Ranking My Fantasy Games

46: The Red Dragon Inn

This should be a game that I like more than I do, it’s basically a hand management game around drinking in a bar after you’ve been out adventuring and gambling to win money and getting in fights. And I suspect I do I like this game more than I think. I just don’t like it at high player counts. Most of the time when I play The Red Dragon Inn it is over the recommended player count, to me this is a 4 player game only. I don’t want fewer, I don’t want more. At four, it’d feel like good silly fun and not a slog.

45: God of War: The Card Game

God of War is another theme in a game that I should love, but the game around it wasn’t that great. The deck building was interesting in the game. But the card play and the monsters that you fight, those aren’t all that interesting. It feels like the game was meant for mass market without hitting mass market. Or it’s a weird area in between mass market and hobby.

44: Kodama: The Tree Spirits

This is one that barely falls into the fantasy area. Yes, it does have the tree spirits, but that’s barely part of the game. It’s more about building out trees trying to create runs of the different things that you want. In concept it’s not that bad, and in game play it is okay. Kodoma is one of those games where I think a lot of people will enjoy it, and it’s not a bad game, but it won’t be many people’s favorite game.

43: Stuffed Fables

This is a game, in Stuffed Fables, I should maybe have given more tries. The theme of a being stuffed animals and toys of a kid trying to get their blanket back that was stolen, super cute. And the game was cute when I played it, but also more complex than it should be. I get what Plaid Hat Games is doing with their adventure book games, but with changing rules it just made it more complex than I wanted.

42: SeaFall

SeaFall, people would probably put that to the bottom of their lists because it is not a good legacy game. Though, legacy games, to me, have higher standards than most other games. If I am only going to get a limited use out of it, it needs to be epic. I liked the mechanics pretty well though they needed to be less punishing. But the story was a bit too scattered, though, with some tweaking, could be made better.

41: Near and Far

Well, I just wrapped up Sleeping Gods, that isn’t on the list yet, so I like it better. For me, Near and Far is a cool concept, a cool world, and just falls flat. The game has story, and even vignettes of story like Sleeping Gods, but it’s more mechanics than anything. And I think since it’s competitive the game couldn’t get away from the mechanics as much as how you score points.

40: Legacy of Dragonholt

Legacy of Dragonholt is another one of those games that isn’t bad, but could have been better. The system for an RPG/Choose Your Own Adventure game is fun. The story is okay, and that’s what kept me from diving back into it. It wasn’t that the concept of the story wasn’t good, but the execution of it felt too YA (young adult) and not a well written YA story, but one that got published because other YA books similar were well done and popular. I’d love to see Fantasy Flight come back to this system, keep some of the ideas and just improve the writing.

39: Fae

Fae is a fantasy game in cover art only. It is really an abstract game where you are a fae creature who is then hidden from everyone else and you try and score the most points. The game is good, and I like the challenge of trying to score points but not make it too obvious so that people tank your fae’s scoring. A clever idea and very abstract.

38: Legends of Andor

Another game that was in my collection and then left. And another one that is fun, it is an efficiency puzzle of how you get through the story as effectively as possible so you don’t trigger end game too early. My issue with it is only a me issue, I have too many campaign games. I let it go when I realized I would only ever play the starting scenario at least for right now. When I have capacity for that campaign, then I might get it back.

37: Sword & Sorcery

Sword & Sorcery left my collection, but that’s because I did play through the campaign. It is a fun campaign but one that I knew I wouldn’t revisit. The depth of game play is fun for a lighter dice chucking game. And the story is also light, well, in terms of the decisions that you make. I wish the story branched more, and that your powers would change up more, because once you found a few good things, you just did those.

36: Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients

Shadows of Brimstone is one that hasn’t left my collection as a campaign game, but maybe should. The only issue is that I need to glue the figures back together. My first gluing didn’t stick as well as it should have, because I didn’t use the right glue. But also, it’s a theme that I don’t have games for, the weird west. So monsters and other worlds all messing with the old west. I love that theme and there aren’t many games or good books that I’ve found with it.

35: Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

Another campaign game, and another one that left my collection just because I wasn’t going to get to it anytime soon. But it’s Lord of the Rings, and app assisted from Fantasy Flight Games. The story was fun that I did play through. The writing was well done, which I appreciated, and you can see is something that’s important to me. Definitely a good one for Lord of the Ring fans, which I am.

34: Krosmaster: Arena

This is a skirmish game with fantasy characters casting spells, summoning monsters, and hacking and slashing away. I like that you pick and build the teams that you play with. I like the dice rolling and how you can play with secondary objectives so it’s not just knock out your opponent. But you can play just with knocking people out as well. Krosmaster is one I would keep but I didn’t have people to play it with, and now I have another skirmish game or two that I put over it.

33: Too Many Bones

This one will probably move up the list when my Gamefound comes in for the latest expansions. Not that I own any other Too Many Bones, but that might start me getting more. This is kind of a short campaign game where you fight some battles and then fight against a boss. But where the game really shines is how you build up your characters. Each of them do different things, and how you level them up gives you room to explore a character multiple times. Plus it’s a different fantasy world than anything else out there.

32: Lord of the Rings: Journey To Mordor

This is a roll and write game, but it is a fun little one. Not one that I own or one that I’d go and seek out to add to my roll and write collection. But Journey to Mordor basically has you advancing your Hobbit on their journey to Mordor while trying not to let the Nazgul get you. Very simple roll and write but it has a little more player interaction, so it feels different than some.

31: The Hobbit

Speaking of Hobbits, we have The Hobbit. This is a competitive game about dwarves trying to get treasure, which is kind of what the book is as well. I like the mechanics where you are leveling up skills based off of cards you play. But you want to balance it so everyone levels up because you can’t defeat the monsters all by yourself. So it’s semi-cooperative, but not in a way that someone is working against the group, it’s just that sometimes you let another person get the better thing.

30: Deadly Doodles

Another roll and write game, and this one I think has dropped a little on my list. It’s a good simple roll and write where you are trying to get treasures, find weapons and defeat monsters. And what you do gives you points. There are some different dungeons which add in more things to do as well, which I need to play around with.

29: The Lord of the Rings

And even more Lord of the Rings, this is the classic Fantasy Flight Game. I like how it plays through the books. And you play as the Hobbits taking the ring to Mordor. It is fairly abstracted, but the locations you go and the scenes you play through are all very Lord of the Rings, so it feels more thematic than just with what you are doing. Plus it’s a really tough cooperative game and I like those.

28: Titan Race

Normally I don’t love games that have a lot of in your face, try and mess the other person over, but Titan Race is a lot of fun. This is a fast game and a silly game with great fantasy in it. Titan Race is very silly and I like how the tracks work. You can either do a race where you loop over the same board over and over again, or you can do a grand prix and go over three boards and each board does different things. And those things make the game even sillier.

27: Claim

Claim is a two player trick taking game which is odd. Plus the first hand you play doesn’t actually give you a score, it is how you build your hand for trick taking. It’s such a clever idea and I like that it plays really fast. The fantasy theme comes in that the different suits are fantasy races. And each of those fantasy races has it’s own powers, or they might. Some of them there are just more of, whereas others have powers. A knight always beats a goblin, for example. So it puts even more of a twist on trick taking in a way I really enjoy.

