Welcome to the second chapter of the Opinionated Gamer’s Alphabet List!  Just to summarize, 30 of us listed our three favorite games that begin with each letter of the alphabet (as well as those that start with a numeral).  Each selected game in first, second, and third position earned 5, 3, and 2 points.  I’m presenting a summary of each category.

Here’s how the summaries are laid out.  Each category shows the total number of games that got mentions and the total number of votes cast in that category.  Next comes the 5 games that got the most votes in that category (as long as they each got at least 10 points), as well as any other games that got at least 15 points.  Each game’s year of publication is shown and the game that got the most first-place votes gets an asterisk.  This is followed by the game’s point total and, in parentheses, the number of people that voted for it.  After that top group, I also mention all the additional games that made the lists of at least three of our voters and give the number of lists it appeared on.  Finally, I’ll make some comments about the category as a whole and some things that I found interesting.

Yesterday, I covered the numeral category, as well as A, B, and C.  So let’s start with D.

D – 40 games, 80 votes

1. Dominion* (2008) – 35 (11)
2. Diplomacy (1959) – 16 (4)
3. Deep Sea Adventure (2014) – 15 (6)
4. Descent: Journeys in the Dark (2005) – 15 (4)
5. Die Macher (1986) – 13 (4)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Dune: Imperium (4), Dominant Species (3), Darwin’s Journey (3), Diamant (3), Dice Realms (3), Durch die Wuste (3), Downforce (3)

This one is no contest—it’s Dominion all the way.  After that, the votes are really well spread, with 11 games getting between 10 and 16 points and only one other game being picked by more than 4 voters.  It’s fun to see Deep Sea Adventure, the unassuming little filler from Japan, in the third spot, edging out Die Macher, perhaps the first well known complex (and long playing) game to come out of Germany.

It’s also a kick to see some lesser known games get some love from the voters.  I was pretty amazed that someone’s three favorites included D’r Af, a barely remembered Splotter racing game from the late nineties where your goal is to drive your car off the edge of the table!  Another surprise selection was Discretion, a tiny American game from a tiny American company, themed around making your fortune in the real estate market.  It was a favorite of mine back in the eighties, but I was a bit shocked that anyone else even knew about it, much less that they would include it on their ballot.  Fun stuff.

E – 45 games, 81 votes

1. Euphrat & Tigris* (1997) – 26 (6)
2. Eclipse* (2011) – 22 (5)
3. Elfenland (1998) – 18 (4)
4. El Grande (1995) – 17 (5)
5. Endeavor (2009) – 14 (5)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Everdell (4), Entdecker (3), The Estates (3), Expedition (3), Evo (3)

It’s pretty close at the top, with E&T taking the honors from Eclipse, despite them both getting 4 first place votes.  By the way, Euphrat & Tigris also got votes in the “T” category as Tigris & Euphrates, but it scored better with its German title.  Overall, the category is a celebration of the late 90’s, as E&T, Elfenland, El Grande, Entdecker, and Expedition all debuted between 1995 and 1998.  For those not familiar with it, The Estates is the redesign of Klaus Zoch’s Neue Heimat, a vicious little 3D city building game first released in 2007.

F – 48 games, 87 votes

1. For Sale (1997) – 25 (9)
2. Food Chain Magnate* (2015) – 23 (6)
3. Flaschenteufel (1995) – 20 (6)
4. Fields of Arle (2014) – 13 (4)
5. Feast for Odin (2016) – 11 (3)
6. Finca (2009) – 11 (3)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Formula De (3)

It’s a three-way battle and the celebrated filler For Sale winds up taking the top spot, over Food Chain and Flaschenteufel; it does so despite earning only one first place vote.  You could easily argue that these are the masterpiece designs from three excellent designers/design teams:  Stefan Dorra, Jeroen Doumen & Joris Wiersinga (Splotter), and Gunter Cornett.

As you can see from the voting, there was no dominant game in this category.  The clincher for that is that twenty-five different games got at least one first place vote!  That’s the most for any category.

Given that the letter F will always be associated with the games of Friedemann Friese, it’s something of an upset that none of his designs make the short list.  Rest assured, however, that we still love The Man in Green, as no fewer than 10 of his F games got at least one vote:  Frisch Fisch, Foppen, Fauna, Fische Fluppen Frikkadellen, Funkenschlag, Friday, Fabled Fruit, Factory Manager, Faiyum, and Finstere Flure.  Try to say that list three times fast without spitting!

