Top 100 Games: 100-91

I guess it’s time to do this thing.  It’s a project I’ve long wanted to tackle, and I’ve rated my games many, many times through PubMeeple.com.  This time, though, I’d like to say a bit about each of them for people who are curious.  Each time I’ve ranked my games, the top ten generally hold the same games, but the contents shuffle about. 

As of July of 2022, I have played only 31 of the top 100 games on Board Game Geek.  I feel alright about that.  Maybe if someone else bought games in my gaming group or if my group was composed of gamers who wanted heavier experiences, I’d have played more of these.  But a third of the top 100 seems pretty reasonable, so there’s that.

If a game isn’t on my list, I probably haven’t played it.  I only considered games I both own and have played. Exceptions to that rule are solo games and legacy games, which I’ve omitted from this list, as they aren’t something I find comparable to the rest of my collection.  If I had included them, Pandemic Legacy Season 1 would have been my number one game, most likely.  Season two would be in the bottom 140. Clank Legacy would be #2.  Charterstone would be in the middle somewhere.  As for solo games, Deep Space D6 would have been in the middle, and Orchard and Grove wouldn’t have made my top 100, I imagine.  I also cut out games we own that I just flat out do not like.  Examples:  Pit, Monopoly, Chez Geek.

Here we go.

#100 Railroad Revolution
BGG Rank: 916
Plays: 2
My Rating: 7
BGG Rating: 6.603
User Avg Rating: 7.4

The first train game on my list (definitely not the last) does route building in a slightly different way which makes my brain work overtime to figure out.  I don’t get this one to the table often because of the mental load and the math involved.  I mean, it’s nothing like an 18xx game (not on my list), but it’s mathier than many other train games.

This one just scraped by, beating out Hues and Cues, which actually surprises me. I haven’t played this one in a couple years, but I remember the choices being really crunchy.  It felt good to actually get something done, and the multicolored worker meeples that all do different things was a nice puzzle to figure out and a good way to specialize your strategy.  Speaking of strategy, I know Whats Your Game has released an expansion for this (Railroad Evolution?) that fixes the overpowered Pony Express strategy in the base game, but I haven’t played it.  When I teach this one, I just let people know that the strategy is overpowered and not to let anyone run away with it.  It seems to work okay.

And don’t @ me about how this isn’t a train game.  It’s a game where you’re building train tracks.  It’s a train game.

#99 Near and Far
BGG Rank: 179
Plays: 3
My Rating: 8
BGG Rating: 7.336
User Avg Rating: 7.7

If it wasn’t for Ryan Laukat’s art, I probably wouldn’t be a fan of any of his games, to be honest.  They’re often clunky and outside my patience level for learning arbitrary rules.  But hoooo boy his art is my favorite of any board game artist out there, so these games get a lot of leeway in my estimation.

This one plays relatively smoothly, and the object seems pretty straightforward.  The story elements are woven well (what I’ve seen of them, anyway), and they really keep me wanting to play this one.  My fiance Robb and I played this one twice in a row one day because he left the first game feeling icky about it.  The second game went much better, and hopefully we’ll get back to it to take a stab at the campaign.  I love the idea of a campaign game, but often they are daunting to get to in practice. 

Above and Below didn’t make this list, despite having owned it and played it a bunch of times.  We decided that each time we played it we liked it less.  The story elements didn’t feel worth doing, strategically, as they often gave fewer rewards than just playing it like a straight euro.  But even the euro elements weren’t that compelling.  So we ditched it in the charity auction last year.  Near and Far seems like it does more with less complexity, so it stays.

#98 Menara
BGG Rank: 767
Plays: 7
My Rating: 7.7
BGG Rating: 6.702
User Avg Rating: 7.5

We were immediately wowed by the concept of a cooperative dexterity game with a little bit of meat on its bones.  I thought this one was going to be a simple stacking game that would cool for us almost immediately.  Instead, we played it every night until we beat it, and then we tried it with friends who wanted to take a stab at it a few times in a row.  I still want to play this one, and we grabbed the expansion and a promo from overseas.  Hopefully they’ll be good, too.  They seem to up the complexity, which this game definitely doesn’t need. 

