Top 10 Casual Two-Player Games

[Music] [Music] boom it was a little too late yeah yeah okay let me try again start it now right hey everybody i'm tom vassell i'm z garcia what's happening i'm mike d'alessio and we're here for another top ten this is a re-done version of a list we did three or four years ago of top 10 casual two-player games which leads you to believe we will do another one of these two player games for gamers but these are not for game well these could be for games for gamers too oh here we go that's getting into trouble stars yeah what does casual mean i pause it okay here we go what do you guys think actually where'd your mind go my mind is either one of two things either it's somebody who does not who's either new to gaming and or just wants to play a casual game i can't you shouldn't use the definition in the thing but ideally no it's a game that i don't think takes an immense amount of brain power it could you could put a lot of effort into the game because you can do that with almost any game sure but a game then i just want to have a good time does it require a lot of brain power can be played like you said by someone who isn't really into gaming games normally that's where you're at well this is not a gotcha i'm not trying to set you up you do it so much i don't know i'm just curious just get right it's basically you've seen a venus you're about to get wrecked what's the name of that guy who comes out of the closet didn't you catch a predator he's like chris what are you basically it's a game that doesn't fit on the other list the the the cause we're gonna do a two-player yeah we'll call it's a complicated or strategy advantage so it's not on one of those and i thought this is a game that i could play with anybody how's that i can play this with anybody as opposed to there's a lot of games i'll be like i'll play this with roy right so the other day me and roy played ashes i wouldn't play ashes with anybody sure i wouldn't play magic the gathering with anybody no but i play him with roy and i mean that literally i will not play magic the gathering with anybody right because you're a solo gamer and your list is worthless we're gonna as play the lord of is yours one when we sit there no i'll absolutely play i've played magic before it's just not really no proof of that what about you mike what do you got as far as casual you're kind of more or less where he's at if you don't like i want to hear yours first and i'll tell you why in a moment i was flemished okay uh that's the right word is good yeah that's how i felt and so i went and just looked up the definition as per a dictionary and that was what you'd expect you know but then i i was looking at the synonyms or something in the in the realm see what would help me sort of zero in what i wanted so i wrote them all down or a few i thought were neat casual friendly relaxed was a good one friendly would have been a better thing top 10 friendly two players well i'm glad we didn't choose that because many of my games might be confrontational yeah oh yeah they could be like sort of games for friends and are we doing the games for enemies list mike wouldn't be able to put it in games wow here we go oh my goodness anyway uh relaxed informal but what i really liked was unpretentious mm-hmm unpretentious sir yeah there's something about that because you know what when you stop and you sort of take off your i'm a gamer hat and step back and look at board gaming as a whole there are a lot of board games that are or seem pretentious yeah it's true you look at them as someone who is just used to going to target which is great these days with the stuff they've got but you look at some of these other games and you go that looks pretentious i don't know what it is right it looked complicated and pretentious sure so i was avoiding that kind of vibe really mainly what i was going for so yeah all right well you two went with the the lucy goosey here we go no i just want to add i want to add i felt i feel this way also in regards to theme okay the game might be simple but if the theme is very esoteric or weird or or very specific historical theme that like i saw someone mentioned in comments watergate i like watergate a lot but there's a lot of people i know who don't want to ever play a game very specific historical game i also would not consider that to be a casual game because i it might make the other list because it's a very good two-player game but i don't consider that a casual game see you you went with more of the loosey-goosey ethereal you know i went with rock solid science i went with metrics that you can count on okay i went with games he would play i went with bgg weight rankings oh no that's right crowd is the list you made basically here's what i did here here's my promise pgt stands for boardgamegeek.com boardgamegeek.com here's my promise to you the audience the dice tower audience no games on my list will be above 2.0 on the bgg scale really that's right if you'd needed the clarification from tom as to what board game geek and this is a good list that was meaningless what he just said if now i will tell you and all joking aside i think you're right i don't think it's a very helpful rank uh metric in many cases but it did help me with this i and it just worked out nicely that it narrows your focus it did narrow my focus i'm curious how much crossover we're gonna have we'll find out i'm very excited i think you're going to be surprised at some of the weight rankings on these yes because they're garbage and i also will be because i never look at that trash all right let's go here we go uh the order is me first usually it's me first it goes first then mr z garcia that's right then mr thomas vassell esquire age before flumixed all right my number 10 is advanced squad no i'm just kidding my number 10 is actually the heaviest game on my list coming in at a 2.0 on the vgg all right i'm all i'm going to milk this for all this all right this is an also a very new game this is let's make a bus route the dice game this is a dice game version of another game called let's make a bus route which is a that was a flip and right this is more of a rolling right you got your dice there and it is played on a you have your own player board but there's also a shared player board out there that is dry erase as you can see in the in the picture there it's a delightful little game where you are planning out your best bus routes trying to pick up particular passengers in the most efficient way possible to get points it has very charming art a very cute aesthetic uh it is a game that there's gonna be a winner at the end and you are trying to win but there's minimal interaction i would say there's a bit of interaction there but it's a it's a really really clever and breezy um it's i wouldn't call it necessarily super light because there's you know multiple things you have to consider as far as types of things to do but but uh yeah this was uh this is this is a solid pick my only thing i would say it kind of can be a trip can trip people up is the whole like you have two kinds of turns right like you are first player right there's a two-player game only okay so some of these will be only for two some will be can be played at two right but anyway when you are the first player you have a different turn than when you are a second player right it's almost like in a split and choose type of a thing in a way like yeah you're when you're the first player you're doing a particular thing with dice you're doing a different thing with dice as the second player but that you're right that's a little bit and that's why it's the heaviest on this scale i don't care about that stupid stupidity what i want to talk about is how x how available is this game well uh it's that's a good that's a fair point i think right now the bgg store you can get it i feel like this is a commercial for board game geek right now but i think right now right now easiest way to get it and this is actually no joke right now the dice tower promos from not this year not this year's promos last year's promos are available at a board game geek store they just went up now yeah just got an email about that so check those out and while you're there you might want to pick up let's make a bus route because it's a really that's exactly right um and says i'm glad you mentioned this really quickly most of my lists in keeping with not being loosey-goofy like you two most of my games are two player only games i think there's no we didn't even talk about that i think there's only one of these games that were not specifically designed as a two-player game i don't follow any of this garbage my games work great with two players and one two three four-ish five six ish seven can only be played with two seven can only be okay seven and well two of them claim to be more than two but those are like i have one that's the same way it claims to be but it's a lie okay that was my number ten six that can only be played with two but that doesn't matter if i want looking for a good two no but i'm saying if i'm looking for a good two player game why would i restrict myself the games that are only with two that's absolutely no absolutely no i just look up even if you never utilize it at more than two it doesn't really matter i get it i just wanted a pure list i i see which direction you are going but okay well my number 10 entry has a bgg weight of 2.37 did you look it up now my number 10 pick is a game called tides of time time is a two player only card game with very few cards there's about 16 of them or so these are large gorgeous gorgeously illustrated cards with a couple of symbols on the cards and you are simply on your turn looking at a few of them picking one you want to keep and you know keeping that and then passing your hand to the other player who will give you their hand and therefore you will be drafting a few cards once that's done you'll score based on which things you kept you might keep a card because it gives you a scoring opportunity and they have that written out or you might keep a card because it has a symbol in the top corner as to what realm it belongs to or what have you and you need that symbol for those other scoring opportunities so it's it's this sort of push and pull between two things i like this card i