My Top 100 Games Of All Time! #30-21 | The Cream Of The Crop

is at your channel now welcome back to Penny's board game Garden did you want to come say hello as well you're always so jealous when Penny's in the videos yeah he like staring at the camera like what is going on hey friends it is Jenna what is up and welcome back to the board game garden and welcome to another episode in the cream of the crop or my top 100 games of all time this is my first time doing this and I will say right now I am enjoying it very very much and honestly I'm a little bit sad that we're getting close to the end so today we're going to be going through my 30 through 21 so after this we only have two more which is like my top 20 and that's when we get to like my favorite favorite favorite games currently right now because I will say that these will probably and most definitely will change for sure so anyways without further Ado let's get into my 30 through 21 if you guys are interested in hearing about those then give this video a big thumbs up also hit that subscribe button down below if you've yet to do so we'd love to have you here in the garden comment down below your opinions on all of these games if some of these are your favorites as well and also put your 30 through 21 down below if you are keeping up with that but yes without further Ado let's get into this chunk of my top 100 games of all time shall we all right so starting off with 30 this was actually my number one game from 2023 this was a 2023 release that I absolutely loved I will say that the first game of this that I played I didn't actually like love love it and I think the reason why was because I think we got like a rule wrong or there was a little bit of confusion with one of the main rules because this is a worker placement game um and I think we were like doing some sort of thing with work placement slightly wrong but the game that I'm talking about in my number 30 is Darwin's Journey so like I said this was my top heavy game of 2023 I after more plays of this started to really really enjoy this one and I love the theme of this one I love the art um and it's just such a cool worker placement game that brings in a few different elements than other worker placement games that I'm used to so basically In Darwin's Journey you are going around and discovering these different um specimens I believe there's like a story behind Darwin and how he discovered different things on the galopagos islands I believe um but yes you're doing a bunch bunch of different things there's basically worker placement spots of these different actions and kind of similar to um ways of the sub tigis you have these workers that you are then kind of building what they can do um and like where they can be placed so in Wafers the C Tigress those are dice that you are adding different kind of places that you can place these dice um whereas um In Darwin's Journey you are adding these different colors or the different worker placement spaces that a single worker can go to so a worker might only be able to be placed on the blue worker placement spot unless you upgrade that worker and add one of the other colors and then then they will be able to go to either the blue or let's say red if you add that so there's these different like seals that you're adding which I think is so cool the more of one color that you add to a worker the stronger of that action that they can perform and basically you are going on your ship throughout these like Islands you have also a meeple that are walking on the islands the ship is going through the water and um in the islands and in the water you are picking up different rewards and stuff and discovering those different species and then you can eventually go to the museum and kind of put those species into the museum uh and you are going to be gaining I believe it's called knowledge as well as money there it's a really good place to get money and there's a little bit of like a not really sodoku element to it but basically wherever you place that specimen you're going to gain the knowledge and the money in the rows and The Columns of that specimen um there's also a little bit of like area majority with the envelopes um as well as you are going to be upgrading those workers and I just think this is a fantastic Euro game I love the art I love the theme and it just feels very unique to me so that is why it really has stuck ground and become one of my favorite Euro games so that is my number 30 Darwin's Journey number 29 is another Euro game I feel like this 10 we're starting to get into those heavier Euros that I absolutely love um I'm definitely like a Euro gamer through and through and uh yeah you can definitely tell with this chunk of 10 but number 29 is another game similar to Earth that has gotten super hyped um but it really does truly deserve the hype because it is a fantastic game um this game actually I believe is like number three or four on the BGG top 100 and it's actually crazy to me that it is that High um but it truly is a very good game but my number 29 is Ark NOA so Ark NOA is a zoo building game I've hear think things falling in this box I'm a little bit scared um but yes it is a zoo building game and the thing that I really enjoy about this one it's just the variability of what you are doing game to game because the like public objectives change your personal objectives change you're going to be getting so many different cards throughout these different games and I just really love the beginning of Ark NOA you look at your personal goals you look at those public conservation projects um and then you're going to be looking at your hand of starting cards and that really determines your strategy for the game and like I said all of those things can be different game to game so every game of Arc Nova feels super different I love the like getting the different animals building out those enclosures in your zoo and then also going for those conservation projects and all of the like sponsorships as well I typically don't go for like sponsorship cards but I recently played a game on BGA where one of my personal objectives and the one that I did end up picking because you're going to be starting with two