My Top 10 Games of September 2024! | Monthly Wrap Up

hey friends it is Jenna what is up and welcome back to the board game garden and welcome to a monthly wrap-up video and my top 10 games of a specific month which today we are going over my top 10 games for the month of September which if you guys have never seen this before basically every single month I just do a wrap-up of the month so I go over my board game stats for the month that includes all of the games I played um multiplayer as well as solo all of my stats for that and then I go into the herb garden where I do a little Spotlight on a few small box card games or party games that I've been enjoying recently and then we go into my top 10 games of that specific month which this one is for September and September probably was the busiest month that I've had so far in 2024 it was absolutely crazy I was jam-packed with plans and work for the entire month so the beginning of the month I had a trip to Nashville for some IV games stuff which was a lot of fun um and then at the end of September I went to the World Series of board gaming as well and then in between there and all around there I had a ton of work overall September was absolutely insane it was over in the blink of an eye but it was a very fun uh month so uh yeah anyways we are moving into October now which I will say I am going on a two over two week trip to Japan with my boyfriend Francis so we are very excited for that um well this video or when this video goes up we will be in Japan so definitely uh go over to my Instagrams it's Jose Beasley as well as at the board game garden over on Instagram and I will be sharing some stuff on the stories over there anyways without further Ado if you guys want to see my monthly stats as well as all the games I played in the month of September then just keep on watching give this video a big thumbs up if you enjoy Also hit that subscribe button down below if You' yet to do so we'd love to have you here in the garden and without further Ado let's get into this video shall we all right so getting right into this we are going to start with my board game stats for the month of September for the amount of plays that I had in the month of September it is 28 plays which is extremely low um I've had months where I've played like 60s and 70s so yeah 28 plays feels very low but it is okay sometimes we just have those months um but for the amount of games that I played that was a total of 23 different games and then 17 of those games were new to me and then for BGA or board game arena I was playing so much BGA in September because a lot of the times I was sitting at my computer doing editing and most of the time when I'm sitting at my computer I have BGA on the side so uh yeah I played a lot of BGA I was also training for the world series of board gaming so a lot of these plays are of the castles of burgundy cuz I just played that game over and over again and it was the best um but I had a total of 39 plays on BGA which is the most I think I've ever had um but I've been really enjoying BGA and you should definitely add me on BGA it's just Jose or no it's not Jose it's Jenna Beasley uh so yeah I'm always down to play some games over there but yes that is everything for my board game stats we are now going to get into the Earth Garden all right so getting into the herb garden if you guys are not familiar with this this is kind of the section of the video where I like to Spotlight or highlight some small box card games and party games that I've been playing so these three here are all card games and I have very much so enjoyed all three of them um I actually played one of them quite a while ago but I didn't put it in a video because I was playing it for the first time and I had no idea what I was doing but I ended up getting to play it again and I fell in love it is such a good game and that game I might as well tell you guys right now is surfacea surus Max which I played this at Gen Con I played this with who did I play it with I think I played with the brothers murf Nick and Mike um lenus as well as a few other people and I really enjoyed it then but I had like I said no idea what I was doing so I didn't want to talk about it too much but getting to play it again at a local convention I fully understand how to play it now and it is such a cool game um where basically you are going to have a hand of cards and they are going to be numbered and have suits and your goal is to play down a card you're going to play down two cards in total each round and your goal is to have cards in the kind of best hand that you've all put together cooperatively so at the end of a round each player would have played down two cards and then you're going to go through and see what the best hand is that you can make out of the cards that everyone has played so um if you end up having your cards be in that hand you will get a I think it's like a full coconut if you had a card in that hand but you get half coconut if somebody else has the same card in that hand if that makes sense um but I really enjoyed it I like I said had no idea what I was doing the first time but I'm happy that I was able to play it the second time and fully grasp the strategy and game play um obviously the surfing Tyrannosaurus rex or whatever it is dinosaur is absolutely amazing and I love the theme unfortunately I do think that it's quite hard to find and also they are doing a reprint of it but they are changing the theme which I think is crazy that they're changing the theme because it is amazing um literally each player gets a card that has a surfboard on it and then when you are