26: Paper Dungeons: A Dungeon Scrawler

I don’t know where this one will end up, so middle of the list is good for right now. I don’t know where it’s going to end up because I’ve only played this roll and write game once. And I liked it a lot, it’s a dungeon crawler as a roll and write. But as compared to Deadly Doodles where you go into a dungeon and cross over stuff, you do a lot more in this game. You level up your heroes, you have powers and abilities, you craft items and brew potions. And the better you do in other things, better you can explore. A lot going on, but not too hard.

25: Skulk Hollow

Skulk Hollow is a game of woodland creatures, the Foxen, fighting against a Guardian. It’s a two player only game and one that is very asymmetrical. As the guardian my goal might change from game to game, depending on which guardian I am. And the Foxen, well they always want to beat down the Guardian. And the Foxen can change up depending on who their leader is. Really cute game and fast to learn and play.

24: Silver

I think I say this every time I talk about Silver, but it reminds me of a game I played growing up with a deck of cards. In Silver you have a village in front of you and you want the lowest score possible. You know what two of the cards are in your village. You don’t know the other three. So now you swap cards out or play them for powers to get rid of cards in your village and lower your score. It’s simple, it’s fun, there’s a lot of take that, yet it feels nostalgic in a good way.

23: Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure

Clank is a fun push your luck, deck building, dungeon delving game. You want to get the best treasure that you can, but as you get cards, make noise, and well, annoy the dragon because it’s their horde, now the dragon starts damaging you. So you could jump in, grab the first thing you see and run, but if someone else can make it out, now they have more points and better treasure than you. Really fun game and easy enough to play for most people.

22: Deranged

Deranged might fall more into a horror game. But there is a magical gate and fantastical monsters who are out to get you. And you yourself can become one of those fantastical monsters if you don’t deal with your curses and get out in time, why, because you might become Deranged. The game has a lot going on, but I like the dual use cards and the theme of the game. A little horror I’m most certainly interested.

21: Village Attacks

Village Attacks is another darker themed game because you for sure are the monsters. And after a long day of terrifying villagers, you are ready to settle down. But nope, here some villagers to break down your door because clearly you’re the monsters, not the people trying to trash your place. That sounds light, and I find it silly, but it is themed dark. Still a very nice tower defense type of game.

20: The Grimm Masquerade

Themed with Grimm Fairy Tales, The Grimm Masquerade is a deduction game. You are each a masked party goer, one of the Grimm characters. You are of course looking for something, a glass slipper for Cinderella, but also have something you don’t want. Can you get what you need or make everyone else bust before they figure out who you are?

19: Ascension: Deckbuilding Game

Another deck building game, Ascension is fantasy themed. Really, like most pure deck building games, it’s about building up an engine that gives you points. I just like this fantasy theme and variability of it better than something like Dominion. But that’s not what we’re talking about. This lets you get heroes and casters and sages and constructions to fight monsters, get more income and buy more cards. I like that it offers a ton of different strategy for the game.

18: Res Arcana

Res Arcana is another in theme only fantasy games. You are basically building out an engine to get points and who can do it better to get points faster. I like it though with the theme of brewing potions and dragons and places of power. It makes it feel different, and I also like that you only have 8 cards to make your engine with.

17: The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

The Dresden Files are my favorite fantasy series. I love the world that Jim Butcher has created. The game, it does a good job of giving you the pieces of that world. But you need to know the world to connect them together. So it’s not the best fantasy game or story game for everyone, but if you know the series, it’s a lot of fun to play.

16: Small World

Small World is Risk with fantasy creatures, crazy powers, and well, a whole lot more fun. What really works is that this is a small board. The game is in your face, but it’s in everyone’s face. The option of hiding away in Australia is gone that you’d have in Risk. Plus, you get crazy combos. Flying Halflings, Seafaring Giants, Wealthy Trolls, all of them are possible. Really accessible game too for most new gamers.

15: The Lost Expedition

This one is on the list because of the expansions and promo cards. I don’t think in the base game there is anything too fantastical, but werewolves, fountain of youth, yeah, those are fantasy. This is all about surviving to get to the lost city of Z. The game is a really good cooperative one that if you have someone who is a alpha player, it keeps them from being too much of one.

14: Century: Golem Edition

This is another one where the theme is fantasy, but game play doesn’t really shine through on that. Still, the artwork and gem pieces are great, and I wouldn’t want a different theme. It’s a hand management game where you are building up cards in your hand to use them to turn gems into other gems until you get the right combinations to get golems. And the golems at the end of the game give you points. What is so amazing about this game is that turns are super fast, so while there are good decisions to be made, it doesn’t take long to get back to your turn.

13: Potion Explosion

We’ve all probably seen the app games where you get like colors to touch and that removes them from the board and if more hit, those are removed as well. That is what Potion Explosion is. You are making crazy potions by pulling dice and trying to get the like colors to hit. Light game with a great table presence.

12: Root

Root was one where I was thinking, is this actually fantasy. Well, let’s see, it’s animals fighting and building, so yes, that seems like fantasy. But really, it’s a confrontational game where you fight it out with your group trying to get points to win the game with everyone trying to keep everyone else in check. Great asymmetrical game, just know it’ll take some time to teach. And don’t let the artwork fool you, this is not a nice sweet happy game.

11: Roll Player

Roll Player is a game about making your Dungeons and Dragons (or Generic RPG) character. You draft dice to put them into various stats for your class. It’s a lot of fun as you try and match up colors and get the numbers right to score more points. Plus you buy up gear and abilities which can influence your stats or points as well. And that’s the game, it’s about building up your character.

10: Spire’s End

Spire’s End, coming soon to Malts and Meeples is a story adventure game. In Spire’s End you wake up to find a spire has appeared at the edge of your town and many people are missing. You and others go into the tower, fight monsters, make choices, and generally go on a weird and dark adventure. Really like this one as a solo game.

9: Super Fantasy Brawl

Super Fantasy Brawl, it’s in the name that it’s fantasy. Super Fantasy Brawl is a two player skirmish game where you are trying to complete objectives in an arena and knock out your opponents. Complete objectives, get trophies. Knock out your opponent, get trophies. The first to five wins. What I really like is the turn speed, you play up to three cards, one of each color and do what it says on the cards. And the cards you play determine who moves. Light game but very tactical in how you play.

8: Cartographers

The second game I have in the Roll Player world, won’t be the last. But Cartographers is a roll and write game where you are making a map of the land. And you get points for making it in certain ways. Forests surrounding mountains might give you a point or two, things like that. What makes it fantastical is that you put monsters on the map as well. And you don’t put your own down, you put them on your opponents board in the worst spot for them to make them score negative points.

7: Sleeping Gods

Sleeping Gods, well, you can watch me play this one I just wrapped it up over on Malts and Meeples. Sleeping Gods is a big adventure game where you, as the crew of the Manticore are transported to a new world. You want to get home, but in order to do that you must awaken the sleeping gods and all you know is that totems might help with that, not where to find them. So it’s really a sandbox game of exploring, finding quests, fighting monsters and more.

6: Roll Player Adventures

Roll Player Adventures, the final Roll Player world game, this is an adventure game set in the world of Roll Player, using mechanics or dice mechanics that feel like Roll Player, and it’s really good. I really like that Roll Player Adventures is an easy game to learn and a lighter game to play. A lot of the big adventure games can have a lot to keep track of and a lot of tokens. Roll Player Adventures has enough, but not too much. And the world you play in isn’t too dark.

