Top 10 Games To Take Along Traveling

10. A Gentle Rain (Solo)

This is a good game for a number of different locations for gaming. First off the packaging is quite small for the game that is going to make it easy to take with you. The game is also cardboard tiles and wooden pieces. The good thing about that is that it means it works well outside. So it’s very portable, it does take up a bit of space though, as you lay it out.

So let’s talk about how the game plays. A Gentle Rain is a matching game where you want to complete a square of four tiles. When you do you can place a flower matching the colors of the matched flowers that created the square. The goal is to get rid of all of the flowers to win the game. It’s very simple, flip and see where you can match flowers. But it is meant to be a calming and chill game and it is that.

9. Hanamikoji (2 Player)

Now we’re onto a two player game. Some of the other multiplayer games work well at two, but this one is specifically a two player game. And it is going to give you that ideal two player experience in a small package and some interesting game play.

In Hanamikoji you are playing down gifts to win the favor of Geisha. Your goal is to, after all the gifts have been played, have the favor of four Geisha or eleven points worth of Geisha. But how you play out cards is what really is interesting. Each player has four actions that they are going to do once. You decide which order to do them. You either save one gift hidden from your opponent to use in scoring. Save two gifts hidden from your opponent that are discard. Or you either give your opponent the choice of one of three cards or one of two sets of two cards.

I love how the game creates these mind games. You need to play what you have in your hand and try and understand what your opponent is trying to hide from you based off of what they are giving you as options.

8. Arboretum (Multiplayer)

Now we’re onto a multiplayer game that is a bit mean. Arboretum is a game of creating an Arboretum and connecting paths between types of trees going from low to high. But as you play out you are also adding more cards to your hand from the discard piles out there. And you can pull from your opponents piles and your opponents see what you are building out.

So how is it mean. There are two ways it can be mean. Players can block you from scoring a type of tree. If you don’t have the most points in your hand of a tree type, you don’t score that tree type. They can also hold back cards in their hand that you need to create your paths of trees. But the game is a lot of fun because it offers a lot of tough choices and for being on the list is one of the most interactive.

7. Schadenfreude (Multiplayer)

I can put a lot of trick taking games on the list. And I maybe should pick something else, so here are some bonus games. The Crew is a great cooperative trick taking game, same with The Fellowship of the Ring trick taking game. Fox in the Forest is a good two player trick taking game. But now let’s talk about Schadenfreude.

Schadenfreude is a different trick taking game where you want to score points, but not too many. The game ends in the hand where someone goes over 40 points. But 40 points isn’t the winning total. No, it is the total that guarantees you won’t win. So you want to get as close to 40 points as possible without hitting it or going over. Because whomever is the closest to 40 when someone goes over 40 is going to be the winner of the game. It’s a fun twist and not the only one in the game.

6. Ohanami (Multiplayer)

Now we go from two more interactive games to a more laidback game again. Ohanami is a drafting game where you want to create your best garden. And it is a game for travel that comes in a tiny box. So it is very easy to travel with because it is just cards. Now it does take up a bit of room as you play, but not too bad, you just create three columns of cards.

Like I said, Ohanami is a drafting game. You pick two cards from the hand each round. And each card you pick needs to be added to the three columns of cards you can create. You also need to play it above the highest value card or below the lowest value card in a column keeping it in numerical order. It’s not complex, but it works well.

And the scoring is fun as well. When you score, it changes each round. The first round you only score one type of card. They give you the fewest points but they score each of the three rounds. Whereas others score more but in fewer rounds. That little twist gives you direction when drafting as to what to take or not take.

5. Orchard/Grove (Solo)

Orchard or Grove are little card games that either of them work great for travel. Now they won’t work as well out in nature as some games, like A Gentle Rain, but they do work well overall. And they play very quickly without taking up much table space.

Both of these games are card layering games. As you play down cards you play matching symbols over each other. And the more you overlap the better you are producing fruit of various types. And your goal is to just see how high a score you can get with nine total cards played out. You can break the placement rules in both games, but it always costs you something.

Grove also adds in some scoring objectives that you can go for. I think that both of them are great games. Grove is probably a bit better because of the scoring objectives, in my opinion. But I think either will work for you if you sound interesting.

4. Point Salad (Multiplayer)

Now another multiplayer game and one where you can get the salad themed version of this game or an Eevee themed version if you’re fine ordering it from South Korea and paying some shipping costs. But this game is all about creating a salad that is going to give you points.

The game is pretty simple but it has a fun twist to it. On your turn you either take two vegetables or one scoring card. The twist is that when you take vegetables you are flipping down cards from a pile. And on the back of those cards is where the scoring is. So when you flip a card down that scoring is gone away forever. A simple twist but one that makes for some tough turns or gives you a way to block an opponent from getting their perfect scoring card.

