Top 100 Games of All Time - 30-21

[Music] tom vassell's top 100 games of all time [Music] but never piano [Music] voice of the people [Music] good afternoon everyone i'm tom vassell very subdued i'm mike d'alessio oh he was gonna he said he was scared i'm z garcia hi boys for the people i'm wendy yi i cut you off like halfway good i'm good that's all yeah yeah yeah yeah not gonna be the first the first time is definitely not gonna be the last one okay so it was my idea to put hats as decorations it was not my idea to put them on the table they're just wendy no no this is a game i'm gonna throw this on mike's head every time there's a crossover and see if i can oh i like that game i like that okay one of them though is filled with bees have the scorpions have the emergency room on speed dial tom all right you think it's not over there i got seven kids that's a good point in this group of ten i know we haven't started yet but in this group of ten i happen to have two new games to my list in this also so do also do [Music] one of the two one of mine is this is an odd little kind of quirk to my list every game from 30 to 21 happens to be the same game so how did that work out i don't know wow time to look at the coding at the pub meeple website so for me the people you really like so people really like the same stuff as me this is like some of my most favorite games are on this people's list today most [Music] here we go i don't know what's going to happen all mike's game is going to be a marvelous today i'm going to say nothing i'm going to cop my mic i'm going to say anything negative about mike at all this hole nobody could be me you look amazing for your age oh my gosh goodness thomas no it's a backhanded compliment oh come try it no he looks good no matter what mike delicious is a handsome man i can't appreciate this on camera because he goes beyond words too z brought me an apple today i didn't know it was delicious too what was it sugar beef oh sugar beans it did it was a good idea mike's let's start okay [Music] all right my number 30 is not one of the new games on my list it has been on uh my list it's down a few places but it is still my favorite version of what i would call the kind of pandemic system and it's not a pandemic game i know what this is yeah my number 30 is thunderbirds which is a matt lee design and it really is it is basically the core pandemic system cooperative game but this adds a couple of twists mostly in the in the form of vehicles vehicles that allow you to do different things um you know you can go up to the into space and if you're not a fan of the ip maybe it would lose a little something to you but i'm not a huge fan of the thunderbirds i mean i watched a couple of the old creepy puppet shows when i was a kid but i do really love the little bit that this adds to the core pandemic system which is still great but if i want to play that i'm going to play thunderbirds every time i just really think this is a little bit of a of a twist that makes it something that i go with amazing choice this guy really this is a good game patronizing to me sir hey so recently i've been playing uh railroad tycoon the old video game yeah and i downloaded some mods to put in it and one of them was using the thunderbirds vehicles to transport people really really thunderbird 2. that's kind of well what happens is it starts and then you gotta wait two minutes for the people to get on and then it goes all right no that doesn't actually do that but they're just i was like what are these really weirdly shaped vehicles and then i remembered thunderbirds vehicles and i knew that not because of the show because of this game oh well there you go although i like this game considerably less i would put a 10 in front of my ranking here this would be like 10 30 for me it's that low so come on you hate pandemic then because this is basically pandemic with a little bit of added twist with those vehicles this is not just pandemic some systems that are similar i think it's it's not a different enough mic where i don't i don't lump it in myself okay okay um but i do like this game it's better than pandemic i prefer it's pandemic the bass pandemic absolutely i do it was so easy to agree with you then and things are more difficult now yes your arguments are well reasoned all right my number 30 is a dice game yahtzee style game one of the best in that category and that is king of tokyo king of tokyo remains in my opinion one of the best games of its ilk it is um it manages to both move quickly and be flamboyant and silly but have a lot of neat ideas packed within it you know this uh the the the two sort of paths to winning you can you can try to make it to 20 victory points or you can wipe everybody else out you need to survive to make it to 20 points the best way to make points reliably sitting in tokyo if you sit in tokyo you take all the hits at some point you have to leave that living on the razor's edge thing is really where the game's at you know and yes it has player elimination and you know it doesn't really care about a lot of these modern ideas in games but manages to still feel fresh to me i i think this is a solid game notice the picture there was of the dark edition is that the edition you would own if you only owned one gosh i don't know that one's um that's a good one i think this that's a very good uh addition it has those nice you know level up tiles or whatever along the side but then you can't throw expansions into it right well you can but they don't know there's like one missing monster or something usually they don't really match you know that would bother me more than anything else no i mean if you're only going for one and you don't know the game you're curious and want to pick one up go for the regular one yeah yeah or the big but never mind all right 30. king of tokyo my number 30 was 167 last year my two new entries but it's thunderbirds i knew this was gonna go on here this moved up solely because this is my one of my most played games in 2021 okay i played it on one weekend i played it i think 19 times straight wow but that's because they added they they they tend timed the content for this game which brought it from me liking it to me loving it and that's marvel united oh really yeah okay because the base game alone did not make my list i like it a lot but you know there's only so many combos now there are a bazillion combos and that's not even talking about the fact that content's about to double well and it changes some of the mechanics of the game oh yeah though thank you chris for putting the best my favorite version here the sinister six yep i i agree that is the best one yeah that's my favorite uh it's our table yeah i might have taken that picture because it might have a picture yeah i i just love this game and it's it's i like it because for a lot of reasons i like marvel but not all marvel games are on the list sure um i like the customizing of the difficulty you want a bit to be hard pull thanos out you're gonna lose probably and some of the characters are really difficult like carnage and and you know what some of the ones that i say are hard other people like that's not that bad but yeah some of them feel really hard to me and then others they're easier i mean clearly red skull is not a difficult bad guy compared to the others so if i want to play with the kids and we want to have an easier game and some of the heroes are better than others doctor strange is clearly better than say um ant-man okay you can take out those wild cards you know if you want to make it a little bit harder right and you can change the locations and it's a lot of customization that's not too hard either i'm like here's the villain hero hero hero let's play yes i really like that that's it's not hard to set up as opposed to say marvel legendary i do wish that the characters were a little bit more different you know i used to think that back when i was a plebe that's how that sounded sorry i used to think that but i i played it a lot last year i really can tell the difference it's they only have three special cards but they they make a difference they really felt different and also the icons are different i did a whole mathematical thing because i'm a nerd yes and compared them now i do wonder if the marvel stuff will be more fun because they all have at least four i mean the x-men experience yeah it does feel like an op kind of move doesn't it but maybe at least differential yeah we'll see yeah but i agree with that i i thought that at first i was like these are very similar they barely have a little hint of what makes them them and i changed my tune like seeing more characters later i went back to the core box characters and they seemed more different to me and had a bigger reference point yeah yeah i was like on the how different these are i have played characters that seem like they're particularly weak against certain villains yeah sure i think so i felt i have felt that yeah sure but again i i do that deliberately i'm like we're playing against rhino so we're picking these you know who adam warlock feels weak against nobody no but i'll take strange over warlock but yes so my number 30 marvel united all right so the people they have chosen carcassonne as their number 30. thank you so much for doing that carter stone is this cute little tile lane game it's very simple but it's not simplistic because you get to fight for spaces you put down a tie you put down a worker or a meeple whatever you want to call it put those down and that's your whole turn but once you close off things like roads or cities you score points on those and if you're able to sneak your way in then you can steal that through majorities and stuff you can steal those points from other people so it's a game that seems really nice and sweet and then gets a little bit mean so i think people really like it for the interesting little just that those choices and trying to figure out how to how to weasel your way in is actually one of the games that i don't play as a jerk unless the the opportunities there you know like to combine a city i don't like tickets right i'm gonna i'm coming for you off yeah yeah but but in carcassonne it's more of a oh look these cities are about to come mine okay i'll try to make that happen yeah i don't go out of my way to do it this is one of the few games where i do got on my way to do it i just try like that's the point of this yes wendy's only mean in this game only one of the few that's why i really like the first expansion first or second which everyone added those uh shields that when you close the city no matter who's scoring it you get the shield i love that