139) Hero Quest

The original dungeon crawl game. In this game there is one person who runs the game and controls all enemy units. Everyone else is playing against this one person. The game has multiple scenarios so each game will play out differently. Generally, the heros are moving around the dungeon killing enemies and searching for and attempting to complete their objective. Along the way they'll find gold and equipment that is kept from one round to the next. Gold can be spent between games to buy various items.

The box is this awesome! 

Ready to start 

Dungeon master plotting against us 

Cool pieces 

More cool pieces

All in all a fun game. My one major complaint is there is no built in clock. The movement of the heros is limited by a dice roll, but when there were no enemies on the board the heros could just cycle turns until they had the board state the way they wanted it. This can lead to some long drawn out parts in the game where the dungeon master is not doing anything. Despite this, if you like dungeon crawl games this is certainly worth a play or two.

106) Shadows of Brimstone

This game is very similar to Descent and other dungeon crawls. In this game everyone is working together towards a known goal and fighting monsters, finding treasures, and collecting XP and money along the way. In our first game we didn't encounter any monsters until the end when we drew multiple cards that had us drawing additional cards and putting a ridiculous amount of creatures on the board. They mopped the floor with us. Thankfully we were able to get a second more successful and more interesting game in after this defeat.

Monsters pre-game pep rally

There's a new marshal in town

Fairly uneventful exploration...until...

Us getting destroyed by the worst draw ever

The number one best thing about this game is that after each game you record all the info about your character and then can come back at a later date and play with the same upgraded, equipped, and occasionally damaged and hurt character. Additionally, you (and your character) don't need to be present for future plays as other players can play with new characters they create. And of course, upgrading characters and buying all kinds of weapons and abilities is something I love so it certainly sucks me in. There is a fair amount of dice rolling, which I don't typically enjoy, although in this case its everyone against the game so the dice don't bother me as much.

The game has a fun theme and even comes with an old west sound track to listen to while you're playing. If you enjoy this style of game this is a must play (probably over and over again).

48) Catacombs

Flicky game at its best. One player is in control of the horde (lots of disks) and each other player is a hero and in control of one disk. When its your turn you flick your disk(s) and attempt to hit the other players disks and thus do damage to them. You proceed through 5-6 different rooms with different enemies and then meet the boss at the end. As a hero you also get to buy fun weapons.

I'm an elf

Overview of the game

The troops eye view

This was a great game that gets everyone up and moving around the table. Your always debating if you go in for the kill and risk getting pummeled next turn or if you play more defensively. We all tended to go all in and threw caution to the wind.

45) Last Night on Earth: The Zombie Game

This game should be called Last Night on Earth for the Humans. This is only the second time I've played this game and both games the humans never stood a chance. I'm not sure if its the zombie deck, or their strength in numbers, or something else, but this game doesn't seem balanced to me. A large part of this game is rolling dice to resolve combat and in this game the humans out-rolled the zombies by huge margine. And despite this the zombies plodded on to victory.

Zombie attack

Guard the truck

Rolling fails

Closing in on the humans

I can save you the trouble of playing this game and just tell you the zombies win. I can't imagine wanting to play this again.

26) Gauntlet of Fools

The game so nice we played it....four times. The replay value of this game is awesome. Each game you have four characters paired with a different weapon. Players are boasting (bidding) on which character they get. Initially you can take a character at no cost, but if you want to take someone else's character you add a penalty to that character and then its yours....until someone else takes it with further penalties. In the games we played there was little if any boasting. We also had difficulty valuing the character/weapon pairings, exemplified by the last game where the least desired character ended up winning.

You'd be a fool not to play this

Game 1 character and weapon

Most of a 4-player game

bits

Monsters

Thought I was safe....I wasn't.

All and all this is a fun game with simple mechanics that still allow for fun choices. And as I said before the replay value is great.

21) Munchkin

I have mixed thoughts on this game, but first the good. Games where over time you're accumulating gear and weapons and abilities are always fun and this is no exception. On top of that the flavor for all the stuff you acquire is crazy ridiculous and quite funny. An argument could be made to buy this game on flavor alone.

chainsaws 

I'm already cheating on the first turn

orange wins

pack it up until next year

Unfortunately this game is getting a thumbs down from me for two really big reasons. 1) There seemed to be so much down time between the end of my turn and the start of my next turn. Yes, you are able to interact with other players on their turn, but I often found I was waiting with very little to do for longer than was enjoyable for it to be my turn again. This is probably largely due to players receiving a lot of information (cards) near the end of their turn that they need to sort through before the next players turn. and 2) The winner of the game is based largely on luck as opposed to how well you've played over the entire game. Eventually we all reached 8-9 points and it turned into a game of blocking each other from winning. Once we all ran out of block cards the next player was able to win.