Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Welcome To…

Published By: Blue Cocker Games
Designer: Benoit Turpin

Buy Welcome To

This one is a classic roll and write style game. I really like the decision space for Welcome To… of deciding what goals to go after and what combination of cards to write down on your board. The three choices of number and bonus works really well and has been fun in other games in the system, but the classic Welcome To is the best still.

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

Published By: Repos Productions
Designers: Antoine Bauze and Bruno Cathala

Buy The Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth

Now, I like this and 7 Wonders Duel very similarly, but only one is staying in my collection and that is going to be the Lord of the Rings one. But both do similar things and are great games. This one, I find, cleans up some things like no end game scoring. And while I find the end game without the win in one of the three game ends if you get them situations isn’t 100% satisfying, going for those other goals is great. And they most of the time do pull of the win with them whether that’s getting the ring to Mordor or getting support from the various groups.

48. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Published By: Days of Wonder
Designers: Asger Harding Granerud and Daniel Skjold Pederson

Buy Heat: Pedal to the Metal

Not my favorite racing game, but Heat: Pedal to the Metal is up there. I really like how the game works pretty quickly, so it has that racing feel, but you still make a lot of meaningful decisions in it. Heat is all about managing the heat on your engine so that you can push the corners at the right time. But the more heat you get, the more it clogs up your hand and then you need to back off and let the engine cool down. It’s just a clever and enjoyable system that’s easy enough to teach and gives you a great racing feel.

47. Ohanami

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Steffan Benndorf

Buy Ohanami

Ohanami and the next game on the list are the two smallest ones. Ohanami is a great game for pulling out and playing a round or two of when you want a simple game to play. But it offers some fun with the twist that it provides on scoring and how you need to set-up the cards into the columns as you draft them. The drafting and adding always needing to be higher or lower than the top or bottom card in a column, at least if you want to play them, is fun as well. It’s not that common for someone to be stuck without something to play, but if you make that happen it’s fun.

46. Mind Up!

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Maxime Rambourg

Buy Mind Up!

Mind Up! is another one of those games that just really works for me. There is so much luck in the game as you try and get the cards that you want, it kind of feels like it shouldn’t work. But at the same time, you always have a decision to make that matters and just enough knowledge. The fact that the order of the cards and how you want to fill in to get points changes each round while the cards in your hand don’t as much is a really fun system. Because, yes, I am guessing what is going to work to get the card I wanted, but I might remember a little what you have.

45. Schadenfreude

Published By: Studio Turbine
Designer: ctr

Buy Schadenfreude

I guess Schadenfreude is the third small game on the list. But it’s a pretty different game because it’s a trick taking game and it’s a trick taking game that does some really interesting things. Mainly it’s about not flying too close to the sun and getting burned as you try and get points. You get points and lose points based off of what is played into the trick that doesn’t match your suit. The other piece is you want to get as close as you can to 40 points. If you go over and everyone who goes over, that causes you to lose. But someone has to because that determines the end of the game.

44. The Great Split

Published By: Horrible Guild
Designers: Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva

Buy The Great Split

I like the mechanisms of “I split, you choose” in games, one of my favorite two player games has that in it. And The Great Split is primarily that in a game. Each round you are splitting up your hand of cards and then your opponent on the left picks one of them. You are doing that at the same time with the cards passed to you. Everyone is trying to optimize the contracts that they are getting the points from the various arts they are getting. But at it’s heart, the game is “I split, you choose” and it just works.

43. ICECOOL

Published By: Brain Games
Designer: Brian Gomez

Buy ICECOOL

Two dexterity games in a row and my two favorite dexterity games. First is ICECOOL, this is a game that was around my Top 10 for a long time because it’s just a simple but fun game. It’s been passed as my favorite by the other because that one has more customization.

ICECOOL is all about either being a penguin sneaking out of class to get fish or the hall monitor who is trying to catch them. The flicking works well and the ability to jump the penguin over walls is fun, assuming you don’t jump too far. Plus the box set-up and how it comes together is really fast and fun.

42. PitchCar

Published By: Ferti
Designer: Jean du Poel

Pre-Order PitchCar

PitchCar is the other dexterity game of the two and the one that I like just little bit better. PitchCar is another racing game as well,. This one is about flicking race cars, discs, around a track and being the first to cross the finish. It’s another game that is very simple to play but so fun. And this one gets the nod because of the track and how you make as hard or easy a track as you want. Do you want a loop or an overpass, you can do that, or you can just play with straightaways and some turns if you want the game to be faster.

41. Metal Gear Solid

Published By: CMON Global Lmtd
Designer: Emerson Matsuuchi

Buy Metal Gear Solid

Finally we have Metal Gear Solid a game that took a while to come out, but that is so worth it. Metal Gear Solid is a cooperative game where you want to sneak around as much as go in guns blazing. And that element is a blast for the game because it makes it feel different than a lot of games with minis. I like that the game also has a campaign, which I need to play, and one off scenarios that you can try and complete. And to add to that, while the enemy movement takes a moment to understand, the player turns are streamlined really well.

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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10 Played Games for My Gaming Day

10. Pirates of Marcaibo

I love this one on BGA. I want to play it in person and see how that goes. It’s a bit more of a rules teach, but it shouldn’t be too bad to get played. And I think once the game gets going it moves fast. Plus fun theme and easy sell.

9. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a game I love. I own everything for it. So I want to get it in the big box and try out the new tracks in the game and see how everything works together.

8. Mistborn

Another one where I really like the game and it’s been a while since I’ve played it. That is going to be the case for a lot of the games. I think the people who are invited thus far are going to enjoy a game like this as well.

7. The Great Split

See above, really. But after playing New York Slice for the first time it made me realize that I just want to play The Great Split because that game is a brilliant I split and you choose game.

6. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Yet another one where I just want to play it again. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is a great engine building game and good for a longer game day. Like Lost Ruins of Arnak, though, I need to get it sorted out.

5. Strike

I play this one a lot. It’s on the list because it’d be a great group game there. Plus it’s a good filler/take a break from bigger games game.

4. Can’t Stop

The same can be said for Can’t Stop. Though Can’t Stop can’t support as many people. But it works well and it’s an easy one to teach and play. A good filler for when maybe one group finished before another.

3. Trekking Through Time

I’ve played this one two players and I really enjoy it two players. I want to try it with more because it’s just a fun game. It’s also a simple one to learn and play.

2. Skyrockets

You might not even know I played this game. And it is kind of a cheat to be on this part of the list. Played it two years ago at Gen Con when it was still a prototype at the Floodgate Games event. But it’s a fun real time game, so I want to play it again.

1. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

I love this game. It isn’t the easiest I think to learn. But once you wrap your head around it, it’s pretty simple to play. And it is a good game because it plays a lot.

10 Un-Played Games for My Gaming Day

10. The Gang

Now we’re in the new games. This is a cooperative poker game, so I want to give it a whirl. Plus I know it plays at higher player counts so a good one for the list.

9. Critter Kitchen

Critter Kitchen has just been sitting there waiting to get played. I want to take it a lot and see if I can get it played, but I need to open and sort it for that to happen. And it is one I probably need to learn to take along.

8. Maple Valley

Maple Valley is the follow-up to Creature Comforts. I like Creature Comforts as a good simple worker placement game. I am curious to see what Maple Valley does. They are very different games, but same great artwork and in the “same world”.

7. Ruins

Ruins is one that people were talking about going into Gen Con. It is a reworking of Custom Heroes. It is a card shedding game where you upgrade cards throughout the rounds. So I am curious to know how that system is going to work.

6. Ito

Ito is going to be one of the bigger games or party games on the list. I want to learn this one and it seem easy to play. From what I know of it, it is a good ice breaker game as well. Or maybe more of an ice breaker than an actual game.

5. Emberleaf

Emberleaf is the card dancing game. Basically a game where you play cards into a grid and then you activate the grid. The cards then move in that grid, some dropping out, others activating various affects. I like the sound of the game and great cute artwork.

4. Ghosts of Christmas

First of three trick taking games. Ghosts of Christmas sounds like a brain burner of a trick taking game where you play three tricks at once. And depending on how the previous trick goes that determines the led suit for the next one. With a Christmas Carol theme, how will it work for the past, present, and future tricks.

