Top 10 Board Games of 2021 | Kovray Edition

0:00 hello everybody my name is ilya and my name is tyler taylor we make up galbraith a couple that loves to play board games and today we have our top 10 of 2021 and tyra has a noisy jacket i'm cold well we wanted to wait until 2022 so we can get every last play possible in to make sure our list as informed as it possibly is yes exactly we to make the time crunch for the games that were released a little bit later in the year exactly so this year we've played just over 100 games released or last year i should say in 2021 specifically just games that were released in 2021 we played more games than that but for the purpose of this list we've only considered a hundred about a little over a hundred so we tried our best to play as many as we possibly could but this is the list that you get so what will this video look like yes okay so we're gonna start the video off by mentioning a few honorable mentions these games we're just going to explain what they are or we're going to give the title we're going to give the publishers and the designers and then we're going to go and list three of these honorable mentions each and furthering that we're going to actually just say an overall general census of like why they made it into our honorable mention but weren't quite there into our list so close exactly yeah so then after

1:32 that we're gonna start from 10 and move all the way to one and we'll just like go in like opposites like i'll go and then hell yeah we'll go and then i don't know that's not what that is we pass it on so once we do that we're going to take each of the games we're going to name their publishers name their designers main mechanic main theme and then have one selling point to why it's on our list why did it make the top two exactly yeah and we've been extremely good this time around at not showing each other our lists so all of this is going to be a complete surprise i even tried to snoop once and he wouldn't let i slapped him with a sticky pad just kidding i didn't do that but i thought about it so this is going to be a natural reaction to each other's lists yes completely unaware will there be surprises most likely this is a great opportunity to pause the video well first of all hit that subscribe button and a like button if you're new here because we'd love for you to join our wholesome family but also maybe take a guess at what you think tyler's and i uh what could be on the list see how many you can get maybe throw in 10 maybe say this one's number one for sure and then score points based on your own system of merit if you do well or just write down your top 10 and compare it to how it compares to our top 10. that also hurts because that sounds a lot easier okay let's go right into it honorable mention take us away okay my honorable

3:04 mention we get three games each three so mine are botoku by devere games and it's designed by jermaine p milan okay the second game is riverside it's by chili fox games and not by dropping a pencil it's designed by asmond and elif svensson and then the third game is radlonz which is by roxley and designed by daniel picnic nice yeah he's actually uh helped developed magic the gathering which i also really like and essentially these games um really we didn't get them to the table until december and the toku for example way too heavy of the game for me to actually make a decision on i do love it it just knew more times yeah and then riverside is technically only just coming out in north america so it was that weird space where i wasn't sure if it should be a 2021 game or not um but great game and then rad lands same thing we got it right at the middle of in the middle of december so uh we need to play more all right moving on to ilias so my three honorable mentions are don't so we have mind management which is designed by jay cormier and sen fun lim this is published by off the page games then we have canvas which is designed by jeff chin and andrew nerger and that's published by road to infamy and trails which is designed by henry

4:36 audubon and published by key master games trails so beautiful so all those just barely missed my list they were all so close for their own different ways trails just because of the accessibility and how fantastic easy it is to get to the table introduce to everybody and game i love then my management i wish we played it more there's more that we need to kind of get through but it's one of the best uh hidden movement games every game has those really tense moments it's so smart and so clever so many little easter eggs just absolutely wonderful game and last but not least canvas which is still on our wall it's such a fun little party trick you bring it up and you say hey let's play this game everyone always loves it it's such a creative different game it is pretty beautiful so those are my honorable mentions cool all right let's uh dive right into our top 10 then let's do it so my number 10 is what is it what is it it's doodle dash so just kidding doodash is designed by friedrieff maya pauline bouvarp and i live in asmin spencing and it's published by chili fox games essentially what it is is it's a party drawing game where you're trying to draw the fastest to in order to be the first one guests essentially because the person who'll draw the fastest will get the little golden rod and then they get

