Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 90 through 81

90. Wandering Towers

Published By: Capstone Games
Designers: Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer

Buy Wandering Towers.

This is just a fun simple game of trying to remember where you wizards are hiding and get them to the main tower. I like how easy it is to make it work. You play out two cards and if you have potion bottles filled you can cast a spell. The spells are simple, the cards are simple, you choose to either move a wizard or a tower as far as it says on the card. But it’s still a lot of fun because of that memory aspect and burying your opponents wizards under a stack of towers.

89. Grove: 9 care solitaire game

Published By: Side Room Games
Designer: Mark Tuck

Buy Grove.

This one is two games in one really with Grove and Orchard. I put them together because the games are very similar, though I do slightly prefer Grove. In this game you stack cards to get matching tree types to overlap. As they overlap you tick up dice that are going to give you more points. The more points you have at the end of nine cards, the better you do at the game. Grove adds in scoring cards, and that addition is what pushes it over because it’s bonus scoring, but also how many points you need to beat to win the game.

88. Via Magica

Published By: Hurrican
Designer: Paolo Mori

Buy Via Magica.

It is weird to think that drawing chips out of bag and everyone getting a cube to add to their spells, basically bingo, can make a fun game. But it is great in Via Magica. This is a simple game with powers that you get from completing spells. It’s one of two games that actually has abilities or powers from completing spells on this section of the top 10. But it’s all about drawing those chips and hoping to get the right ones. Or then being smart about the spells you take so you can always use the chips.

87. No Thanks!

Published By: AMIGO
Designer: Thorsten Gimmier

Buy No Thanks!

This section of the list has a few push your luck games on it. No Thanks! isn’t a tradition push your luck game, but it does have those elements. In particular, you need to decide when it is worth taking a card. Cards are bad, cards give you points, so you want to say no thanks to them. But you need chips to do that, so No Thanks! is a game about determining when there are enough chips on a card to make it worth taking. Because, not only a chips needed for saying no thanks, they are also negative one point per chip at the end of the round.

86. Strike

Published By: Ravensburger
Designer: Dieter Nuble

Buy Strike.

Imagine a gladiatorial battle in the Coliseum. Actually don’t, this game is all about rolling dice to get pairs and knowing when to stop if you don’t get pairs. You just want to be the last one in the game and that’s it. It’s a simple game and simple system but it is always fun when it hits the table. I think everyone just likes to make a decision to roll a fist full of dice. And if you don’t get any matches, you can always roll more dice that you held back, but beware the one because when a die lands on that side, that die is gone forever.

85. Marvel United

Published By: CMON and Spin Master
Designers: Andrea Chiarvesio and Eric M. Lang

Buy Marvel United Multiverse Core Box.

Do you want to team-up as Marvel heroes to defeat villains in a fast and easy game? Marvel United is great for that. You pick your hero, the villain to go up against, and a few locations and you are ready to play. This game is all about managing what the villain is doing, and they do some fun stuff, and then chaining off of what your superhero teammates did, because you use the last card played, to have a great turn. This is a great game to teach people cooperative game play because you can really cooperate. And there is so much for it.

84. Homebrewers

Published By: Greater Than Games
Designers: Matthew O’Malley and Ben Rosset

Buy Homebrewers.

I like brewing beer, I did it for a long time. I’m not sure it’s hobby I’m going to return to. But I can still get my beer brewing fix with Homebrewers. This is about brewing the best beers you can. You brew a beer and you go up on a track, then you need to deal with the spent grains, sanitize, get more grains and brew again. All of that is like homebrewining.

But then the game offers different ingredients you add to your brewing. And these cards stick around between brews. So if you brew a porter with almonds, you now always will. And those ingredients give you brew something special that might be more money, or it might be that you move up on another beer. At the end, you just want to be the best homebrewer out there.

83. Chronicles of Drunagor: Age of Darkness

Published By: Creative Games Studio
Designer: Eurico Cunha Neta

Buy Chronicles of Drunagor.

