Welcome to the third 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.

So far, we’ve summarized our selections through the letter N.  So let’s see if our next set of choices can put the O in OMG.

O – 31 games, 82 votes

1. Orleans (2014) – 57 (15)
2. Ora et Labora (2011) – 31 (8)
3. Obsession (2018) – 24 (6)
4. Odin’s Ravens (2002) – 18 (5)
5. One Night Ultimate Werewolf (2014) – 16 (5)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Oh Hell (4), Onitama (4), On the Underground (4), Oracle of Delphi (3), Oh My Goods (3)

Orleans easily finishes on top.  There are quite a few versions of this game and I folded all of them in, but even without that, I’m pretty confident that it’s our favorite O game; after all, half of the voters listed it.  I was actually pretty surprised to see Ora finish second; it’s a really involved game, and not for the faint of heart, but it did very well in the voting.  Odin’s Ravens is an old 2-player design that obviously quite a few of the voters remember fondly.  And of the many versions of Werewolf that are out there, ONUW was the only one that made one of the top 5 lists.

P – 33 games, 88 votes

1. Princes of Florence (2000) – 54 (15)
2. Power Grid (2004) – 52 (15)
3. Puerto Rico (2002) – 44 (13)
4. Pandemic (2008) – 19 (5)
5. Palaces of Cararra (2012) – 12 (3)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Pandemic Legacy (3), Pax Pamir (3), Password (3), Port Royal (3)

What a titanic battle we had for our favorite P game!  Princes, PG, and PR—three unquestioned heavyweights and they all got tremendous support.  I imagine a lot of readers are surprised that Princes came out on top and I probably wouldn’t have bet on it to be the winner, but I’m far from shocked at the result—it’s an all-time great game.  And Puerto Rico finishing third shows just how strong this category is.  Even though the OGers love a lot of Friese’s games, none of them managed to win a category, but you can’t get much closer than Power Grid did.

You could make a very good case that P contains more top-flight games than any other, particularly when you realize it includes both Pandemic and Pandemic Legacy!  As I mentioned earlier, I decided to keep these as two separate games, but as you can see, combining them wouldn’t have helped Pandemic’s case.  Still, it just adds to the luster of this group.  It was also fun to see an old favorite like Password get support.  With all these high-powered titles, two of our voters still listed Password as their second favorite P game!

Q – 26 games, 76 votes

1. Quacks of Quedlinberg* (2018) – 56 (13)
2. E. (2017) – 36 (10)
3. Qwixx (2012) – 26 (7)
4. Quest for El Dorado (2017) – 25 (7)
5. Qwirkle (2006) – 23 (6)
6. Quartermaster General (2014) – 19 (5)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Quantum (4)

Of the relatively small number of games that begin with a Q, it’s appropriate that the one that embraces the “Q” the most would win this category.  And fairly easily, too.

Quartermaster General joins Memoir ’44 as the only wargames to earn as many as 15 points.

If you’re speaking English, “Q” is invariably followed by “U”.  But thanks to the massive success of Qwirkle, that’s not necessarily true in the world of games.  Consequently, four “Qw” games got votes (the additional ones are Qwinto and Qwirkle Cubes).  The only other non-“Qu” games are Q.E. (which, in case you’re wondering, stands for Quantitative Easing) and Qin.

For the K category, I mentioned that there were a dozen games that included “King”.  In this category, there are only five Queen games (Queen’s Architect, Queen’s Garden, The Queen’s New Capital, Queen’s Gambit, and Queen’s Necklace), which sounds a bit sexist, but since we voted for much fewer Q games than K games, the percentage of titles inspired by royalty is close to being the same.

R – 35 games, 85 votes

1. Ra* (1999) – 57 (13)
2. Russian Railroads (2013) – 27 (8)
3. Race for the Galaxy (2007) – 25 (7)
4. Revive (2022) – 20 (5)
5. Reef Encounter (2004) – 17 (6)
6. R-Eco (2003) – 16 (5)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Roll for the Galaxy (3), The Resistance (3), Roads & Boats (3), Rococo (3), Root (3)

We go from the winning game with the longest title to the one with the shortest one, as Ra more than doubles the point total of any other game.  Race for the Galaxy’s third place finish is certainly respectable, but given how addictive many find it, I thought it might do even better.

Games with “rail” in the title?  4 (Russian Railroads, Ride the Rails, Railroad Tycoon, and Railways of the World).  Games with “roll” in the title?  3 (Roll for the Galaxy, Roll Through the Ages, and Roll Player), although surely Rattlebones should also count.

S – 52 games, 88 votes

1. Schnappchen Jagd (1998) – 21 (6)
2. Stephenson’s Rocket* (1999) – 18 (4)
3. Seasons (2012) – 15 (4)
4. Showmanager (1996) – 14 (5)
5. Saint Petersburg (2004) – 14 (4)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Snowdonia (3), Scythe (3), Spirit Island (3), Samurai (3), Scout (3), Sentinels of the Multiverse (3)

Schnappchen Jagd is one of only two pure card games to have a first place finish (the other one is coming up).  It also got mentions from 3 voters in the B category as Bargain Hunter.  We evidently love our S games, as a total of 52 games got at least one vote, more than for any other category.  You might think that was helped along by Star Wars or Star Trek titles, but there was only one of each (Star Wars: The Queen’s Gambit and Star Trek Frontiers).  Other “star” titles include Starship Catan and Starship Troopers.  But mostly, there were just a lot of games that started with S and they got a lot of love from the voters.

