Top 100 Games (of all time) – 20 through 11

20. For Northwood! A Solo Trick-Taking Game

Published By: Side Room Games
Designer: Wilhelm Su

Buy For Northwood!

A solo trick-taking game seems like it shouldn’t work. But For Northwood! works really well. It’s a simple trick taker, you need to follow suit if you can. But the twist is that you need to win a specific number of tricks each time. You play over eight rounds and need to win between 0 and 7 tricks, exactly. That sounds impossible, but you get powers that help you manipulate your hand. It’s always a question of, which one do you go for, in terms of tricks to win, and as you get further along, can get manipulate your hand to make it work.

19. Marvel Champions: The Card Game

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Michael Boggs, Nate French, and Caleb Grace

Buy Marvel Champions

I love Marvel and this is the game that gives me the Marvel feel to it. You are a superhero and you want to stop the bad guys scheme and defeat them. But, thematically, when you are in your hero form the bad guy is going to fight you and you take damage. So you need to manage going between your superhero and alter ego form so you don’t get hit. Of course as your alter ego, the villains are going to be scheming away. And you can create all sorts of fun combinations of heroes and villains to face off.

18. Floriferous

Published By: Pencil First Games
Designers: Eduardo Baraf and Steve Finn

Buy Floriferous

This game is one that I think is really overlooked in the gaming community. It’s a clever drafting game that does two very interesting things. The first thing is how scoring works. You don’t have much scoring that just happens, instead you draft your scoring cards. So there is always a choice between, do I draft more flowers or do I draft scoring cards. The other is how the drafting works, and this it maybe a bigger twist. You draft from a column, how high you are in the column determines when you draft next round. So it’s very possible you want to draft a less ideal card to get a perfect card.

17. Stars of Akarios

Published By: OOMM (Open Owl Studios)
Designers: Brendan McCaskell, Jonathan Thwaites

Buy Stars of Akarios

I love my big campaign games, and Stars of Akarios is one of my favorites. This one works so well for me with the tactical space combat, the planetary exploration, and a story that doesn’t take itself too seriously. The tactical space combat really shines in the game as you use your dice to position your ship, attack, and avoid the enemies the best you can. And the exploration is a bit like The 7th Continent/Citadel where you flip over cards and create a map and really explore as you go.

16. Clank!: Catacombs

Published By: Dire Wolf
Designer: Paul Dennen

Buy Clank! Catacombs

While i just did sell all of my other Clanks, this Clank! Catacombs spot is for all of them. Clank! is a push your luck game where you build up a deck of cards to get into a catacombs, in this case, and get out with the most points and best treasure that you can. Of course, if you are too noisy doing that, you clank, and when the enemy activates it might knock down your health. So it’s this push your luck in making noise, and going deeper. I like, too, with Clank! Catacombs, the map gets built as you go, so the board really is different every time.

15. Roll Player Adventures

Published By: Thunderworks Games
Designers: Keith Matejka, James William Ryan, and Peter Andrew Ryan

Buy Roll Player Adventures

Another big campaign game here with Roll Player Adventures. This one is all about dice manipulation and a fun story. I had a great time playing through the first campaign, and the additional one that I have, I need to get to the table. The system works well, though I will say, with four players it becomes a bit easier than at lower player counts. But the simple map movement, the story, the skill checks and of course combat and leveling up make this a fun time.

14. The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

Published By: Office Dog
Designer: Bryan Bommueller

Buy The Fellowship of the Ring Trick-Taking Game

I like trick-taking games. Not a ton make it to my Top 100 games mainly because a lot feel similar. The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game is one that is different. Yes, it leans into a lot of standard things, but it’s also cooperative and story based. There are other cooperative ones out there, but the story based feels unique. Especially because this closely follows the books, so you get to chapters with Goldberry and Tom Bombadil as required characters which is fun. And the cooperative elements are challenging for the game.

13. Pirates of Maracaibo

Published By: dlp games
Designers: Ralph Bienert, Ryan Hendrickson, and Alexander Pfister

Buy Pirates of Maracaibo

The second of three new games on this part of the lit in a row. Pirates of Maracaibo is a pirate resource management game. I normally would want it to have more adventure, but this one is a ton of fun. I love building up my ship and seeing what strategy of building up ship, getting treasure, exploring, and competing quests can lead to victory. And it is great because all of them feel good to do. It isn’t a game where I feel like I need to go one way, though, I think some ways are more consistent.

12. Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game

Published By: Brotherwise Games
Designer: John D. Clair

By Mistborn The Deck Building Game

Another deckbuilding game on the list here with Mistborn. And I like Mistborn just a bit better than Clank! because of a little more pure deck building. But also it has a lot of fun elements to the game. It leans into Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn world and let’s you burn metals to play cards. I also like the turn track, you always bump up in power as you go up the track. This makes for a really great experience of feeling like the game is ramping up.

11. Sleeping Gods

Published By: Red Raven Games
Designer: Ryan Laukat

Buy Sleeping Gods

The final game on the list is another big one, though not a campaign game. Sleeping Gods is a sand box story game where you are dropped into an unknown world and need to find and deal with totems. Of course, it’s a new land, so you don’t know where those are. And there are monsters and other interesting things to deal with. You need to control 9 crew, but really, it’s one turn and you just need to remember a few key abilities as you play. So it sounds like a lot, either cooperative or solo, but it’s not too bad.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming new videos most Wednesdays. Let me know what you want to see me play next on Wednesdays after this list is done. You can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

And thank you for checking out the video and articles. Let me know what your favorite game from this chunk of 10 is and which one you would love to get played.

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Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 80 through 71

80. Rock Hard 1977

Published By: Devir
Designer: Jackie Fox

Buy Rock Hard 1977

Do you want to be a rockstar? Rock Hard 1977 is all about being a rockstar and the designer is legitimately a rockstar. In this game you place out workers in day, evening and night activities that help take you from garage band playing little local shows to playing sold out stadiums. The player who can make the journey the best is going to be the winner of the game. And each part of the day is going to let you do different things, in the day you might record a record, evening perform, and night go hang out at a club.