like what it scores for i don't like its symbol it's not helping anything else do i keep it do i know you know what things do i shoot for some goals some of those scoring things are easy to achieve and they'll give you three points some say have these you know all these symbols and that's 10 points but that's all or nothing right if you don't get all those symbols that's no points so are you a risk taker right and you also get to see that hand go back and forth a couple times so you know there's something in there you want back and you're sitting there waiting on them to pick a card and hoping that's not it so this is fun it's it's um it's pretty easy to get into it does feel kind of breezy it plays in three rounds but the whole thing only takes 20 minutes or so is this simpler than the tides of madness so it's kind of a great theme right yeah so tides of madness i like it better than tides of time but it's it's a slice bit more complicated because you can go crazy got it so this is a little bit um casual also like the horror theme is everyone's cup of tea yeah this is sort of a pretty theme that's it this is a game that i actually did not like that i remember when we first played i didn't like it at all and i slowly got liked a little bit more i like it a lot more now that someone's really grown on me but the app is so good have you played the app i might have it's a really good app now you mentioned really good app like shows the little connections between your cards when you play them yeah i might play that over the card game not that it matters sure yeah all right good choice i i z my number 10. now now to be fair you could put a lot of abstract games on these lists because they're not that hard to get into sure they're hard to like master so this is i didn't do a ton of them but this is one and this is shobu um shobu is a game that i like a lot this on my short list um because showboat makes you feel like you're being incredibly clever and you really have to be clever in this game there's four boards and you can see them in a picture here there's four boards and you are trying to push your opponent's stones off one of those boards and when you you can only move pieces though on one side of the rope and when you move it it moves it on the other side of the rope so you're you're like moving one piece and mirroring it somewhere else and i really like that aspect of the game yeah it's and it also looks like a game that came out in 1640 and was played by pirates on their ships in their board downtime and it came out what two years ago or something yeah yeah yeah um it again it's it's not that hard to get into but when you play it you teach people it's not it it just pushes your opponent's stones up but it feels like you're like or you feel like the other person's doing that to you yeah yeah it's one of those games where when when it's being explained to you when it's being talked to you you kind of get the concept but it doesn't really click until the first turn or two and then you're like oh this is pretty slick yeah it feels classic like you said now the reason i said that these games are casual is i always look at the meta around the game chess will never make casual why because of the people who've studied it and written books about it if chess just came out now it might make my casualism like let's play chess you know these pieces move different ways it would be fun also but it has weird rules like castling and then right right but but because there's such a huge meta game i can't put that there nobody is a professional showboat player right i think yeah i've been called it but i refuse to take that title that was not what i said what i said this would be great for the screen to come up was speaking of which let's go tonight all right well i didn't plan it this way gentlemen but my number 10 was the heaviest game on my list number nine is the lightest game on my list with a 1.05 weight ranking that floats away four games so long can you go lower than one uh probably i don't know no no okay it floats away except that it's actually it's a heavy game physically not heavy mechanically this is a dexterity game called clank uh not clank class two different games blank is not on my list class this is a a dexterity game where you are basically you can you look at that picture you know how to play the game i wish you'd used the other cover for class put your hand under the table but that's what you're doing it's a little game where you've got uh control of a magnetic paddle they call it a paddle it's just a little stick and you're trying to basically knock the little ball into your opponent's goal and you've got these little metallic or not metallic i guess yeah yeah magnetic things that will stick to you and you can give your opponent points either by having those stick to you or by them scoring in your goal very simple very fun but it really brings back kind of like the the the memories of being a kid and playing like you know the carom type games or the you know it just has that classic if you like air hockey hockey type of a thing yeah it's it's it's something that that just anybody that walks by one of these being played wants to take a turn or two you know what i mean it's very light very silly um but uh yeah it's a really good head-to-head although i guess they've made versions where you can play more than two i don't think i'd ever want to play uh okay well first of all those versions are great are they i've been watching so much in this list already i just haven't tried it we have one in the library i think i'll never look at it um i i like this two players just like every other game over a weight of two games the only thing about this game that isn't casual and correct me if i'm wrong is the price i think this is not a cheap game well no i was a target for what that's true for its size yeah if you want one of these heirloom looking games it's probably the most inexpensive i want to say it was like 40 or 50 bucks at target so that's bad that's not bad it's not it's not an amazing quality oh for the price it is i think no components are i mean yeah i play that's my only problem with the game is when you're moving that stuff under the table sometimes the thing falls over well that's actually one of the points for your brain i didn't get a point that way it's not like an air hockey table no no but it's not i don't think it's more than 50th exactly yeah no i i think this works very well for the type of game yes all right that's a good pick i don't know if i kept the multiplayer one now i thought i did oh i thought it was so good oh well my number nine pick is actually air hockey i love iraq i just played it with jimmy the other day i do too actually i love air hockey you know air hockey is one of those that's the only thing i don't know okay these days that i'm like i'm there yeah as a side note for a little kid it's hard to let them win air hockey because you're like go ahead oh no i hope you don't shoot why this is open and they shoot it bounces off goes in their own thing and you're like come on kid i'm trying to help you and then you have the pac-man air hockey you remember that oh the greatest things on this player stop the list that's that's fantastic if anyone buys one of those for us i don't know where we'd put it yeah you're kidding we're gonna even start it's so amazing i want one my number nine pig is a small osprey game called village green this plays more than two i think but it's it's great at two you are uh this is one of those sort of pattern not quite a pattern building game you have scoring things you're trying to achieve in rows and columns as you see there and so that center line let's take a look at that line across for example it tells you there on the card at the end on the right hand on the left hand side what you want to have there various trees various features of you know a village but that first card right after the scoring one also will affect the one above it right the scoring that goes uh on that column so you need to consider every card you take and add to your village as doing and affecting multiple things at once so this is probably one of the thinkier games on my list actually but it still feels very welcoming it's lovely and lush and it's pretty and it's disarming in its charm and beauty i think that's a big part of what makes a game feel casual you know you bring it out and it's not this orc glaring at you holding a bloody axe it's like this game will probably make you as you start like to warm up to it and start playing you start going man i got a lot to think about here but you were kind of almost lolled into that right and i think this game manages to do that really enjoy it tiny package great production values on this one village green is a little thinky winner my number nine that's a good call i'd consider that that's a good call yes my number nine may feel like i'm trying to ride a wave of hype here because it's easily the newest game on these lists and it's being talked about a lot this week particular but i think this game is best with two and i probably wouldn't play it with more than three but mostly i played with two and that's micro macro oh which just won the spiel wow okay yeah but this works really well for two people because my biggest problem with this game with i mean what does it say on there it goes from three to a one to four one to four i guess you could play but yeah you can play it by yourself of course because it's just a where's waldo sure you're trying to find this crime on this map but with two people you're talking back and forth and i'll look here and you look there with more than that you know the map is big but usually you're looking in one section of the map and there's heads butting around but for two i did it with one of my kids and and it was just really fun we were both like oh look over here look at this oh and this is a good bonding thing and it's really easy i mean one that spills yours honestly anything that's won the schmidt's yards in the past 10 years if it's two player is a candidate for this list really yeah because that's the kind of games that are nominated there right but i i really like this game um i bought as a kid i read richard scary books which had big pictures and then where's waldo after that i love that sort of thing