Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 10 through 1

10. Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

Published By: Bezier Games
Designers: Daniel Byrne, Jose Gerardo Guerrero, Kevin Pelaez, Tirso Virgos

Buy Rebel Princess Deluxe Edition

The top trick taking game on my list is Hearts. Well, not completely Hearts, it’s Hearts with shenanigans and that is the element that makes it amazing. If you are familiar with Hearts, you know you don’t want to win the hearts because they are worth points. In this game, you are doing the same thing, but as princesses trying to dodge the proposals of the princes and of course the very dangerous frog princes.

But let’s talk about the shenanigans because that is where the game separates itself from Hearts. In Rebel Princess you each get a princess with a special power. It might be to force someone to lead a suit, or you take over the lead of a trick even if you didn’t win the previous one. They are once per round. The bigger shenanigans comes from the rule for each round. It tells you how to pass cards, but also then something special that round, like the number furthest from the led card wins the trick, to make the trick taking different.

9. Zenith

Published By: PlayPunk
Designers: Gregory Grard and Mathieu Roussel

Out Of Stock Currently

Zenith is the new one on the list, and it blew me away on BGA so much that I knew I needed to pick it up when it came out. Zenith is a two or four player, but really two player game where you are having a tug of war over different planets. When you get influence on a planet all the to your side, you get a token, and you win with three from one planet, four different ones, or five total.

But let’s talk about winning influence. The simplest way is to play a card down on your side of the table, that’ll move it one towards you and give you some other bonus. But to do that you need to pay the cost, so sometimes you need to do other actions to get more money. One of them is to discard a card for a bonus. Depending on the type of card, you get a different bonus for it, and you gain the leader token which means you get an extra card in hand. Finally there is technology which you use to gain bonuses but also move influence on planets.

8. Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Published By: Contention Games
Designers: Gary Dworetsky, Anthony Giovannetti, and Casey Yano

Buy Slay the Spire: The Board Game

You know that I love Slay the Spire the video game and the same is true for the board game. In the board game it’s the same thing as the video game, but everything is scaled down. This is a very smart decision because I don’t want to do a lot of math, but I still want to play the same game I love. So you climb the tower, you fight normal and elite monsters, and you rest and add cards, everything that you love about Slay the Spire the video game.

But there is an extra twist for the board game as well. In the board game you also can play it cooperatively. And I love that for the game because there is no reason that you shouldn’t be able to. It levels up how much health the boss has, and each character gets their own row of normal monsters to face. The cool thing about that row is that I can help you attack your row if your monsters are attacking for too much. Or you can help with mine, but whichever row you attack, you get attacked by your row. So there is a strategic puzzle to figure out as a group.

7. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

Published By: Portal Games
Designers: Jakob Lapot, Przemyslaw Rymer, and Ignacy Trzewiczek

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

I might be the person in the world like Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game the most. But I think it is worth talking about and I think at least the core box is one that more people should play. The core box is a series of intertwined cases that you need to figure out the leads and what to track down. The best way, and I mean this as compliment, I can describe the game is that it’s like NCIS or CSI but fun because you are the detectives.

The game has so much going for it. You need to figure out what lead you want to track down, you need to take evidence to the lab and get your results, or you need to spend resources pressing people for more information. All of that is going to cost time, so you need to get it done before time runs out.

And all the cases are different. Even in the core box where they link together, they are all unique. And the one off cases are all different as well and set in different time periods or different locations. Even the Batman version of the game is a ton of fun.

6. Dice Throne

Published By: Dice Throne Inc.
Designers: Nate Chatellier, Aaron Hein, and Manny Trembley

Buy Dice Throne

Dice Throne is probably always going to be game in my Top 10. Mainly because they keep on coming out with more Dice Throne and I keep on buying it. But the game is a great plug and play game that can be described as battle Yahtzee. But that is not fair to the game because Dice Throne is more than that. Yes, it uses the Yahtzee style rolling to deal damage to your opponent, but the cards, and dice manipulation and how you work that together is where the game is so fun.

Plus, each character in the game is unique and does something different. Whether that is with Marvel and Gambit who has his aces that he can play, Doctor Strange who has spells that he can cast, or Scarlet Witch who can swap out the dice that her opponent roles. Or it is unique for the non-IP characters as well with the Gunslinger having a showdown type of defense, the Treant having sapplings that do unique things, or the Pyromancer building up their flames.

5. Aeon’s End

Published By: Indie Boards & Cards
Designers: Jenny Iglesias, Nick Little, and Kevin Riley

Buy Aeon’s End

I love deck-building and Aeon’s End is my favorite mainly deck-building game. I put it that way because I have another game that uses deck-building, but it is less of a deck-building game. This one is great because it gives you a boss battler as well as you play the game. You need to cast spells to deal with the bosses actions, minions, and hopefully knockdown the boss, the nemesis, if you can.

The game does a couple of fun things. Firstly, I like the turn order in the game, though I will say, I think that it makes it a two player game. The turn order is randomly drawn from a deck, so you might go twice in a row, if you have two of your number in there, or you might have the nemesis get multiple turns in a row. It keeps the game feeling tense and stressful. But I think it works best as a two player game because otherwise you might have a long time between turns.

Then the deck of cards. As you add cards and you need to draw again, you don’t shuffle the deck. Instead you just flip it and you draw from that. If you are smart, you can set it up so that you are drawing a strong hand. It is tricky, but it’s also a ton of fun when you get it right.

4. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Published By: Czech Games Edition (CGE)
Designers: Elwin, Min

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

This is the other game that has deck-building, but it’s less of the game. Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deck-building, worker placement and resource management game that I just love. The theme really helps sell me on the game where you are exploring the jungle and trying to become the most famous explorer. Yes, that theme is hiding behind the mechanisms in some ways, but it’s there.

The game is really a great puzzle as you need to figure out how to explore new locations, defeat those monsters, and go up a research track. But they do it thematically in some areas, and I love that. You can buy new gear with money, but when you do that, it goes to the bottom of your deck of cards. Why, because it needs time to ship over. But if you buy a relic, that’s there, and you can use it immediately. Or on the research track as you advance, you need to discover, magnifying glass, before you can write about it, journal.

And the Expedition Leaders makes the game even better. It means that each player is starting at a unique spot. And it helps shape how you want to solve the puzzle. I thin the game is a 9 for me without this, but with it, and it’s an easy addition, it’s an easy 10 and in my Top 10 of all time.

3. Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon

Published By: Awaken Realms
Designers: Krysztof Piskorski, Marcin, Swierkot

Buy Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon

Now a game that has been in my Top 10 for a long time with Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon. I still think this game has the best story and writing of any game that I’ve played. It does an amazing job of weaving together a narrative over three different campaigns. And you want to explore and read all the story. It’s so good and the storymode fixes the issue, that even though the regular game is a grind when it comes to resources, this is still a game that I love.

I think that the game works so well too in what you are doing. The combat and diplomacy checks you come across offer interesting puzzles of card play. And then when you go to a new card and you find new choices, it’s really interesting. I also should mention with combat, I like how you sometimes just want to runaway. A combat is going to be too hard for you and instead of taking a ton of damage, if your draw bad cards, you should just run.

As an aside, I can’t wait to play the new game in the series. But it’s being waited on because of other campaign games to play. I’ve heard it is less grindy, so if you are worried about that in the base game, maybe check out that version.

2. Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Nate French, MJ Newman

Buy Arkham Horror: The Card Game

At number two is a return to glory in some ways. I think that Arkham Horror: The Card Game was in the Top 3 or so when I first started the list. But it is back here because I’ve gotten to play more over this past year. I’ve done the story in the core box and started on another one. And I built my own character for that which is fun to do as well.

The game is just impressive with how it uses cards in such an interesting way. I love how they become a map for the house, city, or whatever you are in. And how they use simple symbols to help you know what connects to what in the game. And each campaign feels different. I played the Arkham Nights one at a game store, and that was super unique and fun, while the base box felt like a great introduction, and the Scarlet Keys is already shaping up to be different.

I also like that each character you build is going to be good at different things. So you need to balance the party. But you might want a challenge and create a different and unique combination of characters to go with as well.

1. Frosthaven, Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion

Published By: Cephalofair Games
Designer: Isaac Childres

Buy Frosthaven

The final spot on the Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition is the same as it’s always been. This is Gloomhaven, or Frosthaven, or Jaws of the Lion. They are all the same game, though Frosthaven does add in a city management phase which is very fun for the game as well. This is an amazing dungeon crawler game and very worth checking out if you haven’t played a dungeon crawler before. Especially Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion as a starting point for the game.

In this game you play different scenarios and you need to figure out with your unique character how to defeat the enemies and complete the objectives. In Gloomhaven a lot of the objectives are defeat everyone. But Frosthaven adds in more variety, so you need to figure out the puzzle.

And how do you do that? You do that with playing cards from your hand. Each card has a top action, a bottom action, and an initiative on it. You pick one of the two cards to set your initiative and then generally you have a plan of which top of a card and which bottom you want to use. But, if the board changes, maybe the enemies move on you, you can adjust which top and bottom you want to use from the cards you play. And did I mention that each character is unique and feels different in how they play, because they do. And you get a try a lot of them.

Thank You For Joining The Journey

I hope that you’ve had fun with my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition. I always have fun putting together this list. And I apologize for it being a bit delayed in when the article came out as compared to the video on Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. My schedule has been weird as of late.

So with that, be aware I will be streaming as I can. I still want to go through my 101 through 200, aka the games that I still love but couldn’t crack the Top 100. And really, I love a lot more games than just 200. But that video is going to come out when it can. And it might not come out live depending on what my potential filming schedule looks like. The same with other streaming like Legendary Kingdoms and Baldur’s Gate 3. And then I have other games I want to play too, like Regicide Legacy that are going to stream well.

So all of that is to say, thank you for watching. And subscribe and click the notification bell to know when new videos come up on the Malts and Meeples channel.

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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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Message me on X at @TheScando
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Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
70 through 61
60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 30 through 21

30. Space Base

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designer: John D. Clair

Buy Space Base

This is a game that I should have played a long time ago. But it is one that left my collection and then I played it on BGA. Once I played it on BGA, I knew that I needed it back in my collection. Much like other games like Valeria and Mochi Koro this one is about activating spots based off of dice rolls. And then building up those spots so that you can activate more things. Space Base just ramps up in a much better way than those and offers some interesting choices and an interesting moment of when you change from money to points.

29. Symbiose

Published By: Subverti
Designers: Jeremy Partinico and Christelle Partinico

Not Available Yet

Symbiose is one of the new games on the list, in fact, I’m not sure you can get it in the US yet. But this is one I’ll be getting for sure. It’s a simple game where you try and get a two tall by four wide grid full of cards. And those cards are going to score you points based off of the other cards in the grid. But there is a simple twist that makes this work. You score your grid with the central four cards. But the ones to the left and right score your opponents to the left and right. And that is enough to make this a very fun game.