79. The Night Cage

Published By: Smirk & Dagger Games
Designer: Christopher Ryan Chan, Chris McMahon and Rosswell Saunders

Buy The Night Cage

I like a good spooky game. The Night Cage gives you that spooky feeling by creating tension as you race to get out of an every changing labyrinth. Can everyone get their keys and get to a portal before the candles run out and the players are lost in there forever. That counting down of tiles as they leave the board and new ones are placed out as a timer is great in this game. And it is spooky, which is hard for a board game to do.

78. Cthulhu: Death May Die

Published By: CMON Global Limited
Designers: Rob Daviau and Eric M Lang

Sold Out on online retailers, look for sellers on the Board Game Geek Marketplace or eBay.

Maybe your spooky is better with lots of giant monsters and a scenario where you know an elder being is going to come eventually. Cthulhu: Death May Die, called CDMD or Death May Die in the hobby, is a big game with minis and madness. You want to push your insanity up a little bit so that you unlock new powers and abilities to defeat the ancient horrors. But too much insanity and you knocked out of the game. This is a good beer and pretzels sort of game.

77. Captain Flip

Published By: PlayPunk
Designers: Remo Conzadori and Paolo Mori

Buy Captain Flip

Moving on from the spooky games, we have Captain Flip. This is tile laying game about filling up your pirate ship with crew. Every crew member is going to give you points, positive or negative, in some way. When you draw a tile you see one side. Then you decide do you want to place that onto your ship, or do you want flip it? If you flip it you are stuck on that side and have to put that down. It’s this balance of optimizing your score, playing out pirates, and pushing your luck as you flip the tiles.

76. Cartographers

Published By: Thunderworks Games
Designer: Jordy Adan

Buy Cartographers

Cartographers used to be my Top Roll and Write style game. Now it is dropping a bit, some because there are so many roll and write games that I like, and some because I haven’t played it recently. But I really enjoy this one and really enjoy making a map. I like the interactivity of the monsters who I play it on my opponents board in the worst spot possible for them. And I like how you score four different things, but depending on the season you score two and the season determines the two. It’s one I need to play again.

75. Letter Jam

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designer: Ondra Skoupy

Buy Letter Jam

Do you like word games but it seems like some people are just better at them? Letter Jam is a cooperative word game, so everyone needs to work together. In this game you don’t know the letters or the word you have. But everyone else can see one letter of yours at a time, and you can see one letter of everyone else’s. You all need to give good clues of words so people can figure out what their letter is. Say you have an “O” if I give a clue that shows you that the word uses the letters “FR[your letter]M” you can figure out what it is. But everyone needs to figure theirs out and figure out their word.

74. Can’t Stop

Published By: Eagle Gryphon Games
Designer: Sid Sackson

Buy Can’t Stop

Can’t Stop is another push your luck game to make the list. I like a good push your luck game like this one, Push, or Flip 7. They are easy to teach and play. In this one you want to get to the top of 3 columns. If you do that, you win. How do you do that, well, you roll dice and then split them into two pairs of two. The twist is that you only move up on three numbers per turn. So I might roll and get a combo to make ten and eleven, if I am not going up on ten or eleven, I lose my progress. But if I play it too safe, I lose.

73. Under Falling Skies

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designer: Tomas Uhlif

Buy Under Falling Skies

Do you like the movie Independence Day? Did you grow up playing the game Space Invaders. Under Falling Skies is a game that gives me the feel of both of those things. You need to research how to stop the mother ship while keeping too many of the smaller ships from making it to earth. And it uses an interesting die system. The higher the die, the more powerful the actions you can take are. But also the faster those little ships descend towards earth. I love that balancing act puzzle of the game.

72. So Clover!

Published By: Repos Production
Designer: Francois Romain

Buy So Clover!

So Clover! is a cooperative party game. It is one that is easy to teach in person and hard to explain. Basically you create a grid of cards that have words on every side. So you need to connect the two words per side with another word. Then everyone else is trying to get those words back onto the board in the right order, but the twist is there is an extra word thrown in. Plus often times the words are not easy to match. The better you do that as a group the more points you get.

71. Rallyman: DIRT

Published By: Holy Grail Games
Designer: Jean-Cristophe Bouvier

Buy Rallyman: DIRT

Finally rounding out this 10 is Rallyman: DIRT. This is another push your luck game and a racing game. In it you plot you course down the track and then get a choice. You either roll one die at a time which allows you to stop before you spin out and bad things happen. Or you roll all the dice at once. Why roll all at once? Well, when you roll all at once, you take negative one second to your time per die rolled. So you can reduce your overall time if you don’t spin out.

Join Next Week

Just as a reminder, I am streaming my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition every Wednesday night at 9 PM Central Time. The next few videos have their links up, so you can click notify on them to know when I go live. Or you can subscribe to the channel and click notify to know whenever a new video comes out. Currently I am playing through Legendary Kingdoms on Monday and then my wife and I are playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on Fridays. So join us for those videos.

And thank you for checking out the video and articles. Let me know what your favorite game from this chunk of 10 is and which one you would love to get played.

Send an Email
Message me on X at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
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Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
30 through 21
20 through 10

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

10. Aeon’s End

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

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

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

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

Buy Aeon’s End

9. Roll Player Adventures

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

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

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

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

Buy Roll Player Adventures

8. Dice Throne

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

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

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

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

Buy Dice Throne

7. Rogue Angels: Legacy of the Burning Suns

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge Rogue Angels

6. Floriferous

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

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

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

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

Buy Floriferous

5. Slay the Spire

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

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

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

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

Buy Slay the Spire

4. The 7th Citadel

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge The 7th Citadel

3. Stars of Akarios

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

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

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

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

Late Pledge Stars of Akarios

2. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

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

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

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

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

Buy Tainted Grail

1. Gloomhaven/Frosthaven

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

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

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

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

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

Buy Frosthaven

Upcoming Streams

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

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again. And generally the streams do start between 8 and 8:30 PM central time.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to be my 200 through 101 next week. After that I’m going to do some videos looking back on 2024. So expect to see my Top 10 Games of 2024 and probably Top 10 crowdfunding games I backed in 2024 as well.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3. Join us for the adventure of Nina and Kaerok and see what choices we make.