3. Super Mega Lucky Box (Solo and Multiplayer)

I only put one roll and write game on the list and that is Super Mega Lucky Box. There are a lot that could go on the list, much like trick taking games. And a lot of them play solo or multiplayer. But I like Super Mega Lucky Box a lot and it is one that is pretty easy to teach which makes it nice for travel. Especially if you are traveling with or to meet up with non-gamers or more casual gamers.

This game has a blackout bingo style to it. You flip cards and each player is filling in a spot on one of their three bingo cards. As you complete rows and columns you get bonuses. Those bonuses might give you more points. Or they might let you fill in other numbers. And the more you fill in, the more points you get too as you get cards filled. The concept is simple but it has some fun interactions.

2. Castle Combo (Multiplayer)

Castle Combo is a newer game on the list, though a number are pretty new. This one is about building out a grid that can score you the most points. All of this will balancing your access to the two resources.

On your turn you buy a card to fill into a three by three grid. Depending on where it is in the grid, or sometimes the color of shields it has or color of card it is, that is going to be scoring you points. You want to optimize how it scores you points at the end of the game. At the same time you need to consider the ability that happens either throughout the game, such as a discount on a type of card, or happens when you play the card. Because that is how you are going to get more money.

Now there is a bit more going on in the game. But I think that gives you the general idea. This one is that nice balance of pretty easy to learn and play but it has good decisions in it. For people who like to game, there is probably going to be enough going on that you won’t feel bad about missing your bigger games at home.

1. For Northwood! (Solo)

Finally we have For Northwood! and maybe I should have put this in with the trick taking games. But I think it deserves it’s own spot on the list. While it takes up some room on a table, it travels in a really small box. And for a trick taking fan, you will likely like this game even when you don’t have people around to play a trick taking game with.

In this game you want to win a specific number of tricks depending on your location. Each location is going to have a critter by it and a number of tricks to win. The critter is going to determine what trump is. So after you draw you hand you need to decide which spot you think you can win at. Then you play against the remainder of the deck by flipping a card and going up against that.

Now that doesn’t sound like it would work too well That is a lot of luck. But you always have access to three critters with abilities. These abilities help you get more cards into your hand or discard cards and more to get that right number of tricks. Can you pull off a perfect game and win the right number of tricks at each location?

Final Thoughts

There are a ton of board games that work great for traveling. And depending on how you are traveling you can take larger games at times. What I wanted to do was keep it down to a lot of little games. Those are consistently going to be able to go with you. And what I put on the list, these are just a few small box games. I could list off probably 100 honorable mentions between trick taking games or roll and write games and then so many other little ones.

What games do you find work well when you travel?

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Top 10 Solo Only Board Games

Almost all of these games are ones that I’ve featured on the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. I will put out videos for all of them that I have one so you can find them all here.

10. Snowfall Over Mountains

This one is a nice and peaceful board game. Snowfall Over Mountains is a card laying game, and you will see a lot of these. You create a layout of cards that score for different types of terrain. You score rabbit tracks one way, ponds another, trees another, and so on, and this scoring can change. But you want to get as high as score as you can and that’s it for the game. It is fast, it is easy to shuffle up and play again.

9. Cursed

This one is all about trying to defeat a curse before time runs out. You need to defeat a certain number of monsters before the deck of cards runs out, or the witch gets your soul. The game play is all about pushing your luck and deciding how many cards to use to try and defeat the monsters. I like how all the cards have a few things on them. They might have special rules or treasure, but they can all be used for attacking and they are all monsters.

8. Numbsters

Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven eight nine. Yes, that is the basis for this game, and it it works. You want cards to eat each other and you want to end up with as few cards as possible. So you create a line of cards (or you can play it in your hand) and you need to use the rule at the front to eat cards, or just to eat cards that are one higher. It’s a little game, part of the Button Shy Line of games, and it works better than a lot of them for me.

7. Relics of Rajavihara

Maybe you remember the video game Chips Challenge. If you are like me, you loved that game growing up and trying to figure out every puzzle you could. Relics of Rajavihara gives you some of that same feel in a board game. You need to manipulate blocks in ways that let you get to the relic on each level. If you get stuck, you just reset the board and try again. It is one that I owned, played, sold, and now I got it back because I just want to go through them again.

6. Bargain Basement Bathysphere

This is a crazy game when it comes to board games names. But Bargain Basement Bathysphere is a fun campaign roll and write game. It is meant to be solo and it’s campaign only in the loosest terms, less of a campaign than Welcome to the Moon for example. But it’s fun to play and it’s fun to figure out how to manipulate the dice and get down to the bottom of the sea and get back out before your oxygen runs out. There is just a little bit of tension in the game, and that works well.

5. Grove/Orchard

Yes, this is two games at once on the list. But Grove and Orchard are very similar in what they do as board games. I could also add a game like Sprawlopolis to this, but I like what Grove and Orchard do better. In this game you are trying to grown the most fruit that you can. You gain fruit by overlapping cards so that matching fruit symbols cover each other. And that’s the majority of the game right there. Grove adds in some extra scoring challenges which are fun to play with as well.