the active player or the first player you put the little Tyrannosaurus wck me people on the surfboard and is the cutest thing in the entire world um but anyways I really enjoyed surfacea orus Max and I really want a copy of it now so I'm going to try to find that somewhere we will see um but yeah that is the first game I wanted to mention in the herb garden all right so the second game that I wanted to mention I actually have a copy of here because this was a game that I ended up picking up myself at Gen Con and this was the new release from oink games for Gen Con and that was moving wild so like I said this was oink Game's new release for Gen Con and this is I think actually a reimplementation of another game called Zuli which I've always wanted to try and basically it is a closed drafting game where you are going to be building out a tableau of this Zoo you're going to have different enclosure cards as well as these different upgrade cards to improve your enclosure and give your enclosure more like abilities or more ways to add different animals to that enclosure going to have the animals as well and you are trying to fill up these enclosures to your best ability each of the cards are going to have different kind of actions or different abilities and stuff like that I really enjoyed it I want to play it more I do believe you can play this one solo as well it plays one to six players which I think that is like my favorite player count for a game if you give me a game that can play solo but then also go all the way up to six players H it's it just makes me so happy so yeah moving wild was a fun one like I said I want to play it more but I really enjoyed my first play of it so that is why I wanted to mention it here uh so that is moving wild all right moving into the last game here in the herb garden this is a game that I think is pretty difficult to find and the copy that we actually played was one that my friend Steph put together um but this is a game that you can get I believe in Japan but I think even in Japan it is hard to find um it is called called Loop which I'm hoping I'm going to search for it while we're in Japan it is a shedding game where you going to be just like a lot of other shedding games playing uh one or more cards and they are either going to be you know a single card of a number or a set of cards or a run of cards different things like that and you're going around playing a higher set or run or single card until every player has passed and then you're going to start over kind of a new trick or a new set of cards and there's a few cool things about this one that I really enjoyed one being that it is called Loop so the eights are actually an infinity and the eights are going to do some interesting things one being that if you do play an eight into one of those tricks or into um the game you're going to be able to then be able to switch the order of how you play cards so instead of ascending cards it is going to now switch to descending cards so you could actually play an eight if you know that you can't go higher than that so that it will actually switch to going lower than eight um and then you'll be able to play out some of your lower cards and then there's something else with the eights that I can't quite remember because I don't think I actually used it when we were playing but basically at the beginning of a round you're going to be taking I think one or two cards from your hand and placing them face down beside you and if one of those are an eight there's something that happens I'm not 100% sure cuz I like I said didn't use it when we were playing but the other cool thing is that you are going to have this hand of cards and that is going to be like your hand of cards and based off of when you get out in the first round for the second round that will then allow you to have kind of priority of the deck that you choose for the second round so this going to be played over two rounds and so you might see someone's hand and see the cards that they're playing out and be like hm I kind of want to play with their kind of set of cards or their deck um so I think that's very cool and then based off of the kind of um number that they got out so say that hand of cards got out last on the first round then if you were able to take that set of cards that was out last and finish first in the second round you'll get more victory points so I think it's very cool and it was an interesting and very unique kind of twist on the ladder climbing or shedding genre of games so really enjoyed that one and like I said when I do go to Japan I'm going to be looking for that so that is everything for the herb garden so let's get into my top 10 games of September all right so getting into my top 10 games of September my number 10 is a game called first rat so this is one that I've always heard about it's always been one that I've wanted to try because all of the people that I've heard talk about this game have said that it is wonderful and that it is almost like a Hidden Gem because more people need to be talking about it and I really did enjoy it it was very cute basically you are moving along this track and then collecting different resources um you are moving up on this light bulb track and moving your different Rats on some different spaces um in order to achieve these different goals that are all over the board um there's going to be that you're wanting to like construct these different parts of this rocket that then if you have those three pieces you'll be able to create a rocket you're trying to get your rats all the way up to the top um you're trying to get coins or not