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A Gaming Life
BGG Top Games – 1901 Through 2000
It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve done one of these BGG centuries posts, though not because I was getting tired of them.
There were just more important things to post about!
I enjoy writing these BGG posts, even when the games are kind of lackluster, mainly because it gives me the opportunity to talk about games that I haven’t said much (if anything) about.
And who can complain about that?
Especially since one of my favourite blogs to read daily (because he posts daily), No Rerolls, just last week said this about my blog (mainly about my Top 10 Games played of all time, but I like to think it carries through in all of my posts):
“each write-up is delivered with the easy charm of someone who simply loves talking about the games that stuck with them”
I love that! (And seriously, go check out his site, especially if you like Magic: the Gathering and RPGs, along with some other boardgame content as well).
Anyway, we are now on to the last of the Top 2000 games, though this series may continue further than that.
Hell, with my Top 50 Games Played of All Time done, what else am I going to write about?
Today, we’re talking about games ranked 1901-2000.
Here’s the list of games, though keep in mind that, depending on when you visit this post, the games will probably have changed!
Certainly the rankings will have.
In this batch, I’ve played 8 of them and own (or previously owned) 4 of them.
That’s down from last time!
Oops, it’s been so long since the last post, that one of the ones from last time has actually fallen into this century.
I won’t be talking about it again.
Let’s begin, so this post won’t be so long and make me a liar!
Read MoreGrandma’s Getting a Little Hairier – Final Girl – Once Upon a Full Moon Review
You all know the story.
Little girl goes to visit Grandma, who for some strange reason lives alone in the woods.
Is she the Unabomber? Is she posting manifestos on Facebook?
Anyway, little girl arrives at Grandma’s house and lo and behold, Grandma forgot to shave that day!
And her teeth have grown a little bit.
Either that, or maybe something really terrible has happened to her.
Oh no, it’s a wolf!
For once, Final Girl goes to the old fairy tale book instead of the horror movie for another installment of the wonderful solo game franchise.
Not only that, Red (or whichever Final Girl you are using) came to Grandma’s house loaded for bear, ready to kick ass and chew bubble gum.
(Whoops, wrong franchise).
Maybe she really was the Unabomber and you’re her faithful revolutionary relative?
Whatever.
Once Upon a Full Moon (which makes it sound like it’s a werewolf? But it’s not, really) once again brings a new location (Storybook Woods) and a new killer (The Big Bad Wolf) to the game, ready to make you wonder why you torture yourself like this because you can’t win to save your life.
That could just be me, though, because I’m terrible at this.
This particular feature film was designed by Julie Ahern (Yay, Julie!) with artwork by Tyler Johnson.
It’s part of Series 2 and was published by Van Ryder Games in 2023.
I love how the various feature films do mix things up a bit in their mechanics, which the Wolf does with the Track and Slay mode, and Storybook Woods does by having a river and many fewer locations than other films have.
So let’s start examining this one with the Wolf!
Read MoreNew to Me – January 2026
January 2026 wasn’t a huge month for new to me games, though the ones I did play were very fun.
That may change in February, though, since a friend of mine has bought a few games I’ve never played, so we’ll get some of those done!
In the meantime, though, there were only four new to me games in January, and the Cult of the New to Me was not very happy with me.
That’s because two of them are from 2024 and two from 2025.
That’s too new!
They were giving me the stink-eye when they saw the list of my games played.
I weathered the storm, though.
Buying them new PS5 consoles might have something to do with it.
Just sayin’!
Anyway, let’s move on.
Without further ado (all of my ado was used to move up some track anyway), let’s begin!
Read MoreSandy Tableaus – Santa Monica Review
Being from the Midwest and now living in the rainy Pacific Northwest, one thing I haven’t really had much of a chance to do is walk the sandy ocean beaches on the Pacific Ocean.
Yes, the Oregon Coast is amazing, but where we’ve gone in the past, it’s a bit more rocky than sandy.
