I recently ranked my favorite board games using PubMeeple (an app I found through a Board Game Barrage Podcast). Most of this list wasn’t a surprise to me, though perhaps it is influenced by recent plays. I thought I’d put them all down plus some brief thoughts on each game. 20 may seem like a random number, but there were some I wanted to talk about past 10.

20. Carcassonne

Theme: building castles in Medieval Europe
Weight: casual
Major Mechanics: tile laying
Average Play time: 1 hour
Thoughts: This is many people’s first tile laying game for good reason. Game play is easy and quick. Scoring can be a little obtuse, and that’s my only real complaint.

19. Sagrada

Theme: making stained glass windows
Weight: Casual
Major Mechanics: Dice Drafting
Average play time: 45 minutes
Thoughts: This game can get a little mean, but I think that’s what makes it interesting.

18. Dinosaur Island

Theme: The 90s (in all its day glow glory)
Weight: medium
Major Mechanics: dice drafting and worker placement
Average Play time: variable
Thoughts: If only this game had a smaller footprint. Like, I get the irony, but I feel like you need 3 tables for this game. Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoy this game, but with set-up, clean-up, and transportation being such a pain, it’s just hard to get this to the table.

17. The Gallerist

Theme: art dealing
Weight: holy crap!
Major Mechanics: worker placement
average play time: 2 hours
thoughts: Vital Lacerda is known for making complex systems with minimal(?) rules sets. There are only 8 actions you can take in The Gallerist, but the decision trees will make your brain hurt.

16. Galaxy Trucker

Theme: goofy-ass space trucking
Weight: medium
Major mechanics: tile laying, push your luck
average play time: 90 minutes
Thoughts: When I introduce this game, I tell people they’re going to build a space ship and then watch it blow up. The second part is the most fun part (imo). This game has all the goofiness of Cosmic Encounter without the hurt feelings (just blame the dice). Also Vlaada Chvatil makes wonderful and silly rulebooks.

15. Ra

Theme: Egypt
Weight: medium
Major mechanics: bidding, set collection
Average Play Time: 90 minutes
Thoughts: New to my list, I’m still getting to know Ra. Like most games I like, it has simple rules with complex decisions. This is a design by the one and only Dr. Reiner Knizia.

14. Yellow & Yangtze

Theme: The Warring States of China
Weight: Medium
Major Mechanics: Tile laying
Average Play time: 90 minutes
Thoughts: a re-implementation of Knizia’s popular Tigris & Euphrates, only now with hexes! (a-and Chinese people…) It’s kinder/more forgiving than T&E. While I don’t personally like that about Y&Y, it definitely makes it more accessible to people who find T&E too mean.

13. NMBR 9

Theme: abstract
Weight: casual
Major Mechanics: polymino tile laying
Average play time: 30 minutes
Thoughts: I love me some abstracts (and tile laying too). The quote from Obi-wan Kenobi that best sums up this game is “hang on. We’re smarter than this!” This game requires literally no teach. You can open the box and play it.

12. Gaia Project

Theme: Civilization building… IN SPACE!!!!
Weight: heavy
Major Mechanics: Engine building, tracks, having lots of bits (it’s a euro)
Average play time: 2-3 hours
Thoughts: Anything you put in space I will immediately like better. This is not as rules tight, or immediately accessible as most of the other games on this list. It took me a number of plays to appreciate it, and it’s not for everyone, but it can be incredibly satisfying or incredibly frustrating.

11. Can’t Stop

Theme: abstract
Weight: casual
Major Mechanics: Dice rolling, push your luck
Average Play time: 30 minutes
Thoughts: my family has been playing this game since I was little, and I still think it’s fun. Good for younger players to work on their math skills.

10. The Isle of Cats

Theme: Saving cats from (a dog? Kairi thinks it’s a dog) an indescribable evil
Weight: medium
Major mechanics: polymino tile laying, card drafting
Average play time: 90 minutes
Thoughts: This is cute, fun, and fairly easy to understand.

9. Treasure Mountain

Theme: Dwarven Mining
Weight: Medium
Major Mechanics: Worker placement, tile laying
Average play time: too damn long
Thoughts: Despite this game taking like, an hour longer than it should, pretty much everything you do in it is fun. The components are really nice, and mining is incredibly satisfying. We house ruled no dragon points (but still dragon consequences), as we felt it distracted from the main point of the game.

8. Azul

Theme: abstract
Weight: Casual
Major Mechanics: Tile drafting
Average Play time: 45 minutes
Thoughts: Simple rules set. Meaningful decisions. Quick play. There is nothing wrong with Azul, though they keep trying to fix it. I guess that’s more a problem with capitalism than with Azul.

7. Terraforming Mars

Theme: dude…
Weight: medium/heavy
Major Mechanics: card drafting (for the love of all that’s good), tile placement, engine building, cubes
Average Play time: A. LONG. DAMN. TIME.
Thoughts: Hands down, this is the game I’ve blinged out the most, and with good reason. My friends really like this game. I really like this game. It’s a fun ass game. We play it a lot.

6. Hardback

Theme: writing
Weight: medium
Major Mechanics: deck building, spelling
Average Play time: 60 minutes (but longer with more players)
Thoughts: hands down my favorite deck builder. Where the underlying game here is fun, the word game is equally fun.

5. Tigris & Euphrates

Theme: Mesopotamian Civilization Building
Weight: medium
Major Mechanics: tile laying
Average Play time: 1 hour
Thoughts: Cut throat and thought provoking, Knizia does a lot here with a few simple rules, which is something I value in a board game.

 

 

 4. Sorcerer City

Theme: Fantasy City Building
Weight: medium
Major mechanics: Tile-laying, deck-building
Average Play time: 60 – 90 minutes
Thoughts: Combining my favorite mechanics into a game that’s smooth like a good bourbon and tense with action, though not stressful, I think this game is a modern masterpiece.

3. Res Arcana

Theme: Generic Fantasy
Weight: Medium
Major Mechanics: engine building
Average Play time: 15 – 45 minutes
Thoughts: This list has a surprising number of games that came out in the last year. Res Arcana quickly jumped up into one of our groups most played games this past year and was my GotY. Though it lacks in almost any theme, it makes up for it with solid and smooth game play, once again, doing a lot with just a few components. Definitely use the drafting variant for a more cohesive experience.

2. Race for the Galaxy

Theme: Space Stuff
Weight: Medium-Heavy
Major Mechanics: tableau building, card selection
Average play time: 10 – 30 minutes
Thoughts: If you have trouble learning iconography, than Race isn’t the game for you, but if you can get past that, Race is a blistering masterpiece of modern board gaming. If you don’t like dealing with all those pesky cards adding a whole 5 minutes to your game play, you can get the app for $7.

1. Hive Pocket

Theme: Bugs
Weight: Medium
Major Mechanics: abstract strategy
Average Play time: 15 – 20 minutes
Thoughts: Hive is somewhere between Chess and Checkers in weight and feel. Each piece moves distinctly, like the bugs they are modeled after. Portable, cheap, and hardy; there is no board. It can be played anywhere. And it’s deep. Like official strategy book deep.