but then only being able to pick one the personal objective that I ended up choosing was to have a bunch of sponsorship cards and I usually don't go for those and I'm like sure let's do that let's try something new and so I ended up getting a bunch of sponsorship cards or sponsor cards and it ended up being really fun because the sponsorship cards can like really change things up and add different things and help you in different ways and it was just a very fun and different game of arcn NOA so it really proves how much variability is in this game so yeah that is Arc NOA again very similar to Earth I don't love the like very real art in this it's just like pictures of animals and stuff so I don't love the art but uh it kind of goes along with the zoo theme and just like the I don't know it just it fits but I I don't love it uh but anyways my number 29 is Ark Nova so moving on to number 28 so this is a game that I've actually only played twice and I like this game so much that those two plays have really just proven to me how good this game is and how much I absolutely love it and that it could possibly go or it most likely will go even higher once I play this game more but this is one that I do want to get to the table very soon again maybe maybe I will ask because fun fact boaton if you guys haven't seen I did a vlog of boaton with my friends um I will put it up here or here wherever it is but we did a vlog of boaton and we are doing another boaton this weekend and I'm very excited it's going to be a lot of gaming because it's the weekend right before I go to Gen Con so yeah I'm going to be doing lots of gaming and then going to Gen Con and then doing even more gaming but anyways this game is absolutely fantastic and I will probably ask if we can play it for Boon but anyways my number 28 is Grand Austria Hotel so I actually found my own copy of this which I was very excited about I found this at a bringing bu and this game actually only plays two to four players but the cool thing is the game that I found here actually has a solo mode printed inside of it so I guess the person that owned this before was a solo gamer as well and printed out the solo rules and actually put them in this box so yeah I'm very excited to try out the solo game and I feel like if I do that then this game again will go even higher than it already is but this is such a fun game and such a unique game you don't often see games that are like Hotel themed I think it's just so cool and so fun um but basically you are a hotel owner and you are bringing in different customers putting them into these hotel rooms there are a bunch of different things that you are doing but the main mechanism of this one is dice rolling and dice drafting basically you're going to roll a bunch of dice and then the numbers that are rolled are going to be going into these different action spots and then the number of dice that are in that action spot when you take a dice and you draft it that's going to be the strength of the action that you can perform so the like six action for example I believe is the one that you can like choose any other action but if you draft a six and there are you know four sixes you're going to be able to do the six action for a strength of four so uh very cool I love that mechanism I love any game that uses dice in really cool ways um and in this one you're like I said basically getting these different customers that are coming into your hotel you're putting them down into the cafe and they are going to be wanting some different foods I will say that one of the games that I played of this I played with my friend Steph's copy and she has these like really cool upgraded components for this game and it's just H so good with the upgraded components with the the little cakes and the little coffees and stuff like that absolutely love it so I definitely need to grab the upgraded components for this one um but yes you are feeding the customers exactly what they want you're going to take them from the cafe and then put them up into a room you do first have to open the room and then uh whatever customer you can put them into that room you're going to be getting points in different ways based off of the colors of rooms and stuff like that and it is just such a fantastic Euro game that I definitely want to play more and like I said I feel like it'll go up a little bit more once I get it to the table more often so yes that is why my number 28 is Grand Austria hotel number 27 is one of my favorite flip SL roll and rights this specifically is a flip and right and I love this game so much this is one of the first verban wrs that we got and it is like stood the test of time I have you know different versions of this I have different map packs for this that probably gave it away but my number 27 is cartographers so like I said this is a flip and right where basically you are a c cartographer and you have this like grid map and you're going to be flipping a card and everyone is going to look at that card and put the polyal shape it could be just one polyomino shape it could be two that you can choose from um and then it's going to have a Terrain type that you have to put that polyomino shape or have that polyomino shape be um again there might be one terrain type there might be two that you can choose from um but you're putting that into your map and every I think it's like every season you're going to be scoring two different objectives so there are objectives a b c and d and the objectives change per season so in the first season you're going to be scoring for A and B second season you're going to be scoring for b and c c and d and then d and a so you're always going towards these different objectives with your map but then also looking forward to the next seasons to make sure that you are prepping for those objectives as well and then you also additionally go back to some objectives as well so it's this very cool puzzle I absolutely love this game there are so many different map packs that change up the game there are six different map packs packs that you can get um there's also cartographers and then there is cartographers Heroes which brings in the heroes and a way to kind of mitigate the um