Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2024 Edition (#40-31)

Two weeks and two entries into this list.

Maybe I’ll be able to actually do this weekly, unlike in 2022!

It was interesting doing a Top 50 rather than a Top 25. Some games have fallen enough that they wouldn’t even be listed if I was just doing a Top 25.

A couple of others, even with a big increase from last time, they wouldn’t show up because they didn’t jump enough!

It’s also heartening that I’ve played enough games that I can actually do a list like this.

In addition, it helps to have fans who are actually waiting for these posts.

Thanks, Clio!

Anyway, we’re at the second installment in my Top 50 games played of all time.

The first section was already interesting to me, seeing the movement from last time.

This one is even better!

Yes, that is just my take. Yours may differ.

However, the typical caveat.

I have only played just over 500 games, so there are many great games that I just haven’t played.

So they won’t be on this list!

You Star Wars: Rebellion fans, you’re just going to have to find a way to play the game with me before you get all hot and bothered!

Also, many of these ratings are after only one play, so there could be a lot of movement the next time I do this list.

You’ve been warned.

On that note, let’s begin!

40) The Castles of Burgundy (2011 – Ravensburger)

Designer: Stefan Feld

Artist: Julien Delval, Harald Lieske

Players: 2-4

2022 Rank: 61

Before I go any further, I just want to mention that I’m talking about the 2011 edition of the game, not either of the two more recent reprints.

Certainly not the deluxe edition.

This is my third list of Top games played and this one has jumped around the most.

It was in my Top 25 in 2019.

Last year, it fell to 61, mainly because I hadn’t played it except my asynchronous games with Bob and Jim.

Since 2022, though, I’ve played it a couple of times and now it’s jumped up again!

There’s just something about the tile placement onto your board and how the dice work.

If you can manage to get some workers, then it doesn’t matter what you roll.

However, I have been the victim of rolling two dice and having nothing to do with them other than get workers (which you can always spend a die to do).

Sure, the components in the old edition are paper-thin (the tiles, you could cut with a pair of scissors), but there’s something elegant in its simplicity that’s kind of lost when you have huge miniatures of castles.

It’s a relatively easy game to teach, too, though I haven’t had to do that in a while.

Maybe last year? I think that was it.

Anyway, it’s a fun game, widely considered a classic, and it’s definitely in my Top 50.

39) Paladins of the West Kingdom (2019 – Garphill Games/Renegade Game Studios)

Designers: Shem Phillips, SJ MacDonald

Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: 25

I know what you’re thinking.

A Garphill game that’s outside of the Top 25?

Yes, it’s possible!

I do really enjoy Paladins of the West Kingdom, especially the action selection and how you have to balance your workers with what you want to do, making sure you get the right types of workers to actually do it.

I like how your player board has most of the action spaces that you can use, but the later rounds will give a bonus action that is possible for one person.

The fighting really is for the spaces where you are going to Commission or Garrison to.

That can get vicious sometimes.

I actually played it enough in the last year or so to review it (and its expansion!), but one reason it has dropped in my ranking is because it just goes too long.

Part of that may be who I play it with, but most of the time it’s longer than I would really like.

The expansion does add some interesting mechanics to the game, but it also adds to the decision space, which can lengthen the game.

It’s a game of moving up tracks, and all of the tracks are interconnected.

You can concentrate on a couple, but then your actions are going to be a bit more limited.

I like that kind of decision space.

Still, while I do enjoy it, it’s my least favourite West Kingdom game.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

38) Smartphone Inc (2018 – Cosmodrome Games)

Designer: Ivan Lashin

Artist: Viktor Miller Gausa

Players: 1-5

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

Smartphone Inc was a new to me game last year that I had been wanting to try for a while.

It was all the rage when it first came out, but it just never showed up at our game day.

When it finally did, I was amazed.

It’s an economic game, but it doesn’t make my brain ache like so many of them do.

It makes it hurt a little bit, in a good way, but the mechanisms just really gel for me.

This is a game about manufacturing and selling mobile phones across the globe.

The world is divided into regions, and each one will have different markets for the types and costs of cellphones that they want to buy.

Some may want good wireless technology.

Others will want 4G networking technology.

And so on.

However, what I really found interesting about this game is the action selection.

You have a 2×3 pad with the phase symbols in different areas, then use a bunch of tiles that you then put onto that pad, covering up certain squares but adding their own.

All of your uncovered spaces will result in something happening in the appropriate phase.

While each round the base price of phones will start at 5, the +$ and -$ symbols on your pad will adjust that price.

In the Improve Production phase and going forward on that turn, the higher-priced phones go first so it’s something to be aware of!

