Welcome to part 3 (of 5) of my Top 50 Games of 2024 countdown. Today, we are going to take a look at games #30 through #21 on my list. Without further ado, let's get right to it!
#30: Aeon's End
2023 ranking: NA
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| Image from boardgamegeek |
This is one of the few board games on my list that I don't actually own. I played this one with a friend and very much enjoyed the marriage of deckbuilding and cooperative play. Like many cooperative dungeon crawlers, this one uses a variable turn order system which keeps all players engaged and on their toes. Unfortunately, since I don't own this game myself it doesn't get played by me much (and thus the game may fall off future Top 50 lists but I can confirm that it's a fun game)!
#29: Kingdomino
2023 ranking: 13 (down 16)
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| Image from boardgamegeek |
Kingdomino is a tile drafting, puzzle game where you try to match different landscapes to score as many points as possible. It's a family-weight game that my son enjoys playing with me, though we've kind of moved on to other games in the past six months or so. Even so, you can find Kingdomino on board game arena and I still play the game over there on occasion (online players are, generally speaking, much better than my son and I are at the game)!
#28: Duelosaur Island
2023 ranking: NA
Duelosaur Island is a two-player-only game that takes the essence of the much larger Dinosaur Island and distills it down for a quicker, tighter experience. In Duelosaur Island, you are drafting DNA dice, creating dinosaurs, and doing your best to keep your park visitors from getting eaten. Other than the DNA dice, the highlight of the game is the multi-use cards. Each of the main game cards can be played as either a dinosaur (the top half of the card) or an attraction (the bottom half of the card). There are plenty of fun decisions to make with enough luck from the dice drafting portion to keep things interesting through the rather short playtime (games take under an hour from start to finish). This is a game that I hope to teach my son soon since he's quite advanced in his game playing and I think he'd be able to do this one quite well now that he can read fairly well!
#27: Oceans: Legendary Edition
2023 ranking: NA
Oceans is a game about playing out creature cards in your section of an ocean with the catch that what you play out can interact with the cards next to any cards you place out...and this includes your opponents' cards! There's a fair bit of "take that" in the game but it's all in the name of trying to survive the ever-changing tides *pun intended* of the game. Make sure you always have enough fish to feed your table of predators and everything should be okay. My copy of the game also came with a deck of cards called "the Deep" that I've yet to delve into (basically a deck of unique cards with unique, game-breaking abilities). Depending on how that addition to the game goes, I could see Oceans rising in my list in future years.
#26: The Grand Carnival
2023 ranking: 5 (down 21)
The Grand Carnival is a tile-laying game with a spatial component where you need to walk your visitors from the bottom of the board to the "big top" at the top of the board, ideally with those visitors visiting your attractions along the way. Collect the most points and win! With elements of drafting plus the spatial puzzle, the Grand Carnival offers a unique challenge to all players. I enjoy the theme and overall aesthetic of the game as well - so much so, in fact, that I backed the "upgrade kit" in a recent Kickstarter to make my copy of the game look even better than it did before. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten this one to the table since upgrading everything...add this one to the list of games I need to get back to the table soon!
#25: Clank! Catacombs
2023 ranking: NA
Clank! Catacombs is the only game in the Clank! series that I've played but if this one is any indication then I'm certainly willing to try the others. In Clank! Catacombs, you build out a dungeon (modular style with large tiles) and attempt to explore the dungeon, gather treasure, and then return to safety before everyone else to trigger the end game. Highest point total wins!
#24: Ecosystem
2023 ranking: NA
Ecosystem is one of the newest games in my collection and it quickly shot up my ranking thanks to its simple-to-explain gameplay coupled with a fun (yet speedy) spatial puzzle. In Ecosystem, each card represents either an animal or a landscape. Each animal and landscape card scores differently, usually related to the other cards nearby in your 5x4 grid of cards. Cards are gathered via a hand drafting mechanism (such as that in 7 Wonders). After two rounds of drafting, add up your scores and the high score wins. Many puzzle-esque games are similar to Ecosystem but I think the simplicity of the rules coupled with the decisions to be made make this game one of my favorites in the genre.
#23: Unfair
2023 ranking: 15 (down 8)
Unfair is a game about building up an amusement park and, simultaneously, wreaking havoc on your opponents' plans for their own parks. The game is almost entirely card-based and there are several expansions that extend the life (and variety) of the game. For whatever reason, I didn't get Unfair to the table thus far in 2024 which is the only reason why it dropped a bit in my rankings. I do have the second full expansion which I haven't yet played so I definitely need to get this game back out again soon!
#22: Tiny Epic Dinosaurs Deluxe Edition
2023 ranking: 8 (down 14)
Here's the second game from the Tiny Epic line of games to grace my Top 50 list this year (the other game was Tiny Epic Galaxies at #43). In Tiny Epic Dinosaurs, you play the role of dino rancher in which you raise dinosaurs in a worker placement, resource management style game. I love the itty bitty dinosaur meeples that come with the game (I have the Kickstarter version of the game) but I also love the gameplay itself.
#21: Karuba
2023 ranking: 27 (up 6)
My final game for this chunk of the countdown is Karuba, a family-weight game that I have played many, many times with my son. In Karuba, a tile is drawn (BINGO style), and then each player puts that exact tile somewhere on their game board. The game is a race where each player has four explorers and four temples and you are trying to get each of your explorers to their like-colored temple. The gimmick here is that each player begins with the exact same board set-up and each player always plays the exact same tile on each turn, therefore, while there is still luck in terms of what tile is drawn, the "luck" is the same for everyone at the table.
That does it for games #30 through #21 on my list. Next week, we dive into my Top 20 games of 2024!
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