Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 80 through 71

80. Rock Hard 1977

Published By: Devir
Designer: Jackie Fox

Buy Rock Hard 1977

Do you want to be a rockstar? Rock Hard 1977 is all about being a rockstar and the designer is legitimately a rockstar. In this game you place out workers in day, evening and night activities that help take you from garage band playing little local shows to playing sold out stadiums. The player who can make the journey the best is going to be the winner of the game. And each part of the day is going to let you do different things, in the day you might record a record, evening perform, and night go hang out at a club.

79. The Night Cage

Published By: Smirk & Dagger Games
Designer: Christopher Ryan Chan, Chris McMahon and Rosswell Saunders

Buy The Night Cage

I like a good spooky game. The Night Cage gives you that spooky feeling by creating tension as you race to get out of an every changing labyrinth. Can everyone get their keys and get to a portal before the candles run out and the players are lost in there forever. That counting down of tiles as they leave the board and new ones are placed out as a timer is great in this game. And it is spooky, which is hard for a board game to do.

78. Cthulhu: Death May Die

Published By: CMON Global Limited
Designers: Rob Daviau and Eric M Lang

Sold Out on online retailers, look for sellers on the Board Game Geek Marketplace or eBay.

Maybe your spooky is better with lots of giant monsters and a scenario where you know an elder being is going to come eventually. Cthulhu: Death May Die, called CDMD or Death May Die in the hobby, is a big game with minis and madness. You want to push your insanity up a little bit so that you unlock new powers and abilities to defeat the ancient horrors. But too much insanity and you knocked out of the game. This is a good beer and pretzels sort of game.

77. Captain Flip

Published By: PlayPunk
Designers: Remo Conzadori and Paolo Mori

Buy Captain Flip

Moving on from the spooky games, we have Captain Flip. This is tile laying game about filling up your pirate ship with crew. Every crew member is going to give you points, positive or negative, in some way. When you draw a tile you see one side. Then you decide do you want to place that onto your ship, or do you want flip it? If you flip it you are stuck on that side and have to put that down. It’s this balance of optimizing your score, playing out pirates, and pushing your luck as you flip the tiles.

76. Cartographers

Published By: Thunderworks Games
Designer: Jordy Adan

Buy Cartographers

Cartographers used to be my Top Roll and Write style game. Now it is dropping a bit, some because there are so many roll and write games that I like, and some because I haven’t played it recently. But I really enjoy this one and really enjoy making a map. I like the interactivity of the monsters who I play it on my opponents board in the worst spot possible for them. And I like how you score four different things, but depending on the season you score two and the season determines the two. It’s one I need to play again.

75. Letter Jam

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designer: Ondra Skoupy

Buy Letter Jam

Do you like word games but it seems like some people are just better at them? Letter Jam is a cooperative word game, so everyone needs to work together. In this game you don’t know the letters or the word you have. But everyone else can see one letter of yours at a time, and you can see one letter of everyone else’s. You all need to give good clues of words so people can figure out what their letter is. Say you have an “O” if I give a clue that shows you that the word uses the letters “FR[your letter]M” you can figure out what it is. But everyone needs to figure theirs out and figure out their word.

74. Can’t Stop

Published By: Eagle Gryphon Games
Designer: Sid Sackson

Buy Can’t Stop

Can’t Stop is another push your luck game to make the list. I like a good push your luck game like this one, Push, or Flip 7. They are easy to teach and play. In this one you want to get to the top of 3 columns. If you do that, you win. How do you do that, well, you roll dice and then split them into two pairs of two. The twist is that you only move up on three numbers per turn. So I might roll and get a combo to make ten and eleven, if I am not going up on ten or eleven, I lose my progress. But if I play it too safe, I lose.

