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A Gaming Life
BGG Top Games – 4301 – 4400
Welcome to another look at a century of Boardgame Geek game rankings!
These posts have been really cool for me because of the conversations they’ve started with friends and colleagues, but they’ve usually had at least a few games that I’ve played and can talk about with some semblance of knowledge.
That may not be the case for the next couple of weeks, though.
We’re getting down into the areas where I’m lucky to have played a couple of them, but that is actually a blessing in disguise in some ways.
This gives me an opportunity to talk about games that might be of interest!
Really quickly, because this is the first time that this has happened.
After writing last week’s post (but before it actually posted), I actually played a game that was in that century.
On Sunday, between writing and posting, I played Hanami (currently #4019, so maybe it qualifies for another experiment?), which is a reimplementation of the classic Samurai system, and it’s actually quite good!
I did enjoy it and I wonder if this will ever happen again?
It might!
Also, speaking of last week, we have two experiments still going on that I want to check in on.
The Game Makers (from Bezier Games) is freshly published and we are going to track how high it goes, since it happened to be in a century that I was writing about.
When last week’s post went live, it was #3420. I’m currently writing this on Thursday evening last week, and it’s at #3409.
Seems to be slowing down, but we’ll see what it is when this posts. Which is #3265.
Not gangbusters, but still moving steadily!
The other experiment is Wingspan Pocket, which hit the ground running and is racing up the charts.
When last week posted, it was #2879. As of when I’m writing this on Thursday, it’s currently #2728!
Slowed down a little bit since last week, but now (at the time of this posting) it’s #2417.
Top 100, here we come?
We’ll keep an eye out.
This week’s century of games can be found here.
Keep in mind that these rankings could change and that favourite game that you were looking for isn’t actually there if you come look at this during the apocalypse.
Because you need a good game to keep you occupied when something like that happens.
And it’s not very good for games I’ve played, with only two (owning one of those).
I’ll talk about those and then get onto some more interesting games (maybe).
Or maybe not!
Since I’m already way over my introduction limit, let’s get started!
Read MoreIs Expertise Overrated? – Era of Experts Review (Inventors of the South Tigris Expansion)
Era of Experts is the expansion for the really long and intricate, but still quite good Inventors of the South Tigris game from Garphill Games.
It has taken a while to actually get enough plays of this expansion in order to do a review.
That’s because the base game itself is quite long and has been difficult to get to the table since I was able to review it.
I had one play of the expansion last year and then…nothing.
I finally got a 3-player game going a couple of weeks ago and managed to get a second play in.
Thank God that this expansion forces you to play the short game.
I don’t think I’ll ever play the long game again, even without the expansion (a 3-player game of that took us 4 hours).
Before I go any further on this one, though, Era of Experts was designed by Shem Phillips and S J MacDonald and was published in 2025. It has artwork from the Mico (Mihajlo Dimitrievski).
After having played it a couple of times, I don’t think I ever want to play the base game without it.
It’s that good.
Is it enough to move the base game further up into my Top 50, or at least prevent it from falling off?
Time will tell.
Read MoreFriday Night Shots – Game Systems
Those of you who follow this blog (hi, Doug!) know that I’m a huge Final Girl fanboy.
See that page for all of my individual feature film reviews!
I have everything, except maybe some promos and stuff.
I have the Season 3 Ultimate Box and the Season 4 Catch-up box (which is basically the Ultimate box but with only the final Series 4 film as well as other stuff, but room to place the Series 4 films I already have).
The release schedule of the films, every few months, has seemed pretty cool, but since I came in near the end, I have been playing catch up by buying films as they became available.
I didn’t really think anything of their film release schedule until I saw a troll post on Boardgame Geek questioning how Van Ryder Games is handling the releases of this game (which I’m not going to link to, because the guy posts things and then just runs away without engaging) and then this review from user Andrew Clarke.
I’ll talk more about it after the break.
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 4201 – 4300
The last century of the BGG Top Games list was actually not too bad.
Lots of nostalgic wargames for me, plus having played a few of the really cool games on the list.
Still, the number of games played wasn’t the largest.
Will this century be better?
Last week did spark a bit of cool discussion among my friends, along with an explanation for how one game jumped really high between when I started the post and when it actually posted.
