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Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – Top 10

10. Aeon’s End

• Published by Indie Boards & Cards in 2016
• Defend the town of Gravehold against a Nemesis and their minions by slinging spells around

To kick off the Top 10, let’s talk about one that has been in my Top 10 for a while and one that I have basically everything for. I’m guessing I’m missing a few promo cards, but Aeon’s End is one of my favorite deck building games.

This is a deck building game, tower defense, and boss battler all wrapped into one. The name of the game in this one is variety. There are other elements I like too, but variety is huge. Each mage is unique, each nemesis is unique and the market of cards that you create is unique. Everything about the game can be mixed and matched and give endless replayability. I also like that this is a cooperative game.

And, finally, I like this game best as a solo or two player. I know that it can play more, but with the turn system, it works better at lower counts. You draw to see whose turn it is. In the deck there are two nemesis cards, and one per player at four players, or two at two players. So you get these fun moments where it swings from the players getting four turns in a row to the nemesis getting three and now things look dangerous. It makes the game feel more exciting, it just works best at two players though because of that.

Buy Aeon’s End

9. Roll Player Adventures

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2021
• Explore the lands, beat monsters and complete skill challenges in a world that remembers what you did

Now to a really big game we have Roll Player Adventures. They took the Roll Player system, tweaked it and gave us a story and adventure game. And I think that it works really well as a game, clearly, as it’s my #9. Though, like Aeon’s End, I’ll give a caveat that difficulty changes based on player count, which, isn’t a bad thing, but it something worth noting.

In this game you play through chapters of an adventure. To do that you are fighting monsters, doing skill checks, and reading story. Whenever it’s a right or a skill check you are spending cards and resources, your health, in different stats to try and complete a dice puzzle. You need to get dice of certain colors and certain numbers into specific locations. But, the game is smart and it limits you in how much you can do that, and it is what they try and use to scale, but like I said, I think that it’s easier with more.

The story is also a lot of fun. There are games on my list that have a bigger and darker story. And I like dark stories, dark fantasy can be a lot of fun, but it’s also fun to have stories that are maybe a bit sillier at times. And, I will say, they manage to create a story where it feels like it matters and continues along with the choices that you make.

Buy Roll Player Adventures

8. Dice Throne

• Published by Dice Throne Inc. in 2018
• Fight in a Mortal Combat style tournament by chucking dice and leveling up attacks

My #8 is “Battle Yahtzee”. By that, I mean that it is Dice Throne. This is a game that is played either as a head to head battle or as king of the hill. You get a hero, or character, that you play as. And they have specific abilities that you can activate by rolling dice Yahtzee style. By that I mean you get three roles, you keep some dice each time, and you see what you get at the end.

But Dice Throne is more than just a lucky game. Yes, there is an element of luck with rolling the dice. But the game often comes down to how well you can mitigate that luck. If you manage to get off your ultimate attack, well there isn’t much your opponent can do, of course that does mean that you roll all sixes. That’s very unlikely to just happen. But with cards and your combat points you spend to play them, you are able to manipulate dice, turn them to different sides, or get rerolls to try and land those attacks.

Plus the game offers a ton of variety. The first set is more standard fantasy. But then you get into other characters like a Tactician or an Artificer who do different things. And I own the Marvel set and am waiting on the Marvel X-Men set to come as well. You pick your favorites to get, or if you’re like me, you get them all.

Buy Dice Throne

7. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

• Published by SunTzuGames in 2025
• Change the galaxy with a unlikely group of heroes in an epic sci-fi adventure

Now for a game that isn’t even out yet. Why do I have it on the list, because I have in my collection a prototype of the game. And I’ve even played it on Malts and Meeples. The game is basically set, through there are elements of the game that will change, but that’s mainly around components not around actual game play.

I love Rogue Angels. You know that by now because it’s on every list of Crowdfunding game that I’m waiting for. And yes, it will be again at the end of this year, most likely. This is another story, adventure, and combat game. And I really enjoy the story in it. I like having some campaign games that aren’t just another fantasy setting, and Rogue Angels gives you a good sci-fi setting. And I love how the combat, or mission element of the game works.

I want to say that this isn’t a game where every scenario is a go and beat someone up. No, this is a game where you might want to dive into combat. Or you might want to sneak through, and it all depends on the scenario. I love that for a game because I don’t always want to beat up the bad guys. And with how the game activates the bad guys, well, getting rid of the wrong bad guys at the wrong time just means you’ll be dealing with the other ones all the time.

Late Pledge Rogue Angels

6. Floriferous

• Published by Pencil First Games in 2021
• Create the best scoring group of flowers in this drafting game

Now we have the smallest game in my Top 10 list. But Floriferous was there last year and it is staying there again this year because I love what the game does. I enjoy a good drafting game, and I think that drafting makes sense in a lot of different games. But how Floriferous does it works for me because it combines drafting with building out your own scoring.

