Rob's Top Twelve List of Best Designed Games

Been a while since I posted anything and while I wasn't in the mood to write any fiction: I did want to get into the habit of writing so I thought I'd pull a play from Doug Walker's play book (http://thatguywiththeglasses.com) and pull out a a favorite list of game I thought were really well designed. Why top twelve? Because I felt like one-upping Doug.

Note: These are the games that I've played that I felt are the best designed, not specifically my favorites.

Without any further ado: My Top Twelve List of Best Designed Games

12: Gobblet
Originally I had this spot with Connect Four, but as I was writing that I remembered a superior descendant of Tic-Tac-Toe

Tic-Tac-Toe is one of the most basic games anyone has ever come up with. It is simple elegant and requires a little strategy. The big issue is that it can be "solved." If the first player knows what she is doing then she can never lose. An AI said it best with "the only way to win is not to play." This keeps it from being anywhere near my list... its awesome "sequel" however does not have this issue, and thus turns into a game that: nearly anyone can pick up, is fun, and isn't "solvable."

11/10 Thunderstone /Dominion (No perticular order)
I feel pretty comfortable letting these two share a spot. Deck building games have become quite popular, with Dominion leading the charge. In terms of straight forward mechanics, I think Dominion is better designed. It has simpler mechanics and all the mechanics blend seemlessly with one and other. Thunderstone is more complex and alows for more interesting strategies, but some of the mechanics are awkward and feel very much tacked on (especially, since if you remove the dungeon... you are in fact playing dominion.) This game would be much higher on the list if there wasn't some issues with the balance level of the cards. I have yet to play a game that included village and it wasn't the first pile gone, and the cards with discard abilities in thunderstone are overly potent. There is also a pretty low "blue shell factor" which is annoying in a multipalyer game (I will go into what that means in a future post if you don't know)

9: Star Craft The Board Game
I was a pretty huge fan Twilight Imperium and this game takes the parts about it that I liked the most and stream lines it. While the set up time of the game is a bit off putting it is worth it. Combat is very well handled and leaves a chance for multiple different strategies and builds. The different races and factions are very well balanced with one and other. While there are many different options none (so far in my playing) has come across as "must do to win." What else can I say besides... "GG"

8: Battle Star Galactica
This game which is Shadows over Camalot INNNNN SPACCCEEEEEE, has an awesome mechanic which a traitor (cylon) can secretly undermine the players. Also each character has great and fairly well balanced abilities. The game is certainly balanced on the side of the Cylons but that isn't specificly a bad thing. There is a great challenge to the game and while the humans may not win often, it feels great when they do. This would rank higher then Shadows if it wasn't for the fact that the awesome subterfuge mechanic that I love so much MIGHT be unused as it has been pointed out that one most damaging thing a Cylon can do is reveil themselves asap. If I can disprove this theory, which I really want to, I will gladly edit this list.

7: Shadows over Camelot
What I concider to be the essentual co-op game for people who love co-op games. The knights are well balanced with each other, and none are really required (although King Authur may be fittingly close.) Each quest has related but slightly different mechanics that are both easy to explain to anyone with a little knowledge of poker and requires a little planning. The fact that the traitor is optional is very interesting, and the traitor has good reason to try to go undiscovered until the end.

6: Texas Hold'em
My personal favorite flavor of poker. I love how much strategy goes into poker when the vast majority of the cards are public knowledge. While luck is of course still a factor, it makes the game focus more about your: knowledge of your odds, ability to bluff and read your opponents, and risk vs reward assesment. That is a HIGH amount of pay out for keeping the same basic idea of poker and adding a twist (kinda of like what Gobblet did to Tic-Tac-Toe.)

5: Spy Alley
Probably the most underated game I have on the list, with everything else being popular to either hardcore gamers, mass market, or just the general population; Spy Alley is an simple game with simple mechanics, but those mechanics are so well thought out and designed that it creates a game that is both a lot of fun and really interesting. Since I am sure few people reading this have played it let me go a bit more into the game itself:
Every player is secretly dealt a nationality. To win they have to get all the required gear for their nationality. Everyone's gear however is public knowledge, and anyone can skip their turn and risk being eleminated from the game to eleminate you by trying to guess your nationaliy. This core mechanic is something I really enjoy and certainly was something I thought about when I was designing Obsession for Murder. That influence along cinched it a spot on this list.

4: Carcassone
How could I not put this on here? The play style is unlike just about everything else. It's expansions seemlessly add to the game and complament the existing rules. There is plenty of strategy, fun, and replayability. Just about everything is perfect. This game needs zero justification for being on this list, and instead concider everything that I write to be me justifying the why I put any game above it.

3: Settlers of Catan
Right up there with Carcassone in turms of Eurogame classic. The reason it is higher then Carcassone goes against how I ussually rate games, it is the more complex of the two games but it WORKS. The multiple different strategys for this game work really well, from trying to fight to get longest road, trying to get a solid "cock ring" around a perticular sweet spot, focusing on building cities or getting cards. Wheeling and dealing for trades, everything in the game works well with one and other.

2: Go
One of, if not the oldest games still played today; there is good reason it has lasted so long. The mechanics of it are very very simple. You want to control the most spaces by surrounding it. The only way to do this is to place your piece on the board. That is is, there are no cards, no dice, no "this piece can move here or attack this way or move twice on it's first turn" It is simple challenging and for a long time was number one this list. The reason it isn't is also one of the reasons I actually like it so much: the end game. The game ends when both players agree that it has ended. Players must agree who owns what, if there is a disagreement, then play continues. This is a rather elegant and polite way of ending a game, in theory, but the ideal that it could actually continue indefinitly if someone was stuborn or just an ass is rather frusterating from a mechanical level. Again: I honestly like that aspect of the game but I think it hurts it when looking purly at the mechanics.

1: Quarto!

We have come full circle, as I have begun and ended this list with what can be concidered an evolved form of Tic Tac Toe. I recently played this again after a long time of it collecting dust on a shelf, and was blown away by despite how straight forward the rules are, how much strategy goes into the game. Like Spy Alley, I can not assume people have played this one so let me explain. Quarto! is for two players, who take turns playing pieces on a 4x4 board. There are 16 unique pieces, each having a different comination of four attributes. A piece can be: tall or short, dark or light, Flat topped or indented, or circular or squared. The idea is that you want to be the one to play a piece that connects four shapes all shairing one trait. The challenge is that you are giving your piece by your opponent making for a very short, easy strategic game. It isn't my favorite game on this list, but the simplisity of the rules while allowing for such a rich game that doesn't get old as you play it again and again, the reoccuring, well used theme of the number 4 in the mechanics, and the speed which the game can be picked up and played leaves me feeling this game design was an overwhelming success