Podcast #200 - The Top 10 Games You "SHOULD" Play!

Boardgames Shut Up and Sit Down
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So this is the list I might make of “games I think you should play at least once”. I’m not trying to lure in video gamers and I’m not very much in touch with popular culture. Instead, I’m going for exemplars of particular mechanics or styles.

  • Social Deduction: The Resistance/Avalon
  • Push Your Luck: Diamant/Incan Gold
  • Sprawling Space Vagabonds: Xia (I could be talked into Firefly)
  • Coop take your turn then the disaster gets worse: Flash Point Fire Rescue
  • Auction: Modern Art
  • Not Chess: Onitama
  • Deck Building: Star Realms
  • Deck Construction: Ashes Rise of the Phoenixborn (I could be talked into Android: Netrunner)
  • Race With a Twist: Lemminge (I could be talked into Rallyman GT)
  • Board Wargame: War of the Nine Realms
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Agreed – I think it’s important to always consider SUSD’s reviews in that light. I’m an introvert, working in an introvert-heavy industry, with mostly introverted friends, and there is very little chance of me playing a game with the sort of outgoing table talk and atmosphere that the SUSD team clearly have when they play games. So I know that what gets presented in their videos is often not the same experience I’m going to have with whatever they’re reviewing, and I absolutely need to exercise caution if that seems to be a major factor in their enthusiasm for a game.

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Thank you for the offer! I’ll pass (online/async board gaming doesn’t work well for me, I’m afraid), but I appreciate it, and maybe others will take you up on that (looks like you have at least one taker).

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My list would be

  1. Ginkgopolis
  2. RA
  3. Ghost Stories
  4. Concordia (little surprised this didn’t make the SUSD list)
  5. MicroMacro: Crime City
  6. Cthulhu: Death May Die
  7. The Search for Planet X
  8. The Key: Murder at the Oakdale Club (any of The Key games really)
  9. Fantasy Realms
  10. Furnace
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I didn’t listen to the podcast, because I legit don’t want to listen for 2 hours. (I listen to a lot of podcast hence why I’m selective) I thought it’s gonna be some nonsense list but it’s fine. R&B is a bit odd, but not a bad choice. I would go for Wavelength rather than the Mind. Radical enough but Wavelength is less polarising, imo. This list is better than your average “Top 10 Must Play” list from Reddit or something because of how spread out the games are.

Just kidding. I’m concerned on the lack of trains.

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It had never occurred to me that you could play The Mind with a 6 Nimmt deck. Now I have this piece of information I will continue to never play The Mind :laughing:

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I have been trying to communicate this to you without saying anything for a long time.

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There are a couple of extra bits you need too.

One thing I will say about the Nimmt suggestion is perhaps you lose something in the aesthetic. There are better sets of 1-100 cards (The game I think) for the job of subbing in as they’re much cleaner which I think fits better with the spirit of the game, cancelling out all the noise and focussing exactly what’s at hand.

Also if anyone does do the sub thing I’d still recommend reading the rules thoroughly and internalising them rather than playing some oral tradition version of the game. There’s a few details i bet would be missed which again help create the in the zone feeling in the game.

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I think “games everyone SHOULD play” needs a lot of thinking about. I would personally include titles that are Big in the community - if you’re new enough to need a “play these games” list, you’re probably going to be asked “Have you played Wingspan?” at some point. And you should probably know what Gloomhaven is etc (although you don’t need to play it.)

So making a list to include both a variety of mechanics so you try them out AND some of the more popular current games that you’re going to see or hear about, I’d say:

  • The Worker placement / card play category is a mess, because it’s so popular you kinda need to play several of them. I’d say Viticulture or Everdell, but also either Dune Imperium or Lost Ruins of Arnak. (For worker placement El Grande is the classic, but you’re going to see the other four on a lot of shelves and you may as well try them).
  • Push your luck: Quacks of Q is talked about a lot, but isn’t always satisfying on the very first try, it takes a few goes to understand how to compete. Diamant instead.
  • Cascadia instead of Wingspan, but hey, try Wingspan and see if you like it.
  • Railroad Ink, although Hadrian’s Wall seems to be the one that will rise and rise in the rankings, but may be too complex for a first try and put newcomers off.
  • I don’t like The Mind or The Crew, so am absolutely behind @lalunaverde 's suggestion of Wavelength instead. Or if you really need silent trick-taking, Fox in the Forest Duet.
  • Knizia game: if you put Tigris & Euphrates in front of some people they’ll flee the room. Also, it’s very out of print. While I acknowledge that Modern Art is probably better than my choice, I’d say Lost Cities because it teaches you so many 2p mechanics in ten seconds. If you must have auctions, High Society.
  • Quest for El Dorado just because so many folks rate it highly.
  • I… don’t love Pandemic. Is Horrified a good enough alternative to let people play a “control the threats” game?
  • I think “sandbox space game” is a good one, how is Star Wars: Outer Rim instead of Xia or Firefly?
  • Since I’ve spent this whole list ignoring the titles other people consider essential, I may as well make the last choice an App-driven Game just for extra controversy. I haven’t played a bad one of these (although Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle Earth was a bit disappointing given what they could have done with the app). I’d say Chronicles of Crime (1400 or 2400) would be a great intro - moving a phone around to see a crime scene, taking snapshots of evidence but with really great card art and physical presence too. Forgotten Waters wasn’t bad either as an easy intro to apps.
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(On my personal list I would absolutely add Crokinole and A Feast for Odin, but I’m not sure they’re essential for everyone).

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Well, I have played all three.

My impression of SWOR was that it benefited from being the latecomer, and could adapt a lot of mechanical ideas from Firefly and Xia, though there are still major flaws that it doesn’t fix. But like most FFG base sets it was very thin in spite of the price, really a “try it out and see if you like it” set, and desperately needed expansion – as it was, we saw most of the content during a single play through. I haven’t played it since the expansion came out.

Firefly remains a game I feel very fondly about, but after three plays I suspect Xia may last longer for me as it’s a truer sandbox, with lots of different things you can do each game, as opposed to Firefly in which the setup largely determines what you’ll be trying to do in that game, and I think there’s more common stuff that you do every game in Firefly (take easy jobs, buy crew and gear, take harder jobs, go for the mission goals) than in the others.

My feelings on the franchises in general: fairly negative about Star Wars, neutral about Firefly. If someone’s a huge fan of one of them, that should probably be enough to drag them to that particular game.

Xia is about a vague “you” who has a ship; other crew are never mentioned, but you can both upgrade and replace the ship. Firefly is about a specific named “you”, Malcolm or Nandi or whoever, recruiting specific named crew, with a ship you can upgrade but not replace. SWOR is closer to Firefly than to Xia, but you can replace the ship and you only have one or two crew rather than four or five.

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Thanks! I’m definitely a firefly-franchise fan, and have seen both it and SW:OR on the shelves recently, so am currently doing research on where to put my (quite a lot of) money. I had heard the expansion is essential for SWOR, which makes it even more expensive as an option.

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If you want space themed nonsense, then should it be Cosmic Encounter? Very much not everyone’s cup of tea and pretty fragile but if you like it you’ll love it and if you don’t you’ll never want to touch it again!

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Cosmic Encounter and Cosmic Frog both seem to me to fir “weird and wacky but unfair” space game. Then there’s also “serious space 4X”: your Twilight Imperium and ST:Ascendancy and Eclipse.

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I‘Ve played PL:S1, The Mind, Bohnanza, T&R, AFfO & Skull. Haven‘t played Twilight Imperium, Crokinole, Kings Dilemma and Roads&Boats and 3 of those are very very unlikely for me to ever experience unless I find an option to play them online and even then I am not sure I would want to. And even Crokinole is not popular in these parts so unless I buy a board myself…

Cosmic has fallen flat the couple times I tried it. One of my bigger disappointments after buying it on the strength of SUSD and Tom Vasel recommendations. Also not much into Skull. Seemed a bit dull for the same reasons like Cosmic: group barely clicked.

I agree they should have made it clearer what the list was supposed to accomplish.
And whom it was targeted at. Is it an exploration of the depth of the hobby and a list for people who know the hobby well to explore the niches they may not get to see? It doesn‘t feel like that but it also doesn‘t feel like an exploration of the breadth of the hobby to show off a cross-section of today‘s games. More like a mix of those.