73. Under Falling Skies

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designer: Tomas Uhlif

Buy Under Falling Skies

Do you like the movie Independence Day? Did you grow up playing the game Space Invaders. Under Falling Skies is a game that gives me the feel of both of those things. You need to research how to stop the mother ship while keeping too many of the smaller ships from making it to earth. And it uses an interesting die system. The higher the die, the more powerful the actions you can take are. But also the faster those little ships descend towards earth. I love that balancing act puzzle of the game.

72. So Clover!

Published By: Repos Production
Designer: Francois Romain

Buy So Clover!

So Clover! is a cooperative party game. It is one that is easy to teach in person and hard to explain. Basically you create a grid of cards that have words on every side. So you need to connect the two words per side with another word. Then everyone else is trying to get those words back onto the board in the right order, but the twist is there is an extra word thrown in. Plus often times the words are not easy to match. The better you do that as a group the more points you get.

71. Rallyman: DIRT

Published By: Holy Grail Games
Designer: Jean-Cristophe Bouvier

Buy Rallyman: DIRT

Finally rounding out this 10 is Rallyman: DIRT. This is another push your luck game and a racing game. In it you plot you course down the track and then get a choice. You either roll one die at a time which allows you to stop before you spin out and bad things happen. Or you roll all the dice at once. Why roll all at once? Well, when you roll all at once, you take negative one second to your time per die rolled. So you can reduce your overall time if you don’t spin out.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition every Wednesday night at 9 PM Central Time. The next few videos have their links up, so you can click notify on them to know when I go live. Or you can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

And thank you for checking out the video and articles. Let me know what your favorite game from this chunk of 10 is and which one you would love to get played.

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Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Via Magica

• Published by Hurrican in 2020
• Beat your fellow magic students in a bingo-esque game and utilize your powers best

This is a great filler level game. It’s a ton of fun to collect materials and use them to open gates. And then try and figure out what games and what elements you want to focus on opening first to get benefits from either immediately or throughout the game. As as well you need to grab points, so it’s a fun balancing act in what you’re doing. This is not going to be for everyone as it’s a light game, but I really like Via Magica for a nice relaxing and fun time.

Buy Via Magica

49. Too Many Bones

• Published by Chip Theory Games in 2017
• Chuck dice and battle enemies as you level up your Gearlocks to faceoff against the final boss

This is a fun short campaign style game. It’s not a big story game, but you get that mechanical feeling of leveling up in Too Many Bones that makes it such a fun time. And each Gearlock is unique and plays differently. I think that is part of what makes the same so special. Each characters want to level up in their own ways. And sometimes you just want better stats. But other times, getting and using your unique dice is going to create for some really fun game moments. The game isn’t a story game, but it can provide it’s own story.

Buy Too Many Bones

48. Ganz Schon Clever (That’s Pretty Clever)

• Published by Schmidt Spiele in 2018
• Place dice, fill in spots, and gain combos to get your highest score

I’ve already talked about this system two other times. But this is the original one to use the system and it’s my favorite of them. I really like how clean the puzzle is for trying to solve this game and do best at it. And there are enough combos that you can end up with some awesome turns. But the combos don’t slow down the game too much which is one element that I can really appreciate about this design compared to others. Though the flexibility in how you play is a little bit more limited.

Buy That’s Pretty Clever

47. Dungeon Kart

• Published by Brotherwise Games in 2024
• Rev your engine, take off, and mess with your opponents in this fast racing game

Dungeon Kart is obviously trying to be a Mario Kart style game. And I think it does a good job of it. I’ve played other games that offer some of that, but Dungeon Kart I really enjoy. It does a great job balancing catching up, slinging spells at your opponents and just a fun time. You get behind, no biggie, you get more and better spells. You’re in the lead, well, it’s your own fault you are there and you’re going to get blasted, but don’t worry, you can still catch-up again.

Preorder Dungeon Kart

46. Super Mega Lucky Box

• Published by Gamewright in 2021
• Combo your way into a bingo victory

This is the second bingo like game on the list where something is drawn and all players use it. But this one is a flip and write game that is more bingo like than Via Magica and has you filling in a three by three grid. Of course as you fill in rows and columns you get bonuses that can give you more. And the game provides great offsetting of the luck of the slip with powers from lightning bolts. It’s just a really fun, easy to play and fast game.

