Top 10 Board Game Expansions

10. Tainted Grail: Echoes of the Past

This one is lower on the list because it’s cool, don’t get me wrong, but not needed. In fact, it can make the game a fair amount easier at times because you get more powers. But getting those powers can be hard, because dying is not ideal or being near death. Still, it adds in good story and background for the characters. And you feel like as your character you are chasing something slightly different than the other characters.

9. Tokyo Highway: Cars and Buildings

Tokyo Highway is a pretty dexterity game where you are building out roads going over and under other highways and trying to get your cars played out and not knock anything down. The Cars and Buildings expansion just adds more cars and more buildings that you can use, and different shaped cars. I basically always play with those. And the buildings, why not throw all of them in there and make the Tokyo area as crazy as you can.

8. Welcome To… Maps

This one is a catch all, not the last on the list. But the map packs and season rules for Welcome To… are a lot of fun. They definitely add some interesting twists on the game. But they don’t really make the game harder to play. It’s just a new thing to think about but generally one that is simple. The ice cream, you want to go up in numbers to collect the ice cream on the road. The Easter one, you want to be able to circle the eggs on the houses with numbers like 6, 8, 9, or 0. So something more to think about, but not too much.

7. Small World: Be Not Afraid…

There are a number of Small World expansions, some of them like the modular map, not needed. But ones that are like Be Not Afraid… are good because they just add in more races/classes and powers. It just means that you get more variety in what you are playing and a lot of the time that is what I want in a game. Do you need to know what the new races and powers do? Yes. Is there only one sheet when there should be more? Yes. But it’s easy enough to mix in.

6. Roll Player Adventures: Nefras’s Judgement

At this point we’re getting close to what I’d consider to be a needed expansion. This does a lot of the things that Echoes of the Past does for Tainted Grail. But it gives you a few more fun choices of your own with that. With Tainted Grail, it’s about completing goals. Here, you just go places, you get story and you get to make choices that affect the alignment of your character. I like those extra choices you get to make in the game.

5. Marvel Expansions

This is a cheat one, it’s a catch all for Marvel Champions and Marvel United. All of th ese expansions are great. They either give you more characters to play as or more villains to face off against. Hard to go wrong with that. Even the campaign expansions for Marvel Champions, it’s mainly just more heroes and villains. You can take any hero through the campaign, and you can play those villains outside of the campaign.

4. Clank! In! Space! Apocalypse

Apocalypse takes a game that can be hard, if you push your luck too hard, and can make it harder. Normally there are black cubes you pull for Lord Eradikus from the bag and they do nothing. Now they are filling up a board that can power him up, potentially. And you can spend to remove them but that’s at a cost to doing what you want to on a turn, which is a fun balance for the game. Clank! In! Space! is great without the expansions, but this one adds in so little it’s easy to just drop in that one new mechanic.

3. Betrayal at House on the Hill: Widow’s Walk

This starts a run of ones that just add in more, it’s an expansion that adds in more content to the game but not more complexity. Widow’s Walk is just more haunts that can happen, more omens and items and things that you mix into existing decks of cards or tiles. Are the haunts balanced any better, not really, but it’s more and as a game that I’ve played a lot, I don’t mind having more.

2. Deception: Undercover Allies

This one mainly just adds in more to the box, but the new roles are fun as well. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong might not need it, as there is a lot of stuff in it, but it’s easy to integrate and makes for just more content to have mixed in. And as I said, the new roles are fun as well. One that I really recommend because of how easy it is to mix in.

1. PitchCar Extensions

I think that these are almost needed, at least one, or maybe two. Do you need all of them like I have, probably not. Do you need to get more like I want to? Definitely not. But is it a blast to have all of them. More just means you have more tracks you can build and bigger tracks that you can build. A lot of the time that’s just the fun that you can, to have a big track that you can play in an evening. So more is great for PitchCar.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of just solid expansions or expansions that I don’t use that often. I liked Forgotten Circles well enough, but it was too fiddly for me to put on the list. Even though Gloomhaven is my favorite game. Or there are other ones, The Fountain of Youth for The Lost Expedition that I’d shuffle in sometimes. Same with for example Potion Explosions expansions. Some just don’t fit in the box and others might but if they are in the box, it makes it harder to play.

There’s even a situation, with Roll Player where my copy hasn’t hit the table. I have the expansions, I have everything in baggies, but I need to get an insert to make it work to be played. It’s just too much else in there otherwise.

I did skip too expansions that tended to just be another campaign for something. Sea & Sand for Destinies, just another game. The Signature Series cases for Detective, really it’s own game that you barely need the base for, if you do at all. They are kind of in a unique category. I love the stories for the Tainted Grail expansion games, but it’s basically a new game.

What expansion do you love in your collection?

