If you want to join in on the live stream and see the games as I talk about them as well as comment on my choices, you can join on Wednesdays from now until November 17th. I stream over on Malts and Meeples on YouTube at 8 PM Central Time. And if you need to catch up on the list.

100 Through 91

Top 100 Board Games 90 – 81

90. Skulk Hollow

A fun and pretty simple and fast two player asymmetrical game. One person plays as foxes who are trying to take down the other players guardian. The guardian has it’s goal, to take out the foxes leader to some other objective. The foxes are trying to get onto the guardian and hit it, taking out all of it’s health locations and disabling abilities. This is all done through some pretty simple card draw that makes the game easy to play.

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89. Titan Race

This might be the first racing game that I ever got. It is a light and silly little one, which is what I look for in a filler. In this game you are racing across one board three times or three boards. You use special powers to stop your opponents, knock them off course, and get further ahead. The game play is fun too because you are drafting dice to figure out what your movement is. It’s a good game that can probably be played with all ages.

Not Available

88. King of Tokyo

A classic game at this point, King of Tokyo is about all those monsters you know the names of hitting each other to get into Tokyo. Granted none of the monsters are actually named right because of licensing costs. But this is a great game that uses the Yahtzee style mechanic of rolling dice, keeping, and then rolling up to twice more. You can win by knocking out the other monsters, the most fun way, or by points. This is a game I don’t always pull out, but when I do, it’s a good time.

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87. Tokyo Highway

Keeping on the theme of Tokyo, we have Tokyo Highway. A game that is as much a piece of art as it is a game. Now, don’t get me wrong, there is a game there, but when you finish playing it looks amazing. In this game you build highways through Tokyo while going over and under other roads. The trick is you can only raise or lower your road by one each time, and can’t touch the table with your road. If you go over or under another road you get to put out cars, but that’s harder because you can’t touch the other roads or knock them over. A fun and beautiful dexterity game.

Buy on Miniature Market

86. Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle

Not even the first deck builder on my list, Harry Potter: Hogwarts Battle is one of the easier ones to teach. First there is the theme that makes it easier to get to the table, people know Harry Potter. And a lot of people love Harry Potter. So it’s something that people can jump into as they know the spells and characters you add to your deck. And the game grows and progresses the further you play into it. Even just playing the first book several times, it’s a fun game that is very accessible.

Buy on Amazon

85. Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game

This is the zombie survival game in the lines of The Walking Dead. Yes, you have to kill zombies in the game, but it’s about how you can work together as players while still trying to complete your own secret objective. That part of the game is good, but where it really shires is the Crossroads cards. These offer you challenging decisions as to if you rescue someone or not because that means another mouth to feed. I do house rule this one by drawing two Crossroads cards. Only one can happen, but it means that they happen more often.

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84. Silver

This game is tricky to explain, but not that hard to play. In the game you are drawing a card and deciding what to do with it, do you add it to your village or discard it for a power. The interesting bit is that you have a village of five in front of you but the cards are face down. At the beginning of each of the four rounds, you look at two of them. So you need to figure out ways to see your other cards, or maybe swap them blindly. And to get rid of cards completely so you have the lowest score. Good little take that type of game.

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83. Hues and Cues

There are a few party games on my list, but this one wasn’t there last year because I had yet to play it. It’s a game about trying to get people to guess a color. But you first give a one word clue and then a two word clue. As the person giving the clue, you get points for more people getting close or the right guess. And for the guessers you want to get close because that gives you points. Giving clues to guess colors is definitely different and feels unique for a party game.

Buy on Amazon

82. Clank!: A Deck-Building Adventure Game

Clank! A Deck Building Adventure Game I own but I haven’t played my copy. I have played on Table Top Simulator on Steam and had a blast with it. It’s a great push your luck deck building game.

You delve into a dungeon to steal a dragon’s treasure. But as you go through the dungeon you make noise and clank. When the dragon awakens he draws from a bag that has your clank and others. If too much is drawn you die. But if you can get in and then get back out with the best treasure and most points, or the other players die, you can win the game. It’s light goofy and fun. And I really need to play Clank! Legacy.

Buy on Miniature Market

81. Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension

This is an odd game, it is fairly abstract but challenging and fun. Gravwell, I’m not doing the full title, has you sucked into another dimension and trying to escape back home before the portal closes. All while there is a black hole you don’t want to get sucked into. You are also out of your normal fuel, it’s not a good day. So you play down different elements as your fuel.

And this is where the game gets odd because some fuel pulls you towards the closest ship, some push you away and some draw ships towards you. Plus, every player plays down an element at the same time and they activate in alphabetical order. So if you play a later letter, like P let’s say, that might move you a long way towards the closest ship, but will that be the right direction when you get to activate. Silly game with a great and different mechanic to it.