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

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Via Magica

• Published by Hurrican in 2020
• Beat your fellow magic students in a bingo-esque game and utilize your powers best

This is a great filler level game. It’s a ton of fun to collect materials and use them to open gates. And then try and figure out what games and what elements you want to focus on opening first to get benefits from either immediately or throughout the game. As as well you need to grab points, so it’s a fun balancing act in what you’re doing. This is not going to be for everyone as it’s a light game, but I really like Via Magica for a nice relaxing and fun time.

Buy Via Magica

49. Too Many Bones

• Published by Chip Theory Games in 2017
• Chuck dice and battle enemies as you level up your Gearlocks to faceoff against the final boss

This is a fun short campaign style game. It’s not a big story game, but you get that mechanical feeling of leveling up in Too Many Bones that makes it such a fun time. And each Gearlock is unique and plays differently. I think that is part of what makes the same so special. Each characters want to level up in their own ways. And sometimes you just want better stats. But other times, getting and using your unique dice is going to create for some really fun game moments. The game isn’t a story game, but it can provide it’s own story.

Buy Too Many Bones

48. Ganz Schon Clever (That’s Pretty Clever)

• Published by Schmidt Spiele in 2018
• Place dice, fill in spots, and gain combos to get your highest score

I’ve already talked about this system two other times. But this is the original one to use the system and it’s my favorite of them. I really like how clean the puzzle is for trying to solve this game and do best at it. And there are enough combos that you can end up with some awesome turns. But the combos don’t slow down the game too much which is one element that I can really appreciate about this design compared to others. Though the flexibility in how you play is a little bit more limited.

Buy That’s Pretty Clever

47. Dungeon Kart

• Published by Brotherwise Games in 2024
• Rev your engine, take off, and mess with your opponents in this fast racing game

Dungeon Kart is obviously trying to be a Mario Kart style game. And I think it does a good job of it. I’ve played other games that offer some of that, but Dungeon Kart I really enjoy. It does a great job balancing catching up, slinging spells at your opponents and just a fun time. You get behind, no biggie, you get more and better spells. You’re in the lead, well, it’s your own fault you are there and you’re going to get blasted, but don’t worry, you can still catch-up again.

Preorder Dungeon Kart

46. Super Mega Lucky Box

• Published by Gamewright in 2021
• Combo your way into a bingo victory

This is the second bingo like game on the list where something is drawn and all players use it. But this one is a flip and write game that is more bingo like than Via Magica and has you filling in a three by three grid. Of course as you fill in rows and columns you get bonuses that can give you more. And the game provides great offsetting of the luck of the slip with powers from lightning bolts. It’s just a really fun, easy to play and fast game.

Buy Super Mega Lucky Box

45. Cartographers

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2019
• Draw your best map as you explore the lands in this flip and write game

The theme is only kind of there, but this is a great roll and write style of game. You flip over terrain and figure out how you want to place it out on your sheet. But beware monsters because your opponents get to decide where that’s going to go and it’s going to be the worst spot for you. Plus the game has fun scoring that rotates throughout the seasons so that one of the scoring elements in spring is going to be scored for winter as well.

Buy Cartographers

44. Res Arcana

• Published by Sand Castle Games in 2019
• Can you get your magical engine up and running faster than your opponents in this race to 10 points

I like how simple Res Arcana is, but how thinky it is as well. You need to really figure out how you want to leverage the cards that you have, or draft, in this game. And drafting really adds some strategy to it as you can try and figure out what your best cards are going to be how you can get them to turn out points. The game has this great build to it until suddenly you can get points and then the game just flies to the finish.

Buy Res Arcana

43. Railroad Ink Challenge

• Published by Horrible Guild in 2021
• Can you connect your routes better than your opponents can?

Another roll and write game, last one in this section. Railroad Ink Challenge is a great game of building out routes of both trains and roads and trying connect as many of them as you can together. Challenge adds in challenges that you can push for to score more points. But beware of leaving too many unconnected pieces, those can lead to your doom as they are negative points.

Buy Railroad Ink Challenge

42. Rebel Princess

• Published by Bezier Games in 2024
• It’s Hearts with Shenanigans, in the best way as you avoid proposals you really don’t want.

That’s really what Rebel Princess is, Hearts with shenanigans. But the shenanigans really do make this game. The princess powers are all game breaking in some way, and you want the ones everyone else have. And then the card that determines the special rule for the hand is great as it messes with everything. So you need to be quick to adjust how you are playing every time, and I think that’s great.

Buy Rebel Princess

41. Rock Hard: 1977

• Published by Devir Games in 2024
• Live your best rockstar life as you go from garage band to playing stadiums in this worker placement game

This game is really about living that 1970’s classic rocker life as you build up your band, gain reputation, write more songs all in hopes of playing on the biggest stage. I love how the worker placement is split up over three different times, day, evening, and after hours. And it’s fun that you need to worry about your job, at least for a little bit, and pay your producer as you become more famous because of course, while they help you, they also hurt you. It’s just very thematic for a worker placement game and a theme that I like a lot.

Buy Rock Hard: 1977

Upcoming Streams

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

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

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

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Catch up on previous videos here

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 60 through 51

60. Medium

• Published by Greater Than Games in 2019
• How well can you and a partner connect two seemingly separate words?

This is a really fun party game. You are just trying to match up with your partner (for the round) on two words. But can you both land of the same word? If not, now you need to use those two new words. But, of course, those two new words might have gotten you further apart. This game is one of those party games that has a lot of great highs to it as people land on the same word. And also a lot of moments of just fun as you think it’s impossible to connect the words.

Buy Medium

59. Under Falling Skies

• Published by Czech Games Edition in 2020
• Battle aliens and defeat the mothership before it lands.