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Dexterity Games Ranking

7. Jenga

Jenga is probably the dexterity game that everyone knows. Though, the next one on the list people won’t know the game but will know the concept of it. Jenga is a fun game, it is one that I consider to be a brewery game for me at this point. By that, I mean I love it when a brewery has a giant version set-up outside. It’s a fun thing to stand around and play with. I don’t need a copy in my collection, but it’ll be a good time playing it.

6. Slide Quest

Slide Quest, I like it better as a game than Jenga, but I’d probably be less likely to always want to play it. This is basically one of those marble puzzles where the ball rolls and you are tilting the board to try and get it to the end. Slide Quest is that as a board game with different maps that you can use as you progress. The concept is great for the game, the execution is solid, but the game play is just okay. But I’d pick it up if I found it very cheap.

5. Tokyo Highway

Tokyo Highway has been in my Top 100, and I think it’ll stay for this coming year, but it’s dropping a little bit. This is a stacking dexterity game, and one that is just gorgeous on the table. I like too how simple the game is, you either go up or down a level. And you want to cross under or over roads. Overall, it is a nice simple game with just enough stress going on.

4. Catapult Feud

Catapult Feud is now something so different. It’s not flicking, it’s not stacking, you are aiming and launching via catapult or ballista foam rocks at your opponents castle trying to knock down their troops. There are cards in this game, and those cards do add to the game element, but aren’t needed. What’s most fun, not surprisingly is just the launching of things.

3. Sonora

These top three I rank really highly. Sonora is a flicking game for part of it and roll and write for the other, and that combo works really well. You flick discs that are basically like rolling your dice. But you pick what number die you flick and you can try and set it up so that you get what you want. Add in the roll and write part where you fill in on the board, that part is amazing. Sonora puts almost any other roll and write with combos to shame with how many it has.

2. PitchCar

PitchCar is a flicking racing game around a track that you build. And building the track itself is a ton of the fun of the game. But if it were just that it’d be unfortunate. PitchCar, however, is a lot of fun with the flicking. What I really like about this and my top game are that you get excited when other players make a great shot. Yes, it might mean you don’t win, but an awesome shot, that’s amazing.

1. Icecool

Icecool, I doubt that it being #1 for me surprises anyone. This is just a blast of a game where one player (two in an eight player game) is a hall monitor. Everyone else are students skipping class to get a snack of fish. So all you are doing is flicking your penguin and trying to get it through a doorway. And then you rotate who the hall monitor is over four rounds until everyone has been. Really fun game and you can mess around with your shots more than you can with PitchCar.

Final Thoughts

Dexterity games probably won’t be for everyone. Flicking or stacking is a bit of a challenge physically. And for some people that is going to be right out. For other gamers, they will find it too silly. But if you can lean in and enjoy that silliness and lean into the excitement of a great shot. Really, I think that most people can enjoy Icecool or PitchCar, even if you aren’t doing that well in it.

And I am always on the lookout for more dexterity games. I have in my collection Flick of Faith, Catacombs, The Table is Lava, Crash Octopus and Rhino Hero Super Battle. I guess I could put Animal Upon Animal on the list, but that’s the toddlers game.

What is your favorite dexterity game?

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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.

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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.

Buy On Miniature Market

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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But beyond that, I got 34 plays in during the month of May, so I was able to cut down on that deficit a little bit for gaming. On my challenge, I am now 9 games behind pace with plans for gaming tomorrow evening and hopefully cutting into that some more. And that’s with a few days already this month without me playing games, though a few days with me playing games. Let’s get to the games.

Dice Throne – 5 Plays

Dice Throne, one I talk about all the time, but one that I know will never leave my collection. Really love all the characters and all the variety in it.

Tainted Grail – 4 Plays

Massive exploration story game. Getting close to the mid point of the game. Still loving it so much and there is so much story that we definitely haven’t gone to. We’ve branched down certain story paths, and I’m excited for that because that means I can play it again if I want.

PitchCar – 4 Plays

I have so much stuff for PitchCar now. And I am so excited to play this for game night in July. It is a silly fun time and one that I think will be even better with a bigger group. And now I have a loop to add to it which will be awesome.

Floor Plan – 3 Plays

A roll and write I’ve been wanting to try for a while. This one has you building a house, or a floor plan, and scoring points based off of certain criteria. It is pretty straight forward, but play is a lot of fun. Not that you could live in any of the places when they are done, but it’s still a good roll and write game.

A Gentle Rain – 3 Plays

Tiny solo game. I just played this on Malts and Meeples on Wednesday. You can find that posted over here. Simple game but it’s very chill and relaxing. It’s a good one to just kind of clear your mind with.

Tokyo Highway – 2 Plays

Another dexterity game, this one I always call a work of art. You are balancing things, but with the colors it just works so well. You can see one of the pictures I’ve taken here, it only kind of does it justice.

Potion Explosion – 2 Plays

I always say this game is like an app game. It really is true, you remove something, get colors to hit, remove those colors and get that whole cascade that makes some app games so fun. The game is simple and the gimmick is great for it.

