Top 100 Games of all Time (30-21)

[Music] tom vassell's top 100 games of all time [Music] good morning everybody oh good afternoon everybody i'm tom vassell i'm roy kennedy i'm mike d'alessio and i'm z canaday no that's not the one uh garcia [Music] so we just uh we're talking about the voice of the people and so i put a poll up on youtube because i just realized we have that function and it says whose top 100 are you agreeing with the most so far and right now it looks like there is 541 votes in last place with 5 roy canada there's one thing i know about thematic gamers they don't do polls get out of my face too busy rolling dice well that's true since roy's the only person who put magic together on his list and he should win right there right um then mike in second last place with 14 then i have 21 z coming in second with 25 but oddly enough the people is coming with 35 that's hilarious that that was a choice i mean did you make this poll yeah i did i want to know which top 100 people were agreeing with those that's how there's a fundamental flaw in your poll if you even mention if you even mention the uh grammar mike i'm going to walk over to your room no it's not grammar just oh you put in the people's choices one of the choices yes it doesn't matter if your name is bob and you're sitting there i want to know which of the five top 100s you agree with it doesn't matter if it's the people's choice that still might not be your agreement you're asking bob if bob agrees with himself more than anybody might not have voted and he may not agree with how the people's choice turned out and he should not be allowed to vote bob doesn't get a vote you don't vote for the people's choice i don't think they should be disparaging bob like this bob first of all first of all 65 of the people did not vote for that list so your fundamental thinking is flawed you got something oh it doesn't [Music] list i can be the list that doesn't get as many votes that's fine welcome welcome to the top 100. you can tell we've been doing this for a bit this is our third last list we're in the top third these are exciting games that just didn't make the top 20 but they're still quite good they're all right they're all the games that are almost good almost i like to think of it luke says team z thank you i appreciate you all right wow which luke is it a look i know or just another luke no it's not i don't know it's luke waddell i know that luke y'all go way back which is also one of my favorite tv shows i know that luke let's get started where i press the button all right fine here we go number 30 for me is a crossover with mike at least and i think the people too and that is it's on my list for four years straight and it is near and far now i'm very curious how i'll feel about this marvelous storytelling game from ryan lockett after playing sleeping gods and the sequel to near and far which is um what's it called again above and beyond no no is it now or never now burger up and down in and out will be a sponsored sequel that would be amazing okay i'm kind of confused though isn't sleeping gods technically a follow-up to near and far no it's in the same universe there is a literal sequel it's the one we have a a promo for in our kickstarter that's an actual sequel near and far which is supposed to come out later this year and it's not even being kickstarted i think that one's going direct to retail so yeah awesome yeah so yes the sequel to near and far is wherever you are um anyhow yeah it's now or never isn't it right now i believe it is now or never never yet isn't that what i said earlier you said it above and beyond i think to infinity and beyond bed bath and the expansion [Applause] all right anywho thank you all right what do i even near far my number four this is higher on your list than mine tom i that's that's i really like this yeah when it first came out i was always wanting people to play it i took it with us yeah i dragged it to the uk in the suitcase which is not something i do again because it's it's pretty heavy to take away yeah and i went around and played it with everybody i could it's awesome there's one that's not on my list but i really haven't played it that much so i have a copy i just got to play it more could have been a five-way z could have been i don't know i messed up all right for my number 30 i have a a a decent amount of real-time games on my list but this is one that is cooperative that just lets you blow away tons and tons of aliens and this is project elite this is a real time game where you're working together in real time moving your characters rolling dice as fast as you can it basically gives you me the feeling of playing escape um curse of the temple but you're attacking aliens which and you're working together at the same time and it's a lot of fun you do take pauses and breathers in between but as you do that more aliens come out and more bosses come out and then you have to work together to try to figure out how to take them out and be able to survive all the waves and monsters without them getting and taking over your base that is project elite um maybe we'll see it higher on somebody else's list who knows this is new to your list right i played it with you for the first time this year so i've only played the um simon version of it and i really enjoyed it and uh i don't actually own a copy of this but i really need to get a hold of one so i gotta say i'm always a little bit warmed whenever i hear z and not z he never says it but roy and mike say i played this with tom and now it's at my top 100. and i feel like it's not the game it's a nice feeling it's probably i mean did you design project elite now you don't know that i've probably said that about plenty of games tom come on you often say i played with the tom and i hated it it's what i hear well i think what you mean to say is i played this with tom and despite the company in which it was presented to me the game is rock-solid [Music] look at the crying emoji does oh what a waste of an emoji time just pried virtually everybody just so you know my number 30 is a crossover with roy canaday and it's really funny because something he said about it is very true of me as well i have oh and tom as well oh okay i've never won rising sun all right rhymes i like rising sun quite a bit i'm not good at it uh i believe i've gotten second place a time or two but this is a big kind of troops on a map uh area control but uh it has a really clever combat system that i know you've talked about i don't want to you know repeat the same thing but i really like the combat system like you do roy and tom uh i think i like that you know where the battles are going to be i think that's kind of a neat thing too so you can kind of say all right i'm clearly not going to win this one i'm going to save my my resources and see if i can make it happen in this next one i think that's kind of a cool little mechanic it's a game that i think has a lot of depth it's a game that can be played many many times and you kind of find new nuances and i feel like i learned something new every time i play it not enough to win apparently but uh enough to find out some kind of new little nook and cranny in the design so rising sun is a game that i really have a lot of respect for as a design huh i got to tell you we need to all play this together because i have definitely never won this game either so if we all play one of us has to win someone's got to win right one i'm you are the only one i know has the ones that i am certified certifiably terrible at this game yeah just not good at the rest of it all right so the three of you get together you play a three player game one of you wins the other two feel even worse because they now lost against someone who's only ever lost before those two then play another two two-player game one of them wins now we're down to one just major loser what does that person do to ensure a victory they set rising sun on fire [Laughter] all right didn't know i didn't know they came out with a rising sun's second edition that would warrant such behavior of the first edition all right my number 30 is a two-player game maybe you guys can play that one and i love how i say you guys like i'm gonna win i'm not gonna win uh nagaraja is my number 30. this is a game that's got a little bit of everything and i like that sort of soup mentality of this one it's tile laying it is card play with special abilities on the cards you also pay up the cards to give you a pool of dice and then you roll those dice the dice have two kinds of symbols that show up on them strength just brute strength if you have more strength you're the one who takes the tile that's in the middle of the table put it in your little kind of i mean it's a temple using you know you're exploring a temple but then the other kind of symbol that shows up on the dice are the ones you spend to play cards and they benefit you more strength draw more cards what have you turn some tiles around or just mess with your opponent it is fun it is quick it's a beautiful game as well very nicely illustrated and i uh i just like throwing this one down and getting right into it it's a it's a little it doesn't feel like a meal it doesn't it's not a heavy game it sort of feels like a fun little you know romp through through a dungeon-esque kind of game but i've always had a great time with it clearly it's very high in my list and i love it number 30 nagaraja angelo reaction when you said meal oh you were just reading something okay gotcha says he loves z and mike together on this and they rock call backs as a starving comedian i respect that oh well thank you angelo right thank you angelos or angelos all right number 30 for the people is a game that when i first saw it and played it i thought cool co-op game but there's no way this is going to really make waves it's just too complex and yet it is like the most critically acclaimed cooperative game i know and that's spirit island spirit island just keeps you know there's everyone talks about it it's people like the theme of it the i find it to be an interesting fun game although funnily enough you would think this is one of those games where i went into reviews he said that's all right and i said that's pretty good and you would have thought we had burned it on camera with the comments that we still get people like oh they hated it no there was none of that at all but it's an interesting thing because fans of spirit island love spirit island it's an interesting one for sure you're right and it's not one that i not that i'm a you know not that i would have any insight into this but i would have if pressed for an answer said yeah i don't think this is going to be a big hit i don't i just don't think a lot of people are going to gravitate towards this boy was i wrong because you're right people love spirit island it is ranked way higher than i thought it ever would be on on bgg and i mean it's on this list at 30. so that's amazing to me yeah really that's the people's choice 30 spirit island once again i feel like i have to keep telling people number placement doesn't matter that much but this is the first of the games from my last year's top 10 that has fallen out