I love this as a solo game. I really enjoy the complexity and thought process of needing to manage how to alien ships are descending. Yet you also need to push to research. So it’s a balancing act of trying to get what you need done, but also not stretching yourself too thin that the smaller vessels are making it into the city scape and pushing the end of the game along faster. So the whole thing is a giant puzzle and a very fun one at that.

Buy Under Falling Skies

58. Final Girl

• Published by Van Ryder Games in 2021
• Be the final one standing in a horror film as you take on the roll of the Final Girl.

This is one that is perfect for the Halloween season so great for me to talk about it this week. It’s a solo only game where you are taking on a killer, a ghost, or whatever the story is as the final girl. The one who is standing at the end of the movie. And who knows if you will survive or not, but that is the fun challenge of the game. Plus the action system in the game is really good as you spend resources to succeed on checks, but also need those to replenish the cards and actions you can take.

Buy Final Girl

57. Stonespine Architects

• Published by Thunderworks Games in 2024
• Build out your best labyrinthian dungeon and show the you’re the best architect.

This is a really fun drafting and set collection game. And I think one of the elements that really stands out to me is how become unique in your scoring. You are able to stop buying stuff to grab a scoring card. And that scoring card is going to shape how you play the game, but you also don’t want to stop too early because you need to collect those tokens to bolster up how dangerous your dungeon really is. It’s a great balancing act and adds just a bit more choice to the game. Also this is a new one to my Top 100 Games list.

Buy Stonespine Architects

56. World Wonders

• Published by MeepleBR and Arcane Wonders in 2023
• Build out y our civilization and compete to complete wonders to make your lands the best.

I appreciate the ease of play. I say that knowing that World Wonders is not the simplest game to learn, but it is a game that as you get into it, to goes really fast. And I like the push your timing element of the game as well. I won’t call it push your luck, but you might be ready to build a wonder but have a lot of money to buy tiles left. Well, if you don’t build it now, someone else might snag it, but if you do, it might put you behind for the next round and the new wonders that come out. And I believe this is new, though maybe 2023, to my Top 100 Games.

Buy World Wonders

55. Homebrewers

• Published by Greater than Games in 2019
• Become the best home brewer and win awards at Summerfest and Oktoberfest.

This is a great little engine building game that I really like. I like it for the theme, but also for the game play as I always have fun with it. In the game you brew beer to get better at brewing beer. And some of how you do that is you get new ingredients to work with and add to your recipes for IPAs, Porters and more. Those ingredients are going to help build out your engine and might get you more money, move your up on tracks, etc. At the end, though, most of it just comes down to who is the best at brewing beer.

Buy Homebrewers

54. Potion Explosion

• Published by Horrible Guild in 2015
• Combo marbles together to create the most and the greatest potions.

This is almost an app game as a board game. And I mean that in the best way possible. There are a number of app games where you remove a “thing” and try to get matching “things” to touch because of it. Here you remove a marble and you want to get like colored marbles to touch. Because that cascades together and then you get to take those marbles. If you play it right you can create a bit change to get the marbles you need to complete a lot of potions in one turn. And that puzzle is the fun of the game to leverage your potions to complete more.

Buy Potion Explosion

53. Mansions of Madness

• Published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2016
• Investigate mysteries of the elder gods in this app guided game in FFG’s Arkham line.

This game is one of the first really big games on the list. And there is a lot that I like about it. But it did use to be higher on my list. I think it’s dropped because I haven’t played it as recently, and because I’ve played more story driven games. This one, though dynamically adjusts the story and the world as you play through multiple times and that is a fun element. But the different scenarios and missions are all fun, and I enjoy that variety in the game.

Buy Mansions of Madness

52. Ohanami

• Published by Pandasaurus Games in 2019
• Create your best Zen garden to score you the most points.

The last two games on the list are small. This one is great though for me because it’s a chill game, for the most part, and easy to learn and play. You collect cards, drafting them two at a time. And then you add those cards to three columns. But you either need to add to the top, higher, or bottom, lower on the column. And things can never drop out of numerical order. Plus how the different color score, as you draft over three hands, makes the game even more of a puzzle. And there is a fourth color as well that can be huge, but you are giving up points elsewhere. Overall a really fun little filler game.

Buy Ohanami

51. Vegetable Stock

• Published by Good Game Studio and Arcane Wonders in 2019 (and 2024 for Arcane Wonders)
• Collect vegetables and be able to sell them for the most at the end of the game.

This is a stock market vegetable drafting game, and I love the absurdity and double meaning of Vegetable Stock. This is another small game that is more of a filler than anything. But it’s a really fun filler as you draft over six rounds. Each round you draft from N+1 cards where N is the number of players. That last card is then used to adjust the stock market. So you need to be smart in what you draft. Draft too much of one veggie it’ll never move up, but if it moves up too much the market might just crash and make them worthless.

Preorder Vegetable Stock

Upcoming Streams

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

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

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

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Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
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Games to Checkout at Gen Con that I’ve Played

Slay the Spire

Let’s start with Slay the Spire from Contention Games. We all know that I like this as a video game. I’ve streamed it on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel several times. But I’ve also streamed the video game a few times. This game is a great implementation of the video game both as a solo experience, more close to the video game, and multiplayer. The game play is fast, impactful and really provides a lot of fun as you go through and battle.

I think there is a difference between solo and multiplayer. But I think I might might like the multiplayer better. That tactical element of working together to take out bad guys, figuring out whose to target and how to mitigate the worst damage as a group is great. That is not something that can be done in a solo game.

Dungeon Kart

Next up is Dungeon Kart. I’m so glad that I got to demo this one at Gen Con last year and then get my Kickstarter for it. This is going to be a Mario Kart style racing game. But Brotherwise Games brings in their own characters from Boss Monster, and those are the racers.

The racing in the game is fast and the whole game moves quickly. You just plan how you can move and hope not to crash as you careen around the board. At the same time you also try and pick up spells that you cast and mess with the other drivers. And player positioning determines what smell you might get, further behind the better. I love the experience of this one, it is a bit chaotic but it’s really good.