4. Under Falling Skies

Have you ever wanted to play space invaders with Independence Day? For me, that is what the game Under Falling Skies feels like. At it’s core, it is a dice placement game where you want to get big numbers so you can fight the aliens, drive them back, and research how to stop them. But the higher number you use the faster the smaller alien ships descend. And if too many of them make it into the Earth’s atmosphere, well, that’s game over, man.

3. Final Girl

Final Girl is the one game on the list that I haven’t played yet on Malts and Meeples Youtube. I need to refresh myself on how to play it and then get it to the table. Though that might wait until the fall because Final Girl is all about horror. Every game you play takes you into the setting of your choice and you are the final girl. You need to survive and beat the killer or other things as you play.

And there are really a ton of different options as to what you can do. I love the mix and match nature of the horror setting your are in with the variety of final girls who you can play as. And it is all time management and resource management to try and win the game. Of course, the longer it goes, the scarier it gets. Can you find what you need, rescue others, and defeat the scenario?

2. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom

This is the one with the most recent playthrough on Malts and Meeples. And I blame Meet Me At The Table for getting me into this game. This is a legacy game, which is a bit odd to put on the list. But it’s a game all about managing a deck of cards to build up your kingdom and get as many points as you can. I love how streamlined it is and how almost all cards throughout the game can be upgraded as well as be resources that you use to upgrade other cards. So the decision how to use a card is always a challenge.

1. For Northwood

Finally, we have For Northwood a solo only trick taking game. And you might think, like I did, I like trick taking but how is it going to work solo? Well, it is my number one, so I think that it works well solo. In the game you need to win at each grove. When you win at a grove you get access to a leader who can help you in future rounds and you get points. But it is hard because each grove needs an exact number of tricks one.

I love how the game gives you powers and abilities that you can use. Though, you are only allowed to use them once per hand of cards. So if you need to spend it early, well that might be rough if things start to go sideways. But it just works and the challenges work well as well for once you have conquered the base game.

Final Thoughts

Now I know I have a lot more solo only games that I’ve played. There are a ton of Button Shy Games like that and only one of them made the list. Why is that? I think it is because a lot of them feel similar and they are all very small games. That isn’t a bad thing because for the most part I enjoy them a lot. And I know that I have a lot more to play from littler games like Friday and Palm Island to bigger solo only games like Mr President, Hallas of Hegra, and Hoplomachus: Victorum.

Is there one of the solo only games that you want to see me highlight on the channel? Let me know that down in the comment section or over on the Nerdologists Facebook page or on the YouTube channel.

Five Solo Board Games to Play on Malts and Meeples

But what are my Top 5 solo only games that I want to get played? Well, let’s do one last final list really quickly and in no particular order.

1. 20 Strong – This looks like a fun game and it’s from Chip Theory Games, but it’s small. And you decide what setting you want to play, so it can be their new one for the game or it can be one of their existing ones.
2. Mr President – This one would be a huge undertaking and that is why I haven’t played it yet. Have you ever wanted to be the President of the United States? I honestly can say that I don’t think I have, but in this board game, you can play as them and make decisions but you need to balance everything.
3. Forage – This is going to be the easiest to get to the table. It’s in the same line as Grove and Orchard, so I should just stream this one.
4. The Ratcatcher – This is the Pied Pipers story, in some ways, in a board game. It is one where you want to catch all the rats before they get too much cheese. I’ve heard the rulebook is tough but I still want to give it a got because of the theme.
5. Hoplomachus: Victorum – The second Chip Theory Games game on the list. This one is not small and it’s a campaign. But it is a short campaign. Can I build up my troops and combat prowess to get through the whole thing?

Which one of these should I play?

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How To Play Dedale

Dedale is a card playing game where you overlap the cards to create different rooms to trap the minotaur in. This is a cooperative game that is able to be played solo. And the turns are very simple, as you play one of the two cards, overlapping other cards in the labyrinth. If you complete the goal before all the cards are played, you win the game. If not, you can restart that level and try again.

Now, that is the vast majority of the game. But I want to touch on the one rule of playing out cards. The first thing is that when you play out a card, you must overlap. And while you still have cards in your draw pile, you must overlap a square that matches the color of the square on the back of a card. So the game controls where you are able to play cards. When the draw pile runs out, you place your card however youw ant.

And let’s talk really quickly about what a level looks like. In one level you need to get torches in a row and then that room closed off. Another one you want to have only a single color in the room with the minotaur. And as you go up in level the difficulty level gets higher.

What Doesn’t Work

The difficulty is inconsistent in the game. And I don’t just mean with the leveling up. I think that the new levels are basically always more challenging. And I haven’t beat all of them yet. But because it is card draw there is a higher element of randomness to the game. And the more players you play with, the more random it is going to get. So as a solo game the first five levels might be extremely simple, but at three or four players way more challenging.

