My Top 10 Favorite Games of 2023

hi I'm Jamie from still Meer games and today is January 1st 2024 so I have now played all of the games that I will play in 2023 and so it's time for me to talk about my favorite games that I played last year here and for this type of list I focus on games that were widely available for the first time in 2023 that is subject to some debate and that's okay I'd rather debate focus on the games rather than the eligibility though so let me start off with some of the games from St games my company that I released this year you won't see these games on this list because um or at least on my top 10 even though I love them because I don't want to make them eligible for this list I I don't I don't think that's quite fair I'm a little biased here so we had the first game that we actually the first product we released this year was tapestry fantasies and Futures the third expansion to tapestry um later on in the year we also released kind of an expansion it doesn't really expand wingspan the wingspan fan art pack it's 255 birds that are already found in wingspan but with new art by wingspan fans we also had two new games uh Expeditions this is the Ironclad Edition there's also the standard edition with plastic mix instead of metal mechs this is my uh squel to sidee and then we have Connie vman's debut game apiary um both of these are one to five player competitive engine building games seems to be the sweet spot for St wire games um so those games were both released in 2023 and also we as usual we had a number of um realms for Rolling Realms Realms and like mini expansions like this for Rolling Realms these are all the Realms we have now in Rolling Realms so you can play there's so many different combinations that you can play with in Rolling Realms and we have more to come in 2024 so yeah those are the still meire products for 2023 let's now talk if I get the focus back here we'll talk about 2020 uh other games for 2023 so um let's see uh so we'll start with so have some big categories that I want to focus on before I get to the top 10 and I hope these aren't skipped over because these categories are really a big deal so uh after this one next category this is 2023 releases that I haven't had the chance to to try yet and yet I'm really excited to play these games Ticket to Ride Legacy the White Castle The Witcher old world MV Imperial miners station fall Waffle Time and votes for women I haven't had the chance to play these games there are many other games I didn't also have the chance to play I think I played around maybe 150 new to me games this year 125 150 but I didn't get to play these games and I'm excited to try them later on let's go to my favorite expansion first and I want to share my other screen here my favorite expansion of the year is the role player Adventures expansion go packs the secret this is a seven game campaign EXP expansion for the campaign game role player adventures and it's a 10 out of 10 expansion for me it's an incredible expansion it's it is essentially its own game um except that you need some of the components many of the components from role player Adventures but uh it's amazing it's it's an amazing role player role playing game in a box um where it really feels like a role playing game you're making a wide variety of choices that have uh immediate and long-term consequences there's a fun puzzle with the dice uh it it works incredibly well competitively I played it two players with Megan and I love this expansion I think this is this it's just an incredible achievement of an expansion um honorable mentions are uh Marine worlds for arcn NOA and the missing Expedition for lost runs of arnac I didn't actually play that many expansions this year but both of these definitely deserve to be on on my list in my opinion I I thought these were both excellent expansions just uh gold back of secret happens to be an incredible achievement um so that is my my number one expansion for this year go back to secret is also my favorite campaign game of the year however I also wanted to give the honor to one other game that was a standalone uh you Standalone campaign within itself not an expansion because there were some expansion uh campaign expansions and so sagata Artisans will be my favorite Campa Standalone campaign game for the year after goldpack the secret um other honorable mentions are oathsworn the missing Expedition for lost horns of arnac and sleeping Gods distant Skies which we just started I'm really enjoying it but Gold packs the secret I still know is going to Trump um everything that we played in terms of campaigns for the last year and so gr Artisans was a really wonderful campaign that we had a blast playing through as well so that's my favorite campaign game U my favorite Sequel and new so there are some great sequels and new editions of games that came out this year that were released this year and my number one favorite is one I discovered right near the end of the year and that is Santa's Workshop this is a delightful game and really it's two games in one you have the advanced side of the board which is um they're both worker placement games but it is a worker placement game with a strong engine building element to it and then you have the standard version of the board which is a little easier to learn a little little easier to teach does not have engine building and yet still has a wonderful positive player interaction worker placement puzzle some set collection some other things going on that uh that really enjoy it I I highly recommend