Top 50 Board Games of All Time (10-1)

0:00 hi welcome to actual Oh I'm John Perkis today I'm counting down my top 10 board games of all time out of thousands of games I've played these are my all-time best the ones that I'll always want to come back to and they have given the experiences I'll never forget if you've enjoyed watching my top 50 games of all time series please know that I couldn't have made any of these videos on my channel without the financial support of my patreon backers right let's get to the list a number 10 is time stories this is a cooperative storytelling game where you are sent to a period in time together and you have to explore that world and solve a mystery together so the scenario with the base game is that you're sent to an asylum in France in the 1920s and you have to explore that asylum meet the characters there find out what is going on and then ultimately try and complete your mission I love the way that they bring you into the world in this game it's very visual every time you enter a location you have this panorama of cards with amazing artwork and you have to pick where in that room or place you want to visit so you might split up and then you pick up that card in it describe something maybe you have an encounter with someone or you find something but rather than everyone reading that card that's your encounter that happened to you so the game encourages you to share it with everyone else but sort of tell it in your own words so it becomes this storytelling within a storytelling game and it just feels more real than you know your average board game where you might just sort of read everything get all the information about everything no this actually feels like you're part of a

1:31 team where you don't learn about everything that people have their kind of own specialties based on what they've experienced and that feels real to what you're trying to achieve every game that you play in time stories is completely different it takes you to different worlds the first ones is the French asylum then you've got 1990s America you've got ancient Egypt you've got the Arctic on the the boat the expedition endurance what I love about this game is that has such a feel of exploration there you never know what's around the corner or in that next location and even when you flip over one of those cards you don't know exactly what's going to happen but you are making decisions based off hunches you see an angry man in the corner you think well maybe two of us should go there together because he's probably going to try and fight us or where is that artifact you really need where's that going to be because you need to try and do things as quickly as possible because you only have a limited time to complete your mission not all the scenarios are equal I really like the asylum one and the Marcie case the Egypt one the expedition one I wasn't so hot on the prophecy of dragons but they all deliver something different some focus a bit more on the dice and feel a bit more like a role-playing game others have a real puzzle to them that feel a bit more like an escape room game but across all of them is this incredible artwork and just a system that allows you to experience a story in a way that no other game does there isn't over complicated and really makes you feel like you're in it they're actually doing away with the the base game of time stories and and all the

3:03 upcoming scenarios are going to be standalone and I really like the idea of that I just hope that they can keep taking us to interesting parts of history and tell interesting stories that is time stories a number 9 is snake oil this is a party game that has just created so many fun experiences for me just so much laughter from this game that that's why it just had to be on this list and it's a game where you are pitching inventions weird and stupid inventions to another player so one person each round is the judge and they're represented by a character so they might be a caveman or a clown or a scientist and then the other players have to make inventions by connecting together two cards so they've each got a hand of seven cards that just a bunch of simple words and they are going to mash two together to create something so you might create a bread brush or a blanket machine what it is is up to you and so you're trying to find something that you think a clown would want and then really the the game is in pitching it to them so you've got thirty Seconds to a minute to explain why your invention the bread brush is worth them buying and why it's specifically great for a clown so everyone has their chance to pitch their invention and then the clown decides which is their favorite or which player made them laugh the most which is generally in this game the same thing and this I just love that creative improv challenge of trying to make people laugh trying to think up

4:34 something that's kind of on the spot but you get a bit of planning with it and there are a lot of games out there like this and I do enjoy those games like funemployed but I think that snake-oil does it best because it really takes it to that silly point I think that I've never struggled to come up with anything in snake-oil and that by just mashing together two random words you always do come up with something that is quite inherently funny but you do have the opportunity to then play on that and having those customer cards as well give you something to aim towards each round so you're not just trying to pitch to your friend there's another thing to wrap it round it's it's simple in its conceit but it creates so much fun and I absolutely love it the downside is that this game is definitely not for everyone and think carefully before you go out and buy it a lot of players find it too daunting this is just it's not fun to have to kind of talk in front of a group like you're doing a presentation at work and so I don't get the chance to play it as often as I would like because I think it really thrives on having a great group for it but if you're a bunch of people that you know would be into this kind of thing then snake oil is the best party game of its type that is snake oil number eight is Battlestar Galactica this is a rich thematic hidden traitor game based on the modern TV series it's a long game it's an intense game where you're all supposed to be working cooperatively to look after the ship and