And I don’t think that the challenges are all that fun in the game. So each level provides something but it’s really a lot of variation on the same themes. And I think there is a missed opportunity. Everything is always, trap the minotaur in a room with a certain condition. Why not make it, give the minotaur a single path with a certain condition? It is possible to have more variety than the game has.

What Works

Now, there are some elements that does work. Firstly, the challenges while not super exciting, they do level up nicely in difficulty. As a two player game, myself and another player on BGA were able to comfortably handle them going up to about level 6. At level 7 it became much more of a challenge. Though, see what I said about where the challenge comes from above.

The game is also simple and fast to play. A turn won’t take long at all. You know your objective so you simply go for that. And the limit on where you play is going to mean that you are limited in what you do. Even as the labyrinth gets bigger it isn’t too much.

Who Is Dedale For?

I think this is a fun game for people who like a puzzle of a game. If you want a challenge of a puzzle that isn’t an escape room game, but is a good puzzle, Dedale is strong that way. It is a bit more random than something like Relics of Rajavihara a solo puzzle game that I love, but it is going to give you that sort of feel.

Final Thought on Dedale

So, I want to compare Dedale to Relics of Rajavihara. And I think the big thing is that I sold Relics of Rajavihara and I bought it back because I want to do the puzzles again. It is just a fun experience to set-up the challenge and see if I can figure it out. Dedale on the other hand, having to replay a challenge starts to feel like a slog. The puzzles don’t do enough for me to generate a ton of interest in what’s happening and that’s a flaw for the game.

For a game that is a puzzle to try and solve, having randomness is not a good thing. And I also look at it as I think about games where I overlay cards. I own Grove and Orchard which I love. This one tries to do more with the levels and puzzle and just takes the fun out of the fast game.

Now, this is all pretty negative. And I don’t love Dedale. I don’t think it is a horrible game either. I think that it is mainly just a pretty boring game. And I think that there are better puzzle games out there or card layering games out there. So while I had some fun with it, the more I played it on BGA the less interesting it became.

My Grade: C-
Gamer Grade: C-
Casual Grade: B-
Strategy (out of 10): 3
Luck (out of 10): 7

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And for other ideas check out the previous lists.

Two Player Games
Campaign Games

Solo Games

Final Girl

Final Girl is not one of the solo games that has a great theme for the holidays, unless that holiday is Halloween. But for a person who loves board games and horror movies this is a great game. Because this game is all about being the final girl who survives or at least makes it to the end of the horror film. Can you survive to the end?

But there is more beyond that. This game has some really fun mechanisms to it. It’s all about spending energy to play out cards. Of course you spend too much you won’t be able to buy more cards and you’ll end up with a weak turn. It’s this really fun balancing act of actions you try and do, and then you hope that you roll successes.

The game also has so much variability in it. You don’t need to get it all, but you buy a base box, that is the core game for the whole thing. And you buy what they call feature film boxes. Basically boxes that have different final girls and horror bad guy tropes. So you can pick your favorite tropes or buy a bunch for a lot of fun variety.

Grove

Grove is a small game even when it comes for solo games. This one is about building up your best and most productive fruit grove. It does it by having you overlap cards. A lot of games do this and Grove, in my opinion does this best. Orchard is the simpler version, and Sprawlopolis does something similar, but it isn’t as small

Like I said, in this game you are trying to overlap cards so you get the right types of fruits covering the other up. In fact, you can’t mix fruits as you overlap. It’s a good and thinky puzzle that way as you play. And the game is done with only nine cards. So even for a solo game it goes fast. The game does come with 18 cards, though, so you can easily play twice quickly before you even need to shuffle up again.

For Northwood

From the same company as Grove and in the same size box we have For Northwood. As far as solo games go, this one is very unique. Mainly because it’s trick taking. How do you do trick taking as a solo game?

The trick taking is pretty simple. You play against a deck of cards, you know what cards aren’t in that deck because they are in your hand. And you need to win tricks like normal. You play the same suit, you win the trick if you have the higher number. A lot of the fun, though comes from the fact that you don’t want to win tricks sometimes. You activate a different location each time and that tells you how many tricks you need to win.

That sounds very lucky. But it’s less lucky because as you play you start with powers that you can use, and as you win at locations you activate and get the opportunity to bring in new powers to use. Some help you get that target of winning seven tricks I believe it is. Other powers let you dump cards and lose tricks when you can’t win any.

The Isofarian Guard

Now we’re into the big solo games. Though just for this one game. This also could cross over onto the campaign games list. But The Isofarian Guard is a big campaign game with a big footprint, voice acted (or might be just narrated) story, and it’s a fun time.

I have a play of the game, at least the start of it, you can checkout on Malts and Meeples. But the main mechanisms are around you exploring the map, going to locations and sometimes you get story, other times you fight monsters, and then you build up your home base as well. The combat can become a bit repetitive with you stumble across it too often. They might have changed that up in the 2nd edition or 1.5 edition they crowdfunded.

