Top 10 Games of 2021 (A Retrospective Look)

[Music] thank you hi everybody I'm Luke Hector from the broken meeple if you like what you see please remember you can subscribe to the Channel with a thumbs up on the video or you can subscribe to the patreon to give me a hand with review copies or mainly you can just leave a comment in the comment section below to talk about the games in question about whether you agree or disagree or just the video in general we'll get on with it in just a second but first quick word for my sponsor as a fellow gamer you'll understand this is unacceptable the solution head down to my new sponsor kiander.co.uk Candor stocks many of the hot new releases as well as some old hidden gems free delivery on audio is over 30 pound further discounts on bulk purchases and even five percent of your spending refunded bacteria's points to be used for further discounts down the line if you use the referral Link in the description below and sign up for a new account you'll get five percent discount on your first order over 60 pounds so let's make gaps in your collection a thing of the past get down to kinder and start saving today thank you for listening and enjoy the rest of the video get on with it and thank the maker it's cool down and after the fact that it's not 30 degrees in here anymore the heat wave is gone it is back to normal British summer you know it's still warm but not to the point where I'm literally melting in front of the screen that was a little bit unbearable the last time but this is not the planned top 10 I was planning to do people are wondering where's that series you're gonna do on two player games it is coming do not worry I am going to do that still but I own did a few recent two-player games that I need to get to the table because not only am I doing them for Kinder reviews but I also want to see if they could make lists you know I want to try and play as many games as I can before I do those lists and so I thought give me some time to just play those review them you know and then I'll get those this out so I thought well hang on let's uh rekindle another list that I still need to do which is my top 10 retrospective look at 2021. I wasn't a fan of 2021 in terms of games last year and not much has changed yeah not much has changed at all really I still think that 2021 was overall a bit of a weak year there'll be plenty of time to discuss your objections when and if you return and I know I've been saying that a lot with previous years but honestly I kind of do think that we peaked in the early like 2010s you know 2012 no yeah 2012 2011 and then like there was some Spirits in like 2016 2017 like really good years then but yeah 2019 2020 2021 they've been kind of lackluster and it's not just because kovit it is just the fact that I think that we do get some really good quality games but I think we are kind of rinse and repeating the same formula a bit lately and we're not we're just not putting out enough belters enough ones that I can go oh yeah this is shelf worthy it's gonna go there now so yeah I mean it's an improvement you know but what I tend to try and do is because a lot of games get released at Essen which is literally the end of the year it's a little bit tricky to get them all played so I tend to do a top 10 list at the end of the year and then about six months later or six seven months later I'll do a retrospective look where I go back to that top 10 and revisit it see if any games have moved down or even moved up or just fallen off the list to get all together or perhaps there were some new games I've played since then made in 2021 that I can go oh yeah this is worthy to the list I feel these are quite useful lists actually because you can sometimes get caught in the spur of the moment or the fact that a game releases say in December you don't get a chance to play it and so it misses out on the recognition this is a way for me to give that recognition and to talk a little bit about how some games may have just maybe you know improved in themselves as I played them or maybe actually just degraded a bit over time as I say get as much use out of this as you can so without further Ado let's get cracking and of course if you want to check out the previous top 10 of 2021 then by all means just click at the banner at the top of the screen I hope I'm pointing in the right place but I did it last year so by means go watch it I'm gonna make reference on this list as to where some of them were but still be nice if you could check out that list at the same time anyway my number 10 was my number two last time yeah this one has dropped quite a bit not to do with the game not being fun though because after all it made my top 10 in 2021 but it's just the fact that these sort of games kind of like they suck you in for the initial Bib and then without further content It's tricky to get them played this is role player Adventures roleplay Adventures from Thunder Works games is really good fun the first time you play it and that's the thing I've now played all the way through it's a campaign game utilizing the similar mechanics to role player so you've got your dnds character in a sense it's not d d but it's like similar it's portraying it and you go through this big campaign with a either a pre-generated character which is recommended or one of your imported ones from role player and you go through these different Maps these scenarios and you enca you read an encounter book in terms of mechanics you draw the dice out the bag and the tests require different dice of different colors of different numbers and you're using the cards in your hand which are basically like magic scroll magic Missile spear jab orb of Destruction whatever you know those kind of things and