Top 10 Games of 2024! | The R&R Show Episode 101

hey everybody today's episode is brought to you by keep the heroes out which are developing a new digital version of their Cooperative dungeon defense deck building game that I was a huge fan of when I covered on the channel a few years ago so I figured let's show you how it works in video game form you can play remotely online or sitting on the couch with your friends and let's jump in so I got to pick which adorable denisen of the dungeon will defend their home they all have different strengths and weaknesses kind of partial to the witches because their thing is they can create portals really quick and easy plus they've got two hit points where most um characters only have one so let's go with the witches and that's it I could roll if I'm playing solo but you can play up to four players you know pass and play or online let's bring somebody else in uh let's add another player you want to have the dragon the big super tough Dragon who has five hit points sure let's let's roll the witches and the dragon and now I got to pick which level I want each one of them has a unique special rules that change up the core deck building gameplay um four is fun all hail the bullfrog King let's jump into that one so you can get at a glance a list of what all the special rules are uh basically the frogs which we use as a reagent to make potions we basically boil the frogs to make potions in the regular game but now they've got a revolutionary leader and there's a frog Army growing that can actually attack us back normally frogs are a good thing we use but now they can be causing us trouble so those are the special rules this time let should I jump into hardcore you want hardcore let's go hardcore all righty and there's a little story about how the uh the Frog Revolution came about apparently the local witch ended up turning a prince into a frog and the uh the prince frog says no more we will not not be your potion fod and uh so we are ready to go and deal with the Ribbit Revolution okay so here is our dungeon um right now it's player one that's me I am the witches and I have to deploy them the witches can go in two different rooms in the room with the cauldron where the uh potions are made or down here in the room of the the library where we get the books we need to learn new spells um you know what right now I'm going to put them both in here cuz this is nice and Central plus it means the witches are very close to all the problem spots see these flashing gems these are where the bad guys are and so if I want to know a little bit more I can always push this button and it shows hey here's my two witches and here's all the frogs normally I would just pick these frogs up and stew them into a potion but now these frogs can fight back in fact these frogs might start overrunning our Dragon who always starts in the hord room that's my teammate and my teammate is in danger with those frogs so what am I going to do what am I going to do well this is a deck builder here's the hand of cards I started with and hey right out the bat I could play this card to do two ranged attacks or to draw a card and uh be ready to defend myself that's nice let's actually save our buddy uh the dragon let's um attack an adjacent room so since both of my witches are here uh it doesn't matter which one let's say we're going to attack and let's attack up here you can see the little frogs okay there's one less now let's attack again and take out the other frog and um my dragon buddy breathes a side relief there's still three more frogs which normally this would not be the case normally you got to go out of your way to make the frogs we're not normally drowning in frogs like this there is a frog in this room with us let's do with deal with that um let's go on ahead and throw it in the cauldron and use it to make one of these three potions any given time there are five cards on display that well you know see here's a uh little what is that is that a Minotaur um that we can tame there is a scroll we could learn and there are three potions how do we make a potion throw the frog in the pot let's do that I'm going to play this card that says hey two things move and interact I can do in any order I want and or I could undo if I pre if I chose the wrong card let's interact with this room I could put a teleporter in this room and then when I put a teleporter in another room we can start getting around the dungeon much quicker maybe I should have had one down here so I could have put teleporters between these two rooms so that we don't have to spend so much time walking back and forth okay maybe later right now I'm doing the other thing I can do with this room throwing the um frog in the pot so now I can get one of these three potions this is a deck builder it's going to go into my deck this one says Hey dig through your deck to find movement cards dig through your deck to find trap cards I don't think the witches have any trap cards so that one's no good dig through your deck to get defense cards you know what being able to move is a good thing let's go on ahead and throw in the hey if I if I need to move and I didn't draw any cards this will let me go looking for them let's throw that into the deck now I'm half done and you can see hey here's now a weapon that we could get if our our uh what do you call it our dragon on their turn might go and build some of these weapons that are showing but anyway I've still got I'm not done with my card now I can move let's move let's have one of these Wizards or witches uh come up here to join the Dragon cuz it's safe now okay and I've still got more cards I can come ooh let's see what I was thinking about doing was um right okay we've got these other frogs right yeah we' got a frog to the left and the right of the room where the dragon and one of my two witches is okay you know what here's what I'm going to do I'm going to tell my other witch to first of all move and come up here and then I'm going to say hey interact with this room they could again make a portal or they could make a coin we're going to make a gold coin now that coin could be taken over here and used in the Forge to forge that weapon all right I've still got a couple of cards left let's go on ahead and do another Super double ranged attack all righty and let's attack over here and take out the Frog there and over here and take out the Frog there we have dealt with the froggy threat and I've still got one card I could actually summon a frog now I could interact with this room or I could well I could summon another witch but the witches there can only be two of them so I can't summon another witch I don't have to play this card if I don't it'll I'll carry it over to the next round but let's just go on ahead and interact and finally make our first portal Boop there so now if I make a portal somewhere over there it's you know it's just one step to jump back and forth okay and we're going to say that's it there's a couple other things I can do but I'm going to end it right there and now here come the es a rogue is attacking over there no one's there a rogue attacks over there nobody's there we're safe so far okay so they moved in but no no we don't lose any of our heroes who are all safe in this room let's continue on and now here comes an Archer and the Archer ooh I it's good thing I got out of there my witches would have gotten grabbed and an Archer showed up over there they were looking for him but we got out of the way phew that was close all righty but this Archer came into this room and looted one of our treasure chests loot now questions later which means each player has to lose one card from their hand so this is what my next hand looks like I got to get rid of one of them I'll get rid of one of these because I don't need to be summoning frogs right now they're danger to us the the dragon player has to get rid of one as well let's see a double move move and attack or interact move and attack or inter You' got two of those let's just get rid of one of those okay and they keep taunting us and oh here is the other thing um we've got this Archer is going to shoot into the room and he's shooting at us but I have a defense card in my deck so I'm going to play it and defend yay all righty so that it's always a player takes a turn then the bad guys take a turn this is the bad guys deck you can see one of the Rogue cards has been played one of the Archer cards been played there's three R three four um Warriors and the two frog Val cards that will be a frog ageddon if we don't keep the frogs under control okay so anyway the dragon is up what is the dragon want to do the dragon can move very far the dragon could move and then attack and just come in and take out these Rogues and then interact with stuff let's see where are the where are already okay there's a rogue there there's a rogue there there's an Archer there I don't like this Archer taking pot shots at us do not care for that says the dragon so the dragon says I'm going to play um this card all righty and it chose it for right we're going to move and we're going to come down to this room and oh do we want to bring the coin no we don't need need the coin here we need the coin over there so we'll just leave the coin behind and now we are going to attack and take out that Archer done all righty now let's see he's got a couple of range attacks he could interact here we there's no frogs to interact in this room um what else can he do uh now he can make a double move and double time it over to that Rogue and then take that Rogue out too that's not bad H yeah let's do that let's go on ahead and play this double move all righty we're going to do our first move from this room to this room and then our second move from that room to that room oh and do we want to take the coin no we'll leave the coin behind thanks because ultimately the coins got to go to that room and now let's do um another attack and move first of all we will attack take out that Rogue and then we will move back over here cuz he loves or no we could we could spread out we could come over here and start getting books to make spells we come over here start getting bones um to make uh to oh to recruit the pets yeah I want to do that let's just keep on coming over there all right so the dragon is over there now um and they're going to interact with this room and create a bone now on a future turn they'll pick the bone up they'll bring it back here which will let them build their deck and so he's played all his cards the dragon doesn't have to be done though because you've always got this card you can play once per turn this lets an enemy into the dungeon but they immediately get captured so let's do that all right oh and it okay it was the Frog it was one of the froga geddon cards so we completely avoided frog ageddon but whenever you do that power you get to draw three more cards the dragon isn't done now the dragon can um go on ahead and move back this way move back this way you come here come in this direction bring the bone all right and now there's nobody to fight so we're just going to skip the rest of the card and then can play this card to interact with this room and deck build and um put this cool little Minotaur buddy in the deck that basically lets you draw a card move and attack very nice okay and so could move some more but we could just keep this so we're free to move around other times let's just go on ahead and be done all right and then here come the heroes oh my gosh it's another frog again too bad I wiped out all the frogs Frog Prince all righty oh but he did summon some more frogs up there in the sewer so that's something we have to deal with meanwhile Wizards are attacking the dragon took one point damage from that wizard this wizard just moved into the room with a rogue and now they are going to plunder the chest which makes us lose cards oh dear oh wait oh no no it was something else all right okay so anyway though we're back to the witches and we got a bunch of new cards I need to take these coins move over here so I can make the super shovel build some weapons we've got more bad guys and um you can see more bad guys are coming but the Frog aedon cards are done so as they play more of their cards you can make a more informed guess about what rooms they're going to appear in so you can stay safe and avoid taking damage or losing troops etc etc anyway folks we are just getting started but hopefully that gives you a little bit of an idea of the digital implementation of keep the heroes out and if you'd like to know more there's a link down in the show notes that will take you to the crowdfunding page okay I'm just going to in closing say thanks to keep the heroes out for sponsoring the show okay and welcome everybody to episode 101 of the RNR show once again thank you to keep the heroes out for sponsoring this episode I'm Ruel absolutely that's Chris that's Ray and Chris has got the balloons and a well shaven um new handsome look my friend and uh well finally I've got the handsome look I don't know what that means for my other look but you've really put your foot in it now I'm going to I'm going to take the dragon from keep the heroes out and we're gonna I know who I want to keep out of my Christmas card list yeah I I have apparently rained down frog again and on my own um here right onto into my mouth uh but anyways um good to see you all again it's been a it's been a minute since we got together and I'm really excited to uh talk about our