Board 8 > another year of tabletop rankings and writeups

(+) Yeah! (+)

I think the goal for a game's design though should be multiple paths to victory without it feeling "easy".

If option a and b are equally good then the player can at least have some agency over which one they pick.

If option a is always better than option b, no matter what, and b makes it less likely to win, then the player has no agency. It's strictly best to pick option a and there's no room to flex any creativity.

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97. San Juan (2004)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Role selection, tableau-building
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 4
Game length: 30 to 45 minutes
Experience: 3-4 plays over 3 sessions with 3-4 players (2016-2018)
Previous ranks: NR (2016), 58/80 (2018)

Summary - Played mainly with just a deck of cards, San Juan has the typical traits of a tableau-builder: your tableau cards grant you both victory points and special powers. The mechanism that drives all of the action in San Juan is role selection: the "Active Player" selects an action to perform, and then all other players get to follow that action if possible. Each player gets a turn being Active Player, and then a new round begins in which the first player moves.

Design - San Juan sits firmly between two revered games of the hobby: Puerto Rico and Race for the Galaxy (and unranked; I've only played them once). It is the card game version of Puerto Rico, with a shorter playtime, fewer fiddly components, and easier-to-explain rules. Race for the Galaxy takes the cards and the role selection and ups the complexity and depth by a lot.

From an adaptation perspective, San Juan is really clever. Puerto Rico (the godfather of the role selection mechanic) is filled with components - it has a map for your plantation, a stack of building tiles, colonists (obviously slaves) you need to work your plantation, an arcane method of shipping goods, specially colored cubes for those goods, money... It's a reasonably complex game that might rank high if I got into it; it was #1 on BoardGameGeek for some time. San Juan excises the spatial puzzle and uses cards to represent every resource. Producing sugar? Take a card. Selling your sugar? Draw cards. Prospecting? Draw cards. Playing a building? Spend a card.

It's the same paradigm which drives Bloody Inn - cards are both the goal of and cost of everything you do - but with a more open decision space. San Juan has a round structure, but it retains quick micro-turns. You'll puzzle over what to do when the Builder was picked and you weren't prepared for it; you'll be excited when you get an opportunity to prospect that you didn't expect; between those mini-turns you'll anticipate when you finally get to call the shots.

Experience - Over a year after learning Puerto Rico, I learned San Juan. This came during the zone when board games finally became clear to me. The quick playtime and lightish stakes and engagement level are nice here. If I have criticism, it probably lies in never really experiencing a massive high in San Juan: it's so polished that all the sharpness might have come off it.

Future - I mean, sure. San Juan strikes me as a "why not?" type of game. And maybe with improved feel for depth of strategy, there is a sense of "boo-ya!" If that happened, San Juan would definitely have potential to rise.
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96. Dice Forge (2017)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: "Deck-building," tableau-building
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 3
Game length: 25-35 minutes
Experience: 3-4 plays over 2-3 sessions (2018) with 3-4 players
Previous ranks: NR (2016), NR (2018)

Summary - Dice Forge is a victory point game in which you roll a pair of dice each player's turn and gain the shown resources. What makes Dice Forge unique among games of its genre is that your dice's faces are removable. For a price, as in deck-building, you can remove one of your dice's faces and attach on a new one. You can also spend your resources to gain special abilities or take special actions, which will generally give you victory points.

Design - Craftable dice are a great idea. It's Dice Forge's signature mechanic (and what it's named for), and it . Occasionally dice will make you feel bad. That is the nature of dice. But it's fun to decide in Dice Forge between whether you want to create one uber-die or whether you want to even out the variance between your two dice so you're guaranteed something decent each round off both rolls.

The mechanic itself isn't perfect. Crafting the dice can be a little clumsy and requires some precise technique. The dice themselves are rather large (which makes sense, given their faces have to have space to be modular) and don't roll as satisfyingly as some other dice. It's also a little unfortunate that Dice Forge, while having a pleasing aesthetic in terms of color palette and art, can be a little visually noisy and unclear.