6:06 the opportunity to score the point the first now i typically don't like dragon games so i think this is another huge reason why this one's on my list because it's won me over it's so much fun it's definitely one of my favorite party games to introduce to folks now yes yes i have i definitely have now every single game that we've played we've had that belly laughing moment where everyone just cannot stop laughing because of how ridiculous someone's drawing is or maybe someone misinterpreted what they're supposed to draw and drew something completely different it's just hilarious i also deeply offended somebody by accident in this game because i was the second one whose drawing was to be guest and i really wanted that point and they showed their drawing and without missing a bead i'm just like oh phew i still have a chance uh literally no hesitation no hesitation no hesitation whatsoever it was funny that's my yes yeah we left but it's just a wonderful game there's a lot uh i i genuinely think like it's going to be a game that will take over the masses in the future to come yeah i think it could be a very popular party game it's it's definitely doing its job and that is doodle dash number 10 for ilya number 10 free number 10 for me is actually savannah park yeah wow that was pretty new yes yeah yeah so we've only played this several few times but it's uh published by capstone games it's designed by wolfgang kramer and michael keising and

7:36 basically in this tile placement game it's like abstract strategy um what do you say it's a combination of i like to compare it to a little bit of kuruba because it's one well in this case you pick a tile everyone takes drink picking a towel and everyone has to move that tile and then also king domino because you have to get the animals to be near the most ponds to get the biggest source of water for them as possible because i'll score you more yeah yeah so you're trying to score the most points by making your same species connect to each other and also connect to ponds the more pawns they connect to and the larger the group they are the more points you'll score but the wild thing is ah because savannah park uh is that exactly what ilia said is i'll say a tile and then we'll all move that tile on our board but the way the styles are placed is they're placed in different areas and with the different placement methods that they have it gets really tough to plan ahead and have the perfect placements so the reason why this game got there got to the top 10 for me and only managed to get to the top 10 is because it reminds me a lot of calico with the tile placement and i loved calico it's actually my top game of 2020 um and it just seemed very nostalgic so i am i i finished playing this game and i just want to play it again so it's it's got good replayability in my mind and i'm excited to continue playing this one it's quite a brain burner it is very much a brain burner surprisingly because it looks very friendly any game with

9:07 animals does and it is not the part that i love about it is and the part that hurts my brain the most is where the tiles are when you start off they can't be there by the end of the game so like yeah as much as you can but everything has to move and that's what makes it really tricky because you just want things to stay the way they are but that's not well sometimes you don't i do you just go into the game not thinking about it like that and that is my number ten number nine number nine tyler for me is brew oh yeah this one is designed by stevo therese and is published by pandasaurus games this game is cute but mean and i love it and not the first time we played it but one of the times we played it we managed to play with brown beard gaming so tj and richmond and it was an absolute blast we also played it with max and sam table knots and lord of the boards and oh my goodness like it it starts off all nice and friendly and you're like oh i'm just gonna draft some of these animals roll these dice and then boom i'm stealing things so it's basically an area controlled resource management game um where you mix potions and use them wisely or not so wisely to score points and tyler just scorches all the forests well us and then we're just there like trying to make our best way through the game one

10:37 of the strategies you could scorch the areas and then you can get control of the areas by having all the other ones scorched so if nobody's doing that i tend to lean towards it but yeah it's a lot of fun i i don't know what else to say to that besides that it's a lot of fun it's an area of control game and i really like area control i like a lot of games but the animals in it are so cute too they're like these mystical animals it's like a frog fox bird and pharaoh all the things too very cool so that's my number nine yeah my number nine is and published by leader games so the reason so this is uh well how do i describe i don't know how to describe oh it's like a civilization game you're playing one against your citizens trying to usurp the chancellor uh by moving to various mobilizing forces making alliances doing a lot of strategic things and essentially the reason that this game is on my list and the reason it's not as high because i wish i think it would be higher is if we played it more um but i love how innovative and different it is it's unlike anything i've ever played before because it's almost like a legacy game in a sense that the game evolves the more that you play it there's new locations that create it there's a history that is written for the game which is super neat because each game you pick up there's a rich narrative that occurred before and