coins they're yellow but they're not coins they're cheese um you trying to get a set of 10 cheese to put into a crate thing um there's a bunch of different things that you're trying to do in these goals and the sooner that you accomplish these different goals the more victory points you're going to get for them because you're going to place a cube onto these different tracks so overall I really enjoyed it it's quite a light game and I don't really feel like I need to own it and have it in my collection because it is a space theme game it does have rats which is very cute but overall it is a space themed game and I'm just not the biggest fan of that theme but really enjoyed my play of it and I am happy that I finally was able to try it because I've always heard good things but that is my number 10 first rat all right so moving on to number nine this is a game that I had never heard of before but Professor Meg or Meg wanted to introduce to me it is a deduction game and it is a two-player only deduction game called Phantom of the Opera so mag introduced this to me at the world series of War gaming we played it together and I really really enjoyed it so I'm a huge fan of deduction games I typically don't play a lot of two-player only games but this was one that I loved the sound of and I was excited to play it so basically what is happening is you're going to have these different tiles that you're going to be Drafting and it is going to be a snake draft um and then every other round it kind of switches who starts the snake draft and you're going to be drafting these different characters and that is going to allow you to move these different characters around this house it's going to be the characters of The Phantom of the Opera and basically one side is playing as the Phantom so they are going to know the one character that the other side is trying to figure out and you're trying to deduce all the way down to figuring out what this one character is and the Phantom side is actually going to get one of the tiles at the beginning of the game um secretly going to have that so they know who the Phantom is and the one character in the house that they're kind of trying to protect and the other side is going to try to figure out which one of the characters is the Phantom and you're going to be doing this by moving the characters around the house and each character is going to move in a different way some of the characters have some interesting special abilities and basically at the end of a round once one snake draft is over that player is then going to ask whether the Phantom is alone or if they are with other people or I think it's if they are seeable or uh invisible or something like that but basically that is your way to deduce some of the characters so any of the characters that are alone or in a room with another character that will then allow you to deduce and then eventually you're going to try to figure out who the Phantom is you have to have exact kind of information and deduce all the way down to who exactly it is um there is going to be like a Time Track as well so you're trying to do it before the time runs out and Yeah overall I really enjoyed this one again it's one that I don't really feel like I need in my collection because it is a two-player only game so it would be very difficult for me to get to the table um but overall I really enjoyed it and I was happy that Meg introduced it to me so that is my number nine Phantom of the Opera number eight is a game that I've been wanting to try for for a while I always struggle with how to pronounce this game but this game is called oricalcum I think that's the name of it but this is a tile placement tile drafting um kind of racing game so basically you are racing to get these five things above your board and in order to get these five things above your board you're going to have to um buy them with coins or with this like gold resource or you're going to have to kind of create these different blocks of colors with these tiles or you're going to have to create these like temples or shrines that are four different colored terrains together um and whoever can do that first um is going to be the winner the different kind of tiles that you're going to gain for having the group of a single color um those can actually be taken away so once a player has more of that color than you do they're going to take it away so that's a way to kind of take some of the five points away from someone that is close to finishing the game and I really enjoyed it I love tile placement games you guys know if you've seen videos in the past I really enjoy tile placement games this one has a little bit of drafting as well so you're going to be drafting a card that has a tile on top of it and then you're going to be placing that tile onto your map and then you're also going to be able to then do the action of the card that it was on so you can build buildings that give you different abilities you can fight monsters that are going to come onto your board with this specific volcano terrain um you're also going to get these different like Soldier things that you then use to fight these monsters you can get um gold and stuff that you're going to be using to purchase these different things in order to possibly win um I really enjoy this one uh primarily because it was a tile placement game I just love trying to you know draft these different tiles and add them into this tableau of tiles um on this map and try to fit them in the best way possible in order to win so yes that is my number eight Ora kelcom moving on to number seven this is one that I had an