28. XenoShyft: Onslaught

Published By: CMON Limited
Designers: Keren Philosophales and Michael Shinall

Out of Print

I love cooperative and deck building games. XenoShyft does both of those things really as well as you build up your deck to fight off monsters. On the deck building side I like how you always get money to add to your hand. That means that you are always able to buy something which is good and rewarding. The other part is I can just give you a card, you need more troops, I can give you one. It is now part of your deck, and it’s not to the discard, it is straight to your hand. A very tough and rewarding game.

27. One-Hit Heroes

Published By: Wiggles 3D
Designers: AC Atienza and Connor Reid

Buy One-Hit Heroes

This one is a theme that I like a lot with super heroes, but it is doing something different. You are heroes who are glass cannons, kind of. By that I mean if you take a hit you are out, but the game gives you tons of ways to avoid them. So you need to manage your hand and what the enemy is doing. And each enemy is different and each hero is different, so there is a ton of replayability in the box. Plus you level up, so to speak, as you play and get to add in new cards to your deck.

26. Planet Unknown

Published By: Adam’s Apple Games, LLC
Designers: Ryan Lambert and Adam Rehberg

Buy Planet Unknown

Planet Unknown is one of my favorite planet terraforming games. In this one I love how you are covering up the planet and activating locations to move up on tech, and other tracks. The tracks are such a fun part of the game. And as you play the game more you play not with the starting abilities but with special ones. They make you unique, and of course there is the lazy susan. Being able to spin that and then pick where you want to pick from is great. You can set yourself up well, or you can try and mess over your opponents plans or ideally both.

25. Paper Dungeons

Published By: MeepleBR
Designer: Leandro Pires

Out of Stock

I think that this is the highest roll and write game on the list and one of the most complex that I play. Paper Dungeons is a “Dungeon Scrawler”, as they call it, where you level up heroes and explore the dungeon fighting monsters. But there is more than that, you need to manage your heroes health, make adventuring gear and find treasure. Of course, if you make it to the boss monsters that is another way to get even more points, but hopefully not at the expense of too much health.

24. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom

Published By: FryxGames
Designer: Jonathan Fryxelius

Buy Kingdom Legacy – note, there might be an additional tariff related shipping charge in the US.

I was not sure about Kingdom Legacy the first time I watched a video on it, but the more I watched the more I liked it. This is a legacy game of managing your deck of cards by destroying cards, leveling up cards, or even adding new cards. And as you go through, you need to decide which cards are best used for upgrading and points and when to use cards for resources to level up others. It’s a nice balance of multiuse cards, and a challenge to optimize your score.

23. Ready Set Bet

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designer: John D. Clair

Buy Ready Set Bet

I like betting and I like racing when it comes to games. Ready Set Bet somehow combines the two of them into real time fun and stand-up moments. Personally I like both parts of this game betting and being the person calling the race. As you call the race, it’s just to get into it and keep the race moving and watch everyone else stand-up. As a better it’s all about trying to make the right bets the fastest. If you wait too long the best spots are gone, and if you bet too quickly you’re more apt to make bad bets. It sounds chaotic, which it is, but it’s also so much fun.

22. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Published By: Stronghold Games
Designers: Sydney Engelstein, Jacob Fryxelius, and Nick Little

Buy Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

Another game about terraforming a planet, Ares Expedition is a big engine building game of, well, doing a better job terraforming Mars. In this game it’s all about the action selection and how that works. I pick an action, everyone gets to do it, but I get a bonus for it. It might be a bonus of drawing more cards or a discount on building something. But then again, if my opponent(s) pick the same action, we all only do that action, and the other possible actions are skipped. So it’s always trying to guess what your opponent(s) will do to optimize your actions.

21. Hanamikoji

Published By: EmperorS4
Designer: Kota Nakayama

Buy Hanamikji

Finally is one of my favorite two player games. Hanamikoji is a game of trying to win the favor of Geisha by giving them gifts. Each one wants a certain gift and there is a limited number of them. You want to win the favor of four or eleven points worth.

But the biggest draw of this two player game is the action system. You only have four actions and you do one per turn and only once per round. They are simple actions like discarding two cards that won’t be used facedown, or putting one facedown that you’ll score. The other two offer a bit more with the “I Split, You Choose” mechanism in play, and makes you think about what cards you show your opponent for that.

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
Support us on Patreon here

Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 40 through 31

40. Sushi Go Party!

Published By: Gamewright
Designer: Phil Walker-Harding

Buy Sushi Go Party!

Sushi Go and Sushi Go Party! are classic drafting games at this point. And I think with the fun theme and artwork more welcoming than other bigger group drafting games like 7 Wonders. In this game you draft a meal over three hands of cards. You score points for the sets of cards you get, depending on how those cards score. So an example is for each pair of tempura shrimp you score five points. Some might not score you points, though, if you get too many or too few of them. So it’s a fun changing strategy with lots of cards drafting game.

39. Ninjan

Published By: Helvetiq
Designer: 6jizo

Buy Ninjan

This little game I thought wasn’t going to be that interesting, but I really enjoy it. It’s rock paper scissors. But you don’t play against the other players, you play against a central set of cards. And if you beat a card you take that one and those are the points you get. The trick is that some points are negative. So if all the cards are negative in that middle display, you don’t want to beat them and take a card. It makes some some interesting choices and a lot of fun moments of trying not to get points.

