End of Year & Top 100 (2025)

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100 —

2023 #83
2024 #45

I’ve played this one off and on over the years, but without ever getting particularly far into a campaign. It’s essentially another d20 system, but with a few new ideas, and cutting out a lot of stuff to make a more streamlined system. It does, however, lose a lot of character customization and interesting combat tactics (though, depending on your d20 game of choice, you still might not have much either). It’s still a really good entry into solo role-playing, but it has been completely outdone by a new one.

99 — Concordia

2022 #35
2023 #71
2024 #70

The continued fall for this classic. It has basically become my responsibility to choose this for game day in the group, so it’s not something that gets played much. But I love the economy, the card play, the scoring, the spacial connections on the map. It’s still one of the greatest that does a lot with little. I wish more of the modern Euros took lessons from Concordia instead of trying to see who can make the biggest, most complicated game.

98 — London (Second Edition)

2022 #51
2023 #33
2024 #37

Didn’t get this to the table this year, but still a great economic card game with an interesting twist on engine-building where you dismantle and replace parts of your engine. Also love the push and pull of those poverty cubes. Do you manage them or just hope someone is worse at them than you? At some point, I might try out a fan-made solo mode.

97 — Pandemic: Fall of Rome

2022 #72
2023 #78
2024 —

It fell off last year, but there was quite a lot of movement in the lower numbers of my rankings, and this was one that slowly came back into the top 100. We played some other Pandemic games this year (sadly, not Fate of the Fellowship), and while I enjoy the system overall, this is still the top for me. But given how some of the concepts of this one is in FotF, in addition to being set in Middle-earth, I feel like FotF will replace this when eventually I get to play it.

96 — Ra

2024 #96

After making a few adjustments to the list this year, Ra ended up right back where it was last year, which is actually a move up, considering all the new games entering the list this year. Ra is such a clean auction game with a lot of push-your-luck with the tiles and opponent bids, which is a pretty unique combination. Sometimes, the tile draws ruin what could have been a big turn, but it’s such a quick game anyway, and there’s no shortage of exciting or dramatic turns.

95 — 7 Wonders Duel

2022 #59
2023 #66
2024 #78

I love the tight back and forth drafting and comboing in this one, and the expansions are great, adding wildly different new systems to shake things up. I certainly won’t say no to playing it, and even once considered getting my own copy, but that said, this has been thoroughly defeated by that other game using this same system…

94 — Mythos

2024 #53

This old CCG was actually new to me last year. I didn’t buy a lot, just some starter decks and one small lot of cards, enough to make a functional deck for playing solo. I haven’t bought more yet, but might get a bit more for deck variety, but they actually made a handful of sets with different themes and locales. I think I prefer the old Cthulhu games where it was more about survival and story, less about guns blazing action. I don’t want to mow down the monsters, I want to be on the constant run from them. Mythos does a surprisingly good job of capturing that feel and letting you explore Lovecraft’s world, seeing the sights and meeting all sorts of characters. Feels like a simple RPG as a card game.

93 — Bitoku

2024 #88

This hasn’t yet gotten back to the table since last time, but I was surprised how well the game has stuck with me: the card play, the huge board full of places to interact with, bits of set-collecting. Sure, it’s in that style of modern Euro I was complaining about earlier, but certainly not the most egregious example of it. It could have used a bit of streamlining, but there’s still a really good game in there.

92 — Space Hulk: Death Angel – The Card Game

2022 #34
2023 #47
2024 #84

The classic—dare I say golden child of the silver-line series—solo game. Sure, it can be played co-op, but it’s one of the early great solo games. Grab a team of space marines, throw them into the blender of Tyranid genestealers. Don’t worry about the dice; they’ll never roll the result you need. Complete the final objective, or, more likely, die horribly well before reaching the objective. Now that FFG has announced a plan to use crowdfunding to bring back classic OOP games, I wonder if this might return with a new theme, since they broke up with Games Workshop a long time ago.

91 — Mansions of Madness: Second Edition

2022 #46
2023 #98
2024 #34

As expected, this one has dropped once again. It can be pretty tough to get back to the table when most scenarios are clocking in at 3+ hours. My brother is also not overly fond of the puzzles in the game. But I really enjoy the mix of exploration, story, mystery, and puzzles (when the rules for them make sense). It’s a bit more action-oriented than I’d prefer for a Cthulhu game, but nowhere near as bad as a certain few out there that I’ve not played. But it also now has to compete for the table with another app-driven adventure game from FFG (with a setting I much prefer)…

Top 100: 90–81
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