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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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.

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How To Play First-Class Letters

First-Class Letters is a word game played over seven rounds. The goal is to create the words that score the most points while following a few rules that sound simple but aren’t always as easy to complete to maximize your score.

Before the Game

Before the game the three brown dice are rolled. And those are going to be letters that seed three spots on your sheet. When you fill in those spots, the words you play there must start with those letters. This matters, as well because you put them in alphabetically. Any word that you play that isn’t in alphabetical order is not going to score at the end of the game.

The Rounds

Each round is the same, and there are seven in the game. You roll all four dice this time. The red die is going to be a letter that you are not allowed to use in your word. You u se that letter and your word is going to score you no points.

The other three are letters that you want to use in your word. Every time you use one of those three letters you get a point. And if you use all three of them your total points are doubled for that word. So it is possible to use a letter multiple times, and if you do that, it will score you one point each time.

Once you write your word, the first person to do so flips the timer. That is how much time, about 40 seconds I believe, that players now have to get a word written. And it is time for the player who flipped it or any player to try and come up with a better word to replace the one you have.

End Game

So at the end of the game you simply tally up your points. But you also verify that each word is in alphabetical order. If it is not in alphabetical order you cross it out and you do not score points for that word. The player with the most points is the winner of the game.

What Doesn’t Work

This in some ways is still a word game. It is possible to do well enough by just writing shorter words. Especially if the letters are difficult to make a long word out of. But a good vocabulary is going to be very helpful in this game. I think that the timer does help, though to alleviate some of this. As long as that person isn’t getting that large word immediately. The pressure of the timer is going to keep them from just being able to sit there and figure it out.

What Works

The system of the game works really well. I like how there is a letter that you can’t use. I believe on that die it has A, E, I, O, Y, and S (or T I forget which). But it is a common letter for words. So that makes it trickier. Often a A or E would roll and now all I can think of is a word that has them. The letters on the other dice are a good mix of more and less common letters.

I also really like how the game puts pressure on you by locking in some letters you need to use. First-Class Letters is played over seven rounds, so the spots for rows 2, 4, and 6 are the ones seeded with a letter. And it is possible to seed it with N, R, and T. Those are good letters to have, but it makes it really narrow in there as to what letters you can fit between. So the alphabetical order is a good stretch for players as well.

The time is nice how they use it too. I like that it isn’t just a timer that runs and counts down. It is only when one player feels comfortable to flip it. Now this sometimes can be fast because I like the word I got. Another time I might not like that word, but if I flip it, because I wrote a word, it is going to put pressure on the other players. And I get time to come up with another word.

Who Is First-Class Letters For?

I think it’s for people who like a nice fast word game. A lot of the more common ones, Scrabble and Boggle, can take a while to play. First-Class Letters is a very fast game in how you play and it is a game that makes it feel more balanced as you play it than some of those do. So if you know someone who likes word games or you are that person, but it is hard to find other people to play with, this one might be a great option for that.

Final Thoughts and Grade – First-Class Letters

I like this game a lot. I enjoy a good word game. And I appreciate how simple the game is to learn and play. The instructions for the game just take a few minutes and everyone is easily able to jump in and play the game. Is it going to be a highly strategic game, no, but it even says on the box it is a party style game. So you know what you are getting into.

Now, that all said, while I really like the game, it is going to be one that probably hits the table only sometimes. Why, because it is a word game. While I think it’s more accessible, I play games at times with people are not native English speakers. So is that the right game for them, or who have different levels of comfort with spelling. But I think that kind of goes without saying for a lot of word style games.

My Grade: A-
Gamer Grade: B
Casual Grade: B+
Strategy (out of 10): 4
Luck (out of 10): 4

Just one last thought, this game obviously has luck depending on what is rolled. But it is not a lucky game. And there is a little bit of strategy as you fill in words and figure out where you place them. But for the most part, like most word games, it comes down to the words that you can spot/know from letters given. So it is much more player dependent than luck or strategy.

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Top 10 Games to Buy at Gen Con

Honorable Mention: Pirates of Maracaibo: Commanders

Is this 11 games, no it is not. Why, because Pirates of Maracaibo: Commanders is an expansion. So it doesn’t count as a game. No, more so you know if you are interested in this based off of if you like Pirates of Maracaibo or not. There are some new things like commanders that give you an asymmetric starting point. Plus there is rum as a new resource because it should have always been there. There are mix and match explore tracks. And there are now cannons and things you can fight with cannons. It adds a little bit, but not too much in my opinion.

10. Buffet Boss

So the list officially starts with Buffet Boss. This is a stacking game. I believe you draft things from a buffet and then you stack them on edge on your plate and you see how high you can stack them. The higher you get, the more satisfied you are with the buffet. Of course, if you get too much that isn’t good because they won’t balance or they will topple over. This sounds like a silly fun game.

9. Cat Tower

The next game on the list is another dexterity game and the last dexterity game. Cat Tower is a game where you work cooperatively to get a cat as high in the tower as you can. But the edges of things that you use to balance aren’t always even, some might even say that the tower is a bit cattywampus. The story of the game is sweet though and the game play looks fun.

So, if you want to know the story, and this is just the theme of the game not how it is plays, the cats mom has died. And the cat wants to build a tower up to heaven to find their mom. It’s a sad but sweet theme.

8. Trinket Trove

Trinket Trove is a set collection bidding game. This one has cute artwork, but let’s talk about how the game works Because that is what draws me into this one. In Trinket Trove a number of cards are flipped over that you bid on. And you bid with the cards in your hand to get them. So you are giving up something that you might need. The more cards you bid, the sooner you pick. But, and here is the twist, when you bid, the cards you bid are now a new pile of cards for people to take. So it is a great puzzly sounding time with a simple game but fun strategy.

