TCbH's Top 10 Travel Games of All Time

0:00 Hey everyone. As you can tell, I'm not at the studio right now. I'm at beautiful NY Beach in Newport, Oregon on vacation with the family. And I thought this was a great opportunity to talk about some of my all-time favorite travel games. You know, games that I can bring everywhere. And there's a lot of considerations that you got to think about with travel games, right? It's not just that it's going to be small. That's important, but it's got to have a meaningful impact and it's got to be something that you can teach people, especially if you're going on family vacations. It's going to fit a lot of audiences. And granted, some of this is, you know, all about your specific situation. And I wouldn't necessarily bring all of these games on any given vacation, but these are some of the games that are kind of like my go-to travel games whenever I'm considering, hey, I'm going on a trip cuz, you know, I'm going to be bringing some games, even if I do try to buy at least one game from a friendly local game store while I'm out on vacation. Shout out to Kingdom of Nye here in Newport, as well as Lincoln County's Lock and Key Adventures Guild. beautiful game shops.

1:13 Check them out if you're in the neighborhood. Anyway, let's get to some honorable mentions before we get into the list proper. First honorable mention and probably the one that most inspired this list is Wingspan Pocket. Why is it an honorable mention? Well, I can tell you it probably in about a year from now, this might very well top the list, but it's so new that as of recording this, it's under embargo. So, I can't even talk about it. But it's it's a game that I need to let it set in. I've gotten already five plays in of this at multiple player counts. I've enjoyed the heck out of it every time. Such a great consolidation of Wingspan, but I need it to simmer. A game this new I can't put on the list in good conscious, especially when it's not even announced yet, but it's definitely an honorable mention. Likewise, Carcasson is a game that I actually brought on this trip and I think is one of those great games that you can put in a bag and just bring the tiles with you and it is so easy to teach, so easy to play, but it's just a little bit bigger in dimensions than I want it to be. Yeah, you can consolidate it down, but if you're going to bring the board itself, the board is the size of the box and the box is just a little bit bigger than any of the other games on here. And then I got Sale, Nana, and Bonanza. All of which are great card games. And Nana, I mean, you can even play Nana with a deck of cards. And we'll we'll have more discussion on that

2:44 later. But these were all contenders. And for whatever reason, just didn't make the top of the list. Sale in particular is one that if we made this list a year ago, it probably would be in it. My wife and I have played sale to death, so we've rung about as much as we can out of those scenarios. We do still have it hit the table from time to time, but it's one that we've we've gotten our mileage out of with the scenarios that are available in the base game and expansion. And the other two just didn't quite make the top of it. Bonanza is one that's making kind of a comeback in our household. We recently got the 25th anniversary edition, which is really cool. came out a couple years ago, but it's it's one that we played a lot way back in the day and uh we let grow some distance and now we've gotten back into it, but I don't know that it really hits the top of this list. So, number 10 is Radlands. As far as I'm concerned, Radlands is just one of the best head-to-head dueling games of all time. One of the limitations is that it's only two players, but the fact that you have a really robust lane battling head-to-head card game experience and such a consolidated box with so many smart plays, multi-use cards, beautiful production. I mean, heck, if you have the upgraded cards, they're they're freaking waterproof, so you can take them to the beach if you

4:14 want to. But it's one of those ones where I know if I bring with me, I can get a bunch of games in, especially if there's someone else who likes head-to-head card games like Magic or Pokemon or Netrunner if there's some old Netrunner heads in the audience. On this trip, I taught my son how to play. He loved it. We had a blast. So, it's one of those ones that I always know if I want like a beautiful, elegant, pristine looking game that's inviting, energetic, and just M gets right to the meat. Rad Lands is going to be it. Number nine is probably more for my son than anything else, but Taco Cat goat cheese pizza. I mean, yes, it's a silly party game. Yes, there's hardly a game in there, but there's something about it that's so inviting. You have to bend your brain a little bit in the Taco Cat go cheese pizza rhyme that you say over and over again, only slapping the cards when the cards actually line up with the rhyme. But it's something that I've taught grandparents. I've taught aunts and uncles. It's one of those ones where my son loves teaching because he knows he's got the rules down pat. It's such a great time. It's silly. It's fun. It's inviting. And it is so compact. That's one that I know that if I have a couple people, I can get some Taco Cat goat cheese pizza action going.