Buy Super Mega Lucky Box

45. Cartographers

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2019
• Draw your best map as you explore the lands in this flip and write game

The theme is only kind of there, but this is a great roll and write style of game. You flip over terrain and figure out how you want to place it out on your sheet. But beware monsters because your opponents get to decide where that’s going to go and it’s going to be the worst spot for you. Plus the game has fun scoring that rotates throughout the seasons so that one of the scoring elements in spring is going to be scored for winter as well.

Buy Cartographers

44. Res Arcana

• Published by Sand Castle Games in 2019
• Can you get your magical engine up and running faster than your opponents in this race to 10 points

I like how simple Res Arcana is, but how thinky it is as well. You need to really figure out how you want to leverage the cards that you have, or draft, in this game. And drafting really adds some strategy to it as you can try and figure out what your best cards are going to be how you can get them to turn out points. The game has this great build to it until suddenly you can get points and then the game just flies to the finish.

Buy Res Arcana

43. Railroad Ink Challenge

• Published by Horrible Guild in 2021
• Can you connect your routes better than your opponents can?

Another roll and write game, last one in this section. Railroad Ink Challenge is a great game of building out routes of both trains and roads and trying connect as many of them as you can together. Challenge adds in challenges that you can push for to score more points. But beware of leaving too many unconnected pieces, those can lead to your doom as they are negative points.

Buy Railroad Ink Challenge

42. Rebel Princess

• Published by Bezier Games in 2024
• It’s Hearts with Shenanigans, in the best way as you avoid proposals you really don’t want.

That’s really what Rebel Princess is, Hearts with shenanigans. But the shenanigans really do make this game. The princess powers are all game breaking in some way, and you want the ones everyone else have. And then the card that determines the special rule for the hand is great as it messes with everything. So you need to be quick to adjust how you are playing every time, and I think that’s great.

Buy Rebel Princess

41. Rock Hard: 1977

• Published by Devir Games in 2024
• Live your best rockstar life as you go from garage band to playing stadiums in this worker placement game

This game is really about living that 1970’s classic rocker life as you build up your band, gain reputation, write more songs all in hopes of playing on the biggest stage. I love how the worker placement is split up over three different times, day, evening, and after hours. And it’s fun that you need to worry about your job, at least for a little bit, and pay your producer as you become more famous because of course, while they help you, they also hurt you. It’s just very thematic for a worker placement game and a theme that I like a lot.

Buy Rock Hard: 1977

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule. It’s not just all my Top 100 Games (of all time).

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition for another six weeks. After that expect this to be when I play my small games. Only 5 more weeks left of my Top 100 Games, then likely this will switch to smaller solo games and video games.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

The best way to know when we go live, though is to subscribe and click that notification bell. I can’t promise, and in fact it’s pretty unlikely, that I’ll have events to click on ahead of time. Though I do want to get better at it. I hope that you can join a stream and hop into the chat. And let me know what games in this list are your favorite or that you want to try.

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How To Play Rock Hard 1977

Rock Hard 1977 takes you on the rock and roll lifestyle as you try and go from garage band to playing the biggest stages. All of this while which gives you points as you play shows and hangout after hours with fans, business, or whomever is at the late night locations.

Rock Hard 1977, at it’s core, is a worker placement game. You place your worker three times each round. One time in the day phase, one time in the night phase and once in the after hours. Each area has their different elements that they focus on, but there are also some generic actions that you can do every time.

The Three Phases

In the day phase it is about leveling up your reputation and chops. Things that you need so that when you when your demo tape is ready you’ll be ready to rock and sign a record deal. Because in the day you also might be getting crew so you can play bigger shows or getting that record deal.

