Stonespine Architects

I won’t do a full review of this game. And sorry about the thumbnail for the game. I blame YouTube on this one as the thumbnail in YouTube’s own studio program isn’t that. Or start screen I should say. But let’s talk a bit about the game and how it works, just highlighting some of what I like about solo play.

Firstly, I like that the game isn’t massively different. Jael, when shopping, does get to do everything at once. That’s the main difference that I see from playing with actual people. Though, I’ll be testing that out more today. But what I’m doing and how I’m going about it, that doesn’t change a ton. In fact, I think it probably simulates game play at a higher player count better than two players, even though there are only two players, kind of.

I also am a big fan of drafting. I brought it up last night on the stream, but the game is going to be fast two more players. The stream was two games in under and hour. Stonespine Architects is going to play at any player count. I do something at the same time that you do something, which I love in a game. Drafting is one of the best mechanisms for that because it offers everyone hands of cards to play with immediately.

Finally, I like the variable scoring in the game. My three bonuses are different than yours. That means that you and I compete, but not as directly over some things. And you saw that I almost always spent all my money. If I know that we both want the most traps on a path, I might not against another player. But with the solo player, it is something I can better plan around.

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 play solo campaign games. I plan on playing a campaign game coming up. Right now I’m torn between two games. Well, more than that if you watched through the end of the video. The next game is the one that I just unboxed, 7th Citadel. So I plan to start playing it next week or at least do character building and then dive into the 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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Catch up on my Top 100 Games (of all Time) 2023 Edition:

100 through 91

90 through 81

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 80 through 71

80. So Clover!

So Clover! is a cooperative party game where players are working together to solve a puzzle. Of course, the puzzle is only as good as the person who created it. Now, that might sound mean, but everyone is put into the position of creating the puzzle.

Each player is given a two by two grid of cards that have words on each side of the card, top, bottom, left, and right. On each of the sides of that grid you’ll have two words. So each player writes down a word the best that they can which connects the two. So if you have “hot” and “dog” you might put down “ketchup” for example. Then the cards are removed and players need to try and put it back together.

That doesn’t sound too hard, but what happens if you have “dog” and “marshmallow”? How do you connect those two words? And that’s where the tricky nature of the game comes in. Plus, even if you got the perfect clue for that, there is a mystery card added in that the person writing the clues doesn’t know what that is. So your clue of “ketchup”, in the original example, is now way harder when randomly the new card has “mustard” on it. It’s a fun game which keeps everyone involved and working together.

Buy So Clover!

79. Small World

We go from a cooperative game to a game which is about taking your fantasy race or creatures and smashing your opponents. Of course, as you do that, they’ll be smashing you back in Small World. It’s an area control game where you are gathering gold from taking over areas and holding them. Of course, to get more areas, your friends need to take over your areas.

Now, it might get sucked getting your area knocked off the board. But unlike Risk, you don’t need to hide. Instead your fantasy race can go into decline and you can grab another fantasy race. Then with a new group of characters and a new special power, you can hop back onto the board taking over what your friends have built up.

The game is very in your face, but it makes it not bad because it is for everyone. And when you get beat down, you come back in with a vengeance. And, each fantasy race has it’s own power along with each special power to make them unique and different. So flying giants might work out great one game. And you’ll have underground halflings another time, or you might change from that into bivouacing trolls.

Buy Small World

78. Dice Forge

Now we’re onto a game that dropped a little bit. I think that this one dropped because I haven’t played it in a few years, but Dice Forge is a fun game. It’s a game where you are building out your own dice. Now, you don’t start from scratch you have basic things on your dice. But as you collect resources you can use them to buy cards, often how you get points, or add new sides to your dice.

Now that doesn’t take them from six sides to eight sides or mean that you get a new die. No, you remove the side of one of the dice you have and put a new side on it. It might give you more purchase power or more points, how you build it is up to you. And that is what makes the game fun, it’s a gimmick that really works. And there are a lot of strategies in what you can do.

Another thing that works really well is that when it’s not your turn you roll your dice. So on every other players turn you get a roll and collect resources. So it isn’t a slow build of adding sides. After a few rounds you can start to leap up in what you can buy. I also like that you decide where it goes on your dice. You might get more purchase power and ignore gold and point faces completely on the dice. Or you might load up one die so you always get something better.

Buy Dice Forge

77. Asking for Trobils

This is another one that as I talked about it, I want to play it more. Asking for Trobils is a pretty simple worker placement game of building traps to catch Trobils. All with a familiar but different sci-fi team on top of it. By that I mean that they take a ton of things from popular sci-fi culture and just tweak it slightly. You want classic UFO looking worker ships, you can do that. Or you can get Planet Express for the Serenity.

But I like how this game game is simple. What you do on your turn is place out a worker and take an action. Most of the time that is collecting a resource, like space carrots. Or you might trade in resources for credits or to get a trap that you need to help capture a Trobil. And once all your ships are out, you pull them back for at turn. But the game does add in theme with pirates or characters who you can hire that’ll help you and hurt your opponent. It’s not too in the face though, which is nice.

Buy Asking for Trobils

76. Just One

Now to another cooperative party game. I was going to say it’s the highest party game on my list, but I don’t think that’s right. I’m not sure if Just One is even my highest party game or not on the list. Just One, though, is the party game that I recommend most readily for people who maybe don’t like party games that well but have a group of people who like to enjoy them.

In Just One, one person is “it” they are trying to guess their word. Everyone else is going to write down a single word clue. And from the clues, the person is going to guess their one word. The twist to the game is that there can only be just one copy of a word for a clue. If there are two, or more, all of them go away and those clues will be lost. So you want to be creative, but if it’s too obscure, that might confuse things as well. It’s a great balance that way for the game that makes it better than other party games for me.

Buy Just One

75. Roll Player

Now we’re onto a competitive game where you’re trying to create the best RPG character. Roll Player is a dice drafting game where you use those dice to create the best character. Now, each character has certain things that they want. If you’re a rogue or a wizard, you wouldn’t want 18 strength now, would you? Or you might, but that’s not the stat that you care about the most and you get points for getting it in a range.

But it isn’t just about getting dice in the right places. Because sometimes you might not get the right number. You can also get points for getting the right colored dice in the right places. Or, you get money to buy equipment that gives you points. But some of my favorite is buying spells or traits to get your alignment to the right spot as well as to give you more control over the dice that you’re placing.

It does a good job of taking an element of making a character from the RPG and putting a fun game around it. So it’s two things that I enjoy.

Buy Roll Player

74. T.I.M.E Stories

Now another cooperative game, this section has a nice mix. I know for some people TIME Stories will be lower because they’ve played it all. I haven’t played all of the scenarios, but the ones that I’ve played I really like. TIME Stories is a time travel game where you’re an agent whose consciousness is sent back through time, or across the multiverse, or ahead in time to a point in time where someone is messing with time.

Yes, I said time a lot there. But in a lot of ways the game is like a puzzle or escape room that you can play through multiple times. And while you have to go back and collect items, because they drop you in at a point in time, that you’ve found before, the knowledge you gain stays with you. I really like how that works thematically.

Buy TIME Stories

73. Point Salad

All Eevee is the way to play this game, not really, Point Salad is a great set collection, open drafting game. And it’s really simple. On your turn you take two vegetables (or Eeveelutions) or a scoring card. And that’s the majority of the game.

What works well in the game, though, is that when you take your veggies (or Eeveelutions) those spots are refilled. And the cards that are used to refill it are the cards with scoring on them. The cards have scoring on the back and veggies on the front. So if you take from a column, there are three columns, it’ll flip down that scoring card. You can use that to get rid of scoring card someone else might need, but of course, they can do that to you. So when you take scoring and when you take veggies is an interesting puzzle for the game.

Buy Point Salad

72. That’s Pretty Clever!

Now we’re onto the roll and write game for the list. And the last one of the four Clever games to make the list. I’m not sure if Clever 4Ever will make the list, I need to play it more. But I really like That’s Pretty Clever as a roll and write game. It’s a good balance between a roll and write game that has enough in it and one that is too simple. It does give you a lot of combos to play with.