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The Next Ten

So there we have it, we’re 20 games in between the two weeks. And every time I do the list I come up with a game I want to play And I come up with a game I think was too low.

If you want to join in on the next 10 live, you can do that on Wednesday September 29th at 8 PM Central Time. And then all the rest of the Wednesday’s up through November 17th. That’s over on the Malts and Meeples YouTube Channel. Subscribe and click the notification bell so you know when I go live.

And let me know which of these 10 is your favorite and which one do you want to try?

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WandaVision

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

Loki

There are a ton of Marvel shows coming to Disney+ in 2021. The ones that I’m very confident that we’ll get are the three listed above. WandaVision is the one that I’m by far the most excited for. I think that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier will have some nice buddy cop vibes. I think Loki jumping through time and working with the Time Variance Authority will be fun. But WandaVision, with Wanda and Vision, and maybe Wanda becoming Scarlet Witch, maybe things to do with mutants, all of those things are really exciting. It also is the most out there of the shows, so I think WandaVision will feel really unique.

The Watch

The Watch is one that I didn’t hear about until late, and normally wouldn’t have caught my attention that much. But basing a show off of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld is really interesting. I’m definitely curious to check it out. And BBC America does a really good job with most of their shows, so I have some hopes for it. It’s also nice that I can watch that one without having to get another subscription, as I have so many that I could get.

Mr. Mayor

I liked Ted Danson a lot in A Good Place. And while I generally am concerned about shows that use an actor right after their big success, like this one is, I’m willing to give it a shot. If it can mix the style of humor A Good Place maybe with the feel of Spin City, that could be a lot of fun. Or, this could be a complete train wreck as they try and work a boring or unfunny comedy using Ted Danson’s name, which has happened a lot on television before.

Battlestar Galactica

I didn’t even like the latest version of Battlestar Galactica that well, but it is such as Sci-Fi classic that I’m definitely curious about a reboot of it. Add in that it’s being produced by Sam Esmail who was the creator of the acclaimed series Mr. Robot, I have more hope for this one. I think there should be a lot of interesting things to explore in this series, and I hope it doesn’t feel just like a straight reboot.

The Wheel of Time

It’s not expected to debut in 2021, so I’m excited for it again. I really need to finish the series, but in some ways I have to work through the whole thing again, which is a lot. But I like the cast a lot for this. I think that it’s interesting and diverse, which is not something I was expecting. I also think that like Brandon Sanderson was able to weave together Robert Jordan’s work, this might also tell a tighter narrative. And that’s going to be the key thing, if this tells a nice tight story over several seasons, I think it will be a great show. If not, I expect to watch a few episodes and then be done.

Invincible

Robert Kirkman, best known for being the comic creator of The Walking Dead, also created Invincible. This is a well developed superhero world that has received a lot of acclaim. Anything superhero I’m interested in. And while I don’t know a ton about the Invincible comic, I am very interested in it. And it’s a superhero show that, unlike the Boys, isn’t likely to take a super gritty look at superheroes.

Shadow and Bone

Another series that I don’t know a ton about, but my wife has read the series and really likes it a lot. It’s a fantasy series which always interests me. And the world building, just from a brief synopsis, and magic stand out as interesting. So many fantasy stories reuse what’s already been done and feel derivative, so I hope this won’t become that for Netflix.

The Sandman

I’m generally a Neil Gaiman fan. And The Sandman was one of the first things that I read by him. I want to see what an adaptation of that will look like, because it is a very unique world and setting. This is one of those shows that will either work and be amazing or it’ll be a complete train wreck. I hope that it’s amazing, but I could see it flopping or just doing okay, because people will watch it since it is Neil Gaiman.

The Book of Boba Fett

This one I wouldn’t have been able to say up until a few days ago as the Mandalorian Season 2 wrapped up. I am very interested in any live action Star Wars stuff coming to Disney+. It was fun having Boba Fett back in the Star Wars cannon and actually being useful as compared to normal. Ming-Na Wen is an amazing actress as well, so I am excited to see her in a bigger role, like she had in Agents of SHIELD, but hopefully something that is more consistently better.

Resident Alien

Alan Tudyk stars as an alien in this SyFy channel comedy. I love what Alan Tudyk does. Tucker and Dale vs Evil is one of my favorite films. And I hope that this show is awesome as well. I like comedy shows, and Tudyk does comedy extremely well. But, I’m always a bit concerned about comedy shows because they have to be extremely well written in order to be actually funny. I trust that Tudyk can carry the show, though, so I’m hopeful that it’ll be a good time.

