BGG Top 100

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to look at the current Top 100 games on www.BoardGameGeek.com and see how well I'm doing in playing them all. I realise I have never done this before in 19 years of blogging about boardgames. Certainly the Top 100 looks very different from 19 years ago. No more Tigris & Euphrates today. I don't actually browse the Top 100 list often now. However it was important to me when I first got into the hobby. I was curious about all these games which were ranked so high by players from all over the world. I remember being appalled that Axis & Allies wasn't on the list. It wasn't even in the Top 200. I had thought it was the pinnacle of boardgames. 

We should not simply take the BGG Top 100 as the best 100 boardgames in the world. It is an aggregation of what many boardgamers think. It is the product of how people use BGG, and it reflects specifically the tastes of people who bother to rate games on BGG. That means hobby gamers. When looking at the list, we should understand the context. Although it is not perfect, it is still a highly useful list for people who like this kind of games and want to explore other similar games.  

BGG Top 10 in Feb 2026

I have played 56 out of the top 100. Considering that several games have their revised editions and 2nd editions also in the top 100 as a separate entry (Agricola, Mansion of Madness, Great Western Trail, Eclipse, War of the Ring), I'd consider myself as having played 61. That's higher than I expected. I thought I was further behind. There are some games which have spin-offs and reimplementations. I probably can consider myself as having tried them. These are not clear cut though. Maybe they are different enough from the originals to be considered separate games. For example Endeavor Deep Sea, Great Western Trail: New Zealand, Gaia Project, Age of Innovation (can these two be considered Terra Mystica variants?), and The Crew: Mission Deep Sea. Maybe Wingspan Asia can be considered just an expansion. I have played Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion, but not Gloomhaven or Frosthaven. I have more or less seen the system, and I am not particularly interested to try the other games in the family. Lord of the Rings: Duel for Middle-Earth is based on 7 Wonders: Duel. I'm interested to try it if I have the opportunity, even though I have played 7 Wonders: Duel. 

One thing I notice about the top 100 is this is like Hollywood. So many games are spin-offs, variants and newer editions (remakes). How many Marvel movies can you watch before tiring of them? I wonder whether this should be interpreted as a sign of boardgame companies growing too big and losing the appetite for creative risks. Spin-offs and expansions are financially prudent. It's just that they are not so exciting for me. Or maybe we should see this in a more positive light. Publishers are making what their fans want. Perhaps this is mostly natural demand and supply. 

Here are some notable games I still have not played and I am somewhat interested in. I'm curious about Dune: Imperium and Dune: Imperium - Uprising. Two games in the top 10! Star Wars: Rebellion is also a top 10 game and it has been around for a while. Two others I'm interested in are Slay the Spire and Grand Austria Hotel. I can't say I'm keen enough to want to buy a copy so that I can play them. I find that I rarely buy heavy Eurogames now, or any heavy game. 

There are three games from the Clank! family in the top 100 and I have not played any of them. Cascadia is a popular game which I have not tried. There's also SETI, Kanban, Everdell. I have never played the classic Twilight Imperium. It's not a genre I'm keen about now. Crokinole has been in the top 100 for many years, and I have never come across a physical copy of the game. I guess it's not a thing in Malaysia. 

My 10's among the top 100 are Pandemic Legacy Season 1, Through the Ages, and Race for the Galaxy. My 9's are Agricola, Power Grid, Le Havre, Maracaibo, and Darwin's Journey. For any game in the top 100 which I rate a 7 or below, I'll have plenty of people who disagree. These are the games which didn't work so well for me. My 6's are Anachrony, Great Western Trail, The White Castle, and The Gallerist. I have only one 5 in the top 100 - Harmonies. 

Which are your favourite games in the top 100? Is your all-time favourite in the top 100? Mine is Innovation, and it is currently ranked 300+ on BGG. Which is your lowest rated game in the top 100? 

top 50

The last time I did a ranking of games I have played was in 2012, seven years ago. I did a top ten list then. This time I go up to 50. In the new top ten, six games had appeared in the previous top ten. It's either I'm a loyal and sentimental person, or I have not progressed much from seven years ago. I don't have a very scientific method to this. Up to 24 Jul 2019 I have played about 800 games. I first listed them by how many times I have played each, and then I did several rounds of categorisation and elimination. The first round was simply assessing the likelihood that a game would be in my top 50. If I judged it impossible, I put the game in Group 9. If it was a game I loved, I put it in Group 1. Other games I placed into Groups 2 to 8 accordingly. After Round 1, the Group 1 games totaled fewer than 50. The Group 1 + 2 total exceeded 50, so I needed to trim Group 2. I re-examined all groups, reconsidering the Group 1 games too. Gradually I broke them down to smaller groups, e.g. games I felt should be in my top ten, games I felt should be roughly 11-20, and so on. Eventually I did the final ranking within these small groups. The end result was the list below.

