The Best Board Games of 2024 - The Board Stupid Awards

0:00 hello and welcome to board stupid my name is Wayne and I'm Matt and we've got our fancy clothes on there oh yes this the fancy clothes on because this is our very special end of year award show yes they're both stupid Awards oh very first both stupid Awards and what we're doing in this video is we're recognizing some of our favorite games yeah together that we've work in different categories yes exactly so we will have stuff like uh uh two player games or best production but I will make a list after the uh the intro but before that you guys should hit the Subscribe button give us an award Yeah by subscri I feel receiveing awards every time I see one number going going it's like an award and I feel like I want to I want to stand up and give my my my thank you speech to everybody sometimes do in theet every morning yeah I'll I'll check the and I say thank you to every Everybody absolutely so hit the Subscribe button and let's jump and take a look at the awards for some of the best games of this year let's

1:08 go for two all we need for you and me what okay Matt you want to lead us off by talking about our first four major categories yeah so um how we divided these is how how we normally divide the uh games categories in terms of like heavy weight and uh how easy or more complicated the games are so for the four initial categories we will have beginner intermediate advance and expert Awards so those are the four major Awards absolutely so those four cover our approach to how we categorize games in general in all of our reviews but not only that when what else do we got we're talking about games style and general production how pretty they how pretty they are absolutely so in those we have uh the best production overall um best Art and Design which we're very excited to talk about as well after there uh we're not finished we got a little bit more still and uh we got the best Indie Games the best reimplementation game and the best Euro game we're not just

2:40 recognizing the games we also want to recognize the best publisher of the year we also want to talk about our favorite two-player game of the year and as well pick a Hidden Gem of the year that we think deserves a little more love half the D we starting with the last four categories that are going to be the best team mhm moving on we have also got the Hall of Fame award for games 20 plus years old and then it's your Awards because we got the community awards that based on the votes that you sent us in the last few weeks absolutely and finally our overall Game of the Year Matt what an exciting bunch of C oh my God I can't wait so I think we should start now because we got a lot to we got a lot to get through so Matt I'll pick for best beginner game show the people what have we chosen the best beginner game of 2024 for the B stupid family is armony armony so why did we pick this game well um in it Simplicity um it's got a lot of depth and at the same time you can teach it to everyone and everybody can play and enjoy this straight away what I really like about this game is it Bor really successfully from things like Cascadia but adds a couple of extra twists as well with these objective cards that you've got um I think it's a really fabulous game it's pushing towards the middle maybe the top end of our beginner category yeah but still

4:12 pretty easy to to pick it up especially uh playing with the in the games you got the two different maps that you can two different playing era that you can play you can decide to add or not the the special cards so it you can make it a little bit more complex but it's definitely absolutely something that you can teach everyone so is is if you think that some ones that enjoyed Cascadia they can definitely enjoy harmonies and I find that Arman is could definitely be the the New Cascadia so absolutely it has a wonderful verticality to it as well Wonder wonderful production great production and a great price point that's the reason why Harmony's won our award for best beginner game of 2024 perfect we are now in the intermediate Awards and the awards goes to rebirth rebirth rebirth one of our favorite games this year and as we discussed in our review which you can go and check out in the corner there this has a really simple map which would sit very happily in the beginner cat map yes but then it has a real crunchy mean map which fits a little bit more in intermediate but um yeah I do love this if you guys have watched our top 10 of 2024 you know that me and way picked this game as the best game of the um of our top 10 individually uh but again what more to say about this game how

5:43 much we love it yeah it's absolutely fantastic check out all of our content we covered this a lot this year and for a good reason uh it's a great price point by a great publisher and that's rebirth best intermediate so Matt now for the award for best Advanced game yeah this is game that we loved and we already spoke about it and absolutely this is it is alai dawn of civilization again you can find our review in the corner here so many things to like about this game and we're starting to get more complex with Advanced we're tacking on a few different mechanisms together with our area control the open market building all that going on at the same time as well as the civilization style type thing going on here with a wonderful production yes a great inserts a fairly easy rule set but really nice deep game play I think alai is a fantastic Advanced game uh for people just maybe coming up out of intermediate looking for something more in dep yeah it's definitely one of our favorite for for this year um and I want to point out the I love the artwork of this game as well it's quite unique and really is really unque the colors and everything um yeah this is you should check the review I love this gam so yeah alide da civilizations big congratulations to Pal Mor and the team at AR's G another fantastic hit

