Top 100 Games of All Time (40-31)!

0:01 Hello my friends. It's the Game Boy Geek here. Today again I'm joined by my friend

0:04 Greg Dixon. Thanks for having me.

0:06 Uh and if you want to follow me on Instagram, you can follow at Greg C. Dixon. I'll put that down there how you spell it cuz he's way more interested in talking to you in social media. You are

0:16 than I am. No, I'm just kidding. I just don't I am not as active in conversations on social media.

0:21 Talk about games. I love it.

0:22 Too busy editing film. No, I'm just kidding.

0:23 Yes, you are busy with the YouTube channel.

0:26 But I'm at the Game Boy Geek. You can tweet at me or Instagram me or Facebook me there and I'll see you there, too. So, today we're doing our top 100, but we're getting down to the nitty-gritty. We're doing uh 401 31.

0:37 We're getting down there. So, here we go. Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to tell you about the sell trade program at Noble Knight Games. Now, as gamers, we all have games that are cluttering our shelves that we either don't have the right group for or might even not like it. Well, now you can turn those unappreciated games into cash or store credit. Noble Knight Games buys thousands of games and gaming products. It's easy to send them a list of the games that you'd like to sell or trade. Now, they'll send you a quote and even pay for the shipping of the games. get treated and paid like royalty while you sit back and collect cash or store credit. To get started, click the link in the description of this video or in that upper right corner there and then click the sell trade button. All right, number 40 for me is uh sort of an abstract game where you're using domino style tiles, but they're not dominoes.

1:39 It's sort of like ma jang. This is called dragon castle.

1:42 Oh, you love this one.

1:43 Oh, man. This one you're building up your own sort of castle. you you're drafting sort of seven wonders duelish ways where you're drafting certain tiles and you're trying to make them match other tiles that you have and you're building up either wide or tall. Every game is different because there's like one rule that you can everyone can break and there's one new way to score every game. Uh and there's multiple maps. There was actually a Game Boy Geek promo map at one point where you're making the glasses and stuff. But the game is just amazing because mechanically it's simple. Draft a tile that you that that is legal and then from this big thing of tiles, this big stack of tiles and then place it. That's pretty much it. But there's tons of depth, tons of decisions of what to pull. Like in Seven Wonders Duel, you could say, "I'm going to take this tile, which means they're going to have to take that one, which means I'm going to get the one I want." Very Seven Wonders Duelish in that drafting aspect. So, if you like that, boom. If you like spatial and building your own thing, awesome. And it just looks gorgeous. One of my favorites of all time, for sure.

2:36 That's one I haven't played in a long time. I remember being impressed by it, but it's been so long. Good choice. And I I do know that you love this one. I'm actually This is really high. Yeah,

2:44 you really like this one.

2:45 Yeah.

2:46 My number 40 is, drum roll, please. An economic game.

2:50 Take a shot. Go back and watch the other ones. Water, kids.

2:53 Yeah, a lot of economic games. I didn't quite realize. Although, this one isn't just an economic game. It's actually kind of like four games in one. Uh, which is part of what I like about it. It's also sort of the quintessential game for like the stereotypical geek because it's all about comic books. And it is Comic Hunters. Oh,

3:12 Comic Hunters is sort of four games in one, like I said. Uh, it simulates basically building the ultimate Marvel uh, comic book collection. And you go to all these different locations. You go to flea markets and stores. Um, a different different each location has its own way that you acquire the the the actual cards. And one of the cool things is the cards themselves that represent the comic books use the actual Marvel comic art uh, from the actual covers. So, it's just obviously it's it's the art that you've, you know, we grew up looking at and falling in love with. Um, and then you're using that to build these collections, but then what happens is after you've collected a bunch, you have to actually sell some of them in order to sort of build your collection. And that's where the economic game comes in.

3:58 And I love that about it because you have uh you you have to decide what to keep and what to and what to uh what to sell in order to build your sets. And every time you play, it's totally different because certain characters are more appealing. Certain um types of comic books are more appealing. Like there might be ones where uh there's like memorable uh uh memorable like clashes between certain characters or first appearances. And so those are different every time. Which characters are the most important or different every time? Maybe one time you play Black Panther is the most valuable comics. Another time it's the Hulk or Spider-Man. And so every time it feels different. You get these four different kinds of games. There's like drafting, there's auctions. Um, and and after each of those sort of sets is when you start to build your your your u you build your collection. Uh, anyway, like I said, four games in one, beautiful art, quintessential sort of sort of geek theme. Um, the only one small downside is tokens.

4:56 The production itself is not great. Yeah, the tokens are kind of cheapy, thin cardboard. Um, but um, I have friends who've tricked out their copies. They've 3D printed things or they bought little miniatures of the different characters. You go online on BG, there's all kinds of great ideas of how to upgrade it that I've seen people do. And just just scroll through the photos that you'll see. But yeah, I really like this game. It packs so much in. Like I said, economic game, all these different sort of mini games built into one uh tableau building, set collection, and all in like 30 40 minutes. Like it's really snappy as well. So long waited on that one. My apologies, but I really do love number 40, Comic Hunters.