I don't play many games, compared to other hardcore gamers. 800 is a crazy number for normal people, but it won't impress gamers. My list does not carry much authority, since there are many games I have not played, including many which are well known and highly regarded. The list is a highly personal one, reflecting my journey as a boardgame player and reflecting my tastes. My judging criteria is all over the place. The first criterion is, of course, I like the game a lot. That's completely subjective - I like it, it makes me happy. Another criterion is I admire the design. I think it's clever, or it's artful. Yet another criterion is I have played the game many times. If I don't get tired of it after many plays, it must be doing something right, e.g. Ascension, Race for the Galaxy, Star Realms. Some games are on the list because of nostalgia, because of memories they gave me. Ra, Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper, Carcassonne are such games. Some games on the list are not there just for themselves. They also represent their families or multiple versions of the game, e.g. the Axis and Allies series, the Ticket to Ride series, Through the Ages, Power Grid. When I did elimination, I got rid of some games simply because they already had siblings on the list. I made way for more different types of games.

1. Race for the Galaxy - I played many many games with my wife Michelle. We mostly played the base game and the expansions in the first story arc. We played the advanced 2-player game, with each player choosing two actions. I barely play it now, but it's still one of my favourite games.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Through the Ages: A New Story of Civilization - This too I have played a lot with my wife. Our games were effectively a peaceful variant, because we didn't attack each other. So our games were distorted, and I never learned to handle warfare properly for normal games.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Sekigahara - A clean and exciting design.
   
   
   
   
4. A Few Acres of Snow - I greatly admire how the deck-building mechanism conveys the difficulties of the Britsih and the French in managing this colonial war.
   
   
   
   
5. Automobile - Martin Wallace has two games in the top ten, this and A Few Acres of Snow. Automobile is very structured and actions are limited. You need to think hard to make good use of your actions.
   
   
   
   
6. Lord of the Rings - This Reiner Knizia cooperative game was published well before cooperative games were a hip thing.
   
   
   
   
7. Innovation - Seven years ago when Han, Allen and I did our top ten lists in "simultaneous action selection" fashion, this was the only game that appeared in all three of our top ten lists.
   
   
   
   
8. Hammer of the Scots - Inspired by the movie Braveheart, directed by and starring Mel Gibson. I loved that movie. Later I found out it was rife with historical inaccuracies. Still, good movie, just that it's historical fiction and not a documentary.
   
   
   
   
9. Axis & Allies: Guadalcanal - This kind of represents the Axis and Allies series. This is my favourite in the family.
   
   
   
   
   
   
10. Love Letter - A microgame that made me happy, and made many people whom I introduced it to happy.
    
    
    
    
    
    
11. Pandemic Legacy - It was a memorable journey with a group of good friends. It has a place in my heart because of that journey, more than because it represents the Pandemic series.
12. Agricola - I played a lot of this with my wife.
13. Carcassonne - This was the game that attracted my wife and my Taiwanese friends to boardgames. I first played it at Witch House cafe, Taipei, and it was Yoyo who taught me the game. It felt weird to me, because at the time I was unfamiliar with Eurogames. I had thought Axis and Allies was the pinnacle of boardgaming. The game grew on me gradually and became one of my most played games.
    
    
    
    
    
    
14. Mystery Rummy: Jack the Ripper - Excellent spouse game, relatively short, and convenient. Michelle and I played a lot when the children were young. When we dealt the cards quickly, it made Shee Yun laugh. With two players, Ripper Escaping is difficult to do, but also very rewarding. I love this element. It is always tempting. Should you gamble or not? Is your opponent shooting for the moon and do you need to take precautions? Ripper Escaping is easier with more players, which lessens the excitement.
15. Princes of Florence - Some people label this as the when Eurogames started going down the multiplayer solitaire path, i.e. when things took a wrong turn. I can see how some aspects of the game lack player interaction, but I still think this is a great game. It's a game about good planning, accurate valuation and clever bidding.
16. In the Year of the Dragon - Stefan Feld is a super star, but his most popular games are just okay for me. My favourite among his designs turns out to be this lesser known title. This game is about disaster management.
17. Food Chain Magnate - Published by Splotter Games. Time and again I tell myself to try before buy, and time and again they make me regret not buying earlier. I should just preorder any next game they make, even if they say it's a Tic Tac Toe variant. There's a signature in their games. They are unapologetic, brutal, and they basically tell you to swim or die. They don't hold your hands.
    
    
    
    
    
    
18. Civilization - A old game, and a great game, about the rise and fall of civilisations. And disasters. Holy smokes a lot of disasters.
19. Ticket to Ride: Switzerland - This represents the series, and this is my favourite among the many variants. I enjoy drawing tickets and feeling lucky when I find that I have already fulfilled some of them. Ticket to Ride was hot when it came out, and it was meh to me when I first played it. It took a while before I started appreciating the simple fun it brings.
    
    
    
    
    
    
20. Brass: Birmingham - My copy is the original Brass. This is the newer, generally better, version. I treat them as a series. I never tried the Age of Industry series though. I'm not sure how good it is.
21. Age of Steam - This represents the series and the game system, including expansions not designed by Martin Wallace himself. This is an unforgiving and minimalistic game.
22. Machi Koro - I had many joyful moments with my two daughters. They loved building fishing boats.
    
    
    
    
    
    
23. China - By Michael Schacht. This version is now out of print. The first English version was Web of Power. A version later than mine was Han. The most recent version is Iwari. You know a game must be good if it refuses to go out of print for long.
    
