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).

105) Dread Pirate

This game probably wins worst game of the year by a long shot. It's essentially a roll and move game where occasionally you get to roll to see who wins the game. You can battle other players, which is just a dice roll to see how much treasure the higher roll gets to plunder. You visit ports to trade or plunder, which again is determined by a dice roll. Additionally, you occasionally draw cards, some are good, others are bad and its completely random. This game turned into a bit of a co-op to make it end as quickly as possible because no one was enjoying this game.

Sweet cloth board 

Sweet pieces

Someone's a pirate

This game is 100% chance (aka 100% horrible). It takes players 2-4 turns to travel across the board, so  many turns are roll, move a few spaces, and done. Once you have an encounter you roll dice and either win or lose. Then repeat. The only redeeming part of this game is that the pieces are really neat. The ships (despite 3 being the same color and thus impossible to tell apart) are really neat. The cloth board is also a good idea and works really well. And the doubloons are made to feel like real treasure. But, the pieces don't make up for the incredibly boring game play and complete randomness of determining the winner and thus I will never play this game again.

104) Boss Monster

In this game you're building traps and monsters from video games. You then flip hero cards (also heros from video games) and certain heros try and get through your dungeon. Of course if they make it through your dungeon they're going to do damage to you, but if you kill the hero then you get that hero's points.

Memories...

Beginners dungeon

Getting there...sorta

4-player game

I enjoyed playing this game and I'm sure that would be magnified greatly if I knew more about old video games. Despite my lack of knowledge I still recognized some of the cards and that in itself was enjoyable. I really like a lot of the mechanics of building up your board and attracting heros to it that you try and kill. My main dislike of this game is the complete randomness of the card drawing. Everyone is drawing from a central deck and some players are going to get good cards and other players aren't. When a huge part of the game is based purely on the luck of what you draw then I'm not a huge fan. I enjoyed a great deal about this game, but I don't feel the need to play again.

103) King's Forge

We started this game completely confused about what to do. We muddled our way through the first round and started to realize that you spend the first few rounds collecting more dice and things start to pick up a bit. With the additional dice you collect you can do more actions and have a greater chance of collecting the end game cards. Once someone wins 4 of the end game cards the game ends.

Go team rabbit!

4-player game just getting started

Buying some cards, making some dice

Futures market

I must admit that any time I see dice I tend to shy away from the game. During this game one player got off to a quick start by collecting 3 end game cards while the other players built up their dice supply. But, as the cards got more difficult to acquire the power swung to the players with more and better dice. Unfortunately this game ended when I had a good roll of the dice and ended up stealing a card for the victory. You can argue that I used strategy to build up my dice into the right combination, but any time a game ends based on a dice roll I'm going to give that game low marks. This game is no exception. It had fun and interesting aspects to it, but I wouldn't be that excited about playing this again.

102) Splendor

This game is awesome. It takes about a minute to explain how to play and there is some fun strategy involved. Each turn a player can do one of the following: take some gems, purchase a card, or pick up a card for future purchase. Each card has a cost in the bottom left and a resource it produces once purchased. Additionally some cards have a point value. First person to collect 15 points wins.

Ready to start

Pieces are great

My final collection

3-player game

I really like this game. The ease of learning the game coupled with the strategy and planning make for a fun game. It's probably considered a race game as eventually you build up enough resources to snowball into buying all the cards you want, its just a matter of who can get there first. Although, in one of the games we played one player went straight for the big points and ended up destroying the other players. All in all I would highly recommend this game.

101) Endeavor

In this game you're building buildings, gaining influence, upgrading abilities, and unlocking special cards and new areas on the board. So much to try and wrangle into a cohesive strategy.

Each player gets their own player board...

...and can play on the shared board.

Opening up new spots

5-player game

I enjoyed this game and now that I know how it plays I want to try again. As you reach the end of your first game you start to think 'oh, I wish I had planned better for that...'. The game play itself is very smooth and easy to follow. It starts out slow with relatively simple decisions and before you know it you've ramped up to more complex turns and decisions that define the outcome of the game. Really neat game that combines a lot of different things very nicely.

100) Incan Gold

This is a quick and easy press your luck game. Each turn you flip up a card. That card can either be a good (blue) card that awards gold to each player still in that round or a bad (red) card. If the round doesn't end players have the choice to stay to see another card (and risk losing all their gold) or bank their gold and wait for next round. Once there are two of the same red card flipped up the round ends immediately and players who haven't banked their gold lose everything from that round.

Box may contain gold.

Trouble is brewing

Storing my gold in my tent

This is a fun game of calculating odds and taking risks with some fun twists. It's fast and easy to learn and doesn't take much thinking. It's perfect as a filler game. As I tend to enjoy games with more depth, this one won't be in my top favorites, but its certainly worth a try if you haven't played it before.