That’s what I love about doing these!
That type of discussion is priceless.
Not only that, but I’m monitoring two experiments from the last two weeks.
These are two hot new games that coincided with the century I was writing about, but which are going to go much, much higher.
First, The Game Makers (the hot new game from Bezier Games) was at #3550 at the time of posting last week.
Right now, the game is at #3420
A huge jump!
Probably even more of a jump, however, is the brand new “gonna be a huge hit” Wingspan game from Elizabeth Hargrave and Stonemaier Games.
Last week, Wingspan Pocket was at #3466 at the time of posting.
Now it’s at #2879.
Top 100 here we come!
Nothing new like that this week, but let’s get into it so my editor doesn’t start hitting me with a wet towel for going over the word count.
This week’s list can be found here, but keep the usual caveat in mind. Blah blah some lame future joke blah blah things can change blah blah blah.
This week’s stats are 5 games played and 3 owned (2 of those played), but it’s a bit of a cheat because one of those is a standalone expansion.
Ouch, my introductory word quota is behind me, so let’s begin!
Read MoreCombat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 04 – Closed for Renovation (The Sequel)
If you’re experiencing deja vu with this post title, think of us poor Combat Commander ladder players!
June’s game was the same scenario, but how the sides were chosen was different (and of course, the opponent would be different, most likely).
Didn’t matter to me. I was still the Americans, and I was still destined to lose.
Or was I?
Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, administered by the indescribable Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame (ok, I guess by calling him indescribable, I just described him? Is that a paradox? My brain hurts).
Anyway, as mentioned in June’s post, this scenario has an American force of Elite and Line troops attacking a rather large building in the center of the map that’s loaded with Germans.
No, it’s a chateau, not a castle.
And it contains nothing but death, in the form of two heavy machine guns.
Surprisingly, in this sequel play of this scenario, the Americans are actually winning a bunch of games, so it’s not as lopsided as I mentioned in the June write-up.
Would I be one of ones who did better?
This month’s opponent was Max R from out east, so we had to once again navigate a 3-hour time difference. Thankfully, he didn’t mind being up late on a Friday night.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
The Germans (Max – grey) set up everything except a Weapons Team and the Infantry Gun, anywhere up to 9 hexes from the bottom edge of the board, though the Wire has to be adjacent to a building hex.
Then the Americans (Me – green) set up in the top row, followed by the Germans setting up their IG.
After seeing Max’s set up, I didn’t change a thing from my June setup, thinking that it was more an execution problem than a bad plan. He only had one squad on the right side, though I figured as soon as I put a major force over there, the Infantry Gun was going there.
I was right.
The only change was that now Buehler was attacking the chateau while Wray was attacking down the road. I was also looking to possibly flank the chateau rather than exiting, but we would see what happened.
Once again, the American radio would be heavily relied upon for smoke, because that is a lot of open ground to cover.
Also, I had no idea that there were a bunch of freakin’ zombies in this field.
More on that later.
Let’s see whether I could change history by actually doing something positive this time.
Read MoreI Think This is an OSHA Violation – Final Girl – The Marrek Murders Review
I mean, with all of these death traps scattered around the warehouse, who do we sue?
Another in the Series 3 feature films for the wonderful Final Girl solo franchise, we once again have a film that adds a bunch of stuff to keep track of and modify the usual gameplay for the game.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, as long as the fiddliness doesn’t get too bad.
(Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to blow it up)
The Marrek Murders patterns itself after the Saw movies (or at least the killer, anyway) and takes place in a warehouse that’s just brimming with traps.
That’s because the Tormentor just loves her traps!
It’s how she gets her jollies, since she’s actually pretty weak otherwise.
The Marrek Murders was designed by A.J. Porfirio with artwork by Agnieszka Dabrowiecka and was published by Van Ryder Games in 2025.
As I said, the Tormentor love her traps, so she has a lot of similarities to Jigsaw from the Saw films.
The Marrek Warehouse doesn’t seem to be from a horror movie that I know, but I don’t know a lot about horror movies so I’m probably missing it.
There’s a lot to like about this one, so let’s get started.