The story is the element that really drives the game. This is not going be one of the easier solo games to find. I suspect they might have a few around as they are fulfilling their latest crowdfunding campaign, but this is a good big solo campaign game that you can play. It also does work two players as well, but was built for solo because you can’t explore separately.

Snowfall Over Mountains

Snowfall Over Mountains is probably the best thematically for the holidays. This is about building out the landscape of the surrounding areas to a little log cabin. And that’s really how it works, you take a card and figure out where you want to place it around the cabin or with what you’ve already built out.

But I like how relaxing this game is as a solo game. It’s one where you don’t feel the pressure to do well because you are just seeing how many points you get. And you get points by completing objectives to the best of your ability. Each objective scores for a different thing, and there are multiple of each scoring so you can vary up how the game plays every time.

This one is really for that nice peaceful, maybe not your family or friends sending you away, but when you want to get away and do something that still stimulates your brain sort of games. And I enjoy that for a solo game because it gives a nice relaxing experience. And it’s another one that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy solo games. Though, I find that I like them best when I’m streaming them. Mainly because I like to have someone to talk to, so a camera does the trick for that. Let me know what some of your favorite solo games are.

And which of these solo games would you want to get or give?

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How To Play Snowfall over Mountains

Snowfall over Mountains is a path building or connection building solo game where you place out tiles around your cabin to create scoring opportunities. You score five different elements during the game. You score rabbit trails, bear tracks, bushes, trees, and ponds. Each of them have different ways that they can score. You also lose points if you build out trails that don’t connect back to your cabin.

On your turn you look at the two tiles that you have and you place one of them. It needs to connect to the tiles that are already placed. But it only needs to overlap in one spot, not the whole tile. So no diagonal connections allowed. You do that until all of the tiles are placed. Then you look at see how many points you scored based off of the cards that were out for scoring. As the scoring cards are one for each group, but are randomly selected for each game.

You also play with tools. Tools allow you to break the rules, basically. Generally it is going to be things like you can move a tile after you play it. Or it might be something like draw three tiles and play all of them before you go back to your hand of tiles. It isn’t going to be anything major, but it will allow you to potentially get yourself out of a spot if you are having trouble finding the best play for scoring.

What Doesn’t Work?

I find no major complaints with this. I think there are two elements though that might trip up people at times. Firstly, this is a familiar feeling game. Games like Sprawlopolis and Orchard give me similar feels to it. By that I mean, it gives you the ability to play out cards or tiles to complete different scoring objectives. This one doesn’t allow you to overlap, but there is certainly an element that puts it into a similar family.

The other being that it’s tricky to keep track of all the scoring and pay attention to it all at once. Generally I let one of them go to the wayside. I don’t know that it is the best move to do that. I think that I probably messed up with that and getting a higher score because I didn’t score all of them well and didn’t use my tools well. But as you learn the game, it is going to be part of what you need to think about.

What Works Well?

I like the variety in scoring a lot. I sit down and I randomly select five different scoring objectives. Yes, they can be tricky to remember all at once, but generally none of the scoring is that complex. So I think it is more of a matter of holding it all in your head and getting practice with that. I also think it is going to provide good replayability for the game because without the mini expansion there are three per scoring objective which gives you a considerable number of combinations.

The game is also very fast. I play the game twice in forty minutes on the video. And even that isn’t a true forty minutes. The first time it takes a little bit longer as I need to remember the scoring. And there is the introduction, outro, and a brief pause as I need to check on my kid. So the game is very fast, under twenty minutes per time which is faster than it says on the box. I think it may take longer depending on how much you analyze each placement. So there is that, but the game overall is quick.

The game also doesn’t take up that much room. Now compared to Sprawlopolis and Orchard, probably about the same amount as Sprawlopolis and more than Orchard, so it isn’t the smallest footprint. But it is not large though like something like A Gentle Rain which can grow quite big. So I like how it contains itself for a solo game. It means that it is the type of game I could carry in a backpack and reasonably play at a bar or on my work desk.

Final Thoughts on Snowfall over Mountains

Snowfall over Mountains is a fun solo game. It’s light, easy to play, but offers great variety in what it does. When I put it in the same category of Orchard, a game that I like a lot, and Sprawlopolis, a game that I find good, that is very good company. A number of solo games do this, so it feels like it’s in a genre with limited space. But what it does and the variety it offers, it does it well.

And Pencil First Games always makes games with good production value. And Snowfall over Mountains is no exception to that. The artwork and the tiles are great. You don’t even need to punch out the tiles, which I appreciate. That could have made this box a lot bigger. Instead, they keep it in a small box that fits the tiles and cards easily. And it even fits the expansion in well without any additional box lift.

Finally, I want to emphasize that the game is really streamlined and easy to get to the table. Get your five scoring cards, draw your three and keep two tool cards. And then you basically start playing. The time from opening up the box to playing the game is under three minutes. I like that a lot for a small box solo only game. It means it is way easier to play than some other solo gaming experiences.

