two player only games do I need?

The answer didn’t include Blossoms. When I look at my two player games, I would pick Hanamikoji before it, Skulk Hollow, 7 Wonders Duel, Fox in the Forest, Fox in the Forest Duet. All of those I’d play before Blossoms. Blossoms is just a little bit too simple for when I want to play a two player game. But if you have a parent or grandparent who likes more classic feeling games, Blossoms would be great.

Cry Havoc

This is a tough game for me to get rid of. I really like Cry Havoc. This is another situation where I just own other games I’m going to play before it. Cry Havoc is asymmetrical area control. If I want area control that’s pretty complex, Blood Rage. If I want asymmetrical, well I own Root now. Cry Havoc is leaving because I own enough other games that do similar things. And I own enough other games that I’d play before it.

It is a bit of a casualty of my Top 100 that I just wrapped up, actually. When going through the Top 10 and seeing games like Lords of Hellas and Blood Rage, th ose will get played before Cry Havoc. So even with Cry Havoc just missing at 103 and being there last year, it’s time for it to go.

Castle Panic

This is getting bumped because of a future Kickstarter that is coming. It’s also getting bumped because it’s too easy a cooperative game. Now, some of that is that I’m older than the target audience. This is a tower defense game for 10 year old kids or younger. It’s not targeting someone like me. Village Attacks as a tower defense game is.

But this is a game that I win too often. And again, I think that’s with the target age. A 10 year old will want to win more often than they lose. I personally like to lose about 60-70% of the time when playing a cooperative game. In my Top 100 I have Say Bye to the Villains, I have yet to beat that game. I don’t think I’ve lost Castle Panic.

Lift Off!

I just talked about this one, it’s the first game that I backed on Kickstarter. I am greatly tempted to keep this one. I’ve played it a few times but it hasn’t been in years. It’s a fun little game, and I like some of their other games. I still have Skulk Hollow which won’t be leaving anytime soon.

This is one that I am tempted to keep to just play a few more times. It is also a game that isn’t going to come off my shelf all that often. It’s like Castle Panic in that it’s younger focused, not my gaming group, and there’s enough other games I’ll play before it.

Dicecapades!

For a mass market game, Dicecapades is generally a lot of fun. You get goofy things like stacking dice. Or you roll a die and need to do that many push-ups. Or you roll a die and there is trivia. Wait, there is trivia, what does that have to do with dice , the answer, nothing. And that’s why I don’t pull it out anymore.

Everything else in the game is fun, but you need to answer a trivia question on a random area that is determined by a die roll. If you get it wrong, you stay and then do it again next turn. Meanwhile, everyone else is doing goofy fun things, until they get stuck on trivia as well. And if I roll sports before you roll movies, because that’s what we know best, I get going faster just based off of luck.

It is a mass market party game, it is supposed to be lucky. But it’s just not that fun when you get to trivia. Remove the trivia from the game, I’d probably keep the game. It’s one that I can play with cousins and non-gamers. But with trivia, it’s annoying. If I want to do trivia, I own Wits & Wagers.

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Now, this is the tricky one, and it might stay. I want to play this game. The intro scenario to teach you the game, I’ve played it twice. But it’s a campaign game, and it’s a campaign game with an app before apps were common. So the app itself isn’t great. Not bad, but not great. And I don’t have a group to play this game. So it’s a lot of work to play solo.

If I had a group, I’d play it. I might even play it solo, if I go through the introductory scenario again. But am I going to do that when I have Isofarian Guard coming sometime, Destinies coming that can be played solo, Middara, Roll Player Adventures, Solomon Kane, Deep Madness and more? I think it might leave like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth did. Not because it is a bad game, it isn’t, it’s a lot of fun, but because I own so many.

16 Games of Shelf Space

It’s a tough list to cut. I look at Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Cry Havoc, Onirim, and Gloom especially, and I really enjoy all of those games. But the question is, will I play them? Or am I just keeping them on my shelf because I like the idea of getting back to them sometime?

I think it’s more the latter than I’d actually get back to the games. And some of them, Gloom in particular, that depends on the group. If you like a tell a story, it works well, if you just play the cards, the game is fine. So, all of these are leaving, probably over the weekend, to get traded into my FLGS. And I’m looking at a few games, Escape The Room and Star Wars Unlock, that I need to play to then free up more space.

Which one, if you could get one of these games I’m trading in, would you want to play most?