I love my big campaign games. And Chronicles of Drunagor is no expection. It is just lower on the list because one of them has to be and it is one that I haven’t played a ton of. There is so much in the game, but I highlight three things in the video. I want to highlight one here, the activation system. You use different colored cubes to activate abilities of those colors. But when you run out of cubes or need a specific ability, you need to pull back those cubes. Then you cover up a spot so you can’t use it. It’s a unique system that I find a lot of fun.

82. PUSH

Published By: Ravensburger
Designers: Prospero Hall and Brian Kirk

Buy Push Here.

I like simple push your luck games, and PUSH is my favorite of them. This one is just push your luck, but as compared to other simple push your luck games, this one offers just a few choices. Mainly you create three stacks of cards on your turn. But those stacks can’t have the same color or number in a single stack, aka you can’t have two blue cards in a stack. Well, that is easy enough, you could stop early. If you do that, then other players could push their luck for more points. And then there is the die, if you have the roll the die, you might lose cards. It’s all about balancing that risk for points.

81. Potion Explosion

Published By: Horrible Guild
Designers: Stefano Castelli, Andrea Crespi, and Lorezno Silva

Buy Potion Explosion Here.

If you want a game that feels like app game, Potion Explosion definitely meets that need. It is one of those games where if like colors are touching they explode, or in this case, you get them. And it’s all about chaining together colors of marbles the best you can, and then you use them to complete spells. And those spells give you points that you need to win the game, but they also give you one time abilities that you can use to chain together more marbles and complete more spells. This game is just tactile and fun.

Join Next Week

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

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

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Top 10 Anticipated Games In 2025

10. Adventures in Neverland

This is another story game, but Adventures in Neverland sounds interesting to me. The downside is that it has 110 ratings and it’s low. But that’s just as likely because it exceedingly late. So another one where it’s crowdfunding and we’ll see if it comes out this year or if it comes out at all. But this theme feels like it should be more approachable than say something like a lot of other games on this list. But I’m putting this one at #10 because it has that extremely long delay and if/when it does come out, will it be available outside of those who backed it?

9. Vantage

This is one that I’m really glad that I stumbled across. Vantage is a game about exploring a planet in an open world setting but in first person perspective. I want to know how that goes because it sounds like it could be really cool. And it is Stonemaier games, so maybe I had heard of it before and forgot it, but the idea is just a fascinating one.

The element that keeps it lower on my list is that it is a Stonemaier game. I like some of the stuff from that company, but they often are so focused on being smooth and ideal mechanically that they lose some soul. If Vantage can keep that soul and sense of wonder which exploring a planet should have, then I’m in.

8. Valheim: The Board Game

Valheim is another one that I see from time to time pop up on crowdfunding or late pledging. I think I even get notifications for it still. But I like the sound of this game. It is a cooperative survival game where you need to work together. Is that highly unique, it certainly isn’t. But is it a fun idea for a game, it is one that I like. It is also a mission based game versus a campaign based game. I hope that it’ll work well that way and feels thematic in nature. You are able to make a campaign, but it’s not the main mode. So possibly a good chance to play some thematic and leveling one offs.

7. The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

This one I already have pre-ordered, but it wasn’t a crowdfunding game, so it can make the list. This is a cooperative trick-taking game. I like trick-taking games a lot. And to find a theme that I love, that is even better. While I like The Crew, this theme is more interesting. And, The Dice Tower streamed a play of the game for their Winter Spectacular. So if you want to see how the game plays, there is video out there. I also appreciate that the game is narrative in that the characters and goals for each section fit where you are in the book. I expect two more to come out in this series.

6. Deathtouched

I’m not 100% sure if this is called Deathtouched or USS Freedom. And yes, they are extremely different names. But this is a sandbox space game where you explore new worlds, meet aliens, and generally do what I love for a massive game. You play a three year quest over a series of games and the campaign is replayable which is always good. I like that I see more of these big epic campaign games coming out that are set in space. I like fantasy, but I also love my sci-fi and space stories. And space is an amazing spot for those sandbox style games.

