I count myself lucky to have lived through the golden age of tabletop role-playing—the glorious trifecta of the ‘80s, ‘90s, and 2000s. It was a time of wild imagination and fearless design. From the old-school grit of 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons to the brooding elegance of White Wolf’s World of Darkness, from the sleek reinvention of the d20 system to the rebellious birth of the OSR—those years were, in a word, glorious.
But I was there for the hard times, too. The day TSR gasped its final breath. The strange, gamey detour of 4th Edition. And the day we lost Gary Gygax, the original Dungeon Master, the man who kicked off this beautiful madness in the first place.
It’s been a hell of a ride—but today isn’t about D&D’s past.
Today, we’re talking about the future. Specifically, the way this community—scrappy, brilliant, and unrelenting—is seizing the reins and dragging Dungeons & Dragons forward, not with bloated corporate rulebooks, but with raw creativity. Today we are talking OSR games!
Because while Wizards of the Coast seems hellbent on tarnishing the game’s legacy with one corporate faceplant after another, the real torchbearers are out here in the trenches, putting out some of the most exciting, innovative, and downright fun material the hobby’s seen in years.
So yes, we’ll throw a little well-earned shade at Wizards of the Coast. That’s dessert. But the real feast? It’s the creators. The OSR authors, artists, and designers who are resurrecting the heart of D&D with zines, hacks, modules, and games that feel like they’re alive. This is a love letter to them—and a look at the bold, weird, and wonderful future they’re building for all of us.
Let’s get into it!
What Is The OSR Really?
Let’s get some discourse out of the way for those less informed. Once upon a time, this was a pretty straightforward question. The OSR—Old School Renaissance (or Revival, depending on who you ask)—was a movement of grognards and die-hards who loved the old-school D&D systems so much, they used the Open Game License (spawned in the 3rd Edition era) to breathe new life into them. They published retro-clones, retooled classics, and sprinkled in house rules like spice on a well-worn stew.
But that was just the beginning.
Today, the OSR has evolved into something bigger, weirder, and far more powerful. It’s still about preserving the spirit of the old ways—sure. But more than that, it’s become a sandbox for unfiltered creativity. It’s where designers and dungeon masters throw off the shackles of corporate oversight, social media discourse, and sanitized storytelling. No HR departments, no focus groups, no trend-chasing. Just pure, undiluted game design.
Think of it like the indie film scene: raw, passionate, and often a little rough around the edges—but in the best possible way. The OSR is where the Tarantinos and Lynches of tabletop design hang their weird little hats, crafting games that are as bold and bloody as they are beautiful.
In a word? It’s a movement.
But more than that—it’s themovement that’s shaping the future of tabletop gaming. And, oddly enough, because of Wizards of the Coast’s seemingly inescapable inability to get out of their own way, it’s also very much the future of Dungeons & Dragons itself.
The True Catalyst – Relevance
You might look at the endless headlines—Wizards of the Coast tripping over its own feet, again and again—and think, “Ah, there it is. That’s why the community is turning away”. Sure, their shameless blunders haven’t exactly earned them any goodwill, but that’s not really the whole story.
The truth is, fans are oddly loyal. Painfully loyal. People love Dungeons & Dragons—even when they don’t love the people making it. Even when they can’t stand the current edition. There’s this almost irrational tolerance in the community. As long as Wizards of the Coasts keeps evolving their game, their first love, people are willing to grit their teeth and smile through the nonsense.
So no, the shift we’re seeing isn’t just a reaction to Wizards screwing up—though they’ve done plenty of that.
Dungeons and Dragons 2024 edition is now fully released. To quote Padme, “so this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause”. Yes, I’m being a bit dramatic!
The real problem…. the one that haunts Hasbro boardrooms like a slow, creeping death… is relevance.
You see, for all its drama and divisiveness, every edition of D&D up until now brought something new. Something big. Each version was both an evolution and a revolution. First and Second Edition laid the foundation for the OSR and that gritty old-school feel. Third Edition gave us tactical depth and rules mastery not to mention the OGL, spawning entire empires like Pathfinder and Castle & Crusades. Even Fourth Edition, the black sheep, gave rise to bold designs like 13th Age and, more recently, MCDM’s Draw Steel. Fifth Edition opened the floodgates to mainstream success and spin-offs as well, but it also gave birth to Critical Role, which opened up millions of creative minds to the world of storytelling possibilities.
Love them or hate them, every edition mattered.
Until now.
Enter the 2024 Edition. D&D’s big 50-year celebration. A chance to show the world that the game still has teeth and that Wizards of the Coast still leads the most prolific franchise in gaming.
And what do we get? A rebrand. A soft reboot. A product that feels neither evolutionary nor revolutionary—just… there. Polished, sure. But also sanitized, safe, and stifled by corporate oversight and performative politics. It’s a game trying to be all things to all people, and in doing so, has managed to feel like nothing at all.
It landed with a whimper. A shrug. A yawn and we are all left holding this hefty, overpriced book wondering… is this it?
Unlike during the Fourth Edition era, when choices were limited and OSR was still in its scrappy youth, the landscape has changed. The OSR has exploded into a kaleidoscope of systems, zines, hacks, and heart-pounding one-shots. What was once a trickle is now a flood. If anything, we’ve gone from too few options to so many that you’ll need a torchbearer just to navigate the shelves.
But, enough prelude. You’re caught up. That’s what’s happening in D&D, a whole lot of nothing and the OSR is here to save the day.
I have made a list like the following before. see this article back in 2021, but here are five more awesome OSR games paving the way for the future of tabletop RPG’s.
Shadowdark
I knew, without a flicker of doubt, that when I reached this point in the article, Shadowdark had to take the lead. From the wildly imaginative mind of Kelsey Dionne, founder of The Arcane Library, Shadowdark isn’t just an OSR game, it’s the answer to the question: What if classic Dungeons & Dragons were designed today, with modern sensibilities but old-school soul?
This game doesn’t merely pay homage to the golden age of RPGs; it resurrects it, reforged in the fires of streamlined design and accessible play. It’s a masterclass in how to respect the past without being shackled by it. Everything about Shadowdark screams purpose- it’s a true dungeon crawler, built from the torchlight up to emphasize danger, tension, and immersive play.
And yet, it’s more than that.
It’s intuitive to run, brilliantly supported by Kelsey and her team, and evolving fast. The game’s Kickstarter success is the stuff of legends, raising over a million dollars in a single day for its upcoming expansion. That’s not just popularity; that’s momentum. And with that momentum comes growth. The system that began as a love letter to torchlit corridors and lurking horrors is now expanding into a full-fledged, grimdark world rich with lore, cultures, monsters, and mystery.
I’m super psyched for this one, it’s very high on my must play list, and I’m certain I’m not the only one if that Kickstarter is any indication.
Mörk Borg
Designed by Pelle Nilsson & Johan Nohr, two guys from my neck of the woods (Sweden), this one falls into the category of a little bit creepy, a little bit gonzo style RPG. While the game is rules light, it has a considerable amount of crunch to it’s combat with a rather viceral doom metal approach to its world design.
In essence, you’re playing in a world that is ending, living out your last days in a brutal and nihilistic setting that forgives your sins but shows you no quarter. It’s full of amazing art and takes a very direct, pick-up-and-play approach that doesn’t feel “one-shotty” thanks to having meat on the bones where it counts and an awesome, addictive grimdark world. Read all about it HERE.
Castles and Crusades
Imagine what would happen if Gary Gygax made a 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons using modern game design techniques, that in a word is Castles & Crusades. A game that takes all of the modern mechanics and streamlining of 3rd edition but with 1st and 2nd edition AD&D sensibilities. That is what the work of Stephen Chenault and his brother Davis Chenault from Troll Lord Games gave us. A true and pure gift.
Castles & Crusades is a reasonably crunchy, yet distinctively Dungeons and Dragons in what I think is probably one of the truest and most honest attempts to re-write Dungeons and Dragons edition history. In so many ways, this is the real 3rd edition of Dungeons and Dragons. Everything you think D&D is, is in here but without all the nonsense Wizards of the Coast put us through in the last few editions of the game. Pure, unfiltered Dungeons and Dragons!
The amazing thing is that it’s a free game, you can get it here and check it out yourself.
Dolmenwood
I have talked a lot in the past about Old School Essentials, having run the game for the better part of 3 years in a single campaign. It is an awesome system that is essentially a Dungeons and Dragons construction kit, but also, when you get right down to it, it is effectively classic B/X 1st edition D&D.
Dolmenwood takes that base and builds upon it an entire setting with a very focused playstyle geared towards exploration of the world but also of an underlining history and story of the setting. Gavin Norman, the creator of both Old School Essentials and Dolmenwood, is probably one of my favorite OSR designers because he has an uncanny sense of order and organization, understanding the base principle of creating content and systems for the practical exercise that is playing a tabletop game.
Bringing that same approach that made Old School Essentials such a pure joy to run and applying it to a setting is exactly what I hoped to find when my Kickstarter PDF’s arrived. This is an excessively easy game to prepare, a vast setting with tremendous attention to detail that is easy to access thanks to this amazing organization and, most of all, absolutely inspiring writing.
I can’t wait to run this game for my friends because I know that this sort of attention to story and detail is exactly what my players crave. They love stories that break expectations, that are based on the characterization of a unique world, and most of all, they love long campaigns that they can lose themselves to.
Hyperborea
Of all the games on this list, Hyperborea is perhaps the most likely to have had an affair with old school 1st edition Dungeons and Dragons. There is clear Dungeons and Dragons DNA burned deeply into this game, and perhaps not surprising given it comes from the creative mind of Jeff Talanian, a known Gygax collaborator.
This game is heavily influenced by Appendix N, the famed list of pulp fiction upon which Dungeons and Dragons was based, but it’s clear from the setting design that Robert E. Howard’s Conan was among the author’s favorite.
You live in a decaying civilization where magic has gone terribly wrong in what I can only describe as a savage mix between Mad Max and High Fantasy. Grim, moody, and overflowing with danger, in Hyperborea, life is cheap, and your characters are less heroes and more survivors as you navigate your way through the primeval denizens that populate this setting. It’s a fantastic game with a big focus on the creation of unique fantasy characters that will undoubtedly break the expectations of even the most veteran tabletop groups.
Conclusion
Ok that’s it for today, hopefully, you found something on this list to explore. There is no question that there are far more games that deserve mention here; trimming this list down to five took considerable restraint. Perhaps I will do another one of these in the near future.
When I put 2024 down on digital paper, I feel like I live in the future. It’s hard to believe it’s 2024 and even harder to believe the year is almost over.
I would make the argument that it’s been a great year for gaming but frankly, my gaming life has been full of ups and downs this year, and tons of really surprising results. While there has been some great gaming this year, had you shown me this highlight reel at the start of the year, I would not have believed it.
There is a lot of games to talk about so sit back and enjoy, it’s going to be a serious wall of text today!
Hegemony: Lead Your Class To Victory
It’s a tough learning curve, but unquestionably one of the most unique games I have played in a long time.
This was among my favorite discoveries in 2024, even though it was technically released in 2023. It’s a robust and very crunchy Euro with a lot of psychology built into it and a fair amount of cut-throat competition. It’s not something I would recommend for everyone, but for groups like mine who love to argue and play “take that” games, it’s right up our alley. The interesting part about this game is how all of these asymmetrical mechanics come together. Testing this game must have been a real hell because there is so much interaction, and so many game states possible, it’s kind of crazy.
This one came out for the first time at our big board gaming weekend in the summer, and it was a smash hit with everyone, we talked about it endlessly afterward and everyone agreed it needed to be played repeatedly! That was the first and last time we played this game.
This is not a reflection on the quality of the game but more of a reflection of its length and its harsh learning curve. It took us a solid 7 hours for our first game. Like Through The Ages which I will talk about a little later, it’s just a long, complex game and it’s a bit of a pain in the ass to teach. It also has one of those rule sets where every single micro rule and the order it’s executed in, is a gaming-breakingly important thing, meaning, play one tiny rule wrong and the entire face of the game changes. So playing the EXACT rules to the letter in this hyper-crunchy game is critical to a fair gaming experience, but because of its complexity, it’s easy to get them wrong. This creates this unusual quandary where you need to put together a dedicated, crack-squad willing to invest in learning the game on their own so that everyone at the table is efficient and knows how everything works. Without that, you end up with a 3-hour game that takes 7 hours to play.
It’s a great game but man, it’s tough to build up the will to play it.
Part engine builder, part thought experiment, Hegemony is an exceptionally unique game design that I think if you and your gaming group are hardcore, veteran board gamers that love that Euro crunch, this is a must-own. Easily a candidate for the best game I played all year. That said, it’s not very approachable and I think most tables will find that it’s a bit too much.
Warhammer 40k got a 10th edition
Way back in the 6th edition days, I was a huge Warhammer 40k player. We played a lot, I had two armies (Tyranids and Necrons) and I did the entire hobby thing from A to Z. I honestly never in a million years would have guessed that in 2024 we would be going back to it, I thought I was done with 40k forever. It’s return to our gaming groups consciousness is one of the wildest events of the year.
The game fell out of favor in my group over a decade ago, replaced by modern miniature games that focused on stronger gameplay and in many cases like Star Wars X-Wing and Star Wars Armada, cut the entire hobby part out of the game with pre-constructed and pre-painted miniatures. This became the norm in my group and even when we did buy into more hobby-centric games, we usually played those with unpainted miniatures like Songs of Ice and Fire for example or they were isolated to small parts of our group as the case was with Bolt Action for example. In either case, the choice of miniature game was always heavily influenced by gameplay quality over “hobby focus”.