To me, I think that there might be elements of the others I like better. But in terms of being able to pull this game out and play it solo, That’s Pretty Clever! is the best. And I like that I can play it on an app but also that I can get people up and playing it quickly in person as well.

Buy That’s Pretty Clever!

71. No Thanks!

Finally we have No Thanks! a game about not getting points. You want to pass on the card, you have to put a chip on it, kind of a mini poker chip. But once you run out you can’t pass and you’ll have to take the card. Sot he game is a balancing act of when there are a lot of chips on a card, is it worth taking it?

The chips themselves are worth -1 point, so if you have a lot of them, you’ll counter some of the higher points. Or you can use them to avoid getting other higher cards when someone else might be stuck taking it. I really enjoy how each group sets this market, how many chips is enough to be worth taking a card that has a 30 on it, is it 10 chips or is it 20? That depends on the group you play with. You also can create runs which only score the first card in the run. But there is also a chance that the card you need in that run might not be in the round, so there is a push your luck element there as well.

Buy No Thanks!

Upcoming Streams

I’ll be doing more of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition on next Wednesday and Wednesdays for a little bit. That is always going to be at 8 PM Central. Next week it’s going to be 70 through 61 and we’re getting close to the half way point which always seems like it’s faster than I expect.

And then I also stream on Mondays at 9 PM Central time. That is going to be for smaller solo games. I’m hoping to do Number Drop next week after opening up some Doctor Who Magic the Gathering packs last Monday. So what I stream on Monday is always all over the map.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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Checkout 100 through 91 first here.

Checkout 90 through 81 here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 80-71

80 – Star Wars: Rebellion

Star Wars: Rebellion is a big Star Wars game with lots of fighting, dice chucking, but is really a game of cat and mouse. The empire is trying to find out where the rebel base is. The rebels are trying to complete missions and get the support of the people and undermine the empire. It really is a big game of cat and mouse which feels like the original trilogy.

The one downside to this game is how long it is. I do not mind that it’s two player only, you can play on teams but it’s two player only. But it’s a three hour game, now, that can be awesome a lot of the time. But you need to plan when you want to play Star Wars Rebellion.

Buy from Cool Stuff Inc

79 – Say Bye to the Villains

Say Bye to the Villains is an extremely tricky cooperative game. Players take on the roles of different Samurai who are preparing to takeout Yakuza. The plan is simple, but the game is tricky. It’s all about optimizing your character so that you can be the villain that you end up with. But you only have a limited amount of time and everything you do takes up time. Can you balance it building up your character, supporting the other players, and figuring out what the villains are up to. It almost comes down to the last villain and samurai being a coin flip as you just don’t know.

Buy from Amazon

78 – The Quacks of Quedlinburg

I like deck building and The Quacks of Quedlinburg gives some of that feel. But it is really a push your luck bag building game. You start out with your potion that you’re trying to make and it’s mainly lousy ingredients. You can’t push too far because you’ll bust. Of course, busting isn’t the end of the world, it gives you either money or points, you just can’t get both. As you get money you spend it to get even more ingredients to your bag which means that you can push even farther.

The strategy in this game is surprisingly good. And I really appreciate that about it because there is a lot of luck. But you can build up your bag so that it combos off each other. Where you can score more points if you don’t push your luck, just in case you bust.

Buy from Cool Stuff Inc

77 – Point Salad

Point Salad is another game that is pretty simple, you either take two veggies or a scoring card, but has good strategy. You need to pay attention to what everyone else is doing around you. Because as vegetables are taken, that flips cards off the decks. But on the back of those cards are scoring cards. It’s easy to play, but gives you that good decision of not knowing if you should risk leaving a scoring card, or will get get flipped. A nice filler length game at lower player counts. I think I prefer it at 2-4 and less often 4 because it makes the game longer and more random.

Buy from Miniature Market

76 – Metro X

I actually stayed at the table, after my stream last night, and played some Metro X. This is a roll and write game where you are filling in bus routes. But the bus routes cross each other, and that can be great. It means that you might fill in multiple spots on a route. Or it can be lousy, because you might want to put a big number onto a route, but you can’t as it’s been split.

Metro X is a good example of a puzzle roll and write. You need to figure out the optimal way to fill in everything. But also a roll and write that limits the complexity. You just fill in spots on the routes. Each bus can have a limited number of numbers used on that route. Because of the randomness it can be frustrating sometimes, but everyone is dealing with that.

Not Available

75 – Kohaku

Kohaku is a relaxing game of building out your Koi pond to score as many points as possible. You draft or select tiles form a pool of koi and scoring tiles taking adjacent ones. And then you add them anywhere to your koi pond. The only thing is koi can’t be by koi and scoring can’t be by scoring. I find this game to be relaxing. The tiles are beautiful dual layer that gives it that watery depth. And while I try and win, it isn’t a game that is so intense that it feels like everything is pressure filled each decision.

Buy on Miniature Market

74 – Calico

Another pretty game, Calico is not as calm as Kohaku. In fact, the puzzle of trying to play everything in is stressful. You need to think about scoring for buttons, cats, and your own objectives. And you really want whatever patch you’re adding to your calico quilt to help you in multiple ways. But as you play down and fill in your quilt, your options become less and less. And I like that tension of can you get the right tile to complete maybe two of your scoring objectives. Or will you need to settle or less?

The game is simple though. You play one of two tiles to your quilt. Then you replenish with one of three tiles, that is it. But each decision you make matters a ton in the scoring of the game.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

73 – My City

We’ll see how long My City sticks on this list, mainly because it’s a legacy game. And legacy games slowly drift down over time, I’ve found, the further I get away from playing them. But right now, I’m still in the midst of My City and it is great.

My City is a tile laying game where everyone is putting down the same shaped tile every turn. But there are new rules each time that come up. And you want to cover up open areas the best you can, but also build up groups of buildings that are the same type. And it adds more and more to the game without making it longer than a 15-20 minute game. Highly recommend this one as a light legacy experience.

Buy on GameNerdz

72 – Roll Player

Roll Player is another drafting game on the list. This one is dice drafting. And you are picking the dice to get them for your RPG character. The concept of the game takes one fun part of role playing games, building a character, and really focuses in on that.

Each attribute, standard ones for Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder, has a power that goes with it. It might make it cheaper to buy equipment. Or it might let you flip a die in order to push your stats higher. It’s a really fun game that I need to get around to building my insert for it. Because once you have everything, it is a bit difficult to get it to the table.

Buy on GameNerdz

71 – Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

Wrapping up this section is technically two games. I went with my favorite/harder to find of the two in Battlestar Galactica, but this is also Unfathomable. Both of them are big hidden traitor, social deduction games of trying to get to some final location.

I do not like social deduction. In fact, I’d say with high confidence that there is only one other one on the list. But BSG and Unfathomable work because there is so much more game going on. You are fighting off monsters, whether it’s deep ones or Cylons. And there is just a lot going on with a lot of challenges that happen in the game. All the while trying to figure out who might be the one(s) who are traitors. And at the start of the game, it might be someone, but by the end, there will be for sure.

Buy Unfathomable on Miniature Market

Upcoming Streams

First off, reminder that there is no stream tomorrow. I am out of town so no stream happening. I think the following Wednesday will be the finale of my Stars of Akarios live streaming. With likely Chronicles of Drunagor hitting the table next.

And next Monday, the Top 100 games are going to continue. 70 through 61 in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2022 Edition. You can find the link to that video below. Join me live, chat about the games hitting the list, which are your favorites, or which you want to try.

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How To Play Roll Player Adventures

Roll Player Adventures is a game that comes in basically two parts, but we’ll get to those in a second. What you need to know is it is a massive story driven adventure game where you explore pieces of story, fight monsters and complete challenges. You do this by making storybook choices, and then playing a dice manipulation game.

Let’s start by talking about the storybook phase. A lot of what you do in the game is move around to different locations. When you reach one then you read some story element. Often times it’ll give you someone to interact with or choices of other things you can do. It’ll send you to another part of the story and then you make more decision or often go into the next part of the game.

