Jack's Favorite Games of 2024 - TCbH Game of the Year

0:00 hey everyone we're back again to talk about the best games of 2024 again and this time rather than the site list where we did all of our analysis and reflection looking at what best represented the channel as a whole this is the completely biased unadulterated Jack's personal top 10 list of 2024 and Eric and Christina are also doing their own list so you can check those out too whereas you can ALS o see what represents the games that we most want to recognize as a collective in the list that we already posted so with all that out of the way let's get into some freaking good games number 10 is Ironwood a fabulous two-player game in a year of fabulous two-player games lots of to-do has been made about this game's asymmetry especially comparisons because of the Woodland aesthetic to the uh asymmetry of root which in some ways I think is apt but is more born out of the hunger for having a really satisfying asymmetric two-player game of root which that really isn't the strength of root even though it's one of my all-time favorite games this works beautifully in this wonderful head-to-head cat and mouse where both players are working towards something that is in relation to

1:32 one another But ultimately are different objectives I love that it has elements that kind of hint to Tower Defense on one side and almost like a capture the flag element on the other and the way they weave in and out with one another and the card driven battle system and Action System of the game just is fantastic the visual aesthetic and the production is out of this world too which really elevates the whole thing together to me and just further cements that it's a wonderful year to be a gamer with the partner gamer in your life that you can do a lot of head-to-head gaming number nine is Gloom Haven buttons and bugs did I say it's great to have a partner to do gaming with well sometimes they don't want to do any gaming and you want something that's a dedicated solo game and the reduction the compact distillation of Gloom Haven into this almost throwaway gag it feels kind of ironic or like it was born out of just a hey this would be funny why don't I do this and then it turned out to be really good Gloom Haven buttons and bugs is one of the most infuriatingly challenging and addictive fun puzzles that I have played in any solo gaming what Nikki Valance brought to it is such a good good reflection on the

3:03 most essential elements of Gloom Haven while at the same time bringing its own unique elements and Challenge and when I talk about distillation I'm not just talking about the pure size yes it is that but even more than that wrapping the entire objective into what can only be handled in a few short turns before you run out of time to be able to accomplish any of the goals makes her such a wonderful brain burner a very tough brain burner and one of the best dedicated solo games I've played number eight is harmonies this is the game that always seems to draw a comparison at least in our circles to Cascadia and if you've been following this channel for a while you know I didn't really like Cascadia I found it kind of boring and this is the game that I wanted Cascadia to be I don't mind light games in a lot of ways I love a great distilled light game that just kind of hones in and focuses on something but Cascadia just didn't give me enough to think about to latch on to to feel like I was making meaningful decisions and the production never sang to me well harmonies is exactly that it's got the naturalist themes it's got the smart intuitive gameplay that just invites doing a little bit more and it doesn't have the super high stakes that

4:34 a lot of other games have but you can feel that you are building momentum and working on something and you can see both the smart and really dumb decisions that you end up making and the production just feels so good in the way that I love feeling the components associated with Azul or something like that I love the wooden discs I love the aesthetic as you're elevating the plateau on your board and the illustrations so good harmonies was one of the biggest surprises for me this year number seven is another two-player game or I guess you could play it Solo or you can play it for more than two players but is sold only in packs of two-player dedicated sets and that's kfire delve I have yet to play kfire products outside of delve and I'm really excited to based off of my excitement over how great can fire delve is as a card-based dungeon Delver where you're kind of doing this Pathfinder Adventure card game thing where you're just given a fantasy based thematic challenge that may have certain stats associated with it and you're attempting to resolve that but it's got much more mechanical meat behind it even if the complexity of those mechanics aren't that large there's very little in ways of like customizing your approach to the game

