TCG | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com Where to jump in on board games, anime, books, and movies as a Nerd Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:18:33 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 https://nerdologists.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/nerdologists-favicon.png TCG | Nerdologists https://nerdologists.com 32 32 Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 40 through 31 https://nerdologists.com/2025/10/top-100-games-of-all-time-2025-edition-40-through-31/ https://nerdologists.com/2025/10/top-100-games-of-all-time-2025-edition-40-through-31/#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:15:07 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=9873 What games make it into the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition? We're onto games 40 through 31 with three new games to the list.

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It’s time for the next 10. The articles will likely catch-up next week to where the videos are. But you can always checkout the videos for the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition over on the Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. But the lists keep on going, and on this part of the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition there are three new to me games. Let’s see which ones those are.

Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 40 through 31

40. Sushi Go Party!

Sushi Go Party
Image Source: Gamewright

Published By: Gamewright
Designer: Phil Walker-Harding

Buy Sushi Go Party!

Sushi Go and Sushi Go Party! are classic drafting games at this point. And I think with the fun theme and artwork more welcoming than other bigger group drafting games like 7 Wonders. In this game you draft a meal over three hands of cards. You score points for the sets of cards you get, depending on how those cards score. So an example is for each pair of tempura shrimp you score five points. Some might not score you points, though, if you get too many or too few of them. So it’s a fun changing strategy with lots of cards drafting game.

39. Ninjan

Ninjan
Image Source: Helvetiq

Published By: Helvetiq
Designer: 6jizo

Buy Ninjan

This little game I thought wasn’t going to be that interesting, but I really enjoy it. It’s rock paper scissors. But you don’t play against the other players, you play against a central set of cards. And if you beat a card you take that one and those are the points you get. The trick is that some points are negative. So if all the cards are negative in that middle display, you don’t want to beat them and take a card. It makes some some interesting choices and a lot of fun moments of trying not to get points.

38. First Rat

First Rat
Image Source: Pegasus Spiele

Published By: Pegasus Spiele
Designers: Gabriele Ausiello and Virginio Gigli

Buy First Rat

The moon is made a cheese, you’re rats so of course you know that to be true. And you want to get there. You do that by collecting resources to build up rocket parts and get your ratstronauts ready to go to space. This game is all about figuring out how you want to score and then optimizing that as you move your rats up tracks gaining resources and other things. I like how there is a variety of ways you can go about it in the game, and the theme is just great.

37. Let’s Go! To Japan

Let's Go! To Japan
Image Source: AEG

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designer: Josh Wood

Buy Let’s Go! To Japan

Second new game on the list Let’s Go! To Japan is one that I backed on Kickstarter but played first on BGA. This is another drafting game, I really enjoying drafting. In this game you want to create your best trip to Japan. And each day you have a certain goal you go for. So it might be food one day or cultural events. As you draft cards and plan your days you try and line that up. As well as you try and get the best scoring for each day that you can. There are a lot of fun things with how this drafting work. And it’s just fun to see your trip when you are done.

36. Guild of Merchant Explorers

The Guild of Merchant Explorers
Image Source: AEG

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designers: Matthew Dunstan and Brett J Gilbert

Buy Guild of Merchant Explorers

The last new game on the list is Guild of Merchant Explorers. This is a game with a roll and write feel but uses cubes for that. You are creating routes across your map and filling in areas to get points and create trading posts. I love how simple this game is, everyone has the same map and you flip a card and you place a cube or cubes on that type of terrain. But then you get special cards that make you different in each era and games start to go in very different ways. Plus the treasures which always feel like they should be better than they are, but I always want them.

35. The Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw

Isle of Cats Explore and Draw
Image Source: City of Games

Published By: The City of Games
Designer: Frank West

Buy Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw

This is one of the highest roll and write games on the list. The Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw is a really fun game where you are rescuing cats from an island before the bad guy gets there. And to do that you pick a column of cards to activate. Some of those columns are just cats and you add them to your ship trying to create groups of cats. Others might have scoring objectives, so it’s this fun balance of determining how you want to score or maybe you need more cats to make your scoring work. All this while having a polyomino puzzle on your board.

34. The Isofarian Guard

Isofarian Guard
Image Source: Sky Kingdom Games

Published By: Sky Kingdom Games
Designers: Eric Bittermann, Sean Craten, David Yanchick

Buy The Isofarian Guard

The Isofarian Guard is one of two bigger story games on the list. And I think you’ll find that a lot of the bigger story games are towards the top half of my list. I love this type of game. And The Isofarian Guard has a lot of fun bag building as you level up characters. Then you explore and enjoy a big story while hopping into combats and using that bag building to battle the bad guys. It’s interesting how there are multiple campaigns with different guard members that all happen during the same time period. That is unique to the game.

33. Forest Shuffle

Forest Shuffle
Image Source: Lookout Games

Published By: Lookout Games
Designer: Kosch

Buy Forest Shuffle

Some games give you a ton of points and Forest Shuffle is for sure one of those. In this game you build out a tableau that is your forest and surround the trees with flora and fauna. Every tree, every animal and every plant give you some benefit in some way. And your goal is to optimize is the best you can. Maybe you go all in on butterflies, or you get a bird card that scores more for other birds. You need to figure out your best scoring.

I need another paragraph to talk about the game because the card play and end game are so good. In the card play you spend cards from your hand to play cards, and that is always a tough decision as to which cards you might not get to play. And the end game is great with three winter cards in the bottom third of the deck. When you hit one or the second one, you know the end game is coming soon and you need to get cards played.

32. The 7th Citadel

7th Citadel
Image Source: Serious Pulp

Published By: Serious Poulp
Designer: Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter

Buy The 7th Citadel

Another story and campaign game, The 7th Citadel creates a really unique world of necrodruids and monsters that you avoid, fight, and challenges to complete. With a map that you build out each time you play, you explore new areas and directions to get through the scenarios of the story.

And how you do your combat or challenges is really enjoyable. Each character has a deck of cards. And you draw from that deck trying to get the right stars to line-up. You can draw a lot of cards, but if you do, you’ll run out of cards sooner. So maybe you draw fewer, or maybe you really need to pass, so you draw a lot but then spend health to get more back. But of course, when you spend health that is putting you closer to death that way.

31. Star Wars: Unlimited

Star Wars Unlimited Twilight of the Replubic
Image Source: Fantasy Flight

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Jim Cartwright, Tyler Parrott, Daniel Schaefer, Jeremy Zwirn

Buy Star Wars: Unlimited

The only TCG on the list is Star Wars: Unlimited. Though I’ve been loving Magic the Gathering again as well. But Star Wars: Unlimited is just an easier game to play. The actions being so simple and a back and forth one action and then one from your opponent is great. I also like the two theaters that you fight over, ground and space. Granted you can also just direct that damage at the base as well to try and take that down because that is how you win. And there are a lot of good synergies for building if you want to be a force user, a Mandalorian, or a Rebel, etc.

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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Gamefound Fall Feast https://nerdologists.com/2025/10/gamefound-fall-feast/ https://nerdologists.com/2025/10/gamefound-fall-feast/#respond Wed, 15 Oct 2025 15:38:07 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=9864 What exciting new campaigns are going to be coming to Gamefound. Checkout the next Gamefound Feast and my quick thoughts.

