Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 13 (72-71)

#72 Lost Cities: The Board Game

In Lost Cities: The Board Game, players are moving little adventurer pawns up different tracks towards differently colored ruins (Lost Cities). This is done by playing cards of different colors from your hand. 

Each time you play a card of a given color, you move toward the ruin of the same color. The trick is that you must play cards down in order. The first card that you play may be a high card or a low card. If you play a very high card first, then you will want to play a slightly lower card on top of that, ideally the very next card in the numerical order. If you play a very low card first, then you will need to play a higher card on top of that. Once you establish that the colored stack of cards you are playing on is being played in an ascending or a descending order, then you must follow that rule for the rest of the game round. 

When you can't play a card, you may discard in order to draw new cards, but discards are placed face-up and are available to your opponents. You will want to take care not to give an opponent the exact card that they need. 

There are 5 paths to 5 ruins, and each player has 5 adventurer pawns. The paths start out with negative points. So, take care that once you begin a journey, you are able to go far. The further along a path you can lead a pawn, the more points you get eventually turning those negative points into positive ones. 

Each player's set of adventuring pawns is made up of four junior pawns and one expedition leader pawn that is much bigger than the others. This pawn scores double the points (positive or negative.) So, you really want them to do well. Finally a long the path are additional scoring bonuses and other incentives that will make certain paths more appealing than others. These tokens are distributed randomly at the beginning of every round. The game is played over three rounds and the player with the most points at the end of the third round is the winner.

I really enjoy Lost Cities: The Board Game. I really get into the Indiana Jones / Allan Quatermain style pulp adventure theme, and the card play is engaging. In fact, I like Lost Cities: The Board Game so much that it's my 72nd favorite game of all time.

#71 Azul

In Azul players take turns drafting tiles from off the top of little coasters to place them on their player board. The coasters are arranged in a circle and four tiles are pulled randomly from a bag and placed on each one. In the center of this circle a single special tile is placed. This tile is the first player token, but it's also worth -1 point. 

On their turn a player takes all the tiles of a matching color from one of the coasters and then any remaining tiles get moved into the center. A player can also draft from the center as tiles accumulate there, taking all tiles of a single color and leaving the rest. The first player who does this, must also take the -1 token, but they will get to draft first in the next round.

On your player board you must fill a row with tiles of a single color. Once you commit a specific color to a row, you can't put any other color in that row until you finish building the row. Rows aren't built until the end of the round and each requires a different number of tiles to be placed within it in order for it to be built. The top row only needs 1 tile to be built but the bottom row needs 5. 

At the end of the round, if you can't build a row, the tiles that you have committed to that row stay as you go into the next round. If you ever can't add a tile to a row, it is placed at the bottom of your player board and counts as negative points at the end of the round. It is even a strategy to leave a large number of tiles of a color that you know your opponent can't place so that they will be forced to take those tiles at the end, racking up a large number of negative points.

Azul is an abstract puzzle type game. The tiles are chonky, colorful bakelite and they feel good in your hands. Azul is my 71st favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 12 (74-73)

#74 DorfRomantik: The Duel

Julie and I have had a wonderful time playing DorfRomantik. We played it a lot when we first got it, and it is probably my number one favorite game of last year. We have also had a great deal of fun playing DorfRomantik The Duel, which is a two-player only competitive version of DorfRomantik. 

Spoilers - DorfRomantik (the original cooperative game) appears much higher on my list and I will go more into the game play there. The Duel version sees players placing identical tiles in a personal tableau simultaneously as one player acts as "the caller" announcing which tile to place. This is very much Karuba style (another game much higher on my list.) 

I need to play the cooperative version of this game and the competitive version back to back. I feel like we don't need them both. I have placed the original much higher, because I think that it's the one that I like more, but I can't be sure. Until I am sure, DorfRomantik The Duel is my 74th favorite game of all time.

#73 Unmatched Adventures: Tales to Amaze

While DorfRomantik The Duel was the competitive version of the cooperative game, Unmatched Adventures Tales to Amaze is the cooperative version of the competitive game. (I didn't plan to have both of these in the same post, just coincidence.) Tales to Amaze is yet another game that I pushed down the list because Julie and I have only played it once. I do remember really liking it, and I am anxious to get this one back to the table.

In the competitive game, which is just called Unmatched, players battle head to head. It's a skirmish battle game with dozens of characters to choose from, like characters from literature (Sherlock Holmes) or even comic books (Spiderman.) I like it … okay. It's not in my top 100. I don't care for skirmish battle games, but I really like the "idea" of Unmatched, and the gameplay is excellent. The gameplay is card based and characters have a unique deck and all feel different and cool.

Tales to Amaze makes this skirmish battle game cooperative. This changes the feel of the game for me exponentially. I love this game. Now Julie and I can work together as any of the cool characters in the Unmatched library (that we own) against the threat of the Mothman or Alien Invaders. The game layers in a very pulp adventure feel which I think is perfect for mixing and matching all these characters from different settings.

Although it is officially considered an "expansion" to Unmatched, Tales to Amaze is its own stand alone game. If you have never tried Unmatched, I highly recommend this one. It comes with four new original characters and rules to play both the cooperative and competitive versions of the game. It is absolutely the best Unmatched set there is. 

