Top 100 Board Games | #100-81 | With Mike

hey everybody this is Mike with the onstop co-op shop and I'm doing something a little bit special that was requested quite a bit on Discord and actually I think I first got the idea from Steve's Co-op Guild Discord and that is to do a top 100 of all time game list this is not something that is in kind of my normal wheelhouse I don't really like rank games I don't keep a list of a 100 and the whole process was very challenging just to kind of explain how I did it I went through the top I think 2,000 or so BGG games just beat by beat by beat and just look through any I recognized and had good feelings toward and uh I also look back at like old top 20 list on the channel and such and then I used Pub meeple and ranked the 200 or so games that I had picked out of the you know over thousand that I've played and yeah I kind of let the ranking mostly stand except for adjusting a few things and I'm ranking these based on playing with my kids based on my current likes but also based on like Nostalgia or how important the game was for me so there's some random things on here but hopefully it'll still give you a little Peak oh and I should say very importantly this is solo cooperative and competitive games I I love a ton of competitive games many of them are my top games of all time even if they have no Solo or co-op mode uh yeah so with that little Preamble this is spots 100 through 81 and I'm planning to do another video every week so you'll get 20 more games every week and hopefully you enjoy let me know uh which games you're surprised by uh what some of your favorites are and thanks for watching so first at number 100 I put one of the games that Peter and I designed I guess I'm allowed to do that right this is the first game that was ever published for us which is part of why it's on the list honestly and that's salvation Road from Van Rider games uh this is a game that I still really enjoy it's incredibly tough although we did make some official uh easier variants for it and who knows we've now started publishing our own games so maybe there'll be a revised version of this that you know they're definitely things that I would change in the design but still this is a fun Survival Game I still really like the uh way that we did different uh combos of positive and negative traded survivors and uh the way like the event cards work and getting resources to the truck I think it's a fun game again a little bit challenging on its basic difficulty but special in my heart because it's the first game that was ever published showing that we could be designers that is salvation Road number 100 then at number 99 we have escape the curse of the temple and yeah I'm only putting in videos for when we have a playthrough and apparently Colin and I never did a playthrough of this one but this is a real time Cooperative game of dice rolling like frantic dice rolling trying to move and explore this Temple while putting down these gems so you can finally Escape but then you have to like run back to the center room or you lose some of your dice and that's uh one of the core things for the game for me the tension of the quick play the cooperation because you have to rescue each other with these golden masks if you get two bog down with these negative masks and then yeah the the intention of getting back to the central room with the the timer like shouting at you and and uh the the uh the music ramping up and stuff it gives really Unforgettable experiences you know yes it's a little silly yes it's a little random I do think you need the big box versions or some of the expansions especially the quest expansions to make it the best it can be but still a really fun game if you don't mind real Time That's Escape at number 99 then at number 98 I've got steampunk Rally or steampunk rally Fusion either version of the game this is a racing game where you build sort of a card-based engine that's your invention your little moving invention and it's dice placement and like dice mitigation and chaining with your engine one die into another all that stuff is awesome the the dice like tactical puzzle and the combos you can create are tons of fun huge Variety in the different scientists you can get and the different parts you can get especially if you go into the the bigger version of the game now this is one of my favorite racing games of all time for competitive play it does have a solo mode officially but that's kind of like a beat your own score it takes away the race aspect entirely definitely not the best way to play the game but it's cool that it has that option but yes this is definitely want I recommend for competitive racing it's awesome that's steampunk rally at number 98 next is another competitive game a much more recent one but this one does have great solo play and that is distilled my number 97 this is a euro competitive or solo where you are trying to distill uh Spirits the the best liquor you can basically and yeah this one is it has a nice straightforward kind of mediumweight Euro Vibe it's got some cool combos in the player powers and the upgrades you can get and really I just love the actual Act of making the spirits where you Shuffle these cards together and take some out and kind of like discover what you've made and how good it is yeah it can be a little frustrating sometimes but there's lots of ways to mitigate the luck and just the tension of it is a lot of fun for me and then the solo mode is awesome for this one because it's got this really cool like pyramid structure where you have different goals every game so it actually in some ways is more varied than the multiplayer game and you kind of like decide which way you go and there's lots of ways to change up the difficulty and make the goals harder or easier just an excellent recent Euro I really enjoy it this is distilled my number 97 next at Number 96 is a war game the first one on the list field commander Napoleon this is a solo only one from Dan vers games and this has a mix of as you're seeing here a big operational map section where you're trying to like move your armies around and encircle people and sometimes defend things tons of variety in the scenarios and what your forces are and how challenging or easy it is to reflect real campaigns in Napoleon's life that part's great but then you also have this tactical map combat that really enjoy it has some crunchiness it has like some unit differences uh and then like