1. Master Labyrinth - by Ravensburger released in 1991 a variation on their Labyrinth game released five years earlier which was a hit with younger gamers.
2. Café International - released in 1989 and winning the Spiel des Jahres for that year, players draw nationality tokens from a bag to lay at various tables with the restrictions that the nationality of the token must match that of the table at which it is placed and that there should never be a gender imbalance at any table (i.e. no 2:0 at any table). You score points the more you match.
3. Oi! Dat's My Leg! - Was released in 1989 by Games Workshop Ltd aimed at younger gamers.
4. Battle Masters: Chaos Warband - the only expansion in this quiz was released in 1992 for Battlemasters (also 1992) the game that needs a floor to play on, the board is that big.
5. The Sorcerer's Cave - Released in 1982, from experience this is best played in a school hall where you can create the different levels by stacking tables and chairs for the room and corridor tiles to lay on, we also played with multiple sets a lot of fun for an early dungeon crawl game.
6. Quirks - 1980 by Eon games all about mutating animals with lovely artwork by Linda Bound but a game I never got the hang of.
7. Adel Verpflichtet - Released in and Spiel des Jahres for 1990 designed by Klaus Teuber famed designer of Settlers of Catan, a wonderful set collecting game where you decide to exhibit and risk getting stolen from, attending an auction, stealing or trying to catch thieves.
8. Britannia - 1986 one of the best historical games especially when played 4 player but it can take a fair few hours, I remember one game where I was down to one unit and had nothing to do for several turns so went swimming for an hour to wait my next actual turn.
9. History of the World – (1991) by Ragnar Brothers is to my mind one of the best Civilization games out there, full of fun and lots of dice rolling, a great area control game.
10. Titan - (1982) a fantasy battle game where you can recruit all sorts of mythical creatures into your armies, again one of the longer games, the main board is for recruiting but when opposing players pieces land on the same terrain space battle ensues and the stacks of tokens are transferred to the battle board relevant for that terrain. Chance in the die rolling but plenty of strategy too.
11. Quarto - A good abstract strategy game where YOU pick the piece for your opponent has to play, a good 10 minute game from Gigamic.
12. Abalone - IMHO one of the most annoying games for storage as the box is an odd shape and of a non-standard size and the balls constantly try to escape the box if you store it on its side, other than that an interesting abstract strategy game.
13. Crash - I believe this was the first 2-player game I ever bought at Essen it has a simple mechanism and is simply cars shoving one another into the others trash heap. A fun game playing in 15 minutes.
14. Glasgow - A 2020 release where you and your opponent select tiles to build to develop the city of Glasgow between you whilst managing limited resources.
15. 7 Wonders Duel - An interesting take on the 7 wonders theme, I still prefer playing the original though, even at 2 player.
16. The Settlers of Catan Card Game - Through repeated plays I feel the game although interesting is a little unbalanced, it is hard to catch up once behind but there are lots of interesting cards to go through so each game is different.
17. Aqualin - This has similarities in play to that great game Entropy but is shorter in play-time In.
18. All Creatures Great and Small - A 2-player game taking much from Agricola but without any cards, the decision making is around the powers granted by the buildings you choose to build on your farm.
19. Mandala - A good 2 player game about card management, released in 2019 I was surprised it did not pick up any awards but perhaps it was too abstract for that.
20. Street Soccer - Designed by Corné van Moorsel this Cwali 2-player game is quite a lot of fun, the theme fits what is really an abstract game and the limited die rolling involved helps give it the feel of a “kick-about”.
21. Peloponnes - Designed by Bernd Eisenstein one of the most under-rated game designers I know, his designs are always different not only from one another but from other games out there and are always interesting. This is one of my favourites combining resource management with an interesting bidding system for tile acquisition.
22. Healthy Heart Hospital - As far as solo games go this is brilliant and one I keep returning to the patients deteriorating health is depicted by drawing coloured cubes from a bag as is trying to heal them, the tenseness of the game is created by limited actions, ambulances bringing more patients to the hospital and a restrictive budget
23. Le Havre - This is my favourite of Uwe Rosenberg’s designs and the ultimate in resource management games, if this is a genre you enjoy then it would be an offence to never play it.