top 10 games of 2024 now we are doing a little early uh because the holidays are a crazy uh season and um you know hopefully we want to do this so we make sure we get it in under the wire um so yeah uh Ray uh you also have a clean shaven handsome look as well the so I've been waiting for someone to notice thank you that's true sorry Ray I I didn't I don't mean to take the spotlight yeah cop C that's that's my bad I'll I'll put I'll just cover myself in mustard for the next one that sounds great yeah yeah were you gonna say Ruel I I honestly I don't know I don't know where I was going with that it was the joke and that was it and that's okay yeah yeah yeah um but I guess I I realized actually while we were doing the sponsor read that it's a little early but this is almost my oneye anniversary on this show because my first official show with you guys was the best games of 2023 last year so that's kind of nice it's a nice little bow on it you know another reason reason to celebrate I think that's kind of fun look at this full circle moment yeah I had a little bit more time to prepare i f i remember feeling really self-conscious last year because I just hadn't played that many games from 2023 because I'm on the publisher side of things I'm not really a reviewer like you know Chris and Ruel are in their in their day lives um so I'm like I'll play games that strike my interest but I don't seek out the games from this year so I remember kind of freaking out a little bit I mean I still stand by my pics but this year I with a full year of this show under my belt knowing this show was coming I felt a little bit more prepared of I'm going to try to actually play the hot games from this year and I still somehow feel like I missed all of them somehow the show still somehow feels like it came way too soon oh yeah but I did my best this year to be more prepared to think more like a reviewer and less just like know a regular person playing whatever games I feel like I tried to to seek out games from this calendar year which I don't normally do yeah that's interesting I feel like this year for me I did the opposite I was like oh I feel like I I always try to get the hottest I was like I want to like when I went to because I I did like a bunch of theater contracts um this year and even like now I bought a bag full of games for for theater uh to to potentially throw upon unsuspecting castmates but I I kind of prioritize like you usually in the past I prioritized games that I have to review and games that I like no you know what I'm G to prioritize just like games that I want to play and games that I want to isn't it freeing though it's like a little freeing to to just be like you know what play what I want to play you yeah and then we get to all this like this and I think oh no there are games that I know this is but they are on my shelf I mean I guess there is something to be said for like if you weren't motivated to play the game then I mean they're like there are obviously hidden gems every year that we miss but there is again coming from my side of the business which is marketing like if we didn't do a good job at grabbing your attention then if it was a good game but we didn't convince you to play it like that also says something I mean obviously again there are good games that are ugly that are poorly marketed that happen all the time and it's a tragedy that we missed them because of that but you know at some point play what you want to play it's board games yeah but yeah I'm really happy with the list we did put together I've previewed it and I'm I'm really happy with it same yeah there and what I love too is that there's more than a handful of my games on the list that yall talking about so I'm I'm glad that you know we hit those spots there also a few of them that I have not gotten yet to play so I'm excited to hear what your thoughts on those um so uh as we do this folks uh we are recording this live on Twitch and we're going to have our viewers talk about some of their hits of 2024 as well we can do that at the end of it so uh Ray Chris and I are going to go through the first nine and then we're going to have Richard uh through the magic of video join us for the number one and then we're going to hang out live here talk about other games that we may have missed as well so honorable honorable mentions that's right I'm curious what Richard's number one is I we I don't know what it is yet so chat if you've got any guesses if you're like if you watch a lot of R's videos if you have a sense of what his favorite game from this year is I'm curious to see if you can guess it because I'm I'm it's a toss-up for me I'm not quite sure yeah I think oh should we make predictions okay I'm gonna go first because I only have one um I think I think windmill Valley might be a contender for him that was actually what I was going to guess as well I feel like he's talked about that a lot yeah yeah that's uh like I I took a sneak peek I know what it is but that was my guess too because I know how much he loves Danny Garcia uh so windmill Valley Goblin says day bre come out day bre if then it's yeah then probably is a better good job yeah you can have Val I'll change it to Daybreak prob right interesting interesting okay well I'm excited to see because I don't know I didn't I didn't peek I don't know what he picking yeah we're not little peepers like roel yeah we're not little cheats yeah that's me um why don't we get to the list then and uh this is be our number 10 on the collective list we're GNA have Chris kickoff things today we start with me in order from the people who Richard likes the least to the most uh uh no I'm just kidding U my number 10 is one that I've talked about I feel like a few times in other lists but it came out in 2024 and I had to put on the list because I I like IV Studios I like their games uh and I put fractured sky on the list for me fractured sky is Ivy Studios could could have been Moon rollers Moon rollers was also out from them this year but uh or at least says it's a 2024 until I look next year and it's been changed in 2025 uh if um but yeah fractured sky is h a freaking really fun game of bluffing and anticipating your opponents and so something that I really enjoy in games is reading my opponent and having the ability to trick my opponent right I I feel really good when I manage to trick someone into believing something that they they shouldn't have believed and I feel really great number one gaslighter yeah hey gaslighting the game I feel but I feel great when it happens to me as well um because I think I think that creates that creates memorable moments around the table right it creates that sort of that sensation of like oh I remember when you did this and you pulled this this trick on me and and so fractured sky has a really nice blend of those things uh fractured sky is going to take place over five rounds every round Starfall will fall in a certain spot but more and more Starfall will fall in locations but they're hidden information and so you have to decide if you are going to use your resources to build up additional things that can help you later on if you're going to use your resources to take a peak like Ruel uh peeping ahead at the like endgame scoring conditions uh because every every round there's like a different thing that will trigger and so just developing those different like economies of figuring out what the board is how it's working and then potentially anticipating how people are playing their ships you play three tokens essentially face down I have the retail version which I don't think enough people showed any interest in uh because I think you'll mostly find the deluxe version with the awesome ships and magnets uh that you just like click on your magnet and put it over there it's very cool I mean it's very cool um very Ivy Studios it's very Ivy Studios and therefore very cool uh but yeah you just put a token face down and uh you you your three tokens must add up to 10 so you have a 10 a zero and a zero so you can't even you can do that but you can have a one nine and zero right any combination of things adding up to 10 uh to and then the highest ship after modifiers wins whatever is in that section but there might be stuff in that section or there might not depending upon how much you've looked into it so yeah I think uh I think it's a really fun game uh I think it's a solid design it gives me feelings of raw I like raw better uh because I remember playing this game and raw back toback and being like yeah it's kind of that that feel of sussing out your opponent and bidding right it shares that DNA but still a really solid solid design and uh so that's why I like it that's why it's our number 10 very nice call uh this is the video that I did with my buddies uh Daryl and bonsor we live stream a fra guy uh earlier this year I fell in love with this game immediately as well Chris uh for all the reasons you spoke of and Ivy Studios always knocks it out of the park production wise I'm surprised so uh so I got the version with the magnets the one that you have the retail well how do they do that is it are you just hiding it's just tokens it's just tokens yeah it's just it's just a token face down you don't have a ship you just have a screen and you pull out your token and you put it face down in the spot that you want it okay the resources are also tokens it's great I love pushing retail versions of games you know I've always been a huge cheerer on of foundations of metropolis versus foundations of Rome um I think making I think the tendency is to make games really deluxified nowadays and so I like that there's always the option for people who want to do that but it's always great to me to see that when there is the cheaper version so that the game can be accessible to um people who don't have as much disposable income but still want to enjoy the game experience yeah that's a great Point interesting too that you uh brought up the comparison to Raw which I didn't even think about but that is a very AP description just the the way the bidding works and you know you're going to have a certain tile that goes away and other ones that don't um so good I was I discovered this game uh it's funny you talk about how you discovered after raw I discovered this one right after El Grande um and El Grande is a classic area control game so then I go over here and play this and this is another wonderful area control game that's very different than El Grande so um what a great choice I I really really like this game great yeah I haven't gotten to play this one yet i' I've really enjoyed all my IV Studios experiences but this one just I haven't I haven't picked it up yet partially because like the price Point's a little much for me and I wasn't sure on it but you've you've talked about it enough that I probably will eventually will eventually pick it up but if you like the vibe of Ivy studi stuff like veiled fate veiled fate if you like veiled fate I think that's the closest that I have played to the the similar feeling of fractured sky like I've also played Moon rers and moon rollers uh but I I think like because of the above the table interaction it hits with veiled fate it also kind of hits with fractured Sky uh so yeah yeah yeah if you like if you like veiled fate enough you're like man I really like this design those those design principles then I think fractur sck Sky will likely hit as well yeah absolutely yeah that's a perfect uh description uh Chris once again you're just perfect my friend that you know talking about you know the veiled fate interaction between players is very similar to fractures Sky new new handsome look new perfect personality you that's what I say I can't get over that now with a new handsome look Chris 2.0 is being debuted right here episode 101 time for a change baby nice great call Chris so that's our number 10 Chris fractur guy we're gonna move on to our number nine which is me I'm going okay cool um I'm going to be talking about a game it's funny Chris and talk about uh just talk about kenit this one also reminds me of a keni game um this game is skyrise from roxley games and um I just I played this is the version that I played here this is the deluxe version uh Kimberly Tolson of tabletop Tolson played and um I have the retail version but I played uh I played my friend Daryl's copy he has the deluxified uh several times and just oh immediately fell in love with it um it is an area control game and it's got that really cool bidding mechanism like raw so you're going to bid on a build um on a a plot of land by placing one of your buildings there and each building has a different number so everyone puts one down and then you're going to you have to either bid or pass so if I put a building say with like number 30 you can only go higher than a 30 or you just pass and then we go around the table wherever has the highest will then flip over the building so the number is hidden everyone takes their other buildings back so you have to leave yours there so that to me reminds me a little bit of raw as well so you go through the different there's three different islands that you're going there uh and bidding uh some of them give you resources so a little bit of resource management um as far as that's concerned and also uh you have wonderand buildings as well that you place a wonder is going to give you a special ability this just oh it just hits on so many levels for me that that just that biding mechanism combined with the area