Operation Game Night
Travis Smith, Jared Erickson, and Clay Gable get together to discuss the latest and greatest in board games in this weekly podcast. What's hot, what's hitting the table, featured discussions about board games and the board gaming culture, and the primary mission objective- to play more board games!
Operation Game Night
Our Current Top 10 Board Games
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We celebrate two years of Operation Game Night by ranking our current top 10 board games and owning the messy reality behind how those lists actually get made. We also debrief what hit the table this week, then zoom out on why table time, audience, and life constraints shape our tastes more than hype ever will.
• remembering impossible face-down tiles in Wilmot’s Warehouse by building a shared story
• using Wavelength to spark sharp clues and even sharper table talk at a birthday party
• ranking our current top 10 and admitting when “great” games drop because they never get played
• highlighting the designs we trust most right now, from quick teaches to heavy tension
• comparing how we play today, including family nights, solo campaigns, and weight differences
go listen to all those, and then join our Discord and like and subscribe because we're here every week.
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Two-Year Anniversary Kickoff
SPEAKER_00Welcome to the Operation Game Night Podcast. We are back, and better than ever, and we're celebrating our two-year anniversary by revisiting our top 10 favorite games. Joining me as always, co-captain of the ship, Clayton Gable. Clay, how are you doing?
SPEAKER_01I'm doing good. We're really basking in this two-year celebration. Last week we had our friends on. We we really patted ourselves on the back for all our best episodes. So be sure to check that one out if you're new to Operation Game Night and you are like, man, I want to see these guys' top 10 games. Um, go back to last week's episode, hear about all our best episodes, and then go listen to all those, and then join our Discord and like and subscribe because we're here every week. We're talking about board games and we're not gonna stop. So you might as well be along for the ride. That's right. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I seldom go back and listen to episodes that we record because I am always my harsh, my own harshest critic and don't like to listen to myself talk, but I did listen to last week's just because I enjoyed hanging out with Mike and Amanda so much, and I was just smiles ear to ear the whole time listening to it. And then I I went back and I was like, I'm gonna listen to Donuts and Downsizing again.
SPEAKER_01I did the same thing.
SPEAKER_00That episode is phenomenal, it's so good.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, uh I mean we were on one that day. It made me miss Jared too.
SPEAKER_00He brings something to this podcast that like cannot be replicated between the two of us.
SPEAKER_01No, no, we it's just like it's just like sticks that are supposed to be ready to have a fire started, but you know, nobody's got the the flint and whatever makes it go, you know. So we're just sitting there like a couple of twigs waiting to be lit on fire.
SPEAKER_00And Jared is that flint for sure. Uh yeah, yeah. That episode is great because yeah, we talked about the donuts and how many donuts you should or do buy when you go into a donut store. We talked about Mike's downsizing problem, like he needs to downscale his collection. And then I completely forgot about talking about the West Wing, and you go on and on about the West Wing and how good it is, and then Jared goes, Yeah, and they have to deal with those robots, and we're like collective pause, like freeze frame, like what? And then he's thinking about West World, it's so good.
SPEAKER_01Oh my god, yeah, yeah. I I'm glad Mike brought that episode back up because it has nothing to do with board games, but it was uh Operation Game Night at its finest. Yeah, that's
Callback To Classic Chaos Episodes
SPEAKER_01true.
SPEAKER_00But are we ready to jump in and debrief what we have been playing this week andor thinking about this week? Because I have a think about.
SPEAKER_01Let's hear what you're thinking about, and then I'll tell you what I've been playing because I'm a real gamer.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna read you a description of a game, and you tell me what game you think this is. It's an asymmetric game where each player controls a unique ant species striving to survive and ensure the survival and dominance of its colony.
SPEAKER_01March of the ants?
SPEAKER_00It's very similar to March of the Ants. It's also a new game com coming out that at Essen called Microlo Microlonies? My colonies. And I read this description and I went like, hold on. This is the game that Clay drafted in our first board game draft. So I'm a little confused as to why these companies aren't cutting you checks every time they just republish a game that you have designed in our board game draft.
SPEAKER_01I don't know. I don't know. It's it's starting to upset me, though. I deserve some credit.
SPEAKER_00I I think so. I mean, and then there's another one coming out that's like uh at S and it's like a B colony, and it's essentially the same game. Yeah. I that's reductive. It's probably not the same game. With what little I know about these two upcoming games, they seem very similar and they seem very much in the same vein as the game that you drafted or a first board game draft. So I think that they owe some kickback at least.
SPEAKER_01Uh nobody has made what I thought was pure gold, the game you the game you pitched one time, and it wasn't even part of the episode, it was just like a off the cuff thing at the end, which was the dungeon crawler themed around a toddler crawling through a house and dealing with and dealing with the struggles of being a toddler.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like the rug rat's dungeon crawler.
SPEAKER_01Yes, oh my gosh, I think that's genius. And uh, we expect if you hear if you're listening to this publishers and you do that, just at least mention us, maybe get us a couple um followers, subscribers. Tell you what, yes.
SPEAKER_00No money required. You put an Operation Game Night podcast logo on the box. We'll call it even. How about that?
SPEAKER_01There you go. All right, you heard it here. Uh, so is that what you've been thinking about?
SPEAKER_00That has been what I've been thinking about. I've been kind of like looking forward. That was not English, that is what I have been thinking about, Clayton. Uh, because Essence coming up soon, and I have FOMO already, and uh I just came across a couple of games that stuck out as like you know, interesting and or uh unique and uh things that we have already talked about before. So yeah, more theft is what you came across. Yeah, I came across some some IP theft, yeah. Some yeah, okay. Uh I feel
Essen FOMO And Game Lookalikes
SPEAKER_00like you've played some games. Why don't you tell me about the games that you played?