    
    
    
    
    
24. Le Havre - The Uwe Rosenberg game right after Agricola. I might actually like this more than Agricola, just that I hadn't played it as much as Agricola. I enjoy seeing the port city grow. I enjoy seeing how old industries fade, and new industries sprout, and evolve.
    
    
    
    
25. Taluva
26. Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation - The Lord of the Rings story condensed into a small package, yet retaining so many important details and so much flavour.
27. Die Macher - A game very much ahead of its time. It was a long and complex Eurogame, when all Eurogames were short and simple. Also German elections is not exactly a popular setting for boardgames.
28. Antiquity - Another Splotter game. There is tremendous pressure in the early and mid game as you struggle with depletion of natural resources and pollution. You need to be able to climb out of the downward spiral in order to move towards your win condition.
29. Twilight Struggle
30. Indonesia - Another Splotter title.
31. Glory to Rome - My blackbox edition is a gift from Allen and is now a grail game.
32. Axis & Allies Anniversary Edition - This list has two games from the Axis and Allies series, which means the series has special meaning to me. Axis and Allies was a game I played even before I was a boardgamer. I first encountered the 1984 edition when I was in primary school. I saw it at a toy shop when I was on holiday with my family in Singapore. It looked amazing, but it was expensive, and we didn't buy it. Many years later, after I had finished my studies and started working, I came across the game again when I was on a training trip to the USA. I happily bought it, and played it with my colleagues. I later got into PC games because I found out there was a PC game version of the game. All these stories are related to the 1984 edition. There are fewer stories related to the anniversary edition, but it is one of my favourite versions of the game.
    
    
    
    
33. Here I Stand - Allen, Han and I once spent 9 hours playing this. For a few years we played together regularly. We all liked speed play, so we clicked.
34. Ticket To Ride - Also a series with two appearances.
35. Blue Moon
36. Power Grid and expansions.
37. Puerto Rico
38. The Message: Emissary Crisis - I realise it is not easy to teach, but once you internalise the process and the concepts, it is pretty straight-forward. The procedure is simple. What can be confusing are the many situations that may arise and what needs to be done in each situation. Once you are able to play it smoothly, it is a very enjoyable secret identity team game.
    
    
    
    
    
    
39. Hansa Teutonica - Highly interactive.
40. Roads & Boats - Yet another Splotter game. There are five on this list.
41. Attika
42. 7 Wonders
43. The Great Zimbabwe - Splotter again.
44. Panamax - I have only played this once, but somehow I like it a lot.
45. Vanuatu - The action selection mechanism is full of danger and brutal. One misstep may mean wasting a whole round making no progress.
46. Three Kingdoms Redux - It's not a wargame. It's a worker placement game. It's a development game. It's fun seeing the many Three Kingdoms era characters come into play.
47. Quartermaster General - So far I have played two games from the series, and I like the original better.
48. Star Realms - I have played more than 500 games on the mobile phone.
49. Ascension - More than 1200 games on the mobile phone. I have never played the physical game.
    
    
    
    
    
    
50. Ra - A shared memory with my Taiwanese friends. This was a game we played a lot of in my early days in the hobby.

It was fun doing such a top 50 ranking exercise, even though the list is nothing authoritative and may not mean much to others. If the list brings your attention to some lesser known games, and they turn out to be fun for you too, then all the better.

2014 games eagerness ranking

This is my personal ranking of 2014 games that I have played. It is purely based on how keen I am to play each game now. It is not based on how "good" or "bad" the games are. "Good" and "bad" are subjective. Making such lists is tedious, but it's something I enjoy doing because such forced ranking makes me examine my current game playing preferences, and reminds me of games I should play.

Keen to Play

1. Star Realms - I only realise now that this is a 2014 game. I had thought this game was released much longer ago. I play Star Realms everyday now, on the phone, vs Han. It's more like a habit than a hobby. It's like breakfast, or brushing teeth. I don't plan to play it, I just do it. When I have a few spare minutes, I pick up my phone and play a turn. Since I do play it everyday and I'm still not sick of it, I have no excuse not to put it in this category.
2. Quartermaster General - Few components, few procedures. It looks simple on the surface, but once you get to know it, it is more sophisticated and flavourful than it seems at first glance. All major historical elements and even some hypothetical ones are included in the cards. This is a game where you have very limited actions and resources, and you are forced to make painful compromises. The game is at its best once you get familiar with the decks of all six nations in play.
   

   Quartermaster General

   Happy to Play

3. Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game - This was quite hot for a while. On the surface this looks like a cooperative game with a traitor element. In truth this is very much an every-man-for-himself game. The "good" people do need to cooperate to complete the team mission, because that's the prerequisite for any of them winning. However the key is using your fellow survivors to complete the team mission while you make sure you can achieve your personal mission. You need to achieve your personal mission to emerge a winner when the end comes. This is no hold-hands-sing-kumbaya game.
   

   Dead of Winter

4. Patchwork - A short 2-player game with a Tetris-like spatial element. It's a good spouse game. There is some strategy, but it can be played in a lighthearted manner.
   

   Patchwork

5. Panamax - I like it but I didn't buy it. I like it but I didn't play a second time. I didn't buy precisely because I was worried I might not get to play a second time. I admire the ship-push-ship mechanism. You use that to force others to help you, and also to do more with few actions. There are opportunities for cooperation. You do want to collaborate because it's win-win.
   