5:33 I really like this one, too. If it was baseball cards instead of superheroes, it'd be on my top 100.

5:37 Well, and I wish this will never happen, but I wish they could do a crossover. Awesome.

5:41 So, there's like Image Comics and Mirage and DC, and you could just build the ultimate comic book collection. But hey, Marvel's hot right now. Has been for quite some time. And and it's so cool that they have the actual covers. And you can also, if you could find them, and I know they've given away some conventions, there's some like foiled variant covers that you can get to that look really cool on the table. Anyway, I've gone on too long, but I love it. My number 40, Comic Hunters, and thanks to Mark, who taught it to me at a game convention many moons ago.

6:09 Yep. My number 39 is from Dr. Rhina, and this is actually the last one of his on my list, believe it or not.

6:17 That's criminal.

6:18 It is. Uh, number 39 is a spiritual successor to one of his most popular games. And I'm talking about yellow and Yanksy.

6:25 I knew it. I knew it.

6:26 Which was like a re-implementation of Tigers and Euphrates. Yes.

6:30 Where Tigers and Euphrates used squares.

6:32 Yep.

6:33 Uh square tiles and now this went to hex's. So there's a lot of different ways you can do things. They streamlined a lot of things in this game. Essentially, it's a tile laying game with a little bit of sort of area control route building. You're you're trying to, you know, control different things. But much like in Genius, which we talked about in previous videos, your score is the whatever color you have the least of. But each of the colors have special actions now in this game. Uh some of them are good at like combat in your own little country. Some of them is when you're going against other little sections. Some of them are moving through the river. Some of them are getting new tiles. Some of them and then there's the big thing is the yellow, right? Yellow and Yank where yellow is now a wild which is awesome. And you can build up these pagotas and control pagotas which give you like

7:12 point income which is different. So

7:14 I absolutely love this game. I am horrible at it. I don't think I've ever won. Um, a friend of mine, Matthew, got me like these deluxe wooden uh hex's one one year for Christmas and I just love this game and I I I suck at it, but I love it.

7:28 It looks great on the table. Yeah, you know a game is good when you never win and you still love it and can't wait to play it again.

7:34 Yeah,

7:34 that's a good sign. Uh, my number 39 is an underrated abstract game from Queen Games

7:43 from 2016.

7:44 Can I guess?

7:45 Sure.

7:46 G.

7:46 G. G L UX GUX. Glux is very simple. It's a grid. On the grid, there's certain sections that score that you're trying to get to. You start in the corners. You pull these little circular tiles that sort of simulate die pips, die faces. So, it's it's the inverse of the of the tile. The double-sided is just like on a regular die. So, if it's a five, it's a two, it's a six, it's a one on the other side. You pull it out, you decide which side you want to do, and that shows you basically how far you can move from a prior tile that you've placed. So you can move six spaces or one space, you know, if that's the tile you pull. And you're basically just trying to make your way to these key scoring areas. And in those areas, it's just sort of an area majority. Whoever can count up the most pips in each section will win that area. Very efficient, streamlined, simple, abstract game. The tiniest little element of luck, but it's almost no luck because yes, you're have the luck of which piece you pull, but if you play well, you can set yourself up so that basically anything you pull, you can use. And it's just about sort of prioritizing and timing things so that you can land where you need to land at the right time and set yourself up to to win. Double-sided board depending on player count, which is great. Um, best at two and four. Yes.

9:00 But really good good at all player counts. At three, you just kind of have to know that one guy is in a better position and everyone else at the table needs to go against that person. But yeah, love it at two and four. Still good at three. She probably can't find this one, but I love this. We've played this one to death. My number 39 from Queen Games Glux.

9:19 Fantastic game. I'm surprised it never got reprinted. Really?

9:22 Yeah. It just never made a big splash, I don't think.

9:24 It is awesome.

9:25 Yeah.

9:25 Before I mention this next one, I want to let you know that when we guess at each other's, neither of us have any idea what's on each other's list, which is we purposely did that to kind of make it make fun, you know, make it fun for us, make it fun for you as you kind of guessing these things, too.

9:39 My number my number 38. And I didn't go back, by the way, and look at your old list either to try to remember or anything. I'm just This just just off the top of my brain. But sorry, 38.

9:48 My number 38, no crap, was his 39, Deluxe.

9:52 What?

9:53 Yes. And so we don't need to talk about anymore.

9:54 That's why you said that. Okay.

9:56 Yeah. So, we just discussed it. I I will just say I agree with Greg. It's an amazing area control game. Not a lot of them work well with two players area control. It does.

10:04 Oh, yeah.