Note, this is another one of those crowdfunding games that got hurt by 2020 and delays and troubles around then. So I hope it is going to come out because I want to play it. How I might get it, I don’t know though.

5. Railroad Tiles

I like Railroad Ink a lot, in particular Railroad Ink Challenge. So when Horrible Guild announced that they were doing a tile game, I was certainly interested. However, this one I didn’t back on crowdfunding. I want to play the game still, though. Because I think a game like Railroad Ink is great and also ripe for a tile version of it. It makes sense because that is about what you are doing in the game. Draw, draft, or buy a tile, however it works, I think it sounds like a lot of fun. And I enjoy route building as well, so give me more of that.

4. Emberleaf

From the designer and company that brought you City of Kings, Isle of Cats and more we have Emberleaf. This is one that I might end up late pledging if I can. I almost backed it when it was on crowdfunding. But the game is interesting because of this idea of card dancing. This idea is about how you play out cards onto a flow of cards and as you trigger cards and they move, how they interact with other cards. The system looks fun, and the artwork and theme are great too for what should be a pretty mechanically interesting game.

3. Malhya: Lands of Legends

This is one that was on crowdfunding this past year. I suspect it might not even come out in 2025, but it’s one that I’m most certainly interested in as it’s the style of game I like. The tagline even is something I like, choose your own path and explore the lands of Malhya, that sounds great. So this is going to be a big campaign and adventure game. The world looks good from the artwork and I’m very curious to know what the story is going to be.

2. Odalin: Dungeons of Doom

Yet another fantasy dungeon crawl game. Do I need more of them? The answer is no. But I want more of them and it is the type of game that I like a lot. Odalin is one that I almost backed on crowdfunding. And I think I may look into late pledging it. The game play looked interesting, and of course it is a theme and type of setting that I like. It is also a desert fantasy setting which is different than your normal wooded European feeling fantasy setting. So that is sounding fun to me as well.

1. Diablo: The Board Game

I expect this is not going to come out in 2025. I am not sure it is even one that has hit crowdfunding yet. And I believe it is supposed to go to crowdfunding. But for me, this a a game where I want it because of the theme. I am not that hard core into Diablo, I played the 3rd one some and I need to play it more. I also need to play the 4th.

But I like the theme and setting for the game. And it’s cooperative and narrative driven with either campaign or missions. So it is something that I like. And I hope that it gives you that loot grabbing feel and then leveling up and fighting hordes of monsters.

2025 Outlook

I see a lot of really good looking games coming. And the great thing is that games will be announced to throughout the year. There is always a flurry of announcements two months or so before Gen Con and then the same for Essen. So if you like other types of games, more euro focused or something like that, there is going to be a lot for you as well.

And I know that I pick a lot of big games. I love my epic campaign and story driven experiences. But even I don’t have room for a ton of them. So I also like to find small games. And while there aren’t that many on the list, I know I buy a number every year to add to my collection. So I know, even if they aren’t the most anticipated, that there are going to be a lot of great small games too.

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Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 90 through 81

90. Project: ELITE

• Published by CMON in 2020
• Real Time Scenario Based Tower Defense

Normally this wouldn’t be my type of game. I love parts of it, like chucking dice, scenario driven play, and cooperative game play. But I don’t like real time. This balances that out by giving you real time in bursts and then a moment to strategize before the next wave of enemies comes out. That is real time game play that works for me.

Not Currently Available

89. Lands of Galzyr

• Published by Snowdale Design in 2022
• Relaxing story driven cooperative or competitive game

Lands of Galzyr is a game that feels like that kind of random D&D session. You stumble across missions but each mission is it’s own thing. And the whole thing is done in a package that puts story first and keeps the game play simple. And it’s a relaxing game to play. Not that some stories aren’t exciting or risky, but it never truly feels high stakes.

Pre-order Lands of Galzyr

88. Kohaku

• Published by 25th Century Games in 2020
• Build the best and highest scoring Koi pond

I really enjoy Kohaku for the simplicity and thoughtfulness of the game play. It’s a game where you need to plan out where you place tiles to optimize your scoring. But it’s not overwhelming. And the elements like drafting both a koi and a scoring tile each turn and how that works is really enjoyable.