   Panamax

6. Madame Ching - I like the tempo in this game. Everyone is trying to make strong card sets, collecting numbered cards in ascending order. Depending on which stage of a voyage you are in, you will need different cards. Sometimes you want to intentionally phase shift so that others won't be competing with you for the cards you want. The core mechanisms are simple, so this is a game suitable for casual gamers.
7. Alchemists - This is quite an unusual game. You are alchemists trying to deduce the alchemical properties of ingredients in the game. You do this by collecting ingredients and performing experiments. You need a smartphone app to play this game. The rules are moderately complex. I have only played once. I am still unsure whether winning is more about how well you plan your experiments, or how lucky you are in picking which ingredients to study. Or perhaps winning mostly depends on observing your opponents' actions and experiment results, and drawing conclusions from them. Certainly all three factors come into play. I am not sure how big a factor each of them is. But then if you enjoy the game well enough, perhaps this is not all that important.
8. Samurai Spirit - Cooperative game. I fell in love with it when I first played, because it is hard to win. I played many solo games, trying to understand it and to work out how to beat it. It looks simplistic, but there is some hidden depth and also many little tricks. I now know better how to play it well, and it is still not easy to win. In fact I haven't even tried the harder difficulty levels. I am past the infatuation period now, but if someone suggests this I would gladly draw my katana and scream Banzai.
9. Linko! (Abluxxen) - An unconventional card game that defies classification. It's not a climbing game although it feels a little like one. The game ends when a player plays all his cards. Usually (but not always) this player will win, since scoring is based on cards played minus cards still in hand. There are moments when you can really screw someone over. There are moments when your hands sweat because you don't know whether it is the right time to play your large set of cards. There are moments when you pray your large set played will not get beaten by another even stronger set.

   Lukewarm

10. Red7 - A cute game from Carl Chudyk.You can play it as a microgame. If you add the scoring rules, it becomes a short game. It's a clever game that works your brain.
11. Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game - Good storytelling. The aliens are coming at you relentlessly. You need to beef up your deck and keep the aliens at bay at the same time. You need to make sure you can survive and complete all three missions.
    

    Legendary Encounters: An Alien Deck Building Game

12. Roll for the Galaxy - I am a big fan of Race for the Galaxy and I played it till my cards frayed at the edges. In recent years I don't play much anymore, so this dice version doesn't get played much either. The dice game feels like the older brother, but mechanism-wise there are differences.
13. Sheriff of Nottingham - Bribery, double-guessing, psychology, bluffing. Plenty of player interaction. One review I read described this game very well - this is a game where you game the players and not the system.
    

    Sheriff of Nottingham

14. Pandemic: The Cure - The dice game version of Pandemic. You get the excitement of rolling dice. You lose the board gameplay aspect. Overall it's simpler and more abstract.
15. Abyss - You compete to recruit allies, who in turn are used to recruit lords, who then are used to conquer locations. All these are done in small steps, and you compete in these small steps. You must not lose sight of the strategic landscape. You need to watch which allies, lords and locations your opponents are aiming for.
16. Hyperborea - The bag-building mechanism is a variation of the deck-building mechanism. Instead of cards you add to your personal deck, you acquire coloured cubes to add to your personal cloth bag. On your turn you draw cubes out of the bag, and they determine what kind of actions you can take. Hyperborea looks like a low complexity wargame, with players fighting for territory. However the board play is just a means to an end, and that end is scoring points. This game is less of you being a warlord charging into battle, and more of you being a bookish strategist laying out meticulous plans for the empire's expansion. The factions in the game are quite different, and this gives good replayability.
    

    Hyperborea

17. Historia - A civilisation game with a very different approach. Or maybe you can call it a Eurogame with a civilisation theme. Many aspects of civilisation games are abstracted, which makes the game playable within the timeframe of a typical Eurogame - about 60 to 90 minutes. I can't say I particularly liked it, but it is certainly refreshing.
18. Roll Through the Ages: The Iron Age -There are a few expansions and variations of this dice game, and I am starting to lose track of which is which. The original dice game is quite a clever design, and doesn't really need any enhancement. The expansions are nice-to-have variations if you've played a lot of the original and want some variety. Iron Age feels a little long to me though.
19. Thunder Alley - Quite a strategic team race game. Positioning your cars is very important. You want to entice or even force your opponents to help you. There are plenty of opportunities for clever card play. I am not particularly interested in race games, so no urge to play this now.
20. Camel Up - This looks like a race game, but it is actually a gambling game, a betting game. You compete to bet on the camels which you think will win a leg of the race or will win the overall race. The earlier you bet (and bet right), the higher the rewards, but also the higher the risk of betting wrong.

    Rather Not Play

21. El Gaucho - Medium weight Eurogame. You compete to collect cattle and try to make big (profitable) sets. Various special abilities help you in your procurement. There is a certain tempo in buying cattle. You need to watch out for when who wants what. It's a decent game.
    

