"A Flicking Good Time" Top 100 Board Games 100-91

hi i'm adam porter and this is my board gaming vlog and this is my top 100 board games and card games and dice games tabletop games uh and i will say this is not a top 100 games that you should go out and buy this is top 100 games for adam in wales okay this is very specific to me it's very personal list i i weighed up how am i going to do this am i going to put down the top 100 games i think are the best designed i mean i really care about that stuff what's a good design what's a clever design what's streamlined what's marketable or am i going to talk about what are the top 100 games that i enjoy playing and if i do that do i mean what games i would like to play right now this minute which games would be the ones that i would want to play the most or do i think about the last 10 years or 20 years which ones have i enjoyed the most and what i settled on was games which have an emotional connection to me okay games where i look at them and they they fill me with joy or memories and that means that there are some games that are going to creep onto this list that aren't going to work for you at all there are going to be some games on this list that are objectively poor games but i've had a fantastic time with them in the past maybe as a child or but but there are games here which just mean something to me okay so that's what that's the the basic frame for my top 100 games and it made it much easier to make the list because it's entirely subjective right and this game this list is not going to be a list that everybody's going to go out and go right i need those hundred games but hopefully it'll give you some ideas and i do tend to have fairly obscure games in my collection uh so so hopefully a few of those will creep onto the list as well and you'll get to know about something you hadn't heard about before because it's about emotional connection obviously my own games would be right at the top of the list so i've had to take them off so games that i've designed games like quasal and zulagans i love zulagan zulagan's is brand new out i really love it uh compromat love this one as well this is new out okay from helvetique so so these games picoco and uh doodle rush big bazaar and throne behind me here i love all these games but they're not going to make it onto the top 100 although i'm sure i'll keep bringing them up because i love talking about them so let's get started we're going to go from number 100 to number 91 today and then what we're going to do as well is keep track of which publishers which designers which themes and which mechanisms i particularly enjoy so we're going to be counting those up and at the end of each 10 i'm going to be showing you who's pulling ahead you know and and try and keep a little bit a little bit of competition between the publishers and the designers there and see which are the most the designers and publishers which i love the most so starting at number 100 we have uh ice cool from brain games so the first time that i ever came across brain games was in 2012 at essen spiel i was looking out for publishers that produced games that i wouldn't be able to get in the uk and i came across this really friendly bunch of latvian game designers and publishers uh brain games stand they were really sort of enthusiastically pushing these four little card games um i think they were called food chain and construction site and central market and air king and i um i i i really enjoyed talking to the these guys and so i picked up all four of those games i don't even know if i've got them anymore i played them a fair amount right at the start they weren't world changing games or anything like that but immediately brain games was on my radar i then saw them at uk games expo i picked up their game om nom nom which i really really love om nom nom is uh is it's not on my top 100 so let's not talk about it today but you could if you if you've got kids and you want a simple game to play omnom is a good one and so i started pitching my own games to them so i pitched them picoco you know the early version of picoco which they went on to publish and also doodle rush they went on to publish and so i've got to know these guys quite well and after i got those games signed but before my games came out ice cool hit the market and i school was a massive hit it won the kindershield as yares the children's game of the year award in germany um which was a huge deal for brain games the designer of high school is ryan gomez which is just a a pseudonym for brain games okay so this game is designed by uh janes grunter and egos grasmanes and edgars zakis and and probably others in the team that i'm not so so familiar with but i know these guys and and i can see the love and attention that they pour into this game and they they continue to support it with ice cool 2 and the upcoming iron forest iron forest is coming up this year as a kickstarter and it has a second level so you've got a second board that sits on pillars above your originalized school board and and you're playing pieces that you're flicking around a little mechs and they can drop through holes into the board to the lower level and you've got this little device where you can sort of uh spring them up like shoot them up through a little cannon that'll pop them up onto the top board and land somewhere but with the same sort of similar gameplay to why school it looks really really cool so ice cool is a great flicking game uh what i particularly love about it is that you can put spin on these pieces you can put topspin on them you can you can do clever trick shots where you can jump them over walls when you get really good at it and essentially you're just trying to chase