We love listener questions, and this week we’ve got a couple that we thought made for some fun talking points. Specifically, we’re trying to find the salt licorice of board games, and start planning some easy breezy summer games. Before our quick twosome, we talk about Trekking the World, Inkling, My City, and Ruination.
We’ve been doing it a lot lately, so we thought we’d reflect on the ways that we evaluate our favourite games. How do you even begin to compare extremely dissimilar games, some party, some strategy? The process of making and ordering our lists is a fun challenge every year, and one we’d recommend you try too! Before we make hard choices, we talk about Medici: The Dice Game, The Gallerist, and Iberian Gauge.
It’s the big one! We’ve come at last to the grand finale of the Board Game Barrage Top 50 Games of All Time … Top. Ten. Baby. These are our absolute favourite games, forty (thirty?) all together, that we’d just about never turn down a game of. If you’ve made it all the way here, thanks for joining us on this ride, it’s been wild.
We weren’t going to let Kellen have the last word on what makes the perfect $100 collection, so the 139 squad is here to finish it out. Forgot the premise? You’ve lost all your board games, and only have $100 to rebuild it; what do you buy first? Before we make every penny count, we talk about Cosmic Encounter Duel, Hundreds of Horses, Billionaire Banshee, and Floor Plan.
Some games are built to last, and no, we’re not just talking about the … R-word. For others, the high highs of early games must give way to the dawning realization that all is not well. We look at reasons we might end up moving past games we once held in high regard. Before we overstay our welcome, we talk about Sandstone, Ctrl, The Fox in the Forest Duet, and Unmatched.
Hot days call for hot questions! To counter the California heat wave, we get breezy with a round of hot questions. We take a long hard look at games we love, but don’t play, and give our takes on the theme to end all themes. Before we get heated, we talk about Ctrl, New York Zoo, and Renature.
It’s a Social Deduction BGBBOB! For those that don’t know what that means, it’s a Board Game Barrage Battle of (the) Board…games, where we pit all of the best social deduction games against each other in a fight to the DEATH! Or at least, a fight to be on our definitive ranked list. Before we release our social butterflies, we talk about Gemblo, and Quest.
BGBBOB, party edition! For those not keeping up, that’s BGB Best of Board Games, which is definitely not the final name (but also maybe is) for our recurring feature where we duel rank games into an incontestable ordered list. This week we confer, fight, and bargain our way to the best fifteen party games. Before we spike the punch, we also talk about Twice As Clever, Wavelength, and 6 nimmt!
Once loved board games will often circle back into the limelight with reprints, but we’re also starting to see a lot more get remasters and remakes too. We take a look at this trend, and discuss some re-imaginings our favourite board games, whether it’s a full on new version, or just a new coat of paint. Before we re-re-re-repeat, we talk about Cities: Skylines, Colorful, and Maharaja.
Here it is, the episode you’ve all been waiting for, the grand finale, the culmination of five weeks of episodes. These are our top ten favourite board games of all-time, games that we absolutely adore, and would happily play at a moment’s notice. Heck, we’d even play the games on each others’ lists … on, you know, birthdays and special occasions. That’s how good they are.