5: Aeon’s End

Aeon’s End is another deck building game and the highest on the list. This is a cooperative game where you play as breach mages trying to fight off nemesis that come through. The game does two really interesting things for me. Firstly, you never shuffle your deck. So when you discard cards you can kind of put them in an order. And the other is that turn order is random. There is a deck, in a two player game, which has two activations for each character and two for the Nemesis. On a really bad draw you could go twice with each character and then two Nemesis turns, plus then shuffle that up again and two more Nemesis turns.

4: Lords of Hellas

Lords of Hellas is fantasy in the future, or mythology in the future. It’s a cyber world of Greek gods. An odd setting with some amazing miniatures and mechanical creatures. But a really good game with some rough edges and a lot of ways to win. To me that is one of the best parts of the game where you are able to win in a number of different ways. You might fight monsters or build and control a monument or take over areas, how you play is up to you and the powers you have.

3: Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail, if Roll Player is light fantasy or happy fantasy, Tainted Grail is very dark fantasy. The world of Avalon is falling apart, the Menhir that drove back the wyrdness are failing and you aren’t sent out to stop it. You are sent out to find out what happened to the people who are better equipped to do this than you. But the story in Tainted Grail is amazing and one that I highly recommend people track down, which can be hard. Also know that this is a survival game with a ton of story, if you want the story, play in storymode, I am.

2: Dice Throne

Odd one to put on the list but Dice Throne is very much fantasy. It is fantasy head to battling in almost a Mortal Kombat type setting but it is still fantasy. My Pyromancer is going to blast your Barbarian with fire or then there is a Seraph or a Treant or a Gunslinger, all sorts of things, and you can take any of them up against each other. I’m so excited, it isn’t that far out to when Marvel Dice Throne will be delivered, several months but not that far. And Marvel Dice Throne is compatible and can be played with everything else I already have.

1: Gloomhaven

Finally, my #1 game of all time, Gloomhaven, This is a massive fantasy game of dungeon crawling combat. It is amazing and what really makes it is the card play. You pick two cards to play, one will determine how fast you go. Then when you go you use the top of one card and the bottom of the others to move and attack, so you can set yourself up for some epic turns or make it flexible to cover a changing board state. And there are so many different characters that are interesting to play as.

Final Thoughts

I love fantasy as a theme. A lot of my favorite series are fantasy for books in particular. And for board games, there are a lot of games that use the fantasy theme. But when you get down to some of my favorite games of all time, the big fantasy games are hard to beat. I think that my Top 3 games are all fantasy games. And I even skipped some games, like stuff in the Lovecraftian Mythos because while they are fantasy, I feel they are more horror. Maybe I’ll do a horror game ranking soon.

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100 Through 91

90 Through 81

Top 100 Board Games – 80 through 71

80. Just One

This is an interesting party game in that it’s fully cooperative. A lot of party games have teams against each other, or everyone is vying for solo victory, but not that many are cooperative. In this game, one person is the guesser, the other people are giving clues for one word. The other people write down a single word clue. If they duplicate both those clues go away, and the guesser has less clues to guess from. So you want to give a unique, but meaningful clue, or maybe the most obvious one and hope no one else does. We do house rule it so you don’t get penalized for a wrong guess and the game is still great.

Buy on Miniature Market

79. Merchants Cove

It’s one of two highly asymmetrical games on the list, Merchants Cove has you taking on one of several different roles, building up your own engine of things that you do, to try and get goods to sell to merchants. The Captain uses a spinner in some of what they do, the Oracle does it as a roll and write, the Inn keeper is guessing how merchants are going to show up, the alchemist is playing a version of Potion Explosion. The game works well at 2-3 and the different characters are great. Not a complex game but a lot of fun.

Buy on CoolStuffInc

78. The Grimm Masquerade

I called this social deduction, but it’s more hidden role and deduction. In this game you are trying to collect your masquerade character’s gift. But there is a gift you don’t want to get because it’ll reveal who you are. The game is simple to play, you just flip a card and decide to keep it or give it away. You’re trying to get them to bust while getting your correct gifts. Once you’ve decide with your first card you flip and do the opposite with the next. So it might make you closer to busting, or help you, you don’t know. Plus you can guess who other characters are for even more points. Pretty simple game and great artwork.

Not Available

77. Dice Forge

Some games have a lot of toy factor and are just okay games. Other games have great toy factor and are really good games. Dice Forge is a really good game. It has really good toy factor too in that you change up the side of the dice. You build up an engine which allows you to get cards for points but also pull off a side of a die and get a new side. It’s fairly themeless but the artwork is really nice and game play is a lot of fun. What resources do you add to your dice, and how do you optimize to score the most points?

Buy On Miniature Market

76. Claim

I like trick taking games, I own a number of them, but I haven’t played a ton of them. Claim, though, is a really fun trick taking game. The game plays over two rounds, the first you’re playing to build your hand, and the second hand is your actual scoring hand. It is interesting because to build your hand you are trying to win or lose tricks based off of a card that is flipped up. So if it’s a low card of a suit you try and lose and get a blind card instead. Plus the suits have powers which are interesting as well. It also plays really quickly, which is what I want in trick taking.

Buy on Miniature Market

75. Small World

Small World is a game that I call Risk but fun. Plus Small World has you with special powers and fantasy races which let you be different than everyone else. And you are always fighting people, you can gang up on someone in a great position, but then they put their fantasy race into decline and come in with another and attack. There’s no getting stuck in a corner and just left alive in this game. It is faster than Risk, more entertaining and just a really good area control game.

Buy on CoolStuffInc

74. Star Wars: Rebellion

Star Wars in a box. This game is kind of the original trilogy where one player is the Empire and the other player is the Rebels. The Rebels are trying to complete missions to subvert the Empire to win the game. The Empire is just trying to find the Rebel base and wipe that off the map. The game has you moving troops, fighting battles, capturing enemy leaders, and more. It works well, it’s a big game, and even with dice combat it’s a whole lot of fun.

Buy on Miniature Market

73. Pandemic Legacy: Season 1

This is the game that has dropped massively. It was my #10 game overall last year, and honestly could probably be higher. This is how I want to play Pandemic, whatever Legacy season. The reason it’s dropped is that I’ve played through it twice already. So do I need to play it again, I could and I’d like it. But it’s also a legacy game, so I know a bunch of the story and the beats. The game I still highly recommend and if you’re looking for a fresh way to play Pandemic, it’s an amazing cooperative gaming experience.

Buy on Miniature Market

72. Root

Root is the more complex of the two asymmetrical games on the list. Each faction plays differently, but you need to know how the other factions work because that matters for how you play the game. You take on different groups of creatures in the woods from the Eyrie to the Marquise de Cat to a Woodland Alliance and more. The game has you fighting and trying to get area control in a lot of ways. Really smartly done game but harder to learn. I want to start playing it again more often because it’s really good.

Buy on Miniature Market

71. Medium

Another party game to wrap up this section of the list. Medium is amazingly fun. The game has you and a partner on a turn you try and guess the word between two words that you’ve played down. If you match up you get the higher point tokens, if not you try and come up with the linking word between the two that you just said. And now you see if you match again. It’s a good funny party game that has you thinking but it’s somewhat cooperative because matching helps you. And even if it’s not your go, you’ll be thinking of a word that connects just to see if you’d match.

Buy on Amazon

The Next Ten

The list is now 30 games in, and we’re getting close to that mid point. The disclaimer as always, while I like the games higher on the list more, the games on this list are all really good in my opinion. So if you want to see what the next ten are live you can join me next Wednesday. And in general to know when I go live, you can subscribe and click the notification bell. That’ll alert you when I am going to go live or when I put up a new video.

