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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Cooperative Games Rankings

So just be aware I’m going to talk less about these games because there are a grand total of 52 that I ranked. Expect a sentence or two on each one of them.

52. FUSE

Fast paced game of rolling dice and then using them to try and complete enough cards to diffuse the bomb. I don’t love games that are only real time, and FUSE is only real time. It plays fast, but the game isn’t that interesting the more you play it.

51. Magic Maze

Another real time game, this time taking adventurers through a shopping mall. This one is more interesting because you need to work together more. But it’s going really fast without talking and sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.

50. Forbidden Island

This one is a great introduction to cooperative gaming and gaming in general. It follows the standard, do something and then something bad happens. My issue is that the game is too easy and generally just an okay game.

49. Arkham Horror: Final Hour

Now, on the flip side of Forbidden Island, this game is hard as you try and guess some ruins to be able to stop ritual from happening. It basically takes Arkham Horror and tries to make it shorter. It succeeds on that, but it also just isn’t interesting. The couple clever things it tries to do are just misses.

48. God of War: The Card Game

And another game that was too easy when I played it. I wonder about playing a whole game if that would make it more challenging, but what I played was fairly boring. I also feel like the decisions weren’t that interesting in the game. Most of the time it was do the obvious thing.

47. Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

I talked about this yesterday. It’s a fine deck building game. It is just too slow to get to the table and too slow to get to feeling powerful. If they were to come out with a second edition and make the game play ramp up faster, I’d probably like it a lot. But right now, the ramp is just too slow.

46. Forbidden Desert

I like this a fair amount better than Forbidden Island, it offers more to do and a more clever mechanism of figuring out where to get things. It follows that Pandemic formula for things of do good things and then bad things happen. Played it a few times, enjoyed it, and have moved on.

45. The Mind

This one is an interesting one. You try and play cards down in numerical order without talking. The concept is cool, and the game works, but only sometimes. This is one where it really depends on who is in the group. And I had some good times with it but moved on again.

44. Sword Art Online Board Game: Sword of Fellow

I need to try this one again, it’s been a little while. The concept isn’t bad, you are basically playing the boss battles from Sword Art Online the show, and it has the main characters. The downside is that the rules aren’t that great, and it’s pretty simple and lucky. That said, it is tiny, so I don’t mind luck as much.

43. Exit Games

Exit Games are fun, but any escape room game is always hard to rank. I’ve played less Exit Games, and I don’t love that you can’t pass it on. Granted, I did see it kind of work with them at Fantasy Flight Game Center (now GameZenter), but I don’t want to buy something I need to then replace.

42. Flash Point: Fire Rescue

This is basically Pandemic but with fires. You haven’t seen Pandemic yet on the list so you know it’s higher. I think that Flash Point: Fire Rescue might end up being one that I get. And that’s because it might replace base Pandemic for me, but we’ll talk about why later. Very standard cooperative game.

41. Legendary Encounters: A Firefly Deck Building Game

On yesterday’s list, it is one that I like the theme of. Firefly was a great show, and the game is playing through the episodes. The game isn’t that easy and the artwork is just okay. Again, the ramp speed doesn’t seem right for the type of game it is, but it’s better than Marvel Legendary.

40. Stuffed Fables

This is one that I had a good time when I played it, but ended up being one that I never wanted to come back to. The game has a cool story about a kid who has a blanket, I believe, stolen, and you play as animals going under the bed with all the broken toys to get it back for her. But the mechanics were not that well taught and things that changed up on each different storybook page were worse taught.

39. Legacy of Dragonholt

Another one that was in my collection and left. When I heard about an RPG in a box, I thought it was going to be great. And in all fairness, it is a fun game with a lot of story in the box. But the story and writing was just okay. The best I can compare it is that it was written like a YA novel, but not one of the great ones. I think the system was very good, but I wanted writing.

38. Marvel Battleworld

This is dumb little game. I know it shouldn’t be this high on my list, though we’re not even half way yet. It is just a game where you roll a die and advance a track. The fun of the game is buying blind packs and getting little Funko figures. So I have it this high because it’s a fun toy with a little game attached to it.

37. Ghostbusters: The Board Game

We’re still in the area of games that are just okay, but we’re soon to games that are still in my collection. I loved the minis in the game, and the translucent ones look cool. But the game play was just okay. While there were different scenarios, they weren’t bad, but it wasn’t all that interesting. I just wished there was more.

36. Elder Sign

Another one that left my collection, some of that was just because I had only the base game. I have heard that the expansions help improve the game, and add more to the story of what you are doing. The base game is basically a Yahtzee type game, and I wish that it played a little bit faster for what it is.

35. Legends of Andor

Story driven puzzle game, Legends of Andor is good. The reason that it left my collection is that I never wanted to just sit down and play through all of it. So when I did want to play it, I’d play through the introductory scenario again and I did that a few times. But I like the story and the mechanics are pretty cool.

34. Sword & Sorcery

I played this one a lot, I got through the base game and one expansion. And I do like this game. Once I played that, though, I got rid of it. Even though I had more characters to play with, I wasn’t interested in going back through. The story doesn’t branch enough for that. And I wish that you could retire characters like in Gloomhaven.

33. Castle Panic

I almost culled this game, and I might, the board is a bit dinged so the FLGS didn’t take it. But the game is still playable. We’re not here to talk about that, though. The game is fun, and it’s a very light tower defense game. I like that I can play it with almost anyone, and while you rarely lose, it feels like you might. If I don’t lose a cooperative game fairly often, though, I will move on from it.

32. Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

This is a fun silly little game. I would say that it’s pretty much a solo game. Because you all play as one character and basically just do a choose your own adventure. You can make decisions as a group and pass around who is reading and rolling a die, but that’s how it’s cooperative. It is fun for that, though, because it’s so silly that everyone is laughing together.

