Games games games. I still find it kind of amazing that I can list off 100 games that I love, and it’s less than 20% of the games I’ve played. There’s still so many games that I want to play, and new games coming out every year. I love this hobby!!
The auction for player order is so great. As the game goes on, the most valuable possible moves become more and more rare, and therefore, more sought after. Being able to control going first, making your opponents pay dearly for the privilege, or deny them access to the action they need as a punishment for their cheapness makes every turn in Five Tribes feel exciting
Many word games can end up suffering from a similar problem. You get a selection of letters, and you spend 15 minutes staring at them, trying to figure out a word, any word that you can make out of that mess. Hardback allows you to flip any card in your hand over, voiding any abilities or benefits it may offer, but turning it into a wild card. I love this mechanic as it keeps the game rolling and saves players from a truly awful draw.
I love the population track in Suburbia. The goal of the game is to earn population, as ultimately, the player with the most population is the winner. But on that population track are a bunch of red lines, and every line you cross, your reputation and incomes are knocked down a peg. I’ve seen players stumble into the perfect tile, slot it into their city, earning themselves insane amounts of population on a single turn, only to kneecap their own game, throwing their income into a deficit and making the next few turns a desperate struggle to buy an income generating tile.
That may sound needlessly harsh, but it’s a mechanic I adore in a game that I love.
My favourite thing about Castles of Mad King Ludwig
I’m torn between building wild looking castles, and the player controlled auction as my favourite aspect of Castles of Mad King Ludwig. Both aspects are awesome, and make the game feel fresh every time I play it.
The decision to make the vertical act as a score multiplier is so satisfying. I’ve had games where I manage to get several tiles of the same colour to the 4th level, which gets multiplied by all the stars of that colour makes for a really satisfying puzzle!
To this day, Pandemic is a go-to option for introducing anyone to the world of cooperative games. Pandemic has all kinds of tension, short term problems that need to be solved that are at odds with the long term goal of the game, plenty of opportunities for players to communicate and figure out an optimal plan. It’s a classic, and even though I’ve picked up a few of the spin-offs, the original remains in my collection.
It’s a shame about the actual pandemic creating all kinds of negative connotations, though.
The double resource cost of all the tiles needing money (buttons) and time makes for some fascinating decisions. At the beginning of the game, you don’t have many buttons to spend, so you’ll pick the high time cost pieces. Come the end of the game, you’ll be throwing fistfuls of cash at the board, but your new limiter is time. A pretty good allegory for life, if you think about it.
33 – Chess
My Favourite thing about Chess:
There isn’t much I can say about Chess that hasn’t been said already, by people who have devoted significantly more time than I have into playing and studying this game. With an endlessly high skill ceiling and dozens of books breaking down even just the opening moves of Chess, I love this game as it’s a pure strategy game. Any mistake is your own fault, and while it sucks to get crushed by someone more skilled than you are, I like that any victory or loss is earned by your actions and choices alone.
What I left unsaid about Patchwork applies here. Polyomino tile laying games are just simple fun. And I love My City for constantly evolving, even if I find the over-arching victory condition of the legacy campaign to be less than satisfying, I still enjoyed seeing the game change over time.
I love real time games, I love Tim Fowers games, and I love cooperative games, Now Boarding was an easy hit for us. What I love most about Now Boarding is that the game only gives you half the information you really need for the round, and obscures the rest of it. You can your teammates can plan out what you want to do, but when the real time phase starts, more information is thrown into the mix and it might drastically change your plans!
I know in the last post I said I don’t like to faff about with the partial rankings, but these games are all 8.5 for me. They’re better than the riffraff that came before them, but they aren’t quite a 9/10 for me. Still, I love all these games, and some of them I’m kind of flabbergasted that there’s still 40 games that I think are better!
Firstly, I love any game that has variable scoring. I love that the first thing you score comes Back to score again at the end of the game. And I love that every card has two different options for you to add to your map, often pulling you in different directions. Do you place the houses that will score this round, or do you play the trees that will score next round? Do you go against the edge for points in scoring objective B, or do you try to surround a mountain to earn a coin that’ll give you a point in every scoring? It’s an amazing and one of my favourite ‘X and write’ games.
