Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2026 Edition (#30-21)

It’s another week and another entry in the Top 50 Games Played of All Time (the 2026 edition!)

Of course, this is “games played,” not “games” because at only 587, my number of games played doesn’t even scratch the surface of what’s out there, so I don’t feel qualified to comment on “every” game.

This week, we have what is called the “stable” decade of games.

Not stable in the sense that there is no movement.

But, for the first time so far this year, it’s the only one with just one new game!

All of the other ones were on my Top 50 list in 2024, at least in some fashion.

Since there is a Garphill trilogy game on this list, I feel this is a good time to say that one of the trilogy games actually fell out of my Top 50 this year.

Yes, it’s true. I know you are stunned, but it is!

Paladins of the West Kingdom fell to #53, just outside and looking in.

I think that’s because it’s just such a long game (maybe that’s on us?) that it doesn’t get played that often and the enthusiasm to play it just isn’t there as often as I would like.

It’s one of only two trilogy games that didn’t get played in 2025, for example.

It’s still pretty high, at 53, so it’s not terrible!

Just not up there in comparison to others.

Here is also a good time to say that I haven’t played that many games, compared to how many there are, so many great games won’t be here because I just have no experience with them (though I have now played 56 of the Top 100, which is the highest ever!)

So you Agricola fans are just going to have to feed your people on your own and forget about me.

I can manage.

Also, many of these ratings are after only one play, so they could change in subsequent years based on more plays (or if I haven’t played them anymore)

Also, just a note that if I’ve reviewed it, the link will be to the review. Otherwise, it will be to Boardgame Geek.

With all of that out of the way, let’s begin!

30) Earth (2023 – Inside Up Games)

Designer: Maxime Tardif

Artists: M81 Studio, Conor McGoey, Yulia Sozonik, Kenneth Spond

Players: 1-5

2024 Rank: 8

Earth is a fabulous tableau-building card game where you are creating an ecosystem on Planet Earth in order to help facilitate the spread of species around it (or, in game terms, you want to place the right cards so that the animal goal cards are fulfilled).

It’s a wonderful game that really entranced me when I first played it, and kept that up with subsequent plays (enough so that I actually did review it).

However, I haven’t played it since except on Boardgame Arena, and asynchronous games of Earth on there give me a lot of problems because there is a lot to take in when deciding what to do on your turn.

I do love the tableau-building, though, and how you are trying to chain reactions on your plant cards to do a bunch of things.

You want to produce sprouts, you want undergrowth, you want cards that will chain your actions in certain phases (like producing sprouts that you will then use to do something else that will give you points, all in the same turn!)

I still love this game, and maybe if I can get it to the table again, it will move back up in my estimation.

For now, though, it’s a solid entry in my Top 50.

29) 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

2024 Rank: 34

Revive is only the second increase so far in this Top 50, even though it’s only a small one (from 34 to 29).

This is almost totally due to my Boardgame Arena plays, which have kept it in my consciousness even after my only play on the table.

It’s just so intriguing and the mechanics really feed into that.

The world has had a global winter (or at least that’s what the board looks like) and you are a civilization that is trying to survive, thrive, and explore in this brutal landscape.

You want to go out and explore these unknown tiles that will perhaps have cities to occupy, or resources to exploit, or both!

You are balancing your resource needs to try to do as many actions as you can in a round.

It’s also a bit of a deckbuilder, in that one of the actions is to recruit one of the cards from the display to add to your deck.

What’s cool about this (from a deckbuilding perspective) is that your entire deck consists of either cards in your hand, or cards that are waiting to be in your hand next round.

There is no drawing of cards from a face-down deck.

Another neat aspect of the game is how you use the cards in your hand.

You have action slots on your board and you can use a card for the bottom action or the top action on it, sliding it into the appropriate slot so that the action is showing.

If you don’t have any more slots for the bottom action, you can’t do a bottom action!

There’s also plenty of track movement for those (like Chris Yi) who love that sort of thing.

Moving on the tracks will give you other abilities, as you may be able to unlock certain things.

You can also buy upgrades that will trigger when you use that action slot (like the picture one above, where doing the left-most action slot with a grey or green card will also give you a Book).

