The TOP 10 BOARD GAMES I Played in 2024: Picks #6 to #4

0:00 let's talk about the top 10 best games I played in 2024 top 10 of the Year welcome to brains on games I'm Dr Brian McDonald and this episode we're going to continue counting down the best games I played all year long these are games that you know I I played them I I reviewed them and I immediately wanted to play them again these are games I'm excited to teach and show off to uh people who come over to visit uh and they're not all games that came out in 2024 I'll be honest with you there last time we talked about some games that were a little bit older although this time we're we're going to talk about some newer games today uh these are games that I couldn't wait to to practice more and get better at them uh but this time around we are talking about some newer games some games that were released this year at least in Canada they were released this year we're deep in the eyes of the top 10 list we're going to talk about number six to number four let's get right down to business number six number six on my list this is one that's probably will come as no surprise to anyone who's followed this channel I love trick takers and this is one of the greatest trick takers I've ever played uh it's a game called Mory from all playay games this is a game that has it's criminally underrated it has a 6.7

1:31 rating on Board Game Geek which I just cannot wrap my head around this maybe I got review bombed I don't know but this is a fantastic trick taking game and like I said if you've watched the channel you know I like trick takers and this is to my mind one of the greatest myy has great art uh this is by Beth soble of wingspan Fame you know these cards are gorgeous looking Mory is a must follow trick taker but there are some ways that you can break those must follow rules dice are really important in this game each time you win a trick you're going to get one of these Dice and dice can break that that must follow Rule now this would be like a purple card with a value of zero so any other purple will beat it but you might be able to play this as a trump and win a hand even if you don't have any purple cards for example the dice really do mix things up because you've got ranked suits and you've got these these rot dice these X's that I will tell you about but the dice do mix things up so you're sort of fighting to maybe early in the round you want to grab some dice so that you have more flexibility later on you might be trying to win some early hands that is kind of made more strategically Complicated by the fact that you're not earning points based on the number of tricks you win the cards have leaves and skulls on them you can see the lower lower cards have two leaves the cards in the middle have

3:02 nothing and then the high cards the ones where it's easiest to win with those have a skull and you're earning points based on the number of leaves that you take but you lose a point for each skull at the end of the round there are 10 dice but you're going to have more than 10 cards in your hand and the cards that you're left with the cards you hang on to also count for points either positive or negative so whatever you're left at the end of the game goes into the tableau in front of you uh where you've placed the cards the tricks that you've won along the way so you've got rank suits you've got a clever use of points you've got dice that allow you to break the rules and then sort of the pest to raise it s I would say are these cards right here each player starts the game with two of these and what you're trying to do here is be the player at the end of the round who has the second most if you have the most of these rot cards you lose a point for each one that you've got but if you have the second most you gain a point for each of these and that includes those X's those rot symbols on the dice so if you grab dice early on that have these x's on them that that's going to give you some x's but you can also give them away if you lead with one of these rot cards and everyone else plays a rot card you're going to be stuck with all of those so it is a game where I mean it's a bit swingy in terms of the points because you you could be in the lead one round and then get all of these X's at the end of the next one

4:34 and that's going to drop you points instead of gaining them honestly that was not a knock for us when we played the game it just made it more fun it made it more tense and it kept the players who were falling behind they were still in the game you never knew if that maybe they were going to be able to catch up and get closer uh to winning so it's a game that plays quickly it's a game that is probably one of the most strategic trick t games I've played in recent memory I think Seas of strife maybe is another one that's kind of like that uh but I prefer this one even over seas of strife because of the dice and because of that that mechanism of gaining points if you have the second most of something but losing points if you have the most that makes things a lot of fun and It's Tricky and strategic for that reason so you got the quick play time you've got that strategic mechanism of of wanting to have the second most s you've got these dice in a trick taker that break the rules what a clever clever game that being said I mean it is still a game where you need a certain number of players and I would say that about any trick taker uh you know you have to have a game that's specifically designed for two players if you want to do trick taking uh and this one plays best with more uh it's a game where it's probably one of the few trick takers I've played where players might get bogged down in that kind of analysis paralysis trying to decide what they want to play on

