Every year, I start this project with gusto, and usually by the time I get to the 60s, I’m regretting my life choices. It’s fun, but it’s also a soulcrushing grind, especially once you’ve posted the early parts of the list and you can feel the pressure to finish it. Also, it’s simultaneously happening with major life events like, you know, the need to actually do Christmas shopping for my kids, who would probably prefer something other than old magic cards under the tree.
So if you like what you’re reading, tell me! It means a lot and keeps me going! Even if you don’t like it, tell me you do! I need this! I’m a sad and lonely man!
Previously: 100-91 90-81 80-71
70. Zombicide: Undead or Alive
“Battle together to fight off zombies in the Old West… or die trying.”
Released: 2022
Designer: Raphaël Guiton, Jean-Baptiste Lullien, Nicolas Raoult
Players: 1-6
Estimated Time: 60 mins
New to List
Honestly, no Zombicide has ever grabbed me like this one. They all just seem so generic and blah. But for some reason, putting the entire thing in a western setting just WORKS for me.
It’s largely the classic Zombicide formula. Zombies spawn in large numbers. You slaughter them in large numbers. There are objectives on the map to deal with, and opportunities for players to search for weapons and provisions to succeed. Each character has unique abilities to help the group deal with this problem.
Why does this one work for me more? Again, I think it’s the Western setting. Our last campaign ended with my Lady of the Night tossing dynamite into massive zombie hordes from the whorehouse balcony to buy time for the rest of my party to board a rapidly departing freight train. This game just seems to CREATE STORIES, which is really what you want from your cooperative games.
69. Taiwan Night Market
“Bid for the stalls to attract customers at the night market.”
Released: 2023
Designer: Zong-Ger
Players: 2-4
Estimated Time: 60-80
New to List
Taiwan Night Market has a simple premise. People are trying to stumble home drunk after a hard night partying. And they’re hungry. Maybe you should feed them.
Players bid on stall locations upon each of the major paths. NPCs randomly spawn at the start of the paths, and are hungry for one of the major foot categories (boba or donuts, for example). They’ll stop at the first place that serves their preferred treat – something you can solve with clever marketing.
Taiwan Night Market is simple, evocative, and silly, with just the right amount of asshattery for a lightweight end-of-game-night title.
68. Libertalia: Winds of Galecrest
“Diverse pirate-animal crews take to the skies, dividing up powerful loot.”
Released: 2022
Designer: Paolo Mori
Players: 1-6
Estimated Time: 45-60 minutes
Last Year: 36
Libertalia is a pirate-themed game that is played over the course of three rounds. On each round, players are dealt a hand of six identical pirate cards, each of which has a numerical strength value and a superpower. Over six turns, each player will choose a card secretly. Once revealed, the cards are placed in order of numerical strength and then, one by one, their powers are resolved. The goal is to, ultimately, manipulate the turn order in which players will select their loot. Different loot scores differently, and thus different players are chasing different objectives.
Libertalia: WIngs of Galecrest is a new edition of the classic board game Libertalia. The new edition has streamlined rules and more possible hero cards to play. It also has… furry art. I mean, it’s not scandalous or anything, but a lot of people seem to prefer the more realistic human pirates of the original. *I* don’t, mind you, but I do feel like you should be informed on the matter.
67. On Mars
“Be a part of the first Martian colony, striving to be the best contributor.”
Released: 2020
Designer: Vital Lacerda
Players: 1-4
Estimated Time: 90-150 minutes
Last Year: 65
I think I’m getting old, because at one point I used to have 3 or 4 Vital Lacerda games on every list. Lacerda is the king of overcomplex, heavy Eurogames, where every action you take triggers other actions in a never-ending sea of combos and auxiliary actions. Kanban in particular is still very close to my heart, but it just doesn’t hit the table very often anymore.
If I’m in the mood for a Lacerda these days, I’m most likely to reach for On Mars, his take on Mars exploration and colonization. There’s a lot of reasons why, but I think a lot of it is that this theme is among his least abstract – things are complex, but most of the complexity makes sense for reasons beyond ‘this creates cool combos’. I still LIKE cool combos, but them having context that makes sense makes it a lot easier to teach and navigate the complexity.
66. Walk The Plank
“Push and pull your fellow pirates to be the last one on the ship. “
Released: 2013
Designer: Shane Steely, Jared Tinney
Players: 3-5
Estimated Time: 20 mins
Didn’t Appear Last Year (Appeared on Previous Lists)
A lightweight filler game. Each player controls a couple of pirates, who represent the worst, most disgraceful pirates on a ship. You’ve finally earned the wrath of your boss pirate and it’s time for you to go overboard. Your goal is to be the last to go overboard.
Players can play simple cards, moving one of their meeples forward or back along the 3-plank gangplank. They can also shove other players furhter out, or withdraw one segment of the gangplank. The goal is to be one of the last two pirates standing. This game is all pure, fast, fun asshattery.
65. Concordia Venus
“Merchants in the Roman Empire compete to amass the greatest amount of wealth.”
Released: 2018
Designer: Mac Gerdts
Players: 2-6
Estimated Time: 60-120
Last Year: 47
Concordia is a design marvel – it’s a meaty economic eurogame with a four page rulebook. Players will start near the center, and then work to spread their economic influence across the world. It’s surprisingly deep, and yet is an absolute breeze to teach.
The beauty of the game is the card-based action system. Each player starts with five cards, which is everything you can do. You play a card, and do what the card says. That’s your turn. Turns move fast and furious, and the teach is a breeze. Cards allow you to do simple things, such as move your agents around the board, build outposts, collect resources from those locations, sell your resources, or buy slightly more powerful (but not more complicated) cards.