Thanks for checking out the list. Let me know which of these games you’d like to get to the table most? Any that you haven’t tried or that you know you already love?

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Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s

G and H’s

Gloom

This is a fun little story telling card game, and one of the earlier “new” games that I picked up after watching it played on Wil Wheaton’s Table Top show. What drew me to this game was how creative and morbid they were with everything, and how a game could have such a silly objective, such as killing of your family for the fewest points possible to get the win. What keeps this on my shelf, even though I haven’t played it in a few years, is that it’s just such a fun time when you do play it. You get into the morbid absurdity of it and collectively tell such a tragic but absurd story.

Status: Played

Gloomhaven (Forgotten Circles Exp and Jaws of the Lion)

Gloomhaven is my favorite game of all time, so clearly I’ve played it a lot, and I’ve beaten it and the Forgotten Circles expansion, I haven’t beaten Jaws of the Lion yet. What I love about Gloomhaven is just the large, sprawling story that it tells and the very Ameritrash feel, but also the Euro game sensibilities in the combat and combat cards come through, and no dice. Now, I like dice chucking, but I’ve found that I really like that tactical nature of the game play in Gloomhaven where it is much more buttoned down than a pure dice fest. This is a massive game with a massive rule book, but not that difficult when you get into it.

Gloomhaven and expansion Status: Played
Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion: To Be Played

Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

This is a game that I picked up in San Diego because I had a few hours to burn before seeing family and after I was out of my hotel, so of course I went to a game shop. This is one that I had seen played on Rodney Smith’s channel, Watch It Played, and that looks like it was a lot of fun. I’m glad I made the purchase as I’ve had fun with it, trying to time out things so that I can rocket forward by spending the right fuel as you try and get your spaceship to escape a black hole and get back to your own dimension. What makes this one fun is trying to read what the other players are going to be doing, you know half the cards they have, but what else might they have to power their ships, how fast will it go compared to yours will that move them closer or further from you. And I like how some fuels move you closer to the nearest object while others push you away or pull them all closer to you. It’s a clever idea that works well in a game.

Status: Played

The Grimm Masquerade

I almost missed this one, but you wouldn’t know that had I not said it. This game I like as a deduction/social deduction game. I think what works well is that it really is more deduction than anything else. In this game you are at a masquerade and you’re trying to guess what Grimm’s Fairly Tale characters everyone is. Now that should be obvious, Rumpelstiltskin and The Beast form Beauty and the Beast should be pretty obviously in why they are, but let’s say magic. What I really like about this game is the two cards you give or keep each turn. You draw one and you have the choice of giving it to someone or keeping it for yourself and they have an item on it that you might want, because if you collect enough of one, you can win, if it’s the right one for your character. The second card you do the opposite thing from the first one, so if I give it away, I have to keep the second card. But the downside is that you have a weakness and if you get enough cards of that type, you are out of the round and can’t get the rose which is worth a bunch of points. I like the push and pull of that as you have to consider, do I take something that’s just neutral for me because I know if I get another of a certain item I’ll be out? It’s just a really good and quick deduction game.

Status: Played

Hanabi

This is a weird game, in that you have a hand of cards and they don’t face you, so you can’t see your cards, but you can see everyone else’s cards. This is also a game about hold information in your head, not just for yourself but what clues other people have been given already about the cards in their hands. You’re trying to play down cards from 1 to 5 in different colors, but you are limited in how you can talk, and of course you can’t see your own cards. It’s a nice simple game, but one that has a lot going on when you really get down to it.

Status: Played

Hanamikoji

I was going to say that this probably my favorite game to play with two, but there is one that I like better, but it’s the best two player only game that I have. This game has you trying to win the favor of Geisha so that they will come to your restaurant, you do that by giving them gifts. But what works so well in this game is how you give the gifts, each player, per round, does four actions, put down two cards face down that won’t be used for gaining favor, one face down that will be used for gaining favor, giving your opponent the choice of 3 cards which they get one and you get two for gaining favor, or giving your opponent a choice between two sets of two cards for gaining favor. That’s it, and both of you can do those actions in any order, if you can figure out what your opponent might have, you can make them have some really hard choices as to what to take, but it’s always a bit of a risk. Great two player game.

Status: Played

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

This is Harry Potter in a deck building game, as you face off against the different bad guys from the books with the characters of Harry, Hermoine, Ron, and Neville. What is really interesting about this game is that as you start you’re playing through the first book, then they add more cards and of things from the second book and you get more, and then the third, fourth, and all the way up through the 7th. It’s basically a campaign game that takes you through the whole Harry Potter series Now that does mean that the first game is pretty simple but later ones are longer and more challenging, but you can do cooler and different things than before.

Status: Played (partially)

Hats

This was one of my most anticipated games from GenCon 2019 after seeing it played by Man vs Meeple. This is an interesting game with an Alice in Wonderland theme, but really it’s a unique card game. in this game your hand of cards are cards you’re playing onto the table in the middle of the game, the cards you take off the table are the ones that you use for scoring. And scoring is fun as well, because there are more suits than there are spots at the table, and the table might have brown in two different spots, not everything will be scored, so you need to push for some colors, sometimes, and then hold one or two back so you can play it down and that color will be scored. But a card on the Mad Hatters table can be replaced if someone plays the same color or a higher number over that card, so it’s a real balancing act and puzzle, great at two very thinky, fun at four, but much more random.

Status: Played

Hearts

Yes, I own a deck of cards. Hearts is a pretty fun trick taking card game. I don’t play it often, but I won’t say no to a game.

Status: Played

Heaven & Ale

This is a game that I talked about recently in a Point of Order post. It’s a euro game which normally isn’t my cup of tea, or pint of beer in this case. However, because of the beer theme, and a reviewer who I like their reviews and generally like their taste said it was one of their top games, and because it was deeply discounted for Black Friday, I grabbed it. This is a game that you can basically call a puzzle as you are putting out tiles, getting resources, trying to get the most victory points, I’m interested to try it when I can play with people in person again.

Status: To Be Played

Heroes of Terrinoth

There are some YouTube channels that you’ll see often on my posts, Rolling Solo is one of them. He highlighted this game a while back, and when I spotted it used at my FLGS, All Systems Go, I decided to grab it. In this game you are playing as heroes trying to defeat scenarios, which might be searching for something, going to different places and fighting monsters, and eventually dealing with a big boss. What I thought was interesting was how you had four abilities and you’d have to reset them at times, so it isn’t just about doing the same thing over and over again. Plus, you can upgrade those abilities, and how that lets you focus your character in a few different ways, just in the scenario itself.

Status: To Be Played

The Hobbit

I like Lord of the Rings a lot, so when The Hobbit game from Fantasy Flight was on sale, I decided to pick it up. This is a really interesting game as it’s almost semi-cooperative in nature. As a group you need to deal with a series of challenge points, and you can raise your stats to do that. But not one player will be able to deal with all of the challenges, so you need everyone to have raised their stats as well. To do this you are playing cards from your hand with numbers on them, the higher the number the further you’ll move in your group of travelers. But going the furthest doesn’t always mean you’ll get the best thing, but you also might not want to always get the best thing, because if someone is lagging behind too much in their stats, it’ll make it more likely that Smaug will move forward and everyone will lose the game. It’s a clever system that I enjoy.