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It’s time to start eating again with Gamefound Feast. What is going to be on this feast, are there going to be a lot of games that I want? For once the Gamefound Feast is slightly smaller than other teams, which is probably good. There are a lot of games announced on previous Feasts that are still waiting to launch on Gamefound. So let’s see what games make it this time as there are still 16 of them.

Gamefound Fall Feast

Altered – Seeds of Unity

This is a TCG that I haven’t checked out before. This is going to be the first expansion for it, and it sounds interesting to me. I have held off on playing it though. So this is not going to be a new one that I get at least in terms of the crowdfunding campaign. But I would expect that I’ll get some of it at some point in time coming up here, because I really do want to try it. There are so many cool things with it with the technology aspect of it as well.

You can follow Altered – Seeds of Unity here.

Dungeons & Dragons: Xanathar Device Holder and Dice Tower Collectible

This is going to be some fun stuff for your gaming table. It will hold your phone with a fun Xanathar look to it. Plus it is a dice tower as well. While this looks cool, this is something that is just very much an extra for your D&D game. For me this is not something I need to add to my game.

Follow Dungeons & Dragons Xanathar Device Holder here.

Quake The Board Game

I don’t know a ton about Quate, but I know it’s a popular video game IP. I like the sound of it, though, as you build up abilities and weapons. It sounds like there are scenarios that you can play as well as a death match mode. I think it sounds most interesting as a cooperative experience against the game. I find that head to head battlers, while I like a lot of them, I only play a few.

Follow Quake here.

The Hunters A.D. 1492

This is one that I was really interested in when it was first coming out. It’s a campaign game which I love. And you are going to be monster hunters are a big campaign. I heard that the first version was maybe just okay. This is one that I want to checkout if I can coming up here at some point in time.

Follow The Hunters A.D. 1492.

Claustrophobia 1692

This is a two player head to head game where one player is going through a dungeon and the other player is playing as the monsters. It is another one that I think sounds really fun, but it’s also a bigger two player game which is harder for me to want to get. But I really trust Devir as a company, so I hope that it’s something I can checkout. The theme is fun as well with these prisoners and the hell monsters coming through.

Follow Claustrophobia 1692 on Gamefound.

Travail

Travail is going to be 1-2 player game that is rogue-like adventure. I love a good rogue-like games. This is definitely a grim dark setting, and the minis look great. I hope to learn more about how it’s played. Right now the video is just about that theme in the game. And I think that the theme is really interesting and the minis look great and creepy of the fallen angels, but how is the game going to play.

Follow Travail here.

Fireteam Zero

This game is coming back. I actually own it, but I need to play it still. This is a new version of the game that is going to be backwards compatible. Now it is something that I won’t likely back because I need to play my own copy. This sounds like the type of game I’d love which is why I bought it previously. So this is probably just a reminder that I need to play it.

Follow Fireteam Zero.

Goa

Now we are into the euro game section of the list. Goa is one that already existed before, but now it’s coming back. This is going to be a very deluxe edition of the game. So if you want a new and fancy version of the game, this is going to be for you. Plus the game has been out of print for a while, so it’ll be a great chance to get it. And it’s going to be the first time with a solo mode.

Follow Goa here.

Ardevur

This is a game about mining. That is interesting in terms of a theme. But this is going to be a very euro type of game. The game looks very nice and it looks like it is going to be very heavily economic. I think there are going to be a lot of people who like it, but also I know this is not a game for me.

Follow Ardevur here

Inferno 1348 Deluxe Edition

This is going to be grow upon what is happening in Inferno. This is going to be all about about the Black Plague. And it is going to be an expansion for the game. Inferno is one that I was interested in when it was out the first time. I would love to try this before I would play it. I need to look more into the reviews for the game and see if it’s one I think would hit my table.

Follow Inferno 1348 on Gamefound.

Hegemony – Shadows of Authority

This is another expansion where you play different parts of society. Hegemony is not a game that has interested me at all. While it is likely going to be a great expansion and great game, this is not a game or theme that is interesting to me. In fact so much that I’d be hard pressed to set aside the time to play it.

Follow Hegemony – Shadows of Authority here.

Dicequest

This is going to be a game where you combine heroes and items. When you try and go on quests and complete them. You can play solo, cooperative, or competitive in this game. The competitive is going to add in take that cards. This is from the designer of Super Fantasy Brawl, a game that is in my Top 100, so it’s a game that is very interesting to me. I expect it’ll have interesting decisions but easy game play based off of Super Fantasy Brawl.

Follow Dicequest

Boss Hunters

Let me guess, Boss Hunters is a boss battler game. This is a strategy and positioning game. It’s going to be a tactical game which is interesting. The game play is interesting because you flip cards from active to passive actions but when you use an active action you flip it. So I like the sound of that a lot. And the cards can level up which is going to be good as well for me.

Follow Boss Hunters

Shiver Me Timbers

This is a pirate adventure game. I need to play the adventure pirate game that I own. This one looks like a lot of fun as well and looks like it has a lot of theme and variety that you can do. It’s not a campaign game, but it’s a competitive big adventure and open world game. I think that this is the type of game that I’d love.

Follow Shiver Me Timbers.

Bantam West and Expansion

This is going to be a second edition of Bantam West. I own Bantam West and I need to play it still. So I need to play my copy. This edition is going to be the “improved” version so might be time to jump in and see if it’s a game for you. There is going to be an expansion for the game as well which takes it from 2-4 player to 2-5 players. It’s possible that I might get the expansion, but really, I just need to play the game.

Follow Bantam West 2nd Edition here.

Carnivore

Dinosaur battle time. I love how fun and silly this project sounds, because you really don’t think about taking dinosaurs into a battle. The minis or the mocks of the minis look very good. So we’ll see about the game. And that’s the big question of the game how is it going to play. There is no information about that in the preview video. So it’s something that I can’t tell you too much about it.

Follow Carnivore here.

What Are Your Top 3?

For me there are a number that interest me. And I expect that a lot because the type of game that I love is often the type of game that shows up on crowdfunding. That’s because they need a lot of funds to get the game off the ground, create molds for minis and the like. So it is tricky for me to pick three, but let’s see them in no particular oder.

Dicequest is going to be one of them. I like the sound of this game with going on missions, recruiting heroes and getting equipment. Especially because I hope that it’s not too heavy a game.

Shiver Me Timbers is the next one because of the sand box pirate theme. I love the pirate theme but there are not a ton of good games in that theme. There are some decent ones but not that many that give me a big pirate feel. So I have high hopes for Shiver Me Timbers and the fact that it’s coming back is always a good sign.

Travail is the final one in my Top 3. It is hard to pick just three, but Travail is in because of the rogue-like nature of the game. And it sounds interesting in what it should be doing. Now, I wish that it told me a bit more about game play, but the minis and everything look amazing for the game.

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Top 10 Games from 2024 https://nerdologists.com/2024/12/top-10-games-from-2024/ https://nerdologists.com/2024/12/top-10-games-from-2024/#respond Thu, 19 Dec 2024 16:16:47 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=9335 What games are my Top for 2024? Join me on Malts and Meeples for my Top 10 and see if your favorites made it.

