Top 100 Games of all Time (40-31)

[Music] tom vassell's top 100 games of all time [Music] good morning everybody i'm tom vassell i'm roy kennedy i'm mike d'alessio and i'm z garcia all right folks right now listen i'm actually excited about this um so hilmar the viking drupal who is one of our listeners me and zia both met him and games with him in iceland and he's actually the main force behind rebuilding our website it's going to take a while but since he has access to the website yesterday we talked about twilight imperium 4 and how many people voted for it so he got me that information 76 people voted for it we actually had um almost a thousand people vote on the top 100 there's 21 000 submissions total but um 76 people voted for the game and the vast majority of those were one to five right other than that top of their list right right and there's a lot more stats but i'm going to be saving most of those for my sunday stat going over video that we're putting up sunday evening so come back for that top 40 baby we are we got some good games coming i'm ready i'm ready let's do this let's make it happen okay so my number 40 has been on the list for three years um this is a game i did not expect to like but it's space so roy might like it and even though it's a straight up euro game not even close and that's pulsar 2849 i do like it oh you played it yeah it's it's enjoyable i played it is it because it's space roy cause i have no idea i really enjoyed building dyson spheres and gaining points off of him every round if roy likes this game then unequivocably he is about the space first and everything else i don't think that was in discussion i thought we already knew that i'm taking calls take the calls during mike's pick i have to let the guy in to fix the leak you're wondering who who made that leak in your roof roy canada up there playing pulsar 2849. what it is anyway this is definitely a point-salad-style game with technologies and stuff a dice drafting and it just works for me like a charm love this game pulsar 2849 let's go from space to deep in the ocean this is an underwater themed game that is actually a dice tower essentials game that i love it is aquatica aquatica is an awesome game where you're playing cards out of your hand to recruit like these different locations and you're getting more characters and building that into your hand as well and you're trying to figure out how to get all of these cards in the right positions and push them up along a grid to gain victory points as you score them and there's just a lot of stuff going on in this game there's lots of different ways to do it it's got these cute little plastic manta rays that you're racing the other players to try to like score on the board but you're also flipping them over for actions there's lots of stuff going on i think this game is going to be a hit for a lot of people and if you haven't checked out aquatica you definitely should my number 40. and tom are you talking about it's a crossover right that is a crossover i think didn't is it just the two of us i think it might be more of a crossover but we'll have to see so i can always tell when people are super quiet when i talk about something all right hey let's go from deep down in the ocean roy let's swim let's emerge triumphant and go into the clouds my number 40 is cloud spire a big kind of moba smith how are you it's only going to demand you no no man i taught you this game with roy you did not feel the immersive theme of being a cloud city of being a cloud on island in the clouds is that what it is yeah yeah they're they're they're cloud cities yeah you didn't feel that i did nothing in french within the mechanics of the game let's not get caught up with the theme shall we it's actually a nice theme and it's a beautiful production as all chip theory games are uh where basically you've got kind of these neoprene uh maps that represent these cloud cities and you are sending these poker chipped units that you have towards another player's fortress and on the way you're building spires that are going to be in tower defense style attacking the units as they come marching towards you now it's a game that has a lot of rules and each faction plays fundamentally differently from the other there's some heavy asymmetric uh action going on as well which can make the game difficult to learn and teach but it's one that again like like the other chip theory game that's on my list uh like too many bones it's a game that if you're willing to put in the time if you're willing to put in the effort to learn what your units do it can really provide a very very satisfying experience with a tremendous amount of replayability i feel like i've really only shipped the surface a little bit of what cloudspire has to offer i like it as a multiplayer game like when when i taught tom and and roy i love it as a solo game as well it's uh it's a really good game i'm really excited about the new factions that are going to be coming hopefully soon so cloudspire is my number 40 and it might rise even higher into the clouds the more i played so terrible you were doing okay i i really want to play this one more i played it with you guys i really enjoyed it and one of the things that's interesting about this game is the fact that you like recruit units and they kind of just move across the board themselves you have heroes that can run around and do stuff but it's more like you recruit them and just kind of see how they're going to do and how they're going to do against the waves of stuff which makes it feel like that whole tower defense game which i think is great i need to play this more mike let's play let's make it happen roy okay zee you can't be going with this garbage pawn i guess anyway let's go from the clouds we're soaring above the cities let's go find us a forgotten jungle and search for the lost city of el dorado we're going on a grand quest more eldorado wow this high yes well not as high as the clouds but yeah number 40 quest for eldorado i think it was on your list mike right is that right yeah and i forget if it was somewhere else yet but uh it will not be on mine and i probably will not be on the people's list but anyway i really like it it's uh i do like the combination of deck building and and racing i i just like racing games and deck building i think is fine i'm not as a nav mechanism as many people are but you fold that into a racing game and especially one that uses that uh that deck building aspect so smoothly and i am a fan of that combination it's a very modular game very interesting game uh there's been a solid amount of extra content out there for this an expansion to the original game a follow-up standalone that you could mix in which is nice to see that support because this is an award-winning game and so um it was 82 for the people by the way oh it was on the people's list okay so yeah i really enjoy this one as i always have a good time with it pretty breezy but some nice tension towards the end quest for eldorado my number 40. daniel is correcting us by saying that uh vladimir's last name is pronounced suki so okay i appreciate that i appreciate people pay to tell me that i pronounce things incorrectly although it makes attempting to do it more often anyhow the people's choice is teotahuacan um second year on the list well actually i'm not doing it on purpose i can never remember how to pronounce this game uh this is higher ranked than zulkin i did not expect it to pass zulkin actually last year zulkin was 61 and this one was 85 now zulkin's 51 and this one is 40. um they're the only two t games on the list of that series and i suspect that may be how it turns out we'll see if tech can who passes up on that but yeah that's people's choice number the game i said earlier okay this top 10 section is going to make me sound a little cult of the newish and i don't care i love it um my number 39 i love it it's a game i really like i'd like to be clear how much i enjoy this game in case there were people thinking otherwise and that's dwellings of elder veil it's in your 30s didn't even make your top 100 slackers so anyway don't like it i think it's hot garbage i really like this game i don't i really like the game kid i like everything about it i like the monsters most that's my favorite part i like whenever there's a giant monster you can go out and kill like lords of hellis has the same thing right i enjoy this but it's also a pretty solid euro game essentially uh the combat system when i first heard about it i thought i would hate it but it works really well um i like the the variance between the different factions i like the art it's just a lot of fun dwellings of elder veil in my top 40 and number 39 oh it's gonna be high on something oh yes and someone's i knew this would happen someone said how could this happen with it being number nine in my 2020 list because i said even when we made that list i said that it could go higher and it has wait are you telling me that from now on every time i do any top 10 any review i have to make sure i mention by the way folks these are just my thoughts right now it might go higher it might go lower yeah if you don't clarify you also have to clarify that the review is in your opinion let someone think it fact and punish me thusly my number 39 is also a work replacement game which is a crossover with a game z had mentioned quite a bit earlier and this is fallout shelter i really enjoy fallout shelter a lot i this game is when i saw it i was like there's no way this is gonna work and we played it and it was just extremely enjoyable i mean it emulates it gives you that fallout feel but it's extremely simple worker placement but you also have these different like monsters and minions coming in that you're having to take out along the game and it's just cool because you're building up your different areas