Warhammer 40k and the entire hobby part of the miniature gaming hobby made a big comeback when the 10th edition dropped last year. In 2024, shockingly, there was a lot of both, gaming and hobby in the 40k universe in my group. I rebuilt my Tyranid army and several members of our group who had never experienced 40k bought into the game for the first time. It became a thing.
I’m pretty proud of my Tyranids, this towering giant took over 20 hours to complete. When people say Warhammer 40k is a hobby, this is no joke and it’s good to keep in mind that it’s a pretty expensive hobby at that.
What I can say about Warhammer 40k is that it’s still a pretty shitty game from a mechanics perspective. Especially compared to modern-designed miniature games that focus on strong gameplay. I think anyone who plays 40k knows that the mechanics of the game are there to facilitate the hobby part of the game and playing it is just something fun you do when you and your friends get together to show off your miniatures. As a game, it leaves a lot to desire.
Warhammer 40k is almost a role-playing sort of experience. You work on your army, read the manuals and codexes, do your list building, and absorb other content like the animated series and the novels. It’s sort of a story-driven, hobby where the game is just a thing you “participate” in to complete the circle. If you’re looking for a good competitive miniature game, pretty much anything else is better, but so far as the hobby goes, GW makes the miniatures; no question about it.
It’s a lot of fun but in more ways than one, 40k is more of a robust activity than a game and I think as long as you can accept that and not get frustrated by the crazy imbalances and mechanical weirdness, it really is a fun activity.
I will say however that 10th edition is probably the best version of the game mechanically in all the years I have played 40k. Still not good by any stretch of the imagination but a vast improvement over previous editions and GamesWorkshop has gone to great lengths to try to keep the game as balanced as they can. A+ for effort even if the final grade, is a C- and I’m being very generous here.
If you’re thinking about Warhammer 40k, I think it’s important to know that you do not get into 40k for the game. You get into it for the fantasy storytelling, the art, the books, the animated series and most importantly the hobby of building and painting miniatures. That is what 40k is first and foremost and it does a fantastic job of it. The game is an afterthought. It’s fun too, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not what I would call “mechanically good” fun, more like we get to play with the toys we made kind of fun.
Empire Of The Sun
Empire of the Sun is a grid-based, card-driven historical war game that covers the entire Pacific War. A more complete game has never existed.
I play Empire of the Sun as a matter of habit every year, not to suggest I don’t enjoy it, I do, in fact, it’s an addiction that must be fed but this year, it exploded. I played a ton of games, probably more this year alone than the previous 4-5 years combined thanks to a fantastic online community.
I do not generally recommend Empire Of The Sun to most people. This is a highly complex historical war game with an extreme level of simulation and deep strategic interactions. It is not for the faint of heart and all I can say is that as a gamer you should know if a historical chit-game is for you or not. This is a very specific, very niche style of game that is or is not in your wheelhouse.
That said, I can’t think of a game on my yearly playlist that I look forward to more than Empire of the Sun. Each year when it comes out, I know I’m about to experience a masterpiece, and this game never disappointments. I typically play it with online opponents as it can be very difficult to play this one in a single sitting with a live opponent. In fact, even online, a typical game of Empire of the Sun can take the better part of a month to finish even if you do live sessions of 3-4 hours at a time on a weekly basis. It is a 12+ hour game for most partners and can take considerably more than that if you suffer from analysis paralysis, which is something this game infects you with if you don’t already suffer from the condition.
Mark Herman is one of my favorite game designers because he makes games that he loves to play and it shows in his designs. A true master of his craft, but like all masters, it takes some soul searching to understand the how and why of his designs. There is a personal connection you build with his games that will have you digging far beyond just the mechanics and design of the game, you will find yourself watching Pacific War documentaries, reading history books and imagining what the world must have been for people in the Pacific War. This is not just a game, it’s an exercise for the brain and it’s good for you!
If that doesn’t appeal to you, avoid this one, it’s for the historical buffs and no one else.
Through The Ages: A New Story of Civilization
Through The Ages has been near the top of my all-time favorite games for a long time, but I’m very careful and picky about who I pull it out with. Pick the wrong people and you are looking at a 6-12 hour game that will suck the soul right out of your body.
This long-time favorite and staple of my collection usually collects a lot of dust because it’s just a very long and robust game, that can be dreadfully slow when playing with new or inexperienced gamers.
Fortunately this year I managed to get it to the table a couple of times with some veterans and not only was it a pleasant experience, but with some great competition it was lightning fast which proves two things. First, it doesn’t have to be a long game, this game can be played in under 3 hours with experienced players who know what they’re doing and two, it’s still one of the most competitive games on my shelf, with brutally tight end games.
I will warn you that this game normally takes 3-4 people the better part of 6 to 8 hours to play and can take upwards of 12+ hours to complete. Yeah, I’m not joking here, so be prepared for some long games when learning this one. People who suffer from analysis paralysis will be in hell and drag this game out endlessly, if that sounds like you, this is one to avoid. You need to be thinking ahead and making key decisions so that you’re your turn is nice and fast, executed with precision, that is the only way to get this game’s excessive length down.
I will say that so far as Civilization builders go, meaning games that give you that Sid Meier Civ feel, this is one of the best around.
For those out there looking for a similar gaming experience but want a larger group and shorter game, Nations is a pretty decent substitute and fits the same niche playstyle. It’s a great game in its own right, but some argue it’s a very “ugly” looking game.
This is a classic civilization builder, its tight competitive nature, unique dynamic card-driven gameplay, and diverse interactions make this one of the best of its kind. There is a reason this game has been at the top of BBG lists for decades! But yeah, you need to find the right people to play with, this is not a “let’s just play with anyone” kind of game, not unless you’re ready to spend an entire day playing it.
Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan
Stratego was one of the earliest gaming experiences I had as a kid and this game definitely reminds me of those days.
I was very late to the party with this 2011 release, but Sekigahara is a well-established war game in the community, sitting pretty in the number 6 spot among war games on BBG and 207 overall. That is pretty impressive for a dry block-based historical war game based on medieval Japanese warfare. I bought into this one and managed to get it to the table a few times this year and color me impressed.
There is a solid and obvious reason for this popularity. This is an extraordinary game combining tactical and strategic dudes on a map war game that is card-driven. The core feature of the game is the hidden unit concept built into blocks that make up game units similar to classic games like Stratego which gives this game a great “feel” at the table. I think the bulk of the games fun factor has to be this idea of setting up your units and board positions, with a strategic plan based on the minimal information you have about enemy positions and strengths.
It’s a very clean, yet tense competitive war game that is easy to understand but difficult to master. I’m not at all surprised about its status among war gamers but I do think that even at 207 on the overall list which is quite high for a historical war game, this one is grossly underrated. This is one of the most unique titles I have seen in quite a while, I can’t believe I’m only just now discovering it. This is one of those games you can introduce to anyone, there is nothing complicated about it at all. It’s a kind of chess-like atmosphere with a fun theme.
Very highly recommended for pretty much anyone interested in competitive two-player war games.
Underwater Cities
Very streamlined game with a fantastic theme, dynamic mechanics, and that easy to learn – impossible to master core that elevates it above the competition.
I’m a big fan of Terraforming Mars, I play it a lot and there are a few games that I can point to and say “If you like Terraforming Mars, you should try…..”. Well, Underwater Cities is that game.
It’s not exactly a duplication or replication of the mechanics, but it scratches a similar itch with its dynamic engine-building – card-driven gameplay. Also, like Terraforming Mars, you can’t just play this game once and feel satisfied, you will find yourself obsessing about how to play it more efficiently, how to make each card play more effectively and above all else trying to find that “killer” strategy in a game that is far too dynamic to ever definitely resolve.
This is not a puzzle that can be solved as is the case with so many Euro-style games, the sand is constantly shifting under your feet and you have to adapt and overcome using a unique approach in each game, with a surprising amount of game states. It’s what I love about Terraforming Mars and it’s what I love about Underwater Cities.
Fantastic game that looks amazing on the table, it’s easy to teach but impossible to master. It’s what Euro gamers crave, a fresh take on a familiar engine building formula. If you haven’t tried it yet, this 2018 release should be at the top of your list.
Everdell
This cute game about animals living in the forest has some teeth. Lots of potential!
I only played it once for the first time this year and still, it made a very strong impression on me. This rather simple resource management, worker placement and card management game is exceedingly thinky. There are clear strategies driven by a wide range of dynamics in the game that create a great sense of competitiveness while being very straightforward from a mechanics perspective. Very tight scoring and a bit of a race between engine building and scoring. The entire game runs like a well-oiled machine, clearly the result of thorough playtesting. I see a lot of potential for replayability here, but at this stage, given that I have only played it once, that is hard to say.
What I can say is that despite a single play, this is on my “stuff to keep an eye on” as I see a lot of potential in this one. The accolades and popularity of this game are warranted.
Eclipse: The Second Dawn For The Galaxy
It’s a hit-or-miss experience, for such an expensive game I would not recommend it over far better games like Twilight Imperium. It’s not a bad game, it’s just not good enough for the price tag
This is a game I keep going back and forth on and I think a big part of the reason for it is that the gaming experience itself can be hit or miss from session to session. Sometimes it plays like a tight, 4x strategy game with battles, technology and lots of sneaky and tricky moves (exactly what you hope for). All the stuff you hope to get out of a 4x civ builder. Other times it’s just this horrifically boring and predictable Euro where essentially nothing interesting happens and someone wins by default in about the most anticlimatic way a board game can end.
I hold to it to account for its supposed claim that it’s “a better” or “lighter” Twilight Imperium, it’s not, it’s not even in the same league. In the infamous words of Will Smith, “Keep my Twilight Imperium’s name out of your mouth!”, a Twilight Imperium anything, this game is not.
That said I do love the aesthetic and the game is well-designed even if the experience can land flat. I would argue it’s way too expensive to recommend just to see for yourself if you can live with this unpredictable result, in fact, I would go further and say, don’t buy this game if you’re looking for a 4x experience because it does a poor job of it. This is more for Euro gamers who want a space theme and even there, be ready for some disappointing end games.
Imperial Struggle
Easily one of the best games in my collection, I just wish it hit the table more often!
I managed to squeeze in only three games of Imperial Struggle this year to my sad disappointment and frankly, I just wish someone made a digital version of this game already like they did for Twilight Struggle because I so desperately want to make this a nightly thing for me. I love this game but it’s kind of a pain to get to the table. This might end up being the game that I decided to digitalize myself just for my own purposes, but I’m just not sure my programming skills are up to the challenge. This game has a lot of moving parts.
It’s a fairly robust game in terms of complexity and strategic thinking and while the well is super deep, it’s sometimes a bit anti-climatic as the game can and often feels like it ends prematurely. Now I know that this is because of skill level differences, this is one of those games like Dune (Rex) where quite literally what you do in round 1 might end the game right then and there. Normally with some experience that is never going to happen but, yeah, this game has some very subtle nuances that can create exciting, long and tight games, or just these horrific early crushing defeats.
It ranks as one of my favorite games of all time, I think it is a worthy contender for the lifestyle game list but I just feel like I don’t play it often enough to be certain of that.
If you like Twilight Struggle, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to love this game even if these two games have a lot in common and are from the same creator. Twilight Struggle is more of a card game while Imperial Struggle is more of an action economy game. They are both from the influence area control genre, but not quite the same experience.
That said I still hold that Imperial Struggle is the better game… there I said it.
Great Western Trail
This is my modern-day Monopoly, I’m happy to play it anytime and with anyone. It’s just a fun, laid-back time, win or lose it’s always entertaining.
Great Western Trail continues to hit my “must play it” list periodically and I think I ended up playing it 5 or 6 times in person and a whole bunch more on BoardGameArena (online). In fact, I have 113 lifetime plays so far in this game and honestly, I’m not even remotely done with it yet. I crave it with regularity.
Why? Well, I think the biggest boon of this game is that it’s just a very clever mechanic and it’s kind of unique compared to most Euros. The unique engine building and heavier interaction between players, make this a Euro you don’t feel like you’re playing solo. It just works and it’s fun. Sometimes a good game is difficult to explain but I put this game in the same sort of ranking world as I would put Monopoly. To me, this is a family game. Sure it’s a bit more complex and has a few moving parts, but it has those types of rules that you just kind of remember after a few plays and they stick with you.
I have not gotten a chance yet to try some of the new versions of the game, there are two in total now, Argentina and New Zealand. They look interesting and are on my 2025 list of stuff to play.
Raiders Of The North Sea
Very fast worker placement game, great for a quickie, yet it has that robust, satisfying worker placement Euro feel. Great art too, I love looking at this game.
My daughter likes this one a lot, not to say I don’t but because of her we ended up playing it many-many times this year and it sort of became a thing.
As a whole, this game is a pretty straightforward worker placement game and one of the simpler ones from the Shem Philips line of games which includes stuff like Paladins of the West Kingdom, Viscounts of the West Kingdom, Architects of the West Kingdom and a bunch more. Good games all, I have tried most of them at this point but I still find Raiders of the North Sea, the first of the series I ever tried to be the most approachable and fun.
