Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 33 (32-31)

#32 Super Motherload

This is a fantastic deck building game that I fear may have been hindered by its unfortunate name. Super Motherload sounds like a Nintendo themed porn parody. 

What it is, is a wonderful deck builder with a board element where players are playing cards to bore mining tunnels deeper and deeper into (hmm … the porn analogy continues) the surface of an alien planet (Mars?) to harvest its natural resources.

Players dig down through the layers of rock to mine gems and spend those to get better cards to add to their deck. The theme is pretty much Dig Dug (if you can remember that) the deck building game. Cards that you add to your deck improve your mining crew which enable you to go further and faster, hopefully beating your opponents to the most lucrative gains.

I really love Super Motherload. It sits in a similar spot as Quest for Eldorado but adds just the smallest level of complexity. Quest for Eldorado for example, is a race and ends when the first player reaches the finish line. Super Motherload has many of the same "feels" but sees players scoring points to achieve victory. Plus, I like the space theme.

An engaging, simple deck builder with a fun theme, great table presence and a terrible name, Super Motherload is my 32nd favorite game of all time.

#31 Wingspan

Ah, Wingspan. This one you have probably already heard about if you have any sort of interest in modern hobby board gaming. Wingspan took the gaming world by storm and with good reason.

In Wingspan players are filling a nature preserve with all forms of avian life. Your nature preserve is made up of three habitats: forests, fields, and wetlands. This creates three of the four rows of your player board. The fourth (really narrow) row at the top of your board allows you to place cards into the other three rows. (These rows are wide enough to hold the cards that you need to put there.)

The three wide rows hold cards. The top narrow row does not. In addition, all rows act as sort of worker placement spots to trigger actions. Players have action cubes that act as workers to activate these different action spots. The top narrow row allows players to place a cube there and then add a card to any one of the other three rows.

These cards are the birds that move into your nature preserve, and all of the cards are beautifully illustrated. Wingspan is gorgeous! Players collect bird cards and place them on their player board in the row that represents the proper habitat for the bird in question. 

Each row has seven columns. (The player board is a four by seven grid.) But, each of the three habitats holds a maximum of five birds. The first column is where you keep your action cubes after they are played, and the last column shows a powerful action that can only be unlocked once the entire row is filled with birds. This is a tiny narrow column just like the top row. 

The main active parts of your player board are the center second through sixth columns that hold your cards. This all might sound confusing, but the player board is actually really well laid out and clearly defined. It makes learning and playing Wingspan a breeze!

All the core actions are right there on the board. The forest row lets you collect food from the bird feeder. (Food is rolled on special food dice. The bird feeder is an awesome dice tray!) The field row lets your birds lay eggs. (Food and Eggs are both needed to play more cards onto your player board.) The wetlands row lets you draw more bird cards into your hand.

What you can do is all right there in front of you. But, wait! There's more! When you play a card into a row, you always play it into the left most available column. Then, when you choose a row in order to perform an action, you activate the action to the right of the last card in the row. So, the more birds that you have in a row, the more powerful that row's action becomes.

But wait! There's more! Most of your bird cards also have actions on them. You activate the core player action, then moving from right to left you go back across the row activating the action of each bird card in that row! That can give you a lot of awesome stuff to do in one turn! So, while you are set collecting birds, you are also building an engine!

After players play all of their action cubes, the round ends and a scoring phase is activated, where players compair how they did for the round on special end round objectives. Each player then places one of their action cubes on the scorecard. This means that players have one less action in the coming round. 

So, as your actions on your player board get better and better, this is offset by the fewer number of action cubes available. It is also always clear which round you're in and impossible to forget and lose track. (Which sometimes happens in other games.)

It's beautiful. It's intuitive. It's clever. It's thematic. (All the bird powers actually make sense based on the behavior of the birds in nature.) Wingspan is a masterpiece, worth all of its hype. It even answers the question, "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" (You have to have birds first in Wingspan in order to lay eggs.)

Wingspan is so good. If you haven't played it, you should. Just thinking about it makes me wonder why Wingspan isn't higher in my top 100. For now though, Wingspan is my 31st favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 32 (34-33)

#34 Kingdom Builder

In Kingdom Builder players are placing little houses (settlements) of their player color on a big hex map (game board). The map has flower spaces and tree spaces and grass and desert and mountains and rivers and canyons.

Players have a single card in hand that shows a terrain type represented on the board. Players must play three of their settlements onto a hex space on the board that matches the terrain type on their card. They then discard the card and draw a new one.

If you can, you must place settlements next to other settlements matching your player color. So, if you already have a settlement next to a flower field and you have a flower card, then you must play next to that settlement. Otherwise you can play into any hex matching the card that you have.

There are a few additional types of spaces on the board. There are unique locations that, if you place a settlement next to them, you get a special power. These powers allow you to manipulate the placement rules in different ways. There are also cities which are worth additional points if you place a settlement next to them.

Other points are scored based on objective cards. There are many different scoring objective cards and you only play with a few each game. So, games can feel very different depending on the particular combination of objective cards that you have.

The game board hex map is made of four large tile pieces. These have different arrangements of the various terrains and each one has a specific special power location on them. There are many of these and they too are mixed in different combinations every game. 

There is a lot of variability here complimenting a very simple rules set. Game play is engaging and interesting. Players are looking at the board trying to figure out the best place to put their next settlement and how to make the most of their special powers.

Even though you are placing little wooden houses (settlements) into hexes on a map, Kingdom Builder "feels" like a tile laying game or like putting a puzzle together. It's more interesting and challenging than it should be, but also relaxing. It's also my 34th favorite game of all time. 