a bit but it's still 29 that's still very high and i like this game i believe it's already been on roy's list and that is side or it's been on mike's list or maybe roy i don't know mike's that just automatically puts it on mike's list but um it used to be mike's number one i don't know if it is this year or not interesting oh really all right anyhow i really like this game because um the action selection thing is my favorite part by far you pick an action you get to take that action and as the game goes by that action constantly gets both cheaper and better that's a cool concept and the rise of fenris 100 best expansion i've ever played but i'm kind of done playing through it so i'll never play it again with anyone else in the gonna get to play the studio and finish nah here's the thing roy i would play it with you but i wouldn't play through the campaign again right right i feel like i'm done with that but if you don't play through the campaign it's kind of like here's the expansion you know you think i can't handle it okay no i don't not that i don't think you can handle it i think the fun of going through the campaign you know was amazing oh gosh okay i don't want to be losing my view of that so you would definitely not recommend somebody buy it and just kind of like open it all and just be like whatever i'm just throwing this in no i don't i would not i would recommend playing through it a bit at a time because what it does is introduce a lot of modules and then when you play side you can kind of say i'll i'll play with this module i'll play without this one but i think you should try them all at least once okay yeah because the the fenris campaign is only what eight ten games it's not a long campaign i wanna say it's eight yeah eight sounds right yeah so it's not too long and it made for i mean the experience of me doing it was really entertaining it was great you know it was great now you want to have a large player count for this ice cream no we played i played through it with three people i was very happy with that it's funny i played through it with three as well yeah that's a large player count you know what you call that a camera one more time that escalated very quickly it was very strange all right my 29 is a pirate themed game just came out last year this is a game with amazing voice acting this is forgotten waters this is a game that you can play as a pirate crew and you're trying to figure out how to keep your ship afloat with all the cargo and things you need but you're playing through this story and it's all about the story and the adventures you uncover um you're all trying to go to different spaces on a storybook thing that you're opening up but the story isn't in the book itself it's all done through an app and it has beautiful pirate themed narration i cannot wait to see um more games that have this style of like immersion and theme um pushed into it with this amazing voice acting that they have in this game um but i've really enjoyed it and it's been a lot of fun playing and i can't wait to even play it more and that is forgotten waters my number 29 the definitive pirate game i'm gonna say it oh i need to play this one more roy because boy i enjoyed my initial kind of experience with it uh but i haven't played it enough i couldn't put it on my list without feeling like i've played enough of it but uh man yeah you're making me want to play it again that's weird i got games my list i just looked at well we know this tom but you know i'm trying to trying to bring up the level of uh critical thinking here hey you notice that i was conspicuously silent during the people's choice number 30 spirit island nobody's listening to your son now i have your mute so that's really matter oh man so what you notice how i was conspicuously silent during the number thirties people's choice i noticed spirit island that's because it's my number 29 choice of the people did we suck the wind under that one yet or not i've tried see i would maybe i would have been if tom hadn't allowed bob to vote so the the uh the spirit island is as tom said it's it's a well you may not have said it but i'll say it it's kind of a unique take on a cooperative game in that it kind of throws some tropes on its head where you're basically playing as these asymmetrical spirits that are trying to kind of work in tandem with the indigenous people of this island that are fighting off against people that are trying to take their land from them it is a very complex in my mind anyway i'll speak for myself a complex uh cooperative game some of the spirits are more complex than others but there's this really cool feeling of synergy when you have two spirits that each have very different strengths and weaknesses uh two or three or four and you're trying to coordinate it really basically removes the alpha gamer situation you sometimes have in cooperative games where one person is basically telling everyone how to play the game you really can't do that in spirit island because you've got so much with your own spirit that you have to kind of negotiate and navigate i like they have this idea of fast powers and slow powers where some of your powers are going to trigger before the bad stuff happens and then others are going to trigger after the bad stuff happens just i think a really unique game i do feel like tom you're right in that maybe it has a very passionate uh fan base and i think that's what's kept it high uh is that people that like spirit island like spirit island a lot and get everything they can for it more spirits more stuff anything you can give me i'll take it i'm not quite to that point but i really like spirit island a lot mostly as a solo game but i have played it multiplayer as well cooperative and it's a really good experience do you run multiple spirits when you play solo personally when i do no uh because i'm not very intelligent i have done it and the the the thing you miss when you run just one spirit as a solo player is you miss exactly what i was talking about which is synergizing powers right um and so to get the full experience it's probably best to run at least two spirits solo but you don't have to the solo rules are for you to run one that's not one of those where you have to where you have to do multiples absolutely not it scales from one to four yeah i just my issue at the end of the day was what you said earlier it's just really complicated i don't you know it is a complex game it's a it's a thinking man's game and i just can't keep up yeah it's tough all right my number 29 i've got one more guys this is the final flip and right game on the list my favorite one of the newer ones also this came out 2019 i want to say maybe 2018 one of those two this is trails of tucana from the fantastic folks over at aporta games and i'm telling you that company just does not get enough love they uh they've knocked some games out of the park this is another one it's a small unassuming little box uh it is sort of a a spiritual sequel or or follow-up on their uh you know the avenue game i talked about kokoro avenue of the kodama it's sort of similar to that as well this one uses hexes uh you are flipping over cards two cards that have different terrains on them and then you need to draw a connecting line between two hexes on your little player board your little piece of paper that represents those two so say you know desert and a forest well find a desert on a floor somewhere that are adjacent to each other connect them and as you are doing this you are building paths on your board that's the core of the game that's it but it's so flexible it's so interesting it's i love the scoring also if you achieve something early you can score it during the interim scoring and then again at the end so what do you do do you go for the big targets yeah you go for the little ones and then maybe score them twice yes all of it just do it all that works too uh i really enjoy this one it's a nice uh little flip and ride game it's fun hey i've always had a good time with it fun teach also it's easy to teach and enjoyable so uh trails of takana my29 all right thank you mr dreadful for asking if someone asked if i was right because maybe that happened 29 for the people is a game that i'm not surprised is on the list it's the second year it was 35 last year i'm surprised it's this low for the people considering if if you think spirit island has a rabid fan base this one has the most rabid one i know of and that's root people love root you know how i talked about how brass birmingham last time birmingham was a played almost every time i went to the game store root far surpassed that to the point where i saw two games of it people get in there i mean everyone was backing in and getting everything and that's one location every con i've been to the last two years people are playing root all over the place roy talks about root mike's talking about roo you know the the app came out amazing so i i just saw i think the app just released a winter map yeah which is literally a different background and i'm gonna buy it um why because winter is coming wintersy i don't know it just looks quickly where we are roy winter is here winter neverwinter here never mind i gotta check this game out and i am really kind of intimidated i'll be honest to try out the board game but i might have to just get this to sap put it on the loose yeah it's great no don't be happier i'm going to play the app without you people i mean i want to play by myself actually that would be a really good way for you to play it on the app come in and we'll be like we're going to be just like those players you played against on the app okay that's people's number 29 root all right this one's new to my list and roy just stole my thunder but i like it better than roy and that's forgotten waters uh i tried so forgot waters another thing forgotten waters did is it actually knocked off tales of arabian nights for me finally i have a lot now i suddenly like this game just for that no but uh forbidden waters has really cohesive stories that still manage to have random events that happen in them but the whole story as a overall is unique and interesting great art voice acting um except for there's this one sailor who might show up once a while really annoying guy but i don't need to know if anybody finds any numbers where you hear me talk message me i need to hear it i like how you automatically you're in this way wait wait wait wait wait uh roy is in this game i think he reported they told me i was i've never heard it so i don't know that's actually true i recorded stuff on a microphone like a boarding session or they flew him to hollywood and uh i was in my closet and uh i pressed the record button [Laughter] it's not as glamorous and now i really like to get i like the worker placement aspect of the game i think it's really well done i like the way that they have you picked the worker placement it does a good job at keeping people from being alpha gamers um but overall i just like the story i love seeing what happens co-op i'm guessing right yeah it's very entertaining very interesting different things can happen so my number 28 forgotten waters i don't know what it is about this game