It’s a kind of combination of resource management, worker placement, and quasi-race. The race part is mostly because it is a pretty fast game that ends a lot quicker than you think. My daughter and I go like 30-45 minutes tops, so whatever your strategy is, there isn’t time to refocus or adapt, you have to ride it out and see what happens.
Most games are quite tight, generally, you’re going win this one by a hair unless you drop the ball so it’s always fun. Every move counts.
Great game, like Great Western Trail, it is a simple family game, very streamlined, and easy to understand the strategies behind it.
Star Wars Unlimited
One of the best CCG’s to come out in a very long time. Not quite a replacement for Star Wars Destiny in my opinion, but I’m kind of biased, I loved that dice mechanic. Still, so far as CCG’s go, this one is so tight, so clever, I’m not at all surprised at its success so far.
There is no question that Star Wars Unlimited stole the show this year. It’s been one of the biggest rises and most played games of the year in my group. I have so far collected all three expansions for the game and I don’t see any slowdown in my group. We love this one.
I would say it’s probably the first collectible card game since Lord of the Rings the Living Card game that I have felt comfortable just buying into it Blind. Star Wars Destiny turned out to be a big disappointment, more on that in a minute. Legend of the Five Rings was discontinued and Game Of Thrones the card game just never took off in my group. This is the first in a long time I think has some hope for becoming a Magic: The Gathering-type game where it becomes a filler for all occasions and a lifestyle choice in our group.
Very well balanced so far, with clever dueling mechanics and they are very wisely making each expansion a kind of mechanically isolated thing so that there is a kind of deck reset every time one comes out. This is great for our group as we all love deck building and it’s nice to have to sort of “re-think” strategy each time a new expansion comes out. It revitalizes the game each time a new expansion comes out and get’s us excited about getting together to play.
Love it so far, really hoping this one sticks the landing long term.
Now I want to say a thing or two about Star Wars Destiny, Star Wars Unlimited ugly stepbrother. I recently made a Top 10 Collectable Card game list where Star Wars Destiny landed in the number 5 spot, but its position on this list is mainly because the game is discontinued and because it was a CCG and it should not have been. Star Wars Destiny should have been using the Living Card Game format FFG is kind of famous for and had they done that, I think it would be Destiny not Unlimited we are talking about today. I personally think that Destiny is a much better game, but it was so poorly managed that it sort of self-destructed. It was a real bummer. Thank god that Unlimited came along and filled this gap.
Other Worthy Mentions
The above is a very inconclusive list, I played a lot more than what is here, but this article is about highlights and I think that covers the bulk of the standouts for me. There were several other games I will quickly mention here for posterity that received table time this year.
Terraforming Mars is always on my agenda each year, we played it several times this year and it continues to be the masterpiece from 2016 that just keeps on giving. It’s as good as it always has been and the expansions for this one do improve the game in so many ways, really refreshing the entire experience. I put this one on my lifestyle games list, it’s a staple of my gaming life these days and it’s one of my default recommendations to all board game fans.
War Room got played as it always does on my birthday (and hopefully always will). Love this one, but it’s 12+ hour monster that I find once a year is plenty. I never recommend it, it’s a niche game, but from my perspective, it’s one of the best games ever made. So a bit of a quandary. Let’s just say you have to be a “type” to appreciate a game like this. I suggest checking out my full review on this one.
Lord of the Rings the living card game naturally hit the table repeatedly as it always does for me each year, another lifestyle game I play regularly, mostly solo. I put this one into kind of a niche category as well because I find it’s sort of an all-or-nothing game. Either you collect everything and go full-on crazy, or skip it entirely. The same way I feel about most collectible card games. For a Lord of the Rings fan however, this is one of the best games ever made. I wrote a revised article in 2023 that surprisingly has become one of the most visited articles on the blog.
Lord of the Rings The Living Card game is 10 years old, but if the hits on this site are any indication it’s currently more popular than it has ever been in the past. This may be the result of 2nd edition being released in 2023.
Things on the agenda for 2025
2025 is looking very exciting already, there is a lineup on my shelf of games that are going to get played come hell or high water, and a few I still need to pick up (or am waiting to show up).
Dolmen Wood
I kick-started this old-school adventure RPG based on 1st edition B/X (Old School Essentials) rules. I’m a big fan of the designer Gavin Norman, he does a lot of great writing and design that speaks to me in a rather unique way.
Dolmen Wood is essentially a self-contained RPG and campaign, based largely on fairy tale lore and old myths. As a kick-starter I already have the game in PDF form in my possession and the books will arrive later this year.
If you love Dungeons and Dragons from the 80, this is a nostalgic trip down memory lane, except that it’s designed to be extremely approachable, and episodic all wrapped up in a fleshed-out open world. It’s easily among the best RPG content I have ever read and I’m eagerly anticipating its arrival.
Arcs
Arcs is a 2024 release designed by Cole Wehrle who is quickly becoming one of the big stand-outs in the board gaming world. He is responsible for instant classics like Root, John Company, Oath and Pax Pamir.
He has a unique eye for Asymmetrical game design which is definitely in my wheelhouse, but more than that, I think he knows how to bring a theme to life.
This one combines trick-taking and the 4x genre, which I will admit is a strange combo, but it’s another thing that I love about Wehrle designs. They are always a bit off, but always in a good way. I’m hoping it is going to live up to the hype but given the reputation of this designer, I go into it with confidence.
The Middle-Earth Strategy Battle Game
The Battle of Osgiliath is a really cool set that comes with lots of mini’s and terrain. While there are some more modern miniatures here for certain hero characters, most of the sculpts are really old and kind of crappy. They are not the GW quality you are probably used to if you are a modern miniature game fan.
I talked about this one briefly in a recent Hidden Gems article, but my hope is that this year, MESBG becomes something that I can expand on and sink my teeth into.
The claim to fame for MESBG is that it’s one the best rule sets GW has ever put out. I don’t know if that is really true or not, and honestly I don’t really care that much. It does seem to be the most common mantra among miniature-gaming fans which is great and all but as a Lord of the Rings fan, I just want to paint and play with some Middle Earth mini’s.
My issue with this game is that I came into it too late and right now as I paint up some of the miniatures of this game based on the Osgiliath box set, while I’m excited to get it to the table, I’m not really that impressed with the quality of the mini’s. This is an age thing, some of these sculpts are the better part of 10+ years old, but this is why now is a great time to get excited about this game.
In 2025 we can expect GW to be putting out new sculpts for this game and the obvious hope is that they go back and “refresh” the lines most key armies. I’m hoping we get new sculpts for the entire Fellowship and other key heroes/villains and I really hope we see new Orcs, Goblins, Rohan and Gondor troops. A lot of these old sculpts are really crappy by today’s standard and while I’m really excited, I don’t want to paint shitty miniatures. So here is hoping GW throttles up and gives us some new mini’s!
As of September of 2024, GamersDungeon.net turns 10 years old and I felt like, that in itself deserves an article at the very least. After all, running a blog for a decade while making me feel old, also makes me feel mature and professional. I know I’m absolutely not, in fact, I’m a fumbling idiot for the most part but still, hitting the 10 year mark feels great.
I thought the way I would celebrate is by going through the posting history to talk about some of my favorite articles as well as those I hate. Sort of a flashback, a look at GamersDungeon.net over the last decade.
The first article I ever wrote for this blog was about D&D, in a way this blog was founded on talking about D&D and I have done so quite continually throughout the blogs life. This article was triggered by the big event at the time, the release of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons and as I was excited by having a new edition in my hot little hand, I was very generous with my words.
Since this article I have written quite a few articles about 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons, either being mentioned as part of a larger theory article or directly addressing the edition itself. Over the years I have gone back and forth about my feelings about 5th edition but sitting here now with the 2024 edition released, I can say these definitive words about 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons.
It’s ok. I still prefer the classic playstyles of 1st edition D&D, the Dungeon Crawl, The Dungeon Survival, that deadly game where players aren’t heroes because they have powers, they are heroes because of the risks they take for the greater good against all odds.
Still, I do enjoy 5th edition D&D. It’s an easy game to the table and looking at this article, though I was a bit generous, I still believe 10 years later that the general assessment remains true. 5th edition is as close as the franchise has gotten over the years to returning to the original, classic formula of 1st edition. It’s a bit high powered and has plenty of exceptions, but all and all, it’s a fine game.
My first Top 10 of all time list was published in 2015 and I have to say, looking at it today, I still think most of these games are great, but it does feel a bit strange to see some of these titles today. There are some exceptions like Star Wars X-Wing and Twilight Imperium, both of which I consider top notch games still today.
Star Wars X-Wing in the number one spot feels great, I still love this game, I still have my collection and believe it or not it still comes out on occasion. It’s a fast moving fun dice chucker and while it’s no longer on my list today, I proudly stand by this one.
Twilight Imperium is still on my top 20 list today (no. 7 spot) and this game has remained on the list the entire decade. I love Twilight Imperium and true love lasts forever!
The rest of the list gets a bit shaky. Fury of Dracula in the no. 4 spot is the eye sore here, I’m not sure what I was thinking but I probably haven’t played this game since 2015. Formula D also feels a bit odd. I do like it but its a very niche game, quite random and way too long for what is effectively a kind of push your luck dice chucker. Dominion is the really painful one, I culled that one from my collection many moons ago and just the thought of playing it gives me the shivers.
This however is exactly why I update my best of list each year, these lists don’t age well.
In September of 2015 I created my rating system that I would use from this point forward when receiving games and I have to say, even today, I still think its one of the best and most fair way to review games.
I think it’s actually the most brilliant thing I have ever done on this site to be honest, I love this system and I actually wish it was more standardized. I really dislike the arbitrary way in which boardgames are reviewed. It’s like, I give it a 7 out of 10… how? why? My rating system really quantifies things and gives categories of judgement weight based on the intended design so that way a game intended to be a short, fun dice chucker doesn’t get judged the same way a big, complex strategy game would. These are different games that require a different review approach and I really think my rating system captures that.
The What Makes It tick was an article series that I never really fully explored. I did some decent work here but what I discovered is that these sort of articles aged really poorly, especially when applied to a constantly evolving game like miniature games.
I didn’t write very many as a result, but I do think they were pretty good for the 5 minutes they were actually valid.
I have done a lot of reviews over the years and most of them I stand by, but there are a few that I cringe when I read them, the most famous of these blunders was my review of 7 Wonders Duel.
Man I feel like a fool for this one. I crapped all over this game and I was wrong about all of it. 7 Wonders Duel is a fantastic game, I still play it today nearly 10 years later quite regularly with my daughter, its actually one of my favorite games that I play with her and I’m pretty sure its one of her favorite board games of all time.
If there is a review I would love to re-write its this one.
Every year my friends and I disappear for 4 days to a place called Hassela, where we lock ourselves in a house in the country and do absolutely nothing but play boardgames all day, eat good food, drink good drink and be merry. It’s the gaming highlight of every year and we have been doing it now for nearly a decade. In fact, we will be celebrating our 10th year anniversary for this event.
Writing these articles is pure joy and it’s also probably the most diverse list of games you will ever see bunched up together in a single article. Great for when you want to find something new to try.
In April 2018 I met a guy online that created the Lord of the Rings LCG companion, a website dedicated to Lord of the Rings. He was looking for a webspace to put the companion, I was a super fan of the game and basically I decided to host the sub-site and have been doing so ever since.
This site has been and continues to be updated and maintained, I have gladly paid to keep it up and running and will do so as long as the creator who by the way, I have almost no contact with, keeps it current. It’s been a fantastic resource provided to the community, I use it myself all the time and I love the idea that I keep it alive, there is something felathrapic about it.
Theory articles have become a kind of staple of my site over the last few years, but it all started back in 2018. In fact, I do far more of these types of articles these days than I do boardgame reviews.
Part of the reason is that I’m not really all that interested in keeping up with the latest and greatest when it comes to boardgames. I choose my games rather abstractly based on current interest, I really don’t pay that much attention to new releases.
RPG’s however are a staple of my gaming life and I find myself playing, thinking about and writing about them all the time.
It also helps that these are the most commonly read articles. A single theory article can get more hits in a day, than most articles will get in a decade. They are very popular and generate a lot of traffic and while I’m not making money on this blog, I do like to see it getting traffic, it feels good.
I’m a huge battletech fan and writing this three part Battletech guide was one of the most fun articles I have ever written and it was one I was very heavily invested in.
I think all together there was over 100 hours worth of research and work that went into this three part series and personally I think its the single most relevant information you will ever find on the subject of Battletech anywhere on the internet and I’m quite proud of that.
This article series is a deep dive into Battletech that explains every resource, how it all fits together and all the options, variations and nuances of the game. It’s pure gold in my opinion, a effort well worth it for me.
While the 7 Wonder Duel review is something I’m not very proud of, my original review of Great Western Trails triggered me to do a “re-review” article, the only of its kind on this blog to correct some of those errors in judgement.
To some extent it was a kind of response to certain readers, who complained about some of these reviews and rightfully so as a few of these reviews were pretty terrible. I was glad I wrote this article but I had to swallow my pride when doing so.
Blood Rage is the first and only game in 10 years to receive a perfect 5 out of 5 score using my rating system and frankly, I still believe today that it’s the only game that deserves it.
I think this actually speaks to the objectivity of the rating system itself as well of the quality of Blood Rage as a board game because, believe it or not, this one doesn’t even crack my top 20 list.