And the drafting itself is clever. You either draft a flower or you draft a scoring card from a column. The scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column, though, which matters for drafting the next column. Because the turn order for that next column is determined by the previous column you drafted from, aka, the higher you are up in the column the sooner you draft again. So yes, you need scoring cards, but that means you draft later next time.

I also want to call out drafting the scoring. I like it when a game does that because it offers a great decision point. When I draft, I might want that scoring card, but if you don’t have enough flowers, it won’t do much for me. And on the flip side, if I draft too many flowers I’m not going to be scoring anything.

Buy Floriferous

5. Slay the Spire

• Published by Contention Games in 2024
• Climb the spire, fight monsters and can you defeat them all in this cooperative deck building game

Next up is a new one to the list and it’s debuting all the way up at #5. Now it’s not the last new one to the list, there is one higher, though just barely higher. Slay the Spire is a video game that I love to play. In fact I’ve been on a kick of playing it recently. It’s a rogue like deck building game where you climb a tower.

The board game is the exact same thing. But it takes a solo video game experience and makes it multiplayer. In fact, while the solo is fun, I think that it’s even better two player or two handed. And I want to play it with more. Because you figure out a strategy of who wants to attack which enemies. Because each player has their own enemies that will attack them, but you can attack the other person’s enemies. So you might have more defense and handle it as well.

With all of that said, the game does change one thing. How some things activate is changed, so you’re not needing to keep track of “every seven turns” or “every three times you shuffle” but it makes it easy to keep track of. And they scale down everything. I like that because I don’t want to be keeping track of six enemies with 50 health each. So while the math is very much the same, the numbers are just lower.

Buy Slay the Spire

4. The 7th Citadel

• Published by Serious Poulp Games in 2024
• The Citadels are in ruins. How can you rebuild society and deal with the threats?

The other new to the list game and debuting at #4 is The 7th Citadel. I should have put it at #7 just to make it a bit more fitting. But I love this game and you can see me playing it for some sessions on Malts and Meeples YouTube.

This is an adventure game. These Citadels have fallen and now in a dangerous and post apocalyptic feeling world, though uniquely so, you need to survive. You play as leaders of a settlement has has formed out of the 7th Citadel. And now you need to deal with some threat that is coming.

The main mechanism is the same as The 7th Continent. You spend cards to try and complete checks, fight monsters, and deal with challenges. And the cards are going to be your life. Plus you are flipping over cards and exploring areas of the map and dealing with encounters that happen. But the game gives you more direction than the 7th Continent does as the threat gives you missions to go on as you build up your settlement for whatever that coming threat might be.

Late Pledge The 7th Citadel

3. Stars of Akarios

• Published by OOMM/Open Owl Studios in 2022
• Explore space, fight battles, and unravel the story of why you were attacked

This is the one that launched into the Top 10 last year and it’s sticking around. I love this game, clearly, but it’s another one of those big campaign games, and it’s one that’s set in space. But this game feels different than so many others. I don’t know why, but it gives me the feeling of stories like Ender’s Game and Space Dandy all wrapped into one with obvious nods to other sci-fi stories as well.

I really enjoy how they created a game that is split into three different element. The one, space exploration, is a bit weaker. There is some randomness to it, and I feel like I never found anything major on it. But I love the other two element. You get to have a 7th Citadel/7th Continent style exploration on planets. But instead of playing cards for checks you roll dice. And it’s a really fun time, but the biggest part of the game is space combat.

And I wasn’t sure how much I’d love the space combat. But I really enjoy it, it’s this great tactical puzzle as you use special abilities that you can only use so much. And then you spend dice to maneuver and you need to figure out how to even get into range to shoot the enemy and ideally in a flanking position. I love sitting there looking at the dice and trying to figure out how to make it work.

Late Pledge Stars of Akarios

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

• Published by Awaken Realms in 2019
• The lands are returning to Wyrdness, you’ve been sent out to help Avalon survive, if you can

Now or one of a few campaign games that I’ve completed, at #2 we have Tainted Grail. And this is the base game and the two expansion campaigns. I love them all. I need to play Kings of Ruin as well, but I’m not sure when I’ll get to that because of, well, my #1 on the list.

But this game, let’s start off with the highest praise, has the best writing of any board game I’ve ever played. The story that it tells is amazing and for that reason we did play in story mode to be able to experience as much of that story as possible. I’ll talk about why in a little bit. This is a grim dark game, but it manages not to dwell on the darkness to the point where it’s overbearing but creates this amazing fantastical and dangerous world to deal with.