i just did not i mean i didn't check it out when it first sort of arrived and i do not like that cover it's just not captivating to me at all i don't know what it is every time i look at that cover i'm like not interested the game's great such and it might be but you know how sometimes you i mean you got to get in the door if you want to be inside and that door is keeping me out it is not an attractive cover in my opinion well my 28 is the highest rated legacy game on my list and that is clank legacy acquisitions incorporated i think it was on my list last year but i really enjoy clank as a whole um i actually kind of want to combine this a little bit with clank just as the system but i enjoy clank legacy even better than clank as it is clay legacy takes the clank system and adds all sorts of story and flair and things to discover and card packs to unlock and lots of things you're adding to your deck and things are changing up as the story goes along and it has the penny arcade theme and system on it um but it also um just takes all that and just adds tons and tons of story to it and i just have enjoyed clank a lot i enjoy deck builders and i think direwolf does a great job with like their deck building games and i feel like the system is just so good in clank and adding all that story on top of it makes the game amazing so that's why 28 is clank legacy for me roy if they get clank legacy season 2 is that an auto buy uh it's definitely an auto play hopefully hopefully i can play it with you but uh yeah on auto buy no that's not why you say that he wants me to do the autobuy i'm i'm hoping uh yeah okay so what about this idea roy clank in space for some legacy i literally die i mean like the kids like the kids today say omg i'm dead i like regular clank much more than clank in space um i i don't know why are you is more appealing to me than crawling through a spaceship i guess maybe because it's like wacky space and i enjoy more like scientific space i don't know excuse me bring your wacky space in here with your galaxy trucker i guess you're right galaxy yeah galaxy trucker yeah all right my number 28 has been mentioned before by roy candidate i believe at least maybe the people this is a social deduction game and i don't tend to like those very much but this one i feel like is the best deception murder in hong kong z had it too man i love this game i absolutely love this game i've played it because it's so fast i've probably played it 40 50 times you asked me to play it i'll always say yes because it's so it's just it's just i've never had a bad i've that's it i've never had a bad session of it i've played what i'm gonna put that test you're walking out the door to go home and be like mike you wanna play deception i'm in a hurry i gotta meet my wife mike deception true if if i'm hungry what's going to win my hunger or my desire to play deception murder i don't know tom that hasn't been on my list yet oh okay so maybe it's not a crossover with roy anyway it's a really really good game uh whoever i think z talked about it already so i won't belabor it but i just like the idea of everything in front of you could potentially be explained away and you could redirect to somebody else just like he said that's my favorite part of the game it's like oh okay so it's a blood object we know we it's a blood object and i've got this brick in front of me but you've got a hammer that's just as blood as this brick and besides you look guiltier than me all this kind of silly stuff it's just really really fun it allows for very free form but fun discussion i love deception murder in hong kong um it's to me if i'm going to play a game like this this is the one i'll pull i want to play every time it's a good one all right my number 28 is a game that uh did we lose audio for z pizza hey goodbye i don't know why that song will be the one i don't know we're gonna get tagged for okay are we no we're not gonna get no [Laughter] not from my singing roy okay bye bye it wasn't that egregious of a pick my number 28. i still haven't revealed it i don't know why the audio on my headphones just died okay so it's just on your own people hear us okay but i didn't know when to do it did you say the name of your pick yet z yeah it's a great game come on i would have cut a run with this can i show that number 28 is a co-op game an exploration game remember i mentioned i love those and there's not enough you don't know what's around the next corner you flip over a tile for that all the characters are working together trying to escape this cavern and uh there are you know cave-ins down there and creepy crawlies and the darkness and uh tremors all sorts of stuff i like it quite a bit it's a game with a nice amount of tension the look this leaves a little something to be desired my printing of it apparently also happens to be an earlier printing and they did uh they have a newer edition of it in which the thousands are not as dark everything's just kind of like you know printed a little too dark so yeah that'd be nice to get a cleaner looking version of this but as it is i really have a great time with this game co-op with other people solitaire running a few characters no problem uh it's just a nail biter it's engaging kind of cinematic in in many ways i i always have a good time with it subterra 28 for me i don't know if you guys have played this no but it's a good one i i like it anyway i don't think it's necessarily a particularly popular game but i mean the the kickstarter for the sequel did really well so there is that yeah maybe maybe it is more popular than i think all right number 28 for the people is another palindrome it was 82 last year that's a big jump it is a huge jump but this game is very popular now and that is space base i believe already on roy's list yeah yeah 28 and 82 our pound like never mind um what are you even the title of the game no that would be if [Laughter] a plan a canal panama anyhow um yeah space base does really well it's a game i see constantly being played it's it's one of my games that i would use at this point as a welcoming game you're new to the hobby i'll teach you space base and i'm also like mike you like my term welcoming games don't you oh i told the guys i'm gonna we're gonna try to bring that in replace the word gateway with welcoming it's gonna happen we'll do it i like this so much but not only that though space space is the kind of game that i can use as a welcoming game to people but also i enjoy playing it as opposed to you know some other games i'm like yeah i'm getting a little tired of this so space based people's 28. all right my number 27 second year it was 61 last year so it's moved up for me and this is glenn moore 2. uh glenn moore this is one of those games that i feel a little bad that people were was telling me for years to play and i never got around to it finally played the new version and it just really sat well with me it is all about that one central mechanism how far do you want to go but then you take the take the tile you get you stick it in a little carcassonne i like that build your little you know glenn moore area in front of you a few other things and if you ever get bored there's lots of modules in that box so a lot of game a lot of fun glenn moore 2 my number 27 as a euro game hater obviously i have this one and haven't haven't played it yet but it's it's definitely to be played looking forward to that put it on the list yeah you'll like this one mike this is that's true you guys can teach me i can save myself the rule book yeah it's pretty easy game uh to to internalize yeah i think we all like that mechanism don't we i love it i love it the jump ahead as far as you want mechanism do you like that roy too um i've played several games with it uh i need to explore it more i guess before i determine i'm sure this is the game that'll make me love it tom i don't like a game i think yeah it's one of those things right you know if it's that's in it i'm like i'm i'm there my ears have perked up yeah yeah so my my 27 isn't gonna get me any higher on the poll that we have on youtube because i don't think anybody else plays this game at all besides me and that's probably why it is now defunct but i really enjoy miniatures game and my 27 is rune wars the miniatures game i have an amazingly huge amount of this game mike and chris have both been over to my house and seen that i just have like a 5x5 calyx shelf where the entire top of it is just slapped full of miniatures and this picture is actually a picture of my old game table just slapped full of rune wars miniatures the thing i love about this game is that um basically at the beginning of each round you set dials and and there's like a speed determination on all these dials that you set and you're trying to figure out how to attack your opponent and take them out in different areas but you're trying to figure out which speed you're going to do that at and at the end and during each round it's like are there any ones all the ones unit move and then are there twos twos go threes threes go and you're trying to figure out how to like do you want to charge them and try to get them before they get you or maybe they're going to wait to do an attack that's going to be even stronger and there's this whole back and forth of trying to figure out where your opponent's going to be and there's mind games normally in most miniatures games you don't have this weird like like social mind games thing you're doing with the other players while you're playing it and i just really enjoy all the special abilities this is like bad lore with like tons and tons and tons of stuff extra thrown in there as you're running around the board blasting each other away and i really enjoy the rune wars miniatures game even though none of you have played it none of you have heard about it and if you want to get some of it we mean none of us haven't heard about it we're not that out of the picture we've heard of it i'm talking about chat they don't know what this game is what's up um but yeah this stuff is like clearance to high heaven right now so it's super cheap i really enjoy it it's a lot of fun to play if you actually sit down and play the game rune war is my 27. you know why i didn't play this roy and why i won't play it probably it's because it's a straight up miniatures game and that's just one of those games facets of the hobby that i'm just not really doing right now just to save time so i mean it looked cool enough but i also suspect that fantasy flight would not uh continue to support it and they dropped it faster than i thought they would yeah i mean there was there in my uh local area there was a game store that ran tournaments after tournaments of this but i think they were the only ones like the only people doing that sort of stuff with this game i just really enjoyed the mechanics of this game and that's why i was i was like do i want to put a miniatures game on my list do i not but i just love the way this game plays so i had to put it on there bro you do you yeah you're 27. you're 27 was the game you say that no one plays well i see your rune wars and i raise you a mass mora dungeons of arcadia which is more obscure i don't know