the choices of which actions you use and things get changed up by like these special actions and things now I will say it's a Dan vers game so the rules aren't always as clear as they could be but taking that apart uh it's a great blend of tactical and strategic Styles and I haven't played the other field commander games but I've heard from other people that like war games this is the best in the series so that's my number 96 field commander Napoleon then coming out at number 95 is a solo Cooperative one one deck dungeon and this is sort of a dungeon delving game where you're fighting these different creatures and having different encounters from this little deck you have a character that you are leveling up and the main thing you're doing is rolling Dice and applying them and kind of like steampunk rally this one I just really enjoy for dice placement it's got some great kind of mitigation and combo choices by the end of the game you'll be you know changing this die into this number and changing this die into that and that'll allow you to defeat this thing which will let you defeat this thing and it almost gives me I mean this is a little bit hyperbole but it almost gives me like Mage nighty Vibes like figuring out the exact puzzly tactical way to uh leverage my Powers so that I can defeat things in a really cool fashion so that's my favorite part about the game I really enjoy it it can be super challenging but it's also nice you can like mix and match the expansion content and stuff to uh make it better so yeah this is one deck dungeon one of my faves and my number 95 next to number 94 is the first deck builder in the Bunch although there will be more this is legendary encounter specifically the alien set this is still my favorite version of legendary I didn't like the Marvel version as much although I didn't play the billion releases they've had I only played the basic stuff and yeah I didn't like X Files as much I never played the James Bond one so this is not my favorite deck builder I actually find the deck building kind of annoying sometimes I don't love the sort of Ascension style uh river deck building model where you just kind of get random things but putting that aside I really like the encounter system of using attack to flip over cards I like the way you coordinate with each other and can play cards on each other and then you like get to draw replacement so it's not even a negative thing I like the variety in the missions I am a big fan of the aliens movies at least the first three not so much the fourth one they included here but uh I like the the IPS and they have like some kind of fun call outs to the movies and stuff so yeah again like not my favorite game just for pure deck building but for a general like tactical picture with a strong thematic element even if you uh maybe don't love the art because it's not great legendary encounters alien is a great deck building game and my number 94 then at number 93 we've got another newer one this is Witchcraft and this has gotten a standing in for witchcraft and resistance they use the same system this is a solo only card game where you're trying to survive and fight creatures with your little deck of witches this is kind of a reverse deck builder because as you use the witches for their more powerful revealed side they go out of your deck and you get weaker and weaker and man this is like tension personified but also the the puzzle and the tactics of like which missions to go on which enemies to destroy and leave alive which witches to leave hidden and revealed how to combo their powers together even how to like build your deck when you draft it at the beginning that's already great and the fact that they have sort of a uh infinitely replayable mode and then like a bunch of scenarios that change up the game give it a lot of depth for you know a very inexpensive card game so I love this one this is my number 93 that's witchcraft next to number 92 is a competitive game with solo and cooperative play as well and this is enchant pters and this is maybe the first one on the list that's really here because of my kids because we played a ton of this game this one has a lot of modularity it's basically kind of like a tableau Builder engine builder is thing in that you are fighting monsters and also buying cards from this card row it gets more expensive the further right you go and you're boosting up your attack and defense stats that lets you fight harder monsters and they're worth more victory points but there's so many modules and sets to combine that give you different items and different combos to build that's a ton of the fun in the game now I will say it does have solo cooperative play it's not the best they have like both a boss attack mode but the rules are a little wonky and the cards don't always work that well for it and then like they have sort of like a solo more like score Attack Mode that one's okay but definitely competitive play is the best way to go here that's how I played it with my kids and we just loved it so yeah if you like engine building Tableau building lots of modularity and fun choices and combos each game enchanters is a great one my number two and then my friend David Thompson is Coming Out Swinging because between witchcraft where he's a Cod designer and this one Castle itter he's already got two on the list this is my number 91 Castle itter which is standing in for David's value Defender Series in general I think for my taste this one or lanzerath Ridge are the best in the series although uh oh man the soldiers and postman's uniform is maybe the tensest one yeah there's another war game a solo only it has dice base combat it has great variety how the enemies come out even though it is emulating and modeling a real battle in history and yeah you just have these enemy cards you have to resolve every turn you can boost them with tactics you have to kind of figure out where to place your people you have different goals to go for like do you try to escape the battle or do you uh stay in fight just lots of great stuff in here the dice can kill you the dice could be really frustrating or like the card draw can bring the worst thing at the worst time but these are games about desperate defenses that you might die in so that's kind of part of the game you know if you don't like Randomness and and just complete fear overwhelming you this might not be the one for you but for my taste Castle iter is awesome this whole series