Vegetable Stock

Vegetable Stock is a little game compared to the first two. But it’s still a really fun and fast filler style of game. It’s a stock market game, you aren’t making soup you’re buying and selling veggies. And it does that through a drafting system that is really clever.

You flip out cards to draft equal to the number of players plus one. In turn order, each player drafts a veggie. And it might seem like the player at the end is in a worse spot, but they aren’t. Because they get to determine what the leftover veggies are going to be. Each card has three veggies on it, I believe, or possibly two, and those veggies increase in value. So that, again, might sound bad, but when a veggie hits the top of their value, they bust. So the player picking last can control which veggies increase and which bust.

The game is just six rounds long. So it goes fast and is one that is easy to say you shuffle up and play again. And now it’s coming from Arcane Wonders, so it’s going to be easier to find than before.

A Gentle Rain

Speaking of small games and games that were hard to find, A Gentle Rain is back. This is a peaceful solo gaming experience. In this game you flip over a tile, you match it to the sides of other tiles by color. Your goal is to get four corners matching, or what would be four corners. The tiles have the corners cut out so that when all match it creates a circle. When you create a circle you place in a flower. The goal is get rid of all the flowers before all the tiles are gone. It is really simple, but it’s meant to be a peaceful game, and it does that.

Stonespine Architects

Last but not least on the list we have Stonespine Architects. This is a dungeon building game that honestly feels like it could be at home in the Brotherwise Games Boss Monster world. Instead it is from Thunderworks Games and their Roll Player world, which also works.

In this game you build out a dungeon or labyrinth really. You want it full of monsters, traps and other things. But this is done from open drafting of dungeon tiles. And those tiles then give you money to get more monsters to add to them. All of the time trying to complete various objectives and drafting more throughout the game.

I like the speed this game plays a lot. And I think that the drafting is simple enough that it works well. And the scoring, while there are a number of ways to score, all of it is pretty obvious as you get going. The buying things is maybe the hardest to track, but overall a fast fun dungeon building game.

Final Thoughts

I do want to add in two honorable mentions at Gen Con really quickly. I chose not to put any expansions on the list, but there are two worth checking out.

Forest Shuffle Alpine is a great little expansion for Forest Shuffle. It is going to add in a few more cards and no more complexity. So now the deck of cards has a bit more variety to it and it improves some potential scoring. I mixed it into my game and there is no reason to remove it, so it works really well.

World Wonders: Mundo Expansion is just more wonders for World Wonders. It adds a tiny bit more than that, I believe, but not much else that I can remember. Just a slight tweak to wonders scoring. So it’s another expansion that is really easy to mix in.

There are a lot of games to checkout at Gen Con every year. These are all some games and expansions that I can say that I really like. So if you are interested in them, or heard me talk about them before, now is a chance to pick them up. Are there any first time at Gen Con games that you know already and recommend?

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Stonespine Architects

I won’t do a full review of this game. And sorry about the thumbnail for the game. I blame YouTube on this one as the thumbnail in YouTube’s own studio program isn’t that. Or start screen I should say. But let’s talk a bit about the game and how it works, just highlighting some of what I like about solo play.

Firstly, I like that the game isn’t massively different. Jael, when shopping, does get to do everything at once. That’s the main difference that I see from playing with actual people. Though, I’ll be testing that out more today. But what I’m doing and how I’m going about it, that doesn’t change a ton. In fact, I think it probably simulates game play at a higher player count better than two players, even though there are only two players, kind of.

I also am a big fan of drafting. I brought it up last night on the stream, but the game is going to be fast two more players. The stream was two games in under and hour. Stonespine Architects is going to play at any player count. I do something at the same time that you do something, which I love in a game. Drafting is one of the best mechanisms for that because it offers everyone hands of cards to play with immediately.

Finally, I like the variable scoring in the game. My three bonuses are different than yours. That means that you and I compete, but not as directly over some things. And you saw that I almost always spent all my money. If I know that we both want the most traps on a path, I might not against another player. But with the solo player, it is something I can better plan around.

Upcoming Streams

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

On Wednesdays, I play solo campaign games. I plan on playing a campaign game coming up. Right now I’m torn between two games. Well, more than that if you watched through the end of the video. The next game is the one that I just unboxed, 7th Citadel. So I plan to start playing it next week or at least do character building and then dive into the game.

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

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How To Play Roll Player Adventures

Roll Player Adventures is a game that comes in basically two parts, but we’ll get to those in a second. What you need to know is it is a massive story driven adventure game where you explore pieces of story, fight monsters and complete challenges. You do this by making storybook choices, and then playing a dice manipulation game.

Let’s start by talking about the storybook phase. A lot of what you do in the game is move around to different locations. When you reach one then you read some story element. Often times it’ll give you someone to interact with or choices of other things you can do. It’ll send you to another part of the story and then you make more decision or often go into the next part of the game.

The other part of the game is dice manipulation puzzles. This comes in the form of either combat or a skill check. To do this, you use the stats of your characters to build up a die pool, spending stamina basically in those areas to get dice of the needed colors. Then you roll all the dice in your pool and manipulate them so you can cover up the spots. But you are limited in how you can manipulate by the cards you have. And the fact that each person can only play one card.

Eventually you either die in a combat, or you make it to the end of the scenario. Then you reset and start another scenario.

What Doesn’t Work?

There’s not too much that I’d complain about with the game. My one, and this will depend on your group, but I found that it is pretty easy at 4 players. The game seems like it likely would balance best at three players. At four and if you are smart, you get a lot of things that you can use in that dice manipulation puzzle. So there’s rarely a case where we can’t deal with a skill challenge or even a combat in one round. And we rarely get close to dying even if we don’t rest for a while.

This is going to show up in a positive as well, but I think that the Nefras’s Judgement expansion is pretty important for the game. I know it’s Roll Player not Role Player, but the expansion really does help add in some role playing as you think about what your character would do. Do you need it for the game, no. I do think that it makes it better though, and it’s a lot to add, as in spendy, worth it, and I understand why not in the main box, but it adds a lot to the game.

What Works?

