Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2024 Edition (#50-41)

It’s only been two years, but it’s that time again!

The 2022 edition of my “Top Games Played of All Time” was predicated on my having played just over 400 games.

As of the end of 2023, I had played 534 games in total.

That means it’s time for a new list!

Since I’m now over 500 games, I thought I would expand a little and talk about my Top 50 instead of Top 25. It’s still less than 10% of the games that I’ve ever played, so it seems logical.

It also means I get to talk about more games, which is always a good thing.

How did I compile this list?

By putting all 534 games into the PubMeeple listing engine and doing comparisons.

Over 2600 comparisons!

My fingers were pretty tired after that.

A few notes before we begin this initial installment.

First, many of these games I’ve only played once.

My friends at the Discard Pile podcast recently did their Top 50 and many games that had only been played once or twice were excluded from it because they were just too new to them.

Considering my game-playing, if I held myself to that standard, I’d never do one of these lists!

So many of these ratings could change with future plays.

Secondly, because I’m only at 534 games played, there are many highly-rated games that I’ve just never played. Hell, I’ve only played 53 of the current Top 100 games on Boardgame Geek anyway.

That means you Gloomhaven fans are just going to have to settle for the fact that it’s not on this list.

It just won’t be!

Finally, this list was compiled on January 1, so doesn’t include anything I’ve played this year (which is currently just from OrcaCon, but that’s 12 new to me games right there!).

In a welcome change from the last two times I did this list, no well-deserving game is being left off of the list because I played it shortly after compiling it.

As we begin, let me just say that there has been a ton of movement since I did this in January 2022.

And long-time followers of this blog will see some surprises, I’m sure.

Big ones.

One thing that’s not a surprise?

Lucky Loop is still at the bottom, at #534

With that, let’s begin the first ten!

50) Trekking Through History (2022 – Underdog Games)

Designer: Charlie Bink

Artist: Eric Hibbeler

Players: 2-4

2022 Rank: New (hadn’t played)

Trekking Through History was first played by me at SHUX 2022.

It’s a great set collection, card drafting game where players are time travelers trying to experience the greatest moments in history.

But the trick is that they have to go forward in order before coming back to the “main base.”

You can’t go back to 1776 to see the Declaration of Independence signed and then jump directly to 1620 to watch the Mayflower land at Plymouth Rock.

You have to go home first!

You score the trips you’ve taken based on the number of cards you collect in each trip before starting a new trip.

The game has a really interesting time mechanism where collecting a card costs time and you only have 12 hours in a round.

You are collecting the tokens based on where the card is and what the card has (above, the 1472 card has both a red token and a yellow token) and trying to complete sets to trigger bunches of victory points.

I enjoyed this one so much the first time that we played it again later in the day (and we played it right this time!).

I’ve since played it again, but it hasn’t hit the table too often.

Which is too bad because it’s a really cool game.

Some luck in how the cards come out, but it has some surprisingly strong choices for a card drafting game.

And that’s why it breaks into the Top 50 at its first opportunity.

49) Heaven & Ale (2017 – Eggertspiele)

Designers: Michael Kiesling, Andreas Schmidt

Artist: Christian Fiore

Players: 2-4

2022 Rank: 132

This one kind of surprised me, where it ended up.

It made a massive jump (unlike in 2019, I actually saved all of my 2022 rankings) and I’ve really only played it one more time since its last ranking.

Again, at SHUX 2022.

Heaven & Ale has what Tom Vasel calls the “Ratchet” mechanism where you can move your action token as far along the track as you want to do an action, but you can’t move backward. When you reach the end, you’re out of the round.

It’s ostensibly about monks making ale, and the scoring mechanism is just really complicated.

When you land on a space, you buy that token and place it on your board.

You can place it on the light side or the dark side of your board, and then when you choose a scoring space, the tiles will either give you the resource or money depending on which side it is on.

It’s all a bit confusing to me.

Which is why I suck at this game.