12:08 you're trying to continue the narrative and live in this world and really immerse yourself and be a part of it um there's there's just there's so much to say and so much love about this game but it's a game i really look forward to playing more and diving more into because there's just so much left to explore and such a beautiful world left to build there are a lot of strategies going on in that game and i think it's really cool because whenever you play it you can play completely different from what you were doing before and then also you have to adapt to the wind conditions that are provided to you and the components are out of this world there's a neoprene mask so beautiful even the deluxe like a little books the coins oh it's such a it's always steals a table presents it leaves a great impression and that is why oath is my number nine all right now my number eight rolling realms designed by jamie stackmeyer and published by stonemeyer games i feel like i thought that would be higher on your list really yeah i really like this game mainly because it kind of started off in the beginning of the pandemic where it was a print and play that kind of merged into a full realized published game that was published a few months ago now it's september early september yeah but what's really neat is a take it's a roll and write game in which it takes different stone meyer games and creates mini games out of them and pairs them in sets of three for three rounds each where you're trying to collect the most stars by you know doing the things you love to do

13:38 in rolling rites comic books all the combos but i really like i think what's really innovative and what's really neat about it is it ties in different games into one and it it drips a little bit of mechanics from the core from the other sonar games into it so like tapestry for example has that capital city where you're trying to fill in those spots and collect them in a certain way so it almost teases and makes you curious about some of the other games that they have and i love there's also terra mystica promo pack now so the present that it kind of sets the games can co-exist together and there can be that harmony where we can just celebrate our passion and love for games yeah there's like a community around um playing or designing different worlds too yeah on facebook and boardgamegeek there's been people that are like you know i love parks here's what a parks role might look like really people are getting really creative about it and i love that community sense of it too but in general this is a game i'm excited to see evolve it's always a blast to play um love it yeah yeah i think i'm particularly excited about that one because um every time this new stonewire game comes out a new realm will be coming out and it's just another reason to get rolling realms to the table um after playing whatever game so marco's up next and let's not forget the solomo i'm not a solo gamer i wish i need to be a solo gamer because i actually really enjoy it every time i do play it but the solo mode in rolling rounds is just chef's kiss it's a mini golf modules and it doesn't it takes different realms but

15:10 also puts a spin on them so you're like you can't do this for example or you have to do it then this way and it's really clever some of them are super super tricky but some of them are just fun and creative puzzles that you got to solve yeah and i did quite well maybe i'll post my score down below and you can try to beat me some of the solo game you can actually just play with each like together but separate because there was a couple of them that i know we were playing at the exact same time but we weren't actually like yeah it's just tough when i beat it and you don't because i have to wait for you to beat it yeah anyway your number eight my number eight my number eight dump bottom bottom my number eight in too deep oh yeah okay so this one's designed by josh capelle and daryl chao and it's published by burnt island games super cool so basically in this game you're trying to um delve into this syndicate by not going in too deep i mean you can go into deep but sometimes it can lose you the game but you basically collect points through completing missions and collecting different icons different intel all these cool different basically collecting things you build a whole chapter essentially as you play the game there's a whole dialogue but the cool thing about this game is that everybody controls the same characters so there's a number of characters on the board um on the central board that everybody has to move and it can kind of

16:40 really mess up your game if somebody else is moving one of your characters and then like if they if they own your character or if they've hooked your character you have to like pull it back but you have to pay them for it and you really have to understand the risks that you're taking and i just think it's a really really well put together game and i don't think i've played a game quite like that in a while um that i've enjoyed as much as i have with this one the theme is just so i feel like it's so immersive it's just there for me and i think it checks all the boxes i don't think i could have said that better myself yeah i think it's it's a great definition of a semi-cooperative game where you're trying to do your own thing and everyone else is trying to do their own thing and every now and then it doesn't work out and you got there's a little bit of i don't know if i would call it semi-cooperative it's just like uh semi-symmetrical because you're moving the same characters but like you're not working together to complete a goal um so yeah but maybe by accident you are yeah yeah it's a great game i don't have anything else to say about it it's just i guess the reason why it's only eight is we had a hundred games to pick from and there were some games that i enjoyed and played more than in too deep nice that's it well how about your number seven oh so my number seven