24. Drum Roll - Released by Artpia Games this is my second favourite resource management game and definitely the most colourful I have come across, points are scored by hiring different performers into your circus however they have 3 different needs which are represented by colour cubes the more of these you obtain (and they are not easy to accrue) the better the return on the performers and all the time you are trying to keep pace with the wages bill, it is beautifully balanced.
25. It’s A Wonderful World - My most played game of 2022, a bit luck based in that if in round 1 you do not get a card draw that matches your starting empire card it becomes difficult to get any engine going before the game ends (4 rounds), but as It has a short play time for a resource management / card drafting game I am always willing to come back again.
26. Parks - I think this was over-hyped on release but is a pleasant game and celebrates America’s National Parks, a resource gathering game with limited storage.
27. Bohn Hansa - After the success of the card game Bohnanza there were many spin offs some good and some not so, this for me sadly fell into the latter category.
28. The Manhattan Project : Energy Empire - A good all round game where the game clock is managed by the players, every game will be tight so you have to make sure you are keeping pace with your opponents.
29. Scoville - The resources in this game are different classes of chillies, a family level game that has proved to be quite popular when I have taken it to the club.
30. Jambo - This is our most played 2-player game, the cards in this simple resource game create lots of interesting interactions, it can be played with a take-that element but this may waste much needed actions and there are plenty of defence cards.
31. Wald der Wunder - Released in 2020 this is a tile tessellation game that works really well at any of the player counts (2-4) and has a short play time of 30 minutes.
32. Juicy Fruits - Released in 2021 this is a resource gathering game with an interesting mechanism of moving the resource collectors on your own island, initially though your island is quite cramped with obstructions and your collectors get in each others way, you need resources to clear the obstructions which allows them to gather more resources to get bigger prizes which get built on your cleared island build too early and you again block your collectors but leave it too late and others will get the big point buildings.
33. Living Forest - Released in 2021 and the 2022 Spiel des Jahres Kennerspiele winner in which players collect animal cards which provide various currencies to buy tree tiles, more cards or extinguish fires, for me the basic mechanism is sound but I found the three winning goal criteria to be unbalanced.
34. Caesar! : Seize Rome in 20 Minutes - Released in 2022 a 1-2 player game which I have yet to play however I have played and enjoyed its sister game “Blitzkrieg!: World War Two in 20 Minutes” both at the solo level and 2 player.
35. Beer & Bread - Another 2022 release this time from Scott Almes of “Tiny Epic” fame, this 2 player game has alternate rounds of card drafting and card holding allowing you to plan the gathering of key resources to make Beer or Bread, all cards can be used to gather resources, make the commodity on them, or build an upgrade so there is plenty of choice. This is a well balanced game, enjoyable and a little frustrating when you struggle for the limited resources.
36. Prehistories - Released in 2020 a game of tile collecting played around a card bidding system, this is a nice game but I have had problems getting it to the table multiplayer where it is at its best.
37. Autobahn - Released towards the end of 2022 I backed on KS and as yet have not read the rules, so a game from the shelves of shame hits the quiz J.
38. Gloomhaven : Jaws of the Lion - Released in 2020 it is the younger brother of Gloomhaven (which sits at No1 on BGG as the worlds’ most highly rated game), it is effectively a smaller version (25 scenarios). It is a highly accessible Dungeon Crawl game feeding the rules in piecemeal over the initial scenarios and worthy of its place at No 7 on BGG.
39. Bad Company - A 2021 release which I enjoy and has similarities to Space Base, Bad Company is a little lighter and (to me) definitely more fun.
40. Almadi - Released in 2021 a good solid tile layer where you build up your own tableau along 4 rows, however which row of the market you take your tile from dictates what row in your tableau you must place your tile, the tiles also have triggers on each of the 4 sides which may give bonuses when you place it, being able to plan ahead and activating these triggers are key to winning. Very under-rated in my opinion.
41. Two by Two – You sail a boat around a board revealing tokens trying to match pairs of animals, simple mechanism and although there is chance in what you reveal there are quite a few tactics in the game that can help offset bad luck.
42. The Grand Austria Hotel – Excellently designed by Virginio Gigli & Simone Luciani you are competing against the game design as well as the other players, you take turns taking a card and then getting actions from a dice pool (there are no bad actions) but with only 14 actions in the game and a lot to achieve each action is important to get right.
43. Yspahan – 2007 Spiel des Jahres nominee this is a fun game, the die-rolling gives it a bit more luck than I would like as does the power card deck but overall a good fun game and was a good addition to the Ystari Games portfolio.