Wilmot’s Warehouse Memory Magic
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah, I would love to, Travis. So I played Wilmot's warehouse. Oh, nice. So this game is wild. All right. It you wouldn't believe it's possible. So in Wilmot's warehouse, you the theme of it is you are warehouse workers and you're trying to store all these things in the warehouse in a way that when the customers come, it's easy for you to find the things and give it to the customer. What this amounts to in board gameplay is you have this big empty grid, and then you have stacks of seven tiles. Five, you have five stacks of seven tiles, seven for each day of the week. And they have these kind of ambiguous looking shapes on them. And you basically play the game by going around the table. Somebody draws a tile off the off the top of the stack, shows everybody, they're like, What's this look like? I don't know. And you have to start in the center of the warehouse and they say, Well, this looks like a golf ball. All right, they put it down there. The next person pulls the next thing off the stack, and they're trying to make connections, right? Because now that golf ball thing is face down. You're never gonna see that again. You have to remember there's gonna be 35 face-down tiles on this board at the end of the game, and you have to remember where each one of them is. It sounds impossible, and you think there's no way. Um, next person draws one, they're like, Oh, this kind of looks like a hat. Oh, this is the hat that I wear when I'm golfing. Okay, so it's next to the golf ball. And then you keep going like this, and you're kind of building out this story or these ways to arrange things in the warehouse so that when it comes time, at the end, after you've placed all these things, you just divvy out these like 150 customer cards and you just rifle through them and you're like, oh, I remember where that one is, I remember that one is, and you slap them on top of the board and you try and get this done as fast as you can and as correct as you can. Yeah, and then you know, you just kind of get scored on how quickly you did it and you get penalized for the amount of incorrect placements you have. But I played this with my kids and wife, and we did pretty darn good for you know a nine and an eight-year-old and a woman that didn't want to play. So it was uh it was a fun time. We didn't play with, you know, they add rules. So on the Monday, when you place the first five tiles, you you do what I said. You look at it and you say something, you place it face down, everybody sees what it was. But then when you go to the next days, you're supposed to introduce these like rules that make it a little more complicated. Like maybe the person who's placing it can't see it, and everybody else has to, you know, look at it and say what it is, or or vice versa. Like only the person who is placing it has to describe it and place it, nobody else gets to see it. So it you're supposed to do this, but I was playing with my kids, so I wanted to just have a more beginner-friendly version of it. But yeah, this game is seriously like a magic trick that you just have to play to believe that it's possible that you could ever you could ever do this because you tell somebody that you're gonna place these 35 tiles and you're gonna remember where every single one of them is, and you pretty much do. And it's just the power of a story, right? It's such a cool, it's not a game I'm gonna play all the time, but it is a cool one to bring out and just kind of like wow people with once or twice, you know.
SPEAKER_00Have you ever played this? I have. I I own it. Um, we played it maybe last Christmas or something. Yeah, same same exact reaction. Like, oh my god, there's no way we're gonna remember all 35 of these tiles, and then you get every single one correct, and they're like, Holy cow, how'd that happen?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, it's seriously, yeah, it's it's it's just magic. But yeah, so that's one game I played this week. Another
Wavelength At A Family Party
SPEAKER_01one, we're in lighter fair. I played some wavelength again. Nice. So took uh my dad's birthday was this week, and we hosted a little party for him. And since it was our house, you know, obligations are that you're gonna have to play a game if you come. And my dad's more of the party game type. So, you know, I since this is birthday, I allowed party games at the table. I'm not anti-party game, I just I prefer others. So we played wavelength, and that was again a good time. You know, none of these things are gonna make me stand up and jump for joy. It's just, you know, trying, it's the conversation, right? And wavelength, you got this big wheel, it's got great components, and this is another CMYK game. So we had a CMYK week at my house. Um, but yeah, wavelength has this big like dial wheel, and you get a thing that a card that says like strong or weak, and like one end of the wheel is strong, the other end of the wheel is weak. And when you have one person like spins the wheel and reveals where the where the scoring sweet zone is, and that's where you're trying to give a clue that gets your team to kind of move the dial to exactly where that sweet spot is. Only you know where that sweet spot is. So you see that, you close it, and then you give a clue, and then it's up to your team to be like, okay, he gave himself as a clue. I think he thinks of himself as very strong. Let's crank that dial all the way to the strong side. He's probably, you know, or and whatever. So you it's all about the conversation and seeing how it goes. And we we collectively, both teams that we were playing with were just in sync so well. I've never seen it. I mean, almost every time we revealed the the thing was in a three or four, which are the two highest scores. Like you get four points if you hit it like dead on, and then three if what you're on either side of that, and then you can get two or one if you're further off. And more than two times on each team, it was in the threes or fours, which was awesome. And I don't know if any of our reveals missed it completely. Wow, which was crazy. So yeah, played some wavelength.
SPEAKER_00Excellent. A little lighter fair, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Lighter fair, it's a light week, you know. We I had I had a big week the week before. This week's been light, but it's been fun.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I don't want to leave you hanging with the debrief because I just didn't really get a lot of games played. We were out in the field, and I thought I was gonna be able to have some time to play some games, and I did not. So I have just been thinking about games today and listening to our own podcast like a narcissist.
How We Built Our Top 10
SPEAKER_00But are you ready to jump into our top 10?
SPEAKER_01I think that would be a good idea because I don't have much else to say. Okay, all right, let's do it. Mission objective. We're doing our top 10 games as of right now, and this is this is exciting. I will caveat this by saying I I'm up in the air. Like this the method, the methodology here. I started on Pub Meeple, and I was like, this is stupid. Like, I I have I have a gut feeling of what these 10 games are. I don't need to go through this exercise of clicking which game I'd rather play 355 times or whatever it is. So I just kind of took a stab at it. And and up until this moment, right now, there's like games I'm like, oh man, that should be on here. I'm questionable about the ranking, but these are all great games, and these are these really highlight the games that I'm excited about now, have been great in the past for me. Yeah, and just that's kind of where I'm at with it, Travis. Well, that sounds like you had a pretty similarly uh disjointed methodology.
SPEAKER_00I did, I did. I went back and I revisited uh last year's top 10, and as I listened to it, I was like, oh yeah, at the time, like this is a time capsule for where I was at in gaming. And I sat down and just kind of like threw some stuff on paper. I started writing down games. I wrote down any game that I had talked about this year, which are the ones previously are gonna stick around, which ones are gonna drop off. Are there any new additions? Uh, I kind of waited more towards in-person play than um digitally. Like last year I had distilled on my list. Uh, and I have still never played that uh in person, but I like it digital, I think it's pretty good digital, and hopefully that uh new distilled spirited, like the card game, to help uh alleviate some of that length problem for in in-person play. But yeah, uh we talked about a lot of games this year, and I just kind of like took a stab at it. I also don't believe strongly in any sort of order of this list. I mean, they give it from 10 to 1, but like you could probably swap a lot of these around, and I would be perfectly okay with it. So we're gonna do our best.
SPEAKER_01We'll we'll do our best. And if you've listened to Operation Game Night, you're gonna have heard about a lot of these games a lot of times, probably. I mean we talk about the games we like a lot, and and we try and talk about other games, but you know, naturally these are gonna be there's not I don't know if there's gonna be any huge surprises on here. Maybe we'll find out. We'll see. Let's kick let's kick it
Picks 10 And 9 Hit The Table
SPEAKER_01off. I think my first one might be a surprise here, and that is Ego. Nice. This is a Bitewing release, it's a Reiner Kenizia game. Actually, it's a reprint re-theming, reprinting of Beowulf. I think it's just called Beowulf. Yeah, of Beowulf the Legend. Um, so that came out a while ago, and they Bitewing remastered this thing. This is an interesting one because I've only played it a couple times. I've played Beowulf a couple times as well, and I've just not had the group that has loved it like I do. Like this game, when I think about a game that I always want to play, but I never really get to play because I I just feel like you gotta have the right crowd. It just had it is distilled down my favorite mechanisms. Just like that's the game, and it's like a heavier game. It's just auction and bidding and push your luck for like a 45-minute game experience that just takes you through this this like timeline of it's I said it's like nothing I've ever played before because you just like see this path before you. You see, like, okay, I'm gonna have an auction here, then I'm gonna have a chance to draw some new cards, then I'm gonna have this other different type of auction next. And you're doing all this to try and get points and not offend aliens. And oh my gosh, I just love the gameplay. It's just it's just thing after thing that I love in board games, but it's at 10 because I just don't I've never played it with people that like it as much as I do, and I want to find that group because I think this this could be like a favorite game of mine. Like this could be I could see this being a number one if I had more chance to play it. And it's even weird just to be on this list because I've never had a great play of it, but I know I love it. Like that's how I feel. It's just it's so weird, but that's why it's at number 10 because it's kind of got these mixed mixed emotions in me. Sure. Yeah, yeah. I uh yeah, I like ego. We need to play this. Yeah, maybe we'll play it when we go to PAX. We should that would be that would be my which my wish list right there. It's getting to play ego. Love it.