3. The Six of VIII

The Six of VIII is going to be a fun one to try as well. It’s about the six wives of Henry the VIII. And each trick the trump suit is going to be one of the wives. But it is more than that because how long a wife was alive is going to impact how many rounds that suit is trump. I like how thematic they managed to make a trick taking game.

2. Tricky Kids

Now, Tricky Kids is a new game as well. I would have put both Tricky Kids and Cat in the Box on the list, but I’m playing Cat in the Box on BGA right now. It is very possible that Cat in the Box will come along as well. But Tricky Kids is trick taking game where the cards don’t have a value on them. So you need to set the value, but you only have 21 points to allocate over 7 cards.

1. Expeditions

Finally, let’s go with something different and big with Expeditions from Stonemaier games. I like the idea of trying this one in a bigger group, or maybe not with everyone but with some. And I believe that one person in the group owns it and has played it before. It is nice to bring along games like that so that I don’t need to learn the rules. Or more so, so that no one needs to learn the rules because I’m not going to learn them all.

Final Thoughts

Now that is a lot of games to bring along. And I know that all of them won’t make it, but I plan on bringing a big mess of games. There are other smaller games too that are going to be stuck in because they are smaller games. So stuff like Flip 7 or Push are really likely to come along. New games like First-Class Letters and Trinket Trove (as I want to play that one with more) will come along. But this is a good list for me to start planning on what to bring. But it sounds like a good gaming day to me.

If you were to do a full gaming day, what games are you going to take off of the shelf?

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Top 10 “It’s Been Too Long” Board Games

10. Xenoshyft

This one might be surprisingly low for some people. You know that I like this game a lot. But it’s low because I have played it a bunch. So while I haven’t played this deck building tower defense game recently, it’s one that I have played.

In this game you are cooperating with others to defend your base against alien bug attacks. You do this by creating a line of troops with armor and weapons to defend your sector of the base. Each player is going to defend their sector of the base, but you can help your teammates by giving them troops if you have too many and they don’t have enough. Or using items like grenades to blow up alien monsters or medpacs to heal them. I love how cooperative this game is, and challenging. Which makes me come back to it again and again.

9. Paper Dungeon

This is another game that I really love. But it’s lower on the list against because I’ve played it a bunch. But this is a dungeon crawler game that is a roll and write. You are exploring a dungeon, fighting monsters, finding bosses and trying to deal with those, all while leveling up your heroes and crafting items and health potions.

This is a roll and write game so the theme only comes through so much. But it’s really fun because there is a lot to do in the game. And this is one that I actually played through the whole “campaign” for it on Malts and Meeples YouTube. So you can checkout that video below. But the combinations just work so great that I really love this game, and I have an expansion for it that I need to get played.

8. Ship Shape

This is a funny little game but it’s been too long since I played it. It’s all about being the best pirate and not having too much contraband, but also getting that treasure as well. The main thing that sets this apart from other games, and puts it onto the list, is that you are bidding for what you want, but you can’t see everything you might need to know.

The game has you stacking tiles onto your cargo hold. Each tile is going to cover up certain parts of the hold. Now, all the tiles are stacked on top of each other as you bid, as well. So if you want the top tile you need to bid the highest number. But you can see some down the stack to know what might be on some of the lower tiles and if they might fit your hold better. But it’s unlikely that you can see everything, so do you risk it and bid lower. Of course, it all depends on what the other players bid as well to see if you get what you want or not.

7. Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition

This one falls into that category of I’ve played it a number of times. So do I need to play it again as much as some, probably not. But when it comes to engine building games, Ares Expedition is a great game. And I know that I have new content for cooperative and solo play to add to the game. As well as objectives to add to the game as well, if I want, so there is new stuff.

But I really love how Ares Expedition works. In this game every player is going to choose an action to do that round, and you choose it in secret. Then you reveal and you do the actions a particular order so it is building first and drawing cards, I believe at the end. Everyone plays every action that someone picked. But on the action that you picked, you get a bonus. And it’s possible that multiple people, or everyone, might pick the same action. So one round it might only be one action, which is interesting.

The game is then about building out an engine to gain points. You do this by terraforming Mars as well as getting points from cards as you build out that engine. The game is not super short, though, I’ve heard, shorter than Terraforming Mars. And it’s so much fun to play that I don’t mind it being a longer play.

6. Trailblazers

There are a few games on the list that I’m not sure why I haven’t played them recently Trailblazers is one of them. The big reason right now is that I don’t know where it is in my game collection. I know I own it. I know that I like it. But where is it, I’m not sure.

In this game you complete three different types of routes as you are out hiking, biking, or kayaking. Each of them creates a loop from the trailhead back to the start. You do this by drafting cards and playing them out. You draft over four rounds. And on the first round you only have one of the three trailheads out in play. Then the next round you add another and so on until the final round all of them are out. This helps you focus your building efforts a bit more.

But it’s fun because you gain points for all the sections of a trail. And sometimes a trail can cross itself and that gives you more points, or be crossed by another trail for more points. The game is simple and easy to play. And it’s not one that I find too stressful to play which is nice as well.

5. Calico

I’m not sure why Calico hasn’t been played in about two years. I really like Calico, though, I need to play Cascadia. The theme for Calico, for me, works better than Cascadia. We might have three cats in our house.

But this is a great tile placement game and I love the pattern matching element to the game. I think that the game is so much fun as you try and get matching colors together, matching patterns together, as well as the objectives that you set for yourself. And getting points for matching patterns to get cats, or colors to get buttons is fun.

The objectives are where the real puzzle and tension of the game comes into play. It might be something like AAA BBB and another one might be A BB CCC. You read those, first one as the example, as three of one color or pattern and three of another color or pattern surrounding that scoring objective. But if you can manage to get three of two colors and three of two patterns between those two colors, you score more points. So there are lots of ways to score points but it’s a really good tight puzzle of a game.

4. Chronicles of Drunagor

This is the only big campaign game on the list. I certainly could add more games like Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon, but I have completed that game. With Chronicles of Drunagor, I played one session and that is it. So I want to play more of the game because I really enjoyed that one play. The issue, I found, is that it wasn’t great for streaming. I want to stream big campaign games maybe for a couple of hours. But because of how Drunagor works, with setting stuff up often mid game, it made it harder. But I think I can play it in shorter bursts, especially if I leave it set-up.

I really like the core mechanism(s) to the game. Firstly there is darkness. Darkness is a negative for the players. So you need to keep ahead of it. I like that it is an element that you use as a timer for the game. It means you can’t sit back too long and heal up or anything like that.

The other thing is the activation cubes. Each character starts out with some cubes of various colors. You use that color to activate that color of action. Then you cover it up. You aren’t able to use that action again until you remove all the cubes. And when you remove all the cubes, you block off one of them “for good” with a black cube. Yes, you can get it back, but that is an action and turn in and of itself.

3. Tesseract

Tesseract is a game that I played twice completely at Gen Con in 2023 and once I got to sit in on the last few turns and take over for a person. The theme of the game is fun, though it only comes through so much. In the game a cube has come to Earth, and it is shrinking. If you and your team are unable to crack the code and understand what the Tesseract is before it disappears a singularity will envelop the Earth, or something like that.

The game is all about managing this cube of dice. It’s going to shrink each turn, of Pandemic like in you do your good stuff then something bad happens. And you need to create collections of dice and numbers to research all the different colors/symbols on the dice and their numbers. But to play out those dice to get it closer to the finish, you create sets or runs of dice that you can use. So it’s all about getting the right dice and manipulating the dice well.

2. The Great Split

Who is the best collector of arts and other things? Well, that could be you in The Great Split. This games main mechanism is simply, I split, you choose. And you use that for set collection to score different types of artwork and literature.

But let’s talk about that main mechanism. What does it mean when I say “I split, you choose”. It means that we all have a collection of cards. I split that collection of cards into two groups. You pick one of the groups to take for yourself and I get the other one back. So when I create that split of cards, I want to create a division that you’ll want, but is just okay for you, and one that I want, but isn’t too good for me that you take it so I can’t have it. It’s a great mechanism, and The Great Split makes it the focus of it’s game.