There is no question in my mind in every category from components, gameplay, theme and replayability this game nails the landing with perfection. It is, genuinely in my opinion the only game I have ever played to which I could not find a single thing to complain about. It really is, the perfect game.
Now personally I think its a fun game and I always enjoy playing it, but it doesn’t really fit my style of game. For me, a game doesn’t need to be perfectly designed and published, to make the list. In fact, I usually prefer my games with some nuanced flaws, it gives them character.
I really do try my absolute best to be as objective on this blog as I can, especially when it comes to reviews, but in the case of Napoleon’s Imperium it was simply impossible.
This heartwarming story about a game developer publishing his first game, based on a life time spent designing it, with a fascinating and inspiring long road to that publications was enough to shake the foundations of objectivity. I however had the pleasure to meet and befriend the designer Andrew Roland and that really sealed the deal for me, throwing any sense of objectivity out the window.
All I can say is that I love this story, it is without question in my mind, one of the most fascinating and inspiring tales I have come across as a writer and I loved writing this article and this review.
For what it’s worth, after writing the article which did include some criticism, Andrew contacted me and not only thanked me for writing the review, but told me that this was the most accurate and most insightful review of the game he had ever read.
I’m not surprise at that comment as I spent the better part of 40 hours agonizing over every word of this article.
I was very proud of that and I was happy to help Andrew promote his game because I have never met anyone more deserving of success.
Empire of the Sun by famed historical war game designer Mark Herman was a very coincidental and rather rash purchase on my part, but would end up completely changing the way I think about and what sorts of games I love. It was one of my first foray’s into serious historical war gaming and I have not been the same since.
This absolute masterpiece was one of the most difficult games to learn and dissect, without question one of the toughest reviews I have ever written. I have never worked harder to get words onto a page than the ones put together for Empire of The Sun.
I really hope I did the game justice, as it is one of my favorite games of all time, a lifestyle game I plan to play until the day I die.
Probably one of the strangest articles and projects I ever took on was trying to create my own arcade system. I only wrote two articles for this one, something I hope to remedy one day when I actually finish the project, but I can tell you that I do in fact have a working prototype at home.
In fact my daughter and I play our homemade arcade every week like clockwork, we absolutely love and I really hope to finish this article and this project over the next couple of years because I had a ton of fun building and playing with it. It’s a unique experience that I would encourage any nostalgic gamer to pursue, if I can do it, anyone can do it.. I’m a fumbling idiot!
When I wrote this article, I can tell you that the 5th edition D&D community was not kind. For a gaming community that claims to be all about tolerance and inclusivity, their true colors really shined through when I dared to write an article suggesting that there are other RPG’s out there that might replace 5th edition D&D as “THE” role-playing game.
In fact, I will call it out here and now just for the record. The 5th edition D&D community is predominantly populated by gatekeepers completely intolerant to anything other than their version of D&D. They are hostile, rude and bigoted, their defense is of course that everyone else is the bad guy and they are just innocent snowflakes. I don’t want to throw the entire community under the bus here, because of course this is a generalizations, I have met plenty of nice people but as a community a bigger group of assholes has never existed, the whole lot of them can fuck off.
A Song of Ice and Fire the miniature game played a huge role in my gaming life during the pandemic era thanks mainly to Table Top Simulator which allowed us to play this miniature game online. I think I must have played 100 matches over the course of two years and I got to know this game really well. Well enough to trigger a rebirth of the What Makes It Tick articles.
As was the case before, these articles did not age well as the game is constantly being adjusted, adapted and updated. Suffice to say, while I enjoyed writing them, they are all very much obsolete at this point.
It never occured to me to write a top 10 list of gaming experience, but when I did I found it a rather refreshing way to look at a top 10 list. As I was not bound by the quality of the game, but rather the play experience at a given moment, it allowed me to write an article free of trying to justify what is and isn’t good about a game in a sort of review style. Instead I was just writing about how things went and that was really fun.
I definitely will do more of these in the future.
Q&A – Time to answer some questions
I don’t interact with my readers very much, I don’t have a comment section and usually while I read every email anyone sends to me, I rarely respond. There is a reason for this. My blog is my space, it’s a white board for my thoughts, ideas and opinion and these things are not up for debate. Generally I don’t care what people think, what other people think is not what this blog is about, its a very narcissistic thing, it’s my opinion that matters here and it’s a one way, take it or leave, train.
That said, I figure after 10 years, perhaps this one time I will break the silence and answer some direct questions. I will not reveal any personal information here and I will paraphrase the questions for brevity.
Q1: Why don’t you have a comment section? What are you afraid of?
Already answered to a degree in the intro but to be plain and blunt about it, I don’t really give a fuck what you think and I’m not going to provide you with a space for it on my blog. I know there are a lot of snowflakes out there that think there opinion must be heard and to those I say, write your own fucking blog!
To answer the second part, I’m not afraid of anything, I just don’t care to hear or debate people’s opinions about my opinions. I see no value in it, some people agree with me, some people don’t. We can make that assumption without me having to moderate assholes who take advantage of an anonymous space to vent their bullshit.
Q2: Editorials and repost request
I get a metric ton of requests from people wanting me to re-link or publish articles on their behalf on this blog, which I can understand, I have a fairly sizeable audience for a small gaming blog.
Here is the thing. I’m not a professional, I’m not even a writer, I’m just a gamer with a blog that use it as an outlet to express my opinions and ideas. It’s really that simple, one voice in a larger chorus.
I have never felt comfortable exposing this space to other publications and authors, to me, it doesn’t make sense. Every word on this blog I have written, errors, run-on sentences, terrible opinions and stupid articles mixed in with some good content (I hope) is mine. The point is for it to be mine so I have no interest in sharing the space with anyone. I know there is money in it, but I have plenty of money, I don’t need to make more on my hobby.
Q3: Your wrong and I demand you correct it
There are certain communities out there like miniature gaming communities, original D&D communities and 5th edition communities who actually believe that I have some sort of obligation to them when I write. They insist that if I don’t word things the way they think I should that they have the write to not only tell me about it, but in some cases even do actionable stuff like send me fake cease and desist letters (yeah that actually happened).
I get it, people are passionate but I can’t stress enough how few fucks I give about people’s opinions about my opinions. I’m not saying I’m always right, but what I think is what I think, if you disagree, your barking up the wrong tree telling me about it, I really don’t care and I’m not going to alter my articles. I know that frustrates people, I can’t tell you guys enough how much it means to people that I listen and respond, which is exactly why I never do.
Q4: Review My Game
I get a lot of requests to review people’s games, even from large publishers who are willing to send me free copies if I do so. I’m not going to claim I have never done this, I have made exceptions but I generally avoid this sort of thing.
Writing articles and reviews for this blog is not my job, it’s my hobby, I do it for fun when I fancy to do so. I do not keep schedules, perform “task assignments” or anything else of the sort. In fact, I rarely ever do “new release” type stuff. I write and talk about things I’m doing in that moment and that can be just about anything.
So probably the answer is no, I’m not saying “stop sending me requests”, I’m just saying that in most cases I’m probably not going to respond.
There are board games, and then there are BOARD GAMES!—epic, brain-bending experiences that redefine what it means to gather around a table for game night. Once you delve a bit deeper into this hobby with an appetite for depth and challenge, you’ll find yourself discovering games where gameplay often demands much more than the average player might be ready to give.
These aren’t your casual diversions. We’re talking about games that push the boundaries with intricate strategies, meticulously designed simulations, and often marathon-length play sessions. They’re the kind of games that give back as much as they demand.
But let’s face it: not every complex game is worth the time and effort. Many fall short, bogged down by poor design, unnecessary complexity, or a lack of payoff. In this article, we’re diving into the fascinating realm of “lifestyle” games—those games that go beyond entertainment to become a full-blown hobby. These are games so rich, so challenging, and so immersive that simply learning to play them well feels like an achievement in itself.
Let’s explore the best (and maybe a few of the worst) of this exclusive club. Buckle up; it’s going to be a long one!
War Of The Ring
This classic Lord of the Rings boardgame that is part adventure game, part strategic war game is without question one of the most endearing games on this list. If you’re a Lord of the Rings fan looking for a two-player experience, this is the one that immediately pops into my head, but even as it does so, I can’t help but immediately point out the cautionary elements of this game.
It’s a long game and it’s a relatively complex game but this is not why I define it as a lifestyle game. The reality is that in order to get the most out of this game you need to have repeated plays of it, many…. so many repeated plays.
It takes many sessions to understand and come to terms with the subtle strategies of this game, the eben-flow of the asymmetric decks, the unique architecture of the map and the subtle way the gameplay is defined by the unique dice mechanic that may at first feel like a strange randomization in another why’s very thinky game, giving this one a kind of reactionary playstyle.
In short, this is not a game you play to try to win, rather you play the game to see what happens. In almost an RPG-like way, this board game is as much about telling the emergent tale of the entire trilogy of the Middle Earth story as it is a strategic war game. A concept that, for a Lord of the Rings fans, should hopefully spark excitement and anticipation. It’s a game where you get to explore what-if scenarios.
The game has a steep learning curve and the rules are not always intuitive, focused more on trying to bring out the story of the game and the realities of the Middle-earth world than being streamlined. Just explaining the game to a new player and having them come to terms with the nuances is going to take several plays and when you finally have that aha moment, you will find yourself in a permanent loop of “theory-crafting” different approaches, each demanding another session to try out your latest theory.
By the time you have played this game a dozen or so times, you will find yourself no closer to a definitive answer on how to play this game well or how to win at it and so you are drawn to it like a moth to a flame in the never-ending pursuit to figure it out. That is if it sticks the landing for you and I find that with many gamers, it doesn’t and this is why, finding like-minded opponents with a desire to explore the depths of this game becomes an important part of bringing the true nature and experience of this game to the forefront.
If you can find a good partner who loves Lord of the Rings as much as you do, what you have is an almost chess-like experience, a dual with eternal replayability that will have you creating and re-telling stories of “that one time” or describing past theories and gambits and its in this combination of attributes of the game, War of the Rings forms into a forever lifestyle game.
Western Empires
I have a love-hate relationship with this game mainly because it has this intangible quality, born part out of nostalgia for the classic game on which it is based (Advanced Civilization) but also because of its unusual mechanics that you will never see in any other game, creating this sort of abstracted, yet very story driven and personal experience. Simultaneously it’s frustratingly difficult to get to the table simply because of its scope and length of play.
It’s a massive game, playable by 5 to 9 players, but, quite clearly designed for 9 players specifically. A game that takes 12-24 hours to play, this is a massive epic-event game that can be made even bigger, up to 18 players by combining its sister game, Eastern Empires. To say this game is HUGE is an understatement. I say this without hesitation or exaggeration, this IS the single biggest boardgame ever made and I doubt we will ever see anything top it.
I don’t think it’s difficult to understand why I would proclaim this a lifestyle game, it takes enormous effort to get to the table, demanding a lot from its players, but why is it on the list? Especially given that this game also appears on my TOP 5 BOARDGAMES THAT WERE ALMOST GREAT, BUT HAD A FLAW THAT RUINED THEM list?
The answer is quite simple which is that the hard part of this game, unlike so many games on this list is simply getting X amount of players to sit down and play a game for Y amount of hours, in this case, the preferred X is 9 and the likely Y is 12-24 hours. It’s a bit much even for the most dedicated of gaming groups.
Despite its massive size, scope, and length, the mechanics of this game are surprisingly simple, at least in terms of understanding the “how” of playing the game. The beauty of this game is that it’s mostly a game about social interactions and player psychology. At the core of gameplay is trading resources and making high-level decisions, then living with some of the often impossible-to-predict outcomes. Much like real history, the story of the game is viewed in this sort of history concept where the culture you’re playing isn’t “you” or “your culture”, but this abstract engine you’re running in a grand historical concept of the world. You feel that personal ownership of the culture you’re running, as you would with any other civilization-building game, but there is this distance there because there really is only so much you can control strategically. This is a game you can win or lose simply because of bad luck, and that is a hard pill to swallow when you consider its length of play.
This is not a game you will win because you made the best strategic decisions, the best movement or tactical plan to overcome your opponent, or some clever leverage of mechanics. If there is any contributing factor to a victory it will be being the slickest salesman, the best negotiator, the most clever politician. It’s a game of subtle psychology, nuanced gambits, and social illusions, and these efforts make a huge difference but in the end, you might still get stuck with devastating calamities that will decimate all of your effort. As such the game is as much an activity as it is a game.
Yet despite that, a grandiose board it is. Massive and illustrious on the table, this game looks and feels like an event game, which makes this entry a unique lifestyle game to the list because it doesn’t have to be one. This is a game you can plan a big event around once a year and leave it at that, it works great for this purpose.
If however you can muster up the strength and the player count to get together more often, to dig deep into this games strategic layout, you will discover that in fact, while the game is played in the minds of the players, there is a lot to know about the motion and subtle tactics to this game. There is so much to learn and try out and while the game may not appear asymmetric as the only thing that differentiates one player from the other is the starting position on the map, this very small difference has a massive impact and each nation in this game has its own approach to be discovered.
Of all the games on this list, if I had my desires fulfilled this is the one lifestyle game I would choose for myself. A monthly game with a dedicated group to play this massive epic would be my definition of pure joy! As demanding as it is to get to the table, there is no doubt in my mind it’s one of the most timeless and unique gaming experience you can ever hope for.