My Grade: B+
Casual Grade: A
Gamer Grade: B

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2023 Board Gaming

Let’s break down the numbers. Firstly, let’s talk about the big general numbers. I got in 1,062 game plays in 2023. That is a ton, and I suspect that it’ll be my high, though that depends on what new solo board games come in. We’ll get down to individual game numbers here, eventually, but a lot of that is my solo game plays early on in 2023. I was on pace for 2,500 game plays at one point. But 1,062 plays is still a crazy number.

In those plays, I played 134 different games. So that means that some games were played a ton. Others not so much, but a few games see a lot of play and they’ll make up a lot of my board gaming. Some of this comes from solo games that I play between meetings at work and a smaller percentage of the games that I stream on Wednesday nights over on Malts and Meeples YouTube.

Top Played Games

So let’s look at the top played games, we’re just going to do the Top 5. All of the five are solo games that I play between meetings at work or other times like that. The one with the most plays is Grove followed by Orchard. Two games in the same family that I played 385 and 140 times respectively. I love them because they are very fast games to play.

Next up we have Relics of Rajavihara with 73 plays. This one is a campaign puzzle style game. So that one I won’t be adding more plays to in future years. The next two are Criss Cross, a roll and write game that you can play solo with 58 plays. And then For Northwood! A solo trick taking game.  This is the one that I want to play a bunch more of this next year.

Top Campaign Games

I think it’s also fair to talk about some campaign games, bigger games that I’ve gotten a number of plays of. Then I want to wrap up with my one off board gaming that aren’t solo plays. But what are the top campaign based board gaming experiences for me. Or at least the ones that I play solo fairly often. Though, not all of these are solo.

Tainted Grail and My City Roll and Build top the list. Tainted Grail I wrapped up the final campaign this year with 17 plays. My City Roll and Build I’ve almost played twice through, so that is 21 plays thus far. I need to wrap it up soon. Then a few others made the list, Frosthaven is the new one that I’m playing with a group and that is at 11 plays this year. And it’s going to start strong in January with a weekend day devoted to it coming up quickly. Followed by two that I streamed, Lands of Galzyr and ISS Vanguard. Both of those are at 10 games played.

Top Multiplayer Games

So, Tainted Grail and Frosthaven would both be on the list. But I want to touch on some games that I haven’t talked about. What are some one off games that I played mainly multiplayer that I got to the table a bunch? I say that because I did play Criss Cross a few times multiplayer, but it is mainly solo plays.

Birds of a Feather tops the list. This one I did play solo a few times, I think twice, but then six plays where it was with other people. I like it as a fun, light, and filler with push yoiur luck.  Then we have Gasha and Strike both 7 times. Again filler games, but Strike is just so much fun. I really enjoy being able to sit down and play this one with a group of four or five and just play it a few times in a row. The last two rounding it out are Crokinole and Via Magica. Two fun games, and Crokinole isn’t a filler but is more of an evening of light gaming.

Final Thoughts

2023 obviously was a great year for me board gaming. I got to try a ton of new games, and I got a ton of plays in. I didn’t go into all the numbers, but I had 28 games that were played over 5 times and 73 total that were played over two. So it’s a lot of gaming and a lot of repeating of games throughout the year. I  hope to do a lot of that again this year. I know that I will be going through Frosthaven a lot here in 2024. And I expect that I’ll be at 30 plays of that, might make into my Top 5.

And I mentioned this in a previous article. You can check that out here for more details. But I want to play through more games on my shelf of opportunity. I love having a ton of games and games to learn and play. But my game room is at critical mass, so I need to sort and get more games ready to be played and learned in 2024. That is going to make for a lot of reviews and a lot of fun board gaming. What is a game that you want to play in 2024?

Board Game Plays

119 Different Games

You will look at that number and see that it is about 10 plays of each game, on average. Of course that is only an average. So some games are going to get played a whole lot more. Those are the games that I sit down and I play between meetings at work, or sometimes, if I just need to observe, during a meeting at work to help keep me focused. So we’ll see a very high number for one of those coming up.

But I really like the combination of games that I’ve played. It’s some small games, but I also have a number of campaign style games that make the list. Obviously those are going to take longer to play. Which means that I’ve put a lot of time into playing board games this year. We’ll get to that number later.

385 Plays of Grove

So obviously a lot of plays came from Grove, but Grove is one four games that I’ve played over 50 times this year. Grove, Orchard, Relics of Rajavihara, and Criss Cross are all over 50 plays. They count for more than half of my total game plays for the year. And how fast they play, with the exception of Relics of Rajavihara which can take a bit of time to puzzle out a play, is quite fast.

87 New Games

This is a number I am quite happy with. It means, while I buy games faster than I play, still, I have gotten through a lot of games that I haven’t played before. I will say, I think if I dug into the whole list, there would be two or three that might be ones I’ve already played.

