Group Games Rankings

45: Cards Against Humanity

Cards Against Humanity, or CAH is one that I enjoyed the first couple of times that I played it. But it is not that great for two reasons for me. One, the humor is hit or miss in the game. And I know that it’s meant to be this dirty humor and I appreciate some of that, but it gets boring. And secondly, whenever someone wants to play it, it goes on too long. CAH is a game that works if you play 6-7 rounds. After that the jokes and terms have diminishing returns. And I feel like most CAH games go twice as long as that.

44: Guesstures

Guesstures is a game that I grew up playing, and honestly, I don’t remember it too well. Which says something about it. But charades, meh. That’s where I’m at with it. It’s an old party game and one that I don’t want to go back to.

43: Concept

If you watched my video on games that I dislike that I’m probably wrong about, Concept is an obvious one. But for me it didn’t work. Like I said in that video, it just feels like it’s a lot of staring at the board. And because the word can be anything, it just feels too broad and sucks the fun out of what is a cool idea. Concept is better in concept than it is on the table.

42: Magic Maze

Already on another list quite low, it’s even lower here because I think it suffers with more people. It’s a real time game which is a strike against it in my opinion. Plus, there is no communicating, and you’re working cooperatively. So if someone misses that they are the person who needs to move a figure, it just gets frustrating. Plus, real time games are just too stressful to be that fun for me, and too stressful to want to play them all that often.

41: Catch Phrase!

This one maybe should be lower, I’m very done with Catch Phrase. the concept is not too bad in trying to go fast and get people to guess words. But like a lot of party games the variety was lacking in what you did. I know we played it enough growing up that you’d almost memorize the cards and take reduces the fun even more.

40: Tsuro of the Seas

Tsuro of the Seas again isn’t a bad game in concept. I like the game it’s based on more and it’s higher on the list. Tsuro of the Seas promises to add in more by adding in dragons. And those dragons move around removing tiles and changing up the map and you need to avoid them and the other players. The issue is that it takes a pretty fast and simple game and makes it longer. So while I wouldn’t say no to playing it again, I would prefer to play the original.

39: Spot It!

Spot It! is another game that I’m probably wrong about. Granted, Spot It! is a very simple game. You have a card and you want to be the first to match what you have on your card to what is flipped. It’s a fast little filler that works well with almost all ages. And I think there are other ways to play as well. I wouldn’t tell anyone not to get it, it’s just not for me really.

38: Apples to Apples

Apples to Apples is CAH but clean. So, this again falls into the category that it sticks around too long. But it’s a bit more fun for me. And I think if you can cut it short so that you only play so far it can work. The rules as written, it takes it past the length a good party game should go, as most party games have a problem with. Plus this one you can play with anyone and there’ll be some good laughs.

37: One Night Ultimate Vampire

We’re coming up on a run of social deduction games right here. And I know that I like them less than most people do, so take this part of the list with a grain of salt and know your group. But One Night Ultimate Vampire was the most disappointing of them that I’ve played. It’s fairly basic, and it gives you the least information to go on, it feels, because it’s only one night. So stuff happens while people’s eyes are closed and then you just accuse randomly after some random talking, so there’s no real point. I’m sure people find more strategy than I do, but it doesn’t work for me.

36: Secret Hitler

Another one, like I said t here is a run of them here. Secret Hitler is better, and in terms of mechanics, it is one of the more interesting. One person gets three things, could be fascist laws or liberal laws to enact, they pass two to another player and that player picks one of those two. So it’s a double blind sort of thing, and then people discuss who is lying and who the next chancellor should be.

But for me it’s the theme, the theme kind of works for the game, but it isn’t needed for the game. You could have picked something better, and then they made it possible to be political in the US, which works, but also just isn’t what game nights are about.

35: Werewords

This one I like better than some but also disappointed me more than most social deduction games. I watched a play through of the game and I thought, this might be a social deduction game that works for me, it has more than just accusing randomly. But it is still pretty random. Yes, you can see how good the questions someone asked were, but it’s fairly random still. And the addition of twenty questions, it’s just okay.

34: Donner Dinner Party

Now we go back to more traditional social deduction. Donner Dinner Party is about cannibalism and it’s an odd theme. Who is the cannibal is the game that’s basically going on. But it does some decent things where the party leader adds in a random card, and everyone puts in the food they found blind. It works for hiding information but still giving something to talk about. But still, if you and I both claim we put in the squirrel, one of us is lying and no one knows whom. So sometimes just keeping a mouth shut is better or it’s still very random.

33: The Resistance

The Resistance and this kind of includes Avalon, though I like the Resistance “theme” better is a nice simple game. I feel like it distills a lot of what many social deductions games do, but it keeps it simpler. I like the speed that this one plays, and people slowly talk more about things. And I like that this one doesn’t expect you to start talking with little information at the start like a lot of them do. I don’t love this game by any means, but it’s the best of this group.

32: DICEcapades

I just got rid of DICEcapades, and I kind of miss it. It’s odd, but it wasn’t one that I was going to play again. I like the random challenges it made you do like stacking dice, or adding up dice really quickly, or stuff like that. But then there was a trivia section, and the trivia is bad. Not that it’s too hard, it often isn’t, but it’s a you know it or you don’t. Everything else is silly and fun, that part is just boring.

