As normal, I am using Pub Meeple to do my rankings. You can find their ranking engine here.

Ranking New Games 35 through 5

35 – KADO
34 – Gold’n Crash
33 – Castellion
32 – Harmonies
31 – Pokemon Old Maid
30 – Karvi
29 – Panda Spin
28 – Unsurmountable
27 – Stalk Exchange
26 – The Royal Limited
25 – At the Helm
24 – Ancient Realm
23 – SpaceShipped
22 – ROVE: Results-Oriented Versatile Explorer
21 – Ext: The Game – Lord of the Rings: Shadows over Middle-earth
20 – Circus Flohcati
19 – A Nice Cuppa
18 – Toy Battle
17 – PUSH
16 – Knister
15 – Luxor
14 – Crafting the Cosmos
13 – The Architects of Amytis
12 – 6 nimmt!
11 – Imhotep
10 – Pyradmido: Forgotten Treasures
9 – One-Hit Heroes
8 – Fromage
7 – Schadenfreude
6 – Symbiose

Quick Thoughts

There are a lot of great games in this section. Everything from Old Maid up I’ll gladly play. And I mainly will gladly play old maid because my kid likes it. Also, I realized I have played old maid before growing up, but I never ranked it. So maybe shouldn’t be on the list.

There are some games where I wonder if they would move higher in other circumstances. Panda Spin, for example, at 29 feels low. But it’s also just okay on Board Game Arena. Would it be a better game in person. The downside of that one is downtime as you might not be able to partake in tricks. But that downtime would be way less.

Also there is a huge clump of Button Shy solo games there in the middle. I like those games. There weren’t any where I thought they were actively annoying or not that great to play. At the same time, there are some that are better than the others, and because it’s just 18 cards, they all fall into that similar feeling category, especially the ones that I’ve played on Malts and Meeples thus far.

Top 5 New Games of Q1

5. Pirates of Maracaibo

This game is great. I love everything that is going on in it and I also love how fast the game is. I wrote up a review of this one already and you can read that here. Just a quick recap, there is a lot going on, but the turns are simple. And there are a ton of ways to explore scoring. I like being able to spend time figuring out new ways to score. And each way to score really does feel good, but you can’t only focus in on one, most likely, you are going to need to get a few working together to do well in the game.

4. The Guild of Merchant Explorers

The next one is another one that I’ve done a review on already. You can read my review for The Guild of Merchant Explorers here. This one I love because I can play it so quickly at two players on BGA, as long as the other player is active. And it is a different puzzle each time you play as you get unique cards for each era. And the scoring objectives, which can easily swing the game, help give the game that more variety as well.

3. Zenith

Yes, another BGA game with a review, but the final of the BGA games, is Zenith and you can read the review here. Zenith is a very fun two player game. And while there are other two player games on the list, the lowest at 34, Zenith stands above with the variety of ways to win the game. It really feels like such a great back and forth two player battle. And that tug of war element where you are trying to get the planets to your side and figuring out how to do that best is great.

2. Clank! Catacombs

Next we have Clank!: Catacombs. We already know that I love Clank in all it’s forms. I’ve streamed the digital app this year as well, but Clank!: Catacombs is probably the best version of Clank!. And that’s really driven by the fact that the game is going to change every time. You don’t know how the tiles are going to come out, and you could decide to build things so it goes off into the distance. That is going to make it more replayable without any expansions, and I think it also makes it easier to have expansions.

1. Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men

The final one is another game that I’ve kind of already played, much like Clank!, but it’s Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men. And this one is great for me because it has two of my favorite players. Beyond that, it is still just more Dice Throne, and I love Dice Throne. I need to pull out my other Marvel characters and have everyone battle together and see who comes out on top. That’s another great thing about Dice Throne, it’s really built for a tournament or competitive play. I wonder if there are any shops around me who are doing the Dice Throne league, that could be something fun to join.

Final Thoughts

That’s all of the new to me games that I’ve played this year. And I know that I’m going to play even more. I am trying to learn new games each week on board game arena and I’ve done a very good job of that thus far. It might become harder later, but I think that I can do it.