44. Egizia – From 2009 this is a great game where you are second guessing the needs of the other players, you take cards from a row (down the Nile) which are interspersed with action spaces, however you cannot return up the Nile so jump too far ahead for a key card and your opponents will clear up to great advantage behind you. A good game damaged by a couple of over-powered points cards which can be removed before play.
45. Vikings – Designed by Michael Kiesling this is can be played as a family game or a gamers game, this was our most played game when it was released and deserved greater recognition, however it was against strong competition in the 2007 Spiel des Jahres and got no further than being nominated
46. Stone Age – (IMHO) In 2008 this was the best resource management game out there, we played it at most sittings and although a Spiel des Jahres nominee I felt it was robbed and should have won, after 14 years it is sitting at No 140 on BGG, it’s rating is 7.5 compared to the winners 6.4. This is a family level game and you should give it a try. (NB BGG has My First Stone Age as a reimplementation – this is a different game aimed at much younger players).
47. El Grande – A deserved winner of the 1996 Spiel des Jahres it is an area control game where you balance dobber placement with powers on action cards, more dobbers means less choice of action card availability.
48. The Downfall of Pompei – This is a family game where you use cards to get as many dobbers down on the board as possible, however the game is in 2 parts and at a random point the second half of the game is activated where a players turn consists of drawing and placing a lava tile from a bag and then moving 2 dobbers, the aim is to get as many dobbers (people) out of the city before they get trapped or flattened by lava tiles. More dobbers means more options for escape but inevitably you leave more behind and the more dobbers lost means losing the tie breaker which happens not too infrequently.
49. Chakra – A 2021 Spiel de Jahres recommendation, the game is about collecting coloured tokens onto your player board and manouvering them into specific locations. A lovely game the mechanics and theme seem to fit brilliantly.
50. Trias – A little known game that has fun mechanics, it is area control but where you move the areas, based around the splitting of Pangea you try to retain control of the larger land masses with your limited herds.
51. Nuclear War – This is the cover of the 50th anniversary edition released in 2016 which depicts the iconic “Superbug” which was also on the original.
52. Wingspan – Designed by Margaret Hargreaves. As well as winning the Kennerspiele prize in 2019 the game is recognised for having superb artwork by Beth Sobel, Natalia Rojas, and Ana Maria Martinez.
53. KeyMarket – From British designer Richard Breese the distinct artwork on (I believe) all his games is done by his sister Juliet Breese.
54. Megaland – Games designer Ryan Laukat does all his own artwork in his, the similarities in the figures and backgrounds in Above and Below, Sleeping Gods & Roam can be seen here in Megaland.
55. Canvas – I included this in this section because of the game name, what it is about and the interesting art on the cards.
56. Troyes – Alexandre Roche was the artist here and although he has a more varied style than some others in this section I remember that on release the art on this box was so different from everything else that it leapt out and had a “buy me I am different” factor, and for me it lived up to that and made Pearl Games a company I followed.
57. Kokoro: Avenue of the Kodama – The artwork in this is spread across several more games including Kodama Duo, Kodama 3D, Kodama Forest, and Kodama: The Tree Spirits all have this distinctive and cute artwork.
58. Funkenschlag – aka Powergrid, Friedemann Friese (2f-Spiele) is notorious for liking the colour green, his hair is dyed green and all the 2f-Spiele games have this distinctive green on the covers, his games always start with the letter “F” too.
59. Terraforming Mars – This game has a huge following having 85,000 ratings on BGG where it sits at No6 a huge 31,000 more than Gloomhaven at No1 and 8,000 more than its nearest (that I could find) rival of Scythe down in 16th place. With that following I just wondered how many recognised the cover artwork. J.
60. Ursuppe – I could not do a section on art without referencing the work of Doris Matthäus this game is designed by her husband Frank Nestel. As far as I am aware she was the first German games illustrator to achieve International recognition and on BGG is accredited across 215 games including Carcassonne.
61. Hextension by Peter Burley who also designed the excellent (and ornate) abstract strategy game Kamisado, Hextension was later released as Take it Easy and there is now an extreme version called Take it to the Limit.
62. Deckchairs on the Titanic by Tom Holness, his first design and one of the better campaigns on Kickstarter in 2022, it plays better with more players.