boys has had critical praise and i've heard it's decent so tom your words cannot harm me i love me some mass maura this is a dungeon crawl game that's based in the world of arcadia quest at least it was re-themed into that i think originally it was not i think it was just a generic dungeon but they rethemed it into the world of arcadia quest it's one of those things that has what tom and zee love so much which is that you can either play it competitively or cooperatively they really love that and so i have to say uh i said that the move as far as you want makes me automatically like a game what you just said automatically makes me dislike it and and i get that and i will say this as a caveat this would not be on my top 100 if it was just the competitive game i play mass mora almost exclusively as a cooperative dungeon crawl game and it at that i like it a lot because it does not have a lot of rules overhead it's a very simple game i really like the it's just it doesn't take itself seriously you know a lot of times dungeon crawls have this kind of grim feel and this is not that this is basically imagine arcadia quest has a dungeon crawl and that's what you've got i really do enjoy it i've played it over and over and over again i still find myself looking at it on the shelf and going yeah i think i want to play some mass mora even if i'm maybe one of three people out there that play it doesn't matter i really like massamora dungeons of arcadia i really like the monster dice in this game that was one of my favorites i do too i don't know i know tom was like i'd rather have miniatures but it was just cool to pull pull dice out a bag and roll a random monster the monster yeah i thought it was really good you like things like like um dice masters and stuff like that yeah but nice bastards everything's a die i'm not taking a miniature and going up and fighting and die it's fun to me okay um i think i understand where you're coming from uh it's a great way to get random encounters the thing is though we talk about okay we've got six boxes full of minis for these monsters right and i have to go and i have to look through okay which one is the kobold okay let me know uh no you can have tons of monsters but it's not going to take up six boxes and take you 15 minutes to find it in your you know i think it's a smart way but i said i like it that's a solid argument too right now one two one one two one uh the game's out of print no one plays it i win four vassal no i don't know yeah i'm not sure if it's out of print or not actually i'm not sure it's definitely out of print i don't know if it's yeah if it's sold right right right well speaking of fantastic miniatures king of tokyo is my number 27. and get on that yellow put out some minis for this king of tokyo is a fantastic yahtzee style game i have liked this from the i remember from the announcement of the game i was intrigued i loved the idea of big old giant monsters smacking each other and it was a dice game cool a fairly straightforward game the reports started to come out that it was uh it was fun and sort of bombastic okay and ever since i played it i've had a great great time with this one i thought the power up stuff where each monster becomes even more unique was a great expansion there's so much content for this now out there uh but yeah i i think most of it enhances it gives you more to mess with enhances the theme the the fun in the box another one of those that to me at the end of the day seems like it prioritizes fun everything else around the package is designed to enhance that first and foremost and if you play to win for points then uh mr tom vassa will disown you you must murder no no no no no no i won't disown you i just scorn you a little but i mean they don't matter scorn disowned i'm still making that day i say and that's a 10th anniversary edition with miniatures you're saying you're saying yes that's in the cards if they don't then that i just that just seems obtuse i think they will i mean i just don't think they will they just had that dark edition all right a pat's ghost said boo but i'm not sure what and it was around when mike was talking so i'm just going to assume that's what do you expect to say it's a ghost that's a that's a that's affirmation that's what ghosts say when they agree with you oh good point all right number 27 fourth year on the list fourth year in the 20s and that's clank i i hear there's a lot of like trash talking about clank these days people like ah it's not that good of a game people don't really like it definitely people enjoy it definitely i got my ear to the ground to the dirty dirty ground sure okay all right it's sweet uh but clark that the idea of deck building had been getting tired and clank took it at it a very simple board mechanism and people were all back in again and this one has consistent support constantly making expansions not just the the legacy version but they have a lot of expansions for the base game too if you get bored with that so yeah clank solid all right 26 was 13 for me last year but i still really like this again another straight up euro game that is it mike who doesn't like this one i don't remember that's lorenzo ill magnifico to me it does it doesn't work for me good game i don't like it all right it's a good game and i like it um uh i it does feel like when i look over it like it's everything i don't like the boring theme to me the it's a lot of it can actually be fairly punishing if you're not what do you think well some of us are better than others apparently i don't like this game man punches you in the face every turn i'm a little bitter about this one no man i i'm telling you after after i learned how to duck and weave a bit the punches miss and you can do well in this game and also the expansion for it is marvelous really like this game lorenzo ill magnifico and yes i see chris also does not like it so apparently the movement has begun z will never touch the game oh wait that was that was bm he might like it now for sure this game has it's definitely bm the um i think it's because your ear is to the dirty ground tom i think that's why you're not getting hit with these punches or something uh yeah it's it's a fine game mechanically i can understand the appeal it just it was one of those games that felt like oh i'm gonna do this oh no i'm i'm not gonna do i'm one resource short maybe i'll do no no not doing that either well i guess no i'm not doing that either all right i'm out the whole game felt like that to me well i really like lorenzo magnifico a little bitter um my 26 is a an amazing like head-to-head game where you can be all sorts of characters from literature and soon to be characters from the marvel universe this is unmatched i have the battle of legends vol 1 on here but i if this is the whole unmatched system i mean i really enjoy the cobble and fog expansion i really enjoy a bunch of the little sets that i've played as well this is a great game where you have this combat that are based off these card decks the characters play all extremely differently and you're maneuvering and gaining cards to your hand and then playing cards out trying to like bluff your opponent maybe this is a strong attack and you should waste a strong defense on it maybe it's not and you're trying to figure out how to utilize the special ability of the particular character you're playing all the characters play extremely different there's lots of different maps you can play on that are normally double-sided they give you lots of different ways to play and move around the game and i really enjoy the line of sight system is it in this game because it's super simple easy to understand a quick playing game unmatched battle of legends i love this one yeah yeah i'm trying to think of another game because this was based off of basically epic duels and then a little bit of tanhauser with the i'm trying to think of another game that's kind of built off of another one that's become as popular as this can you think of anything like that offhand well yeah downforce right i mean this is what ration does restoration okay i suppose i suppose that's true i suppose that's true but yeah okay okay that's fair android network and i don't see this game slowing down anytime soon so if you haven't tried out unmatched there's lots of different sets pick up any of the the um four player sets that are out there it's really enjoyable and really easy and simple to play and teach so yeah on matches i think it's i think it's reached critical mass in the sense of even if restoration games has stops and doesn't do anything else there's enough out there now where if you got let's say i introduce it to someone like is there more i mean like yeah there is more there's enough for you to really enjoy this game sure right yeah i'm kind of excited to see i'm excited to see how high the the person that was being super quiet is going to be on their list because i know it's going to be there shut up um i'm waiting for the uh for the ultimate inception of when they finally get the star wars license that would be crazy you know that's um i don't know i could see that happening and then it's come full circle yeah yeah it's a real versatile system you're a good choice uh my number 26 i didn't do this on purpose it just worked out this way i'm going to stay in arcadia i'm going from the dungeons of arcadia and i'm just going right to the world of arcadia it's arcadia quest is my number 26 and this is a game that there's so much stuff for it it's just hundreds of characters and expansions and but even just the base of arcadia quest i think is just such a fun system i love this kind of roll dice punch each other in the face go for this kind of goal it's just such a it's such a silly i think z you were talking about leaning into the fun this game i don't know how you could not have fun playing this game because it's just so silly you've got these kind of you know ridiculous characters running around a dungeon punching each other in the face stealing you know taking gold it's just a really really fun game i just fun fun fun fun fun fun fun fun how would you describe the game which is is it fun fun or fun i i can i think of it as fun yeah no it's i the exploding dice there's just so much about this game kind of brings up endorphins right it's just like everything about it is a positive reinforcement oh i'm going to do this i'm going to throw these dice you know just yeah yeah that's right here mike i this game is amazing it's no longer my top 100 it's an amazing game i figured it was coming up but how how is it one better than mesmer that it's not even close even roy who had your backs lately there there's no way that he would pick this over that i don't think roy's playing arcadia quests actually i mean i had sarcadia questions i enjoy it and that's star katie quest arcadia quest it's the same game right same game it's essentially the same game arcadia in space right see tom but you are are trying to come at me with this when you just got through a few minutes ago talking about how numbers you know what i mean this is just how it worked through in the pub meeple thing that's just the way it is i'm not talking about the i get