the other playing pieces and bump into them or trying to get through those doorways and gather different different colored fish as you go simple game good for kids good for families probably not going to stand around and play as a bunch of adults but do you know what i i do so so maybe i i'm misspeaking there um so anyway that's my number 100 ischool from brain games number 99 on the list is silver and gold this is from nsv and phil walker harding and this game um i mean phil walker harding was the selling point anything which has phil walker harding's name on i'm instantly having a look i'm probably buying and this one i came across in a little german board game store i'd never heard of the game uh it had only just come out and it certainly wasn't something that anyone was aware of in the uk at the time um and uh when i i you know i bought it without really knowing what it was but when i got it home it was a roll and write game okay so i mean there's no rolling in this we're not rolling dice but a roll and write game is usually where you roll dice and then you write stuff down here we're turning over cards and then we're writing stuff down and it's got a little bit of that sort of tetris style shapes that we're putting onto the uh onto our cards here but we're actually writing onto the specific playing cards with a dry white marker which is totally unique i've not seen another game where you do that and and and simple as are all phil walker harding games it's so approachable you know and easy to get into um uh you've got to be careful if you don't like damaging your components because here you're going to end up with a bunch of marks on your on your card so if you don't like that if that turns you off then don't buy this game but it's a cheap game you can always buy a second copy it's lovely and portable simple to play highly recommended silver and gold number 98 on my list is hana mikoji which is a two player card game where we're battling to sort of take control of these central cards which here are geishas and so if you think of a game like you may know the game's lost cities or battle line shot and totten um these sort of games where we we you know you're just facing off against one opponent trying to control central um a central uh layout of cards actually this is something that you do in in my new game compromat compromise is inspired by games like kanamekoji and lost cities battle line but hanumakoji is a really good one it's got beautiful artwork um it it sort of came from nowhere and suddenly everybody was talking about it a few years ago it's got that i split you choose mechanism where um you know i'll lay out some cards and the first thing is my opponent gets to take some of them and then i'm going to get the rest you know it's got all that sort of stuff going on in the game it's a relatively simple game quite short but just really clever mechanisms you know you you look at it and just think that's it's such a clever design number 97 is happy salmon uh and happy salmon is one of those games that uh when i talk about having an emotional connection happy salmon was a big feature at my recent wedding i got married in germany and a lot of my uh my in-laws can't speak um english so there were a lot of the german family there my wife my wife is german um and so a lot of her family weren't able to talk to my family i mean they could manage a little bit with google translate and things like this but the thing that really brought them together was playing happy salmon i had two copies of happy salmon when you put it together you can play with up to 12 people and essentially you get them all around a table and they're all giving each other high fives high fives i hold one player's got a card which says high five so they've got to give another player a high five and then they draw the next card and it says fist bump you know um and so it says pound it which means fist bump and so then you're looking for somebody else who's got a pound it card and you're giving them a fist bump and then it says happy salmon and you're slapping each other's wrists and then you're doing switcheroo and you're you're running around the table the whole game takes about two minutes to play it's frantic it's loud and as i say with two sets you can play up to 12 people it's really good for kids but it's fun for adults as well we were laughing so much and these are two families that just couldn't talk to each other but they could play happy salmon together and have a whale of a time it was great it was really really nice to see and it went on for ages you know just kept playing again and again and again during the the reception so happy salmon was a huge hit happy summer was actually the inspiration for my game doodle rush uh this one here so this was my thinking was what would do what would happy salmon be if it was a drawing game and so i tried to come up with a game that was just as snappy just as fast just as loud just as chaotic as a drawing game and i didn't quite manage to get it down to the two minutes or 90 seconds of happy salmon but this game takes six minutes to play just as frantic just as quick just as funny um so that's happy salmon number 96 on the list is goblet so goblet is a game by blue orange games and in fact it was the first game by blue orange game so i believe thierry denwal who um is the owner or he runs he's in charge in blue orange so he created the game goblet i believe he constructed the original sets and was was selling them you know sort of i suppose at that point you would think of that as self-publishing wouldn't we but then that company has grown into something really quite large um and substantial and important they make beautiful quality products essentially it's