SPEAKER_00Let's do it. All right, all right. My number 10. I have talked about this so many times on this podcast. It is uh Wonderland's War, um, published by Druid City Games. I this dropped from number one to number 10 this year because I didn't have a chance to play it at all this year, and I tried really hard to push it and we didn't get around to it, uh, but I could not bring myself to kick it off the list entirely. So we've talked about this ad nauseum throughout this podcast for the last two years. So I'm not gonna belabor it too much, but it's got everything, it's got kind of some uh bag building, it's got some strategy, it's got some uh push your luck, it's got a little bit of everything in this game, and I love it so much, and I just didn't get a chance to play it, so it dropped pretty significantly to number 10 from the number one spot last year. So wow, new yeah, you hate to see it.
SPEAKER_01But I this also used to be up there in my list, but I just don't I just don't play it. Yeah, and you and you'll see the the theme of my my list as we go through here, but there's a lot of games that I used to love that you're not gonna find on this top 10 just because they never they never hit the table. And at the end of the day, the best games are the ones you actually get to play. Yeah, that's true. Uh Wonderland's War is great. I mean, it's the table presence is phenomenal. It yeah, like you said, it's just got such a cool mix of mechanisms that just make you excited. It can run long, yeah, and it is kind of a bear to set up and tear down. So God, it sucks being an adult with responsibilities that can't just play with our toys all night long like we want to.
SPEAKER_00I'm really curious to see uh if I can get Wonderland's War duel tabled a little more. So hopefully that can fill that gap a little bit. Yeah, um, but we'll see. Yeah, the art's awesome.
SPEAKER_01What is it, Mandy Tremblay? Yeah, I think so. It's beautiful. Yeah. Number nine, this is a newcomer to I've got two newcomers to the list here for me, starting off. Number nine is Trinket Trove by Game Head Games. Ever since I got this, this has been a go-to lightweight game for me. You are basically it's another auction bidding type game where you are collecting sets of cards. You know, you got all these little trinkets laid out. You have to bid with cards from your hand, so you have to kind of get rid of cards to get cards. And I just love that tension. It plays, you know, 15, 20 minutes. People are into it because of the cute little mice. And I find it so much fun to try and push your luck. Each little thing you're collecting has like a different scoring criteria down the side. So some of them, you know, you collect the sevens, you're kind of taking a risk because you got to get a lot of sevens to get a lot of points. But if you end up getting all the sevens, it's like 200 points. Yeah. So you're kind of pushing your luck, and you see somebody else going for the sevens, and you're like, oh man, maybe I gotta maybe I got bail on this and just try and collect the gems or whatever. But yeah, each little thing has its own unique scoring, and it's just got it's just got the mechanisms I love, and it's got an approachable theme. Artworks beautiful by Sandara Tang. And, you know, our boy Paul Solomon, you know, game head.
SPEAKER_00Gotta gotta give them a shout for sure. Definitely. Yeah, this one was on my short list. It's on my uh honorable mentions for sure, because I played this a ton, especially with my family over Christmas break. You can teach this game to anyone, it's a super low weight, but it's got some really cool mechanisms in there that I think can help onboard people. This is this might be like one of my recommended onboarding games into like the bidding, the press your luck, the kind of auction style. Like, there's some stuff here that you can draw some threads to some heavier games if people really like some of the mechanisms. Trinket trove. Yeah. What do you got as your number nine? Oh boy. You ought to know what it is. It's Castles of Burgundy, up from number 10 last year to number nine this year. The only reason it jumped up is because Wonderland's War, I could not bring it to remove it from my list. And if Wonderland's War is going to drop, then Castles of Burgundy is going to slide up. This game is great. Uh, I play it all the time. I constantly have like 10 games of Castles of Burgundy going on board game arena, and I never get any better at it, but it's like something that you can just make the best decision in the moment and move on with your life. And there's something that like clicks in my brain about uh that sort of tile drafting and tableau building. So castles of burgundy is my number nine.
SPEAKER_01Stone Cold classic there, Travis. I yeah, this is my most played game of all time. So I definitely have a love for Castles of Burgundy as well. We'll see if it's as much as you love
Mid-List Favorites And Big Feelings
SPEAKER_01it. Oh number eight is Mlem Space Agency. This is up from number two last year. I talked about this uh down from number two. Down from number two, sorry. The number is higher, but it's down in my rankings. Um is another Kenizia game, and there will be more on this list, unfortunately. But the reality is I have 60 Kenizia games in my collection. So chances are if I'm playing a game, it's probably a Kenizia game, and they're just so approachable and easy to get to the table that that's where I'm at in life. So I trust Dr. Kenizia to deliver on that promise that the game rules will get out of the way and the player interaction will shine. And that's exactly what Mlem Space Agency does. It's kind of a you're semi-cooperative, maybe you could call it, where you're all these cats loading up on a rocket ship together, and somebody's the commander, and they're rolling dice, trying to get you as far up into outer space as possible. And at every at every roll of the die, each cat on the ship has a chance to hop off and you know, jump on a planet or moon that they might be at. Um, but only one cat can be there. But anyway, it's just it and each cat you put on the rocket has a special ability that can kind of help or hurt the the team trying to get further into space, and it's just so much fun. Like when you when you have the group and everybody's you know all in on getting to deep space because that's the very end of the track, and it's hard to get there, and you you start losing die as you like go further up this track, and that it gets very push your luck feeling. But when you do it, it's amazing. And even though other people are scoring points, I talk about this all the time. It's like one of those things where the moment's so exciting that you're not like it doesn't even matter that it was really great for somebody else. You're just like, wow, that was fun. That was fun to be a part of. So I just love that experience playing Mlim.
SPEAKER_00We need to do like a live stream of this one with uh some of our friends, like play it live on board game arena or something, and maybe stream it up, stream it to Instagram or something.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, turn based on board game arena. This is not fun. Because at every roll of the die, every single person has to make a decision. So as you imagine on board game arena, turn based, it's like, okay, well, now Travis rolled. Well, now it has to be Clay's turn. Okay, Clay, you have a day to decide whether you want to stay on or get off the rocket ship. Okay, Clay decided now. Somebody like it just drags on forever. But real time on the table, it's awesome.