Dice Forge has a clear arc to the game, which will feel familiar to people who play engine-building games. The first part of the game is dominated by the desire for gold, sine that's the resource which will allow you to upgrade your die faces. But around the midway point of the game (which has a fixed number of rounds), your focus will shift to the red and blue resources, which are generally what you spend to score victory points. The game also plays incredibly quickly; because of its Catan/Machi Koro-esque feature where you get resources on everyone's turns, you'll almost always have something productive, if not optimal, to do.

Future - For some reason, I never crave playing Dice Forge. It's not quite as elegant as the highest-ranking filler-weight games on my list; there's overhead to explain and set up and it's a little fiddly. But when I think about its design or whether I want to play it, the answer is a resounding yes, perhaps more so than games listed above it. Probably has decent potential to rise if I make it a point to request this. (This review of the games I've played is giving me ideas on what to request at future game nights...)
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Dice Forge is excellent. Would recommend you request it more.

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SeabassDebeste posted...

and it .
It's also a little unfortunate that Dice Forge

don't leave me hanging I've been curious about this one for a while

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Great_Paul posted...

Dice Forge is excellent. Would recommend you request it more.

might just do that, since it takes so little time to play!

Tom Bombadil posted...

don't leave me hanging I've been curious about this one for a while

thanks, edited!
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I havent tried the expansion but Im really interested to. I wanna play base game more first though.

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PM'd

also, this reminds me that I own DiceForge! Fun game

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I enjoy co-ops a lot, but they either have to be -

A. All players of the same skill ( all experienced gamers or all new to the game or whatever...)

Or

B. Real time games - like X-Com, Fuse, or Captain Sonar.

When everyone is the same skill level, then everyone has input and there will be discussion. Otherwise, one or more people sit there and wait to be told what to do or are irritated when the other player (s) have already figured out what the new players' next move should be. (Pandemic, i'm looking at you...)

Real time games are a lot of fun because then you don't have time for one player to take over the game - they have to worry about their own stuff.

Either way, I think hidden information is absolutely critical in a co-op game.

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95. 7 Wonders (2010)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Card-drafting, tableau-building, civilization-building
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 4
Game length: 30-50 minutes
Experience: 4-6 plays (2015-2018) with 5-7 players
Previous ranks: 16/100 (2016), 52/80 (2018)

Summary - 7 Wonders is a drafting game split over three ages. Each card you draft goes onto your tableau or into building Wonders specific to each player. Cards generally do one of the following: produces resources for building future cards; grant endgame victory points; or boost military strength (which are indirectly converted to victory points).

Design - Icons everywhere. Tons of different card types. Disconnected mechanisms. Variable player boards. While 7 Wonders is often touted as a gateway game, that's been anything but my experience.

That said, in my plays, the game hasn't felt same-y - each turn is filled with decisions, and because of the variety of ways to score (especially those Age 3 purple cards), it's very satisfying - much more so than Sushi Go, for instance. The resource system is quite clever; I love that you don't need chits or cubes to keep track of them, because you get to spend what you can produce on each turn and there's no storage. Also appreciate the coin mechanic by which you can buy resources from neighbors and the ability to dump cards productively into your wonders.

Experience - This was arguably the first game I played as "part of The Hobby" (TM), which has both ups and downs. I discussed in TTR how that game was the followup game session to a first game session. 7 Wonders was played in that first session, and it was the only eurogame we played that day. I remember this feeling of blankness in my mind as everyone silently looked at their boards and occasionally at others' as they struggled to make decisions, while I struggled just to make sense of anything, overwhelmed with cards but confused how I was supposed to keep track of everyone's board states.

Turns out, I now don't particularly mind multiplayer solitaire at all, especially if action is simultaneous. I also like eurogames now and am not particularly intimidated by symbology (of which 7W still has quite a fair amount). Playing this game a second time was another of my early eurogame wins, and it's probably responsible for how confusingly high this game was in my 2016 rankings. It probably belongs a bit higher than 95, but my ranking now is more a mix of the first mind-numbing play with the subsequent highs and "pleasant" plays.