Looking at that number, I might try and get it to 100 new to me games, but I’m running out of time. I do have a friend who I teach a lot of new games to. And some of the games, probably enough, I could play solo if I learn them to get to 100. That is now an unofficial goal for the year.

Approximately 348 Hours

That is what the app, Board Game Stats estimates anyways. I’ll tell you, it says 11 hours for My City Roll and Build, that is probably 4 hours total maybe 5. It estimates what it says on the box. Sometimes, as I’ve written about, that is low. Other times, especially if I play it solo, that is very high.

Recently Trailblazers is another example of that. I did play it two player now, and half an hour is right. But solo, I got 3 games done in about 35 minutes. So take that number with a grain of salt, it’s probably under 300 hours with how fast I play some games, especially solo.

Gap

Gap was game number 1000. And turns out how I was taught at Gen Con was actually a bit off. That might have been my comprehending it, versus the teach, but an abstract game is sometimes hard to teach. Still really like the game and I think it’s better with much better strategy now that I’m playing it the right way. But Gap from Arcane Wonders was game play #998 through #1000 for me last n ight.

Final Thoughts

It’s really been an effort or focus to play more games this year. I get in campaign games, like Tainted Grail, every other week with one group. I play another campaign, it was Roll Player Adventures, now it’s Vampire The Masquerade: Chapters with another group. And I’ve played at least three campaign games over the course of the year, at least 7 games of them on Malts and Meeples.

Next year will I push for more? I might. Though, I think that 1100, which I’ll be close to this year, is an amazing number. Let me say this, though, if you play fewer games, it isn’t a big deal. I actually think that I’ll play fewer games next year. At the start of this year I was in a new job in a new role learning a lot in meetings. So I would play Grove between meetings or during meetings to help me focus and maintain focus. So don’t assume that you are slacking behind, that is not the case.

When I put out these goals, I never try and push them out too far. That is why I didn’t make it a goal from day one. I want a bit of a stretch, but I also don’t want to make board games into something that is work. Now it is “work” in that I make a little money from this website. But it isn’t because I’m not beholden to any company, I do it because I like to do it. So if you see this goal and feel like you’re slacking, you aren’t if you are having fun playing board games.

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Orchard

I feel like I’ve already talked about Orchard a lot. I know that it’s a game I’ve reviewed before. And I know that I compared it to Grove before. In fact, there is a board game battle between Orchard, Grove, and Sprawlopolis, all who do similar things. So I’ve covered it from almost every direction.

The one direction, I can think is when talking about small solo games, where does it fall into that filler line of games? I think that Orchard is maybe the easiest filler of them all. Grove, there were other extenuating circumstances, was not the easiest game to chat through. Some of that was trying to listen in case the kid cried again, but there is also just more going on. Orchard allows for that very simple and easy to chat through game play.

As you could tell, I spent my time talking about Gen Con, not chatting about the game. Once you see how the game works, that is how the game always works. That is how much you need to think about it. But it isn’t to say that there is no decision making space, there is decision making, it’s just less taxing in terms of trying to get a target score. I mainly try and raise my average score when I play Orchard.

Upcoming Streams

So Wednesday at 8 PM Central, and expect a longer stream, it’s going to be going through all the games on the Board Game Geek preview list for Gen Con that you can buy. I already went through the ones who demo last week. This week, I think the list is longer, though more games are the list to demo now than there were a week ago.

And next Monday, that is leading up to Gen Con. I do plan to stream again. I think it’s going to be another simple game that I’ve played a lot, like Orchard. Just because I likely will be collecting things to pack up that night. I don’t head out on Monday, but will Wednesday and I work, so I need to spend some time packing. And the stream will be at 9 PM Central versus 8:30 PM Central. I talk about that in this episode, that is going to be a change going forward just to allow for more time to edit my podcast.

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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5 Board Games to Bring to Gen Con

Each one of the games is going to be for a specific situation. Some might overlap what they can cover but you want a variety of games. The other big thing is that they need to be small enough. They might not all fit in a backpack at once. But if you know your plan for the day, you’ll know which ones to have in a backpack.

The Drop In And Out Game

This game is one that people can join or leave as they come and go between events. One that could really be set-up on a table and as people are able, it just continues throughout the day. But, again, it needs to be a small enough game to easily fit in a backpack.

My choice for this game is Just One. This is not the smallest box on the list. But, and this might be sacrilegious to you, you don’t even need the box. All the components could fit in a Ziploc bag half the size as the box.

But Just One works well for people to drop in and out of. You play cooperative in this party game of trying to guess the word. Rounds take three to four minutes. And at the end of the day you’d just have a pile of words that you got, or didn’t throughout the day.

Waiting by Yourself Game

Sometimes, though, you have a few minutes where you have downtime. Normally I just wander a random part of the dealer hall. But that’s not always an option. And you want to play a game that takes the five minutes between when one event has ended and your next one starts. That is what this game is for.

