Top 10 Chilled Board Games

0:00 hey everybody today I'm talking about my top 10 chilled board games now for me these are all games that I find fairly relaxing I just enjoy the process don't care about winning or losing and the Stak generally feel quite low in these games now I'll be doing two of these videos one of which is slightly longer games and the next video I'll do will be kind of filler game so chilled fillers but before I get started on these top 10 games I want to give a shout out to the show's sponsor Kender who are my go-to online retailer and if you use the link in the show notes or the QR code then you can get 5% off your first order at number 10 I have picture perfect which is an incredibly unique game where you are trying to arrange all of these characters in a particular order to sue all of their wants and needs and it's all based around taking this kind of group photo so some characters might say I want to be stood next to this character or I want to be stood in the back row or next to the table and each character has I think a couple two or three different conditions and as the game goes on you are drip fed more information and you're trying to retain this information and kind of jiggle all your characters around to get them in the optimal place ready for final scoring that's pretty much what the game entails again I don't really care about what the other players do in this one I just want to try and crack the code and get as many right as I possibly can so really enjoyable one definitely a game that stands out from amongst the pack because is such a a quirky Charming theme and the mechanisms

1:31 suit the theme really well so that is picture perfect at number 10 at number nine I have karuba now this is a game I've played a ton of over the years this game has a bingo feel to it as each round you're going to be drawing a tile and everybody will be placing that particular tile on their own personal grid and the idea is you are trying to get these adventurers to their matching colored temples with the most optimal routs so all you're doing is you either placing these tiles on your grid to try and build those Pathways or cashing those tiles in to move your Adventurer along those roads there is a race aspect to it where you want to be the first player to get each of the colors to their respective temples to get some bonus points but all in all again I don't really care about what my opponents are doing maybe in more Niche circumstances I will do but generally I got my head down in my sheet just trying to map things out and make sure I'm not wasting any movement uh lovely family weight game again one that you can play over and over again without getting too tired of it actually a lovely one that is karuba at number nine at number eight I have my farm shop now this is a Twist on the uh space Bas mechanism or the matchi cor mechanism where each round you are rolling three dice you're going to use one of those dice or a die to draft a card and add it to your personal player board and the other two will trigger a particular card on your player board depending on the number they they add up to so if you have a a six and a two left your number eight card will

3:03 activate and those cards will either give you resources or they will give you a conversion where you can convert resources into victory points and that's all the game entails you're just trying to um you collect resources and convert them as optimally as possible you've got some mitigation tools through these sacks where you can modify at the PIP values and you even got a degree of engine building where you can add these little sunflowers to increase the yield or the resources that you get from these particular locations and it's nice just to tweak your little engine to try and make it work as efficiently as possible you can even just focus on a couple of those resources if you want to that matched with a a strict capacity on how many resources you can keep just it's loose enough to enjoy but tight enough not to be boring and again you can just focus on your own engine and just try keep it chugging along and spitting those points out as you know as fast as possible really so it's a lovely one definitely my favorite of the the matchi Coro style games of you know style of game um and it's a definitely an underrated game that's flown under the radar and by a great designer too with rer Dawn but uh for some reason this one didn't really take off I think maybe the aesthetic didn't help too much but the gameplay is Rock Solid and definitely Cates to a wide array of different players so that is my farm shop at number eight at number seven I have diams now this is a game that's actually not out yet I was quite fortunate to play a pre-production copy and this is a hybrid kind of puzzly

4:34 style game with some tile placements as you're placing a tile and when you're matching these colors you are getting different sizes or different shapes and colors of these little crystals which you'll be placing on your player board and what you're trying to do is you are trying to build certain patterns or formations of these crystals to score points so some of them might score based on you know symmetries or being next to other colors or just purely having a specific color and you can even tweak the difficulty or the tightness of the gam playay through these variable scoring conditions so some of them might be really easy to achieve some of them might be a bit trickier to pull off with a lower margin of error but I just always found myself just enjoying just building up my um my player board creating this lovely pattern with these bright colors and again I never really found myself looking at the other players or thinking too much about my scoring I just wanted to do the best I could um I think this one could be a sleeper hit and I hope it is because the game play is really charming and it's quite a relaxing game in my opinion so that is diams at number seven at number six I have trekking through history now this is a wonderfully produced set collection game where you're collecting points in two different ways really the first of which is through drafting uh these cards which will come kind of assign to different historical events going from very early ages up to fairly modern and what you're doing is you're playing these cards in chronological order and without breaking that kind of time lapse and if you do break that

6:05 pattern or you can't take a card to continue your um your timeline then you'll have to start again but you are rewarded for having kind of the longer chains without those broken patterns and and on top of that you are collecting these colored tokens which you are using to populate these little scoring sheets that will score you points based on you know filling them in from top to bottom and if you create or complete certain lines of them then you get some bonus points as well so this is one of those games where everything just feels good I think the production really does help it because it's a lovely lavish Deluxe feeling game with some solid mechanisms a lovely artwork and it's just it's just a joy to play really I never really um tired of this one because I thought it just felt it just felt good to play it so that is trekking through history at number six at number five I have hookie now this is is a competitive deduction based word game where you are trying to work out which letters are in or out of the the fold of letters available so basically at the start of the game each player will get given an arrangement of letters then throughout the game the other players will be asking clues of you to try and deduce what those letters could be by providing five letter words and then they will provide you back with a number with how many letters they've got correct within that word so again think Wordle but the Twist on this game is that there are certain I think there's three letters that are completely taken out of the mix um where you will going to get given a fairly