The most important card allows you to pick up all of the discarded cards, resetting your hand and action options again. But still, most of the time, you’ll be trying to optimize a core set of actions.
One nice thing is that there are several expansions that are mostly just new maps. There’s actually a lively community discussion about which maps are the best for which player size. For what it’s worth, I’ve ranked Concordia Venus on this list because that’s the edition I own. But it’s functionally the same game, only with a few more rules and cards to allow for team-based play.
64. Roll Player
“Draft dice and purchase skills, traits and equipment to create the perfect RPG hero.”
Released: 2016
Designer: Keith Matejka
Players: 1-4
Estimated Time: 60-90
Last Year: 86
Are you the sort of sad soul who, as a child, had a D&D sourcebook and no friends to play with? Did you roll dozens of characters that never got played? Then boy, do I have a game for you. If not… well, I hope I didn’t just reveal too much about my childhood.
Roll Player is a dice drafting game, where players will slot dice into their core stats, which have crazy and indecipherable stats like strength, dexterity and charisma. You’ll be drafting your dice in such a way to earn bonuses from class, race and alignment cards – assuming you match certain goals of course. You’ll earn a little gold to get some gear that unlocks more powers or bonus points. You will absolutely have a dump stat.
Roll Player is not an RPG, but if you have any history with classic dice-based RPGs, it will strike a chord with you, deep in your soul. And yet, the dice drafting puzzle is a fun, intricate and occasionally deep puzzle to solve. It’s a relatively easy teach and pretty easy to get to the table.
If you do pick it up and enjoy it, you may want to consider picking up the Monsters & Minions expansion. I don’t always recommend expansions – most games, frankly, don’t need expansions and they often complexify setup and teaches far greater than the added fun they provide. But Roll Player is an exception – it’s a simple enough game as it is, and adding a minor layer where you can kill monsters just seems to make so much sense.
63. My Father’s Work
“Continue the work of a mad scientist over the course of three generations.”
Released: 2022
Designer: TC Petty III
Players: 2-4
Estimated Time: 180 Mins
Last Year: 17
Imagine shortly after your dad croaked, you went through his papers and discovered he was that close to realizing his dream of zombifying a dead dog. Now imagine you dug deeper and realized that his grand dream of building Frankenstein’s monster was within reach. And you decided to continue his work. That’s the premise of My Father’s Work.
Each player plays as the child of a different mad scientist, who is intent on furthering… scientific progress. All of you live near the same poor beleagered town, which is a handy source of resources. Like, um, corpses from the graveyard. Which are represented by little coffin tokens. The components of this game are among the most awesome I’ve ever played with.
What makes My Father’s Work interesting is that its a worker placement game, but the ‘board’ that represents the town you live near is a spiral book, and as you and the table make decisions and achieve objectives, the town may change… by having you all turn to a different page in the book. It’s a worker placement game, but it’s one with a sense of history. And it absolutely drips with the victorian mad scientist vibe.
My one knock on this game is that it’s long. That 180 minute time estimate seems roughly accurate… for three players. I can only imagine it gets considerably longer with four. But that length isn’t really complexity – this game is not a hard teach. It is a meaty yet rewarding experience, though, if you have a table that wants to immerse themselves in the life of a mad scientist for a while.
62. Azul: Summer Pavilion
“You’re an artisan working on creating striking patterns within a king’s palace.”
Released: 2019
Designer: Michael Keisling
Players: 2-4
Estimated Time: 30-45 mins
Didn’t Appear Last Year (Appeared on Previous Lists)
If you’re looking for a lightweight game with a small amount of asshattery, it’s hard to go wrong with an Azul game. Every year, I alternate between putting Azul Summer Pavilion or Azul Stained Glass of Sintra on the list. You honestly can’t go wrong with any of them, although I prefer these two because the core Azul has the opportunity for some profound evil, and these more recent titles offer ways to mitigate that somewhat.
The general premise of all these games is simple – tiles are randomly placed on drink tokens, and then players go around, one-by-one taking all of the tiles of one color from a single coaster and throwing them in the middle, in an attempt to complete patterns on their own playmat. Any other tiles on that coaster are thrown in the center, which becomes a valid position to choose from – and which can accrue massive tile piles for you to pull from. But be careful – getting TOO many tiles can hurt you, and not completing patterns can clog up the works.
Azul games are all gorgeous, incredibly tactile and relatively simple to teach. And while they aren’t as popular as they used to be, Azul still remains an incredibly popular brand of lightweight filler games.
61. Flamecraft
“In a magical realm a village awakes, and artisan dragons make coffee and cakes! “
Released: 2022
Designer: Manny Vega
Players: 1-5
Estimated Time: 60 mins
New to List
I wasn’t expecting to like Flamecraft. I mean, look at it. It’s very… cute. Look at those dragons. They’re adorable. Yes, this is a nice economic sim, but it’s also got more sugar than my Texas grandma’s old sweet tea. And yet…
Players will be using their dragons to become the most famous dragon enchanters in this adorable village. To do this, they’ll be placing dragons in different shops in a worker placement game. Most of the time, they’ll be placing a dragon card there from their hand. If they do the latter, they can also activate a dragon in that location.
Alternatively, they can enchant the shop, which is the primary way to earn victory points, and also allows them to activate ALL the dragons in the shop. My primary knock on the game is that it’s table presence is perhaps TOO sprawling – this game board is ridiculously long. But it’s also charming and endearing, and if your table can stomach the excessive cuteness, it’s worth a look.
Recent Comments