10:05 And it is just an amazing game of thinking ahead. thinking three or four turns ahead, timing things, and it is just the most efficient, amazing, pure abstract game. So,

10:14 might be best at two, really.

10:15 Yeah.

10:16 My number 38 is one that you also love. It might not be in your shop 100, but I know that you love it. It's from 2007. It's kind of older one. It's from Steve Finn, uh, the guy behind Waters of Narius and Cities. And it's Biblios.

10:30 Yes, Biblios is an excellent game played in sort of two halves. Uh the theming is that you're monks at a monastery sort of collecting important works of literature, scrolls and and old books and things. Um but ultimately it's in two halves. First half is basically the gift phase it's called where you're flipping cards. You either have to add them to a pile that'll be auctioned later, keep them for yourself or give them to your opponents. U and then in the second half is when you auction off that stack that everyone contributed to during the course of the game. Ultimately it's set collection. Uh there's basically five colors or types of books that you're collecting and there's these dice that you manipulate that basically um uh show indicate how how valuable each of the colors is at the end. And so it has this auction element, this set collection element, this fluctuating kind of market that you can manipulate with certain cards that allow you to do that. Super streamlined, 30 minutes maybe tops, best at three or four. Um, just just a flawless, elegant design. Always a great time. Always fun to like decide, do I keep going where with what I'm going or do I pivot based off of kind of how things are being manipulated. Maybe you've gone hard on blue and blue has got one pip on it.

11:46 It's going to be worth nothing at the end. So now it's like, do I pivot or do I continue to commit and just try to manipulate it later? Um, and it's an economic game really because you're also you're also collecting money cards that you're using as part of that auction. What what else can I say? I don't know. I I think it's kind of a masterpiece. It is uh my number 38 biblio

12:05 and it's been reprinted re in recent years. Lots of versions of it.

12:08 The king and eye. I think it's either the king and eye or the king and me. I have the French version. So I have the yellow old yellow version with like the magnet. I love I mean that's just my

12:18 the new version added scoring for second place which we've played we played that once together here and it it's more forgiving.

12:24 It's more forgiving. I personally don't like the more forgiving. I like the cutthroat all or nothing because I think the tension in Bibliois is part of what I love about it, too.

12:33 My favorite is the intrigue that you're putting something in a pile that's going to get auctioned off later and you know which things you're putting in there so you can plan around it. That to me is my favorite part.

12:40 Yeah. And you don't always play with all the cards. I mean, you have a a player aid in the box lid that shows you what's out, but you don't play with everything necessarily. And you also don't know what other people have kept, right?

12:51 And so part of it is that too is going like, I haven't seen a lot of this color. Maybe I just don't even worry about that one. Someone else probably already has that monopoly. So, there's almost like a deduction element as well. It packs so much into 30 minutes.

13:04 My number 38, Biblio. Well, if he's watch, he's going to say, "My number 37, Biblios." Just kidding. Go ahead.

13:10 My number 37 is Biblios. No, I'm just kidding.

13:15 My number 37 is a party game that won the spiel in recent years. Just one.

13:20 Great choice.

13:21 Fantastic cooperative. I should have given you some hints. You you would have guessed it really quick.

13:25 Repost cooperative. I would have been like just one.

13:28 Yeah, that would have been easy. Uh cooperative word game. It's just so butter smooth where you're basically trying to have everyone write a word so that you can guess the word that they're trying, you know, that they need to guess. But the k the catch is once everybody writes their word secretly, when they turn them, if anyone wrote the same word, they get canceled and erased. So you want to think out of the box so that you're writing things that other people aren't writing. But at the same time, you're still trying to get the guesser to guess what they're going for. So, you got to be very interesting uh that that whole thing. And uh the only downside is there's no real scoring, but it's not really for scoring. It's just for the experience.

14:07 Best out of 13.

14:08 I've never seen this game go well. Not go well.

14:12 Not go well. It's like I'm going to go well.

14:13 Yeah. No, it

14:14 Yeah. Yeah. People love it.

14:16 Yeah.

14:16 And you can really play with anybody.

14:18 Yeah.

14:18 Great choice. Very good choice. My number 37 kind of like my number 70 which was the exit games and my number 50 which is the time stories games is like a series of games. Um also cooperative mystery solving.

14:32 Oh Sherlock Holmes consulting detective.