that i'm just saying they're one apart that means they're that close to the fact that you like arcadia quest wow maybe i just don't play them for i play them for different reasons arcadia quest is just for really no no no no no no you just said it you said fun fun fun but arcadia quest is when you're just kind of like it's a very ultra competitive game right it's an ultra competitive game it's like the epitome of competitiveness and i just told you i only play massimore as a as a cooperative game so if i was if i was if i was putting massimore on as a competitive game like i said it wouldn't even be on my list but as a cooperative game i really like massmora as a competitive game i like arcadia quest ah that's it fair enough get off my back tom i'm gonna put my ear to the i'm gonna put my ear on the street now that's all i'm doing the dirty dirty street is it my turn yes yeah i think so all right my number 26 is one of my uh my og games i've had this thing for ages san juan is my 26th uh it's i've sort of uh oscillated back and forth between san juan race for the galaxy for many years i had sent one earlier race for the galaxy was the flashy new kid on the street there for a few years i like space i do more than san juan's theme but at the end of the day i keep coming back to san juan more because i can teach it i can play it it's a little faster i don't know the other one i don't think is on my list anymore it's somewhere in the it's 101 i believe okay you're not going to use that yet you're fine i'm good i'm good san juan is uh you pick characters much like puerto rico this is the puerto rico cardigan pick characters they give you abilities you draw more cards you spend cards to play cards lovely system and they themselves will give you new abilities that's basically what's going on in the game and i always have a good time with it the edition i happen to own now is second edition i think it's what it's called where which has a little expansion that came out at some point included right in there and a few extra cards on top of that if you haven't played this i don't know if it's i don't know if san juan's hard to get right now um but this is one of those games i hope does not get forgotten by the fact that you know 3 000 games or whatever come out every year because it deserves to have a place in gaming history in my opinion you know this was way before we expected x game the card game to happen way before that this one said uh set a president that way so san juan 26 it's a classic all right the people's choice 26 is another game that's been solidly in the 20s for the last three years um and uh you just got a thumbs up from pax ghost uh z but anyhow um that's different than a boo anyway um did i mention the game yet if i said it no it's champions of midgard champions of midgard it's a real solid game and i wanna i'm gonna talk about a little bit on the people's choice 25 some more but just one that people like a lot i find interesting 25 and 26 combined we'll come back to that so champion guard number 26. my number 25 has been on my list now for eight years and i think and i hope that next year it might go even higher because of the second edition but if you ask me what's my definitive well z calls and what tentacles on a map this would be that was all you i thought it was brilliant that wasn't that was me that was uh then that was roy then i'll tell you what this happens to me all the time man i tell you what no and kevin kevit there's nothing i don't like about it it is the only game that properly utilizes four-sided dice um because you should not be rolling them they're garbage to roll and this turns them into pyramids this has a tech tree which you all know i love tech trees it has huge monsters that get to control and go around and it does what i mentioned earlier in nexus ops it forces you to attack your opponents all that combines in a game that i would honestly think would be in roy's top ten no joke that's how much i think roy would like it yeah especially because the combat is so much the way he likes combat to be too i think he would adore this game physical combat all right time for the next battle uh i'll reach outside z come back and i'm missing a tooth z one that one let's do it i've been preparing good all right my 25 is a game about crazy gundam size samurai starships samurai starships from plaid hat games and designer isaac vega i really enjoy this game i don't really see this game getting a whole lot of love but i really enjoy the action system of this game you have a one a two a three and a four and there are several different actions yeah he didn't say it did he right i did say starship samurai after saying semis and starships and anyway i really enjoy the way this game works and the mechanics of it um you get to choose do you want to move two ships or do you want to draw two cards or do you want to put put two two um things on on the board like move up stuff um you're trying to basically influence all these different houses at the same time so this game back and forth of like controlling these different planets and areas going in there and attacking your opponents ships and other mechs but then also being able to rise the influence of all these different like space houses in this crazy it's almost it's a really quick playing game but it's like themed in this like mech gundam space opera type theme and i really enjoy the way that it plays and uh it's just a fun game um starship samurai was this in your 40 last year roy yeah let me see would you say this is an would you say this is an opera gundam style game yeah opera gundam style oh it was it was 25 last year exactly the same number i feed on your hate of dad jokes uh i got a question for mr truffle do you like it with expansions i'm assuming that was about chem it and the answer is yes ish but that would take too long to explain so and they now have coupon bases for this game starship samurai game definitely doesn't i didn't know that well i would have had how i paid it faster so how he just painted that one looks i think very good i'm excited about it right i haven't played this one all right my number 25 is pax premier second edition and it's not yeah it's not a game that lends itself well to quick explanation so i'm not going to really try to explain it too much other than it has a couple of central mechanics it has a card market that you are buying from that card market it's a really tight economy money is super tight and it never it's closed economy there's never money will never come in or go out of the system and you're gaining these cards from the market and you're putting it in a tableau in front of you and at any given point in the game you are allying with one of the three factions in the game whether it's britain russia or afghanistan and those facts that your alliance could change and oftentimes will change in the middle of a game sometimes multiple times it's a little bit tricky to teach it's a little bit tricky to wrap your head around the scoring it's pretty obtuse but wow this game is special it does not feel like any other game i've played and it's hard to say that it really feels like it stands apart it probably won't be for everybody because like i said it is a little obtuse but if uh if you like games where there's a lot of tension and where there might be shifting alliances with people that you're playing with and and and you can maybe have this temporary alliance and then it can all blow up if any of that sounds appealing to you you like card play and tableau building packs premiere second edition is a really really special game and it's a gorgeous production on top of it all a really good game all right i gotta play it i gotta play it yeah my number 25 is yamatai yamatai is uh yes another bruno catala game this is one of the big ones and it has all the all the fixings for a euro style game colors that you're lining up on the board and characters that you can draft and pay for and uh turn order shenanigans that stuff it's a good mix it comes together well for me i really enjoy it it's um the money management and it is fun characters and this one i really like the way the characters in this one work when you and you know they they you throw money on them as they don't get bought so when you finally take one it comes with a little bit of cash as well and that's fun i i like that that type of mechanism in games uh just surrounding islands and building on them with these little ships i like it a lot not a whole lot else i'm going to say about that one it's uh if you like your style game this is the days of wondering game you're right it's a forgotten one it's it got some bugs and it came out and then got yeah yeah that was going to be my question i don't think it feels like a days of wonder game i assume that's why well i think they had success with five tribes right and they said okay people can handle a heavier game but the fact is five tribes was easy to play and yeah yamatai is a little more complex i think and it's not as fulfilling i think maybe as five tribes so they went back to their super simple games and they said what's the simplest game we could think of and it got river the river yeah the river and deep blue and stuff yeah yeah yeah yeah yamatai actually started its life as a five tribes sequel that was the original theme and then eventually it drifted away to the current theme but anyway yeah i really like it 25 for me thank you to every free super chat and they answered your question as maybe all right the people's choice 25 has been on there since almost the beginning it's been as high as number four and it's a game nowadays that people scoff at in fact i think when roy mentioned it there was a lot of scoffing in chat about people like i don't like this game anymore and that's lords of water deep mike mentioned it yeah mike mentioned it sorry from my life i mean and i i mentioned this because i think it's interesting it's right next to champions in midgard because the two games are compared a lot in both of them you are getting warriors although in champions of midgard you roll dice and lords of water deep you send them off on missions but i love the i mean i like the lord's words but they make my top 100 but i love that this exists because more people from dungeons and dragons have found out about great board games and i'll still play this one you know the snootiness sometimes astounds me where people like wow i wouldn't play that one like why not it's a good game it's really fun so anyhow that's people's choice 25 lords of water deep good choice all right i came pretty close to lying earlier on this list um or at least alluding people were going a little nuts in the chat how arcadia quest had not made my top 100 and that's simply because my number 24 is starcadia quest oh crossover that's weak fold you we actually don't think they're the same game but they're close enough that there's no way i would put both on the list uh circadian quest is as an upgraded version of arcadia quest you have two characters instead of three um which i thought i wouldn't like i liked having the three characters but it worked really well but the best part of starcadia quest is the plugging in monsters