people can come to your areas you're going to get resources for it i love when that happens in worker placement game when you get to build places it happened way back in the day with lords of waterdeep this brings a little bit of that flair back and then there's all these different things you're trying to do to figure out how to build more things collecting weapons and items that you can exhaust to be able to use their abilities i really enjoy fallout shelter and if you haven't tried this game i don't really see a whole lot of people talking about it i find it extremely enjoyable don't just pass this on by yeah this one seems to have not gotten any people talking about it i think people just see it and assume that it's bad but i mean we were also shocked when we played it like we played it and it's just like holy smokes this is an amazing like light work replacement game with fun combat mechanics i'm gonna have to i'm gonna go out on a limb and guess this is a victim of a uh messed with release schedule because of coving yeah right yeah it got announced it got shown i mean we played it and then it wasn't released for months right the time it did show out it did show up nobody was talking about that game anymore so people probably assumed in that window it came out and no one liked it i don't know but it's unfortunate man this was just a casualty of that i've played this game with you guys and had a blast i've played it with my kids and had a ton of fun and then i've also played it with my parents and had a lot of fun and all along the way everybody enjoyed the game so i think that just speaks volumes to how how versatile this game is and how fun it is let's keep in mind too that all of us like that theme right but we all went into the game probably not expecting a whole lot i i've mentioned this before but i remember us playing that game the first time and we all kind of were locking eyes with each other every so often going is this good we think it is so i i do think that it has this idea that oh it's an ip based game it's based off of a mobile app that may have been a problem too try it it's really good so build up your happiness and try it out by the way outgetter says he likes what we're doing and greetings from finland thanks thank you thank you my number 39 is part of a trilogy known as the west kingdom trilogy this is paladins of the west kingdom and uh in my estimation this is the heaviest of the three west kingdom games and it's i believe the heaviest of any of the designers game shim phillips he co-designed this with uh uh i can't remember sam mcdonald so uh paladin's of the west kingdom is a really really crunchy euro game where you are placing workers of different types and you have kind of interlocking tracks that you're trying to build up one makes you stronger and another one and you're trying to combo and gain points it's kind of a point solid game quite honestly and it is a very satisfying puzzle every time a lot to kind of keep track of and so it can be a little bit tough to learn but again another i've said this a few times now if you're willing to invest the time into learning how these systems interlock with each other it provides a really satisfying experience um and it's just one that from the first time i played it it stuck with me and i continue to enjoy paladins of the west kingdom all right my number 39 is a one of my favorite social deduction games and this is deception murder in hong kong the game in which all the players among them is a the killer the murderer and one player at the table is giving clues is in a limited fashion as to what the items are that were uh used to commit this heinous uh crime with all the players then immediately starting to fling accusations as to what's sitting in front of you on the table oh he's holding a bottle over there and they say that the death was you know uh bloody so be a bottle to the head that'll do it that person will go no come on look at what you're holding you a piano wire that's way bloodier and and so it you know it evolves from there it's a game in which that interaction that sort of you know the the the energy comes to a to a bubbling point very quickly and i like that about this one it's not a slow burn game it is not a game in which you are doing the sideways glances and waiting for somebody to finally go all right fine let's talk about no no no that's that's happening minute one that's what i like about it you know not every social deduction game needs to be like that but i'm glad this one is and it it just it's always a good time so this uh deception murder in hong kong my 39 always have a good time with it number 39 a lot of people should be excited this is on the third list excited that there's a legacy version of this game coming out this year and that's sagrada this one's very popular and so i said earlier that i like role player better than sagrada but the people like sagrada better it's higher on their list and it is a more accessible game and it's there's not a lot of games with the theme of stained glass windows like there's two you know the other one being the better and superior uh azul as we have agreed on by majority um z you and i both said it we beat mike that's that's simple oh my that seems underhanded i don't play azul my vote counts for two anyhow that's i know a lot of people like it that is number 39 for the people all right number 38 is newer to the list for me which is weird because i feel like it must have been on my list before i don't know how it missed last year but who knows and that is thunderstone quest now i'm a huge fan of thunderstone in the past that's i've been talking about this one for years and thunderstone quest while it suffers from my dislike of the box is so big that you know you requires a forklift to bring it to the game meetup and they've released so many expansions i can't keep track fortunately since i like playing it in epic style i don't have to carry all that stuff around it's still my box is still fairly compact and it much more feels like a dungeon crawl at this point it's a it you know when it first came out we said ah it's like dominion again it's nothing like dominion at this point and i really like what they've done to the system so my number uh where are we at i don't remember i lost my tracking numbers right 38 thunderstone quest that's not looking good for me guys is it no it's fine we're almost done with the day [Laughter] 38 for me i guess is technically a crossover with everybody sort of maybe depending on the version um i really enjoy century gollum edition um i really enjoy the way that you switch out the cards and you're upgrading these different crystals um i also enjoy spice road but i'm putting the golem edition on here and i'm also putting just the original um for mine as far as i enjoyed i just love the the pureness of how quick this game plays the turns are just snappy snappy snappy and it's just all about trying to fulfill those different contracts with the golems and being able to collect them to gain points and you're racing to get the cards out there and and it's just really enjoyable i've played this game over and over and over again i really enjoy century crystal golem and i don't think this was on z's list he hasn't had it yet but everybody else has we just had a five minute list you could add a five-way crossover and you ruined it yeah well you know they they got it they they did it to themselves by creating one edition and then a different edition but it's actually the same edition that has nothing to do with this could be us but you're playing around z this game's amazing plus i'm still waiting on century post-apocalyptic edition there we go come on baby then i'll put it on don't don't tempt them a few years ago a number of years ago i played a game called above and below and i thought now this is a cool game i really enjoyed it then i played my number 38 near and far this game is like if you've played above and below it's a storytelling type of a game where it's almost a choose your own adventure type of a thing it was a really neat little euro game near and far took that concept and put it into a much larger scope this is really you could play it as a campaign game and i've played it that way you can also play it as kind of one-offs but near and far is just to me a lovely package a complete package the art is gorgeous because it's done by the designer ryan lockett he does the art he does the design he does the development he probably constructs the games in his home as well uh he's a very talented man but he probably does right near and far is a really nice narrative driven game uh with some nice solid euro underpinnings as well but to me that the real appeal of near and far is this world that it creates i think that ryan lockett is a wonderful world builder there's kind of a shared world amongst all of his games but every game kind of takes you a little bit deeper into that world and there's a new one coming out that we'll we'll do that even more but near and far is just a lovely lovely experience that word is the one that just keeps coming back to mind i don't know i just i find it a lovely game so there you have it my number 38 near and far my number 38 is a reprint slight reworking of an older game that's got quite a few years on it now from bruno catala and bruno fiduti working together the original game was called boom town the one i used to have anyway but the reworked edition now is called gold river and that's my that's my uh 38 generally the same game they've changed a few of the action cards they've changed uh player count and there's now an official two player variant in there they've changed a few things but the game is this very straightforward bidding game for the most part you are going to be going around the table bidding on a selection of mines gold mines maybe maybe action