#33 Oltréé

In Oltréé players work together to overcome obstacles and protect their kingdom while building up their shared castle keep. A master track handles adding different threats to the board. Each turn players roll a die to move a pawn on the master track. They resolve the effect represented by the pawn's location on the track, and then take their turn.

On a player's turn they are able to take two actions but cannot take the same action twice. These actions are usually move and then do something else, like interact with a location to gain its benefit, resolve an encounter card, or spend resources to improve the castle. Improving the castle gives all players benefits, usually making them better at a particular kind of action. This in turn helps with resolving encounter cards.

Encounter cards represent different things. Many are threats to the kingdom, and if players allow too many of these kinds of cards to pile up, then they lose the game. Winning the game requires completing a chronicle which is a sort of book at the start of the master track and then passing a final test.

Pages (cards) of the chronicle are turned (flipped) every time the pawn completes its journey through the master track and returns to the start. Each page of the chronicle tells part of a story and may introduce new rules or objectives. The final page of the chronicle presents a challenge that must be met to win the game.

Oltréé is a cooperative adventure board game. Each chronicle stands on its own and I appreciate that Oltréé doesn't try to be a campaign game. The game is kept light enough and accessible enough that it's easy to get to the table. I love this, but we have played all but one of the chronicles at this point, and they don't feel very replayable.

I fear that without new chronicles to play, Oltréé may fall off my top 100, but right now, I love it. It's my 33rd favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 31 (36-35)

#36 Village Rails

In Village Rails players are completing train routes through the countryside carrying goods to small villages. This is all done with cards. Cards are drafted to create the routes. Other cards represent the contracts that you can fulfill to carry goods. These will be based on symbols on the route cards. Finding the right combination of cards is key and makes for an interesting puzzle of finding the right pieces and putting them into the correct configuration in order to score points.

Placement rules require you to begin routes at the top or left edge of the board and then work your way down and right. Cards must always be placed adjacent to these edges or other cards. This complicates the puzzle slightly and makes a bit of planning essential.

After the 16th card is placed into the 4x4 grid for every player, the game ends. Routes are scored for length and contracts are tallied and the player whose train has served their little rural community the best is the winner.

#35 Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition

In Terraforming Mars: Ares Expedition players are corporations working together to transform the planet Mars, making it habitable for life from Earth. While these corporations might be working together, this is not a cooperative game. Each corporation wants to be seen as having contributed the most to this endeavor, gaining additional prestige and of course the best, most lucrative contracts in the new world.

The game uses an action system where one player chooses an action, then all other players also perform the same action simultaneously. The player who chose the action gains a bonus. Actions include collecting cards to add to their hand, playing cards from their hand into a tableau by paying the cards cost in resources, gaining resources, or affecting elements of the planet like its temperature or oxygen level.

The game ends when the oxygen and temperature of Mars has been changed to the correct values for Earth born life. Players have received points for their contributions to changing the planet, and every tableau includes cards that grant additional points. All points are tallied and the corporation (player) with the most points is the winner.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 30 (38-37)

#38 Beer And Bread

Beer and Bread is a two player only card drafting, resource management game. Players plant crops and grow them to produce beer and bread. Cards are drafted to gain powers and benefits to make this job easier. B&B is an engine building game and creating the best engine is key to success. Julie and I love these types of games and it always helps when the theme works with the game's mechanisms, which it does here. Beer And Bread is a winner.

#37 Trekking Through History

In Trekking Through History players are time travelers taking tours of important historical events. This is a set collection game where collecting cards in the proper chronological order is necessary for success. The game uses a cool turn order mechanism where certain events (cards collected) require a specific amount of time to complete. This moves you forward on a clock. The player furthest behind on the clock is always the next person to go in the turn order. It's possible if you take a card that requires a large investment in time, that other player might take several shorter time cards before they catch up to you. Also, all the historical event cards contain interesting information about each event alongside beautiful artwork. Trekking Through History is a rare example of a game that is incredibly fun to play, but also educational in the best possible way. I always learn something new when I play it.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 29 (40-39)

#40 First In Flight 

First In Flight is a deck building game where players are aviators at the dawn of early aeronautics. Your deck represents your plane and the board is an enormous rondel. You move around the board collecting new cards to improve your plane, adding them to your deck, but in order to cull bad cards from your deck you must take your plane on test flights. Each test flight is a push-your-luck affair as you try to stay in the air as long as possible without crashing. The first player to achieve a record breaking flight is the winner. 

#39 Fleet: The Dice Game 

In Fleet: The Dice Game players own a fleet of fishing boats. Dice are rolled and drafted each round to allow players to get fishing licenses, new fishing boats and to go fishing. Actions provide bonuses and there are so many ways to create combos and have massive turns. These combo-rific turns make you feel great in this fantastic roll-and-write game. Catching more fish than your opponents gets you points towards winning the game.

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RPG Play Test Coming Soon

I had originally planned to write a different entry for today, but I need to get approval before I share it publicly. My vow of course is to write everyday, and then to post here everyday as a way to keep myself accountable. I did write quite a bit today already that I won't be sharing just yet. Most likely, I will continue the story about my move to Tulsa next weekend.

For now, I wish everyone a wonderful Memorial Day weekend and hope that if you are able, you are playing some great board games or role-playing games. My most recent RPG project is called, Little Colony On The Big Moon: A game of exploration and community building. It's ready now for its first test at the gaming table and I will be reaching out to some people to try to make that happen soon.

If this is something that you would be interested in, please let me know.

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I Could Have Gone To Jail

Why was Fred so angry?

I have been struggling with how to approach this part of the story. There is a tendency, a need to justify myself, to make what was wrong seem right, to make excuses. I stole money from Fred's best friend. It was wrong. It was selfish. There is no excuse.