6:07 eventually jump ie like time jump to earth to get back to earth but wash you're doing that you're being attacked at all sides by Cylons they're trying to get onto your ship all these bad things are happening and some players are secretly Cylons amongst the other players and they are trying to sabotage from within there's lots of different things in this game that they can do but a lot of it comes down to these crises that happen at the end of every turn so something bad is happening it's a story from the TV series that say there's a water shortage and then the other players are going to vote with these colored cards that they have but in secret how they want the crisis to be resolved and generally if you want to help the crisis you're gonna give the colors that they want and if you want to sabotage it you'll put in other colors but because you're putting them on facedown and then they get shuffled up you don't know who sabotage what you don't know what happened and there's that air of mystery but you can you can see some things like you know that there was a red card in there and you know that only that player tends to get the red cards and so you start to throw in accusations and that's where the game comes to life it's full of arguments and trying to understand why people have done certain things are they just being stupid or are they being a Cylon and backstabbing and then there's just so many different thematic touches to the game like you can put players in the Brig because you think they're a Cylon and ultimately of course they weren't a Cylon and the Cylons are doing a great job of hiding themselves in

7:37 plain sight and it fits the TV series so well so if you ever watch that then you absolutely should try Battlestar Galactica at least once and I think there's something about a longer hidden traitor game that actually makes it easier to stay hidden in resistance it's so intense and people are asking you to your face whether you're a bad guy I think that with Battlestar Galactica because your betrayal happens in actions I don't know I found it not that hard to stay hidden is so faithful to the TV series you each play it as characters with your own special abilities and you can go down different paths you might become president or admiral of the fleet and that gives you special powers that other players don't have you can get into the Vipers and pilot them to shoot down the Cylon Raiders there's there's a lot going on it's complicated in terms of rules and it's a long game but it really rewards you with an experience that has lots of detail to it that really feels like the story that it's trying to create and even if you haven't watched the TV series it still is going to make sense to you as people that are running a ship together and and trying to find out who that Hidden traitors are this isn't a game that I get to play a lot but that's kind of a running theme with my favorite games is that they are in my collection because they have experiences that unlike anything else I've ever played and they have created memories that I'll never forget and I can't wait to have the opportunity to play them again that is Battlestar Galactica a number seven is

9:09 Sherlock Holmes consulting detective this is a cooperative crime solving game where you're given a mystery that Sherlock Holmes would normally have to solve but instead you're solving it and the way you're doing that is by visiting different locations in London to meet with witnesses and suspects to hear their accounts to find out their side of the story and you're getting information you're taking notes and you're working out whose stories fit what evidence is important and ultimately who the criminal is who is the person that you need to arrest so whether it's a jewel thief or a murderer you're part of this story and it's like reading a Sherlock Holmes novel but you actually get to solve it you get to do the whodunit and I just find that fascinating and I love it this is the original style of that of a game there's been lots of copies and there was Detective which was further down my list but I love the simplicity of this one and it's got a few cool touches that just make it great the writing of it's really nice it's really in that style of Sherlock Holmes you have these newspapers that you can go through that give you details about the case but also have these wonderful red herrings in so you're poring through the day's newspaper to find out things that might connect to your case and then you are having to go on hunches you know that some jewelry's been taken so let's go and visit the local jewel jewelers so they might give us information about it or you know that the suspect smokes so let's go and visit the places that would sell cigarettes and maybe they all have information so you're not always going you're not being sent to places necessarily you're having to follow off your own hunches and just like any of