14:34 Sherlock Holmes consulting detective. These are so fun. They're very narrative driven mechanically like rules light. Basically you're just set up with a case. You then decide who to talk to, who to interview, where to go. The game sets you up with some newspapers and some maps that you can kind of mle over and utilize as part of your as part of the the your attempts to solve the mystery. Um, it's so clever. Um, ultimately you basically win by answering some questions at the end of the case. So basically once you feel like you've solved it, you go and if you can answer the questions, you've done well. If you can't, then you're like, "Dang it, we did we didn't figure it out." you know, and then it also it compares your amount of locations to Sherlock Holmes locations. Of course, he's a genius, so he always does it like three turns,

15:23 three or four locations. So, don't even worry about that part of the game. Just enjoy solving the mystery and trying to be efficient and trying to kind of deduce what's going on and just get lost in the narrative. The writing is really good and and I mean, I haven't played every single case, but we've played a ton of them over the years. The writing is really good. It's a big time commitment, but you just get really absorbed in the story. Um, and we just had a lot of fun playing these over the years. Uh, and and there's so so many clever ways in which it utilizes the materials it gives you. You know, usually we have one player kind of mulling over the newspaper, another player looking at the map. A lot of times you'll say, well, we think it's like one of these few people, but like they live so far away, I don't think they could have come and and you just get so immersed in it. Um, we just love these and and it's really kind of outside the box of the kind of thing I normally play. I mean, you'll look at my list. It's a lot of euros and deck builders and things like that, but and not a lot of cooperative, but this one just uh stands out for me. So, yeah, this is my number 37. The Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective series of games.

16:24 The only deduction game he likes better than me.

16:26 Well, yeah. And it's a it's it's not a deduction puzzle like Sleuth or Clue or something like that or Mastermind. It's it's just a immersive mystery solve, you know. And we I've talked about deadline on a previous one. This is kind of like that, but even less sort of rules overhead.

16:42 Yep. My number 36 is an absolute classic. I think it came out in 97. Don't quote me on that. Maybe 99 97 somewhere around there. Uh this is a card auction bidding game. Uh where you're buying real estate and selling real estate. It is

17:00 I don't know.

17:00 For sale.

17:01 Oh, of course.

17:03 For sale is amazing. It's amazing because the game has two halves. The first half you're basically bidding on real estate and you're trying to get, you know, the the the best the best deal, the the highest number for the lowest amount. And you're going around and around in an auction, but everyone has a limited amount of cash. After the first half of the game's over, you're taking the real estate that you bought and you're bidding with those to win money, which also works. And it's just so simple, but so amazing the things of like the different distributions that come out. If it's all low, then they're all kind of the same, so people don't really bid much. or if there's like one really good one and then a bunch of trash, then like someone's really gunning for that that opening one and then it's just as the distributions come out, it completely changes the strategy of the bidding and every game feels different like that. It's smooth, easy to teach. I've never seen a knock over well for sale.

17:50 Yeah, excellent choice. Excellent, excellent choice. My number 36 is another cooperative game. I keep saying I'm not a big cooperative guy, but here's another one. And despite this game being one of the newest games on my list, just coming out last year,

18:02 I've logged 55 plays, very short plays, but still 55 plays of this cooperative game.

18:09 Wait, wait, wait, wait. Beasts.

18:10 Nope.

18:11 Okay.

18:12 Take Time.

18:13 Take Time. Take Time is like the crew and the mind mixed together. It's this series of puzzles where really the the m what you're trying to accomplish is just with a hand of cards get them to ascend. Uh so there's a sort of a round board that you're playing around. You're trying to get each set of cards to be higher a higher total than the one before. Sounds simple, but you can't talk about what's in your hand. Most of the cards you end up playing face down. And so that's the part that's like the mind. The part that's like the crew is that each new sort of mission has a new new twist on the game where uh maybe this time a certain spot in the on in the sequential cards has to add up to a certain total or has to have certain colored cards or um you know has to well I don't want to say too many because I don't want to spoil stuff that comes later in the game but these little tweaks that that come up in sort of the later scenarios just continue to add just new ways to kind of new challenges that you have to work together cooperatively to figure out how to beat, how to best. And at the beginning, you can sit and discuss all you want before you look at your cards. Okay, if someone has a 12, why don't you play it first there? That'll signal that that's a 12.

19:27 And then we, you know, you have all these plans and then you look at your cards and then it's like, okay, I got to do this and you got to do it without communicating. I really like this genre of cooperative limited communication games. And after 55 plays, like this is one of my favorites. Um I think there's 40 scenarios uh in the box. We have even though we have 55 plays, we've not played through all 40 because you keep playing the same ones over and over again. Um and what's cool too is they have a mechanic where if you fail, then you get to play more cards face up on subsequent plays of that same scenario. So yeah, we've played this a ton. You could play it at all player counts. It's good at all player counts. It scales well. It's a great limited communication cooperative game. Take time at number what are we 36.

20:10 It's always good when someone likes the birthday present you got them.

20:12 Yes. Thank you Dan King the generous gang boy geek.

20:17 I kind of knew he liked it though.

20:18 Yes. Well I borrowed his copy for like weeks and he's like here have your own copy.

20:24 My 35 is a game that you're not going to guess because it's pretty obscure. It came and went as a flash of a pan unfortunately and I've been pushing trying to get this thing reprinted. There's a whole form on Board Game Geek about all these people that want to play it again.

20:39 Have I played it?