Grove is the solo game that I recommend. A lot of people would say any Button Shy Game as well. Which that’d be high up there for me because Sprawlopolis fits into a pocket better. But I always have a backpack at Gen Con, so Grove fits in there and it’s a fast solo game of layering cards. There are other small games, so it’s more, what small solo game do you like.

Everyone Can Play Game

Next up is a game that everyone can play. Doesn’t matter if you have two players or fifteen players or thirty players, everyone can play. For this I want a game that isn’t too difficult but there is no requirement that this game is short or just a party game. Something like Wits and Wagers works well as a team game. That is if you want to go the party game direction.

But I am think that Cartographers (though owning the big box makes it harder) is a great option. This is more of a game and a bigger roll and write experience. You are making a map, as the name would suggest, and scoring based off of the season that it is. The cool thing with this roll and write style game is that there is player interaction. A monster card is flipped, we all pass our sheets and you put that monster on my sheet. That way you can mess over your opponents as you can.

Brain Burning Filler

This category is probably an overlooked done. And I think some of that is for fair reason. But last year I got to play a game that probably should have been a crunchy filler length. This is a game that won’t take too long, doesn’t need to play a lot of people, but it has meaningful and tough decisions.

My brain went to a roll and write game where everyone is playing stuff out at once. But one with a higher complexity and shorter time than Cartographers. But I ended up with Hanamikoji as the game. This won’t always work as it’s a two player game, So an honorable mention is Ganz Schon Clever or one of the games in that type. But either game can play fast, there are good decisions. And with Hanamikoji it’s a ten minute game or a twenty minute game, rarely more. And it’s a brain burner with the amount to read your opponent and what they want.

The Let’s Play A Game Game

Now, the final category is a game where you just want to play a game. One that doesn’t need to take twenty minutes or less. One that doesn’t need to handle a large crowd of people. This is for when, in the evening, you want to play a game, you don’t want to learn new rules, so you pull this one out of your backpack and you’re good for an hour or so.

My choice is Floriferous a set collection, card drafting game. It’s a small game, smaller than some of the other ones on the list. In it, you are collecting flowers and scoring cards to see who can score the most points. It’s not a complex game, but there are some fun twists on it. When you draft a card from a row that determines what order you draft next turn. And you choose between drafting or maybe more when you draft scoring cards. So you might not have many and just flowers that work well, or will you get higher scoring?

Games at Gen Con

Now, you might be done with gaming by the time your day ends. So you might not need more games for playing at Gen Con. But I find that I often have that group to play with in the evening, though, not every evening. And some evenings are just earlier to bed, because, well, sleep is needed.

The other reason you might not want as many games is that you’ll buy games. Maybe this is more of a buy list for you at Gen Con to fill in those categories. That way, as the weekend goes along, you find more and more games to play with people. I know that’s some of what happened last year. I played Mythic Mischief was a game game because someone picked it up that day. And I played Ready, Set, Bet as a bigger group game as someone had that one.

So, determine what you need. Determine, if you meet up with a group who is bringing games. It’s a little bit awkward to be at a gaming convention and for no one to have a game on them.

What games do you find work well to carry and play at conventions?

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For Northwood!

This, like I said is a solo trick-taking game. You try and use your hand of cards as you visit various fiefs to win the favor of the royalty there. It’s a pretty simple system, but not that easy a game to beat, which is what I’m looking for in a solo game.

The interesting thing is that each fief has a target. So for one it might be that you want to win 7 tricks, another is that you want to win 0, that’s the range. But to win at that fief you need to hit that number exactly. That’s the rule that I missed as I tried to get going quickly. But it offers a very big challenge and while you can plan out trick taking, that by itself would just offer a whole lot of luck.

But you always have helpers. Either from the leaders of the fiefs you’ve won the hand at, or from four characters in front of you that you start with. So that offers an interesting variability to the game. You can see me try and use them more in the last game of the two that I played. It’s really about trying use those abilities to setup your hand or get rid of cards in order to able to get that right number of tricks.

The game itself isn’t too long either. I feel like once I was into the swing of the second game I could move along quite quickly. Compared to Grove and Orchard which also come in that size, or slightly smaller boxes, it is slower. But for a solo game, it works well because it’s not too much room and the game play isn’t too long so it works nicely as a filler.

Upcoming Streams

Next Monday I’ll be streaming another solo game. To be determined as to what that game is going to be. I have a new solo train game that I need to learn the rules to. I was hoping to do that before yesterday’s stream but I ran out of time. So that or Skytear Horde might be the game that I look to play. Either way start time is around 8:30 PM Central.

And then next Wednesday, it is down to the planet in ISS Vanguard again. You can click the notification bell for the stream here. That is at 8 PM Central like normal. Join me for some more planetary exploration and maybe a ship phase as well as we’ll see how long we stick on the planet.

And 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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