10:39 these crime solving games you are using your understanding of the world you are going off your hunches and your understanding of how these crime things generally go to follow certain suspects and follow leads and you get rewarded because generally they pay off and you feel like you've really solved something this is my favorite game to play with my wife there's something so fun about discussing the case together it's like when you're watching crime TV series together and you're shouting out who you think did it but you actually get to solve it as a game that is Sherlock Holmes consulting detective a number six is nothing personal this is a negotiation game where you play as families that are trying to control the Mafia so the board represents the hierarchy of the Mafia you got the capo at the top and then all their various underlings and the different powerful positions that they own and they're represented by cards so they can change around as the game goes on and you are trying to place your influence onto these gangsters so that you will term Utley control them and that you're gonna get the money and the respect that comes with them so at the start of the game you take it in turns to play these cards that are going to allow you to place your tokens your family influence on the different characters and then as the game goes on you're going to be trying to take people's influence off of them you can get characters killed you can try and make a move on them which means that you try and move up the ranks but of course that can backfire on you and then your character can get killed you're trying to make money there's full of bribes

12:11 there's so much rich negotiation in this game that you can pay $10 to re-roll a dice let's say that you can accidentally don't pull off the assassination that you're trying to do well you can pay $10 to re-roll that it's expensive but it might be worth it you can obviously bribe other players to not go on the characters that you want or to put actions use actions in your favor because another thing that you can do is that each of the characters in the different hierarchy have actions that can influence the game in a certain way so one might be able to remove an influence marker which might change the balance in your favor another one will be able to try and kill a character and then you've also got the way that they score points and money so the hierarch generally they're going to be scoring more points of money but each character is different each card has its own different actions on what I love about this game is that it's so chaotic that so much can happen and does happen and that you are trying to stay under the radar a bit just like a negotiation you don't want to get way out in front with loads of point because then you become a target but you're trying to eke your way through just like you would have to do in this kind of situation you don't want to present yourself is this big threat because everyone will come after you but if you can find the way to play off of everyone to make the deals that benefit you that don't cost you too much that's that's the crux of the game

13:41 and it's so formatic but it's also just so much fun I love negotiation games and there's been a lot of negotiation games on this list but nothing personal is my favorite pure one because it's all about money changing hands it's all about making deals and backstabbing people there isn't much else going on and what's there is is just so much fun that is nothing personal number five is Las Vegas or Las Vegas royale and this is my favorite dice game it's my favorite game to introduce new people to gaming because it's just so much fun you are trying to win the most money by placing your dice onto casinos on your turn you roll all your dice and you have to place all of the same number onto the casino or of the matching number and the casinos have different amounts of money on them and so you want to have your the most dice on a casino that's going to pay out a lot of money and if you do at the end of the round you'll get the cash but of course you're fighting with other players for those casinos and if they get more dice and you on there then they will get the cash instead but there's a clever twist which is if you tie you've both cancel each other out and then another player who's coming in after might get all the cash that you were going for so you're desperately trying to aim for the things that you want but of course the dice are really fickle they don't roll the way that you want and so you might not get the numbers that you need to come up when you want them to come up and there's these interesting decisions with

15:12 let's say you roll six sixes well that's great six is going to payout $100,000 but do you really want to waste all six of your dice on that because then that means you're not really gonna have any dice to win any other casinos this round and that's all the money you're going to make whereas you can be quite clever hedge your bets amongst a few casinos and actually make out with quite a lot of money there's a fair amount of luck to it but it's enjoyable like it's entertaining luck Las Vegas is a game that just delivers big moments and and you really want something to come off you really want to roll that thing with your final you go and it works or somebody creates a tie so that the person who put one dice on get a hundred thousand dollars and those people get absolutely nothing Las Vegas royale adds a whole bunch more stuff and you should go and check out my best of the month video that I talked about it in because there's more detail there but it makes what's an amazing game even better this is my favorite filler game a favorite dice game my favorite game to introduce new people to I think it's an absolute classic and I just love it I would play at any time that is Las Vegas a number four is Game of Thrones the board game second edition this is the ultimate game of Thrones board game you've got a map of Westeros in the middle and you eat players one of the big houses such as the Starks or the Lannisters and to win the game you need to control seven castles so you've got your troops on the board and you're sending them out to fight with the other