That doesn’t mean it’s not on my bucket list!
In the meantime, there’s always the chance to build my own beach boardwalk area, attracting tourists and locals, and VIPs who just want to experience certain things and will pay you well for them (but not in a creepy way or anything).
That’s where Santa Monica comes in, the tableau-building card game where you are building a beach and boardwalk area in, I assume, Santa Monica.
This card game was designed by Josh Wood with art by Jeremy Nguyen and Josh Wood (though the box just says Jeremy’s name).
It was published by Alderac Entertainment Group in 2020.
This is a card-drafting tableau-builder where you are forming your beach and your boardwalk, trying to install areas where tourists and locals alike will want to hang out.
It also has a lot of icon/tag matching which can score you points.
If you place your cards in the right order.
Read MoreCombat Commander After Action Report – Scenario 80 – Bitter Isthmus
Sometimes when you’re playing Combat Commander, you’re locked into a 3-hour epic battle where both players are totally overcome with fatigue, but you’ve reached a satisfying conclusion so it was all worth it.
And sometimes things progress so fast that you’d think the game had theater tickets and it was running late.
Last night was one of the latter nights.
Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of playing one of the best games out there (and I can now say that without spoilers!).
The ladder is run by the fabled Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.
And it is fame!
I’ve seen him on Youtube channels that aren’t his.
February’s scenario is from the Fall of the West battle pack and has a pitched back and forth battle between a small German force and an even smaller French force.
My opponent this month was the infamous Tony R! After months of him asking if people are available for a game, and me not being available at that time, I finally got to play him.
So two new opponents in two months.
(You can click on all pictures in this post to blow them up).
The Germans (grey – me) set up first within five hexes of the right side of the board.
The French (blue – Tony) set up within five hexes of the left side of the board.
Both sides start in Recon posture.
This is a weird scenario, but it only has a couple of special rules.
First, at every Time advancement, both sides draw a card. Whoever has the highest dice roll (though it is not a roll, so doesn’t trigger anything) changes to Attack posture, while the lowest changes to Defend.
If you change to Defend, you have to discard down to 4 cards if you have more than that.
If it’s a tie, they go back to Recon (and if you were Attacking and had 6 cards, you’d have to discard down to 5).
Secondly, if the French play an action, they get to discard a Command Confusion order as well.
I don’t think Tony ever did that, but it can help a bit with the 1-discard limit the French have.
Let’s see how this all worked out, and how it went so fast (this might be a short post).
Read MoreTop 50 Games Played of All Time – 2026 Edition (#10-1)
Now we’ve gone and done it.
We’ve now reached the Top 10 games of all time, played by me at least.
It’s been an incredible 5 weeks (ok, 6, but last week’s Friday post was important) of new games, oldies dropping in the rankings, a few bumping up as well.
I’ve really enjoyed doing this, mainly because I love sharing a love of boardgames with all of my readers.
In this day and age, we need all of the joy we can get because we are in the middle of dark times.
Unlike last week, the Top 10 is mainly games that have been on my list before (with a couple of exceptions) and one big mover that at least a couple of people on the Pixelated Cardboard Discord should not be surprised about.
Before we get to that, I did want to mention one honourable mention, just because it’s a cool game.
Sanctuary (the streamlined Ark Nova that’s more than that) just barely missed the Top 50, coming in at 52.
This is a cool tile-laying game with some of the symbology and altered mechanics of Ark Nova, but in a lot less time.
However, it is more than that. I think it’s a neat tile-laying game just by itself.
I’ve had another play of it since I wrote that first impressions post (still not enough for a review) and everything I said in it still stands.
This is a fun one!
For the final time, I’ll give the usual caveats at the beginning of this post before we get started (and maybe we won’t hit 5000 words this time?)
I’ve played less than 600 games, so there will be many great games that I haven’t seen yet.
So you Food Chain Magnate fans will just have to go run your restaurants without me.