Buy Kohaku

87. My City

• Published by Kosmos in 2020
• A fast, ever building legacy game

My City is one of those legacy games that is just simple and fun to play. Sometimes they get bogged down in trying to be too big, but not My City. The game is focused on adding a little bit each time and giving you a fun fast session as everyone builds out their city in hopes that it’s the best one at the end of each scenario.

Buy My City

86. The Isofarian Guard

• Published by Skykingdom Games in 2023
• A massive solo and two player story driven adventure

This is one that you can checkout a game play of on Malts and Meeples. I really enjoy this game, though it is a massive table hog. The game is an interesting story telling game that has some tropes, but quickly branches off into magic powers and interesting story. It’s one that I think works well solo but I’d prefer to play two player to keep the combat simpler and share that great story experience.

Buy The Isofarian Guard

85. Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade

• Published by WizKids in 2020
• It’s Roll and Write Pinball, can you get the new high score?

Super-Skill Pinball is truly a pinball roll and write game. I love how it simulates the game with the ball movement and how it launches up, can ping around in the bumpers or drop back down. It’s a great game for solo play and it’s fun with others, though it’s possible that one player will finish before the others. That’s the only downside to the game, but with all of the tables i never feel like I’m lacking in something to keep it being played solo.

Buy Super-Skill Pinball

84. Crokinole

• Created in 1876
• A competitive flicking classic

There’s no publisher for Crokinole, the game is public domain, but there are a lot of great spots to get boards and get spendy or fancy boards. I really like the simplicity of the flicking game. It works really well and smoothly and it’s one that you can definitely get really good at. I wish I had more time to get this one to the table, though, I could say that about all of them.

Pre-order Crokinole

83. Clever Cubed

• Published by Schmidt Spiele in 2020
• Another combotastic roll and write game from the Clever line

I really enjoy Clever Cubed because while some of the others have combos, Clever Cubed is the one that has even more combos. And while sometimes I really like a good straightforward roll and write game, I also love the ones that give me a ton of combos. No doubt that this the latter, and the core game loop of how you pick and eliminate dice on your turn is always good.

Buy Clever Cubed

82. Furnace

• Published by Hobby World in 2020
• Bid on cards and build up the best industrial engine you can

This is a great and simple engine building game. Everything works smoothly with gathering resources and turning them into points. But there is also a really fun auction as well. I love how it’s a single bid per person per card but if you lose the big, you get a benefit for bidding there. And how the benefits scale based off of the number you bid with is amazing.

Buy Furnace

81. Yggdrasil Chronicles

• Published by Ludonaute in 2019
• Defend the world tree from all the threats that abound

This is a really tough cooperative game and one that I really enjoy. I think it’s a fun push your luck as you try to power up while hoping that you can keep the enemies in check. Of course, there are so many enemies and they ramp quickly that it can be very challenging. Plus how the enemies activate or how it’s determined which ones do is really clever and fun.

Buy Yggdrasil Chronicles

Final Thoughts on Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition 90 through 81

What do you think of the list, is there a game that you want to try or that you love on it? I feel like I got a really big variety on the list this time. There are some lighter games, but then you have a game with a ton of minis like Project: ELITE and a big campaign game in The Isofarian Guard. The only thing I think is missing is a true party game from this section.

Just a reminder, join me next week on Malts and Meeples for the next 10 on the list. The plan is to go live around 9 PM Central time and it’ll be 80 through 71. The best way to know when I go live is subscribe and click that notification bell. That’ll let you know for sure when it’ll be happening.

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

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ISS Vanguard vs Stars of Akarios

Going down to, or not going down to a planet. Let’s talk about how it went going down to a planet this time. And in all fairness we knew that it wasn’t likely that we’d be able to do much. It tells you that much as you are planning. But it is an interesting twist on the game.