The cool thing about this is that you are not necessarily penalized for selling cheap phones (thus going last in turn order.

You can sell a lot of phones for cheap or you can sell fewer phones that are more expensive, and both strategies can work!

As long as you have the technologies that the market wants.

It all fits together really intricately, and I managed to come in second (190 points), only 19 points behind the leader (and owner of the game, so he’s a bad teacher).

Will subsequent plays bring me back down to earth and lower the ranking?

Perhaps.

It is an economic game.

But I really enjoyed how everything just worked and made sense.

And that’s why it’s in my Top 50.

37) Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria (2021 – Daily Magic Games)

Designer: Stan Kordonskiy

Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

So good that I even reviewed it!

Ok, that’s not why I reviewed it, but still…

Shadow Kingdoms of Valeria is a dice-drafting game where the dice are the monsters (what type depends on what colour die) that you are recruiting so that they can attack and destroy all of the things that you built up in previous Valeria games.

Maybe not so much, but suffice to say…you’re the bad guys in this one.

The thing I like about this one is the different shrines where you are drafting these dice from and what they can do for you.

You can collect champions that will aid you in your quest to…well, destroy everything.

You also will be drafting battle plan cards that you will then use your dice to fulfill the conditions of it.

And how many points you get will depend on the overall strength of your dice.

And your Influence. Because it’s the lowest of those two values.

Adding to this is the battle board where you will be unlocking abilities from your player board and also getting some extra stuff.

It all works together really well.

The main negative with the game is that it does suffer from a runaway leader problem if somebody falls behind in completing battle plans.

As long as players are aware of this possibility, of course, it’s a fun game where you can glory in the act of being evil.

Without any real world consequences.

36) The Networks (2016 – Formal Ferret Games)

Designer: Gil Hova

Artwork: Travis Kinchy

Players: 1-5

2022 Rank: 10

The Networks has taken a hefty fall and that’s almost completely due to not having played it in years.

My last play of it was in 2019.

I do want to get it played again, because the idea of running a TV network is super-cool!

I’ve always enjoyed the actions and card play in this one, where you are selecting shows that will work in your available time slot and get you the best ratings.

The catch-up mechanism is actually good too, where the player furthest behind goes first in the next season.

Your shows aging and getting fewer viewers means you have to strategically retire shows and replace them when the time is right. But you are trying to collect sets of genres for bonuses, so sometimes the timing can be tricky!

I’ve only played with the expansion twice, but it did add some much-needed variation to the game. The basic game was getting kind of samey after multiple plays (not as bad as The Rival Networks, but getting there).

I need to get this to the table again.

I was also sad to learn that Formal Ferret Games has now shut down. Here’s hoping for the best for Gil!

35) Darwin’s Journey (2023 – Thundergryph Games)

Designers: Simone Luciani, Nestore Mangone

Artist: Paolo Voto

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

Darwin’s Journey could easily be considered a “wow, this was a great first play, but will it hold up?” example for this list, but I did really enjoy my first play of it.

As I mentioned in my June 2023 New to Me Games post, this is kind of a standard worker placement game, but I do love the choices that you are given.

Players are Darwin and his cronies wandering around the Galapagos Islands looking for specimens to reinforce the Theory of Evolution.

You are also tracking your theories, trying to publish ahead of your rival explorers, and wanting to return specimens to the museums back home.

The worker placement in this game is great because there are some actions that players can pay to unlock but aren’t available until then.

However, if you unlock it, you will get a coin when somebody else uses it.

The best part of this game, though, is how you power up your workers by educating them.

You don’t have to have specific workers for each type, or somehow label them or something.

No, you just place your workers back in their spots at the end of the round and when you use them for an action, you can send them to an action that requires that kind of improvement (the yellow, green, red ones above).

If you really educate them, they will get you more points as well.

It’s an intricate system and there are multiple ways to win.

Hell, you could travel all of the Galapagos and get a bunch of points that way!

I’d like to play it again and see if it holds up in my mind.

But for now, it’s #35.

34) Revive (2022 – Aporta Games)

Designers: Helge Meissner, Kristian Amundsen Østby, Eilif Svensson, Anna Wermlund

Artists: Gjermund Bohne, Martin Mottet, Dan Roff, Jessy Töpfer

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

Another brand new (mostly) game on this list!

Revive is also another game where I’ve only played it once so your mileage may vary.

What’s so appealing about this one?

The combination of tile-laying exploration out on the main board and how you unlock technologies on your player board to make your actions stronger.

The exploration is interesting, though it can be hard to really succeed going in more than one direction, considering each corner has some bonuses that you want to get, but you can’t get to all four corners.