Read MoreUpdated Evolution – Doomlings 3rd Edition Review
A couple of years ago, someone from Doomlings Inc reached out to me and asked me if I’d be interested in reviewing the second (I presume, though I thought it was the first!) edition of this cool new card game where you are a race of beings on some planet trying to evolve as greatly as possible before the world inevitably ends.
It sounded neat, so I jumped at the chance.
Now, two years later, a third edition of the game is out and I was once again offered a copy for a fair and honest review.
The game was designed by James Meyer and Andrew Meyer, with artwork by Andrew Meyer (I assume, though there is not a separate BGG entry for the 3rd Edition so I’m only assuming it’s the same).
The third edition of Doomlings was published in 2026 and has updated artwork on everything, some card tweaking (also with some cards removed and some new cards added) and the rules sheet has been completely revamped.
The game rules themselves haven’t changed, so it was easy to get a bunch of my co-workers around the table (who already like the game) and take it out for a test drive.
What were our opinions?
Let’s take a look.
Read MoreBGG Top Games – 4101 – 4200
Another week and another look at the Boardgame Geek boardgame rankings!
This time we’re moving further into the 4000s, and this is where you start finding the niche games that are really good, but not that many people know about them or play them.
This mostly applies to wargames and has been applying for a while now, but there’s definitely a great example in this week’s century.
There’s also a fair number of games I’ve played (or own) compared to recent weeks, though that’s not saying much!
Finally, we’re going to run an experiment like we did last week with The Game Makers (which is now already up to #3550, by the way).
Just how high can a new and popular game get between the time I start writing this post and the time it publishes?
Will it defeat The Game Makers?
We shall see.
This week’s list can be found here, but beware!
If you’re coming to this post in the far future, then Boardgame Geek probably doesn’t even exist anymore and you’re wondering what the hell I’m talking about.
Or maybe WordPress won’t exist either by then?
Anyway, things might have changed is all I’m getting at.
My numbers this week are much better than last week, with five games played and four owned.
We’re still going strong!
And of course more interesting games to talk about.
So let’s get started before I go over word quota!
Read MoreTrapped in Hell – Final Girl – Hell to Pay Review
There’s something about reviewing these Final Girl feature films kind of out of order that really highlights some things about the various series/seasons.
I did all of Series 4 (except the one that hasn’t come out yet) prior to doing most of Series 3 (except The Killer From Tomorrow).
What that has told me is that Series 4 got a little more back to basics, adding some new mechanics (like the Volkar’s hidden movement) but not overloading the game with other, more fiddly stuff.
Now that I’m playing Series 3, there are a lot of fiddly things in these various films, at least so far.
Either that, or they add extra new things that you have to deal with, like last film’s Sand Snakes.
Hell to Pay adds that as well, though it’s not quite as complicated as the Savior or the Sand Snakes and it’s probably one of the more basic films of Series 3.
Even so, both the killer and location add some interesting little twists that add to the terror (and the difficulty).
Hell to Pay was designed by Ryan Jorjorian with artwork by Roland MacDonald.
It was published by Van Ryder Games in 2025.
In this film, you are facing off against Razorface (inspired by Pinhead from the Hellraiser movies, I think?) in the Hellscape (same thing, probably).
Both the killer and the setting are interesting, so let’s get started.
Read MoreNew to Me – July 2026
July had no conventions or anything, but yet it somehow managed to almost have as many new to me games as June did.
The fact that all of these were shorter games, unlike last month, made things a bit different though.
I’ve now played 40 new to me games this year, so I am kind of slacking.
In 2025, I played 84 new to me games, so my pace is falling behind.
I need a new convention where new to me games come out!
Or I need to buy some more (don’t tell my wife that).
The Cult of the New to Me was extremely happy this month, though, and has actually been quite satisfied with my behaviour lately.
Two of these three games are from the ancient times!
Well, the 2004 one, the version I have was actually published in 2024, but still.
Even the most recent game was published in 2024.
That’s two whole years!
That game’s almost an adult now, in game years.
That means no leadership coup this month, but who knows what next month will bring?
Cult leaders have to watch their backs.
Without further ado (all of my ado was stolen in The Great Rat Mob War of 2016 anyway), let’s begin!
Read More