Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2024 Edition (#30-21)

When I was first talking about movement on this list between 2022 and 2024, I wasn’t sure how much movement there would be in the Top 10.

Those games are still great, shouldn’t they stay up there?

Of course, some games might supplant them, games that I hadn’t played last time.

But today’s list shows that some games aren’t just supplanted, they take a hefty fall.

There can be many reasons for this, of course.

But it’s still surprising when it happens.

They’re still in the Top 50, though, so that doesn’t mean I don’t still love them.

They’re like my children!

I still love little Ricky.

I just love little Victoria more now.

Actually, it’s a good thing that games aren’t kids…

But anyway.

Welcome back to the middle part of the Top 50 games played of all time!

(Probably should have led with that)

In my quest to play as many of the Top 100 BGG games at some point, at least those that I have some kind of chance to do so (so no legacy games, for example), I may be adding some different ones to this list in 2026.

I’m happy that I’m above 50% now (53 and counting!) because I have good friends who will help me with at least some of these.

However, I still haven’t played a lot of them, so one caveat I always have to give here is that there will be some really well-regarded games that simply aren’t on this list.

So you Agricola fans can just go feed your family members and stop bothering me about it.

See? Little Ricky is really hungry!

Go do your parental, farming job and leave me alone.

Also to keep in mind, many of these ratings are after only one play, so there could be a lot of movement in the future.

On that note, let’s begin!

30) Commands & Colors: Medieval (2019 – GMT Games)

Designer: Richard Borg

Artists: Rodger B. MacGowan, Chechu Nieto

Players: 2

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

Wow, two Commands & Colors games in a row?

Good thing they were separated by a week.

While its predecessor, Commands & Colors: Ancients, got everything started, this was my actual first game on the table (there was a kind of live game with Michal of Ancients, but since that was kind of a teaching game, I didn’t count it as a play).

It was played at Bottoscon in 2022 in an impromptu fashion, and boy was it a lot of fun!

Just like Ancients (and all of the other games of its ilk), the map is divided into three sections and you will be playing Command cards to maneuver units in those sections and attack your opponent.

There are a few changes between the Ancient brethren and this one, mainly the reduction in how effective cavalry is as well as the addition of the “Parthian shot” when Light Bow Cavalry evade, they get a shot in on their attackers as they retreat.

Also there are the tokens that you can use (each player is given some at the beginning of the scenario, but you can earn more) that allow you to do things like add an attack die, reduce the number of hits against you, and the like.

Don’t be misinformed, though!

Even though this says “Medieval” on the cover, these scenarios are between the Byzantine Empire and its enemies (many Sassanid/Persian scenarios along with some against the Huns and others).

Most people think “Medieval” is in the 1100-1400 year range, and that’s just not true in this case.

Still, this is a phenomenal game and I hope to increase my play count of it.

Especially because I will be getting it shortly! (If I haven’t already, as this is posting Sunday and we may have picked up my copy on Saturday)

Yes, there are battle dice so it does have a fair amount of luck (if you can’t roll the symbol you need, even on 5 dice, what can you do?), but the tactical possibilities in this series are just so good.

29) Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition (2022 – Bezier Games)

Designer: Muneyuki Yokouchi (横内宗幸)

Artist: Osamu Inoue (井上磨)

Players: 2-5

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

Another game I hadn’t played in 2022, I first played this one at SHUX 2022 and fell in love with the game.

I had to buy it, and have played it many more times since then.

Enough to review it!

I do love trick-taking games and this is a really intriguing twist on the concept.

All of the cards are suitless.

Instead, you determine, when you play it, what suit it is (blue, green, red, or yellow).

When you play a card, you place a token on that card’s space on the board (a Blue 7 goes onto the Blue 7 space). Nobody else, including you, can play that card again this round.

So what happens if you have a 6 in your hand but all of the 6s have been played?

Paradox!

The round ends immediately and you lose points for each trick you won rather than gaining points.