Everything works so well together and it’s a game that I “get” how to play.

Doesn’t mean I will win, but I won’t be so far behind the winner that they might as well be in California.

I love this game and would really like to play it on the table again.

28) Lorenzo il Magnifico (2016 – Cranio Creations)

Designers: Flaminia Brasini, Virginio Gigli, Simone Luciani

Artists: Klemens Franz, Andrea Kattnig, Andreas Resch

Players: 2-4

2024 Rank: 48

This one increased a huge amount, and that is almost totally because of Boardgame Arena.

I hope that game publishers realize how much buzz and reaction they might get about their games if they put them on there, even if not everybody buys a copy (or can’t buy one, is this one even still in print?)

I had an ongoing game going on with two guys from the Pixelated Cardboard Discord channel, and it just reinforced my love for this game.

Yes, with game after game after game of it, we all got a bit tired of it.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t love it!

In this game, players are heads of a noble family in…some city in Italy, trying to increase their prestige and fame by sending out family members to do things on the board.

This is done by a really unique form of dice-rolling and drafting (though not really drafting, since everybody can use the dice).

Instead, each player has a family member the colour of one of the dice (one of each) along with a black sheep of the family who is effectively 0-strength (he doesn’t use a die).

You use the dice value of that coloured worker (rolled each round, but everybody has to deal with the roll, no matter how good or bad!) to either recruit citizens to your player board, or maybe do some resource-production, or maybe even point production!

There are cards in each column, that will let you build production buildings, points buildings, characters who can enhance your actions or just give you a bunch of stuff, and endgame scoring.

The family members have the value of their coloured dice, and to gain a card, you have to have the right value on the die (worker) or above to gain it, though you can also use workers to add pips to the die if you wish (and have them).

You can also use your family members to gain other benefits without getting a card, but it’s always good to get some cards each round.

The neat thing about this one is that if there is already a family member in the card column, it costs you 3 gold in addition to the dice value in order to place your worker there.

And you can’t put two of your family members in the same column. Though you can put the black sheep of the family in the same column, who’s a lowly “0” strength and isn’t even identified as yours (except with a coloured dot so you know which bag to put him in).

Oh, Stephen? We don’t talk about him…

I feel kinda bad for him.

You’re also trying to satisfy the whims of the church, by increasing your religion level.

Rounds 2, 4, and 6 will have a check. If you haven’t reached the proper church level, you are penalized!

However, if you wish to keep your church marker where it is (rather than going back to the beginning) so it can go even higher, you can choose to be penalized anyway.

Maybe the penalty doesn’t mean that much to you?

For example, one time the penalty was that your Yellow cards weren’t as effective.

I wasn’t buying yellow cards, so I just took the penalty.

I really love how all of this comes together.

You can be screwed by bad rolls, but everybody is screwed in the same way (unless they have a lot more workers than you to add pips), so you are not subject to the bad luck whims by yourself.

This is an awesome game and, while I have only played it a couple of times on the table, I would love to do so again.

27) Obsession (2018 – Kayenta Games)

Designer: Dan Hallagan

Artist: Dan Hallagan

Players: 1-4

2024 Rank: 19

I played this twice on the table in a few weeks, but I haven’t played it for a while other than on BGA.

And it’s a game I really do love!

This is a game of Victorian nobility, where you are trying to increase the standing of your family and trying to attract one of the two really wealthy members of a prominent family into a kind of marriage possibility.

I say “a kind of” because after each period where you might attract them, they might change which family they go to!

What kind of dedication is that?

I think they’re too flighty for my tastes.

Anyway, this is a game where you are attracting noble friends (and maybe some “not so noble”) to various events that you hold at your estate.

Each turn, you will be activating one of the rooms on your estate and inviting guests from your hand to join you.

You will also be drawing new guest cards for your hand, which may be good or bad because they may give you points, or make you lose points if they’re scions of their family!

You can also buy rooms to add to your estate, and they will give you prestige. Hopefully you can actually activate the rooms, because when you activate them the first time, they flip and most likely give you more prestige!