18:11 is you can so this one is published by renegade games and origames and the designer is richard garfield okay this game is basically clank but with vampires and hunting and also not like clank because you don't have to get you don't have to worry about getting trapped underground but you do have to get worried you do have to worry about getting attacked by the sun because you don't want to stay out too early or late to you don't want to stay out too late because you're a vampire you're basically um trekking through the world that is the world that they've created in this game and you're going and deck building yourself you're feeding you're feeding yourself yeah you're using these cards to basically move yourself outside of this castle area to collect more humans and more abilities but the neat thing about this game is as you progress the game gets longer and longer because the humans will yeah make you full and then you move slower and there are a lot of different like interactions that you can do like there's a lot of um public goals that you have to complete um there are hidden goals that you have to complete different cards will give you certain ways to score points and i just think it's a well thought through game um deck builders will all always have a special place in my heart always always always and i think that it just

19:42 does it really well because there's a there's ways to get rid of your cards there's also ways to like mitigate certain statuses but still also score points and yeah it just does a really really good job i think i love the near the end of the game where everyone's just panicking because they're trying to make sure they have enough moves to get back to the castle before the sun comes out because you can just lose but it's very thematic the art is beautiful i also quite enjoy the hunger yeah yeah yeah the last couple of rounds are uh really nail biters all right number seven for me so my number seven is merchant's cove so this one is designed by johnny pack carl van ostern and jake villarreal it is published by final frontier games now in merchants cove essentially you'll be taking a role of an asymmetric character who's trying to conjure up their own merchandise and supplies in various ways through using action points and then they'll be selling in to the merchants that will arrive on the ships hoping to earn the most money by the end of the game now i really here's a confession i really struggle with asymmetric games like villainous root like those games just it takes me so much energy to get into them primarily because i'm more of like not an auditory learner and a lot of time like what are you trying to do what are you trying to do and i have no

21:12 concept what everybody else is trying to do and in vilnius for example like that always loses me the game because i'm just like i have no idea what's going on as long as i try yeah so this game is an asymmetric game because every character is a merchant that has their own mini game and their own way of acquiring points and they're selling different things selling different things but i love it it clicked for me right away i understand what everybody's trying to do i love the way that the asymmetry really interacts with the game because it's also not the most important for me to know how tyler is getting his merchandise built yeah it's more important to make sure that my merchandise is built for the players and i want to make sure that the merchants arrive the right dog so that i can sell them and make the biggest profit but it is it's more of like oh cool tyler's doing this i'm intrigued but it's not super imperative for me to know but because playing those different characters there's so many different characters um we got all the we first got the base game but then we bought all the weeks like it's so good um i think it's just every time you played i really really really enjoyed it um and it's a game that i can see myself becoming more like you kind of reel me into some of those asymmetric games and kind of make me fall in love with them so yeah like i'll just speak briefly on it but basically what um the big point that ilia is making is you don't have to know what everybody else is doing the only thing you really need to know is what they're selling and what they've been able to create um you can play the game based on strictly that in my opinion um and then you can just like worry

22:43 about what you're doing um here and then obviously like work towards making sure the right merchants come to your cove or buyers come to your cove uh and yeah you can sometimes really mess people up so i think where it excels and this is kind of the last thing i'll say is that i can have a great experience playing the game with just knowing my character and then next time i complete a different character and be like oh that's what tyler was doing the entire time where some of the other asymmetric games where if i don't know what's happening then i just drastically lose and i don't have the great experience i need to know so that's why i really like merchant school the artwork the components all the mini games it was just fantastic and i can't wait to play more of it yep that's my number seven all right ilia's number six six six six six so this is i think our first repeat oh my number six is brew oh stevo taurus and pandasaurus games well brew is just mwah so much to love about it i think tyler probably said it all quite well i think for me what really wanted over is the cute art style paired with a little bit of a take that a little bit just a little bit of a takeoff mechanic but it's i really like the area control aspect there's a lot of ways you can really focus the game and diversify your strategy because there's creatures there's potions there's area control you obviously want to do everything a little bit well but there's ways you can play some mind games with your opponents and

24:15 maybe let them battle after the territories and you claim all the potions that is true yeah yeah you don't always have to win the tiles and the elemental tiles are genius they change the game completely make it super cool make it super fun oh the abilities they provide yeah like i for the longest time when we first started playing the water die i would not get it no the water die i just like never i never thought was like that good and then i was like what the heck three resources exactly so i've been playing myself this whole time so that is my number six mine is also a repeat what is it mine is merchant's code i don't have much to add to what ilia just said i think i added it actually as he was talking about it the one thing i will say is that um on top of the asymmetrical characters i think well not on top of but the asymmetrical characters are actually so different um but at the end of the day they have the same end goal i think that is a very very interesting way to think about um asymmetrical characters because sometimes for example like asymmetrical characters will have different goals in the game but you'll still be competing and like battling against each other but that's not really the case in this game you're really going for the exact same goal and trying to sell the most goods and earn the most money but the way you do that is a lot different and i think kudos to frontier final frontier games for doing uh doing what they did with all the characters and i'm very excited because we haven't played all of them yet um we just got