Twilight Imperium
Over the years I have talked a lot about Twilight Imperium on this blog and it’s not a secret that I’m a fan, but when I talk to members of my group they often speak about this game in a negative light and I think that is because, contrary to what I used to believe about this game, it doesn’t make for a good event game. It is a lifestyle game, arguably almost exclusively so and that perhaps explains why my group maybe doesn’t love it the way I do, as I have, in the past, played this game as a lifestyle game and I know how that experience differs to simply running this as a once in a while event game which is the experience all the members of my group have with this game.
What is the subtle difference? The answer is that the game has an endlessly complex well of depth, not just in the way the rules execute, but in the subtle way the game is balanced between the sociology of the game and the impact of mechanics.
This is not a game you can win by outplaying everyone using mechanics alone, it’s a game where, like chess, you have to get your opponents to make a mistake and when that mistake is made and you leverage it, you make your move. Other (less experienced) players might look on this as a game they lost because someone did something stupid. In an event game, this can feel like king-making as players are unfamiliar with the subtle art of forcing a mistake in this game.
See the game is deep, very deep strategically with tons of unique interactions and hard-to-extrapolate balances hidden within the game’s uniquely asymmetrical elements with so much nuance, I could write a 12-book volume set on the strategies related to the different races in the game alone. This high-level understanding of the game however is not transferable, it’s not something you can teach, it’s the result of having played it countless times over two decades. This is not something I can explain to players even on a high level when teaching them to play so in an event scenario where the game is played as a one-off, players know the rules, but they are dozens of plays away from even realizing that such subtlety exists, let alone knowing what to do with that knowledge.
I don’t think I’m overselling it, I think a Twilight Imperium player will understand how this nuanced realization completely changes your outlook on this game, it’s why there is a such a difference of opinion on this game. You can really see the difference between a Twilight Imperium player that explored the depths of the game reviews this game, versus someone who casually dips their toes in. There is a massive difference in the two experiences.
Twilight Imperium definitely falls into the lifestyle or nothing category and I can always tell when I’m talking to someone who has “tried it once or twice” and someone who has “played it for years like me”. It’s almost like a secret language, a kind of understanding that can’t be learned from reading about the game or studying the rules of the game, watching or theorizing about it, this secret understanding comes only from countless repeated plays.
For science-fiction fans who love civilization-building games (4x games), Twilight Imperium is a revelation, and don’t let any other game marketing convince you otherwise. There are no games that do the same thing or even anything approaching Twilight Imperium. There are no games that come within a million light years of this one, in fact, many games make the claim that they are “lighter” versions of Twilight Imperium or are “shorter” versions of Twilight Imperium. This simply is a false advertisement and what’s egregious about these advertisements is that it’s clear the people making that claim don’t have the faintest clue what Twilight Imperium is or how stupid they sound when they make such claims. There are no alternatives to Twilight Imperium, it is a unique, white-elephant, one-of-a-kind lifestyle game that has no competition in this genre. It’s the ultimate Science-Fiction Civilization Builder in a class of its own.
Empire Of The Sun
Empire of the Sun, much like War of the Rings is an in-depth strategy game with a primary goal of telling (or perhaps better to say re-telling) a story, in this case, the entirety of the war in the Pacific.
The caveat is unlike War of the Rings, Empire of the Sun is a simulation and complex mechanics weigh heavily on the game, in a word, this is the most complex game I have ever played and by a considerable margin. In fact, it took the better part of a year of constant attempts to play it, pouring over rules, watching videos, studying the game and even direct interaction with its designer, Mark Herman before I was certain I was playing the game “mostly” correctly.
That in itself requires a level of commitment to the game that goes far beyond a typical board game night, placing it squarely in the lifestyle game arena.
It is a fantastic game, but it’s made by and for historical war gamers who care about the most finite of details the most accurate of representation and the most researched of content. Every inch of this game is as historically accurate as a historian could make it and the decisions you make in this game are very much the same decisions the generals of the actual war had to make, with outcomes that simulate this war with precision only the most informed historian could fully appreciate.
It is an amazing game with tremendous detail, it takes two very dedicated players, ready to spend hundreds of hours studying the nuances of this game and its many rules and rules exceptions, but it is also hands down one of the most rewarding games I have ever played. This game tells a story like nothing I have ever played before, and it does it with a hex map, some cards, and tokens.
From where I’m standing this is one of the best game designs in all of board gaming, it’s a masterpiece. If you are going to choose something as a lifestyle game, this one will not disappoint, with the caveat of course being that you have to get through a very tough learning curve first and you have an insatiable hunger for historical war gaming.
Paths Of Glory
While we are on the subject of historical war games, like Empire of the Sun, Paths of Glory essentially fits the same niche and in the same way. While arguably the learning curve is a bit simpler on the rules side, it’s no less robust, deep, and dynamic than Empire of the Sun.
There are a couple of things that segregate Empire of the Sun and Paths of Glory. The first is the historical period. World War I and World War II have a completely different set of political and geo-centric problems to solve, most notably World War I isn’t as cut and dry as good guys and bad guys and the war tends to escalate over time with more countries entering the war at different points in Paths of Glory which creates an entirely unique set of circumstances in each game. There are two distinct sides in this two-player game, but the game states can vary wildly from game to game, so it feels like a chess game where you are not even certain what pieces you will have in the course of the game to work with. In a way, it’s less tactical and more strategic with a lot of attrition.
The card play is quite similar between Empire of the Sun and Paths of Glory, there is no question that these games influenced each other, but I think Paths of Glory has a more dynamic system. In part because in Paths of Glory the recruitment of soldiers is part of the resource management, whereas in Emprie of the Sun you have a fixed schedule. This doesn’t make one better than the other, but you do tend to end up with a more dynamic outcome in Paths of Glory, as the flow of the game can be wildly unpredictable at times. Aside from the opening moves, there is very little pre-ordained strategy in the game. Empire of the Sun tends to, regardless of player decision, have certain historical points you will hit, but with Paths of Glory, things can become wildly different depending on player decisions and you will rarely have a historical outcome when the game finishes. You do a lot more historical re-writing in Paths of Glory and some players prefer that.
This debate is neither here nor there, in my eyes, these are both amazing games, and frankly, if you play one, it makes learning the other easier, so for me personally, if you choose a game like Empire of the Sun as a lifestyle game, it’s not a big stretch to include something like Paths of Glory as part of your repriotore just to shake things up now and again.
Terraforming Mars
This might be a rather odd entry into this genre because Terraforming Mars is actually a relatively simple game to understand, it really doesn’t take that long to play, at least compared to other games on this list and it does just fine as a pickup and play game for a board game night.
So, how does this one make it onto the list of a lifestyle game? There are three unique reasons that allow this game to rise from your typical euro game pick-up game and into the realm of lifestyle games.
The first is the unique game states that this game creates, driving a truly dynamic and highly competitive atmosphere at the table with a tremendous amount of nuance and interaction between players that require both short term and long-term planning and execution. Much like a collectible-competitive card game draft, players create their tableau from a combination of card draw (random cards) and spending resources on cards that become available, meaning the game is both pro-active and re-active. This creates a unique set of circumstances each game that never repeats, resulting in a fascinating puzzle for you to solve and requiring new strategic direction each game.
The second thing is that the game, on a competitive level, is incredibly tight. The more you play this game, and the closer you get to that most optimum play level, the more critical of a role each action you take has on the outcome of the game. It’s a very interesting effect in the game that you can really see, but when you first start playing the games victory point difference can be as much as 50+ points, but after a while people start winning this game by 2-3 points. You come to a sort of strategic mastery level of playing this game, but to get to that, you have to go really deep into this games amazing and diverse gameplay. You really have to outthink your opponents on an incredibly high level and build engines based on the unique combination of resources (namely cards) that become available to you. The replayability here is infinite and you are never truly done assessing the games finer details.
Finally and perhaps most importantly the game has a plethora of expansions that completely re-define established elements and this drives the game to ever-increasing complexity and sophistication. The game becomes almost overwhelming robust and this is a good thing for a lifestyle game because one of the key requirements of a good lifestyle game is that there is no end or repetition in what you are doing, each game is a new challenge and just when you think you have it figured out, you add one of the expansions that completely unravels all the theories and forces you to re-think and re-imagine your victory.
To me, Terraforming Mars is a highly competitive and very intelligent game that really deserves to be on this list, its nuanced and it takes time to really fully grasp its high-level strategies and even when you get there, each card draw, each card draft, and each play on the board forces you to redefine your route to victory.
War Room
This Larry Harris-designed masterpiece is my favorite game of all time and while I believe it to be far better suited as an Event Game, I do believe it has the mustard and stamina to also be a lifestyle game.
This World War II monster, designed by the same guy that brought you Axis and Allies, is a simulation of the entire war, designed for up to 6 players. It takes about 10-12 hours to complete a game of War Room so this is definitely not a casual game by definition, but the reality is that the rules are quite simple and it is a team game so personally, I think it works great with both experienced and amateur players.
As a lifestyle game however there is one caveat because while the rules are simple there is considerable depth, especially in the math of the game and the way the asymmetrical and hidden movement works. It’s a game that is part psychology and prediction and part mechanical execution, making it a much more human experience. This is not a game experience an AI will ever replicate because a huge chunk of the experience is trying to outguess and out-think your opponent in a more general rather than mechanical way. What I mean by that is if you could see the movement of your opponent, you would win 100% of the time regardless of which side you’re on. This is not a game that comes down to dice or position, it comes down to predicting what your opponents will do and responding to those actions. Do it right and you WILL win.
As such it’s then also a game about trying to get your opponent to guess wrong and cleverly trapping them into believing you’re going to do one thing, while you do something completely different. Like real war, its all about intelligence and counter-intelligence, the more you know the more successful you will be.
I love this game above all others, it’s not only a fantastic game, but its actually an amazing interactive experience. It’s one of those games where you will spend as much time looking at the board as you will looking into the eyes of your opponent to try to guess what they are thinking.
Love, definitely deserves to be on this list!
Warhammer 40k
I have to admit, it pains me to put this one on this list because frankly, I don’t think it’s that good of a game mechanically. I say that while in the same breath, having to admit that I love playing it, I love building models and painting them and it’s one of the few games in my collection that sit in a display case with pride.
Warhammer 40k is not just a lifestyle game, it is a self-contained lifestyle hobby and while it’s stupidly expensive and there are far better miniature games out there, not to mention far better ways to spend your money, my life would simply feel incomplete without Warhammer 40k on the agenda at certain intervals.
I don’t play it nearly enough, it sort of comes in spurts of enthusiasm, but I do spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about it, planning for games, painting, and fiddling with it. It’s just something that you are drawn to as a gamer and it’s perfect for people who enjoy a solo hobby that is also occasionally a game you can play with someone. A game that is mostly a creative endeavor that doubles as a social activity and to some extent is also an actual game.
This list would be incomplete without Warhammer 40k on it and while there are many other miniature games out there, I find I don’t obsess over them in quite the same way. It is worth saying as well that 10th edition of Warhammer 40k is a much better game than previous editions were and there is a clear move towards a more streamlined and accessible experience with each new edition.
What else can one say, 40k is an addiction for many gamers, myself included and there has to be a reason for it. Tyranids for life!
Star Wars Unlimited
It’s not the only collectible card game that I’m going to put on this list but it certainly is the latest and greatest and to some extent at least, this game is shaping up to be the first real contender to face off against Magic The Gathering. Now, I will say that it’s a long way off before it reaches that goal, after all, Magic: The Gathering is a game that has been in constant development for decades, so the library of cards and, as a result, deck building possibilities is nearly limitless. That said, I think Magic: The Gathering has a lot of core mechanical legacy issues that will never be fixed that Star Wars Unlimited addressed on day one, so in a sense, it’s a CCG that has been greatly influenced and learned from the grandaddy (MTG) of CCG’s, yet maintains that robust, high level addictive replayability that MTG is famous for.
To understand why this game is shaping up to be a lifestyle game and not just another soon-to-be-extinct CCG you have to understand the three core design elements that make this a true competitor to MTG.
The first is mana management (aka card playing resource). Star Wars Unlimited uses a fixed rather than random “mana” for the lack of a better word system, unlike MTG’s “land” system. This means that there is a real competitive consistency to the game, you are going to get mana always and at certain intervals and while there is ramping up cards, there is a kind of control here. You are not going to lose X amount of games simply because you got unlucky and drew too much land or not enough, a problem that has always existed in MTG and essentially makes both deck building and competitive play an often frustrating experience.
The second is set mechanic control. One of the big issues with MTG is that there are countless broken combos that are born from set mechanics that all interact with each other, creating this crazy situation where you can do unlimited damage on round one, or spawn unlimited creatures and all other manner of game-breaking combos.
In Star Wars Unlimited each set introduces two new, self-contained mechanics that don’t really interact with mechanics from other sets so there is this fixed stability in the game and this effectively eliminates game-breaking combos. Not to be confused with cards and effects on a single card that can be too much, this still happens, but at least there aren’t these accidental introductions of broken game mechanics that can and often do ruin CCG fun time.
Finally it is the Star Wars universe, and say what you will about Disney’s trouble with managing the franchise, people still do and probably always will love the Star Wars universe. It’s a franchise that is older and far more known than the MTG universe, and there is a certain attachment and fundamental connection players have to the game. This is a game where each card you draw is clearly tied to some person, thing or moment in the Star Wars universe and there is this “feel good” story element in cards rolling out on the table. It’s also notable that FFG has gone to great lengths to make sure card combos are related narratively, with classics like Han shooting first and power levels like the Emperor and Darth Vader fitting to the thematic cores of the story upon which the game is based.
