Top 50 Board Games of All Time (40-31) | 2026 Edition

0:00 How we doing everybody? Welcome to another episode of Getting Good with It. I'm O. And today we're doing the next group of 10 in my top 50 games of all time. This is going to be numbers 40 to 31. At least that's what my script here says. Um, so these are the games that, you know, are well slightly better than the previous games, but not as good as the games that'll be at the end. Uh, but with that said, let's go ahead and get into number 40. So number 40 is Mis Mythic Mischief. Um, it's a I don't It's an It's an abstract strategy game, right? And you're kind of playing hide-and-seek in a library. You are moving your your characters around. There's so many different uh abstract characters with variable player powers now because there's two boxes worth because there was the original box. Now they've come out with a volume two.

0:48 There is a volume three. They've already said there's going to be a volume three. You're basically playing these different students. So like zombies, vampires, trolls, and you're trying to avoid a tombkeeper or the groundskeeper depending which version of the game you're playing. And you can move shelves or again garden hedges if you're playing the groundskeeper to try to stay out of line of sight while making your opponent hopefully get caught. All during the game, you're going to have little thing little books that you can pick up. Adding these to your uh player board then is going to increase your powers which allow you to do more of your unique abilities. Um it's I it's like chess if chess was fun and had cute miniatures. Uh but that's number 40, Mythic Mischief. Number 39 is another new game. It is Ember Leaf. So Ember Leaf is a card- driven game where you are, as the designer calls it, card dancing. You're placing your cards down on your map and as you move them, you can move them left, right, and they kind of just dance on and off of your board.

1:53 Some of them when they leave your board give you more abilities. And what you're trying to do is place all of your uh citizens into towns. You're trying to build towns around the map. Building the towns gives you points for objective cards and things like that. Adding the people gives you bonuses or people but your your citizens are animals but adding your animal people uh gives you bonuses. So it's kind of like an area control majority. Um it's it's partial area control uh point sality. You know you can choose how you want to actually get your score in your points and then your deck actually gets better as you go because you can recruit new leaders and new cards to put into your deck which give you more abilities to accomplish those same goals. Um, it's beautiful, right? Love, beautiful artwork. Reminds you of course of Everddale, which is what everybody's going to compare it to, but the gameplay is completely different. Um, and that is number 39, Ember Leaf. Number 38 is one that I have a lovehate relationship with it, and I think it's because there is so much variety in the way that this system can be used. And that's 20 strong. So, Chip Theory, who usually makes these big games with chips, um made a very small game with boxes and one chip. So, I guess it's still a Chip Theory game, but instead you've got 20 dice that you're using to try to accomplish tasks. Each game is different. So, each 20 strong game is completely different in theme and function and what you're trying to

3:23 do. In one, you're just trying to defeat the aliens that are coming in. and another you're trying to go through the forest and get to grandmother's house so that way you know you can take on the big bad wolf. And the way they play is so different. But the lovehate part about this really comes down to the difficulty of the game. It can be very punishing if you don't get the dice you want to roll because you can only roll them so many times. It's it's not like a yatsi where I'm guaranteed to be able to roll it three times. And even if I do roll them three times, am I going to get enough hits to accomplish it? I also don't start with like 20 health points. I might start with three. So, it's very tight, very thinky in how you get it to solve the problem. I definitely want to play more. I do have the Cloud Spire version coming in, so that's probably when I'll bring it to the tables once my Cloud Spire delivers. But that's number 38, 20 strong. Number 37. If you watched the previous video, which we talked about agricultural style game with coffee traders, this is kind of the slightly lighter version of accomplishing the same thing, right? And that is viticulture. In this, you're basically doing worker placement. You're trying to put your workers out. You're trying to build buildings to improve your vineyard. in all the while collecting grapes and then you're going to turn those grapes into well wine and then score points based on that. Each round of the game has a different set of locations you can go to as time progresses. Uh definitely

4:53 recommend of course the uh essential edition and then adding in the the extra expansions. Viticulture world was not my cup of tea. Um we played one scenario. I don't know if we'll play the rest. I think this one worked great as a standard two-player competitive game and so let me know if I'm wrong in the comments, but that is number 37, Viditulture. Number 36 is actually a new to us game since at least I made the 20 uh what was it 2022? I made the top 25 cuz little hiatus well. And that is a Zul. And this one I think had a lot to do with my family actually enjoying it. My sister came over and played and she enjoyed it so much I gave her my copy and I went ahead and ordered the chocolier and the little expansion uh overlays and then customized the expansion overlay so I could use them with the chocolier edition. By the way, it's MBG. You can download a little printable and then uh glue the little square. Go find it. Um but basically it's an open draft and padding building. So, in the middle of the table, you're going to have different tiles, mosaic tiles that you're trying to build out your mosaic pattern, and you can only take a certain one, and you got to put them on your board. So, it's kind of a risk versus reward. If I take these tiles, am I going to be using them? Because if I don't, they're going to fall on the floor, and then I'm going to lose points at the very end. And then depending how you have completed and filled up your rolls changes how you can score and what