and that's a great room i might instead of trying to figure out a way to get in there i might just be like i'll shut it down yeah i'm the one who closed it so i'll get this majority at the end of the fewer points yeah i like that one i am a little surprised this is this high still on the people's list i mean that's true historically the 30th anniversary just came out this is the lowest it's ever been though wow yeah this is its lowest year it's been above 20 every other year well this is a game that gets people into the hobby much like catan it is it is all right so that's people's choice number 30 carcassonne [Music] all right my number 29 is a game that has been out for quite a while a new addition it was out of print for a number of years a new edition came out but on my list i'm putting the original because i actually slightly prefer it there's a very small difference between the two my number 29 i think is a crossover with you okay cleopatra and the society of architects and so i asked chris specifically if he would put this version on here now this version is not available right now if you are interested in the game you can get these mojito games the new version that is out there for mojito games it's essentially the same game i have a small soft spot in my heart for the original but they really are essentially the same game it is a very light welcoming game to use these terminology where you are playing cards to take actions that allow you to build different things you know those obelisks that you can see the the sphinx uh statues you can actually put a little mosaic on the top which is a little bit of a tetromino before they were the big thing in board gaming it has a little bit of everything and a couple of really neat little design twists that i love my favorite aspect of it as stupid as it sounds is there is a market deck of cards and you take that big deck of cards you flip one side face up the other side face down and you shuffle them together so that when you have these three rows of cards you see some of the cards in the row and others you don't and so there's a little bit of a push or luck thing because some of the cards are corruption type cards where they can give you some some corruption that's just such a smart thing it really is so smart so i still like this this is the days of wonder edition but again if you can't find this one you're interested the mojito version is just as i am in a production agree with mike even more strongly i'd rather on the original version sure sure the new version is bigger it looks nicer it's a pain in the neck i would only get it because it's available that's the only reason i would get it i don't even know if it's that available it was a kickstarter maybe maybe you know the new one has better mechanisms i think it's a better game i think the old one is ultimately a better production yeah and the new one's a very big production i mean it's just based on like the production itself is a much more extravagant thing it is but yeah the original one was a tight package yeah they put a lot in that ticket to ride size box they put a lot in it they do they did it smartly yeah yeah and then in an ideal world there would be that original packaging and look and everything with the mechanisms from the new one but and no this is not in my top 100 this year oh maybe maybe it was the people's i thought some i thought we definitely was not in the people's the game was not that popular it did not sell that well for days of wonderland the reprint did well because of kickstarter but gotcha i ever thought we had discussed this before you know that nobody i think pulled it out of the retreat do we have the original version not the big one that's the new book maybe intimidating to people it's a huge box rather than a ticket to ride sidewalks speaking of scary guys uh my number 29 self-referential is a uh i did i'm the one who's that's scary right yeah i was giving myself a uh hairy skin i'm sorry i'll pat you in the background thank you 29 is sub tara subterra is a cooperative tile laying game in which you are you spelunk down into a cavern you get stuck there you need to find your way out and along the way you will have to contend with tremors down there with gas pockets of noxious gas with sharp rocks and tight corners you know with having to attach a rope to climb or climb down and monsters which nobody told me was part of the deal i thought i just had to deal with a cavern so there's going to be all this stuff and you need to find an exit and get out much like other co-op games i like you know pandemic anything like that it's that whole do something bad um activating things mainly and then you have this many actions to be efficient and i tend to really like those kinds of games on top of that this one has a really nice amount of cooperation if somebody loses all their little hearts a little health then somebody needs to be near them and go and revive them or you've got to double back sometimes and go help them out so there's all this cinematic like oh no so and so just took you know just went down we somebody needs to peel peel back and and go help them you know nope no you're here again you can't let them die because at the end it's just whoever gets out is who survives i guess i'm not in the marines we leave men behind okay that's not okay you you should try i'm never going spelunky with you oh well you know how that's gonna happen we ain't gonna spawn yeah that wasn't gonna happen um anyway i really like this one i think it's just a fun game um cool theme different theme very cooperative very tight game so yeah i've played subterra too but not number one does it have the same issue or like or not issue uh the same thing where you you have to be very careful where you stop because stuff happens to i don't know how you played because it's not out so it was uh played a pre-production it was a pre-production yeah i don't know i haven't played she's is broken is what you're telling me how do you respond to no no no the accusations of subterrane is a broken game and therefore not worthy of your i think you get broken when you play the game oh yeah that's how it works my answer to that my official answer is if you want to hear broken tom go ahead you like my next game it's the highest ranked party game on my list and it's been on my list since the beginning number 29 time's up always works always works for me um just i enjoy the game there's not a lot more i'm saying about it we and i i will say that that there's many versions of it now yeah every three or four years a celebrity discovers the game and comes out with their own version sure they're like look and i know that there's a funky version of it that shuts it down like it uh what's it called them monikers monikers which is essentially the same game but has things like but it's more adult right not so much more adult but it's like a it's not famous people as opposed to like a mime on a tricycle yeah and so you have to guess an odder thing and i have yet to try that version so it might be better sure or funnier but i just like time's up it just works it's fantastic yep very cool all right the people's 29 is one of my most favorite games and this just keeps getting better with with age let me tell you what these scores were it was 145 in 2018 39 the next year 32 this year it's 29 and this is brass birmingham oh this game every time i see it i just love it i was taking pictures um actually before this and i set it up and i was like man i set all of this up and i don't get to play it i just had to take pictures oh so i was very disappointed i literally should have just played it this saturday i was promised that's going to happen saturday saturday yeah is that happening here i don't know if that's happening here or not you know it probably oh no we'll see we'll see but anyway i got to play last night to balance the equation out or something raspberry ham's such a good heavy economic very eurogamy thing where you're building in different industries you're flipping over tiles you're positively interacting with the market there's so much good stuff going on really cool card management i i just love everything about this game that's that's basically it game over have you played uh brass uh worcestershire worcestershire you know what microsoft i did play lancashire and i didn't love it it was okay and i feel like this fixed everything wrong with that cog one which one's the original lincolnshire lancashire is here definitely it's not close to which one gets played more i think at our conventions yeah i had two copies of both i was like oh people i went down to one copy of this one because well it just got quite another one oh the other one is the one that gets played more okay i don't know this one gets played so many mechanisms that just didn't i mean there were just a few mechanisms that just didn't really work well and so this streamlined it was great it added more stuff right yeah so that is number 29 brass birmingham [Music] my number 28 is one of the new games on the list and as a matter of fact it's a game that we just played live here on the channel within the last few days my number 28 is sleeping god i was just making it up because it was yours i didn't pick kids on purpose yeah wow yeah yeah this is and and so you disagree with mike on this one right no no i said i was gonna say good things about everything mike did mike amazing choice well thank you i feel even more justify i'm like man this is coming in pretty hot but obviously i made this list before we played it again live and we played just like for a couple of hours barely got you know a couple of locations and i was annoyed at the end of it there we had this because i wanted to keep playing the game this is just like this is the equivalent of like an ear worm is to music yes just gets in there and you're like i want to keep going it's just so smooth and and you know i've already played through a full campaign and many other games outside of that and it has not lost its luster i still feel like there is so much more for me to explore i'm not even talking about the dungeons that you can add i'm not even talking about the uh the extra map book that you can you know go into uh just off that base uh spiral bound map book there's so much there to explore uh and i think that this one leans the heaviest in the story direction of any of the locket kind of story based games and even after reading the now or never rules i think that's still definitely the case okay this one definitely leans more into story but it has enough underpinning of it of a game there that you don't just feel like you're i've seen some people say oh this is just