opportunity to play at wsbg or the world series of board gaming and this is one that I've heard a ton about it was the Talk of the Town when it came to Gen Con um because I do think the Dice Tower always talks very highly of this one and it just recently got published here in North America but that game is Comic Hunters so the theme of this one doesn't really resonate with me I've never you know read any Comics I've never collected Comics or anything like that but overall I really enjoyed the gameplay of this one I had no idea how this game played and then I actually ended up playing this with a few people I played it with Grant lion from Grant's game Rex I also played with Meg Professor Meg and then we also played with John declair which what a wonderful human I met him for the first time at the world series of board gaming and he was very nice um but yes played that and it is very interesting game it's all about cards and basically each round you're going to be playing a bunch of different like card mini gamess which I think is so cool in each of the mini games you are gaining cards in different ways and primarily the game is you are trying to have these different sets of comics whether you are collecting all of like a certain type um I was collecting a lot of um Dr Strange I think it was um as well as some Captain America and different things like that black widow all the things um but you're trying to collect these different sets because each of these different uh types of comics are going to be getting you a different amount of victory points each game um based off of where the tile is um and then how many of that specific comic type you have so you're going to get some for that you're also going to be doing some like track bumping and stuff based off of some other icons on the cards and also like how many sets of different Comics you have and like I said you are getting these cards in different ways you also then have to uh discard these cards in order to pay for the cards that you keep so the cards have a little bit of like multi-use to them which I absolutely love um but overall I really enjoyed comic Hunters I loved the gameplay of it there was one specific like miname that we all had a huge problem with it was like the auction one where it was very weird how it played out I'm usually not a huge fan of auction anyways um but that was really the only kind of negative thing to it is I just didn't like that little mini game but all the other ones were so much fun and I overall really enjoyed my play of comic Hunters so that is why it is my number seven moving into number six this is a game that I actually have physically with me I don't have a lot of these ones physically but this one I do and I'm so happy that I have a physical copy of this one because I loved it um but my number six is fairy ring so this is actually it said to be like a family weight game which I can see this being played with kids and kids being able to play it but at the same time I just love being like a like a gamer gamer I still really love the gameplay of this one um but basically what is happening is it is another closed drafting game I absolutely love closed drafting you're going to get a hand of these different mushroom cards you're going to be choosing one mushroom card and then giving the rest to the person on your left or your right then you're going to be playing this mushroom into your kind of mushroom Garden area and the more of one type of mushroom that you play you can actually overlap them and grow the height of the mushroom then that's going to actually allow you to uh gain more things if someone's fairy lands on that mushroom which another thing that happens is when you play play this card down there's going to be a number in the top right hand corner I think and that's how many spaces or cards your fairy has to move around this fairy ring so everyone's cards that are played out is actually the fairy ring you're going to be going around and moving your fairy from the cards that are in front of you to the cards that are in front of the other player to the other one and whatever mushroom you land on and whatever player's mushroom that is that is going to be the mushroom that is activated so if you have that Mushroom in front of you that will activate each of the mushroom is going to activate in a different way and then if the or the player that has the mushroom that you landed on that actually activates for them as well and like I said each mushroom is going to activate in different ways one is going to be based off of how many spaces you move another one's going to be based off of how many mushrooms you have different things like that and there's just something about this game that I absolutely love the strategy of this is actually pretty deep and I just really really enjoyed it so that is my number six that is fairy ring I will also mention that the components in this are absolutely beautiful and like can we just talk about how beautiful this box is I'm just obsessed moving on to the next game this is another one that I've wanted to try for a while it's always been a game that hasn't really like brought me in or interested me based off of the look of it um this is a tea game from Bard and dice and that is teoton or te teotw Walkin the city of gods um this is one that I have actually played on BGA before and I do not recommend playing this on BGA if you do not know the rules this was one that I just got invited to and that I didn't have time to actually go through and learn the game so I kind of just clicked around and hoped for the best um and I didn't love my experience and that