6:04 their turn it's just such a clever game um I I almost feel like it should be higher on the list honestly than number six because I I really do love it uh I know last time I said that I played Summoner Wars probably more than any other game but Mory might be the the one that I played the second most just because it's so quick it often comes out as a filler or it gets played while we're waiting for the fourth person to arrive so I just I absolutely love this thing the way that the strategy changes if you get around where there's only one of these X dice rolled or only a couple you know it's it's there's a lot of replayability here uh and it's a very strategic trick taker so I absolutely love Mory and I cannot understand how it doesn't get a rating on Board Game Geek that's higher than 6.7 because wow what a fun game and what a great time we've had every time we played it this is a game that I think in in the states it came out at the end of 2023 but I don't believe it it delivered in Canada until 2024 so I'm going to still count this as a new one number five my number five game the one that hits right in the middle of the top 10 my number five game you might be able to guess it because the box is missing from the shelf behind me this is a game called skyrise that comes from Rock games my copy is the numbered collector's edition I did order this one on Kickstarter this game has a 7.8

7:38 rating on Board Game Geek I think I reviewed this one in May and said this might be one of the games of the year and here we are so I've set up the board I haven't set up everything about this one because there's so many little bits that are going to go on all of these spaces on the board um this is a clever bidding game uh and it's probably the game that help me to realize that bidding and sort of auction style games are a lot of fun I do really like that mechanism and I hadn't played a lot of these kinds of games before but you can see that the collector's edition is gorgeous the regular edition is uh almost identical almost equally so uh we've got these Wonders that are unique to each player color you and then you've got the buildings where the style is unique to the player color the numbers are unique to each player color and you are bidding on locations on the board and then players are adding their buildings upside down so that you can see the number because all the buildings except for these wonders will stand on their head uh allowing you to see okay what's the highest bid right now and do I want to take that space or take some area on the board the art is great the production quality is incredible the the pieces are fantastic uh this is a beautiful beautiful game and it is a a highly strategic spatial bidding game because there are a lot of ways that you're trying to earn points in this game uh you are trying to control a

9:11 certain number of areas of a particular color that's going to give you more points if you collect these little round chips that are on each of those areas so the chips are assigned randomly so if I'm trying to uh I I might be trying to get those green chips so that I can take over more those green spaces but not all the green spaces are going to have green chips on them because everything's at random you're you've got a situation where you you're going to earn points if you control Bridges or if you've got areas that are around a lake or areas that are around one of these blimps that are on the map so there are lots of different ways that you're going to earn points uh your wonder when you place your Wonder in the second round the final round of the game the Wonder is also going to earn you some points there are currents that you're going to so some goals that you'll have that will give you victory points when you play that wonder and and you're pairing that goal down so that in the second round you know exactly okay if I play this I know that I'm going to earn this many points and you're working towards that goal so so there are lots of ways that you can earn points the rules themselves though are super accessible so this is another game and and I've talked about this probably again and again throughout the year that if if I can bring a game to the table that's easy to teach and learn because the rules are simple enough and yet there's strategic depth I love it I that's that's perfect if it plays in under two hours that's going to

10:42 be 100% the kind of game that that I want to play with my playgroup and this really does hit that sweet spot plus uh it's gorgeous with these components um are there downsides not well I don't think there are downsides to too much to this game uh it's one where well maybe once you get a bunch of the tall buildings on the table they can block your view a little bit but we never really had a problem with that uh it is one where the strategies do they're they're complex enough that in your first playthrough you you'll just be starting to appreciate what this game is all about so you probably need to play it a few times before you can really say okay this is what I'm going to work towards this time this is how I want play this one but it does get in your head and you do want to play it again because it's beautiful because it's it's quick enough uh and and because you know it's got these great components and you know what I learned from playing it is that I really do like bidding games uh skyrise definitely knocks it out of the park how is it not rated higher than eight on Board Game Geek I don't know uh at least at the time of this recording 7.8 was it score uh but it's it's certainly to to me it's definitely worth more than that I'm almost scared to bring it to Big Board Game events because it's the collector's edition I don't want it to get all messed up and I'm worried I might lose pieces if I bring it out in public so it's when

12:13 people come to see me here at the house uh I I I'll often have this thing set up on the game table it's even got Point trackers that are these little Zeppelins but the zeppelins in the deluxe edition have this little nub on the top so that if you have the same number of points as player they can stack up on the same space so really like even the organizer in the box is fantastic and keeps everything together you've got another strategy for earning points where you'll get 10 points if you're the first one to play your final building and four points if you're the second one there's a little coin but this is the key to the city and it's this big metal key that has a little indent in the in the Box organizer where you can hide it uh the cards for your Wonder points the cards that where that that dictate that you're going to earn points for having buildings around Lakes are kind of gold foil on the back I can't say enough good things about skyrise and like every roxley game it's gorgeous um I I want to play it I just set up this board it's been a little while since I've played skyrise and I want to play it right now just as I'm sitting here looking at it so it's it's number five it could have been higher I guess it depends on my mood it has like I said been a minute since I played played this one uh but I love skyrise by roxley games I just want to mention one more thing before I put skyrise away and as I I'm picking up all of the pieces here I'm picking up these these board pieces which are lined up