The post Top 10 Games from 2024 first appeared on Nerdologists.]]>
So we’re back to 2024. The video went out last night, and thanks to people for hopping and watching while I went through my Top 10 games of 2024. I do want to admit, I made a big omission. I realized that Rock Hard 1977, a game I’ve played, I totally forgot to rank. It’s not like one of those games that I missed out on because I played it after I made the list. I totally forgot it. So think of that one somewhere probably around 3-5 range.

Top 10 Games of 2024

10. Dungeon Kart

Dungeon Kart
Image Source: Brotherwise Games

Do you want to play Mario Kart? Do you want to play a board game? Why not do both and play Dungeon Kart from Brotherwise Games. This is a racing game where you play as the characters from Boss Monster, those bosses who are trying to build up their dungeon, well, they want to blow off some steam. So hit the track and use their abilities and their cars to the best of your abilities to get around the track first. If you fall behind, don’t worry. You get spells and blast away at your opponents to slow them down so you can get back into the race.

I like this one because it is a fast game and a theme that people like. I like Mario Kart a lot, and I know that a lot of people do. So Dungeon Kart is an easy one to recommend. Add in that the game is simple to play, and it is even easier to recommend. There are a few things that you need to know, but overall, not a complex or difficult game to learn. And the fact that the characters and cars are different, that’s fun as well.

9. Snowfall Over Mountains

Snowfall Over Mountains
Image Source: Pencil First Games

Snowfall Over Mountains is one of a few smaller games on the list, but the only one that is only solo. I enjoy this game for the solo experience because it’s one of those calming and relaxing solo games. You are drawing cards and trying to build a snowscape around you that is going to score the most points.

You score points for different things like rabbit tracks or trees. And there are a few different scoring cards for each of the elements. That is good because it means you can mix and match and get a lot of different combinations for a lot of good variety in what you are doing.

The footprint isn’t as small as some solo games, but it’s not huge. And the box that the game comes in is a nice and small box so if you are traveling and want a solo game to take along this is a solid one.

8. Star Wars: Unlimited

Star Wars Unlimited Twilight of the Replubic
Image Source: Fantasy Flight

Next up, this game could have been higher, I think. I really like Star Wars Unlimited and I really enjoy the TCG aspect of it. As I say in the video, without the theme I’m not sure I’d be as excited for it. But being able to build a deck with clones, droids, Mandelorians, rebels, whatever factions they have thus far, that’s a lot of fun. And there are a number of aspects that also help the game.

I want to focus on one aspect here. I really like that you always have a leader in this game. The leader is going to give you an ability that you can use, even when they aren’t in play, and that ability is going to give you a focus for your deck. There isn’t just throwing your favorite cards into a deck, you need to think about synergies as well between your characters.

Okay, one more aspect that I really like, and I promise that is it. I appreciate that the game doesn’t let you run out of energy. There is no card draw and hope you get credits or whatever so you can play out cards. Instead, it uses this great system, you draw two cards and, if you want, put one into play as a resource. I love that decision space as I need to decide, do I want this card or do I want the resource, and that is often times a very tough call.

7. The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Lord of the Rings Duel
Image Source: Repos Production

Now for another theme that I really like, we have The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth. This game reimplements 7 Wonders Duel, but it’s not just a straight reimplementation. And for me that is a good thing. I like 7 Wonders Duel a lot. But I think that I like Lord of the Rings Duel (as I’ll be calling it) more. And of course, the theme is a great reason for that.

I also like that the game doesn’t end with scoring. Yes, I’m not 100% sold on how it does end, but there are a number of ways for it. There is only one way that I have an issue with or wish there was a bit more. The first way is that the ringbearer makes it to Mount Doom and chucks in the ring, or the Nazgul catches the ringbearer. Or if you rally the support of the different races of Middle-Earth that’s another way too. Finally, if you take control or have a piece of control in every area. If none of those happen it’s whomever controls the most areas, and that’s okay.

But if you like Lord of the Rings, this is a great two player head to head game that I really recommend. If you don’t like Lord of the Rings, it’s still good. Especially if you want something with a bit of theme in it compared to 7 Wonders Duel.

6. Castle Combo

Castle Combo
Image Source: Pandasaurus

Now for a game without much theme but that’s still a lot of fun. Obviously Castle Combo is a lot of fun, it’s in my Top 10 Games of 2024 and at #6. But this is a game about building out the best scoring grid that you can. The game is simple, you play it in nine rounds, and at the end, you have a 3 by 3 grid of 9 cards.

But there are elements to the game that offer a great challenge or some good fun. I like how the cards are all divided into three things. The first element is the cost, you need to be able to pay that coin cost to get it. The next is an instant effect. It might be that all cards of a certain type cost 1 less now. Or it might just get you coins or keys. Finally there is the scoring, and that is going to happen after all your grid is full. So you need to figure out how to optimize that scoring while still getting coins and keys to get more cards.

And I really like the key mechanism in the game. The keys either let you wipe the row of cards you are on. Or you can use the key to move you to the other row so you can buy from there. But, it won’t less you do both in one turn. I really like that challenge element of the game because I could wipe, but will I get something good. Or I could move, but maybe wiping will give me something better.

5. Let’s Go! To Japan

Let's Go! To Japan
Image Source: AEG

Next up is one that didn’t make my Top 100 Games because I hadn’t played it yet. But I really love Let’s Go! To Japan. This is a game about planning out your itinerary for going to Japan. And you need to plan out three things to do each day in Tokyo, Kyoto, or both.

Each day has a particular theme that it wants you to go for as well. It might be that you want to get food one day and go to a nature sight another day. That order changes for every game, but the different symbols remain the same. The fun thing is that you need those symbols to score your cards each day, well to score the one that you can see the end game scoring on anyways. So if you need food and it’s before the food day, you probably need to get some food in a less than optimal way.

It is also a good drafting game. I like how I get two cards, one Tokyo and one Kyoto. I pick one to add to my itinerary and give you the other, or person to my left or right. But not to use right away, to collect into a hand of cards that then you’ll pick from later in the game. So I can set you up with stuff you don’t want. Or I can just focus on what is best for me. But it’s a nice twist on drafting.

4. Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game

Mistborn Deckbuilding Game
Image Source: Brotherwise Games

Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game was one of my most anticipated games for 2024, and clearly it didn’t disappoint. I really enjoy this game and of course, I love the theme and I love deckbuilding. But those two elements aren’t enough for me automatically love the game. I think the solo/cooperative play helps it as well, though I really do enjoy it as a competitive game too.

There are two elements I want to talk about that I really like. The first is the burning of the metals. I love how they make that a thematic part of the game. Pewter is going to give you more attack and healing. Things that help you sooth emotions or rile them up could heal or get people to be generous and give you more money. But they are thematic and I like that you are limited in how many you can burn, so there is a good amount of strategy in your deckbuilding.

I also like that the game has a leveling track. Each player levels up once per turn. That gives you new abilities that make you more unique and powerful in the game. And it starts to let you burn more metals. I think that combination just works well so that what could be a longer game, can’t be as long because you start to ramp and get stronger. And soon you might be buying and using cards with Atium and doing a lot of damage or leveling to win the game.

3. Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

Rebel Princess
Image Source: Bezier Games

I never thought that I’d put Hearts on my top games list, but here it is, Hearts, albeit with shenanigans is my #3 game for 2024. I really like this one because it’s a familiar trick taking game. Instead of avoiding hearts and the queen of spades, you avoid the princes proposals and the frog prince and his proposal. That element is very much the same.

But it’s very different in a lot of other ways. You each have a princess and they have a power. You can use that power once per hand of cards. And then you, instead of passing left, right and then across, you pass however a flipped card tells you to. And that flipped card also has other things on it, like some special rules for that hand. It might be that the person furthest from the card that led the trick, numerically, is going to be the winner of that trick. It causes chaos but is so much fun.

2. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Slay the Spire Board Game
Image Source: Contention Games

The last two are ones that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples. First off we have Slay the Spire. I love the video game and the board game works just as well. In fact, it offers something that the video game can’t, you can play Slay the Spire: The Board Game multiplayer, and it’s amazing. In fact, I think I prefer it multiplayer, or maybe multihanded better than purely solo.

The game does a few things to make it work. While the core of climbing the tower, and adding cards to your deck, is the game, there are elements that are different. Firstly, it scales down the health and attack levels. I love this because it makes the math easier. Next you roll a die to determine the enemies attack and what relics that you have activate. This makes it simple as compared to keeping track that something goes off every seventh round or anything like that.

And I want to talk about multiplayer. Each player gets their own row of enemies that will damage them. But you are able to support your allies by attacking the enemies. So maybe mind are just playing defense for a round, that means that I can help wipe out your row of enemies and then you don’t have to worry about anything so you can go all out attacking. It’s a great addition to a great game.

1. The 7th Citadel

The 7th Citadel
Image Source: Serious Poulp Games

Finally, at #1, we have The 7th Citadel. I really love this game and it’s what I had wanted from The 7th Continent, though I do appreciate that open and very sandbox system in The 7th Continent. The 7th Citadel gives you that same sandbox to play in but gives you more specific and focused missions. I know that I need to find something southeast. I’m not sure where for sure, but I just know that I need to go southeast, and I really enjoy how that works.

But the game keeps some of the core elements to it that are great. I like that you still are spending cards from a deck. And while that deck isn’t your life and won’t just instantly kill you if the wrong thing is drawn, bit kind of is your life. You put cards back into the deck by spending hit points. So if I want to get 10 cards by in, that’s five of my life. And while the game isn’t always punishing you with combat and taking life that way, there are a ton of challenges that you need to deal with.

Final Thoughts

Like I said at the beginning, I’m annoyed I missed Rock Hard 1977. I really like that game, so it’s an honorable mention and probably would be in about the middle. And I look at my shelf and I see more 2024 games that I want to play. Bomb Busters is a big one as is Stamp Swap that I want to try.

It is always a good year for games. If you don’t find one that you love, it means that you either got caught up in the hype for some game or weren’t looking that hard. And I love that I can find amazing games all the time to try. I definitely want to spend more time playing 2024 games, and maybe late in 2025, I’ll look back again at 2024 and see what my Top 10 looks like then.

Let me know your favorite game from 2024?

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Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 30 through 21 https://nerdologists.com/2024/11/top-100-games-of-all-time-2024-edition-30-through-21/ https://nerdologists.com/2024/11/top-100-games-of-all-time-2024-edition-30-through-21/#comments Thu, 14 Nov 2024 16:22:11 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=9272 What games made it into 30 through 21 of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition? Join me on Malts and Meeples.

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The next round of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition is up on Malts and Meeples on YouTube. Checkout what games made the list and which ones are new, and which ones you maybe want to play. And you can join me every Wednesday at 9 PM central time for the next 10. And then two weeks after that, the week after Thanksgiving, for the finale of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition.

Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 30 through 21

30 – Hanamikoji

Hanamikoji Box
Image Source: EmperorS4
  • Published by EmperorS4 in 2013
  • Give gifts to win the favor of Geisha through tricky card play

This is one of my favorite if not my favorite two player only game. There are others on the list that I like at two a lot, but this probably my favorite pure two player game. In this one you want to win the favor of Geisha and you do that by giving them gifts. But it’s how you give them gifts that is so much fun. The four actions you take per round, and each them offers a good decision. Mainly because you don’t know what your opponent has, you don’t know what’s yet to be drawn, and of course you sometimes have to give the ultimate decision to your opponent.

Buy Hanamikoji

29 – For Northwood!

For Northwood
Image Source: Side Room Games
  • Published by Side Room Games in 2021
  • Try and win the favor of the woodlands rulers by taking the exact right number of tricks

This is a weird game. For Northwood! is a solo trick taking game. And that sounds like it shouldn’t work, but it really does. Mainly because of the powers and abilities and how all of those work. You play out eight hands and you need to win 0 to 7 tricks each time. But you need to decide how many tricks you’ll win before hand. So it’s using your powers and abilities to mitigate or push for winning those tricks and not getting too high or too low. If you can pull off all eight, that is going to be perfect win.

Currently Not Available But Could be through Gigamic.

28 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Arkham Horror LCG
Image Source: Fantasy Flight
  • Published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2016
  • Investigate, fight, and solve the mysteries around Arkham in a Lovecraftian story

This is a fun game in Fantasy Flight Games Arkham Files line, in fact it’s my favorite of them. I really like how they use deck building and just cads to create an immersive narrative and experience for a game. It’s fun to play through the story, use your deck, and try the best you can to not fail the checks that you’re given. And it’s also nice because it is a campaign, you play through multiple scenarios, but it’s not a long campaign, so you can pick and choose which short campaigns that they’ve put out for the game that you want to play through.

Buy Arkham Horror: The Card Game

27 – Star Wars: Unlimited

Star Wars Unlimited Twilight of the Replubic
Image Source: Fantasy Flight
  • Published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2024
  • Battle to beat your enemy by destroying their base with your dominance in space and on the ground

This is the only Trading Card Game to make the list. And you know I have some beef with Fantasy Flight and Asmodee around how they are handling sending out destroyed cards and basically saying it’s not their fault. But this isn’t for that.

Because, I love the game. The game is a ton of fun to play and I like the deck building for it too. It’s fun to always have a “commander” basically that helps determine what colors you should build it. And I like how the game play is simpler than that of Magic the Gathering. You never worry about running out of lands because your ability to play cards is just cards. Of course, it gives you a great decision as to which cards you put into play as resources or keep in your hand to play.

Buy Star Wars Unlimited

26 – PitchCar

Pitch Car
Image Source: Ferti
  • Published by Ferti in 1995
  • Race around the track and be the first to cross the finish line in this flicking dexterity game

PitchCar is just a fun game. I love how simple it is to teach and play and of course how fun it is to set-up a track and build something crazy, if you want. You want a loop, you can build that. You can add in a jump or you can go up a level and have more track go beneath. Of course you need a buy a bunch of it to do that, but it’s worth it to build more and crazier tracks. At the same time, it’s also fun just to have the basic track as well to play with. And it is a good game for all ages.