My ideas went towards an exploration of breadth first. Depth would be a second very different and more eclectic list. So if I were to make such a list I would first try to define certain categories that I feel should be covered to show-case what boardgames can be like in 2022. I also feel like the games should be somewhat accessible in terms of availability and ease of getting them to the table. My order is random for now :wink: I just numbered them for ease of counting how many I had…

  1. a modern party game: Codenames
  2. a Knizia tile layer: Tigris & Euphrates
  3. a pastoral Uwe Rosenberg: my personal fave is Nusfjord, but I really think it should be Agricola (the latest version is less harsh I hear?).
  4. a great deckbuilder: El Dorado (it needs no expansions to shine and has the added race element)
  5. a legacy game & cooperative game: Pandemic Legacy Season 1
  6. a modern trick-taker & restricted communication: The Crew (2)
  7. trains & economics: I am not the expert but either Brass might be a good starting point for this? Or possibly straight to a cube rails game like Irish Gauge or Chicago Express
  8. a complex card game: Race for the Galaxy (or Innovation).
  9. tile laying meets real time: Galaxy Trucker (also we need a Vlaada game) (this is instead of a dexterity game btw. I am not big on those)
  10. a social deduction game: Blood on the Clocktower (so this is not accessible, but I get to have one crazy pick)

More categories that could be explored:

  1. auction games
  2. dexterity games
  3. engine builders
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Visual-spatial puzzle games? Things like Tuki, Mental Blocks, The Stars Are Right, maybe Realm of Sand and The Climbers to some extent? Might be too small a category to get its own slot.

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I am desperately waiting for For Science to come back in stock… it was supposed to get another print-run late this summer…

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I’m thinking a forum composite list could be a thing

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Might be a welcome change from the pearples choice awards

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I have actually listened to the podcast now and thought it was an interesting and enjoyable 2 hours. Mostly I want to play Roads & Boats now… I do love that Ava brought her experience of anarchist organisations into how they were going to agree (or not) on the entries.

I had quite a few thoughts on some of the choices!

Pandemic Legacy Season 1: I’m a little burned out on Pandemic now - I’d rather play it on the app as a solo puzzle, if at all. However I think playing the legacy campaign was probably one of the best gaming experiences that I’ve had. It was very engaging and different to anything I’d played before, so I could definitely recommend it as an experience.

The Mind: Boy do I have Thoughts on this one. I have played The Mind and can see why it’s clever and interesting. I even think it’s quite fun to watch other people play it. However, my experience of playing it myself is at best “meh” and at worst an actively horrible experience. Quinn’s explanation of what he likes about it (“it’s about body language, it’s about eye contact, it’s almost like you’re becoming the same person”) is the most neurotypical thing. To be clear, that’s not at all a bad, and I think it’s very accurate. From my point of view (as an autistic person, for anyone who didn’t know) that is effectively What Makes My Life Difficult: The Game. I was a bit disappointed to hear it described as a way to filter out people who “don’t understand play”, partly because I’ve tried to explain to people before why I don’t like it, and been told that my reason wasn’t good enough, and partly because that’s a nasty stereotype that gets applied to autistic people. I’m certain that wasn’t deliberate, but it still stings a bit.

So in summary, I won’t argue against people recommending The Mind, because it is different and smart, and because lots of people love it. But bear in mind that it’s not for everyone, for reasons that might seem weird to you but are completely valid.

Twilight Imperium 4th Edition: I really don’t think I could justify recommending TI4 over Eclipse :person_shrugging:

Crokinole: I’ve got a board if anyone wants to try it :laughing:

I haven’t played any of the next 4, although I’d certainly give them all a go:

  • Bohnanza
  • Tigris & Euphrates
  • The King’s Dilemma
  • A Feast for Odin

Skull: best laughs to cost ratio of any game I own

Roads & Boats: I should probably play this, but should everyone…?

I think that if Ava did a list of games that she thought everyone should play, I’d probably want to play all of them :laughing: I did enjoy listening to the variety of different opinions - a good podcast :slightly_smiling_face:

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