As a side note, I have tried a few other games where expansions have tried to change the game from competitive to cooperative (Hero Realms & Dice Throne specifically) and these were huge misses for me. They added an unreasonable amount of complexity to the game that I just didn't want. Tales to Amaze (and also DorfRomantik The Duel) makes the change seamlessly without adding undue complexity. 

Tales to Amaze is accessible and playable, and for people who already know how to play the competitive version, they can be playing in minutes. All of this makes Unmatched Adventures Tales to Amaze my 73rd favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 11 (76-75)

#76 Cosmoctopus

Cosmoctopus is one of those games that was much higher on my list, but that I manually moved lower because Julie and I have only played this once. In Cosmoctopus players are playing cards from their hands and collecting cards from a central market all in the interest of gaining the favor of their cosmic deity the great Cosmoctopus. This favor is represented by these purple tentacle pawns. The first player to collect 8 tentacle pawns is the winner. 

Resources to buy cards are obtained through a worker movement board in the center of the table. This board is made up of a 4 by 4 grid of cards each showing some different benefits, key among these are gaining the resources to pay for cards, and the actions to buy the cards. Some cards have immediate benefits, while others create ongoing effects and stay in front of you to form a bit of an engine. 

Cosmoctopus doesn't do anything new, but it is a solid and entertaining entry in the worker placement, resource management, engine building genre of board games with a wacky theme that has tentacles. This makes Cosmoctopus my 76th favorite game of all time.

#75 Welcome To … Your Perfect Home

In Welcome To … Your Perfect Home cards are flipped representing numbers and actions. Each turn all players choose a number and action from the cards flipped and mark these on their personal score sheets. This is a roll-and-write variant known as a flip-and-write because instead of rolling dice and recording the results, you flip cards from a deck (or decks) instead.

Players all act at the same time. On your score sheet, you have these rows of streets and on each street are houses. Your goal is to give these houses each a number, but like any other street, the houses must be in ascending order. The actions on the cards make some houses more valuable or enable you to manipulate the numbers. There is also one area that you can mark if you just can't place a number.

At the end of the game, the player who has built their neighborhood the best (earns the most points) wins the game. Welcome To … Your Perfect Home is an easy game to grasp, but actually has quite a bit going on. It's a really engaging type of roll-and-write game. It is challenging multiplayer solitaire, and because everyone is playing at the same time, it can handle any number of players. Welcome To … Your Perfect Home is my 75th favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 10 (78-77)

#78 Long Shot The Dice Game

In Long Shot The Dice Game players roll dice to move horses around a race track. During the race you can use money earned from rolls to buy horses and then enable those horses to move when a different horse's number is rolled, increasing their chances of winning. You can also place bets on your and other horses and use special powers to move some horses further or other horses back. Long Shot The Dice Game is fast and fun and it's my 78th favorite game of all time.

#77 Targi

Targi is a two-player only game. Each player has three pawns that they are able to place around the outside of the game board which is a five by five grid made up of cards. When you place a pawn on the outside of the board it gives you a resource or other special benefit. And at the row and column intersection where your pawns meet you gain a card to add to your tableau. You should get two things each round. 

You can't place your pawn directly across from one of your opponents pawns or across from a special pawn which I think represents a tax officer, because this pawn travels around the board as a counter for the game, and each time it reaches a corner of the board you have to pay taxes. Your tableau is a three by four grid and creates your own little camp of different locations that will provide you victory points and other special powers.

Targi is an awesome, tight and challenging two-player worker placement game. Once the tax collector makes it all the way around the board, the game is over and scores are tallied. The player with the most points is the winner. Targi is my 77th favorite game of all time.

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Board Game Top 100 (2024) Part 9 (80-79)

#80 Quadropolis 

Quadropolis is a city building game where players place tiles that represent different sections of a growing metropolis. Players place residential areas, shopping areas, power plants, parks, harbors and utilities. Scoring is based on how your areas are placed in your town.

Power plants provide power and residences provide population. Every tile has to have power and a resident in order to be active and be scored. Excess population represents overcrowding and counts against you. Excess power represents pollution and counts against you. Balancing these factors is part of the game's puzzle.

Building tiles are drafted using numbered pointers that allow players to select a tile so many steps inside a row or column. You must then place that building tile in your city in a row or column matching that same pointer. This unique method of drafting and then placing your tiles adds an additional layer to Quadropolis that elevates it above other drafting based games.

Before it became the "Sims" there was a computer game called Sim City. Quadropolis feels to me like Sim City the Board game. If that sounds cool to you then Quadropolis might be a good game for you. For me, Quadropolis is my 80th favorite game of all time.

#79 Gingerbread House

Gingerbread House uses domino type tiles that stack on top of each other. The tiles show types of gingerbread cookies. As you cover up cookies with tiles, you earn those cookies into your supply. Cookies are traded for cards showing different fairytale characters. You have to have the right treats to attract the specific cards that you want and these are worth points which will help you win the game.

Additional scoring objectives can be won by completing levels of your house. These objectives might reward you for collecting fairytale characters of a specific type of building up your gingerbread house in a particular way. Leveraging these bonus objectives is the key to victory.

Gingerbread House is a light breezy tile laying / tile stacking game. The art on the tiles and on the fairytale character cards is gorgeous. The theme is that you are all witches like the one from Hansel and Gretel and you are using your Gingerbread House to lure these various characters to you in order to eat them. It's morbidly funny and makes the game just that much more charming.

Gingerbread House is a great game, and it's my 79th favorite game of all time.

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