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From the Depths: The Best of the Bottom of BGG Rankings

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14 Oct 2020 14:49 #315142 by WadeMonnig

ubarose wrote: I haven't played most of the games on your list, but I do concur that Black Fleet is an excellent game that we play frequently. It pretty much has made all other pirate games obsolete for us.

Where did Divinity Derby rank? That is another lessor known game that you reviewed that is really great.

Jeez Uba, spoilers! What did ya think I was hinting at when I mentioned a mythical racing game at the end of the article! (Ranked in the 3,900's)
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14 Oct 2020 14:51 - 14 Oct 2020 14:52 #315143 by ubarose
I think the spirit of the list is what are your lowest ranked games that you rate highly/are personal favorites and would recommend to others. This reveals something about your own niche tastes, and, on Twitter at least, introduces other people to games they might never of heard of or considered. Especially people who are new to board gaming and are building their collection exclusively from BGG's top 100.

So you sort your games by rank lowest to highest and make a list of the the first 10 games that you rate highly/are personal favorites/would recommend. Wade's list just happened to fall within the top 1000.

My list was:

Ultra Marines
The Gothic Game
Freakface
Talisman: Kingdom Hearts
Liebe & Intrige
VOC! Founding of the Dutch East Indies Company
Circus Train
Yacht Race
SUTAKKU
Battue: Storm of the Horse Lords

I'm not sure where these rank as I am at work and BGG is blocked. Although I very much like these (and in a few cases absolutely love them), with the exception of Yacht Race, I would only recommend them cautiously, depending upon the other person's taste. Yacht Race is a game I would unilaterally recommend to any board gamer looking for race game.
Last edit: 14 Oct 2020 14:52 by ubarose.
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14 Oct 2020 14:56 #315144 by ubarose

WadeMonnig wrote:

ubarose wrote: I haven't played most of the games on your list, but I do concur that Black Fleet is an excellent game that we play frequently. It pretty much has made all other pirate games obsolete for us.

Where did Divinity Derby rank? That is another lessor known game that you reviewed that is really great.

Jeez Uba, spoilers! What did ya think I was hinting at when I mentioned a mythical racing game at the end of the article! (Ranked in the 3,900's)


I'm so sorry. I read your article days ago, and it totally slipped my mind that you had mentioned that.
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14 Oct 2020 15:09 - 15 Oct 2020 01:02 #315145 by Sagrilarus
Yacht Race is ranked 6,800 and I like it because you can be a complete dick to someone. It isn't even hard to do. So it's up there.

Valor & Victory is 4,200 but shouldn't be, because it a) isn't well know by non-chit pushers; and b) lives in ASL's shadow amongst chit pushers. But that's exactly where it is designed to be. A simple, clean Squad Leader game that doesn't require a hand-dolly to play.

Leaping Lemmings is ranked 2,754. See "dick" comment above.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, 2,106. My opinion is right, the rest of the world is wrong. There's no argument here.

Seal Team Flix ranked 3,412. See "world is wrong" above.
Last edit: 15 Oct 2020 01:02 by Sagrilarus.
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14 Oct 2020 15:28 #315146 by the_jake_1973
I had to get in on this as well. One of the fun adventure games we like to play is truly scraping the bottom.

13880. Exalted: Legacy of the Unconquered Sun
8881. Rukshuk
6675. Lords and Ladies
6017. Gentlemen Thieves
5665. Richthofen's War
5321. Nostra City
3627. Blood Royale
3055. Cadwallon City of Thieves
2957. Techo Bowl
2296. Man O' War


Exalted is a real gem punished by a terrible rulebook and zero marketing. I like all of the games on this bottom BGG layer.
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14 Oct 2020 15:29 - 14 Oct 2020 15:29 #315147 by WadeMonnig

ubarose wrote:

WadeMonnig wrote:

ubarose wrote: I haven't played most of the games on your list, but I do concur that Black Fleet is an excellent game that we play frequently. It pretty much has made all other pirate games obsolete for us.

Where did Divinity Derby rank? That is another lessor known game that you reviewed that is really great.

Jeez Uba, spoilers! What did ya think I was hinting at when I mentioned a mythical racing game at the end of the article! (Ranked in the 3,900's)


I'm so sorry. I read your article days ago, and it totally slipped my mind that you had mentioned that.

