{"id":10570,"date":"2024-12-22T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=10570"},"modified":"2024-12-21T15:20:57","modified_gmt":"2024-12-21T20:20:57","slug":"top-20-board-games-of-2024-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/22\/top-20-board-games-of-2024-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 20 board games of 2024, part two."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My annual post of the top 10 games of the year<\/a> is now up over at Paste. Compiling that list has gotten harder each year, because I play more new games in a calendar year than before, and because there are more games coming out each year \u2013 good and less good. I started out with 17 possible titles for the top ten, cut it down for Paste, and then decided to throw together a second post here with the next ten. I\u2019ll just reiterate that there are also games that came out in 2024 that I didn\u2019t play but that might make the list based on what other people have said about them, what I\u2019ve seen, and what the response and ratings are for the games on Boardgamegeek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11. Harmonies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This might have made my top ten if I\u2019d ever played the physical version, but I\u2019ve only played it on Board Game Arena, and I think I really need to see the physical components. It\u2019s a simple game with tight, medium-complex scoring, taking the general gist of Calico and making it somehow a little more forgiving without taking away what makes Calico good. On each turn, you take all three colored tokens from one spot on the board, and then place each of them on to spots on your own little map of hex tiles, with each color representing a different terrain type with its own placement and scoring rules. You can also select a new scoring card if you have room, with a maximum of four at any time, although once you fill all the spots on any scoring card you can set it aside and draw a new one. The game continues until someone has two or fewer empty hexes remaining. I\u2019m also not 100% sold that all of the starter scoring cards are balanced, but that aside, it\u2019s a wonderful thinker of a game, and really easy to learn \u2013 just hard to play well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

12. Dracula vs. Van Helsing<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A great asymmetrical two-player game where the players play with the same deck of four colors with cards numbered 1-8 but have different goals: Dracula wants to kill four humans in any of the board\u2019s five districts, while Van Helsing wants to drain all of Dracula\u2019s hit points before that happens. To set up, each player draws five cards and lays them on their side of each of the five regions in the order in which they were drawn. Each number has a specific power that activates when you discard it, so on your turn, you\u2019ll draw one card and either replace a card in front of you (discarding and activating that one) or discard the newly drawn one (activating that). Once the discard pile has at least six cards in it, either player can choose to end the round, giving their opponent another turn, or end it immediately by discarding a value-8 card. It\u2019s surprisingly balanced for its asymmetry, and extremely tense like a sudden-death overtime because the game can end at any time. (Full review<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

13. Harvest<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A reworking of a 2017 game published by the now-defunct Tasty Minstrel Games, Harvest streamlined some rules and made the boards and components much nicer while retaining the \u201ckinder Agricola\u201d vibe. You\u2019ll place three workers in each of the game\u2019s four rounds, gathering and planting seeds, collecting water and compost, tending plants, and harvesting them, while also clearing more land and building buildings for powers and points. The core of the game is in the plants, but there are multiple ways to win here; you can focus on certain plants over others, or go heavy on buildings, and so on. It\u2019s not as punishing as Agricola, which has a huge penalty if you can\u2019t feed all of your family members at the end of certain rounds, but you can still end up knee-deep in compost if you don\u2019t manager your resources well. (Buy it here<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

14. Gnome Hollow<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gnome Hollow was a huge hit at Gen Con with its bright, colorful components and combo of route-building and set collection. You draw and place two hexagonal tiles from the market on every turn, placing them on the map all players are building in the center of the table, and then move one of your two gnome workers to take an action \u2013 claiming a path in progress, selling mushrooms at the market, gathering a flower, or visiting a signpost to grab some extra mushrooms. When you complete a path, you get the mushrooms shown on the path, and then you move one of your path tokens on your board, gaining a bonus if the path covers 5 to 7 tiles, and scoring more points at game-end the more ring tokens you\u2019ve moved. The scoring is extremely simple, and there\u2019s plenty of interaction on the map and in the competition for the best spaces at the mushroom market. It\u2019s a very solid game across the board, pun intended. (Buy it here<\/a>; full review coming in January.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

15. Castle Combo<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I find it hard to separate this game entirely from Faraway, as they both came from the same US publisher\/distributor (Pandasaurus) in almost exactly the same box size with similar cartoonish art. The designers aren\u2019t the same, and the games don\u2019t have a ton in common other than one trait \u2013 you will play cards early that will determine your card choices later on, because they only pay out if you get the right cards and place them the right way. You\u2019re all building a 3×3 grid of cards, selecting from two rows, and on your turn you can only select one of the three cards in the row where the Messenger sits. You can pay a key to move him or to refresh the cards in the row. You pay the price in gold to buy a card and then place it wherever you want, usually getting some immediate return in gold or keys (with some other possibilities), and then earning points at game-end from that card based on what else is in its row or column or just your whole tableau. It\u2019s just 9 turns and managing your resources while ensuring you snag the card you need keeps the game tense right to the last turn. These two designers have a very promising new game, Zenith, coming out next year from the company that published the next game on this list. (Buy it here<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