you're manipulating the dice in order to meet the puzzle required it had a lot of branching paths it was a really decent story and I felt that if I wanted to go through the game again I would get a slightly different path if I want to play it again this is the problem it's the same with Legacy games I played through it and I had a really good time it has not left my shelf downstairs since then because it gives you all these different characters you can play there's like 50 plus characters in there possibly even more each with the backstories from the expansion booklet I've got right I've played through one character with one or two of those backstories but if I play through the entire campaign again to try out a different one of those I'm still going through the same plot yeah okay instead of saving this chicken I decided to kill said chicken oh well that gives me a slightly different keyword for later it's not enough to make me really want to go through the entire thing again and it was like 12 odd scenarios it took a while to do and I'm gonna recognize a lot of the major plot points and it just won't feel the same to go all the way through it's taken me forever just to go through the spreading War campaign box for Lord of the Rings Journeys the Middle Earth and now I've got tainted Grail on the table in there ready to start age of Legends campaigns take a while and they do they photo for me I play them once and I go yes great now what for the money cost for the time commitment I do prefer games that don't commit you to scenarios you know that's why Manchester Madness beats Journeys in the Middle Earth because Manchester demand is a scenario based and Journeys and Middle Earth is a campaign it's just I'd like to be able to get the game off the table eventually without having to commit so much time and that is the problem with role player Adventures yes more content is coming out but hurry up so much later that the old narrator got tired of waiting and they had to hire a new one my number nine shifted to number eight it's pretty steady at this point I even played it last week at manicon actually so it was good to get this to the table again and it still sits down there in a big box which surprises a lot of people because people think Luke you're not a big fan of creating your Creations games are you no not particularly although to be fair I like Newton I hate Lorenzo magnifico yeah fair enough I hate barrage with a passion yo so like what what would you like this game then Golem is actually a good fun game I like it it's meaty it's very thinky but I like the fact that this is basically your comorific engine builder game of choice when you get to this sort of level because you're essentially moving these Golems across three different tracks and it's all I mean that theme is not even there it is a straight up Euro game but the way that you manipulate just simply taking two marbles off this weird Contraption to select your actions which change every round and the different Rabbi actions that you can do using those to manipulate your golems and students on those free tracks to get different levels of income to get different bonuses activate this Golem get this bonus move it along activate another one which then allows you to get this book Slide the book down generates this which allows you to then activate this development it's one of those style of games that you have these power turns and it feels very satisfying the rules take a little bit to get down but not too bad I mean we I hadn't played it for a while and it didn't take me long to get that oh yeah that means this that means this that means this if I have any kinks in the armor which is probably why it deserves to drop down the spot is that I do think out of the free development pass you've got the books you've got the golems and then you've got the gold I do think the gold is traditionally the most powerful of the free I think if you can get a head start on those gold bars and activate some of that section you're kind of already set for life at that stage whereas the other two require a bit more work as I say I'm sure there's a lot of golden fans are going to dispute that but that's just the way I'm seeing from experience but the game is still really good fun still good meaty decisions could do better on the artwork perhaps and certainly that Contraption can get a little bit for nickety at times but it's just a really cool heavy Euro that for now I still want to hang on to do I prefer it to Newton Hit or Miss I don't know they're kind of on the same level as each other for me but I get a good kick out of this and for the while it's gonna stick around my number eight has dropped similar to the same reason that role player Adventures dropped further on the list because I think this was my number three last time and that is the the poster child for anything by Ryan Lockett these days which is sleeping guts sleeping Gods is still on the shelf and I do intend to go back through that campaign and play it some more times Go a different route because it is as open world as it possibly can get Zelda breath of the wild eat your heart out you have Sleeping guards where the world is so vast and so different no matter which way you go it's insane I mean the whole objective is that you're meant to find these totems or whatever and get off the area or something you go through it and it's like right you found six totems well done yeah there's 54 in the game that you could find what seriously wow the content in that theme is ridiculous but what makes this one drop is the same reason as role player Adventure does it's the commitment I gotta get it out leave it on the table and then spend the time hour after hour which is still a good 15 hours of my time at