You can also hire monks by landing on their space, and placing them out will give you benefits if you land on the Monk scoring space. Those monks activated that way will trigger the tiles around them.

If that all sounds complicated, the final scoring is even more complicated.

I’m not even going to try to explain it.

Even though I have trouble actually figuring out how to do well in the game, that second play at SHUX made me really interested in this game.

I haven’t played it since, but that’s not for lack of wanting to!

48) Lorenzo il Magnifico (2016 – Cranio Creations)

Designers: Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli, Simone Luciani

Artist: Klemens Franz, Andrea Kattnig, Andreas Resch

Players: 2-4

2022 Rank: 54

This game is so fabulous, and it’s also an example of something that looks weird because of my change from Top 25 to Top 50.

It was nowhere near me actually writing about it in 2022.

This year, it makes the Top 50 even though it only moved up 6 spots.

Lorenzo il Magnifico is a card drafting, engine building game where you are purchasing cards to add to your player board, and then hopefully activating all of them to do even greater things for you.

It has a really interesting round-ending system as well, where you are trying to please the church or else you’re going to be penalized.

This can guide what you do each round, even against the engine that you are trying to build.

Or you could just say “screw it, I’m not worried about that” and keep doing what you do.

In my first game of it, the third penalty didn’t matter to me because I wasn’t using those cards anyway.

So I ignored it.

The card drafting system is also pretty cool.

The other very neat thing about this game is that it has dice rolling, but those dice affect everybody. Thus, no mitigation is really required (though it can suck!)

You will be choosing which die to use for each activation you want to do, and those could be high or low.

Of course, there is some mitigation, depending on the engine you’ve built up. Some cards will let you change things, at least somewhat.

It all comes together in a really cool soup (hot soup?) that still mystifies me because I’m terrible at engine-building games.

But I do love them.

Which is why this is still hovering around #50 in my games played.

47) Blood Bowl: Team Manager – The Card Game (2011 – Fantasy Flight Games)

Designer: Jay Little

Artists: Way too many to list

Players: 2-4

2022 Rank: 20

Blood Bowl: Team Manager has fallen quite far, mainly because I haven’t played it in ages.

It’s still a great deck-building game that does give you a feel of Blood Bowl except that you’re not playing individual games.

You’re assigning your players to various matchups each week, and it has a bit of area control because you’re trying to have the most strength at the matchup.

Each player gets their side’s rewards at the matchup, so you do need to decide which side to play your players on.

But the winner gets the rewards in the center of the card.

All in an attempt to attract the most fans to your team, as those are the victory points.

The expansions make this game even better, even though some of the expansion factions are a bit overpowered.

That, and the referee that’s added in “Foul Play” is a bit fiddly and annoying to use (even more so in a 2-player game).

It’s a bit long, especially with new players, but I love the idea of building your team with Star Players that you’ve earned through matchup rewards.

The cheating tokens are ingenious, giving a bit of randomness but it’s kind of randomness that you choose.

Well, depending on the faction. Some factions, many of the players have mandatory cheating tokens.

Those tokens can actually remove the player from the matchup, so you have to plan around that to make sure you still have representation there.

It’s a really fun game, and I would like to get it to the table again soon.

It might actually bump it up in my ranking if that happened.

46) Dune: Imperium (2020 – Dire Wolf)

Designer: Paul Dennen

Artists: Clay Brooks, Brett Nienburg, Raul Ramos, Nate Storm

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

This is in top 10 games on BGG, but I just haven’t played it enough to rank it that high.

I do enjoy the deck-building aspects, and the conflict is a really cool addition to the game that will get you rewards based on the troop strength you can dedicate to it.

It’s an intriguing mix of deck-building and worker placement, as you are playing a card from your hand to enable you to place an agent on a space. That space will get you something.

You’re also trying to gain influence in the four guilds, all of which will give you some benefit when you go to their space.

And getting above Level 2 will get you a point. Ten points wins the game!

Other than the guilds, the way you are getting points is the various conflicts that come out. Some conflicts don’t have points but instead will get you resources or some other effects.