38. First Rat

Published By: Pegasus Spiele
Designers: Gabriele Ausiello and Virginio Gigli

Buy First Rat

The moon is made a cheese, you’re rats so of course you know that to be true. And you want to get there. You do that by collecting resources to build up rocket parts and get your ratstronauts ready to go to space. This game is all about figuring out how you want to score and then optimizing that as you move your rats up tracks gaining resources and other things. I like how there is a variety of ways you can go about it in the game, and the theme is just great.

37. Let’s Go! To Japan

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designer: Josh Wood

Buy Let’s Go! To Japan

Second new game on the list Let’s Go! To Japan is one that I backed on Kickstarter but played first on BGA. This is another drafting game, I really enjoying drafting. In this game you want to create your best trip to Japan. And each day you have a certain goal you go for. So it might be food one day or cultural events. As you draft cards and plan your days you try and line that up. As well as you try and get the best scoring for each day that you can. There are a lot of fun things with how this drafting work. And it’s just fun to see your trip when you are done.

36. Guild of Merchant Explorers

Published By: Alderac Entertainment Group
Designers: Matthew Dunstan and Brett J Gilbert

Buy Guild of Merchant Explorers

The last new game on the list is Guild of Merchant Explorers. This is a game with a roll and write feel but uses cubes for that. You are creating routes across your map and filling in areas to get points and create trading posts. I love how simple this game is, everyone has the same map and you flip a card and you place a cube or cubes on that type of terrain. But then you get special cards that make you different in each era and games start to go in very different ways. Plus the treasures which always feel like they should be better than they are, but I always want them.

35. The Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw

Published By: The City of Games
Designer: Frank West

Buy Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw

This is one of the highest roll and write games on the list. The Isle of Cats: Explore and Draw is a really fun game where you are rescuing cats from an island before the bad guy gets there. And to do that you pick a column of cards to activate. Some of those columns are just cats and you add them to your ship trying to create groups of cats. Others might have scoring objectives, so it’s this fun balance of determining how you want to score or maybe you need more cats to make your scoring work. All this while having a polyomino puzzle on your board.

34. The Isofarian Guard

Published By: Sky Kingdom Games
Designers: Eric Bittermann, Sean Craten, David Yanchick

Buy The Isofarian Guard

The Isofarian Guard is one of two bigger story games on the list. And I think you’ll find that a lot of the bigger story games are towards the top half of my list. I love this type of game. And The Isofarian Guard has a lot of fun bag building as you level up characters. Then you explore and enjoy a big story while hopping into combats and using that bag building to battle the bad guys. It’s interesting how there are multiple campaigns with different guard members that all happen during the same time period. That is unique to the game.

33. Forest Shuffle

Published By: Lookout Games
Designer: Kosch

Buy Forest Shuffle

Some games give you a ton of points and Forest Shuffle is for sure one of those. In this game you build out a tableau that is your forest and surround the trees with flora and fauna. Every tree, every animal and every plant give you some benefit in some way. And your goal is to optimize is the best you can. Maybe you go all in on butterflies, or you get a bird card that scores more for other birds. You need to figure out your best scoring.

I need another paragraph to talk about the game because the card play and end game are so good. In the card play you spend cards from your hand to play cards, and that is always a tough decision as to which cards you might not get to play. And the end game is great with three winter cards in the bottom third of the deck. When you hit one or the second one, you know the end game is coming soon and you need to get cards played.

32. The 7th Citadel

Published By: Serious Poulp
Designer: Ludovic Roudy and Bruno Sautter

Buy The 7th Citadel

Another story and campaign game, The 7th Citadel creates a really unique world of necrodruids and monsters that you avoid, fight, and challenges to complete. With a map that you build out each time you play, you explore new areas and directions to get through the scenarios of the story.

And how you do your combat or challenges is really enjoyable. Each character has a deck of cards. And you draw from that deck trying to get the right stars to line-up. You can draw a lot of cards, but if you do, you’ll run out of cards sooner. So maybe you draw fewer, or maybe you really need to pass, so you draw a lot but then spend health to get more back. But of course, when you spend health that is putting you closer to death that way.

31. Star Wars: Unlimited

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designers: Jim Cartwright, Tyler Parrott, Daniel Schaefer, Jeremy Zwirn

Buy Star Wars: Unlimited

The only TCG on the list is Star Wars: Unlimited. Though I’ve been loving Magic the Gathering again as well. But Star Wars: Unlimited is just an easier game to play. The actions being so simple and a back and forth one action and then one from your opponent is great. I also like the two theaters that you fight over, ground and space. Granted you can also just direct that damage at the base as well to try and take that down because that is how you win. And there are a lot of good synergies for building if you want to be a force user, a Mandalorian, or a Rebel, etc.

Join Next Week

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

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

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Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition – 60 through 51

60. Trinket Trove

Publisher: GameHead
Designer: Rocco Privetera

Buy Trinket Trove

I love how Trinket Trove has pretty simple rules. But it is a game that offers more than just simple game play. You collect cards in your hand that will be your score at the end of the game. There is a twist, though, as those cards you also use to bid on other cards. So you need to bid to get more cards or get cards that you want, but that means you mess up your hand. I think that little twist is clever as well as being able to take the cards others have bid to make for a really fun game.