Ascension – 2 Plays

A lot of people like Dominion, but Ascension is my preferred pure deckbuilder. It has you adding in cards, fighting monsters, but what I like about it is the variable market. The game just feels like it has more robust choices than Dominion, and better art.

Welcome To.. – 2 Plays

Another roll and write, Welcome To… is one of my favorites in the genre. The game play is a ton of fun, and the choices are definitely deeper than a lot of roll and writes. It also works so well in large groups.

Point Salad – 2 Plays

Point Salad is a wonderful light filler game. I like how variable it can be as the cards come out and you pick how you are going to be scoring. Works well at low player counts and is solid at higher player counts. I think with two or three people it’s a great one to pull off the shelf.

Arkham Horror LCG – 1 Play

Another one that I played on Malts and Meeples.

Super fun game and one that I need to get back to playing more often. The game play is interesting and I actually just talked about a change that I really like for it in the news today. I like the deck construction aspect of it as well.

The Isle of Cats – 1 Play

The last of the four first time played games on the list to go along with A Gentle Rain, PitchCar and Floor Plan. The Isle of Cats is the most complex of all of them. This is a polyomino playing game which has your rescuing cats from an island. But you only have a limited amount of time and fish to lure the cats with. Game play is fun, I want to try it with more than two, but even at two was cool. Has a lot of cards and things I haven’t seen that I want to play around with. And currently an expansion is on Kickstarter for it.

Silver Amulet – 1 Play

One that I haven’t played this year, but really fun game. It basically is a hidden information game where you are trying to score the fewest points possible. It’s like a game that I grew up playing with a deck of cards, but adds in a whole lot more and a whole lot of fun. The expansions (all stand alone) are great as well.

Just One – 1 Play

A favorite party game of mine. This one works well because of it’s simplicity and the fact it’s cooperative. You are trying to get the person who is it to guess one word by giving them one word clues. But you write down the clues in secret and any duplicate clues cancel and aren’t show. Really fun and works with a large number of players.

Sushi Go Party – 1 Play

Probably my favorite drafting game. I like how simple and fun Sushi Go Party! is. The game works well with non-gamers and gamers alike because of how cute it looks. Definitely the one I reach for to teach people have to draft.

Which of these games do you want to play?

Yearly Stats

So let’s check out the stats and see where I am at. I have 146 different plays of games this year. So that’s a lot, especially considering how hard it has been to do in person gaming. I have five games that I’ve played 10 or more times, and Tainted Grail is almost to 20. 10 games that I’ve played five or more times. And out of those 146 plays, I’ve played 38 different games.

As far as being on track, right now I need 219 plays in 210 days left. So I am slowly making up ground, and I hope that trend continues so that I’m nearly caught up by the end of the month.

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Thank you everyone who joined me on the stream, that is the reason it was so much fun. But it was also fun to pick a topic and really dive into it. I liked being able to talk about how I pick board games for game nights, and then some tangents on different types of games or picking a group for a particular game. And to end it up, I did a review on three dexterity games that I have in my collection.

The Video

The Beer

Last nights beer of choice was another Tart Ale from Surly. Their Supreme series is really good and very summery. I am excited for it to be warm enough to really enjoy them. Last night I drank the Mango Supreme Tart Ale which I like better than the Grapefruit. Mainly it feels more summery and is unique from say an IPA which can also taste like grapefruit.

Quick Reviews

The three reviews were for dexterity based games. Sonora is a flick and write game that feels more accessible than other roll and write games because of the dexterity aspect. Tokyo Highway is a stacking game that looks like art but doesn’t have a ton of deep choices. And Ice Cool is a flicking game that tends to work for the whole family and any group.

Upcoming Topics

I want these bi-weekly Monday streams to be topics that are important to board gaming. So I do want input on them. What do people want to see for topics? Would you be interested in top 10 lists, I am interested in doing those. What topic would you like to see for a Top 10? And did you like the format of the reviews, do they work for you, let me know?

And just in general, do you want to see streams where I talk about topics or is gaming more fun? I know it was 5 people live watching me yesterday and I had fun interacting, whereas gaming depends more on the game. Let me know what you thought of that aspect as well.

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10. Sonora

You’ll see that a lot of these can be played two players if I wanted to. Sonora even works just fine two players, but I think it’s just more fun to play it in a bigger group. I’ve played it three players a few times, but I want to play it 4 player and really see how it works with a little more craziness of more and more discs being flicked into the middle. This is one that I should pull out solo or two player again anyways. But Sonora, I’m looking forward to being able to introduce this roll and write game with flicking to some friends.

9. Tokyo Highway

This is not going to be a list dexterity games, but it could be, if I had that many. I only have 5 really, and only three of them are on that list. Tokyo Highways is a game that looks amazing on the table. I call it a piece of artwork when it’s done or nearly done. But man, it looks so good with the roads intertwining. For obvious reasons we can’t play it in a big group and while you could probably play at two players, the game feels like it’s the best at more because you have more roads to interact with.