I really love how the action selection goes in this game, where you have to activate rooms to do things, but you also have to have the right servants to activate them.

It takes a few turns for the servants to come back after they’re activated, so you have to carefully choose which ones so you can time when they will come back to you.

I feel like I’m playing Downton Abbey, but without the boredom of watching it!

Did I say that?

Oops.

Sorry to you fans…kinda.

Anyway, the game is quite intricate and I love that aspect about it. Too many times, I’ve had to activate a lesser room (or even a room I’ve already activated, so it doesn’t actually flip!) because I hadn’t planned correctly and I was missing one or more servants to activate the room I really wanted to.

This is a game I would never turn down on the table (usual caveat, of course)

26) Schadenfreude (2020 – Studio Turbine)

Designer: ctr

Artist: Uncredited

Players: 3-5

2024 Rank: 14

I think this hit #14 back in 2024 because I had just played it a couple of times and the innovation of it was just so fresh in my mind.

It’s dropped to #26, but it’s still my favourite trick-taking game for a number of reasons.

The main reason is the fact that so much of it is that you want to finish second.

The person who played the second highest number in the led suit wins the trick.

You basically want to come in second in scoring, because as soon as somebody ends a round with 40 points, the game’s over.

Whoever has more than 40 points loses the game, and the winner is whoever is the next highest.

So maybe not second, if multiple people broke 40, but probably second!

Even more fun, though it doesn’t come out often, is the tie-breaker.

If two or more players are tied for the highest without going over 40, they all lose and the next person wins.

That person could have just 12 points!

Doesn’t matter. They win.

The mechanic for which cards score for you is also great.

You keep the card you won the trick with, plus any card that is not the suit that was led, and you will get those points.

But duplicates eliminate each other, so if you have the 6 of Swords and the 6 of Crowns, they both go away!

You’re trying to gain points, but just not too many points.

It’s an interesting mindset because you have to mitigate how many points you get, while still getting more points than everybody else (other than the guy you keep sticking with points, and I say “guy” because we really did that to Tony last time we played).

There’s just so much to love about this game, if you like trick-takers.

That’s why it’s still high on my list (just maybe not quite as high).

25) Time of Crisis: The Roman Empire in Turmoil 235-284 (2017 – GMT Games)

Designers: Wray Ferrell, Brad Johnson

Artist: Rodger B. MacGowan

Players: 1-4 (with expansion, otherwise 2-4)

2024 Rank: 10

I think Time of Crisis is always going to be in my Top 50 at some point.

This is a great combination of deckbuilding and wargmaming that always brings a smile to my face, even though I haven’t gotten it to the table in a very long time.

I’ve been living on occasional games of it on Rally the Troops, which has a great implementation of it.

In this game, you are a noble Roman family who wants to make sure that you have a member of your family on the emperor’s throne during a horrible time during the Roman Empire, from 235 to 284, where an emperor’s reign (and often life span) amounted to a matter of weeks.

You have family members who you install as governors of various provinces, though somebody else may wield more political influence than you and evict your guy!

You are also trying to have one of your sons become emperor, because that’s where the big points prestige is.

It almost becomes a game of King of the Hill once somebody becomes Emperor, because that’s where you get a large chunk of glory, plus whoever was emperor the longest during the game gets the most prestige at the end of the game.

People are always trying to knock you off and become emperor themselves.

I love the deckbuilding mechanic where you are spending points to gain cards that go to your discard pile.

However, you don’t shuffle your cards at all.

Once you are out of cards, your discard pile becomes your deck and you choose which cards you want in your hand!

Do you want to load up for a big turn?

Then your next turn might be pretty lackluster, unless you’ve been destroying cards.

It’s an interesting push-pull that I really enjoy.

Of course, in battle you are at the mercy of the dice, and anybody who’s played with me on Rally the Troops is familiar with the “oh, I roll 4 dice and the barbarians roll 2, let’s see what happens…oh, I have 4 misses and they have 2 hits?” luck I have had.

I will always enjoy this game and wish I could get it to the table more.