The other part of the game is dice manipulation puzzles. This comes in the form of either combat or a skill check. To do this, you use the stats of your characters to build up a die pool, spending stamina basically in those areas to get dice of the needed colors. Then you roll all the dice in your pool and manipulate them so you can cover up the spots. But you are limited in how you can manipulate by the cards you have. And the fact that each person can only play one card.

Eventually you either die in a combat, or you make it to the end of the scenario. Then you reset and start another scenario.

What Doesn’t Work?

There’s not too much that I’d complain about with the game. My one, and this will depend on your group, but I found that it is pretty easy at 4 players. The game seems like it likely would balance best at three players. At four and if you are smart, you get a lot of things that you can use in that dice manipulation puzzle. So there’s rarely a case where we can’t deal with a skill challenge or even a combat in one round. And we rarely get close to dying even if we don’t rest for a while.

This is going to show up in a positive as well, but I think that the Nefras’s Judgement expansion is pretty important for the game. I know it’s Roll Player not Role Player, but the expansion really does help add in some role playing as you think about what your character would do. Do you need it for the game, no. I do think that it makes it better though, and it’s a lot to add, as in spendy, worth it, and I understand why not in the main box, but it adds a lot to the game.

What Works?

Dice Puzzle

Let’s talk about the dice manipulation to start. I like it as a puzzle. Like I said, I do think at 4 players it is a bit easy at times, and most of the time. But I do like the puzzle. And very rarely is it a puzzle that we solve immediately. So from that side of things it works well. I like sitting there figuring it out, talking through what everyone has that can work and eventually coming up with a solution. The fact we can do that is fun and it gives you a sense of accomplishment.

Characters

I also enjoy the different characters. Just basic out of the box they are fun. And getting the character backstory is Nefras’s Judgement, I think adds even that much more. You get to learn about your character and make decisions around that. Yes, you can import characters you play in regular Roll Player, but they wouldn’t have the backstory. So I don’t know that I’d do that.

And besides the backstory, I like building out my characters stats. I think it adds into the fun of the game. In our group I focused on charisma and wisdom, a lot because of backstory, but I’m great at those and have no strength. It makes for an interesting character. We’ve balanced our party with what people go for, everyone having their area of strength. It makes it feel like we can contribute in interesting spots.

Story

Now, I know I said that story is pretty subjective, and I think more than any part of the game it is. I enjoy the story of Roll Player Adventures. Without getting into the details too much, it’s a fun multiverse romp of a game. But not in the way that you’d expect it to have worked. And the writing is good, I don’t think it’s great, but it’s good.

I would put the writing in Roll Player Adventures on par with Gloomhaven, you just get a lot more choices. It is not on the level of Tainted Grail. Actually the closest I’d put it to is probably Stars of Akarios. Mainly because it’s fun but it’s not always the greatest writing.

One thing that I really like about the story is that you get titles. Instead of a checklist of things that you mark off, you get a card with a title. And if you have that title you get some extra story and flavor at the end. Which of course is warning about things that might happen in future games because of choices that you made. I think it’s a good way to do it if you don’t just want to have a checklist.

Who Is It For?

This one is hard to say, I think. For our group, it’s some people who were interested in a bigger campaign and myself who had played several before. So I ran with it, learning the rules, etc. Do I think a group of new players could jump into this campaign game? Better than a lot of campaign games. I don’t think Roll Player Adventures is that hard to learn. But it’s a massive box and is intimidating that way.

So I think that this is a good game for those people who want to dive into a first campaign game. They play other games, so they know how to learn rules, but they want to learn something bigger. It’ll be intimidating but I think that it’s very worth it for the game.

Roll Player Adventures Final Thoughts

I like this game quite well. Though, for so many campaign games it is about that experience of playing that game that really drives it. So if you don’t want a campaign game, you probably won’t get that much out of this review.

I do feel like my negative should pull it down further for me than it does. It being too easy is a negative, I don’t want to die, but I want to feel like I might. And in a combat, sometimes it feels like we can’t get it all done that we want to, and that’s good. But rarely with my health do I ever feel like I’m too damaged to continue. Or maybe that the scenarios could end in a good or bad way. The tricky part with that is that Roll Player Adventures is not built to branch that way. The titles are really how you get that branching story.

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

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I have a few companies like that where I generally will pay attention. And for me, that doesn’t mean back or buy everything. But it does mean that I will always check it out in detail. Rarely, if ever, will I just gloss over a game from these companies. So here are my Top 10 companies I’m always interested in

Top 10 Board Game Companies

10. Fantasy Flight Games

Fantasy Flight Games is probably a company that’d have dropped off for a lot of people. They used to come out with a whole lot more games and a whole lot bigger announcements. But I still am interested. When I saw a Twilight Imperium Roll and Write, I was interested, even with a long play time. And Marvel Champions I still buy everything for that.

I wish they would come out with something more. A new version of Star Wars Imperial Assault? I would love to see that. Or something more original from them. Maybe a smaller version of a Descent 3.0 to go along with Descent: Legends of the Dark.

9. Thunderworks Games

Thunderworks is also just on that edge if I check everything out. I will look at any announcement because I am curious about anything set in their Roll Player World of Ulos. However, anything, like Tenpenny Park, those I’ll look at, but generally aren’t what I’m interested in. But I see them because I am curious if it is more stuff for Roll Player, Roll Player Adventures, or Cartographers.

8. CMON

CMON is either on your list or not. There is no in between I feel. Some people wait anticipating what CMON is going to announce next. Other people pledge $1 so that they can complain. That is basically how it goes on everything that CMON does. And I understand some of the complaints, I also don’t care on some of the complaints. They end up being complaining for the sake of complaining. But that isn’t the point of this article.

I wait to see what CMON comes out with next. And there is no company where they can announce a game and I will always back it or buy it. But when CMON announces a Stranger Things Game, see here, I get really excited. On the flip side, I like the idea of a big Dune battling over the planet game, but it is not one that I will back.

7. Chip Theory Games

Chip Theory Games is moving up the list for me. The more I see and mess around with their games, the more interested I am in their games. I enjoy Too Many Bones, and I think the more I dive into it the more I will like it. Then I almost backed Hoplomacus Victorum because it was a solo version of a game that I thought looked cool. And Burncycle, after watching a Brother’s Murph play through, see below, I really want to get it. Their games aren’t cheap though, so I need to pace myself.

6. Horrible Guild

Probably the biggest break or one of them, from the big games on the list is Horrible Guild. Horrible Guild does some campaign or legacy games with King’s Dilemma and then Queen’s Dilemma coming to Kickstarter. But I like their small games. Stuff like Potion Explosion, Railroad Ink, I’m so excited to be getting Tiny Turbo Cars, stuff like that.

They make games with amazing toy factor to them. And I just really enjoy sitting down and playing them. They also make games that are accessible. Railroad Ink is a bit challenging for a roll and write with Railroad Ink Challenge, but it’s not hard to teach. Same with Potion Explosion or Similo. Plus with so much fun in their games, I always want to see what they make.

5. Mythic Games

Getting back to big games, we have Mythic Games. Mythic Games has made such games as Reichbusters and Solomon Kane, but the one of theirs I play the most is Super Fantasy Brawl. I really love that game, but I mainly pay attention to their big games. Now, with that said, I don’t back a ton of their games on crowdfunding. I have backed Super Fantasy Brawl and HEL: The Last Saga, but that is it.

One of the reasons is that their rule books first time around tend to be poor. You need to get, and they do send out, a new rule book. But also because their games are big and epic and tend to have a lot with them. They are like CMON in some ways, I might want to back all of them, but I certainly don’t have room to back and store all of their games. Just between Super Fantasy Brawl and Solomon Kane that takes up a lot of space on top of a Kallax shelf.

4. Roxley Games

Last game on the list that makes that many smaller games. Though, when you get everything for Dice Throne, it certainly isn’t that small. And Dice Throne is the reason Roxley is so high on the list. They have some heavy euro games, I am not interested in those. But I want more Dice Throne. And their lighter games, I am interested in.