The conflict is based on how many troops you’ve deployed plus swords from your cards. All of your deployed troops will go away whether you win or lose, so choose wisely!

The base game doesn’t have a lot of ways to thin your deck, which can be important in deck-builders.

I haven’t played with the expansions yet, but those do supposedly strengthen that a bit.

I’d like to play with them!

As soon as a player reaches 10 points, at the end of the round the game end is triggered and whoever has the most points wins (which isn’t necessarily the person who triggered it!)

It is a fun game and I can see why it’s in the Top 10.

Maybe if I played it more, it would be?

For now, though, it’s in my Top 50 because I do really like it.

Even more so now that there’s an app.

45) On Mars (2020 – Eagle-Gryphon Games)

Designer: Vital Lacerda

Artist: Ian O’Toole

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: 191

On Mars is another one that jumped really high based on a more recent play, but it still totally surprised me (which is why I think the Pubmeeple ranking engine is really cool…you can be surprised a bit!)

I played this at OrcaCon 2023 and for some reason I just became really enchanted with it.

It’s a Lacerda game, so it’s very thinky with a lot of moving parts that you need to keep straight.

You are essentially colonizing Mars but you have to balance your actions because you can only do actions on the side of Mars that you are currently on.

You can either be in orbit or on the planet (so not really “sides of Mars,” but you get what I mean). On your turn, you can only do actions wherever you are.

As the game goes on, the time between the shuttle leaving (and you have to get on the shuttle to move from one side to the other) increases. You can actually do something to change sides before that happens, but it will cost you.

Otherwise, you are either gaining technologies or resources (if you are in orbit) or you are placing tiles on Mars and actually doing things on the planet.

Part of the reason this jumped up, I am sure, is that my second playthrough I seemed to “get” the game a bit better. I still came in 3rd, but I didn’t feel like I was totally at sea with no idea of what I was doing.

I know Heaven & Ale is kind of a counterpoint, but when you understand a game and feel like you can actually do ok (if not well), it makes it a lot more appealing!

I believe this may be my highest Lacerda game (I’m not sure and I’m not checking, or giving you a spoiler) and it’s just because of how all of the actions interact. If I play one of the other ones more, they may move up.

But that hasn’t happened, so On Mars is #45.

44) Cape May (2021 – Thunderworks Games)

Designer: Eric Mosso

Artist: Michael Menzel

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

Cape May became really popular in my game group, at least with a certain subset of our regular attendees.

And it’s just such a great game, even though one BGG reviewer actually likened it to a more complicated Monopoly

I don’t agree with that at all, though.

In the game, you’re trying to develop the seaside resort of Cape May, in New Jersey, the only tourist attraction in New Jersey (inside joke…don’t @ me).

You’re doing that by playing movement cards to move your representatives around the board, and building homes or businesses in spaces they are next to.

Or perhaps playing other cards that let you build anywhere.

You will have saved two goal cards that, if you meet the conditions, will give you a bunch of extra points at the end of the game.

Otherwise, you will be scoring based on how many townhomes or landmarks you’ve built in each area (there are four) or which player has the majority of structures in each area.

The cool thing about the scoring system is that the homes will score better the closer to the beach they are while the majorities will score better the further from the beach you are.

Meaning you can’t really neglect one, or at least that makes it more difficult.

Scores can vary wildly in the game, so there is some skill involved. You have to balance which cards you need to play and when.

The only knock for me about this game is that the goal cards can be a bit lopsided, depending on which ones you get.

Some of them just want a majority of buildings in an area while others want you to build a certain number of buildings in an area.

The former goal cards are totally dependent on what the other players do while the latter it totally up to you.

You do get four goal cards and discard two, but it’s still a bit difficult depending on what you take.

Sometimes they dovetail nicely.

Sometimes they don’t.

But it’s enough to put it at #44.

Check out my full review of the game here.

