The last time I did a Top 50 list for myself was 2019. I thought it would be fun to do this exercise again. This list is not at all scientific, nor is it authoritative. It is just a reflection of what games I like and what games are important in my journey as a boardgamer. Even for me, this is not strictly a "best games" list. Some games are here because they are a big part of my journey. I hope this is interesting to you and you discover something unexpected.
- Innovation - This was #7 back in 2019 and it has moved up to the top spot partly because I have been having much fun playing it with younger daughter Chen Rui. I now own the latest edition, Innovation Ultimate. Innovation is full of possibilities and unexpected twists of fate. There are many clever things you can do with the cards you get. One valid complaint I have heard of is that the winning player has fun, but the losing players feel helpless. Now that I have thought more about this, I don't think it is a problem. Indeed by the time you are near game end, there isn't much you can do to turn things around, but before you get to that stage, there are still all sorts of fancy stuff you can tinker with. With Innovation, you do have to accept that there is some luck. Don't take it too seriously. Sometimes you lose simply because of bad luck. I always enjoy the excitement of drawing a card to see whether it will be my next killer move or whether it will be my saviour. At any point in time, you don't really know whether your luck is going to turn.
- Race for the Galaxy - This was my previous #1 game. I now mainly play it against bots on the iPad. The bots are decent. Well, either that or I'm still not a very good player after 2000+ plays. Playing on the iPad is very fast. Yet still enjoyable.
- Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization - Vlaada Chvatil's magnum opus. I don't play this often now, but I have many fond memories playing this with my wife Michelle. We used to play this a lot. I still find this the best implementation of a civilisation game.
- Carcassonne - I have many expansions, big and small. I have Carcassonne Maps too. I cheat a little by using one entry to represent the whole series. I'm doing the same for several other game families. Carcassonne was one of my gateway games when I entered the hobby, and till now I still find it lovely.
- Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan - A genius piece of game design. This is a game which gives me goosebumps. You don't use dice for battle resolution. You have some luck in the card draws. Before a battle, whether you can win is already decided by the cards you have in hand and the pieces you have on the board. The tricky part is you don't know what your opponent has. So are you going to attack or not? Sometimes it is about bluffing.
- Attika - I think this is an underrated gem. You win by constructing all your buildings, or by connecting two temples. Often this is an efficiency game about optimising resource usage. It is hard to win by connecting temples, but it is a threat you can use to force your opponent's hand. This is a game in which you don't score victory points.
- The Lord of the Rings - This cooperative game is challenging to learn. Not that it is complex, just that it is a little unusual. However once you grasp the rules, it is highly satisfying to play.
- Love Letter - I will always be grateful to the gamer who created a fan-made Adventure Times version of the game. It was because of the cute art that I hand-made a copy of the game to try out. I instantly fell in love with it. So minimalistic yet clever. It was my inspiration and model for Dancing Queen.
- Indonesia - Splotter Games has a special place in my heart. So many of their games amaze me. They are complex, strategic, and unforgiving. They keep making hit after hit. The only complaint I have about Indonesia is one particular part of the map. My home state of Sabah looks completely wrong.
- Automobile - This is a complex game of few actions, but every action is important and you must choose carefully. I have the very first edition of the game and I much prefer the art in this edition to the later ones.
- Ra - This game is here for both the nostalgia and also for how wonderful it is as a game. My first copy was a fully self-made copy, because at the time it was out of print. My second copy was a gift from my friends who found a used copy on e-Bay Germany. This happened in an era without Google Translate, so it wasn't easy for them to get something from Germany. So this was a very meaningful gift. Since then, Ra has been reprinted, and it was reprinted several times. Now I own Priests of Ra as well. This was one of my earliest games when I got into the hobby. I spent many hours playing it with my friends in Taiwan.
- Agricola - This is another game I have played a lot with my wife Michelle. I actually like Le Havre more than Agricola. Agricola ranks higher because I've played so much of it. Yes, I make the rules. No, I don't apply them consistently.
- Brass: Lancashire - I have the original Brass, and I like the Peter Dennis art.
- A Few Acres of Snow - Hey, yet another Martin Wallace game. Also with art from Peter Dennis. I love how the deckbuilding mechanism is used to simulate the challenges of managing a war in the colonies back when emails and telegrams were not yet invented.
- Machi Koro - I have fond memories playing this with my daughters, who love the fishing boats. I always choose to play with the second edition rules with a random market. I don't like the original version in which all buildings are always available.
- Hansa Teutonica - This is a highly interactive Eurogame. You are always trying to pressure your opponents into helping you.
- Here I Stand - I'm not sure whether I still have the appetite for a 9-hour game. In the grand scheme of things, spending 9 hours to simulate an entire era in European history is pretty short. Even when you add the hours reading the rules beforehand.
- Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation - A very smart two-player game. Just don't expect many of the Fellowship of the Ring to survive.
- Regicide - This is a game I both admire and enjoy playing. You can play this with just a deck of regular playing cards. I love how difficult it is to win this cooperative game. It is what makes every victory a celebration.
- Axis & Allies - I cheat a little and this represents the whole series. I don't like every single game in the series. My favourites are the latest standard game and Guadalcanal. I don't enjoy the larger versions as much. The anniversary edition is okay. I've started to lose interest in the series though. I didn't get North Africa because I couldn't even finish reading the rules. It just felt tedious. Stalingrad is coming soon, and I can't muster much enthusiasm. So this is mostly a nostalgia entry. I did have much fun with the series, beginning with the 1984 edition.
- Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 - This represents the Pandemic series. There are many in the series which I like. Rising Tides (Netherlands) is good. Pandemic Legacy Season 0 was fantastic. If only the basic Pandemic existed, it might not make this list. However I had a lot of fun with many of the spin-offs.
- Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper - I have almost forgotten about this game, which was my spouse game for quite some time. I have many other rummy games from Mike Fitzgerald, but this is still the one I like best. Whenever we played a victim card, we would declare in poor English pronunciation "weeg-teem".
- Civilization - Francis Tresham is a legend. This game from 1980 was waaaay ahead of its time. You see nations rise and fall. You experience disaster after disaster. It may seem to be much simpler than many other later civ games which are more similar to the computer game, but I find that it does the few things it sets out to do very well. There is constant pressure to advance in science. You have to pick what you learn carefully. Sciences you pick meaningfully affect your board play.
- Food Chain Magnate - The company organisation chart becomes a game, and the game works splendidly.
- In the Year of the Dragon - This game teaches you that life is suffering. But you can still survive well enough. Maybe. The Year of the Dragon is not a good year I tell you. You will have fun complaining about how tough life is. You get to laugh at others' misfortune. Or you entertain your friends with your own misfortune.
- Age of Steam - Martin Wallace's classic can be unforgiving. I have the older ugly version. The latest version is much prettier.
- Hammer of the Scots - This is Braveheart the boardgame. I loved the movie. I learned more about the history of Scotland after buying and playing this game. I learned that the movie was a highly dramatised version of history. The game itself is excellent.
- Maracaibo - This is a new entry. I enjoy how much you get to grow your abilities in this game.
- Antiquity - This is an older Splotter title, with lots and lots of pollution. It is complex and brutal. Things go downhill by default and you need to find a way to turn things around. This is not a game for the faint of heart.
- The Princes of Florence - This Wolfgang Kramer design is one of the games from my early days in the hobby.
- Ticket to Ride Map Collection 7: Japan & Italy - This is the representative of the Ticket To Ride series. This is one of the spin-offs I enjoy more.
- China - Michael Schacht is a prolific designer and this is my favourite among his games. China was a reimplementation of Web of Power, and after China there were other reimplementations. I'm grateful that I happened to have bought China when it was in print. The publisher Uberplay is no longer in business, and I like this particular iteration of the game.
- Power Grid - This doesn't represent the spin-offs in the family, just the base game and the expansions. I don't like the spin-offs so much, but I do like the expansions. I have quite many different maps for Power Grid.
- Le Havre - This was the game that came after Agricola. I like how it tells the story of a growing port city, how businesses and industries sprout and then fade.
- Taluva - This is a game with a strong spatial element. This is an underappreciated gem.
- Faiyum - I like how the players' actions collectively shape how a game shakes out. How the map develops can be very different from game to game.
- Santa Maria - This is a bunch of unassuming mechanisms coming together to make an excellent game. The game uses dice in a clever way. It is a development game. The core idea is now implemented in a new game - Saltfjord.
- The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship - I don't categorise this as one of the Pandemic games, despite the core engine being from that series. There are many elements in the game which make it more a Lord of the Rings game than a Pandemic game.
- Quartermaster General - A World War 2 game which is almost a microgame. Minimalistic, but still has much character. The different nations all have unique abilities.
- Roads & Boats - A complex game about logistics. People can steal "your" goods, because goods don't belong to anyone. That's communism, my dear comrade! You need wagons and rafts to store goods because what you can carry is yours, at least as long as you are still carrying them.
- Merchants & Marauders - I love the freedom of sailing the seas going wherever I want and choosing my own adventure.
- 7 Wonders - I suspect if this were released today instead of in 2010, I would find it just okay. It's just multiple ways of doing set collection. But maybe that's not important. I did have much fun with it. It does work well.
- Seven! - This is a simple, silly game, and I find it hilarious. It may sound like a dumb game, but I think it is cleverer than it looks. The art is ugly. Not artsy. Just ugly. But that's okay. It's part of why it's funny.
- Endeavor - I have not tried the latest reimplementation, but I'm happy even with the first version of the game to be on this list. It's a clean design with simple actions, but everything hangs together well.
- Stupor Mundi - This is new to me in 2025. I had much fun with it. It is highly strategic and offers you many attractive options. You really have to think hard to maximise your actions.
- Darwin's Journey - This too is new to me this year. It is overwhelming in that there are many things you want to do, but you have limited resources and actions. This takes some effort to play even half decently.
- Azul - Beautifully straight-forward and accessible. This game fully deserves to be so popular.
- Heat: Pedal to the Metal - Race games are really not my thing, but this is just so much fun.
- Glory to Rome - I am starting to forget how this plays. I just remember it making me happy, and some combinations of buildings being very powerful.
- 300: Earth & Water - So much history and angst in such a small package.
Two notable absences are Star Realms and Ascension: Deckbuilding Game. I have been playing them for more than 10 years, and I have logged more than 1500 plays for each of them. I am still playing them on my phone. I do like them enough, but I want to make space for mentioning other games.
The highest ranked game from 2019 which has now dropped from the list is Die Macher. I still think it is a great game though. In 2019 it was ranked #27. Any games here which you totally agree with? Or totally disagree with? Or have never heard of?