SPEAKER_00What's your number eight? Heat, pedal to the metal is my number eight. This is in the exact same spot it was last year. I got to play this this year, I still love it. The deck building, the kind of I don't want to say press your luck. You're taking on risk when you are taking heat into your engine that clogs up your deck. The only reason that this this is not higher is because there's some games where you just are behind from the get-go and there's nothing you can do to get back, and that feels real bad. Um, but when the race is tight and everyone is you know throwing down those cards, like hoping that their plan of attack worked out and they can execute a slipstream on the backside of this curve and all this stuff, like oh, it's it this game is awesome. And I this might be a little bit of bias because I just listened to our uh what is our World Series of Board Gaming episode where we got to play this with Mike. Um played this a couple times this year just with family and stuff, and it's always so good. I I wish I had more time and or interest in some of the like campaign modes to this and like upgrading your car and and changing the mechanics of the way that you race, but the base game just by itself is so good. So my number eight is heat pedal to the metal.
SPEAKER_01That's so true. I I bought I was so excited about this game. I played it so much the year it came out and it love it. I went and bought the first expansion, and since then there's been like four more expansions, but I've not felt the need to really buy any of them because, like you said, the the base game's just so clean and good, and you know, it gives you the ability to do the car upgrades, but I never even do that. I mean, I just find the the core mechanisms here to be so much fun that I don't need to introduce all that extra fluff. Yeah, more rules is not always better. Yes, less is better. Let's see what speaking of less is better. Number seven, talk about the hotness. We got hot streak in the house. This one just speaks to me so much. It I mean, hot streak is a game where you are betting on these mascots that are running a zany race, and it is as silly as it sounds. Um, essentially, you have like a shared deck of cards that you just flip over and it'll say um the bear goes two spaces, the hot dog fell down, the angler fished went two spaces and swerved right. Oh my god, it ran into the hot dog, now the hot dog's down, he's out of the race. You know, so you you spend like the first section of the game betting on these different mascots, and then you have a chance to slightly influence the race by adding a card to the shared deck. Like, so maybe you bet on the uh the freaking bear, and you're like, I want the bear to go forward, so I'll put the bear card in there. Hopefully, it comes up. It might not come up, you never know in hot streak. Um, so you have a chance to influence it, but then you just all sit back and you just flip cards off the deck and you see how the race plays out. And people yell, people scream, people have a great time. I I love playing this game, I love introducing people to this game. Almost everybody I've ever played this with has been like, oh my god, that was so much fun. Most of the time they try and find it, and it it was out of print for a little while, but I think I think it's more widely available these days. But yeah, CMYK. I like CMYK and Hot Streak. Hot streak is a real winner for me. This has been, I used to be a camel up guy. I like a good betting game, always having one in the arsenal, but hot streak has has soared to the top.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I need to get my hands on this game. I don't own it, and I've I've never played this one. I had I had magical app speaking of CMYK, I had magical athlete on my short list as well because I just had so much fun playing that this year. We played it a thousand times and had like bets going outside of the actual board game. And man, I just love a simple racing game. It's so good. Yeah, no, it's more betting game than racing, but that's okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's a race, you're betting on it. I people get wrapped around the ask axle about that, but it's it is what it is, man.
SPEAKER_00It's the equivalent of it's the equivalent of betting on like the the race that they do at baseball games, where it's like the hot dog, the hamburger, and like the French fries or whatever, and they half the halfway through they trip and they fall over each other, and like yeah, it's just chaos. I love it.
SPEAKER_01It's chaos, it's fun, it gets the people fired up. I have not played this with Jared, but if if I get the chance, that would be a peak moment for me. But have I played this with Jared? I'm gonna have to ask him.
SPEAKER_00I feel like I feel like Jared would not try Jared would not stop talking about this game if he played hot streak.
SPEAKER_01I know. I feel like I must have. Well, let's move on from hot streak and see if you can top that with your number seven.
SPEAKER_00Well, uh, I'm gonna take a step back from uh light betting racing games uh to a little bit of a heavier game, and that is tapestry. I listened to our top 10 last year. This was not on my top 10 last year. This is a newcomer, but I spent the basically the whole year learning this game, and uh, we got to play the World Series of Board Gaming and playing it in person after fumbling my way through it online uh really helped clarify some things, and I have a new appreciation for the systems within this game, and it's so good. Like we talked about this a lot last year on our top 10, but the individual civilizations and the way that they interact, um, the kind of area control that's going on in the middle, where you're building towers out towards the middle and knocking each other's towers down, you're advancing up tracks, kind of picking your specialization or your generalization. And uh every civilization has a different strategy and a different way that they behave, and it fundamentally changes your overall strategy for the game, and it gives it some replayability and it gives it depth, and it gives you you have to think about it before you start just jumping in willy-nilly. You gotta really like plan your strategy ahead of time and be willing to adapt when somebody else starts outpacing you on a certain track. Like, how will I adjust to counter that? So, the more I think about it, the more I like this game. Uh Tapestry by Stonemeyer Games.
SPEAKER_01Tapestry is great, and this is a game where I do like the expansions. I because they add just new civilizations with and and new capital city mats. Yeah, and yeah, I mean, there's so much going on in this game, but it really is not that difficult on a turn-to-turn play. I mean, you literally just pick a track to go up and pay the resources that it costs to go up that track. Yeah, but that what gets people hung up on this game is it's almost as like learning a new language in iconography. Like there's so many different icons, and um, the rule book does a great job of of like having a reference for that. But once you know those things, like I mean, this really is a pretty easy game to get up and going in and have a. I mean, my Mary and I can play this game in probably under an hour. Dang. But then again, we're probably not doing that well because I've heard people score like 300 points in this game, and if I crack a hundred, I'm feeling pretty good. Like, I'm like, yeah, I'd crushed it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I yeah, playing it in person and like getting a in-person explanation of some of the rules that I was missing and some of the iconography uh was super helpful and helped me appreciate the decision that decisions that I was making a little more. So, Mike, thank you for helping me fumble through this one because I have a newfound appreciation for it, even though our game took like five and a half hours. That can happen.
SPEAKER_01Yep, that can happen, and but the table presence is just amazing. I mean, the painted minis that you're putting onto your capital city, Matt. I mean, it it's a looker, it's a looker, and it's you're making me want to play it right now. I might have to, I might have to bubble this one up to the top of the to playlist. We should fire it up, yeah. Yeah, all right.
Two-Player Staples And Solo Epics
SPEAKER_01My number six, new this year. I can't stop playing gazebo. I it's gonna get old hearing me talk about Reiner Kenizia, and I'm I I seriously almost took some of these off because I'm like, people are gonna give me shit for having so many Kenizia games in my top 10. But it's how I feel. Yeah, gazebo is great. Mary and I play this game all the time. It is a you're placing these little dominoes on this shared map, and you're trying to create these nooks to get your little gazebos placed on the board, and it's just so tactical and interesting, and it's very abstract. I don't really normally like abstract games, but the fact that it's just a race to try and get these gazebos out and you're trying to make big nooks, you're trying to get your nooks next to these patios so you can claim them. And then there's large patios that if you claim the large patio, now you get to place two gazebos out, but somebody can overtake it if they get more of their things next to it. So you're kind of defending your areas. When you place a tile, you have to make sure you're not setting the next person up for a nice move. Like I it's just so interactive, tactical, like it feels great. I love gazebo. It's one of my favorite, and it's a two well, it's not a two-player only game. I've just only played it at two players, but um, I'm I'd be interested to see how it plays at three or four, but it's just a it's a great abstract game. I recommend this to anybody. Like it's simple to learn and just a ton of fun.