Now that’s a lot. I think there were a lot of shows form 2020 that got pushed out further and pushed out further until they became 2021 shows. And this list is only new shows for 2021, not returning shows. I am going to do a whole list of those as well.

What are you most looking forward to?

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But we’re all familiar with zombies in popular culture. The Walking Dead both as a comic and a TV show really brought them into the limelight and turned what was just a bunch of shambling monsters into something more terrifying where the humans might be the monsters. But we still kept getting the more standard zombies as well with movies like Shaun of the Dead. But The Walking Dead was really the show that let zombies expand. And even hit board games where the popular Dead of Winter gives you a potential traitor in your midst and everyone being selfish to some extent.

There has to be a lot beyond that, so what are some other things you can check out?

Book/Movie – Pride, Prejudice and Zombies
This one people might be more familiar with. It did have a movie come out and while it wasn’t an extremely successful movie to pick up on the zombie theme, it was advertised. But I think that the movie and book are worth checking out. Pride, Prejudice and Zombies is a lot of fun because while it twists the story from Pride and Prejudice, it stays true to many of the themes. It still has the sarcasm and it takes itself seriously. Even though the world is in the midst of a zombie apocalypse (or at least England is), there are certain principles of being a lady and a gentleman that can never truly be done away with. It’s a funny juxtaposition of those two things, and is something that Jane Austen did in her own work.

Game – Zombicide Black Plague
While this isn’t a unheard of game in the board gaming world, it does take on more of a classic zombie feel. You’re fighting off endless hordes of zombies in various scenarios that might just be about killing zombies but might have more going on as well. I have the Green Horde stand alone expansion for the game where you can get some orcs into the world as well, so there’s magic as well as zombies. There’s also Zombicide and Zombicide 2nd Edition that put it in a more modern setting, I went with Black Plague for the list because Zombicide, the original, has some issues with it, and the 2nd Edition I don’t believe is out yet. But if you want to be in one of those movies where you’re dealing with wave after wave of zombie trying to survive, but you’re not worried about the people as much as the zombies, this one’s worth a look.

TV Series – iZombie
Obviously the big TV show is The Walking Dead, but this show based off of a Vertigo comic by the same name and produced by the producer of Veronica Mars is a lot of fun. Liv Moore, get it, is turned into a zombie and now her perfect life of planning to become a doctor and getting married has to be put on hold. Not only is she a zombie, she realizes that she gains memories and knowledge that the person whose brain she eats at last, so she goes to work for the police, in their morgue, and can get access to brains to help solve cases. It has a bit of a procedural nature to it, but a lot more fun. And there’s a good supporting cast of characters around her. The villain of the show is really good. CW also didn’t mess with this show like they did with Veronica Mars, which keeps the show stronger throughout.

Movie – Cockneys vs Zombies
So the first time I went to a con, CONvergence in Minneapolis/St. Paul area, I went at the last minute because they were screening Cockneys vs Zombies and I was following the writer of it on Twitter since he’d also worked on Doctor Who. This is a good, absurd, and British zombie movie. I really highly recommend this one as it just has some wonderful moments in it. While I wouldn’t call the story anything amazing, I think that they did a great job of adding in a few expected jokes, but is clever ways. Possibly the best moment, and spoilers so you can skim ahead to the next heading if you want, is there is a nursing home/assisted living home, and when the zombies come there, one of the residents is outside. Of course that resident is slow and has a walker, so we get a great slow speed, high intensity chase as a zombie slowly shambles after the resident who is slowly walking using his walker. And that’s not the only joke that works well, definitely a zombie comedy worth checking out.

Game – Zombie Dice
When you want a faster game to play, Zombie Dice is a simple game in the style of Farkle or other dice games. You’re rolling dice, pushing your luck to see how many brains you can get, but if you push your luck too much, you can get shot, and if you get shot you don’t collect the brains you’ve gathered this round. The game is very simple but it works well in decent sized groups because turns take a few seconds and you just need to remember your total of brains. It’s one that works well with families as well, again because of the simplicity.

Book – Chemistry
Now, I don’t know much about this series, Kristen is the one who has read it and loves it. I’m just hearing about it through her. From what it sounds like, it has elements of being a Twilight Parody but with zombies instead of vampires. And that the writing and characters are more interesting and better. And that’s coming from Kristen who still enjoys the Twilight Saga for the cheesiness that it is. This book, and series, just do have a similar story but in a more interesting way with more developed characters. So if that sort of fiction interests you, I know that Kristen and other she’s read it with, have enjoyed the books a lot.