control is so smart and it's so elegant um I mean y'all know how much I love games where you do one thing on your turn and then that's it you move on to the next turn but there's always that Agony of oh what should I been here because I want this building but I know this area is taking up and I don't want this area that badly and I want to save my building for another part but I may not get there depending on how it's just all these little things adding up and it's it's not really analysis paralysis it's just uh the the tension of what type of decision you want to make and I love games like this and skyrise is full of these moments uh throughout I basically from the get-go and it really reminds me of a keni in that sense right uh the rule book's only a couple pages long um and so you get to the table really quickly uh this is a design by I want to say his name Sebastian poon it's a game inspired by his game metropolis and then uh the Rox leag team uh basically uh redid it reimplemented it uh into skyrise uh it's just you know it's building um a land in the future I absolutely loved this game I fell in love with it it's my type of game and again right after I I had played El Grande this year for the first time ever that's like a 20-year-old game this one hit the table and absolutely fell in love with it um it's another fantastic area control game and that's why it is our number nine skyrise yeah I'm I'm really glad you had this on your list Ro this was on my short list and I was kind of sad that didn't quite it didn't quite make my top three but no this was I think I put this as like my four or five I I really enjoyed this game yeah um I don't have the deluxe fied version it was it was speaking about just like being overproduced and lots of lots of plastic bits I don't have that but I have the retail version that I love it a lot yeah um and it's just it's a gorgeous game really good implementation of that bidding mechanic yep and and the retail version works great that's the thing it does yeah yeah just going off that same discussion but like that version exists if you want it but if you looked at that and you went oh my God that's probably too expensive for me there is a very approachable accessible retail version that's the same exact game yeah um and just as pretty so yeah yeah the main difference is you have I think it's just regular boards cardboards whereas the you know deluxified is like these you know 3D Islands the building yeah but yeah the gam playay exactly the same it's fantastic so I'm glad it was on your short list Ray I was wondering who else had had if anyone had haded there yeah yeah I haven't played it yet but I know it was like on my like anticipated and and part of that it's cool that it's a revamp again from the roxley team like the roxley team helped revamp brass which is the number one game on Board Game Geek right like they're they're pretty good they're pretty good developers and helping bring something you know back into the Limelight so exactly have y all played uh have yall played radlands that's another one other games radlands no I keep I it's on my list and I I know I know that's surprising me that you haven't played rad Redlands cuz I know you're like head-to-head with your seven Wonder duel and I feel like do you like the dueling card genre yeah yeah 100% I don't know why red Lance is just I've just I don't know I feel like it's one of the best of its kind yeah yeah okay I everyone tells me I would love it and I don't know why maybe it's almost like the reverse psychology effect of at some point I'm like I'm not gonna play it everyone's telling me to I'm like I don't want to knows radlands yeah yes I am I just I don't know why I haven't played it yet it's funny though I feel like for whatever reason it has sort of flown under the radar it just just didn't pop as much as other the cult classic I feel like you either haven't heard of it or you love it it's like one of those games right exactly yeah in the chat this is this is the tangent upon tangents but the chat's saying wait radlands or rat lands actually there is a game called ratland really and it is a good game it is quite a good game awesome rat it's like it's like a Hidden Gem oh my god seriously ratland is a Hidden Gem really oh that s awesome simultaneously deciding on what you do on your turn and you're trying to steal cheese from your either your neighbors or like from a supply it's it's great they got little rat minis although I think that might have been deluxified it at a friend we just played at two players and it was still really good again in terms of that like trying to read your opponent yeah like ratland is is legitimately a good game and in Hidden Gem I'll put it on the hidden gems list the next Hidden Gem list we do I'll I'll remember it I'll put on there like it's I have one more tangent from John trip in chat says top 10 the retail version is fine games that's hilarious I love that top 10 the retail version is fine you know what if that doesn't happen on RNR soon and I'm just going to do it on ran board that's such a that's a ran board AA I'll do the full top 10 and I'll bring my top three here we can do it on both let's go retail absolutely yeah oh that's fantastic okay um I got to say I do kind of want to play Rat lands before radlands now like that that sounds not going Li I want to try out too yeah it yeah all right time to segue into you got our number eight number eight yeah yeah yeah okay number eight uh this game was a huge surprise to me and it probably shouldn't have been because all Year everyone was going this game is a huge surprise it's actually really good and then I played it I went gosh darn it this is a huge surprise this game is actually really good I seen that coming but I put it off for a long time because I'm like this looks like a kids game I don't really get what's so good about but our number eight is Captain flip oh my God Captain flip is so it's so good it's so good if you were like me and you rolls your eyes and you said me this is a kid game it doesn't look that good just play it just play it you can only hate this game if you hate fun uh Captain flip is basically a push your luck game where you are assembling a crew of pirate Pirates for your ship or your island or whatever and you on your turn you just take a card or you take a tile out of a bag and you either place it on your ship and you you got these little columns and your um people have to stack so you can't just put someone in the top of the column you have to build up and you either place I have someone in chat already saying this looks like a kids game stop it it's not um you could just either just place the tile face up or you can choose flip the tile but you can't go back on that decision and that is it sounds so boring but it's so well implemented so you either choose the tile face up that you got or you flip it over and you have to place it as is and you're going to get points for adj acies and various Combos and set collection it's it's just really clean really well implemented what I love about it is I love push your luck games in general and I tend to like push your luck games that have high risk High reward right where you can just bust and you could just be out of the round but that is kind of unpopular not Everyone likes that it's one of the reasons why that genre is kind of divisive it can be really punishing it can be really unfun if you just lose and what I love about Captain flip which does probably make it pretty accessible for kids is that there's no TI you just draw and you lose there's no tile you flip and then you lose there are a couple of sets that if you get too many of them it's bad like if you get three Gunners on your ship at the end of the game you'll lose but you have a potential chance to fix that after you place a tile on your ship there's another tile in the game that you can potentially get called the monkey which when placed allows you to flip back over a to you have previously placed which also creates a tiny little bit of a memory game which is really fun trying to remember what the reverse side of tiles you've already placed and flipped were it's just really well implemented um the boards also change up the gameplay a ton there's only like nine or 10 different characters in the game but depending on the Heights and like the orientation of the columns certain characters are much more powerful in different Maps so there's never just a universal oh that's the bad card to flip it's all variable it's all super well integrated and really interesting and it takes like 10 minutes my favorite filler game it's in my top three filler games now probably of all time absolutely phenomenal I I love this game yes I was absolutely thrilled to see that you got this one in Ray this is what my it is one of my favorite games of this year and it's one of my favorite games recent times as well for yeah again everything you said was 100% right you are perfect as well my friend um everything it just it's you're handsome and perfect yes handsome and perfect um no but that that memory element is really fun and I love the push good yeah so the I think it's the the guy with the cannon I for the Gunner that's one gives you the most points right off about five five coins and I always go for the Gunners I want them but if you have three of them at the end of the game you just blow up your ship and to me it's always fun trying to get as many Gunners as I can and hoping for that monkey so I could flip them over so they don't blow up my ship um I may have failed with that strategy more than once but it is fun every yeah gives you an out that's what I like about it's not like you just flip and you're just like oh WP W I blew up I push my luck too far whatever like you know quacks of quing there's all these games where it's like at some point you just lose and that is kind of true here but they give you this ability to to undo what you've done right if you've gone too far they let you walk it back and it's not super easy to do that but that illusion that you can always maybe you'll draw a monkey and we can fix this whole mess it makes it feel less punishing and if you do actually blow up your ship via Gunners it feels like like you really did that to yourself like you intentionally went too far you were given multiple options to not have that happen it just makes that feel a little less random and punishing um because I know some people find that to be a little bit you know not their favorite thing in a push your left game and this one just it just feels it just feels good you know it's just H it's so simple but so strategic and you would never expect that from this art style which is also beautiful by the way I really love the art in this game oh yeah um it is kind of childish but it works for what the game is so yeah I'll stop yapping this game is great if you have overlooked it because you thought it was you know too too simple or silly uh it's it's really good I really love it yeah it is I I um you know folks in chat rolling with Reggie I I play several games with him on BGA you can play this game for free on BGA folks boardgamearena.com and we we played a bunch and I've played this game a ton online but also in real life and it's actually in my game bag out in the other room because I'm bringing it to Thanksgiving celebration to play with family my niece and nephews love it I love it Michelle loves it it's just it's been such a banger this year it's been a a huge hit and um it was also nominated foriel as well so yes I think it's very I think it's very deserving of that it fits that good family weight category with some new interesting mechanics AG I think makes a ton of sense as aiel winner yep agreed great call Ray let's move on to Chris you've got our number seven let's take us from the high seas to the low Seas to the deep seas uh it's Endeavor deep sea I I feel like I've mentioned this a couple times in lists on this channel but again I I I saved the one that I haven't mentioned for my for my number one pick so that's it's going to be a new one for me later on but um Endeavor deep sea is just it's really good it it's uh from burnt Island it it's one of those games that I I I think about fondly sometimes times in the dark hours of the night uh I I find my I find my memory straying to it even when I when I can't uh when I might have be holding another board game on the Shelf I think what about Endeavor uh my my neighbor has a copy of endeavor and so I'm like okay great I don't need a copy but um it's it's just just so satisfying in terms of building this engine I think I really like tracks you know when you get a bumping track a good track that just gets you better and better bonuses every time and the bonuses feel good like that's what feels good about this game is these four tracks that you have that you can get better and better characters who will do more things you can get more actions you can get more movement which you know always feels like the the least exciting thing but it's not it's so exciting because you can delve down deeper into the deep dark depths uh and and see what you're going to see with all the little because because the spaces that you can place things on get better and better the deeper that you go uh and so expanding that yeah everything just feels really good even the sideboard which thematically I don't care but it's just got a bunch of places where you can put cubes and get bonuses of course now I care it's fantastic um yeah Endeavor it's