cards as well as you as that ends and somebody finally wins you're going to draft these cards um and then you roll dice and those dice are going to generate gold you might discover gold in these mines wrapped around all of that you've got all these action cards like i said where you get to mess with people you get to uh help yourself out no matter where i end up in the in the bidding i draft second boom and stuff like that and i really enjoy it i think it's just a fun game i like both aspects of it it comes with you know the bidding and the tension there but then also just sort of collecting things rolling dice and being like jackpot i hit i found gold that's just fun i uh this production quality is okay but the artwork is lovely on these cards and i just really enjoyed it it revitalized the game for me i think the uh the years of experience that both of these designers now have poured back into this uh lovely little game it shows it shows and i i really enjoy it so gold river 38 for me well this is actually interesting because this is the first year this has been on your list um but boomtown was only on your list in 2014 and it was number 100 yeah this is garbage so this no i'm saying so this new edition just kind of brought it back in your memory or it did it did both it is a better game it's not the exact same game like i said they changed like some of the old action cards are gone some new action cards are in uh rules are a little bit tightened up uh the dice for example are different now used to be you would roll two six-sided dice now they give you those dice sticks they only have four faces it's just so the number spread is smaller you can roll at most an eight um yeah they just tweaked a few things and i really liked it i i like it a lot more cool i'm gonna have to try this one out with the new version because i always like boomtown yeah yeah that sounds fun all right number 38 for the people almost made the list last year it was 110 um and so it's zoomed up and i imagine it'll be here for a while i know at least one of you has had it on your list already and that is horrified oh two of you ah yes maybe this may be the five way no it's not on my list i like horrified a lot i only have so much top 100 you ruined a good thing you're ruining lives every day you're one to speak it's not on my list either shh really outrageous i thought both you guys love this game i like this game a lot the list of games that we can put on this gets smaller every year and quickly it does not it does technically because okay look uh proportional wise there we go okay i'll give you that a big proportion i want some cake anyhow i don't know why where cake came from listen horrified universal studio monster is very popular anyway and this mass market didn't hurt it for sure prospero hall is on fire i will be curious to see if any of the other games that are cooperative like i don't think the back to the future one is as popular but we'll see if any of that stuff makes the list next year but horrified people's number 38 yes my number 37 is new to the list it's never been on the list before actually and yet i've played it before almost every other game on this list this game is in the forefront because for some reason i got back into playing it this year i even taught the game to roy and you've been hanging out with roy too much nostalgia is creeping up on you he was happy because he destroyed me in this game no i don't care about that bro you were new to it that's not the thing but i've been playing it again and that's marvel overpower or just overpower i don't know why i know a lot of people say this game has its pro i mean it does have its problems it's but it's a collectible card game that when it came out in 95 was very different than magic to gathering very different uh it has a venture bidding gambling system that still is very unique i haven't seen it used in any other game and i played it i i i don't know what got you know it was it was the it was the quarantine i was sitting there sorting out over power cards and you gave you some crazy crazy fever because overpowered 37 is i i feel the way mike's face looks right now i'm just saying what are you doing i really like this game i'm a big fan of marvel anyway it was so well tilled now and then you have to invalidate this whole process i don't care i think it's a fantastic game and i'm just glad that it's it's being done so overpower um yeah i'm i'm excited about it again i'm back in it i'm in a facebook group that talks about it just there it definitely has some very interesting mechanics like my entire childhood i wanted to play this game and i played it with tom and it was such a let no i'm just kidding um i had a lot of fun playing it and i feel like it'd be the whole bidding thing is just something that you have to wrap your head around you know how hard do you go to to to mess your opponent up um definitely an enjoyable game i was feeling good until roy started talking about him wanting to play it as a child yeah baby all right whoever was able to play it was oh yeah i was definitely super young when this was out okay i'm sorry man i take back out what i said i feel it was awful my 37 is a game that is a crossover with mr mike delicio and this is my favorite of the tiny epic series this is tiny epic quest i really enjoy this game despite what tom says the movement is interesting trying to figure out i like the game where you both shut up i like the game why is this the thing you said you don't like the movement the movement is an interesting part of the game um i like this even at higher player counts as well um but i i this has like this like pseudo zelda theme and the first time i saw those little item meeples i was flipping out about how amazing they looked as you're collecting different items and plugging them into your meeples to give them extra powers to be able to go on these different adventures to try to fulfill things to get um different points for your characters i just really enjoy the way this game plays and the whole aesthetic and theme of the game makes it even more interesting and that is tiny epic quest yo i remember roy taught me this oh yes and z hates it not so much the game okay i like this game to clarify i think it's the second best of the series goodness probably think it's the second best of the series also i barely remember it i just remember feeling kind of underwhelmed it was like oh okay press your luck pressure that's right good game all right my number 37 is a worker placement game and boy do i love me some worker placement games and i think it has a wonderful theme as well my number 37 is viticulture where you are making wine essentially and i think that the theme not only is it unique but i think it helps in this game because it does feel like it makes some thematic sense you're planting fields and you're choosing particular grapes that are gonna turn into you know red or white wine and maybe you'll mix them together to make a rose or a sparkling wine and it's just a really really smooth elegant worker placement game now if you want a more robust experience you can add in the tuscany expansion and it really kind of ramps it up into more than uh the base game which is a just slightly above entry level worker placement game but i'm happy with just the the the base game tuscany is wonderful but if you like this theme if you like worker placement games and you haven't played viticulture yet you really should do yourself a favor because i think this is going to be considered a classic and i think it's that for a reason viticulture is a really rock solid world you're saying mike that you would put this in the same position even without the expansion oh uh yes i would i think wow i disagree on that but wow i think if now what i would say is i would say the essential edition i would do that because it does include some oh like it has the mom mix is there now that's the essential edition yeah the ins the essential edition of viticulture comes with the mamas and papas and and the grande worker and so it does incorporate some uh but but yeah i i like viticulture just as it is it's great with tuscany but i don't think it needs it quite as much as i think you do so that's my 37 viticulture all right my 37 has been on this list for a long time for me it's balderdash it's a goofy party game bring it back balderdash baby is it bold out of print i wonder uh it's usually sold on amazon for like 15 bucks it's a really cheap version it's this is a party game it's the dictionary game and but it's also you you'll have words and everybody makes up a definition or a date that something happened i don't even know which categories are in there now famous people and you you write down why they're famous it is out of frenzy yeah eighty nine dollars on amazon right now oh wow do not buy this game for eighty nine dollars store and find it yeah come on i i i just this is a game that devolves into laughter very easily and uh you often will just not finish the game because everybody just sort of gives up on trying to win and just switches to trying to make everybody just laugh or get winning and that's perfectly fine this is just for laughs and fun and uh from that point of view it's fantastic balderdash my 37. all right for the people's choice for 37 was 38 last year 37 year before that 40 the year before that super consistent wow yeah uh and uh that is a crossover with z and that's deception murder in hong kong oh that's very close to where i put it too place i better get buku points for this i don't are we scoring yeah so tom gave up on that a long time ago oh i don't know i'm not following that uh paul also did a super chat thank you paul thank you paul says bring back the scoring actually up to you so that's that all right he just said you are he seemed like a nice person but you're tasting games was bad [Laughter] well i appreciate the compliment that i'll take it i've been saying that for years all right 36 for me is this the second year it's on the list and it's really close to where mike put it actually and this is my favorite of the west kingdom trilogy paladins of the west kingdoms i think it's the best of the trilogy i know that mike does not spoilers um but uh this is definitely a point salad game for sure there's like no theme but it takes the concept of having cards in your hand that you play that give you special ability with worker placement where the workers are slightly different their different colors and puts it together in a game that i still remember the first time i played this it's a heavier game i i'm sorry for those of you super heavy gamers out there you don't think it's heavy but for most people it's a heavy game and when it was done i instantly wanted to play it again and that does not happen very often um i really like this one paladins of the west kingdom nice it's a heavy game that one i have not i played the other two i haven't played that i don't know if you'd like it but then you did like merv so everything's thrown out the window has changed everything now everything there's performer there's before merv bm well let's let's take that back and then after a.m everything's different they're both it's a it's bmz uh because before merv z and then okay and and then amz right the names either that channel where they uh talk about gossip yeah it's pretty cool pretty cool my my 36 will come as a support pmi let's go my 36 will come as a surprise to no one as a space game but this is one of the zaniest silliest space games out there where you are building your own spaceship and trying to collect different things and make it to the end this is galaxy trucker i love galaxy trucker roxy trucker is a blast to play you're building a ship in real time and you're trying to make sure all the connections fit just right that you need engines so your ship can go faster and get ahead of everybody else because that'll get you more money you need places for cargo because you can get cargo off planets and i'll get you more money but there's pirates so you need guns so you have to be able to protect yourself from pirates you also need more crewmates because sometimes you might want to get another ship to get more money or sometimes some of them get killed off so you need everything on your ship but you have to try to figure out how to make it fit all together this is always an exciting game to play as you're doing all the different stuff and then asteroids are coming and blowing up your ship it's just interesting and exciting to see how everything plays out after you've built this crazy contraption i really enjoy galaxy trucker it's kind of hard for me to get to the table just because i feel like i've played it so much that i'm kind of like up here so a lot of times i'll just wait a little while before i start with people and then they can start and then we start building um but it is a lot of fun to play and you're bragging listen i'm just glad i'm not standing alone in galaxy tracker anymore secondly roy would you say that you min max your ship and galaxy trucker yeah i would never say i min max anything i've never said the words min and max together i've been actually struggling not to say min max thank you tom thank you just ask it i love you comments i love min maxing my ship and i read all the comments everybody if you can tell me people's kryptonite i'll use it and i would love to play galaxy trucker at cons with people if we ever have those again but it's a it's a lot of fun game and it's just super silly come on i think we'll have them again well galaxy trucker time then in the year 2085 one man galaxy trucker has a surprisingly good app too actually that's the last time i played it was on the app so you also like it mike d'alessio it's okay it's definitely nowhere near my top 100. i it's you know what see it's a game i appreciate probably more than i like i think it's a really interesting and different design but i don't i'll take it love the stress i don't love the stress of the real mike is not a real-time player yeah yeah so my number 36 well uh ladies and gentlemen i have a complicated history with the game gloomhaven yes it's a game that i wanted to like because i played it and i thought it was a really really well done series of mechanisms and then i also realized relatively quickly that it was a game that did not suit me in my gaming lifestyle it was too big too long to set up and tear down i wasn't going to play 80 hours of this game so i had it twice and i got rid of it twice and then came my number 36 gloomhaven jobs of the lion this is what i needed gloom heaven to don't give me that rock rock this is what gluten haven this is what i felt like loomhaven needed to be it's a game that fits my lifestyle and it has those same mechanics right the ones that won't let me hit a rock but it's a brilliant design right there was never any question in my mind that it was a brilliant design the card system is really really special and now you've got the maps that are in that spiral bound book and it's got a way to introduce people to by the end of it you're playing gloomhaven i mean it's essentially the exact same game just in a much more approachable package a smaller box a more manageable you know campaign that you can play through so uh gloom even jaws of the lion to me was a game changer because it allowed me to enjoy this game the way i knew i would if i could so that's my number 36 gloomhaven jaws of the lion not surprised i really want to play through this whole thing i gotta play all right my number 36 is a fairly small game but a puzzly one called sentient or sentient if you want to say it that way this one is a drafting [Music] slash worker placement ish game in which you are going to be taking cards from the table and playing them on your board and as you play those cards on your board they will affect some dice that are sitting there and the cards are printed in the corner as to what they'll do to the die it might have a plus symbol and so when you play it that die spins up one or maybe down or maybe no change and then scoring requirements that are listed on the cards so it's all about playing cards where they are going to affect the positive change so you can score and being careful that you don't play a card that messes up what you're trying to do because every die has a card affect it from both sides it's just a lovely little puzzle game very simple you know again the scoring is a very straightforward set collection game uh the the end game scoring i should say but you know wanting like a bunch of pink cards multiplied by the pink tokens great that's simple but it's those puzzles that that is the the the meat of the game the inside of the game that is really fun and enjoyable i love games that at the beginning of every round or every turn every time i'm i'm up i'm presenting with i'm presented with a fairly little puzzle you know i don't want to have to break my head every single turn i have but just to look at the board at the display and go hmm okay yeah i like yeah i could do that that that is so satisfying to me and this game gives me that and it does it in middle 35 40 minutes then it's done love it lovely game sentient my 36. all right two things david wants to say hi mom david horse and gareth says he has great tastes and games he can play almost as holist in one night and he appreciates that fact that's right i don't know but that's uh anyhow all right shorter games people's choice so i am one of the things that surprised me about this list and i'm pretty sure i'm correct here i don't think star wars outer rim has made the list and if fantasy flight would just put the mandalorian there and call it the child expansion they'd sell a million copies anyhow but what does make the list at 36 is star wars star wars rebellion it's been on the list for five years stays pretty consistent it was 30 last year and a year before that uh just if you want to if you like star wars this is probably the most thematic and covers the most ground so not a surprise to me star wars rebellion yeah this is one i haven't played yet i'm putting outer rim on my uh ketchup palooza list yeah actually i didn't play that either i use it too i've played out a rim and i found it okay well wait then does that make sense then let's move it up to the top of the list we're playing roy likes pulsar guys this goes on the list stays on the list okay but yeah okay all right we're back all right so i've been a little cult of the newish let's pick one that's been on the list since the very beginning it started off as my original seven and it's been on the list every year although i haven't played it in a while but i would like to and i i don't think roy's played this one i think you might enjoy it roy and that's el grande the king and grandfather of area control games or area majority games that cover makes me want to play it [Laughter] the cover i know bring it again uh it's mean it's it's very much back and forth and it has a unique card mechanism that as far as i know has not been replicated where you pick these cards that pick your turn order but also give a special ability and with the expansion they even let you kind of draft which ones you want at the beginning which i like a lot i don't know if that's kind of what ti4 does does the ti4 kind of do that same thing where you no you're all picking an order but you're all picky from the same eight and this one you have a handful of cards but they but they have multiple things they give you the number of armies that you can basically draft to put in your in your group of available armies to put on the board they give you an ability and also they let you pick from cards that are out there the combination it sounds a little