to choose your own adventure book hogwash absolutely not it is complete balderdash and hogwash yes in other words it's definitely a game there it's definitely plenty of game there and great story great world building and i really enjoy a lot my number 28. sleeping gods a superb pick thank you sir wow lovely my number 28 trash i think you're going to think it's even more thematic than mike's pick oh really hang on to your hat so that's our challenge my number 28 carpe diem the mystery the suspense on that cover is she or is she not selling that man a fish also is a setfish whatever she's doing she is ripping that guy off she has got a very smug look on her face i thought this game was ugly but last night i had a very strong reaction chris was playing um uh he won't tell me not to be good oh hanzo the newest version of it and i was like and it's a good game it's a good game oh look at that so much so much brown you can taste the point salad from here the star circle uh just by looking at that picture you all got two points the card pink vm is a pretty modern feld game but you know i think he did a good job restraining himself from throwing everything and the kitchen sink into this one he's done it before trajan's probably the best example of that that just feels cobbled together this one doesn't this one manages to feel very clean it's a towel laying game i like that you're building your own little district or area or whatever connecting things and then scoring based on those things and then the neat part my favorite part of the game besides the the building is that at the end of a round when you're when you're meant to score you will go to that that side display of cards put a token of yours between any two cards so right between the cards and you score for the two adjacent ones that token stays there that exact combination cannot be scored again that's pretty clever and it works well that's random every every game so you need to look ahead and see what you can do what's your first option if that gets taken by someone in earlier turn order what else can you do that still works that's neat yeah a euro game yes it's not the prettiest game but this one uh even when it came out like right away when it came out it it hooked me pretty good so i enjoy it and you have like four or five different editions to choose from too don't you yes um yeah this has been reprinted uh uh an unnecessary amount of time i mean it's had some production issues with coloring and stuff so all right my number 20 where are we 28 28. it's so close to being a crossover with mike it's been on the list for five years and that is near and far oh it was a crossword last list that don't count oh okay yeah i i don't know where the next one's going to land right we i just looked at it and it looks awesome but ryan lockett games always look awesome very very pumped about playing it that's happening this saturday that's what's happening during the boring game of crap saturday is when you're playing it from what i understand it's now or never i don't have three spots for that actually yeah i like it all right stop the top sevens put the amazon now anyway i love near and far it mixes story i like near far better than sleeping gods and the reasoning why is i love sleeping gods and everything involved in it but i really um i love the gameplay of near and far so much i mean i'm what they're less than 10 points apart yeah yeah something terrible is going to happen once that camera is i'm warning you right now that was once nice of mr barnacle for like half a year straight um and then my head burst anyway here far fantastic game it's my favorite of these awesome comments about microphone who's mike who's microphone i'm not sure a lot of mike is my certain knowledge too much i always seem to be the one that's pointed out it is definitely not me it's nowhere near my shirt it's not me i'm not wearing a microphone this is what i sound like all right well the people's choice number 28 was number 28 last year as well so clearly it is on a on a winning streak it was 82 the year before so also getting better with time and this is space base this is an engine builder game where you get to benefit on other people's turns you've got a board in front of you and you're as you purchase cards you lay them down and you roll a couple dice and when your dice are rolled you get to choose either to combine the two dice together let's say we have a one and a six and you can activate your number seven space or you can separate them and you activate your number one space and your number six space as long as you have cards there it's a super cool game and i think that yeah for me the the coolest part is that you can do stuff on other people's turns when they roll their dice some of your stuff can get triggered and i think that's awesome it's 100 percent a great game yeah it's it's got an instant win poor man's bad company nobody calls it the four man's back z calls it that your grandpappy's bad company that's what it oh yeah this is is so old oh back in the day we played space space yeah it's like move your dot matrix printer and let me play some space base great game great choice so number 28 for people's choice space [Music] all right my number 27 is um a game that is very consistent it's only moved one spot and it is my favorite i consider this a party game uh i i don't know if you would agree i consider it a party game it is deception murder in hong kong yes i typically bounce off of these type of games although i'm getting more comfortable with them the more i play them yeah but this one hit for me right away and i think that it solves a lot of the problem that these games can sometimes have being that a lot of times people don't like being put on the spot where they're the only one that's lying right this kind of takes that away because everybody could be lying you know what i mean all you have to do is just try to make a case for all of these cards that you have in front of you or try to point people towards any one of those other three sharp objects there that could be that so it just pause just for a second okay we have a mic problem but the mics are definitely not on people's shirts so we're gonna turn off the mics one at a time and see okay whose it is so michael here first all right mine's off okay actually i'm just kidding we're gonna do the rest of the show no okay so mike's all right so we're all talking now all right turner's back on it's the benefit of live right see it's your turn now my leg is on okay mine's off all right let's get talking better we're talking yeah all right we're talking okay anyway okay he's the murderer all right you're back on and i'm off now i'm off okay okay i'm waiting there we go yes okay all right i'm back all right all right i'm off now when do you stand and now we're back there we go not mike's definitely not mine we can take that one out of there so we have no idea it's it's it's knit it isn't mike it is tom's mic problem still going to be time all right i'm putting my back in the middle because that wasn't the issue then you got to move around also a loose connection yeah that's that that's possibly it could be some people picky might be tom's maybe z hey that worked all right my number 27 is deception murdering in hong kong anyway deduction game where one person is the murderer somebody is the uh in what are they called the investigative yada yada something rather the one who's trying to lead people in the direction apparently it's me no look half the people were saying it's mine i don't know yeah clearly yeah anyway it is uh a splendid game and we've all kind of lost the plot here deception yeah no one cares about murderers they're deceiving us by telling us there's something wrong with our mics all right you think they're playing this i'm super confused all right anyway good choice mike a great game microphone is definitely not i'm barely moving i don't understand okay sure i will be particularly still my number 27 is brand new to the list and also like a really new game brand new game wow it's radlands what i really like this game wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait we just did a review of this yeah what was your rating on it a nine you did give it a nine but you've already had a ten on your list earlier than tonight we're not playing this game don't over analyze not playing this game we're not doing this i will rip you apart oh no you won't because i checked mine you have like 14 years worth of data i could mine okay okay correct all right i just don't remember you like raving about it as much in the review that's it again i put this all into the ranking engine yeah spit it out and gave it to chris i didn't touch it oh so chris moved it up no he did this this is where it is then that's okay i'm going with it you know if i kept passing other games over for this one there you go yes maybe i'm excited about it because it's new yes whatever but it's 27. i really like this game though wow and i've continued playing it i've taught it to a few people every time i play this game i just have a blast with it yeah i think it's very sharp uh it's a gorgeous looking game it's a clever game it's a minimalistic design the whole thing works for me and my brain from theme to look to style of game to being a two-player only thing it's it's it's pretty close to being the kind of game that if i could you know dream up something that i'd want this is close to that so yeah i think that's why this is so high yeah now i i was in that review and i didn't rate it quite as high but it's not because of the game itself it's because i don't particularly love these types of games the thing that i do appreciate about this is how clean of a rule set it is it is i mean it is like you don't have to find four pages of exceptions and weird edge cases i mean it's pretty play your cards to do what it says so it gives you that collectible card game feel right without the overhead you know um yeah radlands it's awesome yeah i really like it get off my back this was a surprise all the way up this was that's a surprise i think on my docket for playing tonight i was just asking a a question of sorts i was just using it okay questions so all right what do you got really quick before we go tom uh put one of the uh fuzz filters on i don't that that doesn't make crackling sound this only stops popping there we go i think this part the mic is probably like actually this is our guest star here the roy candidate hey oh my goodness this top 10 is off the rails do we have yakity sacks chris can you play academy sacks right now please junior that's ringling and brothers right that's one of the old microphones