this I look forward to playing this even when it's not December but I know that I'll bring it back to the table every December to play um so Santa's Workshop is my number one sequel or new edition of 2023 um honorable mentions are raw sleeping Gods distant Skies castles and burgundy collector edition and age of innovation uh the kind of sequel to both guy project and ter mystica and teranova there's a bunch of games in that series now um yeah so that's Santa's Workshop it's my number one Sequel and New Edition I have six games that I'm calling my favorite new to me games released before 20203 and uh these six in no particular order are Marvel remix box one honga St Patrick twinkle Starship and ETO I've talked about all of these except I think ETO has not come up on the YouTube channel yet but I do have a video about that coming out soon um all these are delightful games that came out uh prior to 2023 mostly on the Lighter Side Hong is a little bit heavier maybe a medium light game but most are on the light side but all I really really enjoyed and all I can see myself playing in the future as well I don't play a lot of digital games but I tried to play a few more this year because I do like learning from digital games and my number one favorite digital game that I played this year was a short hike I adored a short hike this is a small open world game um with very easy traversal mechanisms and it's a game where you really need to use your eyes to look around and see the things the game doesn't really tell you anything that you need to know you need to Discover it for yourself and look around and Discover it I have a video about it I adored this game I really really adored a short hike definitely my favorite digital game that I played in 2023 even though it is a little bit older I'm talking about games that at least for this category I'm talking about games that I played for the first time in 2023 um honorable mentions include Legends of Runa the last campfire and wild Frost um my favorite so really this is probably my favorite game of the year or arguably my favorite game of the year um I had the pleasure of going on the Star Wars Galactic star Cruiser Mega game experience in Orlando Florida before it closed it closed in September so it's unfortunately done unless they decide hopefully maybe someday to bring it back for a month or two every year it was an incredible experience um and it really it is a game on many many different levels it's a game on as deep of a level as you want it to be while you're playing it I have a whole video where I Rave about you can see one of the longest videos I filmed here 51 minutes I I had an absolutely incredible time um and probably one of the most immersive games that I'll ever play and I'm so glad that I got to do it um I have a video on it that I'll link in the description here but yeah that perhaps probably my favorite gaming experience not a tabletop game experience but my Pro my favorite gaming experience in 2023 was the star Wars Galactic star Cruiser also I got to play another Mega game called the den of wolves den of wolves it's a Loosely based on Battle Star Galactica at a big nerd geeky weekend with some friends that I that I participated in and that was awesome too definitely didn't have the production values of the Star Wars Galactic star Cruiser but I still really enjoyed it I appreciate all the effort that was put into it and I had a good time with it so those are Mega games uh before okay so now some C some general categories before I get to the top 10 so 2024 releases that I'm the most excited about long list here the seven Citadel myth wind Star Realms rise of Empire roboman tidle blades 2 Creature Caravan Luddite cherri undergrow kelp mons and mages flame and Fang kavango diomes Millennia Stone spying Architects Kraken skulls Thom Clank Legacy 2 let's go to Japan eosera and an age contrived my top F picks for that I'm excited about it for 2024 Ambassador pick so I asked ambassadors so my ambassadors to list their favorite games of 2023 and they picked many of them you know there're some are ambassadors uh many did pick apar in Expeditions if they did I asked them asked them to also pick another game uh the top pick of all ambassadors was Earth that was shown the most maybe even more than AP Expeditions but it was pretty close with those two or those three Ticket to Ride Legacy Darwin's Journey distilled Star Wars deck building game four for Shuffle heat hemony ISS Vanguard kfire Chronicles lorana nucleum Scholars of the South tigis spots the fox fox experiment the White Castle The Witcher old world and Thunder Road Vendetta all top Ambassador picks for 2023 I asked my co-workers what their top picks are for this year um Susanna said her top three were Earth apiary and force Shuffle Joe said his favorite was Dune Imperium Uprising Dave said his favorite were hegemony and fun facts opposite ends of the spectrum there I love that Dave picked both of those games uh Alex said Earth Thunder Road and nucleum and Allen uh two more here Allan said Planet B and power plants and last Shannon our project manager at Panda who works a lot with us feels like a cooworker Shannon said Ticket to Ride Legacy and nucleum last my honorable mentions that didn't quite make the top 10 um are Disney lurana heat Scholars of the South Tigris 535 unrest nucleum last Light Rebel princess Sky Team the veil of Eternity and dwarf romantic those close out my honorable mentions for 2023 let's get to the top 10 that's probably why you're here and number 10 probably the most