I have formed a habitual addiction to escapist entertainment: role-playing games like D&D, board games, Star Trek and Doctor Who. I can (and often do) lose myself inside these things. This has become something of a way of life for me. I think it's okay. I call my addiction a passion. I share this passion with my friends and my beautiful wife. We're well adjusted, "relatively normal" people. This wasn't always true for me.

Comic books were my gateway drug. I learned fairly early in my young life that if I was going to survive, I needed to find a way to shut myself off from my world, because for a long time, my world wasn't a good place. I found my escape in the pages of comic books. This started before Chuck was part of my home life when I was six years old.

My "actual" biological father left my mom for another woman (her best friend) when I was five years old. My sister Sally would have been 3, and my sister Karla an infant of only a few months. Yeah, "dad" was a real gem. He fled and never paid a dollar of child support. I barely remember anything about him. 

I saw my father for the "first" time at my grandmother's (his mom's) funeral. All of his children were now grown to adulthood. I suppose he thought that with his fiscal responsibility over he could "reach out" safely. I didn't give him the time of day, and I never saw him again. Sally was kind enough to stay in contact. Sally is the most forgiving person in the world. I want to talk a little more about her tomorrow.

When my father left, one of the first things that my mom did (that 5 to 6 year-old me remembers) is take me to the Shriners Hospital for Crippled Children in St. Louis. We lived an hour away in Southern Illinois and she was alone with three kids. So, I got to see her once a week while I was there and she would stay for about an hour. I would scream and cry and throw a fit when she left. One of the things she would do to make me feel better is bring me comic books.

I was consoling myself with comic books before Chuck came along. I used them to hide from my fear as my mom left me in the hospital then, and later to hide from fear of home and of school … of everything in my life. Comic books were everything to me, but I never had "a lot" of them because we never had much money. When Fred came along that changed slightly, but I didn't know that. I was used to expecting not to have money. 

Maybe that's why I didn't just ask mom to buy comics for me. Instead, I stole them. It was easy. The comic rack at the IGA was right by the door. I just walked in, took a few and walked out. I fed my comic book habit this way for over a year. I did this, even though life at home was better. Life at school was better. But, I was used to hiding, and like I said, taking the comics was easy. Until I got caught.

When I got caught I confessed to everything and was banned from the store. That was it. They didn't call the police. They did call my mom. I felt bad. I had always known that it was wrong. Growing up on a steady diet of superhero comics, I cherished the concepts of right and wrong and being the "good guy." But, I wasn't. And I still "needed" the comics, or thought that I needed them.

Honestly, being the "crippled boy" probably saved me from jail time. I was over 18. I could have gone to jail. My life could have been very much different, and I dodged this bullet not once, but twice.

Later that year in the summer I was given a job by Fred's best friend Jim. He had a little bait shop and he paid me to watch it on the weekends. I couldn't go to the IGA anymore to buy comics. I had to order them through the mail. For whatever reason, this wasn't enough for me and I stole money from Jim in order to buy more comics. Of course, Jim figured this out and told Fred. That's why Fred was so angry.

I started this post by saying that I would not make excuses. I broke all this down, not to excuse it, but to try to understand it. My need to escape, especially in the pages of comic books back then, was a conditioned behavior that I couldn't escape. I stole to feed it like one does an addiction. It is still a part of me, but I have learned to balance it with my responsibilities and turn it into a positive thing in my life.

Besides if all of this had not happened, I probably would never have moved to Tulsa. I was a whole different person in Tulsa.

Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 28 (42-41)

#42 Blue Moon City

In Blue Moon City players play cards to gain resources to help rebuild Blue Moon City. I wrote a detailed review of Blue Moon not that long ago and you can review it here.

#41 Marvel Dice Throne

Marvel Dice Throne is a dice battling game. It plays a lot like Yahtzee with players rolling five dice, rerolling up to twice and looking to keep combinations of these dice in order to score. But in Dice Throne the dice combos trigger off different kinds of attacks and your goal is to defeat your opponent.

The dice combos correspond to powers on your unique player board. In Marvel Dice Throne these powers and their player boards are representative of heroes and villains from the Marvel Universe such as Mile Morales Spider-man, Thor, Black Widow or Loki. The characters each have unique abilities and a custom deck of cards that works in combination with the dice.

All the characters "feel" like their comic book counterparts, Thor has a hammer he can throw. Loki is the master of misdirection, you may think that you are hitting him, but you really aren't. In the place of the "Yahtzee" (five of a kind) Dice Throne has the "Ultimate." This represents a super powerful attack that your opponent is helpless to block. (So much fun!)

Marvel Dice Throne is a favorite. It's fast and easy to get to the table, and a great game when we just want to throw some dice and feel like superheroes!

  

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 27 (44-43)

 #44 Luxor

In Luxor players each lead an archaeological team exploring a newly discovered pyramid. Teams are in a race to catalog the most valuable treasures and gain the most prestige. You have a hand of 5 cards, but you can't organize the cards in your hand at all. When you play a card, you can only play the leftmost card in your hand or the rightmost card in your hand. When you draw a replacement card, you must always place that card right into the middle of your hand. This creates some cool puzzly hand management.

Cards are used to move you through the corridors of the pyramid toward the central chamber. Each "step" along the way is a tile. You collect the tiles that you land on for their treasures. These are seeded randomly and provide a set collection puzzle for points. Removed tiles are removed "steps" so player pawns coming from behind will actually move through the pyramid more quickly. This is thematic and another part of the strategy as you decide which pawns to rush ahead and which to hold back.

Reaching the central chamber triggers the end game, and after all players have had the same number of turns, scores are tallied. The player with the most points is the winner. If you like simple but puzzly hand management style card games, then Luxor is for you. It's certainly for me!