6:04 strategically you can change it and how you have a load out of characters in the various pairings if you have multiple sets with the different uh opposition that you can fight against but for the most part it is just a quick easy to-play smartly arranged beautifully produced card game that just gets to the best of what I like about Adventure card gaming Adventure fantasy gaming and dungeon delving in general aside from the titular delve it's not particularly deep but it is very smart number six is a game that I do find incredibly smart and deep but not particularly complicated complex and that would be kelp one of the biggest surprises to me to come out of the latter half of 2024 when unbeknownst to me because I don't always follow all of the crowdfunding things I saw at a local game night here someone had brought their Kickstarter delivered copy of kelp or maybe it was game found or some other crowdfunding but I was astonished I had to know what is this game I had to check it out and when I went to packs unplugged I was fortunate enough to be able to find a copy for retail there and I was like I got to get this and I got it I played it I loved it and I played it some more and I loved it and I played it some more and I still love it it is just such a

7:37 fantastic two-player heavily asymmetric not just objectively asymmetric but also mechanically asymmetric and how you even process the different sides cat and mouse hidden movement game it's smart it's quick playing it's a fantastic two-player game and because there are a lot of levers in how you uh level up the powers of both the shark and the octopus there's a lot more replayability and depth than I think you may initially expect out of a game like this as someone who loves hidden movement as someone who loves two-player games this just knocked it out of the park continuing our theme of fantastic two-player games we got to talk about Sky team which is number five now I already talked about Sky Team in our other video and yeah what I said there applies here it is the game that I became most obsessive over the course of 2024 and one that I initially kind of thought looked so so I really wasn't into the aesthetic the look even the theme I was like I don't know but looking at pictures online really didn't do it justice for how inviting the system the components the interface was when it was actually on the table the Box the presentation and the Thematic intuition through which

9:09 you navigate the mechanics as you're playing this game a two-player Cooperative game of Landing a plane to various airports with various challenges all kinds of really creative and thematic and horrific situations that you could find yourself in and how to take such a limited system and stretch it to its absolute limits to give you these nail-biting conclusions to these games and Sky team is absolutely a phenomenon it it's a game that deserves every Accolade that it's gotten and yes it came out at the very end of 2023 but it's my list my channel so I can go ahead and say that it is one of the best games of 2024 number four again I talked about River of gold and what more can I say other than this is my comfort food of being a fantastic wonderful Euro that beautifully brings to life the Fantastic world of rokuan from The Legend of the Five Rings a game that I really cut my gaming teeth on as a young adult and to see that brought into a non-m marshal setting to capitalize on the more parochial or the economic elements of the rokugan setting instead of having it all be samurai and shugenja and Warrior

10:39 monks and all that kind of stuff to see it all be based off of the economics of setting up your markets along this titular River and having this linear worker placement is just fantastic this is the game that is like I don't know mac and cheese or chicken noodle soup from my soul it is exactly what I want to feel like this is why I come to games number three is arcs The Fabulous fantastic confrontational game of conquest and collapse in the reach or some other tagline like that a fabulous new production by leader games and of course the famed and Infamous designer Cole as well as the wonderful jaw-dropping really intricate illustrations by Kyle faren who I feel like has done some of his best work yet with the buck wild aliens in arcs this is such an interesting fascinating and totally epic game which the only reason why this isn't hitting number one is because normally conflict isn't really where I go to for my gaming these days sure I like a good battler here Ironwood was lower on the list but for the most part I am someone who likes Euros or

12:10 cooperative games but ARS really does something absolutely fantastic completely novel and expresses some other pressures that I'm not used to seeing in this type of game that make it among the greatest pillars of Cole's designs like root and Pax games that I very much like now I will say I do prefer arcs as the single one and d game and a lot of people think that that is only the the basic version of what the actual intended uh version of arcs is which is bringing in the blighted reach expansion but to me the auster focus and Singularity of the standard arcs with the leaders and lore Incorporated is some of the best highs in gaming that I've had all year and is something that I expect is just going to be one of those in perpetuity games in my collection from here until the collapse of the universe number two is the game that ended up as number one on our site's overall list which is harvest the new production by Key Master games bringing to life and revising and reimplementing and reenvisioning this game that was initially published by the now defunct tasty minstral games and bringing us