And let’s talk about that story mode and why we played that way. One of the criticisms of the game is that it’s too hard. There is too much grind and too much survival. That is what the game was advertised as, so why people thought it was bad, and not just not for me, when they got what they knew they were going to get, I don’t know. But story mode makes it easier, but not too easy. So you do need to engage with that survival aspect of the game, but you can delve into the story more so. If you find the game, get it, and I do recommend playing on story mode.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven/Frosthaven

• Published by Cephalofair Games in 2022
• Battle monsters, explore lands, and build up the town in this epic campaign

Finally the number one stays the same. The #1 on the list is really Frosthaven, Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion. I don’t think it’s fair for them to be separate on the list. While Frosthaven does build on Gloomhaven and add in some elements like the town management, the core loop of the game is the same. I do think the added element of the town management would push it even a little bit higher than Gloomhaven for me though.

But the main part of the game is going into scenarios and trying to complete their objectives. This almost always includes killing some bad guys, and often times the win condition is kill all the enemies. Though in Frosthaven that is less often, though still the most common scenario goal.

The element that is the best about the game is the characters though. I love how every character is unique. And from the cards that you get to play, it feels that way. Sometimes you want to be that tanking character, or a fast damage dealer, or a support or healer character. And the games offer all of those.

And then the card play where you might want to go fast, so you can get in and out dealing damage quickly, or maybe you want to go slow to draw the enemies towards you, there is a lot of great strategy. I love picking cards, too, where I might plan to use the bottom and top halves in one way but then give myself the flexibility to change it. Needless to say, I love my #1 game.

Buy Frosthaven

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 be my 200 through 101 next week. After that I’m going to do some videos looking back on 2024. So expect to see my Top 10 Games of 2024 and probably Top 10 crowdfunding games I backed in 2024 as well.
• 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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124-101

100 – 76

75 – 51

Unplayed Board Games 50 – 26

50: Arboretum

This is an abstract game about planting trees. What interests me so much in this one is that you play out cards to build up your arboretum, and you score points for having trees go in ascending order. But in order to score a type of tree, you need it in your h and at the end of the game. So do you risk it that you might not get a tree of the type you need in order to complete a longer route and score more?

49: Call To Adventure: The Stormlight Archive

Call To Adventure comes in a few different flavors. There is the base game which is generic fantasy. That has an expansion for Patrick Rothfeuss Kingkiller Chronicles. And while I do like that series, I knew there was a Stormlight Archives version coming out, so I waited for it. I love the setting of the game, and I think a game where you are building up your characters story is cool.

48: 7 Wonders Duel

I got this one a while ago using store credit after a trade. And the game I think is going to be fun and probably better for me than 7 Wonders which I think is just okay. This does a lot of the same things, drafting, fighting, and science, but all in a two player package. And you can win by doing more than just getting points. Though, points are one way to win. Get one of each science card, you automatically win. Push the combat all the way to your side, automatically win. I like that a lot.

47: The Dragon Prince: Battlecharged

And now we’re back to another IP (intellectual property) that I really like. The Dragon Prince is a great show. And this is a two player battling game. You put together games of characters to face off against each other in battle. Looks some like Super Fantasy Brawl with card play determine a lot of what you do.

46: Paper Dungeons: A Dungeon Scrawler Game

It’s one of a couple roll and writes on this part of the list. Paper Dungeons as it says is a Dungeon Scrawler. So it is going to give you a bit of that dungeon crawling feeling all while being in a roll and write package. I hope that between it, Doodle Dungeons, Deadly Doodles (which I know I like) and Drawn to Adventure, I’ll have some fun adventure focused roll and writes.

45: Yggrasil Chronicles

This is a bigger box game, some of that though, is because it comes with a tree. One that you put together, and then it’s a cooperative game where you are trying to protect Yggdrasil, possibly, my knowledge of this one is limited. But the game looks like a lot of fun, and I know that the original is really challenging. Plus a giant 3d tree that rotates is cool.

44: Forgotten Waters

Forgotten Waters is a campaign game that I wish I played already. It’s gotten bumped down the list a little just because I’m playing more in person. But it was a good one that could be played via Zoom. In this game you are pirates on a crew working together through an adventure. There is voice acting for the story, and overall just seem like a fun time. And it uses the Crossroad card system from Dead of Winter that I love.

43: Mythic Battles: Pantheon

Definitely a big game here. I don’t have the whole Kickstarter, just the base game and Pandora’s box and that is a lot. It’s another one of those head to head battling games, like The Dragon Prince or Super Fantasy Brawl. This one is pitting Greek gods against each other. And what really intrigues me about this one is how you can pick up trees, as a god, and use them as a weapon. So the terrain is very much in play.