Not A Planet

Firstly, it’s clearly a way to block off content. It gives you stuff to do over there. And I’ll be spending energy to get some of those done next time. But it basically says, this content is meant for when you are playing further in the game. So even though you tried to get to it now, you won’t be able to. But it does in a way that is thematic to the game. There is a storyline reason as to why not.

Ship Phase

And I think that is smart. Now it’s interesting because I just wrapped up a ship phase. And I did a lot in the ship phase to show off what can happen. That said, now I get to go back and do it again. I think for some people that is going to be disappointing. The ship phase, which I flew through this last session, doesn’t have as much story. So is it worth it getting through it again.

There are some areas where I feel only like kind of. Can I recruit more crew, I’m not sure. I’ll probably see about doubling up and going back to some places again, if that is allowed. But I have four command tokens, so that is what I’d prefer to do. Maybe the situation room, but for sure research and production to see what we can find. Because completing research or a new production project is kind of the most interesting thing.

This, I think, is where having more players would be interesting for the game. Planetary exploration, sure, it’d be fun to share the story and decision making. But I feel like I know what I want to do and make that part go quicker because of that. On the flip side, when it comes to the ship. I think discussing with more people would make that part feel more important. It is important, but it’d make it feel more important which would lean into that bigger feeling of the game.

Upcoming Streams

Like I said, ISS Vanguard wraps up next week. The plan is to explore some of the other options in our system and see what happens. It’ll be a bit sad to put this down, but it’s now a game that I know I really want to share with other people. 8 PM Central Time on Wednesdays. Though the easiest way to know is by subscribing and clicking that notification bell to know when I put up something new.

And then on Mondays I stream at 8:30 PM normally. That is the goal, anyways, sometimes it shifts a little bit because of podcast recording or editing. I think my plan will be to start playing through My City – Roll and Build. I’m not sure how long the games will take, so it might be a couple of games a stream or just one a stream, we’ll have to see.

And, again, 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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The Game – Lands of Galzyr

It’s less about the game today, but more about my decision to sleeve the cards. I normally don’t sleeve cards, so what made me change my mind on Lands of Galzyr? Are the cards a cheap quality, or is there some other reason that I’d want to sleeve them?

First off, I will say that this has decent card quality. Some of the reason that I sleeved them is that the cards were thinner than I’d like, and having to handle them, go through the sections, and look for a specific card, I felt like they were going to wear more quickly than most cards.

Does that mean you need to sleeve them, no. Part of why I sleeved the cards is that Snowdale Design sells sleeves. So I want to support a smaller publisher and one way to do that is order sleeves or other products, like the play mat I have yet to use from them. So that also led to the decision.

The Benefits

The added benefit that I’ve found is that it is much easier to find cards. When cards are right next to each other with no sleeves it’s easy to skip five cards. When they are apart a little more with sleeves, you can get to where you want faster. That really makes a difference, I’ve found, in the game play of finding cards. Since it is a major part of Lands of Galzyr, finding those cards, I want it to be easy. I don’t want it to be a source of frustration.

The other benefit is that the cards shuffle well. Now, if I needed to shuffle a normal deck of cards size, they’d shuffle worse. That’s my experience with sleeves and Magic The Gathering cards. But here, you never have that large a deck of cards. The biggest is the event deck, and that only gets shuffled rarely. Nor is it a big deck of cards. So doing a smash shuffle is very easy.

Upcoming Streams

So, as I said at the top, every Wednesday at 8 PM Central you can catch a live stream of some board game. Right now I’m 1/3 of the way through Lands of Galzyr. So join me for the rest of the time. See the adventure and quests that I go on. Some might be the same for you, others will be very different if you play.

Then on Mondays, I play smaller solo games at 8:30 PM Central. I’m out of town this weekend, so likely it won’t be a new game. But join me and see what game I find to play. This week it was Sprawlopolis. So you can join me for who knows what game. And when it’s a roll and write, you can play along at home and compare your score.

And as always, when you want to catch something live, the easiest way to remember is subscribe and click that notification bell. You can do that here on the Malts and Meeples YouTube Page.