1. Ready, Set, Bet

I love the chaos of this game. It’s amazingly fun doing the real time bidding on a horse race. And it’s also a blast being the person who is calling the race as well. The whole thing is just chaos and good in a great way. However, I do think you need the right group for it and a large enough group. That is what I’ve been missing for it recently and why it hasn’t been played.

So let’s talk about how this game works. All players have bidding chips. And one player is the caller of the race. That player is going to be rolling two dice and moving the horses down the track. While they are doing that in real time, the players are throwing out chips onto different bidding spots. These spots are for winning, showing, and placing. But also for extra bets like the 7 horse finishing ahead of all blue horses or things like that. You get money at the end of each round, and the player with the most money wins.

Final Thoughts

There are so many more board games that I could put on this list. If it’s not obvious, I love board games. And it’s fun to see what new games come out and play them. But sometimes I really want to get back to some classic ones that I’ve enjoyed a lot. It’s something that I need to make space for in my gaming. So while I’m getting very close to 50 new games for the year, I also need to play through some of these games on the list and enjoy them again.

What are some games that you want to get back to the table?

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Catch up on previous videos here

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 40 through 31

40. Cthulhu: Death May Die

• Published by CMON in 2019
• Defeat a scenario and an Elder God before you are driven insane

Cthulhu: Death May Die is one of those great beer and pretzels games. Meaning that it’s pretty straightforward but mainly just a fun time. Who doesn’t like sitting around chucking a handful of dice, hoping you don’t go insane, and probably dying to whatever great old one shows up. The game gives you some story as well, but the biggest story elements are when you get that amazing roll right before you go insane, or when you can’t quite make it.

Buy Cthulhu: Death May Die

39. burncycle

• Published by Chip Theory Games in 2022
• The robots are on the run, can you sneak around and infiltrate the evil human corporations?

I love the theme on burncycle. There are games out there were the robots or something is taking over and the humans have to stop them. Here it’s the robots who are sneaking around and having to infiltrate. And I really enjoy how the system works. I like how you program out your actions and that chain of actions you can take degrades over time. So you need to balance changing it up to just wiping it. But if you wipe it, that pushes it closer to the corporation winning.

Buy burncyle

38. Sonora

• Published by Pandasaurus Games in 2020
• Flick your disk and score in combo-tastic ways

This is a roll and write game where instead of rolling you are flicking disks around. That is a fun little twist on a standard roll and write. And then your sheet where you are filling things in, it’s combo city. You work in one area and you almost always are getting a bonus for another area. And as you get further into the game the more you can stack those bonuses and chain into more bonuses. Yes, this game has luck with the flicking and you might be knocked out of where you want to be, but it’s good chaos and combo fun.

Out Of Stock

37. Comic Hunters

• Published by Spin Master ltd, Arcane Wonders, and Bucaneiros Jogos in 2020 and 2024
• Can you build out the most interesting and influential comic collection

Comic Hunters is a unique game in that it gives you a number of things to do, but it manages to use so many different ways of drafting. That is one of the coolest parts of the game, along with the fact that it’s all Marvel comic covers and characters. But you score for collecting different characters, a lot of a character, first appearances, first issues, epic fights or even more. And it’s a good game to teach as well because you teach how you get comics into your collection and then when each draft comes up you teach it then and only then.

Buy Comic Hunters

36. Sushi Go Party!

• Published by Gamewright in 2016
• Draft the tastiest collection of sushi and other yummy foods to score points

Another drafting game, but Sushi Go Party just does standard drafting. And I like how it works in this one. The variety in the game isn’t from the drafting but how everything scores. Some things like dumplings want you to get as many as you can, or then there is tofu where you want two, no more. And in Sushi Go Party you can really change up the different combinations of foods so that the drafting experience is different each round.

Buy Sushi Go Party!

35. Trek 12: Himalaya

• Published by Pandasaurus in 2020
• Climb mountains as you create sets and runs of numbers in different ways

This game might feel like a pretty standard roll and write game. The idea of creating a set or a run based off of what is rolled, that isn’t that odd. But how you get to your numbers is where the fun puzzle of the game comes in. You might add the numbers together on both dice, you might pick the lower number, etc. But you only pick each of those ways to get the number a limited number of times. So you need to be smart how you manipulate the dice and build out your mountain.

Buy Trek 12.

34. Marvel Zombies: A Zombicide Game

• Published by CMON in 2023
• Fight as zombies and take a bite of Marvels biggest heroes.

Based on a comic run, Marvel Zombies has you play as the zombie heroes who have been turned. You try and complete objectives before SHIELD and the other heroes can take you out. Or you can flip the table and play as heroes against zombies, the choice is yours. This is another great beer and pretzels game. You ride that edge of trying to push your hunger up so you can roll more dice, but not get too hungry so that you become a mindless zombie for a little bit just caring about getting brains.

Buy Marvel Zombies.

33. The Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw

• Published by City of Games in 2022
• Can you rescue the most cats and score the most points in this roll and write style game?

This is the better version of Isle of Cats. I enjoy Isle of Cats and I know there is a duel version coming out which might make it better again. But the Explore and draw version is just so much fun. I especially enjoy the method in which you fill out your boat. There are columns of cards, some with more cats and some with more scoring objectives. You decide which column to use, but if you take too many cats, sure you get some points, but you miss on the scoring bonuses. If you just grab scoring, well, not enough cats and you won’t score enough points. It’s an easy roll and write to learn with fun complexity.

Buy The Isle of Cats Explore and Draw

32. Sleeping Gods

• Published by Red Raven Games in 2021
• Explore a mysterious new lands, find totems and try and wake the gods.

This is an amazing sandbox game of exploring a huge world, finding out the mysteries of the world, all while trying to find totems and get back to your own world. I love how this game gives you a whole crew to play with, but each crew member is part of the ship moving around. So there are unique things people can do, but you decide and build out so much of that. And the artwork and story are just great for this game. I want to play the sequel and the small version soon as well.

Sleeping Gods is sold out, but you can get Sleeping Gods: Distant Skies here.

31. The Great Split

• Published by Horrible Guild in 2022
• Divide up riches and try and end the game with the best collection

I Split – You Choose is a mechanism I didn’t know that I’d love so much as I do. And The Great Split is just an I Split – You Choose game. You get a hand of cards that have different things like books, artwork, money, and you need to decide how to split them up. You split them into two and then you pass it to the person on your left. They pick one of the two sides and you get the other. You do the same thing with the cards you just got passed. Then you just collect, try and get contracts, and push up the tracks the best that you can. It’s a simple but very fun.

Buy The Great Split.

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

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 11

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Let’s start off with Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game at #10 this year. Detective is deduction game where you and your teammates are trying to solve cases. The base box comes with five cases that take about 2-3 hours each. And you’re up against the clock, in the game, to solve everything and figure out what answers you need as you get quizzed on what happened and the who, what, and why of the case at the end. Plus little details that you might have missed or you can piece together.

This is like a crime television drama. I don’t love watching those, but playing in one is amazing. You actually get to put together deduction skills and piece together what happened. Sometimes it’s easy, and other times it is hard, but it’s always worth it.

And this game does a good job using technology as you play. Part of how you get information is interacting with a computer and a database to pull up details that might already exist on the case. Or it might be details that already exist on people in the case. It really helps make Detective into a great immersive experience.

Buy Detective

9. The Great Split

Next up we have The Great Split, a new game to the list and one that does a single thing well. In The Great Split, it is primarily an “I split, you choose” game. What does that mean? It means that I have a group of cards and I put them into two groups. You pick one of those groups and I get the other one back. Then we both use them for scoring, which is what everyone is doing at the same time. So, I love the simplicity and simultaneous nature of the game play.

Plus the scoring is nice in the game as well as it isn’t too difficult or too easy. What it mainly is, is pushing up on on tracks for artwork, literature, gems, and money. And each of them is going to score in a different way. Some of them score with how well you are doing against a market or against a scoring track. Others score, the gems, with your lowest of the two gem tracks. So it’s figuring out what you want to go for, because that’s not all the scoring.