31. Mysterium

Mysterium bounces all over for me. I think it was in my Top 100 games this past year and now with this ranking it wouldn’t be. If and when I play it again, it likely will move up. This is about figuring out who the murderer is. And there are rules about how that all works, but really it’s about giving clues as a ghost to everyone so they can figure theirs out. It’s cool concept that can get in it’s way with how it tries to be a game.

30. Unlock Games

The better escape room style board game. Unlock Games you don’t destroy anything, unless in a fit of rage. And I like how it counts down building up pressure versus Exit which is just see how long it takes you. And there are a lot of these with a lot of different themes. I want to play more, but it’s kind of a lot of a game night and works better with 3-4 people not 6.

29. Arkham Horror

This is the 2nd Edition, I haven’t played my 3rd Edition yet, but I need to. This is a grand epic game that takes forever to play. But it is a lot of fun. I felt like when I’ve played it that I get into what is going on in the game. The story is light, but the longer you play, the more story develops just from what you are doing.

28. Dead Men Tell No Tales

I like pirates, so that helps this game. And the supernatural twist on it is good. It again falls into that category of do some things and then bad things happen. What ended up causing this one to leave my collection is that it is that bit more. There are so many things to keep track of and the game isn’t as familiar, I didn’t pull it out over Pandemic.

27. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Another deck builder on the list, and one that I just got rid of as well. Why, because I own a lot of deck building games. This one I like the theme of it, and the mechanics are fun. The game gets a bit longer as you go, and I wish there were more characters in the base box. It’d be one I’d gladly get back when I have a group to play it.

26. Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

It’s odd how many leave my collection, and this is another. And I actually just realized that I forgot to rank Star Wars: Imperial Assault which also just left. So this counts for both. They are great games, The apps work really well, and you can pick your preferred theme. These are campaign games with a nice sense of adventure, but because they are campaign games, that’s why they left.

25. First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet

This one is still in my collection, huzzah. And it’s probably surprising because when it came out people didn’t love it. But I really enjoy this game. It is a tough cooperative game where you can play all sorts of one off missions with different focuses. Or you can do a mini campaign. And it has an app, not a great one, to handle a lot of the bad things that happen, which I like.

24. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game

I really should buy a copy of this game. I played a few times at Fantasy Flight Game Center and really liked it. But never picked it up, and then played a bunch on the app. There is story, campaign, deck construction, and a lot of cool card play. I prefer the game that this is based off of, but I’d gladly have both in my collection.

23. The Lord of the Rings

While some might argue this game is fairly abstract, where you are pushing up on tracks as you go through the story of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I really enjoy this game. It is a very hard cooperative game, but it gives you rewards at just the right time. It’s one I haven’t played in ages, but now that I’m thinking about it, I want to play it again.

22. Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

My favorite book series in a board game. When talking about this one, I always want to to point out that it is abstracted. And while the theme is there, it is mainly there if you know the books. I love picking out one of the books to play and then characters from that book and trying to beat the game. I like it best, I think at two, though three isn’t bad either.

21. Just One

Party game on the list, Just One is a great game. And I really like that we are getting a number of cooperative party games. Here one person is trying to guess a word, and everyone else gives them a one word clue. But any duplicate words cancel. Simple game, clever idea, don’t need to play for points, and always a blast.

20. Cross Clues

Another party game, I told you there are a few, Cross Clues I like just a little bit better. Though, last time I played it I was so tired that I messed up a few times. Here you are giving a one word clue to get people to guess the intersection of two words. So it might be day and octopus, what word is between those two? Eight might be a good option. Simple and a lot of fun again. You can play real time, 5 minutes, see how well you do, we never do that.

19. Pandemic

Here are all the Pandemic games. And I have to say, I don’t know that I need to play base Pandemic again. Pandemic Legacy games just kind of ruined it for me. Still in my collection, but like I said, I might get Flash Point and replace it. If I want to play Pandemic again, I’ll play legacy, I think.

18. Village Attacks

A bigger tower defense game, I am still waiting for my Kickstarter to come in. It funded in 2019. But I am excited for it when it does. Village Attacks has you playing as the bad guys with the villagers coming with pitch forks and torches. You might be grotesque or horrifying, but the theme is just funny to me, so while it’s a dark game, it doesn’t come across.

17. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

I really need to play more of this game, it’s another one that I just really love. Arkham Horror: The Card Game, is the living card game (LCG) from Fantasy Flight, and it’s so cool how they can do so many different things with the game. Great card play and fun deck construction that I want to do more of. I prefer it two player, I think, but it’s good solo as well.

16. Similo

Final party game on the list, but not final light game. Similo is game where one person is it. That person is giving clues of either a card being like or not like the secret card. Then the rest of the players eliminate cards. Simple concept for a game and a ton of fun, especially to mix decks. How do you tell players that a chicken is or isn’t like a vampire or medusa?

15. Apocrypha Adventure Card Game

This is the game that the Pathfinder Card Game was based on, though the Pathfinder one came out first, it’s confusing. But I like the dark theme of this one, there is warfare going on between supernatural forces, and not everyone can see it, but you can. So how can you stop it in the different scenarios. Good game, great art, and my sort of them. Horrible rule book.

14. Say Bye to the Villains

Definitely the hardest game on the list, at least in terms of winning. The play is simple, spend time to improve your stats, look at what a villain is doing, and hope that you can win when you run out of time. And there isn’t enough time to do everything in the game. I’ve come so close to winning so many times, I’m sure eventually I will.

13. The Reckoners

Pretty high on the list for limited plays, but I love the theme of the game. The Reckoners by Brandon Sanderson is a great series. And I love the game play, it’s tough, even on easy, but it has a lot of good choices. And you feel like you can do a lot on your turn as you roll dice and every face on the die is probably something you need.