31: Farkle

Farkle is a nice beer and pretzel style of game. By that I mean you can take it to a bar and not pay that much attention and have something to do. As a bigger group game, though, it just takes a long time. The rules are simple and push your luck is fun, but when people just bust over and over and over again, or there are a bunch of people between your turns, it’s less interesting.

30: Bring Your Own Book

One of the earlier games I backed on Kickstarter, I thought the concept of Bring Your Own Book was interesting. You basically play Apples to Apples, but with picking something from a book. The issue is not all books are made equal. Having a computer programming text book sounds like a funny thing but it isn’t as good as a novel. And you need to know your book. Otherwise, you are just flipping too randomly through it. Good sounding idea, turned out to be just okay as a game.

29: Cthulhu Fluxx

Fluxx (and the versions of it) are a lot of people’s gateway games, or one that they play early on. It’s a fun little game that has one thing I don’t like about it. It can be a great time as you play it quickly, or it can take forever. If the game could last 20-30 minutes, it’s great, when it goes longer, it becomes boring. Though, there are ones that are fun themes and plays on the rules. Cthulhu Fluxx also adds in a way for everyone to lose, which is actually okay.

28: Codenames

Now, this is another one I’m likely wrong on, at least according to most people, but I do have a version of this I like better. The concept is good, and I’ll gladly play it, giving clues to get people on your team to guess words faster than your opponent can. That’s a simplification of it because it’s done in turns, but the word one I don’t love. Mainly, it’s too quiet, and you just don’t feel clever that often as the clue giver.

27: Telestrations

Telephone Pictionary is how I originally knew abut the game. Telestrations is just a version of a game that existed and was turned into print. It’s a fun game as you go back and forth between writing and drawing and see how close or far from the original phrase it was. It’s not really a game, but it’s a great party activity. Play a round of this with a bigger group or as people who up, it’s a good time.

26: A Fake Artist Goes to New York

Another drawing game, didn’t plan on having them back to back, but A Fake Artist Goes to New York is another social deduction type of game, kind of. One person doesn’t know what to draw, everyone else does. So the one person is trying to fake their way as they add to a picture. Concept is fun, and it’s an enjoyable time, but also one of those that seems to stick around too long for me. I’ll gladly play two or three rounds, but I don’t need more.

25: Zombie Dice

Zombie Dice is kind of Farkle like in that you’re pushing your luck as you try and get brains. All the time you’re trying to avoid shotgun blasts. This one I like better than Farkle because the end game is faster and then bad luck that happens is kind of funnier. Pushing your luck with no shotgun blasts and then rolling three on green dice sucks, but it’s also absurd. Just giving the concept a theme is fun.

24: Balderdash

Again, I have two similar games right next to each other, though Balderdash is nothing like Zombie Dice. Balderdash is a game where you make up what a weird law is, what an acronym stands for, what a definition might be, or more things. And then you try and guess the right answer and hope people guess yours. This generally doesn’t end as a game but devolves in a fun way into in jokes for that session and a lot of laughing.

23: Liebrary

Liebrary is very similar to Bladerdash. Instead of a definition or an acronym, you’re given the plot of a book and need to write the first sentence. It’s again really goofy and while it’s easier to know what the right one is a lot of the times, it can provide so many good laughs. And then when everyone things that a line is too crazy and it turns out to be true, that’s even better.

22: Unspeakable Words

Unspeakable Words is a Cthulhu themed spelling game where you are trying to make as big words as possible but you might also be going insane. Though, if you go insane, now you don’t have to make real words anymore. It’s goofy and simple, one that I played a bunch and then moved on from. But it’d play it again as a good little filler.

21: Flapjacks & Sasquatches

Another one that kind of falls into the filler category is Flapjacks & Sasquatches. You are trying to cut down trees and playing out different things to do that. There’s some take that, it’s kind of in that weight of a Munchkin, which isn’t on the list because I don’t consider it a big group game or it’d be very low, and Fluxx. This one I feel like is just more enjoyable and less in your face take that. Though, when it does have that, it is in your face. Plus just sillier in a different way, where Munchkin doesn’t feel that unique.

20: Tsuro

Now we’re onto Tsuro. I had Tsuro of the Sea lower, and this one works better. Firstly, the timeline is set. There are only so many tiles and it’s unlikely you’ll play all of them. Plus there is more strategy in the game while still being lighter. You just plan out how you are going to do move and nothing will break that up. But you also can manipulate it so that you might be able to take out another person. Though, now I’ve played it enough that it’s low on my list to play again, it is one that’s unlikely to leave my collection because it’s so easy to play.

19: Second Chance

Like Tsuro, Second Chance is another one that is super easy. I’m not going to remove it from my collection because it is easy, but I’ve played it enough that it’s not one I gravitate towards. It’s basically fitting Tetris shaped pieces into a board, it’s a roll and write, and then trying to end with the fewest open spots left. It’s very lucky, but it is also a relaxing game to play.

18: Coup

Coup is another bluffing game, but it’s not social deduction really. People can claim that they have whatever role they want and then take that action. But will someone call them out on if they truly have that role. If you guess right and they don’t, they lose a role, if you are wrong, you do, and the goal is to be the last one standing. Though, if you don’t ever call someone out, I think it’s that you can collect points to win. Clever game, and simple enough to play.