Future - I know some people own 7W, but I'm not sure if there's a copy in my local group - which should tell you how regularly I see it played. I don't think it has a ton of room to grow on me personally, but becoming a consistent go-to game could put 7W higher.
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Have you ever played 7 Wonders Duel? It's quite a bit different, but has many similarities. It's only 2 player, but far more strategic. I think it's waaaay better than 7 Wonders. It has multiple win conditions, as opposed to just victory points, so there is much more to consider, and you are constantly having to counter stuff your opponent is doing, so it's nothing like solitaire. BGG has it as #16, vs. the original at #49, so definitely a pretty big gap.

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7 wonders actually grew on me a lot after playing it more. i think even the base game has a surprising amount of depth for what it is - managing resources and really taking advantage of your opponents' play can go a long way.
that said, the first expansion is so good i nearly view it as essential. leaders gives the game that strategic oomph that it's sorely lacking, and really rounds out the game as a whole. later expansions (cities, new wonders, babel, armada) all have some fun things going on but don't feel like nearly as huge a game-changer as the first expansion

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also this is true of many card drafting games but is worth saying - the fact that it smoothly and impressively plays up to 7 players is a huge deal. there might be a little less agency, but you can still do a lot (unlike carcassonne) and there's no downtime. it's still 100% worth owning just for that imo

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i have never played san juan! which is impressive because i have played hundreds and hundreds of race for the galaxy games. more than anything, i just expect to be disappointed in it by comparison, though i'm sure it's perfectly fine in its own right.

race, though, holy heck - if my biggest gripe are games that are far too long for their complexity/depth, then the counterpoint are the designs that manage to pack so much game/decision space into a small playtime. race might be the absolute best at being a ~30/45 minute game, handling up to 5/6 players comfortably (with the expansions that support that count of course), and just loading you with interesting choices. tableau building and multi-purpose cards are already my thing to begin with, but race is just an impeccably designed game that still throws me surprises after hundreds of plays. that's pretty rare.

i dunno how this list will turn out (and this isn't a criticism, i swear) but the thing that really differentiates me from the bgg posters and dice tower viewers of the world is how much i like a game that i can really sink my teeth into - a game that will not just impress me the couple times i play it, but can earn my interest over and over and over again. games are still kind of expensive! and i love that feeling of a game that truly feels like it takes my money's worth.

edit: sorry to spam your topic here! there were some interesting games to comment on! :)

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Man, Dice Forges premise sounds so awesome, but I hadnt considered that the ability to actually change the dice would make rolling the dice feel less good.

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Zombicide is alright, but eh. I think like you I have only played tutorial games or one offs.

I love 7 wonders though. I need to try more games like it (besides sushi go). Definitely my favorite game on your list so far to go.

San Juan and Dice Forge both sound like games I would like

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7 wonders is probably my most played game I don't own and I am quite fond of it

Duel is also quality

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94. It's a Wonderful World (2019)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Card-drafting, tableau-building
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 3
Game length: 30 to 45 minutes
Experience: 2 plays over 2 sessions with 2, 4 players (2019)
Previous ranks: NR (2016), NR (2018)

Summary - It's a Wonderful World is played over four rounds. Each round consists of drafting cards and production. Drafted cards can be placed either into a construction zone or a discarded for resources, used to construct the construction zone cards. Constructed cards then produce yet more resources. Some cards give you victory points.

Design - This game is both a little simpler than 7 Wonders and a little more involved. The variety of cards is comparatively smaller, but the way production works, and the fact that your cards aren't instantly built, requires a second layer of thought. To me, the drafting is less good than 7W (because the cards aren't as cool), but the cool part of IAWW comes after the draft. The most agonizing part comes when you decide which of your cards to keep (and potentially build), while the most satisfying part of IAWW comes when your engine starts firing, you're getting those beautiful cubes pouring in, and you're completing a structure during production which immediately produces its resource too.

On a separate note, it's also hilariously overproduced for the simplicity of the game.

Experience - Having only played IAWW twice, it's hard to tell of course how to play it well (and card-drafting games are often beyond me). However, to me, it felt awkward that you draw from the same deck for all four ages, but like any engine-builder, you want to "run" your engine in the final rounds instead of building it. IAWW lets you run your engine all right, but what it doesn't do is guarantee you access to scoring cards during the final rounds. Compared to 7W which stacks the third Age with the highest point values (and always provides you with Wonders), it feels like you have to bite the bullet much earlier to get ways to score in IAWW.