complex it's not it's really simple back and forth but it's it's i think it's a lot of fun see did you ever play the expansion i don't think so i don't think i played the expansion i played the base game with you and i thought it was fine uh it's been so long i i would need to replay this again to tell you what i think of it now but all right el grande and mr dreadful wants us to know that it's spanish for the grand thing oh that's that's good to know that's right all right my 35 is another dexterity game i actually just played this with my kids i think last weekend i played it at conventions i've played it with my game group i've had a blast playing this game and this is rhino hero super battle i love this game it is a silly blast building these crazy gigantic towers moving your little meeple slowly up the tower and if you land on the same level as somebody else you have to roll off and you can knock somebody down you hope that you're the highest when the tower falls but also when it's your turn you're super nervous trying to put these walls and towers up um i played games of this where these th these towers just get huge and massive and it's just always a blast playing this game this is just one of those games that are just silly fun and um it's a really fun game to play with a bunch of a wide variety of different people that is rhino hero super battle yeah but i want to know will penguins supplant rhinos no no i definitely love the mechanics way more than the uh the penguin game but there is also penguins in penguin you're a you're a penguin we did it we did it on a live stream recently and it's a stacking game like this one where you with folded cards no no it's more like regular rhino hero but it's also got it's like even more heroes this also has folded cards yes okay uh rhino hero super battles the one with the hanging monkeys right yes yes give me some hero rhinos i really enjoy a lot of this the the combat thing and the fact that your character is actually like climbing the tower as well is another thing that i find enjoyable that is not in that penguin game so exactly i'm sorry boy you missed the chance to ask mike about under represented animals and board games for my number 35 hey roy you know what animal is severely underrepresented in games that's right penguins and my number 35 has nothing to do with penguins it's actually a i would consider it a party game it's at least a two-way crossover might be three i don't remember if it was on your list roy that is q e this is a game that um yes yes now here's the thing penguins i just said i felt much like z still feels right now i was very very hesitant to even try this game i thought it was going to be a one-trick pony because i was explaining to the game and you know what to some extent it is a one-trick pony but that one trick is so good that i've played this probably 25 times and i would still play it at a drop of a hat because it is such a neat it's a gym i'm sorry it's a real yeah drop a hat it's a really really good game where you basically are you know bidding for uh tiles or i don't know what you call them but you're bidding for things that you're going to try to collect in sets but the thing is you can basically bid any number now it sounds maybe like it's like okay that's not gonna work it's stupid i'm telling you it just creates a such a fun experience and i've tried it the thing is i know that it's versatile because i've played it with so many different groups i've played it with groups of people that i know really well and it's all about the meta i've played it with groups of complete strangers and it still works i've played it in larger groups i've played it in smaller groups i think it's a game blue groups that's right i played it uh i played it before i played it after merv it works it's a really really good game i doubt you've played it after murder i'm just gonna call you geez we bluff going deep deep down the inside joke rabbit hole that's right but at least it was an inside joke from earlier in this video so no qe is a game that i think you know you got to try it at least once it may not work for you but you'll probably i really think you'll you'll enjoy it qe is a really a really good game i i'm i'm happy to try it i'm happy to give it a go it just sounds obtuse but i'm always everybody seems to be saying hey because you were calling mike obtuse and truly outdated but the game that sounds obtuse right it's fun where were we am i done insulting looking for his insult first of all juan says he likes el grande and z included in a top ten of games that haven't been killed yet in the past and aj says thanks from canada and we helped him getting in the hobby and out of poker wow i've never heard that one before that's cool yeah i know well thank you very much all right number 35 is poker that would be that would be the most serendipitous listing i've ever done um 35 is actually bruges which i want to say is now and will be for the rest of this list if that proves wrong forgive me but i think it is my highest stefan feld game it's my favorite film rouge is card driven very much about the cards first there is a board there it is a salad game in which you're making a few points here and there from all sorts of things build up the river add some points uh build houses in front of you points put people in those houses that's some points everything is points but i love that there's this giant deck of cards with a bunch of different characters and when you employ them they will make your experience your play your abilities just a little bit different from everybody else and that compounds so once you've hired six seven people i it just feels fantastic to have these neat abilities in front of me and that's that's what puts perugia i think above the other ones it's tight it's still well balanced and has that interest to it but then it's it's got that injection of uh personality and maybe personality is not quite the right word but um diversity maybe you know it lets me sort of do my own thing so bruges 35 really really enjoy this one i'm really i'm really interested to see how you will feel about the the new one you know how that will a new one's not set in bruges so there goes the personnel it but i think it does add the uh expansion into it have you played with the expansion i've never i never did by the time i kind of looked again it was super out of print right right right okay by the way i'm being told it's age not edge sorry oh okay all right people's choice all right i have some small apologies to mike oh superhero yes no apologies so last year this game was at 57 and i was pretty sure it would fall off the list due to the overwhelming hype but it is still on the list so i guess it can't just be hype now i'm not anti this game i think it's a fine game i just don't think it's as great as all everyone else as it is including mike but obviously the people agree with mike tapestry tapestry and it's going up tom not going not going down it's going up you're right maybe next year pendulum will make the list [Laughter] pendulum is not on my list huh uh oh joseph wants to tell us that bruges is belgian for the bruges ah wow i feel like i'm learning a lot today we are learning a lot thank you all right anyway back to what people say how long until we have a uh le have a joke by the way by the way though am i honestly mike did you think it would go up on people's i did not i mean despite everything else i did not think i thought it was kind of a not a flash in a pan but just the hype would fall a bit my concern i thought it might i thought it might go up but my thought my concern was that there was a lot of negative chatter about it it's you know i know i've used this word a lot but it is a divisive game however i think it has more wide appeal than maybe you give it credit for and it also got an expansion so it got a good expansion yeah i like because it just adds more stuff again mike i like the game i know i know i know you do oh yeah and uh lahav means at the harbor says mr dreadful all right let's before we get some more of this stuff okay my number 34 has been on the list for two years the second year although again i've played this game way back when i played el grande but recently it's just really hit a sweet spot for me i even played it again a few times this year and that's saint petersburg i don't know why this game just keeps growing on me it's it's ah it's just such a fun game this is the reworked edition of this right yes that's true it's oh man though it's an ugly reworking it's not a pretty they i mean that's what my mom used to call me after my sister was born before me a bad reprint um no but i like this game i think it works with i used to say it only worked well with two but i've been playing with multiplayers and maybe that new extra segment that they added in fixes my main problems with the game the aristocrats being too powerful right it is such a great game if you've never played it definitely check it out i like it a lot that's saint petersburg so my number 34 is another collectible card game some might even say the father of all collectible card games and this is magic the gathering and one of the main reasons this is so high for me is because i recently started playing it more in a new format called um popper um and that is where you play the game with only common cards um i played a ton of magic the gathering like friday magic tournaments and things like that i did a lot of different games of this i really enjoyed the game a lot but one of the things that was really hard for me to do was to keep up with the price cost of this game um and try to figure out how to do that um when you play it at the common level in popper it's you can afford basically every card no card is over 25 cents and it's really easy to play so i've been building a lot more decks recently i had