    El Gaucho

22. VivaJava: The Coffee Game: The Dice Game - I like the original boardgame version. The dice game doesn't have opportunities for players to collaborate. It is a race to reach 21pts. There is a sense of urgency because every round the players holding the titles earn bonus points and progress towards the end goal.
23. Heroes of Normandie - Squad level battle game. Currently I'm not keen on games at this granularity, thus the lack of interest.
24. Cubist - Roll dice, then use them to build structures.
25. Lost Legacy: The Starship - A successor of Love Letter, with many similarities. Your objective is to find the starship (one of the cards). During the game, some players can be eliminated. When the draw deck is exhausted, if more than one player remains, they may attempt to find the starship. Whoever finds it first wins. If it is not found, nobody wins. All cards have abilities, and many of them either work well together or are a counter card for another card. Maybe I'm just content with Love Letter, or I'm resistant to change. I tell myself I prefer the simplicity of Love Letter.
26. La Granja - This complex Eurogame is quite popular. In recent years I have become jaded with heavy Eurogames because many of them feel similar. The phrase "multiple ways to score points" now has a negative connotation, because it feels like these multiple ways exist for the sake of existing. La Granja is by no means a poor game. It has some unique elements. Cards the players decide to use create differences in their respective farms. This leads to different strategies and priorities. This is a game of efficiency and optimisation. You need to be meticulous to make the most of the fixed number of rounds in the game.
    

    La Granja

27. Arkwright - High complexity economic game. You build and operate factories producing different goods. This is an open information game, which coupled with its complexity means high analysis paralysis potential. I have only played the beginner game. It felt staid. I think it is partly because of the more conservative setup, the intention of which is to maintain game balance. The full game adds some elements and also allows more freedom (including freedom to fail spectacularly).
28. Imperial Settlers - The prettier, cleaner and better tuned 51st State, which I like less than 51st State. Maybe the fixed number of rounds rubs me the wrong way. 51st State is less polished and a little clumsy, but these make it more adorable to me. In Imperial Settlers, like all tableau games, the key is build a good combo of cards. There is some player interaction, but not much.
29. Kingsport Festival - The new Kingsburg has a completely different setting and some rule changes, but the heart is the same. You roll dice, and decide how to mix and match and use them to collect resources. There is a map on which you expand your influence and gain new abilities.
30. ZhanGuo - Yet another typical VP scoring Eurogame. The mission sets give context and unite the multiple ways of scoring in the game, which is a good thing. However it is also a bad thing because the mission sets drive player actions along narrow paths. You can choose to ignore mission sets, but that's suboptimal and doesn't make strategic sense.
    

    Zhanguo

31. Burgoo - Microgame. I played it wrong, despite it being a microgame. *hangs head in shame* Now I know the correct rules, but I have not played it again. So I still have not given it a fair evaluation.
32. Istanbul - An award winner, but I didn't like it. It's a resource gathering and conversion game. It's all about converting stuff to points as efficiently as possible.
33. The Staufer Dynasty - Medium weight Eurogame, with an area majority mechanism. Some of the game mechanisms are clever, but overall it's another game of scoring points efficiently.

Have Not Played

Some games that I have heard of but have not played.

1. Star Wars: Imperial Assault - It's Star Wars, but I'm not keen on squad level battle games.
2. Five Tribes - From Days of Wonder.
3. Orléans
4. Castles of Mad King Ludwig
5. Fields of Arle - High complexity 2-player game from Uwe Rosenberg. I have read the rules, and it feels similar to his other recent games.
6. Arcadia Quest
7. Splendor - This was quite hot for a while, but I missed the opportunity to try it.
8. One Night Ultimate Werewolf
9. Power Grid deluxe: Europe/North America - I own many expansions of Power Grid, but no longer play them much, so I have stopped buying expansions or variants.
10. Xia: Legends of a Drift System
11. Kanban: Automotive Revolution
12. Spyfall
13. Deus
14. Shadows of Brimstone: City of the Ancients
15. Colt Express
16. King of New York - I have not tried King of Tokyo yet.
17. AquaSphere - By Stefan Feld.
18. Evolution - I have played the original version from Right Games of Russia. The idea is novel, but the execution is so-so. It seems there is only one best strategy - develop a super specie. The new version should be better, but I have not had a chance to try it.
19. Fire in the Lake
20. San Juan (second edition) - I have played the original version.
21. The Battle of Five Armies
22. Ca$h 'n Guns (second edition) - I have played the original version.
23. Shadows of Brimstone: Swamps of Death
24. Legendary: Villains – A Marvel Deck Building Game
25. Smash Up: Science Fiction Double Feature
26. Lords of Xidit
27. Saint Petersburg (second edition) - I have played the original version.
28. Warhammer 40,000: Conquest
29. Smash Up: Monster Smash
30. Deception: Murder in Hong Kong
31. Scoville
32. Port Royal
33. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull & Shackles – Base Set
34. Shadowrun: Crossfire
35. Wir sind das Volk! - I'm interested in this 2-player game about the history of East and West Germany after World War II.
36. Viceroy
37. Doomtown: Reloaded
38. Valley of the Kings
39. Black Fleet
40. Diamonds
41. Space Hulk (fourth edition) - I have played the 1st edition.
42. La Isla
43. Witness
44. Onirim
45. Trains: Rising Sun
46. Medieval Academy
47. Akrotiri
48. Nations: The Dice Game
49. Galaxy Defenders
50. The Golden Ages
51. Dogs of War
52. Murano
53. Medina (second edition) - I have played the first edition.
54. Tiny Epic Kingdoms
55. The Ancient World
56. Coup: Rebellion G54
57. Onitama
58. Zombie 15'
59. Good Cop Bad Cop
60. Warfighter: The Tactical Special Forces Card Game
61. 1944: Race to the Rhine
62. Mythotopia - A game designed based on the system in A Few Acres of Snow, which I like a lot. I think it was a stroke of genius to present the French and Indian War using the deck-building mechanism. It was appropriate and flavourful. Mythotopia uses a generic fantasy / medieval setting, and my interest level plummeted.
63. Antike II
64. Mangrovia
65. Heroes Wanted
66. Greed
67. Greenland - I have not yet tried any game by Phil Eklund. I know his games are unbelievably complex. The topics he chooses are uncommon and interesting. I don't know of fellow gamers who play his games, but I'm quite sure I can find takers if I start something. The problem is I may not be able to stomach his games now. So I shall continue to procrastinate.
68. Onward to Venus - By Martin Wallace.
69. Pandemic: Contagion - I almost forgot about this expansion of Pandemic.
70. Pagoda - By Reiner Knizia. I read a review and I am a little interested. I used to be a big Knizia fanboy. I still think he's a genius. He was one of only a handful of masters when I first got into Eurogames. There are many more great designers nowadays, and many more different styles of games.
71. Three Kingdoms Redux - A game from neighbouring Singapore. Interested.
72. Province - Allen has it. It's at my home. Unplayed.
73. Abraca...what?
74. Escape: Zombie City - I have the original Escape plus a few expansions.
75. Fresh Fish - By Friedemann Friese. I've played the original version which was released many years ago.
76. Clinic - From Alban Viard (Town Centre, Small City). This was played at Boardgamecafe.net but I didn't join that table then.
77. This Town Ain't Big Enough for the 2-4 of Us - Allen gave me a copy.
78. Rolling Japan
79. King's Pouch
80. Lap Dance - Controversial topic.