63. London by Martin Wallace, this is the first (and IMHO the better) edition
64. Formel Fun by Terry Goodchild aka “Devil take the hindmost” this is one of the better known sports games he designed, it is a great game with 5/6 players, it does have a knock-out element but only towards the end of the game.
65. On the Underground by Sebastian Bleasdale is a solid railway game its latest implementation (On the Underground Paris/New York) is due for release in 2023
66. Civilization by Francis Tresham (probably better known for creating the 18XX style of Railway game) this was one of the more complex games to play in the 80’s with a brilliant balance of trade and territory control. Highly recommended but needs 4-7 players.
67. Talisman by Robert Harris – a brilliant fantasy game from 1983, so good the 4th edition version was released in 2007 with a large number of expansions.
68. Calamity by Andrew Lloyd Webber – Yes THE Andrew Lloyd Webber and this is a great game of taking chances.
69. Backpack & Blisters by Ragnar Brothers one of their early designs this is the 2nd edition box, they are probably better known for History of the World (question 9 here) and Canalmania.
70. Railway Rivals by David Watts. Over the years I have played thousands of different games and Railway Rivals remains one of my favourites, it was a well-deserved winner of the Spiel des Jahres in 1983. David designed a number of official maps but fans also contributed to the point where there are at least 215 different maps to play on, I do not think any other Railway game has this depth of variety of maps.
71. The Great Western Trail – A very recognisable cover and although it seems to be popular with some gamers it did very little for me
72. Takenoko – There are not too many games with Pandas and this is probably the best of them and who does not enjoy building the Bamboo’s
73. Point Salad – This was one I brought down the club quite often before I was taken ill although it only hit the table 4 times. A simple set collecting game where you choose what scores for you.
74. Ice Cool – Penguins appear in a lot of games but the bowl shaped bottom is very recognisable in this excellent flicking game. This won the Children’s Game of the Year in 2017
75. The Quacksalbers of Quendlingburg – This is the 2018 Kennerspiele prize winner and is a very popular game at my house getting played regularly a push your luck game with a few other things to think about.
76. Tamsk – I could not do a quiz with a reference to Kris Burm a wonderful 2-player abstract designer responsible for project Gipf. Tamsk was originally one of the “Project Gipf” games but was replaced by Tzaar. Tamsk’s inclusion here was because of the egg-timers, there are not too many games that have egg timers as part of the mechanism and this is the best.
77. Doctor Who The Game of Time & Space – This should have been a gimme but there may be some who did not recognise Tom Baker J.
78. Get Bit – Another game with unique pieces shown on the cover, other than Maneater I do not know of any other game where you pull the arms off of the pieces. Get bit is a great ice-breaker game where the players are swimmers escaping the shark, you do not have to be the fastest, just not the slowest.
79. Incan Gold - Aka Diamant, one of the better push-your-luck games and always a sharp lesson in probabilities. ,a.
80. Donkey Kong – Milton Bradleys take on the much loved computer game, everyone should have got this one as the name is on the board in the picture.
81. Midnight Party (aka Hugo) - The first of the dice games is Midnight Party, one of my favourites, my version will take up to 22 players and at some conventions someone will arrange such a game at midnight. I also created a live action version that was played at Ramsdencon at midnight on a nearby field one year with a giant dice and candles to mark the rooms.
82. Sushi Roll – A popular game at the club, easy to teach rules, plays up to 5 and a good end of evening filler or start of evening game, even open to late-comers joining in half way through.
83. Powerships - Another Cwali game, I would have gone with Powerboats but the box is buried so went with the newer version. The games are played with unique 3-sided dice to mark a space ships speed.
84. King of the Dice – A great dice game played with 6 dice whose faces are coloured as well as pipped, the idea is to match the faces shown on points cards with die rolls of colours or numbers.
85. Railroad Ink (Yellow) – The ultimate in Roll & Write route laying games, there are 4 main sets each with 2 sets of additional dice to mix and match for variants. Trails in the green box gives me the biggest headache whilst basic blue is by far the easiest to play. Yellow has Cacti & Canyons.
86. Buccaneer Bones – From Wattsalpoag is a 5 minute dice throwing filler, roll to get sets of numbers to get treasure tokens, however re-rolls and extra dice have to be earned.