5:38 Number eight is Hive. And how can it not be Hive? It's a tilebased game. If you have high pocket, it fits all in a bag. It's a nice, beautiful head-to-head chess abstract puzzler with bugs and clicketity clackety pieces. There are some dominant strategies that you can get into. There's some crazy stuff that you can pull off in Hive and all those criticisms exist, but it doesn't change the fact that it's still one of the best graband-go games out there that you could play in the freaking rainstorm and still have a good time. It's especially good if you're camping, if you're going to beaches, if you're not necessarily going to have a flat surface to always play on. You know, you need something relatively flat, but you don't need a table, that's for sure. Hive is just one of those games that I it's going to be timeless. I think Hive is going to outlast me. Number seven is Tiny Epic Dungeons. One of my favorite cooperative onthe-go games. and certainly my favorite of the Tiny Epic series. One that I think kind of transcends the Tiny Epic series. I'm not the biggest fan of all the Tiny Epic games. This one has maybe one of the worst rule books in the world, but it does have some of the best gameplay. If you want adventurous, robust, ongoing gameplay, you do need some table space. But this is the kind of game that I would definitely bring to a cabin if I knew that I was going to have other gamers there. It's certainly

7:08 not as accessible as the other games that are on this list. It's one that takes a little bit more nuance, people who are a little bit more into proper gaming, but if you want an adventurous time, it's really hard to go wrong with Tiny Epic Dungeons, which is just a killer just one and done dungeon crawl experience with a lot of nuance, a lot of different equipment, cool abilities that the different characters have. It's a a root and tootin good time. Number six is the first game on this list that is a consolidation of a broader game and that's Splender Duel. And you know what? Splender Duel hands down better than Splender. I I could do without Splender in my collection.

7:56 That's a one that's always been on the chopping block. Splender Duel is going to be there forever. It's so tiny. It's so compact. and it has smarter decisions than the original Splender ever did with the only only drawback of it being that it plays two players instead of a full up to four player count. And I don't think that that's that big of a deal, especially if you're traveling with other games that you can easily consolidate and it doesn't have the issue of Splender itself where most of the boxes air. When you buy Splender Duel, you're getting the full amount of game in that box that you are paying for. It's taken up that space. Beautiful production, similar but cuter small circular discs for all the tokens and just so much more interesting optimization and uh constant uh confrontation with your opponent where every move that you do is going to inform their capabilities. And almost always the opportunity cost is going to have them hating you for what you do.

9:05 and you're kind of hating yourself because you're always having to pass up something that is almost as good as what you're ending up taking. Honestly, I I could just make this like my gushing about Splender Duel as a video for 20 minutes on the beach, but we got other games to get to. Uh that's one that is just it's a mainstay. Number five is on here because well probably Splender Duel is only two players and I need games that can accommodate a higher player count but have interesting mechanics but are easy to teach and you cannot go wrong with Sushi Go. If you have Sushi Go Party, which I recommend that you have Sushi Go Party, it does take up significantly more space than Sushi Go. Not an insurmountable amount of space, but definitely more space. In my case, I just wrap up all the cards in some bands and then I bring the tokens in a little baggie and then fold up the board and just stick it in the middle of another games box and I'm good to go. But Sushi Go is just one of the best all-time great drafting games. It's one of the best Phil Walker Harding games, which is saying something considering the designer's incredible catalog. And it's just super inviting. The artwork is incredibly cute. The mechanics are so easy to teach. You can play several sessions in a row. People are going to have a good time and you can play a lot without extending the time that it takes to play the game. Number four. Yeah, I get it. I'm trending to a lot of duelers here and that's not going to work for