7:36 Hefty amount of points if you work out what those missing letters are so you can kind of um you know tunnel vision and try to work out what these letters could be very precisely or you can cast a wider net to try and maybe catch those stray letters that haven't been used yet again I really do not care about winning or losing this game it's a kind of a personal challenge for me to see if I can um solve which letters are you know what the answer is um but it's a nice one you know I generally do like these deduction based word games there's some good ones out there hookie is a very good one and I enjoy it a lot so that is at hookie at number five at number four I have a brand new one with harmonies so this is another puzzly Style game where you are trying to uh place these little blocks as efficiently as possible to try and match as many different patterns as you can so these blocks will come in at different colors like Browns for trees or greens for bushes know grays for your mountains and so on and not only are you trying to build these kind of organisms such as the mountains and the um you know and the trees Etc to get some points but you also trying to complete these objective cards by building the habitats of these different creatures and each of these patterns are interesting because you can use inversions to score particular formations multiple times so it's kind of an optimization puzzle trying not to waste any placement trying to kind of bleed one pattern into the next pattern

9:07 you are restricted by the um by the tiles you can draft because it has this kind of cluster mechanism where each tile or each lot of tiles will come in a group of three so there might be two there that you really need and one that you might need to decide what to do with later but you are forced to place them immediately so that you know are you going to use it to add towards a pattern or are you going to say you know what Let's ignore the patterns let's just build a huge tree with it instead so I think it strikes that perfect balance between being restrictive but still giving you the freedom to score multiple different things and it's just nice to keep on again using the pre-made foundations that you've already made in previous turns to contribute towards new patterns so again that constant almost Kaleidoscope of those patterns being created as you're going through the game out of all of these pattern based games I think at the moment this is a clear favorite for me um and there are so many out there we go to show the quality and the pedigree of this game I think it's a wonderful design extremely charming and I can see why so many people love it including myself so that is harmonies at number four at number three I have Dixit which is the first party game on this list now Dixit I'm sure most of you guys have played this one H so this is a game where you are giving Clues uh based on these lovely uh cards that you have in your hand and wonderful brights and uh imaginative illustrations and you can give clues in any format you like you can give words songs Tunes whatever you want and then basically all the other

10:38 players are going to choose a card from their hand based on that clue as well they're all going to get mixed together all revealed and then people are going to vote what they think that original card was and it's got a cool kind of scoring system where if you're the clue Giver you want to be obvious enough so that at least one person votes for you but not too obvious where everybody votes for you you and even if it's not your turn and people vote for your card then you'll get some bonus points as well so this is a game even if you have no idea what the um what the original clue Giver is alluding to you can just get some points just by default by people landing on you um and it just again the stakes feel so low in this game but it's still constantly you know full of laughter and good moments and you get to look at some lovely cards as well while you are playing it so I'm definitely a must try Star Party game I think some people could bounce off it because they might question where the game play really is but for me I think it's such a Whimsical such a light-hearted experience and I've never not enjoyed a game of Dixit at number two I have in genius now for me ingenius has really filled this niche in my collection where if I want something to play that's fairly easy to understand with some very light rules but isn't brain dead so you know if I've had a a long day and I'm very tired but I still want to play something that isn't stupid then ingenius is a great one to go to because you just have your rack of tiles you're trying to place these tiles onto this board to try and create these chains of particular colors or shapes and because there are options but not

12:10 too many options at any time it just feels like you're not overwhelmed or paralyzed with decisions but you still might have a a few little tweaks to make to make sure you're placing optimally and you know what what shape do you prioritize first so again it doesn't throw too many decisions at you but it doesn't leave you with no decisions to make at all uh that mixed with the pressure of the scoring where you know you want to be making sure that all of your scores are topped up because only your lowest one will be your your final score I think it just strikes that perfect balance between being accessible but still clever but still again not overwhelming at any time so I definitely feel like I can just talk to my friends and just enjoy the process when playing um ingenious but still doesn't feel like we're just playing something for the sake of it so a great kitzia uh this is genius at number two and finally at number one I have Sherlock Holmes Consulting detective now this is a little bit of a cheat because it's the only Cooperative game on the list so there is no you know competitive nature to the game um but I think if youve played this one you can probably see where I'm coming from I've always found this very relaxing I found it very low stakes where I can just go through things at my own pace not have to worry about how long it's taking and I just normally make an evening of it to be honest um so if you're not aware of this game you are essentially trying to solve some kind of murder mystery or mystery in general by reading through these newspapers uh visiting different people through this a rest book they reading

13:40 through a story uh this kind of thing there's some good writing it's quite immersive in terms of the you know the dialogue used and the people and places you're visiting and it's again it's one of those games where you can just get some friends over get some food and drink out and just you know make an evening of it rather than trying to squeeze as many ball games you can in uh in an evening like you know I definitely do sometimes but yeah this one I like to just block everything else out and just enjoy the experience and get immersed in it so um it's definitely a game that's stood the test of time it's been around for a long time now tons of different versions of the game uh sometimes you have to be a bit more forgiving of the game because sometimes the leaps of logic are quite large and you have to you know just understand that but despite that I just try to do the best I can and answer those questions that are asked of you at the end of the game you can put some pressure on yourself if you want to play that way by trying to compete compete against Sherlock himself but I'd advise not doing that because he's just too good and he scores ridiculous um ridiculous scores but still definitely a unique and distinct Vibe of a game very atmospheric very enjoyable and just relaxing in my opinion that is Sherlock Holmes a Consulting detective at number one so there we have it that concludes the video hopefully you have enjoyed it again there will be a second video of this nature uh chilled filler games not like some of these are long but these next ones will be even shorter again but if you have enjoyed the video please be sure to hit like And subscribe to the channel and check out my other content too but for everybody else I'll see you

15:11 next time on chairman of the board bye-bye