it's just like such a well a well oiled machine and uh it's one that I think I think completely completely fondly of and so that's why I I was like I I didn't want to put on this list again because I've mentioned it in like a couple other ones and I I don't like repeating myself I like potentially uh giving new new information but I repeat myself all the time with too much shipping and this is the right amount of ship uh and so we've got Endeavor deep sea as our Collective number seven yeah I'm I'm dying to try this one Chris because you've talked about this several times this year and that's that means it's a great game yeah and I like tracks I like um I'm definitely going to give this shot um there was there was an important question in chat in chat someone asked is there a track that gets you more tracks that's the real test of if it's a good track game and you wish for more wishes yes dang no maybe there's an expansion maybe that's an expansion I haven't played it tracks on tracks on tracks yeah yeah yeah now now Endeavor was this a a redo of a previous game or was that another Endeavor Chris I forget the yeah there were there were a couple Endeavors there's Endeavor age of of sale um and then I think there was another Endeavor I think it was just Endeavor started and then there was Endeavor age of sale and then there's Endeavor deep sea by all accounts I haven't played the other endeavors but by all accounts this is the best version of them all right um also because the theming is better uh and less problematic than one of them right but uh but also too it's it's just like I feel like you learn things I I like seeing I like seeing iterations upon design especially if I haven't played the previous designs if I have played the previous designs I go W why' you change it I bought the first version I was your beta tester but I wasn't this is my first this is my first introduction to it so I get to benefit from it uh so I'm very happy about it uh and I think like you can see like growth and development and like Lessons Learned I'm sure but but by most accounts when this was happening um oh and they did a really cool thing with the insert is that it was made out of sugar or or bamboo something yeah like biodegradable or something yeah nice it was like a biodegradable thing especially because it's environmentally conscious like the theming is about the environment and so they went the extra mile to make sure that like okay the insert is like it's it's some it's some sort of sugar it's like compressed sugar cane I think it's sugarcane pulp um if I'm recalling correct correctly now yeah now I'm really I want to see what a compressed sugar insert looks like that that's really got my yeah interest Bas bease bassi b a SS e is a byproduct of sugar cane processing it can be molded into detailed and sturdy inserts and Trays wow and I'm GNA find out the actual pronunciation wow okay I want to check that out gas is yeah B gas um is this uh this is just standard retail is that correct there's no you know as we're continuing this conversation there's no there was there was a deluxified version during the kickstarter yeah there were two versions the thing about Bur Island and I've said this for so often but burnt Island are are I find the the top I said this when I talked about them in like best Publishers this is my number one reason is because they give they give a great value for retail and a great value for deluxe I feel like the retail is always on another level than like the disparity between Deluxe and Retail is usually very significant but I I feel like it is worth it for both of those if you're going retail or you're going Deluxe you're still going to get a good product nice awesome what a great number seven friends that is Chris's uh choice for our collector number seven Endeavor deep sea okay moving right along we've got our number six which is going to be me um Ray I think you'll appreciate my number six uh this has been one of my favorite games of all year long and again of recent memory it is our collector number six gnome Hollow um you actually taught this game to me at Gamma this year and I'm so grateful for that I fell in love with the game immed immediately um it's got a bunch of stuff that I love uh worker placement uh tile Lane and just the artwork from Mr Anderson I just I it's just so uh watercolors it's so welcoming and just so peaceful and um I I just I love the vibe about it uh what you're trying to do is collect all the mushrooms to complete these rings and as you do you'll be able to sell your mushrooms back to the market depending on what type they are uh so there is that market element to it it's got a lot of cool uh elements to it and yet and this is what I love about most about Nome Hollow it's got a I feel like a lot of moving Parts but it doesn't overwhelm you it's like at its core it's still tile lane and then you place your little worker you know the cute little gnome and then you do stuff and then you maybe get bonuses and you get extra points but everything just flows wonderfully in this game and correct me if I'm wrong Ray is this um Alan Anderson's first design design he made he kickstarted one other game by himself but this is his first like major with a with an established publisher game yeah yeah I mean it is fantastic I was really really surprised about this um and you know just we we got to talk about those magnetic player boards uh just such a brilliant Innovation we need more that in gaming honestly folks and um I remember the the at Gamma when Ray introduced me to the game she's like we got magnets and I was like oh yeah and just see it's such a fun game to demo because I'd love to not tell people about it I see them Discover it for the first time it's always it's it's one of those like light bul moments like what the why haven't we been doing this all along you know what I mean it's like it's so great and it's just as much as I love you know dual layer cardboard and everything I mean it's all about magnets folks it it is absolutely brilliant yeah um so yeah everything the art the uh the gameplay I love it's about a I don't know 45 minute G uh minute game or so which these days Falls in my wheelhouse that's that's my jam but there's enough of a puzzle there that keeps me coming back you know with that market the the puzzle nature of it and uh that's why it's our number six folks it is gnome Hollow from the op nice I'm so glad this made it onto your list I truly when you I hadn't really thought about this before but when you were describing it it really kind of is a game tailor made for you because two of your favorite mechanics if if I'm not wrong are tile laying and worker placement and it really does do both of those things really beautifully so I'm I'm really glad that you enjoyed it I'm glad I didn't have to put it on this list yeah because I always feel horribly biased I'm glad you independently enjoyed it enough to put it on your list that that's awesome yeah yeah and just just to be a perfectly transparent I mean I I did do a paid preview uh for the Ops so and Alan did make this little uh custom uh watercolor of myself with my pug so just to put that out there you know I don't know if it had any kind of influence on me I feel like it's a custom watercolor of you and your bugs that's so cute it's in the other room I'll have to I'll I'll post it in Discord or something and oh it it's so wonderful um he's like a such a lovely human being as well so kind and I've had you know I had a couple of brief conversations with him at Gamma and at Gen Con just yeah really really cool um but yeah gome Hollow folks it is the real deal and we talked about this before on the show how we love what the op is doing these days you know jumping into the hobby sector more of Hobby Games rather than you know uh they have a lot of the big IP um you know Mass Market games but games like this Nome Hollow these are the games that I really really enjoy so that's our number six no yeah yeah yeah all right um oh number five that's next yeah Ray sorry oh that's me oh sorry no I was I was settling into to listen to someone else talk again oh okay um our number five is a game called kelp that has the most ridiculous subtitle in the world which is Shark versus octopus and almost made me not want to play it because I was like that's so goofy like it sounds like a bad superhero movie but then you look at it and it is the most gorgeous beautiful production ever and I I my only grip with this G is I wish they just called it kelp I wish they' left off the tagline because to be it it makes it sound a lot cheesier than it is it makes it sound like again like a silly superhero battler game and it this is a very elegant asymmetrical two-player cat Mouse game now that genre has been done before but this I think is hands down my favorite entry in that genre um you're going to be playing as either the octopus or the shark and if you're playing as the octopus you are playing a hidden movement game where you are shuffling around these blocks that are facing you so you can see one of those blocks has the octopus on it that's where you are and then the other ones are little shells that you're hiding in or traps that you're setting and you're basically shuffling these tiles around and strategically moving around to try to evade the shark it's a hidden movement mechanic you also have deck building you're going to be learning cards because octopi are very smart so you're going to be learning cards that you can use to make your octopus better at at hiding and and evading the shark and then on the flip side the shark player is going to be on the other side of the board and is only going to see the white backs of these tiles so not knowing where the octopus is and they are playing a bag Builder where every round they are going to pull out a certain number of dice there are going to be various colors that's going to represent the different actions that the shark can do they're going to roll those Dice and that'll tell you how strong you know how much can the shark move or how much can the shark how easily can the shark attack this turn so the octopus is more of a strategic role they're trying to plan out their escape they're trying to evade the shark the entire time and the shark is playing a more tactical game where they're going to draw some dice and they're going to have to figure out what to do with those dice each each turn and what I love about this game is both of these roles feel very fulfilling I tend to like in these style cat and mouse games to always be the mouse I love to always be running away and hiding and being sneaky and kelp is the first game where I actually really enjoy the Seeker role in this game I just feels I don't know there's something about the tactile nature of it um it's not too long you don't feel like oh man I'm really behind I can't ever catch up cuz the there's only like nine or 10 places where the uh octopus can be the bag building is really satisfying I just it's the perfect play time I love it the production quality is gorgeous those tiles are like really nice ceramic tiles I love the color palette of this game that orange and red you don't see not orange and red orange and green you don't see very much really stunning table presence and it has just enough enough enough depth without feeling fiddly um I think they really beautifully integrated the mechanics where each rooll feels median each time feels different because you can be building up your deck with the octopus you can be buying these one time used cards as the shark every game feels different but it also doesn't overstay its welcome um you never feel like you're really behind I just H it's just it's so good I don't know how else to explain it other than it's my favorite implementation of two-player cat and mouse um it's just phenomenal I love it so much nice I have not played this and it's for the reasons why you talked about earlier Ray i k shark versus octop whiches I had that name just didn't really Vibe it's goofy it's a little goofy that name makes you more interested in playing it no it makes me inter it's more like a movie not a game like it's like shark NATO I want to see shark experience but yeah but kelp I mean this this looks awesome uh and the way you described it right now I'm like super interested I didn't know was like a bag Builder I didn't know any of this stuff so this look fantastic yeah yeah people are saying in chat that the shark looks like a little Lego shark it it was in the copies that were sent out to reviewers but then it's it's not in the in the regular copy that was just like a pre-production thing got it okay yes it did yeah yeah um but yeah no it's yeah it's it's also like it was a a wild sort of success considering too I remember wonderbow games they've only done one other game to my knowledge the first other game that they did it was very small card game I remember like they contacted me I reviewed that their previous one it was just a small card game that was like Hey everybody puts a card forward um there are there are sharks and octopuses above my head that are smashing things care if you can hear that but everybody puts a card forward and like you flip it over and you're choosing one of four colors essentially and if people chose the same colors nobody gets it and that that was the whole game uh and it was like fun it was like really solid but then just to see the the growth and evolution is kind of kind of neat as well that's actually so funny that