I really only own two games from Roxley, Dice Throne and Radlands and I need to play Radlands still. But when Santa vs Krampus came out, I backed immediately. When Marvel Dice Throne was announced, I knew I’d be all in. That is going to be case whenever they come out with anything new.

3. OOMM

OOMM is a very new company to the list. And honestly, I should likely keep them lower on the list, but we’re not talking about backing everything, we’re talking about being interested. I bought Stars of Akarios because of what it looked like after the fact. I backed Mythwind because the game looked so different.

OOMM really does something that I love in creating games that feel unique. Mythwind seems really different than anything else out there. Stars of Akarios is a big space campaign game. Do I need more space campaign games, not really but I want them. And the new legacy game they announced looks very cool as well.

2. Awaken Realms

Awaken Realms maybe could be #1, but it’s at #2 because there is Awaken Realms Lite, technically it’s own company I believe, but a lot of the same people and process. But the last two on the list, I will always look and almost always back whatever they do.

There are two exceptions for Awaken Realms. I didn’t back The Great Wall as it is a massive euro game. It looks cool, I’d love to try it, but I wouldn’t buy it. And I didn’t back Lords of Ragnarok from them. Why, because I already own and love Lords of Hellas. Lords of Ragnarok might be better, but I don’t need to own both.

1. Cephalofair Games

I doubt that this is a shock. I went all in on Frosthaven. And I love Gloomhaven. I never looked at Founders of Gloomhaven once I realized it was a euro. But Cephalofair announces something, I am interested. I hope it is more for Frosthaven, after that has been out for a bit. Or another big box game, but really, anything at this point. Even with my #1 company that I will be intrigued to hear whatever they announce, not every game will be for me.

Still, I can’t wait until Frosthaven gets here. And I even started a campaign of Gloomhaven Digital recently. It is just a fun experience to play that game and it is fun to dive back into it. And I will for sure dive heavily into Frosthaven almost right away when it shows up. I suspect we’ll be done with the final Tainted Grail expansion by then, but we’ll see.

Final Thoughts

Firstly, I’d love to know what companies you are generally interested. Which ones make games that seem fun to checkout or different. I want to know what gets you excited. And as I said, I don’t like every game from all of these companies. In fact, there are some that just miss completely for me, even though I love the company.

And that is very fair to not like everything. I talk about how CMON is polarizing, the people who love CMON don’t like everything from CMON. The people who dislike CMON will never know what they are missing out on. I think it’s more important to remember that some games are going to be for you and some won’t no matter the company. And even if you enjoy all of them, some will be better than others.

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Ranking My Fantasy Games

46: The Red Dragon Inn

This should be a game that I like more than I do, it’s basically a hand management game around drinking in a bar after you’ve been out adventuring and gambling to win money and getting in fights. And I suspect I do I like this game more than I think. I just don’t like it at high player counts. Most of the time when I play The Red Dragon Inn it is over the recommended player count, to me this is a 4 player game only. I don’t want fewer, I don’t want more. At four, it’d feel like good silly fun and not a slog.

45: God of War: The Card Game

God of War is another theme in a game that I should love, but the game around it wasn’t that great. The deck building was interesting in the game. But the card play and the monsters that you fight, those aren’t all that interesting. It feels like the game was meant for mass market without hitting mass market. Or it’s a weird area in between mass market and hobby.

44: Kodama: The Tree Spirits

This is one that barely falls into the fantasy area. Yes, it does have the tree spirits, but that’s barely part of the game. It’s more about building out trees trying to create runs of the different things that you want. In concept it’s not that bad, and in game play it is okay. Kodoma is one of those games where I think a lot of people will enjoy it, and it’s not a bad game, but it won’t be many people’s favorite game.

43: Stuffed Fables

This is a game, in Stuffed Fables, I should maybe have given more tries. The theme of a being stuffed animals and toys of a kid trying to get their blanket back that was stolen, super cute. And the game was cute when I played it, but also more complex than it should be. I get what Plaid Hat Games is doing with their adventure book games, but with changing rules it just made it more complex than I wanted.

42: SeaFall

SeaFall, people would probably put that to the bottom of their lists because it is not a good legacy game. Though, legacy games, to me, have higher standards than most other games. If I am only going to get a limited use out of it, it needs to be epic. I liked the mechanics pretty well though they needed to be less punishing. But the story was a bit too scattered, though, with some tweaking, could be made better.

41: Near and Far

Well, I just wrapped up Sleeping Gods, that isn’t on the list yet, so I like it better. For me, Near and Far is a cool concept, a cool world, and just falls flat. The game has story, and even vignettes of story like Sleeping Gods, but it’s more mechanics than anything. And I think since it’s competitive the game couldn’t get away from the mechanics as much as how you score points.

40: Legacy of Dragonholt

Legacy of Dragonholt is another one of those games that isn’t bad, but could have been better. The system for an RPG/Choose Your Own Adventure game is fun. The story is okay, and that’s what kept me from diving back into it. It wasn’t that the concept of the story wasn’t good, but the execution of it felt too YA (young adult) and not a well written YA story, but one that got published because other YA books similar were well done and popular. I’d love to see Fantasy Flight come back to this system, keep some of the ideas and just improve the writing.

39: Fae

Fae is a fantasy game in cover art only. It is really an abstract game where you are a fae creature who is then hidden from everyone else and you try and score the most points. The game is good, and I like the challenge of trying to score points but not make it too obvious so that people tank your fae’s scoring. A clever idea and very abstract.

38: Legends of Andor

Another game that was in my collection and then left. And another one that is fun, it is an efficiency puzzle of how you get through the story as effectively as possible so you don’t trigger end game too early. My issue with it is only a me issue, I have too many campaign games. I let it go when I realized I would only ever play the starting scenario at least for right now. When I have capacity for that campaign, then I might get it back.

37: Sword & Sorcery

Sword & Sorcery left my collection, but that’s because I did play through the campaign. It is a fun campaign but one that I knew I wouldn’t revisit. The depth of game play is fun for a lighter dice chucking game. And the story is also light, well, in terms of the decisions that you make. I wish the story branched more, and that your powers would change up more, because once you found a few good things, you just did those.

36: Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients

Shadows of Brimstone is one that hasn’t left my collection as a campaign game, but maybe should. The only issue is that I need to glue the figures back together. My first gluing didn’t stick as well as it should have, because I didn’t use the right glue. But also, it’s a theme that I don’t have games for, the weird west. So monsters and other worlds all messing with the old west. I love that theme and there aren’t many games or good books that I’ve found with it.

35: Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

Another campaign game, and another one that left my collection just because I wasn’t going to get to it anytime soon. But it’s Lord of the Rings, and app assisted from Fantasy Flight Games. The story was fun that I did play through. The writing was well done, which I appreciated, and you can see is something that’s important to me. Definitely a good one for Lord of the Ring fans, which I am.

34: Krosmaster: Arena

This is a skirmish game with fantasy characters casting spells, summoning monsters, and hacking and slashing away. I like that you pick and build the teams that you play with. I like the dice rolling and how you can play with secondary objectives so it’s not just knock out your opponent. But you can play just with knocking people out as well. Krosmaster is one I would keep but I didn’t have people to play it with, and now I have another skirmish game or two that I put over it.

33: Too Many Bones

This one will probably move up the list when my Gamefound comes in for the latest expansions. Not that I own any other Too Many Bones, but that might start me getting more. This is kind of a short campaign game where you fight some battles and then fight against a boss. But where the game really shines is how you build up your characters. Each of them do different things, and how you level them up gives you room to explore a character multiple times. Plus it’s a different fantasy world than anything else out there.

32: Lord of the Rings: Journey To Mordor

This is a roll and write game, but it is a fun little one. Not one that I own or one that I’d go and seek out to add to my roll and write collection. But Journey to Mordor basically has you advancing your Hobbit on their journey to Mordor while trying not to let the Nazgul get you. Very simple roll and write but it has a little more player interaction, so it feels different than some.

