Top 100: #25 Spirit Island

Another cooperative game makes this list - although this one is a bit heavier than some of the other cooperative games we enjoy. All of the players are spirits that have long protected the indigenous population of Spirit Island when invaders come to exploit the island. Your goal as spirits is to impede their progress until they are too afraid to stay on the island. With this interesting and unique theme already gives it lots of bonus points!

Every spirit available, and there are lots, plays a little bit differently in how they defend the population. Some are simpler spirits that use the nature around them to attack and drive off the invaders. While other spirits use nightmares to simply scare the invaders away, driving them away in terror. But the end goal for all of the spirits is the same to save the island from those invaders.

When you take your turn you pick one of your growth powers. All of them are pretty similar but they try to make them match the theme of your spirit. One of the best ways to help the island and its inhabitants is by placing your presence on the island. The cards that you play each turn more than likely influence regions where you have presence or next to them. Also when you place your presence down you uncover more of your player aid. Each time you uncover your player aid you get more and more powerful on your turn.

Similar to other cooperative games after you take your turns the bad stuff gets a turn. The invaders start to encroach farther and farther inland. You do have knowledge of some of the movements they will make as the cards cycle through the evil actions. The victory conditions chance based on how much fear has been caused by the spirits. The longer you last the easier it can be to claim victory.

The asymmetry of the different spirits adds some terrific flavor of this game. So combining some great theme, game play, and art makes Spirit Island one of our favorites. Because of the difference between the spirits it can be a little hard to start off but if you like a good meaty cooperative game you should definitely give Spirit Island a try! We would even help you learn this if you want to play this at Platypus-Con!

Top 100: #26 Starfall

Sometimes all you need to make an enjoyable game is just a few simple choices. In Starfall, when it is your turn, you only have 3 choices you can do with your one action. Those three choices are putting out a new disc into the sky, decrease the value of one of the discs already in play, and then lastly you can use your stars to buy one of the available discs.

Each of the discs have different spacey elements shown that score different. If you get lots of comets each of them slowly grows in value. You can get some planets for moons but each moon has to have a planet. (Evidently no multiple moon planets in this galaxy!) Others are just worth stars that can be used to buy other discs.

While the game has very few choices, deciding which one to choose can be a thinker. Putting out a new disc you want to buy might not last until your turn. The decision between making something cheaper or just buying it is one of the hardest to make. You have limited currency to spend on getting discs so you want to get your bang for your stars, but if you make it cheaper someone might buy it first. It doesn’t help that sometimes if there isn’t room in the sky you could be making it much cheaper than it already was.

Starfall’s simple choices that require thought is why it is one of our favorite games to teach and play. While we got this game on a whim it has definitely proved it is worthy to be up on this list. People can start playing in less than a minute and then have the fun of making those tough choices throughout the game. Just don’t ignore the comets - if someone gets a lot of them they can sneak in a victory!

Top 100: #27 Codenames: Pictures

One of the most popular party games in recent years, Codenames and its sequel Codenames: Pictures are a great team based word games. The game doesn’t get as raucous as some other party games and doesn’t expect you to draw or even know trivia!

Each team is trying to locate their agents in a field of cards spread out on the table. One player on each team knows which cards are theirs and which ones are bystanders, their opponents agents, or the spy. On each turn the person in the know gives a one word clue and the number of cards on the table that match that clue.

One by one teammates will select cards on the table hoping to choose correctly. SInce the clue giver can’t make any comments, the only thing they have to guide them is those one word clues. If they get one of their own agents they can continue guessing. A wrong guess ends the turn - unless they pick the assassin then they immediately lose!

The original Codenames uses a set of 25 cards with words on them for the teams to guess, and the sequel Codenames: pictures uses a slate of 20 pictures instead of words. When we first heard about the pictures set we thought they would be generic clip art style photos. Instead they are very unique pictures that give lots of openings for connecting the different cards.

Whether you want to connect words together or some interesting pictures Codenames can be tons of fun for any group of people. Simple rules and lots of laughs over some ridiculous connections make Codenames and Codenames: Pictures our favorite party games.  Our favorite version of this game, the one used on this list, is Codenames Pictures. But if you want there are lots of different varieties now with a Marvel and a Disney version!

Top 100: #28 Mystic Vale

Deck building games have become quite common since the first version of Dominion came out in 2008. Many different designers have made their own changes to those base rules to create new and exciting deck builders. Mystic Vale is changing those rules in a large way by moving away from building your deck to building your cards that are in the deck. People who enjoy deck builders will likely enjoy card building as it obviously has its roots in the deck building system.

In Mystic Vale instead of adding or removing cards from your deck you buy transparent cards that slide inside of the sleeves to increase the strength of those cards. One of the few rules about the ways you can build those cards is that you can’t cover anything up so preprinted information and prior upgrades are stuck in your cards once you get them.