8. Blood Rage

Card drafting is a mechanic that I guess could work on something like TTS, but playing a physical version of a game is just more fun. Blood Rage has card drafting, it has that simultaneous card play for combat, there are just a lot of things that wouldn’t work as well digitally. And definitely wouldn’t work trying to play it over Zoom or something like that. I really love Blood Rage so it was a bummer to have picked up not that long before the pandemic shut everything down and not get it to the table. It does also require the right group, some of the more casual game night players wouldn’t be interested, and it’d take up a bunch of the game night.

7. Tags

This is one that I picked up during the pandemic hoping that I could make it work via Zoom. I’m still not sure that I can’t, it does seem possible, but it also seems, with the times element that it’d be a little bit too chaotic to work that well. This is one that I’m excited to get around the table with a big group of players and just having a blast with it. I like the game for it’s speed and replayability.

6. Camel Up

Another one purchased during the pandemic, Camel Up is a big silly racing game that has you rolling dice, moving camels and betting on who you think is going to win. You control all the camels as a group so no one player is going to have their camel left behind. And all sorts of wackiness can ensue as the camels stack, and if you move a lower camel all the ones on top of them move with them as well. It’s just looks like a silly good time that I want to get to the table.

5. Draftosaurus

Draftosaurus works better with more players, but could be played at two. But you are also passing around handfuls of dinosaurs which is not very distancing. But, it’s a fun fast game that I want to play again. I really think this game, as you play it, feels like a roll and write game. There is zero writing and the rolling just determines where you can place the dino meeple you are drafting that turn. But the feeling is that of a roll and write as you place those dino meeples into pens and try and score the most points that you can. Super light, super fun and one that you should probably be vaccinated to play with people outside of your house.

4. Potion Explosion

Now, I have played this one twice not that long ago, I think it was in February. But I want to play more Potion Explosion and not just more at two players, but with a bigger number of players. The game is just a blast to play and the toy factor on it is amazing. I want to get it to the table and share the joy of this one. Plus, with one turn between your turns the board doesn’t change up that much. More people keeps more variety going in what you will be able to pull.

3. Skull

Skull is yet another one that I picked up during covid. However, I have played this one a number of times before. Skull is a bluffing game. You put down cards, eventually someone will start the bid and then whomever wins has to flip over that many cards (coasters) without hitting a skull. The trick is you have to start with your own pile and flip all of those first. So do you bluff that you don’t have a skull in your pile, push up the bid and hope that someone outbids you and then hits your skull. Just a fun game that you could probably make work via something like Zoom, but it’d be different and you need to see both the cards and the people which would be tricky.

2. Letter Jam

I’m not sure you could make this one work physically via something like Zoom. People need to see everyone’s letters but their own, which makes it a mess. For that reason, I really want to play it in person again. Beyond that, I think I’ll love this game even more the more that I play it and it is already way up there in my top 100. The concept is just so simple and fun and I like word games. Definitely one that will get to the table as quick as it can because of how much fun it is.

1. Ice Cool

The final one is my final dexterity game on the list, Ice Cool, I doubt anyone is surprised it made the list. I love this game. It is just silly fun for adults and kids. I loved playing it seriously at GenCon, I loved playing it in a nice goofy way around the table at my house. And since I can play it with 8 people, that is even more awesome. It is a great game to wrap up a game night with, or even to just play throughout most of a game night. The flicking is fun, and you get great shots sometimes and not so great shots other times.

I’m sure that most board gamers have a list of games that they want to play. Honestly, 10 is no where near enough to make my list. I have new to me games like Heroes of Land, Air, & Sea, Dwellings of Eldervale, Lost Ruins of Arnak, I could play Marvel United with more people, Forgotten Waters, The Reckoners, and oh so many more. Plus there are classic game night games, like Sushi Go Party that I haven’t played in a while and Wits & Wagers, though that one I could bring back via Zoom.

What game do you want to get to the table the most again?

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The Collection

Numbers

A’s – B’s – C’s – D’s – E and F’s – G and H’s – I, J and K’s – L’s – M’s – N, O, and P’s – Q and R’s – S’s

T’s

T.I.M.E. Stories (and Expansions)

I love this game, it is really well made in what I’ve played through of the expansions with each different scenario pack feeling it it’s something new. I’ve heard that some aren’t as strong as others, but through four of them it’s been really interesting. This reminds me of Assassin’s Creed in some ways, though depending on the scenario, less about fighting. And they have done a lot of weird things, from dragons to ancient Egypt to zombies.

Status: Played

The Table is Lava

We all know the rules of the floor is lava, don’t touch the floor. But with this, you have meeples and you are flicking cards. You flick them onto the table, and if you hit someone else’s meeples you can knock them over or knock them onto the table, which is lava, of course. But you get points if your meeples are standing up and less if they are laying down, so you have a lot of different ways to score, but also some strategy in how or where you toss your cards, because you could go to knockdowns or you could try and keep it separate so you are less likely to have meeples knocked off. It seems like silly fun.