hopefully that helps if not we have a pile more right yes well there's some more here but guys that was great wow that's fantastic all right all right hopefully that helps anyhow [Music] your microphone it's hot all right so here we go anyhow um what is my number 27 where are we at okay okay my 27 my number 27 is a game that has been at least the people's choice i don't know if either of you had it you might have done remember this game is amazing and is better than um the uh the rest of the games in the series and that is race for the galaxy i like roll for the galaxy i like the puerto rico space one whose name i forgot suddenly that no one ever plays oh san juan no no no no new frontiers new frontiers the new frontiers is a race for the galaxy board game which is good it's overly big unfortunately and it's not as smooth as puerto rico went away though it really did but race is such a smooth game yeah uh race for the galaxy i enjoy i i already had terraforming mars aries expedition which was based on race for the galaxy but i don't they have the same mechanism but they're really nice they're very different games yeah yeah you use the same mechanism but then the game itself is different in race for the galaxy you are building planets in front of you getting resources trading i love it i've i've and i've also this was on my list of games that i don't like teaching the noobs we did this yeah yeah for sure but i'm getting it i've taught it to a lot of new people in 2021 i think i can pull it off now because i want to play it so much i'll teach it to new people you've kind of found a script for you that works in teachers yeah a little bit so i'm happy about that great game all right all righty all righty number 27 for the people's choice is gloomhaven jaws of the lion this is gloomhaven miniature it does have miniatures but it's not that miniature oh yeah got the uh we've got the mixer he's doing magic is this your lion pose we've got going on here rar stuff things okay okay sorry glue pavement so glue paper jaws of the lion this is a tactical cooperative game but you get a story you get to make decisions after every round you get to level up your characters it's very good stuff in a much smaller box than gloomhaven and um i think that it has just as much to give in a lot of ways i agree 100 yeah i think that the the actual production of this game makes it more approachable to a lot of people yeah and it's essentially the same game you're playing gloomhaven at the end of jaws of the lions for the most part i allowed yeah there would be multiple entries for this on the list okay this year for the people mm-hmm okay once for all saving comes out i may i don't know shut it down um i may combine them or something because i mean i know frost haven't is going to have a lot of different things i don't know how i feel about that because it's yeah but but glue maven jaws online is clearly glue haven yes with a much easier a tutorial a great tutorial and there's some things that they took out to make it smoother but by the time you get through the tutorial you're playing gloomhaven yeah so yep so that is the people's choice for number 27 gloomhaven jaws of the lion [Music] all right my number 26 is a game that i have talked about a number of times in the past i think this is ad nauseam correct this is another one of those games i feel like i'm maybe the uh one of the few people that do like it um yes but that adds so much thank you tom thank you tom i appreciate you your your words of encouragement in our own trouble wow i'm so busted right hey i'm trying to make up for something else correct mike hasn't seen his desk yet yeah so my number 26 is massmora dungeons of arcadia hey never mind i can't i can't describe it now here's the thing i do say this this is a game that i play almost exclusively cooperatively you can play it both competitively and cooperatively and and competitively i think it is not the strongest way to play this game i think cooperatively it works out very well it has very similar feel to arcadia quest where you're just kind of running through a dungeon beating up baddies the baddies in this case are dice and that's one of the things i really like about it is that you've got kind of minor monsters and major monsters and when you go into a room you flip over a tile it's a kind of a tile lane game in that sense when you flip over a tile has a minor monster you reach into a bag of minor monsters they're dice you pull it out and you roll it to see what type of monster okay it's a really clever way so you don't have to have 8 000 miniatures you can just have a bag of dice and i think it works really you can see that blue dye right there is a monster all right hey um i love it i know that you don't like it make a counter or a mini no i want no dice i love i love i want to no i i love this system of doing it because i think it makes it much more manageable on the table uh but it's quick it is uh you know again it has the feel of arcadia quest but this time in a cooperative manner i really i've played this game so many times i play it at least once or twice a year um and i just i see it on the shelf and i'm like you know what i'm gonna 45 minutes bust out a game of mass more i really like it a lot there we go my number 26 massimore dungeons of arcadia and you can if you get a little crossover pack you can play these these characters in your media quest you can't hey you can take not a crossover pack they actually come in the game so if you want to use these characters in arcadia quests you gotta buy this game throw away the rest of the game because it's not worth it you're wrong just use the characters no no that is actually it's not oh i know you're wrong about throwing away the game the game is very good it's my 26th best game of all time you know what i bet it's gonna be crossover with the people oh we're gonna go down you're going down some really dangerous roads head up for five minutes i apologize apologize for your eclectic taste so emotional over here oh boy these are these are rough so much for being sweet to you that's done that's over and done with no no it's back it's back i can do it okay my number 26 is another two player game very different from rad lambs uh and it's dropped a decent amount i guess um it's not hitting the table i suppose the same will be definitely set for my next one it was 10 last time 12 the year before that claustrophobia 1643. yeah it's my pig here this is a big game this is a miniatures game that has these gigantic tiles that make up a dungeon you're in a dungeon one player is going to be playing some human survivor character people and then the other player is playing straight up hellish beasts like troglodytes and demons and all this stuff and then it's it's mission based so it's sort of like scenario based in this one you have to just find the exit and get out in this one you need to plant explosives near this uh nest and deal with you know the fact that these monsters will are going to continue spawning and make it to the surface it's very dark worlds very you know grim sort of setting but i love the gameplay in this it's an hour or 45 minutes mechanically it's clean straight forward both sides play very differently but they're both really engaging no one has to be the sucker and play for your friend and be like okay i'll be the good guys or the bad guys so you can have fun both sides are really into it you know they're very um just very captivating um yeah i think uh claustrophobia here 1643 which is the reprint of claustrophobia brought a lot of new scenarios into one box cleaned up some rules um added a lot of iconography which is sometimes tricky but i'll put up with it for the experience this is fantastic do you play in a dark tight space just to really have that thematic feel no see so what i'm saying is publishers if you want to find your way by any chance right to christopher yee not by blood i hope so we've already covered this yeah go ahead publishers if you want to get yourself on z's top 100 list and let's face it who doesn't set it in a cave spelunking the cave game we have true already oh cave day there's no caves down here in florida huh my my number no my number 26. is new to the list however i've played this game for 11 12 years and hold up and it's at 26. yeah you know what i was making this as i said i played this game at every convention i go to so many times and everyone has a blast playing it i know why is it not on my list i think i know what this is magical athlete that is correct wow you are a huge nerd you do teach this at every convention i've ever i don't do it just once no i like teach it once a day and people and people usually want to get a copy of it yes so this is a small problem well you can get a copy of it i've definitely modified mine yeah which is hard to believe i mean when you look right now i mean look at the looker yeah baby i mean i i guess i did make one i got to take back everything i said about carpet carpet i can't wait to hear the rest of this yeah oh come on you know the game's good magic gladly game's fine stupid game but it brings me more joy and excitement yeah than any other game in existence now that should be your number wow all right so magical athlete is a rolling move game where you roll and move your guy around the track first person to the end wins but you all have special powers and it's the special powers that make the game because it be clearly it turns into such a ridiculous thing no you haven't taught it to me tom i didn't know that your top favorite 20 number whatever this is game of all time was you didn't teach it to me super rude it's 26 it's very clearly right here i'm going to say i'm looking at you i will say this though tom i i appreciate since we got a love fest going on here apparently i do really awkward right as well you should um third wheel much i do appreciate that you are willing to approach your list in a way where i get the sense like you've probably thought yeah i really like this game but it does it doesn't belong on a top 100 doesn't maybe you had this kind of a weird thing and now you're just like saying you know what no this game i play it every year multiple times a year and that's why the bonk got on the list earlier yeah these same kind of games i'm playing them so much yeah i i i had this kind of epiphany i had a retreat because i would go to a game that's in my top 100 and be like i don't feel like playing that yeah i want to play this well then why is this in the top 100 and this is not you know what epiphany i just had i can go to my computer once we're done and check what you rate this oh you're going to get wrecked yes you are going to