i've always been a fan of a million things on one page and you just look at it for a long time and let's see what you find i have one of those hanging at my home that went with all the cars behind that door right yeah i love that stuff that was one of my first kickstarters i actually added something to it i don't think you've ever found it you better not have i did really yeah you should probably study it all night tonight after you find it like fall asleep the worst of trolls all right anyway my number nine micro [Music] macro all righty my number eight coming in with a weight of 1.33 tom and he gets nobody no one here everybody cares it's a word game this is a word game a cooperative word game for players called code names duet oh okay and uh so i think this is a are you look is that skepticism confusion i'm thinking about my thoughts on the game i'm going through the game to see if i think it's casual i think it's casual in the sense that um i don't feel stressed when i play it i feel i feel like uh you have to lock in with the person that you won this game well what do you mean by one like been able to go from one city to the next yeah i've been able to do that a number of different times but go through the whole thing i don't i don't tend to play that many games in a row of it i usually will end up playing this moving on this stuff i'm saying how many of the games have you won i would say a fair number fifty percent or so somewhere in that range um no i just playing them solo as the name would imply no i think that it's uh this is a really good i when i first heard about the concept of this i'm like this isn't going to work this is that that sounds terrible i honestly did i thought it was kind of terrible and i played it and i was like this really works this is a really clever two player word game which i think is hard to pull off i think it does a really good job of it and obviously the idea i shouldn't say obviously if you've never played the idea is that you've got a grid of words out in front of you and there are certain words you're trying to get your partner to guess and they're trying to get you to guess and you're trying to avoid certain words and so you'll give clues that hopefully can match up with more than one of the words out there and words you're angling for so it's a really clever design i think it plays really really well i i consider it casual just because you're thinking i mean village we're not arguing with you here we just thought about it for a brief moment all right okay um correct one mike's list there we go that's my number eight code names here's my probable code names duet every time i play it i think i'd rather play code names every time well if you're playing with just one other person then i'd pick a different game no code names duet if i had to pick a code names game to be on the casuals list i'd say code names pictures boom but that's not two players yeah i get that i get that but i don't find that i think all the all the things they had to do to code names to make it work with two mm-hmm every one of those changes takes it farther away from being i'm gonna go with chris he says 50 win at codenames that's impressive we barely ever won though i really like it i also barely never won so at first i thought maybe i'm dumb but now i think you just cheated now keep in mind i am really really smart i'm like you know what 55 percent of americans think you're also if anything i'm more of than smart it's humble for sure yes you tell a lot of truth to do okay i don't know my number eight is a two-player only game called jaipur and jaipur is a card set collecting kind of game in which you make uh groups of different kinds of goods and sell them for points and glory and so you'll be just again there's a sort of a flop of cards on the table and both you and your opponent will be taking cards from there you can take multiple cards if you want to but you have to replace those with some sort of camels you've got and those are the ability to do that then your opponent might scoop up all those camels and now they have the ability to make a giant move on the board you also need to be careful sometimes because every time some things are taken unless it's with that camel swaparoo they're replaced from the deck and you might not want your opponent to see a bunch of new cards at once some of those are very good cards you don't want to see a bunch of like the rare you know rubies all at once it's got a great cadence you know that's the main thing here it's this idea of i need to control the pacing in this game i need to make sure my opponent doesn't have a lot of good opportunities i need to know when to score as opposed to when to enhance my hand there's also enhanced and hands and hands and hands and hands no in hand oh there's also a hand limit a very hard hand limit of like seven cards and your opponent can definitely use that against you yes you know where they're like oh you're full up then i don't care about flopping a bunch of stuff you know so it's very interesting jaipur is a good one if you haven't played it and you're looking for a solid portable two-player card game this is one of the better ones i think i i thought about this it was this wasn't on my short list it was on my long list because you had a long list i did there was a lot of games i got to put on this list right all right how many of them were codenamed and yet you chose these none really the problem micro macro no i haven't played it yet i really need to i'm very much too smart for it i think you're just one of the ones i'll get some pushback on because some people don't like this theme but if you want to play this theme this to me is the ultimate game for two players in this regard and that's memoir 44. ah okay i don't think number 44 i'm talking about base game here yes i know there's everything and it's you can buy a huge amount of it but memoir 44 you set it up you put the stuff up you roll dice you play a scenario it is a great casual war game it really is and if you don't like war you might not look at it that way and i get that there will be people who will argue that but it is so simple and fun to play it is sold a ton for this reason yeah it's not the theme i i guess it is the theme for a lot of people i know obviously i'm questioning the casual just on the on the the mechanics but i need it's been a long time since i played it maybe it's like i'm telling you every time i play memoir i'm trying to win but i'm not sitting here like what am i gonna do you're like i'll play this card move these attacks yeah you're basically like left middle right aren't you you're basically playing cards to move your troops yeah and this is the easiest probably of all these games i mean maybe the original battle commands and color system right this is what i would call a casual war game you have to qualify that a second time sure but it's two players and it i don't want to sit and just have this i don't put myself in artificial construct boxes like this fool i guess i just wouldn't necessarily like i would not if i took some of those games some of these games that once you even mentioned already and i threw them all on the table and i was like i can teach any of these games to that random person walking down the street i don't know if i can say the same thing for memoir 44. yeah but i don't think i can say it about any game really like it goes for anybody like sure like let's make a bus route i wouldn't play that with a lot of people i'm telling you terrible i literally talked to someone this past sunday mm-hmm and who died at a poor gaming convention no it was at a church i was at mensah mm-hmm well thank you that actually come out i appreciate it i felt like i um although that takes away his pretentious thing but anyhow i was talking to somebody at a church i was in and i was telling what i did and they were like oh yeah there's this gay memoir 44 and on about it this really does appeal to a lot of people there's a reason accessing allies was really popular for a long time yeah it was it was fairly casual compared to the huge amounts that's out there would you consider i'm being serious here would you consider risk to be a casual game yes for sure okay risk i mean no actually no because of the same reason said about chess because there's a meta around it also it's way too long it is it's long memoir 44 is 45 minutes you set it up you play again i'm talking it's base form right you can definitely play big long sure again you can do the overlord with eight players and all that stuff okay okay hmm let's just move [Music] give us a good pick mike i'm going to give us a really good pick and i know that you're going to think it's a good pick because it's a crossover with one of your gains bam and not only is it a crossover with one of your games it's a crossover with the game you just mentioned and that is jaipur uh my number seven is jaipur coming in at a weight of 1.49 tom i knew that 1.49 1.49 weight and and i'm not going to see that's why weight's stupid that is not a one point four nine come on now garbage what does it mean though one point four nine what is the lowest rating of complexity jaipur is not that low jaipur is very simple candyland is a one right can we agree on that no no i need to see that's like a 1.7 if candyman is a one how is this just a little more complex than candyland it's not i hate the reason so much it's so garbagey stop mentioning tell you what you put a camel in candyland it's about a 3.6 that's a good choice yes i do think this is and and you describe the game perfectly you described many of the elements that i like about it so well the the cadence the the kind of the delicious shorter tug of war type fit type feeling that you get oh i can i can drag this out just we know i'm going to turn my hat to the side to be more couch hello fellow kids yeah this is a great great pick obviously because i picked it and this is this is one of the first things that came to mind when we were talking about this list sure tripora is one of the first things that came to mind not just because it's been around a while i think this is a game that still holds up i would still play this anytime uh so yeah and i think it gets around the whole um pretentious thing absolutely because it is in a specific sort of not specific