debatable as to whether or not should be on this list or not number 10 is Challengers here's Challengers over here so Challengers I think maybe was available for some people in 2022 not available for for me or or at least I didn't have access to it until 2023 um I played it I haven't played it online yet on wargame Marina I've only played it in person I played a giant game of it a 16 person game of Challengers uh at The Gamers Ranch this summer I played a game of it at another big gaming event with eight people it just it's a wonderful game that scales up I I love the autoplay element of it the idea that you were crafting this deck but then when you actually play through the deck it's just plays itself um which sounds like it's less of a game as a result but I would argue it's more of a game as a result that's what's make it that's what makes this game unique that you have the deck building combined with this element that you are setting up your deck to do something for you but you don't have control over it for the most part when you're actually playing through these little quick Duss um I had a blast with Challengers I look forward to playing it more I look forward to playing the sequel the uh the beach themed sequel later this year um I guess it's out now I could play it at any time but I don't have access to it yet but I look forward to trying it and Challengers yeah one of the my favorite like larger group games of 2023 that actually still does scale down to lower player counts so that is Challengers at number 10 at number nine I have the fox experiment by wingspan designer Elizabeth Hargrave and Jeff framer Frasier um the fox experiment I've only gotten to play this one once so far but I really really adored my play of it so in the fox experiment you are breeding foxes and in doing so you are creating these new foxes so you're you're you have these these foxes that you're pairing together you were you're trying to domesticate them essentially you're rolling some dice based on what those foxes tell you to roll and then you are creating a new Fox and that new fox has traits based on what you roll it has a new name and some of those traits determine what dice that fox Will Roll because that fox will then enter the general supply for anyone to draft the next round including maybe you but probably someone else and then you'll use that fox for the Next Generation to to uh to uh breed and and uh create a new Fox that will be probably even better and so you have this strong sense of creation throughout the game and not just creation for yourself but creation for the entire table lots of positive player interaction in the game I really really like the fox experiment I look forward to playing it some more so that's the fox experiment at number nine for me at number eight we have first in flight from two designers that I've had the pleasure of working with Ben and Matthew Al Ben Ross at Matthew Al uh this is a game where it it's what is that quite worker placement it is a a one-way action selection game where you have this one-way action selection track you can advance as far along that track as you want uh to gain a benefit that you're really looking forward to taking and that's combined with a deck building element the deck building only impacts when you try to actually fly so let's see if I can give you here's a shot of the board here um so this is the one-way action selection track here around around the town essentially as you are piecing together an airplane figuring out what works with that airplane what doesn't as you go on test flights and the whole goal of the game is to try to have a flight that is at least I believe it was 40 meters maybe 42 but I think it's 40 meters um try to stay in the air for that long and that's you going through your deck trying to stay in the air deciding when you want to stop if you want to push your luck and go a little bit further than you actually think maybe you can just to get a little bit more distance a little farther than the other players the game has lots of great tension in it lots of great thematic elements one of the best thematic Euros I think of the year and i' I've had a lot of fun teaching and playing it um yes and really has two my favorite mechanisms this push your luck mechanism the deck building added to the oneway action selection track I I love all those mechanisms and how they come together in this game that's First in Flight at number eight at number seven raising robots one of the heavier games that I played this year and yet it plays Super smoothly because it is a simultaneous action game this is a tableau building game in the vein of games like Earth and uh and wings span where you're kind of building a a family of robots and simultaneously with other players you're you're deciding what type of action is going to be really or two actions will be really important for you to to uh to take that that round and you might also get be able to take some other actions based on actions that other players charged up it's a game of largely converting resources into other resources and converting those resources into points um or converting them into something that can allow you to play a robot which is also equal Point equal to points but the order of operations puzzle feels really good there's a little bit of forward planning um but you can also just run your engine and see what happens and that feels really good too uh and I love this this whole element of um the simultaneous Action System where there's a little bit of Randomness these two cards that