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Let’s talk about the games:

Orchard: A 9 card solitaire game – 38 Plays

This is the game that pushed me over, when I was under the weather I knocked out a lot of it. It gave me something to do while I was bored at home. Orchard is also now at 100 plays for the year, which is impressive because I started playing it in August. But Orchard is a great little solo game and it allows me to do something while watching a sporting event or something like that. If you are looking for a little solo game, I love Orchard.

Tainted Grail: The Last Knight – 4 Plays

From a small game to a big game, Tainted Grail, the second campaign has been started. This is just two evenings and it’s been a lot of fun. I will say, The Last Knight legitimately feels different than first campaign, The Fall of Avalon. And there are a few different things, such as exposure that make the game trickier. I still like it for story mode so that there is less maintenance for the characters, and it’s still tough. The story and aesthetic of the game are so very good.

Ohanami – 4 Plays

And back to another small game, this one I like because it’s pretty simple but has some good decision making in it. You are just putting cards down in numerical order as you draft them, but scoring matters in what you draft. You score blue in the first round, for only three points. But then it scores the next two rounds. Green scores four points but only scores the last two rounds, and seven for grey but only the last round. So you can strategize some. And I played this two and four player and it’s fun but different at both player counts.

Patchwork Doodle – 4 Plays

A roll and write game, I won’t say too much about it, because I did a TableTopTakes review on it recently. You can read that here. It’s a good roll and write game, it is a bit like Second Chance. So that makes it easy to get to the table but it also adds in a bit more than Second Chance does and gives good game play.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – 1 Play

I keep on coming back to this game and really enjoying it. I have only played it with one friend, but we know how to play it and can play it very fast. And we’re tied at two wins a piece. Our scores, my friend is average 47 points per game, I am averaging 46.75, so it’s always been amazingly close. And I have gone with different strategies in different games, depending on the corporation that I have, and it’s a lot of fun every time.

Dice Throne – 1 Play

Finally we have Dice Throne. It was Pyromancer versus Shadow Thief. I played the Pyromancer and won handily. I’ve had some rough games recently with the Pyromancer because I wasn’t able to get the fire mastery going, but I did this time and the Shadow Thief didn’t keep their CP high enough early on to deal that much damage. Dice Throne is a game I love, and you can see where it ended up on my Top 100 Board Games (of all time) 2021 Edition if you want here.

365 Days of Gaming Stats

The challenge got completed on November 25th. Looking at the numbers, it is 71 different games. Orchard: A 9 card solitaire game was the most played with 95 plays followed by Tainted Grail (34), Dice Throne (16), Deadly Doodles (12) and Ohanami (12). So that rounds out the Top 5 games that I’ve played in the challenge. And I finished with 36 days to spare.

Yearly Gaming Stats

So for the year, 378 plays recorded. Stats for games are pretty similar. Orchard is at 100 total plays and Tainted Grail is up to 36. 8 games have more than 10 plays and 17 with more than five. Plus a total of 72 different games over all. I am up to 23% of the games that I own that have a play this year. That number keeps on being pretty steady because I buy more games. I’d love to get that up to 25% by the end of the year, and I have a month left to get there.

I suspect that I won’t get to 25% played but we’ll see. I think that next years challenge might be based more off of playing new games, and by new games, I mean games in my collection that I haven’t recorded any plays of. My shelves are full, or nearly full, so I need to play more to make decisions on what games are kept.

What game would you want to play from my list last month?

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Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

This is going to be a little solo game. It says it’s a 9 card game, so you’d expect a small package. In this game you are overlapping cards to grow fruit. The more fruit you get the more points that you have. But you need to overlap the same types of trees, so it makes it an interesting puzzle.

This is a very fast game to play. And while it says 9 cards, it comes with 18, so you split the cards and you can play it twice very quickly. Which I think works well for the game. This is a game that I sit down and play 4-10 times in a sitting because a game takes five minutes or maybe 10 if you are trying really hard to optimize everything.

Marvel Champions: The Card Game

A bigger game, this one can be played multiplayer, but solo you take a hero against a villain to try and beat them up and stop their schemes. I really like this one as a thematic Marvel game. Each hero plays very differently, and you can change up how they play through deck building. The villains play differently as well.

And this is a game where the base box comes with some heroes, but you can get additional heroes. Now, there are a lot of heroes and a lot of content out for the game. And while I own it all of it, you don’t need to. If someone you know likes Thor, get them the base box and the Thor expansion. Or maybe they like Spider-Man and his villains, give them the base set and the Green Goblin pack. You can customize who the person can get really easily.