17: Scattergories

Another classic party game, Scattergories is one that I enjoy a lot. It’s a good one in that everyone probably has played it, because it is a classic. Though, maybe newer gamers haven’t. And it is a party game that led to others on the list. You’re just trying to come up with an answer to a prompt that might be a boys name or thing found at a beach and they need to start with the letter J. And you just don’t want to overlap. So do you take the obvious one in hopes that other people will avoid it, or go with something more out there?

16: Criss Cross

Another roll and write, and one that I still quite enjoy, but because of it’s simplicity it’s just dropped a bit. But it’s a great one, because of it’s simplicity for a bigger group. You just need to be able to see the dice. And you are trying to get the same symbols adjacent to each other in rows and columns. But you also need to put the two dice rolled right next to each other. So it’s a bit of a puzzle as you fill in your board. A good one, just one I’ve played a lot.

15: Codenames: Pictures

Now, the preferred version of Codenames for me, Codenames: Pictures. I like this one better because it gives you more of a chance to be clever. The images are so weird that you can come up with interesting ways to exclude some images or to connect others. And people discuss it more around the table. Can still suffer from silence sometimes but generally it plays with more energy.

14: Stipulations

And now another game that I’d put in the same category as Liebrary or Balderdash. The pick something and create an answer. But it also has some Apples to Apples where someone is picking their favorite answer. This one is more fun though because you have control over it. You write down a stipulation for something like the dream job of being a baker, but everything you bake is poisoned, some stipulation like that. It can overstay it’s welcome, but I try and keep that from happening.

13: Hues and Cues

Hues and Cues is a party game all about colors. In it you try and get someone to land on your color and get a lot of people close, as the clue giver to score points. And as the guessers, the closer you are the more points you can score. It’s a clever game where you give a one word then two word clue and then reveal the location. And it is one that works pretty well via Zoom.

12: Wits & Wagers

Wits & Wagers is my favorite trivia game, maybe the only one that I like. The main reason is that you don’t need to know the answer to do well. You just need to know who might know the answer and bet on their guess. Because it’s Price is Right rules, closest without going over. And all the numbers are numeric, so generally people can ballpark it. This one just works for trivia and plays fast and everyone is playing the same game, no one is putting down the right answer because it’s their turn to.

11: Not Alone

Now, we move away for a moment from party games. Not Alone is a one versus all game. The one is a monster who is trying to stop the crashed astronauts from getting off the planet. And everyone else is those astronauts waiting for a ship to pick them up. They can go anywhere they have a card for and can even discuss it, but the planet or monster is listening all the time. The idea is clever, the game play is pretty simple, and the whole thing is fun as the monster or the astronaut.

10: Medium

Now we’re back to party games. Medium is about matching words with your partner for that round. But to do that you both put down a card with a word on it and you try and say a word linking them and match up. If you don’t match, then you do it again with the words you just said. And if you don’t again, you get one last chance, and hopefully you’ve narrowed it in. It is good for laughs and everyone is thinking of the word that they’d have said as well.

9: Just One

Just One is a cooperative party game, not the last one on the list. It works really well with almost any group because the concept is simple. One person is it and they pick a random word from a list that they can’t see. Everyone else writes a one word clue. But if any of those clues duplicate, both copies of it are gone. Then with the remaining clues the person who is it needs to make a guess. There are rules to make it trickier, but generally we play it simply so that you feel like you can guess. I’ll let you find out on your own what the actual rules are.

8: Sushi Go Party!

And away from party games, Sushi Go Party! is a card drafting game. And a set collection game, or a set not collection game but mainly a drafting game. I really like it with larger groups because it doesn’t change how fast it can play. And it feels like there is more substance, because there is than a lot of other bigger group games. It’s one that won’t ever leave my collection because of how simple it is to get to the table and play and the variety it can have.

7: Cross Clues

Cross Clues is the second to last party game on the list and second to last cooperative one. This is kind of like just one, but instead of guessing one word from a bunch of clues, you’re trying to get people to guess a combination of two clues with just one word. I really like how this doesn’t have turn structure as well, whenever you have a clue for your intersection card, you can give it. Makes the game faster and keeps everyone involved at all times.

6: Similo

The final party game on the list, Similo is a blast to play. It might drop over time a bit, but when you have a lot of sets you can get a lot of weird things. One person is a clue giver who is trying to get people to guess their card from a group of 12. But they can only say if it’s similar or different from a card they play from a hand. And everyone else must eliminate one, then two, then three, then four, then one to win. It’s not too bad when you’re using animals to eliminate animals, but animals in hand to eliminate historical figures, now that’s interesting.

5: Welcome To…

Welcome To, the second highest roll and write on the list though I just realized I forgot Cartographers, is a great game, so is Cartographers for a big group. Each person is using the same poll of flipped cards and going for the same scoring objectives. So all you need is to be able to see the cards. And game plays differently every time because of how things come out. I need to play with more of the maps though.

4: PitchCar

One of two dexterity games on the list, this one is a racing one where you and up to 7 other people, maybe 9 if you get an expansion (so 10 total) are flicking cars to race them around the board. It’s silly fun as cars fly off the track or bank nicely around curves. And when someone has a good shot, you cheer. Grand old time and a silly game but in the best way.