get wrecked you're closer to your own computer he's got his phone [Laughter] i don't remember well it had to be an 8.5 at least because it would not have shown up in my oh and you're in my tumblr things to even choose from okay all right i'll give it to you is it a dice library is it it is like a custom one with extra characters it's a ridiculous custom one the thing is i think part of it is is my insanity that i bring to the game i think it's part of you enjoying the game it's almost like you're a game show host when you play this yeah although we did one time try this as a live game show it's in our top five worst game shows we've ever run no it was before it did not do what i thought it would do no but anyway great game it devolved violence and bloodshed that that's not too far off that's not true no no no no you're thinking of um the one where you slam your hand unknown oh yeah yeah that's true that one did be involved in the bloodshed but you don't need to know about that let's get it all right so the people's choice number 26 is another game that i love and adore and this is feast for odin crossover this is what i would call an open world worker placement game it is a game of abundance you uh it work replacement game you get workers you have to feed your people but guess what we're just going to give you the workers every round and you have to feed them but we're going to give you food every other round so it's not really hard to feed them and um there's tons of action space i think they're in the base game there's like 81 action spaces or something like that and you can just kind of go and do whatever you want to do you want a whale you want to raid you want to explore new islands and build boats you can do that you're really selling the theme there i like that i i love this game so much yeah so feast for odin the people are right that's all i can say people are indeed correct there's jobs people that's for odin 26. [Music] my number 25 is part of a trilogy of games and so you uh can narrow down quite a bit this is from the garfield exactly oh you know what powerful i really like the fact that you like gems games so much and that you publicly appreciate them thank you i i do i do feel like there are certain designers that for probably all of us give us you know kind of hit the sweet spot more often than not no i'm laughing at the 850 8.5 yeah i should have rated it 100 that's pretty good that's pretty good my number 25 is architects of the west kingdom which is the lightest of the three games in the series by far if i'm going to introduce somebody to one of this designers games and this is actually a co-design between shem phillips and sam mcdonald it's either going to be base raiders of the north sea or base architects of the west kingdom this is slightly heavier than raiders but just slightly they both both of those games have kind of a riff on worker placement we talked about this a bit i think was on your list tom or yeah but yes yes yes you start with all of your workers at the beginning and you as you go to spaces you're increasing the strength of that space so the first time you go to the forest you get one wood because you have one of your workers there if you go there with another work you'll be getting two wood and vice versa and keep going but the more workers you put on a spot the more juicy they are for someone to put them in jail because you can jail people put them to jail so just a very clever game with a relatively simple rule set um plays very quickly it feels like a race to me you're trying to kind of race to build that uh cathedral really solid game architects of the west kingdom not a surprise that's for sure and i think i think just what shem does with all the different ways that you can use worker placement and changing just a little bit is so cool and i think an underrated aspect of it another reason why i like this publishers games is that i think that they have the best iconography by far it is consistent once you understand how those icons work right every new game is little riffs on that iconography that's really an underrated aspect i think it helps they do have a very interesting box size though that they seem to stick with you don't get tom stark it's real tight it it's gotten it's gotten more problematic as the games have gotten literally heavier a little more breathing he's making big box games now and yeah that kind of defeats the purpose i suppose all right number 25 was 16 last year it was number five the year before that it's dropped i was surprised this is where it ended up but you know what this is not coming out a lot it's hard to get to the table and we had this conversation with uh when um roy was here this is arkham horror the living card yeah whoa arkham horror living card game what was it last year 16 and five before that see i was on the impression this would be your number one at some point i thought it was moving up but it's not it's so stinking hard to get to the table yeah you know it's just then i and you know that it irks me whenever i have a game that i start i start to be on the verge of like missing little things you know what i mean i want a game where i won't forget stuff because i don't really like that idea of and then this happened and then this happened oh oh i could have spent yeah one coin and done this i have heard you complain about that with other games yeah i'm not a fan of that yep that's you're hitting you're you're bumping up against my threshold and that bothers me so this game does that because there's a lot going on you know but the game is a a brilliant design i think it's a masterful combination of theme pumped just into cards and the way those cards behave are you know that it's very clever and then there's some deck construction if you want it but also deck evolution as you play through a campaign and you get experience points you'll turn those into new cards for your debt and sometimes not just new cards the same card leveled up you can get rid of those uh you know that handgun or whatever you've got you got a winchester i don't know and then you can get a better one that has more ammo or you can load faster when i i like that i like that you get better at the things you already do anyway really cool um solo two player both good but yeah it's it's a it's a beast and campaign only is tough because you can do one-off you can they really want you to do a campaign because there's a lot of stuff you won't experience so yeah arkham lcg all right what do you got my number 25 has been on my list for one two three four five seven seven eight nine 10 11 12 13 years it's a new game huh it is not a new game and everyone constantly talks about this game has been replaced by whatever whatever whatever it was the first of its kind it set the standard and it's still fantastic and that's dominion i like dominion it's a straightforward deck building game and i know the two main complaints leveled against it are that other games are better which i don't it's true right no that's particularly true i don't know if this is my highest i don't know if this is my highest ranked deck builder or not it might be but i just it's i like it and it's smooth and it plays i mean the other like oh look all these new things deck building can do and that's great i like seeing that it can be used in various things that doesn't make this one bad suddenly it plays fantastic um another thing is people say oh it's broken or whatever and those people just aren't fun to play games with yeah um like oh if you just take money you'll win okay that's i feel like that's only base game though i feel like the more you expand out of it sure but it might be if there's the ten cards that are out there doesn't matter expansion it might be maybe money is the best option is that how you want to play the game right i don't know i do realize that this criticism could be used against me and other games i've talked about in the past but just as a heads up like that elephant stupid delivering game i've said something similar in that fact but hey the point of the matter is i'm talking about dominion not those other games i like this game a lot it's a fun uh deck building game you know i just something just came to me that i have heard that argument a lot that you know dominion is no longer as important of a game because now that's just a mechanism that's been used in other games that's not really i mean we don't say that about push or luck i mean if you look at can't stop or something like that that's basically pure push or luck that game's greatness is not reduced by the fact that you use that mechanism in other games that have other stuff sure but here's the thing i can see wanting to use in other games i like the fact that clank for example sure takes deck building and sticks it in the game that's good but i still like dominion and race for the galaxy give me the exact same feeling i sit back grab my cards i'm playing i feel like we can get to a very high level play it gives me the feeling that playing hearts does everyone a table sitting there look at their cards we all know what we're doing yeah and i don't know i just enjoy that sure sometimes you want to play a game because it's comfortable which i think dominion is but also dominion has that every game is very very different now for the love of volatoli give me an app are you kidding me there still is nothing yeah there's so many attempts because i was like you know what i want to play dominion on my ipad there's no app yeah it's crazy they're working on it tom the game's not that old oh i think the difficulty is insanity are this gorgeous translated that's been what the issue is about i feel like dominion is a celebration of that mechanism i feel like it's very tight there's a lot i mean you have one action you have one by phase you have one it's a lot of rules for just deck building but i feel like it really lets you learn that mechanism you really can understand oh this is this is the benefit of trashing cards and growing deck and doing all that stuff whereas you play other games that have deck building in them and the deck building part isn't always the focus and so you don't really get to enjoy that mechanism this is going to sound potentially elitist and if i if so i apologize i don't mean it no no you can say i don't mean it in this way um i do wonder if people that play dominion if this was not their first exposure to deck building like if they played other games that have deck building as an element to them i remember the first time i played dominion it was my first time ever being exposed to deck building it blew my mind it absolutely blew my mind and i think that that may