Status: Played

Homebrewers

Have I mentioned that I like beer? Homebrewers is a game all about being a home brewer and in a home brew club where you are trying to brew the best beer to get points at Summerfest and Oktoberfest. You do this by getting ingredients, putting them on your beers, brewing those beers, and then each ingredient has some power of some sort, it might be you get $2, or you could move up another beer on how well you can brew it, it all depends on the ingredients that you have on the beer. So if you’re smart with how you do it, you can brew one beer to influence more or to make things easier. It’s a nice engine building game that gives you a lot of fun options and things you can do, and it also plays well at two players.

Status: Played

Hues and Cues

Final game for the letter H, Hues and Cues is a fun, new, party game from The Op, formerly USOpoloy. What I like about this game is that it’s a different kind of party game. In so many you are trying to make people laugh, or something like that by what you do or write, Hues and Cues challenges you to give good one word and then two word clues to get people as close as possible to the color you want. I like that you want people to guess right, but also for the players, guessing close works as well. But you can’t just say something like Sky Blue, as that tells you that the color is some shade of blue, but your one word clue could be sky, so what do people consider sky, or maybe you give a clue that has people going in the wrong way, you then can give another clue to get people closer again. It also works pretty well via Zoom, just everyone should be looking at a monitor to get the colors as close as possible to each other.

Status: Played

What’s your favorite game from the G’s and H’s? Is there one that stands out as one that you’d want to try or one that I should try that I don’t have in this letter range?

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100 to 91

90 to 81

80 to 71

70 to 61

60 to 51

50 to 41

Plus a few notes on how I’ve put together the list:

• These are my favorite, you want what people consider best, see the Board Game Geek Top 100
• If a game you love isn’t on the list, it might be be coming, I might not have played it, and if I have, it’s 101
• If a game looks cool, I have links to buy it from CoolStuffInc or Amazon, or you can grab most at your FLGS
• There are a few games, Destiny 2 Player versus regular Destiny where if they are basically the same thing, I only do one of them

40. Second Chance

Dropping a ways on the list, I still really like Second Chance, and it’s such a peaceful game to play and easy game to teach that I’ve played it quite a lot. And that’s probably the reason for it dropping, just wanting a bit more variety in what I’m doing. In Second Chance you are using Tetris like shape, polyomino shapes, to fill in a grid. Every turn you have two different ones you can choose from and you goal is just to fill in as much as you can. if there are ever shapes flipped that you can’t put on your board, because the shapes are just wrong for you, you then get a second chance. That is a single card flipped, just for you, to keep you in the game. The game is very simple, very fast to play, but is a very calming game to play as well. It’s also fun to doodle in the shapes so that you end up with a unique looking board.

Last Year: 15

39. The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

I can’t really say why this one has dropped so much, I’ve even played it a number of times recently. I still really enjoy the game, I think that this is one that actually works pretty well over Zoom, especially if both players have the game. The best way to describe this game is that you are trying to beat the puzzle that is a Dresden Files book. You are trying to solve more cases than you have bad guys left standing at the end. That means you might need to beat down a lot of villains or you might need to focus on cases, plus there are obstacles to overcome and advantages to grab. The game is a lot of fun if you know the series well, and I think with the exception of the last two books, the last one which just came out, I’ve read all of them at least twice. The story is really interesting and really good, and this game doesn’t have a ton of theme, but if you know the books, you give it theme as you play through the books with the characters.

Last Year: 14

38. Cartographers

Another roll and write on the list, and one that I just recently talked about because there is a standalone expansion for it on Kickstarter. This game is all, as the name suggests, about making maps. You are score points depending different scoring cards, two for each season. You are filling in polyomino shapes again, and trying to get those to match up with the scoring. There are four different land types, villages, forest, fields, or water and they will all score in a different way, depending on what the scoring is. Plus, there are monster cards, and this is something unique for a flip and write or roll and write, where you pass your sheet to the player to the left or right and let them fill in the monster on the worst spot possible. The game has a lot of interesting elements to it with the monsters and with the scoring of the seasons, so A and B scoring cards in spring, but then it comes back around to A again in Winter, so you score it at the start and end. Not complex, but a few interesting things to keep track of and a theme that works well.

Last Year: 39

37. Star Wars: Rebellion

Dropping down the list is Star Wars: Rebellion, and that’s mainly because I haven’t gotten to play it in a long time. This is a great game and a big game. It’s “Star Wars in a box” as Sam Healy used to say on The Dice Tower. In this game one team is the empire trying to track down and hidden rebel base, all the while, the rebels are trying to cause unrest and complete missions in the Imperial systems. It’s an interesting game of cat and mouse between the two and makes a really fun time. This is a big game, and it take a long time to play, probably 3 hours, but it is very immersive and time flies by. For some people there’ll be a negative of dice combat, but there’s an expansion that helps with the randomness of that, and I don’t mind it at all, personally. Really good game, and if you are a Star Wars fan and a gamer, you’ll probably like this game.

Last Year: 11

36. Roll Player

Second Roll Player game on this chunk of the list, technically. The other being Cartographers. Roll Player is interesting because I’ve enjoyed the game every time I play it and the dice drafting aspect is a lot of fun. With that said, I always want a little bit more from the game. I know that I’m going to be getting that with Roll Player Adventures when that comes out, so I’m excited for that, and there are expansions that add more to Roll Player itself that I need to try. But in this game you are drafting dice and using them to create a D&D/RPG character. You have your stats, you are getting them from when you have place three dice, so it’s really D&D like. And for me, making characters is a lot of fun, you gear them up nicely and then you score points off of skills you have, where your stats are at, and where certain dice are placed for your background. It’s not a complex game and a fun way to do drafting.

Last Year: 57

35. The Grimm Masquerade

Now, I don’t like social deduction games for the most part. The Grimm Masquerade is a combination of social deduction and deduction that I like quite well. In this game you are all going to a fancy masquerade ball and you are Grimm fairy tale characters in disguise. You are trying to figure out who everyone else is. You are doing this by trying to either bust a player by giving them a card that they don’t want, or through process of elimination guess who someone is. All the time you are trying to collect the gift that you want. They make this work in an interesting way because on your turn, you can do a special action if you want or have the cards to do one, but mainly you are drawing a card and giving it away or keeping it and then doing the other thing with the other card. So you might accidentally bust yourself if you aren’t careful, or you might pass something away that you wanted because you have to, but can you keep a poker face while doing that? It’s a clever little game and the special powers that you can play with make the game feel different each time you play it.

Last Year: Not Ranked

34. Village Attacks

A GenCon play for me last year, this one has maintained a pretty high spot on my list while I wait for my copy to come from their most recent Kickstarter. In this game instead of playing the villagers or “heroes” standing up against the monsters, you are playing the monsters as the villagers ruin their peaceful evening in their lair by kicking down the door and trying to kill you, kill your lair, or complete some other objective. This is a cooperative game of tower defense where you are killing villagers, leveling up, killing more, and hoping you can survive the onslaught. Overall, it’s a dark game, look wise, and the monsters are monstrous, but it feels and plays pretty light. The theme somehow feels more goofy than it does dark, and it really just works well. The dice use for determining actions works well so that you can’t plan everything, and the leveling up is fun to do in game. I like also that it is scenario based, but not campaign based so you can pick it up and play easily.