you're seeing are random uh you you don't know exactly which ones are going to come up but then you get to to pair two actions of your choice with those those uh those these PowerUp cards and that you also get to um potentially take actions that other players set up for all players to take it all feels really good it feels smooth this is maybe one of the few games this year that I I played one night and then played immediately afterwards um because we had so much fun so that is Raising robots at number seven on my list next up we have a game that arguably came out in 2022 in fact that what B would would tell us uh but I had my first exposure to it in 2023 I think it wasn't widely available in the US until 2023 and that is I should say the name of the game first rat this is another one-way action selection track game you can see the track here you go here's a nice photo of this track that you were advancing on um starting down here and moving up this track trying to build a spaceship to send the rats to a to the the che the moon made of cheese um it's a fun whim Whimsical theme but it has a lot of uh it has not just one action sele or one oneway action selection track but it has like three of them there's one down here at the bottom of the board there's the main one for Action spaces where you can move either one rat or multiple rats and it also has uh This little light bulb track that's along here too that has another benefit that that it gives you as you as you advance on the game so I love the combination of multiple one-way action selection tracks um and it's I don't know it just it's a delightful game it's a really really Charming game um if I I haven't played it in a few months now if I had played it more recently it might even be up higher up on the list but I've been delighted by I believe the two or three times that I've played first rat and I look forward to playing again just look at this photo makes me want to play it again to self the puzzle a little bit differently and I I love the variability in the game too because even with this the core board where nothing changes there's a lot of variability based on what other players choose and which cards and abilities are available that game but you can also completely randomize all these different action spots these action spots right here so that they are random you can do that on the back side of the board first rout fantastic game fantastic like mediumweight game with a fun WN win Whimsical theme built into significant elements of the game really love this game first rat at number six for my list and number five on the list is one that caught me completely off guard this is blob party this is a Cooperative large group kind of social game plays up to I believe eight players let me see if I had that right for blob party uh yeah 48 players and this is a game that is essentially the opposite of just one in just one you are trying to give Clues to help someone cooperatively but to give a clue that no one else has given and blah party you are trying to give the same answer as everyone else and each player has this little Playdoh ball that they are combining with other players when you manage to write down the same thing as everyone else based on a clue that you have a a category and a word here's some some examples of it so the the CATE category might be books and then the exact clue is hat and so you need to think of write down something that uh within the category of books that is it talks about a hat that is that makes you think of a hat without actually writing down the word hat so you're trying to write down the same thing as everyone else and anyone that you match with you join their blob you you and then from then on you present a single answer together with those players um so you have the sense of uh of ongoing cohesion and it's typically builds towards a moment in the game where everyone is part of one blob and one person is left out and then you're really actively trying to think what will what would this person write down you're not just thinking in general what in general people might write down but what is this specific person going to write down or this pair of people if there's a a final blob pair I've just I've had a blast every time I've played blob party I've introduced it to a ton of people already and I look forward to playing more of it as kind of a go-to short filler activity game that we might multiple times on a night um that is blob party number five I I really really enjoyed this game from Pam walls at number four okay so I guess I should preface this a little bit um my top four were really difficult to figure out I got to this point on the list as much as I love raising robots first rap blw party as as long as much as I love all the games on this list when I got to the top four I had a hard time thinking about it I think these games could be on any in any order on any given day based on who I'm playing with how long I have played or haven't played one of these games how much I'm thinking about it but I did try to order them for the sake of a top 10 list so at number four I have Forest Shuffle Forest Shuffle is a tableau building games game where you're playing either trees or you're playing animals under those trees and it features these really adorable let's see if I can find an example here's the trees uh it features these split cards I love this mechanism in Forest Shuffle where these split cards are either divided uh down the middle I don't know if you can quite see it here or divided uh divided vertically or