Board Game Geek 301-400 - Have We Played It? | BGG Hotness | Board Games & Brew

I hope you have now played Bunny Kingdom!!!!

A bit of criticism…you guys need to play a few more games before making a list like this, probably a few hundred more. This is a list of speculation and reading box covers. A waste of time.

Dicey Pandemic: I don't like Pandemic either, but this was tolerable.
Ares Expedition is a marriage between Terraforming Mars and Race for the Galaxy. I enjoy it and it is faster to play. 1-4 player.
Kingsburg is a good game, not a great one (B). You need to play it twice to appreciate it.
A Few Acres of Snow is more wargame than many would want, but the grognards don't consider it a wargame.
Point Salad got old for me fast.
Blood Bowl started out as a miniatures game about ultraviolent fantasy football. This is the rule book, miniatures are extra.
Flash Point...: Tom Vassal loves it. Most other people consider it too fiddly.
Firefly is a good to great game for fans of the show; everybody else thinks it is too long for what it is.
Manhattan Project is one of my favorite games.
Dice Forge is a good, but not great game that ALWAYS ends too soon.
I went into Mice and Mystics with high hopes, but my hopes were dashed. I didn't feel any urgency and we were railroaded (no side quests, unlike Aftermath).
Abyss: try Conspiracy; it is literally Abyss lite. It is a good game.
San Juan and Race for the Galaxy were in competition to become Puerto Rico, the card game. San Juan won and Race went on to spawn many re-imaginings (The best being Jump Drive, my most played game).
ASL may be the most complex wargame ever made.
Gizmos is fun, but after twenty or thirty games it starts to feel samey.
Pillars of the Earth is a good game, done in by the who goes in what order mechanism.
Agricola, All Creatures Big and Small: If given a choice between this and Agricola, i would play Agricola. I hate Agricola. Just play Caverna.

Kingsburg is fun.... dice rolling then placing for resource gathering... use resources to build up your kingdom board for army levels and victory points! Fun game -- has a 2 player variant that is not bad either... :-)

Lost Cities - hard pass :) - go for some modern games :)

Great video! You guys will love Forgotten Waters! I actually liked it more than Sleeping Gods...careful who you say that around. 😳😬😄

Instead of playing San Juan, just play Race for the Galaxy =). Very similar mechanics, but in space.

So many great games on this list. A few I would recommend. Gugong, Notre Dane, Stockpile, San Juan (but only if you’ve played Peurto Rico), Quadropolis and Fresco!

Love this format, I really want to see how deep you'll dive...
As for the games I know and enjoy, I really like Tekhenu, it's a dice drafting game, pretty hefty one IMO with a lot of decisions to make, but it's really worth it, even though the rulebook is not very well written. I also like Bruxelles 1893 (which is closer to Jamie's pronounciation 😉), a solid game with very nice artwork, I enjoyed it a lot.
Looking forward to your next videos, keep on having fun !

The Manhattan Project is a great game. Worker placement mixed with tableau building and a bit of a take-that element. Plays well at all player counts. A two player game takes under an hour. I think Energy Empire is a streamlined less bomby version if the theme puts you off.

Highly recommend Terraforming Mars Ares Expedition if you two are into engine building games. Its such a tight, smooth and satisfying game.

Ug. Why do so many of these box covers look like the cover of a middle school history textbook? Booooring.

This video was so thought provoking, I had to comment twice :). Dice Forge, well designed game, played it once, simple enough to learn, IMHO nothing to write home about. The upgrading of device to improve the rolls was a fun idea, but man prying that stuff out of the dice I found to be a PIA . Pillars of the Earth is a life changing, epic saga of a book. Just great. Ken Follett has to be one of my favorite authors to ever grace the face of the earth. Like Rodney Smith, I am pretty sure he just poops excellence.

Love the banter. Plenty of fun moments starting with Jeff telling Jamie, “I’ve been doing this as long as you.”

I bought the Godfather game for my son many years ago as a Christmas gift. He moved out, it stayed here, it's that good...if you get 3-4 peeps who are completely engaged and competitive, it's a GREAT game, EXCELLENT thematic ties to the movie, incredibly cutthroat also. Bought Camel Up based on your guys recommendations, can't wait for it to get here and play with friends. I consider myself a fairly intelligent individual human being, no game has made me feel more of a complete and utter moron than Sherlock Holmes, consulting detective. Ridiculously hard. I bought two games as a bundle, never even opened the second box.