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The Game

So, I did a review already. I explain some in the video how to play the game. Instead, I want to talk about the replayability of this game. I now have five or six, forget which, plays under my belt. And with those, a couple of them were learning how to play the game, and one was me dying off with some poor dice rolls. But the start of the game, I have played multiple times. And even with that, by the time I hit chapter 2 of the story, I am skipping cards that I still have yet to see.

So the game has a lot of content to it. I question long term ability to replay the game, but in the short term, I have a number more plays of it ready to go. And I do want to see what else the game has to offer in it. I reached two spots, where in true Choose Your Own Adventure fashion I died, and I want to find a better ending. What does a win in Spire’s End look like? I think until I find that, I will want to go back to the game.

That is the sign of a good game to me. In particular the sign of a good story driven game. I want to go back to Gloomhaven at some point in time, not because of the story but because I still have characters to play. Tainted Grail might leave the collection once I’m done, not because I don’t love the game, I do, but because it’s such a big campaign. Spire’s End, I will explore the story again and again until I hit a good end.

The Drink

A mocktail play on a Mojito that I made into not a mocktail, it was some mint, blueberry, club soda, water and sugar and it was fine. The issue that I had with it was that the flavor was too subtle. If a drink has mint and blueberry, I expect to taste that. I got a little mint hint, but nothing more. And the blueberry almost wasn’t there at all. It is a drink recipe that I wouldn’t make again, nor would my wife who made it, without increasing the amount of blueberry and mint substantially.

Upcoming Streams

So I believe it will be a week from Monday when I do the second party of Should It Stay or Should It Go over on Malts and Meeples. That series is going to be biweekly.

On Wednesday, I am not sure what I will stream. It will be another one off solo game. I am not jumping into a campaign again yet. It might be Ratcatcher or maybe Under Falling Skies, though that one is hard to fit on camera. Ratcatcher would be an easy one to learn and get played though for sure. And there are some roll and writes, Paper Dungeons and Dinosaur Island Rawr ‘n Write I could play as well. So lots of options, let me know what you want me to play.

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

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

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

Gloom

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

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

Werewords

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

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

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

Onirim

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

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

The Siblings Trouble

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

Hex Roller

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

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

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

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

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

Blossoms

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

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

Cry Havoc

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

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

Castle Panic

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

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

Lift Off!

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

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

Dicecapades!

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

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

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

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

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

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

16 Games of Shelf Space

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

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

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

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This review is going to talk about how well the game works via Zoom. I plan on doing more in this series, though we might get a few party games lumped together into a single review of the premise of the is similar. For Tainted Grail, though, it is the only big game that I’m playing via Zoom, except for Dungeons and Dragons and people have been playing that digitally for years. So let’s jump into looking at Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

How Do You Make It Work?

So there are a few things that drew me to Tainted Grail as a game that we could play that was big and grandiose over Zoom. I also didn’t want it to be a game that we played digitally. We had played Dice Throne on Table Top Simulator and more games as well there. But the bigger the game, the clunkier it is on TTS.

The first thing to make playing Tainted Grail work was my camera set-up, and even that only kind of worked. The other players can’t always read all the cards or information on the locations, so that is part of what I do, explain what they say. But I have a top down camera that I can show all of the map. I can also Zoom it in for diplomacy and combat on the encounter.

The next thing is getting the players their characters. Since we wrapped up Gloomhaven in person, in a well ventilated area and masked, I just handed off the characters for people to play. That got them their character board, combat and diplomacy cards for the character color and their character. Since then I’ve also handed off the marker for tracking health, and some other sheets and cards that are useful for helping keep track of everything. If I were to do it now I’d hand off the character board, combat and diplomacy cards, a save sheet, some cubes, the health marker, the map, and if you have the Echoes of the Past expansion, the sheet for that. That is what the ideal would be, it sounds like a lot, but it works well.