13:45 randomly it's a modular board but again just so well thought out this game on the bottom it indicates how to stack them up in the box so that everything fits and everything closes so uh once again roxley thanks so much uh for these this design because this would be a puzzle that I'd have to figure out every time I tried to put this game away number four number four on my list is one you might be able to guess because it's missing again from the shelf behind me because I've got the box here uh beside me at the table this is a a game that if you've been following the videos along the way uh you might know that right away I said this is one of the best games I've played in Forever uh it's the only abstract well one of the few abstract games I've played this year I like abstracts although I'm not very good at them uh this is a fantastic abstract game that comes from BS Games actually a Canadian publisher a game called Coda now it doesn't it's you can see the name of the game is on the side here but there's no name on the front of the box and you can actually use the top of the box as a second board so so the white part is a two-player board and then around the outside is for multiple players this like I said is from BS Games and it's a game that as I'm recording this has an 8.8 rating at Board Game Geek so super might be the highest rated game out of all of the

15:17 ones that I'm talking about on my top 10 list what a fantastic game this is if you like abstracts I've set it up for two players here if I flip over this board it's got the larger board board like you saw on the box for multiple players and sonota is a game that like skyrise it's a game with simple rules but it's still super strategic this is a game that plays great with two players three players four like we the play count has not mattered it's always been a good time when we brought this out and it's super simple to learn and teach and yet very strategic it's a game where you're choosing either to increase or decrease the value of one of these dice on the board by one or you can move one of these dice according to the number that's at the top so if you've got a three here I can move at three spaces and I have to move at all three spaces if I happen to land on an opponent's die by moving exactly three spaces then I get to capture that die that was that die is going to come over to the capture board and I'm going to earn that number of points at the end of the game just everything about this game is clever and well designed it's it it's a game that plays very differently when you've got multiple players like I said still fun still strategic uh but your strategy is going to be very different um but you can play this game at at any play count and because it's simple to teach and learn uh this is a super fun one to

16:47 bring out because it's just so easy to figure this one out and then you want to play it again once you've got the moves figured out you want to say to yourself oh maybe I should try maybe I should building up my my dice first before I start moving things around like I said I'm not very good at these abstract games I do like to play them my son is really good at these kinds of things and he hasn't even tried I don't think he's tried CODA yet honestly my son who really likes abstracts uh he's been so immersed in games like unmatched or senjutsu that this one maybe hasn't gotten pulled out I can't recall if he's played it but it's it's a great game uh with such simple mechanics but strategic depth it plays quickly this is a game that I really really enjoy I've been lucky enough to play a few games against one of the designers but I got my copy and you've got all of these dice with different colors and they have kind of a marble finish on them they're good-looking dice do I have a complaint about this game the only one is that you know I wish the board was fancier so we've got these fancy Dice and they really pop off that brown board but I know as I played it I was thinking oh I'd like to have a wooden board that I could play this on or or what if the board was lit from underneath and the dice were translucent that would be a really cool thing too what a great experience this thing is you could get stuck really thinking about your turns

18:17 it's it is an abstract game and and it's very I think very chess-like but it's really interesting in a way because you can play more than two players um but it is a game where you'll really be sitting and thinking and Counting out moves and making sure you have guards and if I move here then what's my opponent going to do next um it's it's just really clever and it's a really great time if you look on my Instagram and uh if you take a peek at the the BS Games site pretty much all of the players look the same while they're playing this game everybody is deep in thought they've sort of got their hand on their chin and they're trying to figure out what to do next uh it's a real brain burning exercise despite the fact that you can only choose to do one thing or the other on your turn move or adjust a die and um now I'm thinking when my son comes over for the Christmas break we're definitely going to have to pull this out and make sure that he gets a chance to try it out uh with our play group and that's it that's number four so there's only three left here in this countdown uh three games left to talk about the top three we've talked about this this last three are games that I absolutely love what games could possibly be better than these ones that I've talked about today but um what a fantastic group of three games and I cannot wait to tell you about my top three so we're we're through with the odds of the top 10 we're on our way to the very top of that

19:49 list to the peak what could possibly be the very best game of the year um I I can't wait to tell you more about it thanks so much for watching if you have any questions or comments you can leave them of course in the comment section below the video or you can email me at Brian atrain onam doca brains on games.cz on games is the X handle in the blue sky feed and the Instagram page and the Facebook page so we're all over the place and if you enjoyed this video and you want to be notified of future ones you can head on over to YouTube and click that subscribe button thanks for joining me and hopefully I'll see you next time n