Status: To Be Played

Tainted Grail

I love my Awaken Realms games. Tainted Grail is a massive grim dark Arthurian legend and it’s really hard. I like the fact that it’s hard, I like that the combat has you running away fairly often and that you are fighting for survival, what they advertised the game as. The story in this game is really good, and I’ve played through the first chapter multiple times and I always find something new that I haven’t done before and places that I’d love to get to, except for the time that we have left on the Menhir. I’m excited to get back to this after Christmas.

Status: Played

Takenoko

Sometimes you want a game that is just a fun time, and Takenoko with it’s fat bamboo eating panda definitely is that. This game looks family weight but has a little bit more going on as you are putting out tiles, growing bamboo, eating bamboo and more. It has some random elements with the dice, but overall is a really fun time with a lot of good decisions to make. When do you want to water a spot so it starts to grow, does it help you more than the other players by doing that, when you want to move the panda and do you want to get more panda, gardener, or tile scoring cards?

Status: Played

The Terrifying Girl Disorder

Japanime Games makes weird games that definitely have a bit of an anime feel to them even if they aren’t about an actual anime, and this is one of those games. I picked it up because it was on a sale and it looked weird. From what I remember about it, you are picking cards, almost drafting them, to get sets for the girl that you have, but that can change who you have. It is a weird game and sounds like it either will be an interesting game for some people, or that it might be a bit too much game for how small it is.

Status: To Be Played

That’s Pretty Clever

Roll and write, you know the drill. But this roll and write has the distinction of being the one that really started the roll and write craze we’re in now. Ganz Schon Clever, as it’s known in German, is a good comboing roll and write game that has a lot of interesting scoring to it. The sequels then use that and build upon it, but they are their own separate games. That’s Pretty Clever introduces one of the best ideas that I’ve seen, of foxes, these are points where if you can get them can score you a lot of points, but they only score the lowest point total of another section, so if I don’t do well, let’s say in the yellow section and get zero points, foxes are worth nothing. This forces you to diversify as you go.

Status: Played

This War of Mine

Probably better known as a video game, this war of mine is another Awaken Realms game, one of the earliest ones that they did. It is based off of the IP of the video game, and is about trying to survive in a war torn world. From what I know of the game, it’s extremely dark, depressing and hard to in. Now, not all Awaken Realms are like that, but I always expect that an Awaken Realms game will have some elements to it that are punishing. This one I want to try solo and just play in short bits because of the darkness of the theme.

Status: To Be Played

Ticket to Ride

It’s a classic gateway game for a lot of people. This one is all about collecting cards, putting down trains and completing routes. What makes this work so well as a gateway game is that you do one of a few things on your turn. You either take train cards, play down trains, or you take routes. That’s it, you don’t do more than one of those things on a turn. It makes the game easy to teach an very accessible. The game also is based around connecting those routes which is an idea that is really easy to grasp, because we’re all familiar with a road trip of going from point A to point B, with Ticket to Ride it’s just about how you get there.

Status: Played

Tiny Towns

This game has been a pretty popular one this year from AEG and last year. It is a simple cube placement game with a bit more depth than it’d first seem. What makes this really interesting for me is the picking of the resource and how I can use that to my advantage at times or to hurt someone else. Now, I don’t think that hate picking is a viable strategy, but if I see that my next opponent has a brick and wood for building a house, or straw, whatever it is, and I just have a wood, I might pick brick so that they are likely to pick straw and we both get houses, but now they have an extra brick they have to work with. And there are a ton of combinations or buildings that are really fun to work with.

Status: Played

Titan Race

Another fun filler type game is Titan Race. This one is again really easy with dice drafting and racing either across the same board three times or across three different boards once each. The game is fast and easy to learn, and each racer having their own powers is fun. What I also like about the game is that even when you are knocked down to 0, you just lose a turn and you get going again. But what is the most fun is knocking people around, being able to drop a trap right in front or someone or push them into lava, it’s great. And even though there is the take that feel to the game, since it’s so fast and so silly, people aren’t likely to have their feeling hurt.

Status: Played

Tofu Kingdom

I bet you didn’t know tofu had a kingdom. This is a bluffing game where players can either lie or tell the truth depending on what cards they have in their hand and the person who is Prince Mochi is has to try and guess who has Princess Tofu in their hand. It seems like one of those silly little games, almost social deduction, with a little bit of deduction thrown in. What is nice is that it plays a pretty large number of players. I’m curious to get it to the tale once we have people playing in person again, because it seems best at a higher player count.