42: Catacombs & Castles

We go from an epic minis game to a one versus all dungeon battling game where you flick discs. And that is what intrigues me. I like dexterity games, and Catacombs & Castles seems like a lot of fun. It also seems a bit more complex, otherwise might be higher on the list. But I think if I learn the game it’ll be pretty easy and fast to teach.

41: Adventure Land

While I’ve gotten a lot of games based off of Sam Healey’s reviews on the Dice Tower, I have less based on Tom Vasel’s but Adventure Land is one. In this game you are taking out adventurers trying to get treasure. And they move across the board right and down. That means if a treasure shows up to the left or higher on the board, you might not be able to get it. So how to balance that out getting the best treasure, but still hanging back?

40: Space Base

This falls into that category of Foodies, Machi Koro, and My Farm Shop. A game where you roll dice and no matter what you get something. I like those games, and this is supposed to be the most gamer version of that. It gives you a lot to think about and you can build up some powerful combos while you try and get points. And you have more tracks to control and keep track of.

39: Chronicles of Crime

This is a deduction based game that I’m confident I’ll love. Chronicles of Crime, from Lucky Duck Games, uses an app that you can scan cards with to interrogate them and so you can actually look around the crime scene. The concept is cool and while the cases sound a bit less in depth than Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game, it might work better for some people because of that.

38: Fleet: The Dice Game

Roll and write game and actually dropped further down the list than I’d have guessed. Fleet is a game about building up your fishing fleet and scoring as many points as you can. I’ve heard that it’s great for combos, which I love in roll and write games. And it’s also more complex. I think that it is going I’m going to play solo pretty often.

37: Raiders of the North Sea

Possibly the highest true euro game on the list, Raiders of the North Sea has you building up your crew and taking them out to plunder lands. What intrigues me so much about this one is that your turn you put a meeple on, and take a meeple off. You can’t do the same one twice in a row, so it gives some interesting strategy to the game. And as you push out further and plunder, you lock some meeples to those locations, but get stronger ones back.

36: Horizon Zero Dawn

Based off of the Playstation video game, Horizon Zero Down doesn’t take you through the story of the game, but it puts you out on hunts against monsters. I’m excited to see how this game works, I really like the video game, but need to play it more. And I like the idea of just going out on a hunt, and it being a scenario and then done. It’s a bigger minis game, but not a campaign.

35: Reichbusters: Projekt Vril

Now we’re onto a campaign and Reichbusters is one that I picked up because it looked like so much fun when GloryHoundd YouTube Channel played it. And I think it’s going to be amazing. I need to get the errata cards taken care of, but sneaking into bases in WWII and finding all sorts of crazy experiments going on, it’s very Hellboy. And that theme is just fun, plus it’s not just kick down the door and shoot the board game.

34: Bloodborne

Another video game board game with Bloodborne. Another one that it is a bigger game but doesn’t play over a massively long campaign. I believe this one comes together over three different plays. Or it might just be that’s how the chapters, that are in the box, come out. Still, fantasy, fighting monsters and bad guys. Story going on, and from CMON, I suspect I’m going to enjoy this one.

33: Time of Legends: Joan of Arc

And another big box game. Time of Legends: Joan of Arc is almost a miniatures game more in the lines of a Warhammer where you takes two armies up against each other. But it does away with all that measuring. And it comes down to scenarios, there are characters, NPC’s, that you can interact with. And it’s time of legends because it takes the legends from the Joan of Arc time period and historical records, so it can add in dragons and things like that.

32: The 7th Continent

The 7th Continent has been on my shelf for a while. And I need to get it played before The 7th Citadel comes in, because I suspect I’m going to like that one better. In The 7th Continent, you wake up on a continent cursed, and need to explore and find a way to break your curse. I’ve heard that the first one is tough and takes a lot of time to play. Mainly so you learn the continent, but as you do the other ones, you have more of an idea of where to go.

31: Dinosaur Island: Rawr ‘n Write

The final roll and write for this list, and might be the final one overall. Dinosaur Island is a big game about building out a dinosaur park with a lot of euro mechanics. The Rawr ‘n Write is similar in that you’re building out a park. And you are trying to breed dinosaurs, it just does it in a roll and write version. So I’m very excited to give it a go. Supposed to be a heavier roll and write as well.

30: The Crew: Mission Deep Sea

The Crew is a cooperative trick taking game where you have limited communication. And while there is a space version, the Mission Deep Sea is supposed to help improve a few things. Mainly because you have missions, Mission Deep Sea makes them variable. The space one they are set. I like trick taking, and I need to play more of them.

29: Land vs Sea

Land vs Sea is a tile laying game where you are trying to complete areas of land or sea. But I care about completing land areas where as you care about sea. And the tiles are four sided, so having two in your hand gives you a lot of options. I wonder if this might replace Carcassonne when I play it. A tile laying game, but one that seems like it could be simpler.