3: Railroad Ink

Finally roll and write is Railroad Ink, and this is a bit of a cheat, as is my #1 because you technically need two sets. Thankfully Railroad Ink or Railroad Ink Challenge were released two boxes at a time. So you can play up to eight if you get both of them. It’s a route building roll and write, and with the challenges it just adds that little bit more. But I like challenges better for that more, it gives you direction when you don’t know what you want to do.

2: Deception: Murder in Hong Kong

And super high on the list is a social deduction game. I love Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, why, because you aren’t just guessing randomly at the beginning. A murder has happened and everyone has four clues and weapons in front of them. The murder picks on of each of their own and the forensic scientist knows what they are. But no one else does and the forensic scientist can only send up reports. But with that first report you can start guessing, because it’ll be meaningful, and that’s immediately when the game starts. So great and always memorable accusations.

1. Icecool

Finally, Icecool. This is a bit of a cheat, like I said, because you need Icecool and Icecool 2 to play with 8 people. But when you do, it’s a blast. Flicking the penguins around is great. And the whole racing away from the hall monitors who are out to catch you and get through the doorways to get your fish, it works. Like PitchCar when someone makes a great shot everyone is excited. And you can sometimes plan a great shot.

Final Thoughts

Big group games are interesting for me. I often play them because we have 6-7 people on a game night, but generally they aren’t my favorite. Of those 45 game that I’ve played, plus Cartographers that I missed, maybe 14 are in my Top 100. That’s a lot, but also there are 45 games on that list so I’ve played a lot of them as well.

I think it’s that a lot of the party style ones aren’t that interesting, or try and copy other games too much. And I think it’s also because I don’t like social deduction that much. I’ll play those games but I won’t pull them off the shelf myself.

But what are some of your favorite big group games?

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Tofu Kingdom, Brewcrafters Travel Card Game, The Mind & Cthulhu Fluxx

I lumped these together. They are all smaller games, I gave them a chance, and while they aren’t bad, I have a number of smaller games that I’m going to pull off the shelf before them. And often that’s why games leave, something like Cthulhu Fluxx was a great gateway game for me, but now I have others.

I think that most people might be surprised by the Mind. My experience with that was just okay at the best. The game with it’s, you can’t share information is fine. But also leads to long chunks of time of people not talking. I wish there was more fun and funny going on for a game that is so simple. The Mind is like Cosmic Encounter for me as well, where it is very group dependent.

Gloom

Gloom is a very fun game. It has transparent cards and you are trying to kill off your family with them having the most miserable lives possible. And you tell stories as you do it. It’s a blast to play, and I haven’t played it since before I was married. I was dating now wife but we were maybe engaged. That’s over 7 years.

So, you can guess why this one is leaving. I just don’t play it often enough, or at all anymore. If someone else has it and pulls it off the shelf to play, I will play it and love it. I might even buy it again at that point. But right now, even though it’s a small game, it opens up room for other small games to try and play.

Werewords

This one came into my collection not that long ago and now it’s leaving my collection. I am always trying to find a second social deduction game that I like. I even watched on Board Game Geeks YouTube channel Werewords played and thought that it’d be it. It’s a game of twenty questions with a traitor, the concept even sounds fun.

But it’s like so many social deduction games, when it comes down to it, you are just guessing. If you don’t guess the word you will take a random stab at whom the traitor is and probably be wrong. If you’re the traitor and the word is guessed, you’ll give a random guess on the seerer unless they were extremely obvious. I want more deduction in my social deduction is what it is, I guess.

Werewords is a solid game, it’s just not for me.

Onirim

This one might surprise people. I like Onirim as a solo game. But it’s going away for three reasons. The first being Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game, then A Gentle Rain – another solo game, and finally, because I own the app. I can still play Onirim, but I’ll do on the app. And there will be much less shuffling.

I know that a lot of people even like the app better because it does all the shuffling. I still think I prefer the physical game, but if I’m going to play a solo game right now, it’s going to be Orchard or A Gentle Rain. They are easier to get out and play, so sorry, Onirim, you’re leaving the collection. Again another really good game and this one is for me, but I just have others to play now.

The Siblings Trouble

This is one that I never actually played. I picked it up because when it was on Kickstarter, I had backed the companies other game, Lift Off! and wanted to back another one of their projects. It’s a kind of RPG like game that is tailored for kids. But it came out at the same time as No Thank You, Evil! A kids RPG that has more support. And I likely would just play D&D with my kid eventually.

Hex Roller

I got this game quite recently, I played it, and I’m selling it. Hex Roller is not a bad roll and write. But it isn’t a game where what you do will change much. The dice rolls will change things up, but the mechanics don’t change. So I’ve played it, and I’m passing it on to someone else.