horizontally basically so you have two cards built into one and you were deciding do I want to slide this card under a tree to the left of the tree here you can see a card that's split top bottom which part of the tree am I going to slide it under am I gon to slide it under this way so only so I'm playing this card under the tree or am I gonna slide it on this side so I'm playing this card because each tree unless there's a few exceptions to it but in general um you can only play a card one card per side of a tree so you're filling up this Forest you're populating this Forest one tree at a time by filling it with different animals and fauna and Flora it is a wonderful engine game or engine building uh uh Forest themed nature game that I've had a wonderful time with you can play it on board game arena but I highly recommend getting the actual tabletop version because it looks great on the table it's really easy to get to the table you're basically just shuffling up a deck of cards and starting to play and um the just the abilities and Variety in the game that that happen every time you play because of this giant deck of cards is delightful U yeah I I highly highly recommend for Shuffle especially if you like um wingspan I I think I think wingspan fans will really really adore Forest Shuffle and I've had a wonderful time with it and look forward to playing it a lot more say for Shuffle at number four at number three I have a pusher luck game that completely caught me off guard I had had no idea what to expect from this game this is the game spots this is a lighter Pusher luck game with a ton of variability thanks to different tiles um in the game you have on your turn you're you're choosing one of six abilities or possibly one of six depends on what other players have chosen as well if another player chose like ability three that ability is flipped over so I can't use that ability I can't use that trick is what they call it in the game um so I have the choice of those cards uh and I'm trying to fill up there's a dog blade that's adorable I'm trying to fill up the cards in the game with the corresponding dice so you have these oddl looking dice I mean they're d6s but they I like that they didn't go with a standard D6 um excuse me but you're trying to fill up your dogs with these dice using the six abilities here's the six abilities of the tables you're choosing one of these abilities rolling some dice based on what that ability tells you to do sometimes pushing your luck and placing those dice on the dogs and ideally filling up those dogs and then completing them once you complete them you can't bust if you you do bust and busting means that the game shows it right here if you ever have if you ever can't place Dice and the number of D or the sum of the dice that you have to bury under your dogghouse add up to greater than seven then you bust and you lose all dice that are on your dogs your incomplete dogs so there's this great Pusher luck mechanism where you really feel like you're always in the game until the very end uh because you can you can really push and try to complete a bunch ofg dogs all at once um I've had a delight teaching this game I've had a delight playing this game it is a good Pusher luck game there isn't a sense of progression to it as most games are that I have that I that I really enjoy and yet I have delighted been have had a delightful time every time I've played it if you like Pusher luck games or games where you're rolling big handfuls of dice I highly recommend uh spots it's a it's a really delightful game with beautiful art too so that is spots at my number three my number two both of these games showed up on my top 10 games of all time Timeless back in September right now my top three my top two game for 2023 is Earth Earth is again in the vein of wingspan for Shuffle which I mentioned earlier it is a tableau building game where I am you're building your own little Private Island trying to achieve a bunch of public goals that you can see here um while piecing together this island let's see if I can get a photo of the island yeah here's kind of the island it's a 4x4 grid that you're trying to make of a ton of cards that and one of the things I love about this Tableau in particular is not just are you are you're not just playing cards into your Tableau but you're also placing tokens two different types of tokens on those cards that do different things mean different things depending on your Tableau on the cards I love that and also like raising robots earlier it is a simultaneous action game where there is an active player in this game the active player is choosing one of these four actions that you can see up here this looks like a prototype what we're seeing here because these boards don't actually fold but you're choosing one of these four actions you get a stronger version of that action everyone else gets a weaker version simultaneously of that action and all players activate all cards that have the color of that action so if I activate say this red action uh I get the most powerful version all the players get a weaker version of it and all players activate all red abilities in their Tableau including these cards here so it feels I mean it it's a game that has a lot of deep choices that you're making a lot of interesting choices but it happened the flow of the game is so smooth because it's all high happening simultaneously um yeah I I I love this game I I've had a blast playing it Susanna was very kind to bring me back some playmats from uh from Essence Spiel so I have some