Top Ten Games - 2016

Inspired by The Dice Tower and their top 10 lists, I have put together my top 10 games for 2016 as well. Note that these are games that I have played for the first time in 2016 not necessarily games that were released in 2016. With all the games that I already have, I got another 38 games plus several expansions last year. Some were purchased at the thrift stores and conventions, and some were new.

The new games were Betrayal at House on the Hill, Black Ops, Dragon Rampant, Dust, En Garde!, Ender’s Game:Battle School, For Sale!, Geek Out!, Kings & Things, Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China, Lion Rampant, Magic: The Gathering – Arena of the Planeswalkers: Shadows over Innistrad, Mars Attacks: 10 Minute Takedown, Mission Red Planet, OGRE: Objective 218, On the Seven Seas, Sons of Anarchy: Men of Mayhem, Star Trek Fleet Captains, Sushi Go Party!, The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth, Timeline Challenge, TMNT HeroClix: Mouser Mayhem Starter Set, X-Men: Mutant Revolution.

The ones I picked up not new were 221B Baker Street: The Master Detective Game, Attack of the Mutants, Blood Royale, Bunco Deluxe, Clue (2-6), Cranium Ziggity, Dune, Electronic Mystery Mansion, Inner Circle, Loopin’ Louie, Monopoly Hotels, Set, Showdown Yahtzee, Uno Hearts.

A lot of these did not hit the table this year. Some games from previous years were finally played.

Games that I played for the first time that did not make my list were:
Hanabi, Loopin’ Louie, Telestrations, There’s a Moose in the House

13 – Archer – Once you Go Blackmail – Another Love Letter variation. The extra hidden card mechanism doesn’t work as smooth as the Batman variation does but it does speed up the rounds.
12 – Codenames – Basically it is like team password. I think it is okay for 4 or more players but I’m not as impressed as a lot of people seem to be with this one.
11 – Legendary: Big Trouble in Little China – a deck building game. I’ve only played the intro game a couple of times. There is a lot going on here and it seems like it has a lot of variation available. Not as easy to play as a single player even though listed as capable of such on the box. This involves a lot of set up to start.

10 – Mission Red Planet – A worker placement game that seems like it would be very complex but was actually pretty easy to pick up. It seems like there should be more to it but it’s certainly worth a few more plays to check.
9 – 13 Dead End Drive – An interesting marriage of the good elements of Clue and Mousetrap. More time spent on the set up for the board than it is worth but still a fun little game.
8 – For Sale! – A very simple auction game in two parts. In the first part you bid on properties, and in the second part you sell those properties. It is easy to explain, plays quick, and you can usually get a few games in as one game leads to another.
7 – Storage Wars – It’s not a bad game for a mass market license. I’m not a big fan of regular auction mechanics and that does form a big part of this game. Otherwise it is a quick game for up to 6 players.
6 – Inner Circle – A game from my youth that I am not sure I ever actually played but always wanted to. You maneuver your pieces to get on to the spots that remain when the boards are lifted away trying to be the only player to get to the final spot on the fourth board.
5 – OGRE: Objective 218 – A very small game in the OGRE universe. Still feels like a tight little war game even though it is more about maintaining a supply chain.
4 – Yahtzee: Free For All – An interesting variation which allows a bit more player interaction in that you get 1 round to steal points from another player before they can score them. Also pretty quick.
3 – Pandemic: Contagion – A much smaller version on Pandemic where you play as the viruses. Very tight on your resource management as you only have so many cubes and turns with which to work.
2 – Timeline Challenge – It includes 5 variations of how you can use Timeline cards built into the game. More than one player can score each round so it moves along nicely. There are two points where the bottom players get to play 1 round to get a chance to gain bonus points. It includes some new Timeline cards but you can add other Timeline decks that you already have to it.
1 – King of Tokyo – A giant monster battle contained in a quick, dice-rolling game that is both cute and brutal. I am looking forward to playing with the expansions but right now the base game is more than enough fun.