The beginning cards and even some of the improvements have red tree symbols on the cards and those can cause you to lose all of your resources and your turn. So the game has a bit of a push your luck mechanic. When you get yourself ready for your next turn you flip over cards until you can see three of those symbols. If you ever can see four that is when you lose everything for the turn. Sometimes you really want just one more buying power or one of your powerful cards so want to flip over one more card. Will you get the resource you wanted or wind up wiping out for the round?

There are lots of different improvements you can get for your cards. Some let you get more buying power, others cancel out the red trees, and others get you points every time you play them. The game runs until the victory point pool based on the numbers of players is exhausted. After that you total up the points you have between tokens and the points on the cards that you bought over the course of the game.

Mystic Vale keeps the spirit of deck building while never increasing the size of your deck to dilute the powerful improvements that you buy. It is always lots of fun and we are looking forward to where this designer and others take this type of game play in the future. Especially after seeing all of the inventiveness people have had with the deck building system. Mystic Vale’s uniqueness and fun makes it deserve its spot on this list - but it might be replaced as they continue to innovate with this card crafting system!

Top 100: #29 Mixtour

Next on the list is what is probably one of the last abstract games on the list. We do have a soft spot for theme and immersion in our games so it is harder for them to reach the top. So there definitely has to be something special about Mixtour to get it this high up on the list. While it looks very usual on the board the intricacies of how you move and play in this game is really where it shines.

Each player has the goal of creating a tower at least 5 pieces tall with their piece at the top. The game is played best 3 out of 5 so one bad move won’t sink the game for a player. Moving the pieces around on the game board is based on the height of the stack. There are lots of games where the movement is based on the moving stack, but in Mixtour it is based solely on the size of the stack you are moving too. So if you are trying to move some pieces onto a stack that already exists and is two pieces tall - you have to be moving pieces that are two spaces away.

We generally do pretty well against new players before they come from behind and beat us because of how mind bendy the game is because of that unique movement mechanic. It takes a while before players figure out how to twist the movement rules to their benefit or see ways to stop their opponent. One of the main ways to stop them is to put pieces in between some obvious moves. As the other movement rule is you can’t jump over other pieces in play.

The unique strategies and game play have definitely cemented Mixtour on the Top 100, while more thematic games might come out and force it to slide down the list it is too great to fall too far. If you are a fan of a pure abstract games you owe it to yourself to give our #29 a try to see if you can master this unique and exciting game.

Top 100: #30 Kingdomino

Our next game is Kingdomino, a great little tile placement game where you are trying to create your own little kingdom. The scoring, placement, and drafting are all quite simple and easy to grasp but there are lots of choices to be made that make this little game a lot of fun.

As the name would suggest the game has some of its roots in dominoes, that is mostly in the shape of the pieces and the placement rules. When you acquire a tile you have to place it in such a way that that one of the sides is adjacent to a side of another tile are identical. Generally you want to do this anyways as it will help you score the most points.

The way you get points in the game are the number of crowns in a region times the number of squares in the region. So if you have 4 crowns in a region that is 8 squares big then for that section along you got 32 points. Pretty respectable. This simplicity makes the game very approachable for even our youngest gamers.

While we prefer Kingdomino because it has won the Spiel de Jahres it also has a decent number of expansions. There is also another version called Queendomino which is quite similar but they have adds lots of new bits and bobs to make the game have even more choices and scoring opportunities. That game is fun as well but part of the draw of Kingdomino for us is the simplicity.

We might be bias towards games that have a giant version like this one does but either way this game is tons of fun! If you are looking for a game that is fun and relaxing to play or if you are trying to introduce new/young people to our great hobby this one is a bright and colorful entrance to the board gaming hobby. Such a great introduction that it is our Top 30 games of all time!

Top 100: #31 Hanamakoji

Next on the list as we start to get to the real cream of our crop is a great two player card game, Hanamakoji. It plays quite quickly but has lots of tense decisions that need to be made. Almost every turn you will be helping your opponent in some way so the struggle is find a way to help them the least while helping yourself the most.

The actions available to you make it difficult to make sure you get the upper hand because most involve your opponent getting first dibs on the selection of cards. There are only 4 actions you get each round. The two that don’t directly involve your opponent let you secretly score a card and the other lets you secretly discard two cards from the round. The remaining two actions however let your opponent make choices with your selections. One of them you make two stacks of two cards and you get to score one, but first your opponent chooses one to score. The other action lets you pick three cards and you get to score two of them but your opponent first gets to score their choice.

By getting cards you are trying to have the most cards on your side of the table at the end of the round. When that happens you move the scoring marker to your side and you are considered to both have the control of that geisha plus the points she provides. At the end of the round if you control 4 geisha or have 11 points in your control then you win the game. Most games you will play 2 or 3 rounds as you push and pull control of the cards to try to reach the victory conditions.