someone just give me a whole bunch of common cards so i've been playing a lot of these decks with my kids i mean most people know what magic the gathering is and it's crazy how long this game has been around and it still hasn't faded there are still gigantic magic communities out there and they're still coming out with set after set um i just prefer to see the little little black symbol on there that means that the card's only gonna be like 10 cents because i can't afford to buy crazy planeswalkers or crazy fetchlands that are 80 um but i do enjoy the gameplay itself so magic the gathering my 34. yeah it makes total sense i mean that's a lot of the games you like kind of feel like they were birthed from magic so i can totally see that yeah all right my number 34 is the latest in my continuing series of games that only i seem to like and that is cinque terre the five villages unfortunately this game is out of print and that that really is a shame because i think this is a great entry level maybe slightly above entry level pure pick up and deliver game and it is just such a gorgeous game a very simple board where you've got just basically these five villages that you're going to that each uh have a particular vegetable that they are selling and you've got dice that represent a variable market on how much people are willing to pay for that particular vegetable at any particular point in a round and you're just simply going along with these lovely little wooden trucks and you're picking up these vegetables putting them on your little player board that represents your truck and you're trying to buy them low and sell them high very simple concept right you're also trying to uh collect uh these these vegetables so that you can fulfill contracts it's also basically a contract fulfillment game but it is just such a streamlined experience such a simple uh right at the i've said before i like games that take a central mechanic and pretty much stick to that and that's what cinque terre does in a beautiful colorful gorgeous package i wish it was still in print because it's too hard to get a hold of right now but that's my number 34 cinque terre i think this is a chris handy game which it is surprised he probably has the rights back i'm surprised he hasn't tried to kickstart he's still trying to figure out how to fit it in a in one of those small bubblegum boxes right yeah yeah no this was yeah a rio grande game i i don't know why it's out of print yeah all right stick it on the list ketchup you haven't seen you haven't played it i heard there were dices put it on the list yes mother 34 is a classic an absolute classic of tile laying and uh buying and collecting uh ambra or alambra whatever however you want to say it this is a game i've had in my collection in one form or another for many many years and to this day i just played this game i kid you not for just for funsies i think uh three weeks ago or something like that uh so and it's just as fun i mean it's just because it's such a clean design it's just straightforward concept this is my one recommendation whenever somebody is absolutely uh unfamiliar with what we call hobby board gaming if i ask them so what is your favorite game and their answer is monopoly which would be a lot of people's answers you know you can get you know clue or risk or whatever monopoly if they say monopoly i suggest they try a hombre because it's very similar concepts make money spend money to buy buildings you're kind of doing that in monopoly and i just love the the spatial aspect that then this puts on that this idea of fighting the other players for control of the different building types tons of expansions if you want to go down that rabbit hole but you don't have to uh and it's just uh it's a blast to play i really love it a hombre my 34. all right first of all chrissy says she's grateful for the dice tower because it helped her meet the kirby's and get them very nice all right people's choice number 34 once again agreeing with mike this is a disgusting 10. um well not really this is gloomhaven jaws of the lion this is a brand new entry i'm not surprised very popular for sure uh big debut yeah so very you know it's accessible i'm still amazed at how easily it is to you know this game walks you into learning a complex game from scratch does it fantastically so next year we're gonna we're gonna have to figure out how we're gonna fit you know all the gloomhavens and frosthaven on the list but we'll see so let's say let's ask right now is this gonna be top 10 next year people's choice ooh that's interesting we'll move on i mean it debuted in the 30s right i mean that's true available at target yeah i do wonder if it's still available because you know target will just cut something they'll be like i think it's in game stores now too though so yeah it's still being sold in targets too yeah i i wonder if the fact that there's different versions people will only pick one for their list so it might end up like splitting it up so it could because frost haven't is going to be in the mix some sometime soon too so that's all right all right so 34 gloomhaven too early for that we broke z we broke z someone marked that down for the blooper reel oh come on oh could someone say super cut i just did all right so i've been talking about older games a lot on this one but i've also talked about newer ones i can't look at z uh my number 30. my number 33 is hiccup mountain no whistle whistle mountain whoa yes i am a huge worker placement fan and this one is a huge new release for me from 2020. i love it i was not expecting to again this gave me that same feeling that i mentioned earlier with paladins where i played it and i instantly want to play it again and i was brow beating mike i was like mike you got to find us you got to play this um it's notice i didn't do that to uzi um but uh yeah lots of people played and played and played you said no because i didn't think you'd like it but that was um bmw i love it so anyhow it's interesting because you you did you actually told me that i need to play this and i've only played it the once but i really like that i have a feeling if i play it some more this could actually get on to my top 100 it is a rock solid game i really think it should just not have been called whistle mountain it has nothing to do with that's the that's my biggest beef with the game is that it has it really doesn't and i think it's doing it a disservice because i didn't love whistle stop and so i wasn't interested at all in whistle mountain uh so all right let's let's keep moving 33 for me is a very quick playing space game and that is race for the galaxy i really enjoy the hand management of this game and trying to figure out how to build out your tableau with all the different combos some might even say you have to min max in this game but yeah i enjoyed it i enjoy like trying to get in your opponent's head to think about which card and which action they're gonna play so it's like okay if they're gonna play that then i don't need to play it and which one do i really need the bonus on maybe i need to refill my planets maybe i need to use them to score points maybe i need to dig for the perfect card that would make this combo work just great and this game is great at like different player counts just because it's so fast with very little down time based on the way the card play works you're always doing something in this game it's very enjoyable i'm pretty sure we might see it higher on someone else's list um but number 33 is race for the galaxy for me good choice all right my number 33 is a game that just got re-released in a new version and the four of us played it and did a review of it i actually prefer the original version although the new one is beautiful that is cleopatra and the society of architects this is a game that uh or do you not differentiate between them no i i'm actually putting the the original version on my on my list yeah and like i said i still like yeah i like the new one this this actually was number 28 on my top 40 last year so it's it's gone down a little bit and part of that might be for playing the new one but not probably not i i really do like this game but honestly my one of some of my favorite parts of the game i feel like we're de-emphasized in the new version and that's why i think i like i like that the half the deck is uh you know face up and half is face down that seems like such a silly thing but to me that is just a brilliant brilliant mechanic for a market because it gives you some information but some you don't want and if you see you know one really good card that you can see face up but there's two face down you might have some corruption in there you don't know if you want that corruption it's a game that is super easy to teach and learn it has a lot of variability in the sense that really what you're doing is set collecting and spending those sets to do different things whether it's to build a monolith or or what do they call those obelisks obelisk thank you roy or to get get some polyamino pieces that you're gonna place up in the in the garden there it's just a the original production from days of wonder i already thought was over the top gorgeous the new one is you know ridiculously nice but they're both beautiful a fantastic game a i would say a a probably a family weight game wouldn't you guys say i don't know if it's much about family i mean yeah you can't play with kids that are too young but it's kind of slightly slightly over you know a days of wonder game so there you have it right cleopatra and society of architects that's good stuff my 33 is a game that while the addition that's on my list isn't the original published one it has been around since 2000 and that is citadels now i think the best edition of this is the one that came out i i want to say 2016 and it's sort of the the the