28: Heroes of Land, Air & Sea

Now we’re back to a big game with Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea. This is a massive 4x game where you’re taking over lands, exploring new locations, fighting your opponents and building up your power. Twilight Imperium 4th Edition is a massive 4x game as well that I’d love to play set in space, but Heroes of Land, Air, & Sea just spoke to me as a 4x game I wanted to own.

27: Champions of Hara

Champions of Hara is a pretty big game, and one that seems like it will be quite unique. It seems unique because all the characters seem unique, and I like that about it. It has a fantasy feel to it, but it isn’t fantasy in the normal way. And I believe that you play the game in two parts. The first part is competitive. Then the second part, really second game, is cooperative where you work together to complete the winner of the first games story.

26: Floriferous

Final one for this part of the list is Floriferous. A set collection flower game, this one looks amazing. The artwork is great, and I like the mechanics, or how they sound. You basically draft cards from the columns. But as you draft, you place your pawn next to the spot. So the higher in the column, the next round, is going to go, then the next. Plus you are drafting scoring cards, great ways to get more points, but you’ll go last in the next round.

Final Thoughts

One more list of this, and then you’ll know about all the games i need to play. I actually had a game night this past weekend and I didn’t play any new to me games. I did have a few pulled out. But with the group, and player count, not all of them would have worked.

This part of the list also had a lot of big games in it. And while some of them might be harder to get to the table, even something that is more campaign like Reichbusters, you can play on off scenarios. So I should be able to get a number of them to the table. And some of the roll and writes, probably all of them, can be played solo.

Which one should I play first from this chunk of the list?

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This is going to be a list article, with all my unplayed games ranked. But before I dive into that, I want to talk about some of the terms that I just used. Mainly shelf of shame and shelf of opportunity. They are the same term phrased in different ways. Let’s dive into them and then the big list of games to play.

Shelf of Shame vs Shelf of Opportunity

This is a term that I’ve heard thrown around for a few years now. The idea that games on your shelf have this title. First off, I think this is kind of silly. Games that you haven’t played don’t have a special spot in existence. Now, maybe they do have a special spot on your shelf, but they aren’t held in any sort of light. They are just a board game.

But the first term I heard is Shelf of Shame. The idea behind this is that you feel bad since you haven’t played all your games. This is silly. I go back to my talk about collection versus a hobby. Know what you have on your shelf. For me, board games are a collection and a hobby. That means it’s fine to not get to every game quickly. They are part of my collection. But I play them, as they are part of my hobby as well, and hobbies get used or worked on.

Then came the term Shelf of Opportunity. Shelf of Shame is very negative, and opportunity sounds much better. But I, again, find this not much better. Yes, they are games that you play eventually. And yes, it spins it in a positive light. But both terms keep a focus on the fact the games aren’t played.

What Do I Call Them?

I call them what they are. Board games to be played. A board game is just an object. In labeling them either way, it places power on that object. Yes, one puts it in the light of a game being an opportunity for something new, and new exciting opportunities are good. But it leaves the pressure on actually playing the game.

Like I said, I play games. I buy games. Board Games are a collection and a hobby for me. I own games that might take a long time to get played. Campaign games where I play one at a time or two, and I am already playing two. Those wait for when I have time, and that is okay. I feel like the label places a cloud, no matter what label, over the games, and in the end of the day, games are just games.

If I never play a game in my collection and it collects dust for five years. I shouldn’t feel bad about leaving that opportunity out there. I most definitely shouldn’t feel shame. It is a game and I play games. So I play other games and not the game that is sitting there. I am still enjoying the hobby without playing every game I own.

So Why Write This Out?

I gave myself a challenge at the beginning of the year. Not because I feel guilt about games that I haven’t played. But because it is fun to play games. And I want to play games, I want to experience new games, and I want to cover new games.

For me, my challenge isn’t to get all the games off the shelf. It isn’t because I feel like I miss out on an opportunity. And I care not about shame from it. For me it’s about trying new things and almost making a game out of it. If I don’t make it by the end of the year, I don’t care. I play these for fun.

Unplayed Board Game List

Let’s Talk About the List

124 Games on it, and my goal is to get it down below 100 by the end of the year. You add in a bunch of Kickstarter games coming in, and you can see why it is a big list and also a challenge. And of course, then, there are campaign games on the list. If we look at campaign style games, I think we’re sitting at 14 on the list. And that is a lot of games to play through a campaign of, so that isn’t going to happen. Though, with Sleeping Gods coming off the list to start the year, it will some over on Malts and Meeples.