SPEAKER_00I just wish it had a better playmat.
SPEAKER_01The playmat's fine. All right. The if the it came with a cloth mat, and I will say, do not if you buy, if you buy this, bear buyer beware, you're gonna need the fancy uh bake lake or whatever type of tiles they are. They are nearen. Oh, the uh the big chunky tiles. Yeah, the big chunky tiles. It'll come with cardboard tiles that just do not even sit on this cloth mat, like they just get blown with the wind. Um, but if you get the upgraded tiles, you know, they sit on there nicely and it works. But yeah, that's that's my only complaint about gazebo, but it can't keep it off my top 10 because I've just been loving this since it came out. And Mike, shout out Mike, you're getting a lot of airtime here. Um, you're the one that told me about this, and you told me it was so good. And I was like, freaking Mike, always pointing, getting my wallet shook down. So that's my number six, Travis.
SPEAKER_00All right, well, my number six uh is Hoplomacus Victorum, and the more I think about this, the more I want to swap this out with something like Star Wars deck building game or something lighter. Um, but this game really tickled my fancy this year. It's kind of a campaign solo-only game uh based on Hoplomacus, um, which is a kind of gladiatorial combat game from Chip Theory. And this solo only is a campaign where you are going through and fighting off um kind of Roman deities andor Roman uh mythological creatures and stuff, and you are leveling up your character. I am kind of soft on the positioning of this one and whether or not this deserves to be number six, but I really enjoyed playing this one this year, and I want to get back to it because there's a lot of replayability in the characters that you choose and the way that you choose to level them up and progress to the story. Um, and I just didn't have time to make it through all the playthroughs. So this one will be coming out soon, so I can play through it again now that I have time to set it up in my basement and just leave it there in perpetuity. So yeah, my number six, my soft number six is Hoplomacus Victorum, could be swapped with Star Wars the deck building game.
SPEAKER_01Wow, that just that's a very on brand. Having a number six, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I I I finished my list and I and I looked back and I was like, oh my god, like Star Wars the deck building game dropped off completely. That's crazy, especially because they had the Clone Wars, and I think that was Star Wars Deck Building Game was my number nine last year, and I got to play the Clone Wars one more this year, and they had the Mandalorian pack that can be added into any game, and I that game is so good. I can't wait to get back. Okay, anyways, uh that's my soft number six. Hoplomacus Victoria.
SPEAKER_01My number five is another Reiner Kneetzia game, and it's My City, and this was my number one game of all time the year I played My City for the first time, and it's dropped off my list in years since. But I got to thinking this year, I was like, I should not discount that experience. That was such a great time between me and my wife playing through this camp. Simple. It's uh a light, light, you can see it's a 1.98, a light area, well, uh tile placement game, polyomino using the proper terminology. But yeah, you play through, I think it's 24 scenarios, and it's divided up into like eight chapters or whatever. Each chapter's got three of these scenarios, but each one's like 15, 20 minutes. So you can basically play through a whole chapter in an hour. I mean, my wife and I would literally just play one of these 15-minute scenarios a night. And each time you play, you get to put stickers on your board and change things. And it's still like the changes that are made from game to game are such that it doesn't get more complicated, it just adds some new little twist or new something to think about, new objective, new spot on the map that you might need to place your tiles around. You get new tiles that you add to your city. So I'm not gonna spoil it. Um, but I I found this to be uh just such a pleasant time, and it's so fast. I it's not just two-player, I think you can play up to four, and the way it works is you draw a card off a shared deck, and then everybody places that tile, so it's simultaneous, and yeah, it just zooms on through.
SPEAKER_00I love it. I this one like gives me anxiety though, because putting stickers on a board just feels so permanent. And I it gives me anxiety to like place that sticker knowing that I can't pull it back up and replace it later, or like even on future playthroughs, like you can't undo that sticker, and that gives me such like nervous anxiety. I hate it. Yeah, well, you need to you need to play it, Travis. I know, I know, but I have to be in like like the right mindset. I have to just be like, you know what? Doesn't even matter. I'm just gonna place this, doesn't matter, no strategy, whatever. Like I I need to take a certain approach to this game if I'm gonna play it at all.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it does have an eternal mode that you can play after you've finished the whole campaign, or before, I guess you there's no rules, you know, you can just flip it over to the back side of the board and play it like that. But I never felt the need to. I just I'm about ready to go through it again and just and just replay it. I think it's been five or six years since I played it, so I think it I think I could get another great great 24 plays out of this thing. And yeah, that's my city.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, my number five. It's another chip theory game. Too many bones. This is kind of a legacy style game where you are upgrading your little dwarf by chucking a thousand different die dice uh that represent different attack and equipment and stats and stuff, and you are slotting those die those dice into the different dual layer player boards to help build up your dwarf and make them stronger, or your gear lock. I'm sorry, not a dwarf, a gearlock. And uh you're running through about eight to twelve scenarios to progress to the final baddie, and um man, I'm also a little soft on this one. I I I I really enjoyed this game. I did, and I even went so far as to like I found a you know expansion character on Facebook Marketplace and picked it up not too long ago. But man, I this is one that I want to get back to, and I realized that I have two back-to-back chip theory games, but that's kind of been how my gaming life has been this past year, and I've played a lot of solo games, so too many bones, it's up there. It's I the weight it says three. I think that's that's higher than it should be. Um really the the whole thing is you roll a bunch of dice and then you slot them in and you allocate them and you resolve conflict and then you move on. And it's it's probably not as heavy as it says, but there is some like rules on to where and when you can slot these different types of dice, and you gotta work through that. But like I said uh on a previous episode, these solo games, people enjoy sitting with them because they do have these complex systems that you can just sit and analyze and try and make the best decision for the moment. And so typically the solo games that shine and have the lasting impact are the ones that have great depth and um are complex things that people want to understand and wrap their mind around. And too many bones uh might not have the complexity, but it does uh have a lot of systems that you have to master, and I think that's why people love it. So, my number five, my soft number five is Too Many Bones.
Deckbuilders And Trick-Taking Peaks
SPEAKER_00You're pretty soft over there, Travis.
SPEAKER_01I know, I know this is not giving the P. I'm not soft on my number four at all. My number four is the quest for El Dorado, and it is another Kenizia game, but this is the best deck builder ever created. I love this game so much. You are using deck building to race through a jungle, and it is so intuitive. You play a machete card, it lets you move through a jungle space, you play a boat card, it lets you move through an oar space, and you are just racing with your fellow competitors across it's a variable map, so you can set up the map a million different ways at the start of the game, and you are moving throughout the map, then you're buying new cards like a helicopter that'll let you move further and faster, and it goes into your deck. And I just think this is a great intro, and even I mean, I've played plenty of deck builders, but this is the one I like the most because it just feels so intuitive what the cards do. There's not a ton to it, but you're racing, it's interactive, and it's exactly what I want from a deck builder Kenizia game. I I just can't speak highly enough about the quest for El Dorado. I just wish I had the expansions that apparently exist that you can't get here in the good old USA.