#43 Marvel: Remix

In Marvel Remix players have a hand of 7 cards. 6 of these cards is from the Remix deck and the 7th card is from a villain deck. Players must have a hero and a villain in their hand at the end of the game or their hand is disqualified. (Imagine that your hand is a comic book and it needs both heroes and at least one villain.) 

On their turn players draw a card into their hand and then discard a card face up on the table. That's it. The drawn card can come from the face up discards, or either of the two face down decks (Remix or Villain.) Cards all have scoring conditions based on the other cards that are in your hand, and this is what players are looking at as they play.

The goal is to build the best hand, the one that scores you the most points. When the face up discard pile reaches 10 cards, the game ends and scores are tallied.

  

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 26 (45-45)

#46 The Quest for El Dorado

The Quest for El Dorado is a simple deck building style game. Players play cards to move through the jungle in a race to be the first to find the fabled city of gold. This is a simple race game. The player to reach El Dorado first is the winner. The challenge in the game is moving as efficiently as possible through the jungle.

  

  

The path through the jungle is the race course. The board is modular and changes with every game. So, the optimal path will never be the same. Cards are used for movement and what cards you have available will determine the path that you take. Everyone starts with the same modest deck of cards, but it's up to you which cards you buy to add to your deck and make it better.

Some cards let you cut your way through the dense jungle. Others will move you through water or provide you with gold to buy more and better cards. The card market is tiered so that only the most basic cards are initially available. Once one of these stacks of basic cards is exhausted however, the player who bought the final card from the stack gets to decide which card from the upper tier moves down and becomes available.

The Quest for El Dorado is a great introductory deck building game. The card play is clear and the objectives are straight forward. The tiered market means that players only need to learn a few card powers at a time, which makes The Quest for El Dorado something of a teaching game. This is a great game for new and experienced game players alike.

  

#45 Rise of Augustus

Like Karuba (my #53 game), Rise of Augustus uses a bingo style mechanism for simultaneous play. Rise of Augustus plays even more like BINGO. Players start with three "BINGO" cards. These cards have symbols on them. The first player pulls tokens from a bag that shows one of these different symbols and calls it out. Every player who has this symbol on one of their cards covers it up with a little player pawn. When a player completes a card, having covered all of its symbols, they call out, "Ave Caesar!"

  

  

Your "BINGO" cards have victory points and special powers on them. The special powers trigger when a card is completed. Some cards give one off benefits while others will help you for the remainder of the game. When you complete a card and call out, "Ave Caesar!" (Or "BINGO" or "Ooh! Ooh! I did it!") The game stops and the powers on your card are triggered. You also then choose a new card from an open market to place in front of you so that you are always working on three cards at a time.

One of the tokens in the draw bag is wild. When this token is drawn, the caller can choose any symbol that they want and call that out instead. Everyone covers that symbol on a card (if they have it) and then the draw bag is reset. All tokens are returned to the bag and the bag is passed to the next player. That player is now the caller, and play continues. Once any player completes their 7th "BINGO" the game ends. Points from individual BINGO cards and public objectives are tallied and the player with the most points wins. 

Rise of Augustus is a brilliant game. It's so much fun and so easy to play, but choosing the right cards is key. Card powers can combo off each other and it feels great to use those powers to complete two or three cards in a single turn. This adds a nice level of strategy to a very simple game, and makes Rise of Augustus a surprising favorite!

  

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 25 (48-47)

Apologies for the lackluster post today. I had physical therapy for my knee and it has wiped me out. 

#48 Tenpenny Parks

In Tenpenny Parks players are building an amusement park. This is a polyomino game. It looks beautiful. You have to clear trees to make room for attractions and fit those on your player board. Attractions move you up on three different tracks, and balancing your advancement along the three tracks is key to victory. 

#47 Gizmos

This is a pure engine building game. Players pull marbles from a dispenser and use those to buy cards. Cards are added to your tableau creating an engine. Some cards trigger when you take marbles, some when you buy other cards. Some when you add cards to your engine. This is all about triggering as many different actions as possible on your turn and it's great. 

Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 24 (50-49)

This week we enter the bottom half of the list as I share my numbers 50-41 of my Top 100 board games of all time.  

#50 The White Castle

The White Castle is one of those games that I've only played a few times, and so it should probably be even lower on this list. I don't remember its mechanisms well enough to talk about game play in much detail, but I really remember enjoying the game. It gave such good vibes the few times that I played it, that it had to be this high on my list.

In The White Castle players are drafting dice from these bridges to perform actions. Actions grant points in different areas and the player with the most points after nine turns wins the game. Thematically, players are competing to gain the favor of the Emperor? (I think?) But, it really just about getting the points.

One area lets you train warriors, another improves farmlands, and another allows you to work your way up inside the White Castle itself. The farther you go, the higher your social status and therefore the more notice you draw from the Emperor. I don't remember everything exactly, but I really like the game, and I need to play it some more.

The coolest part of the puzzle is the dice drafting. Dice are rolled and placed onto these bridges. The highest dice are placed on one side of a bridge and the lowest on the other. Higher dice grant stronger actions on the board, and this is one part of the puzzle. Lower dice mean weaker actions, but they grant a bonus action related to the bridge where they were drafted and this bonus action is good enough to create some tough choices.

In fact, The White Castle seems to be all about leveraging different bonus actions to make the most of your turns. This kind of puzzly tension is always fun, and The White Castle has this in abundance. I need to get this one back to the table. I remember really liking it, even though I will have to learn to play it all over again when we get it back to the table. I think the White Castle will climb higher in my list when I play it more, for now it is my 50th favorite game of all time.