you say that because that mechanic is in kelp that you Pi the same thing so if you one of the things I like about this to mitigate the luck element of you know just the shark finds the octopus right away because there's only again I think there's only like nine or 10 spots the oct the octopus could be right so there is a non-negligible probability that the shark just finds the octopus based on luck and so when that happens each uh players the shark in the octopus has three cards and it's effectively the same thing like three colors they're thematic about like how the shark is attacking or whatever basically three colored cards you each pick one and it's if you pick the same one then the shark effectively counters the octopuses like Escape tactics and you capture them so at the beginning of the game even if you find the octopus you only have a 33% chance or whatever that math works out to be of actually capturing the octopus you'll reveal where they are because you'll have attacked them and you'll know they're there but you might not necessarily end the game right there um which is also something that I forgot to mention that I really love about this game one of the economy aspects of the octopus role is as you're learning these cards to make your deck building better to pay for these cards that you're playing you pay by revealing blocks so you have to pay to use abilities by making your position more obvious which I think is so brilliant um but it's it's it's fascinating your point Chris that this is one of their first games because this does not feel like a first time publisher game this this game is so well optimized and so well designed it really feels like it's coming from a studio that's been making games for years truly and the same with the production quality too like it does not feel like a I made my first Kickstarter game it just the jump and quality between the two I was very shocked when I was like oh I know I remember your previous game and now I remember this yeah now is this uh there was a while ago there was like this big stink about um I don't know if it was this game K but like they were they got bootlegged like right off the bat when it first came out is this oh yes it is G yes yes I don't remember the details of what happened there but yes it hadn't fulfilled on Kickstarter but there were like bootleg copies going I don't want to I don't want to speak to it because I don't know the details but I do remember something that um to that yeah I think I think you're correct that it was so have to yeah hopefully I mean hopefully they recovered beyond that because I know it was a big thing like yeah it wasn't even fulfilled on Kickstarter and it was already on Amazon like you know from these Shady individuals so um hopefully they're okay crazy yeah crazy stuff okay about that W yeah yeah that is a game I want to definitely uh check out uh kelp um let's move on to our Collective number four which is back with Chris well speaking of Indie Studios this is from one come on um my number our number four is Dune War for rakus just a small Mom and Pop Shop you know first game they're they're doing what they yeah it's surprising I looked in their past history and I was like man they've done they've done more than I expected um but they did this one yeah I haven't really heard of anything that they've done previously but uh I guess we'll just talk about this this new this this must be their first hit um this is this is Dune Warfare racus they're this game is fantastic it is by the designers of War of the ring and so I uh I just played played this recently with my with my good friend Zach and we had a day where we we learned and played Dune War for oracus war of the ring and Star Wars rebellion so the three the three sort of long 4-Hour asymmetric uh games there's a good side an evil side uh we're like let's play them all in the same day and it was fantastic it was such a beautiful day um but this is by the designers of War of the ring and I realized that I hate War of the Ring I think it's a it's awful and and this game feels so similar to war of the ring and yet I think it is incredible and so it's just so mindblowing to feel like the the the disparity like the it's again talking about like Lessons Learned I feel like all the lessons that were ever learned with war of the Ring came right into modern board gaming with Dune Warfare oracus I just really really love this game you play either the the um the the colonizers of Dune the Harkin in the Emperor or the sympathetic col izers of Dune the atres um and you you like hekinan starts with a with a big presence on the board they've taken over a bunch of stuff at trates has this rag tag group of group of Heroes that are help working with the freman to defeat the uh the harinen and you have this these asymmetric wind conditions for the at trates group you are trying to move up on three different tracks tracks tracks tracks track tracks uh where every everything you do can get you points on those tracks but the amount of things that you need to do is unknown to the hekinan player and the hekinan player is just trying to harvest all the spice out of the desert planet of Dune and also take over your base camps and there's just like it's so good you roll your dice at the beginning of the game and those determine what actions you can take uh and then you have to use those actions sparingly Harkin in will have more actions than a tradies but a tradies will get these little bonus actions throughout it just feels like so fin balanced such a such an exciting tension U some fun card play of asymmetric Goa abilities yeah it just was a really really lovely time in terms of those like huge huge games essentially uh so yeah Dune Warfare rakus it really really blew me away like yeah it was just such a such a lovely lovely experience and uh highly if you like those big two-player like epic experiences yeah this one was really good this one was really good and I really really enjoyed it so you played this Star Wars rebellion and War of the Ring all in one day that's insane that is insane was awesome like that's like 15 hours of gaming or something like that yeah we did it in about 12 um which was pretty good I fell uh getting these like set up well Zach set up Dune before I had shed up to the to the day so like he he that that helped us a little bit and then Zack also put Star Wars rebellion away in the most unhinged thing I've ever seen and we're no longer friends which is exactly what she think T table WIP into the box I was like you are not my friend anymore yeah that's it that's the end we're done actually friendship over Believe It or Not years of friendship gone and rightfully so uh yeah I we we filmed a little video after too that'll be coming out on my channel in like I think a couple weeks not this week but next week and it just is like recapping and going into more depth of all of our experiences with the with all three yeah but um yeah it it was just it was oh it was such a good day it was such a good day it was so much fun so of those three big games this is obviously your favorite and you didn't like War of the Ring interesting um Star Wars rebellion's the only one I've played I played it twice and I absolutely loved it um oh it's great yeah it was it was like NE very neck and neck for for Dune Star Wars rebellion but I think Dune edged it out just a bit they're very different experiences though I was expecting a more similar experience but just because of the large a asymmetry like Dune and war war of the ring so many of the rules were exactly the same and yet had such disperate experiences but like for Star Wars rebellion it it feels tangibly different that I don't know if I would ever sort of lump them in together again uh but like my preconceived notions going in like Zach's played Star Wars rebellion a ton of times yeah um and so I was like oh it's the big big asymmetrical you know Empire is going to have the advantage rag tag team type of Heroes but I love the like the hidden hide and go seek aspect of Star Wars rebellion which you don't get in D but D for racus feels more like more tactical right so more like war game yeah feeling than like Rebellion which is more sort of modern board game feeling I would say got it now I've heard a lot of great things about war of the Ring I have not played it yet but what I don't know if you can speak on this but what what made it like not as good as uh Dune I think Dune just felt so elegant it felt again like they took all the all the lessons that they learned from war of the ring and they streamlined them and they made it easy for the player uh to interact with right like we had to we had to turn to the rules significantly Less in Dune uh which is which is wild because they're the same rule set but just somehow it works and it like you retain it and dune like it's the same rules that there's still like the same treating rules the same like oh you you can only hit on this when you've retreated for once and special units which hit on this thing like but we were like why why does it feel so good in Dune and why why not in war the ring I don't know although War the ring uh if you love it they're they're I just put out today over on um Dice Tower for wsbg their uh the the finals of War of the ring that was at the wsbg and it was commented on by Stephen bonor who's it's world of the Rings his number one game and Ira who is also his number one game he's like a developer behind ridia and also has like a war the ring Centric YouTube channel and they both said it was like one of the best games I've ever seen and watching it they were like freaking out throughout so if you're a war of the Ring fan like go watch it because I watch it all the way through and I was like oh this is this is cool like this is how the game's supposed to be played yeah oh very nice so um yeah so be sure to check that out folks um Dune War for Iraq is very nice Goblin in chat is just asking quickly could you apply the Dune rules to war to war the ring no you couldn't because the dice are different the dice are six in war the ring and they're like actually like etched dice uh in war for racus with like a hit and a shield which I think helps uh and also like there are so many thematic rules in War of the Ring like it is the most thematic experience with war of the Ring like everything has a trigger and that trigger is so tied into like the Lord of the Rings experience so I I don't think there would be a possibility cool all right um yeah what's up Ray I'm glad you like that game that has zero appeal to me I'm just sitting here being like man really glad I didn't go to Chris's house that day that sound like a bad time that's just so not my got a game and I'm a big Lord of the Rings person and I have no desire for war of the Ring no desire for big long area control war games yeah yeah ironically given an upcoming pick of mine on this list oh yeah well we're gonna get to that in just a second let's uh start with number three first um I've got number three and this game honestly blew me away I I I'd heard about it and when I actually got to play it I was just so overwhelmingly surprised uh it's our collector number three it is a game called The Gang now the gang folks it's basically Texas hold on poker that's all it is but what blew me away is they took out the two biggest parts of poker now I love poker I'm a poker player um and they took out the two like essential elements of Poker which is betting and bluffing there's no betting there's no bluffing in this and yet this game has the closest to a poker experience I've ever had in a poker Style game uh there's been other games that um incorporate porker elements um you know we're talking about Riner kinia earlier uh shot and Totton you make like little poker hands uh there's other games that have bluffing like tons of games that have bluffing um and yet combining those two never felt like poker me but the gang is literally poker it's got this uh little theme where you're breaking into it's like a heist like Oceans 11 you're breaking into some vaults or whatever but don't worry about that what you need to know is how to play poker and they give you like a little cheat sheets like what hands beat what and how it plays uh just a real quick primer on Texas Holding poker um you have a hand of two cards that's secret information then you have a hand of five Community cards as you see there're on the screen and using combinations of those and the ones in your hand you're going to make a poker hand and what you try to do obviously in poker is try to have the best possible now in the gang what you're trying to do without any kind of uh information sharing or talking or whatnot you're trying to rank who has the highest um hand and who has the lowest and just by the way you bet and just you know you can say things you just cannot say specific things about hands and you're trying to sus out okay well I think Ray's got a straight maybe um Chris has got the flush and I've got a full house or whatever and you're trying to rank those by taking um chips let me fast forward a little bit and um go over here okay there you're trying to take the ranking ships and if you have one with the one star it is the lowest hand all the way up to the number of players like four or whatever that's the highest hand you're trying to do that each round and at the end of the round you're trying to see did you get the these right did you rank the highest hand the highest and so forth um it's just it's