The evening or night is about performing. There are small bars or locations you can play at, but as you play more, and level up you gain access to bigger venues that are going to give you more points and raise reputation or chops and give you points.

After hours is about hanging out at different hangout spots. You might run into fans which can boost your reputation. You might strike up business deals, get inspired for a song or get some candy. But you can also get your demo tape ready and work on getting ready to record.

Basic Actions

You always have four basic actions that you can take. And three of them it doesn’t matter what time of day it is. You can buy or sell candy. I will talk about candy next. You can donate blood and get a dollar. Or you can write a song.

The final option is one that you do during a specific time of day. But for the player it might vary as to when that is. Each player starts out with a job. You are not a successful rocker yet, you don’t get income from it. So you work a job, but you can skip. However, skip three times and you’re fired. But each job is during a specific time of day

Candy

Finally it’s time to talk about the candy. You can infer that candy is whatever you like in the game. But it is a resource that you use to potentially get extra actions. So if you take a candy in the day phase you might flip over soft or hard candy and get an extra 1 or 2 actions. But there is a risk that you flip over sugar-free candy and then you don’t get anything.

There is also an added risk because when you increase your cravings for candy as well as then need to roll a die. If you roll less than your craving level you crash and the next day phase you need to go to recover. It doesn’t mess with the actions you get, but it will mean that your day phase is locked in. And if you crash on the last round, you lose five points.

At the end of the day the rocker with the most points wins. And checkout the Man vs Meeple playthrough below.

What Might Not Work?

I think for some people there is going to be an element of randomness that they don’t like. There are a few points where the randomness can come in. Firstly there is an event that happens each round. That might mess you up because it blocks off a location that you’d wan to go to in some phase.

That is probably the biggest random element along with what you draw for candy. There are eight candy cards and one is hard candy that gives two actions. One is sugar-free that gives no action, and the rest are soft candy that give one action.

The final thing is what you get from the hangout spots. A lot of the time you can kind of guess, but it isn’t a guarantee. And while most of them are good, not all of them are great. As some of them might care if you are a guitar player, lead singer, etc. to get the better reward on it.

What Works?

Let me just go ahead and push back on what might not work. I think that element of the game works well. For me, it is a way to remove planning out something perfectly. Sometimes the ideal spot isn’t available, so how do you adjust to that? I like that a lot in a game because it adds replayability to the game.

The game is also pretty simple once you get down the basics. You place your worker at one spot per phase of the day per round. That is simple. There are a couple of things that make it a bit trickier. But the game itself does a good job of showing it. So the two things are what is a cost versus a requirement versus a reward. It can be a lot of symbols but they color coordinate them. And then how turn order works, but that sorts itself out as well.

The theme is also great for the game. There is a ton of flavor on the text of the cards. But the actions you do are also thematic. You need to complete certain things, like bump up your reputation or write songs, before you get a record out there. And the text on the cards, you can tell that the designer knows the 1970’s rock scene well.

The Designer

A little tangent, but let’s talk about the designer. This is one of the big reasons, to go along with an uncommon board game theme that this game has been so hot. Jackie Fox, the designer, was the bassist for the Runaways. She is also obviously a big board game fan and less obviously a lawyer and four time Celebrity Jeopary champion.

I think that is why the theme can come through so much. It is theme put out there by someone who was there. That is a fun element to the game. But for designing a bigger game, this is a very impressive design.

Who Is Rock Hard 1977 For?

I want to say it is for people who dig the rock and roll lifestyle, but really Rock Hard 1977 is for gamers. While the game isn’t the most complex, there is enough going on that would make it a bit of a teach for people who just like the theme. Not to say that it’s too complex, but know how to play before you teach it. And keep it simple.

But for lighter worker placement, I think that Rock Hard 1977 really hits that niche well. And I think for people who maybe look at a lot of worker placement games as too dry and themeless, this is going to fix that for them. They will get a ton of theme while getting to experience the mechanisms.

