End of Year & Top 100 (2024)

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60 — Earth

2023 #73

Still beating the pants off of Wingspan for me (though both are in my top 100). Earth is still incredibly satisfying, but it’s a little crunchier than Wingspan while still playing in a very reasonable amount of time. One of these tableau-building card games, however, managed to top Earth…

59 — Lost Ruins of Arnak

2022 #21
2023 #44

Despite the drop, I’ve enjoyed it more in our most recent play. The research track is still the part that bugs me the most, but I appreciate that it’s something they’ve tried to address. But the game, overall, is just a lot of fun. If the game offered multiple paths to victory, this would be a lot higher up.

58 — Everdell

2022 #30
2023 #56

Everdell was starting to get a bit stale for me, and I thought it might not make it on the list this year. Each game felt nearly the same. But we recently added the Newleaf expansion to the mix and it absolutely saved the game for me. Much greater variety, more interesting scoring opportunities, and just more things to do. And the new cards interact with old ones in very clean ways without feeling like they replace the old ones.

57 — Dungeons & Dragons: 5th Edition

2023 #76

I have not looked into the new D&D yet, and it’s been quite some time since I last played 5E. This is on a growing list of RPGs I’d like to play more of, but time is such a limiting factor. One of these days, I’ll have to try and at least commit to a solo campaign. I’ve dabbled in solo RPGs many times, but they’re difficult to keep going for me. They exercise the same parts of the brain I use in my writing, and it’s much more important there than in gaming. That’s the benefit of gamebooks; I don’t have to come up with anything myself.

56 — Fleet

2023 #29

A bit of a drop, but it’s been a while since we last played, and we’ve not yet tried any of the expansions. I’ll probably give the solo mode a try soon too. It’s such a different game than we expected when we first played, but it’s really smooth once you get the hang of it. It has a very interesting ebb and flow to it and really cool abilities from your licenses.

55 — Fire & Axe

2022 #16
2023 #39

A continued drop, but I still really enjoy the game. Having expanded my experiences of different genres, it’s interesting that Fire & Axe is a unique crossroads of Euro boardgame and minimalist wargame. And I have learned that I have a taste for games that have a bit of that old-school wargaming DNA; it just adds that extra bit of theme.

54 — Great Western Trail: Argentina

New in 2024

Wow. Back when we first played Great Western Trail years ago, I was incredibly lukewarm on it. It was ugly, dry, and totally themeless. Second edition made some improvements, and the expansion made even better improvements. Then we tried the new versions, and of the two, Argentina is my favorite GWT. I also really enjoy New Zealand. These two just feel far more complete and robust compared to base game GWT. It’s kind of strange to see this here given my experience with the original!

53 — Mythos CCG

New in 2024

I spent a lot of this year exploring old CCGs that I had missed the boat on. Mythos is one of the very old ones from ’96, and it shows (for better or worse). While a lot of the art is… of the time in the most unfortunate ways possible, the design is also very different and explores the Cthulhu mythos in a unique way. I’ve only played it solo so far, but it’s a pretty smooth solo experience that tells a fun story. I don’t know if I’ll be getting into it too much, but it’s been a lot of fun to get into this year.

52 — Splendor: Pokémon

New in 2024

Splendor is a good if completely themeless game, but the Pokémon version is much better. It keeps the clean design but improves it with an evolution mechanic that greatly improves the theme (which was already better to begin with), and replaces the noble tiles with rare and legendary pokémon that have powerful bonuses. This really elevates Splendor for me.

51 — Dorfromantic: Sakura

New in 2024

I wasn’t expecting this to make it into the top 100, and it may have some strong recency bias (my most recently played game). But it’s very satisfying. It starts out as very simple tile-laying, but as you progress through the campaign, you unlock modules that increase the complexity. I’m only on box 2 so far, but I cranked out a few games in one sitting, it was just so quick and fun to play.

Top 100: 50-41
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

5 thoughts on “End of Year & Top 100 (2024)”

    1. It’s mostly the rules that are listed in the rulebook, but there are a couple of extra variant rules in the Wizard’s Companion (including how to generate a point threshold for winning). It’s very easy to run.

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