31: The Hobbit

Speaking of Hobbits, we have The Hobbit. This is a competitive game about dwarves trying to get treasure, which is kind of what the book is as well. I like the mechanics where you are leveling up skills based off of cards you play. But you want to balance it so everyone levels up because you can’t defeat the monsters all by yourself. So it’s semi-cooperative, but not in a way that someone is working against the group, it’s just that sometimes you let another person get the better thing.

30: Deadly Doodles

Another roll and write game, and this one I think has dropped a little on my list. It’s a good simple roll and write where you are trying to get treasures, find weapons and defeat monsters. And what you do gives you points. There are some different dungeons which add in more things to do as well, which I need to play around with.

29: The Lord of the Rings

And even more Lord of the Rings, this is the classic Fantasy Flight Game. I like how it plays through the books. And you play as the Hobbits taking the ring to Mordor. It is fairly abstracted, but the locations you go and the scenes you play through are all very Lord of the Rings, so it feels more thematic than just with what you are doing. Plus it’s a really tough cooperative game and I like those.

28: Titan Race

Normally I don’t love games that have a lot of in your face, try and mess the other person over, but Titan Race is a lot of fun. This is a fast game and a silly game with great fantasy in it. Titan Race is very silly and I like how the tracks work. You can either do a race where you loop over the same board over and over again, or you can do a grand prix and go over three boards and each board does different things. And those things make the game even sillier.

27: Claim

Claim is a two player trick taking game which is odd. Plus the first hand you play doesn’t actually give you a score, it is how you build your hand for trick taking. It’s such a clever idea and I like that it plays really fast. The fantasy theme comes in that the different suits are fantasy races. And each of those fantasy races has it’s own powers, or they might. Some of them there are just more of, whereas others have powers. A knight always beats a goblin, for example. So it puts even more of a twist on trick taking in a way I really enjoy.

26: Paper Dungeons: A Dungeon Scrawler

I don’t know where this one will end up, so middle of the list is good for right now. I don’t know where it’s going to end up because I’ve only played this roll and write game once. And I liked it a lot, it’s a dungeon crawler as a roll and write. But as compared to Deadly Doodles where you go into a dungeon and cross over stuff, you do a lot more in this game. You level up your heroes, you have powers and abilities, you craft items and brew potions. And the better you do in other things, better you can explore. A lot going on, but not too hard.

25: Skulk Hollow

Skulk Hollow is a game of woodland creatures, the Foxen, fighting against a Guardian. It’s a two player only game and one that is very asymmetrical. As the guardian my goal might change from game to game, depending on which guardian I am. And the Foxen, well they always want to beat down the Guardian. And the Foxen can change up depending on who their leader is. Really cute game and fast to learn and play.

24: Silver

I think I say this every time I talk about Silver, but it reminds me of a game I played growing up with a deck of cards. In Silver you have a village in front of you and you want the lowest score possible. You know what two of the cards are in your village. You don’t know the other three. So now you swap cards out or play them for powers to get rid of cards in your village and lower your score. It’s simple, it’s fun, there’s a lot of take that, yet it feels nostalgic in a good way.

23: Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure

Clank is a fun push your luck, deck building, dungeon delving game. You want to get the best treasure that you can, but as you get cards, make noise, and well, annoy the dragon because it’s their horde, now the dragon starts damaging you. So you could jump in, grab the first thing you see and run, but if someone else can make it out, now they have more points and better treasure than you. Really fun game and easy enough to play for most people.

22: Deranged

Deranged might fall more into a horror game. But there is a magical gate and fantastical monsters who are out to get you. And you yourself can become one of those fantastical monsters if you don’t deal with your curses and get out in time, why, because you might become Deranged. The game has a lot going on, but I like the dual use cards and the theme of the game. A little horror I’m most certainly interested.

21: Village Attacks

Village Attacks is another darker themed game because you for sure are the monsters. And after a long day of terrifying villagers, you are ready to settle down. But nope, here some villagers to break down your door because clearly you’re the monsters, not the people trying to trash your place. That sounds light, and I find it silly, but it is themed dark. Still a very nice tower defense type of game.

20: The Grimm Masquerade

Themed with Grimm Fairy Tales, The Grimm Masquerade is a deduction game. You are each a masked party goer, one of the Grimm characters. You are of course looking for something, a glass slipper for Cinderella, but also have something you don’t want. Can you get what you need or make everyone else bust before they figure out who you are?

19: Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

Another deck building game, Ascension is fantasy themed. Really, like most pure deck building games, it’s about building up an engine that gives you points. I just like this fantasy theme and variability of it better than something like Dominion. But that’s not what we’re talking about. This lets you get heroes and casters and sages and constructions to fight monsters, get more income and buy more cards. I like that it offers a ton of different strategy for the game.

18: Res Arcana

Res Arcana is another in theme only fantasy games. You are basically building out an engine to get points and who can do it better to get points faster. I like it though with the theme of brewing potions and dragons and places of power. It makes it feel different, and I also like that you only have 8 cards to make your engine with.

17: The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

The Dresden Files are my favorite fantasy series. I love the world that Jim Butcher has created. The game, it does a good job of giving you the pieces of that world. But you need to know the world to connect them together. So it’s not the best fantasy game or story game for everyone, but if you know the series, it’s a lot of fun to play.

16: Small World

Small World is Risk with fantasy creatures, crazy powers, and well, a whole lot more fun. What really works is that this is a small board. The game is in your face, but it’s in everyone’s face. The option of hiding away in Australia is gone that you’d have in Risk. Plus, you get crazy combos. Flying Halflings, Seafaring Giants, Wealthy Trolls, all of them are possible. Really accessible game too for most new gamers.

15: The Lost Expedition

This one is on the list because of the expansions and promo cards. I don’t think in the base game there is anything too fantastical, but werewolves, fountain of youth, yeah, those are fantasy. This is all about surviving to get to the lost city of Z. The game is a really good cooperative one that if you have someone who is a alpha player, it keeps them from being too much of one.

14: Century: Golem Edition

This is another one where the theme is fantasy, but game play doesn’t really shine through on that. Still, the artwork and gem pieces are great, and I wouldn’t want a different theme. It’s a hand management game where you are building up cards in your hand to use them to turn gems into other gems until you get the right combinations to get golems. And the golems at the end of the game give you points. What is so amazing about this game is that turns are super fast, so while there are good decisions to be made, it doesn’t take long to get back to your turn.

13: Potion Explosion

We’ve all probably seen the app games where you get like colors to touch and that removes them from the board and if more hit, those are removed as well. That is what Potion Explosion is. You are making crazy potions by pulling dice and trying to get the like colors to hit. Light game with a great table presence.

12: Root

Root was one where I was thinking, is this actually fantasy. Well, let’s see, it’s animals fighting and building, so yes, that seems like fantasy. But really, it’s a confrontational game where you fight it out with your group trying to get points to win the game with everyone trying to keep everyone else in check. Great asymmetrical game, just know it’ll take some time to teach. And don’t let the artwork fool you, this is not a nice sweet happy game.

11: Roll Player

Roll Player is a game about making your Dungeons and Dragons (or Generic RPG) character. You draft dice to put them into various stats for your class. It’s a lot of fun as you try and match up colors and get the numbers right to score more points. Plus you buy up gear and abilities which can influence your stats or points as well. And that’s the game, it’s about building up your character.

10: Spire’s End

Spire’s End, coming soon to Malts and Meeples is a story adventure game. In Spire’s End you wake up to find a spire has appeared at the edge of your town and many people are missing. You and others go into the tower, fight monsters, make choices, and generally go on a weird and dark adventure. Really like this one as a solo game.

9: Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl, it’s in the name that it’s fantasy. Super Fantasy Brawl is a two player skirmish game where you are trying to complete objectives in an arena and knock out your opponents. Complete objectives, get trophies. Knock out your opponent, get trophies. The first to five wins. What I really like is the turn speed, you play up to three cards, one of each color and do what it says on the cards. And the cards you play determine who moves. Light game but very tactical in how you play.