The hook in this is that the more pieces you put on the base, the taller you have to build the monument.  There’s strategy to when you finally delve into the harder goals, as if you pull a task you can’t complete (like moving pieces up a level when you don’t have another level yet), you have to build yet another level higher to win.  Definitely not just a simple stacking game.  Whether you win or lose, this one is fun from the first setup to the nearly inevitable collapse.

#97 Tales of the Arabian Nights
BGG Rank: 504
Plays: 1
My Rating: 8
BGG Rating: 6.913
User Avg Rating: 7.2

Y’all.  Do you want to drink a storm?  Talk to a mountain?  Fight a djinn?  Rob an old woman who ends up being a vengeful sorcerer who changes you into a beast and sends you into the desert to be lost until you can find your way?  That can happen.  You know what else can happen?  You can have your legs broken, your gender changed, marry a sultan, and end up wasting four hours of your life trying to find your way out of a desert while everyone else does awesome things. 

That’s why my fiance won’t play this game with me, which is why it’s only gotten one play.  Our first time was a full game with six players.  It took five hours.  And Robb was stuck with basically nothing to do for almost four hours.  It was harsh, frustrating, and turned him off from ever even considering playing this one again.  But my god.  The rest of us?  The rest of us had a BALL!

Sure, it’s random as all getout and the stories often don’t make much sense, but the fun can’t be denied.  I’d play this again in a heartbeat.  It mostly sits on the shelf because teaching it is a bear and because my constant gaming partner is NEVER playing it again.

But that one play was one to remember.  The next time I get this to the table sans party pooper, we’ll play with half as many people and with the end goal being half as many collective story/fate points.  It’s definitely too long otherwise. 


#96 For Sale
BGG Rank: 322
Plays: 4
My Rating: 6.8
BGG Rating: 7.112
User Avg Rating: 7.2

If you asked me, I’d probably tell you I’m not a fan of auction games.  As it turns out, I actually really like auction games. I just don’t like teaching them and playing them with people who aren’t familiar with them.  It’s hard to have a good time playing an auction game if people aren’t as committed to making precise decisions as you are.  So the fragility of a bidding game holds them back in my estimation.

That being said, you don’t have to explain much to play this one.  Everyone understand that living in a castle on a cliff is probably more valuable in concept than living in a shack next to the dump.  Add to that the fact that you really only need to teach the first half of the game to get started, and this becomes one of my favorites of the genre.  It’s cute and colorful and makes people think a little with how they value their properties in the second half.  Sometimes the checks that come out make for a frenzied round even in the most docile groups of gamers.  It’s a classic for a reason.


#95 Lords of Waterdeep
BGG Rank: 81
Plays: 6
My Rating: 7.3
BGG Rating: 7.613
User Avg Rating: 7.7

Not sure what more can be said about Lords that hasn’t been said already.  It’s a solid worker placement game that tries to hold tight to a theme.  Whether you like the theme or not, it’s an easy one to understand.  Recruit adventurers around Waterdeep and send them out to accomplish goals.  This is one of the first games my fiance asked me to buy, so we still play it fairly often.  Vanilla is good, but we almost never play without the expansion now.

It can be really swingy, with some quest cards worth 25 points and others worth a measly 6.  But somehow, even though it can feel like an opponent is unbeatable at 50 points ahead, that gap gets closed.  You’re never truly out of this game, especially with the endgame collection bonuses for running certain types of quests.  It’s just exciting to see that swing every time.

Sure, there are other games that do what this game does in a more interesting and fun way, but this one just feels like comfort food at this point. 

#94 6 Nimmt
BGG Rank: 606
Plays: 27
My Rating: 8
BGG Rating: 6.812
User Avg Rating: 6.9

The first few times I ever played this game, we played it in a big group of 6 or 8 people, and we played it wrong.  We all played sequentially, not simultaneously.  It was fun that way, but I didn’t truly see the potential in this one until a friend bought a copy and taught it to their family and noticed that we had all been playing it wrong. 

When played correctly, 6 Nimmt is a hilarious game of screwing people over and being screwed over.  Every game is full of unexpected plays that elicit groans and cheers from the table.  Someone always ends up being the one with ALL THE POINTS, and yet, until they hit 66 it’s possible to believe that anyone could win.  For a simple card game of trying to play the next highest card without completing a row of 6 and having to take points, it packs a lot of joy in the tiny box.