kind of Tainted my uh look on the game but I did say yes to playing it at a board game day that I had recently and I really did enjoy it it actually uses dice in a really cool way and this is basically a like dice it's not dice worker placement it's like dice Rondell which I think is cool where there's a bunch of different spots that you can move your dice to um and you can move up to I think it's two or three times um a dice you can move that diey one to three times and then you're going to perform some sort of action at that little area or that little mini game um there is so much going on in this so I'm not going to go full on into exactly how to play but there's this cool temple in the middle that you can play with there's like different buildings that you're going to be moving over um you're going to be gaining resources and then a lot of the spaces are then going to allow you to tick up the Pips on your dice and eventually once a die gets to a number six then they do like retire and then they have to go back to a one at this specific location and then start again um there's like another track that you're going up and then there are these these three colored tracks that you're going up to and based off of where you are on one track you're going to get victory points at the end of each round and overall I really enjoyed it there's a lot going on the look of the game is not my favorite it is very beige um and again it's one that I don't really feel like I need in the collection but a lot of my friends do own it so I'm excited to Play It Again in the future uh and that is why teoton the city of gods is my number five all right moving into number four this is again one that I do have physically and I am so happy that I have this game physically because it is a delight to play um so this is one that I did get at Gen Con and that is Harvest so this was gifted to me as a review copy from keaster games so a huge thank you to them um but Harvest is a I don't I don't think it is a reprinting it is a reimplementation of an older game by Trey Chambers so he had a game called Harvest before and then Key Master games picked it up changed some stuff and this is the game that came out of it it is absolutely adorable I love the theme of this I love the art of this it is just absolutely stunning the production of this game is just so good and Key Master games hit it out of the park but I played this both uh multiplayer as well as solo I will be talking more about my experience with the solo mode um in my sewing solo but overall I have loved this game I did absolutely horrible in my first game of this I played this when I was in Nashville um and I did awful but it is a farming game it is a farming simulation game uh where basically you are planting crops you are you know tending to those crops you are growing those crops and then harvesting them for victory points there's going to be buildings that you can also Place into your little farm area and each building is going to be either like a automatic thing that happens or it's be endgame scoring they an ongoing ability different things like that it very much so is a pretty simple worker placement game but I just love the kind of theming for this and the act of placing your workers out going to these different places working on your farm growing your crops all the things I just really really enjoyed it it is kind of that good middle point of being strategic but it doesn't overstay it's welcome and it just has that perfect amount of thinking it just a great kind of mediumweight worker placement game with a wonderful theme and I definitely recommend if you kind of love this farming theme and the look of this to check it out so that is my number four that is Harvest all right so moving into my top three my number three is one that I've been wanting to play for a while I actually was told that I could go and pick up a review copy at Gen Con but I completely forgot so hopefully I will get myself a copy of this one somewhat soon cuz I really enjoyed it but that game and my number three is Cafe baras so this is coming to you from ktbg or kids table board games and this is a multi-use card it's all cards um game where you are you know serving your different customers and building out your Cafe and it is uh kabara Cafe um and you're going to be drafting different cards on your turn you're going to be playing down cards paying it for it with coins and then you're going to be kind of satisfying these different orders based off the cards that you have in your Cafe to then gain more money to play more cards it is very much so a tableau building engine building card game it is a fairly simple game but I just love the theme I love the art I love games especially recently with multi-use cards so some of these cards or all of the cards you can either play into your Cafe to give more of these different icons or you can play a card in order to fulfill the order that's at the bottom so it's this very cool thought process where you're either going to be playing that card for its icon to build up your cafe or if you're going to be playing it for the order at the bottom and then some cards also have some special abilities that then you can chain into and you're also trying to like get the perfect amount of things for certain customers in order to make them regulars and there's some objectives and stuff oh it is just wonderful I loved it I knew I was going to love it based off of the theme and the mechanics um but yes that is my number three Cafe baras all right moving into my number two this is one that I just recently played and I fell in love with so this is