My knock on Hex Roller is that while the scoring is simple, the teach is not. The rules are a little bit weird for how you take dice and use them. It just teaches harder then a game that doesn’t have that much going on should. I understand that they wanted the game to be clever and give you lots to think about, but it’s just a solid game. Not good enough for me to come back to.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

This is a really fun and goofy game. It is also a story game that has limited replayability. Now, I am not done with the story, so why am I getting rid of it. It’s easy, I know two maybe three people who own it. If I want to play it again or play it the whole way through, I can.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger is a great time. It’s goofy and fun to sit around and play. If you play lighter games, I definitely recommend it. But most likely, like me, you’ll end up selling it once you’re done with the story. The downside is I won’t get much for it, the upside is, someone can play it and enjoy it again.

Blossoms

Blossoms is a two player push your luck game. You are trying to grow flowers and then harvest them at the point that it’ll give you the most points. It’s a pretty little game, though in a larger box than really needed. But it is a two player game, so the question I asked myself, how many two player only games do I need?

The answer didn’t include Blossoms. When I look at my two player games, I would pick Hanamikoji before it, Skulk Hollow, 7 Wonders Duel, Fox in the Forest, Fox in the Forest Duet. All of those I’d play before Blossoms. Blossoms is just a little bit too simple for when I want to play a two player game. But if you have a parent or grandparent who likes more classic feeling games, Blossoms would be great.

Cry Havoc

This is a tough game for me to get rid of. I really like Cry Havoc. This is another situation where I just own other games I’m going to play before it. Cry Havoc is asymmetrical area control. If I want area control that’s pretty complex, Blood Rage. If I want asymmetrical, well I own Root now. Cry Havoc is leaving because I own enough other games that do similar things. And I own enough other games that I’d play before it.

It is a bit of a casualty of my Top 100 that I just wrapped up, actually. When going through the Top 10 and seeing games like Lords of Hellas and Blood Rage, th ose will get played before Cry Havoc. So even with Cry Havoc just missing at 103 and being there last year, it’s time for it to go.

Castle Panic

This is getting bumped because of a future Kickstarter that is coming. It’s also getting bumped because it’s too easy a cooperative game. Now, some of that is that I’m older than the target audience. This is a tower defense game for 10 year old kids or younger. It’s not targeting someone like me. Village Attacks as a tower defense game is.

But this is a game that I win too often. And again, I think that’s with the target age. A 10 year old will want to win more often than they lose. I personally like to lose about 60-70% of the time when playing a cooperative game. In my Top 100 I have Say Bye to the Villains, I have yet to beat that game. I don’t think I’ve lost Castle Panic.

Lift Off!

I just talked about this one, it’s the first game that I backed on Kickstarter. I am greatly tempted to keep this one. I’ve played it a few times but it hasn’t been in years. It’s a fun little game, and I like some of their other games. I still have Skulk Hollow which won’t be leaving anytime soon.

This is one that I am tempted to keep to just play a few more times. It is also a game that isn’t going to come off my shelf all that often. It’s like Castle Panic in that it’s younger focused, not my gaming group, and there’s enough other games I’ll play before it.

Dicecapades!

For a mass market game, Dicecapades is generally a lot of fun. You get goofy things like stacking dice. Or you roll a die and need to do that many push-ups. Or you roll a die and there is trivia. Wait, there is trivia, what does that have to do with dice , the answer, nothing. And that’s why I don’t pull it out anymore.

Everything else in the game is fun, but you need to answer a trivia question on a random area that is determined by a die roll. If you get it wrong, you stay and then do it again next turn. Meanwhile, everyone else is doing goofy fun things, until they get stuck on trivia as well. And if I roll sports before you roll movies, because that’s what we know best, I get going faster just based off of luck.

It is a mass market party game, it is supposed to be lucky. But it’s just not that fun when you get to trivia. Remove the trivia from the game, I’d probably keep the game. It’s one that I can play with cousins and non-gamers. But with trivia, it’s annoying. If I want to do trivia, I own Wits & Wagers.

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Now, this is the tricky one, and it might stay. I want to play this game. The intro scenario to teach you the game, I’ve played it twice. But it’s a campaign game, and it’s a campaign game with an app before apps were common. So the app itself isn’t great. Not bad, but not great. And I don’t have a group to play this game. So it’s a lot of work to play solo.

If I had a group, I’d play it. I might even play it solo, if I go through the introductory scenario again. But am I going to do that when I have Isofarian Guard coming sometime, Destinies coming that can be played solo, Middara, Roll Player Adventures, Solomon Kane, Deep Madness and more? I think it might leave like Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth did. Not because it is a bad game, it isn’t, it’s a lot of fun, but because I own so many.

16 Games of Shelf Space

It’s a tough list to cut. I look at Star Wars: Imperial Assault, Cry Havoc, Onirim, and Gloom especially, and I really enjoy all of those games. But the question is, will I play them? Or am I just keeping them on my shelf because I like the idea of getting back to them sometime?

I think it’s more the latter than I’d actually get back to the games. And some of them, Gloom in particular, that depends on the group. If you like a tell a story, it works well, if you just play the cards, the game is fine. So, all of these are leaving, probably over the weekend, to get traded into my FLGS. And I’m looking at a few games, Escape The Room and Star Wars Unlock, that I need to play to then free up more space.

Which one, if you could get one of these games I’m trading in, would you want to play most?

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Let’s get to the games:

Marvel United – 5 Plays

Marvel United only got played one evening. But we played it a lot because the game is so fast to play. It’s great to pull out whatever hero you want, whatever villain you want and just get going on the game. And it was fun to play around with other villains and heroes. The different villains in particular really change up the game.