There is also contracts in the game. Those are on the tracks as well, but you have other tracks that you want to push up on. Because they make the contracts you have, loaning your art pieces out to museums and stuff like that, worth more. But if you’re pushing up on those tracks, you aren’t on the main scoring tracks, so it’s a really good balance. And all of that with very simple rules teach and very simple game play.

Buy The Great Split

8. Floriferous

Now we have Floriferous, a game that has made it’s way higher up on the list from last year. And some of that is what I redid how I thought about the list, some. I now put more stock into the games that I want to play all the time and do play often, as well as the ones that give me a great experience when I play them. Which is why there are fewer campaign games in the Top 10, though, don’t worry, their are still several.

But Floriferous is a drafting game of building up your best bouquet of flowers. But how you draft and how you know what you are scoring is what I love about the game. You lay out the cards to be drafted from at the start of the round. And then players take turns drafting from the first column of cards. Where you draft in that column then determines your drafting order for the next column. It makes for great decisions as decide to take a less ideal card to make sure you get the perfect card next column.

And then there is the scoring. A little of the scoring just exists at the start of the game. Most of what you score you need to draft. So I need to draft a card that says “2 points for all purple flowers”, for example. And I can do that, but the scoring cards are always at the bottom of the column. That means when I take a scoring card I’m going to be going last next round which is a choice, as I said above, that I really love.

Buy Floriferous

7. Planet Unknown

Next up we have Planet Unknown a terraforming, polyomino laying game. And it’s one that is not that hard to teach, if you have the game in front of you. But it does some very cool things, which I’ll get to in a second here. But the game is about filling up your planet with tiles, clearing out meteors that have hit your planet, and building up on various tracks of nature, water, technology, rover mobility, and civilization.

The game is able to be played in two ways. The first way is a simple generic way where everyone has the exact same thing. I think it is a solid system if everyone is learning the game, and you have new to gaming people in there. But once people know the system at all, flip over the boards and the groups going to the planets. That is when the fun begins as everyone is working a little bit differently and has their own ways and timings as they go up the tracks while still playing the same game.

And the one thing I haven’t touched on yet is how you pick your tiles. There is a lazy susan in the middle with all of the tiles on it. And on your turn, you turn the lazy susan to the side you want facing you so you get the tile that you want. It’s a tough decision, and then everyone else takes from the side facing them. Or at least kind of facing them, because they’ll have a marker, placed at the start of the game, that determines where they take from. I love that mechanism as I can get what I want, or I might choose to mess with you.

Late Pledge Planet Unknown

6. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Then we have Lost Ruins of Arnak. And this one I do want to specify that it is a top 10 game for me with the first expansion. The second expansion definitely keeps it up this high as well, but the first one is needed, in my opinion. It takes Lost Ruins of Arnak from a fun game to one of my top games of all time.

So how does it play, and why do I like the expansion so much. Well, at it’s heart, The Lost Ruins of Arnak is a resource management game of going out, collecting resources and turning them in to move up a research track. But there are a number of twists with it as well. Because I also am building up a deck of cards that let me do more actions or power up the actions that I do take. And I love that aspect to it.

So let’s talk about what the expansion adds and why I think Expedition Leaders is very important to the game. In Lost Ruins of Arnak, base game, everyone has the same camp, same workers, and same starting deck of cards. And there are two tracks which you can go up on. It’s fun. But Expedition Leaders says your camp, your cards, how many workers you have, all of that can be unique now. Because you have a leader that makes you unique and I really love that.

Buy The Lost Ruins of Arnak

5. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition is the next game on the list coming in at #5. And it is one that I haven’t played in probably eight months. I really need to get it back to the the table. But I love this engine building game and another game about terraforming a planet, but this time, I’d say, it’s way more about building up that engine to generate more resources and points.

The game, like I said, is about building up that engine and determining when to activate everything, and when to pick an action to do based off of what you think your opponent is going to do. How does that work? Well, the game has five actions and the actions that are played out by the players that round are the ones that are going to happen.

The actions also fire off in a particular order. So if I pick research it’s action #5, so it’ll go last. Someone else might pick activating actions, and that’s #3, so it goes in that order. Which ever one you pick, you get a special bonus for it, while your opponents get whatever the basic action is (which you do as well). So it’s about trying to not match with your opponents to get more actions done and to figure out what benefits you the most. Of course, if everyone is doing that, well, then no one might pick that one action everyone wants.

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

4. Stars of Akarios

Now we’re onto one of the big campaign games. And you can see game play for this one on Malts and Meeples. Stars of Akarios is a game that I absolutely enjoyed all that I did. Some parts are better than others, but as a whole, I think the game is a ton of fun. It’s a big space adventure that gives me vibes from Enders Game and Space Dandy, two really different things, but it works for this game.

The game is split into three parts, but we’re going to talk about two of them. First part is planetary exploration. This has a 7th Continent type feel to it with flipping over locations and interacting with places. Plus there is a lot of story that you can find as well for the different planets. There are skill checks and things like that, but a lot of it is story and the choices you make in that story unlocks new things that you can do.

The main part of the game is tactical space combat. It’s about using your dice to flank and out maneuver the enemies so that you are in the right spot for a big hit and they can’t hit you back. I adore the puzzle that this game provides in this space combat. It is good enough to just be a game by itself, but the story and the world/universe that is being built in the game is just amazing. I can’t wait to get back to it, and maybe it’ll be a campaign game that I come back to and try and play through solo sometime.

Buy Stars of Akarios

Note the 1.5 version of Stars of Akarios is coming out. There should be a late pledge available soon.

3. Dice Throne

Next up is Dice Throne. I believe that my #2 and #3 flipped spots from last year. Dice Throne is a battling game of taking characters up against each other and rolling dice, Yahtzee style, to deal damage. You get a better roll, like a large straight or all sixes and you get to do more damage.

The game really shines in two areas. The first is how they manage to make all of the characters feel different. I have Marvel Dice Throne pictured here, but in the video I have Dice Throne Season 1 and I figured out coming soon there will be 35 different characters. And all of the characters do feel different. They come with different tokens that change up how they interact with the enemies or how they ramp up to deal more damage themselves.

And then there is the card play in this game. What doesn’t make it just pure dice chucking are these cards. Some of them are upgrades to your attacks that offer better results and more damage when you roll them. Other times, and I’d say most often this, it’s about getting better results on your dice. You don’t want to end up being stuck doing nothing if you try and shoot the moon and go for all sixes. So you keep cards to manipulate the dice. It’s a great system that offers more depth than you’d think from the initial description.

Buy Dice Throne

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Now we have Tainted Grail at #2. This one moved up, I think, because I made it through all three campaigns, wrapping up the third one this year. And all of them offer something unique and fun that is really enjoyable to play. I love how you start in the middle with the first campaign and then the second takes place 500 years later and the first 500 years before it. It offers a lot of interesting storytelling, which the writer really takes advantage of.

The game play is also pretty slick once you get into it. The combat and diplomacy checks are done through card play. And while that is an important part of the game, it’s not too hard to build up something that is powerful enough. Or players with specialize in different areas. One element about the combat that I really like is that you need to pay attention is to the enemies attack. How much damage you deal determines the enemies attack. If you aren’t careful, you’re going to take a lot of damage.

But the game really shines around the exploration and survival aspects of the game. I think it’s best on story mode because the story is so good. But you always need to be keeping track of the menhir that you have lit. Because if they go out, then you start to lose parts of the map as the wyrdness takes over. And that limits where you can explore. And as I said, exploration is the best part of the game. It is a chance to dive into that story. So it’s a balance of story, resource gathering, and then just surviving that makes Tainted Grail work so well.

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven

My #1 hasn’t changed, it’s still Gloomhaven. Though, you can say that it is Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, and Frosthaven all rolled into one. Jaws of the Lion might be a game that I show off here on Malts and Meeples. And I’m now playing through a campaign of Frosthaven.

This is a classic dungeon crawling game where you go into a scenario and need to tactically move around and kill all the bad guys. Or at least that’s the objective in a lot of base Gloomhaven’s scenarios. The other ones offer more variety. But it’s also a game of leveling up your characters, unlocking more abilities, and then eventually retiring and getting a whole new character to play with.