87. Istanbul The Dice Game – One of the better Board Game to Dice Game conversions collect Rubies faster than your opponents however the costs increase as the game goes on.
88. Nations the Dice Game – (IMHO) This actually plays better than Nations the board game, it plays in a quarter of the time yet gives you the same feel of the game-play. Roll dice to collect icons to obtain tiles which give game end points, additional dice or additions to dice rolls.
89. Rome & Roll – At the heavier end of the Roll & Write genre it has quite good depth and interesting decision making, effectively you are building Rome both as a city and as an Empire, dice give resources or abilities or a mix of both however you get to action just 2 dice in your turn so choosing the right dice stops you wasting an action, each player also will play with a different Citizen giving additional abilities.
90. Monza – A light and fun Haba game using coloured dice.
91. Hase und Igel (aka Hare and tortoise) From British game designer David Parlett this was the very first Spiel des Jahres winner way back in 1979, there are quite a few versions knocking around including “Britvic Strategy” by Waddingtons a promtional game for the Britvic soft drinks company, the latest version was by Ravensburger in 2019.
92. Fauna – A game by Friedemann Friese that was not released through his own company but was produced by Huck (hence why I missed it) it is a general knowledge game based around Fauna, a card will show what the animal is called and the players make educated guesses as to the areas on Earth it is found, its weight, length and tail length, points are awarded for correct guesses, incorrect guesses loses you “guessing cubes”. For me it is a 10 on BGG.
93. Beasty Bar – A good filler game where players play animal cards to a line of creatures entering a night club, each time a card is added it affects other animals in the line often very badly, with 5 animals in the queue the line enters the club and will score at games end.
94. Team 3 - One of the fun games we played Christmas day. An intriguing co-operative game for exactly 3 players where one has a picture of a structure in front of them but cannot speak, the next can speak but not listen to any questions asked of them, the last player has to build the construction but with a blindfold on, they are also the only one allowed to touch the building blocks. The construction cards are of increasing difficulty and you have just 2 minutes to build the structure in
95. Kerala – A good family level tile laying game where each player has their own tableau to build on however you are only permitted to build from one of your two elephants so as the game goes on your tableau gets larger making it awkward to build tiles in the right places.
96. Savannah Park – From Kiesling & Kramer, a tile layer but the tiles already start on your board in a random set-up and on a turn a specific tile is picked and each has to move that tile on their own boards hopefully to advantage by increasing herd sizes. The mechanism works but the game (to me) feels a bit dull. This was released in 2021 and in 2022 Caldera Park was released which is a variant on this game – not sure why anyone would want both games.
97. Atiwa – Uwe Rosenberg’s latest game is about caring for fruit bats where players try to educate local villagers to look after bats in their huts. The mechanics and play have the feel of his other farming games except the feeding tends to be kinder here however if you do get it wrong you will still suffer badly but it is easier to avoid this situation.
98. Calico – It is strange to me that this was not even nominated for Spiel des Jahres in 2020(1), Flatout Games did an excellent job on this Kevin Russ design and for me it is a much nicer game than Cascadia by Randy Flynn which won Spiel des Jahres in 2022 for them. Calico is a tile layer matching patterns and colour with lovely artwork by Beth Sobel.
99. Mariposas – by Elizabeth Hargrave this game celebrates the complexity of the life cycle of the Monarch Butterfly which is absolutely fascinating, players fly their butterflies North feeding and breeding as they go, to return South for the last part of the game.
100. Animal Olympics – A simple kids card game but I defy anyone not to be moved by the Hippo with a sore foot, this is a 5 minute filler game but the artwork is fun and worth looking at.
101. Mystery Section B are all 2-player games.
102. Mystery Section E all the games can be found on Yucata (yes this was a horrible link but aimed at a few people who I know have and do play there).
103. Mystery Section G are all by British designers
104. Mystery Section I are all dice rollers. From memory I believe all have specialised dice.
105. There are 5 Spiel des Jahres winners (Hare & Tortoise, Railway Rivals, Café International, Adel Verpflichtet & El Grande), 3 Kennerspiele winners (Das Quacksalber von Quendlingburg, Wingspan & Living Forest) and 1 Kinderspiele winner (Ice Cool).
106. There are 6 games that were in the last Christmas quiz namely Tamsk, Incan Gold, Takenoko, Wingspan, Mariposas and Sushi Roll.
