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.
It’s been a while since I posted a set of my favourite games. At the speed I’m going it’ll be 2023 by the time this list is finished!
60 – Millennium Blades
Millennium Blades designed by Brad Talton is almost a fever dream of a game. Millennium Blades is a game about collecting cards and competing in tournaments of a fictional CCG called Millennium Blades. Each round of the game has two parts; a real-time deck building phase, and a tournament phase. In the deck building phase you have three 7 minute rounds where you’ll drop literal stacks of cash to buy new ‘packs’ from the store and buy and sell singles in the aftermarket. As cards and cash flow in and out of your player area, you’re trying to achieve two things: create a competitive deck and build a collection (a set of cards that share an attribute with increasing rarity). Cards in your collection cannot be used in the tournament
Once the real time phase is over, you flip over your playerboard and play a fairly simple game with your competitive decks. Each player takes a turn playing a card to the table in front of them, resolving the effects, and earning points, cards, and money for how well your deck performed.
Millennium Blades is a special game for a certain niche of people. The art by Fabio Fontes has a strong 90’s anime aesthetic, and makes dozens of references to the video games and anime from my childhood. Millennium Blades also comes with dozens of sets of cards that you can mix and match to create a unique store deck every time you play.
Because Millennium Blades is a throwback to competitive CCGs and 90’s era anime and video games, it feels like it was MADE for me. My gaming group however has never dabbled in these specific quagmires so all of the theming is lost on them. I’m sure Millennium Blades could be so much higher on this list if I had equally enthusiastic players to join me at my table. For now, it will languish at #60.
59 – Alhambra
Alhambra by Dirk Henn is a classic. In Alhambra you take turns taking money cards from the offer row and using that cash to buy tiles to place into your personal Alhambra. At two points during play a ‘scoring’ card will be drawn, instantly triggering a scoring phase. The player who has the majority for each of the colours earns the points, splitting the points if tied. The first scoring round only offers a prize to the person who has the most, but the next two scoring rounds have points for the person who has the most and for the person who has the second most tiles in each of the colours. In addition to earning points via the majorities in the tiles, you also get points for the wall going around the Alhambra. Most tiles will have a number of black boarders, representing a wall. Walls prevent you from building further in that direction from that tile. Often you will find yourself at odds with buying a tile from the shop because you just need one more green tile, but struggling to place the tile in your tableau in a way that doesn’t completely prevent you from building out even more.
Alhambra is a great game to begin or end a night. It’s fairly quick to play, not terribly complex, and offers a satisfying puzzle for you to solve.
58 – Targi
Targi by Andreas Steiger is a two player only game about placing workers on action spaces in such a way so that you get exactly what you want, while your opponent curses your name under their breath. Targi‘s theme is that you’re the leader of a Tuareg tribe trading goods and trying to expand your wealth, but the theme is pretty paper thin. Where Targi fails in theme it makes up for in gameplay. Targi has a 5 x 5 grid of cards. Along the outside edges are the action spaces, while the centre 9 cards are either resource cards, or a tribe card. During a round you and your opponent take turns placing your workers on available action spaces. You may not occupy an action spot that your opponent occupies, or a spot directly across the board from an opponents worker. Once all six workers have been placed, you place two more tokens on the centre cards that are in same row and columns as your workers. Then you perform all the actions available to you; getting various resources and spending them to gain tribe cards that give you various benefits when placed in your tableau.
Targi is a delightful game to play with a rival. Every action you take denies your opponent opportunities, but spend too much time trying to thwart their plans and you’ll find yourself falling far behind. Targi puts players in a dangerous dance as they try to achieve their objectives while getting in each other’s way. I’ve played Targi only a handful of times in person (every time I do a slew of profanities slowly slip from my mouth as the turns go on), but I’ve played dozens of games on Board Game Arena. I find that because there is very little hidden information, Targi played very well asynchronously. I highly recommend Targi if you and your gaming partner delight in stepping on each others toes.
57 – Azul
Azul by Michael Kiesling is one of the best games of 2017. It’s simple to play, difficult to master, and the Bakelite tiles are satisfying to play with. In Azul you and your friends are working to embellish the mosaic walls of a Portuguese palace. Each player has their own board, and there are a number of factory spaces in the middle. On your turn you take all matching tiles from any of the factory spaces. Once you take tiles from a factory, the left over tiles from that factory are deposited into the centre of the table. On and on the game goes, with people taking tiles from the factory or the centre of the table and queueing them up on their player board in hopes of filling a row. At the end of the round when all the tiles have been claimed, any full rows will move one of the pieces over to the scoring area, and the rest will be returned to the box.