G – 37 games, 84 votes

1. Great Western Trail* (2016) – 36 (10)
2. Goa (2004) – 25 (6)
3. Grand Austria Hotel (2015) – 19 (6)
4. El Grande (1995) – 16 (4)
5. Galaxy Trucker (2007) – 15 (4)
6. Ginkgopolis (2012) – 15 (3)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Gaia Project (4), Ghost Fightin’ Treasure Hunters (4), Ghost Stories (3), Glen More (3), Gloomhaven (3), Geschenkt (3)

GWT hits the trail with a strong showing, enough to win the category.  Goa’s point total is also quite impressive.  El Grande does just about as well without the “El” as it did with it in the “E” category.  Speaking of the suppressed “The”, the G’s do it in multiple languages, with an “El” (El Grande), a “La” (La Granja), a “Der” (Der Goldene Kompass), and a bunch starting with “The” (The Game, The Gang, The Golden Ages, The Great Zimbabwe, and The Grizzled).  Geez!

H – 39 games, 86 votes

1. Hansa Teutonica* (2009) – 29 (8)
2. Hanabi (2010) – 24 (7)
3. Heat: Pedal to the Metal (2022) – 22 (6)
4. High Society (1995) – 18 (5)
5. Habitats (2016) – 18 (4)
6. Hawaii (2011) – 18 (4)
7. Heroscape (2004) – 18 (4)
8. Hare & Tortoise (1973) – 16 (5)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Hooky (4), Heaven & Ale (4), Hanamikoji (3), Hearts (3), Harmonies (3)

Hansa T. gains the honors, but the main interest here is how spread out the voting is:  8 games with at least 15 points and 13 titles with at least 3 votes; both figures are the most for any category.  Some of those games are a bit surprising, at least to me.  I didn’t think that Knizia’s High Society was that widely played anymore, but it’s clearly a favorite of a bunch of OGers.  Habitats is the predecessor of the better known, SdJ nominated Nova Luna—the latter game is a co-design of Uwe Rosenberg and Corne van Moorsel, but Habitats came solely from Corne.  The inclusion of both Hanabi and Hare & Tortoise is hardly surprising, as both won SdJ awards.  Having a couple of SdJ winners in the top 5 happened in quite a few categories, but we never had a threesome.

I – 38 games, 85 votes

1. Indonesia* (2005) – 30 (7)
2. Innovation (2010) – 27 (8)
3. In the Year of the Dragon (2007) – 23 (6)
4. Istanbul (2014) – 20 (5)
5. Isle of Skye (2015) – 17 (5)
6. Isle of Cats (2019) – 15 (4)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Incan Gold (4), Industrial Waste (5), It’s a Wonderful World (3)

It’s very tight at the top and in a battle of somewhat niche games, Indonesia edges out Innovation.  This is the first category in which all of the top games debuted during the 21^st century (in fact, all of the games with at least 3 mentions did).

Year of the Dragon doesn’t always do well in popularity contests because it’s viewed as so punishing, so it was nice to see it finish third.  I was also somewhat surprised by Industrial Waste’s showing; not so much that it made the short list, but that as many as 5 voters put it in their top 3.

J – 22 games, 78 votes

1. Just One* (2018) – 79 (20)
2. Jaipur (2009) – 35 (12)
3. Jump Drive (2017) – 24 (7)
4. Jenseits von Theben (2004) – 22 (6)
5. Jambo (2004) – 19 (5)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Java (4), Jekyll vs Hyde (3), JamSumo (3), Jamaica (3)

Just One just destroys the competition in this category.  Sure, there are a limited number of games that start with a J, but even taking that into account, 79 points and getting mentioned by two thirds of the voters is awfully impressive.  Jaipur also did really well, but Just One more than doubled its point total and its 20 votes was the highest any game achieved in our exercise.

Jenseits von Theben is the original version of what eventually would become Thebes; the 2004 game came from a tiny publisher, but it still was the talk of Essen, back when surprise hits were still possible at SPIEL.  And if you haven’t heard of JamSumo (I hadn’t before this), it’s a 2014 dice flicking game, with two ways of playing, called, logically enough, Jam and Sumo.

K – 45 games, 84 votes

1. Keyflower* (2012) – 25 (5)
2. Kaleidos (1994) – 20 (4)
3. Kingdom Builder (2011) – 19 (6)
4. Kingdomino (2016) – 19 (6)
5. Klunker (1999) – 11 (3)

Games with at least 3 votes:  King of Tokyo (3), K2 (3), Keythedral (3), Konig von Siam (3), Kogge (3)

There’s lots of fun things to discuss with the letter K.  Let’s start at the top.  Keyflower wins fairly easily, but it was the only #1 game in our exercise to earn all of its points from first-place votes:  25 points from 5 first-place votes.  Somewhat amazingly, Kaleidos was the only second place game to do the same thing!  By the way, for those unfamiliar with the title, Kaleidos is an Italian party game where the players have a minute to write down all the items in a scene that start with a particular letter; a little bit like we’re doing here today.  It was certainly popular 30 years ago, but I was pretty shocked to see it beating out heavyweights like Kingdom Builder and Kingdomino in our voting.  I was also a bit surprised that Klunker finished fifth—it’s a title from Uwe Rosenberg from the period when he was exclusively designing card games (and very successful ones).  Klunker is a pretty unintuitive game and not as popular as many of his other card games, but it always had a subset of players that really liked it and I guess they’re well represented among the OGers.  Finally, I didn’t expect Kogge to do as well as it did.  It was an early, and fairly obscure design from Andreas Steding, who got far more notoriety a few years later when he created Hansa Teutonica.