20:41 Uh, I think so. I I it maybe I don't.

20:44 We'll find out.

20:44 So, in this game, you are in basically uh Italy and you're moving your truck around mountains collecting different vegetables and then going to the the the different cities and markets and selling those vegetables. This is a game from Real Grande Games called Chinu T.

21:01 Yes, I believe I did play this with you earlier on.

21:03 This game I love so much. It is so thinking it it's it's one of those games it's like ticket to ride weight but and it has some similarities to ticket to ride. Ticket to ride one of the cool things is like hey you you get this route from from from Seattle New York and you build it and then you get these other cars. It's like hey um you know Chicago to to to LA and you're like well I've already kind of built that. I can reuse it. This has that same thing where like you have different goals that you're trying to get certain fruits to certain uh you know certain vegetables to certain places, but then later on you'll you'll come up with other gold cards that also say you need that. So it has that thing of like compounding bonuses and making it feel like what you did early in the game mattered and that you can kind combo things together. That part's awesome, but it's really cool. It's like Dry also. You're picking up cards or playing cards. You're moving your guy around. The other thing the other big standout here, every vegetable is worth a different amount in each of the the cities and that's random every game. you roll dice. So you can either just sell like an eggplant in one city and it's six there, but it might be one in another village. But the one that's one might be where you need it for your gold card that's worth a bunch. So you're always doing this minmaxing of like, should I just sell stuff for money quickly? Should I really go after my goals? There's a ton to think about for how simple the game is. It's one of the best sort of gateway style games ever and I wish they'd reprint it. Come on, Chris Handy. Do it. Ted.

22:19 Awesome. Yeah. No, I forgot all about that one. And as you were describing, I'm like, I know I played this, but I could not remember the name. Very good choice. And I love that we have some of these more obscure games that we're bringing some attention to. Uh my number, what are we at? 35 is a game where you basically take on the role of 19th century politicians, and you're trying to get in good with the immigrants coming to America.

22:42 Oh man,

22:43 this is a Tamony Hall.

22:45 I hate you. I still have not played this game since like seven years ago. and he stabbed me not in the back, in the throat in the last round. And I I was so angry. I still have not played that game. And I might never play it with him again, but I might play it again. I got PTSD.

23:02 Listen, you're playing politicians. Yes, you're trying to get in good with the the the immigrants coming to town. But really, you're just doing that so you can wield the power of the people against your political rivals. And so, yes, meanest, most cutthroat, but like talk about matching the theme. You're cutthroat politicians, right? And you're trying to have control of all of these different areas of the map. Um, so yes, it's very thematic in that way. Um, almost kind of reminds me of like Gangs of New York, like that old movie, you know. Uh, but yes, there's a lot of area control. There's a lot of sort of all you you're fighting over an area and you reveal and you're making these very uneasy temporary alliances with people like listen you let me win here I'll let you win there I'll back you whatever and really though I think maybe that's just a person how I flop myself you can't win unless at some point you do stab someone in the back it's true

23:59 the game is sort of designed that way um but yeah you got to have thick skin you got to play with people who are know what they're signing up for. But yeah, my number 35 is from 2007, Tamonn Hall.

24:12 Great choice.

24:13 Thank you. He says, "Great choice."

24:17 I still hate you.

24:18 Yes, I deserve it, but I think I might have won that game.

24:22 You You did.

24:24 My number 34 was Spiel Dearus winner, not a winner, nominee in 2009. lost to Dominion and the whole when Dominion

24:34 good reason

24:35 when Dominion when Dominion won that sparked the whole entire Kenner Spiel award because people were so mad that they went and bought this amazing spiel the jourus winner and the people that audience that bought Dominion were like what the heck is this right so they're like oh this is the year that made them sort of two years later this the kenner spiel

24:54 okay

24:54 and I say that to say this because earlier we talked about a game that Ingenious that like if it was Any other year it would have won, but it lost a ticket to ride.

25:03 Yeah.

25:03 Any other year this would have won.

25:05 I'm trying to remember what Dominion

25:06 and it didn't because of Dominion and it is Fina

25:10 and I will be very shocked if it's not higher in his list. So Fina is an amazing game. Uh it's one of those sort of gateway style games. It's pretty easy. You've got a rondelle and you're moving around the rondelle getting certain types of fruits and things. The the more people are on the spot that you go to, the more you get. And then you're trading those resources in to basically build finaas in different spots. And it see it seems very simple, but man is it thinky and it's deep and you need different things in different places. And you can do some long-term planning, but you're also fighting over other people and trying to race towards things, but you're also trying to do some set collection of getting the ones that you that that that that you want there. And it's just oh my goodness, this game is just butter smooth. And it to the fact that it's that old and it still holds its weight now. And actually Panosaurus finally re someone finally reprinted it. It was Panda last year.

25:59 It's in a smaller box. It was like it's only like 30 bucks. It's available again.