is awesome and it's my number 91 and War Games keep on coming for my number 90 I've got Twilight Struggle Red Sea although this is kind of standing in for the original Twilight Struggle as well and some card driven War Games overall but yeah this one is great for competitive play and it has really good solo too I wouldn't say it's the best way to play it but uh the solo works well if you don't mind going through spreadsheets but yeah the competitive 1V One play this is a knife fight in a phone booth it's fast it's frantic trying to control these areas I love the core Twilight Struggle gameplay of the event cards where you have to decide when to play Bad events for your opponent and like kind of try to mitigate their effects but also try to uh Leverage The Good events for yourself and yeah the fact that this one is playable in like 45 minutes or an hour which is definitely not the case for the original Twilight Struggle and not the case for most card driven games in general with my taste and my free time recently that's just a Big Boon in the game's favor so yeah great area control historical war game Twilight Struggle Red Sea my number 90 next to number 89 I've got final girl the game of surviving a horror film and I am a big horror movie fan and I've watched a ton of them and I know most of the references these games make so that's already a good start like IP and theme wise but then this is an evolution well I consider an evolution some people might actually like it less of the hostage negotiator formula so you're playing cards and then rolling dice to kind of figure out how successful you are and yes this is going to be the make or break moment for the game for most people because oh my gosh the dice hey there we go I rolled badly the dice can destroy you if you don't do well the dice can be your Kryptonite and could ruin your experience of the game but if you can kind of give in it and let the game be a bit more of experience even though there are good tactical choices and there is like interesting things to decide here but if you let like the experience of the events and the crazy things that happen and the crazy like NPCs that show up and and just how the luck kind of takes you through a journey I think this one is awesome for an experiential kind of imer Story game oh and I should mention it has awesome modularity if you get some of the sets just mixing and matching final girls and locations and Killers you know do you want to have like an evil doll in space like a Chucky oh was the Chucky movie in space anyway you know lets you do wild things just like horror movies of and do that's why it's my number 89 final girl and here at number 88 we get another game that we've never covered although this one would be hard to do a playthrough of I guess I could do a review at some point this is the Sherlock Holmes Consulting detective series I really like mystery I like Sherlock Holmes books I've read pretty much all the stories I think and yeah this is a great game for like real deduction and mystery solving because of kind of the core conceit of the game that you have a phone book and you have a map of London and you can go anywhere and yes the vast majority of places will have nothing to do with the case but it lets you do kind of deductive things that I've never seen in any other game except for like maybe some of the ones that use the internet in some cool ways in that to give an example if I know the killer used a taxi I can go to all the taxi stations in each different direction from the uh the the murder site and I'll figure out something often they'll be like yeah I I picked that guy up here's where he went you know like cool things like that but just don't exist in basically any other Adventure mystery game are in this one now you know it is OB two you got to read so much it's just paragraph after paragraph of reading it's technically Cooperative or competitive that's kind of silly but yeah if you like Miss and you like Sherlock Holmes and you don't mind reading a lot uh Consulting detective is a great system a great game and it's my number 88 and next to number 87 is another great war game you know this is like the the War gamest uh part of the top 100 I think these 20 games I'll have to look later but this might have the most this is PX Premier second edition and this one has a great solo mode this was designed by Ricky Royal the solo mode specifically and it's just really welld designed it kind of like U you know skips through some things but really interacts with you in important ways but putting that to the side this is such an interesting game of kind of area control with the map but then like the way you interact with the map is really interesting you don't necessarily own pieces you're like forming different alliances but then you also have this really cool like kind of card Tableau system you can build out abilities and combos with that but you have to be carefully paying attention to what everybody else's cards are and yeah it's just a great tactical puzzle it's got good theme it's got amazing choices and again the solo mode is killer really really works well uh no way I could couldn't put pack me or second edition on my list and it is my number 87 next at 86 we have the first of the Fantasy Flight lcg games but it won't be the last and this is Marvel champion this is Peter's favorite game definitely not mine it's 86 but it is a still really great solo and Cooperative game I'm not a big one for deck construction so I don't get that excited by like building decks and trying out different combos but the nice thing about this one is you can just like take the basic Iron Man deck or the basic Spider-Man deck or just combine them with some basic uh aspects and make the game work uh it's over time grown to have great Variety in the uh bosses you've got now campaigns with like little comic book things I'm not the biggest Marvel fan in the world at this point but it's still fun to see like my favorite characters doing stuff the card play is good I love the system where you're paying for cards with other cards making those tough choices so yeah I think Marvel Champions is not my favorite FFG lcg but definitely an awesome game and my number 86 of all time then funnily enough my number 85 is also a fantasy flight lcg or it was for a little while but that's not what I'm ranking it on I said that I do have some games on this list that are more Nostalgia based and Netrunner is one of the