But one really nice thing that I’ve found about this game is that I can get it to the table in a minute. Finding a villain figure and their cards, and then heroes and their cards is so fast, and there’s so little set-up for the game. It is extremely accessible and I’m excited to get it back to the table, though, thus far in November, I haven’t.

Werewords – 4 Plays

Werewords is a word based social deduction game. It’s basically playing twenty questions, but you can ask more, with someone being a traitor, or werewolf. I wrote up my thoughts on the game here. For me it was an okay game. I actually want to sell it, either to a friend or my FLGS (friendly local game store) because I don’t see pulling it off the shelf more.

Yes, it has more interesting going on than a game like Secret Hitler, The Resistance, and One Night Ultimate Werewolf. But it is still kind of a guessing game based off of no real information, in the end. And for me, that doesn’t work all that well. I want something with more meat to it, like Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, if I’m going to play a social deduction game.

Hanamikoji – 3 Plays

There is a new version of Hanamikoji on Kickstarter right now that I’m backing. It seems to add in some level of area control, more so than the base game has. And there are mini expansion for base Hanamikoji, which I’m tempted to get as well.

This is an abstract game about winning the favor of Geisha. The game plays so fast and only at two players that it’s one I need to break out more often. It’s a good filler to either end an evening or start and evening. And I have even brought it into work because it’s a nice lunch break game.

Tainted Grail – 2 Plays

Less plays of Tainted Grail than normal. We finished up Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon campaign, so we took a week off to just play other gamers. That is where five plays of Marvel United came from and some plays of other games as well. But we’re back to playing Tainted Grail, this time playing the Last Knight campaign.

This one we’re doing in story mode again, and honestly, I think this one needs to be played in story mode. I’ll write about it as a whole later after we get a few more plays of the game with what the new stuff is. And, the new stuff in the game is interesting. It is extremely challenging but again the writing is good and the story is good.

The Night Cage – 2 Plays

Of course had to play The Night Cage around Halloween. This is a cooperative game where you are going through a labyrinth but you can’t see much. Only the spots around you and as you lose site of spots they drop off the map and it twists and changes.

This game is fairly abstract, but it does create a good sense of tension. You carry candles which illuminate the board around you. That can go out and then you are moving around blind. But also all the tiles sit in a candle holder so as you remove tiles it looks as though the candle is burning down. The tension of it burning down works really well.

Dice Throne – 2 Plays

Dice Throne got a couple plays in. One king of the hill and one two player. The more I play King of the Hill style the more I enjoy it that way. I know I talk about Dice Throne quite often but mainly in the two player context. In King of the Hill, you get a benefit, an extra card, for attacking the player with the most health. It’s a nice twist and a good way to keep players from ganging up on a single player and knocking them out.

Hats – 2 Plays

Another game that hadn’t hit the table in a long time. Hats is an abstract game that I prefer at two players. It can play more, but with more players it becomes way more chaotic. With two players you can plan and push for things to go your way. The game play is a lot of fun for it, and it’s one that is tricky to wrap your head around. Especially the idea of the cards you play down influence what scores but aren’t the cards that you score.

Cross Clues – 2 Plays

This party game only had been played on Zoom before. Playing Cross Clues in person is a lot of fun. You are trying to come up with a one word clue to get people to guess the intersection of two words. It could be something like cat and taco, what word would link those two.

When playing with a big group, you only get one coordinate card. That means that sometimes you are stuck without giving a clue for a while. But the game moves quickly enough that you never feel like you are holding up the game. And sometimes you need something else, another clue to be given, before you can give one as well. It’s a newer party game, but one I highly recommend.

Clank! In! Space! – 1 Play

I busted out Clank! In! Space! again, this time with an expansion. And I have to say, the expansion we played with is fun. The black cubes that you pull now matter in the expansion. Basically it is a mission that can happen which makes your life harder as the game goes on. So, a game where you can already die and have zero points at the end of it becomes even tougher. But it is still a good game with that expansion and it’s a nice twist.

Tiny Towns – 1 Play

First game, not of Tiny Towns, but of Tiny Towns with more than two players. Two player Tiny Towns sometimes ends up with one player controlling everything. With three players, it makes the game more random but in a good way. Players diversify what they do more in a three player game which is good. It means that there are more things you can get stuck on, but also more interesting decisions to make. I still need to play with expansions.

Letter Jam – 1 Play

Another game that sat on the shelf for a long time. I love Letter Jam. It’s a cooperative word game that uses some of the mechanics of Hanabi. You can’t see your cards. But everyone else can. And you give clues that are words putting a marker in front of each letter that makes up the word. So if you did FROM, and my letter was the M, I’d see the word FRO* and need to figure out my letter.

The number of clues is limited. So you need to be smart about how you give them. And everyone needs to figure out their letters and words, so one person can’t give all the clues. The game works really well and doesn’t require a massive vocabulary or knowledge of how to game the game like a lot of word games do.

Calico – 1 Play

I played Calico with my wife and parents, and we played it in the simple version. That means that instead of having quilt blocks that determine any scoring, you only score buttons and cats. To me, it made the game too simple. But it is a solid way to learn the game. The basic concept of matching colors and patterns isn’t that hard to get. But adding in the scoring from quilt tiles adds a lot to think about.