Overall the game causes lots of hard choices to make, mostly because of how much your opponent gets first dibs in most cases. You try to give them impossible choices or ones too good to pass up and let you have what you really wanted. Because of the quick game play with super tough decisions this is one of our favorites. If we have two people looking for a game this is one of the first we will grab as you can get playing in minutes but have tons of fun round after round. Definitely deserving of the #31 spot on the Top 100!

Top 100: #32 Castles of Mad King Ludwig

Based on King who liked to build lots of unique castles in Bavaria might seem like a bit of an odd theme for a game but in the end it made a for a great game. Players will each be building their own unique castle. There isn’t much in the way of construction rules, although there are some benefits to building in certain ways, so players can wind up having funny stories about their castles once they are complete.

The game element that makes Castles of Mad King Ludwig really shine is how it does the auction cycle. Whoever is the master builder that round (it rotates) sets the price for all of the available rooms available at the moment. There is a number of slots with prices above them so it isn’t completely freely pricing. If a player buys a room they pay the master builder and it is one of the few ways to get more money.

So when you are the master builder you really want to price rooms your opponents want at high prices, but not so high that don’t want to or can’t afford the room at all. On the flipside you want to price rooms you want (you pay directly to the bank) as cheaply as you can but not so cheaply your opponents will buy it out from under you.

Once everyone has bought stairs, hallway, a room, or passed players place their purchases in their great castles. They want to place them close to rooms that give bonuses but not touching rooms that give them negatives. They can also get some special abilities if they connect all of the exits of a movie so that is a sub-goal as well!

This game is moving into one of the classics - as they have made a few games themed in the same universe to get interest from this title. The great auction mechanic is definitely what makes this game shine above others. So if you enjoy auction games you owe it to yourself to see if this new and not yet repeated auction mechanic is as great as we think it is!

Top 100: #33 Rhino Hero

Not all dexterity games are created equal and this is likely the last one on the list because they are almost never the kind of game we lean towards. But Rhino Hero, our number 33, has always been a blast. It is sort of a combination of Uno and Jenga in how its played. You are trying to stack up the cards to run out and win, but you can also win by having the tower fall on someone else’s turn and you having the fewest cards remaining.

Each player starts with a hand of five cards and there is a communal pile of wall cards. On your turn the newest roof tile will have marking for where you need to put some wall cards - sometimes there will be two and other times one. How they are arranged changes as well. Most of the roof tiles also have other indicators showing off their special powers which is what makes the game a bit like Uno.

Some of the roofs will skip the next player in turn order, change the order of play, or make the next player draw a card. But the one that is the most fun is the one with the Rhino icon. That means in addition the normal things that must be placed on the next turn they must also move the Super Rhino! It can’t hit the table after it enter the tower it has to move from roof to roof. Just this tiny little meeple figure can greatly throw off the balance of the tower adding to the tension of the game!

Rhino Hero, or Super Rhino, is a great little dexterity game that doesn’t take much time and is not overly difficult or speed based like other dexterity games. We’ve enjoyed it so much we got a giant version that can easily get to 8’ tall if the tower doesn’t fall during the game. To further prove how much it deserves to be on our list it is also our first tournament of every Platypus-Con as it is a fun and easy way to start up the competitive corner of the event! Make sure to give it a try or even join in the tournament at Platypus-Con to give our number 33 a try!

Top 100: #34 Century: Spice Road

While we do love some of the classic games we've played for years - newer games are generally the ones we play most often. When a new game can get lots of plays in that means it is likely destined to be one of those games we are still playing a decade from now. The next game on our list Century: Spice Road is one of those games. A compact game of building a trading empire is a ton of fun.

Century is also ridiculously easy to teach. While you might not become a master of the game or know all of the strategy of the game the first time through you will know how to play within minutes. On your turn you can only do one of four things; get a merchant card, get a victory point card, play a card, or recover all the cards in your discard pile. Now just by reading this you could almost play the game!

The strategy of the game is getting the best cards to match the ones you’ve previously acquired. If you have a strong ability to make green cubes then it would be best to get cards that use those green cubes in interesting ways. Each of the victory point cards need a different set of cubes in order to purchase it so you always want to be able to make any color of cube. Including the base yellow cubes - we’ve had a hard time getting those once.

Depending on the number of players the game ends after a certain number of victory point cards has been purchased by a single individual. Some of the cards also come with coins that increase the value of those cards. The sum of the cards, coins, and non-yellow cubes winds up being your score. Once everyone know how to play the game just sings along with very little down time between turns and a quick game play time.

We feel this game is likely to be a modern classic especially as it is part of a series so they keep adding on to it or making improvements. Its first sequel has already been released, Century: Eastern Wonders, which adds a map element to the game it didn’t have before. You can either play each game independently or even combine them to make a third game. We look forward to getting the third tile and see what kind of game they are when you put all three together! No matter how you play it we strongly suggest you give our number 34 a try!