master set of it it includes all the original characters and cards that includes the dark city expansion characters and cards and then a bunch of new stuff on top of that it's a beautiful production large format cards for the characters that the players are going to be drafting and then all new artwork as well and you're building a city in front of you scoring points for a few different things yes the game can be mean you can certainly mess with each other it's uh kooky in many ways it's wild but it's also an absolute blast to play i've liked this game for a long time this edition just solidifies it on my list uh and therefore it ends up in uh you know i believe 34 is one-third but you know 33 is close also 33 citadels alrighty we have a three-way crossover here in the 30s between me mike and the people with paladins of the west kingdom debuting this is the second highest debut this year wow uh for the people uh and well usually games debut then move up that's just how it works this is pretty high uh the the west kingdom trilogy is very popular as is pretty much everything that he prints at this point you know i fully expect i don't think vi counts made the list yet but if you remember it was on the people's choice for best of 2010 i mean 2020 2010 would be weird um but i would i'll say buy councils on the list next year you know this year did vi counts come out in 2020 yes yes so two of them came out in 2020. no paladin's how this came out in 2019 but like i said it takes a while for it to get out in the distribution and everything right so i thought paladins was the last one vi counts is the last one yes yep so paladins of the west kingdom your number 33. my number 32 actually would probably be higher if i rated it on my last play of it because this game every time i play it i like it more despite the fact that not all four of us are as thrilled about the game to the point where someone ranking at a seven we look unkindly on that like how could you not love this game i love ninavelir it is such an amazing game i could play it over and over and over and over again um like i said each time i play it it goes higher for me it is my go-to you got five people pull this game out it's gonna take not too long to play fairly easy to teach every game i play i can pick different leaders to stick in my group you know try a different strategy i really really like this game yeah so yeah it was my 78 it's going to go up tom there's no question it's going to go up i i i'm with you i like it more every time i play it yeah so and again i'm i'm i'm just joshing on z you know because he yeah he said it's a seven and we're like what how could be seven for me at my 30s are pretty close to tens at this point you know so it's it's definitely up there nidabalier good really good wow okay 32 for me is a game that basically started off the whole kickstarter thing it is set in space and is a dice placement game called alien frontiers really enjoy alien frontiers you're rolling your dice which is your ships going to different outposts and things like that to collect different resources and then trying to build more ships so there you're different workers that you can place around the board you're trying to colonize this planet that has all these different cool like sci-fi writers names on them and they're all kind of like very sci-fi themed with all this stuff and you're trying to race up a point track um and be the last person to put your last little colony thing on the board to end the game in the highest position i'm unlocking special abilities all along the way i really enjoy alien frontiers and i really enjoyed it for a really long time it's a blast to play i don't hear a lot of people talking about it as much these days but it's one that whenever we have dice tower conventions i'll still pull out and teach it to people and be like have you played alien frontiers yet and every single time the people have a blast playing it so my 32 alien frontiers yeah you know it's interesting alien frontier is the game that i think is fine i've probably cooled on it over the years but you think about this was one of the the first big kickstarters it was one of the games compared to kickstarter's now though well i know right at the time at the time it was considered a huge success it was one of the the earlier games that used dice as workers for work replacement so i think that you know alien frontiers is pretty you know important in in a lot of ways so i agree all right my big issue my big issue with it right now is just there's a lot of addition addition confusion when it comes to alien frontiers you know they had first edition second edition third edition with expansions third edition with rocket dice and expansions then fourth without some of these i don't know what's what anymore i just like the base game so i know but what i'm saying the base game has changed quite a bit since i want to say there's at least six editions of it now yeah i just wish that they would come out with something put everything in there or or even do like an essential like like viticulture did do you know do a central edition call it a day sell something that people can look at and go this is what i need to buy i disagree just buy a copy of it i don't want another edition z come on you just said there's too many additions and now you want another one i said there's addition confusion it's probably because you haven't looked into it you know why rory don't talk to me i just want alien frontiers the dice game all right isn't it two that's the joke my number 32 is um could you spell it out clear for me mike there are dice in the game i'm confused this 10 this list of 10 has been very we've spent a lot of time in the west kingdom but you know what we're not done yet this is a game that i feel like ultimately as i play it more will probably end up being my favorite in the series this is vi counts of the west kingdom yes it's very new i really really really like this game uh and what's interesting is that the central mechanic of vi counts is deck building which is not my favorite mechanic but it's deck building in the way that i like which is that it's just an element of the game it's not necessarily the whole game it uses a lot of different things it's got clever card play it's got moving around a kind of a circular board it's got drafting uh buying workers that are going to allow you to do special things it's got some set collection in there it does what a lot of the designer shem phillips games do which is take a lot of little elements and put them all together in a really well integrated whole it's a game that does a lot of things but doesn't feel overwhelming it's not too difficult to pick up i mean there's a lot going on but i think it's easier to learn than paladins certainly i have a feeling this is going to be the one that i'll probably end up coming back to more and more and more that's my number 32 the game that will definitely be on the people's choice next year vi counts of the west kingdom are all three of these on your list mike or just the top two the last two i just think so far i haven't played any of these games it's because mike holds them all he doesn't let anybody else play them i know just like by counts but not nearly as much as mike uh yeah you need to give it another shot tom you don't pass i'm not gonna i'm not gonna take another tom have you played have you but have you played vi count since you've played merv play it again i am not a whole new world whole new world having liked that game i could not lay that down well my 32 is set in the west kingdom's universe retroactively anyways saint malo there was still more copies if they said like saint malo of the west kingdoms uh this is a rolling right really before rolling right was kind of a big catch phrase this one has a dry erase board everybody has a dry erase board you're gonna roll dice you're going to then you yahtzee style roll reroll keep some of those and then dry erase pencil something in there you are building up your walls for defense you are collecting different characters you are building churches building housing uh putting things in your store uh storage facilities trying to make victory points basically and building up the walls like i said for defense from these pirates that attack you it's uh it's from the uh brand so uh inca and marcus bran and i think they are fantastic designers we talked about this earlier in the top 100 and this in my opinion is one of their best games also unfortunately one of their more overlooked games the only bad thing i can say about this one is in regards to roland rights in general this is much slower than those games because because it's not simultaneous you do take a turn and then the next player will take a turn so i recommend it with fewer and then you know most role and right games now do simultaneous something you right one person rolls dice but everybody uses them that sort of thing but forget that noise this game is fantastic i love saint molo 32 if you haven't tried it stop messing around with this west kingdom's goofiness try something novel you can have bo and i was about to say something nice too z recently then recently recently i played era medieval age with uh z and tom and it was fine but at the end of it i thought you know what i think i would rather just play saint malo also okay to be fair ze we we know you don't remember games very often but mike did not play this with you yeah no i i played it with with z and and and uh no c i said z again roy and tom yeah no i uh they're very similar and i could get why you feel like they are and then you guys wonder why i like merv because merv remembers me all right people's choice number 32 second time on the list it was 39 and then 145 before that but it's going to be on the list for many years because the people who like this game love it and