This is a fabulous game with tremendous replayability, it very quickly became a “standard thing” in my gaming life, and I foresee it having tremendous longevity where my collection will just grow infinitely. Thanks to the game’s great stability and FFG’s attention to detail, at least right now, the game is on a fantastic path with a bright future ahead of it.
Lord of the Rings The Card Game
I’m almost tired of hearing myself talk about this game so I’m going to make it short and sweet. This solo/cooperative living card game by FFG is the single, best card game I have ever played.
It’s very challenging, easy to learn, impossible to master, diverse and dynamic and has been supported by FFG for over a decade, now in its second edition which is exactly the same as 1st edition just repacked. It was so good the first time around, they saw no reason to change it, that, is the sign of a brilliant design, when no one can think of a way to improve it.
This is my favorite lifestyle game. I have been playing it since it was released, and I simply never tire of it.
Games That Don’t Make it but tried
There are a few games that really desperately want to make it into the lifestyle category but there is some flaw/reason that prevents it from succeeding. I mention them here only because they are great games, but this tragic flaw of simultaneously trying to be a lifestyle game, but failing to be one puts them in this odd limbo that results in them missing the table more often than hitting it.
Game Of Thrones: The Board Game
My gaming group and I play this game typically once a year at our big board gaming weekend getaway in the summer ,and frankly, I love this game. It captures the Game of Thrones theme with perfection, its deeply strategic and always tense. It’s got everything you want out of a game fit for a lifestyle spot, but unfortunately, it has one tragic flaw.
When you replay this game a couple of times in a row, clear patterns start to emerge, key plays, strategies and round executions start to repeat. This is a solvable puzzle and while I would argue it has sufficient dynamics to keep a yearly game exciting as everyone essentially forgets everything over that time period, on repeated plays this game really falls apart and you really start to see the design warts. Lord knows there are plenty of them.
I discovered this kind of by accident by playing the digital version on Steam for a couple of weeks back to back. After a few games, it all started to look like the same game over and over again.
Game of Thrones The Board game just lacks the stamina and the diversity and dynamics needed to qualify it as a lifestyle game, there just isn’t so much to discover and unravel here. Once you get the core nuances there are just so many “moves” you must make and reactions just become kind of predictable.
It’s a very long game, however, so it’s not really a good fit for a typical board game night, relegating this one to a once-in-a-long-while event game. I love it,4 but it just doesn’t stick to the landing as a lifestyle game.
Star Wars Armada
I’m a huge fan of Star Wars Armada, I think the concept of capital ship combat in the Star Wars universe is brilliant, and I love the unique movement mechanics and the amazing diversity of ships and upgrades, perfect for those of us who love list building.
Unfortunately, it falters in two main categories that knock it out of contention as a lifestyle game.
First and this one is kind of obvious, a miniature war game that has no hobby element, means that the only thing to do with your minis is keep them on a shelf until you are ready to play. There is no hobby here outside of the game which in general is kind of the main thing about miniature gaming, that personal touch and obsession of building and painting “your” army. Sure you can do some repaints, but there are only so many interesting takes on “grey spaceships”. I will say that there are benefits to this drawback for those of you out there who want to play a miniature game but don’t want to deal with the hobby.
The second issue and far more important is what I call the “default winner” effect. Basically most games of Star Wars Armada assuming a reasonably equal level of understanding and skill level in the game can be called with near-perfect precision based on list building and initial deployment.
This is a very decisive game and the battle outcomes really don’t surprise you, in fact, most of my friends got so good at this that we can look at two lists and tell you who is going to win with 99% accuracy. There just isn’t enough in the mechanics of the game to wildly alter the outcomes and while two players with wildly different skill sets can certainly create surprise outcomes, in our group, everyone was pretty expert at the game so it just became far too predictable.
This one hung out for quite a while until we all made this discovery and we all enjoyed it but these days it doesn’t take more than a match to remind all of us while we no longer play this game with any regularity.
It just lacks sufficient dynamics to be a lifestyle game.
Eclipse: The Second Dawn For the Galaxy
I was really excited for the second edition of this game, it really promised a lot and at first it seemed like it would deliver, but even as it sits near the top of my list, I can tell you hear and now that it’s rise on the list will be as rapid as its climb. In fact, right now, I would say it doesn’t even make the top 20 anymore.
The reason for this sudden shift is the stark realization that the mechanics are just too static and there is virtually no dynamics in the game at all. Initially, you might think with a mixed galaxy, asymmetrical races and dice for resolving combat that there would be plenty of ways games diverge into unique experiences, but the reality is that the mechanics are so tightly wound that in effect, every game of Eclipse is essentially a parallel version of every other game of it played.
Worse yet is most of the activity of the players is mostly irrelevant, the only thing that matters is scoring points and the board state really has minimal impact on that. It’s just like any other standard Euro fair, figure out how to build a good engine and then just let it spin.
This is a fine way to play a game and I love engine-building games, but Eclipse was not supposed to be that. It was supposed to be a faster, more streamlined 4x game that could compete with Twilight Imperium and it was definitely my hope that it could be the next big lifestyle game.
The aesthetic is there, all the pieces are there but the game just doesn’t come together to create a repeatable experience. It’s a bit like playing checkers, after a while you can’t remember one game from the other, sure outcomes differ, its not like the game is unbalanced or anything but its just a very bland game full of routine and default (many choices but one obviously good one) kind of a game.
After 3-4 plays of this gam,e I’m fairly sure it’s going to collect dust on my shelf for a very long time, in fact, I may even cull it from my collection, it was that much of a disappointment in the end.
Mage Knight The Board Game
There are many adventure games out there and over the years, I have found plenty of them I don’t like, but Mage Knight is a unique exception for me and there is very good reason for it. It, unlike most adventure games, doesn’t try to replicate the role-playing experience and actually focuses on bringing quality game mechanics with excellent card management and card play, clever and difficult scenarios designed to actually defeat you and outstanding expansions that lean on the games existing strength, rather then just giving you more of the same. In a word, its a “real” game, rather than what you get with most adventure games, which is a sort of quasi role-playing activity.
This is a massive game, Mage Knight doesn’t really hold your hand and as such is had a considerable learning curve, a long play time and is in a word infinitely replayable; all qualities that fit well with a lifestyle game, there is plenty to explore.
With everything going for it, it still manages to fall short of a lifestyle game. Mainly I think because it’s one of those games that once you learn the nuances of each of the characters, that mastery leads you down a road of automatic moves that are sort of preordained. It’s a bit like figuring out the patterns in Pac Man, once you know them you end up playing the game the exact same way each time you pick it up.
The different scenarios while interesting and fun in their own right, really do not alter the approach you will take. There are just some clear builds you discover and after that the game becomes quite repetitive despite its generally very dynamic game state.
This means there is a kind of cap on the game as a lifestyle game, play it enough times and it runs out of fuel.
Its a fantastic game and I would never suggest that its not, but life style games need this sort of infinitate discovery element where no matter how many times you play it, there is always more to discover, new strategies, approaches and puzzles to solve. This game is just limited in that department, once you discover its patterns and secrets, it goes stale quite quickly.
Through The Ages
This is a bit of a heart breaker for me personally as Through The Ages is without question one of my favorite games of all time, sitting pretty in the number 9 spot on my top 20 list and having been on my best of list since the first time I played it almost years ago.
This is one of the best civilization building games I know, its highly competative, deeply strategic and overwhelming diverse. In many ways it is a great lifestyle game but it has one key caveat that really sort of disqualifies it.
The main issue is that if you play it enough, patterns emerge and those patterns lead you down very specific highly effective playstyles that essentially disqualify all others, really answering the question “What is the best strategy” with a definitive answer.
A good lifestyle game is an unsolvable puzzle, or at least one that you must solve in a unique way each time you play and unfortunately, Through The Ages for all its depth and meaningful gameplay, has tricks and “must do’s” that really kill its lifestyle game potential.
It’s a fantastic game, I play it every chance I get, but the only way your going to beat me is if I explain the core “answers” to you, at which point the game becomes a tight and interesting “lets see what happens” sort of thing, but there is absolutely no way you can beat me at the game otherwise. I’m not going to bore anyone with the answer here, in fact, its kind of a spoiler as it will take you many plays to figure it out, but eventually, if you play it long enough you will unravel the mystery of Through The Ages. At which point it’s a bit like watching Harry Potter, knowing full well how it will end. Still fun, but there aren’t going to be any twist endings.
It’s been a while since I updated my best-of-all-time list, so today we remedy that situation. I have been looking forward to making this list this year, but as is always the case, the choices where hard and it took almost as much time to decide as it took to write the article. Here we go!
20. Underwater Cities
A new addition to my list, this is a game that had an immediate impact on me the first time I played it and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I just saw, from the get-go, all the amazing possibilities and I couldn’t wait to start exploring it.
It might be infatuation, games usually enter my list that way and it’s only through many follow-up plays that I will determine as to whether or not a game is worthy to remain on the list. That said, I think it’s looking pretty good for this one.
This little Euro about building cities underwater has a lot in common with many other long-time classics on this list. It’s a tight little worker placement and resource management game with that simple design, but that deep gameplay combination that makes so many of my favorite Euros grace our tables on repeat. I’m looking forward to seeing if the hype holds up long-term. Could it be a challenger worthy of comparison to Terraforming Mars? Maybe with some expansion, for now, it’s got novelty on its side and that is good enough for me.
The brilliant part with Underwater Cities is that it managed a little magic trick very few Euros pull of which is that at its core all mechanics of this game are critical to winning. You can’t ignore or disregard any part of it, do so and you WILL lose. Everything on the board is part of your strategy, it all matters and I love that. So many games have key mechanics that are essentially pointless or victory point areas that simply don’t matter which is both a trap for inexperienced players and a boring element of the game that goes mostly unused. Few games manage to avoid such pitfalls but Underwater Cities ensures that everything included really matters.
More than that, Underwater Cities makes sure that every card in the game serves a purpose within some strategy, there are no useless cards you never play which is so common with card-driven games as well. I’m reminded of Terraforming Mars which has cards that are simply dead draws that you never use.
Great game with tons of potential.
19. Tapestry
Tapestry is something of a staple game in my group’s consciousness, but it rose and fell off our radar over time. We don’t play it often but every time it does come out, we are all reminded of its brilliant yet rather odd mixture of complexity merged with elegant simplicity. Simply put, this is a fantastic game we all love, we just sometimes forget about it in the mix of the hundreds of games we own and play between the seven members of my gaming crew.
I love describing the core rule of the game because it’s so simple. For each round, you move a cube on one of 4 paths (Science, Exploration, Technology, or Military). That’s it, that’s the game. What happens on those spots, how the mechanics and resource management converge to create strategy, is where the genius of this game stems from. It’s more than that though because there are lots of resource management games out there, What makes this game unique is the dynamic “cultures” you can play, each with its own angle on the game, its own advantages, and its own mechanical architecture. This mixed with the critical play of Tapestry cards creates infinite dynamics making each game a true white elephant experience.
I would not argue all of these “cultures” are created equally, there are certainly winners (looking at you Historians) and losers (Mystics), but we have found over the years playing this game that anyone can win with just about any culture, it’s just about solving that immutable puzzle that lays within and the dynamic nature of how board state develops.
I think it’s worth taking a moment to pat the developers on the back for the expansions to Tapestry as well. Usually, I’m lukewarm on expansions, they tend to overcomplicate already great games and with little payout. With Tapestry the expansions service the game well, adding great new, alternative options that help struggling cultures and balance out the really strong ones. Well done!
Arts and Architecture in particular is a true gem so far as expansions go. It adds an Arts track that makes having a 5th player viable in the game. Until this expansion, being the 5th player and being last in the turn order at the start was a very tough position to win from and this expansion really remedies that.
Fantastic game, I’m happy to both recommend it and bring it back to my best-of list, it deserves the praise and honestly probably should have been on this list all along.
18. 1830: Railways and Robber Barons
Slipping some in recent years, the 18XX game that started an entire sub-genre of gaming is one I find fewer and fewer opportunities to play this one with only a single play in the last 24 months (roughly). That is not a reflection of its quality in any way shape or form, it’s just a bit tough of a game to get to the table.
I still think this is one of the best economic games ever made, in fact the entire 18XX game genre is amazing with wonderful handling of the stock market and company management, a great system for creating and running railways with a deep and meaningful, albeit cutthroat, strategic core gameplay. It’s just a great game, but it does fall into that “takes a long time to play” category of games for most people, so it’s hard to get a crew together to play it.
I can strongly recommend the 1844 and 1854 variants as well, what is cool about this one is that you have two games with two very different focuses. One is more focused on stock markets and investment elements, while the other is more focused on train operations and company management. Both are fantastic.
It’s also not particularly easy to teach so unless you are playing all the time, it can be a bit rough to remember all the rules and pass them on to players even if they are coming back for a 2nd or 3rd run. In fact this one is kind of guilty of having some gotcha rules, so knowing the games mechanics in great detail is critical to success and this can frustrate less attentive players. Suffice it to say it’s just a “difficult” game for a number of reasons and it’s hard to muster up the strength and excitement to get it to the table. It’s definitely a lifestyle game, but fortunately, if you learn one 18XX game like 1830, you are pretty much ready to play any of them.