Then the app is key for the game. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is an adventure game at it’s heart. And there is a massive adventure book. However, there is an app that has most of the adventure book read out in it. So I play the audio and everyone can listen to the narration as it goes along. However, everyone pulls up the app, that way the player who is exploring can see the choices that they have. It makes everything run smoother using that and I don’t have to read as much. I still do need to read the Echoes of the Past story bits thought.

What Works Poorly?

In the game you can team up with other players and do things. You have the option to explore as a group, fight as a group, and more. We don’t do much of that. While, in theory, it sounds great, it is hard to make it work via Zoom. I lay out my combat line, so someone else could work with me, but the other players don’t have a great setup for that. So we need to explain what the open keys are when fighting together. For that reason, we tend to do our own thing, cover more ground, and come together when we need to light an Menhir.

Speaking of Menhir and lighting them, we’ve played through the first two chapters twice now. The reason for that is that remotely, playing not in story mode proved to be too difficult. Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon is at it’s hard an adventure survival game, and there is emphasis on survival. However, when playing remotely, it is harder to plan as well as we should. Story mode allows us to use fewer resources when lighting the Menhir, it keeps them lit longer, and generally reduces the cost when we do things together. I think in person we might not have played on story mode, but digitally with the extra moving pieces, it’s tricky.

What Works Well?

Honestly, most everything else works well. But let’s talk about the highlights of what really shines. The app is amazing. Tainted Grail wouldn’t have been a game I picked if it wasn’t for the app. There is a lot of reading. And if I were the only one reading, it would be fine, but make it more difficult for the person who has the game. I feel that even if we come back in person before we finish, which I think is very possible, we will still use the app. It makes it that much easier.

The story element works very well as well. Now, I talked about the app already, literally just finished. What I am talking about here is the fact that this is a story heavy game. I feel like for playing via Zoom, you need either a game with lots interaction, quick turns, things like that, or you need something that has a ton of story. With a ton of story, every player stays engaged in the game. And the writing in Tainted Grail, it is not even close, it is the best writing I’ve seen in a board game. Yes, it is fairly dark, but it is extremely well put together and is extremely immersive. Honestly, probably the best part of the game, though, I spent my whole last session generally fighting and healing. But when other players explored, that was great to get the story.

Would I Recommend It For Zoom?

This is tough. With vaccines rolling out and it being fine, per the CDC for vaccinated people to get together in small groups, share meals, and spend time, this one is tough to recommend. I personally would prefer to play it in person, it’d be less book keeping for one person. Now, if you are playing with someone across the country, say both of you have the game, that’d be simpler. If not, there is a lot that you would need to send even with just the player board and cards.

So yes, I think this one works. Most likely it’ll be a bit before some groups of people can play together in person. Or maybe you will play across the country with someone who has the game. This game works well digitally. Having played it solo, it works even smoother when everyone is at the table, I think, but it’ll work well digitally also. The main takeaways when considering it, there are a bunch of pieces to hand off, and the set-up. I won’t way the app, because I’ll use that in person as well.

What is the largest game you have played digitally? Would you try something as big as Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon via Zoom?

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Pros

• Theme
• World
• Adventure and Story Game
• Unique Characters
• Campaign Game

Cons

• Campaign Game
• Table Hog

The Page

Serious Pulp is a company that knows how to run a Kickstarter, they have done The 7th Continent and an expansion for that both which funded well and they’ve fulfilled, so they have a good layout and flow to the page.

They have a massive section on game play, which is amazing, and for the people who have played 7th Continent, they have information showing the differences and how this builds upon what they did for that. So you can really get a good feel for the game.

The Game

The game itself looks like a lot of fun, and there are a number of playthroughs. Two of the people who I follow on YouTube have done playthroughs, so I’ll let those do the talking for the game.

Back or Brick

So is this game a back or brick for me? Well, let me start by saying, I have The 7th Continent on my shelf, and I haven’t played it yet, I need to get it to the table. And I like the idea of that game because it’s all about the exploration and kind of creating and telling a story. The 7th Citadel takes that story element up a notch, which I’m really excited about. So for me this wasn’t that easy a back but it is a back. What sold me on it was watching the playthroughs and seeing how this has more story to it and a bigger narrative going on than 7th Continent does, and we know I’m a sucker for campaign games. But this also isn’t a massive mini fest of a game, which I like as well.