It’s neat how the board is seeded with tiles, the backs of which give you an indication of what might be found there but you will only know specifically once you have moved out there and expanded.

The technology board is even better, though, with you moving along different tracks to unlock bonuses.

But you have to power them up to use them! Sometimes. Some will just get you a bonus or even endgame points.

Finally, the deck-building is a fascinating take on the whole mechanism.

Your deck consists of either cards that are waiting for next round or cards in your hand.

When you finish a round, the cards you used go to the exhausted pile (I don’t know what term the game uses) while those in your exhausted pile go to your hand.

How you use them, either for their bottom abilities or their top ones, also works really well.

It all depends on what action slot you use them in. The top action slots, you will be using the top of the cards. The bottom slots (as shown above), you will be using the bottom.

It all fits together really well.

This is another one I would really like to play a second time.

33) Grand Austria Hotel (2015 – Lookout Games)

Designers: Virginio Gigli, Simone Luciani

Artist: Klemens Franz

Players: 2-4

2022 Rank: 65

Back to an older game (no more of this Cult of the New stuff!) but it’s still a game I’ve only played once.

It’s on so many people’s top 100 games lists that I figured I would probably like it.

And I did! Enough that it was actually #65 in 2022.

Even without playing it again, though, it’s really moved up and I’m not really sure why.

I really do want to play it again and see if my initial impression holds up.

I think it’s the card and dice management system that I really enjoyed about this one.

You are drafting two dice to take the related actions, and then trying to fill your hotel with guests that will add to your prestige.

The turn mechanism is really cool, though, much like Sagrada in that you go in turn order once, then reverse turn order for the second die. So it goes, in a 3-player game, 1-2-3-3-2-1.

And all you are trying to do is get prestigious guests! Paying money if you need to.

Of course, you have to find a room for them or you get negative points (they will make sure everybody knows that you are a crappy hotel manager)

This is a classic game, and I can certainly see why.

It’s simple in a way, but really complex in many others.

That’s quite attractive to me, and that’s why it’s moved up despite not having played it.

Because I really want to play it again.

32) Space Base (2018 – Alderac Entertainment Group)

Designer: John D. Clair

Artist: Chris Walton

Players: 2-5 (2-7 with Command Station expansion)

2022 Rank: 13

Now we come to Space Base, which has really fallen out of the Top 25 but it’s still solidly in the Top 50 (good thing I expanded!)

Unlike the previous games, this one I have played a lot since the last Top 25 list.

I’ve played through both saga expansions.

I’ve played a ton of games on Boardgame Arena (all asynchronous of course).

Maybe it’s expansion fatigue, in that the sagas do add a lot of stuff?

I do like the new colony options.

Those are cool.

The game is really simple but also really fun.

I have always loved the fact that, especially later in the game, you are really engaged with what other players are rolling because what they roll could easily benefit you too!

In my Arena plays on BGA, I’ve been alternating between strategies of getting a lot of point cards out early and trying a high-money strategy.

I’m not doing very well at either, sadly.

It’s a really cool game and the fact that it’s still in my Top 32 means that I still really enjoy it.

Who doesn’t like chucking dice?

Not me!

This is still a game I will play any time it’s on offer.

31) Commands & Colors: Ancients (2006 – GMT Games)

Designer: Richard Borg

Artist: Rodger B. MacGowan

Players: 2 (1 with the new CDG Solo System)

2022 Rank: New (hadn’t played)

The final game on this week’s entry is brand new to the list and a game that has intrigued me for years until I finally got the reprint.

Commands & Colors: Ancients is a tactical block wargame where dice are king!

Dice and action cards, anyway.

The scenarios in the base game are mostly Rome against Carthage, and each scenario has some interesting hooks (ok, “each” means the 5 scenarios I’ve played so far)

The board is laid out in three sections and some of your command cards will tell you to activate troops in one of the three.

It’s a pretty basic game, fairly easy to understand the rules (with a couple of exceptions) but the tactics will take a while to master.

My co-worker loves this game and while we haven’t had a chance to play it in a while, we are definitely going to be playing it again one day soon.

Thankfully I have a table I can leave it set up on and it helps if I set up the game ahead of time.

The scenarios have a designated setup so there’s no choice where that is concerned.

But then the pieces start moving, the dice start flying, and things just get really chaotic.

I understand now why this is high up in some of my friends’ favourites list.

It’s great.

The second installment of my Top 50 games played is now in the books.

What do you think of these? I know at least one person who’s going to love, well, at least one of these entries.

Join me next week when we begin the Top 30.

Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2024 Edition (50-41)
Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2024 Edition (40-31) – You’re here!
Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2024 Edition (30-21)
Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2024 Edition (20-11)