16:42 houses to try and control regions and the way you're doing it is by placing orders secretly into the regions that you control so nobody knows what your plans are but you can discuss it you can sort of tell people what you're going to do but then of course change your mind and so for some of your regions you might just stay in consolidate power which gives you these tokens that you can then spend to use later in the game or you might expand out you might march into an empty region or you might march into battle with someone else you might place a defense token because you think that somebody's going to attack you at a place week that you really want to hold to get anywhere in the game you're going to have to create alliances this is a game of diplomacy so you will create a temporary alliance with the player to your left or to your right you might work with two other players against someone else but you might create a deal with them and then change your mind backstab them there's so much intrigue to the game that you make promises ultimately you can't keep them forever because only one player can win but it's a long and you're never gonna get anywhere without some help and you can support people in battle you can change your mind and you've said that you were gonna support the people going in attacking but actually you decide to support the defending side because they're not doing as well it's amazing how formatic the game is there's loads of little extra touches to the game you have these supply barrels that you need to make sure that you control because if you don't you're not going to be able to own as big armies as

18:14 the other players and that's going to really hold you back with your growth and actually being able to survive at all in the game it's a really cutthroat game you have to want to be mean you have to want to get involved in the negotiation but I absolutely love it and some of my favorite memories of board games going into that other room you're not even there by the board and you're talking with your allies about what you're gonna do and then of course you change your mind or you backstab them we used to pass notes to each other or set up whatsapp groups and and send secret messages to each other about your plans that means that the game goes on a really really long time but it never gets boring for me because I just it's I'm just in it the whole time I just have so much fun with it and the reason this is so high on my top 50 is also because of the mothers of mother of dragons and expansion that was released last year that adds in loads more cool stuff like the Targaryen faction and Dragons and a whole nother part of the board it's great and I would highly recommend that that is the Game of Thrones board game second edition and number three is dead of winter this is a semi cooperative board game that really feels like The Walking Dead the board game because you are living on a colony during a zombie outbreak and you're all at each other's throats because you've all got your own hidden objectives so the start of the game you're given an objective this is something that you need to win the game if you don't achieve that you won't win the game other players might but you won't so you

19:45 might need to get a certain number of books or a certain number of food and you're keeping it to yourself to not share with the rest of the group you've got that objective that you're trying to achieve but you're also just trying to survive because there are cuantas on B's constantly attacked and you're gonna need enough food to feed the group but you're also gonna need to survive those zombies so you're gonna want to find guns to fight them off and everything you do is tough if you go out to these different locations to search for stuff but you might create noise which attracts zombies they're gonna come you're gonna need to fight them off but if you fight them off you're risking getting bitten and if you get bitten in a location where someone else is then that might spread to another player there's so many cool thumb attic touches to the game that really tell a story as part of this cooperative experience and I just love that and I love this the hidden objective vibe because you are working together ultimately but you're also having to be a bit selfish you need that food through objective of the game ends now and you don't have that you won't win the game but also the group needs the food and if you don't give the group the food then actually you might just all lose the game together anyway and it was pointless being selfish so there's this fun balance there that I just think is wonderful and not in any other game as far as I'm aware and then you've also got the potential for a hidden traitor who has a very strong hidden objective which is that they want the colony to fail they want everyone to die and so they are really trying to sabotage from within without being spotted they're