Future - After getting smashed like 60-20 in my most recent game, a little gunshy - but would like to get reps in and maybe boost this game higher. No reason it can't stand as one of the elite filler-weight games (with a lighter overhead than 7W).
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TomNook posted...

Have you ever played 7 Wonders Duel? It's quite a bit different, but has many similarities. It's only 2 player, but far more strategic. I think it's waaaay better than 7 Wonders. It has multiple win conditions, as opposed to just victory points, so there is much more to consider, and you are constantly having to counter stuff your opponent is doing, so it's nothing like solitaire. BGG has it as #16, vs. the original at #49, so definitely a pretty big gap.

i think duel was more fun and interesting, yes. it's also a completely different game, to be fair! didn't feel like 7 wonders at all, given no hands to draft from.

Naye745 posted...

sorry to spam your topic here! there were some interesting games to comment on! :)

not at all! i don't game as much as i'd like to, so there are relatively few games i've played 10+ times, especially meatier games. those games though (spoilers) will absolutely rank well.
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also, lots of love for 7W here! i'm looking at some of the games above it and feel it might have been a bit low/the games above it are a bit high.
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93. Small World (2009)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Dudes on a map, area control, player combat
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 3
Game length: 45 to 75 minutes
Experience: 4-5 plays over 4-5 sessions with 3, 4 players (2015-2017)
Previous ranks: 15/100 (2016), 41/80 (2018)

Summary - You pick a fantasy race and a magical power for that race and then start trying to conquer territory using the race and its powers. You score points for the territory you control at the end of your turn. Eventually, attrition will wear down your race, which has no way to marshal new forces. At that point, you can send your race into decline and sit out a turn... before picking a new one with which to invade!

Experience - I loved Small World the first time I played it. There's no engine to build, and you score points without any weird mechanisms, and combat is straightforward. It's just super-clean. I also played it just enough for some of the shine to come off it.

Design - Area control, especially dudes on a map, can be a vicious genre. Small World eases a lot of that pain by letting you know you don't necessarily need to hold territory to enjoy the game - you get victory points from offense, not defense. Add variable player powers to that, and it's a fun recipe where you can go around beating the crap out of each other without necessarily having those negative feelings that can come up so easily. That said, getting your troops wiped out still doesn't feel great, since you're forced into decline faster, but it's never super-punishing. Making a confrontational genre less confrontational is definitely the best part of Small World.

Future - I'm not a master of Small World or anything, but I'm not sure there's a ton more depth to see. There are 2 main decisions: valuing your race and which path to attack. So beyond a gateway/novelty game (which I think it is excellent as, don't get me wrong), I'm not super-interested in playing much more of Small World.
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small world is okay

"bidding" on the race combinations is a very neat feature and a cool game

i just could give a crap less about risk-ish dudes on a map confrontation

it's not particularly mean spirited but could still come down to politicking in many situations, which is...less than ideal. at least it's a good looking game

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I've only played Small World 2 but my opinion mirrors Naye's of the original

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Popping in again to say I love Seven Wonders. I think a lot of it is because I adore drafting games in general, and of the non-TCG types, 7W has had my best experiences.

My friend owns DiceForge as well, and I am excited to play it at least once when given the opportunity. Then again, thats only been three times so far, so the novelty might not be an infinite wellspring.

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Just saw this topic. We seem to have very opposite tastes in board games. I actually played ONUW yesterday (and a few other games like Quacks of Quedlinburg and Marvel Champions) and have all the ONUW games minus Super Villains. Games like ONUW, SH, etc really depend on the group, though. Interested to see how this list plays out.

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Oh shit, SBaller is following. Now you've got all the pressure.

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I own Small World (got it for like $2 at a thrift store) but have never had the chance to actually play it yet, although it sounds like Id like it.

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Naye745 posted...

also this is true of many card drafting games but is worth saying - the fact that it smoothly and impressively plays up to 7 players is a huge deal. there might be a little less agency, but you can still do a lot (unlike carcassonne) and there's no downtime. it's still 100% worth owning just for that imo

I feel the opposite myself about the agency. My group is very often 6 or 7 people so we played a lot of 7 player 7 wonders and I just felt like it was just luck of the draw most of the time. Then we finally played some four player games and I could actually plan moves and play around my opponents.