So, is The 7th Citadel a back or a brick for you?

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Oathsworn: Into the Deepwoods

Oathsworn: Into the Deepwoods is one of those epic campaign games that has you delving through a big story, fighting massive monsters, all trying to figure out what is going on, but this one has a few twists on it that are really interesting to me, and one twist on their kickstarter that I liked a lot.

The twist on the Kickstarter is that you don’t have to buy the pledge with a million monster minis making it cost a couple hundred dollars if you don’t want to. And as much as I love minis, I didn’t want to, I wanted to get a standee version so that I could save some money and still have basically the same gaming experience as everyone else just without a mini on the board, and I’m cool with that. It’ll take up less space because of that and sometimes shelf space is a premium commodity.

There are some game play things that interest me as well. Firstly, the game is split into two parts which is cool. One part is a big story as you explore areas, interact with people and make decisions on how you’re going to go about getting through everything. The other part is a tactical minis and standees on a board, grid movement battle as you try and deal with the monster in the deepwoods that is causing the issues. So that is interesting to me that it does those different things, a lot of games just focus on one or the other, but this one is trying to do both.

Another part that interests me is how tests are done in this game. It can be dice chucking if you want, and generally you can roll a pretty large number of dice, but if you ever break the failure threshold, you fail, no matter how many success you got. But you don’t have to chuck dice, you can instead draw cards. Now the card deck doesn’t reshuffle until it’s been gone through, and you can know the distribution of the cards, so it’s random but less random than the dice. You’ll know when the bad stuff is passed into the discard, but you’ll also know when the good stuff is being depleted as well. So you can choose to do a combination of both if you want or stick to one or the other, and you can change every check adding to how much you want to push for a result with a die roll or how much you want to play it potentially safer.

The other thing with combat is the cards have cool down periods. But it isn’t the standard cool down, it’s more like a push down process. When you play a card it goes along your board in one of four spots, I believe. When you play a card that goes into a slot, if there are other cards there, it pushes those down to the next lowest spot, and so on and so forth, so you have to strategically think about how you play cards in order to get them to move around. I like that these dungeon crawl or fight a monster type games are doing more than just dice chucking now and adding more strategy into how you have to play the game.

Overall, I think this is going to be a fun game. I can see the mechanics working in the background to make it interesting, and the world seems a little bit different than some of the more generic fantasy games that we’re seeing.

Excitement Meter: 8/10

Village Attacks

This is a game that I got a chance to play at Gencon last year, and we got a promo pack for the game. So when I saw they were going to be doing a new Kickstarter, since the game was hard to get, with some new material and expansions, I decided that I’d get it.

In this game you aren’t playing the villagers defending against the monsters attacking, instead you’re the monsters who are trying to stop the pesky villagers from overrunning your nice little castle and destroying the heart of your castle or whatever else they might be trying to do in the scenario. It’s a fun concept and while the artwork is a bit gross, the game actually plays much lighter than it looks because the premise is kind of goofy playing the monsters.

You roll dice to determine what actions you get on your turn, and in between turns, waves and waves of villagers are going to come in and try and destroy things. It was a pretty fun time playing at Gencon, but that wasn’t so much the games fault. I was with a good group, but it being a learning game and they being more role players than board gamers, they didn’t pick up on everything as fast as they might have had they been board gamers.

This game just works for me, it gives you a tower defense and almost dungeon crawl feel, but does more interesting things than that. And the game didn’t take too long to play, now there is some set-up work that needs to be done, but for a game night where you know you want to play that, you can easily fit it in and another game. I also like that it isn’t a campaign game. Now I love campaign games but I like that I can get that feel of something like that without having to play mutliple sessions.

Excitement Score: 7/10

Which of these two seems more interesting to you of the Kickstarters that I’m waiting on?

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