7. Koi

Koi is on my Gen Con list just because it is pretty. If you can’t guess, Koi is about Koi and building a Koi pond. And this game looks great. I assume that each element of the Koi pond score in different ways. But there are elements like arches that you add to your pond, fish that you add and more. And it is a 3D presence to the game which I’m not sure is in every version of the game but I hope so. This is one just from an aesthetic point of view that I want to track down.

6. 12 Rivers

I feel bad about 12 Rivers being outside of my Top 5 on this Gen Con list because I think it looks really intriguing. Some of that, though, is that I mainly know the board. The board is this 12 marble track where there are spots for players to put their blockers. And then you release all the marbles. As the marbles travel down the rivers they hit a blocker. If you block early you might get a specific marble, you could get blocked too if you aren’t high enough. Or further down more will make it to you, but it might not be the ones you want.

That physical element of the game is what gets me. I love Potion Explosion for that. And this one gives me that same toy feel for the game. I hope that the rest of the game is good to go with it and that the game isn’t just all that.

5. First-Class Letters

First-Class Letters is a roll and write word game, and I like roll and write games. In this game you roll four dice. All the players need to find words that use three of those four dice and that don’t use the other one. The more of the letters you use, the more points you get. And you need to put them in alphabetical order. So that is going to be pretty easy the first few times, but, there is more. You also seed the first letter of three of the spots, in alphabetical order, so that is going to limit you more. I think this sounds simple but like a ton of fun.

4. Tricky Kids

Tricky Kids is a trick taking game that looks like it’s for kids. But I’m not 100% sure that it is. In this game you play three hands of seven cards each. And each time you need to assign the values to your cards. Yes, this game there are suits on the cards but no numbers. So you divvy up 21 points between them as you start playing. And yes, you want to win tricks, but when you win tricks you get tokens. And you know what the tokens are and when they are showing up. It sounds like a simple but very fun big twist in trick taking.

3. Slam Throne

Slam Throne could be my #1 on this list. But I think you’ll see why the other two beat it out. This is Dice Throne but pogs. Dice Throne teased and joked about this for years on April Fool’s Day. But it is finally a reality now. You play pogs with powers and abilities and try and take out your opponents stack before they take out yours. This sounds dumb and goofy and 100% a good time. I wish I was going to be at Gen Con because I expect this one to sell out. I asked for a friend to grab it for me, I hope they don’t stand in line early, I can always get it later.

2. Tag Team

Tag Team is a weird game because it gives me Dice Throne vibes, but it’s also auto-battler. So let’s talk about how this works. An auto-battler is a game that when it comes to fighting the fight just happens.

You start with two characters and one card for each character. You both flip over the cards and check what they do. Then after you play out those two cards, you draw three more and pick one to add to your cards. You add it without changing the order of the others. But you add it to the top, bottom, or middle and then you go again. So you start to figure out where to put a block for a big attack. But maybe your opponent thought you would so they changed that with how they added their card.

I love how it works and I love the head games for it. But it isn’t just all head games. As you pick between those three cards, you create strategies and synergies as you play. And the game comes with a ton of characters. I can not way to get this in my hands, I have it pre-ordered.

1. Ace of Spades

The final one on the list is Ace of Spades. This one is getting great reviews 8’s and 8.5 from the Dice Tower and they all really liked it. It is a solo or two player boss battling game. Now, I like a good boss battler, but this one is different with a weird west theme, but let’s talk about how it works.

You face off against monsters and bad guys and you want to take them down. How do you take them down? Not by rolling dice but by playing out poker hands. And each type of hand is going to do some damage. Better hands will do more damage. As you progress the enemies you face start to have powers and abilities that they use against you. But when you beat them, you get one time or ongoing powers as well.

The theme of this game is a ton like Balatro. But it is going to be simpler than that because Balatro changes cards and I’m glad it’s not a Balatro legacy game, though that could be cool. This is one that I’d wait in line for at Gen Con. But it is available to pre-order from Devir, so I just did that today.

Final Thoughts

Oh how I wish I was going to Gen Con. If you are, let me know about some of these games. And let me know which of these games are the most interesting to you. I also remind myself that all of these games will be available at retail at some point in time. So even if I don’t get them, like I said, I expect Slam Throne to sell fast, I will get it eventually. And I am really excited to try all of these games and give you reviews in the future.

What game tops your list that you are anticipating?

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Catch up on previous videos here

100 through 91
90 through 81
80 through 71

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition – 70 through 61

70. Sagrada

• Published by Floodgate Games in 2017
• Build the most beautiful stained glass window

This game is just a great drafting game experience. The ease of play is wonderful as well because you draft a die and place it while other people are going on drafting their own dice. Especially with the 5-6 player expansion, which can be worked into the lower player counts, it makes it so you don’t need to spend time with what others are doing. But both ways to draft the dice and place the dice are mainly the same and really good. Plus the way you need to play the dice to not have colors or numbers adjacent makes a great puzzle.

Buy Sagrada

69. Mesozooic

• Published by Z-Man Games in 2018
• Slide your dino-themed park together in this light filler game

Mesozooic has a couple of great elements to the game. Firstly it’s drafting, and I really love drafting. But the game is more than that. You also need to complete a slide puzzle. You see you draft 11 cards and shuffle them up to create a 3 tall and 4 wide grid with an open spot. Then you slide them around frantically for 45 seconds like a slide puzzle to get the best dino-park that you can. It’s silly, light, and a very fun time.

Buy Mesozooic

68. 7 Wonders Duel

• Published by Repos Production in 2015
• Draft cards and build wonders in this head to head game

I like this game better than 7 Wonders. Mainly because I played 7 Wonders a few times at two and it isn’t a good game. 7 Wonders Duel is great that way, as expected. But the game is more than just a better version, I think that the drafting is very clever. I love the trying to avoid revealing a card that is good for your opponent. And some of the cards being face down so unknown until they are revealed. And the two side ways to win with science and military add in tension to the game as well. You can’t just draft your best engine, even though you want to.