Last Year: 29

33. Sushi Go Party!

This is one of my favorite big group filler style games. This is a card drafting set collection game where everyone is going at the same time, picking a card from their hand, building up their collection, passing their cards, and then once all the cards have been drafted scoring them and doing it all over again. The concept of the game is simple, but it works well because how the sets score are different and because you can mix in a variety of special ability cards that can change up how you draft cards or help you complete sets. There is a basic version of this game with out the variability of being able to switch up your cards, but Sushi Go Party! is really cheap so I recommend it instead. I think that variability is what keeps it so high on my list because it is a filler game, but for something that plays a large number of people, it is better than a lot of filler or group style games.

Last Year: 31

32. Draftosaurus

Another filler game, but this one with a lower player count. But that works because it is another fun drafting game, three on this section of the top 10. In Draftosaurus you are building you best dino park, you do that by drafting dino meeples and placing them into your park. However, there is a die rolled each turn and that determines where you have to place the dino, unless you were the one to roll the die in which case you can put it anywhere. You have a number of different pens and each scores differently. One will give you more points for each different type of dino you have in the pen, others will score you points for pairs of dinos. The game is super fast and super cute because of the dinosaur meeples, and while you are drafting from a hidden hand, the game is so fast that it really doesn’t matter if others see what dinos you have. This is one that when people see the box or see it on the table, even if they aren’t gamers, they’ll want to try it.

Last Year: Not Ranked

31. Tokyo Highway

Another one that I got at GenCon but didn’t get it to the table until after I ranked for last years list. This game is an amazingly beautiful production, and the same company that is doing Crash Octopus which I did a Back or Brick on. In this game you are building out the Tokyo Highways system. Roads going every which way, and you are stacking and balancing them. This isn’t that precarious, but when you cross over or under another road you can balance a car on your section of road, because the goal is to get your cars out as fast as possible, but you don’t want to knock over the other roads because that can cost you your pylons which you use to get your road over or under the other ones. I think that really makes this game more than just your normal simple dexterity game is the beauty of it. This looks so amazing on the table, it really is an art piece almost when you are done. And the rules and concept are simple so it’s not a convoluted game, but there’s enough going on that it’s not just a stacking game like Jenga. Overall a lovely game.

Last Year: Not Ranked

So there were a number of games in this section that I hadn’t played last year when I did my list, which is kind of fun to see all the new and fun games that are coming out. It’s interesting to see what games have moved up and down even for myself and I plan on seeing which ones have fallen off when I do a retrospective on my list at the end of this. As always, I do want to ask, what one sounds the most interesting or is your favorite in this 10?

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10 – Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle
Do you want to play through the Harry Potter books? That’s what Hogwarts Battle gives you as you can play from Ron, Hermoine, Neville, or Harry himself as you go up against he-who-shall-not-be-named. Though, you need to deal with the likes of Crabbe and Goyle, Quirrel, and others first. To do that, you need to build up your deck so that you can deal with the threats before the plans of the villains get too tough to deal with and you lose the game. The game grows in complexity as you advance through the various books until you get your NEWT’s and you can specialize your skills even more. And there are more challenges that you need to tackle. There’s even an expansion to add in some of the monsters that live in the forest and Luna as a playable character as well.

9 – Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate
D&D Theme here which is kind of odd to have a game that’s based on an RPG and Video Game. But there’s a game that is actually based on Betrayal at House in the Hill. In this game you’re going to explore the city of Baldur’s Gate and there are odd things going on, crazy events, and omens, and items. Eventually someone is a traitor and everyone is going to have to deal with their betrayal. You get that classic D&D sort of feel as you have all your different character classes that you can play and all of them do something special that makes sense for their class. The cleric heals, the wizard has magic missiles, and it’s a very fun time. While it is a big generic in terms of what people expect from fantasy now, the game is a lot of fun and more balanced than Betrayal at House on the Hill.

8 – Lord of the Rings
There are a number of Lord of the Rings games, this isn’t the Living Card Game or Journeys in Middle Earth, this is the game that came out in 2000. This one is all about playing cards in a such a way that you can complete legs of Sam and Frodo’s journey to Mount Doom to destroy the ring. It allows you to go on that journey and play as Pippin, Merry, or Fatty Bolger if you’re playing with five players. It’s fairly abstracted but overall a bunch of fun and punishingly hard as you reach towards the end of the game. The artwork in the game is beautiful and fully cooperative, though, there is a Sauron expansion where someone can control Sauron.

7 – Hats
Not all games with an IP are going to have a ton of theme to them. Hats is definitely one of them as you’re trying to create you best collection of hats. Now, that’s all around the Madd Hatter’s tea party and his hat collection and which hats you should be wearing, but it’s really a card based game where you are collecting hats and trying to set yourself up to score the best that you can. It’s a fun abstract game with a vague Alice in Wonderland aesthetic to it, but that’s about it. It’s a fun fast game that has some clever things around it when you consider which hats you’re trying to collect and which you’re playing down that might help your opponent. Definitely a stretch for an IP, but technically it has one.

6 – The Grimm Masquerade
There are a few of these that are using public domain IP’s. The fairy tale characters that you get in this hidden role game are all out there for anyone to use, but they are a theme that has been added to the game from a previous work. In Grimm Masquerade, you are at a masquerade, unsurprisingly, and you are trying to figure out who all the other players are. You do that by giving them gifts and taking a gift for yourself. If you’re Cinderella you want to get a glass slipper, but there is one that is going to be bad for you and if you get that, it outs who you are as a character and you’re out for the round. But you don’t have to just give gifts, you can accuse as well. And if you correctly guess who someone is, you get more points. There’s an interesting amount of strategy to this generally lighter style of game.

5 – Star Wars: Rebellion
Star Wars in a box, this game is all about playing that original trilogy and seeing of the Empire is able to find and destroy the rebel base or if the rebels are able to sabotage the empire’s plans and outlast them. You get to play with iconic characters and write your version of the trilogy. Maybe it’ll be Yavin that gets blown up or Endor. Will the rebels capture Darth Vader, or maybe the Emperor himself will be leading the Death Star into battle. It’s a big game of cat and mouse that takes a while, but it feels like a Star Wars movie each time you play it.

4 – The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game
Probably one of the more abstracted games on the list, the theme still comes through well, especially if you’re familiar with the books. You are taking your team of investigators, combatants, and possibly werewolves to try and solve the case from a given Dresden Files book. Each book has it’s own balance of advantages you can get, obstacles you can overcome, and most importantly cases to solve and villains to beat. If you can solve more cases than there are villains left, you win, but you might be dealing with the final encounter where you can use some abilities, but hope that you got things close enough so that with a lucky roll you can defeat that last villain you need to defeat or solve the last case at the last minute.

3 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game
One of two Lovecraft games on the list, and since you haven’t seen the other one, you know that it is going to be higher. This game allows you to play through scenarios, trying to avoid going insane and be able to solve the mystery presented before you with basically just cards and a few tokens. It has some good mechanics some of the randomness and mechanics, and I really like that you can tailor your experience where if you want to enjoy the story more, you can play on easy, if you want it hard, you can play at an extremely difficult level. It works well, with that, for like I said if you just want to experience the story or for learning the game, being able to play on an easier level.

2 – Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition
The second game on the list based around Lovecraftian mythos and they come back to back. Mansions of Madness just does a better job with it’s app integration for doing the book keeping of moving the story along nicely. In both of the cases, you can play very different types of stories, but they are all set in the Lovecraft mythos, or at least adjacent to it. Lovecraft’s works were less pulp detective than the Fantasy Flight Lovecraftian games are, but it still has some of the theme of the monsters, and a game that is just about madness and dread wouldn’t work extremely well, you need something for the players to do.