Currently Not Available

25 – Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition
Image Source: Stronghold Games
  • Published by Stronghold Games in 2021
  • Build up your card engine to be the most influential corporation in the terraforming of mars

This is fun card engine building game. You build out a tableau of cards that provide you resources, take actions, help you terraform. But there is more to the game than that. You need to pick what action you want to do, as do your opponents. You may pick the same one but whatever action you pick, you get a bonus doing that. But it isn’t just your action you take, you take your opponents action as well. So I love the strategy in what action do I take based off of what action I think my opponents will take. I might not get a discount or a bonus for doing it, but I do for the one I pick.

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

24 – Forest Shuffle

Forest Shuffle
Image Source: Lookout Games
  • Published by Lookout Games in 2023
  • Build up your forest and surround them with the nature that gives you the most points

This is such a pretty game. That is not the spot you’d thought I’d start most likely, but it is. And I like the game a lot for that, but also because it’s a really fun game. In Forest Shuffle you place out trees and then surround those trees with creatures and other plants to build out your forest. Each tree only is able to support a card per side, with a few exceptions. Every card you play is going to give you points in some way. I love it when a game is able to let you score points while still keeping the game simple, which Forest Shuffle does amazingly well.

Buy Forest Shuffle

23 – First Rat

First Rat
Image Source: Pegasus Spiele
  • Published by Pegasus Spiele in 2022
  • The moon is made of cheese, so as rats you want to collect items, build space ships, and get to space

The game has a great theme, let’s start there. I enjoy the theme of First Rat and I’m sure that it does help push it higher. But I also like the diversity in what you can do in the game. You might rush to get pieces and shoot one of your rats way up the board. Or you may collect points in other ways, unlock more rats and get them onto the board or push the lights further so when you start to collect resources you get more. And each way is going to give you a good way to win the game. So fun theme, not too complex, but lots of good decisions.

Buy First Rat

22 – Ready Set Bet

Ready Set Bet
Image Source: AEG
  • Published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) in 2022
  • Bid on a horse race in real time, can you make the right calls and win all the money?

This is a party game, kind of. I say kind of because it isn’t a party game in the traditional sense. Or what you think of a party game when you think of the mass market ones you find at Target or Wal-Mart. But Ready Set Bet is a fun, light betting game that is done in real time. I love this game for it’s stand-up moments. All the bets are down and all of a sudden the #2/3 horse is coming out of nowhere because you rolled it’s number twice and the race changes.

Buy Ready Set Bet

21 – Paper Dungeons

Paper Dungeons
Image Source: Alley Cat Games
  • Published by Alley Cat Games in 2020
  • Roll the dice, level up your heroes, and explore the dungeon in this roll and write game

I suspect that this is my highest rated roll and write game on the list. I don’t know of one that I’d have put higher. But I like this one because it gives you a lot to do but not too much. You need to balance leveling up characters, getting health potions, moving around the dungeon, crafting items, and being able to fight the various bosses to score points. That is a lot, but it really comes down to rolling some dice and deciding how to use two of the dice rolled. And then, if you figure out what to do well you combo into a whole lot more.

Buy Paper Dungeons

Upcoming Streams

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

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

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

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Star Wars Unlimited – Shadows of the Galaxy https://nerdologists.com/2024/07/star-wars-unlimited-shadows-of-the-galaxy/ https://nerdologists.com/2024/07/star-wars-unlimited-shadows-of-the-galaxy/#respond Tue, 16 Jul 2024 11:44:57 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=9034 Join with me as I look at the new Star Wars Unlimited set - Shadows of the Galaxy and open packs on Malts and Meeples YouTube.

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A new set has dropped for Star Wars Unlimited. We have the Shadows of the Galaxy with has stuff from Kylo and Rey to the Mandalorian TV show and the Han Solo movie. It is all over the place, but I got a couple of boxes coming and the first one arrived yesterday. So I thought, it’s a good time to open up the box and see what is in there. Join me as I take my first look at the new cards.

Initial Impressions on Shadows of the Galaxy

So, let’s talk a bit about Shadows of the Galaxy, the second set of Star Wars Unlimited that Fantasy Flight has put out. Because I like elements of it, but also don’t love other elements. And I know that my quibble is pretty minor. But I want to call it out.

Let’s start out with that quibble. Rightfully so, the first set is rebels versus empire. That is what people want, Darth Vader and Luke. And I like that a lot. But the second set, now, doesn’t continue that. I make mention that I got one more rebel card to use with my Leia and Han deck. And I wish that they’d built up those factions a bit more. Or given even just a few more nods to it in the set.

I get building multiple factions, and that is an element that I like. I love the new Bounty Hunter stuff and the bounty mechanism. So I think they were very smart with adding that in. It adds a very cool element to the game. But at the same time. It is a new faction with bounty hunters, smugglers, resistance, first order. All of them are new elements to the game which waters down the pool.

I assume that Fantasy Flight knows what they are doing. And with that assumption, I also assume that they will continue to flesh out those factions over the next few sets. It seems likely that they’d spend their time adding a bit new, but also revisiting what they’ve done before. If we get a new set two down the line with more rebels and empire, my concern is a moot point. And I think it will get there, but I hope it doesn’t take too long to revisit some of the iconic factions.

Upcoming Streams

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

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. I plan on playing a campaign game coming up. Right now I’m torn between two games. Well, more than that if you watched through the end of the video. And that is more of The 7th Citadel. I plan to keep playing through The Drums of Desolation for a while so join me for that.

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

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Star Wars Unlimited – Deck Construction https://nerdologists.com/2024/03/star-wars-unlimited-deck-construction/ https://nerdologists.com/2024/03/star-wars-unlimited-deck-construction/#respond Thu, 28 Mar 2024 11:29:25 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=8843 Join me on Malts and Meeples as I start to build Star Wars Unlimited decks and dive further into this new TCG from Fantasy Flight.

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I wrote up my review on the game yesterday. How good is Star Wars Unlimited? Is it going to be an TCG (trading card game) for you or for me, or not. You can read about that here. Last night on Malts and Meeples YouTube, I went through and did some deck construction and sorting of cards. That should give you an idea of if I liked Star Wars Unlimited or not.

How To Build A Star Wars Unlimited Deck

Let’s quickly review how deck building works. I talk about it some as I sort cards at the beginning bug if you want the simple rundown it goes as follows.

Leader and Base

You start by selecting your leader and your base. Right now most bases are the same, and I expect that to be the case going forward. They have no power on them, but they have 30 health. The big thing, as you start building, is that your leader and your base are going to give you three different symbols. This can be two colors on the leader and a separate or repeat on the base.

Color and Cards

Those colors don’t determine what you need to put in the deck, but they do make it cheaper. So I built a deck with green, black, and blue. Any of those symbols on a card I add make it cost the listed amount, however, if I’d put in another color, I can, but for each symbol I don’t have, it costs two more. So I should say less cheaper and more there isn’t raised price on them.

Then, as you pick cards to add to the deck, you can have up to three of each card in there. You need a deck that is 50 cards. It is worth noting that neither your leader or you base count towards that total. And, it is worth noting that not all cards work the same way when having three in the deck. There are some cards with a symbol by the name, those are similar to legendary cards in Magic the Gathering. I might have three of them in my deck, but only one can be in play at a time. If I play a second, I need to destroy one of the two.