59. Vampire: The Masquerade – CHAPTERS

Publisher: FLYOS
Designers: Thomas Flippi, Gary Paitre

Buy Vampire: The Masquerade – CHAPTERS

Now to another one of those big adventure games that I love, we have Vampire: The Masquerade – CHAPTERS. This is set in the World of Darkness/Vampire: The Masquerade RPG setting. And it is a scenario driven adventure game. Now all the scenarios chain together, so it is meant more as a GM-less RPG sort of setting. I like the simplicity in which it plays. And I think balancing things like hunger and abilities is interesting in the game. The story is the element that really gets me though, as the combat itself is pretty simple.

58. Five Tribes: The Djinns of Naqala

Publisher: Days of Wonder
Designer: Bruno Cathala

Buy Five Tribes is Not Available Currently

This mancala style game is going to give you a ton of ways to score points. And I like that tension of trying to figure out a good move on your turn. Now, I know for some that might introduce some analysis paralysis and there are people I won’t play it with. But I like that puzzle of figuring out what I think is a good move for me and dropping off workers until I get to that last spot. I also like that everything gives you points in the game as that makes even a less than perfect turn still give you something.

57. Too Many Bones

Publisher: Chip Theory Games
Designers: Josh J Carlson, Adam Carlson

Buy Too Many Bones

Another adventure game on the list, I own so much stuff for Too Many Bones. This one is about the Gearlocs that you have and leveling them up. Each one is going to play differently. Some of them might let you level up archery as you unlock new dice, others might start to build bombs that you can use in combat. But this game is one with a great flow. You do an adventure piece, you fight some bad guys, you level up and then you repeat. You do that until you feel that you are ready to face off against the boss, and if you are lucky, you are ready and can win.

56. First-Class Letters

Publisher: GameHead
Designer: Peter C Hayward

Buy First-Class Letters

I love roll and write games, and I like word games. This one is a bit of both. You roll letters and you need to come up with words that use them. But there is a twist to that because there is a letter that you can’t use as well. And of course that is going to be a common letter to make it tricky. To add to that, there are some spots where they set the letter the word must start with. And all the words at the end need to be in alphabetical order. There is a bunch going on, but not too much to ruin the fun.

55. Super Fantasy Brawl

Publisher: Mythic Games
Designer: Jochen Elsenhuth

Super Fantasy Brawl is Currently Unavailable

I don’t love all fighting games. There are a few that I find great, and Super Fantasy Brawl is one of them. This is a game of fighting against an opponent to knock out their characters and complete objectives. But what I love about the game is the simplicity of the play. I play three cards a turn and do their actions, one for each color. Or, if I use a color for a reaction on my opponents turn, then it’s two cards on my turn. I also like that you score objectives at the start of your turn. So you need to hold that spot through your opponents turn.

54. Century: Golem Edition

Publisher: Plan B Games
Designer: Emerson Matsuuchi

Buy Century: Golem Edition

Century: Golem Edition is a great hand management engine building game. Each turn is simple, but the better you are at figuring out how to create a combo with the cards in your hand, the better you’ll do. It’s all about getting games and leveling up those games to get Golems, who are points, in the game. You can get the regular version of this as well, it’s the same game, but I love the Golem artwork and the gems in this are just more fun.

53. Pandemic Legacy Season 1

Publisher: Z-Man Games
Designers: Rob Daviau, Matt Leacock

Buy Pandemic Legacy Season 1

This one is for all the Pandemic Games. I love the Pandemic System, though I haven’t played base Pandemic in quite a while. Mainly because I think that Pandemic Legacy Season 1 and Season 2 are so good. The system just works and the story that you get within the legacy games is great. I even played Pandemic Legacy Season 1 solo on Malts and Meeples early on. So you can see that there, if you want to see how it went for me. I almost feel ready to play it again. If legacy isn’t your thing, than maybe Star Wars, Warhammer, or Lovecraftian horrors will work.

52. Mesozooic

Publisher: Z-Man Games
Designers: Florian Fay, Alexander Ortloff-Tang

Mesozooic is Currently Unavailable

Back to back Z-Man Games on the list, but Mesozooic is very different from Pandemic Legacy. This one is a small little drafting game where you draft eleven cards to make your zoo. But those cards, you don’t get to decide where they fit in your zoo. Instead, you shuffle them up and then then a sliding puzzle, you race to get them in place in 45 seconds. You do that draft and slide puzzle three times and whomever has the best zoos at the end of that is the winner of the game. It’s silly fun and I like it as something really different.

51. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Publisher: Grey Fox Games
Designer: Tobey Ho

Buy Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

Finally wrapping up with #51 we have Deception: Murder in Hong Kong. This is the one social deduction game that I like, and that is because there is deduction as well. You start to piece together the clues from the Forensic Scientist to figure out the murder weapon and clue. Of course the murder and accomplice are trying to keep you away from that, and the witness is trying to subtly point you in the right direction. It’s just a great time and there is always a story in this game.

Join Next Week

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

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

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Message me on X at @TheScando
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Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2025 Edition 70 through 61

70. Meadow

Published By: Rebel Studio
Designer: Klemens Kalicki

Buy Meadow Here

This game is a beautiful nature game. It’s all about creating a meadow and stacking cards on top of each other really. Each card you select is going to have requirements as to how to place it. To go along with that, the selection process is great. I like how you place a token on a row or column and that token determines which thing you take. So you need to plan that out and sometimes make due with the limited placement access you have.