There are also some kids games on the list. Right now, I don’t think I will play those this year. Monza looks fun, but the toddler isn’t quite ready for it. But the toddler is also three, so who knows, maybe by the end of the year, we can play those games a bit more. But right now I’m not expecting to.

I also think it’s important to note that a lot of big games are at the top. Those are the ones that I’m most excited to play and cover. And some of them should be getting played soon. Probably after this weekend I’ll be lining up a time to get started playing Roll Player Adventures.

To go along with that, there are a lot of solo games as well. I could play, in the top 20, around 75% of them solo and some of them are solo only games. So I need to start knocking those out first, because they are high on my list. That won’t be how I get under 100, though.

Final Thoughts

I think that it is fine to challenge yourself to play your unplayed games. I think it is fine to limit how many unplayed games you own. When that becomes the focus or the obsession, I think that is when we start to lose the focus on what we are doing. Or when tie to it other emotions, like shame.

When I see people post about clearing their shelf of shame, I am sure it feels good for them. But on the flip side, in the comments, you see people feeling guilty about their unplayed games. I am not that way. I don’t feel guilt over that. And you shouldn’t either.

This is an odd article, I wanted to talk more about the games, and I will soon. But before I could do that, I think it is import to talk about the shame or guilt that can be thrown around in the hobby. Not always intentionally malicious but always harmful.

Also, let me know what game you think I need to try first. What is your favorite on the list that I have too low, or that you know I would like or should try?

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So let’s start with the two late backed honorable mentions:

Roll Player Adventures and Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor

Now, these two are only on the list because they were ones that I backed later. Roll Player Adventure because I picked up everything for Roll Player on Black Friday deals. Roll Player is a dice drafting game that has you building up a RPG character, basically. It’s like you’re making a D&D character, you just have specific stats that you are going for. Roll Player Adventures takes those characters and runs them through a story. It’s basically a dungeon crawl for the characters you roll up.

Uprising: Curse of the Last Emperor, is also a cooperative game, but a very different type of one. It is a 4X cooperative game, in a fantasy setting. 4X cooperative games really aren’t something that’s heard of that much. What also drew me to the game is that this could have been a $150-200 game with minis, but instead they went with standees which look amazing. Finally, it has two bad guys that everyone in this cooperative experience is trying to beat. You don’t win unless everyone has beat both of them, that gives it a really interesting cooperative experience. And the two bad guy AI’s will fight each other as well as the players.

Alright, let’s get onto the list.

10 – The Night Cage

This one has me excited because I mainly back campaign games, but this one gives me a tense game in a small package. Big campaign games are the ones that I’m not sure will show up at retail. This one I know will, but I wanted to support it because of the tension that it has. You, and your fellow players, are lost in an underground labyrinth that is always changing around you. You are looking for keys and a portal out but trying to avoid monsters who will snuff out your candle and make it even harder to move around. It’s a cooperative game and everyone needs a key and to get to the portal before the tiles run out.

9 – The Reckoners: Steelslayer

Another cooperative game and one of two expansions on the list. This is an expansion for the Reckoners board game based off of one of my favorite series by Brandon Sanderson. In this game you are rolling dice to determine your actions and then researching and battling Epics, think evil superheroes, as the team of The Reckoners, not superheroes just regular people. This brings in the last two books of the trilogy and makes the game play a little less brutal in some ways and possibly more brutal in others.

8 – Project L: Finesse

Project L was a game that I had glanced at but wasn’t that interested in until I saw the Dice Tower play through. First, let me say that the game has some amazing pieces in it. The dual layered cards where you are filling in shapes with basically what amounts to Tetris pieces is great. But what really drew me in is the light engine building nature of the game. You fill in a dual layer card you keep the pieces you used to fill it in and get more pieces, or you can trade up and get better pieces using an old piece. The game is fast but has interesting choices but doesn’t look hard to play.

7 – Crash Octopus

Now for something completely different we are going treasure hunting while trying to avoid an octopus. To add in even more fun to that, we are getting the treasure by flicking it so it hits our boats. This game comes from the same company that made Tokyo Highway so the game looks amazing, and I do really enjoy flicking games or dexterity games quite a lot, though I’m not always the best at them. This just looks like a fun time and a silly time, and people are generally up for a light silly game.

6 – Hel: The Last Saga

Now we’re getting into more of my “normal” kickstarter game, the big epic campaign games. Hel: The Last Saga from Mythic Games really interested me because of the Vikings theme. Then the game play itself was quite interesting in particular how the story unfolded. I like games where you don’t always know everything about the game and what’s going on in a given chapter until you are part way through the chapter. I also like the religion in this game, I believe it’s Norse, Christian, and Druidic, and the characters can pray to only their deity for a boon, which I find really unique in terms of game play.