I don’t know how heavier gamers will take to it. The randomness is likely going to be the element that gets them because a plan can’t be perfect. However, I will caveat that and say, with the theme, there is likely going to be more general appeal to all types of gamers.

Final Thoughts on Rock Hard 1977

First off, I really enjoy this game. And I do believe that the theme helps some with that. I say some because I don’t think it’s the biggest element that makes the game good. The streamlined nature of the game and the actions really are what shine for me. I appreciate it when a game can give me good choices but no overwhelm me with so many complex options that I can’t figure out the next turn quickly.

Overall, though, the game just provides fun. And how a game provides fun, that doesn’t matter as long as it does. This does through both avenues. And the thematic flavor on the cards is a ton of fun. It’s a bit raunchy at times and obviously there is the whole wink and a nod to what candy actually is. But all of that leans into the rock star lifestyle that you are trying to achieve in the game.

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

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Gen Con Games I’m Most Excited To Play

I’m not going to go through them all. Mainly because that would take a long time. But let’s talk about some that I haven’t played yet that I’m excited to get to the table. And I’m going to limit myself to five because otherwise I might just put them all on the list.

5. Fateforge

Fateforge is almost a cheat. I pre-ordered it, actually, for Gen Con pick-up. So I did pick it up there, I had just bought it ahead of time. But I couldn’t have played it ahead of time, so I’m counting it. This is going to be a campaign style game and honestly, that is enough to draw me in. But as I looked at it when Meet Me At the Table did an unboxing, the game felt like one that I’d like a lot. And really, a fantasy campaign style game with fighting, that is right my alley.

4. Adulthood

Adulthood is probably one that’s a bit different than my normal game. Though, the theme is again what drew me to the game. Adulthood is a game about being an adult and living your best life as an adult. So you need to work to make money, but not work too much so that it sucks all the fun out of life. And the more fun you can have during your life, the better, I believe. The theme of game just sounds like it should be fun. Now, I need it to be different enough from my actual life, but otherwise, I’m all in.

3. Cities

This was not Devir’s biggest game at the con. That one, spoiler, is coming up on the list. But I knew that I wanted Cities as well as that one. Mainly because I like city building games. And the design team of Phil Walker-Harding and Steve Finn, I like that one a lot. They tend to make lighter and more accessible games, and one that is city building, I’m definitely interested in that. My hope is that like others of their games it’ll be easy to play but offer interesting decisions.

2. Video Game Champion

Next up is Video Game Champion. I don’t know a ton about how this one plays. But the theme is what got me. I like video games. I don’t always find the time to play them, but I like them a lot. But I do always find the time to play board games. Now I can play a board game about being great at playing video games. But it’s more than just that, it’s from the era where people regularly would rent them and you’d need to do chores, get allowance, and maybe as Grandma for some money to buy them so you could get to be the best. That is a fun take on the theme of video games.

1. Rock Hard 1977

Finally, from Devir again, is the game of the con. Sure there were other games that people were excited about. A lot of booths had lines formed to start the day. But Devir with Rock Hard 1977 generally had the longest lines. Add in Jackie Fox the designer and original bassist of the Runaways being there, it added to the hype.

This is a game of garage band to stadium tours. The game wants you to write songs, record a demo tape, get an album and go onto bigger and better shows to score more points. But you need to balance that with your day job, at leas at the start. And eventually you’ll be rocking the hardest of everyone. This is a worker placement game, which isn’t always my style, but one with a theme that I really love.

Final Gen Con Game Thoughts

Now, I have plenty more that I want to play as well. Earth, Terminus, and Draft And Write Records all make that list. Plus so many more as I look over at games like Wandering Towers, Maple Valley, Creature Comforts and more. Plus I got games that I just need to play anyways because I have them and I haven’t gotten them to the table. So as I find out which ones have solod rules, those will be the ones that I’m targeting to play and stream on Malts and Meeples. Look for those videos coming up.

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