  

#49 Sagrada

Sagrada is a numbers and colors puzzle game. Players take turns drafting dice and then placing those dice into a grid. The grid is one of several individual player boards. These boards range in difficulty based on predefined patterns on each board. Player boards will require you to place dice of a particular color in a specific place, while simultaneously requiring a specific number in a different place. The more complex boards have a greater number of requirements, limiting your choices and creating a greater challenge.

At the start of the game you choose which board to play on. You can choose a complex board or a simple one. During the game, players have the ability to cash in these clear glass beads to perform a special action. The special actions let you "cheat" placing dice somewhere that you normally couldn't or moving a die that you have already placed. The number of these glass beads that you have to spend is determined by the player board that you chose. If you chose a simple board then you may only get one or two beads. A more complex board might give you three or four.

Your player board is only one piece of the puzzle. There are also global objectives that give all players points. These are things like: score for each row that has no repeated colors in it, or no repeated numbers. Things like that. Players do their best to achieve the global objectives to score points while dealing with the challenge of the obstacles present on their personal player boards. It's a very abstract game, but it actually has a theme that's really fun.

In Sagrada players are supposed to be creating stained glass windows. To this end, all the dice are brightly colored and transparent. When you place dice you can't put the same colors or the same numbers next to each other. This is the basic rule above and beyond all those other restrictions that were mentioned. It might seem like a lot, but it's really pretty intuitive. It's a game that is easy to teach and learn, but quite challenging in execution.

Also, the dice drafting method is interesting. It's something that I believe is called a snake draft. The first person drafts a die of their choice, then the next. The last person to draft a die chooses not one, but two dice, then the drafting order is reversed so that the first person who drafted the first die, is the last person to draft the second. This works really well, even at two players. In fact Julie and I love playing Sagrada at two players. It's quick, puzzly, interesting, challenging, and beautiful. All of these factors combine to make Sagrada is my 49th favorite game of all time.

  

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Cutler

Moving from the sprawling metropolis of Coulterville with its Dairy Queen and IGA (population 1000) to the tiny backwater of Cutler with its combination post office-general store (population 400) felt like the end of the world. But, it turned out that Cutler was really good for me. 

Cutler didn't have one of these. 

Cutler wasn't large enough to have its own school. The kids from Cutler as well as those from half a dozen other small towns (most even smaller than Cutler) were all bussed to a centralized school called Tri-Co. Tri-Co changed my relationship with school. 

My transcript from Coulterville was beyond terrible. Tri-Co placed me initially into a special education class. Fortunately for me, Tri-Co seemed well versed in transitioning students from other schools. I was moved out of the special education class after the first hour. I don't really know the different levels that existed to move me through, but I was moved again at the end of the first day. By the end of the week I went from being a drop out in Coulterville to attending advanced classes in Cutler. 

This was an incredible boost to my ego. I had NEVER thought of myself as even an average student let alone advanced in anything. I started trying harder, and I did well. I missed my friends in Coulterville, and mom and dad (aka step-dad Fred) would take me there on Tuesday nights so that they could go to the Coulterville VFW and play BINGO. 

I visited my friend Peyton every Tuesday night during that school year. But, I also made friends at Tri-Co. So many of these kids were just as far outside their element as I was, and I brought knowledge of D&D with me. I made new friends. I was invited to parties and overnight D&D games at people's houses. I was a different person living a different life. 

But, mom hated Cutler. Fred went to work. My sisters and I went to school. She was alone in the tiny town of Cutler with nothing to do, no friends, and a toddler to take care of. By the end of the school year, Fred found mom a different house and we moved back to Coulterville. I threw another fit. I'm sure that mom must have thought at this point that there was absolutely no pleasing me. 

My return to Coulterville was something of a mixed bag. My friends were now out of high school and moved on to college. I was alone and headed into my junior year at the age of 19. At first, it seemed like school was going to be the same terrible experience that it had been in the past, but this time, I was present. I applied myself, and teachers who had previously written me off slowly began to treat me differently.

One teacher in particular did a complete 180 where I was concerned. He changed from a despised teacher to my favorite teacher. He even sent one of my essays into a contest for which I won "Student Historian of the Year" and was presented with an award from the governor. School was turning out to be a good thing. Then I took the PSAT exams. 

I did really well on the PSATs. I got the highest score in my class. I also got called into the Principal's office for a consultation. It turns out that I was not eligible for any academic scholarships because I would be in high school for more than 4 years. My grades didn't matter at this point. The Principal's advice was that I drop out and take the GED. With that, I could reach out to Vocational Rehab and get into college with assistance because of my disability.

That's what I did. But this wouldn't last. One evening my mom called my sister who had moved to Tulsa. "You need to come get your brother." She pleaded. "Fred is going to kill him." 

Chuck

A few weeks ago I talked about playing D&D during the summer of 1981. I mentioned being disillusioned during the school year in the fall and failing my sophomore year of high school. In the summer of 1982, we moved. This for me, felt like the worst possible thing. 

I've talked about my struggles with school and with the young people that should have been, but weren't my peers, because I was a young disabled person in the public schools, but I haven't said much about my life at home. Prior to our life in Coulterville, we moved … a lot. My stepfather Chuck was a hard worker, but he had trouble keeping a job. He drank. 

Not "that" Chuck. 

My strongest memory from my childhood is the smell of beer. Chuck had a beer in hand from the time he got up in the morning until he went to bed at night. He was a rail thin man with bloodshot eyes who drank constantly but barely ate anything at all. He was rarely sober, but when he was, he was kind. Sadly, this was rare. 