5 – The 7th Citadel

The follow-up to The 7th Continent, The 7th Citadel takes what they learned from that game and improves upon it, in my opinion. It is still an exploration and adventure game, but this one has more of a story that seems to be running through it. It also has improved upon the death where yes, going through the cards still matters for how long you can survive, but you have a health pool to go along with those cards that dwindles down over time. I like the idea of this game even more than The 7th Continent, because of the story that it tells and how that seems more straight forward in some ways, versus puzzling out how to solve a curse.

4 – Cartographers Heroes

A small box game, though I did get the big box. Cartographers Heroes is the follow-up to Cartographers a flip and write game that I like a lot. This adds in heroes that can help you defeat monsters. But beyond that it adds in new monsters that do interesting things and with the big box for it, that comes with three new maps that all work in interesting ways. Normally you can put your shapes anywhere, in those they limit you and give you restrictions on how to build. And it comes with colored pencils which is important for making it look pretty.

3 – Nemesis Lockdown

Now, I actually didn’t get Nemesis Lockdown, so why is it on my list? I got Nemesis instead. Lockdown is the planetary base version of Nemesis, which is a game where you are fighting off aliens who are trying to overrun your ship and get your ship back to earth. However, each player has their own secret objective as well. So it’s a semi-cooperative game, but one that works really well from what I’ve heard. Mainly because it isn’t like Dead of Winter where you’ll hold back something that could end up tanking the whole scenario for everyone. You more have a goal that you are trying to do, and it might be that crew member X doesn’t make it, but you can’t push them out the airlock.

2 – Marvel United

This was the first big Kickstarter I backed last year, and I’m really glad that I did, it’s also the only one to have delivered anything this past year. Marvel United is a card playing cooperative game where players battle a villain. I like how simple this game is for a cooperative experience. It’ll be one I can play with my kid when he gets a bit older. But I also like that it gives you a superhero team-up feel. I, on my turn, get to take my action as well as those of the previous card, so if someone plays down two punches, and I put down two punches, I can punch four times. Plus there are cute chibi miniatures in the game for the heroes and the villains. I’ll be backing more of this in 2021 as they come out with the X-Men.

1 – Frosthaven

Finally, no shock, Frosthaven is my #1. I am going to be really curious to see if I like Gloomhaven or Frosthaven better when I’ve played both. I think that it seems like Frosthaven will have improved upon a few things, and it adds in city building. But anything more with that dungeon crawl feeling and that great card play, I’ll be really happy. I also think that the starting characters sound really really interesting, so I’m excited for it when it comes out, most likely this next year.

That’s my Top 10 Kickstarters that I backed. How about you, what are your favorite Kickstarters that you’ve backed this past year? Are there any that you are waiting on from longer ago than that?

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So let’s start with the numbers and get those out of the way, it’s probably going to be one of the shorter sections, though I might combine a few numbers, like P and Q together because I’m guessing I don’t have a ton of Q’s.

7 Wonders Duel (And Pantheon)

This is the two player version, the way it should be done of 7 Wonders, in fact, 7 Wonders no longer lists itself as a 2-7 player game, but a 3-7 player game, because the 2 player game in the original 7 Wonders wasn’t that good. In this one you are still drafting cards, but you are doing so from a layout of cards on the table, as you draft cards, you unlock other cards to be drafted which you can then put in and will help you build your wonders and score points. The differences aren’t a ton, besides the layout of cards to draft from versus a hand of cards, but there are two main ones. If someone gets every different type of science card, they win the game. If someone gets enough military power, they win the game. Otherwise, it comes down to points at the end of the game. I like how that little twist is pretty clever because it means that you can’t ignore military completely and you can’t ignore science completely, which is a bad plan anyways.

Status: To Be Played

The 7th Continent

This is a massive adventure, exploration game where you wake up on the 7th Continent and you are cursed. You need to go around and deal with the story elements that you find on the land in order to break the curse. This game takes up a lot of table space and has an okay written rule book. It, like the one above, is one that I need to play. I have messed around with it a little bit, but I haven’t dove into the game play fully. It has an interesting mechanic where you are pushing your way through what could be considered a health deck trying to get successes to complete challenges, but if you hit a curse, it resets it, and you hit it a second time you are dead. So you need to balance that push your luck and hope to find everything you need. But to solve the curses you are always exploring the same continent. From what I’ve heard, the first curse should be played or attempted a couple of times, and it’s very long, because it tries to get you around the whole continent. And even if you don’t beat that first one, then move onto the shorter ones.

Status: To Be Played

8-Bit Box

This is another too be played, I’m so bad at this right now. I picked this one up because the concept is such an interesting idea. This game basically gives you four different games. They are all kind of based off of 8-bit video games that you’d find on a Sega System or NES or SNES. The game components are used across all of them, with just some specific components for each game. It’s a clever idea that seems like it’ll bring some nostalgia when you play it, but it’s also clever because of how it manages to reuse so many of the pieces. There is an expansion for it as well, but I want to play what’s in the main box before I get the expansion and get more games for the system.