be part of it is that some people are coming into dominion later where they've played six seven eight other games that have deck building built into it it might not feel as relevatory you know what i mean see i have teeter totter so dominion was one of my first games into the hobby yeah that brought me in but i stopped liking it when well i didn't stop liking it but when i when we were introduced to dc deck building yeah i thought oh my goodness this is so much more free i don't have anything so hard i enjoy it but then after i played so much dc deck building then i realized that it didn't have anything more to give me but dominion kept giving yeah and so now i flip flop back that i prefer dominion because i feel like there's always that challenge there's always something new so yeah i disagree hoity there's a lot of people talking like the app is around the corner it's been dominated came out a decade more than a decade ago came out 2008. there's also been at least three app implementations that have for one reason or another don't stay i don't know i agree i don't i don't know why also uh can someone get me in on this beta um so i can play it all right wait a time all right so the people's choice number 25 is orleans also known as orleans this is not a deck builder it is a bag builder and so what you're doing is you're collecting workers throughout the game and you're putting them in your bag and you're pulling them out you're placing them on your nice little border in front of you and triggering off actions and there's tons of fun different things you can do in this game a lot going on and i think people like it for one was this the first bag builder it's the first if it's not the first it's the first popular first one that kind of hit the site guys technically the first bag builder is probably puzzle strike although puzzle strike is not really a bag builder it's a deck it's a it's a it's a yeah yeah yeah so i mean this has that like first first at it has done really good stuff also i think just the the people that like euro games you like lots of options and lots of directions you can go this allows for that so any other thoughts on that if not 25. it's a great choice i love orleans for leon number 25 people's choice oral [Music] my number 24 is a game that has moved up a lot um i mentioned before that there are other kind of big troops on a map game that have pushed things like i think was rising sun i talked about a couple other games down a little bit and this is one of the games that is pushing those out my number 24 is mezzo i really wow it's really high mike i really like this game i i played it at the last retreat uh so very recently i just think this is such a clever way to approach this type of game where there is definitely the things that you're looking for in these style games there's you know direct confrontation and combat but there's also some really really clever tactical play that you can have some strategic elements that you can be looking because you're playing through three ages there were some production issues i think that unfortunately have caused some uh people to to maybe look in other directions but this is again i think a very clever way to approach this troops on a map style game much in the way that i almost don't consider this a troops in a map exactly right it is but it doesn't feel exactly like one then it would not no it is no no no you're right you said it is and it just doesn't i'm pretty sure mike came up with that term so it's okay it can be whatever he wants it to be that's right this is a really good good call no but if you have an actual if you have actual camera why would it not be that type of a game no i don't know why i i don't have any good reasoning here i'm still pretty impressed that this is this high you're saying this is better than like this is this is in the same category as chemet and bloodrage which both i think were further down your list yes this has moved above those for me that is a a choice have you played as a compliment it's different now no i'm saying i'm saying like is this one that you've that you play to do the review yeah so i mean uh you may you know you've played enough games it may be just not for you no i actually don't dislike it i think it's a fine game it's just you know if you put it next to kevin for for for me for me not not your good opinion but for me it would curl up on a ball and weep and run away and kind of sit there i think this is superior to cabinet and i like him that's probably true it's true to me number 24 mezzo so weird my number 24 i've talked about quite a bit so i'll try to be brief this is everdell yeah everdell is a supremely popular game it seems to me anyway uh the artwork definitely doesn't help but doesn't hurt it doesn't hurt sorry that's what i meant it's a very gorgeous game very cutesy game fantastic hard work all over the place my favorite thing about this game is the combination of worker placement where you can send workers out to collect goods take actions whatever or your turn can be instead of a worker placement turn buying a car like playing a car down so you're doing tableau building and worker placement kind of like lewis and clark did i think this one does that better you know same combo this one does it better so um just really enjoy good expansions those have been fun but even just the core base game with everything in there will give you plenty of joy and plenty of things to discover so fun world to yeah to visit everedell and my number 24. speaking of fun worlds of visit my number 24 was 11 last year three the year before that and the only reason it's dropping i still think this is a fantastic game is because i think in a couple years i will have finished this in a sense where i've seen everything in the game and that is seventh continent so i already took out legacy games off my list yeah um this is not a legacy game because you can play it over and over and over again although i think once you've gone through all the different curses and stories and crossovers you you wouldn't okay yeah i i think that's the case but still love this system still love the feeling of exploration still love the putting the map together still you like the fact that you can do all sorts of things and the system of cards you know playing cards you're going through a deck of cards to do a challenge i really like to push your luck right yeah i'm really pumped about this seventh citadel i think it's called oh yeah oh yes but for now for duty for duty co designed it i would not be excited yeah you would simultaneously flip over map cards and special powers yeah i hear about the football matt tyler but you can't assassinated yeah south continent i i agree with you on the exploration element but but there's a lot of things that don't work for me in this game i get it it's not everyone's cup of tea but man some of the best game experiences of my life have been playing this game so my number 24 seventh continent all right people's number 24 is something that people have been really rooting for and that's rude all right so root is a super cute game i think that's why people come and play it is for the adorableness i mean look at those little pies a little woodland like game isn't it yeah they're definitely not going to rise up and destroy you with a knife stay for the player powers i think that's my least favorite faction i love the woodland alliance that's one of my times i mean when you're playing against them do you like them as much no yeah yeah i'm like i i'm the evil cat sheriff i'm like these people don't even put that i hate these mice sorry you're good so i think that people really like this game because of the very interestingness of the different player factions you're going for different goals so it's not just a clear combat game even though it is a combat game it's you know i'm trying to get majority of spaces i'm trying to do other stuff there's a fun of different things and so that is people's choice number 24 root and it also has if not the best no it is the best board game app i agree if i was doing my top 100 apps and i have not played enough to do that would be number one i know chris plays it off oh my word is that good finally just get the app so i can learn the game and play and for a game i think that would be an interesting what's happening for you to learn because it teaches you the game one step at a time it's really slow for people to watch that idea i think without playing would you watch it people say yes also i think i would i wouldn't be playing i'd be just learning i guess oh you play you play soon enough i mean yeah you actually play like a little scenario and i think the people there are probably a lot of people that are afraid of even trying to learn the app so i think you might get some people that would i'm kind of appreciated i keep hearing this game is very heavy and very you've played much heavier first you were afraid you were petrified you've played much heavier games [Laughter] [Music] all right my gameplay 23 is a new game to the list um this is the other new one right because of the sweeping gods right correct this is the other new one this is uh a game that uh really kind of came out of nowhere for me i i it was a big kickstarter project but i didn't get it on the kickstarter project because i didn't really know that it would be a game for me did you see it at gen con and wish that you could get it there i saw the gen con and i was able to get it there it looks like a stereo system that does earlier my number 23 is unsettled this is just i feel unsettled about your decision so clever this game it's a it's it's kind of a modular type of a game where you are exploring on a planet you've crash landed on some type of a planet and you have to find a way to survive you have to get off of that planet and each planet is a puzzle and there are different puzzles within it but depending on what planet you're playing you might be facing some type of electrical storms you might be facing some you know uh creatures with spores and it just depends on on which planet you choose to play with it is a cooperative game that has some really really clever systems to it um and i love the fact that once you know the base game once you know how the game works you could put any of those planets in there and it's really a different experience it plays very differently depending upon what planet you're in and it was interesting when we were talking about it in the review one of the things that you didn't like was i i really kind of agree with you here and this is a great placement one of the things you didn't like about the game was that you felt like you were