Buy 7 Wonders Duel

67. Icecool

• Published by Brain Games in 2016
• Help your penguins sneak out of class and get fish in this dexterity game

Yes, the theme of Icecool is that simple and I love it for me. I love the flicking element of the game, it’s just fun. And I really enjoy the silliness of the game. This is one of my favorites for a late night of gaming. Just sit around and flick penguins and have a laugh. It is possible to get very good at the game, but it’s also a game where players can just have a great shot by pure luck. To me that is what makes it a fun game for all ages.

Buy Icecool

66. Super Fantasy Brawl

• Published by Mythic Games in 2022
• Choose your team and face off against an opponent in an arena

This game is coming back, kind of. I say kind of, I expect that most of the game is going to be the same, but CMON bought it from the now defunct Mythic Games. So I want to see what CMON is going to do with it. Because I love the simplicity of the game. Super Fantasy Brawl has you activate three different colors of cards each round. And you can do some on defense as well, but that means you won’t do as much on your turn. Then you either try to knock out your opponents for trophies or complete goals, or most likely, do both. The game is strategic but also fast and easy to play.

Follow Super Fantasy Brawl: Reborn

65. Trailblazers

• Published by Bitewing Games in 2023
• Create the best hiking, biking, and kayaking routes

Another drafting game on the list. This is the last one for this time, but there are four and possible five if you count drafting your team in Super Fantasy Brawl. In this one you draft cards to create trails. I love the trail creation aspect of the game because you really need to strategize as to how you’re going to do that. And I like how the game becomes more complex in your trail creation throughout as you add in other hubs that you need to start and leave from for each of the three routes.

Buy Trailblazers

64. Mind Up!

• Published by Pandasaurus Games in 2023
• Play the right number to collect and create sets of colors

This game is so easy to learn and play. I actually wrote about it yesterday in that exact context, so you can checkout the article after this. But it’s simply play out a card simultaneously with the other players. Then you look to see who played the lowest number, they get the lowest number from the middle. And after that it’s about trying to get the colors you want into the highest scoring column you have. The whole thing is just a really easy to play and simple time. I explain it better in the video, by the way.

Buy Mind Up!

63. So Clover!

• Published by Repost Productions in 2021
• Can you find the right pair of words based off of one word clues?

This game is always tricky for me to explain. Basically you have cards with four words, one on each side. And you have four of them making this little four by four grid. Each side is going to have two words, if that all makes sense and you’re picturing it. You need to create a one word clue so people can guess and put it back into that same order. Not that hard, well, it is when the words don’t connect at all. And there is going to be a mystery fifth card added in. But if you give the right clues you can lead people down the right path to recreate it.

Buy So Clover!

62. The Castles of Burgundy

• Published by alea in 2019
• Take a new kingdom and turn it into a bustling land

A game that I wouldn’t have expected that I like. But I really enjoy The Castles of Burgundy, a game of using dice to purchase and place new things into your land. As well as using them to sell goods, and get workers that let you manipulate your dice. There is a bunch going on and I feel like I need to nail down my strategy for it. But I really enjoy what this offers and it’s a new type of puzzle for me to spend time diving into as a game. I even have the fancy version coming that alea did with Awaken Realms.

Buy The Castles of Burgundy

61. Letter Jam

• Published by Czech Games Edition in 2019
• Work together to figure out what everyone’s letters are because you can’t see your own

If you know what Hanabi is that will help with it. But Letter Jam is a game where you can’t see the letters that form your word. Other players can see one of them at a time but they can’t see theirs. So you give clues to help people narrow down what their letters might be for their jumbled word. Of course everyone needs to get theirs figured out by the end of the game, but it’s cooperative so the challenge is great but fun to tackle.

Buy Letter Jam

Upcoming Streams

Just a reminder on my streaming schedule.

• Monday night, time varies, I play different small solo games, though I might be looking to start up a campaign again.
• Wednesday at 9 PM central is going to continue my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2024 Edition for another six weeks. After that expect this to be when I play my small games.
• Friday at 9 PM central my wife and I are streaming a playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3

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.

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Catch up on my Top 100 Games (of all Time) 2023 Edition:

100 through 91

90 through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

60 through 51

Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition – 50 through 41

50. Homebrewers

Homebrewers is a fun game about a theme that I love, homebrewing beer. It is something that I did for year and would love to get back into. We’ll see if it happens some day. But this game is about trying to be the best homebrewer when it comes around to Summerfest and Oktoberfest. Will your IPA, Lager, Porter, and Stout be the best ones?

This is done by rolling dice and taking actions on those dice. And that sounds like a lot of luck, but you can spend a dollar to change the face of a die, and you can build up an engine that gives you money to keep brewing beer. But you want to add in ingredients so that your beer gets better, you get more money, and if you build your recipe correctly, it can help level up your other beers as well. This is a fast fun game with a fun theme to play.

49. Trek 12

Then we have Trek 12 a roll and write game about climbing up mountains. I like this game multiplayer or solo, but not solo with the official rules. The official rules have you play for another character as well and it’s not exciting to play twice to try and beat that score. Instead, I just try and beat my previous score.

To climb up the mountain you are rolling dice and everyone uses those dice to try and create sets of numbers or runs of numbers. To do that, you pick from five options which you can only use five times each of taking the highest number, lowest number, the added together pair, the difference, or the multiplied value, but not higher than 12. And as you go, your options get more limited. Can you not orphan numbers on the mountain but keep them a part of a group to grab as many points as you can?

48. Letter Jam

Now we’re onto one of two cooperative games on the list. Letter Jam is a spelling game that takes from Hanabi where it has cards facing away from you. These cards are the letters that make up your word. One is facing up away from you so you don’t know what it is. Players, all the players, go around and give clues by spelling out words with the letters that they see and wild card ones. Of course, as that happens, I still don’t know what mine is.