26:03 Yeah, they keep bringing it back.

26:04 This is just a quintessential classic, modern-day classic. Fina,

26:10 man, what a stacked category. Fina and Dominion. Same year. I don't remember what else was up that year, but yeah, heavy hitters. My number 34 is sort of the most streamlined, quintessential get cubes, turn cubes into points game. is from Emerson Matsuchi.

26:27 Oh god.

26:28 Century Spice Road. Yeah, Century Spice Road is the first of the sort of Century series of games and still the one that I just play the most. I have other ones there. There's great things about a lot of the other ones. Some of the Gollum ones are cooler looking and funner themes and all that, but Century Spice Road is just the one that gets to the table. And and it's dirt simple. you know, you're either um you're either um you're you're either collecting new cards, you're playing cards from your hand that either give you cubes or upgrade cubes, or you're turning in the cubes you've collected or upgraded into points. Um but it's such an efficiency puzzle and there's it's just it's just so elegant. I I I I just the only downside is that sometimes the cards in the card row, you know, there's not a lot that's there that's great. And so you got to just work with kind of what you have. But like it's it's an equal advantage or disadvantage to all players, right? And so it just sometimes you're going to get these cool combos, sometimes you're going to have to just kind of work with what's there, but it's always this fun efficiency puzzle of how do you um do you rush the end? Do you sit and collect and upgrade and collect and upgrade and try to get those big point cards? Do you try to do kind of a balance of the two? Love it. Sensory Spice. We have the mat. It's beautiful.

27:45 We've 3D printed things to to make, you know, to upgrade it a little bit to hold the cubes on your thing. But yeah, we love Century Spice Road. It's one of those games that my wife like anytime I could be like, "What about Century Spice Road?" "Yeah, we'll play Censy Spice Road." And it's just no question. Just if it's set up, we'll play it.

28:01 Did you ever get all three and play them all as one big game?

28:03 No, I never got all three. Um, one of them I remember not liking as much and as a result, but they're they're all they're all solid, but this is just the one we always go back to. It's just so streamlined. There's no there's no fat. It's just perfect.

28:18 I remember playing this like a year before it went out uh came out in Origins with Emerson. We were playing on a prototype and he's like, "This is my soulless euro." Right.

28:26 It is. And but it was inspired by Sid Saxon's Bizaarre.

28:29 Yeah. And I love Bizaarre. Bizarre is a is a little thinkier. Yeah.

28:34 Um and you know, honestly, Bizarre was one of the ones I considered for my top 100. I haven't played it in a long time, which is part of the reason why it probably didn't quite make it. But I do love, as simple as it is, I love those kinds of games where it's just some kind of puzzle that you have to figure master to basically take certain things to turn into others to upgrade and make points. And Century Spice Road is such a great version of that. So cool. Yeah. My number 34, Century Spice Road.

28:59 My number 33 is a style of game that I don't typically like. It's tactical combat card game. Uh, this one is actually one of the code designers is Richard Garfield and it has all sorts of interesting looking characters. This is called Mindbug.

29:14 I knew it.

29:15 Now, the original was called First Contact. They've there's been, I think, five or six other ones since then. The recent one is Mindbug: King of Tokyo, which is just crazy awesome. Uh, the the reason why this game is so different for me, I usually don't like these combat games, is number one, you buy the game and you just randomly draw cards. No building decks. know I have more money so I get a big better hand than you and there's no currency in the game on your turn you're playing a card for free or you're with a card you've already played you're simply attacking and if you have more higher level than someone else they can decide to either take a hit or defend and if they defend their guy's dead and you take three three hits and you're dead. The big thing here is mindbog. So, uh, two times per game when somebody plays a card, you can mind bug it and put it in front of you as if you played it. And so, you're constantly trying to a make sure you're not playing anything that you don't have your own defense for because they'll take it and they'll use it against you, but you're also trying to draw things out, making them thinking like this is your big play and they run out of bind bugs and you finally hit them with what you really want to hit them with. The game is just the most elegant thing in this genre and I do not like this genre and this game is just a masterpiece.

30:27 That's high praise. Yeah. When you sort of break out of your normal genre and love something. Anyway, my number 33 is um a game that you've mentioned before. It's uh a mean basically abstract kind of tower building style game from 1994.

30:43 Oh yeah. Um, Andreas Cipher, I believe is how you say his name, designer of Puerto Rico and Thrit Taxis and San Juan. I mean, Puerto Rico is once the number one game on BG, so this guy's got credentials and it is Manhattan. And I won't dwell on it too long because you can watch what we talked about on a prior video, but yeah, it's just a mean, cutthroat sort of abstract spatial puzzle where you win by literally building on top of other players and dominating them. Um, it's super cutthroat, super mean, but from 1994, and they still keep making it like we talked about with some of these other games, um, like Fina, it still keeps on getting reprinted, keeps on coming to the marketplace. People keep on buying it because at the at its core, it's just a genius, elegant design. So, that's my number 33, Manhattan.