revisiting the 2013 games eagerness ranking

I did this personal ranking of 2013 games back in Feb 2015. I always enjoy revisiting such lists, checking whether I now feel differently from before, and whether there are some games from a particular year that I have now played. Underlined text in this blog post is new. Non underlined text is the original blog post. After relooking at this list, I realised I hadn't played many more games from 2013. There are still quite a few popular one I have not tried.

This is one of those things I do roughly once a year. I list down games published within a particular calendar year which I have played, and rank them according to how much I feel like playing them at that moment. Usually I do this just short of one year after the particular year has passed, but for year 2013, I'm doing it more than one year later. I am no longer at the forefront of playing all the hot new games. There are still a number of widely acclaimed 2013 games I have not tried. So my list is in no way authoritative. It's just one gamer's fun exercise of stringing together 2013 games. When I play a game I don't take note of the year of publication. When I put together this list, it was interesting to discover which games were from the same batch, like meeting co-workers who went to the same primary school (elementary school).

Keen To Play

None. No particular game that I am itching to play.

Happy To Play

1. Axis & Allies: WWI 1914 - Played once, and I quite enjoyed it. It's not the type of game that I feel like playing all the time. It's an event game, something you need to plan for and arrange early. This is the first game in the Axis & Allies series that uses World War I as the backdrop. There are some changes to fit the system to better reflect warfare of that age, but the overall structure is still familiar.
   
   Axis & Allies: WWI 1914

2. Impulse - This is a Carl Chudyk design (Innovation, Glory to Rome). It is interstellar exploration, colonisation and warfare via a clever card mechanism. It has Carl Chudyk's signature all over it. I wonder why it is rarely discussed and seems to be not very popular. In contrast Red7 is getting tons of attention.
   
   Impulse

3. Russian Railroads - Won many awards. I'm interested to try this. I have bought a copy. It's mostly a typical Eurogame. I had thought I wouldn't enjoy this type of game very much. I find that it has a rich strategic space with many nooks and crannies. It's still about multiple ways of scoring points, but I had fun experimenting and exploring the various possibilities.
   
   Russian Railroads
4. Kobayakawa - Microgame. Interested. I decided to buy it right after playing it for the first time. So simple, so clever. If you want to think, there is a lot you can think about. If you don't want to think, you are not necessarily disadvantaged. There's a poker feel to it - there's psychology and bluffing.
   
   Kobayakawa

5. Nations - A card-based civ game with no map element, but it has many differences from Through the Ages.
   
   Nations

6. Legacy: The Testament of Duke de Crecy - A game in which you build your family tree. I really enjoy building the tree, and making combos of all the sons- and daughters-in-law which I'm marrying to my children and grandchildren. Other aspects of the game are rather pedestrian though. I wonder whether its star will drop significantly after the lustre of the family tree mechanism wears off, if it does wear off.
7. Cuba Libre - A complex game with lots of story and history. I think this is best played with exactly four. Two players each controlling two factions is tough to play.
   
