About This List

So how is this list made? I use the Pub Meeple ranking engine to create the list. This website creates your list by doing side by side comparisons. I explain how it works at the beginning of the video.

But basically if I compare “A” and “B” and I prefer “B” it puts them in the order “B”, “A”. Then if I compare “C” and “D” and prefer “C”, those go in the order “C”, “D”. Then I compare “B” to “C” to see which I prefer, if I prefer “C” then I compare “B” and “D”. So if I prefer “C” and then I prefer “D” it’ll give me a list of “C”, “D”, “B”, and “A”. I never need to compare “A” to anything after “B” because I know since I prefer “C” and “D” to “B” I like it better than “A” because I like “B” mor than “A”.

Also a small tweak this year. In my write-up, I’m going to write less about the games and give more bullet points to help remind you about what I talked about in the video.

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 100 through 91

100. Blank Slate

• Published by The Op Games in 2018
• Big Group Party Game

Blank Slate is a fun game where you are. filling in a blank on a card. It might be [blank] and then “Slate” you need to come up with a word. And you want to match with one person. That to me is the fun element of the game. You want to watch for points, but ideally with just one person to get more of them.

Buy Blank Slate.

99. Skytear Horde

• Published by Skytear Games in 2023
• Solo, Cooperative, and Competitive Tower Defense Lane Battler

Skytear Horde offers really good game play in the tower defense style of games. I find that it’s best as a solo game with one player playing as factions fighting against the waves of monsters attacking. But I like the puzzle in what you do to beat the bad guys. The feeling of being limited is an element of the game I enjoy, even though it means that it’s always a tough battle.

Buy Skytear Horde.

98. Marvel United

• Published by CMON Games in 2020
• Beat back the Villain through Card play and Cooperation

This one works well because you get to feel like a team of heroes. A lot of superhero games you might have them in the game, but rarely do you need to plan and work together. Marvel United, while being a very light game, gives you that cooperation and team-up feel you want from a super hero game. Plus it’s easy to swap in new heroes, villains and locations to set the game up and play again.

Buy Marvel United.

97. Tesseract

• Published by Smirk & Laughter/Dagger Games in 2023
• Save Humanity by Cooperating and Manipulating dice with Special Powers

Tesseract is a great puzzle of a game. You need to work together to get one die of each color set on each number before the whole cube crumbles away. And while I find that I’ve won more often than not, it’s always a rush to the finish. I love that about a cooperative game, I don’t want to win all the time, but if I feel like it’s close, that is what I’m looking for. Plus the toy factor on Tesseract is great, and that’s not something that can be overlooked.

Buy Tesseract.

96. Starship Captain

• Published by CGE in 2023
• Travel across Planets, Deal with Pirates and Complete Missions better than anyone else

This is a game that I need to get back to the table. It has been too long since I played Starship Captains. I remember it being a fun game that gave you a lot of options but also limited them as you went. And I really enjoyed the system where you get three workers and then go back into a queue. So when they come out, you are able to determine the order somewhat. Forward planning, but it isn’t going to happen too quickly.

Buy Starship Captain.

95. River Valley Glassworks

• Published by Allplay in 2024
• Put glass into the river to Collect more Glass and score them by Color

River Valley Glassworks is new this year, and I really enjoy the game. I especially like the simplicity and strategy in what you do. You need to figure out how to best collect glass to score points. Because the points are scores in both columns and rows. And if you do well, you can score in both, but maybe you focus on one area more than the others. It’s a fast and fun filler experience.

Preorder River Valley Glassworks.

94. Atlantis Rising

• Elf Creek Games in 2019
• Push Your Luck to Gather Resources and then Build a portal to save the people of Atlantis Before it sinks

Atlantis Rising is another one of those really good cooperative games. You need to work together to figure out where to place out your workers. And you want to figure out good ways to keep them alive because each round you flip cards and sink more of Atlantis. Can you race against the clock to build a portal to a new world and get off of Atlantis before it sinks?

Buy Atlantis Rising.

93. Draftosaurus

• Published by Ankama in 2019
• Collect Dinosaurs for your Park and Place them to Score you the Most Points

This is a light filler game of drafting dinosaurs, hence the name Draftosaurus. You all want to collect the best parks, and it’s a great little light filler of a game. I don’t know that I’ve ever played less than two games in a sitting because each game takes maybe 10-15 minutes. And the simplicity of play and fun of scoring is great.

Buy Draftosaurus.

92. The Night Cage

• Published by Smirk and Dagger/Laughter in 2021
• Fumble your way through a Labyrinth, Avoid Monsters, Find Keys, and Escape Together

This is a fun cooperative experience for the spooky season. The game says, what if you’re trapped in an every changing Labyrinth with only a little candle. Can you get out in time? Because the candle only lights up the squares around you. So grab a key, help others find a key, and avoid the wax eaters so you can escape.

Buy The Night Cage.

91. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

• Published by Grey Fox Games in 2014
• One of you is a Murderer and the Investigators figure out the Clue and Murder Weapon from the Forensic Scientists Reports

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong is the only social deduction game I have on my list. Mainly because it is also a deduction game as the Forensic Scientist is sending up reports. The investigators needs to figure out how those connect to one players murder weapons and clues. And then which murder weapon and clue were used. It’s a great game of talking and accusing and fun.