13:41 such a high pressure but low stakes Euro game with all kinds of farming levers that really are easy to understand but much harder to implement in practice it's such a beautiful game it's so smartly made and it's exactly what I was talking about when it came to River of gold as to being in my heart of hearts comfort food gaming this is what got me into gaming in the first place and this is the kind of thing that I'm going to continue loving in the future so it's kind of a no-brainer that it was going to be high on my list it made it as my most anticipated game of 2024 and turned out to be one of my favorites so expectations were met now before we get to number one I do have a couple honorable mentions chief of which is seti now seti is a game that I have to sink my teeth into a little bit more I can't tell if I absolutely love it or kind of loath and resent it I've played it a couple times at this point uh solo and two- player I'm hoping to get some more plays into it and it's such a brain burning interesting puzzle in a sandbox that kind of invites you to go whatever direction that you want and I really have to take some time to reflect on it either way it's a fascinating one of my most fascinating games of 2024 or rather one of the games

15:11 of 2024 I'm most fascinated in so it belongs on this list either way I just can't tell yet what my verdict is I got to chew on it also Kabuto Sumo Secura slam and Lord of the Rings duel for Middle Earth both are games that are sorts of sequels to existing games and yes Harvest is a game that came out before and is no longer available and re-envisioned remastered and so I feel good about putting that on the actual proper numbered list but Kabuto Sumo and Seven Wonders duel are games that I already own and love and have available and I have those additions and sure I love the new additions and the new stuff that comes out of them and I think of them very highly and think they're among the best releases of this year period but they don't have that singular spark that I felt good about putting them on a numbered aspect of the list or maybe I'm just equivocating and finding ways of making this a top 13 instead of a top 10 either way Kabuto Sumo Securus slam and the wonderful Lord of the Rings duels from Middle Earth and seti make it onto to the honorable mentions now let's get going number one is leviathan wilds and I struggled with any of the top three

16:42 that I was going to put really the top four which of these was going to go into number one and ultimately I did some analysis and reflecting and what things I wanted to kind of recognize and and what sorts of things I valued most among these games I mean sure Harvest doesn't have the originality points that ARS has and river of gold is fitting into this kind of beautiful reenvisioning of my nestalgia but you know what about the games that I'm most likely to get to the table or the games that are kind of that midweight just comfort food feeling all of this was sort of this mixing pot that helped me analyze this list and when I looked at the individual strengths of the games that made up the very top it was apparent to me that Leviathan Wilds was the one that kind of met the most of it even though it's the only Cooperative game at the very top of the list but Leviathan Wilds is a midweight game that doesn't take a lot to get to the table it's something that I could teach someone confidently play a game and feel good about that game and know that they're going to be excited to Play It Again it has the really unique vision for what the world is and the aesthetic that it's trying to present and the combination of characters and classes that are so easy to mash together and get a slightly different experience without going so far off the deep end

18:12 that you're having to relearn the very game each and every time that you play it has so much Variety in the maps that you're playing up against but at the same time they are very replayable without having to worry about having the exact same circumstance come up again again and again because the behaviors are going to be different and it has that originality in the fact that it is a Dungeon Crawl where you're not fighting against enemies I it's a heroic tactical game in which verticality is the primary antagonist and Ally that you're playing against it's something so smart so fun and it is a great debut by a studio that I am going to be keenly watching the future and so it was the one where I was thinking about like what are my favorite experiences from this year and what do I want to highlight this was kind of the culmination it's been a Bonkers year a year that I am going to remember forever and all of these games are fantastic and there are so many more games that I couldn't add to this list it was really hard to come up with the list not because I was scraping the barrel for games I needed to put on here to fill it out but because there was so many that I was having to leave off I am so happy to be part of this community this year and that is how we do it at the cardboard Herald so let me know what you think of these games what do you want to see from the channel in the future and thank you for watching and being such an awesome community and all that you know I been

19:44 Jack for the cardboard Herold