We would move from place to place as Chuck moved from job to job. I believe that he loved us - his family, but I also believe that we were a terrible burden that he seemed to constantly fail. So, then too, were we a constant reminder of that failure. We brought resentment where there should have been joy, and this resentment manifested itself as mental and physical abuse focused on the source of that resentment. Oh, and of course, more and more drinking. 

My sister once told me whilst looking back on our childhood, how badly she felt for me. School, she told me, was a reprieve for her. She loved school because it was a safe place for her away from home, but it wasn't for me. I never had a safe place. I sought what solace I could in the pages of comic books. They were my escape. But, that was all in my head. Real life was always waiting just on the other side of my bedroom door. 

Having moved so much, never making friends, staying on the wrong side of everyone, even my teachers, meant that for the longest time, I didn't know that my world was wrong. I thought that what I was experiencing was the only thing available for me, but as I got older, I learned the truth about this world I was living in, and I decided to do something about it. 

I was 14. Chuck and mom were fighting. This wasn't unusual, but he hit her. I couldn't stand it and I charged into the room with the intention of putting myself between Chuck and my mom. I think she must have seen me coming because she reacted in a way that I didn't expect. She shoved Chuck backwards out the kitchen door and slammed it shut, quickly locking it, before running through the house to the front door and locking that one as well. I think she was trying to protect me, rather than herself. 

She told us (me and my sisters) not to worry, and to go to our rooms. I heard Chuck start the car and I thought for a moment that he might try to drive it into the house. He didn't. He drove off, almost certainly headed towards the closest bar. Once things had quieted down, mom started making excuses. "He's just drunk. He just needs to cool off." All the usual platitudes. 

I sat down with mom and told her that I wouldn't do this anymore. I told her that either she left Chuck, or I would walk out the door and she would never see me again. We left Chuck that night. We stayed with one of my mom's sisters (Aunt Janet or Aunt Darla … I can't remember) and within a few days we moved to Coulterville. 

I bring all of this up to emphasize how precious those few years in Coulterville were to me, and what a terrible step back suddenly moving again was. But, Mom had married again, and Fred (my new step dad) wanted to buy her a house… a new home. That new home was in a town called Cutler.

Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 23 (52-51)

#52 Wild Space

In Wild Space players draft cards to create the best spaceship crews. The crews are anthropomorphic animal aliens and robots. Points are scored for grouping species of crew members or other various kinds of sets based on scoring cards that you collect.

Players move space ship pawns to different planets. Each planet provides an action that the player can take. Each planet card is divided into two halves. The top half is "orbit" and you have to move your ships there first. Then you can "land" on the planet in a subsequent turn. 

The orbit and landing areas of the cards have different actions. Cards also can trigger actions when played, creating a cascading effect. This is desirable as getting the most actions out of each of your turns will help you to win.

Planet cards vary in power and the stronger cards require a larger crew compliment to reach. So, you work to build a strong enough crew to reach the furthest planets and take all of your actions. Once all ships have landed the game ends and scores are tallied.

Wild Space is a combo-rific card game. Its design is clean and the game play is streamlined but engaging as you try to get the most out of every turn. Also the cartoon animal aliens are super cute.

#51 Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu

In Pandemic: Reign of Cthulhu players work together to defeat cultists before they are able to summon the great old ones. This has all the usual Pandemic trappings, but the board represents gothic districtics described in the works of H. P. Lovecraft.

Enemies that pop-up aren't diseases but cultists. There are also monsters that can appear if too many cultists gather in an area, and instead of outbreaks - powerful old-ones will enter play changing the rules of the game for the worse! If the final old-one: Cthulhu is summoned, before the heroes are able to close all four summoning gates, the players lose.

This is my favorite version of Pandemic. I find its mechanics to be cleaner and easier to manage than any other version of the game that I have played. It's also dripping with atmosphere, the board, the cards, everything is just so gothic-pulpy good. 

Reign of Cthulhu even has proper miniatures to represent the cultists, the monsters, and the characters. Every character has a special power that matches the theme. Reign of Cthulhu feels more like an adventure game than a Pandemic game. I love that!

It's also the perfect game for Spooky Season!

Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 22 (54-53)

It's a fun coincidence (IMO) that my 53rd and 54th favorite games are both by designer Rüdiger Dorn, and that they were released in consecutive years (2014 and 2015.) Both games have appeared in my top 10 in the past. Rüdiger Dorn is one of my favorite game designers.

 

#54 Istanbul

In Istanbul, players move a stack of merchants, representing a Master Merchant and their assistants, around a modular board, representing a vast marketplace. For each step your Master Merchant takes, you must leave one assistant behind. So, movement in Istanbul is very Mancala like. When you have run out of assistants, or at any point that you wish to back track, you can return to a location and pick an assistant up. Basically, when you move, an assistant must be involved either at the start (drop off) or the end (pick up) of the move. If no assistant is involved in the move, then you can't make that move. (The Master Merchant is helpless without their assistants.) This movement puzzle is a key aspect of the game play in Istanbul. If you can create an effective "loop" to travel this will help you greatly. There is also a fountain that players can stop at to call all of their assistants back to the Master Merchant.

 

 

All of this movement is done to activate the actions at the various locations. This is being done to enable players to collect gems. Collecting gems is the goal of the game. The first person to collect a certain number of these gems will be the winner. Gaining gems requires players to participate in various game actions. They can collect and sell goods to earn money to buy the gems directly. They can gamble for gems, achieve milestones, like upgrading their cart that carries their goods, and many other ways. No matter what you are doing to get your gems, after you utilize that method once, the next time you attempt the same method it will be more costly. This encourages players to diversify their strategies.

I love Istanbul. The theme is engaging. (You even have a shady relative who will perform a bonus action for you, if you bail them out of jail. LOL!) Game play is clean and puzzly, and the conditions for victory are clear. Istanbul even won the 2014 Kennerspiel des Jahres (German Hobby Game of the Year - very prestigious!)