Now, there are a whole lot more zombie themed things out there. Some of them are more serious and plenty of them are pretty silly. I wanted to highlight some that are maybe a bit more well known while others that are a bit more out there, that is you’re a zombie fan you could checkout. What are some of your favorite zombie things?

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The premise of the book sounded very interesting to me as it is a story. I don’t know that I would call it massively unique, but it’s a topic that is interesting to delve into. So I picked up the first volume and gave it a read, and I thought I’d do a review on that as well as some first impressions on it.

The idea behind Freeze is that randomly, one day, everyone in the world freezes, stops moving, but isn’t dead, just isn’t moving anymore. That is, except for one man, Ray. Not only that, but Ray has the power to unfreeze people by touching them, which he figures out by accident. However, he quickly finds out what sort of responsibility comes along with that.

Obviously, the landscape of the world changes a lot when something like everyone freezes, planes are fell out of the sky, there are a lot of accidents. You can still very much die when you freeze. However, that isn’t an aspect that they dwell on too much in the story. They focus more on the human side of things, like what it would be to be one of the people that Ray unfreezes, but also how the decisions are made as to who to unfreeze. While you could certainly go around unfreezing everyone you run across, which I think that a lot of people would be tempted to do, they realize that with the disaster that this is, that they need to slowly reintroduce people back into the world as the world can handle it, starting in there area.

That then brings up the question of if the people helping Ray actually have the best interest for the world. And who has the power to make the judgement as to who should be unfrozen. Those who are helping Ray talk about not unfreezing bad people, people have criminal records, people they believe to be doing something wrong in life, but are they actually making a true judgement on that? I think the book opens up a lot of interesting questions and does a pretty good job dealing with them.

I will knock the first volume a little bit though. While I like the concept and while I like getting into the story or at least a brief first arc of the story, I think that Dan Wickline glosses too quickly over the fallout from the freeze. We get to see the freeze happen and a scene or two to really tell us how this is going to work and how big this is, but then we leap forward a few months or more, I forget exactly. I would have liked to see some more of the house keeping and the freaking out that happened with unfreezing people and them finding out what the world is like now, and how they were making their decisions.

Also, I think the storyline for the first arc, while it is well done, it a little bit predictable. I won’t go into details, but it’s kind of the low hanging fruit of the story where one character has a special power. I am fine getting the story out of way, but I’m hoping, if and when I pick up another volume of the trade paper back (tpb) for Freeze, that the story has a bit more depth.

Finally, I will say that it reminds me some of The Walking Dead. Now, you don’t have the threat of the “walkers” like you do in that series, but it’s a series about a disaster that isn’t so much about surviving the disaster, but is more about the human element of dealing and coping as survivors. That’s another reason that I wish the story hadn’t jumped ahead like it did, you feel like you end up missing some of that information, which is a real shame.

Overall, I liked the book, and I think that I’ll likely get another volume and see how that tpb holds up. It’s a very interesting concept that has a lot of things to explore which I enjoy. I suspect that it’s going to become more and more intense as more people are unfrozen and the challenges that come from that.

If you’ve read this comic run, what do I think of it? Does the premise sound interesting to you?

This is definitely going to be grim fantasy setting where you are dealing with some fairly heavy issues. Much like the show The Walking Dead and game Dead of Winter deal with humans who are causing problems to the other humans.

So, we have a small group of survivors who are our players. They are going to have to look for a safe haven. Whether they all know each other before the apocalypse is up to the players, but it’s possible that some of them could be an outsider to the group. I think that would be a way to cause tension in the game quickly by planting seeds of doubt, whether the person can be trusted fully or not.

You can also set this up by having an DM PC, something that I would say never do, in the party where you have a character, but really they are a reoccuring NPC who is going to screw over the party some night. They are using the party for their own good, but then they decide that the party isn’t useful for them, so they are going to take what they want and then leave. I’d make this a lower level bad guy for them to deal with, while still having to fight zombies often or try and sneak around zombies. You could even, if they don’t track down the NPC and kill them, have that character build up into a larger bad guy.

If they do kill the NPC, then create a new one who has a rival gang fighting for resources and doing a scorched earth policy to keep other people from following behind them and getting the zombies to follow those people and getting to them. However, this would obviously have a very negative effect on other survivors beyond the more resourceful PC’s.

Eventually, I think the big bad of the campaign, besides the zombies, should be a wizard or lich who has a controlling rod that they build after the apocalypse has started. This rod is what they are using now, to control zombies and take over territories and subjugate people. Taking out the lich/wizard won’t solve the problem of the zombies, but will at least give people a fair chance.