A Gentle Rain

Back to another small game with A Gentle Rain. This is for the casual gamer who might like that solo activity. A Gentle Rain is meant to be a relaxing game and it really is. You are flipping over tiles trying to match sides. If you can get it so that you match all the corners, you put a disc down. The goal is to get all of the discs out or as many of them as you can.

This one is a simpler game than Orchard and takes up a bit more space, but both of them fall into a category of fast and little games to play. This game also has a really nice aesthetic. This is even a solid one that you could give someone to take into work as something to fidget with when they get stuck on a work problem or something like that.

Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade

A lot of roll and write games can be played solo. I could have picked Metro X, Ganz Schon Clever (or any of that trilogy) and a whole lot more. But Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade is a fun one because it’s a thematic roll and write. In it, you are playing a pinball game basically seeing how high a score you can get.

The cool thing about this roll and write is that they have four different boards, plus four more coming in an expansion. Some of the boards are easier, or pinball machines, so you can learn the basic concept of the game on that, and then move onto harder boards. And even the harder boards don’t make the game much longer or more difficult. If you want a good thematic game in a small package, this might be it.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

On the flip side, this is a very thematic game, but in a very big package. It’s also going to be harder to find than some. I know places like Game Steward, I believe, still have copies of the Kickstarter available though, so not impossible to find. This is a big survival game that can be multiplayer, but also works well as a solo game where you control one character.

This is a dark retelling of the Avalon and Arthurian legends. And it has an amazing story. I recommend playing it in story mode because it’s a great story to experience and the survival in the regular mode can be very challenging. I’ve played through the main quest and started on the expansions and talked about it a lot because it’s an amazing game. It’s going to be more expensive but such a good experience.

Honorable Mention Solo Games

Of course, I can add in a few honorable mentions. Onirim is a fun little solo game where you are trying to deal with nightmares and create patterns in cars you play down to get doors. There is a lot of shuffling and A Gentle Rain and Orchard have replaced it for me. I could have put Gloomhaven or Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion on the list as well. Those can be played solo, but unlike Tainted Grail where you can play with one character, in Gloomhaven you need to control two.

What are some solo games that you’d want for Christmas or that you’d recommend to others?

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The next 10 are going to be on Wednesday at 8 PM Central Time. You can join me over on Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. You can flick the notification bell, here, to know when I’m going live. I hope that you can join as we get higher into the Top 100 list.

100 Through 91

90 Through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

60 through 51

50 through 41

Top 100 Board Games – 40 through 31

40. Not Alone

This is a one versus all game, and normally I don’t gravitate towards that type of game. The one is either playing a different game orrunning the game. But in Not Alone, while the game they are playing is a little bit different, it is a lot of fun. The one is the planet trying to kill off the crew of a crashed spaceship before they can be rescued. Everyone else is trying to survive and signal the ship to get there faster. The group can discuss but it must always be done so that the one can hear. The card play works well, the game play fast, and overall a fun time as crew or planet.

Not Available

39. Downforce

I think this is the highest racing game that I have on the list, or at least racing themed game. Downforce has you bidding to get cars and race them around the board, as well as bet on who you think is going to win. The game actually is more about. how well you can tell early in the game who is going to win? because the betting is where you make the most money.

The card play in the game is very clever as well. You play down your cards and you have to move every car on the card in order from fastest to slowest. This can create bottlenecks and strategic card play. The game feels like a racing game, but it doesn’t take too long. Some racing games can feel more drawn out but Downforce doesn’t overstay it’s welcome. And keeps you engaged as other people are moving all the cars as well.

Buy On Miniature Market

38. Sushi Go Party!

Another good big group game, in fact all of these games work best, thus far, towards their higher player counts. Sushi Go Party is a drafting and set collection game as you build out your ideal meal to score points. All the cards score in different ways, and Sushi Go Party allows you to swap around the cards that you use every game. It means that you can create some very unique combinations that either give a ton of points or can cause people to go negative in points. And you can really tailor it to your group.

Buy On Miniature Market

37. Roll Player

A dice drafting game, in Roll Player you create a Dungeons and Dragons, or RPG character. The whole game is about how well you can build your stats for the character. I really like how the game works and I really like building up D&D characters. My one knock on the game is that you don’t do anything with the character, you just build it. Monsters and Minions expansion is supposed to help with that. Plus then Dice Throne Adventures is coming which I know helps with my issue.