1 – Marvel Champions: The Card Game
Top spot goes to Marvel, this game a lot of fun, and it really uses it’s IP well. You have your superhero, Spider-Man for example, fighting Rhino. Well, if Rhino has been hitting Spider-Man too much, he can always flip over into Peter Parker, and Rhino will stop attacking and go back to scheming on his great plan to rob a bank. So it really feels very thematic and you come in with a web swing and kick Rhino to eventually beat him, it feels like you’re playing as Spider-Man. The art helps the theme as well, and even the graphic design on things like the “Tough” and “Stunned” cards have a great comic book look and feel to them.

There are a lot of fun games with good IP’s on them that don’t have to be a generic fantasy or sci-fi setting. A lot of these games, while some are a bit more complicated are going to be good things to get people who maybe aren’t big game players who really love a theme. I think that all of these are fun games, and I really wish, looking at the list, that I had some time to play some of them right now, but thankfully some of them, Marvel Champions, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle can be played solo, or with Lord of the Rings, my wife enjoys that game as well. There are a lot of good games with IP’s now after it just being generic roll and move games.

What are some of your favorite games with an IP?

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I have played new games, and will things have changed much, you’ll have to see… but the answer is NO! So if you want to see my top 100 games of all time, check out that link above, and now onto this list, where I’m going to go with 5 games from 2019. This is a bit different than normal lists where anything goes, but I just did my top 100 games, so I thought, to make this more interesting, I should just go with 2019 games.

5 – Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale
A fun roll and write game that I really enjoyed this year. The scoring is a lot of fun as you score for A & B first, then B & C, C & D and finally D & A. And, it does something else that’s unique for a roll and write (flip and write) game that when a monster shows up to be placed onto the sheets, you pass your sheet to another player and they can put it into the worst position for them, while someone else does that for you. It’s a bit more interactive than a lot of roll and write games. The game plays fast, and while I wish the map making theme was more of a part of the game, it is lightly there, and the rest of the game is fun.

4 – Zona: The Secret of Chernobyl
Now, this game I only got to play a chunk of at GenCon an while it is a 2019 release, I expect it to get more of a release in 2020. But it was a blast to try out, and the mechanics of the game were interesting. A game where you’re exploring the irradiated lands around Chernobyl, but not in some grim way, but there is a secret in the heart of Chernobyl and you’re exploring ruins, fighting against mutant monsters and scavenging food. And you might be magical. The experience of playing this was great and the game seems to have some nice theme while engaging mechanics. I also like that it’s a competitive game, but it’s possible that the game will just beat everyone.

3 – Letter Jam – While Zona was a massive game, Letter Jam is a much smaller package as you are trying to figure out a word that is in front of you. However, you can’t see your letters, and the only way you can figure them out is if your letter is used in a clue where you can see the other letters of the word being formed. And, it’s a cooperative game, so you need to be helping people guess their letters and words while you are getting clues as well. This game scales up well and is a lot of fun, even with a rocky first experience playing it, I’ve had a lot of fun with it since then. The puzzle level of the game is good, and the fact that no one knows their letters means that if you have a larger vocabulary it doesn’t help you.

2 – Hats – An Alice in Wonderland themed abstract game, I really like Hats. In it you’re trying to collect the best collection of hats at the Mad Hatter’s tea party that is determined by what you have in front of you, but also by what is on the table at the end of the game. So it’s a push and pull game of playing down cards onto the table, trying to make it so that your opponent doesn’t score well, at the same time protecting where you are scoring so that they can’t screw you over. The game has a cute cookie in it as well. Now, that seems pretty cutthroat, and it can be, but the game is fast, and it is less direct in terms of feel of the conflict. It’s a well done game that forces you to think about how you play your cards in a different way than you’d normally do for scoring.

1 – Deranged – While the last two games have been small, this game is a big game that is coming to the US in 2020 from Ultra Pro, but it came out in 2019 technically in other places. I got a chance to play this at GenCon, and it was amazing. It’s a horror themed game where you go to a cursed town, end up cursed and you need to break your curse before time runs out. But along with that, you have other players who are trying to do that, and if they escape before you, you still lose. And, then, there is a chance that you’ll become deranged, which means you turn into a monster, and then you have to kill someone else to get your humanity back. The damage being done by cards that have multiple uses is great, and how everything works is done really well. I’m really waiting for this to come to the US so that I can pick up a copy, it scratches the same itch as Betrayal at House on the Hill, just in a tighter package, but with less story.

Now for some honorable mentions, I might have had one or two of them in my top 5 had I played it earlier because it’s a ton of fun. But the games above were all on the list from the top 100.

Honorable Mentions:
Point Salad
Cat Cafe
The Grimm Masquerade
Skulk Hollow
Draftosaurus

Are there any cool games that you’ve played from 2019 that you think I should check out. I’ve played more new games, and I have Tainted Grail sitting there ready to be played, I just haven’t found a time to play it yet. Let me know in the comments below.

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Let’s talk about what’s coming to my game table soon:

Welcome To… Doomsday and Welcome To… Spring – So this is just an expansion to a game that I already love, Welcome To. These add new things to the board, where in the first game you were building neighborhoods, pools, and parks, in these two, you get to add in new things. The Spring has Easter eggs scattered about, and if you fill in those houses, you get points for collecting eggs. In Doomsday you are building bunkers for the inevitable nuclear destruction of your neighborhood. You can save as many people as the house number, but the person who saves the most gets the more points, but will it mess up your neighborhood?

Hats – This Alice in Wonderland Tea Party themed game is a fairly small card game that comes in a beautiful package. I had seen it played on Man Vs Meeple youtube channel, and it looked like a lot of fun. I picked it up, and it was a lot of fun. The interesting thing about the game is that while you are collecting cards, you aren’t using the cards from your hand to score. Instead you are placing them out into a scoring track, and taking a card from that track that you’ll score at the end. But it’s possible that at the end of the game certain colors won’t score, which could keep you from getting points on something you’ve collected. It’s a simple game of placing cards and scoring cards, but because you really don’t score your own hand of cards, there is a nice twist on it. And it look great, the plastic cookie in it, looks almost real.

The Grimm Masquerade – In this game, you play three rounds where you are a different (possibly) fairy tale character at a masquerade. You are trying to collect the item that you want, but you don’t want to be too obvious about it, otherwise the other players can force you to take what you don’t want. This is a smaller social deduction game with some actual game to it. On a turn you draw a card and can either keep it for yourself or place it in front of an opponent, and then you draw a second card and do the opposite thing. If you get three of your item you get the end of round points, but if you make it too obvious people can guess as to who you are for a couple of points or give you the items that you don’t want. Can you properly hide who you are while deducing what other fairy tale characters are at the table with you. At the end of three rounds, most points wins. This one seems very interesting and looks great. I like social deduction games that put in more of a game than you get from Resistance and Werewolf.

Tokyo Highway + Expansion – I didn’t get this one for myself technically. Kristen and I are celebrating our fifth anniversary in a few weeks. And with that, you get anniversary gifts for each other and we often try, just for the fun of it, to match the randomly assigned theme from years ago that you can google. For five years it is wood. And Tokoyo Highway is a pretty looking dexterity game that has a lot of wood components. In the game you are trying to build a highway system in a way that you can get all of your cars onto the roads before your opponent. But to be able to place a car, your road either needs to go above or below another road, so it becomes tricky to place them. The expansion adds in some different shaped cars, so it might be easier to place the small cars early, but does that mean you can’t place a truck later on, because it won’t fit?