 

#53 Karuba

In Karuba players lead an expedition of adventurers through the jungle to find lost temples and gather valuable treasures. Every player has a player board that is made up of a grid of spaces. Along the bottom and left of the board is beach. Along the top and right of the board is jungle. Everything else is unexplored wilderness. Everyone starts with the same orientation of temple pawns placed on jungle spaces, and adventurer pawns placed on beach spaces.

 

 

One player is the caller. Each turn the caller draws a random wilderness tile and announces its number to the other players. All players then locate that tile and place it anywhere they like in the wilderness grid of their player board. Wilderness tiles all show a path through the jungle. The path might form a straight line across the tile. It might form a t-section. It might display a 90 degree turn, or it might show a crossroads. If you place a tile next to another tile, you must line up the paths on all adjacent tiles. Tiles cannot be rotated. The tile number must always appear in the upper left corner of the tile. These are the only placement rules.

Adventurers can only move on paths. The goal is to create a path from each adventurer to the temple of their matching color. In order to move an adventurer, you have to discard a tile. The adventurer moves up to a number of spaces equal to the number of path exits on the tile discarded. So a single straight or 90 degree turn path will provide a movement of 2 since it has 2 exits. A t-section has 3 exits for a movement of 3, and a crossroads 4 exits for a movement of 4.

The combination of paths vs movement on the tiles is just enough to ensure that no two players' boards are the same, despite the fact that everyone is playing the exact same game. Some tiles also have either a jewel or a gold nugget pictured on them. If you stop an adventurer on one of these tiles, you can collect those treasures for additional points. This adds just a little more to your decision space without adding complexity to the game.

The first adventurer to reach a temple of their color collects the highest valued treasure in that temple. Adventurers who reach that same colored temple later get a lesser valued treasure. These treasures along with collected gems and gold all equate to victory points. Play continues until all tiles have been played or one player has managed to reach the temples corresponding to all four of their adventurers, and the player with the most valuable treasures (most victory points) wins.

Karuba is awesome. It's very much a game of multiplayer solitaire, but everyone that I have played it with has loved it. The BINGO style simultaneous play means the game is just as snappy at four players as it is at two, with no down time. (I have even considered buying a second copy of the game so that we can play up to eight players!) Karuba was nominated for the 2016 Spiel des Jahres (German Family Game of the Year - very very prestigious!) but sadly lost out to Codenames (a game that did not make my top 100.

 

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 21 (56-55)

#56 Splendor

In Splendor players gather chips in different colors and then spend them to buy cards. The cards each have a jewel at the top representing a permanent resource that matches the chip of the same color. 

The jewels on cards can be used like the chips when buying cards. Spent chips are returned to the supply, but cards used for purchases stay in front of you and are used over and over again. They represent permanent wealth. 

As players buy cards and collect more and more jewels they can afford more expensive cards. The cheapest cards grant only a jewel as a benefit, but the more expensive cards also provide victory points. 

The first player to 15 (or more) victory points triggers the end of the game. Play continues until all players have an equal number of turns and the player with the most points wins. 

#55 Subastral 

Players take turns drafting cards from a central board. The central board is divided into sections, each a place to put cards. The sections are numbered and the cards are numbered. On your turn, you place a card from your hand into the section that matches the number on the card that you have chosen to play. Then you can take cards from either one side or the other of the card that you placed, taking all the cards from a single section. 

Taking from one side puts the cards into your hand to play onto the player board later, taking from the other side places cards into your tableau for scoring. Scoring is based on suit and suit rarity. Card numbers don't impact scoring in any way. They are just used for the card drafting puzzle. Once cards are removed from a section, these are randomly seeded from the deck.

Players are ultimately collecting sets to score points. Each time that you collect a card, you must place it with its matching suit, or if the card is of a new suit, you must start a new column, placing such cards in front of you, moving from left to right. Suits collected later will therefore be located further to the right. This becomes important because the cards furthest to the right score the most points. This scoring puzzle makes for an interesting decision space as you collect cards. 

The card sets are divided by suit and each suit is a kind of climate or earthly environment, anything from arctic desert to tropical rainforest and everything in between. These are beautifully illustrated, and Subastral looks stunning on the table. Once the deck has been sufficiently depleted that a section of the player board cannot be restocked, the game ends and the player with the highest score is the winner.

Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 20 (58-57)

#58 Joan of Arc: Orléans Draw & Write

Joan of Arc is a great little game where players pull tokens from a bag and then mark areas on their score sheet. The bag of tokens is a carry over from Orléans on which Joan of Arc is based, but it could have been cards. I have never played Orléans, which is a "bag building" game. (Players collect tokens to add to a personal draw bag and work to control their chances of drawing what they want. Quacks of Quedlinburg is another example.) Joan of Arc has a bag, but it's just a random generator, players do not have agency to control its contents.

What players can control is how they fill out the options on their score sheets and the combos they are able to trigger. Players collect resources, construct buildings, travel and build trade routes. All on their own personal score sheet (2 of them each, actually.) Joan of Arc is combo-rific fun. It's my 58th favorite game of all time.

#57 The Grand Carnival

In Grand Carnival players build a carnival, sell tickets, and give tours of attractions. Each round is made up of 5 turns where each player performs an action of a power from 1-5. You can spend each strength of action from 1-5 once and then the round is over. 5 strength actions are much more powerful than 1 strength actions, but you have to use each power level every round. Choosing when and how to use these actions is a huge part of the game.