Zombie Dice – 1 Play

Zombie Dice makes a great filler for a Halloween game night. Well, it was the October game night, but I did horror themed. That is why it came off the shelf. Zombie Dice is a basic push your luck dice game. And if things go poorly. people push too far, it can take way too long. But it is fun to pull of the shelf. And it is an easy game to teach and play. It is even easy to have people join part way through the game. I don’t own expansions for it, and I’m not sure I’d want to.

Yearly Gaming Stats

So, in October I added in 27 more plays. Slightly less than a play a day, but I was over that threshold already, so I am still on target. Currently, I am 98% of the way to completing the challenge, so a chance that even this month I finish it and then everything else is a bonus.

Now, because we are mid month, I do have plays on the list from November. But Orchard is still my most played game, up to 90 plays. And for all 356 plays that I have, there are 71 different games that I’ve played. Hitting 100 different games played would be great, but I doubt it will happen.

I have enjoyed this challenge a lot. I think that next year I will try it again, but also might put a focus on playing games in my collection that I haven’t played before. There are lots of games that need to get played on my shelf. Some are getting played, but I have 31 Kickstarters coming in and I’m sure more games than that, so a lot to get to the table.

Which of these games would you like to get played from my October plays?

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Marrying Mr. Darcy – With Zombie Expansion

If you aren’t familiar with it, there is a book called Pride Prejudice and Zombies. This takes the story of Pride and Prejudice and turns it into a zombie book while keeping the snark intact. There is also a movie on the book that is highly entertaining as well. But Marrying Mr. Darcy gets you playing as one of the Bennett sisters or other main characters trying to get enough wit, beauty, charm, or whatever it might be to get your perfect suitor. There is a small expansion for the game that adds in zombies.

This game is a lot of fun to play and is quite silly to play. It also handles a pretty large group. The game play is very simple but there are some good laughs in it as you play and decide if you want to get turned into a zombie yourself. The zombie expansion doesn’t add in all that much, and really doesn’t add to complexity, which makes it a nice easy option for Halloween.

The Bloody Inn

The Bloody Inn is an interesting one to put on the list because I haven’t played it yet. It’s theme also isn’t spoopy. You run an inn and it turns out that it’s more profitable to kill off the people who who up and hide their bodies and steal their stuff. But if you aren’t careful the police will show up and now you have to deal with them. The theme is just too absurd to be really horrific. Thus it makes it onto the spoopy list. You’re going to be telling stories about how you stuffed a body under a rug as the police showed up.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

You are a paranormal detective, as a group, going through this cooperative game. It is very much a choose your own adventure with a little game on top of it. You collect items, go into crazy rooms, probably die, and then continue on further into the story trying to figure out everything that is going on. This one barely qualifies as a game, but it’s a lot of fun.

The best way, I’ve found, to play this game is to just pass around the cards. So each person gets to read and gets to make decisions. You can make them as a group or discuss them, but the reader is the person who has the final say on what you do. It’s fun to just be surprised what happens when you’re not the reader.

Gloom

This one falls into the category with The Bloody Inn, if you actually think about it, it’s kind of horrific, but really it plays as spoopy fun. In this game you have a family and you are trying to get them to die as miserably as possible so you have the fewest points. You are playing cards on your own characters and narrating the miserable things that happen to them. And then you give your opponents good things, or at least maybe less miserable so they aren’t as negative in their points.

The game does require story telling. For some groups the game won’t work then because you do need to dive into the absurdity of the stories. Getting left at the alter and then stung by bees and chased by wild boars is all fun, but if you can narrate it well, it’s a grand old time with that horror them and also being very spoopy.

MonsDRAWsity

Another one that I haven’t played, but this is going to be party game and drawing game entry onto the list. You are all basically police sketch artists trying to get as close to what the actual monster looks like just from descriptions. IT’s a goofy premise, and one that is going to give you a lot of weird looking monsters and a lot of laughs.

If I were going to pick one game to pull out for a Halloween party, MonsDRAWsity is the one that I’d pull from my collection. some of the others would work as well, but this one is going to be maybe the lightest. Choose Your Own Adventure might be lighter, but this will keep people more engaged throughout.

Similo: Spookies

Okay, this one might also be one I bring along to a party. But for it to be really Halloween you need the Spookies which just came out. In this game one person is trying to get everyone else to eliminate the right monsters by giving clues based that the monster is either like or not like another monster. That can be trickier than you think. You might have great monsters to give a clue or a bad one, is a swamp monster similar or not to a vampire more so than a werewolf to get the right one eliminted.

I talked about this recently on my Top 100 games list as well. You can get multiple different sets of this, so you could mix in animals for the clues about the monster, or mythological figures with giving the monsters as clues. It makes the game really easy to expand and a whole lot of fun.

What Spoopy Halloween Games Do You Like?

Are there any on the list that you’d play of mine? I have a few others that just missed like Werewords which I don’t love but would work well. Or something like Silver: Amulet and it’s standalone expansions that have a werewolf theme on them without feeling like that. Definitely Silver: Amulet would be a good one as well.