SPEAKER_00Who told us that? Nick. I feel like it was it, Nick.
SPEAKER_01Nick told us that, and then we brought it up with Mr. Knizia, Mr. Dr. Kenitzia. Yeah. He said, Well, there might be something coming that can be that. And he gave us that. So I've been waiting. It's been six months. I haven't seen anything happen, but I'll take I'll take Reiner at his word. Come on, Reiner. Something's coming for us in America. Big box, El Dorado big box. Come on, El Dorado big box. I will flip my top. There is no limit to what I would spend on it. You have no idea. You put out a deluxe quest for El Dorado. Um, I'm there, I'll I'll get another mortgage on the house. It doesn't matter. Like that's how passionate I am about Quest for El Dorado. Wow, and it's sitting at your number four. Yeah, I just imagine what I think about. I'm not soft on it, Travis.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, I'm about to firm back up in my takes because my number four is Lord of the Rings. The trick-taking game says Fellowship the Ring. The Two Towers is also great. This is just a re-implementation of the crew with one of my favorite IPs of all time being Lord of the Rings. It's the art is striking, the gameplay is fun. You work through the stories and follow along with the uh the characters that in the books, and I just love this game so much. I thought the crew was great, but putting an IP that I love so dearly on top of it just makes that so much better because the mechanics are solid and the gameplay is fast. And man, I can't say enough good things about this game. I this one's been like really burning in the back of my brain all year long, and I the production's nice. Oh, I I can't say enough good things about this one. If you like the crew, if you like Lord of the Rings, if you like trick-taking games, do yourself a favor, give this one a shot because it is so good.
SPEAKER_01It's not gonna get better. I mean, and and we definitively ranked it as the best trick-taking game ever, a few episodes ago. So that's true. I mean, that that's how you know it's the best of the best.
SPEAKER_00This one might be my lightest game on my list. It might be the heaviest game on my list.
SPEAKER_01That's crazy. That's wild. Yeah, no, this is a great game. I would love to play this more. I've only played through I've played with two different groups now through like the first seven or so scenarios out of I don't even know how many there are, but it's just like one of those things that you got to get the same people together again. Yeah, that's the nice thing about the crew, is that you or the deep sea version of the crew, anyway, is you can just kind of jump in and play through a bunch of scenarios, have a good time. But in this one, it's very linear, you're like you're going through the story, so you want to have the same group going through that campaign together. You don't have to, but it feels better if you do. Yeah, it does feel better. That has been the downside that's kept me from getting this played more. If I could just sit down and have like a quick session with people, I would be, yeah, it would be it would be another story.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01What you got? Number three, may maybe the heaviest, no, it's definitely the heaviest game on my list, is Dune Imperium. And I refused, even though I have not played this in the year. It has been a whole year. I've not played Dune Imperium, but this thing's got the juice. All right. This thing, I I've never felt feelings like I feel when I'm playing Dune Imperium. The tension is palpable with every conflict phase, your deck building, your worker placing, you're competing for the spice, and it all just comes together in this beautiful conflict game that every point matters. You're playing to 10 points, and at the beginning of each round, the kind of stage gets set. They re you reveal what's at stake for the conflict in that round, and you have to decide whether you're going to try and commit troops to the conflict, or you're going to try and curry favor with the different factions and get your points that way. There's just different paths to victory, and you always have these like hidden agendas in the back of your mind. Like, man, if I can I have this intrigue card, and if I can just pull this off and win this combat, and I have this intrigue card that gives me one more point, I'll be able to win on this next turn. But then somebody goes to the worker placement spot that you needed to deploy your troops, and it always just feels like this tense moment, and everybody's machinations are conflicting. It just I've never played a game like Dune Imperium where I felt that tension. Like I'm not that competitive, but Dune Imperium makes me feel competitive. Oh, yeah, and like I really want to win.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I will like I will forever remember that first time we played this at your house. It was like you, me, and Jared or something. And yeah, my I left there and I could not stop thinking about this game. Like, I had like Dune Imperium dreams at night, like that anxiety of like somebody's gonna take this the one space that I need this time, and like yeah, that one stuck with me for a long time. I this game is so good. I wish that Dire Wolf would not have like convoluted the game with like Uprising. I understand that it's kind of a streamlined version, does a few things different, but now it's like what expansions work with which one. It it gets a little messy, but man, the original. I don't we didn't need uprising, the original was just perfect on its own.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but yeah, like if you're listening to this and you're like, man, Clay was pumped about that. It doesn't matter. Get get Uprising if it's available, up just forget about everything else. Play Uprising. If you see this one, the original Dune Imperium, get that, it's great too. Like, I mean, expansions can can make it better, but I mean, you will have great experiences with any of these games. I mean, gosh, if you like to get in each other's heads and you want a little deeper strategy game, like this is my go-to. I that's all that's all I could go on forever. What's your number three?
SPEAKER_00My number three, newcomer to the list, and also a little bit heavier. Uh, the old king's crown. This game freaking rocks, man. I am so excited about this game. It's got bidding, it's got bluffing, it's got um character advancement or like faction advancement. You're trying to control areas or like these regions on the on the on the board, and the the flow of the game is relatively simple to understand, and that you act in seasons, there's kind of different epochs to the game that you work your way through. I want to play this so much more than I have, but this game has like really taken root in my head. Um, and I even like the solo mode, the solo mode they designed in automaton or whatever that you play against that bluffs when it tells you what it's going to do next. And I think that that is super innovative, and I I wish I had more time to play this one, and I wish I had the crew to play this one frequently. But man, old King's Crown, it's getting a lot of clout on the internet right now, and I think people should check it out. There's there's good reason for that. Like, people are discovering this game, and this game's gonna be continue to be successful. I think they're reprinting uh or they're printing a new expansion for it right now, uh, via Kickstarter. So I man, I just want to get back to old King's Crown.
SPEAKER_01This is one of those things like man, if if we lived in the same town again, I know I would be playing this game with you, and I know I would love it, but I just don't I don't have the the the crew. Is it well can you play this with two people?
SPEAKER_00Uh you can. Would you say it's what's it? I don't even recommend know what it's recommended best at. It's probably best at three or four, but I'm gonna look it up. Keep talking about it.
SPEAKER_01I keep talking about it, but yeah, I've got I've got a guy, um Zach, who I've been playing games with, and he he'll he'll play just about anything. We play every other Tuesday, but you know, with that precious time every other Tuesday, I don't want to invest in a suboptimal play of the old King's Crown. But I would, you know, if if it's good at two, this is a game that definitely has been hyped up enough. And with your endorsement, that I feel that I need to I need to see what it's about. If not for journalistic integrity, that's right. As a world-renowned podcaster, I should know what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, plays plays one to four best at three, um, just because you're it makes those auctions, those kind of like bidding uh auctions a bit more spicy. Um, but 2025 Golden Geek most innovative board game nominee, uh heavy game, heavy game of the year nominee, artwork and presentation nominee. So oh, it won best artwork and presentation. So it's hot, it's hot, it's hot, hot, hot.