And getting those abilities and playing them out is where the game is amazing. You play out two cards from your hand each turn. They have abilities on the top and bottom. And you’ll activate one of the top abilities and one of the bottom ones. Plus you need to figure out where in initiative that you want to go as well.

And the variety in them and how different the characters are is impressive. It’s like a lot of the games in my Top 10, I like the variable player powers and variability in what you are doing. Gloomhaven and all the following games offer a ton of that. And it’s sad to lose a character to retirement that you’ve spent time with, but exciting to unlock something new. This is just an amazing game that deserves the love it gets.

Buy Gloomhaven

Thanks for Joining Me

Thank you for joining me as I went through all of the games on this list. I really have fun doing this every year. And I hope that you have fun watching along. I appreciate everyone who has been in the chats and watched the videos. It means a lot to me to see that people are enjoying it. Let me know what some of your favorite games are.

Upcoming Streaming

And join me for future upcoming streams. I made a comment that my Monday streams might be changing. We’ll have to see on that, it might just be less often, or it might move to a different night, it depends on some variables as I look at the new year. Right now, though, that it’s changing. I plan on streaming Monday nights at 9 PM Central. I won’t have some on the 25th of December, I will be around next week.

Then on Wednesday, I generally stream a campaign game. I won’t be doing that this upcoming week. And I’ll be missing the following week. But as I start 2024, I plan to stream Rogue Angels. A game that I think will be in my Top 100 starting next year. One of my rules was that I needed to have played a physical copy. And thus far I only have played it digitally. Now I’ll be able to play it in person, which I’m really excited for. So join me for that starting in 2024. And Wednesday streams start at 8 PM Central time.

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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How To Play The Great Split

The Great Split is an art collection game, but really, it is a game with tracks that you are going up on to optimize your score and have the most points at the end of the game. That’s the generic version of a lot of games. But The Great Split does it in a couple of interesting ways.

The main mechanism of The Great Split is “I split, you choose.” If you aren’t familiar, I create two groups of something, in this case, cards in my hand. You get to see those two groups and then pick the one that you want. I get what is left.

What you pick determines what tracks you go up on. You can go up on books, which have certain scoring thresholds when you score books. You go up on art where you score based off of how much art you own compared to the market. Or finally you push up the track on gems, either green or blue but ideally both, and you score twice your lowest gem total.

To go along with that, there are also tracks for contracts and coins. Contracts are end game scoring that triggers based off of how many contracts you’ve gotten in a particular area times how much those contracts are worth. So if I have 5 green gem contracts and I got my green gem contracts to be worth 3 points, I get 15 points. And with coins, they have contracts as well, but you can “spend” money to move up on other tracks as well.

The game plays over a number of rounds. And like I said at the beginning, the player with the most points wins.

The Details

So, as I’ve started doing, let’s look at what the box says.

For players it says 2-7 and the Board Game Geek community says best at 4-6. I think it would be fine at 4-7 players. And I know from playing it at 3, it’s still fun. But there is a difference. With more players more cards get into the rotation so you see more options. That is a big benefit with more. I don’t know that I really want to play it with two players.

It also says it plays in 45 minutes, and that is close. I think it is a bit longer than that. But the core mechanics are of the game are simultaneous. I only have played when I taught new players. I think with players who know the game, it might hit that time range. The game is only 7 rounds, plus three spots to score.

And finally, they say it is for 8+. Now as always a caveat with this. It is more about safety, but, The Great Split is language independent and has it’s one core mechanic. An adult might need to help with scoring, but I can see a younger kid playing it, say eight. They might not get all of the rules and nuisance of the game, which is to be expected.

What Doesn’t Work?

This is a very thinky game. And as a player you make a decision at times that might not be perfect for you. And because The Great Split is so thinky, someone who tends towards analysis paralysis and taking long turns will slow the game down. It is noticeable when it is there turn. But in a game with simultaneous play, it is going to be more noticeable. So be aware of that with The Great Split.

What Works?

The main mechanism in the game is amazing. I love I split you choose. And this game is that distilled. Yes, there are the tracks and they do create combos. But the main part of the game is I split my cards and you pick from those two splits. And that decision space is so good and so simple in this game. But when you split the cards, you worry that you either made the split too good to get back what you want. Or you didn’t make it good enough.

I also think that the tracks work well. They are not complex and basically you teach the game quickly. There is some to go over, but once you teach the player board, you teach the rest of the game in round one. So it is not a complex game but one that is fun to teach and play that way. Plus the combos in the game are simple in a good way. I hit this point on the coins, I advance two in another area.

The scoring is also well done. The Great Split is scored three times. Though what you score the first two times can vary. You score each of books, art, and gems. But when you set up the game you don’t know if you score books and gems at the first scoring and then art at the second or maybe gems at the first and book and art at the second. It gives you shifting goals. And then you score everything at the end.

Who Is It For?

This is a tough part that I almost skipped. Mainly because the core decisions can be tricky in the game. It might feel like too much to a casual game. I think this is a good filler for heavier gamers but also a fun game who play games. But for them, it is going to be the game of the night versus a filler game. But it is an accessible game with no reading on cards and different symbols to help with color blindness. That is really nice.

Final Thoughts – The Great Split

I love this game. I think that it is clever in in what it does in the best way possible. When I said that I like a game that does one thing and makes it thinky, I’m not lying. The Great Split makes every choice matter. What I pass to you is important and how I pass them to you. But that is seven times I make that choice in the game. And seven times I pick from the cards someone passes me. It is smart in how it does that and then making the tracks simple, but still meaningful. If they were a hard puzzle as well, it’d be less fun.

My one concern hasn’t been played out yet. I worry about how well it will hold up long term. Not components wise they are great. But will The Great Split feel consistent through every play and eventually start to feel like there isn’t enough change? I don’t know. I suspect it might, eventually, but that is a long ways out. Why, because the core mechanism is so strong with I split you choose that it makes for an interesting decision every time.

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

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New Board Game Quick Hits

18 Holes: Course Architect

A fun roll and write game where you are building out a golf course to get as many points as possible. It’s not too complex though there is a bunch going on with it. I wish there was a bit more way to mitigate luck, but I don’t always expect that from a roll and write.

Score: 7.5/10

Arkham Horror: The Card Game (Revised Edition)

One that’s kind of a cheat to be on the list, but the game has change slightly. Not in game play but in some of the cards and what comes in the core set. Arkham Horror: The Card Game is one that’s a lot of fun as you explore different scenarios and story just through cards, really. And I like the investigative nature, granted, we weren’t good at fighting, so we needed to do that.

Score: 8.5/10

Bargain Basement Bathysphere

The weirdest named game on the list, this is a solo campaign roll and write game. Really, it is a roll and write that has different objectives and instructions to win the scenarios. Calling it a campaign is a bit much. But I like the dice picking puzzle as you delve deep under the ocean. A simple roll and write game but one that changes it up enough as you play.

Score: 8/10

Birds of a Feather: Western North America

Another small game, Birds of a Feather, which I played recently on Malts and Meeples, is a bird watching game. You see all the birds from the habitats you go to, but be wary of predators who might swoop in and scare off some of those birds you can see. A really simple game, but fast play and fun, okay solo, but better with more.

Score: 8/10

Crokinole

Crokinole was a new one to the collection this year and I’m glad it has been. I’ve gotten in a number of fun games over an evening with it. It’s a disc flicking game with just enough rules to make it challenging, but not soo many that you can’t play quickly and have a lot of fun with it.

Score: 9/10

Dice Kingdoms of Valeria

Another roll and write on the list, I forget how many there are. And another one that I played on Malts and Meeples. Dice Kingdoms of Valeria is all about getting citizens to get bonuses and really filling in everywhere and anywhere to get bonuses. A lot to look at, but not that much to keep track of.

Score: 7.5/10

Dice Monsters Missing Mythics

I wrote up a review on this one earlier this week, it’s a dice collecting, dice chucking, monster fighting game with a little bit of take that in it. There are some flaws with the game, mainly around player count. That said, it’s a fun light family style game that reminds me of Munchkin with way less take that and at a 3-4 player count way faster time. One I’d gladly play but probably never own.