Cost

And that is really about it. The deck construction is very simple for Star Wars Unlimited. I am not sure on what a great cost curve is for a deck of cards. The starter decks are probably going to be what I base it off of for the most part. But, as I built this deck, I found that I had about 1/5 of the cards that were above 5 cost. Or it might have been at 5 or above.

I expect that is going to maybe be a little bit low. Just with how you play out resources, being that they are cards that you could play, and having a way to get more into play, it seems likely that I might want more higher cost cards. But we’ll see, I need to sleeve it up and give it a whirl to see what happens.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well. And I might do more deck construction with Star Wars Unlimited on Mondays as well.

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. I plan on playing a campaign game coming up. Right now I’m torn between two games. Well, more than that if you watched through the end of the video. But 7th Citadel and Sleeping Gods – Distant Skies are right now at the top of my list. Which would you prefer to see?

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

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Star Wars Unlimited Pack Opening https://nerdologists.com/2024/03/star-wars-unlimited-pack-opening/ https://nerdologists.com/2024/03/star-wars-unlimited-pack-opening/#respond Tue, 12 Mar 2024 11:25:24 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=8815 The game is here, join me as I open up packs of Star Wars Unlimited over on the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel.

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I’ve waited since GenCon last year for Star Wars Unlimited to come out. Yesterday was my first time opening packs after it came out last weekend. Join me to see what I find. And let me know what you think of the look of the game. It’s time to break into some Star Wars Unlimited packs on the Malts and Meeples YouTube.

Thoughts on Star Wars Unlimited

I’m not going to put in too many thoughts here. Why, I already gave them, and I haven’t played it since then. But I will say, I’m excited to play it. And I’m excited to bust into my other box, like I said, possibly streaming it tonight. I want to see what other cards I get and to start building decks.

If you want to see my Star Wars Unlimited thoughts, you can do so here.

And I can’t do it justice at least compared to Rodney Smith and Watch It Played as how to play the game. If you want a good overview of all of that, checkout the video below.

Upcoming Streams

On Monday I stream at 9 PM Central. That is sometimes a bit hit or miss, but that’s the goal. And I do small solo game plays. The schedule is, right now, going to look like gaming every other Monday. A chance to see people in person came up for Monday and as much as I like streaming, it’s good to socialize as well.

On Wednesdays, well, I said that I plan to play at least a few more games of Mythwind. This is going to continue how I play my solo campaign games on the channel. The reason for that is with how many campaign games I can play solo, I want to try more. That is at 8 PM Central time for the campaign games.

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

Send an Email
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Beyond the Box Cover: One Piece TCG https://nerdologists.com/2023/11/beyond-the-box-cover-one-piece-tcg/ https://nerdologists.com/2023/11/beyond-the-box-cover-one-piece-tcg/#comments Wed, 15 Nov 2023 14:00:05 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=8510 It's not that new, but it's new to me, how is the One Piece TCG? Is it one that stacks up again with the other new TCG's out there?

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I’m not a big One Piece fan. That isn’t to say that I might not enjoy it, it is just something I haven’t jumped into yet. But I kept on seeing the boxes for the One Piece TCG starter decks at Target. And it kept on looking interesting to me. After playing Lorcana and that craze and demoing the Star Wars TCG coming from Fantasy Flight and of course the Magic the Gathering Universe Beyond sets for Lord of the Rings and Doctor Who, TCG’s are back on my radar. Where will the One Piece TCG land amongst them?

How to Play the One Piece TCG

If you know trading card games, you are going to know a lot of the basics of this game. Playing out creatures, them not being able to attack the round they come out, spending a resource for them. All of that is present in the One Piece TCG. But it is not just a clone of Magic the Gathering in all that it does. But the basics, plus getting your opponents life down, those do match what TCG’s are known for.

The basics of your turn go, refresh cards. So characters that attack and Don, your purchase power that you used all refresh. Then you draw a card and you draw and play two Don. Then you get to play out cards, attack with cards, and do what you want to do until you say that you’re done.

When attacking you pick your target. This is something we see in TCG’s more now like Lorcana and Star Wars Unlimited. You either attack a spent enemy card, one that attacked last turn, or their leader. The math on it is simple, if you hit with more or equal attack power you win and knock out your opponents character or knock down the leaders health by one. After the leaders health has been hit one more time than they had health cards, you win the game or lose.

Unique or Interesting Elements

One Piece Starter Deck
Image Source: Bandai

There are a few areas in the game that stand out that feel different from other TCG’s. I say different, I mean that loosely. It isn’t Magic the Gathering, but it’s close or offers an interesting decision space even if it isn’t always completely unique.

Don Cards

Let’s start with the Don cards. There are a few things that stand out to me about them. Firstly, you always get two into your resource area every turn. Well, I say every turn, there are ten that form your Don deck, so for your first five turns, six if you’re the starting player, you are adding to your Don. As compared to something like Magic the Gathering, One Piece really keeps you from drawing dead in terms of card play and mana by always adding Don cards.

The other thing with Don cards is that they offers boosts as well. Each one gives you +1000 to attack. So, like I said in game play, you need to meet or exceed your opponents health total. The Don are one way to take a weaker character who might never be targeted or attacked with and launch an attack. But it is +1000 for the turn, then it goes back to your pool of resources. And they are only value if you are the attacker.

Charging

Now, the Don cards with their +1000 are balanced by this idea of Charging. Charging is how the defending player is able to boost, or one of the ways, their characters power. Some of the cards, I believe only characters, in your hand will on the side of the card have a charging amount. To use that, you simply discard the card and you get a boost to the character who is being attacked.

I like this decision space in the game. While the Don are a resource that you can use over and over again to boost, charging is not. You use that card once and it goes to your discard. So two things are happening there, firstly, when do you just take an attack. Sometimes you might, even to your leader to save a card with Charge on it for later or to play into your line of characters. The other thing is, when you charge with it, it’s discarded and gone. So the new question is, do I want to play it or not. Two very solid decisions in the game.

Life and Triggers

Finally, I want to talk about life and how that works. I wrote down life and triggers because they tie together so closely, but we’re going to start with life. The leader you play with has a life amount. Generally from what I know thus far, it’s going to be in that five to six range, maybe down to four, but that’d be a powerful leader. So it is a small life pool that you are defending. If you hit your opponents leader six times successfully with an attack, in most cases that is enough to win.

But your life is cards from your deck. So when you build up your life pool, you take cards from your deck, not knowing what they are, and lay them out in the life area. So you might just have taken out some of your best cards from your deck, you don’t know. The cards that become your life are random.

Then, when you take damage, those cards are taken off the life total one card at a time. And this is another area I really like, you add them to your hand. When they go to your hand, they might have a trigger keyword on them. That gives you a special bonus, that you can sometimes use, when it is taken from the life pool. It might be dry an extra card, that’s nice. Or it might be, put this card into play and that is for free versus paying the cost. So it can be useful, at times, to take a damage and go fishing for card with a trigger on it.

Who Is This For?

It’s interesting, I think that Star Wars Unlimited and Lorcana are built more towards casual gamers. One Piece isn’t quite there with them. Mainly because there are triggers on cards that just add to the complexity. And because when it is my opponents turn, I need to pay attention. There are things like charging or events that I need to pay attention to.