12. Marvel United

Marvel United is a pretty easy game, but I love it a lot. In the game you are playing down cards to stop a super villain. As superheroes you all work together. So the last card you played, if I’m next to go, I’ll get to use as well. The villains also feel so different in this game, and while I have everything for it, the grab and go get it to the table is great.

11. Letter Jam

A game that just made me realize I forgot to rank Hanabi, I play a lot of cooperative games, Letter Jam is a game where you are trying to guess your word. But you can’t see the letters that make up your word. Only through clues and words given by other players can you infer what your letters are. There is some good strategy in figuring out what are good clues. Loads of fun and one that I think a lot of people will like.

10. TIME Stories

The highest escape room style game on my list, though this one has more going on than that. I really like TIME Stories for the puzzles that it gives. I haven’t played all of them yet, and I have heard that some are weaker than others. But every one that I’ve played thus far I really enjoy.

9. Roll Player Adventures

I’m really excited, I get to play into a campaign of this in February. Roll Player Adventures is my highlight from GenCon in 2019. Getting to playtest it was great. In the Roll Player universe, this takes characters you might have rolled up, or pre-made ones, and lets you take them on adventures. The adventures are fun, and the combat is interesting. It’s a lot of choose your own adventure and so good at that.

8. Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition

Another Lovecraftian game, and another cooperative one. All of Fantasy Flights games in their Arkham Files line are cooperative. Mansions of Madness is app assisted and so much fun. Like Arkham Horror The Card Game, the game can be so different depending upon scenario. Some might have you stopping a ritual in a mansion, others exploring a town. One that I want to play more of to see what else they can do with it.

7. Sleeping Gods

You can watch me play this tonight, Jan 26th, on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is a big adventure game that I’m playing solo right now where you are the Manticore, a ship, and sailing around with crew that go on adventures. The game has an amazing aesthetic and story. Even though the story isn’t linear, it works well. And the world it’s set in is really cool.

6. Marvel Champions

I like Marvel a lot, and for me Marvel Champions is the best Marvel game. The different heroes feel like that hero, and you can take them up against any bad guy. While Marvel United you play as one hero they are a bit more generic. And Marvel Champions gives you that alter ego side, so you push and pull to keep the villain at bay. And there are so many heroes and villains already and there can be so many more.

5. Aeon’s End

Another one I talked about yesterday. Aeon’s End is a cooperative deck building game where you try and stop a nemesis. A great solo and two player game. There are so many set-ups and so many cards for it. Now this does include Legacy as well, which is a great introduction to the game. And I like that the randomness in the game isn’t shuffling your deck, it is turn order and what the monster does.

4. Xenoshyft: Onslaught

Another deck building game, this one is Starship Troopers and tower defense. I like how collaborative the game is. I build my deck, but if I have an extra troop and you need one, I can give it to you to defend your part of the base and it goes into your deck. It allows everyone to really balance out what is going on and have a chance, which is good, because it’s a tough game.

3. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

I feel like this one I talk about and always describe it in a way that doesn’t sound that fun. But in this game, I feel like I am a detective. It’s a bit like a detective TV show, but fun is how I put it. You get into the case and the theme and if you allow yourself to be immersed in figuring out the story going on it is a great time.

2. Tainted Grail

Another one from yesterday, Tainted Grail is an amazing story adventure game. You take these characters and build them up through a grim dark storyline. And the writing on the game is just so well done. In terms of thematic games, I feel like this one might top my list, though, not my favorite cooperative game.

1. Gloomhaven

For my favorite cooperative game, no shock, it’s Gloomhaven. I love this game. I love the leveling in this game and the card play in this game. And I love that you retire characters and get new ones. I think that the mechanics are amazing and the story is interesting. But overall it leads to a great cooperative experience.

Final Thoughts

I’m guessing since I missed Hanabi and Imperial Assault that I likely missed others. And I also found it interesting how many I’ve gotten rid of. I think a lot of that has to do with me having so many I’ve played. It means that they are fighting for playing time. So only the top ones stick around. Especially when you get down to campaign games, for those it’s even a tighter field because of Kickstarter games coming in and time.

What is your favorite cooperative game?

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Scythe

Probably the most shocking on the list is Stonemaiers game Scythe. This is one of the most popular board games out there, and I actually never played my copy, so why did I get rid of it. The answer is because I’ll probably never play my copy. I have friends who have it and who know how to play it. So I’m going to be much more apt to play their copy with them teaching me. And because it is a bigger euro game, with amazing artwork I’ll give it that, I don’t have as much of a group to play it with as with some other games. So because this is a bigger game, more to know about and teach, I am getting rid of it, freeing up space in my shelf, and hopefully once I can game in person again, I’ll get a chance to play it with the person who has basically everything for the game and some of the bling for it as well.

Pandemic: On the Brink

I like Pandemic, in fact there are three different versions of Pandemic in my top 100, and 4 different versions of Pandemic on my shelf, so why am I getting rid of this expansion to the base game? If I want to have a fun gaming experience with a more advanced version of Pandemic, I will probably take someone through Pandemic Legacy Season 1. I’ve played it twice, and I’d happily play it again as a game master type of roll, because the game is still challenging. If I want to just teach someone the game, adding in stuff from On The Brink is going to add to the complexity of the game, so I won’t put it in. That means that it would have to be a very rare and special situation where I wouldn’t be taking someone through Pandemic Legacy Season 1, and I wouldn’t be teaching someone the base game to need On The Brink. It just was too rare a scenario for me to ever be likely to play it.