Definitely plays smoothly though regardless of player number which is nice.

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92. Qwirkle (2006)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Abstract, tile-laying, sequence-building
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 1
Game length: 30-45 minutes
Experience: 2-3 plays (2015) over 2 sessions with 2, 3-4 players
Previous ranks: 46/100 (2016), 69/80 (2018)

Summary - 108 attractive, square tiles have images of six different shapes in six different colors. Everyone then starts laying tiles connected to the existing tiles, obeying the rule that any connected tiles must match down the row either their color or their shape, without ever repeating the non-shared quality. Laying tile awards points for how long the chain is, plus a bonus for making it length six.

Design - Qwirkle is beautiful, simple, and clean. There is virtually zero rules overhead; you can basically immediately jump right in and then get a feel for the scoring.

With a ruleset/decision space this simple, you need a solid mechanic to back it up, and Qwirkle's set-forming absolutely qualifies as that. It'll feel very familiar to anyone who's played Scrabble, as you must always lay out in one line and always draw up to the hand limit. Like Scrabble, you can piggyback huge off someone's mostly laid tiles, so it's to your advantage to play a bit defensively and prevent easy piggybacking off yours.

I really like the minimalist, accessible quality of Qwirkle. It's not really a hobby game, but not every game needs to be. Like, one of my favorite parts about Qwirkle is its name - to me, it's just funny to have a named called Qwirkle, where the most efficient way to is to finish a set, at which point you announce "Qwirkle."

Experience - And when I started out, Qwirkle felt amazing. Even several months into the hobby, I found myself largely allergic to (if admiring of) games with heavier rulesets. Even today, I hold elegance in extremely high regard. Qwirkle is very elegantly made and can be played with anyone (color-blindness aside; that is a legit concern, but not really one I think about often).

Future - The question really is, when do you want to play Qwirkle? Despite its whimsical name, Qwirkle (like Scrabble) can be a defensive game. It's not raucous. It doesn't have a ton to explore (though I'm sure there's a reasonable skill ceiling). It's not thematic, so it doesn't have an interesting hook. (And for that reason, it's probably one of the games that's a little too high on this ranking.)

There was a time where I was really interested in buying Qwirkle. I think that time is gone, but I wouldn't be opposed to playing it again. Wouldn't think of it as a game with a lot of potential to rise, though.
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Tom Bombadil posted...

I've only played Small World 2 but my opinion mirrors Naye's of the original

not an unfair assessment tbh! though you need to do something with those cool powers, right?

trdl23 posted...

Popping in again to say I love Seven Wonders. I think a lot of it is because I adore drafting games in general, and of the non-TCG types, 7W has had my best experiences.

My friend owns DiceForge as well, and I am excited to play it at least once when given the opportunity. Then again, thats only been three times so far, so the novelty might not be an infinite wellspring.

lots of 7w love here! yeah, i want to get DF to the table... though i also want to get some of my own games to the table, too! need more board gaming nights!

SBAllen posted...

Just saw this topic. We seem to have very opposite tastes in board games. I actually played ONUW yesterday (and a few other games like Quacks of Quedlinburg and Marvel Champions) and have all the ONUW games minus Super Villains. Games like ONUW, SH, etc really depend on the group, though. Interested to see how this list plays out.

well, they might be opposite for now, but it's possible we'll align more at the top. but yeah, no doubt group/personal experience affects taste a lot for board games, especially "social" ones.

ChaosTonyV4 posted...

I own Small World (got it for like $2 at a thrift store) but have never had the chance to actually play it yet, although it sounds like Id like it.

you might like the powers, but if what you like about zombicide is the combat, small world might feel a little hollow there. it isn't quite a++ at any one thing; like other games it gets by with relative smoothness.
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91. Roll for the Galaxy (2014)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Role selection, dice placement, tableau-building, simultaneous action selection
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 5
Game length: 45-60 minutes
Experience: 4-6 plays (2015-2017) with 3-5 players
Previous ranks: 72/100 (2016), 59/80 (2018)

Summary - Roll for the Galaxy is a sci-fi-themed tableau builder driven by dice whose faces represent different actions. It follows the role-selection mechanism, in which each player rolls a cupful of dice and selects a role that everyone at the table will get the opportunity to perform (searching for new tableau pieces, working on tableau pieces, churning VPs off your tableau pieces). In order to take advantage of other player's action choices, however, you need to assign your dice to the corresponding actions before you know what actions will be selected.