where you could just pick out the they'll say you can use a level whatever monster on this thing and you just pick one so i'm not stuck playing the exact same scenario all the time or you have these miniatures that you painted up but they can only be used in one scenario batman um this one lets you mix and match and i really like that aspect other than that the same combat i like this is one of the biggest take that games there is just blowing the snot out of each other really really fun so starcadia quest my number 24. and the robots are fun get those robots in there my 24 is another 20 20 game and it's a game that i really enjoy it's a giant sprawling game with amazing game trays giant monsters and worker placement with combat that is dwellings of elder veil i love this game i i love the whole magical world feel of it as you're trying to collect different cards and figure out how to combo those together but you're also very aware of like where the different spots on the board are trying to set yourself up to build dwellings and move your stuff up the magic tracks and then all the while trying to figure out is somebody gonna attack me here should i jump on somebody over there whether you win or lose in combat it can kind of help you sometimes i wanted to get into combat and lose just so i could have the resources to spend on something else um it's a very interesting game and a game that i really want to play a lot more of i love the production of this game i think all of it together just comes into one great package that is dwellings of elder veil it is a great game definitely check it out cannot argue with you there my number oh my number 24 is my final visit to the west kingdom because it's the last game in the west kingdom series this is architects of the west kingdom now i said earlier when i had vi counts on my list that i think that that will eventually become my favorite and i do believe that may be the case but right now architects is the one a that i've played the most i've played with more groups of people i also think it's the easiest to teach and if i've had people ask okay so where should i start if i want to try one of these games where should i start unquestionably you start with architects it's the most straightforward it's the easiest to kind of wrap your mind around and once you've played architects and you kind of are comfortable with the systems and with the iconography you'll have a step up in playing the other games because i think you'll like this one enough that you'll want to play the other ones it's a very interactive game for a euro but i don't i think it ever feels mean i don't think it feels targeted because when your workers get kind of and you should play with it what's that you should play with us then we'll we'll change your feelings no no no no because there are times that you want your workers to get arrested i mean you can if you have cars certain cards that can actually help you and that's the thing that's one of the things i like about this game is that you've got options you've got a lot of ways that you can kind of manipulate the players around you manipulate the points and uh get that victory ultimately and actually i've won this game a few times that also helps me like it but it also is it it plays in a reasonable amount of time it plays it scales well i played it a 2 and really enjoyed it i played it at 5 and really enjoyed it and i love it solo as well so architects of the west kingdom i think is a really terrific game and if you're interested in this series start there and see what you think mike i'll say something i do disagree with you on a little bit um i think if you played paladins and you'd liked it i would say well you should try vi counts and vice versa i would really disagree on architects though you might love architects but you may not like the other two games in the series it's no that yeah no okay that's true that is true because it's very different than the other two right very different i suppose well take away the graphic design i know the graphic designs i gotcha yeah it's it's more it's more standard worker placement right the big hook there is that you the more workers you put in a space the more stuff you get it will feel more familiar to people that have played work replacement whereas paladins is a series of interconnected mechanisms and so there's a lot more there vi counts is a little bit more clear on what on on uh what you have to do but there's other systems you you i see what you're saying i get what you're saying but as a side note mike jeff said he lost a bet that pax premier second edition wouldn't show up on any list oh all right well i don't know if you're happy or sad about that jeff but he lost a bit so i guess he paid maybe he wanted to see it but would you get would you guys say since you have experience much more than i do with uh paladins and i haven't even played by counts at all is vi counts easier to learn than paladins no it's the same i think it's actually i think it's more difficult frankly wow hard pass pass but that was but this is i disagree with you on that one i think vikance is easier to learn than paladins but that's okay i feel like no tom it's definitely p.m it's like three in the afternoon here anyway 24 is a game that i've had on my list for approximately 1 billion years and this is a game called compatibility compatibility is a party game in which you have a partner i don't know why my voice broke on that one you have a partner you have a partner you each have an identical you have an identical deck of cards you're giving a cat you're giving by the game a category and then you go through this deck of images and words and colors and what have you and pick uh five or so that you strongly associate with that thing arrange them those five from your strongest association and then so on to the other four and then compare that to your partner in the game that's the game with different teams you know two different couples uh i love it it's fun it is uh it's it's one of those games that is unlike a lot of party games you know it's not a shouty game it's not a speed game this is like the lounge version of many sort of like disco party games i don't know if that's if that's kind of coming across what i'm saying here that's just like i want to see it on the box they already stole my quote from board game geek um this is like the wine and cheese of party games in many ways for me it's how i feel about it it's just sort of like a relaxed party game you can have some laughs you can enjoy yourselves you know but it's it's chill i like that about it quite a bit compatibility 24 for me the only quote i see on this box it says arguably the best game of the decade that's not that's the that's not me uh not the not the edition i own but there's another printing of it that i remember being at a game store and i picked up a copy of it and i read the back of the box and said something i was like man that sounds familiar as i read the whole thing and at the bottom is this board game geek i'm like okay i guess they it's a board game geek quote but it sounds really familiar so i pulled out my phone and looked up but uh what my comment was on board game geek and they stole it from me wholesale baby it was it was exactly my quote word for word the day after is when i asked him to join a dice tower oh he'd made it incredibly deserved yeah yeah you're in now i am i'm an institute all right people's choice 24 has been on all 10 years and in the first two years it was number one it's declined a bit so what is this game that was number one roy you can't guess you're looking at it um it's a crossover with me in 2011 and 2012 was number one easily by a mile and now has fallen down a bit but still very popular 2011 and 2012. yeah it was not cosmic no this game was being played everywhere during that time frame nope blender not i don't know it is the original deck building game dominion it did but in 11 it was still at the height of its popularity it was still you know smashing um about to say pumpkins for some reason but it was just i put that on the new edition of dominion dominion still smashing pumpkins smashing pumpkins since 2011. anyhow uh very popular deckability game and you know what i don't get played as much anymore it's still popular enough and i still think a lot of people think of it as their their game that you know many of them got in a hobby because this brought a lot of deck builders did a hobby so dominion people's choice number 24. my number 23 was number 26 in 2005. um and it was number 25 last year so it stayed pretty consistent over the years although in 2005 i didn't call it its name i called it carabande now i call it simply pitch car pitch car the cheapest game on this list uh when compared to a grand piano uh it's a very big game if you buy just the base game i guess it's not that expensive but you're going to want to buy more it's a flicking track game it was already on roy's list i think right yup i love this game this is to me this is a worthwhile investment even though it's a pricier bigger game you can get anybody except for uncle joe who thinks it's stupid everybody else likes this game you bring it out at a family gathering everybody from little kids to old grandma they'll all play it because all you have to do is flick a car around a track everyone understands the rules it's really simple and it's just a lot of fun it's i always compare it to like having a ping pong table in a sense it's just something that you bring out and have a great time in fact if you own a ping pong table that's a great setting for this game it's the perfect top to put this on top of yeah so i'm not kidding i've used it's that or a billiards table then you could do a ping pong man i'd rather play ping pong than pitch car oh boo look if ping pong qualified as a board game it'd be on my list and it would probably be in the top 20. when's the last time you played ping pong 1998. as soon as you said 19 you're out yeah yeah probably true let's be real when i was nice you have a standard uh you have a standard track layout tom do you have like a go-to track later no i make it a different track every time the only thing i'll say your track should go around the outside of the table so people are not leaning on top of over the table but other than that no every time it's different for me awesome um so i'm known for liking a lot of big epic games a lot of the times and my twitter my 23 is starting off the epic train here with eclipse eclipse is a big space 4x game where you're exploring expanding exploiting exterminating economizing because there's a lot of economy and euro stuff going on in eclipse but i really enjoy the way the way the game works um you're trying to figure out how to explore and push yourself but not push too far that you run out of money to um that you have to pull back too much stuff but it also has combat in it and exciting as one of the best parts of this game is the fact that you can continually upgrade your ships with different pieces and different parts and make them in different ways and they start building missiles so you start building things to make their their their computers not work as well so