This is an amazing game, though surprisingly it’s not my favourite trick-taking game out there (more to come, in other words).

I love the uncertainty of it, how you have to plan around whether or not you are going to be able to play all of your cards (you will discard one card and not play one card, so you do have some options).

There’s a bit of board play too, in that you are trying to play cards that link together on the board in order to score bonus points.

But only if you predict correctly how many tricks you will take.

That part’s not as fun.

The fun is in the paradox!

And that’s why this is number 29.

28) The White Castle (2023 – Devir Games)

Designers: Isra C., Shei S.

Artist: Joan Guardiet

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

The White Castle is a bit of an anomaly in this list.

My one and only play of it, we played it wrong in a number of ways.

We made the game much more difficult than it actually should be.

And I loved it anyway!

Enough to put it on this list.

I really want to play it again, doing it the right way. I think I might fall in love with it even more when that happens.

The White Castle is a dice-drafting, action selection game where you are drafting one of the dice on the garden bridges shown above, and then using that die to do an action that’s on the board (or perhaps on your player board).

The colour of the die often matters, and if you draft the lowest die, you will also get a bonus.

Each round you will draft one die and there are only a short number of rounds in the game.

The trick is to be able to chain your actions somewhat (something that we didn’t get correct in our play) to give you more of a chance to do something.

The game is so intricate, with many avenues of scoring, from trying to reach the top level of the castle to really concentrating on the garden to get a bunch of bonus stuff at the end of the round (if a bridge has dice left on it and you have workers in that garden area, you get can get a bunch of bonuses).

The actions in each space as well as what colour die you need to activate them changes each game, giving a lot of replayability.

Even better when there are multiple tokens of the same die colour in the space! You get both! (which is another thing we didn’t do).

The artwork is beautiful, the gameplay is great (even better when you play it right, I’m sure), and that’s why this is so high on my list after one (wrong) play.

27) Combat Commander Pacific (2008 – GMT Games)

Designers: John Foley, Chad Jensen, Kai Jensen

Artists: A lot!

Players: 2

2022 Rank: 2

Here’s the first huge surprise of the year! There have been a couple other surprises, and some movement out of the Top 25.

But from number 2 to number 27?

Amazing!

Why?

This game started to frustrate me a little bit during multiple plays this past year.

I played four games of it, and there were four blow-outs.

I know I said in the last Top 25 list when this was ranked Number 2, that I enjoyed this one more than Combat Commander: Europe because it wasn’t as random. If you play a Recover card in Europe, everybody gets a chance to recover and all suppressed units lose that suppression, but you have to roll for each unit to recover.

In Pacific, you get a certain number of recover “points” that you have to use to automatically rally (or unsuppress) units.

If you have a bunch of broken units and you only have a Revive 1 card, sucks to be you!

This game does reward good tactical play by removing some of the randomness, but it also adds its own bout of randomness that can seriously screw with you.

One of the scenarios I played with my friend Ted, he was the attacking Japanese (having a 6-card hand, lots of options!).

He drew a random event that turned his posture from Attack (6 cards) to Banzai (3 cards).

Suddenly, he could hardly do anything and I just laid waste to him, even with the Charge order (which activates and rallies all Japanese units that you want, but all opposing forces are activated to fire).

Other examples like that played over the year just kind of soured me on the game a bit.

Not enough to have it drop out of my Top 50. I still really do like it a lot.

But enough to drop it this far out of Top 10.

26) Marco Polo II: In the Service of the Khan (2019 – Hans im Glück)

Designers: Simone Luciani, Daniele Tascini

Artist: Dennis Lohausen

Players: 2-4

2022 Rank: 38

Finally something that’s not new but moves up!

Ok, that’s happened a couple of times, but still.

I did greatly enjoy the first Marco Polo game, the dice-rolling and then dice-placement game where you are Marco Polo (or people like him) travelling throughout Asia, trying to establish trading posts and explore.