Score: 6/10

Featherlight

Featherlight is an interesting game. I think it plays around with a concept that some other games do, but basically creating your best scoring hand of cards and whomever does that can win the game. However, part of what you are doing is drawing a card and then playing a card to a discard nest. And those cards in the next can determine how you score as well. So it’s a good puzzle to get the right cards on top in the next.

Score: 8/10

Gasha

Gasha is up there as one of my most played new games of the year. And it’s impressively high since there isn’t a solo mode, but that’s because it’s so fast to play. Gasha is a set collection game where you are collecting vending machine toys and then trading in sets for tickets and points all in an attempt to get the most points. It’s light and fast but still good fun.

Score: 8/10

The Great Split

Now a heavier game, though still one that does a big thing I like. The game has quick snappy turns or if they aren’t quick, it’s because everyone is agonizing over what to do at the same time. The game is really about going up on tracks to get points, but the decision making space, splitting cards and giving your opponent the choice makes the game a great brain burner.

Score: 9.5/10

Grove: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

My most played game and that’s because it’s a light fast solo game. But I really am enjoying Grove and the puzzle that it gives me each time I play. How do I maximize layering cards to grow trees so that I can complete objectives and score points. I really like the objectives int he game.

Score: 9/10

Lands of Galzyr

Another one you watched on Malts and Meeples. This is a story driven adventure game as you take a character around and see what you can find, complete quests, and run into random animals, you all are animals, looking for adventure. A really light system but one that is a lot of fun to play. It’ll be up there for favorite new games of the year, I’m guessing.

Score: 9.5/10

One Card Dungeon

An interesting game, One Card Dungeon is a leveled dungeon crawler just using a single card. You use dice for stats, you roll to see what you activate, and you go around and fight monsters. They do a smart thing by making the card from four different orientations be different levels of the dungeon. And a smart thing of giving you player powers. The game does hit some action loops though.

Score: 7.5/10

Planet Unknown

Newest one to the list I played Planet Unknown twice last night. This is a terraforming game as you try and get your best terraformed planet and go up on tracks, place down tiles, and collect meteors and pods across the planet. The turns are simple but filled with a lot of strategy. And it offers a basic mode and a more complex mode, plus modules out of the box for a lot of fun.

Score: 8.5/10

Quest Calendar: The Voidspark Chronicles

I need to get back to this one. I have done a week or two of this daily calendar or so I’m a long ways behind. My goal needs to be sit down, catch up, and then play once a week to stay on top of it. But it’s a directed solo RPG in a daily calendar form where you make a decision or two that leads you on the story. A fun idea, one that I knew I might have trouble getting through.

Score: 8/10

Relics of Rajavihara

My second most played new game, Relics of Rajavihara is a block pushing sliding puzzle game as you setup scenarios, get everything in place and see if you can figure out the puzzle. The downside is that when you know a solution you’re done with that scenario. Upside is, there are a lot of scenarios and a lot of fun in the game. And the components are amazing.

Score: 8.5/10

Sprawlopolis

One of the most popular Button Shy Games, Sprawlopolis reminds me of games like Grove and Orchard which puts it up against stiff competition. Smaller and more portable but the game play is the same so I think it’s whichever you came across first.

Score: 8/10

Via Magica

Another new game that I’ve played a lot, Via Magica is a gamers bingo. You complete cards to get powers which you then activate to let you complete more cards faster. The game play again is simultaneous so the game moves well and the mechanics are simple. But I really like looking at how you pick which cards you go for, and how you can combo bonuses together.

Score: 8.5/10

Witchbound

Finally one that I only played via Discord and having pictures of locations sent to me. Witchbound is a choose your own adventure point and click style of game in a board game. The mechanics are simple, the story is good, and there is enough adventure in the game that you feel like there is a lot to checkout. I really enjoyed the artwork and what this one does.

Score: 9.5/10

Final Thoughts

I think I said twenty at the top, if you counted, it is 19. The reason for that being that one is the first time that I played since I started keeping stats. So Century Golem Edition, it’s the first time in a few years I’ve played you, but I have before.

Overall I’m please, my goal is to hit 50, and so far I’ve done a good job of finding fun games. Even my lowest rated, I enjoyed it, I just won’t seek it out. There are a ton of good games out there, and it’s fun to find new ones. That said, I do keep on playing games again and again or games I’ve experienced before. There are a lot of great games out there to play, they don’t need to all be new.

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So looking at this topic, I don’t just want to give you a list. I will give a few at the end that I like. But instead, I want to create, like I did for campaign games here, a guide to help you find good big group board games for yourself. What are some qualities to look for?

How To Find Good Big Group Board Games?

All my categories are going to be compared, at least to some extent, against party games. Because what I am looking for is an alternative to party games. Something that can play at six or more, it might only be up to seven, but offers that fun experience and offers that big group experience.

Downtime

So firstly, the game should limit downtime. Downtime is an major enemy in big group games. Or even in a lot of games. If a game plays in the time frame given with two players does it with four or six players. Often times that time frame grows considerably the more you add players. So a good big group board game is going to keep to a minimum.

For party games this is often done by putting you on teams. So half the time you are playing some element of the game. Or another way is when everyone is doing something, writing an answer, picking cards, at the same time. Everyone is engaged. To successfully move from party games, keeping downtime to a minimum is going to be key.

Complexity

Next up is complexity, keep it simple, stupid. Again to compare to party games, they are dead simple. Often times the most complex part is how scoring is done, and that is a detriment to the game. And with moving out of party games into big group games, keep it simple.

There are a few reasons for that. Firstly, it keeps downtime to a minimum. So see above how that is important. If the decision making space is simple enough, turns won’t take a long. Secondly, it makes it easier to teach, and you will teach this game a lot if it’s a good one. Because with a larger group you are more apt to have someone who doesn’t know the game. You might not, but it is more likely. Thirdly, it keeps the stakes of the game lower. And you might want them higher, but we are replacing a party game, so nothing too cut throat or where it feels like a wrong move and you lost the game.

On the flip side, as you try and replace a party game. Do not go too simple. The goal is not to replace a party game with another party game. So the complexity is going to be higher, but just keep in mind that Twilight Imperium and Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea play over six but wouldn’t be a good replacement.

Game Length

This one there is more wiggle room on. But I would argue that is because of a mistake that party games make. They don’t give you a good end point. This is again part of the too complex rules for scoring. If it is too complex, no one knows how or when the game ends, so you just play as long as you want. Often times this is until after the game has worn out it’s welcome.

So there is room in this one, but often times you want that filler length game, that twenty minutes, maybe up to forty. Something that can fit between games as a bit of a breather. And the reason for this is that with a lower complexity the longer a game goes, the less interesting it might be. Now there are ways around it, it might be simple but you do more or have more choices as the game goes on. So that is a smart build. But often times with a more limited decision making space, you want to limit how long the game goes.

Theme

Theme matters here, because a party game generally has an innocuous theme. Now, an easy exception to that is Cards Against Humanity with has a very specific target audience for it’s theme. But most of them give you a friendly theme or no theme at all.

As you move away from big group games just being party games you need to consider the theme. If it’s a bloody heroes killing monsters with dark artwork, that might not work for your group. Keep the theme more generic when you play a big group game. That is going to cast a larger net and catch a bigger group who might want to play.

Decision Making

Finally, and this one I touched on with complexity, but give a good but limited decision making space. And I think this is where a good big group game diverges from a party game. Often times you can, at least in some party games, put in a random card or answer and win just as often or more than if you put in thought to it.

So a good big group games is going to add in some real decision making while keeping the game pretty simple. You don’t want it to feel like you are playing the next big game. But at the same time, you don’t want it to just be another dumb game or a game purely with luck. A good replacement big group game is going to offer a limited window of choices.

What Are Some Examples?

Via Magica

Via Magica, and another below, I qualify as a gamers bingo. Something is drawn and everyone places in this case an animus or spirit on a portal that they are trying to open. Then another is drawn, and you do so again. You try and complete opening portals and first to seven ends the game, then you tally up points.

This one works well because the basic actions of the game are simple. You draw and place. And everyone is doing that at the same time from a single draw of a token. The decision making comes in two areas, firstly where you place on your portals, though that is a bit of a looser decision space. The other way is in what portal you get so you can push for more points or getting bonuses. That is where the game gives you most decision making.