Glen more 2 is definitely worth it if you get the chance. I got it half a year ago and its quickly grown to high on my list! These styles of videos are a nice treat of just your random hot takes

“You could say I’m Risk averse” LOL didn’t know Jamie was a Dad

Millennium Blades is a lot of setup (soooo many cards) but it's such a unqiue game and a cool theme! It's definitely worth a play if you get the chance, but not sure if it's worth owning your own copy (I own a copy but rarely get it played).
In the Year of the Dragon probably looks like Castles of Burgundy cause it's by the same designer and publisher (one of the artists is the same too!) and it's an old game 😋

Heroscape is great. Miniatures with really cool terrain. And very easy rule set. The only downside os the minis are already painted so if that’s one of the reasons you’d get into minis it’s not a reason to get into heroscape.

But it’s a Great introduction to miniature gaming as the rules are really basic. Good luck buying it though as it’s out of print and you’d have to buy all the minis separately.

Thunder stone quest. It’s a deck building game, similar to dominion but they added a dungeon quest element to it and it’s a but more advanced and thematic than dominion. They came out with thunder stone first, then thunder stone advanced, and now thunder stone quest is the newest iteration. It’s actually pretty fun as a deck builder but you have to like deck building; a bit more advanced than clank but there is a lot to it.

Advanced squad leader. Ridiculous war game that has notebooks full of rules. It’s like 18xx but for war games. Only the most advanced war gamer would,he interested in it. I’ve only played the basic version of it and it was a dumbed down version at a convention. So didn’t see all the advanced features. But I doubt you’ll like it.

Civilization - old school board game. It takes about 9 hours to play. And it’s a lot of trading goods and then building up your civ slowly. I actually enjoy it but would only play once a year at most. Amd haven’t played in ages. It’s not even thst advanced, it’s just LONG. Also. I played advanced civ, but basic Civ. But Civilization is basically the same game but a bit shorter. Still pretty long.

51st state Master set. It’s like imperial settlers or imperial settlers of the north (which you like) but with a post apocalyptic setting. Same rules as imperial settlers, but with some minor differences. More realistic art and less cartoony. But if you like the theme you’d probably like it.

Love Quadropolis and Carpe Diem. Check them out.

Pillars of the Earth is one of my favorite books. Once you pick it up it is hard to put down! We love Awkward Guests! The setup (and takedown) takes a bit of doing because you have to pull about 50 specific clue cards for your scenario. Don't get any of them wrong or it will throw off the game!

Gosh... So many great games! ^^ I probably love and own more games in this section than in the top 100... Presumably because people on BGG (geeks ;) ) tend to grade more severely family games and light strategy games than heavy beasts, neglecting the value of those types of games in their particular settings. That's why it makes more sense to grade or rank by categories. You don't value primarily the same things in a gateway/family game (accessibility, smoothness of the turns, ratio depth/easy rules, welcoming art, etc.) than in a strategy game (options available, diversity of effective strategies, luck mitigation, etc).
Among the games you haven't played yet, I would recommend warmly:
1. Abyss (WITH expansions, especially "Leviathan")
2. Mission Red Planet (2nd edition)
3. Paleo
4. Dice Forge
5. Bunny Kingdom / Ginkgopolis

PS: As a Frenchman I applaud Jeff's pronunciation of "Notre Dame"! :) As a Frenchman living in Japan, I would say that Jamie's "Meiji" was right. As a Frenchman who doesn't speak German at all, I can still assure you that "Die Macher" was... very funny! :D

Fun trivia: Die Macher was the very first game added to the BGG database. :-) It is game #1.

Fun fact about A Few Acres of Snow: It was considered by many to be broken due to an easy to execute degenerate strategy known as "The Halifax Hammer."

Blood Bowl Team Manager is one of the best 1v1 games ever made you gotta snag a copy.

Clash of cultures: monumental is worth the money. 👍

Dice Forge is best on BGA, its a pain to remove and change the die faces

Kingsburg is a good dice placement game. The blood bowl living rulebook is the rules that were kept updated for Blood Bowl back when Games Workshop stopped supporting it. They have since brought blood bowl back in 2016 and then a "second Season" edition in 2020

Gugong is one of my favourite games! Very solid mechanically as well as beautiful artwork! Lots of replay ability with different strategies to try as well as a great solo mode. At the Gates of Loyang is another phenomenal game but I feel like it plays better solo where Gugong plays great solo and multiplayer.