The Top Two And Number One
SPEAKER_01You know what else is hot, hot, hot. My number two, and that's foundations of Rome. This game is huge and it is simple, and that's what I love about it. I it's been on my list on and off since I got it in whatever year it came out. Um, but but I just played it again not that long ago with a buddy, and it was just one of those things where it reminded me of how great this game is. He's not a board gamer, he's a smart guy, but he saw it on the shelf and it stands out because it's in a box like the size of a television. And he's like, Well, what's that? And I was like, Well, it's you know, Foundations of Rome, it's this cool game. It's like, well, let's play it. I was like, Okay, let's do it. And I hadn't played it in you know, maybe a year, and I pulled it out, and it's just about as intuitive as you would hope. You've got a shared board, again, that's something I I love, uh, shared board, and you're claiming these lots on the board, and you're placing these huge, beautiful miniatures out on the board, um, on the lots that you claim, and they will score you points, or they will gain you currency. So they have different things. You have buildings that need to be next to other buildings to score points, so you're kind of trying to jockey for different positions next to certain things. You've got this population tracker that you um adjudicate at the end of each round, it'll get you points. But it all comes together so cleanly. There's just a market of these lots. On your turn, you can either claim a lot or place a building, you can upgrade your buildings. So it's got some really clever strategic play that you can do, but the rules are so simple that you can get just about anybody up up on this game. And I will not lie to you, if it wasn't for the production, this would not be my number two game. Like the gameplay is great, but yeah, yeah, and I'm sorry, like I'm I'm vain like that. It's not it, it matters, right? I mean, they made Foundations of Metropolis. If that was the only game I played, I it would it would it still be a good game, but there's no way it would be my number two, it probably wouldn't be in my top ten. But the you know, your individual player trays, that just you pull them out of this box, and it's just your tray of the green buildings, and they all have their little slots in there, and you take them out and they're huge, chunky miniatures. To have such love in production on a game that I can teach to anybody is what makes this my number two game. It's gaudy, it's unnecessary, it flies in the face of what a lot of people would want in an entryway board game. They would say this is hurting the hobby, having games like this. But I think it helps. I think that to show somebody a game like this with all this beauty and its relative simplicity. I mean, it might be cost prohibitive, they might not be able to find it. But all that to say, it it you can't you can't take away the production when you are assessing a game that you love, and that is why Foundations of Rome is my number two.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's kind of like Wilmont's warehouse, or that you want to show somebody something cool that board games can do. And Wilmot's warehouse is like the magic trick, right? Like, guess what? We're gonna remember all of these things. Uh, foundations of Rome is like, let's make a piece of art together. And that art is a city skyline of Rome. And when you're done and you look down at your board and you go, holy smokes, like all the little buildings next to each other, it looks like it's laid out like a real city. It just gives you such satisfaction. And especially the engineer and me loves like the city planning aspect of it. So there's a reason like stone spine architects and layers and like architects of amethysts, and even uh like that type of stuff just really clicks in my brain because you you end the game and you look down, you go, I like I made that step by step. We we made this city, so uh I yeah, I love this one. This one's great, but yeah, it's a lot of it's a lot of plastic.
SPEAKER_01It's a lot of plastic, it's expensive, it's over the top, and yeah, that's that's what it is.
SPEAKER_00We built this city. You're number two. My number two is raw. Finally a kinezia. Finally a kinezia, 25th century, floating near the top. We've talked about this one a lot this year. I did get to play it several times this year, which uh is why it moved up so high on my list. Last year it was number seven, this year it is number two, and not to be influenced by others on my own top favorite games, but listening to Paul Solomon talk about his passion for this game and then playing it immediately afterwards and like getting a full appreciation of the systems from like one of the smartest guys in board gaming that we know, um, really helped influence my take on this one. So, thank you, Paul. Thank you for showing me an appreciation of the deep systems within this game and the decisions that we make in this game, and not to push people to other podcasts, but uh the decision space podcast talks about this one a lot, and they have a full episode just on deep diving into every decision in the game of Raw, and that my appreciation for this game has only gone up over time, and it shows because it is number two on my list of favorite games.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm not gonna say much about Ra because it's a garbage game, and everybody knows I hate it.
SPEAKER_00Uh, we have an episode that's tiled titled differently.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um, so if you listen to that episode, you know that we are now at my number one, which is Ra. Yep. Ra is beautiful, and it is like Travis said, the more you play it, the more the elegance of this game. And elegance is a term that's used a lot in board game design, but it truly is like some of the most elegant board game design out there in the way that you have these bidding tiles that everybody can see who has the power to win things when. You're you're the guy that's calling for auctions more often, enforcing those tough decisions because you're you're is that dog really barking in the middle of me talking about Ra? I swear to God, I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him. This is unacceptable. Uh Reagan's he's old, he's it's time for him to go. Uh but anyway, that's enough, Regan's. I know he's excited about Ra. We're all excited about Ra. But anyway, you you're just you're at the end of the day, you're trying to collect these sets of tiles, and just the the system of doing that is just so clean and so mathematical. Yeah, uh, it's just crazy. I I can't say enough good things about this game. It's timeless. It will be everybody uh finds out I have a board game podcast and they say, What's your favorite game? And lately I've been saying raw, and they're like, I never heard of it.
SPEAKER_00I'm like, Well, is that like Monopoly?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm like, I don't know what to tell you. I'm like, it's good. Like it's a auction bidding game where you're trying to collect sets of tiles, and it just has this great player interaction that oh man, raw's great. I I think we've beat that horse. You can go listen to Decision Space to hear more about Raw, or you can listen to my Clay's new favorite game to hear about why um in a longer form detail. But you get the gist. Travis and I both big fans. 25th century didn't hurt it by making this amazing production either. So only a 7.7 rating. I mean, Kinesia just doesn't get the love he deserves.
SPEAKER_00How many Kinesia games do you have in your top 10 now that now that you're at your number one? Let's go five.
SPEAKER_01That's one, two, three, four, five, six. Is that obnoxious?
SPEAKER_00I mean, I had two back-to-back chip theory games, so whatever. Who cares?
SPEAKER_01Well, what's your number one, Mr.
SPEAKER_00Fantasy Flight? They keep pulling me back every time I think I'm free. My number one is Marvel Champions. And for a while this had dropped. It was my number three last year. Um, but the stuff that they keep putting out is so damn good. All the X Men expansions have been great. The mini campaign, the uh synthesoid SmackDown was good. Uh, and now they just recently released um Fear No Evil, which is a Daredo. Expansion that I've heard is also phenomenal, just showed up yesterday. Have not opened it yet. Marvel Champions continues to shine in its uh replayability, if nothing else. Um, the ways that you can customize your decks, build your teams. Um, people build campaigns for this online, like and these super thematic ways to experience this game. We've talked about it a lot on this podcast, but um, you know, the rules do take some getting used to, and some of the proper nouns and verbs and adjectives are surrounding the cards is a bit difficult to navigate. People get these rules wrong all the time. But my primary way that I play this is solo. Like you just sit there, you can multi-hand it if you want, you can play with one hand against one enemy. But there's no wrong way to play this game, and I think that's what makes it great. It is a sandbox game on cards where you can live in the Marvel universe and take down baddies as your favorite heroes. And I think that's the that's the best sales pitch I can make for the game. Infinitely replayable, infinitely customizable, um, and with a depth that you can uh live with and and invest in, and your return on investment only increases the more time you spend living in this world.