16. Captain Flip<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The first release from PlayPunk, the new publishing imprint from designer Antoine Bauza (7 Wonders, Tokaido) and Thomas Provoost (co-founder of the publisher Repos), Captain Flip is a light family game where players try to fill their pirate ships with different crew tiles. Your ship has five columns of varying sizes, anywhere from one to five spaces high, and the powers or rewards of tiles you place often depend on what else is in that row or column. If you don\u2019t like the crew member on the tile you drew, you can flip it to the other side, but then you have to play that one, even if it might hurt you to do so. One character, the Gunner, gets you 5 coins (points) when you play it, but if you have to place your third Gunner, you lose immediately. It was one of the three finalists for this year\u2019s Spiel des Jahres, losing out to Sky Team. (Buy it here<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

17. Fairy Ring<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

This might deserve to be a little higher but I need to get more plays in before deciding. It is a really clever family-level game that blew away my expectations in terms of its strategic depth \u2013 the rules are simple, but you can play it pretty seriously regardless of your age. Players play mushroom cards to the area (village) in front of them, stacking them by type if you wish, and then moving their fairies around the table based on the number on the card they just played, passing through all players\u2019 villages and taking points from the card on which they land. If your fairy ends up on one of your own mushrooms, you score based on the mushroom type. If it ends up on another player\u2019s mushroom, that player gets points, and you only score if you have at least one of the same mushroom type in your village. The game has two seasons with different decks, bringing higher numbers in the second deck. Each season has six rounds, so you get just twelve rounds in total, limiting the game time. The big strategic question here is how to set up your village to maximize your points without handing too much to your opponents, with all the information out for players to see, so everyone can follow that plan if they wish. (Buy it here<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18. Seers Catalog<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Seers Catalog is a card-shedding game where you play tricks to try to get rid of most<\/em> of your cards \u2013 someone objected to me calling this a \u201ctrick-taking\u201d game because you don\u2019t take the tricks, but you do play them, so sue me \u2013 but not all of them. If you have five or fewer cards remaining in your hand at the end of the round, you gain points equal to the face value of the lowest card in your hand. Then all players lose 1 point per card in their hands. The catch is that once you\u2019ve got 5 cards or fewer left, you can\u2019t pass during a trick \u2013 you have to play if at all possible, so someone else can potentially bait you into playing your last card. There are two \u2018artifact\u2019 cards with 0 value (mostly) but special powers that spice up each game as well. Seers Catalog is also quite unusual for a trick-playing game in that it works well with two players. (Full review<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

19. Pixies<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Designer Johannes Goupy made my top 10 with Faraway and also designed 2023\u2019s very solid Rauha and the complex game From the Moon (which I haven\u2019t played), and he\u2019s here as well with this wonderful small-box game for just about all ages \u2013 maybe 7 and up, to put an actual limit on it. The whole game is a deck of cards in four colors, numbered 1 through 9, and you can only play a card face-up to its matching space in your 3×3 tableau. If you can\u2019t or don\u2019t want to do so, you can flip the card face-down and put it anywhere. If you place a card in its proper space on top of a face-down card, or a space that already has a card of that number in it, it\u2019s \u201cvalidated\u201d and scores its face value. You also score the net of the various positive and negative symbols on all of your face-up cards, and score for the largest contiguous area of one color. You play four rounds, one for each season, with the area bonus increasing in each round. The card-drafting mechanic (very similar to Faraway\u2019s) gives you some real player interaction, too. (Full review<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

20. Life in Reterra<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Earth is on the rebound, as some unstated disaster has led to a world where humanity has to start over. In Life in Reterra (get it? it took me way too long), players place terrain tiles with various symbols on them that allow the placement of citizens, relic tokens, or buildings, the last of which can give you additional powers or gain you extra points. The real strength of Life in Reterra is its flexibility: in every game, you choose five buildings to use, taking one of the three recommended sets or just mixing and matching as you please, as long as you match all five required building shapes. Once everyone has filled their 4×4 grid, you score. It\u2019s got a longer runway with the various building tiles\u2019 rules, but the game play itself is very quick. (Full review<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honorable mentions: Courtisans (full review<\/a>), River of Gold, Parks Roll & Hike (full review<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I may receive a commission from any affiliate links on this page.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My annual post of the top 10 games of the year is now up over at Paste. Compiling that list has gotten harder each year, because I play more new games in a calendar year than before, and because there are more games coming out each year \u2013 good and less good. I started out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[60,408,455,544,161,260],"class_list":["post-10570","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-boardgames","tag-card-games","tag-family-games","tag-family-strategy-games","tag-highly-recommended","tag-rankings","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10570","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10571,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10570\/revisions\/10571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}