I’d make it so that the BBEG is either the only who who can control the zombies, or that the rod is something like a crystal ball so that the players won’t likely get the magical item that allows them to send zombies away or keep them away from an area. Or at least cause that as a threat for the players and the players can either decide that destroying the control rod, which would then cause the zombies to attack the BBEG as well as the players might be an object, or try and figure out how and use the control rod.

Maybe give it to the players, now that I’m thinking about it, or give them a chance to get it, because then you could narrate a cool ending where the players could use the control rod to create a little oasis of safety for people to live.

With all these kind of major points, I’d also have the players dealing with survivors, dealing with injured people, dealing with bitten people who haven’t turned yet, and things like that. I would nerf a few healing options, basically only wish should be able to stop the zombie virus as it takes over the body where it could be argued that Greater Restoration or even Lesser Restoration might be able to normally.

Now, would I want to run this game? I think it could be interesting to run. I think the big focus of this game is going to be putting the players into situations where there isn’t a good outcome. This is supposed to be a dark fantasy scenario, and you don’t want them to be too heroic. I’d throw them up against situations where it’s about surviving. With that, though, I’d also give them a saving throw against turning into a zombie, but I would expect some PC’s to die along the way.

Would you want to play in a dark fantasy game?

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So what would I want in a Fantastic Four film?

First, I don’t think I want an origin story. I think it would be cool if they were the ones who bought Stark/Avengers Tower in New York City. It would make a lot of sense to get them loosely tied into something. I also think it would be interesting to have the Avengers Tower, or Baxter Building as it would be known now, to come under attack with someone looking for something that Stark or the Avengers had left there. We get the idea that Reed Richard, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and The Thing have just been doing their thing, but are now being pulled into the world, I’d even give Reed and Sue their kids in the film, so we get something a bit different into the MCU, the actual family of powers. For a villain, I’d go with The Thinker or The Mad Thinker. The reason is that he’s tech related, and it would make sense for him to be after the Fantastic Four, but also interested in something left in Stark/Avengers Tower/Baxter Building.

So let’s get to casting, who would I want to play the various members of the Fantastic Four?

Reed Richards
What I’m Looking For – Someone who is a bit older to fill in this roll. I want them to have kids, and for me, Reed Richards should be older than Sue Storm by a little bit.

Sue Storm
What I’m looking For – I want someone who gives off some mother vibes, but also can be a fun character. Someone who can play supportive for Reed Richards and her kids, but also be impulsive enough to go off and do her own thing.

Johnny Storm
What I’m Looking For – Johnny Storm should be someone who is brash. Someone who has that swagger on the screen whether they’ve earned it or not, because they think they are awesome.

The Thing/Ben Grimm
What I’m Looking For – This should be portrayed by an actor who can get the depth of The Thing right. Someone who can see the Ben Grimm through The Thing, since The Thing isn’t just a monster.

Let’s get these characters cast…

Ben Grimm/The Thing – Ron Perlman
He’s the original Hellboy and I think that he’d be able to nail the gruff while tragic character. I like Perlman’s work generally, and think that he’d be able to pull it off. He can also be that deadpan character when need be for humor purposes.

Johnny Storm – Zac Efron
Probably too big a name to play Johnny Storm, but I think that he’d make a lot of sense in the roll. He plays that overconfident character well and Johnny is meant to be a bit comedic, but mainly just overconfident, and Efron seems like an actor who would make that work well.

Sue Storm – Kristen Bell
She just plays such sweet characters now. But we’ve seen her play that headstrong character in Veronica Mars. I think between Veronica Mars and now her sweet character, but still independent character in The Good Place, she’d fill the roll nicely. Now, she and Efron don’t look a ton alike, but even in the comics Sue and Johnny don’t look a ton like siblings.

Reed Richards – Andrew Lincoln
You know him from The Walking Dead, but he has the look that I think you’d want for Reed Richards, that serious character. He needs to be able to play the family man, but also someone who is smart and not always socially adept. I haven’t seen much of The Walking Dead, but I think that Andrew Lincoln would work quite well.

How about the Villains?

What you are really wondering about is Doctor Doom, The Silver Surfer and Galactus. I don’t think think we’ll get any of those characters in the first film, so I’m going to stick with my choice for a villain, The Thinker, with a bonus of Doctor Doom who might be hinted at.

The Thinker – Stanley Tucci
Tucci just seems to do well in most roles, and I see this as a one off role for him. He would be able to overact it a little bit, which would be fine for the sort of movie I want it to be.

Doctor Doom – Jeffrey Dean Morgan
When I made this pick, I didn’t realize he was the actor who played Negan in The Walking Dead, but I think he’d make a good Fantastic Four foil from his work as The Comedian in Watchmen. He just has that larger than life presence on the screen without being too much.