Attractions must be built on top of prepared foundations, which make this a game about planning more than other tile placement games that we have played. The puzzle of Grand Carnival is rich and challenging. Plan your park, build attractions, have enough action strength left over to tour people through your park, because an attraction that no one sees is worth nothing. It's awesome thematic fun, and my 57th favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 19 (60-59)

#60 My Farm Shop 

Julie and I just played this one before leaving for vacation. It's a great little engine builder where players try to make the most profitable farm shop. You have a player board that represents your farm, and there's a central board that provides upgrades to your farm. 

On your turn, you roll 3 dice. One of these dice allows you to draft an upgrade from the central board equal to the die's value. You place this upgrade in one of 10 locations on your personal player board (your farm.) Each of these locations has a number over the top from 2-12. (Note: 2 and 12 share one location together. So there are 10 locations total.) 

After you have slotted your new upgrade into a location, you use the sum of the values of the other two dice to activate a location on your farm. You can even activate the new location that you just upgraded. There is an interesting push and pull as you decide between an upgrade that you really want versus a location that you really want to activate. 

In addition, your opponents also activate their farm locations on your turn as well. So, you may want to avoid activating a certain number that you know an opponent really needs. It creates just the right level of tension in what should otherwise be a reasonably simple decision space. This makes for a really good game. 

Activating locations accounts for everything that you can do in the game, from harvesting different products for your farm shop to selling those products and you also have to take care to get this balance right. It sucks when your opponent triggers your most powerful sales action but you don't have any goods in your shop to sell. 

My Farm Shop is easy to learn, but has a lot of depth. It presents a challenging puzzle that can trick players at first with it's apparent simplicity. It's a great game. In fact, it's the 60th greatest game of all time. 

#59 Adventure Land 

In Adventure Land players have a number of meeple adventurers. These are placed along the left-top edge and top-left side in starting positions on the game board. The board is a large fantasy world map. The wilderness is at the top. Civilization is at the bottom, and there is a river to cross in between. 

During setup the board is seeded with various things, treasures to collect or monsters to fight. The game rules include a number of different ways to play. The most basic game just involves getting your adventurers safely through the wilderness and into the cities. 

Along the way adventurers can gather treasures. They can find weapons to better battle monsters, healing herbs, or gold. All of these are worth points toward winning the game. Once one player has gotten all of their adventurers to the cities, the game end is triggered, and the player with the most points wins. 

The tension in Adventure Land comes from the movement puzzle. On your turn you can only move down or right. You can move a meeple as far as you like in one of these directions, but you can never go back. In addition to this, after every turn new goodies are added to the board. 

Do you rush ahead and grab the best stuff, or do you stay back hoping that something better might show up. It's a cool little game. It's a light family weight puzzle game that feels like an adventure game, and I love it. In fact, it's my 59th favorite game of all time. 

Mother's Day

We had my whole family over to the AirB&B so that we could host Mother's Day. We kept things pretty low key and everyone visited and had a great time. Once everyone was gone, Julie and I took a nap. (We were pretty exhausted.) And then we watched the first of the new Doctor Who episodes: Space Babies. I am LOVING this new Doctor Who.

Speaking of love, I have to take a moment to say how awesome my wife Julie is. I know that when you marry that you marry your spouse's whole family, but Julie has really embraced mine. She selflessly took care of a houseful of her in-laws making sure everyone had the best time that they possibly could even though her own flesh and blood son couldn't be here with her on Mother's Day. I love her so much. Moore Everyday! 

Vacation

Personal update. We spent two days driving on the road. Going from Michigan to Oklahoma to visit my family. Last couple of posts (and this one) written from the car with my phone.

Today, May 11th is my sister Sally's birthday, and tomorrow is Mother's Day. So, great time for a visit. Julie (my wife), Kaylee (my daughter), and I are sharing an AirB&B with my sister Karla. We had a nice visit over coffee this morning. 

We will be going to dinner tonight for Sally's birthday and then have everyone over to our AirB&B tomorrow for Mother's Day. Then, Monday morning I will be meeting some friends from Tulsa for a visit before we head to Missouri to visit Julie's family. 

Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 18 (62-61)

 Another short one. Still writing from the car. 

#62 Three Sisters

Three Sisters is a combo-rific roll and write game where players plant beans and corn and pumpkins. You also can gather tools to gain certain advantages and raise bees for honey and harvest fruit trees and berries. Combos abound here and it's all about taking every opportunity to trigger those to score the most points. 

#61 Tricky Tides

This is a trick taking game where winning the trick allows you to move your ship first which is important because you are racing around these islands to gather and deliver goods. Higher cards will win you a trick but lower cards let you move around these sea monsters to help yourself or hinder your opponent. This creates a great push and pull where sometimes you'll want to win tricks and sometimes you won't. The cards and components are beautiful. I love trick taking, and I love Tricky Tides. 

Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 17 (64-63)

#64 Flamme Rouge

Flamme Rouge is about a bicycle race. Players have 2 cyclists to move around a track. Cards determine how fast you can go, but you have to pace yourself because the cyclist in the lead gains fatigue. Fatigue goes into your deck and will hinder you with low value cards towards the end of the race. This is actually really thematic. You also have rules for drafting in the wake of cyclists in front of you and for going up and down hills. The mechanisms are simple, but complete making for an awesome racing game, and my 64th favorite game of all time. 

 

#63 Marvel United 

Players take the roles of their favorite characters from Marvel Comics and work together to defeat some of Marvel's most famous villains. I've written about Marvel United many times in the past. So, I'm not going to go into the game again here. (Plus, we are on our way west to visit family and friends for a vacation and I'm writing this post on my phone while riding in the car.) Suffice to say, that I love this game and I probably have any character that you can think of. Marvel United is my 63rd favorite game of all time.