punished sometimes for exploring that is correct right and absolutely because it's not an exploration game it's a survival game and i like the fact that i think i think we have differences on that yeah because mine was seventh continent which is an exploration that's why i brought this up because this is a nice kind of a contrast between two games that have some similarities in that you're kind of exploring a map and things like that but one is more focused on exploration and one is focused on survive with an imminent timer ticking down and they both can be great they both can be great experiences and this is actually me not simpering at you yeah but that is that is a good point i agree and i i'm definitely on the one side sure sure so i'll tell you why i want you guys sitting next to each other [Music] yeah this is a game that i i i'm still finding new things to explore and i've enjoyed teaching it to people it's not the easiest teach in the world but it's not something that i feel like oh my gosh i gotta i'm how do i teach it i don't have to relearn it every time really really good game unsettled 23. i was there when mike uh was salivating it's a little bit creepier and like darker than i expected it can be yeah the the writing that's the other thing i didn't mention the writing is just fantastic in this game just really really good writing not as good as the writing in my game all right let's hear it carpe diem uh this is my other new game mike i told you we would have a crossover i told you one of the games would be the same game wow really sleeping it was a little higher than that a little bit barely i've told you i could i can sense it yeah yeah that sleeping gods was gonna pop in here for you and it does for me mike already talked about it plenty fantastic game love it 23 for me and i could definitely see it moving up i actually could see it moving up me too um sleeping gods i think this is as of right now and this might be you know this might be the the truth for for the rest of his design career this might be his magnum opus you it's similar to a feeling of gloomhaven where it's like i mean obviously isaac childress the designer of bloomhaven and ryan lockett designer of this game have people that kind of work with them of course right of course but for the most part these are the creations of one individual right that's incredible to me you know what i mean and it's just amazing that there's something they can put out this volume and this quality of work artwork is strong the writing but you have help with the writing and yes mechanically concept even yeah yeah it's amazing it's it's astounding it really is so there you go sleeping gods my number 23 sounds like it should have a story in the game but it does not really um and this is a game that has been on my list here for six years and it is another one that i'm always bringing out and teaching people at conventions so it's hama's and it has a grid and that is adventure land i feel like sometimes i'm the only person who's like i love adventureland i like it too but not in my top 100 but i do like it oh man and in this game you're just you're bingoing items you flip a card over an item shows up on the board and then you move your piece to go grab that item or go do something else um and then there's a few scenarios so the games feel a little bit different i don't know every time i play this i'm like let's again it's a great great fun game from hobbit of all things this this came out as part of their family game line yes they stopped doing well they kept doing yellow game boxes and they did three of them one no one ever remembers then there's adventureland and then there was kurubo which went on to win awards and be the most popular game which i think heard eventually they've since released more though they did another cycle oh yeah sure that i'm saying the original original three yes um yeah and this one this is one of those games that if you're like i would like to try this you probably can find it for an inexpensive price somewhere i can't now the expansion is really hard to get a hold of but yes but i don't think you need the expansion i have the expansion i play it occasionally yeah but the base game is fine yes all right all right the number three for the people three is what twenty three oh twenty three yes two one d3 oh yeah we're already at three we skipped oh man time warp so 23 for the people is five tribes crossover this game is such a cool way to use the how do you say it mancala moncala okay but you use that mechanism and so basically what you're doing is you're picking up meeples and you're placing down one at a time as you're moving throughout the board and you're triggering based on meeple color whatever you get there's tons of different things you can do but i think that what makes this game really fun is looking at the board and trying to figure out what you can do with the pieces you know i look at this thing and i can move it this way or i can drop it off this way or i can go this way down here and where you end is important and so i i don't know it's a fun puzzle to try to trick out and then on top of that you're bidding for turn order so you're looking at the state of the board and you're saying is someone going to take that are they going to mess it up or is something else bigger and better going to appear based on what other people have done do i want to go first and spend victory points which is you know money and victory points which are the same thing or do i want to wait and you know hold back and hope that something good is left or something good is there so there's just a lot of good decisions in this game i really enjoy it haven't played it in a long time though i would say the same thing yesterday yeah it dropped a little bit on my list and solely because i haven't played it in a while but i really like it i mean it has been on i mean it's dropped it was highest was 10 for the people lowest was 17 and that was the last two years now it's 23. so it's still really highly revered it's a great game it was on um that show oh man i forgot it anyway it was the tennis tower no will wheaton's tabletop yeah tabletop he did one of this and that's where i was introduced to him first and so he did five tribes huh yeah remember yeah i enjoyed that so anyways that is people's choice number 23 five tribes [Music] my number 22 is a game that um i always i always wonder how popular it is because i don't hear anybody talking about it i never see anybody playing it but they've continued to release expansions for it and as a matter of fact a kind of a big box is collecting them all i should be getting in the next couple of days my number 22 is petrichor which is a game yeah what was it last year uh good question it it's gone up one point it was 23 last year i probably okay i don't want to duplicate my expressing of surprise which probably happened last year but surprise has been dealt yes wow good choice thank you yeah petrichor is a game that uh is uh it it belies what it really is because if you look at it you are playing as a cloud and you are moving over these nine tiles that make up the play area that have different crops on them that need a certain amount of rain to trigger and give you points and so you play cards from your hands that are going to manipulate how these clouds work it might add raindrops to the cloud that are in your color if two clouds come together they become a thunder cloud and they and it kind of changes the property it is a can be a very very mean area control it's a dual area control game you've got area control on those tiles and then you've got a weather board that also has some area control to it so it's a game that doesn't play like it looks it has this beautiful aesthetic and this kind of pleasant theme right it looks very serene but it can be a pretty cutthroat very interactive game uh it plays in a relatively short play time for the experience that you get uh some of the expansions have added some neat little twists to it they've had some little bees and flowers and and the newest one is cows which adds um methane what it does it absolutely adds methane cows produce methane so yeah my my number 22 is a game that i feel like not a lot not a lot of people played but it must be doing okay because it's been consistently in print and they keep releasing expansion so 22 is petrichor huh like that all right number 22 was 20 last year and that was the first time was on the list it's a relatively new game but has a ton of content and more to come i'm very excited about this is unmatched unmatched i'm just saying the whole shebang here i'm not picking a thing battle of legends is up there that's great get that one battle of legends volume two which just dropped that's great go go ahead and get that one you know go with not cobbling fog though right cobble and fog is fantastic that's my favorite just by bruce lee not by itself won't work okay you got to get more um yeah couple of fog is still my favorite i love the literary figures yeah and i love mechanically what they did with those people yeah it's just brilliant you know the invisible man dracula jekyll and hyde that other fella oh so good so good head to head combat on a small board with your miniature or miniatures moving around card play that's what i'm all about i love those things so yeah and i cannot wait for the marvel stuff that's uh yeah i actually i haven't played any of the new sets at all because you've been playing most of them right and reviewing them but marvel i'm coming back in i got i got to see it it's a real clever game system it really is very psyched there you go my number 22 is in my opinion better than meso and that would be chemin okay kamet is amazing now it's kind of funny because they came out with the new chemic blood and sand which is just a 1.3 version of the base game this is the 1.5 rules yes but even they are just you know it's it's a new version of the game i don't particularly like how the board looks but everything else about it is better and cooler and bigger monsters and i just love kevin i like the troops on the map i've always been a big fan of that genre but it always feels like hit the guy in last place and sometimes you don't even fight in them this one encourages you to fight and there's that tech tree that's amazing and most importantly by far you control giant monsters no you want me to like your game let me control giant monster that actually does something mm-hmm and here they do it's like mezzo gotcha no again i like mezzo and that was an excellent choice mike thank you and kevin is an excellent choice too slightly less excellent go ahead and do this top one there