8: Cartographers

The second game I have in the Roll Player world, won’t be the last. But Cartographers is a roll and write game where you are making a map of the land. And you get points for making it in certain ways. Forests surrounding mountains might give you a point or two, things like that. What makes it fantastical is that you put monsters on the map as well. And you don’t put your own down, you put them on your opponents board in the worst spot for them to make them score negative points.

7: Sleeping Gods

Sleeping Gods, well, you can watch me play this one I just wrapped it up over on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is a big adventure game where you, as the crew of the Manticore are transported to a new world. You want to get home, but in order to do that you must awaken the sleeping gods and all you know is that totems might help with that, not where to find them. So it’s really a sandbox game of exploring, finding quests, fighting monsters and more.

6: Roll Player Adventures

Roll Player Adventures, the final Roll Player world game, this is an adventure game set in the world of Roll Player, using mechanics or dice mechanics that feel like Roll Player, and it’s really good. I really like that Roll Player Adventures is an easy game to learn and a lighter game to play. A lot of the big adventure games can have a lot to keep track of and a lot of tokens. Roll Player Adventures has enough, but not too much. And the world you play in isn’t too dark.

5: Aeon’s End

Aeon’s End is another deck building game and the highest on the list. This is a cooperative game where you play as breach mages trying to fight off nemesis that come through. The game does two really interesting things for me. Firstly, you never shuffle your deck. So when you discard cards you can kind of put them in an order. And the other is that turn order is random. There is a deck, in a two player game, which has two activations for each character and two for the Nemesis. On a really bad draw you could go twice with each character and then two Nemesis turns, plus then shuffle that up again and two more Nemesis turns.

4: Lords of Hellas

Lords of Hellas is fantasy in the future, or mythology in the future. It’s a cyber world of Greek gods. An odd setting with some amazing miniatures and mechanical creatures. But a really good game with some rough edges and a lot of ways to win. To me that is one of the best parts of the game where you are able to win in a number of different ways. You might fight monsters or build and control a monument or take over areas, how you play is up to you and the powers you have.

3: Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail, if Roll Player is light fantasy or happy fantasy, Tainted Grail is very dark fantasy. The world of Avalon is falling apart, the Menhir that drove back the wyrdness are failing and you aren’t sent out to stop it. You are sent out to find out what happened to the people who are better equipped to do this than you. But the story in Tainted Grail is amazing and one that I highly recommend people track down, which can be hard. Also know that this is a survival game with a ton of story, if you want the story, play in storymode, I am.

2: Dice Throne

Odd one to put on the list but Dice Throne is very much fantasy. It is fantasy head to battling in almost a Mortal Kombat type setting but it is still fantasy. My Pyromancer is going to blast your Barbarian with fire or then there is a Seraph or a Treant or a Gunslinger, all sorts of things, and you can take any of them up against each other. I’m so excited, it isn’t that far out to when Marvel Dice Throne will be delivered, several months but not that far. And Marvel Dice Throne is compatible and can be played with everything else I already have.

1: Gloomhaven

Finally, my #1 game of all time, Gloomhaven, This is a massive fantasy game of dungeon crawling combat. It is amazing and what really makes it is the card play. You pick two cards to play, one will determine how fast you go. Then when you go you use the top of one card and the bottom of the others to move and attack, so you can set yourself up for some epic turns or make it flexible to cover a changing board state. And there are so many different characters that are interesting to play as.

Final Thoughts

I love fantasy as a theme. A lot of my favorite series are fantasy for books in particular. And for board games, there are a lot of games that use the fantasy theme. But when you get down to some of my favorite games of all time, the big fantasy games are hard to beat. I think that my Top 3 games are all fantasy games. And I even skipped some games, like stuff in the Lovecraftian Mythos because while they are fantasy, I feel they are more horror. Maybe I’ll do a horror game ranking soon.

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124-101

100 – 76

75 – 51

50 – 26

Unplayed Board Games – 25- 1

25: Folklore: The Affliction

Folklore is a campaign game that’s been on my shelf for quite a while. It’s one that I know I’ll likely need to play solo to get played so it might show up on the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel coming up here. But it’s basically an RPG type game in a box. Like a HEXplore It, it is going to give more of that die rolling feel you’d expect from a pen and paper RPG. Plus it’s about vampires, werewolves, and ghosts, fun stuff that I like.

24: Fox in the Forest

The smallest game in this section, Fox in the Forest is a two player trick taking game. I recently played the cooperative version of it and had a lot of fun . Fox in the Forest is competitive but one that works really well with two. I believe it balances out some of that by making taking all of the tricks a bad thing, so no shooting the moon. Or it needs to be done in a specific way. I like trick taking, just need to figure out which trick taking games will stick in my collection.

23: The Quacks of Quedlinburg

Another not huge game, The Quacks of Quedlinburg has been a really popular game over the past few years. It is a bag building game, by that I mean you add things to a bag, in this case cardboard tokens. And then you draw them out, and you are trying to make your potion grow. But if you get too many bad ingredients in there, it explodes and you get fewer rewards. But the further you push down the track of adding ingredients, the more points you get.

22: Res Arcana

Res Arcana is an engine building game. It’s a smaller one though with a limited number of cards and the main goal of the game is to figure out how to turn out points. You do that through artifacts and spells and things that you might get out in front of you. The question of the game is, who can get their engine running the best.

21: Western Legends

Western Legends is back into the big games, not a campaign, but a massive sandbox game. In this game you play in the wild west and you can be a good guy bringing in trouble makers, delivering cattle, things like that. Or you can be a bad guy, rustle cattle, rob the bank, and things like that. And you can switch in the middle of the game. Western Legends lets you do anything in the pursuit of points and create your own wild west story.

20: Mechs vs Minions

Mechs vs Minions is an interesting game because it’s created by Riot Games. They are known best for League of Legends, and now Arcane a Netflix show set in that world. Mechs vs Minions is kind of set in that setting, from what I can tell. But it’s a programming wave where you set your Mechs on a path where they can take out the minions. The game plays in scenarios and it might be kill everything or it might be get this objective and get back out. It’s fully cooperative, and one that has been a grail game for me.

19: Cthulhu: Death May Die

I like Cthulhu, don’t know if he likes me. But Cthulhu: Death May Die is a game, kind of in the vein of Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness, but this time from CMON. And it’s about investigating, fighting cultists and other horrors, and getting to be just insane enough that you’re powerful enough to kill the elder god at the end. Or maybe you’ll just go mad completely or die. I like the theme, and the difficulty level of the game looks really challenging.

18: Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor

Speaking of a game that looks challenging, Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor, is a 4x game in a fantasy world. I already had a game like that on the list, Heroes of Land, Air and Sea, but this has a twist on this. You don’t fight against each other. Instead, you all need to end with better scores than the two bad factions to win the game. This cooperative nature of the game really drew me to it. Because it’s not just everyone do better, but how do I do well enough but also don’t hinder your chances.

17: Black Rose Wars

Black Rose Wars is an intimidating game to get to the table. There are lots of cards in the game, and it’s actually another programming game. Like Mechs vs Minions you’re deciding what you do. But with this one, it’s a free for all. You are summoning monsters to the board, laying traps, slinging spells, and blowing up rooms. The first mage to a certain number of points, I believe, wins the game. But it’s more about the crazy and powerful things that you can do which makes me want to try it.

16: Descent: Legends of the Dark

Another big game, Descent: Legends of the Dark takes up basically a full Kallax cube by itself. And the box says Act 1 on it. This is going to be a story driven dungeon crawler of a game. But it’s from Fantasy Flight, so they used what they knew from their apps for Mansions of Madness, Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth, and more to make even a better app. This really helps with the fog of war or not knowing what’s behind a door as you play. I’ve done a demo, but not enough to count as a play.

15: Betrayal Legacy

Betrayal Legacy is a game that’s been on my too play list for a while. It has two great things about it, first it’s a legacy game, and I love legacy games an their progressing story. Secondly, it’s based off of Betrayal at House on the Hill. A game that I know isn’t balanced, but it is still a game that I love. Not too many games do horror too well, and Betrayal often feels like a horror movie in so many great ways. So I’m excited to see what can be done with a bigger story.