25:46 some new expansions and i think i think i think i'm confident enough that i am ready to paint those miniatures so yeah very exciting okay number six number five number five oh my goodness tyler ah okay my number five actually is um meadow oh yeah okay so meadow is designed by clemens kaliki and carol carolina kayak i have i'm i'm so sorry if i say his name's wrong okay um and then it's published by rebel studio games yeah so basically this game is a like a tableau builder um and you're building up your meadow to be filled with all these creatures and also these nice little paths and exploration uh things that score you points and i just think it's a really well done game i i don't we don't play a lot of games that are like this in my opinion so um basically what happens is you have to have you have to meet criterias to be able to play certain cards and it's very food chain-esque where you can't play like a hawk unless you have a mouse or a frog or something like that you can't play a house if you don't have a fence something along those lines it's like a logic puzzle almost you have to get certain symbols and scale your way up in your tableau and usually they'll say collections uh and then my favorite part about it actually is the way you draft cards you have these like little picket fences that you have to stick into the board and then you essentially pick whatever

27:18 row or column that you're in um based on the number that the picket has on it so if it's like three you pick from you pick from this column and you only and you pick the third one up so i think they did a very cool way of um collecting cards and then on top of that you have side goals that you have to side goals that you have to complete and it's just a joy to play and you haven't mentioned how beautiful yeah that was my last point is the game is absolutely stunning it's so beautiful the critters are so gorgeous i love every single piece of animals dare i say most beautiful game of 2021 uh yeah that's for me to think about but it is a very beautiful game yeah it's a meadow metal my number five is the crew mission deep sea yes of course it is so designed by thomas singh and published by thames and cosmo this is a trick taking adventure game in which you're diving into down under into the ground into the sea to explore where you have not explored before so this is a cooperative trick taking game and you know us we love trick taking game the crew uh quest for planet nine was on my top actually both were top ten last year and no surprise this one is on my top ten because i think it just elevates the game so what made it different is now there's these tricks that are uh not necessarily specific cars but

28:48 they're they would say these two cards or you have to collect the lowest of this and they're more a little bit more intricate uh and they have difficulty on them so almost every mission look can look different based on the difficulty in the cars that you draw which makes it so much fun um i've had a great experience with this game i can't wait to see more of these i will never turn down a game of the crew because of how much of a joy it is yeah quest for ponder9 was definitely replayable but i think they elevated it and uh so much more the newest one so also both really like i really like both of them great games and if you have not played them if you're keen on trying out some trick-taking games definitely would recommend the crew and if you want to know more we made videos about them too we actually will link everything that if we may check it out or videos for any of the games that we mentioned i'll link it all in the description so you can check it out exactly yeah so now number four my number four is sleeping gods oh designed by ryan lockett and published by red raven games there was a bug oh but sleeping god is god's yes okay that that makes sense i actually thought it would be higher on your list so well number four is pretty high number four is pretty high so above and below is one of the games that got both of us into board games i love red raven games they're the rich narrative with the art and the way that you really interact with the game is absolutely wonderful and sleeping gods i think is the pinnacle of their games

30:18 in my opinion this is my opinion so the reason i really like it is it actually i find a lot of cooperative games that have a lot of exploration there's a lot of maintenance where you're trying to get food you're trying to make enough so you have the energy to get by and go this i feel like this game just sticks primarily with the story and you kind of pick up the food and make sure you have the resources and make sure you sustain yourself along the way to the best your ability sometimes it's not the most successful but uh essentially that you have a huge map to explore there's various endings the game is quite difficult as well understatement the game yeah it is pretty cool the game is definitely difficult especially if you venture off in an area where you're not supposed to be because some areas are just designed to be for a later in the game when you're a little more established your crew is a little bit more healthy um so but the narratives that they're in there in the game the way that you track the way the combat works everything is just so elegant and i literally could just play this game all day every day and have an incredible experience um it's also just stunning there's so much but are you surprised no not at all it's an amazing game i can't wait to play more of it i think the reason it's not higher on my list is that we didn't play as much but as i would have hoped but it is a really good game i i thought it would be higher on your list oh yeah yeah so that is sleeping gods my number four my number four is luna capital oh good number four

