Welcome to part 4 (of 5) of my Top 50 Board Games of 2024! Today, we move into my Top 20 as we look at games ranked #20 through #11. Next week, we'll finish the countdown with games #10 - 1.
#20: Railroad Ink: Deep Blue Edition
2023 ranking: NA
Railroad Ink is a roll-and-write game in which you roll a bunch of dice and then use the images on the dice to create your own road and railway network. The Deep Blue Edition has two mini-expansions (two River dice and two Lake dice). My family likes the river dice quite a bit, and we almost always use them. However, I'd recommend ignoring the lake dice, as we all found the lakes to be much less fun.
#19: Splendor
2023 ranking: 10 (down 9)
Splendor is a modern classic that distills "engine building" down to its most simplest form. In Splendor, you gather up gems to buy cards which then let you buy slightly more expensive cards, etc. until someone wins. It's as simple as that and yet there's enough to the game that it still sits inside my Top 20 games. This is a family-friendly game but you can play it rather cutthroat if that's more your style!
#18: Downforce
2023 ranking: NA
Another new entry to my list, Downforce is a simple racing game with great little toy cars that you race along one of two included tracks. There's also a bidding element in the game so you might not need your car to win the race in order for you to actually win the game overall. Fun, quick, and pretty simple to teach. What more can you ask for from a game like this?
#17: For Sale
2023 ranking: NA
For Sale is a game that takes place over two phases. In the first phase, you use your money to buy properties via a series of auctions. In this phase, players bid around the table until someone bows out of the round. That person then gets half of their bid back but they have to take the lowest remaining property on the table (properties range in value from 1 to 30). Play continues in this way until only one person remains in the auction. That person gets the best property from that lot, but they lose their entire bid. In the second phase of the game, each player takes the property cards they won and then sells those properties for cash. This is done in a simple style where a bunch of checks are placed on the table and each player secretly chooses a property card to play for that round. The highest-valued property takes the highest-valued check on the table all the way down with the lowest-value property selling for the lowest amount of money. You win the game by having the most money at the end. It's a great "thinking party game" for 3-6 players with the main downside being you can't play this game at only two players.
#16: Dinosaur World
2023 ranking: NA
Dinosaur World is the spiritual successor to Dinosaur Island, two games each about building dinosaur theme parks. In Dinosaur World, there is added spatial puzzle element because you have to drive your adorable little jeep meeple (jeeple) around your park at the end of each round. The catch here is that your visitors always want to see new and exciting things, each time they visit something they've already seen in a previous round the value of that particular stop goes down. It's a fun puzzle to work out! Be warned though, the game itself is a massive table hog!
#15: Ra
2023 ranking: 12 (down 3)
Much in the way that Splendor distills engine-building down to its core, Ra does the same thing for auction-style games. In Ra, you bid on tiles and add them to your tableau trying to score points in a variety of ways. The catch here is that you only have three tiles to use as your bids and all tiles are public information (therefore, if you know you have the highest remaining bid tile left, you know you can win any auction you want). The real spice here is two-fold, one, players can call an auction whenever they want and two, the round can end without notice meaning you may not even end up using that deliciously high bidding tile for the round!
#14: Sagrada
2023 ranking: 4 (down 10)
Sagrada is a lovely dice-drafting puzzle game about making a stained glass window. Unfortunately for me, my son doesn't love playing this game as much anymore and so the game has dropped in my overall rankings (last year it was a Top 5 game for me). That all said, it's still a great game and it's quite easy to explain to new players as well. Even better, there are varying levels of difficulty within the game so you can try to even the playing field a bit if you are playing with new players or perhaps young players.
#13: 7 Wonders Duel
2023 ranking: NA
7 Wonders Duel is a two-player only version of the classic game 7 Wonders. This version, however, adds in three different ways to win the game (points as usual plus a military track and a science track). Trying to balance the three possible end states while also building up enough of a tableau to be able to afford the cards you want in the later rounds is what makes this game tick. A great little game for two players!
#12: Ticket to Ride: Nordic Countries
2023 ranking: NA
Nordic Countries is my preferred flavor of Ticket to Ride. This particular stand-alone map/game plays 2-3 players only and features a tough, tight map with lots of blocking opportunities. The game has a lovely winter theme and plays a bit faster than your typical Ticket to Ride games. Combine the quicker playtime with a tighter board and you've got a winner in my book.
#11: Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island
2023 ranking: NA
Robinson Crusoe is a cooperative game that can best be described by one word: HARD. In this game, virtually everything can kill you. Weather? Kills you. Wild beasts? Kills you. Random event cards? Yep, often kills you. That said, each time you play and the game ends in defeat, you can't help but think "what if we had done X instead of Y" and then immediately want to give the game another shot. It's a tough game to teach with a fairly heavy rules load, definitely a heavier game than most on my list but if you can make it through the learning stage, it's an amazing cooperative game!
That does it for games #20 through 11 on my list. Next week, we finish off my countdown with my Top 10 games of 2024!
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