least to to go through the campaign and play it as fun as it is it's got a great it's got great stories I love the fact it's so open world everywhere feels different you never sort of go to a spot and you're like oh I found a tree well that was fun yeah I'm just wondering aimlessly I don't know what I'm really doing you know unlike something like seventh continent for example this one I feel like whichever way I go I'm gonna find some cool adventure and then recurring characters it really does feel like a cool game and story but I have to have nine characters on the table to play it solo and I need to leave it on the table because the save function is diabolical in terms of the rule set so again it's that commitment I do want to play it a second time through though unlike say the campaign of role player Adventures that's why that one's higher than that one but when am I gonna get to do it it's I hate these time commitments that I have to make with a lot of these games and that's why they do drop I say you just can't you can't say it's your number one game of the year on the basis you're gonna play it once enjoy it and then never play it again that for me doesn't sit well in terms of rankings but sleeping Gods is still pretty good fun I look forward to the time I get to play it through again and as I say the fact that I do want to play it through again has got to speak some volumes my number seven and was my number seven last time yeah it hasn't changed this one has not changed and this one is divisive among players some people like it some people don't Some people prefer the original Some people prefer this one I personally prefer Elisa version of the widely acclaimed Euro game dominant species Marine yeah this is my preferred one of the two um there's a couple of reasons for this firstly the whole Marine creature saying I kind of like more anyway two as much as neither of them are particular Lookers this one at least still had a little bit of an aesthetic upgrade compared to the original one Combs seriously but the other factor is that this one has a different type of turn sequence to the other one the other one involves you programming all those different actions that you can do before they will resolve the problem is acts incredibly punishing because you program stuff and then somebody does something that you can't really expect or plan for and then your whole turn is wasted and you've just wasted the last like 30 minutes of the game doing that that sucks but this one you do it worker placement sort of in order so you do it and then you you do you put the thing down and you do the action you do this and you do the action but you're restricted on where you can go based on where your last action was that's cool it's streamlined and it's simpler and it's less punishing if anything is holding this game back it's the rules with the card system and I'm still looking for a house rule on this you have the cards that come out that do cool effects and events that I really like the problem is is that you do get into a situation where somebody takes a card and then another card flips out which is perfect for the person who's next they then take that card and cause Calamity or run away with the victory it's a little bit annoying and it does irk a couple of friends that I have it's one of their big bug bears with the game and it's my personal bug bear with this if anybody's got a house rule of how to do that card display better so it's less fluky I'd be interested to know but other than that blemish everything else about the game I really like I like the interactivity with the players it's vicious area control you're interested in what the other players are doing you want to know where they're going to go on that track are they going to make that food supply run out in that area are they going to take that hex bonus before you do and I like the cards and the theme that's integrated with this it's a cool game really fun to play doesn't take too long compared to the original dominant species either although that's helped by the fact you can only Capital four players seriously I don't need six players to play a game like this but yeah those action the action differences and the theme and that I just prefer this one to the original but I can't boost it any higher in the list because that card system is still a little bit flawed and it hurts it seriously if there's a good solution out there let me know out okay if the downfall of a couple of games further down the list was not entertaining enough for you then how about a brand new game to the list yeah this one was not played by the time I did my last list I have since played it several times I've even done a review of it in fact I think I did a review of it in January actually yeah I gave it the beans about the end of December and start of January so yeah it only just missed the list but I've been going on this whole trick taking phase as you well know so trick taking games are really starting to come into the room for me I mean I've always liked them but yeah I've like diamonds and a couple of other ones I've had but with additions like the crew and this one and one or two others I'm like yeah trick taking's really coming in you know it's really doing it for me and this one Brian Boro the high king of Ireland is a bit of a surprise I don't think any of us expected him to say that I honestly looked at the box and I thought don't exactly look much in the way of artwork and then looked at the board and it's like well it's clean it kind of looks like something even though tool would do but yeah it's that's kind of pretty basic because like what'd you actually do with this game and then the artwork and the cards is not my style so I was thinking like hmm skeptical