6:24 things you can do. So, it's very neat puzzle to solve of how am I going to get something that's in a common pool to help me while also not hurting me because oh, I got to take five tiles, but I can only fit three in this row and I can't fire this off until I've got these other ones built out. Um, but that is number 36, Azour. Number 35. If we could say we have a game that is equally abstracty in terms of pattern building, that would be Sigrada. Uh, Sigrada was Aid's number one game once upon a time. Don't know what hers is this year. Maybe when she gets back from Colombia, if you guys would like to know her stuff, I'll make her at least do maybe a top five. I don't know if she can go through a whole top 10 anymore. U, but maybe a top five. But in Sigrada, you've got all these beautiful dice. So, you roll the dice. Same thing, common pool that everybody is taking these dice from. And you have to do the dice drafting in a certain way to make sure that you can build your patterns. And in your mosaic, in your stone glass or in your your glass window that you're building, there are restrictions, right? There may be a spot that only accepts a four. And you can't put a four next to a four. So, it's like, well, I I could put my four there. Oh, I can't cuz now I need a four here because my scoring opportunity says it wants three fours diagonally from each other or what whatever the objective is. There are a lot of things that help you break the rules. They have different tools and different things like that that you can add into the game. Lots of different scoring

7:56 objectives, lots of different expansions. So, a lot of variety. Again, a very simple game. We took this with us down to Colombia and Audrey's parents. I don't know if we played with her parents. I know we played with her sister. Love the game. It was just very easy to teach, very easy to get into. Um, I think we played with my parents as well. Maybe that's where I'm confused. We played with my parents and her sister. All of them loved it. And that is number 35. Sigra number 34. I don't know if it's here because I haven't played any of my big dungeon crawlers that I have sitting behind me and in 12 other rooms. Um, but this is a tiny dungeon crawler, tiny epic dungeons. It is a full dungeon crawler in a very small box. We've played it a couple times. Very similar, you know, co-op. You're going through, you're trying to defeat the the dungeon, get to whatever the end objective is, flipping over cards. So, it's kind of a mystery where you're going, where you're going to end up.

8:50 It's not one of those ones where, okay, the whole board is set out and you can see, so you know, oh, I need to I need to go here. You are using dice combat, and it's a very unique type of dice combat because you it's not like you're getting like 25 dice. Um, it's been a while, but I think you get like two dice and then there's like a third dice that that's a power up. The other part that's kind of unique is there's this little time trap where the where the lights going down and down and down and at certain spots it will activate things like more goblins come out or whatnot and all the while you're trying to find that boss because if you don't find it before well the light goes out game over. Uh very easy to play. I would say it's a tiny epic game and it doesn't take up too much table space but I mean your dungeon can kind of sprawl. They do restrict it to a particular size, so you don't need a terribly big table, but I wouldn't call this a pub game where you could take it to the local bar. Number 33 is the first of our Garfield games of the of the series. Uh, and this is Wayfares of the South Tigris. This is a I don't want to say it's a heavy or complex Euro. I mean, some of Garfield's games are more complex than the other. I felt like this one's pretty easy. It is all about dice placement. You're trying to place your dice workers. You're trying to build out your tableau so you can get bonus effects off of the dice that you play. And then you're also trying to well look at the stars and map the stars. So you have two different areas that you're placing cards. Each one interacts off of each other. Yeah.

10:19 So basically you're taking those dice actions like I mentioned and then you can also, you know, power them up or change them based on the cards that you play. So you can make them better, you can make them worse. And the same time, you're also going across a middle section which unlocks special bonuses and benefits as you progress until somebody gets to the very right side of the ink path. I guess is what I'll call it, the ink path. Um, and then that triggers the end game. Whoever has the most points wins. Number 32 is another kind of new to me type of game. Um, I don't remember last year was the first year I played it, but that's Tranquility: The Ascent. So, it is a solo work co-op experience. Again, kind of plays the same way where you are trying to build a mountain. You're trying to progress up a mountain. So, you're going to have a hand of cards.

11:10 Each of the cards is numbered and you have to play cards that are higher to go up, right? And then same thing where you're going horizontal. You need to determine how many cards you're going to place without getting too high on the numbers because then it's going to make it harder for progressive turns to be able to place out your cards. There's a couple modules like one you have to get these goats all the way to the top of the mountain. Speaking of mountain goats, go check out the previous video. Um, and then there are special cards as well that can help you out. So, you get little tools to help you out. You can put bridges, things like that. But all of the helping cards also kind of come with a small cost, right? So, it's not it's not like a perfect solution to get you to the top of the mountain. There's a lot of uh tension that you can have, especially when you are working in the co-op mode, trying to make sure that you both know what you can play without saying what you can play, right? I can't be like, "Oh, I have a three play a two." You can't say that. I mean, that would defeat the entire purpose of the game.

12:14 Um, but that is number 32, Tranquility: The Ascent. And the last one in this particular round of 10 is my number 31, The Gig. So, this is a jazz inspired game where every single player has basically a board of their own that is very asymmetric. So, it is a roll and write type game. you're going to roll the dice and then you're going to have to put patterns on your um board so that way you can try to group symbols together, right? Because the reason you want to group the symbols together is your player board probably gives you some kind of power or there may be some kind of multiplier like there could be a times two. So, oh, I get these things together and now everything in that is worth times two, right? So, very neat in the way that it works. Um, each different instrument has its own unique way that it plays that gives you a lot of longevity, a lot of variability, unlike most rolling right games where it's like, okay, this person does this. Well, I'm probably going to do that same thing. The next roll I'm going to do this. No, they probably did the same thing. And so, for a couple turns, everybody's kind of doing a very similar action. That goes completely out the window with this. Everybody's going to be very unique in the way that they build out their instruments and how they're going to score. And so that's number 31, the gig. All right, so that is it for this round of 10. If you want to see more of this, make sure that you hit the subscribe and bell notification.

13:44 That way you know when the next few videos come out. If you want to see our live streams, make sure you subscribe, hit the notify me when those get posted. That way you can come out, join the chat, and enjoy the gameplay of well, maybe some of these games. there's one of these games you'd like me to play live on a stream, let me know down in the comments and maybe I'll do it in one of one of my lunchtime streams. But either way, guys, until next time. Peace.