Cat Cafe – Cat Cafe is a cute little roll and write game. In it you are setting up your cat trees to attract the cats in the cat cafe over to you. You get points for getting toys and treats in certain arrangements and for completing cat trees. It seems like a good roll and write game, and with two different strategies the first time that I played it, the game ended up being close. For a cute little theme, this is actually more of a thinky roll and write than I thought it would be. I will knock the game a little bit because the dice are bad in the game, but it gets some of those points back because the pencils that come in the game have erasers, which is unheard of. I, however, laminated my boards so I can play it even longer.

Cobwboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie – I actually don’t know a ton about this game, except for what the saleman told me at GenCon. But I also got a free game with it, Albion’s Legacy, that I know even less about. In Cowboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie you are taking on the roles of the main characters from the show. You are trying to complete missions, get small bounties, but you really want to get the big bounties and compete your own objectives. What is interesting about this game is that each character has their own powers that they can do that are supposed to be fairly thematic. I’ll be curious to get this game to the table as it looks interesting, and I really like the Cowboy Bebop theme.

Sagrada The Great Facades – Passion – Another expansion, this one for a game that I really love. Sagrada is just a beautiful game to get to the table. And this expansion adds in some shiny clear dice. These are used in place in one of the powers that you can use, but the dice doesn’t count as any color making it easier to place. I think that it adds in an interesting challenge to the game, making it easier, but those power seem expensive. You also get to add in some more scoring objectives that can make the game trickier and give it more variety as you play. I’m waiting to get this one to the table soon.

Deception: Murder in Hong Kong and Expansion – I love this game, but I haven’t owned it and it’s been hard to find. But, of course, it was available at GenCon, so I had to grab it. This is just such as good social deduction game, and a mystery game. It’s fun, as a detective, to try and figure out the clues that the Forensic Scientist is giving you. And sometimes, a clue just isn’t going to be useful, but as the detectives, you don’t know that. I’m waiting to get this back to the table soon.

Detective: City of Angels – This is the biggest game that I got, but I’m a sucker for detective games. I do have to get them to the table more, as I also want to get Chronicles of Crime, which we demoed. But this one is interesting because it isn’t a cooperative game. In fact, there is one person who runs all the suspects who is intentionally trying to get mislead the detectives so that they can’t figure it out. And, along with that, as a fellow detective, you can send in someone to spy and get the same information, but it’s going to cost you money. Can you balance all of that to figure out what is going on, and can you figure out when to lean on a suspect to get that last piece for information, or were they telling the truth? I think this game seems like fun on either side, but I would love to be a detective in it.

Loup Garou – From the same company that made Detective: City of Angels, this is something completely different. It’s part of their graphic novel series. I don’t know a ton about this story, but it looked cool, and was the sales persons favorite of the books. What is interesting about these books is that they are a choose your own adventure graphic novel. That doesn’t seem like something a board game company would do. But, it is because you have a character sheet with abilities that turns this reading adventure into a game. I’m curious to try it out, and if I like it, they have a lot more titles that I’ll want to get my hands on, including a cooperative graphic novel adventure that is more child focused, but if you are playing the tall character, your panel is going to give you more options than you’re the strong character if, for example you’re standing next to a fence, but less options if you are standing by a boulder blocking a cave entrance. These seem really cool and fun to try.

I think that’s all that I got. You can see that I have a lot of games to get to the table. And I missed out on a couple that I’d love to get my hands on, mainly Letter Jam. But it’ll be fun to get those to the table this year, plus the other big box games that I have coming from Kickstarter eventually.

What of these games would you be most interested in trying? Was there a game that you were really looking forward to coming out at GenCon?

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So, one thing that I’d do differently, but I was glad that I did this time, was that we stayed at my friends parents place so we didn’t have to pay for a room, that saved a good chunk of change. The downside to it, was that their place was an hour and fifteen away from our parking spot. So that was a lot of driving at times. Now, if I were to do it again, I would maybe see about doing, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at a hotel, but keep our same driving schedule of getting there on Wednesday and going back on Monday. That way my friend would be able to see his parents, but being closer to the convention would be really nice.

The other thing that I’d do differently is be a bit pickier on games. Now, I think basically all the games that we played in were great, and that it was a good number of games, I think we ended up doing six events in total, but we skipped one game on Sunday to get into a demo of another game. That was a great call, since as interesting as the Harry Potter miniatures game sounded, the price point was too high, so we likely wouldn’t have started playing it even if we loved it. Instead, we got to demo a game that we both decided we wanted after playing it.

That really takes me to one of the big highlights. There are so many games there, and we spent a ton of our time wandering the dealer floor and looking at games, getting games explained to us, and best of all, getting games demoed. There are so many games that if you didn’t want to, you wouldn’t have to do any organized events. We got to demo God of War, Deranged, Last Hour, Homebrewer, Bottom of the 9th, and so many more, and I’ll be touching on some of them in future articles. In fact, it took us a day and a half just to walk around what we thought was all of the dealer space, only to find that we had missed some and then remember that we had skipped some bigger booths to start because they were too busy when we went by them the first time.

Oh, and the events, the events that we went to were great. Marc Gunn performing Hobbit drinking songs was a fun and goofy old time. There was the North American Championships for Ice Cool (I was a semi-finalist), and that was a blast, most of the people were there to just have fun with it, so everyone was having fun. The best event was playtesting the Alpha version of Role Player Adventures. It’s a RPG-Lite sort of game, where it’s more about some dice manipulation, but we had a great group to play test with and we made some silly decisions and had a lot of fun with it.

There is so much to talk about, and I did pick up a number of things, so let me give a fast rundown of what I picked up:

1. Cowboy Bebop Boardgame Boogie – I like Cowboy Bebop a lot, and the game looked fun
2. Albion’s Legacy – Got this one for free with Cowboy Bebop, and it’s a big box game which is interesting.
3. Hats – Good simple card game with a lot of interesting and challenging choices. You kind of have to forget what you know about card games to get your brain wrapped around this one.
4. Cat Cafe – Cat Cafe is a roll and write, but it’s actually more complex than you’d think for the theme. Definitely a fun one with the time I played it.
5. Loup Garou – A choose your own adventure book, really, but you have a character sheet, so there’s a game element to it.
6. Detective: City of Angels – Big box detective game. In it, one person is the “chisel”, person giving clues, but they don’t want anyone to solve the case, but if they lie all the time, people will know that too. And all the detectives are racing to a solution.
7. The Grimm Masquerade – Which of the fairy tale characters are sitting around the table and trying to collect their item of choice? Can you call them out before they succeed, or maybe bust them with the item that they don’t want. Seems like a fun and interactive social deduction game with an actual game there.
8. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong & Expansion – Not a new game, but my favorite social deduction game.
9. Tokyo Highway & Expansion – Not a new game either, but hard to find, it’s a pretty looking wood game where you are building out roads and trying to be the first to place your cars.
10. Welcome To… Fallout and Spring Expansions
11. Sagrada Expansion

Oof, I have a lot of board games to get through. So I want to talk more about games that I demoed in a future articles, games that we paid for and played, including a Dresden Files skinned Savage World game, and more. There’s a lot to unpack and a lot of fun was had, and I definitely want to go again next year.

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