I had more than enough of them when I was working through college.
Also, many of these ratings (only one in my Top 10, though) were given after just one play.
So things can change!
Though given which game here meets that criteria, I doubt it will.
With all of that, let’s begin!
Read MoreJanuary 2026 Gaming
Hard to believe that we’re already a month into 2026!
My, how time flies.
I wasn’t sure what to expect from January, especially because we had some really small Sundays and long games played.
Which is good!
But also means that not a lot of games are played.
January, however, burst past December in big way.
I ended up playing 20 games a total of 29 times.
Of course, 7 of those plays were Final Girl, as I work my way through all of the feature films I have.
Still, it’s quite impressive!
Here’s what I played last month.
And here it is in grid format.
Four new to me games that I will be talking about later (a bit later than usual, as I haven’t even started writing the post yet!), but also a good mix of older games.
Let’s look at some of the highlights.
Read MoreBye Bye Dice Tower
It’s been a wild week, both in the world and in the boardgaming sphere.
I don’t really comment too much on here about social issues, politics, etc, because this is kind of my safe space for getting away from all of that.
However, I am very outspoken about them in other avenues (mainly on Bluesky), so it’s not like I hide my feelings that much.
Sometimes things just go beyond the pale, like last August’s combination of CGE publishing Harry Potter Codenames and the Ace of Spades vile and racist artwork happening as a 1-2 punch.
Sometimes you just have to say something because you have to make your voice heard, even if it’s to a very low number of people. In fact, part of the reason I don’t speak out more on here is just because it feels pointless when so few people will be reading it anyway.
This is one of those times that I feel I have to say something, though.
Last Saturday, US Border Patrol officers brutally murdered Alex Pretti, a Veterans Administration Intensive Care nurse who was just trying to document what has been going on in Minneapolis.
Sam Healey, a part-time contributor to the Dice Tower boardgame review Youtube network, reposted a statement on Facebook from somebody else, essentially blaming Pretti for his own murder because he brought a gun (lawfully) to the protest.
In the comments to that post, Sam continued to support the sentiment.
Read MoreSeasoned Expansions – Sea Salt & Paper Expansions Review
Sea Salt & Paper is a fun little card game for 2-4 players with beautiful origami artwork and interesting mechanics that make for a great filler game.
Since it’s just a card game, you know that any expansions are going to be just, well, cards, and that’s what Bombyx has released.
Two mini-expansions (almost considered booster packs) have come out for the game, and both add a little bit of variety though one does more of that than the other.
New cards can really change a game, though sometimes just adding new cards rather than cards that have new mechanics don’t really get the job done.
Both packs were designed by the original game’s designers, Bruno Cathala and Théo Rivière and released by Bombyx (and Pandasaurus Games in North America)
Read MoreCombat Commander After Action Report – Scenario #72 – Thunderstorm
Do you know that feeling you get sometimes, when you reach near the end of the game and then you realize that you’ve been forgetting a rule that would have really helped you throughout the last two hours?
Yeah, that was me Friday night.
Let’s go back to the beginning.
Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of the finest games out there (I guess that’s a spoiler for this coming Friday, though you probably already guessed it).
The ladder, administered by the inimitable Patrick Pence (he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame), is the chance to play one of my favourite games on a monthly (or even more!) basis with some great people. Really, I haven’t met anybody on there who is annoying (except it’s annoying that Noel is always right, but it’s also helpful!).
January’s scenario is from the Resistance expansion (which I now have!!!!!) and has a band of Croatian partisans facing off against some elite Germans, basically trying to control a small town at a crossroads.
My opponent this month was Bill S, somebody who I hadn’t played before!
This was new.
(You can click on a picture to blow it up)
The Germans (grey – Bill) set up within three hexes of the right side of the board.
The Partisans (yellow – me) set up within three hexes of the left side of the board.
The only special rule is that my Sighting markers set up within six hexes of the left side.
Read More
Dude! Take Your Turn! 