69. Mountain Goats

Published By: Allplay
Designer: Stefan Risthaus

Buy Mountain Goats Here

Mountain Goats is a little, simple, climbing game. All you do is roll your dice and decide how to split them up. Then you move your mountain goat up the tracks that are those numbers. If you reach the top or are at the top, you gain those points. If someone else is at the top when you get there, you knock them down to the bottom again. The game is so simple, but it works really well

68. burncycle

Published By: Chip Theory Games
Designers: Josh J Carlson, Shannon Wedge

Buy burncycle Here

Now we move to burncycle which is a much bigger game. In this game you complete one off missions as robots. I like the theme of the game, robots took over and now big corporations and people have taken it back and are out after the robots. You need to sneak around to complete missions both in buildings and on the network. And the burndown of the cycle is a great tool for the game as well. Just a lot of really fun elements into a big game.

67. The Lost Expedition

Published By: Osprey Games
Designer: Peer Sylvester

Buy The Lost Expedition Here.

The Lost Expedition is back on the list. This game is a great cooperative game. And I always like to mention, it is a good one for not having too much alpha gaming. The players all make their card choices with no input. And it changes up from morning trek to evening trek, I like that about the game as well. The former is playing cards in numerical order, or they slot in that order, while the other you just play out cards. So it changes up the strategy and sometimes you just end up stuck.

66. ISS Vanguard

Published By: Awaken Realms
Designers: Andrzej Betkiewicz, Krysztof Piskorski, Marcin Swierkot

Buy ISS Vanguard Here.

Now to another big campaign game. This one is all about exploring space and figuring out the mystery of why a message brought humanity out here in the stars. The game is also interesting because it’s split into two parts, the planetary exploration part and then the ship management aspect. I like both parts and it makes for a fun campaign, one that I need to get back to, ideally in a group.

65. Mansions of Madness

Published By: Fantasy Flight Games
Designer: Nikki Valens

Buy Mansions of Madness Here.

Now another scenario based game, Mansions of Madness is a classic at this point. Do you want to go on some big Lovecraftian adventure, but as a one off? This game is going to give you that. I like how grand it is, I like how the app lets the scenarios be different each time (albeit just slightly), and I like how the scenarios you play are so different. This is a good beer and pretzels type of game when you want a big game for an evening.

64. Sonora

Published By: Pandasaurus Games
Designer: Rob Newton

Not Available Currently

I like my roll and write games. And Sonora is a great one for that and it has a fun twist with it. Yes, you get all the combos that you get from a lot of roll and write games. But you also get to flick discs. So instead of rolling dice you are flicking discs with numbers to see what areas you activate. It’s fun to knock someone off a spot that they really wanted. And then, like I said, you go heads down and get to combo as many things as you can.

63. Lands of Galzyr

Published By: Snowdale Design
Designers: Seppo Kuukasjarvi, Sami Laakso

Buy Lands of Galzyr

Lands of Galzyr is an interesting game because it’s really different than most games that I’ve played. This one is all about going on adventures and completing quests. But the stakes, while often cool and interesting, are never that high because what quest you go on, that’s determined by whatever shows up. I like as well how you can rotate your skills, so you might start out sneaking and then end up with great lore, it’s up to you and the quests you take.

62. Kohaku

Published By: 25th Century Games
Designer: Danny Devine

Not Available Currently

I like games where you can draft. And Kohaku gives you that as well as being a beautiful game to play. The copy as own has the acrylic tiles which give it a depth from the surface of the water to the bottom which looks amazing. But the game play is good as well. You pick out a koi and a scoring tile and they need to be adjacent to each other. Then when you play them out, you can never put a koi orthogonally adjacent to another koi and same with scoring tiles. So it’s a bit scoring tableau that you create.

61. Nidavellir

Published By: GRRRE Games
Deisgner: Serge Laget

Buy Nidavellir Here

Finally is Nidavellir. This is a game that I actually got rid of at one point. But then I decided to hop into a three player game on BGA. And I realized what I had not liked about the game before. Nidavellir is a great bidding and dwarf set collection game, but for me, only as a three or more player game. It’s fun to try and get your bids just right and still upgrade your coins. Plus you need to diversify what you collect so you can get the bonus powerful dwarves.

Join Next Week

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

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

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Message me on X at @TheScando
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Catch Up on the Top 100 Games

100 through 91
90 through 81

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
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Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71
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60 through 51
50 through 41
40 through 31
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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.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

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

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 20 through 11

20. Heat: Pedal to the Metal

• Published by Days of Wonder in 2022
• Fly around the track and manage your engine so it doesn’t over heat to win the race

This is a great racing game. It is a nice blend of simplicity. You play cards equal to the gear that you are in for your movement. But also some complexity as you need to be smart with how you handle the curves, straightaways, how much you push your engine and when you cool it down. That cooling down part of the game is great as it really makes a difference in how you play and when you push it. Plus there are modules you use, like drafting some cards for your deck, that make the game even more fun, or you can do a series of races which is also great.

Buy Heat: Pedal to the Metal

19. Planet Unknown

• Published by Adam’s Apple Games in 2022
• Terraform your planet and increase your technology better than your opponents can

Planet Unknown is a polyomino game where you are terraforming a planet. You can play it in the basic mode where everyone is doing the same planet and same tech track, or you can do unique planets and tech tracks. I love the unique ones and I think that’s the way to go after the first game. But Planet Unknown has more than just laying out tiles, how you decide which tile is picked for you is amazing. Whomever is the leader that round turns a lazy susan full of tiles and whatever one is pointing to where you pick from, those are your options. So you can stick someone with something or sometimes get the perfect thing.