but I'll give it a shot I actually really enjoy this essentially your area control is an area control game over Ireland uh I forget the time period it's history whatever you're playing a trick taking game you really care but to do with the Viking areas I award you no points and may God have mercy on your soul and the idea is is that you are playing tricks in order to dictate where you're going to put your control markers on the map but as well as caring about where you're controlling on the map in terms of all in one region or diversify both of which are useful you've also got four three separate things around the board that you've got to con contend with you've got a marriage track which gets you a bonus card at the end which can be really handy you've got the Vikings attacking which Vikings or something's attacking you and the idea is is that if you don't contribute enough to The Invasion then you suffer but if you contribute the most you get rewards and the monastery part on the other side is one to get like more fortified control markers but also to get first turn and you know all those three things are useful but you won't be able to do well at all three but then you're also trying to control areas and you play these cards numbered 1 to 27 26 odd different colors and you can choose not to follow suit but if you do follow suit the highest number you'll win the trick and you get to put your control marker down it's milk say sounds a little jumbled I'm not doing the best job of explaining it but I find it to be a relatively simple rule set despite the fact that rulebook is not perfect Osprey games but the the the general feel of playing that trick taking game and all those tight decisions I mean you draft I think you draft the cards at the start of the round anyway yeah you draft those and then you're trying to think ah I really need those Viking tokens but am I going to win this trick or do I hold it back and deliberately lose the trick so I get the bottom actions to the top but if I don't play it this round because you won't play every single card it's like if I don't play it then I'm gonna really suck at the marriage track and I could really do it raising on that because the decisions are painful in a good way you know I love the card system I like the area control system it feels clean nothing of it feels too clunky but I just wish the rule book maybe explained it a bit better but yeah this was a big surprise for me I honestly didn't expect to like it as much as I did and I know there are some people I know who aren't as big fans of it but you know what I like it it's staying on my shelf downstairs it's in the calyx Osprey section effectively which is essentially half full like three quarters of a cowlick shelf and yeah I like it I don't care about the theme the Aesthetics are hit and miss but you know what trick taking with area control I'll take it foreign new to the list why do we try a riser yeah this is the first game actually I think on the list that's risen up the list since been on the previous one and the main reason for that is that it's gotten a lot of plays but I've also appreciated how effective this is as a Gateway game I love Seven Wonders Seven Wonders is a fantastic card game anybody who tells you that seven wonders the card game is a gateway game is lying yeah in your bra I'm sorry it is not a suitable Gateway game um you cannot give me a smorgasbord of iconography and expect that to be a Gateway game seven wonders Architects on the other hand though is a gateway game and I have used it to teach people who have not seen games before and it's gone down great even with seven players this one has risen since I think it was number nine last time now it's my five I like this as a good palette cleanser for myself you know because yeah it's light and it's fairly lucky but you know what for a game that literally comes in the box like this big I mean it's a pretty chunky box that literally you can set up in about 30 seconds because you just give everybody a tray they get their bits out and then you put some bits in the middle job done 30 minutes you're almost ready to teach the rules okay two minutes later and the rules are taught let's get started it really is that simple and your turn is literally to choose whether I want the middle deck to draw a card from or one from either side that you can see but of course is your neighbor gonna take that card do you want to take the card that gets you the cat statue knowing that somebody else over there could draw on their next turn you know do you get some you know do I draw the red card knowing that a war is about to start well if I do I could win against you I could win against you maybe I should take a cheeky Shield right now well I like War but I wouldn't say I love it there are some interesting tactical choices to make but yes okay there is an element of luck especially if you draw from the central random deck but it's just a very neat spin-off from Seven Wonders It does not replace Seven Wonders they play very differently and there's definitely a complexity level difference between the two but as a Gateway game I think it works solidly I played it at manicon I think the other week and I took it to a friend's house I might even take it to my friend's house tonight actually in fact maybe I'll take it to the 24-hour gaming Marathon I got this weekend you know it's a nice easy game and let's face it after playing games for 24 hours I'm gonna need something like by the end of it but yeah you know more on that if if you're confused about what I'm talking about check out the 24-hour gaming Marathon video I did a about a week ago that is impending this weekend but yeah it's solid it's well produced it's super simple it's Gateway level it's