31:48 luna capital so this one is designed by jose ramon pa la sios palacios um and the is published by debeer games luna capital is essentially how do i describe this it's like a tile drafting placement game where you essentially have these build a moon barricade yeah where you're building this moon base um and you want to create these different like um tile like sequences almost to score yourself the most points there's a lot of different ways to do it really ramps up because you're drafting um you're drafting like one tile and then also you're drafting two then three then four and then um it really expands the game because you have to think about how you want to take off all four tiles if you want to take all four tiles and then they've got ways to like swap the tiles around so you can pick them it is a lot to punch out of the box but the cool thing is what they did is they created a insert with the punch boards and i really appreciate that less waste and i just think that the game is just a lot of fun and there's a lot of different ways that you can go about winning the game and i think i was surprised because i thought it would be i didn't think it would be as heavy as it is but it is it is a bit of a lot of game and you've got to think ahead yeah uh and they also have cool characters the

33:18 astro bird and you can you can on top of that we haven't played the micro or mini expansion but you can play it so that your characters have different abilities and it's very micro yeah very very very very mini expansion but yes very exciting insert is really cool and i wish more games to do that because you essentially punch out your own insert for the game it's really handy it is it is tough because you have to build it um and then sometimes that's not for everybody and then also like if it gets stuck in the wrong way like you push it could break but that's a whole different thing not the topic of conversation luna capital is my number four i really like learning capital number three top three top three this is where i think it gets extremely hard for me to decide how i'm gonna order them but my top three i wonder if we'll have similar yeah they've been quite we've only had one overlapping yeah we haven't had a lot of maybe this is the way the overlap happens all right number three hadrian's wall point all right hayden's wall is designed by bobby hill and is published by renegade and garfield games this heavy heavy roll in right or flipping right however you want to describe it is so so cool i i will say this again i am terrible at it but i love it so much because you have all these combos it's like it has work replacement esque feel to it uh and there's just like a lot going on but you really do have to hone in on certain things and then expand out and i just love the way that they've organized and

34:50 designed this game yeah figure as well is wonderful i don't have anything more to say about that like i i love it that's it but we haven't played the campaign but i have not played the campaign but that's new campaign is new it's so low it did not come we need to play it we always say that we gotta just commit to it yes that is true all right what's your number two my number three is metal oh yeah we have another overlap overlapped so meadow is designed i only have clemens kaliki you had two people yeah carolina kite i think that's the illustrator it might be the illustrator okay just checking but those wonderful folks behind the um metal game and rebel studio is a publisher so like tyler said there's just so much love about this game i think to me it is one of the most beautiful games we've had a long time there's a couple cards in there like literally could just be the hedgehog prince oh no there's just so many animals that are so cute um but i really like i think for me like the game what sells it quite a lot is just a variety of symbols and the ways that you have to kind of optimize the symbols and the cards that you have to build up your meadow empire and there's enough metal empire sorry i'm carried away that was a little bit spooky i'm sorry my favorite part is the campfire because the campfire tyler did not talk about this has various goals of symbols you

36:21 essentially have to have side by side in your metal which is a little bit tricky but that's what i always go for and i always win because it's just so much fun i love that i love the little camper because we sit around and i collect all the good things it's a game definitely away from me all the time i literally i'm pretty sure every single time we played that game i've been one move away from a lot and then he takes it and i'm sad but it's a beautiful game if you haven't had the opportunity to play it definitely would encourage you to because i think you'll really enjoy it and that is my overlap with meadow so my number two is also an overlap ah yay more overlap it is uh hadrian's wall so i think tyler said it quite well there's just so much love about hadrian's wall we love flipping rights world rights any sort of end rights in this household as you know we did a role in write month um but in general i think the reason that i that this game has won me over is there's so much there's so much in the game that you can still discover and see a subsequent place especially in um like the inside of the city part where there's different kind of areas you can really utilize different different areas to different extents to try to maximize their potential uh although like most of the times i focus on a couple and like these are the ones i'm gonna go full in on there's definitely ways to lean in some of the other ones and see if how you can optimize the strategy around those as well but it's different every time with the