Stuffed Fables

When this game cam out, I was really really excited for it. It was a game about stuffed animals who were going on adventures and fighting off the scary animals under the bed while their human, a little girl was asleep, the figures are adorable in the game, book maps are adorable and really everything about it is great component wise, so why am I selling it? There’s one main reason, the theme of this game is for kids, and for younger kids, but with four adults playing it, there were rules questions and things we weren’t sure on. I could eventually take my kid through that game, but by the time he would be able to grasp the strategy and the complexities of the game, I have a whole lot of other games that we can play as well. This isn’t kind of an in between game between kids games and games for adults, it’s just that way in theme. And I think that the theme definitely targets a younger audience than the mechanics do. So as much as I wanted to keep this one on the shelf, there are just too many other good games out there that I’ll be able to play with my toddler eventually to keep one with sometimes confusing rules around.

Which one shocks you the most, probably me getting rid of Scythe. I really want to play that game, and the campaign expansion box, Rise of Fenris looks amazing, but I just know getting my copy to my table wasn’t likely to happen.

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The Premise

The Characters

The Bosses

The Guilds

The Levels

The Boards

Like a lot of dungeon crawl-esque games, this game isn’t going to have one central board that you go around. In fact my current thought process is that you will have no central board that you play off of. Instead, we’re going to use what something that I’ve seen in games like Forgotten Waters, Stuffed Fables and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, which is a book.

There are a few reasons for the book, but the biggest is that we want the different levels to feel varied. The amount of tile pieces would be epically high to make a completely varied board. There are a lot in Gloomhaven, and those can seem somewhat limited at times, so to make something feel truly unique for different levels, you’d need a ton of pieces of terrain, and map tiles, and more to really keep it varied, but in this, I want to make it so that each level can be unique. Especially for the boss battle, I want to work with the idea of space in the game. I think that the new Descent game does an interesting thing with that where you build up vertically at times and can push people off of towers and things like that, I want to be able to do that. And some of that can be done with negative space on a map that’s drawn easier than map tiles that just create more random empty space on the table.

Besides the boss battle, it’ll help me be able to change up the level part of the floor, where players can go on quests, fight monsters, shop, and recruit to their guild. I could completely drop off one of them if I wanted, or I could add in additional spots where players can send people to go questing. This will allow each level to again feel different than the previous ones and give hints as to what might be more important for a level, or I really like the idea that some levels might not allow you to do things, maybe like recruit, so you need to plan accordingly, and you might not get that researched or figured out, but you need to have that in your mind that the next level might not have everything you want, or it might mean you can all go questing and pick up story and lore of the world.

But there are going to be a few actual boards in the game. The first will be the player boards. Each character is going to have their own board. This will have their stats as to what they are good at on it. Those stats are going to then influence how good they are at other things. Someone who is average at everything might do okay on all the tasks and tests, but they aren’t going to get the best outcome and I’ll be talking more about that in the future. But players will have ways to keep track of their stats, but along with that, this is where you’ll keep track of skills and equipment, conditions, and things like that which are common for dungeon crawlers. In my mind I want something closer to the Neoprene mats from Midarra versus something like the paper board from Sword & Sorcery. Gloomhaven does it a little bit better, but I want to build even upon that, because I’ve seen some nice custom ones for Gloomhaven that would hold things better. Also, with cool down and tracking skills, I feel like that’s something that Sword & Sorcery tries to do decently well, but ends up not really doing that well, so I’m curious to see how I can improve upon that.

The other board is going to be the guild board, and this one I have more of an idea of what I want on the board. This board is going to be fairly simple. You are going to keep track of a very few things on here. The two primary ones are going to be guild members and morale. Morale is going to be important for a few things, it’ll be about the attrition that you have with the guild or maybe how it’ll grow naturally. The better your morale the more that you’ll also be able to recruit on a floor. The other big thing, as I said, is guild members. Tracking them will be important because as you hit numerical points, that’ll give you more groups of guild members to use on levels. So if you have a ton of them, you’ll be able to cover a lot of ground, but you’ll also be sacrificing opportunities to level up by doing that. Again, building that tension, but also we’re on boards here, so that’s going to be important to track for that reason. Finally you’ll be tracking a few other things, gear level of the guild, statuses that you’ve found, deaths in the guild, and population left in the world. The statuses that you have found as a guild pertaining to the game can influence your options going forward. Gear will make a difference in battle, deaths in the guild will influence left total in the game, so important things, but will be less often you’re checking those things.

For a game this large there was always going to be a bunch of things to keep track of, but I want, with the book for the board, to make it so that part of the game is an easy flip out and play because that’s going to make the game way more accessible to players if they only have to keep track of their own stuff instead of helping set everything else out. I do think that there’ll be some tokens for the boss battle, such as placing on terrain, though I’d love to be able to make as much of that 3D terrain as possible, either 3D molded terrain, but that might be an add-on if it goes to KS or carboard pieces that can be put together to create height and visual appeal. I might pull a bit from what Oathsworn is doing where you can either get minis for the bosses or you can standees as well, but keep the bosses, and any terrain items, hidden away in either envelops with punch out stuff, or something like that, but ways to bring more surprises to the game. But that’s probably something for another time to talk about.

What do you think of the game thus far, definitely still in concept phase with this one, but I’m going to try and tackle some more specifics this week.

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Point of Order is going to be me running down the game(s) that I ordered and why I picked them up. The reason for doing this is kind of a sneak preview as to what’s going to be coming for reviews in the future, but also help show why I thought some games might be a good fit for me and maybe, give you some insight if into if they might be a good fit for you.

So let’s run them now, it’s a bigger order this time, so it’ll be a bit of reading to get through it, but hopefully enlightening.