24) Architects of the West Kingdom (2018 – Garphill Games)

Designers: S J MacDonald, Shem Phillips

Artist: Mihajlo Dimitrievski

Players: 1-5

2024 Rank: 25

Architects of the West Kingdom moves up very slightly after a big fall into the 20s last time around.

This is a great worker placement game where you are trying to build buildings, or perhaps contribute to the building of the nice cathedral in town.

You are placing workers to get resources, or to gain apprentices or building cards that you’ll be able to build.

The resource spaces are interesting because the more workers you have there, the more stuff you get.

If you put one worker in the Forest, you get one wood.

Your next worker gets you two wood (one per worker).

Your next gets three, etc.

Except that one of the actions you can do is capture workers from a space and then, on a subsequent action, send them to the Guardhouse for one silver each.

You can play a high-virtue game or a low-virtue game, and both have benefits.

Higher virtue, of course, gets you more points at the end of the game.

However, during the game, having lower virtue makes it so you don’t have to pay tax when doing actions (the “orange” silver in an action’s space is tax, while the regular silver is money you always have to pay).

If you’re too virtuous, you can’t go to the Black Market, which is a great way to hire people without too much money, or to get a bunch of resources for little cost.

But if you have really low virtue, you can’t contribute to the Cathedral which, for some people, is another great way to get points.

There are a few different ways you can get points in this game, which means you have different avenues of winning, and I really like that.

Any game that produces contrasting threads on Boardgame Geek like “You can’t win building in the Cathedral” and “Building in the Cathedral is overpowered” is a winner in my book.

The game has one almost must-play expansion (Age of Artisans, which adds the Artisan worker along with building adornments and tools) and one expansion (Works of Wonder) that I can take or leave, though I do like the Influence track and what you can do with it.

Some people don’t like that “arresting other players’ workers and jailing them” mechanic, but really it’s just a way for you to gain money and doesn’t really inhibit the other players that much.

Sure, they won’t be able to get 6 wood from the forest by placing their 6th worker there, but wouldn’t that be overpowered?

I like how the game makes the players enforce the balance a little bit!

Anyway, great game and I have always loved it.

23) The White Castle (2023 – Devir Games)

Designers: Isra C., Shei S.

Artist: Joan Guardiet

Players: 1-4

2024 Rank: 28

Another increase!

I cannot believe that I haven’t reviewed this yet.

I even had the burger joke ready for the title!

Anyway, this is a dice-drafting game along with a dice placement game (you are placing the die you draft to do an action, or maybe a series of actions if you plan well).

There are dice of three different colours placed on their coloured bridges (after you roll them each round, of course).

On your turn, you will take one of the outside dice (left or right, any colour) and place it on the board to do that space’s action.

The action space has to have an action for that colour, of course, and you can only have two dice stacked there. So if two are already there, you can’t go there.

First, you gain silver (or yen, I guess) for each pip above the number of die that is already there (the space has a pre-set die, though if somebody else has already gone there, you use that value instead).

If you place a lower die, then you pay the difference in yen.

Then you take all of the actions that coloured die will let you do.

Sometimes there are two actions in the same space!

This will double your actions, though most (all?) of the time one of those actions will just be to gain resources.

Which you may need to do the other action!

The three things that will score you points are putting gardeners out, putting samurai out into the training grounds, and sending courtiers to the castle.

You put all three of those out from your player board, which will also enhance your player board actions (which you can also do, though the base die is always a 6 so you can’t gain money that way).

When you do a player board action, you get all of the resources revealed from already-placed pieces, plus you get the action that aligns with that space.

Actions are at a premium, because you only draft 9 dice in the game (12 with the expansion, but that’s because there’s another board and bridge with new dice).

However, if you draft well and place gardeners well, then you will get more.

In the picture above, placing a samurai in the top two training ground spaces gives you either a red or a black action from the board.

Given what’s showing above, that could be a Castle or another Samurai action!

The judicious player will chain actions to get a lot more than 9.

I love how intricate this game is, though it’s too bad that the random dealing of the action cards can make for a very tight game where chaining is a lot harder.

Even so, this is a wonderful game that I love to play.