Azul is a very abstract game and you will quickly lose the idea of creating a beautiful mosaic as you fall into the rhythm of the game. Azul is a great game to play with anyone, whether they have a deep and abiding love of games or show only a cursory interest. The game of Azul is satisfying and is one that often gets requested, even if that request is “can we play that game with the Starburst pieces again?”
56 – Tak
Tak has an intresting genesis. It began in a book, The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. The main character Kvothe described it as “The best sort of game: simple in its rules, complex in its strategy.” Never did Patrick Rothfuss try to describe how the game was played, as he envisioned Tak to be like the Chess of his world; classic, perfect, and timeless. And how could anyone invent chess today?
I saw an interview with Patrick Rothfuss where he said he was flabbergasted when James Earnest approached him and said:
“I want to make Tak.”
“You can’t just make Tak any more than you can invent the next chess!”
James Earnest said he’d come up with something and if Patrick Rothfuss veto’d it, that would be the end of it. The fact that this game is sitting on my favourite games list may spoil the ending of this story. James Earnest pitched a version of Tak to Patrick Rothfuss and won him over, successfully creating a game that was simple to play, but had deep complex strategies.
I’ll admit my bias; I’ve loved Rothfuss’ books long before I got into board games. But when I saw that Rothfuss had endorsed this version of Tak, I knew I had to get my hands on it. An abstract strategy game that’s elegant and fun to play, and no luck with the potential for misdirection and big moves, I was an instant fan.
55 – Photosynthesis
Photosynthesis is the second meanest game about trees that I’ve played, but I’m ready to argue that this game by Hjalmar Hach has a much more impressive table presence. In Photosynthesis you struggle against the other players to grow your trees from little seedlings. Each round you’ll spend your energy growing trees taller so they catch the sun while simultaneously casting a shadow upon the trees behind them, denying those players valuable sunlight tokens. As your trees get taller you earn more points and the player with the most points win.
Each player has three different sizes of trees to place on the board, and after just a few turns this board game has a wonderful 3D effect. Trees are standing tall amongst smaller saplings and the sun is rotating around the table, changing who is receiving the benefit of the sunlight and the punishment of being in the shade.
Photosynthesis is a game I’ve only played a handful of times but it’s one that I remember fondly. I aspire to play it again soon!
54 – Le Havre
Le Havre is a huge game by Uwe Rosenburg. In Le Havre you need to manage 16 different resources to build the best buildings and ships to earn the most points to win the day. Each round has a total of 7 actions, meaning some rounds players will get more or less actions than the other players. This is particularly difficult in the 4 player game where you’ll get 2 actions at most every round and in some rounds get a single action. Coupled with trying to amass enough food to feed your workers and earn enough goods to build ships and buildings, it can feel like Le Havre is asking a lot of you.
I really enjoy the resource management, and the mechanism for using other players’ buildings. By the time you get to the end of the game you feel successful and powerful, as if you just overcame a large foe. Le Havre is one of Uwe Rosenburg’s best games, which is high praise considering just how many excellent games he has designed.
53 – Inis
Inis by Christian Martinez is a area majority game in which players are tasked with deciding who they’re going to crown as their king. Inis is probably one of the most satisfying area majority, troops-on-a-map games I’ve ever played. The artistic direction is unique and eye catching and I love the mechanic where players need to declare that they can satisfy one of the three victory conditions at the start of the round and hold onto it until the end of the round.
Inis can leave a sour taste in your mouth when two of your opponents can win and you only have the ability to stop one of them. Each round begins with a card draft in which you more or less have to decide what actions will be available to you this round. As you play more games of Inis you’ll learn what cards are available and how to utilize them properly. Eventually you’ll figure out how to predict what someone is going to do based on the cards that you didn’t see, giving you the important information needed to counter their moves.
I found in my plays of Inis that someone ended up being a ‘kingmaker’. By choosing to attack player A instead of Player B, Player B was able to amass their armies and lead their clan to victory. Personally I don’t like being in the situation where my one choice to stop someone from willing will directly hand the victory to another player, but if that feature doesn’t bother you I highly recommend giving Inis a try!