I am 100% kidding. The only reason I teased the rest of the my list was I would have wrote a 5,000 word article no one would read about recommended games that have low rankings.
Last edit: 14 Oct 2020 15:29 by WadeMonnig.
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14 Oct 2020 15:30 #315148 by charlest
VOC! always looked really neat to me, surprised to see it on your list Uba as I've never seen it talked about on here before.
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14 Oct 2020 16:05 #315149 by Shellhead

ubarose wrote: So you sort your games by rank lowest to highest and make a list of the the first 10 games that you rate highly/are personal favorites/would recommend. Wade's list just happened to fall within the top 1000.


Oh! In that case, my list is:

16,383: The Roaring 20's (8)

16,203: Pirate King (8)

15,663: Slasher: the Final Cut (8) Lively take-that card game with a simple map and cardboard chits. Each player controls a victim at a small house party that gets crashed by a slasher. But one player might turn out to be the slasher. On your turn, you play a scene card and designate which character is the subject of this scene. Going around the table, each player may play a plot twist card, adding to the action or possibly swapping in different target characters, depending on who is in which room of the house. The player who played the scene gets to play the final plot twist. The game is great, but usually lasts one hour too long due to player elimination.

11,672: Kung Fu 2100 (8): This early Steve Jackson Game does a nice job of simulating kung fu fight scenes. One player is the evil Clonemaster, who is holed up in his fortress/villa and defended by inferior marital artists, servants, security guards, and scientists. The other players are heroic martial artists who break into the villa to execute the Clonemaster and destroy his clone tanks. The heart of the system involves opposing martial artists programming a short series of combat maneuvers in advance of each round of combat, then revealing and playing out the fights with some dice rolls.

10,443: The Gothic Game (9): Weird, dark and funny Clue, except that the player characters are trying to murder each other instead of solving a mystery.

9,400: Zimby Mojo (7.75): Magic, cannibalism, and betrayal in a unique and distinctive setting. The rules are a bit complex and fiddly and the game tends to run an hour too long, but otherwise it is great.

7.794: Asteroid (7): A dungeon crawl in space with robots. Too long and a little slow by modern standards, but a fine game if you can get it on the table.

6,883: Paranoia Mandatory Bonus Fun Cardgame (7): This is the best take-that card game in my collection, and it manages to distill an entire campaign of the Paranoia rpg into a single game. It tends to run too long, so I recommend subtracting clones from the game if you have more than 4 players, especially if you have 7 or 8.

6,333: The Hills Rise Wild (10): Two to four players. Each player controls a small (Cthulhu) mythos cult, and the cults are battling to take possession of the Necronomicon and summon their deity. The combat system is a great compromise between board game and rpg complexity, offering a nice tactical simulation. Every character has a special ability that can be used once per game. Nice modular map tiles. Movement uses a tiny tape measure. The cards and critical hit table offer some dark humor. Game is best with four, but runs long.

4,700: Psycho Raiders (9): If Steve Jackson and Rob Zombie teamed up to design a board game, you might get Psycho Raiders. Regulars here have probably read plenty about Psycho Raiders, so I will leave it at that.
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14 Oct 2020 16:08 - 14 Oct 2020 16:09 #315150 by mc

ubarose wrote: I think the spirit of the list is what are your lowest ranked games that you rate highly/are personal favorites and would recommend to others.


Okay

I've got

Coin Rugby (unranked... maybe not in the spirit, but all you need is a coin and a table, my favourite kind of table dexterity coin kind of game, because there are a few different types of dextrous tricks you must perform aside from pushing). Introducing it to others is always awesome. I don't like rugby at all. I love this game.

City Blocks - 2 player tile placement/bidding (well sort of, in the style of Samurai)

Guerilla Checkers - Brian Train designs an abstract COIN game. Well. Not really. But sorta. It is realyl cool though; one side is the counter-insurgency, the other the insurgency; COIN player starts with 6 pieces and tries to keep them alive; insurgency player starts with none but has up to 66, and just keeps loading the board and trying to lure the COIN player's pieces away from the group to wipe them out. It's a pretty unreal total distillation of theme.