On the other hand, it is also much easier than Magic the Gathering. There is no stack of actions that needs to be resolved. So it’s do an action, see if opponent responds and repeat that process through your turn. It’s a singular action and response system. So that makes it much easier.

Overall, though, this game is for fans of One Piece. The game play doesn’t stand out in the starter decks as being the most unique, but for a fan of One Piece, the trading card game is going to work better.

First Impressions of One Piece TCG

Generally, I feel like I want to play it more. The game and system are fun and they work smoothly enough. It’s not as smooth as Lorcana or Star Wars Unlimited, but it is more complex. That to me is the value that you get from playing a game like the One Piece TCG. There is more game there, at least in the starter decks.

And I do want to say, this is only in the starter decks that I’ve played for Lorcana, Star Wars Unlimited, and the One Piece TCG. But for a starter deck, it gave me enough of a feeling of the game to know that I enjoyed it. Deck building is simple, just cards that match your leaders color, so that is not going to be a major part of what you do. But it is just a solid setup where I do want to see a deck that has more cards with triggers or maybe fewer charges, different options or ways to play.

Overall, I like the game. And it is one that I shouldn’t collect more of. But I that ship has sailed. A box of cards is on it’s way. Though, my plan is that is it. I want to know more of what is the game and maybe do a little deck building and play like that. But if you are looking for a new TCG, and Lorana is too simple (and expensive) for you, One Piece is a nice step up.

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Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 90 through 81 https://nerdologists.com/2023/10/top-100-games-of-all-time-2023-edition-90-through-81/ https://nerdologists.com/2023/10/top-100-games-of-all-time-2023-edition-90-through-81/#comments Thu, 12 Oct 2023 12:54:16 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=8417 Join me for the second part of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. Which games make the list as some of my favorites?

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We’re back for the next part of my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. Three new games in this section of the list ranging from a TCG, a party game, and a card drafting game. See which games make the list by checking out the video from Malts and Meeples below. And I’ll put the list down as well in case you don’t have time for the whole video.

Catch up on my Top 100 Games (of all Time) 2023 Edition:

100 through 91

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 90 through 81

90. Galaxy Trucker

Galaxy Trucker is a fun fast paced game that you can’t take too seriously. It’s about building what you hope is a good space truck and getting across the galaxy, picking up goods, and well, hoping that your ship isn’t blown up by asteroids or pirates. Which, you can do, you can build a great ship. But the ship building is done in real time. So it is easy to mess up your ship and have half of it blown away because of a misplaced asteroid.

Normally I don’t love real time games. But Galaxy Trucker is not against a clock. Instead, you build as fast as you want, and the fastest player determines the speed. And, to add to it, that is only part of the game, the rest is seeing if your ship gets blown up. So the game gives you a breather between the real time elements which I think works well.

Buy Galaxy Trucker

89. Final Girl

Now we’re onto a horror film of a game with Final Girl. Final Girl is a solo only game about what it says it is, the final girl of a horror film. If you’re not familiar with this trope, most horror films end up with a final girl standing at the end of the film after all their friends have been killed. The question is, are they able to kill the bad guy (or deal with them) or will the get killed?

That is what Final Girl is all about. Can you manage your cards, rescue the characters that are not the final girl, and then deal with the bad guy at the end. Van Ryder Games has done a great job of giving you all sorts of films. There is a Hans the killer at a summer camp or you might be at a circus or dealing with a ghost. And they are adding even more with a third crowdfunding campaign going on now.

Buy Final Girl

88. Doodle Dash

Now we’re onto a party game, and I don’t have too many party games on the list. But Doodle Dash is one that I really like because it’s the type of party game I want for drawing. One where it doesn’t matter how good you are because, as the name suggests, sometimes speed matters more.

In Doodle Dash one person is the guesser. They want to guess the image as fast as possible or with as few clues as possible. Everyone else is drawers. And they draw as fast as they can. The first person grabs the first person marker, the second fastest starts rolling a die, and when that die hits stop, everyone else stops. And then in order, fastest, second, and everyone else, the pictures are revealed. More points the earlier on the guesser guesses it, but that is also the worst picture, possibly. So it’s a blast and one good for a lot of laughs.

Pre-order Doodle Dash

87. Calico

Going from something silly, we now have Calico, a game with a calico quilt on the front, not a calico cat, which is an abstract game about making quilts. Your goal is to get the most points by completing goals, matching colors to get buttons, and matching patterns (since cats are color blind or a number are) to get cats on your quilt.

This game looks all peaceful, but it’s a pretty intense game. You need to strategize well to complete the objectives. Because the objectives give you more points if you get both the color and the pattern to meet those objectives. It might be surround a spot with three of one type and three of another. But if you get three of one color and three of another, plus three of one pattern and three of another, that is how you get the most points. A tense game, but a fun one, and it’s pretty.

Buy Calico

86. The Night Cage

Another tense game, The Night Cage is a perfect Halloween game. You, and everyone else, wake up in a labyrinth with just a candle next to you. You know enough that you need to find keys and then all find a portal to get out. But the labyrinth is ever changing and there are monsters and your candle runs lower.

This is a game where as you move around the labyrinth you reveal new tiles, they might have keys, portals, just pathways, or monsters. And As you leave other locations your candle only lights up a space around you, so you lose the tiles before. You need to work together to get everyone a candle. But if you’re too close, the monsters might pop up and blow out someone’s candle, then they are moving blindly around until another player can relight their candle.

All of this is being done while the stack of tiles is getting shorter. There is no way to get tiles back, they represent your candles. And your candles are getting shorter and shorter. So as you watch that happen will you be able to escape The Night Cage?

Pre-order The Night Cage

85. Destinies

Another game that has some spooky elements is Destinies. A game where all the players are working against each other, but not getting in each others ways too much, to complete their destiny. Each of you know what you need to find, so can you figure out on the map where that might be.

Lucky Duck makes Destinies, and they have a great app for it which leads you through the story. And the story has some spooky elements and offers you conversations and challenges to do. And doing the challenges are simple. It’s rolling dice to see how many successes you get. But you can improve your stats as you succeed on checks and get XP to spend. So you can increase your odds. Plus you have extra dice you can roll, but they only come back so often. When do you want to push for that success or do you need to hold them back. An easy but fun story game.

Buy Destinies

84. Ascension: Deck Building Game

My favorite pure deck building game is Ascension. I know for most people it’ll be Dominion. But I like a few things better about Ascension. I like that you have a changing market, that means that I need to adapt to how I play. I can’t pick out a perfect strategy from the start.

Plus, I think that the combos in Ascension are better. You play with four different factions and all of them synergize a lot amongst themselves. So can you build up an engine that allows you to play a ton of cards and have epic turns. I think that is what stands out so much to me, when I get an epic turn, I can buy a lot and fight a lot of monsters which is why I like Ascension better.

Buy Ascension Deck Building Game

83. Canvas

Now we’re onto a game about making art. In Canvas you take art cards, that are clear, and layer them to create masterpieces. Really Canvas is a game about getting the right symbols at the bottom to score a lot of points, or get lot of ribbons that score you points. However, it does this with great artwork and fun pieces of art that you create. I almost like to see what cool art I can make more than get the points. But when you make a piece of art almost no matter what it is cool. Canvas is a fast and fun game for everyone.