21:15 trying to just be as useless as possible and not help everyone and attract the zombies and so it's fun there's this constant fear that someone is the traitor and were they making a bad decision did they take a stupid turn because they're a traitor and they're trying to kill everyone or were they just being an idiot and there's lots of accusations flying and you never assure whether there's a traitor in the game or not the other cool thing about the game of the crossroads cards so there's a crossroad card drawn every turn and if you do something specific that the card demands you trigger that and you get to read a piece of story and they generally really big events that often have a decision at the end often a moral decision and you have to decide what's going to be best for the group and if you play it like this you can play it so you don't actually know the effects of that decision so do you want to help this person well that's probably going to come back to haunt you but it's the right thing to do but you then have an extra human in the group so that could be good could be bad it's an extra to feed but it also means it's an extra person to go out and kill zombies for example I really love those decisions and they really take the story of this game up another notch so it's a great cooperative game as it is and that hidden traitor makes it a tense experience but the cross Rose cards just take it to another level I love the theme that dead of winter delivers and it's actually surprisingly short compared to like the epic games of Game of Thrones and Battlestar Galactica that is dead of winter number two is code names this is the quintessential party game for me you

22:47 play on two teams and on each team there's a clue giver and they are trying to get their team to guess certain words so you've got a grid of words in the center and then you've got a code card the clue givers do that tell you which words are their team red or blue team and they're trying to get their teammates to guess those words by giving a clue there is one word so let's say for example spider and then a number which relates to how many words that clue connects to so three so if I say spider three they know that they're trying to find three words in that grid that are somehow relating to spider but I'm trying to give as big a clue as possible I'm trying to connect all these disparate words that don't really connect because I'm racing to beat that other team so generally when I play I want to give really big clues but the risk of that of course is that I'm trying to connect way too much stuff to a spider and they get thrown off by it and they don't read my mind they don't understand why I'm thinking the way I'm thinking and then they ultimately hit the wrong word so they have a discussion and I love that side of it that cooperative discussion trying to work out what the hell I'm on about and then they pick their choices but if they hit on one of the other teams words their go is over and then of course the other team are now ahead of you and so you really have to be careful so as the clue giver you're really thinking the clues through that you give because you don't want to hit on the wrong words you also don't want to hit the assassin because if they pick that word you lose the game immediately it's a really think

24:18 e game as the clue giver and there's just something about that challenge about trying to think of the perfect word that connects them all that just gets me that I just am P to play this game over and over and over again and on the guessing side as well still again I'm I'm addicted to coming back and trying to work out what my friends mean and playing it with the same groups over and over again it's just there's no game out there that I would be happy to play it as much as this one and I really can see playing codenames for the rest of my life it's just wonderful I like code names pictures I love code names - yep but I really do love the word one there's just something about trying to work out the definitions of words and finding those connections that grabs me the most that is code names a number one is pandemic this is a cooperative game about saving the world from four deadly diseases so you've got a map of the world in the middle and there are diseases that are spread across the board and you are trying to move around and treat them because if the world gets overrun by them you're gonna lose the game but the AI is constantly bringing these diseases out so you're constantly having to fight against this tide of diseases and on top of that you have to find a cure by collecting cards of the same color trading them in to get the cures you need to cure all full diseases before the end of the game and that's how you win so you're racing against time to get it all done you've got limited actions and it's really about how you work with

25:49 the other players you've all got special abilities you might be a medic or a scientist or a researcher you have to trade cards with each other move each other around the board decide who's going to tackle which problems when and you know the way that the AI works is that certain cities are going to outbreak at certain times and if too many cities outbreaks that's another way you can lose the game there's a lot to think about and it just creates this fascinating puzzle that I just find engrossing every time I play it and the combination of special abilities the way the cards come out to me it's the ultimate cooperative puzzle that I can just keep coming back to and it never gets boring is the first cooperative game that I ever played and I just fell in love with it because of the theme it's such a cinematic idea and because that theme does come through it's not this and amazing thematic reproduction or simulation but it does have these touches that really feel like the disease is spreading and you constantly feel under pressure to get it all done in time I also really love pandemic full of Rome pandemic Iberia but I only wanted to put one panic game on this list and to me I would always come back to the original I just think it's the perfect board game that I would recommend to everyone if they were trying to get into the hobby and it's one that can still fascinate me even after years of playing it that is pandemic those were my top 10 favorite board games of all time if you'd like to buy any of them there are links in the description thank you to everyone who

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