Dice Puzzle

Let’s talk about the dice manipulation to start. I like it as a puzzle. Like I said, I do think at 4 players it is a bit easy at times, and most of the time. But I do like the puzzle. And very rarely is it a puzzle that we solve immediately. So from that side of things it works well. I like sitting there figuring it out, talking through what everyone has that can work and eventually coming up with a solution. The fact we can do that is fun and it gives you a sense of accomplishment.

Characters

I also enjoy the different characters. Just basic out of the box they are fun. And getting the character backstory is Nefras’s Judgement, I think adds even that much more. You get to learn about your character and make decisions around that. Yes, you can import characters you play in regular Roll Player, but they wouldn’t have the backstory. So I don’t know that I’d do that.

And besides the backstory, I like building out my characters stats. I think it adds into the fun of the game. In our group I focused on charisma and wisdom, a lot because of backstory, but I’m great at those and have no strength. It makes for an interesting character. We’ve balanced our party with what people go for, everyone having their area of strength. It makes it feel like we can contribute in interesting spots.

Story

Now, I know I said that story is pretty subjective, and I think more than any part of the game it is. I enjoy the story of Roll Player Adventures. Without getting into the details too much, it’s a fun multiverse romp of a game. But not in the way that you’d expect it to have worked. And the writing is good, I don’t think it’s great, but it’s good.

I would put the writing in Roll Player Adventures on par with Gloomhaven, you just get a lot more choices. It is not on the level of Tainted Grail. Actually the closest I’d put it to is probably Stars of Akarios. Mainly because it’s fun but it’s not always the greatest writing.

One thing that I really like about the story is that you get titles. Instead of a checklist of things that you mark off, you get a card with a title. And if you have that title you get some extra story and flavor at the end. Which of course is warning about things that might happen in future games because of choices that you made. I think it’s a good way to do it if you don’t just want to have a checklist.

Who Is It For?

This one is hard to say, I think. For our group, it’s some people who were interested in a bigger campaign and myself who had played several before. So I ran with it, learning the rules, etc. Do I think a group of new players could jump into this campaign game? Better than a lot of campaign games. I don’t think Roll Player Adventures is that hard to learn. But it’s a massive box and is intimidating that way.

So I think that this is a good game for those people who want to dive into a first campaign game. They play other games, so they know how to learn rules, but they want to learn something bigger. It’ll be intimidating but I think that it’s very worth it for the game.

Roll Player Adventures Final Thoughts

I like this game quite well. Though, for so many campaign games it is about that experience of playing that game that really drives it. So if you don’t want a campaign game, you probably won’t get that much out of this review.

I do feel like my negative should pull it down further for me than it does. It being too easy is a negative, I don’t want to die, but I want to feel like I might. And in a combat, sometimes it feels like we can’t get it all done that we want to, and that’s good. But rarely with my health do I ever feel like I’m too damaged to continue. Or maybe that the scenarios could end in a good or bad way. The tricky part with that is that Roll Player Adventures is not built to branch that way. The titles are really how you get that branching story.

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

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I have a few companies like that where I generally will pay attention. And for me, that doesn’t mean back or buy everything. But it does mean that I will always check it out in detail. Rarely, if ever, will I just gloss over a game from these companies. So here are my Top 10 companies I’m always interested in

Top 10 Board Game Companies

10. Fantasy Flight Games

Fantasy Flight Games is probably a company that’d have dropped off for a lot of people. They used to come out with a whole lot more games and a whole lot bigger announcements. But I still am interested. When I saw a Twilight Imperium Roll and Write, I was interested, even with a long play time. And Marvel Champions I still buy everything for that.

I wish they would come out with something more. A new version of Star Wars Imperial Assault? I would love to see that. Or something more original from them. Maybe a smaller version of a Descent 3.0 to go along with Descent: Legends of the Dark.

9. Thunderworks Games

Thunderworks is also just on that edge if I check everything out. I will look at any announcement because I am curious about anything set in their Roll Player World of Ulos. However, anything, like Tenpenny Park, those I’ll look at, but generally aren’t what I’m interested in. But I see them because I am curious if it is more stuff for Roll Player, Roll Player Adventures, or Cartographers.

8. CMON

CMON is either on your list or not. There is no in between I feel. Some people wait anticipating what CMON is going to announce next. Other people pledge $1 so that they can complain. That is basically how it goes on everything that CMON does. And I understand some of the complaints, I also don’t care on some of the complaints. They end up being complaining for the sake of complaining. But that isn’t the point of this article.

I wait to see what CMON comes out with next. And there is no company where they can announce a game and I will always back it or buy it. But when CMON announces a Stranger Things Game, see here, I get really excited. On the flip side, I like the idea of a big Dune battling over the planet game, but it is not one that I will back.

7. Chip Theory Games

Chip Theory Games is moving up the list for me. The more I see and mess around with their games, the more interested I am in their games. I enjoy Too Many Bones, and I think the more I dive into it the more I will like it. Then I almost backed Hoplomacus Victorum because it was a solo version of a game that I thought looked cool. And Burncycle, after watching a Brother’s Murph play through, see below, I really want to get it. Their games aren’t cheap though, so I need to pace myself.

6. Horrible Guild

Probably the biggest break or one of them, from the big games on the list is Horrible Guild. Horrible Guild does some campaign or legacy games with King’s Dilemma and then Queen’s Dilemma coming to Kickstarter. But I like their small games. Stuff like Potion Explosion, Railroad Ink, I’m so excited to be getting Tiny Turbo Cars, stuff like that.

They make games with amazing toy factor to them. And I just really enjoy sitting down and playing them. They also make games that are accessible. Railroad Ink is a bit challenging for a roll and write with Railroad Ink Challenge, but it’s not hard to teach. Same with Potion Explosion or Similo. Plus with so much fun in their games, I always want to see what they make.

5. Mythic Games

Getting back to big games, we have Mythic Games. Mythic Games has made such games as Reichbusters and Solomon Kane, but the one of theirs I play the most is Super Fantasy Brawl. I really love that game, but I mainly pay attention to their big games. Now, with that said, I don’t back a ton of their games on crowdfunding. I have backed Super Fantasy Brawl and HEL: The Last Saga, but that is it.