I forget what they're called the purple monsters what are the purple monsters called I forget but that's kind of a fun part of the multiplayer game with cartographers is whenever you get one of these Purple Monster cards everyone is going to pass their sheet to the player either to the left or the right of them and then that player gets to put the purple monsters into that player's map to try to like screw them over so it's this really cool player interaction there which you don't often see a lot in um flip and wrs so yeah cartographers is absolutely wonderful definitely recommend if you enjoy flipping rights rolling rights all those this is such a classic and there's so much V variability in this game that I definitely recommend checking it out so that is why cartographers is my number 27 so 26 is actually the highest game on this list that I do not own and it is actually crazy to me that I don't own this one but I do think it is mainly because there's not a solo mode for this one also a lot of my friends own this game and we have played it a ton um my friend cat owns this game my friend Aden owns this game I don't know if Steph owns this game as well I'm not 100% sure but it is a fantastic game and the game that I'm talking about is Federation so Federation is from Eagle Griffin games and it is such an interesting game it does this really cool thing with worker placement where basically your workers are going to be these chips that are double-sided one side is going to be some like voting power and then the other side is going to give you some resources possibly and then also allows you to put up a track of a certain planet so in Federation you're basically going to these different planets and doing these little mini games and basically you are trying to get your level up in all of these planets because at the end of the game whatever tracks of these different planets are all the way to the top going to get a certain amount of victory points based off of your level in that planet um but it's this very cool worker placement where you're basically placing into this ship that has two sides and if you place it on the side that has some voting power you're going to be placing on one side or the other based off of what um different colored planets is going to be getting scored for that round so each round there's going to be two different colored planets that are connected to these two different sides of the ship and whatever side gets the most at the end of that specific round that planet is going to get I believe it's two victory points per level of that planet that you have so you're going to be placing down these different chips onto this area and there's also a little bit of like uh majority with the rows Whoever has the most voting power in each row of the spaceship is going to gain victory points at the end of each round um The Columns like I said are going to be helping the different tracks of the different planets go up so that you can score them at the end of the game and then also the two sides are going to be voting for one planet color or the other and it's just such an interesting worker placement game where it really changes your thought process when it comes to the worker placement because there's so many things that you were thinking about when placing your worker it's not just I'm going to place here because I want to do this action it's I'm going to place here because I want to maybe you know get one of these tracks up I want to vote for this side I want to get majority in this like row it's just so cool of a game and I think it's so unique and definitely one that I feel like doesn't get talked about enough so if you think this sounds really cool I definitely recommend checking out Federation it is a fantastic game and like I said I really do need to get myself a copy of this game but I feel like if I did have a copy of it it probably wouldn't get played unless I played it with like Francis or if I introduced it to um some of our other friends because like I said my main board game group there's a bunch of copies of this game that we play already so uh yes also if there was a solo mode I haven't actually looked to see if there's like a fan-made solo mode but I feel like this would be a really weird one to make into a solo game it would be pretty interesting but anyways uh Federation is absolutely fantastic and definitely a sleeper hit so I definitely recommend checking it out but that is my number 26 all right moving into number 25 this is such a good game we recently played this one again and I just remembered how good this game is this is probably one of France's favorite games as well um but it is just such a cool game again it's again a worker placement game so I feel like clearly I enjoy worker placement games but that game is underwater cities so my number 25 underwater cities like I said is a worker placement game but it's this very cool worker placement game where you're placing out a worker onto these spots and each of these spots is connected to a color so there's either yellow teal or red I believe are the three colors and then there's going to be or you're going to have a hand of cards that all the cards also coordinate to a color and the cool thing is that if you place a uh worker onto a colored spot you are then able to play a color the same color as the worker placement spot and do the action on that card so if I place my worker out on a yellow I could then play a yellow card in order order to do the ability on that card there's a bunch of different cards there's going to be endgame scoring cards there's going to be onetime ability cards there's going to be cards that you are then going to be putting into a tableau I believe you can only put in there's like two different types of Tableau so you're going to have some like ongoing ability Tableau cards and you're also going to have I think you're going to have a Max of four different cards that are like a tap ability card you can only do it once per round and it is just just so much fun using these different cards and kind of trying to play out your worker placement actions to go along with the cards that you have in your hand um and basically with these actions you are