10 AWARD WINNING Family Games ...and how they stand the test of time.
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- čas přidán 8. 07. 2024
- Many lists of "Top 10 Board Games" are lists of personal favorites. Not this list. This list, supported by awards and ratings, is arguably THE top 10 MOST popular family board games EVER. In this video, I describe the impact of each game when it hit the board game scene and, more importantly, challenge whether each game as stood up against the test of time. The question we will answer is not about "replayability" but "longevity".
If you would like to check out the spreadsheet I used to qualify the games in this video, you can take a look at it through my Patreon page, found here:
www.patreon.com/neverbenbetter/
TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 - Introduction
1:06 - Honorable Mentions
1:51 - The Perfect Boardgame Formula - an update!
• I Changed the Perfect ...
2:04 - #10: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
3:24 - #9: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
4:56 - Other Recommendations
5:28 - #8: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
6:44 - #7: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
7:40 - #6: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
8:38 - #5: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
9:48 - Other Recommendations
10:01 - #4: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
12:06 - #3: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
12:51 - Other Recommendations
13:25 - #2: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
15:02 - #1: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
17:07 - Other Recommendation: theperfectboardgame.com/?e=bg...
I have compiled a list of my own top-favorite family board games. Each of the games on this list is for a younger audience and as such, none of the games require strong reading skills:
• Top 10 Family Board Ga...
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A lot on that list we don't play (co-op games are detested in my household apart from dungeon crawlers). I've never been a fan of wingspan either and your description of Lost Ruins of Arnak was spot on. My household enjoys a fair bit of take that and interaction and fun games for us have been Escape from Atlantis, Junk Art, Sushi Go and Dixit. Great channel.
thank you for this video. :)
I like azul because of the negative points 😅. It's a good laugh to whoever gets them.
Haha! Yeah, it is! But you have to be playing with people who remember “It’s just a game”!
Wingspan is beautiful but not a good family game unless you don't want to interact with your family at all. Everyone always stops talking and just focuses on their board and reading the cards they might get to add to their board. Its the antithesis of the reason I play games at all.
I am glad you included this criticism in a comment. Yes. Absolutely yes.
We love Wingspan but Gizmos does indeed get it better for family fun.
Omg, your T-shirt!
I am from Ukraine!
PS Have recently discovered your channel and going through videos: amazing how your feedbacks are so spot on, nuanced and relevant! Bravo.
Some general thoughts I have when watching your videos and/or perusing your ratings site…..For me “theme” in a board game is pretty much a binary measurement ie., does it have an engaging theme or not? All board games are simulations & I am always aware that I am playing a board game & am not an actual naturalist, farmer, mage in a medieval fantasy world, virologist seeking a cure for a disease or whatever. For me, Wingspan does as good a job at presenting an engaging theme as any game I own, aside from maybe Obsession. I would probably rate the latter as the most thematic game we own, yet I still don’t truly feel like I am competing for prestige against other families in 18th century Victorian England. .So in the end, I feel a rating of 1.5 (out of 10) undersells the theme in Wingspan vs other board games. I did a search for other games you have rated 8 or above in Theme & that I have played and/or own in my personal collection. Pandemic, Res Arcana, Reef, Ticket to Ride, The Quest for El Dorado all fit that criteria. None of these do I feel any more immersed in theme than the other….they all have engaging themes but to say one has a theme rating of 1.5 & the other 10? No, there is just not that big a gap between them….imo.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. Quick question, when you say "I did a search..." I presume that means you sorted board games on theperfectboardgame.com by theme? Unfortunately, that does not necessarily provide you with MY board game opinions: I haven't rated every game on the site myself (I've never even played Res Arcana) and even if I did, the weights are influenced by other editors.
Theme is about the meaning of the actions you can take in a game.
At the very top of the gradient are role-playing games, where all gameplay revolves around simulating a character and their adventures. Another great example is Twilight Struggle, which is so thematic, it’s almost impossible to extract the theme from the game: for example, if you wanted to play Twilight Struggle but re-theme it to be about building a city or a farm, it just wouldn’t make sense.
At the lowest end of the gradient are games like Splendor. The trading of gems and Splendor has nothing to do with the gems. The game was rethemed to be about Marvel and gameplay was unaffected.
A little higher up on the scale are games like Dominion. In Dominion, there are cards like “the witch” that give other players curse cards. It doesn’t necessarily make you feel like you are building a kingdom, but the card has a meaning.
Higher still are games like Lost Ruins of Arnak, where some aspects really land. In LRoA, it really feels like you are exploring and the objectives and rewards on the research track really motivate the game. At the same time, some other aspects are really just there for the mechanics: the arrowheads, tablets and gems, as discussed in this video.
And then higher still are games that are games that are “almost 10s”. Games by Vital Lacerda fall into this category (On Mars, Kansan.) Lacerda makes a great effort to design mechanics that support the theme, but to create replayability, he adds objectives that seem artificial.