So what do you think about the casting? Who would you want in the main four roles or playing Doctor Doom?

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The Rain is a Netflix Original (aka released in the US). The show is a horror/suspense show that leans more on the suspense side of things than it does horror. The show is based in Denmark, so it also has that different feel to the suspense than you get in a lot of shows from the US.

There is something wrong with the rain, it’s killing everyone. Simone, a teenager, and her younger brother are rushed by her father to a bunker hidden out in the forest with their mother. There, they should be safe, but something happens so that both her parents leave her, and she and her brother have to spend time in the bunker. Six years later, with resources running out, they are forced out of the bunker to face the world as it is now.

That’s a brief synopsis of the show. In a lot of ways, it’s a post apocalyptic survivors show. How much humanity have people held onto and how much are they willing to work together. Those are the questions that The Rain tries to answer. But along with that, since we’ve seen that with the Walking Dead, is why is the rain like it is. What’s the mystery surrounding Apollon the company that Simone and Rasmus’s (her younger brother) father worked for and that built the bunkers.

The suspense in the show works really well. You do wonder what is going on, and you wonder who is going to make it throughout the show as you feel uneasy about any of the characters chances of survival. You also get to question the motives of everyone in the show.

I’d compare this to two different shows with how it handles everything. The first is Helix, a show on the SyFy network from a while back. That show was definitely more horror focused, but there was some mystery and suspense around it as they slowly unfolded what was going on. The Rain does something that I feel is similar, but has a tighter more people focused approach to the show. I could toss The Walking Dead into a comparison, but I haven’t seen much of the show, just read the comics, but Dark, another Netflix Original, has a similar atmospheric presence to the show. The pacing of the show tends not to be all that hectic, and the cinematography, while not as good as Dark, and the scoring, again not quite as good as Dark, does a great job of setting the scene and feel for the world.

This does get to the biggest thing that I really love about the show. The pacing of The Rain, and Dark, is so different from your standard American show. While The Rain does wrap up story more so at the end of each episode, there doesn’t feel like the rush that you get from the American shows. You can really sink into the show and just experience it as compared to basically any other show. I think some would say that Game of Thrones does that as well, because it isn’t action focused, but Game of Thrones spreads itself way to thin character wise, and loses a good chunk of the humanity that you get from The Rain. They do it so much with the scoring which tends to be haunting, not grand, which is another thing that feels different than American television shows.

It’s tricky to explain how that experience makes you feel, and for me that was one of the driving forces that made the show really good. The writing on the show is solid, but nothing earth shattering. They do a good job of creating moments for each character. Kristen can attest so the fact that it might not be the most original writing as I’ve been able to predict several things in the show a ways ahead of where they happened at. I don’t consider that a major downside to the show as that tended to be episode focus, and one of them was done to great effect still and amazingly well written.

Another good thing about the show is that the acting is strong. There are no names that you’ll have heard of, but the acting is very good. The writing for the characters is really well done which helps a lot as well. Again, I think some of the characters can venture into stereotypes, but they have enough depth to the character that you can see beyond that. It’s also really interesting to stop and think about the motivations for the characters because you can really break it down and see why the characters might be the bit of a stereotype that they are, for better or worse, basically always worse.

Overall, this is a really well done show. It isn’t without a few little hiccups, but they are over fast, with the exception of one episode that had some very interesting moments in it, but was the most cliched of all the episodes. This could be a tough show for some people to watch because there are some highly emotionally intense moments in the show. There aren’t always a ton of them, but when they do show up it’s very tough to watch. Still, I will recommend this show, because sometimes watching something tough and watching people process through that is very interesting.

Have you watched The Rain? What are your thoughts on it, do you like shows that build up so much through the atmosphere?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Obvious Ones:

Supernatural

This show has been going seemingly forever at this point, but it’s a classic monster of the week show. They have developed a nice cast of characters for the show and really found a groove. The first few seasons are definitely leaning more into the horror aspect, but even some of the goofier episodes in later seasons still is a solid hit for Halloween. While the show can be a bit repetitive, Sam and Dean Winchester more than make up for it by being fun characters to watch.

Stranger Things

Last year, the second season came out around Halloween, so it makes perfect sense that this is on the list. The show has a decent amount of suspense and the monsters from the upsidedown are pretty classic for horror. What makes Stranger Things so good is the feel of nostalgia that you get form it as the Duffer brothers reference the 80’s a ton and have pulled from horror and Halloween masters like Stephen King and John Carpenter. The first season especially has that tightly constructed story feel to it, and you are on the edge of your seat wondering what is going to happen next. And because it’s only two seasons and not long seasons at that, it’s certainly a digestible show to jump in and watch.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

This definitely falls into the campier area, especially now looking back at hos Joss Whedon tried to add drama into the show. But it’s a classic monster of the week show at this point and has some completely amazing episodes. There are some weaker seasons in the show, and the show itself kind of tapers off, though it did have a final season, in terms of it being worth watching. The musical episode is definitely a standout episode.

