We close out Top 100 Week here at the Opinionated Gamers today by sharing our personal favorite years for board game releases. This is the idea that started the conversation among OG writers about what was the best year for board game releases, which led to the wealth of data collection that we’ve shared this week and will now cap off the week with our own findings from our Top 100 lists. With a deluge of new game releases coming soon at Essen Spiel, we’ll see if 2024 becomes anyone’s favorite year and what new games crack into our Top 100 lists in the months to come.
Talia Rosen: My personal favorite year turned out to be 2005 (followed by 2007) with 9 of my Top 100 games coming from 2005. It looks like 2005 was quite a year for new games in my book, most notably Nexus Ops, Twilight Struggle, Caylus, Kreta, Louis XIV, Aton, and Wits & Wagers. These continue to be some of the best games ever designed in my opinion. I adore the team combat, objective-based point system, unit variety, and economy of Nexus Ops. I think Twilight Struggle continues to be the pinnacle of card-driven asymmetric two-player combat, and Caylus is still the reigning champ of worker placement for me. Kreta and Louis XIV are still my favorite area control games of all-time when you don’t have 5 players for a game of El Grande. Aton is still one of the very best quick two-player games ever, and Wits & Wagers simply cannot be beat when it comes to trivia and family gatherings. If I could only keep games from one year, I think it would pretty easily be 2005. In a distant second was 2007 due to the joy of Galaxy Trucker, the ingenious card allocation of Biblios, the Feldian perfection of Notre Dame, the extortion of Before the Wind, and the knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth agony of King of Siam.
Nate Beeler: By volume, 2009 would be my favorite year. I have 7 favorites from then, including Egizia and Homesteaders. But for sheer “what year would I miss the most if it was taken away” I have to go with 2000. That has such standouts as Princes of Florence, Traumfabrik, and Electronic Catch Phrase, among others. Probably not coincidentally, that’s right when I got heavily into gaming as an adult.
Larry Levy: Two years tie for the most games represented in my Top 100, with 7 games apiece. The first is 2004 and I’m a little surprised that it didn’t do better with the group (it’s score was only sixth highest), as it’s usually acknowledged as the best year ever for board games. The highlights for me were Goa, Jambo (perhaps my favorite 2-player game of all time), and Maharaja, with No Thanks, Power Grid, San Juan, and Tahuantinsuyu filling out the rest of the ballot. But the year that ranks as my favorite would have to be 1999. That year saw the publication of two of my all-time favorites (Tikal and Stephenson’s Rocket), Time’s Up, Chinatown, Roads & Boats, Ricochet Robot, and Vinci. Like Nate, those games came out just when I was first getting into Eurogaming, but even granting the possibility of that coloring my opinion, those are some unbelievably amazing games, so I gotta feel it would be a great year for me at any stage of my playing history!
And here’s a bonus factoid: which designers have the most games in my Top 100? Simone Luciani leads the way with 10 games, followed by Martin Wallace with 6, and then by Kramer, Knizia, Feld, and Daniele Tascini, each with 5. Given how much I gush about Luciani on these pages, that result may not surprise anyone and I’m certainly not shocked that he finished on top. But the margin of his victory truly surprises me, given that I used to feel about Knizia and Wallace the way I feel about Luciani today. Maybe there’s a bit of recency bias going on, but the simplest explanation is that I just freaking love Luciani’s games, as he’s had a hand in designing a full 10% of the games in my list! Wow!
What was your favorite year for board game releases?