building out this underwater city you're placing in these domes and these like roads that connect to The Domes and then you're also placing out these different smaller buildings around these domes that are going to be getting you resources because you're going to be going through I think three different like production phases that are going to be producing all of these different resources that you're going to need for that subsequent round in order to do different things um and then also gain victory points in different ways and uh so good I always like play this game and I forget how much I absolutely love it fun fact I have a thing called submechanophobia which not going to lie this game kind of sets it off in a way but I try to ignore it because it is such a good game uh but yeah that is why my number 2 5 is underwater cities moving on to number 24 this is such a classic relaxing cozy game I love this game so much and actually I've recently started liking this game more and more um this is in a series of a bunch of different games that I really enjoy by flat out games uh but this one has really grown on me recently and I absolutely love it but my number 24 is calico so in Calico you are building out these quilts that you are going to be getting these different cats to come on to you're trying to basically like attract these different cats and the way that you're building out this quilt is you're going to be drafting these hexagon tiles that are different colors and different patterns and there's a few different ways that you're going to be gaining points the one thing I've already mentioned is attracting these different cats there's going to be different cats that you're going to choose for each game that are requiring different Arrangements of these tiles and once you have that Arrangement you can then attract that cat and put it onto your quilt to gain victory points um also you're trying to do different sets of colors if you ever get three of one color connected that gives you a button that you are then allowed to put onto your quilt of that specific color and the more buttons you have the more points you get if you are able to get one of each colored button you then get a little Rainbow button which which is adorable um and then lastly you are um trying to achieve these different goals that you have on your quilt so you're going to have three of these different hexagons that are already on your quilt that you need to surround with specific colors and specific patterns in order to gain victory points so you can either go for specific colors you can go for specific patterns or you can try to achieve it by getting both the colors and the patterns to get the most victory points and it is just so so much fun this is a great comforting yet very puzzly brain burny solo game that I absolutely love there's a bunch of different like challenges in the back of the rule book that I love to try to do and then also they just recently came out with a Calico like switch game um actually no it's not on switch it is currently on Steam um but I do believe that it's coming to switch hopefully but I've been playing through a lot of that as well um basically it is calico on the computer and there is a really cool kind of like story driven um kind of solo campaign that you can go through which I absolutely love so yes that is why my number 24 is calico number 23 is another 2023 release that I have absolutely fallen in love with I think this might have been my second favorite game of 2023 and it really proves that in 2023 we had a lot of of really good um releases in my opinion a lot of ones that I really enjoyed um but that game that I am talking about and my number 23 is Barcelona so this is a pretty heavy Euro game it's I think a little bit of like a worker placement game in a way but it's again I think I really enjoy like worker placement games that like do some cool stuff you know it's not your typical worker placement game or you're just placing out a worker and get and things um a lot of the games that I really enjoy Implement worker placement but then kind of switch things up and make it really unique um so basically in Barcelona you're going to have this board that is Barcelona with the streets and the buildings that you're going to be able to build and basically you are taking or grabbing two kind of tiles or workers out of a bag you're just randomly drawing them and they are going to be one of three different colors green pink or blue you're going to have two of them that you're going to stack on top of one another and then you're going to place them in an intersection and whatever intersection you place these workers you are then going to be able to do the actions of that row and column and the different actions there's a so many different actions that you can do in this game and the nice thing is that the game actually comes with um tiles to change up the different actions on the rows and the columns so not every game is going to be exactly the same which is nice um but yeah you're going to be doing the those two actions which some of them are going to get you money some of them are going to get you resources some of them will allow you to put out roads and intersections um you can also get like buildings you can put up the track which I will get into uh there's just a lot of things so I probably won't be able to fully explain the game but once you have placed your workers on the intersection and took those two um row and column actions you will then be able to possibly build a building that is connected to that intersection so um different buildings are going to require different colored workers and whatever workers are kind of on the corners of that building spot you will then be able to take them off in order to like spend those workers they can be like other players workers that they placed as well and then you're going to place down that building and then put your color token on it that you own that building and then the buildings are going to get you victory points they're going to get you a again uh things on like the track as well as movement on like the building track as well but yes long story short Barcelona is absolutely fantastic and I cannot get