not the cheapest game in the world but with the components and everything you get in it can you really blame it it's a really solid game I enjoy it seven wonders architects foreign was also number four again last time yes and it probably could have been higher possibly even my number one actually no that's not happening uh but it certainly could have been higher enough even then I've got to think that it's does it deserve to be four should it have dropped there is a bit of a caveat with this one when it works and when I get this game out it is highly enjoyable very fanatic some good historical representation a different art style but one that I quite like and just probably one of the most like use most Innovative and clever deck builders I've ever played if only the rule set was and setup time actually Justified it yes that is Imperium Imperium is a great game in fact actually yeah that's two games for most free games on the list well done you but ah this one I love this game mechanically mechanically I think this deck builder is fantastic you've got very different like civilizations to play in each one has some of them have different winning conditions but all of them play very differently as you're cycling through your deck trying to unlock development cards you're buying these other cards for your deck and you get into a strategy and you try and rinse it through and I tend to play the solo because playing it with any more than one player makes the game take forever I mean it's usually like a 60 to 90 minute game even by yourself which is quite long you have to house rule this game in order to make it shorter and I still don't know the perfect way to do that at the moment I'm literally just trimming out development cards because I think you have to get through so many to win the game I'm literally saying well let's just Lop off two of those out of the deck and two for the AI then that will bring the timer down a bit but yeah it could have really been shorter but you know on top of that though you just have the problem that it's got a big setup time you've got to set up your deck in a very specific way then you've got to set up an ai's deck then you got the stuff in the middle that's what stops this being any higher on the list I mean I can't remember what I gave it I think I gave it an 8 out of ten when I or maybe even a nine I'm not sure when I reviewed it but as fun as this game is those flaws would set up and length are big flaws I would love you know I mean I'm pretty certain there'll be more stuff to come and uh well uh I can't really say much at this point you'll just have to wait and see but uh you know with with this game I could a streamlined rule set preferably written by someone else because sorry ospreyasia not the best at your rule books it's going to be said you cut me deep shriek you cut me rear deep just now get a rulebook editor go for your Robux set it out not like a textbook with weird letters in there don't don't use GMT as your like uh you know inspiration for your rule books okay you know there are better ways to do rule books this game would be so much better if it did but it's still my number four because when I do get past that barrier that initial barrier my God this is one of the most fun deck builders you will play I guarantee it really is good fun I don't think I've even played every civilization yet because I've got both boxes Classics and legends and with more you know if they if they bring more then oh my word I'm gonna be strapped for choice but Imperium a bit of a caveat but still I think it's worthy enough to be at number four foreign you want a big surprise now number three is the highest debut on this list yes this was none on the list last time because I hadn't played it in fact I've only really played this game in the last say month month and a half two months I'd say but this one is a recent one to my collection I can't remember what made me buy it uh I think I watched the Garcia's review of it and I like the stuff that this publisher has already done so I thought well let's give it a try it's not no not expensive it released to retail I think in the UK and I thought let's get it let's try it wow this game has surprised me as to how much I enjoy this filler it was on my top 10 fillers yeah this is fluoriferous this game from pencil first games who I swear are doing a very good job at making these really cool filler games that look beautiful as all get out and Yeah to correction um I can't remember her name off the top of my head but yes I I said it was Beth Sobel that did the artwork for forever for us on the last video that was an error it's actually down below this name so full credit to her I definitely want to check out more of their stuff I think he's pretty quiet bud but yeah it's this filler game is fantastic it's so simple It's A Step Above herbaceous so herbaceous is the ultimate symbol if you AP on there seriously what is wrong with you game for reference is the next step up where you've got The Columns of cards with different flowers and a scoring card at the bottom you have a pawn marker that represents turn order from top to bottom and you essentially go one two three through all the column of cards and then the game ends but what you're doing is you select a card to take whether it's a flower card or a scoring card and then once everybody's taken from one column you move on to the next one and then the turn order is now why are the PO where the pawns are now relative to each other so turn order keeps changing and because you can see all the cards that are coming you have to bear in mind later on it's like I really did that scoring card that scores me for that same bug but I think you want it as well that means I need to go I need to take the