Based off of these games, are there any that I should be looking out for in 2025 to tryout? Obviously these aren’t all the games that I’ve played, so I might have played your suggestion already. But let me know those down in the comments. And let me know which games you’ve tried for the first time this year?

Looking around me, I have games like Knarr, Finca, Thunder Rolls, Bomb Busters and a whole lot more that I’ve had come in this year. And there are kickstarters as well, like Dragon Eclipse, Lore, Star Realms, Andromeda’s Edge, and The Dark Quarter that I need to get played as well. So I’m at no shortage of games to get played. And I hope to get a lot of those games played this year, plus the oh so many more that have been on my shelf of opportunity for even longer.

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How To Play Unsurmountable

Like all games from Button Shy, Unsurmountable is an 18 card game. Though, there are expansions. In this game you are trying to use all 17 mountain cards and the helicopter to complete an assent of the mountain. You need to make it from one of the bottom edges of the mountain to the top as you build it out in a four wide triangle.

Each turn you do one of two things. You either take the left most card from the “base camp” row of cards and add it to your mountain. You want to connect the paths so that you can make it to the top as you are placing out cards.

The other option is that you can spend one of the other cards, four at the start of a base game, to use it’s special ability. These abilities allow you to manipulate the order of the cards in the base camp, remove cards or add cards in other ways to the mountain and more.

Once you complete one of those two actions you refill your base camp, shifting all the cards to the left and continue. At the end of the game, when your mountain is built, you check to see if you can create a path to the top. If you can, you win.

What Doesn’t Work

This is a solo game with a fair amount of luck to it. If you get the right cards to come out in the right order, you just build the mountain. The powers, they don’t matter so much. But, if you don’t get the right cards, it’s more of a puzzle. So there is a variability in the game as to how you win. Sometimes you win it is pure luck, other times, no matter what you do, or nearly that, there is nothing you could do to win.

What Works

That negative said, this game does give you a good puzzle. The powers on the cards are interesting. Though, as I talk about at the end of the video, maybe not balanced. For example, adding an extra card to the row just gives you more options. But, removing one makes it harder, and the likelihood you want to play either card on the mountain is fairly low. But the rest of the cards offer a lot of fun choices and decisions about which to use.

The game is also again a pretty small footprint and fast to play. I play four games in my video and that is not a long video. In fact, I even spend time talking at the end about some thoughts on the game, so it’s less than that run time for four games. Granted, one game I didn’t play out completely. I knew based off of the cards that I had, I wasn’t going to be able to complete it. But that’s not a bad thing, it means that the game plays fast, and you know when it’s over, no questioning if you can complete it.

Who Is Unsurmountable For?

I think people who like a solo puzzle will find this one fun. As compared to some Button Shy Games, I think that this one might benefit more from expansions. The base game, as you play it, you know what cards do fast. That isn’t a bad thing, but it does limit a potential shelf life of a game. But for someone who wants a lot of small solo games, maybe travels often or finds themselves waiting often, a game like this is very good.

My Final Thoughts on Unsurmountable

This is an interesting game, and I mean that in a good way. I like the game, but also I think that I need the expansions to keep it around. So I am buying the expansions for it. The nice thing about a lot of Button Shy Games is that you get them for $15 and can sell them for $10, so if I don’t find that’s enough for the game, that’s okay. But I think what the game does is interesting.

The reason that it’s kind of riding that edge for me is because I own a lot of little solo games. So which is going to be the one that I play? And Unsurmountable is on the higher end of luck. I won a game without having to use a power for a long time. Why, because that is the order the cards were shuffled into. Am I likely to get that order again, no. But it is possible to just shuffle into a win, which I’m not going to say is bad design.

But it is a testament to the level of luck in the game. And I want to do more than just play out cards in the order I drew them. And most of the time I know with Unsurmountable that I will. If the expansions add some more into the mix, though, that’d be great.

My Grade: C+
Strategy: B
Luck: B

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