Even with all that said, I get requests for this one from select members of my gaming group so it is in our consciousness and there is a desire to play it, but yeah, it’s a tough one to recommend to the average gamer. You really need to have an affinity for economic train games, the obvious being obvious. It’s a classic favorite of mine, but it’s getting harder and harder to justify its existence on this list and it drops on this list as a result of the “I must be playing it” rule that I have layered over this list to ensure that everything on here is everything I’m actively still playing.
17. Star Trek Fleet Captains
I’m happy to see this game still make the list, but it’s been quite a while since I was excited to get it to the table. This is a great 2-3 player game for Star Trek fans only which I’m finding fewer and fewer people are these days, though I definitely think its the best Star Trek game I have ever owned or played.
The premise is quite simple, it’s a kind of competitive adventure game with everything you know and love about Star Trek crammed into one game, you get the characters, the ships, the missions, the stories, and the atmosphere you know and love. It’s about the same feeling I get as watching classic Star Trek from any era without the edge lord bullshit of modern Star Trek which by the way, I hate, a stain on an otherwise perfect franchise!
Great game, a great theme, a great look, it has everything you want out of a Star Trek and is the only Star Trek game you will ever need once you have played it. It covers the original series, next-generation series including Deep Space Nine and Voyager, and the Enterprise series. In my view, when Star Trek was at its absolute best.
Unfortunately, this one is out of print and what is available on the secondary market is crazy expensive. It’s kind of a bummer for someone reading this today and wishing to get their hands on it. Before you ask, no I will never sell this one, it’s a permanent fixture and a pride of my game collection.
17. Tides of Iron
Despite having not played this one in quite a while, I will still stick to my guns here and say that this is the single, best tactical World War II game ever made. It’s got simple rules with deep meaningful gameplay without that historical “edginess” a lot of historical war games can have. This is a historical war game made so that anyone can play it without that “war gamer” mentality of most historical war games jammed in there.
Not only that, Tides of Iron uses a lot of very familiar historical war game mechanics so if you want to sort of explore the genre further, it’s a really great ground floor, a sort of entry level into the larger world of historical war games. For a long time, I had a regular opponent for this game and I played the crap out of it and I never felt any need for the many expansions that were put out for it. These days Tides of Iron is played mostly online through various virtual tabletops but it has a niche, but loyal audience and it’s not difficult to find them.
Sadly I don’t think this one is in print right now either, so it can be difficult to find but it was nicely supported for a very long time so there are plenty of copies out there on the secondary market unlike many out-of-print games, this one is very much “gettable”. If you are looking for a great two-player World War II game, this is a fantastic one, well worth the investment
16. Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan
New to the list, for as long as I can remember I have wanted to try a war game using a “blocks” system, reminiscent of classic games like Stratego where you have a sort of dynamic fog of war in which each player can only see their own units. Somehow I knew I would love this sort of game and my instincts were quite right.
I love medieval Japanese themes, probably among my favorite historical and cultural eras so this game in particular fit like a glove. I waited a long time for an updated printing, picked it up and it did not disappoint.
This is a card-driven game (which is another genre I love) combined with a “block” game in which players fight over Japan in a bid for the shogunate in a very straightforward war game.
It does have that “historical war gamer” feel to it, but the mechanics are relatively simple and straight to the point, the gameplay is deep, the strategic elements refined and as a whole the game is perfectly balanced. This game has been around for a long time and for good reason, It truly is a game of skill, but it’s not so involved that a player needs multiple plays to be competitive. Most people I have introduced the game to took to it right away and put up a good fight even on their first run. It’s ranked 200 on Boardgamegeek which is pretty decent for a historical war game, but notably, it holds a very prestigious 5th highest-ranked war game on BBG which is a pretty big deal.
I highly recommend this one for fans of war games, looking for a great two-player experience and though it’s the only block game I have ever played, I would imagine it does quite well by comparison to others in its genre. This is a game with awesome replayability, a new fixture in my collection, and one I always look forward to getting to the table.
15. Terraforming Mars
Putting Terraforming Mars on this list at this stage may seem quite odd, why has it never made the list before? The answer here is quite complex, but it is worth pointing out that this was Gamersdungeon 2016 Game of The Year and scored a 3.65 on its review which is quite decent for a Euro on this site. I’m harsh with Euro games probably because I find games that are not interactive to make for a weak experience and many if not most Euro games are practically solo games you play simultaneously. That is not he case for Terraforming Mars however and not the reason it has been excluded from this list before.
The main reason for it never making a list is because frankly I just didn’t really play it after the initial novelty of it wore off. It had collected dust for the better part of 4 years and I never felt motivated to get it to the table. It is a well-designed game but it is excessively long with a slow, boring start and it’s not particularly fun to teach or even play with people who don’t already know how to play it well. This is one of those games where if you are new, I’m going to beat you senseless for the first dozen or so games until you figure it out.
Over the last few years, several things have changed in my gaming group and for the game in general. For starters, they released several expansions for the game that all targeted the thing about the game I disliked the most which was its slow start and length. The Prelude expansion in particular cuts out that first full hour of the “nothing happens” period at the start of the game. In addition, everyone in my group continued to play the game and they all got good at it, so now when we sit down to play, everyone knows the rules and everyone is very competitive and the game moves at a reasonable pace.
The Prelude expansion for Terraforming Mars is quintessential, I would not play this game without it. It single-handedly cuts an unnecessary, boring first hour out of the game and probably should just be a standard inclusion in a future edition.
Those two things combined have catapulted this game to the front of the line and it got a massive resurgence in my gaming group. Under such ideal conditions, Terraforming Mars shines and is without question what I recognized about it early on, a true gem in the rough that takes a bit of work to fish out. I love this game, I always have but there are lots of games on my shelf I love that rarely see play for various reasons. War of the Ring for example is among my favorite games of all time but it’s a complex two-player game that takes many hours to play. It’s an absolute bear to teach, and like Terraforming Mars sucks balls when playing against new players who don’t know what they are doing, so it’s nearly impossible to get to the table and I haven’t played it in years.
Terraforming Mars earns its rightful place on this list and I’m happy to add it and I’m especially happy to be playing it again.
14. Great Western Trail
This Euro about running cattle in the old west resurfaces on my list for several reasons, but perhaps only one matters which is that I’m playing it all the time online and at home. This game started to run cold for me for a long time but it just keeps coming back around because it is so replayable, so fun, and challenging. It’s just a really good game and I’m happy to welcome it back to my top games list.
I think this is the only game that has ever completely dropped off my top games list and then made a comeback. This is a game that I recommend to all hobbyists without any caveats, for me it’s almost like the new Settlers of Catan, just a staple of my gaming collection worthy of a wide range of situations.
There are two new variants of this one now which give fans even more cowboy for their buck, Great Western Trail New Zealand and Argentina, as well as the Rails of the North expansion.
I haven’t tried the new variants of Great Western Trail, so I have no opinion to offer there, but I have tried the expansion and like most expansions, I find it completely unnecessary. All Rails of the North does for the game is extend its length and makes an otherwise very elegant game, messy, adding needed complexity to the rules.
This expansion adds an entirely separate mico-game with where trains can go, pretty much ruining an otherwise perfect game. It’s a very hard pass.
I personally saw no reason to upgrade to the 2nd edition of the game, but I do find that it’s a bit more streamlined, so if you can get the 2nd edition, it’s probably the way to go. The changes are extremely minor though, so if you already own the 1st edition, there is no reason to get the 2nd edition.
13. Hansa Teutonica
This 2009 Euro about building trade routes first made an appearance at our big board gaming weekend a few years back and has been a staple of that event ever since. The more I played it the more I wanted to play it and at this point, I have come to realize that this one belongs on my list.
This is a tight little action economy type of game about building trade routes in Germany and I will grant you, so far as the theme goes it does not sound exciting because it’s not. This is a thinker, one of those games that will make your brain hurt but win you over on mechanics. It’s a highly interactive Euro with a lot of take that kind of moves and just fits perfectly with my gaming crew of sociopaths who love to watch the world burn.
There is nothing particularly “special” about this cube pusher on a high level, it’s very traditional victory point salad-style game, but it has this really clever interaction and tension from start to finish and the games are always close. I find when my group plays this one, everyone is highly attentive and contemplative with each move. It’s a thinky and clever game that draws out the competitive nature between players and ultimately creates a great gaming experience.
I find this game is far better with more players and though it can run a bit long, on the 2-3 hour side, I find that during the end game, everyone is wishing there were just a couple of more turns so that they could finish this or that route. It is long but in a good way.
Great game, I definitely recommend it if you’re already a fan of Euro games.
12. Western Empires
This one made my TOP 5 BOARDGAMES THAT WERE ALMOST GREAT, BUT HAD A FLAW THAT RUINED THEM list in the number 1 spot for one very critical reason and that is that it has player elimination, made more egregious by being a 12+ hour event game. It’s a terrible sin, especially given that Western Empires is a remake of the 80’s classic Advanced Civilization and 999 games did not take the opportunity to correct this one game-breaking flaw.
Still, it would be a stone-cold lie to pretend like the game is not extraordinary even if it is a product of its time (aka a remake of Advanced Civilization for better or for worse).
Western Empires is not just a game, it’s a gaming experience, an event game of epic proportions that allows for a large gaming group (even larger if you blend it with Eastern Civilization to create Mega Civilization able to support up to 18 players). In fact, the more the merrier, this game really shines with a full table.
While elimination is a part of the game, it’s not exactly a likely scenario with players who are even moderately competent, but it’s a tough game to get any experience with because how often do you have 9 players willing to spend 12+ hours at the table?
I love it, I would love to play it a hell of a lot more than I get an opportunity to, and I do think if you have a group that can get this to the table, this is a gaming event on a scale of which nothing ever produced can match. It’s a one-of-a-kind, white elephant and it earns its place on the list of best games of all time if for no other reason than posterity!
11. Spirit Island
When it comes to complex, intricate, and deep cooperative games, there is only one game that rules the genre today and that is Spirit Island. Easily one of the most elaborate and dynamic cooperative games I have ever played with infinite replayability as well as one of the most challenging games in existence. Be prepared to lose…a lot.
It boasts a massive library of expansions, each one better than the last, Spirit Island is practically a hobby in its own right, certainly a lifestyle game. You can play this one solo, though I think it’s a much lesser experience. This game is best played in a group of 3 or 4.
It’s a long and very contemplative game, you spend a great deal of the time discussing how to approach the constant influx of micro puzzles that need to be solved and there is nothing quite as satisfying as coming up with an answer to seemingly impossible-to-solve situations. In fact, the satisfaction of winning a game of Spirit Island is so rich, I can’t think of a game I’m more eager to play.
It is a time-consuming game though, even with a group well versed in the rules, Spirit Island is an absolute minimum of a 3-hour experience and will usually hit that 4-5+ hour space which means it borders on an event game. I would argue it’s actually a great game to build an event around, though it’s not the sort of “everyone is laughing and having a good time” type of event, more of a “serious gamers” type of event, which is not my personal favorite way to run big gaming events. I rather have everyone drinking beer and giggling at my events and this game doesn’t really produce that kind of atmosphere.
Fantastic game, destined to become a classic.
10. Paths of Glory
I will be the first to admit that this is not a game for most people, hell even among historical war game fans this game falls into a rather niche genre. For one it’s based on World War I which is a historical period that isn’t exactly well-known, in some ways it almost feels like you’re playing some sort of historical fantasy game. It’s a card-driven game, it has a point-to-point map and it’s driven by some quirky mechanics to flesh out the history you probably don’t know that much about. Suffice it to say, it’s peculiar from most perspectives.
That said, I find it to be an establishment in its own right, this is a game you can study, learn its intricacies, and really dive deep into the many implications of strategies and counter strategies. It’s absolutely one of the most beautifully designed games I have ever run across, but it demands a lot from a player, a true commitment to find its genius and if you can find a regular opponent that enjoys all of these amazing nuances as much as you do, you get magic at the table.
Hands down one of my favorite historical war gaming delicacies, this refined masterpiece is a piece of gaming history no true hobbyist should pass up. Historical war games simply don’t get better than this, it’s a historical war game that is itself a piece of gaming history by which all others are measured in my opinion.
9. Through The Ages: Story of a New Civilization
Through the Ages in one form or another has been on my top gaming list for many years, at one point even rising to the number 1 spot. I’m a huge fan of Vlaada Chvatil, I find him to be a completely uncompromising and highly original game designer. By being that however, he tends to make very niche games that for most gamers fall into either the “love it” or “hate it” category with little in between.
I consider Through The Ages Chvatil’s Mona Lisa, but he has brought other amazing original titles like Mage Knight The Board Game, Codenames, Galaxy Trucker, Dungeon Lords, and Space Alert most of which grace my shelves, all distinctively unique and classics in their own right. Each one is more ingenious than the last, he is an absolute miracle worker. You want to be a great designer, play his games, and learn how it’s done.
Through The Ages is more than just a brilliant original design, it’s one of the most intriguing, robust, and challenging games I have ever played. It’s definitely far too long falling into that “pretty much all day” category, but I can’t think of another game on this list that I would happily call in sick to work and spend 8 hours in a chair playing. This is a game that keeps you busy, you are constantly trying to assess and reassess your situation, formulating your grand strategy, and trying to find that narrow line to victory. It feels very much like a race in a lot of ways.