37:52 different goals and different ways to kind of overlap it's a great one to play with multiple players because it's essentially the little bit of overlap is what makes it kind of great and you have this shared experience but it's a beautiful game i want to see more games like that in that genre so i'm going to say how great it is design game similar to that yeah i agree heavy rolling right yeah and your number two is cascadia yeah okay so the basically the sister of calico yeah i guess you could call it the sup the successor successor not the success success it's basically a tile placement game that is very similar who is it designed by randy flynn and it's published by flat-out games and aeg yeah so this game is absolutely fantastic you're basically trying to create these um this different habitat habitat area with a bunch of well it has a bunch of different habitats but then they have like keystone species that they are part of and essentially like on your turn you draft a tile and a token and you place the tile onto your tableau you put the token onto your um onto any of the spaces that have the appropriate token symbol and then you can gain things um yeah there's a bunch of different scoring opportunities the game is super replayable i find it not as stressful as calico because at the end game like you're not like worried about getting

39:22 very very specific tiles uh whereas like you can adjust your game for whatever's showing up uh i like the pinecones that you have the ability and the option to differentiate and pick different um tile combos and clear the tokens it's very nice uh what else can i say about this game that i love i don't know it's beautiful i love it it's great it's super replayable um tile control big brain also not big brain but a lot of fun medium brain yeah yeah yeah i really like it i think cascadia is definitely a game that uh i love getting to the table i'm not very good at it i think i usually beat you in calico but yeah yeah yeah because i don't know what it is i haven't quite put my finger on it but you usually manage especially last time where everyone seemed to tie for territories except for you which was just unfortunate but that's the way the cookie crumbles and that is your number two so now it's time for the number one game i actually don't think i know this i think i know what yours is but mine is i have no idea do you want one guess uh is it on my list no it's not maybe not i don't think it is oh it's unless it's your number one but i don't think it is i'm just gonna say it okay it's terraforming mars expedition i forgot about that one yeah all right so this one is published by stronghold games and frank's games i hope i'm saying that right but it's

40:53 designed by jacob francilis nick little and sydney engelstein and essentially what this game is for those of you who play terrafore and mars it's more of a card uh it's more card-oriented version of terraforming mars uh and you terraforming mars is pretty card oriented it is but you don't have to worry about like your tile placements as much because you end up just like revealing titles that's a good point but basically in this game you're um making your own tableau you're trying to basically make an engine that builds you resources and scores you points and then at the same time you're taking more cards uncovering uh different areas in the new mars that they've created and my favorite part about this game is how you take actions you literally everybody has five different i believe it's five different actions that they can take and then you all secretly pick one put it face down and then simultaneously reveal them then everybody gets to take all of the unique actions that have been played the card that you play has a unique bonus action on it though that you'll be able to play as well and um you have to like strategically think like oh i don't really need the bonus action but i'm guessing that so-and-so is going to play the action that i need to do what i want to do so i'll play this yes exactly and i think it's so brilliant it takes it does it it yeah i really like engine building and i believe terraforming mars areas expedition does a really well

42:24 really really good job at the engine building piece and there are so many different ways to go through it my one concern was that there would be so many cards that you wouldn't be able to filter through it but that is not a problem at all because um you can go through the deck really quickly and especially with four people it's just smooth sailing and i love it yeah i think for me i love like the the action you've described really well that's the part that definitely sells me in this game is the fact that it's almost like a deduction game like what action is everybody gonna play and i think that's the biggest criticism i've seen in the game as well as a lot of people actually don't or some people i don't know i'm gonna say a lot of people but some folks i've seen don't really enjoy that because they want to do all the actions but i like that's my favorite part is that's what makes things like it is what makes it yeah and that's what i enjoy the most of the game because that's what makes it really like tricky because you reveal all of a sudden everyone has the same action you're like oh i guess we're all doing this now yeah so but that's what's really cool about it but even to that extent like the game is not limited to a number of rounds no so like it's limit like it the end condition happens um yeah on temperature oxygen things like that but like because of that you never know how long a game is going to last and how many actions you're truly going to get so because of that i think that i ignore the um i ignore the fact that we don't get to take all the actions because well that's our opinion also way too many actions but yeah that's my opinion my apartment