7:34 now for the expert categories we got well don't have it go say when forgot the box at home I'm really sorry and it is us this could also have been the award for the most rage inducing the award for the most table flipping uh this is AR we think is the best expert level game they came out this year absolutely it is a fantastic game it is weird wonderful uh but M might as we describing in our review you can as well check somewhat there and love hate relationship with I do have a love hate relationship but it's undeniably excellent yeah I can't I can't say anything more it's one of those that you enrage it when you play it but when you finish you want to play it more and that's uh what I want into a game I want that you about it I feel like can Master it you want to feel like he can get on top of it it's call Worley taking his design principles and stretching games out which is what he likes to do and blend things together when we first heard about this game Matt we heard trick taking space Opa space Opa yeah that was uh how he these things going to work it does work does work great and it's doesn't going to make you feel better feel good sometimes but hey it does work it works it's a fantastic fantastic game and that is arcs Art Award for best expert game congratulations to Lether games and Mr

9:10 Co and now for the award for best indie game well best independent game yes so this is from um an indie publisher so once they done basically like a oneman band that was the idea of these Awards we had a few games this year very very good ones from us they came out from Kickstarter and they've been growing like mushrooms and the awards goes to myia the Strategic mushroom game by split Stone games uh what a wonderful achievement for one person uh to not only fulfill their Kickstarter uh entire in its entirity yes um with an amazing production production one of the best production ever seen for yeah with a wonderful artwork and a very Innovative game with a very Innovative um kind of like boards and Boards control it's uh it's very very very good that's one my favorite game of the year absolutely yeah you absolutely love this game you played an absolute ton of it and we played a bunch of it together as well and I think it's really cool like I like the whole controlling your chain of resources in order to then pay for your new cars as you know elements of those games that you that I love when I'm trying to create sort of combos of resources I think it's a fantastic fantastic achievement by Jack from splitz St game so congratulations to

10:42 you I was stupid thanks for awarding best independent game to my CIO really means a lot Awards like these really help give splitstone games the reputation it deserves as a credible serious and non nonsense ball game publisher we don't want to be one like one of those companies that all see gimmicks and just want our games to shine through thanks very much and take care

11:12 bye-bye and we are now into the Euro game so for that one wait I'll leave it to you cuz you are the Euro game L you say I'll move the boxes it's quite heavy it's quite a heavy box to be fair uh Art Award for best Euro game with 2024 goes to setti such extraterrestrial intelligence uh setti is something of a return to form for check Games edition returning to I suppose somewhat like traditional game design there's no app involved no scanning of anything it is a euro game yeah that is really cool a nice wide very wide Euro game yeah wide lots of mini games a cool rotating board Center piece um it has all of those you lot of like Point Combos and stuff like that of multi-use cards which I really like cre yeah your hand management your resource management discovering places moving around the board you got so many things that you can do in sa while you're trying to look for a exro um intelligent and uh with a stunning production and um with all the components done in rewood as well uh with the artwork that is really really cool and each cards in the deck you getting stuck like this and each one are unique and everything is based on current technology so there is a research behind the games that it's absolutely fascinating and I love just reading on the cards what this that does

12:43 it's really really cool they've really tried to to weave the theme throughout the mechanisms it's yes it is a euro game yes you are scoring lots of victory points they try to think about it and it shows and uh we both absolutely loved this game so well done to CG for the best her Game of the Year this is such an incredible honor thank you so much for this award I want to thank to the amazing team at chames Edition for believing in city and bringing it to life a huge thanks to all illustrators or testers or the whole development team to Big thanks to my friend melan who write beautiful flavor text and also a big thanks to my wife and son for the endless support and patient throughout this journey s peel was such an unforgettable experience so many people came by to share how much they enjoyed s and it was incredible to see the game resonate with players I never imagined that they would achieve this kind of success the positive feedback on BGG and love from the community have been truly overwhelming so I'm so proud what we have achieved with s and this recognition means to so much to all of us thank