Here are some more fun facts.  Most of Richard Breese’s games are set in the “Key” universe and the titles always begin with the word “Key”.  Two of those games made the short list, but they were far from alone.  In fact, 7 of the Key games got at least one vote (the other ones are Key Flow, Key Market, Keyper, Keydom’s Dragons, and Keywood).  Finally, we had a bunch of games that included the word “King” in its title.  We wound up with 12 of them, including a few that included the German equivalent, Konig.  Just remember, if you’re trying to think of a new title for a game, it’s good to be the king.

L – 43 games, 88 votes

1. Lost Cities* (1999) – 46 (13)
2. Lost Ruins of Arnak (2020) – 21 (5)
3. Liar’s Dice (1987) – 17 (4)
4. Louis XIV (2005) – 12 (4)
5. Lift Off (2018) – 10 (3)
6. La Citta (2000) – 10 (2)
7. LotR: Journeys in Middle Earth (2019) – 10 (2)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Loopin’ Louie (3), Lorenzo il Magnifico (3), LotR: The Confrontation (3), Lord of the Rings (3)

Lost Cities dominates the category, to such an extent that only three other games earn more than 10 points.  One of these is Lift Off, a fairly recent game that may have escaped your notice—it’s a Hans im Gluck design about completing missions in space.  As you can see, the short list is bracketed by Knizia designs, from Lost Cities at the top to LotR: The Confrontation and Lord of the Rings (yes, it’s the 2000 title that popularized cooperative games) at the bottom.  Not surprisingly, Tolkien’s classic is well represented in our list; in addition to the three LotR games that made the short list, Nate French’s LotR Card Game and recent hotness LotR: Duel for Middle-Earth also got votes.

M – 49 games, 88 votes

1. Modern Art (1992) – 25 (9)
2. Medici* (1995) – 24 (7)
3. Memoir ’44 (2004) – 17 (4)
4. The Mind (2018) – 16 (5)
5. Mystery Rummy 1: Jack the Ripper (1998) – 13 (3)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Mu & More (3), Merchant of Venus (3), Mombasa (3), Mosaic (3)

In the battle of the Knizia designs, Modern Art emerges victorious, edging out Medici by a slim one point.  Like For Sale before it, Modern Art does so despite only garnering one first-place vote.  This is the only category where games from the same designer finish first and second.  Memoir ’44 is the first top 5 game we’ve encountered that can be categorized as a wargame; we’ll only see one other one.  As a group, the OGers are evidently not big on the classic battles for supremacy.

Did other Mystery Rummy games get any support?  Yes, one:  MR2: Murders in the Rue Morgue got a single, first place vote.  (Not the one I would have expected, by the way; I’d have thought MR4 would have been more likely).  And if we don’t care for war games, how about CCGs?  Hmm, maybe not—the one that started it all, Magic: The Gathering, also only got a single, first place vote.  Finally, in all the categories, only one game that consists of a single letter got any votes.  It was “M”, a tile-laying abstract that was released in 2000, and it got one second place vote.

N – 41 games, 82 votes

1. Nucleum (2023) – 25 (7)
2. Nations* (2013) – 23 (5)
3. No Thanks! (2004) – 21 (7)
4. Neos (2009) – 15 (3)
5. Nexus Ops (2005) – 13 (3)
6. Notre Dame (2007) – 13 (3)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Navegador (3), New York Slice (3), Next Station (3)

Nucleum is one of only two games to win a category that debuted during the decade of the 2020’s.  It had to edge out Nations and No Thanks! in order to do that.  Nucleum is probably the heaviest game to take a category; it’s probably between it and Great Western Trail.  If you recall, No Thanks! also earned 3 votes as “Geschenkt”.  Incidentally, Neos is a filler card game that’s one of the earlier titles to come out of Japan.  It’s not terribly well known, but obviously three of our voters really like it.  I’ve played it and think it’s a solid game, so maybe this will give it some extra exposure.

The Nations Dice Game also got a couple of votes, but as I mentioned yesterday, I tended to separate dice (and card) game spinoffs of successful board games from the original titles.  If I’d combined them, then Nations would have obviously finished on top.  The Next Station category included the London, Tokyo, and Paris versions of that game.

We had some fun game names in this category.  They included “Nessie’s True Identity” (never heard of that one, but it was someone’s top choice), “Nuts a GoGo”, “Noobs in Space”, and the always popular “Nuns on the Run”, which, on the Geek, has the description “Naughty nuns awake at night, avoid the Abbess or get a fright!”  Gotta love it!

With you now picturing ladies who make a habit of running in habits, I’ll end our alphabetical descriptions for today.  Join us tomorrow when we tackle the Big O!