Filling rows with tiles shouldn’t be as exciting as it is in Azul, but here we are. Taking tiles from any of the factories dumps the unclaimed tiles into the centre, which is a sweet pot that builds and builds until someone chooses to take it. The presence of the first player marker is both a blessing and a curse. Going first next round is brilliant, but losing a point for it kinda hurts. It’s genius, and I’m glad Azul is as popular as it is.
Before anyone asks, I’ve played all the Azul games, and the original is my favourite by far, hands down.
There is a simple, childlike joy in getting into everyone else’s way. Popping your single cube in a road that your opponent has committed heavily into feels devious and satisfying. Now they have to pay extra to get that road completed, and you get an extra benefit for getting bumped. Brilliant.
47 – The Crew: Mission Deep Sea
My Favourite thing about The Crew: Mission Deep Sea:
While I enjoy both versions of The Crew, Mission Deep Sea’s variable goal deck makes this version my favourite by far. It’s a mild complaint, but trying to bring The Quest for Planet Nine out for a casual group is mildly annoying in that you have to pick random missions to tackle. I much prefer just picking a difficulty number and flipping over goal cards until we’ve reached that threshold. And casual play is how I play The Crew the most anyway.
It’s pretty rare that an expansion to a game gets its own entry on the list, but I think in the case of Viticulture World, it’s warranted. The twist on gameplay, turning a competitive game into a collaborative experience, was such a joy to discover. I love that each player needs to earn 20 points before the time runs out, forcing everyone to consider how best to support their teammates, in addition to building up their own vineyards.
Honestly, it’s the large player count and short play time. Simultaneous play is something that I really appreciate, so having a great game to play when my table has up to 7 players is invaluable.
Clans of Caledonia combines the best parts of Terra Mystica with the shifting market of Navagador, and, it condenses all the various resources down into a single one, money. No need to faff about with power cubes, or cultists, or books, or terrain types. It’s all just money. I’d play Clans of Caledonia over Terra Mystica or Gaia Project, or Age of Innovation any day of the week.
The scoring for Kingdomino being the number of terrain tiles multiplied by the number of crowns, and where the number of crowns can equal 0, is delicious. It’s just a bit too much math for me to calculate out during the game, but the tension of having a huge pasture, and no crowns to show for it makes my heart beat a mile a minute.
That one turn. There’s at least one turn in Russian Railroads where all of your bonuses just start cascading into one amazing turn. Where normally you only get to do one little thing, suddenly you’re charging down the line, horn blaring, collecting benefit after benefit as you smash thresholds. It’s such a great feeling.
Manipulating the market is pure joy. Choosing to sell gold while produce in sugar and pumping each of those resources up and down makes my heart sing. I also really enjoy that by the end of the game, you’re raking in more money per round than you did in the entire first half of the game. Just a super satisfying experience all around.
Fun fact, the first 50 games on this list, I’ve rated every one as an 8/10. There’s actually another 20 games outside the top 100 that I also consider an 8/10, but for the purposes of creating the list, I had to cut games that numerically are identical, but I know in my heart I enjoy more. I generally don’t like faffing about with half ratings or decimal places, but, I might have to just to help me delineate my feelings on these games a little bit more. The bottom 50 of this list is in a constant state of flux, and depending on my feelings during the day that I make this list, a game could easily shift up and down. Beyond this point, though, my feelings on each of the games becomes a lot more concrete.
My Favourite thing about Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition
It’s a game that probably shouldn’t work. A trick taking game where you can just declare the suits? Nope. Should be broken. And yet it isn’t! For a while I was thinking the game was a bit too random, a bit too dependent on the draw of the cards, then I played with a friend who just proceeded to smack me around for several games in a row. So, there’s mastery to be found here. I don’t have it, but I know it’s there!
My favourite thing about The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine:
Much like Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition, my initial impressions were that this is a game that shouldn’t work. Cooperative trick taking isn’t going to be any fun, rather, it’s an exercise in sorting cards. Turns out, I’m dumb, and The Crew is awesome. It’s become a great way to end a long gaming session, and as you progress in the missions, the requirements get more and more intense. There’s tension where you play a card, then stare at the next player, willing them to play the right card, then an eruption of either elation, or fury depending on the result.