That is what makes the game clever. As I create my word that I want to give as a clue, I want to make sure the word is unique enough that it makes sense. If you have an “o” and I make the word “form” then you know your letter is one of “a”, “i” or “o” because you can see “f_rm”. But if I pick the word “from” you see “fr_m” and it makes a whole lot easier. Now you often narrow down your letter and call it good enough to hope that with the whole word together or all the letters you’ll be able to figure it out.

47. Blood Rage

Next up a not at all cooperative game, we have Blood Rage. Blood Rage is a game of card drafting, combat, and area control. But really, I think that this is a game that brings all of those things in, but the card drafting is what makes the game. The card drafting determines what upgrades you get. It might be bringing a monster onto the board, or upgrading your troops so that they are stronger, it could be giving you new ways to score points. And that is where the game is fun.

And there are a lot of strategies that you can employ. You can go after just winning battles. You get in there, you take powerful attack cards, you win, and that is how you get your points. Or there is the option to do the exact opposite, the Loki strategy. You go into battle, you die, and you make points because when your warriors come back from Valhalla you get points. So there are ways for everyone to play even within area control and combat.

46. Betrayal at House on the Hill

Now we’re onto the second oldest game on this part of the list. Betrayal at House on the Hill is not everyone’s favorite game. And I get why people don’t like it, some of the haunts are hard to figure out with the information that they give you. They try and hide some of it both ways from the betrayer and those who were betrayed. That allows you to find out how it works as you go, but it makes it harder to get the rules right or feel like you understand what you need to do.

That said, I still really like the game. Why, because the game just works as a horror film of a game. You go explore an old haunted mansion where nothing makes sense. And as you explore, you stumble across weird omens. One that eventually triggers the haunt and then someone will betray you in the group, the scenario you land on says who. Then it’s a game of trying to figure out the puzzle whether it’s Rocky Horror Picture Show or hunting down talisman or playing chess with death, the options are all there. And I think that makes it really fun.

45. Marvel Champions

Now we have maybe the biggest drop from last year, and thanks to the person in chat who looked this up. I went from #4 to #45 for Marvel Champions. And the big reason for that, and why you see games move, is what I’ve gotten played this year. I play around 150 games a year and a lot of new ones, so ones that don’t get played drop some.

But Marvel Champions is still a great game. I love it as a Marvel themed game that makes you feel like the hero that you’re playing. When you’re Spider-Man you feel like you do Spider-Man’s moves. Same with Thor or Captain America. And that’s something great about the game that way.

But it also does other very cool things. Like when you are Spider-Man the supervillain knows where you are, and he’s going to attack you. And might suck and knock your health way down. But you can always flip back to being Peter Parker. Now the supervillain doesn’t know who you are, so they go to work on their scheme. It gives you a chance to heal up. But when you do that you can’t fight the bad guy or stop their scheme either. So it’s this interesting puzzle that you play with which I really enjoy.

44. Super Mega Lucky Box

Now we’re onto the second roll and write game, Super Mega Lucky Box. Which, I just found out there is an app for, so a great way to check it out. This is gamers bingo where you combo completing rows and columns to finish off your whole bingo card. The fast you do that, the more points that you can get. It’s a really fun game that way and a simple one.

I think that it looks more simple than it is, though. When you fill something in, you need to ask yourself, does this combo into something I need. And as you get more cards, you need to look to make sure you have a good variety of numbers, or a lot of lightning bolts to be able to manipulate those numbers that are flipped up. It’s that combination of things, with easy to follow rules, that puts it this high on the list.

43. PitchCar

Next up we have our dexterity game for this part of the list. Now I don’t have one per section, but I really do like dexterity games. And PitchCar is great because it’s a racing game. And how you race is you flick your car, a disc, around a track, it’s just as simple as that. But if you go off the track, you go back to where you shot from. Flip upside down, it is possible, you go back to where you shot from.

And a lot of the fun comes from how you built the track. You can build a long track with lots of straightaways, or you can put in a ton of turns, it is all depending on what you want to do. In fact, there are even expansions that add jumps, bridges, or crazy loops that you can use as well. So I like to tailor it to how I want to play that night, is it just a quick warm-up game, simple track. Is it the big event, a crazy track.

42. For Northwood

Next up we have a solo only trick taking game. That is a concept that feels like it shouldn’t work. Trick taking games are a lot of playing off of what other people are doing, but For Northwood makes it work really well. Yes, you have no one to play off of, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a lot of good strategy in the game.

You play in different areas of the woods. Each of them with an animal ruler that you want to impress. To do that you need to win a specific number of tricks. So if I have to think about which section of the woods, from 0 to 7 tricks won, I want to go to with the hand of cards I have. Now, winning all of them is tricky, but you get assistance from the rulers. Some to start the game, others you get as you win locations. And they might add or remove cards from your hand to help you complete your goal. It’s a really good system of solo play and trick taking.

41. Sagrada

To round out these ten games, we have Sagrada. Sagrada is a game about making a stained glass window and one of the prettier games on the list. It’s also a game that has an app which is solid as well and does feel like you’re playing the game.

In Sagrada you draft dice to fill in your stained glass window. To do that, you need to the right colored dice or numbered dice in the right spots on the board. But it’s not just as simple as that. You also need to think about what is around that spot. What you can’t have happen is needing to place a six in a spot with a six to the left, right, above, or below it or the same with a color. And you don’t want empty spots because those are negative points.

The game also gives you goals when building your stained glass window. You might get points for the pips on all your blue dice. And then there are public scoring goals as well, like sets of 5’s and 6’s that you have, columns with no repeating numbers, or rows with no repeating colors. And that changes every time. And there are special tools that you can use which allow you to move dice or break rules in various ways. And those change each game as well.