Buy Planet Unknown

18. Clank! In! Space!

• Published by Dire Wolf in 2017
• Race through a spaceship but don’t try and make too much noise as you grab a treasure and get out

This is a push your luck deckbuilding game, and I enjoy both of those elements to the game. I find that pure push your luck doesn’t always work for me, but add in deckbuilding a mechanism I love, it’s great. You build up your deck to move and grab a treasure, fight monsters, and buy more cards that are worth points. But you also need to be aware of how noisy you are. If you’re too noisy the villain, Lord Eradikus will start drawing out your cubes, if you clank, and dealing damage to you. And you might not make it out before you die.

Buy Clank! In! Space!

17. ISS Vanguard

• Published by Awaken Realms in 2022
• Explore a new solar system while you manage your crew and your ship

ISS Vanguard is a big campaign game and one that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples. Not the whole way through, but far enough to give you an idea of how it plays. The game is interesting because it plays over two parts. Part of the game is exploring planets and discovering why humanity was called out to this location in the stars. The other part is managing your ship. I was worried that managing your ship wouldn’t feel important, but it’s a great element to the game and makes it feel even more thematic.

Buy ISS Vanguard

16. Vampire the Masquerade: CHAPTERS

• Published by Flyos Games in 2023
• Enter a world of vampires and darkness as you play across missions and try and figure out what is happening in Montreal

Chapters is choose your own adventure RPG in a box. I love how it gives you this great story filled with depth and grit. And it also gives you tactical combat and dice chucking. It feels like a great blend of things that I love in board games and in RPG’s. The story is well written and while there are definitely issues with it there is an app that should be helping fix that and an upgrade pack for it. But even without that, the game is fun, and the app is free so the few spots it’s really busted should be fixed. Plus, I want to play a dark vampire game, and this gives me that in spades.

Buy Vampire: the Masquerade – CHAPTERS

15. Metal Gear Solid

• Published by CMON in 2024/2025
• Sneak around the base and battle only when you need to complete missions

Yes, there is a game on my list that isn’t out yet. Spoilers, there might be another one as well coming up in my Top 10. But that is because I’ve gotten to play the final version of the game and I feel like I’ve had enough time with it. I love this game as it’s a tactical minis game where you can fight. But fighting generally is going to be noisy and messy and you’ll be swarmed. When that happens, well, it’s probably game over for you. So instead you need to be smart, sneak around, and try and avoid the guards the best you can or lose them. All while being a pretty simple game to play.

Coming Soon

14. Lost Ruins of Arnak

• Published by Czech Games Edition in 2020
• Explore the lands, find treasure, fight monsters and discover what adventure awaits you

Lost Ruins of Arnak is a deckbuilding game. It is a worker placement game, and it’s a exploring adventure game. For me all of those elements come through. And I love the puzzle of trying to manage your two workers you get place, knowing when and where to place them, buying cards, and risking fighting monsters. Because you need to do it all, and the game isn’t that long in terms of how many rounds it is. But if you’re smart, you can stretch it out for a lot of points and a lot of chaining actions. The Expedition Leaders even adds more fun to the game and more variability as well which I love.

Buy Lost Ruins of Arnak

13. XenoShyft Onslaught

• Published by CMON in 2015
• The base is under attack by bugs, you need to build up your defenses and work together to defeat them

I think I’m the champion of XenoShyft, but I really like the game. It’s another deckbuilding game, but it’s a cooperative one. And I think that cooperative element and how incredibly interactive the cooperation is, that is what makes the game stand out to me. Plus it does a clever thing where you’re never drawing dead with money, so you can always buy cards and bolster up your defenses. Because everyone needs to be able to defend their side of the base so the bugs don’t overrun it.

Out of Print, but you can find it on eBay

12. Marvel Champions

• Published by Fantasy Flight Games in 2019
• Heroes battle villains in this Marvel Superhero game

I love Marvel, we all know that. And Marvel Champions is one of my favorite, if not my favorite Marvel themed game. What I love about this one is that you feel like you are the hero. And not only that, you need to think about being the hero but balancing that with the alter ego. If you stay in hero form the bad guy will beat you up and probably take you out. But if you are in the alter ego side, they don’t know who you are, so they’ll go back to completing their scheme. And that’s not great as well because you can’t blow your cover in alter ego form.

Buy Marvel Champions

11. Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

• Published by Portal Games in 2018
• Take on the role of detectives and work together, take the notes, and try and solve the cases

Detective for me is my favorite deduction game. I like deduction a lot, but Detective just makes it really immersive. In the box I’m showing it has five cases that all connect into something big and impressive. And you use information that you took notes on from one case and use it in another. I think by the end of all five cases I had between 12 and 15 pages of notes that we’d look back at. And it uses a computer system as well to let you do things like compare DNA, interview witnesses, and more. The game is just this great thematic detective game for me.

Buy Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

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. There is one week left, which is going to be two Wednesdays out. After that I’m planning on doing some look back and look ahead videos and smaller solo games or things like Balatro and Slay the Spire.
• 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.

Send an Email
Message me on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here
Support us on Patreon here

Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
90 through 81

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 80 through 71

80. Flamecraft

• Published by Cardboard Alchemy in 2022
• Deliver on the most goals and score points as you play out adorable little dragons who help around the town

This game immediately grabs you with the artwork. The dragons are amazing, and Sandara Tang gives each of them such great personality. Beyond that the game is simple but fun, you go to a location and are either activating the cards and dragons there, or adding some, or spending resources to complete goals. As the locations get more and more dragons the more powerful they become. It’s a great ramping mechanism for a simple game. Though the game is not fast one, which might be my only knock on it.