So now some deeper cuts for Halloween shows. They probably will still be somewhat known, but there might be a few odd ones in there that people might not have heard of.

Dark

Another show that can be found on Netflix, like Stranger Things, Dark doesn’t have the typical horror elements, but leans much more into suspense. It’s a German show that can be watched in English, but I’d personally recommend it in German with subtitles, just because of matching out up the mouths with the words and the issues that you can get in German with that. Dark is deeply thematic, and the time travel in the story keep you on the edge of your seat. It’s a very heavy show but it always leaves you wanting more of it. For some this show will be too stressful, but I personally found it engaging in a great way. Also, the music in this show is amazing and would work really well for a Halloween party.

The Rain

The final Netflix show on the list. The Rain is a Danish show that has some aesthetic similarities Dark. In this case, The Rain walks more on horror theme, but has some feel of The Walking Dead and a show that’ll be further down on the list, from what I can tell, I’ve only seen some of The Walking Dead (it isn’t on my list). The Rain deals more with people living in a tough world after a plague that has killed most of the population of at least Denmark because of something in the rain. Simone and her younger brother Rasmus are left on their own for years in a bunker while their father, who seems to be tied to the plague that has happened is out searching for a cure. Eventually Simone and Rasmus have to return to the surface to deal with the “humanity” that is left. There’s a little bit of a 28 Days Later feel to it, now that I think about it. I haven’t finished the show yet, but from what I’ve seen, I’m loving the show and the on the edge of your seat feel that it gives.

Grimm

This show is more main stream as it was on NBC for a while, however, now that it’s off the air, I think it’s less of a known. It’s a bit monster of the week as it follows around a cop who finds out that he has a connection to a world that he never knew existed. It’s another show that I’ve heard drops off a bit, but from the parts of it I’ve seen, the first three seasons I want to say, it was very enjoyable. Definitely less tense than the previous shows on the list, but none the less, very enjoyable.

Helix

This gets back into more of the harder horror show feel. This is the show that The Rain, for me, feels like it’s borrowed some from the feel of it. Though Helix focuses primarily on the scientists and trying to figure out who might be infected with the disease that is ravaging their Antarctic base, where the disease even comes from, and why it is being worked on. There’s a vibe that I’m pretty sure is similar to The Thing, I just haven’t seen that movie yet, somehow. I believe that Helix only had a two season run on SyFy and I only watched the first season. Even as a single season show, the tension and twists that happened made this into a very solid show and definitely one that is binge worthy to watch the first season around Halloween.

What are some of your favorite shows to watch around Halloween? I haven’t seen much of The Walking Dead, but that show, Fear the Walking Dead, and American Horror Story seem like prime candidates for Halloween watching, as well as The Strain.

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5. Dead of Winter

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This game isn’t without flaws/weird bits to it; the traitor, if there is one, generally can always tank the game during the last round if they don’t think they are going to win, in order to prevent everyone else from winning. And then everyone has secret objectives, so it kind of makes everyone look a bit like a traitor. I once wrote about how I’d like this to be turned into a legacy game, and I still think this would be one way to improve it. I think another way would be to rework it so that someone who completes their secret objective is the super-winner, even if the group wins the overall game; otherwise, as a non-traitor player in that last round, you might as well try to tank the game, or you’ll look 100% like the traitor.

That said, there are a ton of things I love about this game. The first being the crossroad system — on your turn, another player draws a crossroad card and reads it, and if you do a certain action or move someone to a certain spot that’s specified on the card, this acts as a sort of trigger. The other player then reads out a bit of a story, and you have to make a choice between two options the card gives you (at least most of the time; sometimes there is only one option). In the rules, it says to draw a card per each player’s turn; we draw two, and then if one of them is triggered by a player’s action, that is the one that the player has to deal with. This means that you get these cool story interjection moments. I also really like how gritty this game feels. Yes, it’s about surviving against a horde of zombies, but it’s in many ways more about the survivors themselves, like in The Walking Dead. That puts a different level of stress on you as a player, because you aren’t just worried about mowing down zombies all the time — there’s all kinds of other stuff to worry about. For example, can you feed your people? What do you do if you find more survivors? Is the base getting too messy? Dead of Winter is a fun game and a challenging one, and if you don’t like the hidden traitor aspect, you can certainly play it as a solely cooperative game.