Upcoming Streams

Let’s run through the stream structure like I normally do. You might already know the schedule but in case you don’t. Wednesday at 8 PM Central I stream either a campaign game, or with this time of year it’s my Top 100 Games (of all time) 2023 Edition. And join me next Wednesday for games 50 through 41, so hitting the half way point. It goes so fast, and now I have so many games that I want to play.

Then on Monday I stream at 9 PM Central time. It’s generally a solo game. Though I’ll also do pack openings for things But normally it’s a solo game and a one off for the game like a roll and write, or sometimes a game like Under Falling Skies or For Northwood, which was on the list today.

But the best way, if you want to know when I go live or a new video goes up (it’s basically always live), please consider subscribing. You can do that here. And click that notification bell on the channel and you’ll always know when I go live.

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00 through 91 here.

90 through 81 here.

80 through 71 here.

70 through 61 here.

60 through 51 here.

50 through 41 here.

Top 100 Games 2022 Edition – 40-31

40: So Clover!

So Clover is another party game on the list and another cooperative party game. In So Clover! you are trying to come up with a word that combines two. We’ve seen this before with Medium and Cross Clues. But in So Clover, each person fills out their grid. Then another card with more words is mixed into it. It’s easy to play, hard to explain without the game. But it is a step up of a party game but still not hard to play.

Buy on Amazon

39. First Rat

First Rat immediately stuck with me because of the theme. It’s about rats building space ships to go to space. But with that theme there is a really good and fun game. Mainly, a game of moving rats up a track, but it gives you different ways to do that. You move up the track collecting resources and getting what you need to build different parts of your rocket ship.

It has a cute theme and it leans into that. Plus it is a thinky game without being overly complex which I enjoy. I need to figure out my route but I can go a number of different ways. And how you build your route, while, we are fighting over scoring, so it will affect me, but not too much. And I went a very different strategy than the other players, and still ended up very close.

Buy on Miniature Market

38. Orchard: A 9 Card Solitaire Game

Next up one of two solo only games on this part of the list. Orchard made the list last year and it’s a great solo game because it’s extremely fast and just a lot of fun to play. In the game you are stacking, or layering, cards so that like fruit trees cover like trees.

The game is just nine cards per game. And the components and package are really nice. I like the game for the speed it plays. A game of Orchard takes me five minutes. If I’m bored or I want something fast to do, Orchard is a great option. Or if i want to multitask while watching a sporting event, that is great as well.

Buy on Miniature Market

37. Welcome To…

Welcome To has dropped some on the list but still a roll and write game that I really like. I say it’s about building your perfect Stepford neighborhood. All the white picket fences are in the right spot and it’s just set-up perfectly to build you little slice of town.

What makes this game work is that it scales to any player count. But also that with that, the game play isn’t too simple. You have three choices each round of what to fill in, and there is good strategy in that. Plus there are expansions of different maps that you can play with which are fun as well.

Buy on Cool Stuff Inc

36. Mesozooic

Mesozooic is going to be an overlooked game, and some of that is that it’s not going to be a game that works for everyone. It is a light drafting game where you are getting cards to build your dinosaur zoo, a theme that is really popular right now. The drafting part of the game is light, and then the other half of the game is a sliding puzzle. You move your cards around, like a sliding puzzle, to get the most points possible out of your zoo. It’s clever, it’s light, and it’s fun. And you can pick a more complex strategy in hopes you can slide it right, or go for the easy points.

Buy on Miniature Market

35. Potion Explosion

Another light and fun game, we have Potion Explosion. This game is all about cascading marbles so that like colors hit each other. You then use those marbles, you pick up all that cascade, to complete potions. Those potions in turn give you powers that help you get more cascading marbles and even more potions.

The game moves quickly, but it’s again one of those games that are simple to play, but you can master it. And that’s the fun of a game like that one, figuring out how you can best use your potions on a turn so that you can get more potions completed. Then use those potions to complete other potions the next turn. And when you can do that, the game clicks.

Buy on Miniature Market

34. Letter Jam

Letter Jam is an odd game on this list, now not like Mesozooic odd, but odd in that it’s a cooperative word game where you can’t see your word. In fact, you don’t know what it is or any of the letters, really any clue about it.

So, everyone is trying to give the other players clues. And the clues are done in a form of a word. So let’s say that my letter was ‘A’ and someone else gives the clue, each one corresponding to a letter in front of someone else of ‘F’, blank, ‘R’, ‘M’. It’s maybe a solid clue for someone, but for me, it could be ‘FARM’, ‘FORM’, or ‘FIRM’. It’s helped me some but not that much. Letter Jam gives you a chance to give really clever and good clues, which I like.

Buy on Game Nerdz

33. Final Girl

The other solo only game on the list is Final Girl. I won’t go into how it’s played too much, but the premise, along with fun game play, are what really sell it for me. In Final Girl you are the last survivor, or will be, in a horror film. Now, will the killer get you, the ghost track you down, the monster pull you into the swamp? Or will the final girl survive?

The game play, like I said, won’t go into it too much, is a nice hand management puzzle of playing cards to get things done, having enough to get more cards and repeating the process. Van Ryder Games is really smart with how they made this game. There are elements that are consistent across the whole game. But then other things, their feature film boxes, that give you a new final girl and killer and allow you to change everything up.

Buy on Miniature Market

32. Lost Ruins of Arnak

Lost Ruins of Arnak another new to me game this year. Or I should say, one that I played for the first time this year. It’s nice getting taught a game by someone who already knows it well. And that was my experience at Gen Con. But I’ve played it more since then.

Arnak is a game where you are exploring locations, buying better gear, you can find artifacts, idols and more. Now that makes it seem thematic, and I think that the theme does come through. But Arnak is mainly a worker placement game as you send out your explorer meeples. And then deck building which is how you can get more and more actions to do and push up the tracks.