first uh collectible card games I played after I got into magic and a few others I got into Netrunner and I still think this is an amazing game for evolution and for uh innovation in the card space even like today with the Fantasy Flight version which didn't change that much just the asymmetry this is a uh ccg collectible card game or it was an lcg where one of you plays a corporation trying to defend these agendas and Advance them and you're building out like these Columns of cards to protect your agendas and also like fool each other is bluffing in the game in really cool way and then you have the other player is the runner trying to break in I've never played any solo modes I'm sure there's some fan-made variants fors this is only 1 V one but man it was amazing for its time I still think it's a great game but this is mainly based on how much I enjoyed this one how much kind of blew me away that a game could be like this back in I don't know what was it like '93 996 when this came out so yeah Netrunner an amazing card game so Innovative even today still one of the coolest designs I've seen and now going back into the Nostalgia Corner let's go to number 84 runebound not Third Edition second edition I always like second edition more than Third Edition this is a game that is a little Antiquated by modern standards like the movement dice are not great the combat can be pretty luck driven but I still love a lot of the things this game was doing as an adventure game it was one of my favorite adventure games for years back in the day it has great modularity with the expansions you could buy things like with new maps new adventures they Fantasy Flight was really wild back then not in a balanced way but in a fun way just like adding on crazy stuff to their designs I love the combat I still like it more than third edition's kind of POG system it was a dice based combat with all these abilities and things you'll get such crazy builds in this game with your items and it was just a lot of fun to build like these broken combos the solo mode was okay it was like a timer based one depended on which set you were playing actually I think but it was okay like competitive was kind of cooler the the race aspect and trying to like beat the boss first was neater and it didn't have co-op like a third edition got with the expansion but yeah this is again you know maybe not one I would play today so should it be here I don't know this my list but it's my number 84 run Mound second edition and then next keeping the Nostalgia going is space Hulk this is not space Hulk Death Angel The solo Coop card game game this is the thing that was based on the 1v1 asymmetric miniature game and yes this Edition you're seeing on screen is the one that I had the 1989 spacehulk I bought this when I was eight years old or somebody bought it for me and then I did get the Third Edition I pre-ordered it at a Games Workshop brick and mortar store what a different age that was but yeah I loved this one kind of like Netrunner this just blew me away with the a symmetry one player controls the uh Space Marines the Terminators who are in these giant armor and have amazing weapons can cut down swas of enemies in one blast and the other side would play the genan Stealers these like alien creatures and the tension of this game the Tactical positioning in some ways I like the the like hallway cramped that this game had more than something like Gears of War which is you know in many ways a better more modern tactical design of a similar kind of thing but yeah spacehulk was great this one I would totally play again today if I could find a copy whatever addition they're on now fourth or fifth I think fourth might have been the last one they made but yeah that's my number 83 space Hulk then jumping from very old to quite new we have my number 82 which is the light in the Mist this is one of my favorite recent uh riddle sort of like escape room is games it's a beautiful game it's an inexpensive game you are using these tarot cards that have images on them to solve really interesting riddles and then you are cross-indexing them in like this narrative book and it's telling this really engaging story about like family trauma and relationships and stuff it's like a nonlinear story but putting it together is half the fun see my wife and I have just absolutely adored this one one of my favorite games of last year easily one I can fully recommend and even though it's a one-off play and you can't really play through it again it's still great enough to be my number 82 and finally the last game for this video number 81 this is one that would never be covered on this channel the resistance this is a competitive hidden Trader game and if you're in the patreon you might have seen this I talked about this game in the one of the bonus videos for last month but this is I used to have a main game group that would only play hidden Trader games the resistance was one of our favorites for years just you know hidden Trader games if you get the right group they could be so much fun just the the deception and the guesswork and I don't know and uh in in the the video on the patreon I talked about how this was like one of the first games I ever played with my wife one of the first games where I introduced my wife to like my main game group some of our friends that are still our gaming friends today so it it's important in my life as well as being one of my favorite hidden Trader games of all time one that we just played again dozens and dozens and dozens of times gosh if if I was still tracking plays I'm sure I would have at least like 50 of their assistance so uh yeah that is my number 81 so there we go that was the first of a five-part series that's the plan at least let me know because I'm not recording the next video until next week so if you uh if you have anything that like is actively making this less enjoyable for you or that you'd like to see let me know and I'll take it under consideration and let me know what your some of your favorite games are but otherwise we'll see you next week with games 80 through 61 good gaming and I'll see you at the next stop

Channel: One Stop Co-op Shop

Views: 5,655

Keywords: board, game, one stop, co-op shop, oscs, top 100, best, top 20, top 10, review, solo, cooperative, competitive, marvel champions, space hulk, one deck dungeon, runebound

Id: MUmN-kqYt8M

Length: 22min 7sec (1327 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2024