you go all right anyway i really like kevin and it has it's been on the list for many many years now uh nine years yeah it was 25 last year's it's gone up a bit so chem it my number 22. all right the people's choice number 22 is great western trail this also includes cows and it didn't need an expansion to get there that's for sure um no methane though that's a very odd dig [Music] i didn't need an expansion to have cows this game is all about the cows it needs an expansion to make it fun but other than that whoa i'm not a fan of a great western trailer good day mike sorry not a fan of great western you know i i played this game once and i played it with a really rough rule teach and i'm pretty sure we missed a lot of stuff so i it's one of the prestigious no no okay no he was not he's a great teacher now we i don't know it was a struggle he gave me thumbs up thanks honey no so this is a game where you're deck building your cows you're building a deck of cows you want to get rid of the the pounds you said what you play cows your deck building counts you're building cows you haven't got you have the legs cows of cards and you've got the cards of cows that's frank and cow you're thinking oh i'm sorry that's a different game okay cows everywhere no yeah you're trying to sell cows so you're building a deck of cows so that you can get higher cows you can sell them farther away to bigger better things and it's got a very interesting almost rondelle-like system for the action yeah you're building it out so you skip a lot of spaces initially you build it more you get in each other's way and make them pay you stuff to pass your buildings and do things and it's i've never played that game but that board just look looks just like kayla's with that path that's what cowboys did right i thought maybe i haven't played the game and i have barely seen this new cover so i thought maybe the old cover with the three fellas looking at you was from your p.o.v and that's why it was washed out because cows don't see every color you know what i mean come play the game where you are the cow that's right yeah no this is uh cattle ranch kennel driving and and this new cover is better the first cover was very deep fake creepy um and i do like a lot of alexander fister games i'm very much in the minority the people are raking me over the coals most people love great western trail obviously that's mike's opinion he's allowed to have it you should not criticize other people alexander fister is hit or miss for me yeah you know i mean i love you i love some of the games and yeah some not so much so that is number 22 great western trail one left [Music] all right my number 21 is another troops on a map game this has been my troops on a map section apparently clearly this one is i've got slightly higher than meso so that should make you happier uh i think it's a crossover with you um my number 21 is lords of helles oh wow yeah um wow yeah i really i still really like lords of hellis a whole lot i feel like it um it's not the cleanest rule set it's got rough edges like all of the awakened realms games but i say the same thing about this that i do about their other games you know things like uh nemesis and and uh and other of their kind of big games is that they can give you some sessions that are less than ideal because of certain things that get in the way but when you have a good game of lords of helles it just is so satisfying it really is and it comes down to yeah i'm going to kill this monster and you're like but i'm going to take control of the land and i'm about to do this and i feel like that's a cool it really is because there are you know multiple wind conditions and and you know you can usually i mean you could clearly see what people are going for um and so it leads to some really nice kind of interaction not just on the board but directly with the players like okay i know what i need to do but i need to stop her too you know what i mean so can't stop me yeah i can't that's why i don't play with wendy because i'm going to get rushed every time i'm sure anyway i really like lords of fellas he was nice i don't think he would play this it was nice to uh to play the the lords of ragnarok because it kind of gave me a kind of a new way to look at this i'm like okay how did they change it what what did they feel like they wanted to change and so um it still actually raised my appreciation of hellas so my number 21 lords of helles talking about raising appreciation mike my number 21 um i was kind of flabbergasted that ended up at 21. okay you were trusting a computer your surprise was this high or this low i'm surprised it was this high okay it was 81 last time not on the list before that so from 81 it went to 21. i know you'll back me up on this um oh if he doesn't i got your back too mm-hmm okay cthulhu death may die cthulhu just may die i thought it was pretty good when i first played it played it a few times i still have an issue with the fact that these tiles are too stinking small they are too small if the room gets filled i just have to put monsters or figures near the room yeah yeah and say they're in that room but all this content all these different chapters the the way in which it tackles a very dark setting with some kind of humor yeah morbid humor certainly kind of you know um off-the-wall humor but it does have it in there it's not as self-important as some of the other eldritch horror arkham horror kind of games you know in this one your people are going crazy and the crazier they get the more powerful they are okay and they just lean into that um fully co-op game yep a game that is very i have a better way to say punchy it's like very quickly you're like oh my gosh what am i gonna do and then the big monster comes out you to kill him three times and so by the end you are rolling a bucket of guys you're like did i kill it because i have one swing to kill him i need to deal like 18 all at once um yeah it just kind of goes up and then eventually it's like you know those last few turns are insane in this game um very cinematic for me very exciting stand-up kind of game cthulhu deathmate die like i said i was very surprised it was this high but um yeah i guess i just kept voting it up over other things it's it's it it gets me it excites me that's my 21. i got your back on that one there you go tom you have my back as well you have to i think mike if mike has your back you don't need anyone else oh man what i'm trying to figure out what's going on here i feel like there's a whole there's a whole thing happening that i'm not even aware of i'm just trying to be nice i said it at the beginning there's i'm being straightforwardly nice my number twenty one straight forward my number 21 has been on the list since it came out and yes it has replaced agricola and that is caverna and i still really enjoyed it so i'm i'm a big rosenberg fan and i like the agricola a lot so whenever i say i kevin replaced agricola it's not that agricola suddenly became bad right it's just i like kaverna better and i don't see why i would play both since they're very similar you're gonna have the same experience and cabernet's more forgiving and if you like the harder tougher thing you'll like a grip a little better that's that's simply what it is if you like the fact that you have a hard time feeding your people and that's like the whole focus and you want restrictive scoring but you like the randomness not the randomness but the um the variability of having a different hand every time you'll like a quick look better i like the variability of the open hand but i don't like the other stuff as much caverna you can be king of the sheep um or i usually play king of the king of the veggies now i'm planting veggies everywhere i like it i like it there's a lot of work replacements to get things oh i would i'm getting yes i'm the green child i got it all right and i just like this game those pumpkins are so cute too wow they're like they might be carrots in some games but they're popcorn you replace them with carrots it doesn't matter what i did pumpkins are not a vegetable they're fruit because they're seeds on the middle whatever what are their gourds they're gorgeous they're gourds aren't most squash fruits technically because they're no because they're because the seeds are in the middle yeah i'm not from this country i'm frightened and confused that's important all right number 21 for the people is dominion which we already talked so much about yes there you go the crossover hat i didn't even notice you had to take it out i'm supposed to throw it at you all right hang on try this purple one okay ready there we go any moment of truth oh okay we gotta try again shot the target okay here you go oh there you go it's lovely that's a good look right that's a good dominion to have that's the king of the vegetables if i've ever seen it i think that should be one of the art on the cards purple giant so yeah dominion we just had so much good stuff already it is the first deck builder it is just yeah the celebration mechanics that's what i really feel about it so dominion number 21 for the people all right good choice people come in all right before you all jump away some closing thoughts here first of all we are coming back live in 29 minutes to do crowd surfing so we'll take a look at kickstart projects in the next week um we are going to be back here tomorrow same time same place actually tomorrow morning with board game breakfast at 9 00 a.m eastern standard time and then at noon we're doing our top 20 to 11 games whoa it's getting more and more exciting let me see what i got there hey i can see the people that's unexpected all right also obviously we noticed some of the audio questions one of the reasons we're running a kickstarter right now daystar kickstarter.com i do want to bring in an audio engineer we need to really replace our whole audio system it was built years and years ago and the person who built it is no longer here so we actually don't know how half of it works so we want to fix that but i want to say thank you to roy for coming in and bringing those mics but a bigger thanks to the man who's doing like eight jobs right now fixing the mics running three computers um thank you to chris he did a fantastic job this episode also watching chat thank you all for watching we'll see you next time until then i'm tom vassell i'm wendy e i'm mike delecio i'm z garcia have fun growing gourds yes good one [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 91,388

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

Id: WwOfp1LCAPI

Length: 92min 51sec (5571 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 26 2022