It would be lower, probably in the 60’s if it weren’t for the Expedition Leaders expansion, though. It makes it so each player starts with a different power. Some of them are easy than another, a third explorer to place on the map. But others then have more complex systems but when you leverage them it turns negative points into positive effects or things like that. The game is really fun with the expedition leaders.

Buy From Game Nerdz

31. Super Mega Lucky Box

Final game in this section of 10 is Super Mega Lucky Box. This is another roll and write game and one that looks really simple, because it is basically bingo. But while it is simple, Super Mega Lucky Box is a lot of fun. The game has you going for a “blackout” fully filled sheet to score it. But as you complete rows and columns you get bonuses.

Sometimes the bonuses are just cross off another number on one of your other cards, you have three. Other times you get lightning bolts. And lightning bolts adjust the numbers of the card flipped that you are crossing off. You don’t have a nine, well, spend a lighting bolt and make it an eight. Spend three and makes it a six. Or stars where the more you get a round the more they are worth. Or moons where the person who has the most gets a bonus 6 points, while the least loses 6. All of those bonuses just make for a really fun game with such a simple premise.

Buy on Amazon

Upcoming Streams

If you are following along with the Top 100, you already know that the next one is going to be coming out on Monday at 8:30 PM Central Time. But if you want the link or the video you can find that here. Chat along, talk about your favorite games with me. See if we overlap as I get closer and closer to my Top 10 Games.

Then on Wednesday, no link for it yet, we have Chronicles of Drunagor. I kept this evening free so that I would have time to get it set-up and ready to be played. I’m excited to get it to the table and I hope that you’ll join with me as I play a new campaign game. Chronicles of Drunagor is going to be a big game and one that looks like a ton of fun.

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How To Play Paperback?

Like I said above, Paperback is a deck building game. That means that you start out with a hand of cards, in this case letters, and you draw a hand of them. You use those letters to make a word, that gives you are “score”, really purchase power, to buy more letters or point cards. The turns go around with drawing up to a hand of five, making a word and buying more cards.

The game ends when one of two things happen. Either someone has put down a 10 letter word, after 7, 8, & 9 have been completed to take the last common card. This card can be used by anyone any time. Or two of the scoring piles are gone. Then you add up the points on the cards that give you points, different than the “score” when is just for purchase power. Player with the most points wins the game.

Initial Impressions

Generally, I like this game and what it does. It rides a balance between something like Ascension with it’s ever changing market, and Dominion with it’s scoring cards that clog up the deck. I think it’s easier, less combos, to think about than either of the games, though. And unlike the Duchies and other scoring cards that clog up a Dominion deck and do nothing, these scoring cards do still give you a wild letter.

And I think that is a nice balance in the game. I like being able to play out a big word. I like using the double letters so that my hand of five can create a 7 letter word. But, it is not a game that gives you too many dead hands. In a four player game, I think there were four times where someone couldn’t buy something. Twice because we didn’t have enough wilds or vowels. So my hand is all consonants and I’m stuck. And twice because there were no low cost cards left to buy.

And I like the two different ends to the game. We went through two scoring piles. But I did play down and get two of the common cards. That means I played a seven and eight letter word before anyone else did. I almost was able to do a nine letter word, but couldn’t quite get that one.

How Is It As A Word Game?

I want to address this separately. I think that there, generally are a few, two really, types of word games. The first is the Scrabble type of game. In that game, knowing big words can be good. But Scrabble, in my opinion, is about pattern recognition and playing to optimize placement. If I know a big word, doesn’t matter if I don’t line up my “J” or “V” on the double letter score. You pick words to optimize the tile placement.

Paperback is not that type of word game. Instead it falls into the second camp. The second one is about what words you have in your vocabulary. I still need to puzzle out how the letters in my hand best create a word. But I don’t play my word off of anything else. That means that I score that word in a vacuum. Or, another way to think, what I do doesn’t matter to what word you create. Letter Jam is also in this category, but different.

Now, both types have their flaws. If I recognize patterns better than you, I win at Scrabble. If I create larger words with “harder” letters in Paperback, I win. This is an inherent problem that can arise in most any word game. Even Letter Jam, which is cooperative has some of this problem. But Paperback is up there with Letter Jam for a game that limits that.

How Does It Compare To Other Deck Builders?

That is the other thing to talk about. I compare it to Ascension and Dominion. But I do think it is a bit more than them in some ways. I say in some ways because it is about the vocabulary aspect. It requires a different skill than just deck building.

I think that it does a good job with it’s powers though. Most any deck builder, from Dominion and Ascension to Lost Ruins of Arnak and Clank! offer cards with powers. Paperback does a good job of keeping it simple. I think it is about as simple as Dominion whic just gives you more purchase power, number of buys, or action cards you can play.

But the powers on the cards work. I mentioned that if you play a seven letter word you get the common card. With a hand of five cards, you need cards with powers to let you draw more cards next hand. I think they do a good job with the cards that draw more and other powers. Other powers allow you to purchase better cards that give you more “score” to buy more cards. We didn’t get the high scoring cards, but with the right combos we could have.

Final Thoughts on Paperback

Obviously, this is initial impressions, but I want to give some of my preference with this game. I like it, I think it is a good word game. If I have a concern with it at this point, is that some people will struggle with some of the options that they have. I had 9 cards in hand one time, that is capable of being a lot of words.

I also wonder a bit about variety in this game. Am I likely to push for high cost cards, high cost letters, which are harder to play in hopes of getting the really high scoring cards? Or is it better to get more of the lower cost ones and fill up my deck that way. I want to experiment with that a bit more, because maybe it would be worth it.

And I do like that they offer an expansion for it. That adds in cards that have three letters on them. But they also have modules. We didn’t play with any of them, but it is just different things to get mixed in. That means that some of my concern about variety is already taken care of. Initial judgement, if you like word games, this is a fun one.