When it comes to this or Sagrada, I do think that there is enough difference between to the two to keep both. Sagrada is more family friendly in how it plays in that it is easier to play. Plus the theme is much less nerdy, not that a nerdy theme is bad. Roll Player with creating a character for an RPG, that is a theme that specific groups will enjoy better but also one that some people won’t be interested in at all.

Buy on Miniature Market

36. Homebrewers

Homebrewers is a nice and fast engine building game. In it you compete to be the best brewer of beer at Summerfest and Oktoberfest. Mechanically this is a pretty simple engine building game. You roll dice and can trade them around to determine what actions you get to take in a round. You can brew, sanitize, add ingredients to your pantry or beers or use them to get an advantage.

For me the theme of brewing makes this game very appealing. I homebrew my own beer and it’s fun to come up with crazy ingredient combinations. Would I want to drink a full point of a smoked oyster porter, most certainly not, but I’d try it. And at the end of the game I like to look and see what is the best one that I’ve created, even though that doesn’t determine the winner.

Buy on Miniature Market

35. Clever Cubed

The only roll and write on this section of the Top 100 games, Clever Cubed, or Clever Hoch Drei, is part of the Clever trilogy of games. This one follows the same standard as the others with rolling dice, taking one and discarding all the ones lower. But this one gives you the most points as you play. It’s fun because the pink section really lets you lean into combos, filling in lots of other spots on the board. Yes, the game is themeless, but I really enjoy the puzzles that the Clever games bring.

Buy on Miniature Market

34. The Night Cage

If you want a game for Halloween, The Night Cage might be an ideal one for you. You are trapped, as a group, in an ever changing labyrinth that you can only crawl through. You only illuminate the spaces directly around you and if you go backwards to where you were before, the labyrinth will have changed. Plus there are monsters in there, and you need to avoid them if you can. You all are searching for keys and then a portal to be able to escape, but all of you need to find a key and get to the same portal to activate it. All this as your candles burn down.

This is really kind of an abstract game, but it is still thematic as you deal with the monsters and search for keys. The game also has a really nice tile holder which looks like a candle that is burning down, so as you put more tiles onto the board, the more that the candle will have burned down. It’s a very easy game to play, but it has an amazing tension as you get further into the game.

Buy on CoolStuffInc

33. Orchard: A 9 card solitaire game

I talk about Orchard fairly often, and I backed it’s successor Grove on Kickstarter recently. It’s still up for backing if you want to check it out. But Orchard is a great solo game. It’s a game that has you stacking cards and matching up fruit tree symbols to grow as much fruit as you can. The more you overlap cards, the more points you’ll get from the fruit you grow.

Orchard is an extremely fast play and generally I’ll play it several times in a single sitting. It also has a little footprint and easy set-up and pick-up. The game isn’t too mindless, but I call it a good mental reset game. I always feel like can refresh my brain and distract myself for a little bit while I play to then have fresh eyes to look at some work problem again.

Buy On Miniature Market

32. Ohanami

Ohanami is a very simple game. You draft two cards and then you put them into three columns split up however you like. But you always need to put down higher or lower numbers. The game is a lot of fun at it’s high player count of four or low of two and changes a lot as you play between those two. At two players it is much more strategic. At four players you only see two cards from that original hand come back to you. So drafting changes up greatly at higher player counts.

But there is also the scoring that keeps the game interesting. You draft over three rounds and score at the end of each. The first round you score for blue cards, the second blue and green, and the final, blue, green, grey and pink. Blue cards are worth less overall, but if you get them early, they can be the most lucrative to have drafted. So while the game is very accessible to any type of gamer, it isn’t too simple for heavy gamers.

Buy On Amazon

31. T.I.M.E Stories

The biggest game on the list T.I.M.E Stories is a campaign style game but also an escape room. You work together to try and figure out how to stop timing from being changed off of the proper flow that it’s supposed to be going. Your consciousness is sent back in time or across timelines so that you can investigate. If you can’t get it done in time, you can always restart armed with the knowledge that you now know.

I know that some people don’t love every scenario, and the scenarios aren’t always consistent. The game also promises are story throughout it linking each different scenario, and that doesn’t really exist. But the game is a lot of fun for me. I don’t mind going back and taking another run at things. The stories have all been enjoyable, some more so, but I’m always ready to see what the next puzzle or scenario is going to be when I finish playing.