it's not but it's like a time and place i'm getting real nervous about some of my pictures you can kind of you know what time and place it sort of is but it's also nebulous enough and it's not about like this historical figure in the year you know it's just you're trading spices and gems and stuff absolutely yeah it fulfills many of the same kind of feelings that i think that splendor does it's just kind of this idea of it feels almost like a classic game the first time you play it it's very simple to wrap your head around you get it you know what i mean and it's just kind of breezy and fun so that's my number seven jaipur that's a good pick i thought so all right my number seven is a sherlock holmes themed game also a card game very simple little one called holmes sherlock and mike croft take that name i almost considered this i don't like that name either a whole lot but this one has a few interesting things going on in it it is for the the people that are into mechanisms it's a worker placements game it doesn't really matter but and it's also a set collection game in which you are collecting cards in front of you and making ideally bigger groups than your opponent is the worker placement part is extremely friendly very casual this is not a game in which if the other player goes and gets uh help from um i don't know any of these people miss white i don't know what her name is no she's some clue i don't know and then colonel mustard right there if your opponent goes and gets help from a character in this game you can also go and get help from them the only thing that does though if you both went to the same person is next round or next day in the game that person is unavailable so you flip them face down they're busy they're tired out so you gotta sort of ask other people for help and what is that help draw more cards i need some body help right not just anybody you get uh more cards you can draw from the deck instead of from uh face up display things like that i like it a lot i think it's it's definitely very casual it's just it feels like there's low stakes in it you know even the and the scoring is a little tricky you'll deal with that sort of at the end of course so it doesn't really matter that much but it's enjoyable if you're a fan of sherlock holmes or you know many of that literature i think you'll have a little bit of a sort of window into what the game is doing also but even if you're not everybody's aware more or less you know sherlock holmes and what they yeah what's going on in that setting in that world and so this is easy to put to the table it's like hey come on we're going to be finding clues we're just collecting cards right yeah i considered it i considered it i thought it was a little bit heavier than casual but i understand what you're saying just because there were some players well then you're not gonna like my number seven you know you thought it was uh player powers what do you mean like the characters the characters have little powers but it's not it's not they're almost like i don't think p everyone's a i can figure out something they're very basic on my list i just chose it was close it's very close well then you're not gonna like my number seven i did not put this on because it's number seven it just worked out that way and that seven wonders duel i don't think seven wonders duel is that complex to learn and play i actually think it's easier to play than seven wonders oh clearly no no i disagree with that you do you no it's a much straight more straightforward i think it's more straightforward i still don't think it's casual because because and i'll tell you why it's better because when i'm playing with somebody instead of them saying i don't know what this card does exactly the card is right there i can say that's what this card does i get that and i don't deal with this war next to it this is the i think the most complex game on my list so wait on this i don't care what the weight of this game is 4.76 make that crap up that's like advanced squad leaders bgg board game geek definitely skewers low anyway with these numbers people because there's these people who go van squadlier that's a four out of five i'm like what's a five that is not nothing is that complex real life yeah this one's like this to me this is too heavy for this list but that's okay i agree with that i think this has too many things gold this was on my list last time and i don't remember getting garbage then well well for last time and this one that's right i i i really would pull this out to play with a lot of people i really would i think it's not that hard and i think the civilization theme helps i think that comes through the one thing that i would arg that i could see on is the actual wonders cards themselves oh my gosh there's so many things cards tokens a special tokens or circles above them paying to your opponent okay so my number seven seven wonders that's it we're done moving on [Music] we should mention here in the middle of this list that at the end of the day casual is to you what it's going to be absolutely for the person who plays squad leader a game like memory 44 they're going to look and go that's so light i can't even handle it yeah yeah it'll be poured into tears you know apparently it was a 2.22 weight on vgg so close but a little bit that's pretty low a little over i got to be consistent you got to be all right well my number six is clearly casual at a weight of 1.73 this is a an oldie this is an oldie but a goodie this is shot and totten by uh dr reiner canezia this is a pick this over battle line i did because i i sound snootier no no no it's the exact same game it doesn't matter it doesn't have the car the power car no they're in the new one they added them in okay even with those i was considering the shot and time that didn't have those because i think that's the pure casual experience no no i'm being serious no use the word pure that's so okay well i was kidding about it but i just mean like it's more casual without those it is absolutely yes um and that's the the way i was thinking about it for this either the shot dot and battle line are the same game right and you can say i don't like sh you don't have to play the power cards in battle line it's it's an optional thing right you can play without them and for the casual gamer i think you probably should or if you're introducing it to somebody that maybe isn't this by the way don't don't get shot and too he's talking about the front yes absolutely talking about the first one but you're you're essentially trying you're kind of battling over in this case these look like stones in the middle and so you're playing cards to your side and you're trying to to gain the access to those stones it's a tug of war game it's just a tug of war game but uh like many of this designers games very simple rule set with some agonizing decisions and and simple decisions but agonizing all the same and that's one of the hallmarks of his designs i think the good ones um and i think this is one of the good ones shot and tottenham is a game that also came to my mind pretty quickly when this list came yeah it's a good it's a good choice um yeah again shot and taunton one yeah shot two was direct to video that's absolutely right i haven't played it but i get the analogy all right my number six here is an extremely popular game i don't know if it'll be popular on this list uh but it's it's an extremely popular game that plays more than two but i've played quite a bit of it at two and i think it is just so easy to sort of get going and play knock knock one on like 25 minutes it's century um oh so weird i thought about this and the only reason i didn't put on my list was because i was like i would grab this at almost any number so because of that i don't play that two because i'm thinking i'll look for another game i like better with two i know that's a weird thing to think i get it yeah i get it but it's so quick or two you know it's it's good at every player account it is it scales fine okay i'm not saying this is better at two i'm just saying it's real good too yeah and it is the turns are so fast now the one thing this isn't is um conversational yes okay so if you are looking for a casual game in which you want to be chatty this moves too quickly for that i think wow two players really fast you're like go your turn go go you don't have to yeah there's no like there's really not a lot of time to sort of do the talking after the game you really can you really can yeah but yeah it's play a card and either gain some of those cubes or transpose some into other ones as per the little symbols on the card right or you use some of those cubes and acquire a thing that scores your points that's almost all the rules the rules in this game are a leaflet right they are a sheet of paper like nice laminated kind of paper front and back that's it you know and uh so yeah whenever like if i'm gonna play something and i'm not sure what to play it's sort of late you're kind of tired you just want to play something that you can think about but it's a little i don't say mindless that sounds mean but uh you don't have to be that focused i guess right this is a good one for them so yeah century uh either this edition or one that came out after with uh gollums yeah yeah drawing on the cards instead of this theme under the exact same game yeah absolutely i have the golem one because i'd like that artwork i think it's cute but they're the same thing all right i had two games in running for my number six or they were both in writing for my list and i picked the one i thought was more casual and you might even though you like the one i did put on my list way better i wonder if you might agree that mine is more casual that's my number six is funko verse so the game that i didn't put on the list was on the match i considered that too because unmatched is very unmatch is probably the more strategic game yes i think i i do like funko verse better though but funko versus more silly fun so if you've never seen funko verse you can buy a set from dc to marvel to golden girls to kool-aid man to jurassic park jaws you just put two or three characters down play against the other person's two or three characters they have special abilities they each have like two or three you move around you use a