80 — Wingspan (2019)
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2022 #56
This one also hasn’t come out again, and this genre of “lots of cards, build tableau, engine-building” has gotten pretty crowded. I enjoy Wingspan, but there are others I’ve come to enjoy a bit more.
79 — The Liberation of Rietburg (2019)
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2022 #28
This one hitting #28 was kind of a miracle. It’s a fun, simple co-op puzzle that plays really well solo. And I really like the asymmetric heroes and the adjustable difficulty. But I wish it had an expansion to increase the challenge a little more, maybe increase the complexity a bit.
78 — Pandemic: Fall of Rome (2018)
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2022 #72
A steady hold. This is my favorite Pandemic, though it deviates from the original quite a bit. It also has a more fun theme to it. Unlike a lot of co-ops where you play multi-handed solitaire, Fall of Rome has a unique solo mode where you run multiple characters with a sort of shared bank of cards. It works really well without the need to handle 3 hands of cards.
77 — Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game (2008)
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2022 #87
I’m still surprised to see it here, even move up a hair, but if someone offered to play this over many other games, I’d play it in a heartbeat. I’m still hoping to find a really good solo mode for it; the one I tried really didn’t work for a limited card pool.
76 — Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition (2014)
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New in 2023
Well, if Scarlet Heroes is too stripped down, the winner is obviously the full, robust version of D&D. The level of character customization, especially with supplemental material, is insane. I haven’t gotten to play it much, but I’d love to dip back in again.
75 — Dead Reckoning (2022)
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New in 2023
Here is another game that I ended up enjoying more than I expected. The card crafting was a lot of fun to get into, and there was a decent amount of things to do in the game. Players all focused on different things. I’m still unsure about the combat, though. We’ll have to see what the expansions do, they sound really interesting.
74 — Eldritch Horror (2013)
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2022 #64
I had expected it to drop further, but at the end of the day, I really enjoy the game and the sense of adventure. It may continue dropping over time, but I still want to get it back out again.
73 — Earth (2023)
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New in 2023
It’s another one of those tableau-building, engine-building card games like Wingspan. I think, for me, the biggest improvement Earth has is how varied scoring is. You can earn points from lots of different things, and it feels like there are more goals you can make for yourself. Wingspan’s round scoring is definitely its weakest element.
72 — Maracaibo (2019)
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2022 #49
I still remember this one very clearly, even though it’s been a while since it got played. But it has a lot of competition in the area of heavy Euros, even others with the same length (slightly too long). But this is one I’d have no problem bringing back out.
71 — Concordia (2013)
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2022 #35
Concordia, to me, is still the poster child of a game that does a lot with surprisingly little. A very solid mid-weight Euro with a really engaging main mechanism (that’s been popping up in other games!). I’d really like to get the expansions to the table to try them out.
Thomas P. King, author and game designer 
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