Sushi Go Party

Sushi Go Party is another great options. This one offers, I think, a larger decision making space. But it keeps it limited. You setup a group of sushi and other food from a Japanese restaurant and shuffle those cards together. Then over a series of three rounds you draft cards. And that drafting is all done at the same time making it the speed no matter the player count.

This is definitely one with a few more decision. While the core mechanics stay the same, you need to learn the set of cards you are drafting from. Once you know them, it makes the turns simpler. So the game actually picks up speed as time goes on, because you learn more about the pool you are drafting from and what you want to go for.

Super Mega Lucky Box

This is the other bingo game. And it is much more bingo. As you complete columns or rows on cards you get bonuses that allow you to complete more. And you get points for completing 3 by 3 grids completely. Much like Via Magica, as cards are flipped with numbers for your bingo grid, you fill in a spot. And everyone does so at the same time.

This one I think offers more decision making, though, because of the bonuses, you might really be pushing for a bonus. And it offers more ways or more consistency in manipulating the number. While Via Magica lets you turn some things into wilds, if you get the right cards, Super Mega Lucky Box, always offers a way to do that, assuming you collect the right resource.

The Great Split

Next up we have The Great Split. This one kind of has the feel of drafting but the main mechanic in the game is I split and you choose. That I think makes it different for a bigger group game. Because everyone is picking a combination of things and splitting it into two groups.

I also think that The Great Split is one where it does offer more decision making space. Creating that good split where you’ll get back what you want but you won’t be giving your opponent too much is an interesting conundrum. For that reason, this game might run longer because some players will need more time to create that split. But every player is overlapping on when they create their split.

The game is really about going up on tracks to get the most points possible. And it pulls that off well. You are nudged in a direction by the starting card you get, but then you can really play around with it. And there’s enough variability to keep the game feeling different.

Welcome To…

Finally, and I could have picked a number here, we have Welcome To… It’s like all the rest in that everyone is doing stuff at once. You have a a setup of three pairs of cards and you activate one to work on building out your perfect town. Plus there is more going on with it.

This one has a bit more of a teach than some of them. Mainly because there are a number of moving pieces and how scoring in a lot of different areas works. But the game offers you just the right number of choices, so you always are considering what is going to be the best option for you.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of good games out there for bigger groups. But getting that one that hits the right combination is big. Because so many when you go below this level that I put out here, tend to not offer anything more than a party game. But going too far in the other direction, now you out of that almost filler type of category. So it is a balancing act.

Now, with all of this said. If you enjoy a good party game, that is great. I have party games in my collection that will stay because I really enjoy them. But sometimes you get tired of always pulling out a party game for a big group. Hopefully this helps find games that work for big groups, but aren’t too much to handle.

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But for me the combination of the cover and the designers Hjalmar Hach and Lorenzo Silva and it being a Horrible Guild game put it over the top. In particular, I’ve found that I enjoy most Hjalmar Hach designs. So pair that with an amazing looking cover and a company that I like, I needed to check it out.

How To Play – The Great Split

The Great Split is not that difficult a game to play, though learning it on the fly there are a number of things to think about. It has a particular cadence to the game that you need to teach. But the main premise of the game is that you have a number of tracks that you want to go up on. Depending on the track(s) they score in different ways or give you different bonuses.

So, how do you go up on the tracks, it’s a simple I split, you choose mechanic. By that I mean that I have a had of cards, between five to seven in the game, and I am creating two groups of cards. Then I pass my wallet to you and you pick one of those groups. I get the other one back. At the same time everyone around the table is doing this, so I get a wallet of cards to pick from and pick one of the two groups.

You do that several turns and then at the end of the game you tally up your points. Whomever has the most points is the winner. And I can go into scoring more, but there is some to learn with that, but not too much.

What Am I Worried About?

So a bit of twist on how I normally do it, closer to the review. But I don’t want to fully dive into it, this is more of a first impressions. There are two things that stand out to me that I am curious about with the Great Split though.

Firstly, I wonder about the viability of this game at lower player counts. I enjoyed what the game does a lot, but I played it at 3. I wonder if 4-7 would be better. The game doesn’t really add much time to it the more people you play with. But at 2-3, you won’t see many cards. It adds a different element of strategy to it with how you can play your opponent, but you are going to get more unbalanced scoring.

I also want to know what it’s like to teach the game. I played at the time we were learning the game as well. And looking back on it, I think that I could make it faster and simpler for teaching. But there are a number of things to teach. There are six different sections you need to teach scoring on. At the same time, I think most of the things are pretty simple once you know them. And I don’t think I need to teach some elements of the game as the game suggests that you have someone “run” the game and turns.

What Have I Enjoyed?

I really enjoy the “I split, you choose” mechanic of the game. The game is really just that mechanic which doesn’t worry me too much because you’ll get variety each time you play in the cards you take. But it’s interesting to look at the board of the player you are passing to, the direction doesn’t change, see what they are picking, and try and create a combination where they pick something that gives you what you want plus just a little bit more.

Or it could be that you create a split where either one will work for you, but you’ve split up what they want in order to slow them down. The game seems simple, but you can really give someone what they don’t want to keep some scoring tracks in check if you split stuff up well.

I also enjoy how the scoring works. Now, I won’t go into everything, but some of them are just how far you are up on the track, another has a sliding market, and another is the lowest of two tracks. But I’m more talking about how the game scores each section twice, minus contracts. So the three main tracks twice, once each mid game and once at the end of the game. But mid game you might score books and gems first and then art and nothing, or it might be books and nothing first and then art and gems. So when you score the first time might determine what you push for.

Final Thoughts – The Great Split

This is a very fun experience and I really enjoyed playing it once so far. I wonder how often I will get it played, though, because it is a game that seems to work better with more. And while I do have game nights, I feel like it isn’t one we’ll play all the time. But it fits into the same category, in my opinion as a game like Sushi Go Party or Seven Wonders.

With that, I mean that I can see playing it at higher player counts. And with more players, it is not a game that takes longer to play. I play it with three players, it goes as fast as the slowest player. I play it with 7 players and it still plays as fast as the slowest player. Now, the slowest player might be slower, but that is the restriction. So I really like that about the game. And I like it when I find a big group game that isn’t a party game.

Do you like The Great Split? Is it a game that you want to try? Let me know in the comments below.

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Top 20 Board Games on my Wish List

20. Sagrada Artisans

Yup, things can be on this and other lists. So I’ll go over them quickly. This is a legacy roll and write game based off of Sagrada. I played Sagrada again recently and I really do enjoy it, to me it’s a pretty relaxing game to play. And I want to know what the legacy version does. And how many years it should take to play is also a big question. The Sagrada Familia is still being built which is why I make that joke. But I like the stained glass theme so I’m excited for it and I like the dice drafting.

19. Planet Unknown

One that I wish I’d backed on Kickstarter, Planet Unknown is a game of picking tiles and placing them onto your planet to terraform it the best. Terraforming a planet is a common theme, but one that I like. The thing that caught my eye is the mechanism of the rotating center board. So when I pick a tile, that means that you are picking the tile that is facing you, or where your marker is. So we are all getting a tile every turn. I think that’s a really clever mechanism because not only do I need to think about what I need, but I need to think about what I am giving you.

18. Aeon’s End Trespass: Odyssey

Do I need another big game? The answer is no, I do not. But this one which is just delivering from Kickstarter looks great. This is one of those pipe dream games where if I can stumble across it local and used and not too expensive I’d buy it. But Aeon’s End Trespass is a massive dungeon crawl adventure game with a lot of minis, you know the drill. The cooperative, soloable and campaign style game that I enjoy.

17. Dice Manor

Also on a list recently, and that is when I added it to my wish list. The game play just looks simple and clever. You either allocate dice to unlocking some more dice, I think, so you have a bigger pool, or to getting tiles, or to putting into your house to score you points. I guess I should explain more. In Dice Manor you are building up a house, and you need to allocate dice of certain numbers to get rooms. If you get that room you add it to your house. So it’s dice allocation mixed with figuring out how you want to put together your house. And then, like I said, using dice in the house to score points. Three pretty simple things that seem to offer really good decisions.