that's brass birmingham uh for a while at the game store remember when we used to go there i saw this game played almost every week just yeah consistent play play play play people loved it um it's interesting because brass lancaster came out you know they redid that one but no one touches that one compared to birmingham and i know every time i say that some people in the comments say yeah but lancaster lancaster wasn't even in our top 500 probably for people's choice birmingham is where it's at so uh also that's every time we talk about birmingham i get sad there too because then i think about uk games expo all right anyway uh number 32 for people brass birmingham all right my number 31 fifth year on the list i love this game because i liked deck building a lot but i i was really happy to see it kind of move into a new direction with bag building or whatever it's called pool building and that's orlions orions which is definitely tom i gotta point out you cannot do the or or part but then also pronounce the s pick one or the other it's either orleans or or leon or leon there you go otherwise you're driving my my brain is going bananas i'm like do i like merv do i not like merv i can't deal with it well the reason i like orleans is because the finish or what you did it right away i love it go ahead now i gotta start over again the reason i like orleans is because i like the bag belly part a lot but i like the fact that the strategy seems to diversify from turn one like there's no hey on your first turn this is the thing you should buy this is the the worker placement you should move and also moving around on that board which i thought looked dreadfully dull and and i can never really remember what i did necessarily at the end of the game but it's still very fun this game i'm just constantly building up i like it a lot alto plato was fun the sequel to it but orlean a much more fun game so that's my number 31. i think i played this one uh at pax unplugged i want to say but it was like a co-op way to play is that right yeah you could play with the with the expansion you could play yeah that was cool i i liked this one i i would i should try this again and sort of explore it yeah see if i like the traditional game the co-op feels very much like the traditional it's one of those games where i don't think it feels that different so if you like the co-op i bet you would like the traditional okay so my 31 i really enjoy games that are very engine buildy and it is gizmos this game is extremely simple as far as building up your little engine um there's very simple actions you can do at the beginning but this game is all about like multiplying those actions and being able to combo them together so do you want to just pick one thing this turn or do you want to build a card but you could get a thing where when you build this color card you get to pick and then if you pick that color then you get to grab one out of the top and if you do all these things and they start comboing all together so you just have these crazy explosive turns you're trying to build out your tableau of all these different machines to build the craziest zaniest machine in the game it's got these really cool little marbles you're drafting the entire time um i just really enjoy gizmos it's an extremely quick playing game but just very satisfying once you get this giant engine built up when it's like you take one action but it's really like taking ten you know as you're comboing it all together um i've had a blast playing gizmos i played it with a lot of different people and at several different conventions i definitely bring gizmos out a lot to show to other people and it's very enjoyable that's why it's my 31 good choice nice the marbles don't hurt either all right my number 31 the first time that i became acquainted with this game was at gen con many years ago i knew nothing about it i was walking past and i was so struck by these gigantic miniatures i'm like oh this looks cool let me go and and i assumed that it was just a display copy for the convention i i wanted to see what the actual game looked like and then i realized this is the actual game my number 31 is cthulhu wars and the first time i thought i saw it i thought it was a joke i really did i thought this is this is the actual game but then i played it and it's a really really good game that holds up to repeated plays it's a basically an area control tentacles on a map game where you play one of these one of these lovecraft uh inspired factions and they all play slightly differently and yes there's a bunch of dice and basically in the combat you're rolling handfuls of dice but what i really like about cthulhu wars is that it's much more smart than it presents itself it's not just rolling dice at each other and seeing who wins there's uh you know these asymmetrical powers and you all have spell books that you're trying to unlock and what's really cool about that is that it kind of gives you as a player a direction but you can unlock those spell books in any order you want so it's not scripted at all but you have things to work for on every turn so you're like i don't know what to do but you know what this spell book says control this gate for a turn and you can get okay i'm going to try to do that and i think that's a really smart way to ease people into asymmetrical games so even if you know the system and you've never played this faction before you look at those spell books you've got six spell books and you've got some direction super smart and something i think that asymmetrical games would be uh good to borrow from so uh cthulhu war is the game that i've continued to play over the years i continue to enjoy and uh they keep releasing new factions so i'm excited to keep playing my number 31 cthulhu war if i'm looking at my my notes here you also believe everyone should own it it is essential i got so much grief about that i i wanted one showpiece game i thought if everyone should have one showpiece game this is what i chose i'm just saying if you learn anything from your time on the dice tower is if you ever get grief over something we will do our best to help you through it by never letting you forget right to be fair this game i played this game bo i played it before orleans so or i don't know how i feel about this uh this chunk of top ten i'm confused mildly disturbed you could say my 31 is a game called everdell very cute game with some uh some worker placement collecting resources like little berries and maybe little duh crystals i forget what they're called nectar maybe resin amber that's the one amber and then maybe it's resin but it looks like resin is uh yeah that's the thing in little pebbles and yeah it's just i love the little bits and then so you're doing some work replacement with your cube critters but also building up uh what we in the industry call your tableau in front of you by playing out cards and they give you little powers and actions it's lovely it looks it it looks lighter and sort of goofier and sillier than it is it's actually a decent amount going on uh it's a tricky game to do well in but it's not one that is uh standoffish in any way it's very welcoming it's cute i really enjoy it i i would be hesitant to recommend it to just about anybody because i think again they might be tempted to look at it and go oh i'm going to play this with little timmy a little timmy's not going to be able to handle this game i know little timmy's not that smart but uh perhaps a little timmy's a little bit older then you can you can play with little two stop being mean a little timmy you know what i i don't have to ever do 31. i like it quite a bit good choice i like it too it's on somebody's list because i'm right right last last game of today um people's choice and sadly we've now reached a point where uv rosenberg is no longer has a game in the top 30. this is the final one and that is feast for odin actually it's called uh office huffies for odin wright anyhow yes and this is surprising because i think it's clearly the heaviest of all these games there's a lot going on in the game it's a tough teach um but you know again many people enjoy it i believe mike had it on his list already and so yeah there you go 31 a feast for odin go ahead sorry i said i just figured this was going to be the top one i knew like agriculture now but then at some point feast of road and took over for copper now which i thought was you know very good a nice improvement on agricola but i haven't tried this one yeah where is uh feast for uh caverna was 27 last year and so they passed each other this time they passed them tonight it was it was feast for odin was second then caverna mark me down for 115 points because i was correct that there would be two more uve games after agricola we'll give you that in our in our game yes split screen gamer says don't play evernote if you're hungry all right i i shan't uh thank you everybody for watching so two things one if you like this video give us a thumbs up get more people to know about it we'll be back later on today at two o'clock eastern time with 30 through 21 the games just get better and better secondly that counts as the top third secondly i'm learning all kinds of maths today um we are running the diced our kickstarter there's only 60 hours left but i just want to say thank you huge milestone for us we just passed 7 000 backers that's a big deal for me thank you so much thank you glad that people enjoy our show that much and you can be one too if you want so anyhow until next time i'm tom vassell i'm roy canning i'm mike galicio and i'm happy garcia have fun interrupting [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Dice Tower

Views: 76,186

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: tlmsxWcwqAk

Length: 91min 0sec (5460 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 28 2021