   Cuba Libre

8. Glass Road - The two key ideas are identifying strong building power combos, and correctly guessing your opponents' intended actions.
9. Ascension: Rise of Vigil, Ascension: Darkness Unleashed - Other than categorising these Ascension expansions under the Happy To Play category, I struggle to actually rank them. I am playing Ascension every day and I don't think about whether I want to play it. It's like breathing.
10. Race for the Galaxy: Alien Artifacts - I didn't like the Alien Orb module, and by itself it would be Rather Not Play. However I do play this expansion with just the new cards, and I feel right at home with it.
11. Level 7 [Omega Protocol] - I probably won't play as the dungeon master, because I'm too lazy to read the rules and manage the scenarios. Playing as a soldier? Count me in! I'm happy to shoot some monsters.
12. UGO - An unusual trick-taking game with a little board element.
    
    UGO

13. The Builders: Middle Ages - A light card game in which you recruit and manage a team of builders and race to construct buildings worth a certain number of victory points.

    Lukewarm

14. Viticulture - Allen has this too. I have tried Viticulture now, with the expansion. It's a worker placement game about running a winery. Nothing particularly striking in game mechanisms. One aspect I enjoy is the variety in the cards, which gives different motivations to players and drives them to build different types of wineries.
15. Wildcatters - I truly like 90% of it, but can't stand the area majority scoring mechanism.
    
    Wildcatters

16. Kashgar - It has an interesting deck-building mechanism, but the rest of the game is nothing special.
17. Concordia - The rules are very different from Navegador, but they feel similar, because in both games you score in an AxB way, where you try to specialise and focus on your specific A's and B's.
    
    Concordia

18. Rialto - Area majority competition, where the values of the areas you are fighting for only get determined bit by bit during the course of the game.
19. Bremerhaven - The blind bidding is brutal because losers get nothing (other than frustration and a sense of impending doom). This can be good or bad. Some like the ruthlessness and find it exciting. Some can't handle the truth (Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men). Other elements of the game like receiving ships and sending goods off are OK but not particularly memorable.
20. Lost Legacy - A descendant of Love Letter. I'm interested. Tried it. Felt flat. Maybe it's because I can't avoid comparing it to Love Letter. There are similarities. In terms of strategic depth, it has more. However it doesn't give me the kind of simple fun and surprise which Lover Letter gives me.

    Rather Not Play

21. Cappuccino - An abstract game for 2 to 4. It reminds me of DVONN, but it is simpler. Among the games that I had already played in the original blog post, this is the only which I downgraded. I have not played it between then and now, it's just that I have lost appetite for abstract games.
22. Duel of Ages II - A squad-level battle game. I generally don't like this genre. This game has a sci-fi setting, which gives the designer an excuse to pit characters from the past, the present and the future against one another.
    
    Duel of Ages II

23. Eight-Minute Empire: Legends - A highly-simplified and streamlined dudes-on-a-map game on the surface, an area majority game under the hood. I don't think dudes-on-a-map games need to be streamlined. They are more fun when they are epic.
24. Coin Age - I still don't get this microgame. It has a clever mechanism, which is equivalent to flipping multiple coins at the same time to determine what action you get to do. I feel there is still some strategy or some tactics which I have not fully grasped, but at the moment I've lost interest to continue to probe.
25. Stone & Relic - I only remember it's a card game and I didn't enjoy it.

Have Not Played

Here are some which I have heard of but have not played.

1. Caverna - I do like Agricola a lot, but I'm not particularly keen to see what Agricola 2 is like. What's wrong with Agricola?
2. Eldritch Horror - I've read good things.
3. Legendary: Dark City
4. Lewis & Clark - Another one I'm interested to try. I have read the rules and made a rule summary. Unfortunately I regular kaki's at Boardgamecafe.net are not too keen about this so I still have not managed to play it. They have tried it before. Dith experimented with an unthematic strategy (fall behind to gather resources, then sprint all the way to the finish line), which ended up beating all other strategies, so the game felt broken to them.
5. Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Rise of the Runelords
6. Bora Bora
7. Bruges
8. BattleCON
9. Battlelore (2nd edition)
10. Forbidden Desert - I should try this, since I liked Forbidden Island and found it different enough from Pandemic.
11. Pandemic: In the Lab
12. Bruxelles 1893 - I like the artwork.
13. 1775: Rebellion - Interested to try.
14. Amerigo
15. Euphoria - Allen has this.
16. Rococo
17. Francis Drake
18. Spyrium
19. Quantum
20. Madeira
21. Sushi Go!
22. A Study in Emerald - Martin Wallace design.
23. Terror in Meeple City / Rampage
24. Tash-kalar - Vlaada Chvatil design, but it seems rather abstract, so my interest level is low.
25. Coal Baron
26. Star Trek: Attack Wing
27. Mysterium - Interesting idea, something like a more advanced version of Dixit. One player is a ghost trying to give clues to the others to help them solve a mystery.
28. Augustus
29. Concept
30. Patchistory
31. Space Cadet: Dice Duel
32. Nothing Personal
33. Mascarade
34. Ticket To Ride: Netherlands - I have collected quite many Ticket To Ride maps, but I don't have this one yet.
35. A Distant Plain
36. Robinson Crusoe: Voyage of the Beagle - I have not tried all the scenarios in the base game yet. I should bring out this game again. I quite like it.
37. Compounded - Allen's copy is on my shelf, but I still have not read the rules. ... and I still have not read the rules...
38. Relic Runners
39. Innovation: Figures in the Sand - Innovation is one of my favourite games, but I don't own any of the expansions. Maybe I should consider this.
40. Cinque Terre
41. Power Grid: Australia and Indian Subcontinent - I own many Power Grid expansion maps too, but not this one yet.
42. Kohle & Kolonie
43. Bioshock Infinite: The Siege of Columbia
44. Canterbury - I think Allen has this one too.
45. Origin - Very good-looking game. Impressive components.
46. Dark Darker Darkest - I have read the rules and made a rule summary, but I still haven't played it.
47. Field of Glory: The Card Game - Martin Wallace design.
48. Corto
49. The Hobbit: An unexpected Journey
50. Gear & Piston
51. Mars Needs Mechanics
52. Cafe Melange - Great artwork.