Status: To Be Played

Tokyo Highway

Dexterity games are a ton of fun for me. I like them because late in a game night, you might not want to sit down and play something too meaty. Instead, you can grab out a game and try, in your tired state, to balance roads and place cars on them. Tokyo Highways is one of the most aesthetically pleasing games to see played. When you wrap it up, it’s almost a piece of artwork, which is crazy to say for a board game. And the rules are simple enough, if your road crossed over or under another road, you get to put a car on your road, the first person to get all their cars out is the winner. But you only have a limited number of discs to raise or lower your road, and without special discs you can’t raise or lower than more by one. It’s a lot of fun and tense, but so pretty that it’s calming.

Status: Played

Tsuro

This is another of the high player count but not a party game games. It’s actually one of the most played in that category for me. Tsuro, the way of the path, is about using your tiles to keep yourself on the paths as long as you can, and outlast everyone else. I think this game plays best at the higher player counts where you can knock out a game or two fast and then move onto something bigger. I’m a little bit played out of this game which is why I’ve added more games of similar player counts to my collection, but it’s still a good one when you need something fast.

Status: Played

Twice as Clever

The follow up to Ganz Schon Clever (That’s So Clever), this game takes the foundation that you get in That’s So Clever and builds upon it. Twice as Clever is by far, I’d say, the most challenging of the three games to play. You have to think a lot about all the sections because the scoring is quite different. I do like pieces of it though, the pink track is great, the grey/silver area is really interesting to think about. The yellow area is hard to rock, but if you can, you can get a lot of points and some good bonuses. It, like That’s So Clever, is all about getting as many combos as possible and getting to those foxes so you can score the most points off of them, but not forgetting to get points in every area.

Status: Played

That’s it for the T’s, definitely less than there were of the S’s, but that’s fine, I have a lot of games as it is. What is your favorite game that begins wit the Letter T? Is there any that I’m missing from my collection that you’d think I’d like?

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What Coming In The Mail

These are the games that I’ve kickstarted which should be getting delivered in 2021.

Etherfields

Technically a 2020 game, it is getting delivered now to backers, but I picked 1 wave shipping, which I’m fine with, because I have more than enough big games to get through, but this one for me will be coming in 2021. I am excited to dive into the dream world and see everything that Awaken Realms has to offer as I’ve really liked their other games that I’ve played, Lords of Hellas and Tainted Grail.

Frosthaven

This was targeted for a 2021 March release but is now probably mid 2021, which I’m fine with. My game group who would probably just jump into this once we wrap up our current game at that point in time is playing Tainted Grail now and hopefully we can do Apocrypha some as well before Frosthaven gets here. But I’m still really excited for it, for the new classes and the city building aspect of it.

Oathsworn: into the Deepwood

This Kickstarter had a target date of December 2020, which I knew was not going to close to being hit as this is a big game and it’s the first game for the company, I’m still stoked for this one and I’ve borrowed a few concepts for my own game design, though mine is different, with this game being split into two parts, an exploration/mystery part as you find your way to the boss monster and then fight that boss. I like the legacy, but not legacy feel to it with how the boss monsters are revealed but nothing is destroyed so you’d just know the boss monster when you play it again.

Hel: The Last Saga

This has a targeted date for 2021, and while I think that Mythic Games can probably hit that, I wouldn’t be shocked if this got pushed into 2022. I backed this one for a Viking campaign game with a theme that is dark but interesting. I liked the religion piece of it too how some characters can only pray to one god or another because of their background, but then some can pray to all of them to get their blessing. This seems like a good grim dark Viking game.

ISS Vanguard

Should be coming at the tail end of 2021, I think, though they are targeted earlier than that, This is something, depending on how much it’s been playtested before, that probably will have a slight delay to it, though Awaken Realms is pretty good with it. I like this one for the epic space nature of it and the less linear story that it tells.

Roll Player Adventures

This one was a late back for me, but I just like the Roll Player stuff well enough that I knew I’d want this lighter campaign game. Playing it at GenCon in 2019 was a blast and the size of the story just seems like a lot of fun. I like that it looks like it’s a few smaller stories that play through a few different scenarios and can be turned into an epic campaign, but doesn’t have to be.

Cartographers Heroes

This stand-alone expansion to Cartographers was an easy back. I really like Cartographers, and I think with more plays it might move up the list. This adds even more cool things, and the level I backed it at comes with the colored pencils to make it look pretty and a big box to hold everything, and three more maps besides the new one from the Heroes part of it. I’m really excited for this.

The Night Cage

GloryHoundd and DrGloryHogg sold me on this one, I’ve backed so many games that are campaign games that this one seemed like something smaller but a lot of fun. I then got a chance to play it at GenCon and was glad that I’d backed it. It’s a nice tense game but one that plays fast and has a lot of cool things around it. I like the every shifting maze, I like the push and pull of trying to find the keys as fast as possible but not reveal too many tiles at once, and I like the race to the end to see what can happen.

Crash Octopus

This one I got for the bright awesome octopus and the silly fun dexterity piece to it. Also because Itten has a good track record with with their game Tokyo Highway. That game is just great and this one looks like it has more game to it but more silliness as well. I love the idea of flicking things that are floating in the water trying to grab as much as you can before an octopus activates and gets you and steals some of your stuff. It’s a silly idea that seems like a ton of fun.