enough of this game and I love playing it there's actually a solo mode as well which I've played on stream and I really really enjoyed that as well so that is why by number 23 is Barcelona moving on to number 2 to so this one has fallen a little bit but I think that's because it's been a while since I've played this I really do think that a lot of like my top 100 is just based off of like recency bias a lot of it is just if I haven't played a game for a long time obviously it's not at the front of my thoughts and that definitely affects my like rating of them uh but this game is still absolutely fantastic it was my number one game of 2022 and that game is merchants of the dark road so this one is very fun there is a little bit of like a rondelle there is some like polyomino kind of stuff within your little buggy which I absolutely love and the really cool thing about this game is that there's a like follow mechanism which you don't often see in games where basically a player will say I'm going traveling does anyone else want to join me and any other player can say yeah I'll join you but those players do have to roll a die and it's a possibility that something negative might happen to them so they're kind of taking that risk and coming along with that player and then also you can only deliver I believe to the town that the player is going to or the adjacent ones it could be wrong um but it is an absolutely beautiful game it is illustrated by Andrew Bosley and just the like cozy dark Vibes of this game just gets me every time there's a little bit of like a fluctuating Market as well and and like I mentioned with like the polyomino shapes trying to fit the different Goods Into Your Wagon is just one of my favorite things and basically you are either selling these Goods to these different heroes or you're going and delivering these goods for these like Queen's favors to these different towns so it's just a absolutely fantastic game I really do want to play this one again CU I absolutely love it and also they are coming out with a new expansion for it so super excited for that um but that is why my number 22 is merchants of the dark Road and lastly for this chunk of games this is my number 21 and this is actually the smallest box of all of these but this game really packs a lot of game into this small box and it's one of the reasons why I love it so much because it is so compact but I can play this game over and over and over again because it's the type of game that I just want to get better at and I can just continuously play this and absolutely love it uh but the game that I'm talking about is Nar so Nar is my number 21 I do believe that this again was a 2023 release and this was my favorite small boox game of 2023 so I'm not surprised that it has hit number 21 on my favorite games I have played this game so many times and I still love it as much as I did the first time that I played it there is just so much game in this little box and it's the type of game that I just want to continue to get better at and like really hone in on the like strategy of this game because I think it's so cool it brings in a little bit of this mechanism that I have recently really enjoyed and that is that you are building up this engine of cards and then it's really important to figure out the timing of this game because your engine is actually your resources So eventually you're going to have to give up some of your engine in order to gain these other cards that are going to gain you victory points at the end of the game um so basically you are a Viking ship you are putting different Vikings onto your Viking ship which are the cards that you're building up for this kind of engine that I was talking about and those cards you're going to be playing into the different colored columns and the more of one color that you are adding to your engine the more resources that you're going to get so if I already have two yellows down each card has a different icon that's going to trigger an effect um if I place down another yellow card I then trigger the effect on the card that I played plus the other two yellows that I already have in my engine um so I think it's this really cool kind of card play that I absolutely love um and then eventually like I said you have to give up these cards and pay these cards in order to gain these like explore or Landmark cards that are going to require a certain certain amount of these uh cards of different colors and then they are going to gain you victory points they can also gain you different benefits and then also they gain you a little bit more of an engine as well in a different way because you are adding to these three rows that then you can trigger by spending these bracelets that will again get you more resources and rewards um when you do that so I freaking love this game like I said I could just continue playing this game over and over again and I will never get get sick of it because it is just such a fun game and I just love honing in like I said on the strategy of this one and I will add that it is a little bit of a race because you're trying to be the first player to get to 40 points that triggers the end of the game and then whoever has the most points um after all players have the same amount of turns is the winner um but yeah it is such a good game and I absolutely love it so that is why Nar is my number 21 all right friends so that is going to be everything for this chunk of my top 100 games of all time my 30 through 21 so hopefully you guys enjoyed this if you did please give it a big thumbs up also hit that subscribe button down below if you've yet to do so we'd love to have you here in the garden and also comment down below your thoughts on all of these games are some of these your favorites as well let me know and then also if you are following along and putting your top games down in the comments please put your 30 through 21 I'd love to see them down there I'm trying my hardest to keep up to all the comments in my videos these days so hopefully uh you guys comment and we can chat down there um but yeah love you guys so so much remember you are somebody's reason to smile and I will see you in the next war game video bye friends [Music]