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Playing Werewords

List most social deduction games, in this game you have two teams. There are the villagers and the werewolves. The game plays out with one person being the mayor, they can also be a werewolf, and they pick a word from an app. Then you basically play 20 questions with the mayor answering yes and no questions and handing out tokens fo

There are two other roles to know in the game. The first is that the werewolf sees there word as well. So they are trying to deflect people away from the right answer. And there is the Seer who is trying to nudge people in the right direction. If the word is guessed the werewolf gets one guess as to who the seer is, if they get it right they win. On the flip side, if the group doesn’t guess the word, they get a chance to guess who the werewolf is to win.

What Didn’t Work?

Let me start off by saying, the top probably told you it didn’t work great for me. And I’ll say, that’s because it ran into the number social deduction problem for me. Playing a fast paced 20 questions, well, I’ll get to that, but let’s talk about the social deduction aspect.

My issue with most social deduction games is that you don’t really have anything to go on. You have a few pieces of information, and while this one does a better job it doesn’t help that much. At the end, you tend to have a lot of people with wrong guesses. So it seems like there might be strategy with good number of guesses out there, does the Werewolf hang back or the Seer, but really you tend to have everyone asking a fair number of questions and getting a fair number wrong.

Then you need to try and remember who asked good questions, again, that seems like strategy but at the start people either ask seemingly bad questions or actually asking bad questions. So as the villagers/seer you don’t feel like you have enough information to guess after a minute of discussing or as the werewolf unless the seer gets everything right the information is still very limited.

What Worked?

The speed of the game is good. As much as I knock it for my normal social deduction problems, this game gives you a very short game time. Four minutes to guess and do you 20 questions and a minute for guessing who the werewolf is, or thirty seconds for guessing the seer. Comparing this to Secret Hitler, this game plays way faster with basically as much information going around, which I like. And it’s similar time frame to One Night Ultimate Werewolf with more meaningful information.

I also like the 20 questions aspect of it. It’s fun to do speed 20 questions. And I think that it’s pretty entertaining to do that. is it enough for a game, kind of. I like it, and I think it worked. Kind of like My Farm Shop, I do wonder a little bit about the complexity of the game, or the interesting moments in the game. Are there enough of them that will keep me coming back to 20 questions?

Who Is Werewords For?

This game is definitely for people who love social deduction games. It is a very different version than you get with stuff like One Night Ultimate Werewolf. I think that people who like that type of game will like the speed and fun of this game. The 20 question is a nice twist on it.

If you don’t like social deduction games, I don’t think will change your mind. Werewords is better for me than something like Secret Hitler or Donner Dinner Party and One Night Ultimate Werewolf. But it still feels like what it is at it’s core. A game which has you guessing on who is who. The amount of lack of information stands out.

Final Thoughts

I am still at a place where only Deception: Murder in Hong Kong stands out to me as a social deduction game that I love. Werewords won’t be cracking into my Top 100, though, I do like it better than a lot. Is it going to stay in my collection? I really do not know. It might for a little bit. Why, because I like it better than most. And it’s a genre of game that works well in big groups. Still, I like Deception so much better, will I play Werewords then?

My Grade: C
Gamer Grade: C
Casual Grade: A

Draftosaurus: Marina
Draftosaurus: Aerial Show

You can see my full thoughts on it here, but let’s talk a little bit about how it works here. Draftosaurus has you drafting dinosaurs from a handful of meeples. You then place them into pends to score points in certain ways. Some might need as many dinosaurs of the same type as possible. Others want you playing down pairs of dinosaurs or unique dinosaurs into the pen. You are only limited in where to place the dinosaur you pick by area of the map that the dice is rolled for. Unless, you roll the die, then you can place it anywhere.

Draftosaurus is a really fun drafting game. I like that it’s not card drafting. That is extremely common in board games like Sushi Go Party! and Seven Wonders. Draftosaurus gives it more of a tactile feel because the dinosaur meeples are great. The Aerial Show and Marina add on small boards and new dinosaurs that you can play with. it creates more spots to place dinos and just more variety to the game. I like that Draftosaurus already has a double sided board but more things will be lots of fun.

Werewords

This is a social deduction style of game. I don’t love most social deduction games. They basically turn into people talking until the group decides on person is lying based off of little to no information. At least for games like The Resistance and One Night Ultimate Werewolf. However, I really love Deception: Murder in Hong Kong because it has more things going on and gives you something to work off of.

Werewords is a word guessing game, basically 20 questions, and the goal is to come up with the word, but one person can be asking bad or misleading questions if they are the werewolf. I forget all the details of how the werewolf can win, I think by keeping people off track with questions for a certain amount of time. And the rest can win by guessing the word or figuring out who the werewolf is.

You can only ask yes or no questions and the person who is “it” gives out tokens for the answer, So you can see who has asked more questions that lead down the right path maybe or the wrong path to help figure out the werewolf. Granted, it is possible that the person answering the questions is the werewolf, in which case they can lie in their answers. But make it too obvious they are doing that, the rest of the people guess they are the werewolf.

This just feels like more of a game than a lot of social deduction games, so I’m excited to give it a try coming up here soon. And I want to see if it scratches that same game and social deduction that I get from Deception: Murder in Hong Kong as well.

Which of these two looks the most interesting to you?

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