The full stack economy on display here is amazing. All players are simultaneously building the means of production, producing goods, acquiring goods, selling goods, shipping goods and buying goods. The semi-closed economy is fantastic, and greed leads to recessions.
The sheer number of people who have played the crap out of Dutch Blitz means I almost always have a challenging opponent to square off against. I love real time games, and speed-sorting cards is some wholesome fun that I can pull out at any opportunity.
The “Crush Otter” strategy. Let me explain, When playing Las Vegas, trying to control anything and having a strategy is a great way to having a frustrating game. So my plan for every game of Las Vegas I play, is to just beat Otter. I actually end up doing pretty well most of the time!
The worker placement mechanism of claiming three of the outside cards that also give you two of the inside cards is just brilliant. There’s so much delicious decision-making in picking which of the inside cards you want versus which of the outside cards you need, all while bumping up against your opponent and making sure they don’t snag that free gold coin card too easily. As far as 2 player games go, this one is simply brilliant
54 – The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth
My favourite thing about The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth
I’m not going to lie here, it’s the theme. I love the Lord of the Rings and any game that lets me take on the role of Aaragon and hew orcs is going to be a hit in my books. LotR: JiME is a fantastic adventure game in its own right, and the app managing the deployment of enemies and health trackers is a very welcome addition.
The combination auction/worker placement is so fun. Using a single worker to pin down a tile and ensuring the auction for that tile is the colour that you want it to be is really smart. I’m absolutely awful at Keyflower, otherwise I’m sure this would be much higher on my list.
The ease of play. Once everyone is set up the same, one player draws tiles randomly, and everyone else follows suit. I love the mechanism where everyone gets the exact same thing. The same situation, the same resources/ decision, but the things we choose to prioritize are what sets each of us apart and determines the winners and losers.
Just One is a brilliant little game where everyone had to give one clue, trying to lead the current guesser to a single word. If two people give the same clue, they’re cancelled out. I love this, as it encourages players to not use the most obvious clue, but sometimes the clues end up being a little too obscure, which is hilarious when the guesser opens there eyes, reads the clues and exclaims “WHAT?”. My dirty secret is that I’ve never owned a copy of Just One. I’ve always just used sheets of paper and the deck of Codename cards to play. I’ve introduced Just One at almost every family gathering and it’s always been a hit.
Something I’m noticing as I go down this list is a surprising number of these games I haven’t really played since the last time I made this list. Yet, when I compare them against the other games I’ve played, they’ve left a mark on me. There is some recency bias going on here, where the games I’ve played more recently appear higher on the list, but I feel like all of these games have an enduring quality to them. They’ll be in my top 100 for quite some time.
The variability and asymmetric nature of the game just delights me. There are 16 units in the base box, and the game starts with a draft to give each player 4 unique units to try and wrest control of the map with. I love two player games, and if I had a partner who was really into two player head-to-head games, I know I’d be playing a LOT more War Chest.
The namesake mechanic of moving the switches and signals. Every junction can only have two directions open at a time, and there’s only 7 open signals that you need to share between all the stops on the board turns this pick up and deliver coop game into a juggling act.
The two act nature of the game where winning auctions in the first act directly assists you in claiming properties in the second act. It’s one of my favourite pure bidding games, and the travel edition ensures that I can play a game anywhere.
I don’t harbour a great love for 4x games in general, but Eclipse is pretty special. The part I like the most, aside from the economy engine running the whole game, is the technology tracks. I love unlocking special abilities and upgrading my fleet to earn the strategic edge in combat. That is, until some jerk just rolls 4 6’s on their first shot and decimates my fleet. As frustrating as dice can be as a combat resolution mechanism, it sure did get 4 fairly reserved grown men standing and shouting, a feat not many euro games can accomplish.
The tableau is by far my favourite part about Earth. I like playing cards and seeing the field grow, I like putting cubes and trees on the cards, and I love the cascade of actions when all the cards of a colour that I’ve played a lot of get to trigger. It feels like you’ve won the lottery, if the lottery paid out in soil and compost.