52 – Karuba
Karuba is not the first Rudiger Dorn design on my list and it certainly isn’t the last. Karuba gives all players the exact same challenge, with the winner being the player who completes the challenge in the most efficient way possible. All the adventurers and temples start on the same space for each player. Every turn all players get the same road piece and have to place it somewhere on their board, or discard it to move their adventurers across the jungle, stopping to pick up gems across the way.
Karuba ends once one player has managed to get all four of their adventurers to all four temples, or when the deck of road tiles runs out. Karuba has a particularly excellent Tabletop Simulator mod available that allows it to be played start to finish in under 10 minutes. During the COVID season where my group was playing games exclusively online, Karuba was a standout hit. Unlike a lot of other games, Karuba is easier to play online than it is in person. Because it was so easy for us to play and played so quickly, it ended up being the game of choice to end the evening or for a quick game while waiting for the rest of the group to show up.
51 – The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth
The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth by Nathan Hajek and Grace Holdinghaus is almost the opposite of Karuba. It is a large sprawling adventure across Middle Earth managed via an app. I have small qualms with The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth due to the character choices and their accuracy in reference to the Lord of the Rings novels (Aragorn and Bilbo do not adventure together!), but overall I really enjoyed the game system. All of the equipment, combat, skills, and damage are managed by cards, and the enemies are plastic miniatures that are entirely controlled by the app. I enjoyed the app integration for The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth as it removed most of the tedium of managing the opponents and the environment, and got us back to playing our turns quickly.
The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth is on of the few campaign games that I’ve played all the way through to the end. I’m incredibly tempted to play through the main campaign again just to see where the story branches. I also really want to play the DLC stories, and get the Shadowed Paths expansion that adds in 6 more heroes (Gandalf and Balin) and a ton of new monsters and minis and another scenario to play. I saw recently that ANOTHER expansion was announced Spreading War that adds even more map tiles, roles, terrain types, heroes, and a 15 scenario story. If you have a proclivity to play the same game over and over, The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth has a ton of content to explore and more keeps coming out every year! Long may it continue!!
Race for the Galaxy is a tableau building game for 2-4 people designed by Thomas Lehmann. In Race for the Galaxy each player secretly chooses one of the actions they want to perform (2 actions if playing a 2 player game). The chosen actions are revealed simultaneously, and each player gets to perform each of the actions chosen by all players, with the person who chose the action getting a small benefit.
There is a interesting history of this game and how it relates to Puerto Rico, but I’m not here to talk about that. I’m here to tell you that Race for the Galaxy is a masterclass in engine building game design, and a 2 player game of Race for the Galaxy only takes 9 minutes on Boardgamearena.com. It’s amazing the quality of game design that has been achieved by Thoman Lehmann in such a small playtime. Factors such as tense decisions and satisfying resolutions contribute greatly to the game’s success. Most engine building or civilization building games take a lot of time to play (usually a couple of hours per game), so the fact that Race for the Galaxy can award its players with feelings of growth and achievement while boasting a shorter playtime is attractive to someone who doesn’t always have as much time to play games as he would like.
The BGA implementation of Race for the Galaxy also includes several expansions; The Gathering Storm, Alien Artifacts, and Xeno Invasion are some of the ones that I’ve tried, and the community is very healthy. I’ve never had to wait longer than a couple minutes for a game. I will say it is intimidating when playing against someone with over 3,000 plays, but when a game ends in 9 minutes, you can get crushed and just start again from scratch without any hard feelings.
Can’t Stop – 59 games
Can’t Stop is a push your luck game about rolling dice and moving up tracks. On your turn you roll 4 die, pair them up in any way you’d like, and progress on those tracks that match the numbers you have chosen. During your turn, you move black pieces that represent temporary progress. Once you’ve moved the black pieces up the track, you can choose to stop and save your progress, or you may roll again and continue moving up the tracks. Roller beware! If you happen to roll something that does not match your chosen numbers for that turn, all of your progress for that turn is lost and play passes to the next player. When you successfully reach the top of a column, you win that column (so long as you stop and save your progress), and no other players may continue climbing that number. The first player to win 3 columns is the winner!
Can’t Stop tends to be the game we play while we’re waiting for someone to join the group. It’s fast to play, and I enjoy chanting the name of the game as someone makes 12 rolls in a row, climbing higher and higher, only to bust and waste all of their progress. It creates some excellent moments.
Jaipur – 30 games
Jaipur, designed by Sébastien Pauchon, is a card drafting hand management game for 2 players. You each take turns collecting resources from the card row, either trading your existing cards or taking 1 card on its own. Eventually you sell your cards in sets, gaining tokens that represent victory points. The game ends when 3 of the 6 resources have been depleted.