14:05 you man now it's time for one of your favorite categories I think oh absolutely yes the two player games so um this year has been fantastic such competitive category it's been we had to talk about a lot because a lot of games came out so um but my favorite one our favorite one for 2024 G St iron wood from mind has to go to iron wood such an amazing game Ironwood man we talked about this game add infinitum for good reason for a whole number of reasons it is great production really deep interesting dramatic yeah um with a very interesting and Innovative way of playing a two-player games where you need to control a board control troops movement something like a war game but the same time doing your your hand management and and going through the deck and trying to to do Combos and trying to make your asymmetric faction win so um an absolutely stunning games again if you want to know more that the review review there um I love it I want more so please M Clash give me more iron wood more IR in my life get it so very well done guys and um congratulations fantastic again we love Ironwood hi everyone this is D for M clash games thank you so much to Bor stupid for uh giving Ironwood the best two-player game of the year award

15:37 Ironwood is the second title in our mind Clash play Brand which includes uh rules light quicker player but still strategically uh deep games so thank you so much for giving it a love and appreciation and uh have a good one coming up we got uh the the awards for the best reimplementation game uh now just to be clear this is basically uh any games that has been reimplemented in a new version a 2.0 a 3.0 call it whatever you want um some of them they've been just like took from the from the '90s give it a spin of um of fresh color and just put it back on the on the on the table that we loved cuz a good game yeah absolutely it's a good game yeah good game is a good game forever game from the '90s it's and it's amazing still going to be an amazing game in 2024 ABS U but these games are specifically they got a a new coat of paint and a revisit new rules added as well yes exactly and the best one for DC is it must be Lord of the Rings du for midle her absolutely or yeah Bo sorry Sor German fan insult my pronunciation below this is an amazing game I mean more than an amazing game it's one of the best two play games yeah it's not only taking Seven Wonders Duo mechanics and and putting in in a

17:09 load of the Ring steam it adds new mechanics like the territorial control um and the and fraud and S that has been chased by the n school that needs to go to to monom um some of the rules are are simplified and streamlined to make the game more quicker and snappier and um um I think we both think this is a a better version of a of a of an already great game such as Seven Wonders world it is a wonderful achievement for an incredible price point this is a Christmas present par yes yes hopefully it's already under your Christmas tree yeah if you're watching this on boxing day full of turkey let us know in the comments if you received a copy of uh Jew Midland but very very well done to the guys said rers production in asod oh yeah fantastic fantastic Now Matt as Italian you know all about style I do you know all about you know all about the Finer Things in life you like you like good quality right yes and these awards are all about recognizing quality and mat let's start with our award for our best theme of the Year oh the best theme of the year goes to Kell Shar versus versus octopus what a cool theme is uh it's so good striking team um it's not something that you see every every day but uh in this two player games there's been my note very close to

18:42 the best player best two player of the game of the year um but um this theme is just like so great one is the shark one is the octopus shark needs to eat the octopus the octopus needs to to run away and all the mechanics in the games makes it feel you very much in the action it's so so good with an amazing production with phenomenal artwork by Sano so webon Santiago does some of my favorite art ever so this could have been a contender for the best art design the best production yes this is just a fabulous game that needs to be recognized for a number of reasons yeah and again this is an indie uh game as well so um it's just a everything perfect we love these games so much and I can't stop playing yeah it's a really amazing game so Award for best and our favorite theme this year yeah is kelp from wonderball well done Wayne we got theme style and everything and now let's go into the great let's go into the proper production the pieces so when we talk about the production the actual physical product that you in the Box um how much it cost how much it costs the insert all of that good stuff and if the production is thoughtful um and all of that good stuff and what did we pick now oh for this year we got again iron wood this is our a double Award winner well done guys at M gam the

20:14 reason that we love the production though is how thoughtful it is M you've mentioned this to me a few times that with the different factions one being the Ironclad and then the woodwalkers their pieces are different materials yeah one is metal and one is wood and which is so perfect ab terms of designes and the quality is top tier amazing quality um the artwork in general for all the cards is absolutely very very cool I really really really like it Final Fantasy 6 magic Vibe um the insert for each one of the faction simply perfect the games goes in on and off the table in literally minutes yeah and um yeah again I can't get more wait for more I want more of this it's a just a tremendous tremendous production great artwork great quality pieces uh for again a phenomenal price point for what you get in the Box uh and one of the best games of the year yeah so again congratulations games for smashing it with this game Let's moving on and uh for our next one we got the art design Awards so this Awards is for the overall how the games what the games looks like what's the art fa art exctly that's basically it what one do we like the most and art is so incredibly subjective it's but weirdly enough me and Matt agreed pretty quickly on this because we think it's super cool