10:36 everyone on vacation, especially if you have big families. I do a lot of traveling with my wife or just my wife and son, and we find ourselves in opportunities where we do a lot of dueling, but I can't leave Sky Team at home. I've tasted Sky Team on an airplane. It was a stupid decision, but fortunately, it was not absolute chaos. We played Sky Team on an airplane. It was thrilling. Didn't lose any pieces. We did win the game. And now, whenever I think of traveling, I think of Sky Team. I do tend to take all the components and take the insert out of the box, put it in the bottom, and then use that as the box I'm putting other card games and stuff in. It does have a little bit bigger of a footprint than most of the games on this list, but Sky Team itself is just one of the all-time great cooperative games as far as I'm concerned. It's one of the all-time great two-player games, and it's one that I'm always going to bring traveling with me. I've gone here to the Pacific Northwest. I've brought it to Germany. I brought it to Philly. I brought Sky Team all kinds of places, and I intend to continue doing so.

11:40 Number three is Odd Lands. And this is the game that kind of kicked Carcasson off the list. It's one that I don't think a lot of people knew about Oddlands, but it is just a fantastic tile placement game using cards where each card has four different terrain quadrants on it and then you're using that to place animals in habitats. Kind of like harmonies or something along those lines. But the shared space, the kind of offensive nature of claiming a habitat and then making it so no one else can enter into that habitat unless you adjoin habitats and the fact that you have to play one of your critters every single turn. That means that you're making interesting decisions about do I want to play this one now where I'm confident that I'm going to get some points or maybe this is just a throwaway critter so that way I'm delaying for more turn opportunity to kind of build out my strategy. There's a lot of smart things going on with the game and the whole shtick of them being combined animals is wild as all get out.

12:48 It also has a really good solo mode which if you're on vacation sometimes you find yourself alone and you got nice 20 25 maybe 30 minute stretch and you want to play some Oddlands or some other games solo. It's a great game. Deserves its place on this list. Number two is Flip 7. Look, I've played Flip Seven with strangers in the airport. I've played Flip Seven at conventions. I've played Flip Seven on the beach. I've taught all of my non-gamer family flip 7. Everyone tends to love Flip 7. It's so easy to learn. It's so easy to engage and it's so inviting. The the sense that you understand the game and now have an inkling of how you're going to approach your strategy and how that evolves over time is beautiful. Flip 7 is remarkable and even though it's not the game that I immediately go to, it's a game that I'm always having a good time when I end up playing. And it's one that is so good for bringing people into the fold to also get them to play other games. As a gateway game, this one gives you the room to break out all those other card games that you brought. It's push your luck heaven.

14:02 And here we are at number one with what is kind of a cheating game. I'll admit it. It's kind of a cheating game, but it's Reocide. This is my old travel copy of Reicside right here beaten to crap because of the elements in which I brought it. But nonetheless, I still keep it. I have another copy at home that isn't Reicide Legacy, which I also have. But you can play this entirely with a standard deck of cards. I recommend that you support the company by getting a copy of Regisside yourself if you really love Regisside, but by all means, they make it free. The rules are all available out there. Standard deck of cards. Not only are you bringing with you a deck that could play Nana or any other game that you just use the cards in place of any number of different things and all the classic card games out there, but Reicside is legitimately one of my favorite cooperative games of all time. Like if we were making a top 10 cooperative games list, this is definitely going to be in there and it would be a strong contender for being in the top five. If you like high pressure, short playing, easy to learn but difficult to master games, Reicide is hard to beat. It's thematic. It's interesting. It's easy to teach other people who aren't familiar with your world of nerdy games, but they are familiar with standard decks of cards.

15:26 And it's something that could be multi-purposed into any number of different things. It's compact, fits in your pocket. You can't go wrong with it. This is Reicside and it's my all-time favorite travel game. But let me know what is your favorite travel game or travel games and where did you last go with games and what games did you play in that travel? Put it in the comments below. And as always, thanks for watching, thanks for supporting, thanks for doing all the things that help our channel grow. We never take any money from publishers, so we rely on you for the likes, subscribes, comments, checking out our Patreon, and talking about us elsewhere on the interwebs. But above all else, thanks for being such a great community. You know, I've been Jack for the cardboard Harold.