tic-tac-toe it's it's you know trying to create four in a row but when you're placing pieces you either place them onto the board or you move one of your existing pieces and a larger piece can cover um another piece one of your opponent's pieces and so sometimes when you're moving a piece you might have forgotten underneath one of your opponent pieces is there but once you lift it off you can't put it back so there's a memory element to it so it's like crossing uh connect four tic-tac-toe with with a memory aspect and it's really satisfying it's just a really neat little system number 95 on the list is dream home from rebel this is a card drafting game and what i mean by that is at the start of each round you lay out a series of cards and then each player in turn will select two cards from that row well one player only gets one card they get one card and the start player token and it's really important that you get that start player token from time to time because you want to be the first to pick but the great thing in a game like dream home and in card drafting games in general is that everybody gets something no one's left behind okay it's just a case of what do i take and when and how do i deprive my opponents of the stuff that they really want and in dream home there's also a positional aspect to it do i put the stuff on the first floor the top floor the ground floor in the basement and it's a really accessible theme it's meaningful to everybody setting up your house this is a really simple one again it's good for children and families but there's enough going on here that you could play this with with gamers and still have a relatively good time especially if you've got the expansion in there sunny street and that's uh that's a really nice expansion and just adds a little bit of uh extra uh decisions to the game number 94 is captain carcass which is also known as dead man's draw this is a push or luck game so that's a game where you're turning over a card and then you're deciding do i keep turning over more do i keep turning over more at what point do i stop because at some point you're going to go bust and you go bust when you get two identical cards coming out in in sequence once that second card comes out then you lose everything but the great thing in dead man's draw or captain carcass is that every card has a special ability on it and lots of these are take that type ability so stealing off the other players or um you know gaining extra stuff for yourself or extra special abilities and so on and it's it's chaotic but it's really really fun i think it started out as an app and then it was turned into a card game i was given the card game uh i won it as a prize in a raffle at christmas at a gaming event and i'd never heard of it played it really really enjoyed it i didn't have high expectations but then i became aware of this captain carcass edition with this lovely cute artwork from bombix i love bombix artwork and so um so we've got this this uh diver's face in a in a sort of transparent divers helmet on the tin you know it just just looked great but you couldn't get it anywhere because it wasn't it wasn't uh distributed in the uk and so this became a bit of a grail game for me at that point i really really wanted this edition because i loved the game but i wanted that fancy looking version and eventually i was on holiday in stockholm staying with some friends and i was in a board game store and i saw it there and so i bought it cost me a fortune because everything's expensive in stockholm but uh but i bought it and i was really pleased you know so that's now the version that i use and i have is captain carcass number 93 is cube quest so cube quest is another flicking game and again we're flicking unusual pieces what we're flicking here is dice essentially cubes and you're trying to knock your opponent's king off the board but every cube has a different ability so you've got all sorts of different types of soldiers with different sort of twists to how they work at the start of the game you build up your army it's really simple there's not that many different units but you build up your army in secrets your opponent doesn't know what you're going to have and then you set up on your side of the board with the opponent not looking so they don't know what you're building and you can build little sort of walls and and you know these blocks they sort of stack up or you can spread them out you can do what you like to protect your king and then you're flicking trying to knock pieces off they're flying all over the room i mean it's just silly um but with all those special powers and abilities it's just really fun and interesting um the production's great i think in the original edition the the these sort of mouse map boards that were provided were folded in the box and a lot of them um had these sort of uh creases essentially after sitting on store shelves for several months that meant they weren't usable and so um game right the publisher went to great lengths to replace all of those so they sent out new boards to people sometimes they sent out whole new games to people it must have cost them a fortune and sadly we've never seen any more of cube quest i would have loved to have seen expansions with new factions and new abilities i mean the game is ripe for it um well it's great as it is if you can get hold of a copy then i would go for it i don't worry about the fact there's no expansions but it would be lovely to have more different types of cubes that work in different ways and and so on and so forth but the game is wonderful number 92 is the only collectible card game that i've ever played and it's not just cards actually star wars destiny is all about dice okay so this