Buy Flamecraft

79. Just One

• Published by Repos Productions in 2018
• Work together to get the guesser to the right answer with just one word

A party game on this section. I’m not sure, I expect that there are two more party games on the list, but we’ll see. I honestly have forgotten. But Just One is a great cooperative party game. One person is the guesser and everyone else needs to write down a one word clue to get the guesser to guess their one word. Sounds simple, right, but if you double up with anyone, now both those words are gone. That means that an easy clue can become very hard very fast. So you want to be obscure with your clue, but not so obscure that it won’t lead the person to the right answer.

Buy Just One

78. On Tour

• Published by BoardGameTables.com (AllPlay) in 2019
• Create the best route for your band to tour the map going from low to high numbers

This one is a fun roll and write. While I love a ton of roll and write games where they have a lot of combos, this one is a different type of puzzle. In On Tour two dice are rolled and players each place the numerical combinations on two spots on their board. But there are rules as to where they can go. And you may want to watch the city to gain bonus points, but if it won’t connect well to your route, is it worth it to push your luck?

Buy On Tour

77. Mythwind

• Published by Open Owl Studios in 2023
• Build up your settlement and play your mini game in this cozy gaming experience

Open Owl Studios went into making Mythwind with the plan of making a cozy game. So something that works well like a Stardew Valley or an Animal Crossing. They do that by creating a peaceful story world to play in, there are interesting elements to it though. And then each person plays their own little minigame. I demonstrate what the minigame for the farmer looks like. And One Stop Co-op Shop and Meet Me At The Table play some of the other ones. It’s just a unique feeling game that is fun, and relaxing to play.

Preorder Mythwind

76. Betrayal at House on the Hill

• Published by Avalon Hill in 2004
• Explore a haunted house but beware, someone is going to be come the traitor

This is a game that I still love though I haven’t played it in a few years. I fully recognize that the game has issues. When you sit down to play you know that the haunt may not work as planned because either the traitor is going to be overpowered or the other survivors will be. And the haunts themselves have janky rules. But I still love the game anyways because it’s thematic, silly, and just a fun time.

Buy Betrayal at House on the Hill 3rd Edition

75. Clever 4Ever

• Published by Schmidt Spiele in 2022
• Another combotastic game in the Clever line of roll and writes

I don’t know what else to say about this one. Clever 4Ever offers a ton of fun combos and a few different feeling sections of your sheet. How Wolfgang Warsch keeps on coming up with different and interesting ways to handle rolling five dice, using one, getting rid of lower ones and then rolling them again, I don’t know. But he does and this one is great, I especially like the sections where you can fill in different shapes depending on the number rolled. That element really feels different.

Clever 4Ever is either new to my Top 100 Games (of all time) this year or it just made the cut last year. I know I hadn’t had the game for long.

Buy Clever 4Ever

74. SpellBook

• Published by Space Cowboys in 2023
• Learn spells and feed your familiar to get the most points

This is a really simple game. All it is when you boil it down is set collection. You collect materia, you get enough of a color, you learn that spell. Then you use that spell you learned to collect more materia or learn new spells easier. Each spell you learn gives you points, or you can just feed the materia to your familiar for more points as well. The is fast, and there is a fun puzzle as to how you can optimize your spell usage as you get into the game.

Buy SpellBook

73. Century: Golem Edition

• Published by Plan B Games in 2017
• Get crystals, upgrade crystals and get golems to give you points

Another engine building game. Century: Golem Edition again, like SpellBook, has quick snappy turns. In this game it’s all about hand management and using those cards in hand to get more and upgrade crystals. Then you use those crystals to grab Golems that are going to score you points. But you literally just play a card, trade crystals for a golem, pick-up all your cards, or buy a new card. One of those things on a turn and the game just flies.

Buy Century: Golem Edition

72. New Frontiers

• Published by Rio Grande Games in 2018
• Build out the grandest space empire by doing the best action for you

New Frontiers is another engine building game. In New Frontiers you are doing it at a space level though, colonizing new planets, getting new technologies, fighting and conquering planets. All of that done through action selection where what action you pick gives you a bonus. But, everyone else is going to follow along with that action as well. So what is the best action for you and maybe not a great one for other players? I believe that New Frontiers is new to my Top 100 Games (of all time) as well though it isn’t a new game.

Buy New Frontiers

71. Meadow

• Published by Rebel Studio in 2021
• Create a beautiful tableau of nature through tricky card drafting

Meadow is another gorgeous game. I start out and end this section with beautiful games. In Meadow you want to score points by playing out creatures, taking pictures, and gaining trinkets. But to do that you need to build up your meadow from the land type up through bugs and maybe eventually all the way into deer, foxes, or other creatures. How you pick the cards you get is great. You use a fence post that tells you how far into a row or column you are picking. So you need to determine the best spots to play to get all the cards that you want and hope no one blocks you.

Buy Meadow

Final Thoughts

Firstly, let me know what your favorite of these games are. I obviously enjoy all of the tones in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition, so Meadow needs to be my favorite. But in terms of easily getting it to the table, I’m kind of feeling a big old stream and playthrough of all the clever games on Malts and Meeples. And let me know if there is one that you would want to get played as well that you haven’t tried in my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition.

Join me next week for the next batch of games in my Top 100 Games. It’ll be starting around 9 PM Central on Wednesday if everything goes as planned. You can subscribe and click the notification bell to get notified when the video goes live. Thanks so much for watching.

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