It’s an engrossing, full-bodied Euro game that treats you with intelligence and respect. You always know what you want to achieve, but finding the route to victory is difficult yet so satisfying. No game have I ever played that I enjoyed both winning and losing as much as Through The Ages, it is an absolute masterpiece of game design.
If you lack the time or players to get this one to the table, I highly recommend the digital adaptation. It shaves a couple hours of the gameplay time and its a perfect translation of the table top game.
8. Dune Imperium
At this point, I consider Dune Imperium a staple of my gaming collection and a default option for any board game night. I have spoken about this game endlessly and with how popular it is, it’s pointless to recommend it as anyone reading this has probably already played it. If you haven’t, you’re being silly, this is your next purchase, no gaming collection is complete without this one on the shelf. Its perfectly suited for any gaming group of any level and being a Dune fan is just a candy-coated toping and is not mandatory to enjoy this title.
Its clever combination of deck building and worker placement is flawless, its balance a perfect diamond and it looks amazing on the table. I adore the Dune setting and as a fan, I can tell you that the theme sticks the landing made even better with perfectly executed expansions. It’s a tight, strategic and dynamic Euro that basically perfects every mechanic it uses. There is nothing wasted, nothing overcooked, it’s effectively a perfect game.
If I have any complaints about Dune Imperium is that I don’t get to play it often enough.
7. Twilight Imperium 4th edition
Twilight Imperium has been swimming around on my top 10 list for more than a decade at this point, I have played it so much over the years I have lost count. It is one of my all-time favorites, one of the greatest epic civilization builders ever made and one of the best event games I have ever owned. It is pure magic in a box but any recommendation comes with some caveats.
It’s a very long and complex game that requires a fully committed table of 4 to 6 players ready to give up their day and fully engross themselves in this 4x game that is as much about game state as is player state of mind. That is not an easy table to fill. It’s also a tough and not always fair game, equal footing is not a thing here with various dynamics that are only leveled by player interaction and game knowledge. In a way its both a test of your skill and your character, with a lot of take the mechanics and sometimes even mean-spirited moves that are required to win. It takes a mature audience with the ability to handle this style of competitive game, definitely not something for everyone. Over the years I have found far more players that are not suited to the game than I have those that are.
The more years pass the fewer TI4 games I have as a result and though I dare not say it is fading out of existence, over the last couple of years I have found much easier games, less in-your-face games of its ilk to get to the table and so I find myself sort of replacing it.
I think Twilight Imperium is a masterpiece, an experience that cannot be matched, there is no doubt in my mind it’s one of the best games ever made, but I would say you want to make sure you have at least 4 players ready to take on this beast. It’s a lifestyle game without question.
6. Eclipse The 2nd Dawn for the Galaxy
Eclipse, though I would argue is not a replacement for Twilight Imperium by any stretch of the imagination, certainly is the game I would pull off the shelf in most company to get a 4x experience. Eclipse is a Euro-style game, with clear rules and considerably less punchy mechanics. It’s also a lot shorter game than Twilight Imperium by at least 2-3 hours, so it’s a hell of a lot more accessible and easier to get to the table. You don’t get the same experience mind you, but you do get a great, full-fledged 4x experience nonetheless.
Aside from its obvious comparison to Twilight Imperium, it has its own thing going on. There are a lot of unique handling of classic 4x mechanics, in particular in the area of technology development and fleet building. It’s a diverse and interesting system that allows players a great deal of freedom in customization over the units they will conquer the galaxy with.
It also has a much easier-to-digest point-scoring system so there is a lot less meta-explanation required to understand the difference between knowing the rules and knowing how to play as is the case in Twilight Imperium.
The result is a much lighter, very entertaining, and very approachable 4x game that doesn’t require you to do a lot of event planning. Like any other board game, you can just pull it out and play.
There is a ton of strategy in the game so you get the full robust 4x experience, You’re not trimming any fat here, it’s just a lot more streamlined, and perhaps it’s fair to say more focused on letting the mechanics do the talking. Great game, definitely deserves the win over Twilight Imperium if for no other reason than it sees far more table time.
I will say this about the Twilight Imperium to Eclipse gaming experience comparison. Twilight Imperium is to Eclipse what fine dining is to Taco Bell. Meaning, it is not a game of which one can become a connoisseur, you are not going to turn Eclipse into a lifestyle game or plan events around it. Your exploration of the nuances of this game is relatively shallow by comparison to Twilight Imperium. In short, Eclipse is a fantastic game, but it’s not a unique gaming experience.
In a perfect world, I would pick Twilight Imperium over Eclipse always, but as I live in the real world, Eclipse is a far easier game to get to the table and far more approachable by the overwhelming majority of gamers. If you are looking for a truly robust and heavy 4x game that you can really sink your teeth into, Twilight Imperium has no equal.
5. Star Wars Unlimited
I will be the first to admit that I’m smitten with this game and its addition to the list notwithstanding, putting it in the number 5 spot is presumptuous at best. Still, I cannot deny how addictive this game, how clever the mechanics are and what a joy it is to build decks and play Star Wars Unlimited the CCG. I can think of no game I played this year that has had this much pull.
Not since Magic The Gathering when it was first released have I bought into a CCG with so much excitement and gusto. I really hope that Fantasy Flight Games continues with this CCG with the delicate and precision it requires, because right now after the core game release and its first expansion, I can say without reservation that they nailed it.
In theme, mechanics, the business model, the right mixture of rarity and the delicate balance are all nearly pitch-perfect. It’s on such a great track and if FFG can keep the momentum going, I can see this game making a big, long-term splash in the competitive CCG genre and in my gaming group. It’s without a doubt one of the best CCGs I have played in a great many years.
4. Imperial Struggle
There is no game on this list that I long to play more than Imperial Struggle, the absolute king of the influence control card game genre. The little brother to Twilight Struggle, this quasi-card game takes a side step from its forebearer, and rather than focusing on the card play itself, it instead shifts the focus of influence control to a far more elaborate and complex area control game and in my humble opinion, nails it.
Imperial Struggle handles the history of the 100 year war between England and France splendidly, while creating a complex and highly replayable card-driven area control game that offers tons of dynamics, but retains that “strategic pre-planning” you got with Twilight Struggle hand management. Unlike Twilight Struggle however you don’t need to memorize the decks in order to be competitive, this is far less a game resolved by player knowledge and far more on player strategic execution at the table and it’s why I find it a far superior game to its predecessor.
You might notice that Twilight Struggle is not on my list, but that is not meant as an insult, I really do love playing Twilight Struggle, I think it’s a fantastic game, but it’s one that is incredibly difficult to get to the table in good form. What I mean is that the game is difficult to teach, it takes many plays to be proficient at it and its an absolute chore to play against an inexperienced opponent. The only way to get experience is to lose tons of games and that is neither fun for the teacher or the student.
Imperial Struggle suffers from a high learning curve as well, but the game is played on the table, not in the nuance of card management and that just makes it a lot more approachable and a lot easier to offer advice and teach as you play. I find it much easier to get someone into a competitive state and you can be off and running with this game with great competitive matches after no more than a game or two.
I love Imperial Struggle, I think it’s hands down one of the best games ever made and earns its rightful list at the top of this list.
3. Lord of the Rings The Card Game
Lord of the Rings the living card game to me is the single best solo game ever made and this is how I play it almost exclusively. Not to say it’s not also a great cooperative game, because it’s outstanding when played in 2 or 3 players, but the game requires a high-level commitment to deck building and that is not an easy thing to get into if you’re not collecting. Building decks for others to use works ok, but this is not a casual pick-up-and-play game either so without that full buy-in from everyone at the table it’s not going to deliver on its potential.
As a solo game, however, LOTR is an absolute beast and a masterpiece of the highest order. I adore this game, I have been playing it with considerable consistency for the better part of a decade and I’m as excited to get it on the table today as I was the day I got it.
It has tons of expansions with amazing versatility and is unquestionably one of the most challenging games on this list. Every victory in this game is so satisfying, it feels fantastic, but it’s a brutally tough game. Every quest is a self-contained puzzle to be resolved and it’s truly a rare deck that is up to the challenge of conquering all of these. You spend a lot of time rebuilding decks and it’s just pure joy for card players like me. Every build is designed to target a specific puzzle presented by the countless quests and that moment when you figure it out and beat something that seemed simply impossible to overcome is an experience no gamer should live without.
If you like card games and are looking for something for solo play, in particular, if you love the Middle Earth setting, this game is perfect for you and comes with my highest recommendation.
2. Empire Of The Sun
I can’t lie, while I love all sorts of games to me there is nothing quite as engrossing and as addictive as a big, epic, historical war game and I’m completely fascinated by the war in the Pacific which I think is one of the most strategically complex conflicts in all of human history. To replicate it in perfect detail in a card-driven war game, especially one designed by the master himself, Mark Herman, the Chuck Norris of historical war game designers is absolute bliss.
Empire of the Sun has a learning curve so high, that there is nothing to compare it to, it is one of the most involved and intricate games I have ever learned to play. It took me the better part of a full year before I was playing the game correctly. Hell, it’s an achievement in its own right just to understand how to play, let alone learning how to play it well. Teaching it is an absolute nightmare but when you find someone who has taken the time to learn, the result is table magic.
This game is a masterpiece of historical war game design, You feel powerful and in command of the entire war from one of the two sides (Allied Forces or The Nation of Japan) and you get a sense of rewriting history. it is in a word, one of the greatest games ever made.
1. War Room
War Room is a unique entry to my list, it’s unquestionably my favorite game of all time, but it’s unique in that I don’t normally recommend it to most gamers and gaming crews.
The reason is simple, this massive game that comes in a box larger than classic Milton Bradly master series games is a 12+ hour epic level war game. To call it niche is an understatement. It takes a gaming group with very specific tastes to really get the most out of this one.
As an event game I think it’s quite perfect. It’s a team-based game so you don’t have this “I’m doing badly but still have to play for 10 hours” thing a lot of event games have which is a huge boon. There is a sense of camaraderie and interest in the stuff going on, on the board even if you’re not involved and it has these great moments of planning and contemplation with exciting “let’s see what happens” resolution.
You also don’t need to grind games out to a finish, at any time either side can surrender and you still end up with a satisfying resolution as there are no victory points, you either win the war or you don’t.
Mechanically the game has hidden orders (ala-classic diplomacy) and a clever use of initiative so each round you put in your orders and then later discover how it all plays out. There is a lot of risk management and mitigation but the board is so big and the number of orders you can give is quite limited so you have to pick your battles carefully. It’s all about strategy, making feints, long-term and short-term planning and glorious combats that play out on a semi-tactical battle board for those exciting dice-chucking moments. Its just the perfect game for a big gaming event, but I would always caution gamers considering the purchase that no matter how enthusiastic you are to play this game, and believe me I understand the pull. There is nothing worse than owning it and watching it collect dust so make sure you have the gaming crew ready to put in the hours on this one.
One of the best gaming experiences you will have ever, bar none.
Conclusion
Comparing the list to the one I did in 2022 a few games have dropped from the list.
Root was hanging on in the number 20 spot, but doesn’t quite make the cut this time around. I still think it’s a great game, but it has two core and related issues that are really tough to get around. Its an absolute bear to teach largely due to its most prominent feature, the asymmetrical sides which leads to the second issue which is that it never makes the table because playing against people who are learning really spoils the game. It’s one of those games where everyone needs to know what to and not to do, else a weak link can king make someone pretty quickly and kind of ruin the game for everyone else. It’s a bummer, I love playing this game, but only with people that are already proficient at the game. It’s actually a surprisingly quick game when everyone knows how to play and one of the longest and most painful ones to bring the table when people don’t.
War Of The Ring also drops off the list. Over the last decade, this game has been dropping from my radar and collecting a lot of dust. Much like root, the issue isn’t the game, it’s teaching the rules and that combination of playing against someone who doesn’t know what they are doing is really boring. The fact that it’s a two-player game also doesn’t help in my situation as a 2 player game night is pretty rare around these parts these days. I love it and hope I will get to play it in the future, but for now, it goes the way of the Dodo bird.
The U.S. Civil War also makes an exist. I love historical war games, especially big epic ones but this one is just not to the tastes of most of my gaming crew. The good news is that its a fun solo game and I do pull it out once a year to have a run at it and I do enjoy it, but that is not the stuff of a best-of-all-time game.
Peloponnesian War also exits but just barely. It was a battle between a stone-cold classic that I love to play and a new lover (Underwater City). I chose Underwater City less so because it was new and more because games are generally more fun to play against opponents. Peloponnesian War is an amazing and very unique solo game, I love the hell out of it and I expect it might even resurface on this list in the future but for now it sleeps in the unregistered 21st position on this list.
Washington’s War was largely replaced by Imperial Struggle. These are two card-driven influence games and though I think they could happily live on the list together, the truth is that since I got Imperial Struggle when a two-player opportunity comes up, I have a heap of games that I would rather play, in particular Imperial Struggle. The same thing for Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul, I love it and will happily play it but given the opportunity, I’m more likely to jank of Imperial Struggles chain instead.
The Big Board Gaming Weekend!
In less than 48 hours the annual big board gaming weekend begins and for 8th year in a row, my crew will get together for a 4 day fun-filled and non-stop gaming weekend. There are sure to be new games that will show up and as I do every year, there will be a thorough blog post!
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