16. Agemonia

You’ll see a lot of these campaign soloable games on the list. Agemonia is another one of them. Though, I don’t think it’s as massive as some of them. Agemonia is one that I almost backed, and I was in for a dollar on it, but I didn’t upgrade it in the pledge manager. It looks like a fun one because the world looks more vibrant and dynamic than a lot of them, in terms of the boards you are playing on.

You might start out in a tavern and then go out into the town to interact with things. And as you do that, you might change what’s at a location so you find a card and put that down. And then you end up with new actions that you can do, all while trying to complete some goals that you need to in a set amount of time. Plus, it’s fantasy but not your standard fantasy, so I really want to get my hands onto this one.

15. The Everrain

This one I maybe shouldn’t have on my list. It’s kind of getting fulfilled now, but the company is in financial trouble, it seems, which doesn’t bode well for my Village Attacks pledge. But Everrain is a sea exploration adventure game. And that just sounds fun to me. As they put up, you have your crew and are building up your crew and ship before you’ll have to face off against a Lovecraftian great old one, which I’m sure is not too difficult at all. And you are exploring in a cooperative gaming experience.

14. Monumental

Like Aeon’s End Trespass this one is a pipes dream to find. Monumental is a deck building, area control, moving people on a map, and did I say deck building game? And it’s been out for a little bit and isn’t in retail. The company is having some issues fulfilling their next one, so I’m not hopeful that there’ll end up with too many in the market. And Monumental is well liked.

The interesting thing with the deck building is that you don’t have a hand of cards. You have a grid of cards and you activate a row or column. Then those cards get wiped and new ones get added in. I want to try the game just for those interesting mechanics. Deck building is a mechanic that I really enjoy, and to see something so different, it makes me want to track it down. But it’s expensive when you can find it.

13. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game

One that I passed at on Gamefound. The game looked decent, it’s supposed to be like Skyrim as a board game. So that means you have a main quest that you are trying to complete but also that you can just go and do a bunch of side quests. It’s not really a dudes on the map game but more of that adventure experience which I enjoy. It’s one that eventually it’ll be back in retail and I’ll get a copy just to experience it. And I’m pretty sure it can be played solo so there is that element that I like as well.

12. Birds of a Feather: Western North America

That’s a long title for a little play out a card and check off stuff on a sheet. You are basically trying to get as many birds that you’ve seen as possible, so bird watching. And there are some interesting rules around it as you see things at the terrain you are at. So if I play down a desert and you play down a desert bird we see both of them. But if everyone else plays down a forest bird, I don’t see them. It’s a clever system. But not all is lost because you can go next round to the forest, if you have a forest bird, and see the ones played previously. Unless someone plays down a predator bird which scares them away. So, like I said, a clever system.

11. Arkeis

Another one previously on a list, but a legacy adventure game. I like that a lot and it’s set in Egypt and almost seems like it’ll have an Indiana Jones vibe to it. If it has that, and they can promise what looked like a not too complex but still very interesting game, I’ll pick this one up on the theme alone.

10. S.H.E.O.L.

I blame Meet Me At The Table for making me want this one. S.H.E.O.L. is a game about a weird future where there are robot monsters and you’re exploring, fighting them, interacting with people and places and it’s again that big campaign, adventure, combat, and solo game that I enjoy. Plus the setting is just different. The aesthetic of the game is basically black and white and it isn’t a bunch of dungeons but ways that you create the paths. The whole thing is just intriguing and hard to find.

9. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

A racing game from Days of Wonder, this one is already out and it’s really interesting to me. It looks like a lighter game than some racing, like Formula D, but also not a betting racing game that a lot of lighter ones are, like Downforce. So I’m really intrigued by this one and people are really liking the game. So I want to give it a try as you balance pushing to go faster without building up too much heat that can clog up your hand and slow you down. A balancing act which I always enjoy that question of when do you push or when do you hold back.

8. Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders

Also on another list. Tidal Blades 2 is a dungeon crawler set in the interesting world of Tidal Blades: Heroes of the Reef which gives you the story that you are missing in the first game. And from what I can tell, the mechanics are interesting as well. You play out actions and slowly as you get more and more actions out you become more powerful. But then they’ll all get pulled back sometime so you’ll do it again. I like that ebb and flow and that it’s a dungeon crawler without just being a dice chucker.

7. Rove

One coming to Kickstarter this year, Rove is from a designer who did a fan expansion for Gloomhaven. Rove promises a dungeon crawl set in it’s own unique world. I don’t know too much about it beyond that, but I’m very intrigued by it because it’s someone who made a Gloomhaven expansion. Gloomhaven is my favorite game, so I’m hoping that it takes some of things that were learned from making and expansion and adds it to Rove.

6. The Great Split

The Great Split is already out as well, but hard to come by. It’s a game where you are giving your opponent the option between two things and they are doing the same for you. So how do you make it, as you push up tracks based off of what you get, that you get what you want and they don’t get exactly what they want. The game system seems like it is pretty simple but also offers really good decision making. And it’s from Horrible Guild a company who I’ll generally always checkout what they are making.

5. The Elder Scrolls: Betrayal of the Second Era

Yes, it’s a second Elder Scrolls game, this one from Chip Theory Games. And yes, this one is coming to Gamefound this year. So I’ll probably end up backing it. It’s an adventure mini-campaign game that is based off of the Too Many Bones system, a system that I enjoy. And Chip Theory Games tends to make games that interest me. And I mentioned campaign, but did I mention you can play it solo? So even more reason why I’m interested in the game.

4. Hoplomachus: Victorum

Speaking of Chip Theory Games and solo games and campaign games, we have Hoplomachus: Victorum. This builds upon their Hoplomachus system, makes it purely solo and adds in a campaign and leveling as you go. You are a gladiator or fighter going through lands, fighting in arenas, recruiting troops all as you work your way up to face off against your final adversary. Will you be strong enough to defeat them? It’s one that I’m so close to pre-ordering from Chip Theories website, I might have just talked myself into it.

3. Clank!: Catacombs

This is the newest version of Clank! A game that I like all the versions of. Clank!: Catacombs is going to offer one really unique and new feature to go along with the deck building, and that is that the map is modular. So as you delve into the catacombs you are building it out. That sounds like a lot of fun, and I doubt it’ll even mean that I get rid of any of the others. Clank is one of those games that I just want to have a lot of it because whether it is Clank!: Catacombs, Clank!, or Clank! In! Space! I think that it’s going to be a fun time.

2. Stonesaga

Also on a previous list, Stonesaga is a legacy game set in the stone age where you are all working together to build out your civilization. Of course there are some monsters, there are other trials and tribulations that you can go through, and well, I’ve had a chance to playtest it and I had a lot of fun with it. The game really gives you some story of building up your civilization as you play. Without it being too heavy handed in the story elements of the game. I think it has more story than something like Charterstone or My City, but less than a Pandemic Legacy, for example.

1. Rogue Angels

Another one that I’ve already played, though like Stonesaga, which I hadn’t mentioned, just on TTS (Tabletop Simulator). And it’s great on there, but I really want to get my hands onto a prototype and show that off at some point in time. And I’m hoping it can get to Kickstarter or Gamefound this year.

The trick right now for the creator is getting enough eyes on it and getting enough people showing it off. But it’s kind of Mass Effect the board game or that is the designers intent. And I think that comes across. There are missions where you are doing combat, there are missions that just have a specific challenge(s) that you need to complete and everyone feels different.

Then there are mechanics which are so simple, do two actions which are generally playing cards. But when you play down a card it goes in a slot and then cools down over time. So a really good card might take longer to get back into your hand. And there are ways to speed that up, but that probably means that you’re not doing something else useful. Just a fun system with interesting characters and interesting story.

Final Thoughts: What is on Your Wish List?

Let me know what is on your wish list. You can do that down below or over on Twitter. And my wish list isn’t just 20 items. In fact, there is one, Paper Dungeons Expansion that isn’t on the list because expansions were filtered out. And even then my list is 55 items long. Some are in the maybe I’d want to get it category. Others, especially in this Top 20, I’d love to get my hands on them. Of course, time to play them, and money to get them is always a question. But I hope I can end up getting or playing a lot of these.

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