couple special abilities you roll dice and you see what happens it is not complex although the rule book is pretty lengthy actually how simple it is what's more complex this or memoir 44 i'd say they're the same actually maybe this is more complex actually but but i think this one has the draw of i want to play right this character i want to play batman i want to play harry potter and i you know you because if you picked if someone came and i knew they were a huge harry potter fan right you better believe i'm playing funko versus sure i'm going to do my best then to play a different faction and kill the harry potter characters because i think that's funny to make them all watch their dreams yeah yeah because you don't want them to be welcomed into this hobby what no i just i'm being silly there but if i knew that they liked one of those ips international properties a lot that's what i would pull off yeah i considered unmatched even above this just because i for some reason i was thinking that unmastered maybe a little bit simpler but there are some card interactions that can be a little trickier it's it's i just both on the left but i thought they were both really good so sure if you don't like this game and you're thinking on matches better then that's what i just said right i said unmatched i can't show two different um before we jump to number five we have a super chat from ezekiel that's a cool name that is says fine i catch one of these lives i'm on a super chat i want to thank you for all the fantastic entertaining useful and wallet wrecking service you do wallet wrecking on the wallet records yeah the wallet records i like that that's funny that's funny stuff your stuff huh halfway [Music] alrighty my number five is a really an abstract game and it's funny you've mentioned chess as being a game that you can almost consider casual but it's got the meta and it's got some weird rules this is a game that kind of gives me a chest vibe but i think it's even more casual this is oni tama uh this is a game that i think is heard of this yes yes it's a dice tower essential um uh which is uh valid because i think this is an essential i don't play a lot of two-player games just to be right out there we yes i don't play a lot of two-player games but this is usually one of my go-to's i i just think that the concept of this is just brilliant where you've got the cards everything you need to know is really right there in front of you it's it's as long as you can understand the pattern of i'm here and i can move in any one of these spots you have a very simple thing you're trying to do either capture all of the uh you know students i think they are senseis and students right uh either capture all the students or get your sensei into the opponent's kind of chair there uh or doorway i'm not sure exactly what it is but uh it is so simple it's very it's got a nice replay value because you can just change out the different uh animals which are the what are we different cards no just someone said they wouldn't call this one casual if you don't think this is casual i don't know what else to do tony thomas is remarkable he's like casual five cards i could teach this to anybody i you know i i know people mean that it feels um confrontational length like you're going for the throat oh yeah well i think that's what they're saying i think that's what people are sort of zeroing in on if they think sure sure if you're casual right i feel like i'm getting like attacked and you are i get what they're saying if that's what they mean then absolutely that's fair that's not how i actually sure but at that point we're going to run right we keep making that thing smaller that is not how i approached this list i just approached it more on on something that i thought would be easy to introduce to someone that doesn't play a lot of hobby strategy games right so this would be one of them i i've played this with children i've played this with new gamers i've played this with the seasoned gamers i played it with roy canaday and uh we did he fit in was he not a different is he's on it goes above seasoned gamers it's a it's a ranking thing so yeah no this this is always gone i've not once introduced this to somebody that didn't think it was really a clever game so uh onitama is my number five i think my only concern there mike is you know how a big problem or a big fear i think because i remember kind of feeling this way and i think it's a big thing now is a lot of new gamers the fear and sort of the apprehension to sitting down at a table and playing with gamers is that you'll seem dumb and i think onitama doesn't really alleviate that problem i think it was an amazing choice you know what i mean it's going to show up on someone else's list i just want to point out that that was really good and everything he's saying is wrong no no i mean i think it's a great game and if you are with someone that you know isn't worried about that great five cards you need to keep track of that's it but i think it will flare up that feeling of i'm gonna get crushed in this game maybe but it goes back to that chess thing because there is no metagame that i know of the five cards gonna be different every time also these games never seem to last more than 20 minutes right so you're like oh you know yeah you you you'll get it next year you'll get me next time you know it's yeah i i do understand what you're saying and it's a valid concern but i don't know this one never felt like i didn't have a lot of blowouts in onitama you know what i mean it's i never i've seen them have you i'm sure they exist i felt them too yeah shut up that's right i've destroyed him watch his number five to be only tom right that would be great but it's not um no my number five i went for a lot of card games i guess i just find cards casual my number five is a two player only game called mandala i had a feeling there's one dollar is um mechanically a little tricky it's got this whole thing in which you are placing cards either on your side of these two mandalas these two wheels or in the center between them between the two players and each color can only be in one of those places it can be in the center it can be on my side or it can be on your side and i can add cards to those things also as i gain them these cards and bank them i will take a card and put it in a line in front of me those are the sort of multicolored ones that change color every time those are what those cards will score for me so the first one is the purpley number okay it goes in this first spot basically worthless for me those cards and the next one's a yellow guy that's worth a point each of those is a point but eventually like the fifth one i laid down is that green one and those are that blow all the other ones away so those are the ones i want to collect right but you've got to start from the bottom you need to lock in the bad one and then and the grade oh my goodness that and that's very clever because then your opponent is watching you do it they're like okay well i know yellow's already locked in for you those are garbage here's some yellow and that's really that's really neat um again the theme is meaningless it's not it's inoffensive you can easily ignore it right but the gameplay the board i think is like a cloth board the whole thing is very like oh this is nice you know really i hate that cardboard but it feels i hate the theme what theme that's what i'm saying i just like a kaleidoscope of colors i'd rather be like birds or something i don't know chris you said this would be on his list are you still feeling good about it or that's right you're wrong yeah no that's okay he gets well he's everybody considered one all right i like it mandala that's my number five all right one one of my uh things that i do when i'm talking about um when i look at this list is my wife is a casual gamer now not every game on his list was that because she wouldn't play memoir and i think she would think funko versus stupid that should have been a hint no whatever no but that's because there's a theme the next game is one that she and i played together a lot and i consider this some people might not consider this casual i consider this casual because you don't even need to know about board games to play this you just need to have watched any episode of any crime tv show i'm out so this is chronicles of crime because this game is literally just scan stuff and then talk about figuring out a mystery and it works really well with two in fact i almost won't play it with more than two because i'd like to it's it's one of the best bonding experiences me and my wife have playing this particular game because we'll sit there and we'll be like i think she did it you know she's lying and there's not a lot of mechanisms you you have like three people that you know the scientists and stuff you scan them and the branches grow more but you don't have to sit there and go how does this rule work in fact i think the rulebook's like a page or two it's really small not much to it yeah so i just think this one works really well now i want to be clear i think i would be i'm talking about the original chronicles of crime yeah um because each expansion and then the follow-ups to 1400 they they're still pretty simple but they add a few more things the original chronicles crime and also the original chronicles crime leans real heavily into that did you watch csi the other day because there were some we just sat there because that person's lying there's no game mechanism right i just felt like they're lying because of the storyline yeah yeah so this one's a lot of fun so chronicles crime my number five and before we go forward we got a couple super chats ray says woojoo or maybe it's woohoo yeah finally youtube makes puerto rico available to send you guys super chats oh the real puerto rico singing the game it's cool i didn't realize that was thanks thank you all right then i think there was another one down there from broadsword this super chat needs more foreign currency that's correct i'm not going to argue that c what is c f h and then thomas ripper just said yo hooray yo back thomas thank you if you don't want to super chat you can always thumb us up keep going all right well my number four is a card game z uh and i i agree i tend to think those are usually