Buy on Miniature Market

The Next 10

If you want to catch any of the remaining Top 10’s live, you can check them out and my normal streams on Wednesday at 8 PM Central time. If you subscribe and click the notification bell you’ll know whenever I go live or upload a new video to Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. When I’m not doing my Top 100, you can find me on Wednesday playing board games solo on the YouTube channel.

Now, I did say I wanted to talk about my streaming times. Through the Top 100 list, I am going to keep my 8 PM Central time on Wednesdays for streaming. However, this might be changing. A channel that I like to watch and be part of their live chat, the GloryHoundd channel is adjusting their schedule. And I know I have crossover viewers from their channel. If they take that 8 PM Central Wednesday spot, I might look at making my main streaming day on Monday. Be aware that change may come.

But what game do you like best out of this part of the Top 100? Are there any that you want to get to the table that you haven’t played in this bunch?

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Pros

• Pedigree
• Price
• Shipping
• Solo Game
• Ease of Play
• Print and Play

Cons

• Is It Different Enough?

The Page

I don’t have a ton to say about this page besides that it is good. If I had a negative about it, I’d want more examples showing off how the game play works visually. On the flip side, it’s easy to find where they talk about game play and they really explain the whole game there. If you wanted to, it’d be easy to get up and running with the print and play version of the game right now.

Shipping is very reasonable, and it doesn’t “ruin” the kickstarter value. Often times games will cost $100 plus $50 shipping with an MSRP of $130 and free shipping later. So you need extra things to make it worth it. Here, I think that the value of this game is highly reasonable and it’s a good way to support a smaller company, though it is fully funded already.

The Game

I can basically tell you how this game plays with the explanation on the page. But I want to highlight a few things I find really interesting about this game play. The first is the empty spots on the cards. That really creates a new strategy for the game using those open spots for flexibility on placing future cards. It opens up the game more, but instead of having two times you can not match, you are now limited to a single time.

I also like that the numbers of the dice increase not by just stacking the cards but by number of fruit on the card. I don’t know that this changes up the strategy of the game massively, but it is going to make the scoring feel different. It’s a nice twist on scoring while keeping the game at a nice level of complexity.

There is also the new backs of the cards. Recipes that you can use to determine the win condition of the game. Another twist on the game, but one that I’m less interested in, oddly enough. It seems like it might be fun, but I’ll likely stick to the basic scoring of the game, just seeing how many points I can get for a while. The idea of the recipes means that you need to think about something more and consider before you start. I like just being able to start.

Back or Brick

Is this game a Back or Brick for me? For $15 plus $5 shipping, this was an easy Back for me. I already love Orchard by Side Room Games, and you can see my thoughts on that here. But let’s put it this way, I’ve played Orchard 62 times since I got it in August. It’s a great game to just sit down and play fast multiple times. I think that Grove is going to give me another one of that type of solo game. Both of these games also go along nicely with A Gentle Rain which also has a similar feel.

Is Grove a Back or a Brick for you?

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Let’s see everything that was played.

Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game – 28 Plays

So that is a ton of plays of this game. But I talked about it in my recent review, this is a very easy game to get to the table. It calls itself a 9 card game, there are actually 18. But you only use 9 each game. That means I can shuffle up once, split the deck and play twice in a row. It’s also a good solo game because it doesn’t take up much space. I got in something like 10 plays during under a quarter of a college football game. This is a really good solo game.

Aeon’s End Legacy – 4 Plays

So, like I said, probably not getting that played tonight. But I’ve really loved my playthroughs of this game. It’ll be on the list for the last time next month though. I only have one more to go. But you can check out all the plays over on Malts and Meeples. Really good legacy game and I can’t stress enough, this is how I’d recommend that people learn to play Aeon’s End, it teaches you so well.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon – 3 Plays

We’re getting towards the end game of Tainted Grail as well. I do think it’ll run through all of September as we only will get in a couple of plays. But I’m still really loving the game. I and I really like how much the world has changed because of a few things we’ve done. I’m not sure it always changes that way, but it’s given us some cool and interesting things to think about. The story is really what makes this game so good

The Night Cage – 3 Plays

I’ve been waiting on this one to show up for a bit, so when it did, I needed to get it to the table. And it was a lot of fun to get it to the table. I like Night Cage as almost a horror themed game, well, it is one but it gives you that feeling of tension. I think that the candle burning down as you play out tiles and showing how that is shortening up works really well.