Silver
So, this is one that I got a chance to play at GenCon and since it was such a small game, it kind if paled in comparison to some of the other games I played there, and I thought it was just okay. But then I downloaded it to my phone, and I’ve had a lot of fun just knocking out a fast game of it against the computer. What keeps drawing me back to it is the simplicity of the game. In Silver, you are trying to get your village to score the fewest points, there are werewolves because it’s Bezier Games, but that’s a mute point to the game. You do this by swapping cards out from your face down group of five cards. However, you don’t know what all your cards are. At the start of each round, there are four, you look at two of your cards. Then on your turn you look at the top card and either swap it with a card in your five or use it’s power, or you can use the top card of the deck to swap into your row. Now, the swap is 1 for 1, unless, you have two of the same card from the five in front of you that you can swap. So if I had two sixes, I could swap it for a five, now I’d have four cards in front of me and be scoring 7 less points. Once you have less than four cards, you can call for a vote if you want, and if you have the fewest points on your villagers, you get 0 points, but if you’re wrong or you didn’t call for the vote, you get the points on your villagers, and plus 10 if you were wrong when calling for the vote. It’s a push your luck, bluffing (kind of), and memory game. It plays fast over four rounds and because of enjoying it more on my phone, I decided to pick it up.

Cartographers
This one one will be way shorter to write about, because I’ve already don’t a TableTopTakes review of it. This is a flip and write map making game with some fun scoring. The map making part is pretty loosely themed on there, but the scoring puzzle is a lot of fun, and the fact that it’s an interactive flip and write is great. So for the scoring, you have four different scoring things, A, B, C, D. And you score two each season, for A & B, then B & C, C & D, and eventually D & A. So you have to think about both short turn and long term scoring. Plus, then, you have your own board, but if a monster comes up (and they will) you have to pass your board to the left or right and that player will put a monster somewhere on your board in spot that’ll surely mess things up for you. I really enjoy roll/flip and writes, and this one stands up as one that has a fun theme and some more interactivity going on.

Ascension: Delirium
Now, some of why I got this was because I needed to make it to $100 for free shipping and nothing was jumping out at me. But I really love Ascension, in my Top 10 Gateway game list, it was #10, because for me it’s an ideal introduction to deckbuilding for the base game. And the expansions add more and can be combined with it. So I’m excited to try out this one and to try out Dreamscape the other expansion that I have. I’m curious to see how the strategies might change, and sometime play a massive six player game with one of the expansions mixed in. This is one where I know I’ll enjoy the expansions, and even if they don’t come off the shelf a lot, I’ll still get them played once and a while.

Silver & Gold
So, this isn’t related to Silver. Instead it’s a flip and write game where you are drafting island cards and trying to fill them in, which scores you points, and combing covering up palm trees, treasures, and I think more to allow you to cover up more things. This game was interesting to me after I watched Board Game Geeks Game Night Youtube Show with it. What was interesting about it was that you don’t have your own play sheet that you’re filling in. You are drafting/taking island cards and actually writing on those cards. The cards are dry erase so that you can play, score, erase, and play again. That just seems like a novel idea and I’ve really been digging roll or flip and write games recently.

Clank! Acquisitions Inc Legacy
Multiple things drew me to this game, first it’s a legacy game. I think I own, have owned, or have played most legacy games out there. They are just a blast generally in my opinion, and are very fascinating to see how they end up working. With Clank! Legacy, I already know that I like Clank! In! Space! and while this is fantasy themed, that’s fine because I love Acquisitions Inc. podcast/video series that Penny Arcade does at their #PAX conventions. From what I’ve heard about this, it implements it really well and creates an interesting story throughout while being a really fun game to play. And while none of the others take themselves seriously in the Clank! line of games, this one I’ll get more of the in jokes because I’ve watched all of Acquisitions Inc. And easy purchase, just was waiting to have a group to play it, but it was on sale, so I decided to pick it up anyways even before having a group lined up.

Forgotten Waters
This one I’m really excited for, but it’s a pre-order. So one of my favorite games is Dead of Winter. And what makes it a lot of fun is that it uses crossroads cards. These cards get triggered sometimes where you go some play, do some action and all of a sudden you’re interrupted because you triggered this crossroads event where you have to make a decision that will affect the game in some way, but you don’t know how. Forgotten Waters is a pirate themed game that uses that, plus it has an app that tells you things to do and helps you set-up scenarios, plus you’re using a storybook type thing, similar to Mice and Mystics, Aftermath, and Stuffed Fables. I think all of that combined together sounds really cool, and I’ve been looking for a cool pirate themed game that is a bit more tongue in cheek than something like Merchants and Marauders which is a fun game, but a bit heavier.

Marvel Champions Neoprene Playmat
Final item on the list, and it’s not a game. There are several reasons that I wanted to get this, the first is that it looks cool, and it’s big so you can play with a bunch of people using mat. The other is that whenever I cut my finger nails, I can never pick up cards. So on a neoprene mat which I’d be able to use for other games as well, though it does have a layout for Marvel Champions, I won’t be trying multiple times to pick them up or scooting them to the edge of the table so I can grab them. I won’t say that this really makes Marvel Champions that much easier to play, but it can help keep the table neater, plus easier to pick up cards.

So, that’s the order that I have coming in. I’d say that some of that is thanks to Covid-19 because I’m bored and I think that some of these games will be good ones that I can play with my wife while waiting for board game nights to happen again.

Are there any of the games that seem the most interesting to you? Any that you’ve picked up or want to pick up?

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These rankings are the opinion of yours truly, and if you don’t like them, that’s okay. We all have different tastes in games and that is great. There are some games that I’ve only played as a demo, and I felt like I got enough of a feel to put them on the list, thanks GenCon for all the demos. These are living rankings so next year I’m sure that things will change, so I’ll probably be doing another one next year. Thanks to Board Game Geek for letting me enter/rate my collection and games I’ve played. Thanks to Pub Meeple for creating a tool that pulls in those games that I’ve rated and creating a ranking tool. Again, the numbers and names will be linked to Cool Stuff Inc and Amazon if you’re interested in the games.