fanasy playmats to play on now I have loved playing Earth talking about it right now like like what's happens with my favorite games talking about it makes me want to get Earth to the table and build an island it is so satisfying to build that Island both the cards and to put so many things on to have this 3D presence on the island that you've built yeah I adore Earth I've had a wonderful time playing it and is my number two favorite game of 2023 my number one favorite game though and this was again a very tough debate between these top four especially these top two I'm going with the Star Wars deck building game uh I said that my favorite gaming experience of this year was the Star Wars Galactic star Cru star Cruiser and yeah Star Wars is GNA take it take my favorite tabletop game too because I think this is a wonderful dueling game one player plays as the Empire the other plays is the Rebellion here's some f components here and the theme of the game I think is done beautifully I'm trying to get to a photo so I can actually show show the theme looks like fanasy components here but the heart of the game is this card row it's a deck building game where you interact with the card row and not so much the other player but this card row works really really well in that uh you can see how these cards are facing one player not the other so these are facing the um I guess we're sitting in the the position of the the Rebellion right now and the card is mostly face up facing the Empire player so that means the Empire player can buy these cards on their turn they can spend this currency to gain these cards into their deck however as the Rebellion I can try to remove these cards from the card row before the Empire gets to it so instead of spending currency I can use the kind of the attack value in the game to destroy this card before my opponent can get to it and if I do that then I get a bonus I get a special bonus and so it has this wonderful form of player interaction without hurt actually hurting the other players's engine you're kind of hurting the engine before they even get to build it uh you're saying okay I I really don't want this other player to have the Death Trooper I'm gonna take out this Death Trooper before they have it but once that player actually has the Death Trooper you can't do anything about it it's in their deck you have to deal with it um there's so much I can talk about this game the other one other thing I'll mention is that I really like the base system the bases in the game so the whole point of the game the goal of the game is to destroy three bases of the opponent there's some other variants that you can play but that's that's the standard way destroy three bases and so there's no victory points there's no there's no even real life to the game uh you're not destroying the other player you're destroying their bases and on top of this that in itself is a neat system but on top of that the bases each have a special ability and so whenever someone destroys your base you get to look through all the other bases that you have and you get to choose your next base and put that base into play and that player uh at least at the beginning of your next turn and uh that is the new base that the other player has to deal with it often had has either an ongoing ability or a one-time ability let's see if we can find some examples here these bases there's Darth Vader himself um but yeah here uh which base do we have so we have corellia right now as as uh the base I think that might be the starting base for the the rebels or no for the um the Empire but uh yeah the the whole base system this idea of this moment where you get to look through these cards and pick the one that's that's right for you and you're doing it while the opponent is taking their turns you're not even even slowing down their turn it's a it's a wonderful deck building game uh it's one when I uh went to the gamers Ranch this past year I think my friends weren't quite aware of the game yet and we got it to the table and it was probably the most played game of The Gamers Ranch weekend people just played it over and over again back to back they'd switch roles they'd switch player they find another player to teach and show people were just eager to show other people this game um and I was one of those people because I really really adore this game I hope there's an expansion someday I don't think the game necessarily needs it but I would love to see more characters from the Star Wars Universe in the game and see what interesting mechanisms the designer comes up with but uh as a whole I love the game so yeah that is Star Wars the deck building game as my number one favorite game of 2023 that's my list I would absolutely love to hear your thoughts on the games that I've talked about today I'd also love to hear your favorite games maybe your top three favorite games of 2023 I'd also love to hear your favorite uh digital game your favorite sequel or New Edition your favorite campaign game and your favorite expansion if you feel comfortable sharing that information in the comments I'd really genuinely love to hear it and maybe even love to hear why you pick those games if you want to share that as well I look forward to a wonderful world of gaming in 2024 and talking about a ton of new games with you I'll see you then see you in 2024 thanks

Channel: Stonemaier Games

Views: 18,758

Keywords: game design, board games, tabletop games

Id: K1xKkfHSb28

Length: 31min 27sec (1887 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 07 2024