Status: To Be Played

Which one should I get to the table first, I’m thinking 7th Continent, but I could probably get 7 Wonders Duel easily to the table as well? What is your favorite of the games on the list?

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Nemesis

This was one of the first games by Awaken Realms that I took note of. I didn’t actually back it the first time around, so I’m waiting on my copy from the second Kickstarter for it. Plus, this one is available in retail now, still might be tricky to find. This is a semi-cooperative game where each person has their own secret objective. In the game you are trying to survive an alien incursion onto your space ship, kill them off, and pilot back to earth. But of course, the aliens are out to get you and the engines and navigation are off-line. Plus, you might not want to end up on Earth, but to go to another planet instead, or you might have a rivalry with another character, so you won’t kill them, but you won’t help them in an alien flight. This game looks beautiful on the table with all of it’s minis and the game play is good as well.

Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Another game by Awaken Realms, this one you’ll be able to find on the secondary market only, as I’m not 100% sure it’ll ever come to retail. But this is an epic campaign/adventure game in a wyrdness filled lands of Avalon, where the Menhir that King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table lit in the time of legends are starting to go out. A group was sent out from your town to explore and try and find somewhere or someone who could help in the lands, but they’ve been gone a long time. Now you and you and a few others in your town are being sent out to find them as the wyrdness and the tainted creatures start to come closer to the town. Can you survive? This game has a great story and is extremely hard as you push through it, trying to figure out how to survive, when to fight the monsters, when to run away, when to push into exhaustion and when to stop and rest. Overall, an amazing game, but like I said, it’s going to be harder to find.

Folklore: The Affliction

Maybe you want something that is a bit more standard fantasy, this game of ghosts, werewolves, and vampires, is definitely that, and definitely more D&D like. Greenbrier Games has created a DM less RPG type game, with set piece battles, travel and exploration and story that you can unfold as you go. This one is for that person in your life who is a bit more of a crunchy gamer as this really does straddle that line of being Dungeons and Dragons like with the dice you roll for attacks and damage. This one definitely has some challenge and survival to it, but as compared to Tainted Grail the difficulty level is easier and the story while dark is less dark. This one also doesn’t have the minis, though you could get them, and same with Tainted Grail actually, not that many minis. This one is also available via Greenbrier’s site, so one that you can get, it also might be available in some retail locations. There are a lot of small add-ons you can get as well for it, or big ones, such as minis.

T.I.M.E. Stories

This one is kind of a campaign game, but not really. In this game you are going through different scenarios in time and a multiverse, almost like an escape room. You are trying to figure out puzzles, deal with threats that come up, and interact with characters. You’re doing this as you race against the clock. Granted, only your consciousness is being sent back in time, into another body, so you can always try again. I know that some of the scenarios (and there is theoretically a campaign throughout, but not really) aren’t as good, but the four that I’ve played thus far have been a ton of fun. The puzzles are engaging, and while it can be a bit slow playing through part of the game that you’ve played before, it gives you a chance to checkout new parts of the story and world and decide what direction you want to go. I know that I always loved to delve possibly further in that I should have to see what I could find. Overall, a really cool game that has a lot of interesting scenarios.

The 7th Continent

This one has two different versions, there is a Kickstarter version that might be fairly hard to find, though I’ve started to see more show up on the secondary market, and there is a retail version. Both are going to be good, the retail version is just going to have some less content. In this game you awaken on the 7th Continent, an interesting land, knowing that you’ve been cursed. You then have to utilize cards, push your luck and explore the lands. Basically no minis in this game, but what is really interesting, and Tainted Grail does a similar thing, is what you explore the map as you go, and each curse might drop you into a different part of the map, but you’ll know what might be off in one direction if you head that way in future plays of the game. The first curse, for that reason, is extremely expansive and takes you all over the map and can take a very long time while ones after that are a bit more focused, so I will say, if you get this one or give this one, if the first curse is taking forever and you’ve sunk what you feel like is enough time into it, move onto the next one.

Now, i could go on further. Pandemic Legacy (any of the seasons) and Gloomhaven are two that I’ve talked about before that would certainly be epic games. Clank! Legacy, Aeon’s End Legacy, Reichbusters, deep Madness, Apocrypha, Dragonfire, Blood Rage, Zombicide, Mansions of Madness, Marvel Champions, Sword & Sorcery. All of these games have an epic feel to them at times and in their own way. So if none of the ones I’ve mentioned sound that interesting, you can spend some time going through those to see as well what might work best for yourself or who you’re giving the gift to.

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