90 – Carcassonne
First classic game on the list, I’d say. This is a tile laying game that has been around for a long time, though, not as long as games like Clue and Monopoly that didn’t make my top 100. In Carcassone, you are trying to connect roads together and build cities, monasteries, and farms. All of these things give you points and when all the tiles have been played you tally up any final scoring and the person with the most points wins. What’s interesting about this game is that as you complete cities and roads where you have placed a knight or a robber, which are just meeples, you get those meeples back, so you are trying to balance getting a lot of points in a single road or city, and not having all your meeples on the board so you miss scoring.

89 – Dead of Winter: The Long Night
So, this is technically an expansion. But it’s also technically stand alone, so I’m placing it on my list because you don’t need Dead of Winter to play it. In this game, like Dead of Winter, you are protecting your base against zombies, however, they add in a few things, like a bandit module, a building module, and a Umbrella Corporation, I mean Raxxon, expansion. This game adds more to a game that already has a bunch of stuff going on in it, hence why it’s a bunch lower than the original, plus, it’s just hard to beat the original. I’d definitely play with any of the expansions though.

88 – Splendor
We’re going away from a more thematic game and going into a game that is purely tableau building. The “theme” of this game is that you are a gem merchant who is buying single use gems to get other gems that you have all the time, okay, that doesn’t make sense. But that’s what you’re doing in the game. Some of the gem cards that you’ll buy will have points on them, and the first person to 15 points wins. This is a great introductory tableau game that looks nice on the table. The game comes with a bunch of cards but what most people notice are the power chips that represent the single use gems that you’ll be getting early in the game. They are nice and weighty and give the game a good tactile feel. This is game that I’ll always play and have a good time with, there are other games higher on the list that fit a similar niche that I prefer though.

87 – Stuffed Fables
Your girl has had her favorite blanket stolen, and as her fearless stuffed animals, you are going to go into the depths of the world under the bed to get back that blanket without waking up the girl. This is a very cute game with cute stuffed animal minis. It’s what is known as a storybook game where you flip to different pages in the book, depending on what you do, and play through different chapters of an adventure by playing through the little scene that is in the book. Stuffed Fables definitely is focused for children, though feels like it’s a bit too complex for most younger children that the story targets more so. The game looks great though, and because it’s cooperative, you can work together as a group, which would be how you can get younger gamers to play and understand what is going on. Eventually this will be something that I play through with our baby.

86 – Legends of Andor
We’re into one of the first story driven fantasy games on the list. I’ve played this one a few times, and what is interesting about this game is that killing monsters causes the story to progress faster. Each round advances, and eventually you run out of turns, and you’d lose the game, but if too many monsters get to the castle, you lose the game, if you kill too many monsters and use up the rounds, you lose the game. This is a fun fantasy puzzle story game, because beating the monsters isn’t always hard, but knowing when to beat the monsters and when to focus on story elements, it’s a challenge. There are a bunch of different scenarios in the game, all of which seem interesting, and there are a bunch of expansions for it. It’s a big fantasy game, but at the same time, it’s not a complex fantasy game, so it’s a good introductory one for younger gamers.

85 – Lord of the Rings
This is the classic Fantasy Flight game where you play as up to five Hobbits traveling to Mount Doom to throw the one ring in. Yes, you read that correctly up to five Hobbits. If you have five players, one person can play as Fatty Bolger. Who is Fatty Bolger, he’s the hobbit who they invite along after add in Merry and Pippin but who declines, if you’ve read the books you’re apt to remember him. This game feels fairly thematic, but mainly feels like a puzzle as you try and play combinations of cards to advance through different locations before time runs out. It’s not a very heavy game, but there are interesting choices, and anyone can hold the ring, so Sam does, always, because he’s steadfast and hard to move. They made a lot of expansions for it as well. If you don’t want a big card game or a big minis game for Lord of the Rings, this is a fun option.

84 – Pandemic Legacy Season 2
We’ll see Season 1 higher on the list, but I did enjoy my playthrough, just not as much as the first season. I won’t go into spoilers, because this is a legacy game, but Pandemic Legacy Season 2 has a bit less direction while having a few clear things to do as well. It’s confusing with how I wrote it, but it still tells a good story. I feel like with the story, though, you’re waiting for the twist to happen like there was at some point in time in season one. What is cool about this one is that the mechanics are different, but they still feel like Pandemic. I’ll be playing through this at some point in time on Malts and Meeples, so if you want spoilers, that’s where it’ll be. Even though it’s a story driven legacy game, I feel like there’s plenty that you can play again with it after a bit of time. Downside is that to do that, you need a new version of the game.

83 – Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game
This is a massively bloated game at this point with 20000000000000 different expansions, and that is only using half the characters that Marvel has. In this game there is a villain whom a group of players with hero cards are going to attempt to defeat. It’s pretty standard in how you deck build with a changing market, but it gives you some interesting things like trying to build up enough damage to take out the villain enough times, while also trying to keep a handle on the different henchmen that are coming out. What makes this game tricky is that there are literally too many options now for the game. If you just pick what Marvel superheroes you like, you might end up with a group of heroes that don’t synergize at all, and then the game is going to take way longer than it should be build up the combos that you’re generally looking for in deck building games. However, if you just have the base game, you have enough to keep yourself busy for a while. This is a game that I’ve grown to like more as I’ve played more deck building games.

82 – Arkham Horror 2nd Edition
Yes, this is not the new edition, in fact, the new edition that I’m stoked to try, it’s not on my list, because I haven’t tried it yet. It’s sitting on my shelf just waiting to get played. But this is the massive older version where you are going around Arkham and adventuring and closing gates, fighting monsters, and then probably losing for up to six hours. Like I said, it’s a massive game and that’s without any of the expansions. I’ve really only played this once, and not even my copy, but it was blast, it’s just hard to carve out that much time. I am probably going to keep this game, because it’s the first massive epic game I bought, but also because it seems different enough from the 3rd edition that I probably have room on my self for both. If you like that older grind of a game, this one still holds up well, and there are tons of expansions for it, but you’ll also need a giant table for it.