top card in that column so that I go first in that round to take that card very cool easy decisions to make making the sense of oh they're not too complex but are they hurt a hurt you look at those cards and you think I really want that but then I really should take this car but if I do then you're gonna dick that one ah it's like like I said I know it sounds weird to sort of like the idea that you have Painful decisions but it's more I mean think of this a game I play called songbirds songbirds as a nice little theme never played it before it's a very simple rules it but my word does your brain melt from the agonizing decisions you have to make but I love the card game and I'd love to get a copy of it but that's the thing this sort of thing is good fun it makes for a fun game but the rules are dead simple you are done with this game in 30 minutes even with four players unless somebody is supremely AP in it like crazy and the scores are generally pretty tight you can never normally call the winner at the end and I've had some very close finishes where it's been decided by a point or two Max seriously every point in this game counts but it looks gorgeous simple to teach nice little box I can sleeve the cards yes you've got to check the ends up who cares and it was what like 25 odd quid I think I found it 20 quid or so it wasn't that expensive seriously I mean I like herbaceous I like Sunset of a water but for reference is definitely the best thing I think pencil first games has put out and now they've got a game called delicious I think you can pre-order I better give that one a look and also something called what not cabinet I've heard of it never really seen it in action but everybody kept talking about it on my last list saying Luke you've got to try what not cabinets like well it's difficult to find a copy at the moment but if I can I'll certainly try it so we'll see but yeah this one deserves to LEAP to my number three because it's getting played a lot at the moment and I gotta get credit where it's due that a 30 minute filler that can look that good costs that little and give me that much enjoyment is worthy of being in the tap free on this list foreign you want something to jump up high this was my number 10 last time yes this has almost become my number one game of the year because I don't think I gave it enough credit last time I think it should have been higher on the list but also I don't think I played no I must have played it a decent amount now I just honestly did not give it enough credit yeah because I played it back in August last year so it's not like I hadn't not enough time to play it but the amount of times this game has been played since and how many people I've taught it to both Gamers and non-gamers alike have gravitated towards it and just the fact that when I do play it's like whether it's Solo or multiplayer it's so nice it's so Zen it's even in my bag to take to my game night tonight it's like yeah you know what I was too harsh on it Shame on You Luke Cascadia gets to my number two and it's not because it won the Spiel the RS although deserveably so although to be honest with that competition do you really expect Cascadia to not win that I mean could blimey if I was at AEG in flat out games I would have literally popped open the champagne bottle the second they announced the nominations because that was about as sure far as anything Mina you guys yeah maybe lemon down down here Cascadia is just a wonderful Gateway game it is like beautiful to look at with its nature theme it's an abstracted game in a sense but this idea that you have these five different animal cards and a to D's you've got four different versions of each of them they score in different ways and each turn all you got to do is just take one of four pairs of an animal token and a landscape tile build your little map try to get the terrain to link up if you can because bigger groups score more points but then also you want to think about the animal tokens right well I can put a bear here what does the bear one right the bear wants to be in a group of bears with no other Bears surrounding it right well I can put that bear there I can put that bear there but I need that snow tile uh well the train doesn't match but I need the bear okay fine you know all right well that's gonna mess up my salmon run but you know what four Salmon's fine I don't need a fifth at the moment I really need that desert so I'll put that in there and these decisions again are not terribly taxing on the mind but and there's certainly a better game to play I think solo two player three is fine four maybe just takes a little bit long I mean it's not a filler game by any means but I it's just a very nice zen-like game you feel relaxed playing it by the end of the game whether you do well or not you just feel in Comfort it's comfort food and these sort of games are great not to mention it is a gateway game I've even taught my parents this and believe me that's saying something but people who have never seen a game before I can teach them Cascadia and it will visually it will bring them in visually but it's also a good fun game that I will happily play and the solo challenges are pretty neat as well you know they up the difficulty and it allows you to just play a nice quick 30 minute puzzle that looks beautiful and doesn't take long to set up either I mean teaching it is a breeze setting up as a breeze you know why this is my 10. how did this not overtake other games last time but yeah well credit where Stewarts had a lot more plays since then and yeah whatever rating I gave it before which might have been a seven or an eight or something it's definitely worthy of being annoying now this game has just gone over well with me since then