you go back and forth and then finally attack each other this game is a lot of fun and i really enjoy the way that it works out eclipse my23 sure interstellar space combat that sounds exciting but you know what's really exciting roy that's right clouds my number 23 is petrichor a game where you play as a cloud it's an area control game where you play a black cloud that's right look this is a high stakes game of clouds and you play weather themed cards it's really a card game the board is made up of tiles that are out in a grid and you are moving your cloud around this grid you play cards to move uh to move your clouds you play cards to add raindrops which are these uh really uh lovely acrylic blue drops that you put in your clouds when the clouds run into each other they can create a thunderstorm and eventually those rain clouds are going to spill over onto the board and that's what's going to trigger the growing of the crop that's underneath them it's a really unique game it doesn't look like it should be a kind of cut throat and super competitive area control game but that really is what it is petrichor can be a very mean game you can it's highly interactive but it looks beautiful so it's a little deceptive in that way i really have liked petrichor since it first came out and they've added a few expansions that i think also make it even more compelling they've added flowers and as silly as that sounds kind of ramps it up even more they've got couches that's not the part that begins to sound silly okay this game now has flowers silly suddenly no you've been mentioning the word cloud for a odd minute this is a great theme these are back off i think it's ridiculous and all of the expansions should follow suit petrichor is that smell of the rain after the rain so the next one needs to be like wet dirt and after that ocean mist i mean well i will show you the people the the upcoming one is cows z and and it leans into this the smell that cows can produce i'll just leave it to you that's it methane is absolutely uh a component in the upcoming expansion so yes petrichor it's a wonderful area control game with a cool theme hmm i'm not playing it actually but i um i would give this a go just because it's so that theme is so outside of the box it is all right my 23 is uh a classic it's it's this thing i sold a few a few copies seven wonders is my 23. it's uh slipped a little bit for me over the years but it's clearly you know still hanging on to my list they've got that new edition now which is a nice sort of slight sprucing up of some of the mechanisms they've had years to sort of get feedback on what might feel slightly off i trust the designers and developers to tweak that stuff i'm sure they did a good job with that but the game itself this idea of hey we're going to play this game it's going to take 35 40 minutes whether you're playing with three or playing with seven and that's generally true that core concept right there was sort of the mind blower 80 years ago or whenever this came out and it's a game that plays quickly now i think it's overestimated how easy this game is to play and teach i think there's a little there's a little more to it than that but once everybody knows how to play man nothing functions as as smoothly as playing a game of seven wonders get a card look at him draft on bam boom bam boom compare strengths next round and you blink and you're a third of the way through this game it's true seven wonders love it i thought the only rule you really had to teach is just don't let one person get all the green cards that's basically it my favorite aspect of seven wonders which is a fantastic game hovering right outside my top 100 is the fact that every time i play it i never exactly know who's going to win you know you can look around the table and you can kind of get a sense but there's still always that feeling of who's going to get this one who's going to get this one i love it yeah all right number 23 for the people was 40 last year and 65 the year before that which is interesting to me because the game i think came out even two years before that and it didn't get any buzz till i guess renegade brought it to the mass people and also was nominated for the kenner spiel and that's raiders of the north sea because this was out without much buzz at all for a while and then it there was suddenly buzz i mean no one had even heard of the first one the shipwrights at all uh but then raiders i remember we played it for the first time z we thought it was a fine game and then at least well over a year later then it suddenly started getting a lot more buzz right and it's still doing well and in fact it's interesting that it's higher than paladins of the west kingdom uh just because of the luck involved with this one so i like it i'm glad to see it on the list yeah it's a crossover with me so raiders of the north sea 23. okay here so 22 was 26 last year for me and that's the first year it's debuted very high and it's going to stay high because one of my favorite mechanisms is push your luck and this one does it exactly the way i want to even if i have to say that if it didn't have the board game geek pieces i might drop it 50 ranks and that's quacks of quedlingberg i love those pieces that i mean that this is if when someone says like what game would you upgrade and why it's not even close that is the number one and that's why board game geek sells more of those than almost all their other stuff put together uh quacks of quellingberg where you just pull chips out and then you just push your luck a little bit and it's not the game is really smart even if you like push your luck beyond belief and bust you still get to do stuff you in the first few turns and in fact if you bust over the first four turns of the game you still have a good chance of winning it's not that big of a deal but the game still gives enough of that danger and things involved and there's a lot of variation in the game i just love this game and it's one of those ones that i like teaching people who've never played before because they just get a kick everyone seems to get a big kick out of it so quacks of quedlingberg awesome my number 22 is a game with worker placement but it also allows you to gain dice and take those dice out on adventures and combats against giant monsters and that is champions of midgard i really enjoy champions of midgard and this is with the expansion included with valhalla so that way when your dice die you can buy even more cards with it um i really enjoy the way this game works as you're collecting stuff sending them out a boat on a boat across the ocean fighting monsters fighting trolls fighting duragar fighting giants all sorts of different things that you're taking out trying to collect sets of these different monsters gaining victory points for all of that and trying to figure out how to basically build up all of your dice pool let's send them out let some of them die buy some cars from valhalla just trying to figure out how to put all of that stuff together is a lot of fun for me you also have to have food to send them out on their voyage um this is a great work replacement game and this is basically the game that kind of killed lords of water deep for me just because not only were you gaining a bunch of different resources and things like that but you're taking those adventures and actually sending them out into combat which was a lot of fun and i enjoy champions of midgard my number 22. and mike needs to play it has a little bit more excitement in it oh for sure mike has never played this game played this one yeah i don't know why i've never played it i'd like to would you put on the list okay my all right i'm right now okay my number 22 is a crossover with at least mr z garcia i don't know if it's been on other lists this is everdell and uh boy do i like everdell um this is a game my my favorite aspect z's talked a lot about it and and i agree with everything he said so the only thing i'm really going to add to what he said is that the thing that i really like about everdel is its sense of pacing which doesn't really feel like any other game that i've played anyway where at the beginning of the game you've got basically you can have 15 cards in front of you and you feel like at the end of the first season because it's played over seasons you're thinking there's no way i'm getting 15 cards in front of me you know you may have one card in front of you at the end of the first season but it just barely remembers i remember the first time i played i thought to myself why would they implement a 15 card limit right yeah who cares just feel like why you didn't mention that rule it's i'm not gonna get anywhere near it yeah yeah yeah and so i just love that about the game it has a really great incremental feel so that you just every season you're doing more and more and your combos are building off of more things and cards you have allow you to get other cards for free something also that seven wonders does that i like a lot um it's a just a rock solid game this game is one that the more i play it the more i feel like it it could be a modern classic it really has that feel to it very uh you know the the theme is approachable it's not uh i don't know if i'd call it a welcoming game z because it there's there's a fair amount going on um it's definitely a step above that but the theme is certainly one that's appealing and so uh i i really i like everedell and i like the expansions as well i feel like it's taking a good system and and just keeping it making it better and better so this could even go higher in my list who knows i really like it this one's not on my list this is on my list mike i enjoy it but i don't even think it would make my top 300 i think it's a fun game wow i don't know why i think i think it's not as smooth as other engine building games for me we could have had a five-way tom's hold us back yeah one time ruined this one and i'm not even sorry i do i mean the game's fine i enjoyed it but whatever i agree with what you're saying though tom i think you're right that it is not as smooth as many other games like it does things that i would normally in a in a design in a vacuum i would say that's not a good idea you know like things such as like this card is free if you have this exact other card in front of you right that's generally not a good idea i would say like you don't want to do that in your game but it works in this game and i agree it's not as smooth it is a little sort of uh but those those you know sharp edges add personality to the game for me sure i'm not again i like the game i just don't love it as much as as y'all no that's fair okay 22 for me is uh a game i've played for many years it is a racing game i i like that style of game that'll make enough and this one is jamaica though maybe saying it's a racing game is a bit of a misnomer because it's not all about that there's plenty going on along the way that journey is just as important as the destination along the way you're gonna be fighting other pirates chucking cannon balls at them with the roll of a die stealing the contents of their holds hoarding gold spending food and cannon powder to you know enhance your your