Board Game Friday: Updating My Top 10 Shelf of Shame

Back in November of last year, I created my first Top 10 Shelf of Shame, which was basically a list of ten games that I hadn't gotten to the table but would like to.  That original list looked like this:

• 10.  Disney Villainous
• 9.  The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game
• 8.  Food Chain Magnate
• 7.  Apex Theropod Deck Building Game: Collected Edition 
• 6.  Clank!: Catacombs
• 5.  Great Western Trail: Second Edition
• 4.  Raccoon Tycoon
• 3.  Endless Winter: Paleoamericans
• 2.  Paleo
• 1.  Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume Two

By June of this year, I had played several of the games on my list (denoted by the strikethrough) and so I posted a newly revised Top 10 Shelf of Shame list replacing the four games I played with new games that I hadn't yet played.  That revised list is below:

• 10. Food Chain Magnate
• 9.  The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – The Adventure Game
• 8.  Raccoon Tycoon
• 7.  Dinosaur World
• 6.  Intrepid
• 5.  Apex Theropod Deck Building Game: Collected Edition
• 4.  Wonderland's War
• 3.  Endless Winter: Paleoamericans
• 2.  Slay the Spire:  The Board Game
• 1.  Unmatched: Battle of Legends, Volume Two

Today, it's time to see how I've fared on my updated Top 10 Shelf of Shame list.  The good news is, since June I have had the opportunity to get a few of the above games to the table beginning with a game that requires a very big table!

Dinosaur World:

This is a fun game about building your own "Jurassic Park" without the licensing.  There is a neat gimmick in the game where you drive a little jeeple (jeep shaped meeple) around showing parts of your park to your visitors. However, visitors get bored of seeing the same thing over and over so the next time you stop at the same attraction your visitors will be less and less interested.  The game is undeniably a table hog but since I've only ever played this one at the two-player count, we've been able to make the space situation work.  

Slay the Spire:  The Board Game

Slay the Spire is based on a video game which in itself was clearly based on board game sensibilities.  The main gimmick here is that the board game version is a cooperative game - and honestly, that makes all the difference in the world.  This is a great game that I highly recommend - personally the cooperative bits make the board game version rank higher in my eyes than the video game (which I also enjoy a lot).

Unmatched:  Battle of Legends, Volume Two 

Earlier this week, my six-year-old son started begging me to let him try Unmatched.  He's been learning to read in school so I figured the game might work for him.  We started with a couple of easy characters but he's quickly progressed to playing any character that I own.  I did make a special point to do a full battle between us using only characters (and the corresponding game map) from this specific set in order to cross the set off of my Shelf of Shame list!  

And that's it - in about five months time, I managed to cross another three games off of my Shelf of Shame list including my top 2 games on the list!  At this point, I need to update my Top 10 in order to get back up to 10 games...but that will have to happen in some other post as it requires more thought than I have time for today!