One of the reasons is that their rule books first time around tend to be poor. You need to get, and they do send out, a new rule book. But also because their games are big and epic and tend to have a lot with them. They are like CMON in some ways, I might want to back all of them, but I certainly don’t have room to back and store all of their games. Just between Super Fantasy Brawl and Solomon Kane that takes up a lot of space on top of a Kallax shelf.

4. Roxley Games

Last game on the list that makes that many smaller games. Though, when you get everything for Dice Throne, it certainly isn’t that small. And Dice Throne is the reason Roxley is so high on the list. They have some heavy euro games, I am not interested in those. But I want more Dice Throne. And their lighter games, I am interested in.

I really only own two games from Roxley, Dice Throne and Radlands and I need to play Radlands still. But when Santa vs Krampus came out, I backed immediately. When Marvel Dice Throne was announced, I knew I’d be all in. That is going to be case whenever they come out with anything new.

3. OOMM

OOMM is a very new company to the list. And honestly, I should likely keep them lower on the list, but we’re not talking about backing everything, we’re talking about being interested. I bought Stars of Akarios because of what it looked like after the fact. I backed Mythwind because the game looked so different.

OOMM really does something that I love in creating games that feel unique. Mythwind seems really different than anything else out there. Stars of Akarios is a big space campaign game. Do I need more space campaign games, not really but I want them. And the new legacy game they announced looks very cool as well.

2. Awaken Realms

Awaken Realms maybe could be #1, but it’s at #2 because there is Awaken Realms Lite, technically it’s own company I believe, but a lot of the same people and process. But the last two on the list, I will always look and almost always back whatever they do.

There are two exceptions for Awaken Realms. I didn’t back The Great Wall as it is a massive euro game. It looks cool, I’d love to try it, but I wouldn’t buy it. And I didn’t back Lords of Ragnarok from them. Why, because I already own and love Lords of Hellas. Lords of Ragnarok might be better, but I don’t need to own both.

1. Cephalofair Games

I doubt that this is a shock. I went all in on Frosthaven. And I love Gloomhaven. I never looked at Founders of Gloomhaven once I realized it was a euro. But Cephalofair announces something, I am interested. I hope it is more for Frosthaven, after that has been out for a bit. Or another big box game, but really, anything at this point. Even with my #1 company that I will be intrigued to hear whatever they announce, not every game will be for me.

Still, I can’t wait until Frosthaven gets here. And I even started a campaign of Gloomhaven Digital recently. It is just a fun experience to play that game and it is fun to dive back into it. And I will for sure dive heavily into Frosthaven almost right away when it shows up. I suspect we’ll be done with the final Tainted Grail expansion by then, but we’ll see.

Final Thoughts

Firstly, I’d love to know what companies you are generally interested. Which ones make games that seem fun to checkout or different. I want to know what gets you excited. And as I said, I don’t like every game from all of these companies. In fact, there are some that just miss completely for me, even though I love the company.

And that is very fair to not like everything. I talk about how CMON is polarizing, the people who love CMON don’t like everything from CMON. The people who dislike CMON will never know what they are missing out on. I think it’s more important to remember that some games are going to be for you and some won’t no matter the company. And even if you enjoy all of them, some will be better than others.

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Gen Con Preview

The list is just starting at this point with 169 different games. That is a lot of games, though, if you wanted to try and check them all out. I fully expect that more than normal won’t make it in time. But companies might be hedging their bets, as well, as a lot of the games are ones that will be released before hand.

Ra – 25th Century Games

This is one that I’d be surprised if it was out. The Gamefound campaign for it just wrapped up a few weeks ago, but at the same time, Ra is a game that’s already existed. This is an auction game that I’ve had fun with. In it, you are bidding on sets of tiles that get drawn from a bag. And the different things that you get give you bonuses and points.

But the cool thing about the game is the bidding. When you bid and win, you put your number into the middle. And then you take the number that was there. So there is strategy with the bidding because you likely don’t want to bid the 16 when the one is in the middle. Unless the tiles are so amazing. I find it a good and interesting twist on bidding.

First in Flight – Artana

Don’t know much about this one. But according to the description, thi sis going to have you building up a deck of cards and pushing your luck to be the first person to fly. I’m curious as to how it works, but looks like a lighter card game which isn’t bad. And it’s deck building, and I like that.

Call to Adventure: Epic Origins – Brotherwise Games

Call to Adventure: Epic Origins is a prequel to Call to Adventure. And Call to Adventure is a game where you cast runes and try and complete and create your epic story. I own the Stormlight Archives version of Call to Adventure that I need to get played. It seems like a pretty light game, but a good time. And, I believe, that Epic Origins, a standalone game, gives you more of the same, but builds your starting story.

Ark Nova – Capstone Games

Probably not much that I need to say about this one. But Ark Nova is a smash hit, right now, for Capstone and probably breaking into the Top 10 on Board Game Geek very very soon. It gets compared to Terraforming Mars, a game I need to play, in that it’s a bigger engine building game and one that offers lots of possibilities. I want to give this one a try for sure. I suspect it is a game I’d enjoy.

Starship Captains – CGE

The best way I can describe Starship Captains is that it reminds me, art wise, of Star Trek Lower Decks. Or maybe it gives me a bit of a vibe of Galaxy Trucker as well, not in play but in theme. I am curious about it as it has engine building and drafting. Those are two things that I enjoy quite well.

Fit to Print – Flatout Games

Fit to Print is an odd theme for a game but one that I find fun. In Fit to Print you are drafting cards and trying to collect and set-up the best front page of a newspaper for animals. The theme, very different. And I like this idea of trying to collect what you need and put it together.

Sagrada: The Great Facades – Glory – Floodgate Games

Glory is a given at this point. I own all of Sagrada, I believe just missing the Kickstarter promo window. And I know I want to grab this one as well. Sagrada is still one of my favorite games because it offers good choices but isn’t too complex. The expansions can definitely make it more complex, but again, that isn’t a bad thing as they are easy to add or remove and tailor the game to the group.