so brilliant and what's cool is you you add on these extra cards so if you did it correctly in the first round uh the object is get three uh successful uh heists if you did correctly the first one you're going to get a challenge card so it makes it a little tougher so now one player uh may have three cards in their in their hand or whatever makes it a little tougher to sus out what they have but if you fail you get a little helper card so it makes it a little easier so that one might be hey you get to look at another player's hand um I absolutely I I was so blown away because I was so skeptical about this game I was like there's no way this could be any good like I know poker I played it all my life how can you make it a Cooperative game it's basically poker meets the Mind folks and it is absolutely brilliant I love it now having said that I'm really curious for non-p poker players how they'd react to this as poker players like I'm through the roof I have played it at various player accounts and the only time I've played it with anyone that one person who did had no idea of Poker uh we showed her the r the hand rankings and she seemed to get it throughout the game I don't know if she was as excited as the rest of us um this was actually at the world series of board game Chris um and you know just being there in Vegas playing this I was like this is so crazy I'm playing poker and there's no money involved and I'm more excited about this than you know losing my my uh money here uh but it is so good and so brilliant I do want to mention this not to well it's a downer uh but the one of the designers Cory Keith recently passed away um so that it's such a bummer and but you know what in honor I mean he's created a fantastic game my favorite game of the year surprisingly I had no idea I would love it this much but a coopertive poker game yes it works folks that's why it's our Collective number three the gang it it seems like Cosmos uh took the crew and made it applicable to brid and uker players and they're like we can do it again with poker players that's what it's the crew for poker what it feels y yeah and that's what it feels like to play as well um I I played this I enjoyed it it's one of the reasons why it didn't hit as hard with me it's the same thing with the crew I love trick taking games I'm like I would rather be beating people right but if you if you're not a cycle like me and you enjoy playing nice with others uh yes the g i I definitely saw when I played the gang I saw all the elements of it that made it good I'm just I I am I have an uncontrollable urge to win so I struggled with the Cooperative nature of it but yes if you like the crew if like that Cooperative spin on classic card game styles yeah yeah no the G the gang Cosmos I really think they have got a really cool predictable formula and I don't mean predictable in a bad way I mean that in a they probably have found their audience with it and they're giving them what they want and I think that's awesome yeah uh one of our viewers in chat Tyler's dad 71 says I've never played poker yet they love the gang that's that's cool to hear because I I really I'm so curious about that um recent just a couple of weeks ago my brother C celebrated his birthday so we went over there had a you know poker game like we used to uh back in the day and I was wondering you know as we're playing poker I was like you know what on Thanksgiving I'm going to bring the gang I want to see how my poker loving family enjoys this and if they do great if not then we'll just play poker um but um it is I I absolutely adore this game again just for those the two main reasons it took out betting and bluffing and somehow made it work which just blew me away yeah absolutely okay well we got one more got one more before Richard comes back all right Ray it is up to you all right so after after telling Chris I don't think I would have liked his pick very much I uh R number two is once again uh Cole Cole Worley has uh tricked me into playing and liking a war game I think this is the only he's the only designer who can do this to me make me trick me into playing a war game and then trick me into liking it a lot um it is something that I think he's kind of cornered that design Market on is repackaging war games for traditional Euro Gamers and Arc arcs is absolutely oh it's oh it's so good I've talked about it a bunch so I'm not gonna I probably will but I'm gonna say I'm not gonna talk about it too much and then I'm gonna talk about it for 15 minutes yeah get that out of the way first and then you can talk about it for yeah I need to be self-aware about the fact that I'm gonna talk about this a bunch I've probably played this game two dozen times since it came out I am obsessed with it it is so good so basically arcs if you're unfamiliar is a Space Opera game that can either be an aggressive area control game a tight Resource Management game or an above the table political game depending on who you're playing with or in the best in the best games it is all three of those things um so what I love about arcs and I think what separates it from other War Games other area control games again two mechanics that I never really like in any other format what I like about arcs is that what you're trying to do in ARS is constantly changing because of the way the action system is set up so the person who leads a particular hand has the ability to set a like claim an ambition which is basically just setting up a global goal for that round which is how you get points if something you want to do doesn't have an ambition attached to it there are no points this is a war game where attacking each other has no inherent value which I find very interesting unless someone has declared the warlord ambition beating each other up is pointless so depending on the round if all of the resource management objectives have been claimed then it's just going to be a tight race for resources and yes you can attack each other to steal them but your goal with attacking people is different it's to steal their stuff as opposed to just decimate them so it feels really different the tempo changes so much mid game because of that system um it's it's fascinating and if you're unfamiliar with how the action system works it's basically trick-taking but not but it also is I see a lot of people say this is not a trick Taker and it it kind of is it's not obviously it's not the number one mechanic on BGG for this game is not trick-taking but there is an element of if you don't get a suit of cards that has the actions you want to do then you have got to exploit your voids to do other things it's just oh it's so interesting and it's so hard to explain and I hate talking about it because I feel like I never ever do it justice um but this action economy of having to play play the right cards and follow suit and trick take is so interesting and there's also such an interesting strategy behind when to declare Ambitions because if you never heard of this game before and you just heard what I just described you're probably like okay well if I want to be the warlord I'll just declare warlord every time and just fight everybody and win the trick with that is that you can only declare three Ambitions in a round and if you immediately declare warlord you're basically telegraphing to everyone you're telling everyone this big neon sign this is what trying to do this round or if you say I'm going to collect all the fuel everyone knows that's the thing you're trying to do and they will spend the next several turns trying to stop you or trying to claim more fuel than you but if you wait too long to claim an ambition the value of those Ambitions goes down so that's a it's such an interesting decision of first of all playing the trick-taking game right to position yourself as first player so that you can declare an ambition and then picking the right tempo of what Ambitions to declare when it just makes for such an interesting complex and yet streamlined game again one of the things I love about this is it doesn't feel like a war game in the sense that you have a billion different attacks and different special things that happen you just roll dice you hit or you don't there's a couple of things that happen but it it really strips down the battle mechanic which is what I don't like about war games I don't just like chucking Dice and blowing people up is not fun there's so much else going on in this game that yes that element is there but it doesn't overpower the game to me and there's so many other P to Victory and even if you're playing really aggressively if you don't draw the right cards the next round you may have to totally pivot because maybe warlord isn't an option this round and you suddenly have to start building up your fuel economy because that's the ambition that was declared it's just it's such a joy to play it's such an interesting unique design I love Cole as a designer again congrats to him for tricking me into playing another area control war game a genre that I otherwise avoid like the plague uh this is our Collective number two arcs yeah Ray I love that you love this game I I'm assuming this is like an outlier for you this is probably the only this type of game that you love right um yeah yeah to me definitely yeah this your arcs is like my Twilight Imperium I'm not into big like Forex you know multi-hour Marathon games but Twilight Imperium I absolutely love so that's my outlier and I'm dying to play arcs because everyone says similar things they just they absolutely love it and I mean Cole and we've talked to before on the show here he's a genius folks I that that's all there is to truly he's one of my favorite modern designers we've sighed and just listened to him speak and forgotten where we were that's what happened when he was on the show yeah yeah um I think that's interesting that I was also thinking about Twi Imperium when you were descri I haven't played this uh either I haven't played arcs yet but uh I was thinking about that that concept of one of the big disconnects that I had with Twilight Imperium at least the first time that I played it I have a lot of disconnects with Twilight Imperium but was that the battles are meaningless they essentially are meaningless like they they don't get you points right they get you positioning they get you they get you taking over other people's planets but they don't like there's no active like oh I I destroyed you it's like like Scythe you get a you get a point for winning a battle right there's no there's no direct sort of reward in is that wrong yeah there there are a couple of combat cards Chris if you pull the C mission in Twilight Imperium yeah you will get a point for destroying um winning a combat in a certain scenario there's certain like in a certain scenario oh like a certain place like taking over somebody's home planed or whatever right that's one of them yeah and then there's another one it's like oh I forgot what it was Destroy um but no situation yeah they're they're they're the secret objectives right they correct they're not the objectives that pop up up top for everybody to to get okay cool cool cool I'm glad I'm glad I was remember yeah yeah so in terms of that like inherent sort of like battle that's what I was thinking I was like oh that's interesting so maybe you should run out and get it R because yeah you should too we should play warlord warlord again could be that inherent like that that trigger right if you have that trigger you get the points for it but I was thinking about that comparison Ray I'm wondering as far as arcs goes have you played at different player counts I'm wondering how the experience changes at different player counts I have only played it at 3 okay I am scared of playing it at two cuz I I for some reason my brain can't wrap my head around it being good at two that's that's my but people say it is I just I three I've played it every single time again I played it over a dozen times since it came out it's always been at three players so I I don't have a good um yeah a good barometer if it's good at four and two but right I'm wondering like for the two-player experience do they bring in like a little bot or an AI I have no idea I really I I don't know why I don't feel like I'd ever play it at two players I really like the complexity at three players it feels like there's a lot going on a lot to keep track of you can fly under the radar better with three players yeah I not the person to ask about that because I honestly don't know if I'd ever if I'd ever pick it up at two yeah cool all right wow 10 through two folks pretty amazing games but we've got one more and Richard's gonna bring it on Home with his choice for number one taking away Richard uh Richard hey gang that was a great list hello I'm a little late to the party although I think this entire party is a little bit too early um I'm only going to be talking about one game that's my favorite for the year but it is the best game I played so far but if you want to hear more from me folks on Christmas day I'll be putting up my preliminary top 10 games of the year like always uh filmed probably right around here at biod De Los Angeles this is L greena Bay and the sun's going down as you can see oh that's let me show you what it really looks like all right there we go that's what's going on right over my shoulder right now that is awesome um but and now I've disappeared oh here I come back okay anyway uh number one game of 2024 a year that I think