one that I do have physically and I'm so happy that I do and that is Mercurial so this is one that my friend Aiden actually played and said some really good things about and we've been meeting to play it for a while I ended up getting a copy at um Gen Con from good games publishing so a huge thank you to them um and I was so excited to try it and we ended up playing it and I did really bad but I still really enjoyed it um it kind of reminded me a little of like Sentry spice road kind of Vibes as well as it gave me a little bit of res Arana Vibes as well so this is primarily a card game as well where you're going to be drafting cards and then using cards to exchange your dice so you're going to be rolling a bunch of dice and then you're going to need specific dice in order to like pull off these different um like magical spells and you're going to be drafting these different magical spell cards placing dice on them using cards to then change the PIP or the side of the dice to the specific elements that you need for each of those spells and then on a turn instead of drafting cards and playing cards you can then kind of perform those spells in order to gain a certain certain amount of either this like fire sign or this other sign I forget what they were called um but one was red and one was blue you can kind of choose which one you want to go for based off of the spells that you perform and you're trying to get a certain amount of those or one of those two things in order to get these other cards that get you victory points and so it's very much so like that Century spice Road where you are playing these cards in order to exchange these different gems to get these cards that need those specific gems very similar to that but with the different kind of cards that you're using and the exchanging and playing of the cards it like I said gave me a little bit of feeling of res Arcana as well um so yeah I really enjoyed Mercurial so happy that I have a copy of it I probably will maybe in the month of October when I get back from Japan I kind of want to try to do a live stream of this one and play it solo cuz it also has a solo mode so get excited for that hopefully I will do that once get back but that is my number two for the month of September Mercurial all right and lastly my number one game of September was Reef project so this is one that I unfortunately do not have a copy of but I kind of want a copy of it now um this is a game from Bor and dice and I have recently become a huge fan of their game I have Barcelona up here which I really enjoyed um also too tayin toot tacon is from Bard and dice as well as well there's a few other games from them that I have really enjoyed and reef project was a huge huge surprise to me so this is one of their more recent releases and I don't think it's gotten as much um like hype and Buzz as some of the Bor and dice's other releases so they released uh windmill Valley as well at the same time and I feel like windmill Valley kind of got more hype than Reef project did but hopefully that's just the case of it not quite I'm not sure if it's like out out yet but this game is so good I enjoyed it so much and like I said I'm really hoping to get a copy at some point because I think this one has a solo mode most of the board and dice games do have solo modes um so yeah basically this one you are putting out these different like buoys on this huge map in order to make your kind of way of getting to these different Islands cheaper so you're going to be having to pay energy but if you have a buoy on this kind of path it's going to make it free um and then eventually when you surround these different kind of polluted areas of the water um Whoever has majority around that area then gets the tile that's going to get you victory points and some rewards um there's a bunch of different like tracks there's like a research track that you're going up there's cards that you're going to be playing um if you go to an island that is on a specific card you will then be able to do the cards action as well as the islands action so there's cards that you're playing down you have an objective that you're getting at some point in the game there's like another track at the bottom that's going to get you more resources you have your own player board that has a little bit of like a wingspan raising robots esque kind of thing where you're building out these different rows of these assistants that you're then going to be able to trigger and get rewards from and you're going up these other tracks to get resources and it is just such such a great Euro game with so much going on and I actually really enjoyed the kind of area majority esque part of it as well which I think I've discovered that I like area majority and I've always thought that I didn't because I really didn't like area control but they're two very different things and I really liked that part of a reef project and overall I just really really enjoyed my play of reef projects so that is why it is my number one of September all right friends so that is going to be everything for this video and my uh monthly stats for September as well as my top 10 games of September hopefully you guys enjoyed if you did please give this video a big thumbs up also hit that subscribe button down below if you've yet to do so we'd love to have you here in the garden also comment down below your favorite games that you played in September I'd love to chat about that down in the comment section um yeah I love you guys so so much remember you are somebody's reason to smile and I will see you in the next board game video bye friends [Music]