Marco Polo II is a game of the same ilk, but it’s so much better. Movement in the first game was very difficult to do and it was hard to string together the resources to both move and actually do things.

In the second game, it’s a bit looser. There are also a bunch of different ways that the game is a bit easier.

It’s not easy at all, though!

You are still having to travel and set up outposts, you’re still exchanging resources for contracts, and you’re still deciding what path to victory you want to take.

There are also some more guides toward endgame scoring that works pretty well.

The symbols on each city work as a bit of set collection, but only in what routes you are travelling.

It’s still a tight game and you have a lot of different choices.

The variable player powers are also really cool.

This is a great game, well-deserving of being in my top 50.

25) Architects of the West Kingdom (2018 – Garphill Games/Renegade Game Studios)

Designers: Shem Phillips, S J MacDonald

Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski

Players: 1-5

2022 Rank: 5

Another game falls out of the Top 10!

What is this?

Maybe it’s the Massacre of the West Kingdom?

I really love the simplicity of Architects of the West Kingdom, especially compared to its crunchy brethren. However, I’m finding myself drawn more and more to the crunchiness nowadays, and this one is falling a little bit because of that.

Is it still awesome?

Yes.

I love the worker placement mechanism used here, where for each worker you have in a space, the action becomes more powerful.

The ability to take an action to round up your opponents’ workers at a space and then eventually collect the bounty on them by sending them to prison for money is actually quite cool.

It allows others to stop you from getting too powerful of an action and it also is a way for them to get money.

Some don’t like that as too much of a “take that” element, but I don’t mind it. It’s to be expected in this game, and it’s never centred at any specific person. If you go around arresting your husband’s workers because you had an argument earlier in the day, yet you let your neighbour build up an action that has 5 workers at it, then that’s on you.

The artwork on the cards is very cool, I love the building aspect and how you have multiple avenues of winning.

Some people think building in the Church is way overpowered, while others think there’s no way to win if you build in the Church.

You can go low-Virtue and get a lot of resources and abilities for cheap, except that it’s costing you victory points (and you can’t build in the Church). You can go high-Virtue and concentrate on the Church and build a lot of buildings as well.

This is still a great game.

It’s just, compared to a lot of other games, it’s fallen in my estimation some.

I’d still play it in a heartbeat, though.

24) Resist! (2022 – Salt & Pepper Games)

Designers: Trevor Benjamin, Roger Tankersley, David Thompson

Artist: Albert Monteys

Players: 1

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

During the pandemic lockdowns, I started playing more and more solo games, or at least investing in them and planning to play them.

And they started to appeal to me!

Between that and the rave reviews that Resist received, I knew that I had to try it out.

I didn’t know how affecting it would be, but this game is so amazing.

It’s a card game. It’s a card game where you are playing members of your Maquis cell trying to accomplish missions.

You can either play them for their Hidden side, which may have a powerful ability but less strength, or you can play on their Revealed side to get their strength or maybe another awesome ability.

However, if you Reveal them, then they will go away. They are arrested and they are no longer in your deck.

You are also dealing with Spies in your deck. While you will never have more Maquis in your deck (every card that lets you get a new Maquis member for your deck has that as a Reveal action, which means that card will go away), you can always get more Spies.

Having a hand full of Spies is one of the losing conditions, in fact.

Like I said, these are cards.

Yet it’s almost agonizing when you have to play one or two as a Revealed action for strength to complete the mission or whatever.

This is such a wonderful solo game.

And very hard, too!

23) Great Western Trail: Argentina (2022 – Eggertspiele)

Designer: Alexander Pfister

Artist: Chris Quilliams

Players: 1-4

2022 Rank: New (Hadn’t Played)

This one kind of surprised me when I saw it.

Great Western Trail: Argentina is the second in the GWT series (the latest, New Zealand, I haven’t played yet). I managed to play this at OrcaCon in 2023.

The original game is still relatively high on my list (No. 58) but I keep bouncing off of it as far as being able to understand how to play it well.