Design - The plus side: It's a middleweight strategy game that plays in an hour and scales great, due to the simultaneous action selection mechanism. There's a ton of strategy, lots of decisions to make at each turn. And man, those dice are beautiful. Numerous, colorful, and tiny but extremely satisfyingly rattly. Love the iconography on them and the satisfaction involved when you get a new one of a cool color.

I don't find that it always translates into a lot of fun. The player interaction here hasn't felt satisfying to me. Guessing to piggyback off other people's choices isn't really a "mind game" that interests me. Then there's the bit of exploration that does make you aware of other players: the exploration mechanic. The single most important choice in Roll is what you decide to put into your tableau. This is done by drawing cardboard tiles from a bag, and while everything else is resolved simultaneously, this has to happen in sequence. And waiting for others to read what each tile does is annoying - so annoying that I basically spend no time doing that at all when I am exploring personally.

Then there are a few QOL things that I'm just not a huge fan of. While I love the dice themselves, the rest of the space-y aesthetic of the game is meh to me, from the tiles that form your tableau to your player board to your screens. Also, is it just me, or is it hard to remember to indicate that you're done placing your dice? Small frictions always seem to come up with Roll for me.

Experience - Part of this might just be "gid gud." The people who tend to enjoy Roll most and perform best aren't doing what I'm doing, which is rushing developments and settlements to close the game with VP based on those. Instead, they're patiently searching for good planets and spending turns producing goods and shipping them for victory points or sometimes income. Speaking of which, another frustration of mine is having always choking me, which feels frustrating - not having dice sucks ass.

Future - There's so much on paper that's great about Roll, and I love rolling its dice. When I think about it, though, I think of frustration with not having enough dice, and not being able to place my dice to develop planets, or having crappy planet options and no convenient way to get better ones. Nonetheless for its short playtime and depth relative to weight and the dice themselves, I think I could foresee requesting this. And if I actually got better at the game, I could also see this rising.
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I've played Roll a few times. I thought it was only okay. It's interesting how you can try to take extra actions by attempting to guess what your opponents want to do. The rest of the game itself didn't really do much for me though. I haven't played Race yet but I want to at least once, since it's in the bgg top 100 and I'm trying to play as many of those as I can. Fun fact: I'm at 48/100 right now.

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Great_Paul posted...

I've played Roll a few times. I thought it was only okay. It's interesting how you can try to take extra actions by attempting to guess what your opponents want to do. The rest of the game itself didn't really do much for me though. I haven't played Race yet but I want to at least once, since it's in the bgg top 100 and I'm trying to play as many of those as I can. Fun fact: I'm at 48/100 right now.

i'm at 50-52 depending on how you count versions. but only 24-25 or so are on this list!
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is roll for the galaxy related to race for the galaxy

because race for the galaxy is p good but I feel like roll is the one that gets talked about

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Tom Bombadil posted...

is roll for the galaxy related to race for the galaxy

because race for the galaxy is p good but I feel like roll is the one that gets talked about

they're definitely related. race is a descendant of san juan and is seen as the best role-selection card game there is. people playing literally hundreds and thousands of games of race online and keep discovering new stuff.

roll is a lot more accessible i think, bc it is prettier and a dice game. but it also uses role selection as its primary mechanic and you build the same # of tableau items (12) to end the game, have the same two flavors of planet/settlement by which to add stuff to that tableau
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race to me is definitely the better game, but they're both great

i think roll's first expansion is almost essential - it really helps flesh out the produce/consume strategies versus the aforementioned dev/settle tableau rush that seems pretty strong in base roll.

the second expansion is super cool but is also absurdly expensive - i'll probably end up picking up a copy at origins or somewhere when i can get it for a discount. but i've enjoyed the hell out of a friend's copy when i've gotten the chance to play

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I've played 7w two times and it didn't really "click" for me so I'm in the minority here with not being fond of it.