Also, if your a fan of Cavern Tavern (who isn’t 😄) then you’d probably enjoy Kingsburg as well. Another fun dice worker placement game.

This video gets you curious…I looked up the rankings of games I am currently playing and loving (i.e. The Initiative) and I’m astounded!The Initiative is at 2,281 while Skull is at 395!?! What?! 🤦🏻‍♀️😆 this is eye opening.

I'm 7 minutes in... Pausing the video and am going to start again so I can make comments throughout.

First, how do you guys accomplish looking at ALLLLLLL these games and not want to buy ALLLLLLLLL these games? I have to force myself to say no, you cannot buy more (then buy more) lol. And second, if you've spoke about it in a video I apologize that I haven't seen it, forgive me...but why the hardcore hate for pandemic? That was the first game I bought to try out, but hated that I saw it now during covid because I thought it was a ploy of 'oh look at us, we're all in a pandemic, lets make a game about it'....but then LOVED it. I played the chutulu and rome version, which were fun too, but I still think base has my vote of the 3.

If you like Splendor, try Gizmos, it's a better thinky version.

Lost Cities, such a good game, great video guys :)

Mission red planet . Fun game good little astronaut minis. Easy rules. Up and play in minutes.👍👍👍

Paleo is great! There are some fun surprise type elements so the first time you play through it, there are extra fun little things that happen! But it’s also totally replayable and still really fun even after you know what the surprise elements are.
Nusfjord is also very great, and definitely less punishing and more interesting to me than Agricola. Also it’s much more aesthetically pleasing :)

Awkward Guests is one of our family favourites. I hunted it down after watching Max on Tablenauts unbox it and talk about it. Hard to find but worth it.

We don't like Pandemic but we really like Pandemic the Cure. The other versions are also worth playing. Try them out - they are significantly different than the original which we culled.

I didn't really enjoy Agricola or other Uwe resource-gathering games, but I do love Nusfjord. Having only 3 resource types makes it easier to manage, and the types are different in interesting ways. Fairly quick game, too

You guys need to try some of those games that you are put off by the poor artwork. You are missing out on some great games. Also, don't like base pandemic but like Fall of Rome and the Cure - the dice one on this list.

I spent way too much on the new Mythic Battles Kickstarter. It's a army building, miniature, skirmish game that's supposed to be really good and the miniatures look amazing.

I absolutely love buttonshy games because they’re all these tiny wallet games that are great for travel. Sprawlopolis is one of their best sellers along with tussie mussie. And recently I like Death Valley and a La food cart. The games are very clever for such few cards and they make great things to slip in your purse and pull out when you’re traveling or even just out to eat.

Mission red planet is a pretty great game. It’s area control via the card play system where you all have the same hand and you play simultaneously then actions are taken in order. At some point you have to decide when to take back your hand of cards so that you have all of your options available again. Concordia does the same thing. This one is really simple to teach to new people as you only have to pick a card and then it plays out and others can help you learn it as you go if needed. It also has a really good flow and time of gameplay as it has a set number of turns from the beginning and they don’t take very long. I’d recommend trying it out. I’d imagine it’s on bga or one of those and it would play well there.

Mice and mystics is a game I play with my kids but not one I can really recommend to adult gamers. It’s fun but a super simplistic strategy and too rules heavy? for what it is. My boys love it but it’s hard for me to want to get out as remembering all the little fiddly stuff is a bear. The theme is awesome though and it comes out in gameplay very well.

Diceforge is a great simple game. The time it takes to play is perfect. It ramps up at just the right speed.

Claustrophobia is a 1V1 game where one player controls demons and troglodytes while the other controls the "heroes". It's a dice chunker where each player has different stats and they assign dice to these stats based on numbers rolled.
Unmatched and Bunny Kingdom are MUSTS!! I can almost guarantee you guys will love both.

Point Salad is just that - you have a deck of veggies and you make sets to score. The mechanics are different but I did enjoy it. Camel Up has to be played with at least 3 people - yes?

Lancaster!!

LAAAAAAAANCASTER!

I'll teach ya Bunny Kingdom...2 player variant and at 4 player...just come on over, neighbours!