Side note:  This one goes by 39 names, according to Board Game Geek.  If you’re looking for a copy, look for Take 6 as well.  It’s the same game.  Also, there are many variations to this formula, so if you find one with another number, it’s probably a different game.  I haven’t personally tried any of those variations, but they’re out there for the curious gamer.


#93 Betrayal at House on the Hill
BGG Rank: 578
Plays: 11
My Rating: 7
BGG Rating: 6.727
User Avg Rating: 7

Yes, it’s broken.  Yes, some scenarios are unwinnable for one side or the other based on how things shake out.  Yes, the layout of the house is pure chaos most of the time.  Does that stop me from enjoying this game every time we play it?  Not at all.  The brokenness of this game is just something you have to accept to enjoy it, I think.  I used to have hopes that they would fix this one, but after the third edition came out with no major fixes for many of the things that slowed the game down due to rules confusion (combat, I’m looking at you), I think this one is just going to stay a bad horror movie that you love for the camp factor (like the Tim Curry IT). 

It’s just a good time exploring a big house room by room, finding items and building your character up in the hopes that this time you’ll finally get to be the traitor who turns on everyone and summons dolls to carry them off or zombies to eat them or plants a bomb in the house that has to be defused or escaped.  Whatever ridiculous horror trope happens, it’s more than likely that people will have a good time with it, no matter how crappy the rules are and how much you have to wing it to make it work.  I will like this game until my gruesome death in an old house filled with unspeakable horrors.


#92 Imhotep
BGG Rank: 462
Plays: 6
My Rating: 7.5
BGG Rating: 6.948
User Avg Rating: 7.2

This game is mean.  I’m generally not a fan of mean games, but Imhotep is short enough that the meanness doesn’t feel as hard to take as some longer games.  And if someone sails a boat full of your stones somewhere you didn’t intend for it to go, at least you’re going to score a few points for it anyway.  It might not be what you wanted to do, but maybe it’ll open the door to a new scoring opportunity in the future.  Besides, next round you can return the favor and screw your opponents over for revenge. 

Every choice in this game feels like it has the potential to earn you the few points you need to eke out a victory.  And if not, at least it can get you closer to sailing your barge into the port to capitalize on what you’ve already done.  Jockeying for positions on boats with your stones, sailing into a port, and unloading in a way your opponents didn’t see coming is a coup de grâce that feels amazing every time you pull it off.  I’ve taught this game to people who are new to the hobby, and it has gone over well every time.  It’s a simple game with a simple set of choices, but once you sail someone’s boat into the wrong port, the gloves come off, allowing new players to experience the same joy of grabbing points and foiling your plans without needing to be “good” at the game to have fun.

#91 The Prodigals Club
BGG Rank: 1050
Plays: 1
My Rating: 7.3
BGG Rating: 6.529
User Avg Rating: 7.3

You are a rich and well regarded society member who is bored with a life of luxury.  It’s time to lose all your wealth, alienate your friends and acquaintances, and throw the upcoming election!  Yeah, it’s a fun premise.  The Prodigals Club is a game with some real meat on its bones.  This is actually one of the heavier games I own.  Each leg of this game requires a different strategy with its own rules and considerations to understand.  And each of those three legs intertwines with the others in ways that you may not expect but will soon learn are the keys to winning this game.

At its core, it’s a mid-heavy worker placement game.  There are a ton of these, but what makes this one stand out (aside from the theme, of course), is that your final score is actually the leg that you did the worst in, meaning if you lost your possessions and alienated all your contacts but only managed to lower your candidacy eligibility by a few points, the candidacy points would be the final score.  Basically, you want to do equally well at all three things, and you want all of them to be as depleted as possible by the end.  It’s a tall order, but it makes for a really tight knot of goals.

Not everyone who is drawn in by the theme will end up loving this game.  It’s simply too convoluted to be as appealing in practice as it sounds.  But I really enjoyed the puzzle of this one, even if it hasn’t been to the table more than once.  Someday I’ll get the right group of aristocrats together again, and we can debauch ourselves once more in a competition to see who can be the best member of The Prodigals Club.


And there you have it. Thoughts so far about any of these games? Want to argue with me already? Well, save your ire for the future, because there’s plenty more to come in the next several weeks. See you next time!

~Justin

More Top Games:
90-81
80-71
70-61
60-51
50-41
40-31
30-21
20-11
10-1