it's improved over time and yeah I yeah it's just a fantastic game I I'm sorry I'm sorry Cascadia please forgive me you're now in the spot you deserve to be at my number two foreign but of course we've got to give recognition to like the Fantastic Publishers splatter games with their juicy meaty fomatic visually appealing Euros because 2021 was just the time for that publisher to shine and give me a game that I truly adore and put it my number one of course yeah all right this isn't gonna work yeah get over it you're going to burn in a very special level of hell you know it you called it my number one last time was my number one this time yes it's Arc Nova yay [Applause] of course it's aren't over all right over oh man I want to play Heart over right now I love it so much it's such a cool game you're not sleeping with it are you right yes granted some of you might be sick and tired of hearing about it by now because the amount of like exposure it gets online and I'm certainly not the first one to buy into hype and when I first heard about it I thought I'll try it whatever but I'm not gonna believe everybody's hype right now yeah I've played it I've reviewed it check out the review video for more details but man I love this game and if you don't like it that's fine but I love it this great Euro building a zoo already that theme gets me in I love animals that's already working for me but the mechanics it froze in yes none of them are unique but they are solid ones cards that you buy in order to give you different bonuses and abilities that come from this massive deck and you've got to play in a tactical manner I love that aspect of terraforming Mars it's just the other aspects of terrible for me Mars I didn't like but art Nova takes the action row selection out of civilization a new dawn another game I really like that's still on the Shelf in the other room and basically takes it up to 11 with these five cards that you can flip over to make better and that that mechanic in general I want to see more games the idea that if I leave a card for longer it will get more powerful but then I can't I've got to use other I've got to use other actions before it gets to that point how can I make this efficient air every time I play this game I love it so much even the solo mode which is literally just beat your own score although I do like the free challenge mode where you play through free solo games you've got to break even by the end of them but you're not allowed to use any cards from the previous games that's a pretty cool Challenge and yes I know that there's an AI that somebody's designed on Board Game Geek I'm not the biggest fan of trying AIS and solo modes that have been generated by you know third parties and that I'm more interested if it had an official one but the normal one in the game does me fine but honestly playing this two-player three player four player I absolutely adore it it is thematic it is engaging even when the game takes over three hours with four players sometimes I am invested I'm bantering about the animals everybody's got about how your zoo is basically a torture chamber for Animals because if it's researching and everything whereas mine is a zoo that's literally scorched earth like I barely built any of it and it's only got two animals in it because I'm trying to use the objective that doesn't want you to build it's there's a lot of different Maps there's a lot of different cards and yes there's going to be an X expansion soon well soon it'll be a while next year probably but to bring aquatic animals in and more cards please don't complicate the game too much just give me more cards that'd be great ah cannot wait I played it twice at manorcom last week I played it as my first game where I taught people and then I played it as the last game of manicon where I played it with two players who knew what they were doing Sublime absolutely Sublime in fact the 24-hour Marathon I mentioned earlier I'm playing a game of art Nova early on I think 9 45 a.m in the morning GMT or BST whatever um yeah in the morning I'm playing it on their twitch stream with people who know what they're doing so I get to play art Nova at least once on that week on that weekend as well I love it yeah it's one of my favorite Euro games that there is of course it will be on my top 100 where it will be on my top 100 we don't know but yeah I'd be lying to you if I said it couldn't make my top 100 I mean it's a 10 out of 10 game for me spoiler alert but still go watch the review if you can yeah I love it I love this game warts and all because it's not a Flawless game by any means you know the duration is quite long there is a little bit of a luck aspect with the cards but it is mitigatable and you do have to play quite tactically and yeah there's a lot of rules to get through and the Aesthetics could be better I mean the money is diabolical I play with always with replacement cash that is why I have those brass iron clay chips I bought a box specifically mainly for that game but I use them on other games but yeah using the poker chips with that game certainly does elevate art Nova a bit on that department so yeah there are some issues with it but I overlooked them for my personal enjoyment because it's just so much fun my number one before my number one this time I love me tomorrow so there you have it folks my top 10 retrospective change list of 2021 and as you can see some movers and shakers I mean this out of all the retrospective lists I've done probably the most volatile actually I've gotta say so goes to show that sometimes you just need to let some game simmer you know like cook on the stove for a little bit longer to really bring out their flavor that's a weird analysis yeah here's something getting hungry