pretty casual and this is certainly i think in that uh category this is a two-player only oh i thought about it right no waiting two oh it's a two-player only uh coming in at a rate weight of 1.68 a racing game uh two-player racing two-player only racing card game and it's been out in two editions i probably prefer the first edition but they're better than that no come on well i don't know with you anymore i don't even know who you are anymore odin's raiden's ravens oh it's raiders raiders clank no odin's ravens this is a a very beautiful two-player only racing game where these kind of long narrow cards make up your kind of your track and you are playing as one of thor's ravens and you are trying to race around this card track what odin's ravens what did i say you said thor's ring what's the matter with me i need someone whatever you're drinking over there well i mean when odin dies who gets the ravens exactly four there we go um but a very simple game basically you've got cards in your hand that allow you to go to traverse across a similar card out there and and so you're just playing cards there are some player powers but they're very simple very easy to remember really you only have to remember what your character can do um well there's a couple extras but it's it's a it's a quick easy breezy um beautiful beautiful game cover girl yeah yeah you're talking about osprey version i'm assuming i like i think the first version is very nice looking too actually oh yeah but the asperger one is the osprey one is great i thought the first version looked first version has more room also it does have a bit more rules yeah but but i think either one of them works either one works for casual but the one that you can get is this osprey version easily and this is probably the one to go for for the more casual end of it um yeah really it's a good pick yeah i like my only issue with this games edition mm-hmm those rubbery cars yeah you doing those rubbers osprey made a lot of games early on they had those robbery and theirs are very strongly rubbery where you can't shuffle them yes you know you got to be like i got to make piles but no this is a great pick you could make almost the whole list from the original cosmos two players from the two plane i tried not to but you're right you're right the rest of my picks are all cosmos two player games classics easy busy beautiful what's my next one number four zomba rant number four all right so my number four was my abstract sort of pick you've said um i said show boo and he said you said only thomas right like your last pick wasn't abstract but all right anyway oh no yeah yeah yeah but this is like i know what you mean more classically sort of abstract than what did you put so i thought you might put on anytime you didn't no it's a spin on um now i'm gonna forget the original classic game of rolling two dice and moving backgammon backgammon thing oh i thought you were thinking part cheesy okay i think i i kind of made it look like you did but yeah backgammon is a long one okay yeah this is like a bad gammon type game two player only called tatsu oh i'm not familiar with this tatsu oh yeah i don't know i've not played this either oh wait oh this is that game this is that game i am familiar with this game anyway tatsu here is a two-player only backgammon like game in which you have these little tiles they're very nice bakelite tiles plastic chunky that are represent little dragons and so there's like you know little fire dragons and wood dragon and wood um water dragons and whatever and you are just rolling two dice and then moving in a circle around the board trying to eliminate your opponent's pieces or trap them or with the water one like wash them back out so that they have to re-enter that piece it's backgammon-esque very close to that and so to kind of bring it back to what i was talking about with yours not to keep picking on you i think the anita is a great game i would like to keep picking oh no but i do agree but i feel like this then disarms that feeling of i'm gonna be dumb and i'm going to look dumb in front of people because people need to get over that come on i get that but you know you roll two dice and you then use them to be like ah one two three four five i kick you out and you might just get a battle right or somebody else might just get a good roll and they're like oh man you got me yeah nice you know so you don't feel like right i'm stupid and i should have seen that coming this one i really like though even i'm not i enjoy casual games but i wouldn't necessarily say i'm a casual player and yet this puts me in a casual mood i don't know how to explain it there's very few games that do that to me what is a casual mood it makes me feel relaxed oh okay that makes sense i play this game and i feel like i can turn back the clock and enjoy those days where i could stop and not judge a game does that make sense judging games i judge you every day of my sorry i was talking about you specifically as a human being uh tatsu check it out if you want something that is very easy breezy beautiful cover girl my number four is basically a crossover with mike um one of the games that would have made my list a decade ago would have been lost cities which still could make this list loss of these is a great two-player game but i i like battle line a little better shot and died which one looks more casual though this cover you know what i showed you i don't disagree you are correct on that this is not like oh i want to play this if someone's like um this is going to scare off some people you bring this out and and memoir if someone looks at those two games they're like i don't want to play with this guy this guy's into war and war games fine this is also shot and taught it doesn't matter it's the same game how many games have you changed on your list alright you said unmatched if they weren't too happy with funko verse i am a changeling hmm i am a vacillator you are i like it by definition okay you know what you know what i'm gonna take everything i've ever said about you i like this game this is this is definitely a thinking game but it's a game that people get it feels for some reason it has a little poker feeling absolutely and it definitely feels like um you know you're back and forth but at the same time it's not that complicated right and it's easy to play so i really like it a lot so so shot in totten is my number four yeah all right real quick we got a couple super chats uh jj cece says super chat says what okay whatever um i like it nashaan says we just crossed a thousand live viewers hooray and gator dave says cheap american here said the same word twice oh even mike's even mike's all right gator dave that's fine thank you dave i will i will i appreciate that all right on to number three [Music] all right so my number three is a game that technically isn't a two-player only game but take my word for it this is really a two-player game and this is santorini this is also i think what is this one wait i have to know this because i feel like this one now you're asking here we go when he finally is about to back off and skip it interestingly this is almost identical weight with shot in taunton which was coming in at a one point seven three this is at a one point seven two now here's the thing i think it's interesting like it's a sequel i'm confused it's very interesting no it's not it's see how is that rated a one point again candyland is a one listen here's this thing i think that this is this is a tough one because if you think it's a casualty yes especially if you're playing without the god powers oh if you're playing with the basic god powers and and that's why without the god powers nobody but but even if you play with the basic gun you throw okay yeah you throw them in and still call it casual yes with the basic god powers but the basically that is the first like like ten of them i think yeah and the rule book does a really good job of saying hey these are the more complex ones beginners should start with the only reason this is on my list is because i didn't want to have too many abstract strategies i know and that is a thing i but but i think i kept it to just a couple um this this is just a fantastic game i really i really think that this is for a two-player game this is another one that came right to mind it has great table presence but just beyond that it's a just mechanically such a clean design it is so simple and pretty and pretty and and and the the the actual physical components help you conceptualize the game too which i think is really really helpful the the card powers again for the basic ones are so simple it's very easy to wrap your head around um and i think also has enough of that randomness that you almost that that thing about worrying about feeling smart i don't know that you have that as much in this game again it's all so fast i agree with you you know what i mean so there's enough sort of moves i missed it i missed it i didn't see that more right that's less punishing than there's three moves like you can do two things and i didn't see that you could get me i'm a dumb dumb i really disagree with that i don't think anyone has ever thought they were a dummy after playing onitama in fact i think it makes him feel smarter i don't know why we're talking about onitama santorini good job thank you yes this is uh this is that is a good choice i'm glad someone at the table besides myself is making good choices anyway the second best list at the table here is uh my number three though yes number three my number three i almost i kept debating on these top three but you can't change it now no no no no no my number three i don't know if you guys have played it it's a canesia game actually but it's like the lightest canesia game i'm sure one of the lions one of his verses uh that's the helvetique game right yes i have played this yes okay this is another one that like tatsu just puts me in kind of a casual mood i find it very relaxing for sure you play cards these cute little animal cards numbered one through like eight or nine into a circle that's also again number like a clock right and so you'll play a card and if you play the third or more than the third because you can play multiples of the same number at once if you play more than the third or the third