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Games I Saw at Gen Con

Burncycle

One I knew I wanted to see and one that I came home with. This is a big game where humans built robots, robots took over, humans came back with a vengeance and now you’re robots trying to survive and go on missions.

It is a Chip Theory Game, so big and has a lot going on with it. But one that when you get down to it, with the chip system and everything, it doesn’t look too bad to play. It’ll be a table hog, but one with a lot of good and interesting choices. And it looks different than a lot of games. This game has two boards one where you are sneaking into a facility and another where you are hacking the system and trying to balance both of those seems interesting.

Hoplomachus: Victorum

Another Chip Theory Game, this is one that I suspect I’ll buy and I wish I’d backed on Kickstarter. Hoplomachus takes one of their original games and brings it to the table as a solo only game. And with a campaign in it. Which makes it even more interesting.

In this game you are going around and trying to defeat the minions of Pluto in this arena/gladiator combat game. You travel around build up your troops and fight to gain victories and rewards. For me, I think it could be a great game to stream on Malts and Meeples. With so many massive campaign games, this isn’t small but it won’t be as massive on the table.

Cora Quest

Cora Quest is s game that I knew I wanted to checkout for sure. Cora Quest is a family weight dungeon crawler game. Everything about this game is fun, there is story, but it’s family friendly and fun. There is dice chucking, the artwork is great. I haven’t bought it because I don’t need to yet. When my kid gets older, I could see this being an amazing introduction to dungeon crawlers and story adventure games.

Land vs Sea

I was disappointed that I wasn’t able to demo this one. I got more of a sales pitch than anything. Though, I did get the basics of the rules, which means I probably need a minor rules read and then I can play. At it’s core, Land vs Sea is a two player game about trying to close off areas of land or sea.

One player gets points when land masses are closed off, the other when sea is closed off. But you might want to close off your opponents area because there are other scoring pluses on the board. If you close off that area, your opponent scores the land or sea area, but you get the bonus points. Seems like a light and fun game. You can also play with more players, but I want to try at two first.

Bark Avenue

Bark Avenue at the same booth of Land vs Sea is another game that I got more of a pitch for than a ton of details on it. The basic idea is that you are a dog walker. And you try and get points or money by having the dogs that you walk do things on their walks. It didn’t seem like too heavy a game, and it had a very big footprint for that. Probably not one I’ll checkout later.

Birds of a Feather

Birds of a Feather is a small set collection game. It’s interesting in how it does it though. You are playing out birds that you are seeing. And everyone plays out birds all that once. Anyone who crosses over with a habitat checks off all of the birds. And then the previous rounds birds stick around for the next round. So there is some strategy as to where you go. The game seems light and fast, but pretty and could be a good small box game to add to a collection.

Dawn of Ulos

Ulos is the world of Roll Player Adventures. And Dawn of Ulos is an economic game set in that world. The game looks very cool on the table, but I’m not sure it’s a game for me. I like the more thematic things set in that world. Now, that isn’t to say that the game doesn’t look cool on the table. It definitely does. I just think that manipulating the different species as you manipulate the market is less interesting to me.

Paperback

Paperback, this was a very fast overview, but a game that I kind of want to try. Paperback is a deck building game where you are making words. The words that you make give you purchase power and gets your more letters and double letters and the possibility to make even bigger words. I love deck building and I enjoy word games. My wife loves words, so I think this is a solid option. And unlike Scrabble or Banagrams, it doesn’t just reward you for knowing the few great Scrabble words.

Chai

Chai is another theme that I think my wife would like. It’s a bigger game where you run a tea shop and you are collecting ingredients to complete orders and get tips. The end of the game is to have the most money. So pretty standard for a board game. The production on this one looks great, though. One I’d love to truly sit down and play and see if I like it and what I think of the weight of the game.

Red Dragon Inn 8

Finally Red Dragon Inn, I have played this one before, but I was learning about Red Dragon Inn 8: Pub Crawl. It’s more stuff for Red Dragon Inn, but it adds in a pub crawl mechanic. It just seems like it offers more options for game play without making it much more complex. I’m more interested in their dungeon crawl game that they have coming out set in the world. Because while I generally find Red Dragon Inn too long, I do like the characters and the world. And I think the length is more due to player count than anything.

Final Thoughts

There were a lot of fun games to see, and I likely could have seen a whole lot more. But I was semi-targeted in what I was doing. Though, there are also games that I probably never would have looked at, but I had a moment. Bark Avenue being the big one on the list. I generally wouldn’t have checked out Red Dragon Inn 8 either, but I know they have promo cards often if you listen. So I did that to get the card for a friend.

Out of these games ones that I’ll likely pick up will be Paperback, Hoplomachus: Victorum, and Birds of a Feather. All very similar games, not at all, but all that do stuff I like. Paperback is deck building and word game. Hoplomachus is a big campaign solo game. And Birds of a Feather is a small filler game. Which would interest you most?

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100 Through 91

90 Through 81

80 through 71

70 through 61

60 through 51

50 through 41

40 through 31

Top 100 Board Games – 30 through 21

30. A Gentle Rain

A Gentle Rain is what I call a pallet cleansing solo game. All you are doing is flipping tiles and placing them, trying to get four corners to meet so you can put down a disc. If you get all the discs out you win the game. It is pretty lucky, I have won, I’ve also gotten only 4 of the 8 discs out. But it is nice and relaxing to play. The whole point of the game is to have a nice relaxing time.

It’s also nice because while it might take up a bit more space than small solo games ideally do, it is a small box and it plays very fast. So it’s a good little puzzle to play through and have something to think on, but without spending a lot of time or brain power on it. Plus it’s pretty cheap and really good quality.