Buy Canvas

82. Ecosystem

Next up we have Ecosystem the drafting game on the list. In Ecosystem you are building out, well, an ecosystem with animals and terrain types. Each of them scores differently. Wolves like to be in a pack, so the person with the most gets the most points on them. Rabbits teleport other tiles around, just like real life. But bear want honey and trout, trout want to be by the river.

And the game is fast. You draft a card and you add it to a 4 by 5 grid. That is all the area you have, so how can you pick cards that will optimize your scoring. But it’s also so simple that it’s not a stressful game. Once you have an idea of the scoring, and each player has a cheat sheet, the game goes quickly.

Buy Ecosystem

81. Star Wars: Unlimited

Finally, Star Wars: Unlimited, this game isn’t even out yet. But I got to play it twice at Gen Con and I really like this game. The Star Wars theme certainly helps. But for me, when I compare it and Lorcana to Magic the Gathering, this is the one that gave me more of a feel of being full of combos as you build out what you’re doing. The base decks only had some, but as they’ve revealed more cards, I see more possibilities.

However, like Lorcana it is built to be a whole lot faster. You play out a card or attack with a card on your turn. There aren’t really other options. It’s not do everything on a turn, and your opponent can’t really respond at all. So the game is straight forward and keeps moving fast. It’s something that I don’t always love about Magic, it takes a long time on the turn. Star Wars: Unlimited it’s a whole lot faster.

Coming in Q1 2024

Upcoming Streams

So, 8 PM Central next Wednesday the plan is continue with the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. It’ll be games 80 through 71. I don’t even remember what is on the list, so I can’t really tease it. Join me and see what makes it on the list, will there be new games? Will there be roll and write games? Is the first campaign game going to be part of that section?

And then the other time I stream during the week is Monday at 9 PM Central. Join me then as I play a solo game. I’m not sure what game I’ll be playing. Maybe more Trailblazers as I seek to break 50 points. Or it might be Number Drop. A roll and write game that I can play solo that I haven’t gotten to yet.

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

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Disney Lorcana – A Good Trading Card Game? https://nerdologists.com/2023/08/disney-lorcana-a-good-trading-card-game/ https://nerdologists.com/2023/08/disney-lorcana-a-good-trading-card-game/#comments Fri, 25 Aug 2023 14:25:32 +0000 https://nerdologists.com/?p=8308 Disney Lorcana is taking the world by storm, is it a good game though? It's certainly a talked about one but is it fun is my first question.

The post Disney Lorcana – A Good Trading Card Game? first appeared on Nerdologists.]]>
Let me start out by saying, this is a first impression of the trading card game Disney Lorcana. This is not, nor is it meant to be, a full review of the game because right now, I don’t own enough of the product to give you a review of the game. Disney Lorcana is out, but it’s barely out, and that might be a good spot to start talking about the game, after you know how it plays.

How To Play Disney Lorcana

Disney Lorcana is a multiplayer, though probably mainly two player, card game. In it you are trying to get to 20 lore before your opponent does. The first player to twenty lore wins the game, it’s as simple as that.

On your turn you do a few different things. Firstly, you draw a card and get the option to ink a card. This is to take a card from your hand with the cost circled on it, and put it face down in your inkwell. These ink cards then are turned and used to play out the other cards in your hand. And finally you can challenge your opponent or go questing for lore.

When you challenge your opponent in Lorcana, they each deal each other damage based off of their strength and can knock the other out if it matches or exceeds their willpower (defense). If they don’t, the damage persists on them until someone challenges them again. You only challenge if the opponents character quested or challenged last round. You also quest in the game. That uses a separate stat. You use that to move up on the lore track.

On your opponents turn you watch what they do and repeat the process. There is not reaction system that is used. It is just the first to twenty lore who wins.

Initial Rollout

So, I think the important part to talk about is the initial rollout of the game which we are in the midst of. Right now the game is out and it’s out to local game stores. The downside is that the amount of product released is low. So low that booster boxes are being sold either by stores or online at twice the value.

The nice thing is when you local game store isn’t marked up it isn’t a bad. And often stores use limits on how much you buy to keep the prices down. The issue is that speculatory buyers pick up product and then sell it on eBay or other locations are a much higher.

This is making the game hard to find and hard for those who want to be able to play the game to actually be able to play the game. All the product is gone from stores, and now it is a matter of waiting for the general retail release which will sell fast.

The Game Play

The game play is a lot of fun. But my experience is that I got starter decks. And the starter decks for Lorcana are not without their flaws. It is mainly a lot of common cards in the decks and it is not built for combinations to be pulled off. It is meant to be basic to give you an idea of how to play. For that reason, it is hard to give it a full review.

But what I like about the game is the simplicity of it all. I worry about my turn and less about your turn. I spend the ink I want and don’t need to spend any on your turn. It makes the game simpler which makes it accessible.

And the game play is very fast. I got through two games during a lunch at work, maybe twenty minutes per game. So if you want a game in that trading card space that is easy and fast to play, Lorcana is very good for that.

Disney Lorcana Box
Image Source: Ravensburger

What I Want to See More Of

Better Distribution

Firstly, I want to see more cards. September 1st it is getting a wider release and I hope to grab some cards. But if not, they’ll continue stocking cards at that point. This rollout plan while solid for the local game stores to get people in and sell cards, has created a weird scarcity and early collectability issue with the game.

Deck Construction

I also want to deck build. That is an element of the game that I think sounds interesting. It is simple in that you take any of the two colors and put them together. And you decide the ratio of cards. So you play with a sixty card deck and as long as you have a card of a color, you can build it with two colors. Each color seems to, but isn’t super well defined, in what they do better than other colors.

For me, this is very interesting because the starter decks, like I said, aren’t great. And I think it’ll raise my experience with the game to a higher level because it is more interactive in what you do. I don’t mean between players, I mean between the cards that you have.

Is It Played?

This one seems pretty obvious, but how does it grow? Is Lorcana a game that will be played? Right now it is a concern for me if it is a game that will be played. I am happy to see that local game stores are having events. I want to know how many people attend those events or not.

Lorcana is a collectable card game right now more than an actual game. This is not due to Lorcana not being a fun game, it is due to the rollout of it and it being Disney. It is bought more by collectors than it is people who want to play, at least that is my feeling. And if it is not played, it’ll stop being collectable and stop being a game.

Final Thoughts on Lorcana

Lorcana is, like I said, a fun game. I think it has the potential to be a better game as more comes out. But Ravensburger is smart with how they have put out the game in terms of complexity. Disney is a very accessible theme. And that means that as a game it should be one that anyone can play. And I think Lorcana is that, once it is available that is.

Right now I give Lorcana a 7 out of 10, a C+ to B- range in my normal grading system. It is a fun game, but it doesn’t standout to me. I think it could work into a B+ range with better decks. And I like deck construction in my TCG’s so, that is an element I want to play around with. I really think it is going to be a better game for me because of that.

How you been able to find and play Lorcana? Let me know your initial thoughts on it.

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