81 – Dead Men Tell No Tales
I was hoping that this game would replace Pandemic in some ways or be another cooperative option, and I think that it almost does that, but you’ll see where Pandemic falls on my list. In Dead Men Tell No Tales, you are a group of pirates who are going onto a ship that is haunted by ghosts, on fire, and has a skeleton crew, but you’re willing to brave all of that, because the captain will make you walk the plank, and there’s treasure on this burning ship. You take your turn, dealing with fire, taking out those skeletons, trying to build up so you can fight the ghosts, but doing all of that while the ship continues to burn, and you hope that it doesn’t get too bad so that you can’t get to where you need to. It’s like Pandemic in that you have a ton of things that you can do and you never feel like you have enough actions. Or that your actions won’t do anything, and that’s one cool thing about the game, if you only have two useful actions out of your four or five, you can pass your unused ones to the next player so that they can get more done. If you want something that’s cooperative and the theme seems more interesting than Pandemic, I think you’d enjoy Dead Men Tell No Tales.

We’re through another ten, I’m planning that next week, besides Wednesday which will be Halloween focused, I’m going to continue going through my top 100, otherwise it could take a while.

What game from this section looks the most interesting to you? Is there one that you’ve wanted to play? Is there one that would be higher on your own list?

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Let’s talk a little bit about what I would look for in a kids game. I think that a lot of people are used to pretty boring kids games. Games like Candyland and Chutes and Ladders has no real strategy to them, and they are boring for the adults to play. I personally think board games for kids should challenge them some. They don’t need to be too hard or too confusing, but a game that challenges a kid to develop reasoning and planning skills are going to be a good thing. I also think that it is fine for parents to beat kids at games. It doesn’t mean that you have to go all out or always beat them, but learning to lose gracefully is something that a lot of adults could stand to learn, so it’s good to teach kids that as well.

But what are some good kids games?

Stuffed Fables
Stuffed Fables came up on the story game, and it has an amazing story of stuffed animals protecting a little girl while she sleeps. The downside to this game and the thing that you should be aware of is that there are some small pieces and little fiddly bits in the game. However, the game is cooperative, so the information of what is going on is known to everyone and you can work together as a team. The story should keep kids engaged.

Mice and Mystics
From the same designer and the predecessor to Stuffed Fables, Mice and Mystics is for a slightly older group of kids, but has a very Redwall feel towards it. Another cooperative game, it’s going to be one that you can probably play with a younger age, though they’ll mainly be rolling dice and making fewer decisions.

Lift Off!
I’m not sure in the ability to get this game still as I got it as a kickstarter, but Lift Off! is a fun game where you are playing cards and moving around tons of adorable meeples to try and get your guys off of the planet first before the planet blows up. However, each way off the planet can only hold so many guys and only launches at certain points in time. It’s a fun game that offers enough decisions to keep everyone engaged, but not so many that it would be confusing to kids.

Haba Games
Now, this is just a category, and I haven’t even played their games, but Haba is a game company that really focuses on making kids games. Their two most famous, Rhino Hero and Rhino Hero Super Battle. They are both tower building dexterity games where you are trying to get a hero to the top, but in Rhino Hero Super Battle, each person has their own hero and they fight along their way to the top. Any dexterity game is going to be nice, because kids are often more dexterous than the adults.

Ice Cool
Another dexterity game, and the last dexterity game for this list, Ice Cool is about a Penguin High School, but would play really well with young kids and is a ton of fun for adults as well. And now with Ice Cool 2, you can play up to 8 players, instead of just 4. In this game, you are flicking penguins around trying to collect fist or race around the board. It’s a ton of fun, and it’s fun for the adults to try a crazy shot and hope it works, but sometimes you just flick the penguin as hard as possible and you bounce through a couple of doors, and other times, you bounce off a wall and end up back where you started.

Titan Race
Final game on the list, Titan Race does have a few small pieces, but you don’t need to use them, you can just do a grand prix style. In the game you are playing cards, once in a while that you might have to help kids with, but the big thing you are doing is drafting dice and moving as the dice show. You could easily simplify this game so that you don’t use the cards and it’s all about drafting dice and not pushing other characters forward. The minis are fun in this game, and kids will definitely like them and the artwork of this game.

Now, that’s a solid selection of kids games. There are more, some on the Intro Games list, that could work for kids as well. There are also games like Catan Junior or My Little Scythe that are simplified or tweaked versions of bigger games that would work well with kids as well. And judge with your own kid what games will work for them and which ones won’t. If you checkout the YouTube channel Watch It Played, you can watch the host play fairly complicated games with his son, and the games might seem like they are going to be too challenging for him, but it completely depends on the kid. The Dice Tower also has some really fun reviews by Dan and Cora in the Board Game Breakfast where they look at games for 4-6 year olds (they’ve been doing it while Cora was 4 and now she’s 6). So that’s another great resource.

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Gloom

This is a dark storytelling game where everyone has their own family of misfits and your job is to make your families life the most miserable until they all have perish. You each take turns playing cards on your characters or other peoples characters, but the real fun of this game comes in with the storytelling. When you play a card, you add to the story and the world that you are building where all the families live how the horrible things build up over time until your family eventually has passed away. There is a lot of alliteration on the cards, and the game while having so many horrible things happen feels like the book series, A Series of Unfortunate Events, in a lot of ways. The game plays fast, and because of the storytelling, everyone is involved.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

Now this game you aren’t telling the story yourself, but you’re making the decisions for your character as they traverse the house of danger. With a name like that, what could possibly go wrong. But the game is fun and silly as you make decisions and even when you die, like you would in the choose your own adventure books, you come back where you left off. You can also play with as many people as you want for this game and either have a single person reading the story, or it is more fun to pass the story cards around so everyone has a chance to be the lead of the story.

