It’s that time of year again for what might just be the most prestigious gaming award that can be given out by mere mortals! Welcome to the NoRerolls Top 50 Games of 2024 list; an arbitrary ranking of the games that I love.
This is a list of my personal top 50 games at this point in time. My choices are not limited to games from this calendar year, but instead, represent my current thoughts on the top 50 games to me. Next year, some of the games featured may move up and down as my opinions change and I get the chance to play more games or revisit old favourites.
This series will comprise 5 posts, each covering 10 games as we work down from number 50 to number 1.
This year, this section of the list has one new entry and then a few games that have moved around on the list. Let’s kick things off, shall we?
30: Escape the Dark Sector
Previous 22 (-8)
Year: 2020
Designers: Alex Crispin, Thomas Pike, James Shelton
Publisher: Themeborne
Plays: 1-6 players in ~45 minutes
I first picked this game up on holiday in 2022, but I never got it to the table until late 2023. I should have made more of an effort to, because I really enjoyed it when I did and it was November 2023’s game of the month.
It plays like a choose your own adventure-style book, with randomised events that present decisions and challenges to players as a narrative begins to unfold. The game did lull me into something of a false sense of security, starting off pretty easy, but it then quickly ramped up and started beating us down. It hurt!
The experience was really great, though I imagine this is the sort of game that would benefit from expansions. I could see the appeal of, once the game has been played a lot, adding in more event, characters, equipment and like for the sake of variety and replayability.
29: New York Zoo
Previous Position: 27 (-2)
Year: 2020
Designer: Uwe Rosenberg
Publisher: Feuerland Spiele
Plays: 1-5 players in ~30 to 60 minutes
Uwe Rosenberg likes to publish these tile-laying games. They’re usually pretty good, too. One of his previous tile-laying games, Patchwork, was number 48 on my list back in 2018. It fell off the list in 2019 and then New York Zoo came in at number 17 in 2022 and 27 in 2023. It’s fallen a bit more this year, but still makes it to the table a lot.
This is way better than Patchwork. I really love it. I didn’t think I would when I first played it; it just didn’t look like my sort of thing. I am delighted to have been proven wrong. The game is fun, cute, and can get pretty competitive. It’s also one that that I can play with all sorts of different groups.
28: Traveller (Mongoose 2nd Ed.)
Previous Position: 21 (-7)
Year: 2016
Designer: Shawn Driscoll, Dale C. McCoy, Jr., Marc W. Miller, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, Matthew Sprange
Publisher: Mongoose Publishing
Plays: I dunno, several (?) players in ~Yeah, this doesn’t work for RPGs minutes
I really like this game and I’m impressed with the production quality of the books. Traveller definitely has one of the most interesting character-creation processes that I’ve ever seen. I like that at the end of the whole thing you’ve got not only a sheet of stats and skills, but also a detailed backstory. It can throw up a few oddities, of course. I once rolled up a naval officer who had managed to lose a few limbs in his career and had spent a long time in prison. Good times!
I also had a really fun game of Traveller at Tabletop Scotland in 2019. Good GM; lovely group. Have run it a couple times since, and most recently played in a game of first edition Traveller which went very well.
27: Scythe
Previous Position: 17 (-10)
Year: 2016
Designer: Jamey Stegmaier
Publisher: Stonemaier Games
Plays: 1-5 players for ~90 to 115 minutes
Scythe is a genuinely fantastic game. Opening the box, you see your plastic character and mech miniatures and you might assume that Scythe is a war game. It’s not. It’s really, really not. It’s very much a resource management game. It’s also downright beautiful, both in terms of the design of the pieces and the artwork used. The board, in particular, is a thing of beauty. This also works really well on Tabletop Simulator, if you’re that way inclined.
I’m still playing a fair bit of Scythe and loving it every time. I’m at the point where I want to start mixing in some of the expansions and I hope they’ll add some fun extras to the game. It’s previously fallen down the list a little bit, but it seems to have settled in this year.
26: Among the Stars
Previous Position: 24 (-2)
Year: 2012
Designer: Vangelis Bagiartakis
Publisher: Artipia Games
Plays: 2-4 players for ~30 minutes
A really great drafting game, Among the Stars sees each player building a space station with their drafted tiles. These stations are all about synergy, with different tiles interacting with one another in order to generate points. it sounds pretty simple, and it is. The drafting stage is an absolute joy, as you rummage through your options, working out what works best with what you’ve already got and considering your options for the future of your station.
Visually, this game is an absolute treat, with each room being lovingly depicted in fantastic, original artwork. I’ve played this game a lot and I’m still playing around with different synergies and options. I never feel like I’m just trying to recreate the same bases over and over, but rather adapting to a fresh design each time.