my family's top tens

In 2012, I asked two of my gaming buddies to make our top ten lists simultaneously. It was an interesting exercise for me, because despite gaming together regularly, we never really discussed what kind of games we liked and we never gave much thought to what our top ten games were. I recently thought why not do this with my family. Maybe that would bring out some interesting findings (at least to me). And it did. I didn't ask them to write any essay on what kind of games they like. I just asked for their list of top ten games. So the thoughts below are mine, not theirs.

Michelle

When I asked my wife Michelle about her top ten games, her immediate response was "those simple card games". We used to play many games in the past, but she has been less active in the past few years. Many of the games on her list are games we used to play a lot of in the past. She didn't rank them. From my records, she has played 278 different games, which surprised her when I told her so.

• Race for the Galaxy / Roll for the Galaxy - She combines these two into one entry. They feel similar enough to her. Roll for the Galaxy is new and we have only started playing it this year. We have played a ton of Race for the Galaxy in the past, using the advanced 2-player rules.

  Race for the Galaxy

  
  
• Through the Ages - Another game which we have played a lot of. Almost all my games of Through the Ages and Race for the Galaxy are played as 2-player games against Michelle. If you ask me to play these with others, it would feel weird. I am too used to playing only with her. I am quite sure despite our many plays, we have not explored the full strategic space because we are limited to what only the two of us can think of. We don't read strategy articles on the net. We don't play these games with others so no new ideas are injected into our gameplay. I think we have also established some unwritten rules, or conventions, and we may not even be consciously aware of some of these because we have become too comfortable with them.
• Mystery Rummy #1: Jack the Ripper - A rummy-like card game for 2 to 4 players, but I think it's best with two. It's a game we can play on auto-pilot.

  

  Mystery Rummy #1: Jack the Ripper

  
  
• Carcassonne - Our first spouse game. However we did play this with many of our friends in Taiwan. It was a big hit with them.
• Agricola - There was a period when we played this heavily.
• Ticket To Ride and games in the series, but not including the card game (which I own) or the dice game (which I don't).
• At the Gates of Loyang - I was a little surprised by this entry. It must be the cute components...
  

  At the Gates of Loyang

  
  
• Power Grid - 2-players is far from the best way to play, but we've done quite a few 2-player games. I own many expansions, and I'm glad I've played every single one at least once.
• Mystery Rummy #4: Al Capone and the Chicago Underworld
• Hacienda

Shee Yun

Elder daughter Shee Yun is 9, and has played 127 different games. There are four cooperative games on her list. I wonder whether she really does like them, or I just happen to have introduced many such games to her.

1. Escape - We played a lot of this last year.
   

   Escape

   
   
2. Forbidden Island - I don't own this. Our plays were at Meeples Cafe.
3. Love Letter
4. Machi Koro - I should consider getting a copy. We are still playing the copy Allen lent us.
5. Samurai Spirit - She only played this for the first time recently.
6. Robinson Crusoe - She has played a few times, but it has been a while since we last played.
7. Zombie! Run for your lives! - I was surprised by this. Perhaps it was because I didn't like this much, so I didn't expect it to turn up on her list.
8. Cloud 9 - Also played at Meeples Cafe.
9. Tales of the Arabian Nights - We have not played this for a long time. She says she wants to play again.
10. At the Gates of Loyang - When she was much younger I invented simplified rules to play it with her. Now that she is older, we can use the proper rules.

Chen Rui

Younger daughter Chen Rui is 8, and has played 107 different games.

1. Machi Koro - This is probably the children's favourite game this year.
   

   Machi Koro

   
   
2. Mat Goceng - I quite like it, but too bad my regular kakis (fellow players) don't fancy it.
3. Dixit - Our copy at home was a birthday present for her.
4. Love Letter - During the Chinese New Year break I persuaded my mother to play with us. I said it was quality time with her grandchildren. She was reluctant and said our games were too complex, but I managed to convince her to try it out. We had great fun and quite a few hilarious moments.
5. Pickomino
6. Uno
7. Pandemic: The Cure - Chen Rui played this for the first time this year. I didn't expect this to be on her list. I thought she found the rules explanation and the gameplay too long, too complex, and boring. She seemed impatient when we played.
8. Samurai Spirit - I was rather surprised by this too, especially when it beat the next two entries, which I know she likes. I had thought she wasn't particularly interested in this game.
9. Spot It - She has played quite many games of Spot It.
10. Chicken Cha Cha Cha - She often asks for this, but I wonder whether she is starting to outgrow it.