43) War Chest (2018 – Alderac Entertainment Group)

Designers: David Thompson, Trevor Benjamin

Artist: Brigette Indelicato

Players: 2-4

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

War Chest is a very interesting 2-player, kind of abstract game where you are just trying to control a certain number of hexes on a small board, using coins representing the four unit types that you have control of.

The thing is, each unit is different and can attack and move differently.

You will have three coins pulled out of your bag and you will use these coins to either place the coin on the board, move a coin with the same unit type, or do a few other things.

Some units can move and attack, some can attack from a couple hexes away rather than adjacent, and when a unit gets hit they lose a coin off of their stack.

If you haven’t bolstered it (by putting another coin on it), then your stack of 1 will just go away.

The unit types and how to use them are so intricate that each game is a puzzle for how best to use them.

You need to capture the majority of VP hexes (4 in the 2-player game and 6 in the team game) and some of them are basically on your side so you can control them easily.

But you will have to attack to take control of enough to win.

It’s almost like Chess except that not only does each piece move differently, but they also attack differently.

It pays to know your troops!

I have played this three times now and I want to play more.

It is an abstract game, ultimately, but one that I really enjoy.

42) Dominant Species (2010 – GMT Games)

Designer: Chad Jensen

Artists: A lot!

Players: 2-6 (don’t play it with 2)

2022 Rank: 210

The movement for Dominant Species is completely because of my play at Bottoscon back in November.

The first time I played this game was back when I first started gaming in 2013 and I had no idea what I was doing.

Between that and how long it had been between playing it and 2022, it just languished back in the 200s in my rankings.

But the November play of it?

Wow, this is such a great game.

Vicious, possibly devastating, and just so much fun.

What other game could you be almost eliminated from the board and then come back to win?

Not that I have any familiarity with that, but I know it’s possible!

The Dominance function can be very fiddly, as each time cubes and elements are placed or removed on the board, you have to calculate dominance for each tile that’s next to it.

It’s also a game where you have to play to the end because our first play, we ended early and those scores were skewed.

At the end of the game, you score each tile just for who has the majority of cubes there. No dominance, no nothing.

Just majorities.

That can change things radically.

It’s also a really long game, so you have to be prepared for that (and why it will probably only be played at a convention for me, though a 4-hour game could conceivably be played at our Sunday if we started early and didn’t require a teach).

With more plays this could move up in the rankings, but a jump from #210 to #42 is pretty good for now.

41) Teotihuacan: City of Gods (2018 – Board & Dice)

Designer: Daniele Tascini

Artist: Odysseas Stamoglou

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: 17

The drop for Teotihuacan can almost totally be attributed to lack of playing it

It’s still an awesome game, but so many games have jumped ahead of it because I’ve actually played them (or they’ve intrigued me more, anyway).

It’s a fascinating way of using dice without rolling them.

Your dice are your workers, and each turn you move one of them either one, two, or three spaces, and then take the action there (or put them in the worship space).

Depending on how many of your dice are on that space, you do that action at a certain strength.

There are a few avenues for scoring, though collecting masks by themselves isn’t really one of them (at least until you get one of the expansions, anyway).

You can build the pyramid, or build houses, or work your way up the three temple tracks.

The temples will give you stuff each time you move up, which is cool too.

The intricacies of resource management, making sure you have your dice in the right place, and deciding when to worship versus actually using the space, is so cool.

Also, each time you do an action, one of your dice that you used will age (go up one pip, or maybe two). Once it’s gone above six, it has ascended, which will get you more bonuses and also bring the die back at a level 1.

I really do enjoy this game, which is why it’s still in the Top 50 even with not having played it.

Will it go up if I get it played again?

Especially with one or more of the expansion?

Very possibly.

Should this happen soon?

I think so!

There you go. The first installment of the Top 50 games played of all time (by me).

A couple of big changes, with two big jumpers and two big falls (though not huge since they’re still in the Top 50).

There are definitely bigger changes to come, so stay tuned!

Hopefully the next installment will come out next week.

What do you think of these games?

Let me know in the comments.

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