43:54 that's my number one yeah it's a great number one i think i know what it is okay you have one guess it's on my list you have one guess that's not your guess cascadia it is correct me from wrong because i couldn't be wrong but i believe last year we made our top 10 list my calico is number one and your child goes number two yeah and then it's the same this year essentially but i'm pretty sure i'm like 90 sure but we can check we can go back and look um but the reason cascadia is number one on my list is i think it just hits all the right fields i think the accessibility of it the fact that there's like the starting conditions where you can choose like the eight all the a's where like the starting scoring conditions which are a little bit easier and work your way up to a little bit more advanced scoring conditions and excuse me mix and match them as you go makes it really interesting the fact that there is a limited amount of animals and you're just hoping that the right animal comes across the right tile that it creates that kind of crunchy feel without kind of the limiting aspect of it the calico felt because i think in calico it always almost felt defeating because there's three spots yeah it did suck when you didn't get like well like yeah it's very like hard to make the best out of those three spots like you can line them up so it doesn't matter as much but at the end of the day unless you get a towel you're going to work we're here at the end of the game but you obviously want to complete your strategy and get some of the ones that get you the most points but hey if it

45:26 doesn't work out i can put a hawk to the side it still gets me three points not as great as the six points here but it's still like it doesn't feel as defeating which i really like and you have options too right like you can place you don't have to place the token yeah there's more on your on the tile that you draft um i'm not as good in this game as like calico is my game for sure where well now i feel like we're pretty we're pretty even but i like i feel like this one i lose the majority of the games that we played against yeah i don't know what it is about cascadia but i find i'm like i i can like adapt pretty quickly and i i really enjoy it but i'm very that is year number two that flat out has stolen my heart and stolen that number one spot so i wonder if the trend will continue in the next year inverted maybe or maybe there's enough or that beautiful one oh wait no it is i'm thinking of the beautiful game that's designed oh you know tool and um peter mcpherson peter mcpherson and flat out games i think it's my camera it looks beautiful but it looks absolutely stunning and it has animals we'll maybe throw a picture in here just as a little teaser yeah but i know very little about it but it looks it's a great combination of humans who knows yeah it's going to be a good game i care yeah it's definitely going to be good and that is our top 10.

46:43 well do you agree do you disagree do you have the same top 10 as me because then we're best friends or do you have a different opinions on every game because this is my what friendly relationships are built on different opinions and this one's mine and constructive conversation and criticism exactly well please share with us what some of your favorite games from 2021 have been uh if you really disagree with any of ours because we love to chat and hear varying opinions and respectful discourse because that's what this hobby is about there's thousands of games out there and we can love them all and find different elements to be passionate about and we're just very happy to share them with you yeah and of course our lists were built on games that we own that we've played so some of the games in 2021 we didn't manage to get to uh if for some reason we didn't get to those games and you uh know that we haven't got those games please mention them because we're always looking for new games to play um and if they didn't quite make the list it doesn't mean that we didn't love them initially i think we both had about 40 on our list they're like how are we going to choose and honestly it was like a spur of a moment where like we're like you know this is as close as i'm going to get yeah that was my process i made my list and i'm like i can't look back from here because if i look back it's just going to be like scribbles marks and like everything and i just can't change it and i look at it now and i'm very happy with it yeah there's definitely a game like if if i had the moment tyler would not appreciate this but i could just spurt

48:13 out 20 30 games that i enjoy just as an honorable mention three is too little there's gotta be more but you know only three rules are rules three exactly so thank you so much for watching if you stuck around this far uh let us know in the comments down below because we're very impressed and we really appreciate you you give us that thumbs up you can subscribe to us which we really love because it's just fuels our passion meter exactly yep hit that bell notification if you want because we're going to start making um two videos a week uh so keep your eye out for that this was the first video of our specific schedule yay specific schedule did we make it on time was exactly 12 let's hope so but until next time this is us having fun playing games and enjoying the new year bye you