31:29 Probably the most one of the most streamlined area control games out there.

31:32 Yeah. Up there like the Glocks in Manhattan

31:34 and Las Vegas, like all three.

31:35 Yeah. Just just Yeah, exactly. very streamlined, very simple to understand.

31:39 Super mean,

31:40 but super mean.

31:41 Don't play this with the people that that can't take it because it can cause

31:44 Yeah. Like Tammy Hall and some of these others you mentioned. It's it's not for the thin skin.

31:48 Yeah.

31:49 Before I get to this next one, I want to let you know that you can get over a 100 individual promo cards for just $50. And there's amazing game bundles of popular games on my season 14 Kickstarter fundraising campaign that's live right now when this video launches. It's how I raise money to be able to spend as much time as I do creating content for you. Lots of things sell out quickly. If you'd like to check it out, click the eye up there in the corner and I'd really appreciate it. My number 32 is a twoplayer card game. You think card game, suits and numbers. There's no numbers on these cards and the cards are square. Two weird things about this game. And it comes with a nice little woven mat.

32:23 Oh, mandala.

32:24 Mandala. You didn't know it until I said the mat.

32:26 Well, that I was getting there and then you said the mat. I'm like, okay, I know what it is.

32:30 Mandala is just an absolute masterpiece where again, you have no numbers on cards. It's just you're playing a card color of a mandala and you're playing multiples of them, right? And so you're trying basically there's two mountains that you're trying to basically do area control on and whoever wins the area gets one of the gets to pick first the rewards that are there. And you're building this tableau and it's really interesting because like you get to choose like which ones score first, second, third, fourth, and they're they're worth more and more the later in the game that you get them. And so you're trying to really build up a bunch of things because as you score things, if you've already like taken the score thing for that for that card, it goes underneath it and now it's sort of like a multiplier for your scoring. So you're it's just it's simple. You're basically just playing cards or drawing, you know, and then drawing some cards sometimes. And but it's area control with this. The scoring is just so unique and so awesome and it always comes down to the wire and it's super tense.

33:23 It's just elegant. It's amazing. Mandala.

33:26 Yeah. Mandala. That's something really special. So, that's a good choice. My number 32 has come up as we've talked about these limited these these limited communication co-op games before. It's by Wolf Gang Walsh, the guy behind uh Illusion and Wavelength and the Clever Games, the whole series of games. The Mind.

33:44 Yeah, The Mind is one of these games that I've played a hundred times plus in person easily and it's it's still something special. And I think what's cool about the mind is there's a lot of these big bloated complex games that you go, "Oh, this is so thematic." But the mind with such an elegant rule set, it really does capture the theme, which is being in sync with like basically mind readading. And it does it mechanically with such a simple rule set. It's like a magic trick. This game, we played it at a game convention. Someone introduced it to us said, "I think this is going to be like game of the year." We played it.

34:23 Eric Martin.

34:23 Eric Martin. Yep. Name drop a little. And And we just played it and we played it again and we played it again and we played it over and over again. The next time we played it more. We played it and then once I could get my hands on a copy, I played it over and over again. And there's something about how and people don't some people don't like it. There's haters. But but there's something about how when you play with the same group over and over again, you really do like find yourself sort of in this like you're like in sync.

34:48 You speak an unspoken language together.

34:50 You speak Yeah. you you you like you like become one mind. It's so cool. Um so when it's working, man, it works and it's just I mean it's a deck of one through you know cards numbered one through 100 and you just got to play them in order and it you know each round it gets harder. You have more cards to work with and all that. There's lives that you can burn and all this kind of stuff, but at its core, it's just get the cards in order without talking and and and make sure you play them, you know, and there's the timing. I mean, it's it's I I I I think it's something really special.

35:25 It's one of those games where we played with Eric B. It was at Gamma. It wasn't out yet here. Yeah.

35:28 And like we put we loved it so much that like not only us, but we called all of our game group. We're like, "Guys,

35:33 yeah,

35:34 we're ordering all these from Germany. Who wants in to save on shipping?"

35:37 Yeah. And we all bought a big stack of them.

35:38 Yeah, I still have the German version. That's my one version of the mine. I remember I printed out the rules in English at some point and fold them up.

35:45 Of course, it's available, I believe, from Perosaurus.

35:47 Yeah. And there's varants to it. There's all these other, you know, but but I just love the mind. I just think it's incredible.

35:52 It is special.

35:53 It's good at all player counts, but yeah, it's really something special with very simple rule set. It it captures that idea of becoming one mind, being able to sort of become in sync and think like a group and master this really complex puzzle. I mean, not complex puzzle, but this really challenging puzzle of getting cards in order. He has the 60, I have the 61, he has the 62. Somehow we get them in order. It's crazy.

36:17 Yep.