of some number then those animals eliminate the ones right below then whatever's next be low and you score them and then you draw back up that's it that's the game until the deck runs out right and so there is this sort of like ah your hand's not that big you have like four or five cards so you're sometimes just sort of buying time before you make a killing move right you're letting your opponent or anyone you know play build up something so you can then show and be like okay with that move i score three instead of just one um also you're maybe getting ready to play the the final seven and your opponent goes i have three eights boom boom boom eliminate all the sevens you're going oh and then now i was gonna kill below that and i can't right um very quick very breezy almost always play this more than once in a single sitting just because it's that kind of game so i really like it at the end of the game just count your cards that's it great coffee shop kind of game this is that little box yeah yeah i never played this because every single hellboutique game in this little box series i hate it with a passion well this one's oh really i would say fantastic even bandito you didn't like bandito i don't know if i played that one that's the little cooperative game where you're trying to get the thief to out of the jail or something it's like that one yeah all right well maybe i just have this one this is great i think now i do think that there's some differentials i mentioned at the casual things you can see them even here because i'm willing to play games that are fairly complex sure more more than you i'm like i'm sitting there struggling so when you talk about these i'm like wow that's so casual i don't even want to play it but i get it i get that i mentioned that because my number three i bet you don't consider it casual even though you love the game i haven't heard it yet and i already don't i know you love the game but i don't think you could say it casual but i do and that's targi targy no it's not no see here's the thing i don't think dark is a difficult game because you sit there you collect resources you turn them in for cards it's not difficult also no game you can say that about anything i know but i'm also using the i'm going back to the litmus test of my wife who prefers fairly light games and she really liked this one okay it was easy you move around the outside i think this one is not that complex also it was on our list last time and i think he might even been on your list last time i was wrong trending lighter the mechanism the mechanisms are not that tough but the the the fact that there's so many different things that the cards can do i just yeah they're not that's but see they tell you on the back the words tell you what the cards do you can use that side of it or you can use the symbols i just think it's not saying magic is easy because the cards tell you what to do well okay whatever i think this one's actually lighter than seven wonders duel i think this is a great choice for the advanced they're about the same no way when we have the advanced list my games are all going to be heavier than target i am i was like you've said already seven wonders duel on target but i assumed i was filing away for the other level me too absolutely well that's fine no my other ones are going to be happy we're going to get together and make the master list for advanced two-player games and you're going to be making a list for war games all right toms 10 through 5 is going to be twilight struggle four through one what i'm sorry i'm sorry i feel very defensive right now as well don't don't don't jump that one let's move on it's been done [Music] all right number two getting to the top of the list coming in at a weight of 1.62 tom i have to say mike i'm noticing somebody said in the uh in the comments that so far my list just happens to be following your arbitrary 2.0 cutoff has it really yeah so obviously yeah really subconsciously i guess that's actually awesome i'm glad to see that um this is uh clearly coming in at a uh what i say 1.62 this is a polyamino game for two players only and i feel like this is the game oh i know that set off the polyamino craze i believe and that is patchwork over rosenberg man what a fantastic game to introduce somebody that doesn't play a lot of games especially if they like spatial puzzle type games this is such a good game it has a little bit of the trickiest part of it is probably just the the economy of the buttons but even that you always gotta i just explain that to new players i'm like hey you don't right don't think about the covering the board as much as get some buttons at the beginning that you have some flexibility but but uh this is just a fantastic choice for this list i think this is having an amazing game there yeah yeah i also call shenanigans on that board they cheated um but no this is a really good uh this is another one i think where the the kind of physical components help you understand the game right just the idea of you are creating a patchwork i think this is one where theme helps make an already pretty simple game even easier to understand um just a a great very streamlined design i don't know what else he could have taken out of this design um really really good patchwork was one of the first games again that came to my mind so i had like four or five when you proposed this list that came to mind this was one of those and the other ones i had to kind of struggle for a little bit but this was right in my right in my mind nice nice i like it all right my number two was uh not a crossover but it's similar to a game you guys have said a few times and that is lost cities lost cities i thought so you put i thought you might put battle line also or whatever shot in titan uh it was sort of pic pick your poison right battle line you need to it's the poker thing if someone was a poker player or familiar with poker i might go with that and this is more heading towards racco players and this is more towards like the thing you need to pick between is do you want to make are you comfortable with poker and you like that or are you comfortable with math and you got to do a little bit right because your whole 20 scoring this game is easier to play it's harder to score right like physically score at the end um the other game is easier you literally the game will just end when you pull enough of those stones towards you but then the game play is about combination sort of you know combinations of cards this is just you need to go higher the numbers go up right and i do find it very casual gorgeous large format cards um pretty easy to get going lots of tension don't get me wrong okay there's a lot of turn angst in this game yes and you will start sort of realizing that oh my goodness i have so many cards this doesn't fit your criteria of like sitting back with lemonade later on this is not that no this is not one of those this is not one of those but i don't think you'll feel dumb i don't think it feels pretentious at all yeah i don't think um again any of those things i thought a few of these i was once in a game where one of the players threw the deck across the room very shameful that's uh not very casual never casually friendly not that hard it's my game i gotta be careful with the cards that's right you did that my wife just wrecks me in this game anyway my number two lost cities a classic as much as any of the other games we've mentioned here if not more i agree so good good choice good choice my number two is a deck builder what do you think it is is it a two-player only dick no it is not i don't is there a is there a two-player i don't know but i'm going to guess you picked uh star count star realms star robs is a good choice actually um summer camp would be good but no it's it's actually a very different game yeah i don't think you would guess it it was on my list last time in a word game it is so paperback oh paperback paperback and i really like the feeling of paperback because word games tend to stress me out a little bit because i'm playing with someone and they're like oh yes you know allegiant and i'm like oh okay sure i saw dog cow yeah right but this lets you build words but also you get to do cool things with the cards it's a deck building game where you could almost ignore the deck building part and just build words and then take more letters you know oh this also lets me draw two cards yay so when me and my wife play this we're both playing two different games she's playing the word one and she's better at me than the word part but i'm like but i can beat her maybe yeah not i still lose but it's simple it is it appeals to people who like scrabble and it's a card game you only have to use you know we talked about this was it yes i remember we were just talking about you know to say deck building game right uh oh yeah this is a this is coming to you later and i've reviewed it oh that hasn't gone off we will be talking about this correct but i wouldn't even say dick billy i would say we're playing a word game just playing games yeah yeah the mechanism people happen to have a name that you don't need to worry about i know some people are saying in the comments they like hardback better and i don't i kind of waffle on that myself but for teaching new people paperback is better i think so okay yeah so i really like this game so paperback there we go you shouldn't be having a hat on that's far too fancy that had there you go now you're casual all right my number one is a um not only is it a cross over there we go that's the one that that's the one that's plaguing you right there look at that oh wow all right wow make a wish my number one is a crossover and it is also the first game that i bought myself at a game store when i was first getting into the hobby um checkers no no it was a game i don't know it's not anything on my list it is not a crossover with you it's with z garcia is it lost cities my number one is lost cities absolutely yeah i feel like this to me is the obviously i think the the best example of this it's one of the first games i got when i was getting into the hardcore yeah this was the first game i bought at a game store and um i don't even think that the scoring is all that complex i think if you have to pick one thing that might trip somebody