I’ve always loved well-designed 2 player games, and Jaipur absolutely fits that bill. Jaipur is the kind of game where you and a friend can play dozens of games with each other and still find ways to upset the developing meta. There is plenty of luck in the game, so if a game doesn’t go your way you don’t feel too bad about the loss. Having said that, there is enough strategy that I have a 60% win rate (that sounded a lot more impressive in my head).
Through the Ages – 25 games (plus 8 games of through the ages: A new Story of Civilization)
Through the Ages is another one of those games that makes me question the distinction between board games and card games (although I also question whether the distinction is necessary). Through the Ages is a card drafting civilization game that takes you and up to 3 opponents from the age of antiquity all the way through to the modern ages. Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization is a remake of the game that rebalances a lot of the cards, adjusts a few of the mechanics, and adds some nice new art.
I’ve only played a physical game of this once, and it took hours to play. There are 30 tiny wooden cylinders to represent your citizens and resources, and tracks that need to be managed for each player to represent culture (points), military strength, and knowledge. Also, some of the turns can be quite involved, with lots of things chaining off one another. It’s awful when you get to the end of a 7-action turn only to realize you’re one stone short and need to start over from the beginning. The BGA implementation has completely replaced the tabletop version of this game for me, as I find that not needing to deal with the fiddly little bits and counting up all the various places that you get resources from makes the game much more enjoyable. On BGA, Through the Ages takes about 45 minutes to play, although it does play asynchronously very well and I would highly recommend it.
7 Wonders – 29 games
7 Wonders is a card drafting civilization building game where each player is trying to make their civilization the best in the world. The game consists of three decks of cards, each representing its own age. Each deck is divided into the number of players present. During play, each player will choose a card from their hand, then pass the rest of the cards to the next player. Choose wisely! You may see the cards you pass away again, but only after everyone else has had the opportunity to pick through and take what they want.
BGA has an excellent implementation of 7 Wonders that I’ve been using to bring my family together over the last year. The interface is easy to navigate and all the necessary information is readily available. The real strength of BGA is that it manages all of the rules for you. There’s no worry of someone accidently cheating by building the same card twice or ‘forgetting’ to pass the necessary coins to their neighbour. And when an easy-to-play game supports up to 7 players, I can get my entire family involved!
7 Wonders Duel – 21 plays
I’ve already gushed about 7 Wonders Dueland how much I enjoy it. It’s a fantastic 2-player card drafting game where you’re building your civilization head-to-head against your opponent. This is another instance where playing on BGA is fast and easy. A very active game, you’ll have no problem finding players to face off against, and a entire game should only last 10 – 15 minutes, assuming neither player goes AFK for some reason.
This is one of the few games where I dabbled BGA’s Arena mode. Arena mode is a competitive mode where you can earn points on each game you play and achieve higher ranks, proudly displaying your achievement to the world. Having a higher rank does nothing tangible, other than letting you show off how big your dick hat is.
BGA has the Agora expansion available to play right now, and the Pantheon expansion (which is a must play for experienced players) is currently in Alpha.
Targi – 16 games
Oh look, another 2-player only game on my list. Can you tell that I have a type?
Targi, designed by Andreas Steiger, is a cut-throat worker placement/set collection game. On your turn you place your 3 workers on spaces along the outside of the board. When all 6 workers have been placed, you draw a line from each of your workers and place a wooden cylinder where those lines would intersect. You then take all 5 of those actions in the order of your choosing. As an added twist, the game has a robber piece that moves around the board, and players may not place a worker on the same card that the robber occupies.
In Targi you’re trying to collect resources and spend them on tribe cards to place them into 3 rows in front of you. At the end of the game you get bonus points if all the cards in a row are the same suit, or if they’re all different suits (some of the cards will give you bonus points based on the cards and their positions in your row).
The cut-throat aspect of the game comes from maneuvering your workers to block the spaces your opponent so desperately needs, as you can’t place a worker directly across from another worker (after all, how would those lines intersect?). You’re constantly weighing the costs and benefits of spending your precious few workers. Should you claim a card that you desperately want? Or should your first action be to deny your opponent their needs? Targi is finely crafted and a joy to play, especially if your friend is willing to engage in some light trash talk, and won’t take it personally when you ice them out from a specific card for three turns in a row.