right now is sitting in my number four slot of best years of all time maybe my number five again I'll go more into that when I do my Christmas day uh countdown but uh it's saltford and of course it's going to be saltford because for the longest time uh Santa Maria from the same designers uh you know Isis senson and Christian Osby was in my top 20 and uh it was a great game marred by a very unpleasant subject matter ER of colonization type stuff well they've Revisited it and not only reemed it to be all about fishing in um the fiords and salt fi specifically but also they went back and made some interesting tweaks to the gameplay and I've got to say overall it is an even more enjoyable game than it was originally it is sitting right now just outside of my top 10 favorite games of all time and I could see over time it pushing its way in to one of my top 10 not of 2024 but of all of you know just my entire collection it is that good but I'm going to have plenty more to talk about of come back on Christmas day uh you know same rot Time same rot Channel folks hope to see you there but uh Chris hey and Ruel that was a fantastic I've got to get um oh Endeavor deep sea played I'm so excited for it the other best game of the year retheming eras of colonization into something much more fun all right uh I'm going to let go back to you guys and I'll see everybody on Christmas Day who knows where we'll be at that point on the road yeah thanks Richard wow uh so Chris gets a shout out from Richard this times have changed apparently um wow the Endeavor deep sea uh sford I had no idea he was going to pick that one I I was all in on Windmill Valley so yeah I it makes sense it makes sense sense yeah yeah Santa Santa Maria is really good I've only played it once uh I played it at Dice Tower West when last time I was there so 2023 and uh shout out to Jacob uh who I played it with and it was yeah it was fre like mechanically it is so good yeah uh the art is so unfortunate oh man it's like you're giving you're giving the the uh the inhabitants of Santa Maria they get happiness points because they get really happy um for all the great things you're doing to their land helping them cultivate it right we love happiness points um so sord sord is is very exciting to me as well because mechanically it like Santa Santa Maria though is really really good nice like yeah yeah cool I can't wait to play it so yeah those are top 10 folks uh let's talk about the games that everyone our live studio audience was live studio audience our live internet audience is no our live studio audience they're here here oh man I do want to shout yeah he's got some bangers on that list rolling Reggie I just played for the first time this year Lord of the Rings duel for Middle Earth that was absolutely fantastic I that was exactly what I was going to talk about okay cool cool now if you don't want to play Lord of War of the Ring play you know this one here duel it'll take you 35 minutes at most it is fantastic it's uh the reimplementation of Seven Wonders duel I really liked it right I love the just thematically I felt everything worked and it felt to me uh a little more streamlined than seven wonders duel like little bits of it just seem a little easier to get into but uh Ray was that your experience with it I am so upset because I love Le the Rings more than almost anything and Seven Wonders duel I have despite nothing but Chris and and Richard making fun of me I have defended that game endlessly on this channel and I have we have very good friends who have told us don't get uh don't get it because we're going to get it for you for Christmas or for your birthday and it has yet to show up on my door so I have not played it because I'm being very good and I'm not buying it because I was told that it was gon to get purchased for me and it hasn't happened yet so I'm very upset because I probably would have made my top three game of the year because it's an IP I'm absolutely in love with and it's one of my favorite games of all time but I have I have zero comment on it because I haven't played it I'm waiting waiting so patiently for my cofy very ni have you have a a late in the year birthday is your birthday coming up right do you no no my partner's birthday is early next year so they were like we'll get it for you sometime wow so what if you don't even get it for Christmas that's listen not to like be aggressive about it but like do I need to be filming this and sending it just anonymously or something no no see if it was anything else I would have been chill about it but this is it's it's getting ridiculous I've been told been told to wait yeah so here I am waiting not so patiently for my copy John trip says how dare they buy you something you actually want they've ruined Christmas I agree yeah we don't want to wait yeah this is the benefit of retail everyone loves it I'm sure it's great and I can't wait to play it eventually W by the way uh we are filming this live on Twitch folks we got a raid from loua paloa I want to thank them for that also little Goblin earlier raided us um you know before we uh continue with this why don't we talk about some of the honorable mentions we had uh Chris uh anything that you want to point out that didn't make our final list none none of them I didn't play anything uh no here are the two things that like I think could have been could have been fighting for one is in my bag right now that I think is going to be a hit with the c where I'm hanging out with it's shakeri um oh yeah it's it's a little here I'm just going to I'm going to go get it somebody else say something yeah it's uh I play shaku uh Michelle and I we did a sponsored stream for them and it was great because uh Michelle actually made a we made a real shakuri board as we played the game it was so and like the pieces are so so fun you get your own little you look at this little cookbook this little cookbook that you got here yes uh and then you get your own little shuder board yes uh and then you get your own little bag of bag of fun shakuri tiles that you're going to draft and the cheeses and there's you know there's some carrots there's Oh that's oh although it says broccoli on the back so I don't know I don't know what about what that's about I thought these were I thought these were double-sided for uh for for sake of like if you didn't want to play with like you you have a cheese or a cheese oh it must just be veggie veggies cheese right yeah you got your little meats here no that's that's a tomato tomato tomato I thought it was we'll work on it Chris we'll do flash cards for you I think I think it looks good and it's really like yeah it's really LIF likee you have some more cheese yeah that's crazy you have a you have a cracker these are just actual crackers this is my lunch that was now sitting sitting me um so yeah that's one that I like I'm excited and I want to play uh yeah Tyler's dad said Shakur the one the one you got tricked into backing um yeah Tyler's Tyler's dad tricked me into backing it he suckered me into it I got suckered um but uh so that was one that I was like oh dang I wish I had played that another one that I wish I had played which I'm very excited to play that arrived before I left for the contract and I was like I can't can't bring it to me bring it with me on the contract uh is Earth Under Siege flas point I'm super stoked to try this one out it's like a stealth game uh scenario based kind of kind of progressive um but the the stealth in it looks really good and I think it might hit the nail on the head and and some people from my Discord have been have played it and have already enjoyed it as well and so I was like dang I know that probably would have like made it on the list and like potentially Ed edged out some stuff but I and I wish I had had played it enough to be able to or played it at all to be able to confirm what I expect will be in enjoyment that's the benefit of of going through and reading all the rule books for everything is that like i' I've gotten pretty good at picking out things that like oh I'm like this will hit with me I know the experience get that's a skill I I cannot I have to play something to understand it I I I can't just I'm so deals of people who can just read Rule books and glean not to mention if the game is good for them but just how the game works I have to I have to like lay it out and like do it as I'm learning or watch a video I've gotten better over the years for sure but it's just practice now that done for you know three years in 2500 games those are real numbers um but yeah those those are what I put on my honorable honorable mentions um because I was I was sad to see them on the list uh gnome Hollow was was on my short list but I think like The more I've played gnome Hollow I still really like it like I I put a review of it recently I gave it like four out of five um but I find that like the flowers and the Rings are often all everybody always gets them in and like everybody always gets that amount of points and so whereas I want there to be more of a disparity like I want to go full rings with the strategy I want to go full flowers with a strategy right like I want to be able to like have the max of that and feel really good that I got the Max and nobody else was able to get that Max and I haven't quite figured out like how much blocking I need to do in order to make that happen and so it feels like the game comes down to comes down to the mushroom selling which is good like fighting for those mushrooms is is important but it it feels like oh these other things like seem like they're going to be more important but they're not as more important so like The more I've like delved into it that's been my takeaway from no Hollow but I still don't mind because it is so cute and so like interest fun to interact with yeah right and so so I think that's where like my I'll still play it I'll still play it any time um but but from like a if I want like that that would push it to the next level would be that like extra level of of diversity of strategy which but I I I also don't think that's the design I I think I think that is the game the game is is meant to be more friend like it is friendly it's a friendly game right and so I think like that it leads into that design aspect but I recognize that like that's a personal preference for me so that's why it wouldn't have um yeah it wasn't it wasn't going to be on like my top top but it's still like very enjoyable was another one that just didn't talk about it when we were talking in in our gnome Hol section because uh I wasn't sure how much time we had and I was like all right well I can talk about it in the yeah well what yeah this what this part is for great awesome what about you Ray anything that you want to do honorable mentions for yeah I mean I liked again a couple of the ones that you guys picked were on my list I had uh landmarks was on my list um bus and stop from Sashi and Sashi was a nice um pleasant surprise I don't think it was ever going to be Game of the Year material for me but quite surprised me I'm really bummed I didn't get to play Panda flip because I think I would have really enjoyed that but I didn't they were sold out when I went to Essen and I just never was able to get a copy online um so I'm bummed about that there were several games that I think I would have really enjoyed but they were sold out by the time they kind made their made their way to me in my radar um I had I really I need you all to know I put so much so much self-restraint um against not putting stick collection as my number one game because I've had some of my favorite games this year have been with stick collection which is I believe an itting game where you're betting on sticks uh of various lengths and you're trying to get get a stick collection but the trick is the stick you're bidding on is in the center of the table and it's in a little like it's in like a little holder uh and you are sitting on the edge of the table with your sticks and you're not allowed to put your stick next to the stick in the middle of the table so it's just it's just visual calculus of is this the right length of stick that I want that's the whole game this I know bloody Lion in chat hated it I think everyone I played it with when I played it with you also hated it but I've since come home to my gaming group at home and we have a riot with it you have to it was definitely a game honestly that's a higher praise than I know some people would give it some people would say it's not a game at all it's absolutely up my alley for ridiculous oh sck collection says 2021 on BGG oh that about yeah I mean I got it this year so maybe you know what it's disqualified anyways never mind that's the reason why I couldn't show up because otherwise it should have been your number one yeah never mind that sound like such a ra I want to it's very fun I will say it was my secret plug of getting to talk about stick collection it's great if you're like a weird little experience that's great mind honestly that's the highlight of the video for me seriously same it's so it is it is a quintessential honestly I feel like I've found the game that I need it was yum Island but now it's stick collection to describe and then dter dter gets a gets a three we should do top 10 a top 10 games that that are Ray yeah I just the top 10 Ray games that would be my three would be my three top 10 games that probably aren't really games stick collection yum yum Island yeah drop hter drop