21:44 we love the graphics it's another box that's going to pop up because it's too big to bring around and is who Joy Ride survival of the fastest uh Joy Ride is just such an amazingly striking game it has Borderlands Mad Max hyper real bright color car we absolutely love um sort of the the smash Punky Vibe of this I I really enjoyed it and uh you can spend hours just looking at the maps dets all the little details that you can find on the maps each character each car oh the so character it's it's uh yeah nothing to say about it it's just like it's a striking game that you can recognize from across the the room and just being like that is a cool art it's absolutely screams of Personality it really does sing it's a fantastically look looking game with an amazing production and there's a great game to boot uh that's Joy Ride Survivor the fastest congratulations on our favorite art of the

22:55 year so Matt now it's time for our award for our Hidden Gem of 2024 yes and there was quite a few games that I you know I don't think got a massive amount of press and uh we weren't entirely sure why and one game in particular I think really stood out to us CU we saw it at SP we thought this is really cool why haven't we heard of this and we played it and thought this is amazing why talking about this exactly so we are here to give you an a words for the uh most under theer game here we go Barbarian kingdoms this is our Hidden Gem you can check out a recent review that we did up here to find out why it is so cool but this I think you described it perfectly as a mosh kit it's a mosh bit of a game of um area control game is an Absolut of the game so much fun yeah you can play up to six player on this exagonal board um the mechanics are very interesting it adds this uh bribing concept while you're doing the fights where you basically pay your opponents and uh to win the fight so it's not just the brute fors it's a much a much richness you want to give to the other player then at that point you become if you win you pulled then and he's got all the money so you can do the same things so you it's really really interesting go EV and check out to the to the review and find out why we think this has went too way too much under the radio yeah it's got loads of strategy it's quite Innovative in some ways it has a striking look as striking look a cool closed economy it's just really really cool goab that deserves a bit of love that's why it's our winner of the

24:26 Hidden Gem award for 2020 congratulations to Jester and rs game and game hi guys I am Kristoff Le the game designer of Barbarian Kingdom and I am really honored to receive this hide and Gem award from B stupit Barbarian kingdom is a game for two to six player about 15 minutes per player it's a game of strategy and Bluff where you are going to control areas to slay Kings and to bribe your opponents during the Batts this game is set in the fifth century and you are going to take the control of Bing Kingdom of this time

25:22 enjoy perfect now we going to talk about it the um ball stupid Hall of Fame what it is we each year uh since we are here to stay uh we're going to we're going to recognize one game from the past that we're going to give them the legendary State legendary award for a game from the past we're thinking probably at least 20 years but we are going to be flexible we'll see but we'll see but it is a game that will be around we think forever as long as there is printing uh game that is uh legendary in it design uh and stands up even to this day and I think we can say that about this game absolutely and the game uh the first game in the all of fames are ball St it cannot not be ra I played a game of raw last night I taught four new people this game they never played it and they loved it and when I told them it's from like 1995 96 they all all of their draws drop to the floor yeah um and that's it has that effect on people it's such an amazing game it's uh it's the perfect game it's one of my favorite comfort games so if you want to check the Comfort game video um check that one out but it's one of that every time someone say you want to play Ro yes I'll play yes it's like 45 minutes it is probably still the best kind of auction

26:54 SL the perfect auction beaing game gives you constant value stress trying to assess what you're bidding on it's superb design and in this the 25th Century Games edition it is the best Edition you can buy Absolut best Edition that's ever been you can buy for now because the new reprint is coming out in uh it was on Kickstarter a few weeks ago um very successful cuz people just like love this game yeah just like right like just like what what else you want to do so this is why raah it's the first game to go in the Hall of Fame and welld deserved as well to raah okay Matt let's talk about our best publisher of the Year Awards and I think it's quite important to note that obviously some amazing Publishers out there of course we' met a lot folks and I think everyone does a tremendous job in the industry uh so we thought about a few things about General consistency in high quality uh good ethical production choices good material choices great design great Productions all of that good stuff it's quite a lot of things that we think goes into to be yeah it's what not was not easy because as you say there's been so many DC uh but the the one that we pick definitely excelled in all these in all these things like using rews or um trying to to push like for um