Bug - another 2 player abstract which is really quite good, you evolve little creatures and swallow up others as you go.

Candy Chaser - Heimlich and Co meets Cockroach Poker. Real quick with the best elements of both.

Montgolfiere - There's something about this one which can create some great moments if everybody gets on board. It's very simple - you play cards, highest card gets to move the players balloon up towards the moon - but there are some action cards (grappling hooks, engine bursts, that kind of thing). The BEST bit though is that if you are at the same height as another player, you can collude with them and show them the cards you *really are going to play you promise*. That's where the fun happens.

Chariots of Rome - I started out being disappointed - it doesn't capture the crazy shit that happens in Circus Maximus; no eyeballs hanging out or climbing up the wall etc etc. But it's so much easier to actually play (at least in my situation), AND the designer has released files for a "brutal" deck - I haven't tried them yet, but his aim was to recapture some of the zaniness of Circus Maximus with it.

King Chocolate - it's so dry, so, I still don't know. BUT it's really interesting; you create a totally abstract network of the stages of chocolate production. There are 6 stages but you can only own (from memory) 4 of them, meaning, you need to use other peoples concerns to get your shit done, which helps them to a degree.

Maskmen - climbing/trick taking kind of thing.

Magical Athlete - no need to describe this one I'm sure.
Last edit: 14 Oct 2020 16:09 by mc.
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14 Oct 2020 16:08 #315151 by Jackwraith

ubarose wrote: So you sort your games by rank lowest to highest and make a list of the the first 10 games that you rate highly/are personal favorites/would recommend.


Ohhhhhhh. That's different, then. Hm.

15961 Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers This is one of the ultimate, all-day, DoaM/area control muthafukkas. We used to get 5 or 6 people together and play this, with most of the expansions, and play a game of Warlords (the video game) on the side. The graphic design is totally 80s "this is the new world of the computer!" and it has an expansion called Neutron Bombs and Killer Satellites.

14630 Grand Master An utterly simplistic, draw dependent "fighting" game. We played it as a filler for ages.

11404 Remnants Not just dice chuckin'. REAL TIME dice-chuckin. And post-apocalyptic dice-chuckin'!

9904 The Royal Game of Ur Created thousands of years before your so-called "messiah". Show some respect.

9400 Zimby Mojo Cooperative, followed by bloodbath. Covers both ends of the personality spectrum and plays 8(!) almost seamlessly. Lack of exposure is the only explanation for the ranking.

8828 Shenandoah: Jackson's Valley Campaign Actually does the block game "fog of war" thing better than many others. Also forces tough logistical decisions (i.e. the real choices of warfare) better than most.

7774 Senet See: Royal Game of Ur, above. Like backgammon. Depth. Respect for actual classics, you punks.

7129 Revolt on Antares The best of TSR's minigames. Has real storytelling value.

5224 The Hellgame Brilliant graphic design. Lots of good choices. Just fun.

4450 DRCongo A genuinely, excellent simulation game about a complicated situation. I'm honestly surprised it's this low.

Skipped a few, but mostly stuff that I'm trying to trade and, thus, wouldn't recommend or have recently traded for an haven't played enough of.
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14 Oct 2020 16:08 #315152 by ubarose

charlest wrote: VOC! always looked really neat to me, surprised to see it on your list Uba as I've never seen it talked about on here before.


It's an old game so when I was talking about it here I hadn't programmed any of the cross referencing for the blogs and articles, so it would be difficult to find now. I do remember that when it was going out of print and on sale for a ridiculously low price, I was encouraging folks to buy it.

It is a really great game, but it is one of those games that is played above the table so to speak. It's all about trust and ultimate betrayal - the scorpion and the frog. If you are playing it well, you will make at least one person at the table quite angry. The mechanism of drawing blindfolded makes it seem like a light hearted party game or children's game, which means "serious gamers" dismissed it out of hand without ever playing it. And those that did play went in with the expectation of light silliness, only to be shocked at it's viciousness. You also really need to play with the full compliment of players. So it is very hard to get to the table, as I need to convince several people to play it, and even if I do, after playing it they usually swear to never play again, as they are either emotionally exhausted by the tension level of the game, or are cross about the level of backstabbing and screwage.
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14 Oct 2020 16:31 #315155 by mezike
Crikey, we're really at the bottom of the barrel now I guess. Or skimming cream off the top. Or skimming something from the top. Are there prizes for the most obscure entries?