Near and Far

This is the most gamiest of all the games on the list thus far. Near and Far has you take various characters through the world of Near and Far and interact and unfold a story as they search for a lost city. The game has a couple of really nice story elements to it with a great board that is in a book. So each game, as you progress through, you play a different set of pages in the book, and there are different story elements for the world. Then as you explore the locations, you can start to craft your own characters story and get traits that might help you in future games. I love the artwork in this game, and even though it has a story aspect to it, it’s definitely replayable because of the game mechanics themselves.

Legacy of Dragonholt

Legacy of Dragonholt is the closest thing to a role playing game on the list, and actually could be consider role playing game lite. You do build a character you’re going to play with, and the whole story takes place in certain passages of a book. You have a lot of different scenarios you can read through, as you try and solve the mystery that is taking place at Dragonholt. It’s a very accessible game and gives people a little bit of a feel of a role playing game without the investment that you might have otherwise with Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder.

Gloomhaven

This is a beast of a game, and you’ve seen how much I write about it and love it. While the combat is actually pretty tactical, Gloomhaven has a bunch of story between things as you progress forward to try and figure out what the gloom is that is coming to the town of Gloomhaven. You also have city and road events that give you a chance to make a lot of different story decisions. The ever changing cast of characters you are playing with keeps the game vibrant as well and a lot of fun. Now, this is by far the heaviest game on the list and won’t be for everyone as it does combine that strategy with storytelling, but if it seems interesting, the number of hours in the game makes it very worth the price tag.

Stuffed Fables

Stuffed Fables is an adorable game where players take on the characters of various stuffed animals who are protecting their little girl from the monsters and things that live in the world under the bed. So while she sleeps you keep them from waking her up. This game has a book with maps in it like Near and Far, but the game play itself is simpler and the story is more tightly written. Each page of the book plays slightly different, but everyone about this game is crafted so well from the weapons that the stuffed animals fight with to the amazing figures in the game. It’s a game that also isn’t too complicated so with a little bit of help, a kid would be able to play this game with adults.

Now, there are a ton more storytelling games out there. Once Upon a Time, T.I.M.E. Stories, 7th Continent, Arkham Horror LCG, Arabian Nights, but there is one more I want to touch on.

Pandemic Legacy

Pandemic Legacy is a game that has a lot of strategy and thinking through turns, but the game itself as you play through the various scenarios has a ton of strategy to it. The way the story progresses from month to month works really well. If Gloomhaven is too much of a bear for you with a strategy and story game, Pandemic Legacy is going to fit that niche for a lot of people. And getting it to the table will be something people want to do again and again.

What are some other story games that I’ve missed? Do you have one that is your favorite? Are some of these games too light for you?

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Now, I am going to toss one out here fast, Dead of Winter, however in a lot of ways, that’s basically The Walking Dead. So I’m not going to say anything about that one beyond it.

Betrayal at House on the Hill is the first other one that has popped into my head. And that’s because a lot of the haunts have such a classic feel. You could also most a series for it as well as a movie where a group goes into the same house over and over again to see what horrible thing would happen to them and who would betray the party. This has a bit of a Cabin in the Woods feel to it, because in that one there were a lot of “omens” lying around that they could have picked up. But having a betrayer as part of the group I think would add an interesting dynamic to it. Add in the Betrayal Legacy that is coming out, and you could get yourself a nice franchise.

Then from the same game designer as Mice and Mystics, you could do Stuffed Fables. In some ways, I think that would make a cuter story, stuffed animals going on a grand adventure to get back their girls lost blanket while they travel through a crazy world that has developed under her bed. Any game that has that strong a story element to it would obviously work better as a movie as compared to say, Catan. And this one has a very cute aspect to it that would make a very good family film.

So what about a game with less story focus as the driving storyline for a movie?

Love Letter, now why would that make a good movie? I think you could do a romantic comedy with it and have a lot of good humor surrounding trying to get the letter to the princess. Of course things would go wrong, the guards would throw someone in jail to stop one persons letter from getting through, and somehow at some point in time one of the suitors would end up getting their letter to the princess so that she can deliver the letter to herself and that person would just immediately lose, obviously. Almost would have a bit of the goofy feel of the Clue movie to it.

Root would be another cool game to see be made into a movie. Another one that definitely would have to lean towards a kid focused movie, but probably more intense than something like Stuffed Fables would be. Root would show the struggle in the forest for control. I would think that the Woodland Alliance would likely be the sympathetic main characters with the vagabond playing a large role as well. The Marquise de Cats would definitely be the evil group, and the Eyrie, while probably not being evil wouldn’t be well liked because they have too many rules. Personally, form having played the Eyrie, they are definitely the good guys, but maybe slightly misunderstood, but that can’t be helped.

Arkham Horror LCG, to get back to more story focused games (though this game is fairly abstract with nice chunks of flavor text throughout), would be an obvious choice as well. You’d focus in on the investigators and what they are doing and the madness surrounding them. In some ways I’m a bit surprised that there hasn’t been something so Lovecraft focused done already. I might be forgetting something though. But a good movie set in that time frame of the 1920’s-30’s with the monsters possibly being released, that would be nice, and the potential for sequels is high with this one as there would always be another threat that the investigators would have to deal with.

Now, I’m sure that I could come up with a ton more games that would make interesting movies, if done well. What are some that would make great movies, in your opinion, that you want to see done? What are some board games that would make the worst movies?

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