22) Shipyard – 2nd Edition (2023 – Delicious Games)

Designer: Vladimír Suchý

Artists: Michal Řezníček, Adela Stopka

Players: 1-4

2024 Rank: Not Played

The only game in this decade that’s new to the list!

The Heavy Cardboard Youtube channel is responsible for so many of my financial woes (I kid, I don’t really have those).

I have so many games that I first saw on that channel, and this is definitely one of them.

This is a game where you are managing a shipyard, building ships and then testing them out for investors, trying to earn as much prestige (reputation? Points? Whatever you want to call them) as possible.

The player boards are kind of a bitch to put together, but once they are, they are very nice board which fit all of the ship and canal pieces that you are going to need.

The action selection system is so delicious (I guess that’s why they’re called “Delicious Games!”), with a wheel that will help determine game length.

You choose an action with your action cube, putting the action that you were originally on at the back of the line, turning that wheel.

You can’t choose an action somebody’s cube is already on, but in addition to the action you take, you can spend six money (whatever the heck the money is called) to do an extra action, which can be any action other than the one you just took. So it could be one that somebody’s already on.

This can be anywhere from buying canals to test your boats on, buying/selling resources, buying ship parts, or recruiting crew or equipment for your ships.

You have to time things correctly, though.

If you put a front and back onto a ship, it must sail that turn!

So don’t do that unless you’re ready to go.

The equipment and crew will give you points when you sail, both outright as well as depending on the canal tiles you’ve placed.

It’s all very well tied together, with the timer being the action wheel, so you’re only going to be getting a certain number of actions in the game.

This is a game that burns my brain, but in such a good way.

Describing it sounds kind of dry, but the decisions you make are so interesting!

Do you build a bunch of small ships that don’t score you a lot of points individually but could score you a bunch collectively?

Do you do what James did one time and build one huge ship that sails on the last turn and gets you 50+ points just from that?

The options are many!

I’d love to get it to the table again, considering my last play of it was a terrible teach/reminder session after I hadn’t played it for almost a year.

I need to erase that from my memory.

21) Tyrants of the Underdark (2016 – Gale Force Nine)

Designers: Peter Lee, Rodney Thompson, Andrew Veen

Artists: sorry, I’m not listing 57 people, but there are a lot!

Players: 2-4

2024 Rank: 20

Tyrants of the Underdark didn’t fall much this time, but did fall out of the Top 10 back in 2024.

That’s largely due to the fact that I haven’t played it in ages, though I do want to!

I need to bring it out again.

Anyway, this game is a deckbuilder with a twist, which seems to be the norm nowadays.

In this case, the twist is area control, as you are trying to control various portions of the Underdark (this is the Forgotten Realms universe and the underground Drow Elves).

You have a starting hand of cards (as is usual) and you will be playing cards to both put troops or spies out on the board as well as to help you recruit other, stronger cards into your deck.

The big circular spaces on the board, you get ongoing VP for controlling (and also an effect), but even the other spaces give you VP at the end of the game for controlling them (and even more if you completely dominate them by having no other enemy pieces there).

You also get points for elevating cards into your score pile.

They’re out of your deck so you can’t use them, but they are worth more than they would be if you had them in your deck.

Like the Blue Dragon above, if it’s in your deck, you get 4 points.

If you’ve promoted it, it’s worth 8 points!

But you can’t use it anymore, so maybe in the later turns?

The game goes until somebody has deployed all of their troops or if the deck empties (which never seems to happen).

You also get points for killing enemy troops (both neutral ones that start on the board to give you cannon fodder as well as enemy pieces).

I love how the deck you use is composed of two of the four factions of cards that come with the game (the expansion gives you two more factions).

So there is definitely variability.

Typing this just tells me that I need more plays!

There was a new edition that GF9 put out that used cardboard pieces instead of little plastic ones, and also included the expansion to make 6 decks.

I didn’t bother with that.

Either way, though, the game is fabulous.

We’re now at the Top 20? What surprises await?

Can you guess my #1 game?

Can you guess my #10 game?

Lots to come in the next two weeks, so come back next Friday and see!

Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2026 Edition (50-41)
Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2026 Edition (40-31)
Top 50 Games Played of All Time – 2026 Edition (30-21) – You’re here!