Marvel United

So, I already have the base game of Marvel United, but they just released pictures of new stuff for it, all the expansions and what not, and that’s going to be getting produced really soon. I’m excited to get that into my hands and just to play that game in general because it seems like it’s going to be so much fun. I need to play my base copy.

Midarra

I had this one on last years list, but turns out it’s coming out this year. They say that the 2nd and 3rd act will as well, I only got the first act, but I suspect that’ll be 2022 or 2023. This is a dungeon crawl with a ton of stuff, Gloomhaven style that way, but has more dice chucking and has a very anime theme. I’m excited to get this one to the table for sure just for the different theme that it has and some of the fun things it does.

Now that’s a lot of games that I have been excited about for this year and before with Kickstarter that’ll be coming. Next article I’m going to talk about games that are going to Kickstarter, maybe, in 2021 that I’m excited for. Expect it to be much shorter since that’s much harder to find out as a lot of companies won’t talk about Kickstarter plans yet.

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Pros

• Fun Theme
• Fun Mechanic
• Great Look
• Known Company
• Price

Cons

• Limited Player Counter for Dex game

The Page

This is a well laid out Kickstarter page. What I really like about it is that it highlights the pieces and aesthetic, but also highlights the game and game play. Now, it doesn’t have minis so they don’t have to do all the glamour shots of the minis, but it does a good job of highlighting and getting right to the point of how the game works.

I also like when you can get previous games as well, that helps them keep this game affordable and not need an insanely high number of backers to reach the stretch goals. Add in that Itten isn’t highly distributed in the US that I’ve seen, it means that these games which I have mainly seen at cons are available to a US audience again.

The Game

The game itself seems like a lot of fun. I like dexterity and flicking games generally because they’re good for a light and fun time. And I feel like flicking with the flags and just how the game works, it seems like it is going to have some interesting and different feeling things to it.

I also like that it doesn’t seem too simple or too complicated. With a flicking or dexterity game, I want more going on than just playing Jenga, but I don’t want a lot of convoluted rules about where things can go, and how I have to do everything, because that’s no fun. This looks to hit that balance of a fun game you can play while drinking but also one that you need to think about a little bit.

Back or Brick

So is this game a back or a brick for me? For me this was an easy back. The price is great, I know the company and I know that they make amazing products, I have Tokyo Highway, that are almost art pieces, so I expect the same from this game. I also just love the goofiness of the theme. Plus, the price point and shipping are really good. Compared to a CMON Kickstarter or one with minis, the value is there and the game play looks to be there as well. Now, I like dexterity games a lot, so that colors it a bit for me as well, but a good selling point for me.

So how about for you, is this game a Back or a Brick?

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10 – Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger
If you’re familiar with the Choose Your Own Adventure books, you’ll know that they are silly books where they are taking you through some sort of crazy scenario, and if you make a wrong choice, generally almost at random, you’ll end up dying. Now, that doesn’t sound like that much fun, and it was annoying in the books at times where you’d feel like you were in a dead end and have to go back and start over again. In the board game version, something bad will happen if you die, but then you’ll reset to the previous decision and you always have a chance to go back. This game has some great writing, and is meant as silly fun for a group of players to sit around a table, make poor decisions and work through this cooperative story together. It’s extremely light and is just a fun time at the table for everyone as you go through the nonsensical story.

9 – Tokyo Highway
There are some games on this list because they are silly fun, there are others because the aesthetic is just amazing. Tokyo Highway is one of the latter. What’s basically is just little wooden cars and Popsicle sticks ends up looking like a piece of artwork on the table as the crazy roads interweave between everything. Can you get your roads to go over or under other roads in order to place your cars, and with that can you do that without knocking over precariously balanced roads with little to no room between them? The games rules are extremely simple, but there’s a little bit of tension at times as you place things, but mainly you’re just appreciating how cool it looks on the table.

8 – Small World
Now, I call this game a Risk killer, and for a lot of people, Risk isn’t a feel good game, so how can Small World be a feel good game? It’s because not only does it encourage conflict and encourage wiping someone else off the board as much as you can, it does that for everyone so you’re never down and out. If your race gets overrun, just get a new one and do it back to them, and you always have a special power, maybe you have something that makes sense, like pillaging orcs, but you might have something more out there like seafaring giants or flying sorcerers. Just the combinations, the massive swings from round to round, this game is meant to be light, and the combat doubles down on that, no more rolling lots of dice like Risk, now it’s just simply put down your tokens, and if you have two more than your opponent you take over their territory. If it wasn’t for the fact that you can always come back with another crazy combination, this wouldn’t make the list, but you’re never really down and out, and facing off wealthy ratmen against barbarian elves is just fun.