14: Loup Garou

Now we’re looking at a game that is a book. Loup Garou from Van Ryder Games is a game in that you go through and make choices. You play as a character and they have stats. But in a lot of ways, it’s a choose your own adventure. It’s a graphic novel, so you read the text, look at what you can do, and that determines where you flip to. I don’t know why, since I got this at GenCon in 2019, I haven’t just played this. It’s solo only and it’d be easy to get through, probably with dying. I need to play this ASAP.

13: Under Falling Skies

Another solo game, Under Falling Skies was added to my collection more recently. This is almost Space Invaders the game. But it seems really intriguing as a puzzle, plus there is a comic that comes with it and a mini campaign. You place down dice in the game to activate different things. The trick is that the weaker things won’t do as much, but the stronger things, alien spaceships descend faster. It’s finding when you’re perfectly ready to do that one big thing, from what I can tell.

12: Nidavellir

Another smaller box game on the list. Nidavellir is a set collection and auction game. And there is one reason it is so high, and it’s not the Norse Mythology. But it is because of how the auction works. You have five coins. You use three of them to bid and two are at the bottom. If you put a zero as one of your bids, you can trade in the higher of the two left over coins to get the value of the two left over coins. So you can upgrade your money as you go. When do you tank a bid, taking whatever is left, to do that.

11: Sea of Legends

I think from here on out is all big games, or mainly. It isn’t all campaign games, though. Sea of Legends isn’t a campaign game, but it is an epic story game of pirates. What drew me to this game, besides wondering about the story the game promises, is three things. Those three things set up your story, but at the start of the game, you pick a Captain, a Nemesis and a Lover. And that all determines your story. So you end up with a lot of variability. Plus it’s pirates and adventure on the seas, so it’s a theme that I love and look for in board games.

10: Middara: Unintentional Malum Act 1

This one could be higher on the list. Middara does a lot of things that interest me. It is a campaign game. It does fog of war well. There is massive amounts of story. The theming is crazy space, fantasy, anime, all things that I’m down for. And let’s face it, I could just say it’s anime because a lot of anime is space fantasy and crazy. But this one looks really cool to get to the table and massive to get to the table. I need to find a group to play this one with.

9: Deep Madness

Deep Madness is a game that I can blame on Rolling Solo. This is a game that is not easy to track down, mainly because it was just on Kickstarter. And I own almost everything for it, but I haven’t played it. The madness should give you some idea as to the sort of game, but what I like is that this is set on a deep sea base. And monsters are coming in and have wiped out everyone. The corporation who built the base is now sending the team down to figure out what is going on. It’s a theme and horror that I love so much, I just need to play it.

8: Lost Ruins of Arnak

Now we’re back from campaign style games. Though, Deep Madness can be played as a scenario, but they are kind of linked. Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deck building worker placement game. I like deck building, and worker placement isn’t my normal thing, but not bad. Lost Ruins of Arnak just has a cool Indiana Jones vibe to it that drew me in. And I think the deck building and theme will make it work well for myself and my group.

7: The Ratcatcher: The Solo Adventure Game

So when I said that there might be one smaller game left, this is it. It’s an interesting game in that it’s a solo only game, three of them on the list, but it’s a big box. It honestly feels like a bigger box than the game should have. In this you are trying to catch rats and get cheese. If the rats get too much cheese, now a big bad rat comes out onto the board, and things are going to get scary. It’s again a solo game, so one that I should get played.

6: Solomon Kane

Back to massive games, Solomon Kane is one that’s been on lists of games that I want to play for a while. But some of that was also that I wanted to buy it. It came and went on Kickstarter while I wasn’t too active there. And it’s been delivering last year and now wave two this year, and I managed to get wave one stuff for it.

In Solomon Kane you don’t play as Solomon Kane, you play as virtues guiding him. And I think that concept is interesting. You can play it solo with one super virtue, or each player gets a virtue in a multiplayer game. And then you take him through stories. Really interesting with how it works with not controlling the main character.

5: Roll Player Adventures

Kind of a cheat for the list, I really like Roll Player Adventures, but I’ve only kind of played it. Roll Player Adventures, I got to play a demo of it at GenCon in 2019 while they were still doing playtesting of the game. But the game is a blast, and the story, I like, because it isn’t too heavy. It’s a big story game set in the Roll Player world, but also a dice manipulation game when you drop into combat.

I know I’m going to be diving into this one soon. So I’m excited to get it to the table. I ordered the character backstory pack for it with the special quests that you can get from it for each character. I think that is going to make the whole thing even more immersive, which is great.

4: Nemesis

Another horror game, Nemesis is, from what I’ve heard, the closest you can get to Alien the board game. There is an alien infestation on your ship, and you need to complete your objective and then take out all the aliens or launch yourself out in an escape pod. But you don’t want the aliens to get to Earth, that’s for sure. But you want to end up there, so can you get the engines to launch you there.

3: Dwellings of Eldervale

Another non-campaign game, in fact a number aren’t in the top, but they are big games. Dwellings of Eldervale is that. This one really interested me because it has giant monsters, but also you are doing worker placement. But I really like how the worker placement works. You unlock new workers but also your workers become your dwellings. And when you pull back workers they do things as well, so it’s not a waste of a turn to pull back workers.

2: Terraforming Mars

Super high on the list and a big game in how long it takes and how big it plays, Terraforming Mars is so high because I really like Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition. I know that the games are different, there is more take that or randomness, and area control and you have a much bigger board that you’re using in Terraforming Mars. But I really want to play it and see how I like the engine building that goes on in that game.

1: Destinies

Finally, we have Destinies. Destinies is a game from Lucky Duck Games where you are playing through a story, but unlike a lot of story games, this is competitive. And each of you is trying to complete a destiny of yours. And it is a race to see who can complete theirs first. What interests me are some of the mechanics a roll over a certain number to get successes is cool. Plus you can manipulate that. But also that you need to pay attention to the story on other people’s turns because they might find something to help you.

To me, that’s a good game in that it’ll keep you engaged with what everyone is doing. Even if I’m not taking my turn, I need to know what you are doing as well. I might not be actively interacting with anything, but I still need to pay attention. And if a game can do that, I really want to play it.

Final Thoughts

That’s the whole list, all 124 of them. I could have had one less if I counted my playtesting of Roll Player Adventures. But also, that is a game that’s extremely high on my list for wanting to get played. Definitely a lot more big games up here. Though, I think outside of the campaign games, most of them can get played. And I could see, if things fall right, even getting one or two of those to the table this year. Like I said, I think Roll Player Adventures will be getting played soon.

Which one would you play first?

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Ranking My Drafting Games

12. 7 Wonders

I know, this one is going to be very high on some people’s lists. And I get it, it’s a very solid drafting game and I like it a lot. But it doesn’t work great at two, and I have played it at that number a few times. I know, I need to play 7 Wonders Duel. For me, this game is a great pure drafting game, the theme doesn’t intrigue me that much, and often I want more going on.

11. Cat Cafe

This is another one that is just good, but it’s not a bad roll and write. In Cat Cafe, you draft dice to determine what you do. It’s a simple part of the game where you use the die you draft and one that is left at the end. It determines what cat feature you add as well as where on the cat trees you put them. It’s a nice little system and a cute game.

10. Magic: The Gathering

This one is tough for me to rank. Mainly because drafting in Magic: The Gathering, is a lot of fun, but I haven’t done it in ages. And I don’t plan to do it for a long time. It’s a good way to play some more relaxed magic, if you are playing with friends. I think that besides Commander, drafting or sealed are my favorite ways to play magic.

9. Truffle Shuffle

Truffle Shuffle is a board game that makes a good two player drafting game. It has the grid or layout for cards that you draft from, and you open up other cards. The game play is simple, take a card, and then you can put down a set of cards, kind of in poker hands. The poker hands give you points, plus there are some special power cards as well. If you want an easy game to play, Truffle Shuffle is a good drafting game.

