We've made it to the end of the year (nearly) AND the end of my Top 50 Board Games of 2024 countdown. Today, we turn our gaze to games #10 through #1 on my list and then we can start thinking about what will go on 2025's list!
Editor's Note: In order to get today's post published on, you know, Friday, I had to yank all of the images you see below from BoardGameGeek's website. I figured that was better than no images since I simply don't have the time (or energy) to go through all of my games and take lots of photographs today.
And with that out of the way, let's get to the Top 10!
#10: Harmonies
2023 ranking: NA
Harmonies is a game where you draft wooden discs representing trees, mountains, etc., and place them on your personal player board to score as many points as possible. In addition, you draft animal cards that need specific natural habitats that you must build with your wooden discs, those animal cards also score you points. By the end of the game, you'll likely get about half of your points from your landscape layout and half from your animal cards making for a fun game with plenty of scoring tension. This is a family-friendly game that's firmly in the same category as a game like Cascadia (which I also like but for me, Harmonies has surpassed #37 Cascadia on my Top 50 list)!
#9: Dinosaur Island
2023 ranking: NA
Dinosaur Island is in the same family of games as Dinosaur World which I've already discussed at #16 on my list. While both games are table hogs and share many similarities (drafting dice, worker placement), there's something a bit more elegant about the original Dinosaur World that I prefer over the follow-up Dinosaur World. That said, I do think that the expansion to Dinosaur Island (called Totally Liquid) is what elevates this game to a Top 10 game on my list. I love the addition of the blueprints, they give players a bit more direction (and points) and can sort of force people to play differently each game.
#8: The Quest for El Dorado
2023 ranking: NA
The Quest for El Dorado is a deckbuilding race game where players are trying to get to the final temple as quickly as possible. Your movement is dictated by the cards in your hand and you can use each card to either move your meeple closer to the finish or use the card as currency to buy better cards for future turns. It's a delightfully simple game where you need to find the turning point from building up as good of a deck as possible to when it is time to straight-up race through the jungle to beat your opponents.
#7: Slay the Spire: The Board Game
2023 ranking: NA
Slay the Spire is a popular video game (based on card game mechanics) that somehow became an actual board game that surpasses the video game! If that's all too confusing, don't worry, the game itself isn't too difficult to understand. Basically, it is a cooperative game where you try to reach the top of the spire (think of the spire as a typical dungeon with branching paths and different types of obstacles and enemies to overcome). The game has a heavy deckbuilding component as well but where it really shines is in the cooperative play between wildly asymmetric characters. There's lots of planning and helping in this game without any real "quarterbacking issues" that are so common with many cooperative games.
#6: Arboretum
2023 ranking: 6 (no change)
Arboretum keeps its #6 ranking in my countdown for the second consecutive year. This game is one that is often described as a game where when it's your turn you'd simply like to pass rather than do anything that somehow almost always feels like you are helping your opponents more than yourself. It's a delightfully tense card game with tough decisions from the very beginning of the game to the final turn. I've reviewed this game on the blog in the past so check this out if you think you might be interested in a painful (in all the best ways) card game!
#5: Ark Nova
2023 ranking: 9 (up 4)
Ark Nova is a game where you try to build the highest-scoring zoo using some of the many, many cards in the game. It's essentially a racing game to a specific point threshold but it feels like a proper zoo simulation as well. On your turn, you take an action that varies in power/efficiency depending on where the action card is on your board. Action cards that haven't been used in a while are better since each time you use an action card you slide it to the first (weakest) slot on your player board. Each action allows you to do something relatively simple (draw cards, play animals, build enclosures, etc.). That said, this is a game that is kind of rough to teach the first time since there are so many symbols and special cards, but once you get over that hump the game is a lot of fun!
#4: Keep the Heroes Out!
2023 ranking: 3 (down 1)
Keep the Heroes Out! is another cooperative game that I enjoy immensely. In this game, you play as the "bad guys" trying to protect your dungeon from the meddling heroes. The game comes with several different asymmetric factions each with its own decks of starting cards. Keep the Heroes Out also adds a nice deckbuilding element to complement the tower defense system. Between the 20 included scenarios in the base box plus all of the different factions, there is a TON to do in the base game. In addition, the creator Luis Breuh has released several expansions that add even more variety to the game (including boss battles from the newest expansion). I do own the boss battle expansion but I haven't yet tried that out, even so, the base game box alone with worthy of its second consecutive top 5 ranking withing my Top 50 Board Games list!
#3: Unmatched Game System
2023 ranking: 7 (up 4)
Last year, I ranked each of the Unmatched boxes that I owned separately within the list. This year, I decided to lump them all into the "Unmatched Game System" category since the beauty of Unmatched is that you can take characters from different box sets and use them to battle each other. My son has really grown into loving Unmatched and it's a lot of fun to see which particular characters he gravitates to the most (so far Medusa and T-Rex). Almost every box set that I own of Unmatched is great, and while you don't need to get every character out there, the game does have some sort of pull in which you'll probably eventually want to get every character you can!
#2: Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion
2023 ranking: #1 (down 1)
Last year's top game on my list fell down one spot mostly because I didn't get to finish off my campaign this year. The person that I've played this game with moved further away so it's been tough for me to get this one to the table in 2024. That said, the game is awesome and it's a much simpler introduction to the Gloomhave system in a (much, much) smaller box. I do own Frosthaven (the big boy sequel to Gloomhaven proper) but I'm holding off on playing that one until my son is older. I can only hope my son will still be into board games at that time!
#1: Lost Ruins of Arnak
2023 ranking: #2 (up 1)
That's right, Lost Ruins of Arnak takes the top spot this year after finishing runner-up in 2023. Arnak is by far my most played game on Board Game Arena this year and I've played it a bunch in person as well. It's an awesome deckbuilder game with a race component as well as some exploration. It's a tight game made even more fun with the expansions. I own both of the main expansions though I've only played with Expedition Leaders thus far (for what it's worth, I'd consider Expedition Leaders an almost mandatory addition to the game if you want more variety and asymmetric characters). This is one of the few games where I've splurged and bought a proper box organizer in order to make getting the game to the table that much quicker and efficient!
And with that, my Top 50 Board Games of 2024 list is complete! It was fun to see how the list shook out compared to last year - I certainly had a lot more games to consider in 2024.
Ark Nova is great, takes awhile to get into/learn but once you do it's quite smooth and a lot of fun. My son and I play a lot of Unmatched now and I think I own most of the characters (other than a few of the super pricey sets). And yes, you are correct in that the card art for most of the characters is great as well! As for Arnak & Jaws of the Lion, choosing between them this year simply came down to the fact that I played tons of Arnak and basically no Jaws of the Lion. Jaws is a campaign game and I had a hard time scheduling a time to play with the friend that I've gone through the game with. I'm fairly certain we only have two missions left...and I also think I'll probably break Jaws out again once my son gets a little older (there are four characters in the game so we could play the other two and have a whole new gaming experience for both of us)!
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