7 – Draftosaurus
If you haven’t seen Jurassic Park, you probably know about it. And the idea of a park with dinosaurs in just a lot of fun. Draftosaurus is a dinosaur drafting game where you’re trying to get pairs, as many different or as many the same, or other combinations, of dinosaurs to score the most points. You draft from a handful of dinosaur meeples that you have, and the game just is fun and vibrant. The dinosaur meeples look amazing, and the game play is very simple. The only thing that I don’t like about this game is that it doesn’t come with a score pad. It’s on the list of things to do for me to find one and print it off and laminate it so that the scoring will be more fun. That said, the game is simple, fast, and looks amazing because of the dinosaur meeples, it’s hard not to have fun when you’re playing it.

6 – Century: Golem Edition
This game is such a simple but beautiful game as you are building up an engine through a hand of cards to trade gems for other gems and get more gems so that you can activate golem that give you points. This is a feel good game because the artwork is amazing, the metal coins are nice, but it really comes down the gems that you are trading around. The gems are just beautiful translucent plastic pieces, that you can find in other games as well, but they just make the game because it’s fun to play around with them. In the end, you’re really playing a solitaire sort of puzzle with a shared pool of cards to purchase from. The game move incredibly fast as you have a card that you’ll play or purchase each turn, so you don’t have a lot of things to think about. There’s a more standard version as well where you are trading spices, but in my opinion, the Golem Edition looks better and is more feel good.

5 – Homebrewers
I wasn’t sure if this game was going to make the list, but as I thought about it, as a beer fan, I feel like it really is a feel good game. It might be less so for people who won’t like/drink beer, but what makes it feel good might even give them a good laugh as well. In this game you’re trying to build up the best engine to become the best homebrewer out there. You do this by adding ingredients to your beers and brewing them. What is fun about it is that you can make all sorts of crazy combinations. If you want a beer with smoke, oyster, and lime, you can do that, and you might end up with that because that makes the most sense for scoring points. At the end of the game, which is a fast game, you can look and see what crazy beers you’ve created. So even though the game is competitive, it’s over fast and not that cut throat in it’s competitive nature, and the beers are just a fun thing to see what you come up with.

4 – Second Chance
This roll and write, or flip and write, is just a fun little game where sometimes you are pulling for a shape to come out, but most of the time, you’re just doodling in the various shapes with their own unique look so that at the end, your board looks different than everyone else’s board, and has it’s own artistic flair to it. In the game you’re trying to fill in as much of your board as possible so that you have the fewest empty spaces left. Whomever has the fewest spaces left is the winner. But the game encourages you, as you’re filling in Tetris like shapes to have some fun with it and doodle in different backgrounds for the shapes so that you know what you put where, but also so that you have your own unique board when you’re done. If you give people the time they need to doodle, it is a very relaxing and feel good game.

3 – Sagrada
Now, with Sagrada there are some more stressful moments, at times, as you hope the right number is going to be rolled on the right color of dice to help you complete your stained glass window, but it’s hard for it to be too stressful because you are making stained glass windows. The game is just beautiful on the table, and the rules are quite simple, really, so when you’re drafting dice, you know what you’re going to want. The fact that the dice are translucent makes it even better because the aesthetic really is reminiscent of a stained glass window. The game also plays quickly, so the end game where you’re more worried about the dice that come out, goes by very quickly and then you can look at what you put together.

2 – ICECOOL
Dexterity games can sometimes be stressful, late game Jenga where you’re worried about knocking the tower over, might not be a feel good game for some people. But ICECOOL does a good job of not making it stressful. You can get good at ICECOOL, but with a theme of being high school student penguins who are trying to skip class and not get caught by the hall monitor because they want to get fish, the whole game is just silly. And whether you are trying to jump a wall, or get a crazy ricochet and go through several doors, it’s just a fun time. The theme and game play seems like it’d be best for younger kids, but I’ve had great success with this just with adults as it’s always just a silly fun time that everyone can enjoy.

1 – Marvel Champions
This game is just a fun game to play. It’s shown up high on a lot of my lists, but that’s because it’s a good game, and because you get to play as your favorite superhero. All the schemes of the bad guys are super villain schemes, and being able to play as Captain America and throw your shield to hit Ultron or Black Panther and break out all the Wakandan tech to take down Klaw is just a fun time. It feels like playing as the comic book characters, and while there is a good amount of strategy to the game, it doesn’t feel bogged down in that, and most of the time, you just do the thing that feels coolest and most like the hero would do and it works well.

There are more feel good games out there, cooperative games can as a whole lend themselves to that because you’re working together. But I didn’t include things like Gloomhaven and Pandemic, because while the end can be a feel good moment as you beat the game, there is a lot of stress in the game. I think out of the ones that I put down, I’d say that only Marvel Champions has some of that stress to it, the rest are very much lighter games throughout. And even with Marvel Champions, playing as a super hero is just so much fun that it has a lot of a feel good vibe to it.

What are some of your favorite feel good games? Are there any that you want to checkout from my list, or that you think I should checkout?

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