8. The Isle of Cats

The Isle Of Cats really focused on drafting in a great way. Yes, it is a game about putting out cats onto a boat to rescue them, but the drafting matters so much. You draft scoring missions, you draft cards that allow you to rescue cats, and other types of cards as well. And what I like is that as you draft cards, you need to pay for them. So you wont keep all of them. But which ones do you keep, because you also have to bribe the cats with fish. It’s a clever system.

7. Draftosaurus

And in Draftosaurus, you are drafting dinosaurs, probably the most unique thing to be drafting. Especially because we see dice, and we cards, but these are dino meeples. You basically are building out a dinosaur park putting dinosaurs in spots that will give you points. In a lot of ways this feels like a roll and write to me, but with dino meeples. The game plays really fast and easy and is a lot of fun.

6. Sushi Go Party!

I thought that Sushi Go Party might be higher when I started ranking, and it’s not that I don’t like the game as much anymore, but it’s more that there are a lot of fun drafting games. Sushi Go Party is adorable, and a lot of fun. The anthropomorphic sushi and other foods are cute. And I like how the drafting works. That you draft over rounds, but you score and reset at the end of each. Except for desert, and those only score at the end of the game.

5. Ohanami

Slightly above Sushi Go Party! is Ohanami, another simple drafting game, but one that I love to pull out. The game is so easy to play. Ohanami has you drafting two cards and putting them into any of three columns. The trick is that the columns and cards added, always need to increase or decrease. It’s a really fun puzzle, not that hard a one, and I like how scoring works, in that scoring grows over time.

4. Roll Player

Now we have another die drafting game, but in Roll Player you are drafting dice in order to build out an RPG character. This is a theme that I really love. I don’t get to play D&D, but I’ve rolled up a lot of characters for fun in my time. I just get to run games. And Roll Player does a good job of simulating that and getting equipment and spells. It’s a cool idea that I want to play more of, and some good drafting.

3. Sagrada

But better die drafting for me is Sagrada. Sagrada is a little bit simpler but not too simple. You draft dice to build out a stained glass window. But you have specific scoring conditions that you are going for. And a hidden scoring condition. The game also scales well with some of the things that come in the 5-6 player expansion. So I like it can play that big a group.

2. Blood Rage

Blood Rage looks like a dudes on a map game. And there is that element to it, you are vying for control of areas to get increased prowess in combat, more action points, or to be able to put more dudes on the map. But the game shines when it comes to drafting. Drafting is how you determine your strategy. And it is how you become more unique as you go. You might focus on getting monsters. Or you might want to improve your troops or to let them die. A lot of great options and good decision making that comes from drafting.

1. Lords of Hellas

Finally, Lords of Hellas. The drafting in this game isn’t a huge part, but at the same time it is very impactful. You start out with a leader/hero power but otherwise you’re the same. Then as temples are built, you draft new powers. So being the one to build a temple gets you first pick, so there is a rush to get some of them built at times. And those abilities can really shape what you’re going to do, because they might make you better at defense, fighting monsters, or building more temples.

There are a lot of things that are cool in Lords of Hellas. And the drafting isn’t the biggest part. But it is a part that keeps the game feeling fresh. Everything feels powerful, and you kind of want to draft them all. But how can you draft what’s going to be best for you?

Final Thoughts

I really enjoy drafting in most games. Some of them like Ohanami, Sushi Go Party, and 7 Wonders mean that you’re all playing at once. That is one feature that I really like. Other times you go separately but then it creates tension for what is going to be left for you. And there’s probably one, maybe two things that you really want.

The downside to drafting can be that people hate draft. And I don’t think that hate drafting is bad, but if that’s all someone is doing, it can be an issue. Mainly because it can ruin the run of a game. But when drafting is done well, and people are trying to optimize their own score, it is great.

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But let’s talk about what board games I’m going to be doing a list on first. I’m doing Gateway Plus Games. What does that mean? A gateway game is a game that you can introduce to anyone. Gateway plus is one that you introduce to people after that. These are for the people who are just getting into board games but maybe haven’t gotten far past the level of gateway games. They know and like games like Splendor, Catan, Ticket to Ride, and others. What’s the next level games to introduce?

Calico

This is a game I’ve talked about before and it’s barely a next level game. The game is very simple to play. You have two tiles in front of you can you put one onto your quilt. Then you take one of three tiles and put it in front of you. You do that until your quilts are full. But it’s challenging because of scoring. If you get a group of three of a color, you get a button. A certain size or shape of the same pattern, that’ll attract a cat. And then scoring pieces that want to match patterns and colors.

The game is way more challenging then you’d expect. And most of the time you are hoping that the one piece you really need will come out. There is a lot to worry about with what is going on, but it’s still a blast. The game can be a bit cutthroat feeling if someone takes a piece you need, but generally people want to optimize fo their own scoring.

Roll Player

You might have introduced your friends or family to Sagrada. That can be a slightly past gateway game depending on the set-up. But it’s generally quite friendly and fun dice drafting game. Roll Player steps that concept up just a little bit and makes it a whole lot nerdier. You’re still drafting dice, but now you’re using them to build a Dungeons and Dragons or other RPG character. And all you’re trying to do is match the stats to where you want them to be.

The game works really well and the Monster and Minions expansion adds in more to the game. Now you have to deal with monsters as well, which I think adds to the overall game. It makes it feel like you’re doing more. This one is gateway plus because there is just a little bit more going on with making money, buying cards, and casting spells. But it’s still easy to get into and for a friend who is a bit more nerdy.

Photosynthesis

Another more abstract game like Calico. Photosynthesis is all about growing trees, but in a very cutthroat way. Here you are planting trees, growing trees, and then when the trees mature harvesting them for points. But the game has a really clever mechanism to it. The sun rotates around the board, so you get light points (action points) to use based off of how many and sizes of your trees seeing the sun.

Where the game gets cutthroat is that you can block out the sun from other people. Two trees of the same height, if the sun is hitting one that one can block the other. Or larger trees have a bigger reach as to what they can block. This is going to be for that person who likes moving the robber around in Catan.

Hanamikoji

This is a two player only game, but it’s very thinky, and I think for a lot of gamers, especially maybe a chess gamer (which chess isn’t gateway) but someone looking to branch into more hobby board games, this will be a good puzzle. The game is extremely simple, you do four different actions each round. But each choice is to hard to make.

You either take a card to score, which is hidden, discard two face down, give your opponent the choice of three cards for winning favor or get two pairs of cards and your opponent picks one. The push and pull of trying to control the favor of the Geisha is really well done in this game and the game plays extremely fast.

Dice Throne

The final one is also two player and it’s on Kickstarter right now as a Marvel version. So if you have a big Marvel fan in your life you can get this for them. Otherwise, you can always pick up the fantasy version that is already out there. Pick two of your favorite duel packs and you can get playing right away. This is generally a two player head to head dice battling game, but you can play it more.

In fact, I really like the three player version where it is king of the hill. If you attack the person with most life you get a bonus. It’s a really good game with more strategy than you might think with Yahtzee style dice rolling. When you upgrade cards, how you push your luck and use cards to manipulate dice make this a more challenging and fun version of something like King of Tokyo, which I consider a Gateway Game.

What game would you get that is Gateway Plus? This is something that I see a lot that people want that next game on board game groups. And people give games like Scythe or Gloomhaven, or whatever their favorite game might be. I wanted to put together this Christmas list of ideas for you for friends who are interested in games, or games to ask for yourself if you’re just getting into the board game hobby.

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

100 Through 91

90 Through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

60 through 51

50 through 41

Top 100 Board Games – 40 through 31

40. Not Alone

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

Not Available

39. Downforce

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

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

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38. Sushi Go Party!

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

Buy On Miniature Market

37. Roll Player

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

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

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36. Homebrewers

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

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

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35. Clever Cubed

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

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34. The Night Cage

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

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

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33. Orchard: A 9 card solitaire game

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

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

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32. Ohanami

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

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

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31. T.I.M.E Stories

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

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

Buy on Miniature Market

The Next 10

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

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

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

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