Unranked: Pooper Heroes - a silly and peurile take-that game about, well, pooping. It's been a good barometer for me as anyone on club nights who can stop taking themselves seriously for five or ten minutes of this is going to be fun to hang out with for the rest of the night.

Unranked: Plus and Minus - this ninety year-old abstract game plays like a forgotten Knizia and is a firm family favourite.

11,698: Four Elements - a four-way flicking game with genuine asymmetry and the refreshing approach of eschewing precision in favour of simply smashing your opponents off the map.

8,050: Sweet Spot - it's Tennis! A cool two-player card game that neatly captures the back-and-forth tension of rallies.

8,023: Crime Hotel - an excellent deduction game that neatly blends trick-taking and strategic placement into the mix. Probably the standout title from my little list here.

8,017: Club Stories - it's Football! (no, the proper one) a really rewarding attempt at bringing the feel of club management computer simulations into a tabletop format.

6,869: Noris spiele Tabletop Curling - it's Curling! This, for me, is the champion of dexterity games as it involves all of pace, positioning and timing as well as rewarding a steady hand and a good eye. There are many cheapo versions out there but the one made by Noris spiele is by far the best quality 'domestic' version.

5,477: Pack of Heroes - a quirky two player card-combo and spatial-positioning superhero brawl where teams of bizarro heroes face off for the right to solve crime or something. It's fun and has surprising range with eight wildly different teams that can then be drafted into your own wonky bargain Justice League full of broken combos.

4.154: Too Many Cinderellas - manipulate the myopic dumbass prince into marrying your hirsute cousin wearing a bad wig and ill-fitting dress. Or, y'know, some fairytale stuff if you must.

2,957: Techno Bowl - it's Football! (yes, that's the one), or rather it's "coaches playbook - the boardgame".

2,890: Tavarua - it's Surfing! Get stoked, bust some boards and wow the judges with your awesome tricks as you shoot those barrels and hang ten. Made by the same guy that did Xia, but that is a top 200 game so bleurgh.

2,625: Hellapagos - the most selfish and uncooperative co-op game there is. Try to survive on a desert island, but not too hard if those other schmucks will do all the work for you. They look thirsty don't they, and hungry too, good job you have your secret stash for when the sand hits the fan. Totally awesome times. The expansion is awful.

2,407: Catch the Moon - another great dexterity game, the reason why I love this one is because it gives players a lot of latitude in being able to prod and poke the structure just so long as you keep your fingers out of it, and the ladder pieces lock together to secure the structure as often as they balance precariously before falling down. As a result it is somewhat shaky-hands friendly.

I think that was more than ten, but that's what we do down here in Cooper's Corner. We just can't count so gud.
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14 Oct 2020 16:39 #315156 by Nodens

the_jake_1973 wrote: 5321. Nostra City

Thank you for reminding me of this one. It regularly got so nasty we had to stop playing it.
Maybe it's time to bring it back...
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14 Oct 2020 16:43 #315157 by Jackwraith

mezike wrote: 8,017: Club Stories - it's Football! (no, the proper one) a really rewarding attempt at bringing the feel of club management computer simulations into a tabletop format.


I need this.

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14 Oct 2020 16:54 #315158 by mezike

Jackwraith wrote:

mezike wrote: 8,017: Club Stories - it's Football! (no, the proper one) a really rewarding attempt at bringing the feel of club management computer simulations into a tabletop format.


I need this.


It's quite unique. I spoke to Thomas (the designer) a couple of years ago, he started off hand-making these things and then did a very small 'proper' print run with some higher-quality components. It still looks and feels cobbled together but the game itself is something that I have enjoyed. I massively overpaid for it as I had to ship it from some guy stateside who was literally the only person in the world with a copy to sell at the time. Because it's so niche I'll caveat that you sure won't feel like you're getting value for money, but given all the toads eyeing me right now it's not the most expensive-per-play toy that I've bought.
Thomas mentioned that he had some interest from established publishers wanting to do a professional version but it doesn't appear to have gone anywhere.

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