Despite not getting this to the table as much as I’d like, it’s one that really sticks around for me. I love it so much and it’s one of the most enduring games that has really stuck with me since I got into board gaming.
25: Ticket to Ride (Nordic Version is Best)
Previous Position: 18 (-7)
Year: 2007 (Original game, 2004)
Designer: Alan R. Moon
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Plays: 2-3 players (2-5 in standard Ticket to Ride) in ~30 to 60 minutes
The ultimate example of a solid gateway game, Ticket to Ride continues to make me happy in my heart. We’ve picked up so much of it! The original game, Europe, Rails and Sails, Germany, UK, and Nordic. I also picked up most of the other maps at the bring and buy at Tabletop Scotland 2019. Nordic is my favourite map, so I’ve used that as my example edition for this entry.
I love that I can break this out with any group and it just works. I love that This is a game my wife will play, my gamer friends will play and my parents will play. I love that it’s just so beautifully produced. I will, at some point, pick up more of the maps, but I don’t even really need them. I’d be happy playing the original version over and over and over again. The maps are just gravy.
24: Star Wars Rebellion
Previous Position: 11 (-13)
Year: 2016
Designer: Corey Konieczka
Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games
Plays: 2-4 players in ~180 to 240 minutes
Rebellion falls out of the top 20? Just one year after falling out of the top 10? Shock! This game was twice my number 1 game, and it remains an amazing two-player experience that is essentially “Star Wars in a box”. This slippage should not be taken for a dismissal of the game; it was my Game of the Month for January of 2023, after all!
There’s a lot potential combat in the game but, like Scythe, it’s not really a war game. It’s basically a game of hide-and-seek. The Rebels are doing the hiding and the Empire are the seekers. Combat along the way just acts as a speedbump. Both factions are a lot of fun, and this is great as they are also such different experiences. A game as the Empire is totally different from one as the Rebels, and asymmetry is something I’ve always really liked in games.
I’d call the expansion to this game pretty compulsory. Even if you don’t like the Rogue One characters (I quite like them, I suppose), you will want it for the improved combat system and some of the newer, more interesting missions.
23: Age of Sigmar Soulbound
Previous Position: 28 (+5)
Year: 2020
Designer: Emmet Byrne, Zak Dale-Clutterbuck, David Guymer, Elaine Lithgow, T. S. Luikart, Dominic McDowall, Katrina Ostrander, Joshua Reynolds, Clint Werner
Publisher: Cubicle 7
Plays ~2-7ish players in however long you care to play for
I’m a sucker for a good dice pool-based RPG. I really do think that dice pool systems are my favourites; just look at games like Mutant: Year Zero and Vampire: The Masquerade. That this one is also based on Warhammer: Age of Sigmar is a big plus. I do love me some Warhams.
I initially played with a local group, and that went really well. More recently, I’ve been playing online with a group that I met via the Unpossible Journeys Discord. I’m really enjoying this campaign as it’s proving to be really engaging, well-run, and with a good-humoured group. I’m having a lot of fun with Soulbound.
22: Arcs
Previous Position: New to the list
Year: 2024
Designer: Cole Wehrle
Publisher: Leder Games
Plays: 1-4 players in ~60 to 120 minutes
I’m really coming around on this game. It didn’t really stick the landing for me during that first game, but subsequent plays have made a lot more sense to me. I enjoyed it from the start of my second game, and I was a lot more aggressive than I normally would be in this sort of game. I’m naturally a bit of a turtler, but I made some poor decisions early on and the only remedy was to start raiding opponents.
I think two things will cause this game to rise in the rankings. First, I need more plays. Second, let’s start mixing in the cards from the Leaders & Lore pack to add some of that sweet, sweet asymmetry!
21: Quadropolis
Previous Position: 19 (-2)
Year: 2016
Designer: François Gandon
Publisher: Days of Wonder
Plays: 2-4 players in ~30 to 60 minutes
I wasn’t sure what to expect from Quadropolis when I picked it up on a whim. I wasn’t expecting a city simulator or anything as complicated as that, but nor did I expect the game to be quite as abstract as it is. It’s a tile-laying game where players are trying to put combinations of districts in specific patterns to maximise points. It’s a bit of a pasted-on theme, but the game is a lot of fun and the artwork is cute.
Like many of the games from Days of Wonder, it’s pretty accessible and I’ve played it with my friends, parents, and groups of kids. It’s always pretty well received, but most people do better on their second playthrough, once they fully understand the scoring system, which is really the only (slightly) complicated bit of the game.
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