Downforce – 2 Plays

It happens from time to time but not all that often that I will get an expansion after playing a game. In the case of Downforce, I liked the two plays of it that I had so much that I got two expansions for it. Those expansions are just more maps to race around, but it’s going to be a lot of fun to get those to the table. I think that this upcoming months board game night might be racing games.

Claim – 2 Plays

It’d been a while but every time I play a trick taking game, I realize that I do like trick taking. It is just a lot of fun to see how well I can play. And it is interesting too because with this game, you are first winning tricks to build your hand to then win tricks to actually win the game. First game was close then dominated in the second one, which is the only downside I have for this game, it can be a bit swingy.

Hanamikoji – 2 Plays

In terms of two player games, I think that Hanamikoji is my favorite. I really like how smoothly and simply it plays. I could have used this for my abstract game example because it’s easy to learn abut offers amazing decision making space. One that I know I’ll keep on coming back to.

Deranged – 1 Plays

Got this during 2020 and needless to say, I didn’t get 3+ player games to the table then. But I got to play the introductory scenario of the game again. And I still really enjoy this game even after so long. This was one that I originally played and demoed at GenCon back in 2019. Another horror themed game but one that is lighter in tone than Night Cage but also more thematic as you try and break curses. I want to play the bigger version of the game just to see how it goes.

Detective: Dig Deeper – 1 Plays

So I’ve talked about Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game a fair amount. It is one of my favorite thematic games where what you are doing matches the theme so well. This takes you into the 70’s, so things are a bit different but still offers an amazing thematic experience. And I am curious to see who will be the next designer they announce for this signature series because it is fun to see what other people are doing.

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition – 1 Plays

Got in a really fast play of this game last night. And it was surprising how fast, basically one hour for two players. Generally they’ve taken longer, but we got our engines up and running very quickly. I still really like this game. The mechanics are smooth and that engine building aspect is so much fun. I need to get the paper off of my overlays for the boards so I can make it even easier to keep track of things. I know some people are mad about Target getting retail copies before they got their nicer Kickstarter copies, but it’s a really good game.

Parade – 1 Plays

This small little card game with kind of an Alice in Wonderland theme is always fun to play. I like it as a puzzle to solve, how you can push for a fair amount of one color if you can avoid the rest of the colors. The clever thing of having the most of a color and that making all those cards worth a point each instead of face value really works for me. And the game plays pretty quickly, you need to think a bit on your turn, but you don’t have too many options to get analysis paralysis.

Calico – 1 Plays

Another play of Calico, and the more I get of it, the more I realize how much I like the game. It just works for me because it is a simple game to play but the puzzle gives you hard choices. Plus it’s cats so that theme is always good. I do think it might be too much of a puzzle for really casual gamers, but overall it’ll be one that works for a lot of people.

Cartographers – 1 Plays

This, I think, is becoming my favorite roll and write game. It just works so well and works well with a large group of players. I like making maps and I can’t wait to get more maps and more expansions and stuff for this game. If you want a thematic roll and write, this isn’t the best, Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade I would say is, but it’s up there. And I think the simplicity of this game with the theme of map making is going to draw people in.

Sonora – 1 Plays

Another roll and write game, but of course this starts with flicking. I really like this game. It is not the easiest roll and write game to play. It is so combotastic that filling out your board can take a while. And for some people that take longer. But I still really like it for that aspect. In fact, it’s very high on my list because it feels different every time. I can pick a new area to try and optimize.

Dice Throne – 1 Plays

A game I got in last night of Vampire versus Samurai and the Samurai had no problem winning. I was rolling really poorly as the vampire. And I was really pushing for blood power. I want to try that match-up again, or play around more with the Vampire Lord. I feel like I need to come up with a better strategy. Even getting stomped, I want to play it again and still love the game.

Railroad Ink Challenge – 1 Plays

Final game played this month. Railroad Ink Challenge I think is a better version of Railroad Ink. I talked about it before, it just offers more to do. This one was fun because we had eight people playing it. That means that we had a lot of wildly different boards and scores. The challenges just offer more direction early in the game. Regular Railroad Ink is fine, but challenge for me is the better of the two, though harder to teach.

Yearly Gaming Stats

So like I said, I am all caught up. 244 total plays and 121 plays left to go in 121 days. With that there are 62 different games that I’ve played and 7 that I’ve played over 10 times. I think that Orchard is going to help me keep up on my plays, and probably a few more of A Gentle Rain coming as well. I’m also now at 22% of the base, not expansion, board games that I own played in this calendar year.

So which of those games would you want to play from this past month?

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