36:17 Love it. The mind, my number 32. Before I get to the moment you've been waiting for, I wanted to let you know that Game Toppers is giving 15% off premium game mats and accessories, specifically to my US and Canada audience using code game boygeeek 15 off for a limited time only. Hear more about this at the end of my final thoughts. Last one for this video. Number 31 for me is a criminally underrated game in our genre um that at one point was released in Germany under a different name and that game came out and it went out of print. I got my hands on one. I imported one, played with Greg. We we both loved it and we begged publishers to bring it over and I finally found one too. It was Renegade Game Studios.

36:59 And they they ended up bringing it over under like me begging them begging them to bring it over. Uh and the new name of that game is called Gunky Mono.

37:08 Oh, right. Okay.

37:09 Originally, it was Heartland. This game is so interesting because you've got like these dominoes that you're laying down and you're trying to basically build areas to get points, but you're also trying to build uh you know go down a track essentially soldiers track to also get points. It's like a race to the end and if you get there first you get more points than others. So every time you play something you're either playing it for like what's on there or like the little going up the track. And it's this tough decision as to like, do I want points now or am I working on points for later because once you go far enough down that track, you get to put like a stronghold and that thing scores every round for the rest of the game whether or not you add dominoes to it. So you're trying to build up like these things where like if you're spending half the game on that, you're going to be way behind. But can you catch up in the end by having all these strongholds? It's just amazing. It's mean. It's like great like uh abstract tile placement. It's so streamlined. I thought when Heartland came out, I thought this is going to be Spiel Dejarus. Like I I felt like it's so elegant. It's so easy to play, but yet so much there,

38:12 right?

38:12 And Gonkimona came out and it from what I can tell it's has it's not rated very high. I don't think it got a lot of

38:18 kind of came and went. I I even remember it being like discounted and and inexpensive and easy to find online for cheap. And I'm like, man, talk about people just missing the boat because it is it is clever.

38:28 You like this one, right?

38:29 Yeah, I own it.

38:29 Yeah.

38:30 Yeah. It's great. My number 31 is a one of these limited communication cooperative games. This time combined with tricktaking and it's the crew.

38:40 Ah,

38:40 from Cosmos Games. Uh, played this one a ton.

38:43 The second one.

38:44 Well, I played both. I played the first one more, so that one has more of a special place, but they're both great. They they do slightly different things. The second one I played less, so I'm less familiar with it, but I think it it objectively improves upon the like design of the first one. But I played through the first one. Um, eventually it kind of came out around COVID time. So, there were big gaps in between, but we kept our place with a couple that my wife and I play with, uh, that we came with. And we eventually made it through the whole the whole thing. And it's 50 scenarios. And, you know, you play some of them over and over and over again because they become very difficult to to beat. But ultimately, it's um if you're not familiar with it real quick, it's a cooperative trick taking game where each new scenario and it sort of tells a story of being sort of lost in, you know, traveling through space, but ultimately um each new scenario has like a new challenge, something that you have to pull off. You know, this person has to win this trick, the person who's this card has to make sure they slough it, whatever it might be. Um and also limited communication. So, there's a little bit of like pre-planning and trying to figure it out. But ultimately, once you get going, you have to just do your best to try to execute the plan without communicating with each other.

39:57 Um, there's been all these new version, there's the Lord of the Rings stuff now. There's all these other versions of it, but like the one I've played the most is the original, The Crew. Um, and um, just love it. I just so many reps in this game. So,

40:10 and there's a third one coming out right.

40:13 Yeah, there is a third one now, too. So, in the actual crew, but then there's the couple Lord of the Rings ones. I mean, it's something where I think, you know, you mentioned Dominion earlier, right? And then there's all these deck builders. I think the crew is sort of launched a new sort of subgenre of like these cooperative trick taking games. And I bet 20 years from now, people will still be putting out cooperative trick taking games that can go, yeah, we can really trace the lineage back to The Crew. Y

40:38 I think it's like the beginning of like almost this new sub subg genre of card games. So yeah, that's my number 31 and my last one on this video. Come back next time.

40:48 Great choice.

40:48 Yep. Great choice. I love the second one even more than the first and I'm going to be interested to see what they do in the third one. So

40:52 yeah. Yeah, definitely.

40:54 Yeah. We'll see you guys next time. If you haven't seen some of the previous ones, you can click the little eye up there and uh in the description

40:59 and see some of the previous ones or subscribe to make sure you don't miss the future ones.

41:03 Thanks for watching everybody. Hope you enjoyed. Game Toppers upgrades every game you play, being the one table to rule them all with Game Toppers, leg kits, dining covers, premium game mats, and more. And for a limited time only, my US and Canadian audience can get 15% off their premium game mats and accessories using the promo code game boygeeek 15 off. Also, go to gametopperslc.com to check out all the options or for worldwide late pledges of their recent 5.0 Kickstarter.