4. Smallworld

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Smallworld is a fun take on the area control concept — in this game, you have a fantasy race and trait that are randomly combined, and you control an army of soldiers bearing that race and trait to take over areas on a board. But whatever number of players you play with, the board is small enough that you’re going to have to take over other players’ areas. This game is meant for that, though, and it’s really hard to have hurt feelings over it (unlike with other area control games), because when you don’t have enough of your current race, you can put them into decline and get a new one and exact your revenge during the next turn. It’s also a ton of fun because you never know what sort of combinations you’re going to get. Maybe you have flying giants or underworld sorcerers or commando pixies. These combinations change every game, too, so it feels different every time you play it (and they have awesome expansions for even more variability). Players’ turns go quickly, and the game has a round limit on it, so it never takes that long to play. The rules are simple, and the fantasy is fun and crazy. This is an area control game that I would pull out to the table anytime, and even people who hate Risk will probably like to play this game.

3. Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game

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My first pure cooperative game on the list, Dresden Files is a fun game that is very hard at times. You play through the different books of the Dresden Files series in game form. It is an interesting game mechanically, in that you have action points that you need to use and you have a hand of cards that all cost action points. You have to balance playing cards and discarding cards to get more action points, but sometimes you have to discard a really good card.

This game, while being cooperative, does have some hidden information between players; in most cooperative games, you share openly what information you have on your cards, and often, your hand of cards is right in front of you, but not so in Dresden. You can give general descriptions of your cards, but the details can’t be said. Now, you do develop a sort of a shorthand for that as time goes on, but you never know for sure what other players have. Finally, this game really does feel a lot like playing through the books, which some other games based on books or movies don’t do quite as well. In the books, Harry is always almost losing or getting beat up, and in this game, you feel like that; it basically always comes down to the last little bit and the luck of a die roll to determine if you win or not.

2. Betrayal at House on the Hill

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I love love love this game. It has that campy style of a haunted house or a horror movie where you know someone is going to accidentally piss off the zombie rednecks or turn into a ghost or call death to your location, and you’re going to have to deal with it. This is a surprise traitor game where you start out exploring this old haunted house and encountering weird things and finding omens. It’s a bit like Cabin in the Woods, in which the characters are stuck in a horror movie and somehow something horrible is going to happen to them. Depending on what they mess around with, though, they may trigger the omen that sets events in motion.

That is 100% what happens in this game, except one person is the traitor. This game does have one glaring flaw that becomes less of one the more you play the game — when you get to the haunt, the stage during which the traitor is revealed, sometimes the traitor rules or the survivor rules don’t make a ton of sense. The more you play, the more sense they make, but some of them are just weird and take a while to figure out. Like I said, this has the classic horror feel to it, and I love it; I’ll play it every chance I get, and I’m excited for Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate, the D&D version of Betrayal at House on the Hill.

1. Pandemic/Pandemic Legacy

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If you follow us on Facebook, you’d probably guess that this was going to be my number one. I am super jazzed for season 2 of Pandemic Legacy. Pandemic is a game where you work together to find cures for diseases while they are spreading all the time; it’s just a blast. It’s a fairly tough cooperative game that the legacy version then turns on its head and makes into something amazing. In that version, there are story elements that come up each “month” you play; you also find out new things as you go, and the rules change slightly as the game progresses. This game is a ton of fun, and I love bringing it to the table. It’s also an accessible cooperative game in that, although there is a fair amount of strategy, it’s easy enough to learn the base game. If you haven’t tried playing this game, definitely give it a whirl, and if it’s too easy, there are things that you can do to make it harder. And if you are looking for a way to change up your basic Pandemic gaming experience, the legacy version of the game is an awesome way to do that. There are a bunch of great expansions for the game as well, but I haven’t played all of those, so I can’t speak to them.

I always have to do some honorable mentions as well, since there are so many games that I’ve played and love, but can’t put on the list. Plus, it’s rare for me to run into a board game that I don’t like. First on my honorable mention list is Star Wars Rebellion; this game feels like the epic space opera that Star Wars is, in a box. I’ve played it a single time, and I want to play it again. Sushi Go! Party is a game that I can play over and over again, and it’s simple, fast, and has fun strategy to it. Arkham Horror/Elder Signs are how I like to get my HP Lovecraft fix, though Mansions of Madness is a game that I want to play even more and which might pass the other two up. Cosmic Encounters is a fun space game that plays pretty quickly and has fun alien race powers. Finally, Hogwarts Battle is a game that I just got to the table a second time last night, and it was a blast; you get to play as the main characters of Harry Potter and defeat villains as you play through the plot of the books.

What are some board games that you like to get to the table?

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