I did the top 50 as a lazy approach to this and don’t feel like I’ve missed out on anything by not playing a game.
I’ve done Agricola and never enjoyed it
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If you ignore my association with anything made by Games Workshop, which thanks to two older brothers goes back almost as far as I can remember, I started playing a lot more board games around the end of 2009.
For games from around that time that I remember being big, I’ve never played:
- Twilight Struggle
- Twilight Imperium (Third Edition)
- Through the Ages
- Arkham Horror (Second Edition)
- Fury of Dracula
- Memoir '44
- War of the Ring
- Cosmic Encounter
- Descent: Journeys in the Dark (First Edition)
- BattleLore
- Le Havre
I don’t think I’d turn down any of them if I had a chance to play them now, but Fury of Dracula is the only one I feel that I “missed out” on - I can count the number of times I’ve played hidden movement games on one hand but I enjoy them when I do. Twilights Imperium and Struggle (which when I first got involved in the hobby I used to confuse!) are the two that feel most like board gaming touchstones to me. Perhaps Through the Ages as well.
For games that have come out since: Wingspan, Terraforming Mars, Scythe and Mage Knight are the ones that spring instantly to mind. A lot of people here seem to be talking about Everdell a lot recently, so maybe add that to the list too.
(I also had fun looking through the BGG top 100 from 2009. The top 3 is as I remember it, the top 10 still looks pretty solid, and beyond the top 25 there are a lot of games I don’t recognise.)
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Fury of Dracula is a game that I don’t want to own myself, but every year or two I’m in the mood for it. Fortunately I have a friend who owns it. (I do think Whitehall Mystery is a “purer” version of the hidden-movement puzzle, and I tend to like games that do one thing well; FoD’s combat always feels like a chore.)
I owned Cosmic Encounter with all the expansions for a while, but I hardly ever got it out.
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I think the 2 that spring to my mind are Twilight Struggle and Mage Knight.
Twilight Struggle I’m not fussed on. Happy to believe it’s great, have no time for 2 player games.
Mage Knight does appeal and when I move on Too Many Bones there may be a slot for it.
Many of the big name games in my head have been disappointments. In some ways the one I feel most aggrieved to have missed out on was Dominion. However that is abated somewhat by Trains, which does have the decency to make the board play important so it’s differentiated but has some of the similar vibes.
I think what I consider to be reverred games would include Twilight Imperiums, Descent, Concordia, Hansa Teutonica, Arkham Horror, Catan, Power Grid, Robo Rally, Campaign for North Africa. Not definitive but also probably dates me getting in to the hobby.
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Keen on a game of MK if you decide to get it
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Whitehall Mystery (as well as it’s older sibling Letters from Whitechapel) is definitely a purer hidden movement game, as finding the hidden mover is the sole objective, and the path they take is always findable. However, if you aren’t finding it, it can feel frustrating.
I think that’s what the other aspects of FoD are there for: to make a player feel like they are at least doing something useful, even if they are not finding Dracula’s trail. They are finding events that can help, or gearing themselves up for a confrontation, etc.
I enjoy both, however little they may get played.
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Yes, the preference for mechanical purity is definitely my personal taste.
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We can bring those to Airecon if you like 
I’d be much better shock and horror value in a thread about classic films that we haven’t seen, but I suppose I should play Tigris and Euphrates at some point…
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It’s on bga
Definitely yes to Yokohama please
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Airecon?? 
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We can bring Yellow and Yangtze which is at least a half sibling
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Of the BGG top 100 I’ve played 28; and of those 28 there are 14 I would willingly have in my collection, but I actually own just 5 of them as I’ve never wanted the other 9 enough to actually buy them.
I’ll generally try most games, so I’d happily play most of the remaining 72 if someone was keen and able to teach – but that number would drop to maybe a third if it was down to me to learn them.
(That all said, I don’t think the BGG top 100 is even remotely close to representing the “classic” games I’ve never played.)
I feel like I’ve substantially gotten past any great sense of bother about not having played some of these titles. I’ll gladly try them in the right circumstances, and it’s true that if I play an older game and love it I’ll think “gee, I wish I’d played this earlier”; and furthermore I have a suspicion that my preferences probably run more towards older classics than newer games and therefore I probably should pursue them more; but in the end there’s no end of good games both old and new, and absolutely no way I can play them all, so it’s better to just try to enjoy the things I know I like, rather than worry about the things I’ve never tried.
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That’s a potentially interesting segue. I’d give most games a try with an enthusiastic champion and a good rules teacher. However, like you, the cognitive load of learning all these games by myself is too much.
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Agricola, sometimes wonder if I would like it.
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Once again, I am recommending the thing I always seem to recommend.
A lot of those popular games have apps which are often(!) a cheap (money, space, time) alternative to just figure out if those are games you would love. TTS modules are often even cheaper but usually one still has to learn the rules …
I have recommended this in other threads and I have played a number of games on apps. It is not always identical to what happens on the table and app AIs aren’t real players obviously. Some games just feel a lot different when played on the app. But the apps give a general direction and usually do a good job teaching the rules. I highly recommend if there is a certain game that has been niggling at you… just to stop the waffling I sometimes find it worth investing the (smaller) price to see what the “hype” is all about. And the size of my digital game-shelf is unlimited.
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Ha! That reminds me of the recent BGG thread where people were arguing that having a bot win wasn’t valid.
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Valid for what, I wonder?
Or maybe better to just not ask…
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Perhaps they meant to write “whine” but made a typo.
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“New advanced AI techniques bring synthetic whining to your solo table!”
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