hter those would be my three for you uh speaking of Y Island I'm going to be bringing it to my family's Thanksgiving and hopefully get table I'm superc try it out yeah y y iar wo anything else R besides collection any other games you want no okay no I really wanted to like souvenirs from Venice the new oink game it kind of felt flat for me I just prefer okay Deep Sea Adventure I just do see with moving Wilds I was really excited about it didn't really hit for me so yeah no that I this I I feel very confident my top three with the three games that I both think I played the most and that I liked the most I think I just this kind of like Chris I was deciding to just play games I liked I tried to you know um hit the the hot games of the year but those three really were my stand outs I feel very confident in my top three cool um yeah going through through my list I realized this year I've played a lot more lighter games uh than normal which has been really cool um we've already talked about the gang nah Hollow Captain flip was my number three I mean I love that game so I'm glad that you talked about uh number four we just talked about roling Reggie a Lord of the Rings duel for Middle Earth that game is fantastic which you're going to fight about real soon Ray hopefully uh sooner rather than later maybe or maybe next Christmas if not this Christmas then next Christmas oh my God yeah I had a huge list here so let's go to Japan uh that came out this year oh man I really wanted to play that I did get a chance it's fantastic it's like oh so such a great Tableau Builder uh other ones on my list uh we talked about skyrise already and actually Chris you mentioned foundations of metropolis that was on my list for this year as well because like you say the accessibility of the game I mean more people should be playing it's a really great Gateway style Tile laye game uh other ones castle combo which I fell in love with recently it's a card game uh uh again sort of like King Domino is with some more elements going on where you just building a 3X3 grid of cards uh what else on my list um we talk about landmarks sty is probably my favorite party game of the year uh Ray landmarks a a cross between code names and like crypted I guess where you're trying to you know get your way out of there and finally I think it was roling Reggie also middle uh talked about Middle Ages uh this was the reimplementation of for the Majesty's Realm by Mark Andre the creator of Splendor and uh this one I think I might have talked about this one before basically when Splender came out there's another game that came out called um gosh it's totally the the one that's sort of like the the Splendor killer what was that one called again oh Century spice Road SP Ro thank you yeah so when people were calling that my I like to joke with my friends our theory was when Mark Andre heard oh we got a century or we got a Splender killer he designed for the Magic's realm said yo this is the century spice Road killer which I think it was and then they reemed it in the Middle Ages um it it's a wonderful game so uh be sure to check that out it's also on BGA folks and those are all my monroll mentions um let's talk about it's a good list yeah it's another great year for gaming it is uh but of us said the number one game of the year according to board game Geeks ranking in fact uh we we didn't even get the top three I'm just looking they all the big heavy Euros let's talk about those yeah no no not even not even that big I think one is I don't know actually I've I don't know anything about number one but I do uh number one is harmonies it's ranked at 159 I know it's on board game arena I know some people in my Discord were playing it but I have not played it uh I really don't know much about it to be honest with you um but it is ranked a 1.97 in terms of weight so in terms of big heavy big big heavy Euro I I think not but I know it is I know it's like a lightweight like simple one and this is this is really surprising to me that it is ranked as the top the current top of the Year according to like people's rankings and board game Geeks rankings which is you know you can take that for a grain of salt but also the fact that um BGG you generally skews a little bit more more complex is higher uh that's that that should make a pretty nice case for harmonies uh yeah as well which I all I know is that it's on board game arena and that other people have been playing it been like oh harmonies is fun like great board game AR I got I gotta try it then D play that one what other ones Chris uh the top three so that was one the other ones uh moving moving down then we have slay the Spire which was dropped and came out I kind of would have expected that to be to be over harmonies but that's 186 uh worms span at 192 yeah uh and then at yeah and then at oh guess worms was on my short list too yeah that's good yeah yeah I that makes s we've talked you talked about it in yeah I've talked about worm fan a bunch yeah and then coming in fourth is one of our picks What's the guess who got it yeah it's Arc I was going to say if any of these made it on that yeah yeah yeah that's a that's a slam Jong for the B community that doesn't surprise me AR is at 198 and then um Ray's Christmas gift that I'm getting her in 2035 Lord of the Rings duel for Middle Earth uh is I'm gonna it's gonna be Christmas Day and everyone's gonna have gotten me that I'm gonna have 15 copies fantastic somebody please I need to make sure that it happens um uh so that's at 223 and then there's a big jump to another one the second uh it comes in at 669 is sixth of the Year according to the board game geek rankings it was also that's the second appearance on our Collective list of 10 what's the guest skyrise no skyrise is oh Salford Salford probably Richard's pick salord salord isn't even like showing up in the first is it Captain flip Captain flip no no it's my pick then I don't care then I don't care whatever it is it's bad it's not as good as Captain flip I don't Care's favorite game doing War for racus oh whatever oh whatever V fine that's six and andromeda's Edge is seven Endeavor deep sea comes back to me for eight um then uh pretty let's go to Japan is nine and the Star Wars unlimited 10 I really want to play Let's go to Japan that's like I think yeah skyrise was 15th beaten by seven Citadel unconscious mind invention evolution of ideas and Ezra niayah skyrise currently at 1085 on Bo game peek wow unconscious mind I really like the theme of that boy howdy I walked by it at Essen and I went I went and like I I love a heavy game I really do like I my games of arcs will go three hours plus hours but that game just it looked so fiddly it looked like there was there was so like what I like about arcs is that yes there's a lot going on but it feels streamlined and elegant and like everything I don't know I walked by it and I went that's that's the type of fiddly Euro I don't like and that might be completely wrong I completely am open to being corrected on that I've never actually played it but I walked by it I went my head hurts did you did you play endless winter I did not I did not well it's the same it's the same like production it's Fantasia games and so I feel like endless winter was I haven't played unconscious mind but endless winter was a bunch of little mini games and so I can an unconscious mind feels like it's taking that to the sort of Next Level although although Sean in the comments says slay the Spire Primal and unconscious mind are uh his top three dun War racus would be number four sweet that's a good list that makes sense yeah I that same reaction Goblin Goblin says seventh Citadel this was this year I also had the impression that that game had been out a lot longer yeah than 2024 you know I always I get it mixed up with seventh continent because I know that's been around forever that's maybe what's happening with me that's exactly what it is I confuse it with seventh continent totally right also Sean um who's in my Discord and has I know has played Seven Citadel shares my hate for continent I've never played seventh Citadel but uh Sean quite enjoyed seventh Citadel and I'm sure he might drop a comment down Sean is saying unconscious mind isn't a hard one to play longish learn but one that once you're through the rules it's easy to remember fantastic two players not too tight yeah there you go longish learn makes sense because of all the little Min games I feel like endless winter is a pretty long learn but then when you get into it you kind of yeah get it um yeah for sure I just you know speaking of long as learns this uh I had a really wonderful experience with a v v lerta game recently at the world series of board gaming for the first time played venos and I absolutely loved it it was so good but yeah it took like an over an hour for the teach uh but um our friend uh Casey she's brain in a jar on um social media she did like she loves little s of games and she had like I was like I don't want to play any of the lerta games unless Casey is teaching to me she like the best teacher ever yeah so so I believe it I believe it yeah but that game's it's an order game but yeah if it wasn't an order game that was definitely my game of the year I it was so brilliant um ler is a hit and miss thing with me like I love I I can appreciate the Brilliance and the genius but they don't they're not going to get to my table very often just because of like how dense they are but again I appreciate um how how brilliant they are um anyways uh any final thoughts we we should get going we're gonna get out of here and um yeah I think I think we're good to go right those are pretty good lists yeah yeah yeah it was a good year I was I think I mean I've only done this once before but I feel I felt really I felt really good about my top three like this this was a good year there was there was competition for those spots for sure but like at the end of the day man yeah I'm interested to see L lot of good games I agreed oh no no keep talking keep talking I'm looking up 2023 for what are the top ranked games oh run through according to board game geek oh yeah yeah yeah it's also validating to hear that you it's validating to hear that what we picked independently kind of lines up with what the community was thinking that also makes me feel pretty pretty good about where we where we landed yeah yeah I like having that sort of balance right I felt I felt like a shill that I had two in the top 10 I was like oh my gosh I've gone with the popular vote oh no yeah um the for for 2023 I'll just run through the top the top 10 well the top 15 I can just say them number one of 2023 right now is Dune Imperium Uprising um number two is Sky and that's different because it was hegemony lead your to Victory when I like because I made a a death match like early on in 2024 and hemman was was the highest rank but I guess people have been putting the rankings in now so Dune Imperium Uprising is number one sitting at 25 uh Sky Team at 49 uh I'm sure Sky Team also jumped Bunch since winning thei I'm sure like it was not I don't think it was that high up this time last year it was in like the 200s I think yep yeah yeah um hegemony was is 58 age of innovation the terra terra teram mytica um is 79 coming at number five Darwin's Journey yeah that was we got that one yeah 102 um six is White Castle 116 White Castle is really good I played it for the first time now because it's going to be in the world that's an interesting pick for the World Series yeah it's I'm excited uh and man it's good like red Cathedral is great so I I knew I would like White Castle but that's number number six um where on number seven is Great Western Trail New Zealand at 133 so good like oh my gosh I love it it's like so fantastic I played it again recently and just like yeah really oh I love it um 137 number seven is void fall uh 140 two and number eight is Ticket to Ride Legacy uh number nine is nucleum at 193 uh number 10 is Earth at 195 last year wait Earth was last year I thought nucleum was this year I really did I did too and Earth was last year I feel like that games around forever oh my Earth was I know Earth was last year I really thought nucleon was a ESS in release this year but I don't know how I got that in my might have been a late a late uh uh and then and then we have uh then we have Star Wars deck building game Forest Shuffle distilled an apiary to kind of finish out I never got on the forest Shuffle train I was a force Shuffle hater oh wow I I liked it I don't think I loved it as much as everyone else I heard it was F it felt like Point soup I don't know it really I it was like the one game I called last year I gave it to my mom I was like you can have it you called I was I did I did I actually think I hold the record wow I think that holds the record as the first game I ever called and by cold I mean I gave to a family member that's what I mean that counts oh Wow way to go Ray that's that's incredible it was a really big moment for me yeah it must have been the worst garbage amongst garbage for collection I it was literally that my I played with my mom she liked it I didn't I went it's yours you can have it you can have it I like doing that too nice okay uh well great that's a nice look back and uh folks it's been a great year gaming and on that note we're going to take off I want to thank our sponsor keep the heroes out again for sponsoring this episode The RNR show and until next time we'll see you later so long bye-bye