SPEAKER_01Yep. You definitely have games that favor going deep and repeat plays. I don't play anything enough. I am uh a cult of the new. I want to play new games every other day. So I just I have not spent the time with Marvel Champions to to get past the kind of uh sharp edges that might keep you away at first. Um, so I I definitely see the I mean I I was hook line and sinker when I saw the Ant-Man card that gets bigger and smaller when he transforms into um Ant-M or you know goes mega size. I'm like, man, this is such clever use of an intellectual property and uh such a cool system, but there are some things in the upkeep phase and what the villains do on their turn that just can be a bit much for somebody who's like, man, I like Marvel, but and this game looks cool. Yeah, uh it might it might keep you at arm's length, but I can definitely see why this would be your number one.
SPEAKER_00But I and I think that the core box alone will give you it could give you 25-50 hours of play, just if you wanted to customize your your decks and and really get to know the systems intimately. You don't have to dive in with all these expansions, and some of them are prohibitively expensive expensive nowadays as Fantasy Flight continues to not produce any more of some of these older heroes. Like I've got I bought Captain America when he first came out or whatever, and he it was twenty dollars. Captain America goes for like eighty dollars now. It's crazy, like just a single pack of cards that are not any different than any other Captain America pack of cards, and they just go for astronomically high values for whatever reason. But get the get the stuff you could get your hands on, experience it, buy the core box. I'm I think they sell it at Target or whatever. Like the core box will always be reprinted, and it will always be a great investment of your time and energy to experience these systems because I think it is great. Um, I know a lot of people that live love Fantasy Flight will argue for Arkham Horror or even like the Lord of the Rings card game that Fantasy Flight produces, which is now back in reprint. Um, those are also great. If you like those IP IPs better, go for it. I have nothing bad to say about those. Um, I just have the most experience with Marvel Champions and uh have spent the most time and money with it. So yeah, uh yeah, uh I can't say enough good things.
SPEAKER_01Well, dang, man, that's our
What Our Lists Say About Us
SPEAKER_01top 10. I think in looking at mine, I think what I could say about those 10 games is that I generally don't like playing the same games over and over again. But those games on my top 10 list are games that I am down to play anytime. Like if I have the people that want to play, I will play those games. And I usually am just reaching for whatever's new on my shelf that I want to like get played, but those games will pass those, and uh they'll be ones that I'll reach for instead of the new game because they're that good and I can trust them. Um so yeah, it's it's you know, they're not you know pick holes in them, they're Kenizia games, but they're they work and they have been a lot of them have been staples for me for some time. Uh there are a couple of new ones on my list, but um a lot of those, like I looked back at the first well, my cardboard and play Instagram account. The first time I posted my top 10 games, it was in 2020, 2021 in September. So five years ago, my number one was My City. Okay, and Quest for El Dorado was my number nine. Okay. So those two have withstood the test time, and some of the other ones on here, like I don't even know what the heck was going on. Like, I had um between two castles of Mad King Ludwig, like what the heck? I mean, I I like that game, but you know, you can tell I was I was still finding my way. I had Feast for Odin, and I mean I I like Feast for Odin, but it these days I would never dream of being in my top ten. But anyway, I thought it was interesting that you know my city and um quest for El Dorado were there, were there in the OG, and they're still ones that I consider today to be great games. Awesome. Well, I have some surprise slides just uh and this really isn't a uh a shocker as we went through the list, but you can see the average weight of my top 10 was 2.01, whereas Travis, you got up there to 2.94. Yep. So you definitely lean a little heavier in your tastes, yeah.
SPEAKER_00We're also like gaming with different audiences, like you played primarily with like spouse and family and your kids. Yeah, and I play a lot of solo games, so yeah, that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and then this kind of just was a an AI research of the different mechanisms that were in all of our top 10 games. So uh drafting was in five of my games, push your luck in three, tile placement in three, um, race in three. So those are kind of I mean, those are things that I love. I don't see auction on here, which what are you gonna do? It's AI. So auction, auction drafting, like those are kind of interchangeable. And then obviously, Travis, you got your solo solitaire, variable player powers, dice rolling, hand management. So I think I think that kind of sums up who we are as game players right now.
SPEAKER_00I don't know if I like, yeah. Too many bones, hoppamakus, castles of burgundy have dice rolling, but I would not say that dice rolling is per se like one of the primary and tapestry, I guess tapestry has a die that you roll. Yeah, but I don't know if that's like a defining feature of most of these games. I don't I think I don't I lean away from dice rolling more than anything else, unless I'm just going for chaotic fun, but I don't know. I don't know.
SPEAKER_01Hey, there's our common ground though, Ra. Yep. We hit we uh we may have had vastly different lists at some points, but up there at the top, when it came down to it, the man number two and my number one was Ra. The man that met the legend, and that's it, that's our top ten.
Over The Fence And Colorado Plans
SPEAKER_01Do we want to go over the fence, Travis?
SPEAKER_00I don't have a whole lot. Why don't you tell me what you've been doing?
SPEAKER_01I will share with you what I've been up to. That's not and it's not nothing. There's nothing. I I wanna go, I'm gonna save my over the fence. I'm gonna give a a time portal to next week and give you a preview. I'm going to my first Broadway musical tomorrow. And I'm very excited about that. So next week in the over the fence, you're gonna hear about that. But otherwise, just been grinding away at the new job, getting up to speed. You know, kids started school this week, so that's been an adventure. They're emotional, but what are you gonna do?
SPEAKER_00We might have a uh cross an in-person episode here soon, Clayton.
SPEAKER_01True. Yeah, I'm heading out to Colorado next next uh month. So I'm fired up about that.
SPEAKER_00Me too. I cannot wait. We should play some games.
SPEAKER_01I can't believe I almost forgot that you live in Colorado now. Like I've known about this for a long time, and it just dawned on me the other day. I was like, Travis is in Colorado.
SPEAKER_00Yep, sure I am. You should come out and hang out with me and we can play some games. Maybe we'll go to Petri's and like we'll maybe let's go like buy a game and play it there in person. How about that? Oh, you're speaking my love language, Travis. Let's crack a pack.
SPEAKER_01Let's uh I'm there, I'm there.
SPEAKER_00Open up a game, settle in. We'll go get some uh donuts and noodles, and we'll sit at Petri's and play some games. Oh, baby. Oh man, that sounds incredible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I don't know what this training course I'm going to is like, but they I might be playing hooky.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Not important. Yeah. Okay, did we do it? We did it. All right. This has been Operation Game Night Podcast with our top 10 favorite games. For our two-year anniversary, I have been your host, Travis Smith. He has been the co-host, Clayton Gable. We will see you next week. We are out.
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