Buy Deception: Murder in Hong Kong.

Final Thoughts on Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition 100 through 91

A lot of lighter games in this section and a number of cooperative games. Some that even surprised me that they’d fallen this far. I think Deception: Murder in Hong Kong was Top 40 or so last year. But it’s one that I enjoy every time we play it. I probably just need to play it more for it to move back up. Other games have moved down or up as well. And I find that part of the fun of doing a list every year. My tastes in games are always changing, and I like this as a way to track the changes.

Just a reminder, join me next week on Malts and Meeples for the next 10 on the list. The plan is to go live around 9 PM Central time and it’ll be 90 through 81. The best way to know when I go live is subscribe and click that notification bell. That’ll let you know for sure when it’ll be happening.

What is your favorite game from the list and what is one that you want to try?

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Top 5 Allplay Games

5. Chomp

This one is just a fun little game. I like the simplicity of picking a car and trying to create dinosaur herds. Of course you need your dinosaurs not to die off, so that is a whole element of the game. But the game is, like so many Allplay games, fast to play and easily to follow and learn. That’s a hallmark of their games, and I won’t mention it again because it’s true for all of them on the list. Chomp works because it’s a fun system with fun cards and a fun theme. It’s not the thinkiest, but not all games need to be.

4. Mind Space

Next up is Mind Space. One area that Allplay has only a couple of forays into is roll and write games. But The ones that they do are a lot of fun. Mind Space is about mapping your mind, though the theme doesn’t really matter. It’s about putting various colors onto the board to score points. Of course there are rules as to how you place and you get bonuses as some points in time.

One element that I really enjoy about the game is the flowing system of cards. Shapes hop onto the flow and then each round progress one spot further down. So you know that a shape might be getting close to going off the flow so you need to grab it now if you need that color. Of course, you also need to hope that the color you want is the one rolled there.

3. Mountain Goats

This one I need to play my physical copy, but I love playing it on Board Game Arena. The game play is simple, you just roll dice and climb up paths with your mountain goats. When you get to the top, you get points. When another mountain goat gets up to you, it bumps you back down.

This is just a filler game, but it’s one that’s fun. And I said I wasn’t going to mention it again, but that’s what Allplay does well. I think it works especially well here in Mountain Goats because there’s the excitement of how long can you stick at the top and keep getting points before you get knocked down. And you can stay up longer, because it’s a longer climb on smaller points, but of course, it might be better to grab the big points instead.

2. River Valley Glassworks

This one is new as of this year. But I really like River Valley Glassworks. I think that it works as a solo game. And I think that it works at two or at four or at five. Every player count works well. And that is not something that can be commonly said about games. Most of the time they find a spot they work the best, and there might be an ideal, but there isn’t a bad player count.

The game is simple, put down a piece of glass and collect adjacent glass. But it’s so much more than that as you need to plan out your scoring attack. You score columns and rows. But which you focus on, and how much you focus on both is the question. And the scarcity of glass colors as well is fun. Plus the shapes mattering to collect glass and colors matter when placing it on your board. There is a bunch going on for a fast game.

1. On Tour

My favorite is the other Allplay roll and write that I can think of. And this one is about making a route, low to high, for your band to travel. It’s a fictional band, but you’re basically trying to place dice combinations, 1 to 100, on your board so that you can make a pathway that is always getting higher. The concept is simple, but the game play and execution is a ton of fun.

It’s one of those games, too, that I like where at the beginning you feel like anywhere works. You place a number do, you feel like you can connect it. At the end of the game as decisions become tougher, you also have fewer spots to play. So it’s that nice balance of when the game could lock up, you already find yourself limited in options.

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy Allplay for the most part. A few games I find just to be okay. Kabuto Sumo is an okay game. Big Top, I think I could have fun with that, but it wasn’t my favorite. But games I like such as Pollen, Dandelion and others miss the list. And there are still others like Couture and Ghosts of Christmas that I want to play really badly. Or a whole mess of trick taking games as well from them.

Of course, not all their games are going to be for everyone. But for me, they are very consistent. And I think that consistency is going to tell you if you’d like them or not. Because once you play one or two, you’ll know what type of games they are. And you will find out if Allplay is a company for you.

What’s your favorite Allplay game?

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River Valley Glassworks Solo Game Play

Let’s talk a bit about how it works solo. I’ve already reviewed it overall, so let’s pay attention about what changes. Mainly each player board has a flip side that is a solo board of varying challenge levels. My play was against the easiest challenge board. And I think it is quite easy on that level. But each other opponent is a harder ranked board.

But let’s talk about how the boards themselves play. I want a solo game to be easy for me to sit down and play my opponent. And I, generally, want my opponent to be less than random. Especially if I fight over resources or anything. If my opponent is doing something that I can’t predict, then it’s hard to play against it or strategize. In River Valley Glassworks, all the opponents take glass in predictable ways. And they always take it in consistent ways, so I’m not needing to relearn or go through a list of actions or triggers.