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I haven't commented on 7W yet but I am also part of this minority.

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it took me a few plays before 7 wonders grew on me - a healthy knowledge of the available cards and careful attention to the resources is key and makes the game feel a lot less random

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Naye745 posted...

isnt that true of many co-ops? i have not specifically played ghost stories but aside from games with imperfect information, that is literally what you are looking at for most of them

That only happens when there isn't enough choice involved. A game like Arkham Horror has tons of freedom, but is still a great co-op game. A game like Pandemic has less, because there are things you have to do that only you can do. Ghost Stories is 100% like this.

Even Betrayal, with its balance issues, does co-op better because the game doesn't play itself.

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I own 7 wonders but I've only been able to convince people to try to play it once.

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this implies that the decision space is so small to be obvious! and also that the games with more freedom don't also have more randomness to make your "open" decisions largely moot

i dont think co-op games are quite as straightforward as you make them out to be, anyway

legacy season 2's brand of pandemic certainly (without spoiling) gives you a thorough enough set of options that optimizing that decision space seems impossible

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SeabassDebeste posted...

Also, is it just me, or is it hard to remember to indicate that you're done placing your dice?

we always slam (or maybe more lightly place) our cups face-down front of the screen to indicate placement completiion. its cute, feels satisfying, and makes it clear where everyone is in the game process.
i think the (sometimes tedious and lengthy) exploration phase is a little more problematic in terms of holding up the game tbqh

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Naye745 posted...

i think roll's first expansion is almost essential - it really helps flesh out the produce/consume strategies versus the aforementioned dev/settle tableau rush that seems pretty strong in base roll.

'
i mean embarrassingly i've never played with an expansion, always go for dev/settle rush, and always manage to lose anyway

Naye745 posted...

we always slam (or maybe more lightly place) our cups face-down front of the screen to indicate placement completiion. its cute, feels satisfying, and makes it clear where everyone is in the game process.
i think the (sometimes tedious and lengthy) exploration phase is a little more problematic in terms of holding up the game tbqh

this is entirely a user error, btw. that is our convention too, but for some reason it's hard for me to remember to do after spending a few minutes agonizing over dice placements
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90. Thunderstone (2009)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Deck-building
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 3
Game length: 40-60 minutes
Experience: 3 plays with 3-4 players over 2 sessions (2016, 2018)
Previous ranks: NR (2016), NR (2018)

Summary - Thunderstone takes the deckbuilding mechanic and contextualizes it in fighting monsters in a dungeon. You buy heroes and weapons and spells and equipment from a fixed marketplace, and when you draw good-enough hands, you can instead go into the dungeon and fight monsters (i.e., pick one of a few revealed cards from the monster deck and lay out whether or not you're powerful enough to beat the monster). The monsters grant VP and other rewards that enable you to get more powerful.

Design - As is the case with Paperback, there's fun in the mechanics of Thunderstone. It isn't elegant. It's kind of messy. Deckbuilding feels like the correct mechanism by which you can make yourself feel like you're leading an RPG party that keeps getting stronger and stronger. The cards you draw are kind of a weird combo; it's not easy to find the perfect balance in your deck between the currency you need to upgrade your deck and the power you need to take out the monsters. To me, it's kind of messy. Maybe that's part of the strategy, trying to balance the chaos and distilling things down.

While the hodgepodge of mechanics isn't perfect, each of them individually is satisfying. Using light to get further into the dungeon is thematic and cool. Leveling up your warriors is really satisfying. And getting more powerful of course feels great. Theme helps to make Thunderstone more appealing.

Experience - I first played Thunderstone as a pretty experienced gamer, so I wasn't awed by it and I didn't get deep into it. Maybe I could have. But overall, it kind of just is what it is.

Future - Could see it hitting the table, but don't see a lot of potential for Thunderstone to rise a lot. Maybe with the right set of cards or a slightly changed mechanic somewhere introduced by a variant/expansion?
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Would you be surprised to know I was extremely obsessed with Thunderstone for awhile?