My favourite thing about The Great Heartland Hauling Co.:
The multi-use cards in a pick up and deliver game, coupled with the strict hand limit ensures that players can’t just stock up their hand of cards with the colour they want to pick up and deliver the most valuable resource every round. I like the push-your-luck aspect of having a hold full of pigs and digging for more pig cards so you can make that delivery next round.
My favourite thing about Caverna: The Cave Farmers:
I like that Caverna is more open than it’s non-fiction counterpart Agricola. Having a whole second side of the board to dig a home out of without taking over your farming fields lets me breathe a little easier in each game. Also, with all the houses being available each game, I do enjoy that I can formulate a plan ahead of time, and be reasonably sure that I’ll be able to execute on that plan.
I love the 10 different scoring objectives. 5 are from the animals, which each animal scoring in different ways (and each type of animal has 4 different variants), plus each of the largest terrain groupings score points too. Cascadia pulls you into a thousand different directions, but still offers enough flexibility that you rarely feel stuck.
Millennium Blades achieves something really special. It takes me back to my TCG playing, anime watching youth. What really makes Millennium Blades special for me isn’t the unique and amazing gameplay, but the theme and references to dozens of childhood favourite games and anime.
It’s just so fast and easy to play, making it perfect for introducing to people who haven’t been exposed to the wild world of board games. Also, my partner really loves it, and will request to play it, which gives it a special ranking in my books.
I’ve mentioned it in other places, but we have a new child in our home. Which means sleep is a bit of a luxury, and a lot of these lists were written in the wee hours of the morning. Please forgive the brevity or grammatical errors you may find!
The feeling of progression makes a game of Splendor feel splendid, ahem satisfying. I know there’s a strategy where you only buy 3rd row cards, but playing that way isn’t fun to me. I like getting a plethora of cheap gems to get to the point where I rarely ever have to visit the gem market anymore!
The 3d building/toy factor is a large part of my enjoyment of Santorini. But my favourite aspect of the game is the variety of player powers available. Each one will drastically change how you approach your opponent, and gives lovely texture to this awesome game.
I can’t deny that the production of Foundations of Rome has nothing to do with my enjoyment. I love how gorgeous it is, how peoples Jaws hit the floor when I hand them their player tray. Beyond that, it’s a lovely light game. Buy deeds, build buildings, score points. Simple, gorgeous game.
My favourite thing about Viticulture: Essential Edition:
Like many board gamers, I just innately enjoy a good worker placement game, and Viticulture is a great worker placement game. I love building a farm, harvesting grapes, and the mechanic of aging the grapes and wine makes me smile. Realistically, I know you don’t age grapes on a crush pad, but as a game mechanic, it’s satisfying to know you can harvest bad grapes and eventually they’ll become a quality wine.
Similar to Santorini, the part of Hive I enjoy the most is the variety of powers to play with. The twist is that both players have access to all the different unit types. What separates winners and closers in Hive is the order in which and how they choose to spawn their units into the play area.
75 – Go
My favourite thing about Go:
Coming in as the complete opposite of Hive, Go is the grand-daddy of abstract strategy games. A 19 x 19 grid of lines and a bowl of black and white stones. I love the relative simplicity of Go, while also harbouring an incredibly high skill ceiling.
I played Go a lot more as a teenager, and while I would love to play more, finding casual games locally is more than a challenge.
74 – Cribbage
My favourite thing about Cribbage:
I love the nostalgia that I have associated with Cribbage. Memories of lazy summer days, visiting Grandma at the cabin on Cape Breton Island, and getting absolutely skunked at cribbage made me into the gamer that I am today.
My favourite thing about Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
My favourite part of Gloomhaven is how varied the action cards are. Every character has wildly different abilities, and because Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion only has 4 characters, their abilities are designed to sync up nicely. This makes it the perfect scaffold to get into the beast that is the Gloomhaven system.
This little card game houses a lot of tension. All players simultaneously select a card, then all at once the choices are revealed. The surprise, shock, and horror as the cards slide into their appropriate rows is just a delight to experience.
Another game with a lavish production that gets me excited to play it. But the box full of minis isn’t what I love most about Mechs vs. Minions, no. It’s the push your luck of constantly adding to your action programming row. The more you add to it, the more you can do. But the more you have to do, the more likely it is you’ll end up impotently spinning out in the corner.