attacks of course and enhance your ability to to make port along the way and ultimately trying to get the most victory points yes there's some slapping each other around which is fine in this game that that doesn't bother me and this one is sort of part of the package it adds uh some some lively entertainment and interaction between what's going on and i've just always had a good time with this one i think it's a little the um if it's taken the slightest bit of a of a ding from me it's because early in the game when everyone's kind of bunched up at the beginning of the track there can sometimes be a little too much fighting too much of like that so you spread out a little bit but that's it everything else i adore how does the fighting in jamaica go again i miss that how pirates always fought back in the day that's right 22 jamaica matias wants us to give a shout out to the south american gamers in porto alegre deep south of brazil nice shout out i think matt mora came from brazil so i'm happy with that nice try mike all right number 22 for the people it's the third year in the list this game debuted on the list at 16 and it's going to be on the list for the next six or seven years because its name is azul and azul is just that popular and which one tom which version of zul is this well the original one mike gotcha mike we don't problem with you liking the original one it's when you said others couldn't exist i don't even know how to respond to that no surprise for me all right my number 21 has been on my list for 13 straight years i read the rules of this riding the subways in korea and knew i would like it just from reading the rules uh this is my definition of a streamlined engine building game and this is where me and z differ because why i think san juan is a fine game and good race for the galaxy is where it is at i have played this game more than almost any other game on my list and i love it and it's also one of the few games that even though i played it that much if you said you want to play with the expansion or not i'd be like base games fine thank you the expansions are okay especially the first one and the second one's a little better you know they're both fine third one uh then the fourth one stinks and then the the newest one the the xeno i don't actually i've lost track of how many there are but some of them are fine the lightest one's not bad i think the latest one has this sort of everybody attacking this extra alien thing on the side right they're going through the yeah they're going through the the station one that's that's that mess that one's terrible and also i play this one a lot as the app but i also like playing in person it's a game that once you know what you're doing everyone just sits there and just you can play really fast i like roll for the galaxy a lot it has a very robust interesting system but race has an elegance that just is it's like fine dining just i could sit there and play this in silence and have a great time because the game is that engaging and i rarely say that about a game because i normally want the back and forth between players i'm glad that you uh i'm glad you like this one more than the dice game i i i would agree with that that's cool i thought i thought the dice game was higher for you at this point well they were really close for me at one point you know with the ones newer and it you know has all that shininess and i do like the dice game but the card game is just so so good yeah i love race for the galaxy so my 21 is a app-driven game that is scenario-based based in my favorite ip of all time and that is lord of the rings journeys in middle earth this is an adventure game we're going out as different characters from the lord of the rings books and trying to uncover different things and keep threats down and explore and basically figure out what's going on in the story um there are two different maps in this there's like an outer world map but then there's also sometimes like you're in a dungeon or you're in a tavern and the the scenario can be very different and what you're doing could be very different depending on where you're at in this scenario um i really like the versatility of this system the way the cards work as you play them out trying to get successes as you flip cards and then building up some of those cards to trigger different special abilities upgrading weapons and armor as you go along this is definitely lord of the rings game that just feels like you're playing through this basically like not through the books but through different stories in the world of middle earth and it's very enjoyable and i've had a blast with this so far and i really want to play it a lot more i got the expansion for it which i haven't played at all it just adds massive amounts of more content to the game i'm super excited to play more of lord of the rings journeys in middle earth have they added um like they did for manchester madness scenarios to the app oh yeah they added when the first basebox came out they they had a um downloadable scenario you could buy in and then they came out with the expansion which added more scenarios and then i think they have another scenario that you can buy so they have like digital downloads for the app that gives you whole scenarios to play through so it means that right like using like using the stuff you've got you can buy a little extra something just in the app right right yep and uh yeah and now they have like twice as many characters as they did before and twice as many monsters and regrettably twice as many tiles because there's so many tiles it's hard to like dig through and find the right one sometimes but i still really enjoy the game all right my number 21 is my favorite skirmish game by a pretty large margin this is wildlands by martin wallace i absolutely adore this game i used to think i didn't like skirmish games and then a number of them came out like funkoverse and unmatched and i realized hey maybe maybe i do like this style of game and but but of them all i like wildlands the most it's a pretty simplified system it's all card driven there is no dice and essentially what you're going to be doing one of the big hooks to the game for me is that there are a whole bunch of maps that have been released the original game came with two but on all the maps basically almost all the maps they have 40 squares grids and you've got a card that represents all of them at the beginning of the game every player is going to get 10 of those cards and randomized and five of them are going to be where your five characters will pop up through the game at your choosing and the other five are going to be shards that your opponent are trying to collect and i really like that that during the setup of the game there's so many cool decisions to make because you may want to spread their shards all across the board you may want to have it so that their shard is somewhere where you can pop one of your characters up and kind of hit them when they're going for it it's really clever very kind of simple to understand the line of sight it doesn't get caught in a bunch of rules they've continued to support this with new factions and with new maps and there's actually a new big box expansion that's coming out very soon that i've had a chance to play that is wonderful so i'm really thrilled that they're supporting this system because i think it's one that deserves it it can there's a lot you can do with it even just little tweaks to the map really change the way the game feels so i i really have enjoyed wildlands i taught it to roy and i had a good time playing with him so uh looking forward to more wildlands that's good nice all right 21 is a uh a euro game from a company i just mentioned earlier in this list of porta games and this is santa maria santa maria uses a a core system that they had in one of their role and right style games now all growed up and thrown into this big you know uh euro game it's got a whole lot going on but that system that core idea of drafting dice that have been rolled and then with that die activating a row or a column in this grid you're building up and trigging every little piece of tile along the way where at the beginning of the game you do something and you get a piece of lumber and then seven turns in you do the similar move and now you're getting a lumber to stone and you know move up on this track and you draw this thing and you i don't remember what all the resources are but so i love that again it kind of builds up what's going on in the game even within all that the game is still fairly straightforward like the things i'm achieving in the game are are clear they make sense what i'm trying to go for i simply pick a direction and i go for that and that's another thing i like in euro style games is not this confounding necessity they have to obscure my view for the sake of seeming smarter this game doesn't feel that way i it it is smart it doesn't need to sort of keep me off balance so i think it's more than it is that's how i feel about it santa maria is an excellent game every time i play it i uh i have a great time with it 21 for me all right 21 for the people is a game everyone says has jumped the shark it's been on the list all 10 years but obviously still being played still being bought since they just yesterday announced a new version of this game and that's carcassonne still a fantastic game with a lot of versions a lot of expansions to the point where people use one of its expansions the catapult has a synonym for jumping the shark even if i did enjoy that expansion and i'm pretty sure i'm the only human on earth who did um but yeah it's carcassonne what else can we say i mean it's very popular the simplicity of putting the tiles together this is one of those games that i love seeing people's faces they watch their cities slowly grow out you know they just look at it like this is pretty cool the first time people play it because they've never seen anything like it right that's definitely how i felt when i first played it yeah for sure all right uh before we head out here roz says thanks guys um he has to leave because of work or he won't be there tomorrow and he wants to know if z will sign his copy of compatibility if and when we see you at a convention absolutely i will be happy to do it all right folks this is it for today if you like the video we ask that you thumb it up let us know roy you went up a percentage point in the poll uh we got 20 more of these tomorrow don't forget more videos 20 more games ago i hate you mike um 20 more to go through one at 10 o'clock and one at two both eastern standard time our kickstarter still going on only 56 hours to go tomorrow we'll be adding a new cool add-on to the kickstarter so come back for that tell your friends tell your neighbors tell your enemies to watch the dice tower thanks so much until next time i'm tom vassell i'm roy candy i'm mike delefio and i'm z garcia all right have fun uh eating supper [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 79,260

Rating: 4.9701662 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

Id: SyCtPumHOxY

Length: 102min 25sec (6145 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021