All of this is subjective, of course. Someone might argue that Splendor captures a sense of strategic trading or On Mars is so tedious that it prevents the theme from landing. I’m only trying to explain why I use a gradient for theme.
To your point, I am very black and white about this. When I don’t like the implementation of a theme, I give it an extra low score and vice versa.
Bidder Up and Whale Riders get no love as family weigh games. They should. Sooo many games...
Yes, the changes are improvements. Luck and interaction below.
Thank you so much and thank you for all your feedback as I’ve built this channel and corresponding site.
I have a general dislike for radar graphs, especially when the area of the shape has no meaning, which I think is the case here. A large area certainly doesn't imply a high game rating, because complexity is not a measure of goodness, nor is luck.
Does a low theme score for Wingspan mean you don't like birds? Or does it mean the theme is poorly integrated into the mechanics? From your site:
Theme- How well does the design of the game support the game's theme? This is NOT a rating for whether or not a theme is "cool". Games with great themes are often poorly executd. On this site, having a great theme is all about implementation.
Azul (theme=1) is a tile-laying game about laying tiles, so I could argue that there's no thematic disconnect at all. But it gets the same theme rating as So Clover!, whose thematic integration is that the board is shaped like a clover.
I guess the point is that if I like games of a certain shape, I would tend to like games of a similar shape. But Agricola and Star Wars: Rebellion have the same shape. I don't think this works.
I think the radial graph contain plenty of meaning, but whatever, I would say that because I designed it. I am interested in your comments about theme.
My website is an app where people can rate games. Every app starts with a baseline and the levels are adjusted as more people rate them. Sometimes when a game has a completely inappropriate baseline, I manually adjust it. Ultimately however, the ratings are up to the community. This is why there will be discrepancies between the personal opinion I express in my videos and the rating listed on the site. Also, sometimes I stand corrected. My rating for Wingspan is too biased and it’s because I’m generally disappointed in the game. I should have nevertheless given it a higher rating on theme (not much higher though, IMHO.)
I think there is value in letting there be subjectivity around these definitions. I can tell you what I think theme means, but how people feel about games can’t be defined by one reviewer/programmer. I merely build a framework to discuss and rate games and I hope people will engage with it. Your criticisms are welcomed.
I haven’t played Star Wars: Rebellion and I don’t even know how to play. Do you think they are accurately rated? Supposing they are accurately rated according to those five attributes, there is also mechanics and theme to consider. It may be the case that game X and game Y are different flavors of the same food. For example, even without knowing how to play SWR, I’m sure there is greater similarity between those two games than, say, Agricola and Azul.
I dislike coops, and treaded Pandemic away, but I'll always say this: Alpha gamer is player problem, not game problem.
I habe to admit, I rarely play co-ops, but if you have never tried The Crew, it really is worth looking at.
@@theperfectboardgame i like the crew, but trick taking is not my thing. I do like the crew the best amongst those kind of games
I love pandemic and co-op games. I havent run into the issue of "The Alpha" player. the point of the games is to discuss and cooperate and work together. not just one person telling people what to do. I think that its just that a lot of gamers just have poor social skills and dont know the difference between quarterbacking vs discussion and agreeing on a best course of action together.
I’m not sure if it is a generalization I would extend the the hobby, but yes, there are times when I will play with a person who quarterbacks and is completely clueless about how they are affecting other people. I shouldn’t sound like I blame the game, because when I am with the right group, I love playing Pandemic.
Have you seen/tried The Spill? It’s brand new. Take a look.
@@theperfectboardgame The Spill looks interesting. But I tend not like games with big over the top 3d components. Santorini being the exception. Have you heard of the game The Grizzled? Its a co-op card game about WW1 and you can't talk about the cards or tokens in your hand. You just have to see what needs to be done to support the group. If you have an anti-social (aka "alpha" gamer) in your group (although, i would rather remove that person from my group) then you might want to check out The Grizzled. Its a pretty cool and high tension game.
That sounds FANTASTIC! I hear you on the 3D components, but I gotta say: the oil derrick in The Spill serves as a dice tower and it also randomizes which quadrant the dice fall into. Unlike playing Everdell without the tree, you cannot play the game without this component.
Omg, your T-shirt!
I am from Ukraine!
PS Have recently discovered your channel and going through videos: amazing how your feedbacks are so spot on, nuanced and relevant! Bravo.
Thank you very much. It’s not just the t-shirt. My wife is Ukrainian, I have studied in Ukraine and this is a t-shirt that I have worn to countless rallies here in Washington DC. Slava Ukraini!
Wow, I see!
Thank you for the support, it means a world to Ukraine. Greetings to your wife, and all the best to you guys.
PS Героям Слава!
Argh so curious now about how you ended up studying in Ukraine 😅 and what city (probably Kyiv)).