Out of Stock

29. Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

I will start by saying, I have yet to play Terraforming Mars. It’s on my shelf and I want to get it played. But Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition drew me in because it looked better. The artwork was really good on it, and when I saw it played, I really liked the mechanics. In particular, I like the action selection, how fast that goes. Each player selects an action and everyone gets to take it but as the person who picked it, you get an extra bonus. Any action that isn’t used is skipped that round. Gives good strategy.

Now, I wish I had backed this on Kickstarter. I did end up buying board overlays because the cubes will slide on the board. That said, the quality of the game is nice and the more you play it the faster you go. I think my first few two player games took around two hours, but by the third, we had the game down to basically an hour. And adding in more people won’t really slow down the game. Really fun engine building board game.

Buy On Miniature Market

28. Aeon’s End Legacy

I really enjoy Legacy games, and Aeon’s End was no exception. I knew I’d likely like it a lot, but you can see how much over on Malts and Meeples. What I wasn’t expecting is how good Aeon’s End Legacy is at teaching you how to play Aeon’s End. The game play is just slick and really enjoyable. And they start you off easy and teach you the game.

In fact, that’s one thing I do and don’t love about the game. I already knew how to play Aeon’s End. So when Aeon’s End Legacy dumbed it down a little bit, there were things that I wanted to do that I couldn’t at the start of the game. But this is an amazing way to learn Aeon’s End. The story is solid and the game play is a ton of fun, plus it’s cooperative which is always a bonus.

Out of Stock

27. Potion Explosion

Now we move onto a game with a ton of toy factor. The main mechanic of the game is pulling marbles from a tray that they roll down. You pick one marble and then like colored marbles that hit you also get, and it can cascade into a lot of marbles. You use those marbles to brew potions that give you points and give you one time abilities.

This game when it’s on the table people notice because of the marble tray and just how different it looks. The game play is solid with more depth than it first looks. Optimizing how and when you use the potions means that you get can give you really powerful turns. So while it is light and fun there is strategy.

Buy on Amazon

26. Sagrada

Sagrada is another game with a great table presence. This one has you making stained glass windows. You draft dice which you then have to place into your stained glass window based off of number or color rules. The game play on this one is pretty simple but getting the numbers and colors you need can be tricky.

I like this game a lot because it works well with family. My parents play board games, but they don’t play a ton of them. A lot of modern board games are going to be too complex, but something like Sagrada they were able to get quite easily. So with it’s great look and ease but interesting game play, Sagrada is a great game.

Buy on Amazon

25. Metro X

New game to the list, Metro X is a roll and write I’ve played on the Malts and Meeples channel before as well. This is about completing bus routes the best that you can. The game play, for me, is a lot of fun because of two things. Some routes use the the same stops. So if I fill that stop in I’m working on completing two or more of the routes. But you always are starting from the earliest spot on a route when you fill in, and you can’t skip. It makes it a really good puzzle.

I also like that the game plays fast. This is a game that might trip some people up to start out with because it is doing some interesting things that might not be intuitive, but when you get into it, it’s quite simple to play. And it comes dry erase already which is a bonus. I wish that the expansion bus routes/maps would come to the US.

Buy on Amazon

24. Roll Player Adventures

This game is actually coming in the mail today. Normally I don’t like to put prototypes on the list, but I had such a great experience with this one at GenCon in 2019, that it has been on the list before. I think I dropped it last year because it was a prototype.

This is a more family friendly, from what I can tell, adventure game. It reminds me of Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon, not in game play, but in the idea that you are exploring at a higher level and then you drop out of that into combat, but it’s not a tactical combat. Plus you can bring your Roll Player characters into this game which I really like as a concept too.

Buy on Miniature Market

23. Letter Jam

Most word based games aren’t cooperative, but Letter Jam is. That is some of what makes it on the list. The game play is also really clever as you can’t see the letters that make up your word. They are facing away from you, so through clues you have to deduce what your letters are.

If I were to give the clue, and you can see the letter FR*M where the * is your letter, you can probably guess that it’s FROM so you letter much be O. But had I done F*RM now it could be FARM, FIRM, or FORM. So you need to be clever as you give clues because you want to limit how many letters it could be. And if you give a clue that means you aren’t getting helped so everyone needs to give clues.

Buy on Miniature Market

22. Betrayal At House on the Hill

Buy on Amazon

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

Final one on this part of my Top 100 Games of all time is Ganz Schon Clever. This is the last of the Clever trilogy on the list, through the first one of them to come out. I really like Ganz Schon Clever because like Doppelt so Clever and Clever Hoch Drei, this game is all about combos. You fill in one thing, that unlocks something which allows you to fill in, in another spot.

This game also has an app that is really good. I do prefer playing the physical version, but sitting down and playing a quick game is a lot of fun on the app and it works really well. And while the game I think does take longer with more people, it’s still a really good multi-player experience and solo game.

Buy on CoolStuffInc

The Next 10

If you want to catch any of the remaining Top 10’s live, you can check them out and my normal streams on Wednesday at 8 PM Central time. If you subscribe and click the notification bell you’ll know whenever I go live or upload a new video to Malts and Meeples YouTube channel. When I’m not doing my Top 100, you can find me on Wednesday playing board games solo on the YouTube channel. I’ll be streaming next week but then a week off for Thanksgiving and Top 10 will be on December 1st.

Now, I did say I wanted to talk about my streaming times. Through the Top 100 list, I am going to keep my 8 PM Central time on Wednesdays for streaming. However, this might be changing. A channel that I like to watch and be part of their live chat, the GloryHoundd channel is adjusting their schedule. And I know I have crossover viewers from their channel. If they take that 8 PM Central Wednesday spot, I might look at making my main streaming day on Monday. Be aware that change may come.

But what game do you like best out of this part of the Top 100? Are there any that you want to get to the table that you haven’t played in this bunch?

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