Oak – Game Brewer

Oak interested me more because of the theme than anything. Hand management and set collection I like. But they are very normal at this point in time. And I feel like I can find so many that it isn’t worth checking out. But add in druids trying to unlock a secret. That theme is what is drawing me in. And it doesn’t hurt that the cover looks great.

Ecosystem – Genius Games

Ecosystem is a game that apparently has been out for while. The Board Game Geek release date was November 20th, 2019. But I wonder if it is newly picked up by Genius Games for an American distribution. I like the them in this game. You draft cards to try and build a balanced ecosystem. It feels different but also not too different. And give a game pretty nature artwork, at least aesthetically it is more interesting. One that I want to checkout for sure.

Critical: Foundation – Season 1 – Gigamic

First of two back to back campaign and adventure style games. It will give you some role playing feeling, at least that is what they are saying. And Critical, it h as an interesting cover. I’m curious to see what type of story it has, set in 2035, so not that far into the future. I feel like they limited how sci-fi they can go with the story, because of the timeline. And also not the normal type of game I expect from Gigamic, but one that’ll be interesting to checkout.

Forgotten Depths – Grand Gamers Guild

I considered backing Forgotten Depths on Kickstarter. I like the artwork on the game and a dungeon crawl style is something I always enjoy. On Kickstarter, I think, I thought it looked lighter than I’d normally back. But for a $40 MSRP, that isn’t bad and for a game that can be played solo, it isn’t bad as well. I think it’d be a much smaller footprint campaign game.

Suspects – Hachette Boardgames

I believe that Zee Garcia, of the Dice Tower, recently did a review on this. Or he will be doing one shortly. But for me, this has two things that interest me. Firstly, I like cooperative deduction where you are trying to solve a mystery. It makes for an interesting time. Generally some very good experiences. And then add in Agatha Christie, or a world inspired by her works, I’m very curious.

Exit: The Game – Lord of the Rings: Shadows over Middle-earth – KOSMOS

I find the Exit escape room style games just okay. They have a destructive element to them which makes it feel like more of a waste. But play with 4 people for an hour, it isn’t bad for $20. And Lord of the Rings, that is a theme that I am curious about. What sort of story can they tell, what puzzles will they create for the game interests me a fair amount. It’s one that I could pick-up and play with my wife and she’ll appreciate the theme a lot.

Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles – Mindclash Games

Now a big Kickstarter. Mindclash always makes big games, and Perseverance with basically two games in one box, created a game with a huge box. I am curious about this one. I didn’t back it on Kickstarter, but dinosaurs, survival, and then building up your society, it is interesting. For demo only at Gen Con, that’s probably a good thing. Means I won’t be tempted on a game for a lot of money because it has dino minis.

Venn – The Op

A party game on the list, and this is one that I want to try, not buy. Mainly because it is a party game, and sometimes they are great, sometimes not so much. But I generally want to try before hand or watch someone play it. This one, though, I find intriguing. As the person who is it, I believe, you put down three cards, and people are trying to guess that middle spot on the Venn diagram. So the word that intersects all of the other words. If that is how it works, I think it is one that could provide a lot of laughs and a lot of replayability.

Long Shot: The Dice Game – Perplext

Another game that is getting a ton of love already. Long Shot: The Dice Game is a horse racing game where you buy and bet and horses. That, combined with a roll and write game. I love my roll and write games. And the idea of one that has a physical board that people race around, it seems different. Often roll and write games can limit interaction, but Long Shot seems to lean into that.

Northgard: Uncharted Lands – Shiro Games

Another big Kickstarter game that I looked at. I believe that Northgard is based off of a video game, which is intriguing. I don’t know anything about the video game though. And for the board game, I like the artwork. I love Norse mythology. So the game seems like it should be one for me. But the fact it is a 4x game makes me a bit hesitant to back it.

Cartographers Map Pack 4 through 6 – Thunderworks Games

And this is another one that I know I’m going to get like the Sagrada Expansion. I own everything for Cartographers thus far, and I really like it as a roll and write. Against, like Long Shot, it is more interactive than a lot of roll and write games. And while I enjoy a good roll and write that is a puzzle, like Railroad Ink or maybe has a race element like Welcome To for objectives, I like placing the monsters onto other players sheets here.

Unboxing

And two games were unboxed last night as well. It is fun to get in new games, and some of them, with Kickstarter, are a good time to show off. Now, this isn’t as minis heavy as a lot of the time, though, because , well, neither game has a ton of minis.

Steelslayer

Steelslayer is an expansion for The Reckoners. And Steelslayer adds in two more major epics. Plus more locations and cities as well. Overall, it just seems to add more to a game that could probably use a bit more. I haven’t played The Reckoners a ton, but I noticed we went through all the epics. Or we got close, in the one play. And while that isn’t a massive issue, it would be nice just to keep more variety built in.

Too Many Bones: Undertow

Too Many Bones: Undertow is going to be another game that I have played before. Or, I should say, I did a demo at Gen Con in 2019. I thought that the game was fun. But it didn’t jump off the table for me, mainly because we played only so little in the demo. I think more chance to play with it, and seeing more game play, the game looks like it should work better for me.

Plus, the price on Chip Theory Games went up at the start of June. So I knew if I wanted to grab it, I wanted to buy it before that happened. And I have another two character standalone game/expansion on Gamefound last year. The gearlocs in the base game are just okay, but the expansion ones, they seem like a lot of fun.

Upcoming Streams

So what is coming up. My plan is to learn and start getting Pathfinder Adventure Card Game to the table of Wednesday. Then for the next Monday, I hopefully will have a whole bunch of Massive Darkness 2 from CMON available to unbox. I believe that will be my plan for the next Monday stream. Another unboxing and picking a topic to chat about.

Let me know how you want me to do my unboxings. I personally like going with a bit more of a BoardGameCo style where I ramble on about a topic and about the game and spend some time. I know there are other channels that do them shorter. But for me, part of the fun, and why I do them live, is I can chat with everyone.

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