Its been at least 5+ years since I played it, though.

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SeabassDebeste posted...

Naye745 posted...
i think roll's first expansion is almost essential - it really helps flesh out the produce/consume strategies versus the aforementioned dev/settle tableau rush that seems pretty strong in base roll.
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i mean embarrassingly i've never played with an expansion, always go for dev/settle rush, and always manage to lose anyway

from what i've read, the best players on BGA go heavy into explore/dev, basically grabbing a pile of good scoring devs and some 6's and going to town fast. p/c is hard to get a lot out of, especially in the wrong player counts, in base roll

i have never played base thunderstone (heard it was too much of a dominion clone and i hate ascension) but i thought thunderstone quest was fine enough!

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89. King of Toyko (2011)

Category: Player vs Player
Genres: Player combat, dice-rerolling
Rules complexity (0 to 7): 1
Game length: 20 to 30 minutes
Experience: 4-5 plays over 4-5 sessions with 5-6 players (2015-2016)
Previous ranks: 73/100 (2016), 63/80 (2018)

Summary - Each player controls a kaiju monster in or around the city of Tokyo, represented by a single zone for inside and a single zone for outside. On your turn, you roll a set of mammoth dice and get to reroll subsets of them up to two times. The results are attacks, victory points, healing, and/or currency to purchase cards that buff your abilities. Monsters that get attacked in Tokyo can choose to vacate Tokyo, allowing the attacker to move in. The winner is the first player to reach a VP threshold or the last kaiju standing after attacks have reduced everyone else to zero.

Design - King of Tokyo has a fantastic aesthetic and can be grasped by anyone. The oversized dice look fantastic, the monsters are large and fun, and simplifying the "map" to "in Tokyo" and "not in Tokyo" is a great decision. Punching your enemies feels really good, and it's not exactly a skill game - the barrier for entry is super-low. Like Cosmic Encounter, King of Tokyo also eases the confrontation level by forcing any attack to strike everyone in not-your-zone equally, which can help the "I'm so unpopular" types.

Experience - So, why is it never "that" satisfying? Like Qwirkle, King of Tokyo is perhaps a little too simplistic and not game-y enough. And the elements that make it game-y (i.e. the best ways to win) are a bit anti-fun: avoid attacking (and making enemies/putting yourself into the more frequently attacked Tokyo) and focus on defending yourself, buying techs, and accumulating victory points. While some people might find this a nice way to allow alternate routes to victory (and something less confrontational), it feels a little bit weird if no one can really be counted on to beat that strategy.

Maybe what it comes down to is, I've never played King of Tokyo in the ideal setting. It's always been a mixed group - of both experienced players and relative newbies that I know but am not directly friends with. Friends of friends actually sometimes kind of make for an awkward co-gamers. Or maybe it's just me.

Future - I'm suspicious of King of Tokyo, which a more carefully examined list would probably place lower. I think I'd like to play it with people who don't really play games but I'd like to play something silly with, and with maybe my core-est of groups. I feel there are more laughs to be had in this game, but like Settlers of Catan, it requires the right set of people to bring that out.
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i think king of tokyo is fairly fun but it offers considerably less depth than many of the previous 10 games or so on your list and that's important to me. dice forge, 7 wonders, and roll for the galaxy have a solid amount of stuff going on and comparable replayability

i think there are a handful of winning strategies (though of course what is ideal depends on the cards available) and yeah, avoiding tokyo is generally the right move

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Would you be surprised to know I was extremely obsessed with Thunderstone for awhile?

Its been at least 5+ years since I played it, though.

haha, based on your likes so far, not surprised at all!

Naye745 posted...

i think king of tokyo is fairly fun but it offers considerably less depth than many of the previous 10 games or so on your list and that's important to me. dice forge, 7 wonders, and roll for the galaxy have a solid amount of stuff going on and comparable replayability

i think there are a handful of winning strategies (though of course what is ideal depends on the cards available) and yeah, avoiding tokyo is generally the right move

depth is not particularly a prereq for me in these rankings. KOT is probably a little too high, but its greatest shortcoming isn't necessarily being too shallow, but not as crazy-fun (in my experience) as it ought to be. again - could be the crowd
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