Then, each AI opponent is going to score differently. And I think that is a fun challenge. They all take negative points in different ways. They all get positive points in different ways. The simple character, Otto, gains points from rows and extra pieces, as long as it’s not an 8th color. But each subsequent one is going to make you think more about where you are letting your opponent gain pieces.

I like the simplicity of it. I, as I’ve said, played the simplest one. But at the end of the video I wanted to look at the rest. And the rest still seem simple, just more aggressive in scoring. So even though they offer a great challenge, it is not a ton greater complexity.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I play small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well. And I might do more deck construction with Star Wars Unlimited on Mondays as well or pack openings.

On Wednesdays, I, generally, play solo campaign games. What my next campaign game is going to be is yet to be determined. My hope is to get one started soon. But more on that coming up as I have other solo games I might tackle as well prior to a campaign game.

And if you want to know when I go live, the best way is to subscribe. When you subscribe, click that notification bell and you’ll get an alert whenever I’m going to go live. Follow the link – here – to subscribe.

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How To Play River Valley Glassworks

How To Win

In River Valley Glassworks you try and collect the most glass, or really glass in the best columns to score the most points. Scoring is done in both rows and columns. When you score a column you score your two highest columns, and if there is a tie, the ones further left, because they give fewer points. And for rows, you score each row that starts on the left edge and then as far right as you can until you hit a gap. That’s mainly it for scoring, you might end up with negative tiles, but how you do that, we’ll talk about as I go through how you play.

Your Actions

On your turn you place one tile from your bag onto the river. When you place the tile you place it on the tile with the matching shape. The only way to break this rule is place out two matching shapes onto any location. Basically, two for one for a wild resource. Then you take the glass from either of the adjacent river sections. You place those pieces onto your scoring board. Each new color goes in a new column, and a repeated color goes to the next highest available row for that column.

When you are down to one glass piece tile or out of glass piece tiles you take four of the five glass pieces from the lake. That’s your other option and then you continue playing as normal. And you keep track of your glass pieces until you get up to 17 on your board or someone else does. Then everyone completes the round and there is one more round after that.

One thing you need to be aware of is filling columns and rows. It is good to do because you gain more points. However, if you take a piece of glass you can’t place, that goes into your trash area. Your trash counts for negative three points at the end of the game.

What Doesn’t Work?

I find that most of the game works for me. I think there is one element that is trickier to remember. That is keeping track of the stones. They give you a nice spot to tick that up, but it is trickier to remember. So it is something that only works so well. It’s not a major negative. But I think it is a piece that is easy to forget. So when you play River Valley Glassworks, it’s a rule to be aware of.

The other rule to be aware of, and again not a major negative, is the row scoring. I try and explain the row scoring at least twice. Why, because it rarely gets understood the first time. Or it is rarely understood until you play a few stones out. Maybe that is the best way, don’t teach the rule until everyone has taken two turns. For some people that is going to work. For other people, they want to know it right away.

What I Like

River Valley Glassworks is good for me because it is a simple game. I wrote out the actions and that is it for them. There is not a more complex action that I skipped. You either play out glass or you take glass from the lake. And then as you place on your board, that part is simple as well. So I love how easy it is to teach and play the game, besides the rule for scoring rows.

To go with that, River Valley Glassworks is a fast playing game. This is definitely because of limited options. But once you know what to do, you just figure out your best play and go for it. Sometimes it might require a little math in your head, but never too much. And the number of options is small enough that no single turn is going to take too long. And the longest turns happen at the end of the game in those last two rounds when you know it will end soon and you want to get as many points as you can.

I also appreciate the balance of luck and strategy. Some of it is that you get lucky with what is one the river sections. But there is some thought and strategy as to how you place it on your board. Certain colors of glass are less common. So I want those earlier because the more common are better later. Why, because they give you more points if you get a taller column. But at the same time, you want them earlier because that might mean you get more rows filled in. So it’s a nice balance of figuring out your strategy for that game and the luck of the glass.

Who Is This For?

I think that this is a great family game and a great filler game. Because of the ease to teach the game, it can come to the table fast. And there is basically no language in the game that you need to worry about. So as long as a kid can understand the scoring, they can play the game. What I want to do soon is try this as a soli game and see how that goes. Because it’s easy to get to the table and a lot of fun to play with all sorts of different groups.

Final Thoughts on River Valley Glassworks

I enjoy this game because it is that balance of luck and strategy. You certainly can plan to go one direction in the game, rows of columns and find that you pivot part way through because things weren’t going your way. But if things really seem like they aren’t, that’s okay. The game is fast and you just play it again. It’s nice for being a filler that way, or one that you might play multiple times in an evening.

I want to explore the solo mode still as well. I think that it will be one that I stream maybe next Wednesday (8/21/24) on Malts and Meeples. Because I want to know if it’s as fun, or if it’s less fun, because I can see it going either way.

And while I expect it won’t be for some people because of the luck. I think that a lot of people will enjoy it. And with the nice tactile nature of the game, this is one that should be popular. The question will be, is it a game that will break into the masses. Because it has that mass appeal to it, I think, which a lot of more hobby board games, or especially crowdfunding board games, tend to miss.

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

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