it's nearly dinner time but even then some games can be like oh yeah that was brilliant all right um and they kind of will over time this happens with games particularly as thousands get released every year but there's a bunch of other ones I've got on my phone here on my Google Drive list with honorable mentions so did any fall off the list last time I don't oh yes mortim and gaseous Road uh those two games are good I do really like them but Morton again it's like the role player adventures and the sleeping God staying it's I've played through it I really enjoyed it but it's done I have no interest to play it ever again so can I really keep it on the list now that I've got rid of it yeah not really in fact I think I sold it to a friend of mine but on top of that geisha's road I do really like it I did probably inflate the rating I gave it originally because I think I gave it a 10 because it is a fantastic two-player game but in hindsight maybe it's closer to a nine probably maybe even an eight by now because as much as geisha's road is great it is definitely a step up from the already fantastic Hannah makoji and if I was the play I'd rather two I'd bring out Hannah makoji in a Flash so perhaps I was a little bit too forgiving on that one but it's still a really great game Just Not Top 10 material anymore but yeah there's a few others a living Forest reviewed it recently Kenner Spiel winner it is a great game you could make it my 11 or 12 maybe I mean it almost made the list but I think these other games I just prefer a bit to it uh cryo I like it fine but it's not my favorite Euro of that year but my friends really like it and I've played it with them and I do enjoy it but yeah not top 10 probably top 20 maybe uh Brew a cool little game where you make potions put dice out and it's quite vicious with other players for area control but very simple very easy yeah Brew is nice and it's still on my shelf uh whether else we got two more no oh no two more shamans uh shamans or however you want to pronounce it uh that that would definitely probably be a 12 or 13 something like that because this quirky trick taker again but with a social deduction element of ever-changing teams where only one player can win but you're in teams every round and it's hit and roll it's a very quirky thing I don't think I've done a review on it but by all means check out some details on this this is an underrated game that's gonna fly under the radar because of how quirky it is but it's a nice interesting game particularly if you're into trick takers with a difference and then of course the other one I mentioned oh I forgot it was oh yes of course Kokopelli the one what steppenfeld game I actually think I enjoy and that's mainly because it doesn't feel anything like a Stefan failed game go figure but yeah it's a cool game it would probably be top 20 not top 15 but probably top 20 but I still enjoy that card game it's a cool system it's abstracted to do get out but it's a simple rule set with a lot of variety a lot of replay value and some interesting interactivity with your neighboring players cool system and as I say the fact that I can like a Stefan fail game has gotta speak volumes about it believe me but it's definitely the least Stefan failed feeling game out of his lot though which probably explains why I like it more but that's just me so yeah a lot of games in 2021 but it was just a bit of a lackluster year for me you know there's a bunch of games I haven't mentioned that I'm sure some of you are like what what about this game this game was fantastic how could you dare not to mention this game how dare you but seriously you know Different Strokes for different folks if there are games I haven't mentioned then by all means get them in the comments and talk about them Big Em Up tell me why you like them so much but of course if there's any games on my list that you think are complete trash then by all means give me a reason as to why you don't like it don't just trash it for trash's sake you know at least give me your reasons why even if it's art Nova because I know art neighbor is not for everybody and there's you know enough people who hate it but I'd like to know your reasons why why do these games hurt you or why do you love the games I didn't mention just get them in the comments it'd be cool to hear your thoughts so that's it for me I'll see you on the next broken meeple video but until next time bear in mind you Ken thumb up the video you can subscribe to the patreon you can just leave the comments as mentioned subscribe to the channel if you can just let me know how you're doing and let me know about the games in question until next time you can check out a couple of important reviews I've mentioned in this review so firstly The Arc Nova review you might want to go check that out but of course if you want to check out the last top 10 of 21 which granted I've spoiled a lot but if you'd like to check it out that would be great you can check it out right here take care and remember as always whatever your viewpoint on 2021 is they were still only games bye for now everyone take care

Channel: The Broken Meeple

Views: 11,032

Keywords: top games of 2021 retrospective, Board Games, Dice Tower Network, Broken Meeple, Reviews, Top 10, tom vasel, boardgamegeek, playthrough, cull, top games decade, top games of 2021, games of 2021, 2021, top ten of 2021, top ten of 2021 retrospective, retrospective top ten, dice tower top ten 2021, thinker themer top 2021, watch it played top ten 2021, quackalope top 2021, rahdo top ten of 2021, broken meeple top ten of 2021, thinker themer top ten 2021, top ten broken meeple 2021

Id: TH4AhBUSMRU

Length: 41min 34sec (2494 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 29 2022