up it would be the scoring but even that i think is simple handshakes yeah yeah i guess this to me is just all about the the the delicious decisions with very few rules right i mean it's it's colors and numbers on beautiful cards it is nothing that people are going to be intimidated by right you know i mean you put it in front of them you can mention the theme you don't have to because really the theme doesn't matter it's really all about you know when am i comfortable with starting this expedition when am i comfortable with starting this color you know do i want to try to make this a two point you know double my i just love that moment where i'm sitting there going i got the six and seven of yellow i'm feeling pretty good right and then the other person puts down a contract in yellow and you're like oh no right yeah yeah this is just i mean for for this simple amount of rules the agonizing decisions that that it contains is just to me a masterwork of simplistic design but really great and how many times have you played this game just guesstimate over 50. are you bored of it yet would you still play it oh yeah a few months ago yeah it's a game that you're not going to want to play four days in a row but you'll want to play it over and over again you know it just it doesn't get if you do play four days in a row it's kind of like just comfort food in a way it's very similar to people play hearts all the time it has that same kind of yeah it really does it it just has a rhythm you know what i mean you're playing and you just like every so often three or four times a game you're going to feel a gut punch you know what i mean which is great it's just to me perfect for this list that is lost cities my number one is a great pick thank you my number one is uh again i kind of waffled from the top three here a little bit my number one is a game that i i've felt this way about being a very casual game the kind of game that i i would love to see at places like big box stores and things like that for a long time it's a game called archaeology the card game yes archaeology the board game doesn't exist anymore so it's uh the one i'm actually specifically talking about here is called archaeology the new expedition which is simply a reprint with pretty hard work and a little bit more content in the box you can play with more players etc okay this is a game that feels like the kinds of things you might find at those stores walk it to a you know a drugstore corner drug store and buy a deca vuno this is something that i feel should be available to those people because cadence-wise anyway it's very similar okay on your turn you draw a card there are some sort of bad cards in there like you draw a storm and you go oh no the storm middle picks up people have to discard cards from their hand okay you you got got but usually it's not that sometimes it's a robber you can steal a card from someone else those two mechanisms are the ones that really make this very casual besides that it's a set collection game in which every card has a value an intrinsic value and you can trade them at a market and the market is just some cards face up in the center of the table why would you do that because you want to make sense right you can trade a mask which is very valuable really rare you know they don't come up very often it has a value of four you can trade that for four fragments of a tablet and then you can cash in four fragments of a tablet for 10 points put those on the table they're locked in there you're done and you just keep doing that in the game draw a card play some cards or make a switch maybe steal a card from your opponent be careful you're not hoarding really valuable things they might draw a thief or a storm might kick up that's it that's the game it's great it's so quick to play it's easy to explain this is again my one of my litmus tests for this was would i play this with my family with like my parents that's that sort of crowd you know right there are some games that i mean some other two games on my list some of the ones who even mentioned that are just impossibilities yeah they just will not comprehend many of these i have done that with so that's sort of my this is i didn't even mind this i might have put this on i didn't even think about this one it's a really good game it's a good call that's my number one archaeology the new expedition i remember was a crossover with mike what's up yo is my list got the stink you also crossed over with them yeah but you haven't crossed over with me that's your fault i got anyway my number one is onitama oh i've taught this game i knew it would show up to hundreds of people and that's not an exaggeration because i went to that con one time and taught it to all those people it just works i've yet to see anyone walk away from it i've had even had people say but you've never seen anyone walk away from this they're still playing even though it's dumb that's terrifying break away from this got him trapped in a shed i don't know what a man was i get to see i say hey try this and someone walked away like that yeah i've had some people go i don't know and i'm like look do this and they're like they're in yeah and they're in right and then we're talking from kids to adults to everybody it just shines um yeah mike already said all that was about it and z z said some negative stuff about it i said something no no no no not not at all i said that if you are if that i could see people being scared of it because it looks intense it's very pretty but games that look elegant can be scary looking to folks that don't consider games as elegant things does that make sense if you see an artsy movie you might think i'm too dumb to watch it oh okay okay you're saying the game looks too good but you put mandala on the list mandala doesn't look as elegant i think this looks more intimidating there's units and pieces and people think chess is scary they might look at this and go is this some sort of asian chess two to one two to one uh i think it's a fantastic okay and if you do feel that way by the way you probably ain't not watching this but b try it yeah it's it's actually about to be three to one um first of all james says super chat says these list is the best one sorry james uh for wasting two bucks a night um two two pounds when we do these top ten lists usually i put up a link in our facebook group if you're not part of the dyestar facebook group join it um and so i did that so let's take a look well before we take a look at the people's choice you got any guesses i see uh i think patchwork will be on there lost a lot of cities will be on there santorini might be on there i'm looking at my own list oh okay we're going to jaipur might be on there too actually airport will be on there i think okay well let's see okay so number ten fox in the forest really nine onitama eight santorini seven wingspan because people just vote for winning no this is the one game that's the people's choice i really disagree with right uh six star realms five lost cities target number four let me say that again number three patchwork two jaipur and one separate stool thank you ladies and gentlemen i'm done people i'm sorry you're wrong as a matter of fact when we do the the two can you chat now when we do the top ten two-player advanced list i'm just going to use tom's list from this you know what i was gonna use the people's you're saving yourself time someone said hanumakoji was number 11. i consider the people but i thought it was i thought it was a little too much for a casual list i considered it though it's a good game way lighter and more casual says one mic two z three time four the people all right well okay we're not coming to like one of our get-togethers then wait yeah didn't he uh oh no it was someone else who just said my list was the best okay i'm just done two okay i'll take it um but again we all know this is subjective we're gonna do the opposite list which will be the same thing because then z will say a game will be like that's for babies you know yeah no no no i get it i mean i i'm not going to tell you everything i'm going to say because i'm going to work on it over the coming week come up with your with your slam dunks yeah practice my put downs in the mirror jerks i was in a store the other day that had a book of put downs uh-huh so i almost bought it there are many books yeah but i was like were you in a bookstore no because that would make sense if you found books there i'm just saying no it wasn't it wasn't a gift shop it wasn't a gift shop ah by the way the gift shops in las vegas were amazing because there was shirts that said i love lv and i thought i should buy these because laravel it really worked well oh my goodness that's right that's fantastic it's really useful for me so how many of them did you buy i didn't because i don't need any t-shirts but i bought her a hat that said lv oh okay all right that's fantastic also i didn't want to pay the gift shop i'm gonna buy a mug that says i love lv because it works right mm-hmm oh it's so good is there a city that is named zgg yeah we do we need to figure something and they need to make sure that they make sure it's enough or we just name a city we need to get off here thank you everybody for watching garbage we'll be back tomorrow 10 a.m playing a live play game here with a contest so you want to come back and see that you're going to see other things too just come back then um and we got other videos going up all throughout the whole weekend so until then i'm tom vassell i'm z garcia i'm mike delecio and you're the people see you next time [Music] you

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 108,188

Rating: 4.9297915 out of 5

Keywords: board game, board, game, dice, card game, cards, catan, monopoly, tower, dice tower, vasel, review, tom vasel, vassel, settlers, gaming, GeekUsername: TomVasel, board game review, boardgame, uno, ticket to ride, apples to apples, educational games, educational, top 10, juegosdemesa, Brettspiele, ボードゲーム, brädspel, jeuxdesociété, משחקילוח, 보드게임, deskováhra, graplanszowa, bordspel, 棋盘游戏, gioco da tavolo, desková hra, gra planszowa, настольная игра, trò chơi trên bàn cờ, jogo de tabuleiro, لعبة اللوحة

Id: ekizC3wABGw

Length: 86min 31sec (5191 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 22 2021