is the only time that i've ever gone into a shop and bought a random booster pack a random pack don't know what cards i'm going to get what dice i'm going to get but i'm just drawn into it addicted can't stop myself from going and just picking up i'm buying this game and this game but actually i'll just take a couple of boosters for star wars destiny so i got into that for a few months i'm not sure i want to get into that again with any other games um but i was drawn into it by my friend tom who's a huge star wars fan and uh you know i was skeptical but he got me playing the starter set with him and yes i was hooked because i loved ice games and i'm a sucker for star wars what i really like is dice games that don't rely on the yahtzee mechanism don't get me wrong i like the artsy mechanism but lots of games use that when i see a dice game that uses a different mechanism then i'm always intrigued i find that really inspiring that's what i tried to do with my game throne is to have a dice game that doesn't just rely on rolling your dice and re-rolling re-rolling re-rolling see what you've got okay that's the artsy mechanism star wars destiny when you roll your dice the really nice thing is that you don't immediately resolve them so i roll them i've got my results laid out there now my opponent takes a turn and they can play cards which might manipulate my dice they could roll their own dice they can do various different things to change the outcome to defend themselves against my attack then i resolve my dice one at a time on each individual turn and just that delay allows such a big sort of design space and and hence we've got all these you know thousands of cards in the game all do different things because we've got that that design space to do it it's such a clever game it's really attractive because it's got all that wonderful fantasy flight star wars artwork but it's not just stills from the film which i would hate it's nicely drawn pictures um it's really thematic but in a fun silly way you know i i love that i can have a jar and i can give him a lightsaber and i can you know i i like the fact that it it it makes sense but i can be a little bit sort of whimsical about how i approach uh the star wars theme i always enjoy that you know being able to make up a silly sort of scenario and star wars destiny allows a lot of creativity i enjoyed the deck building aspect of it putting together my deck and then taking that to face up against tom's deck which is inevitably better and and then accept my defeat graciously number 91 is dice town and i've just been saying that i don't like game no i didn't say i don't like games with the artsy mechanism but i look out for games that don't have the artsy mechanism well dystown does have the artsy mechanism you're rolling you're re-rolling you're re-rolling again and you're trying to get the best poker set of dice but the brilliant thing in dystown is the fact that everybody's doing it simultaneously so uh there's no down time a lot of these yahtzee games it would be one player rolling re-rolling re-rolling then the next player goes re-rolls re-rolls re-rolls here everybody does it at the same time and you can play with quite a large group of players there's loads of take that in this game there's loads of cards that allow me to steal from other players and then there's this sheriff's badge that if you win the sheriff's badge then you get to uh get to make all decisions about ties and things like that and other players can bribe you to sort of select in their favor it's total chaos but there's loads loads of interaction absolutely loads of interaction chaotic sort of negotiating and arguing over the table and playing cards on each other and it just works really really well the artwork's great um you know the production's fantastic it's fast it's loud you know the dice when you're rolling them in that in those dice cups they're crashing in those dice cups you know click click click cause you're rolling and then you slam it down on the table you feel like you're in a sort of high stakes wild west sort of saloon game of poke you know or or some sort of you know gambling you know throwing those dice down with a big bang and then revealing what you've got it's really really good really atmospheric game dice town so i want to keep track in these videos of which publishers are pushing ahead which designers i particularly like which themes i particularly enjoy and which style of games i particularly like so we're looking here for any publisher that has been on the list more than once uh so if we look at my charts here we can see there are no front runners with regards to the publishers as yet they've all just been on there once each and it's the same situation with the designers so between 191 no designers have pushed ahead everybody's just got in there once in that particular list if we go on to looking at the themes that i particularly enjoy then we can see that there are two games in that first 10 games of the top 100 which feature anthropomorphic animals so animals getting up to all sorts of mischief so every other theme on there is is unique as as yet and then finally looking at the styles of games that i enjoy well what we can see is in that initial list of 10 games we've got two flicking games and two dice games so they're pushing out ahead when i'm talking about themes throughout this and mechanisms throughout this list i'm going to hone in on the what i feel is the central theme clearly there may be aspects and maybe dice that'll feature in some games but i wouldn't call them a dice game so frontrunners for now flicking games dice games and games with anthropomorphic animals let's see how that changes as we move into numbers 90 to 81