28:25 environmental friendly choices European production and yeah and uh in not just one game in multiple games so um and that's why the these here Awards go to Mighty Bo well done to you congratulations to you folks uh for being just hey tremendous people to uh hang out with and also for making amazing games uh it is just as a spectacular year for you with uh fate Forge Chronicles of Khan yes and with birth being amazing and last year's art Society being a tremendous game um absolutely knocking out the park and we are so excited whenever we hear about what you're doing next so so well done again well again yeah enjoy enjoy Matt our penultimate award yes yes we almost there almost there and it's been a fantastic fantastic show to recognize these amazing games but this one is a very award because this was chosen by you are amazing amazing B stup fan yeah thank you for all the messages that you sent us thank you for feeling out the form and uh being there um on this journey with us throughout the year absolutely our first year doing this and uh we appreciate every single one of you and this is your award yes and uh we've got our three in this order got the most votes one that voted and Matt what was in third place number three we had kelb

29:57 shark versus octopus tremendous tremendous game uh in the number two spot mat we had we had Reaper which is an amazing game yes which is also you really really nice to see that recognized not just by us but also by our community yeah and number one the awards goes to Lord the Rings DW from me the her of course this was the game that you guys voted to be gay of the year and uh we see why yes I it's entirely Fair it is a great pick it is like all those things we talked about great price point great reimplementation uh fantastic game on a fantastic basis uh I'm not surprised that you the F enjoy uh this game and think it is your best one yeah I I do agree with this with this Pi it's a good one absolutely I would have been really surprised if like the actual number one pick would be one that we hated yeah well done guys well done guys you did great okay we are at the end of The Journey uh so this is the time that you should like open your proseco if you if you yeah to do the um H and we are at the Game of the Year Awards this is the awards for what we think he was the best year of the of 2024 absolutely so when we came up with this concept for the awards show we did it separate from our individual top 10 yes and and our individual top

31:28 10s we came up with by ourself with no interaction and then we talked about them on on the show which you can go see our top 10 of 2024 and then this award um we come together for the awards and we we we we speak about them together and we pick one game um if you saw our top 10 this game will not be a surprise yeah it will not be I was I was surprised Matt big that as his number one uh and but I was happy and so that makes this job even easier and matter what is our game of the year well the game of the year for 2020 for go and the board stupid award for game of the air and intermediate game of the air goes to Mighty boards and Reaper reair birth um Mighty board's phenomenal job on this game we absolutely love it uh I played this again last night as of time of recording this show uh with people that have never played it before never heard of it they all absolutely fell in love with it uh one of them immediately went on uh zat's try y ABS um we had a lot of people here on the the comments Below on a few videos that we did where they were like oh I wasn't really interested went to to watch your reviews of stuff and went to buy it and had a great time this is

33:00 exactly why this deserve to be the game of the year um it's so easy to to understand uh and still having so much in like depth to the game itself that it's going to stay around great interaction in the game as well it's such a really fantastic achievement um what more is there to say about rebirth we talked about it so much although I will say that there's not many other reviewer type YouTube typee folks put this up in their top 10 even at all well and I think they're okay to be wrong I'm way guys very well done for rebirt absolutely well done Game of the Year Matt it's my favorite scenario us surrounded by board games this is it couldn't get any better and what an amazing year what an amazing year guys and uh we lot doing this we love doing this with you guys and with all the people that we met during the year from publisher designer artist and all of you it's been an absolute pleasure uh working with all of you and also uh Absolut pleasure interacting with all of our subscribers which has been an amazing uh we started this on a complete whim uh when I met Matt last year I decided to go to S and we might do a video about it while we we do a video about that yeah you'll hear about the story of B stupid uh is quite a fun one and uh here we are at the end of our first year with an amazing set of games uh and some awards to recogn ize how good they are absolutely and we can't

34:31 wait for 2025 to uh have more games gam Never Enough it never ends Never Enough never ever uh and if you like this video you should probably check out the rest of our content and man and he also needs to do some things hit the Subscribe button come on guys to H the Subscribe button like I said it's the best award we could receive oh thank you very much do very well thank you thank you thank you hit the like button if you think we deserve it and we're going to catch you again real soon for you and me what you what you's what you play and see