I feel a little lost, and that’s not always fun.

Argentina, however, I just kind of got.

Not well enough to win a game against seasoned opponents.

But well enough that I didn’t have that lost feeling.

The game has many of the same mechanics as the original, but it adds some interesting twists like ports that you are sending your cattle off to.

It also adds a new type of worker that you can hire to be part of your board. These Farmers can give you great benefits. You can use your cows to help the Farmers, getting grain which you can use for boat and city tiles.

In this game, the timing of getting your cattle to market is even more crucial than it was in the first game, because the ships could leave without you if you’re not careful!

I just really liked what this added to the game, and it made it easier for me to understand how to do better.

Or maybe I was just hyped up because it was getting onto 1:00 am and we were only half-way through.

That could do it too.

The little hats for your meeple are really cute, but also really annoying.

But yes, this is a great game that I would really like to play again to see if it maintains its position.

22) Root (2018 – Leder Games)

Designer: Cole Wehrle

Artist: Kyle Ferrin

Players: 2-4 (2-6 with an expansion)

2022 Rank: 18

Root is a game that hasn’t really moved around a lot on my list. It’s one of the few that have been on all three years (falling from 7 to 18 to 22) and that’s mainly because of the app.

I’ve only played it on the table once, but it was just wonderful and I’d really like to play it again.

Since then, there have been numerous app plays that have kept this game in the forefront of my mind.

I really like the asymmetric factions and how each one has different goals, or at least different ways of getting the 30 points that you need to win.

The Cats want to build their industry and control areas of the forest.

The Eyrie wants to build its nests in as many clearings as possible.

All factions can, of course, get points from building items (assuming they are still available).

The factions also have different abilities and quirks that make them really interesting.

The Eyrie has to build a decree with one or two cards added to it each turn. For each card in a section (Recruit, Move, Battle, and Build), you have to do that action. If they can’t, they go into turmoil and their turn immediately ends. They also suffer some other consequences too.

It’s just a brilliantly-designed game and it’s fascinating to play.

Even in app form, I haven’t played it enough to really understand how best to play all of the factions, but it’s fun learning.

A table play of this is in the cards one of these days.

21) SCOUT (2019 – Oink Games)

Designer: Kei Kajino (梶野 桂)

Artists: Rie Komatsuzaki, Jun Sasaki

Players: 2-5

2022 Rank: New (hadn’t played)

For the longest time, card games were just…card games.

They didn’t really have much of a twist or a hook to them.

We are now in an age where, whether a card game is a trick-taking game or a card-shedding game, there is always something interesting about them.

Or at least something that tries to be interesting.

Scout manages to not only try, but to succeed!

I love the cards because they have different numbers depending on which orientation you put them in.

And once you have put them in your hand and in their correct orientation (you can flip your hand but you can’t rearrange the cards), they stay there.

No moving them around!

You are trying to run out of the cards in your hand, and you do so by playing cards that are higher than the ones previously played.

You can play a single card, but then any single card that is higher can beat that.

But you could play a pair. If your hand (that you can’t rearrange) happens to have a pair in it.

A higher pair can beat it…but then there is a 3 of a kind! Or a straight!

Sets will beat runs, so if you have a pair of 5s, that will beat the 2-card run on the table, even if it’s the highest run possible).

If you can’t beat it, you give the player who played it a VP token but then you get to take one of the cards from what’s on the table, making it easier for other players to beat.

It’s a fascinating game and one I really enjoyed, though it does need a higher player count.

My first play was at 5 players and it was golden.

My second play was at 3 players and there were too many times when nobody could beat what was on the table, even after the other player took a card (you only have two chances in a 3-player game).

I would say at least 4 players.

This was such a great game, and it’s too bad I haven’t had a chance to play it since October 2022.

I really need to.

There you have it! More than half-way through the Top 50 games played.

Anything you’re surprised is on here? Anything you’re surprised is not?

What do you think of these games?

Let me know in the comments.

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