T – 36 games, 88 votes

1. Terraforming Mars* (2016) – 48 (11)
2. Ticket to Ride (2004) – 42 (12)
3. Tichu (1991) – 30 (9)
4. Through the Ages (2006) – 25 (6)
5. Terra Mystica (2012) – 19 (6)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Traumfabrik (5), Tigris & Euphrates (3), Targi (3)

Another very strong category (Through the Ages and Terra Mystica can’t even break into the top 3!), it comes down to a battle between a couple of games with big support and Terraforming Mars wins out over Ticket to Ride.  Tichu, beloved by so many, can do no better than third place.

I wasn’t sure if we’d get a lot of titles with a leading “The”, but it turned out only three were selected:  The Colonists, The Captain is Dead, and The Treasure Ship of Zheng He (a Hayashi design that won’t even be released until August!).

Just like Friedemann Friese favors the letter F, Daniele Tascini is well known for his “T-series” games, but they weren’t particularly well represented here, as only Tzolk’in and Tiletum got votes.  The former did receive two first place votes.

U – 32 games, 80 votes

1. Union Pacific* (1999) – 47 (12)
2. Underwater Cities (2018) – 36 (9)
3. Ubongo (2003) – 27 (8)
4. Um Reifenbreite (1979) – 16 (6)
5. Ursuppe (1997) – 16 (5)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Ultimate Werewolf (4), Unmatched (3)

In the previous category, a game based around a possible future beat out a train game.  Here, the opposite occurs, as the Moon evergreen Union Pacific wins out over Underwater Cities.  Um Reifenbreite is the German version of Homas Tour, a Dutch game about bicycle racing (the original title is quite rare, as many of its copies were destroyed in a warehouse fire).

Three “Ultimate” games got votes:  Ultimate Werewolf, Ultimate Railroads, and Ultimate Werewolf Inquisition.  Better represented were “Un-“ games, where the prefix was used as a negative.  5 games fit that description:  Unmatched, Undaunted, Unconscious Mind, Unlock!, and Unfair.  And yes, two voters selected Uno!

V – 35 games, 83 votes

1. Viticulture* (2013) – 35 (10)
2. Voyages of Marco Polo (2015) – 33 (9)
3. Vegas Showdown* (2005) – 24 (6)
4. Vikings* (2007) – 23 (5)
5. Village (2011) – 22 (6)
6. Voodoo Prince (2017) – 15 (4)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Voidfall (4), Valdora (3), Vinci (3), Verflixxt! (3)

Another close contest, as wine tops camels and Viticulture wins over Marco Polo.  Five games got over 20 points.  Our favorite Norse civilization was represented by both Vikings and Viking Fury, but my favorite title is “Vikings Gone Wild”, which sounds like the name of a Friday night Cinemax movie.

W – 41 games, 84 votes

1. Web of Power* (2000) – 49 (11)
2. War of the Ring (2004) – 23 (6)
3. Wizard (1984) – 17 (5)
4. Was Sticht (1993) – 16 (6)
5. Wits & Wagers (2005) – 16 (5)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Watergate (4), Welcome To… (3.), Wind the Film (3), Wyatt Earp (3)

Web of Power, one of the first of the “super fillers”, crushes the opposition and more than doubles the point total of the second place game, War of the Ring.  Wizard, the madcap version of Oh Hell, clearly still has fans.  So does Was Sticht, which anticipated the rise of modern, innovative trick-takers over 30 years ago.

We voted for 7 games that include some variation of the word “war”:  War of the Ring, Wonderland’s War, World of Warcraft, Warfighters WWII Card Game, War in Europe, Warhammer 40,000, and Warhamster Rally.  That was considerably more than the “word” games:  Word Blur, What’s my Word?, Word on the Street, and Werewords.  The last of those, somewhat surprisingly, was the only “were…” title we had, including no explicit mentions of werewolves.

X – 14 games, 47 votes

1. Xylotar* (2024) – 72 (18)
2. X Nimmt (2016) – 26 (6)
3. Xia: Legends of a Drift System (2014) – 25 (6)
4. Xenon Profiteer (2015) – 17 (4)

Full Disclosure:  The designer of Xylotar, Chris Wray, is one of our regular writers.  But neither that potential bias, nor the small number of X titles, can explain away the title’s domination of this category—it’s obviously a really good game.  It also joins Schnappchen Jagd as one of two card games to win.

The X category is the only one where the top games all were published in 2010 or later.  In fact, all four of the games appeared during the last 10 years.  I don’t really think games beginning with X are more popular lately than they used to be; it just seems to be a quirk of the voting.

Y – 22 games, 69 votes

1. Yspahan* (2006) – 69 (17)
2. Yokohama (2016) – 62 (15)
3. YINSH (2003) – 30 (10)
4. Yahtzee (1956) – 10 (3)
5. Yedo (2012) – 10 (3)
6. Yokai Septet (2018) – 10 (2)

Another titanic battle at the top sees Yspahan snatch the Y title from Yokohama.  The latter game also had spinoffs which got votes (Yokohama Roll and Write and Yokohama Duel).  In addition, another “Ys” game made the list (Ys itself, the first of the Ystari titles).

Yokohama wasn’t the only geographical area to get multiple mentions, as Yukon Airways and Yukon Company both got votes.

Z – 29 games, 69 votes

1. Zendo* (2001) – 42 (10)
2. Zooloretto (2007) – 41 (12)
3. ZhanGuo (2014) – 20 (4)
4. ZERTZ (1999) – 18 (5)
5. Zombicide (2012) – 15 (3)
6. Zum Kuhkuck (2014) – 15 (3)

Games with at least 3 votes:  Zirkus Flohcati (3), Zoff im Buffalo (3)

What a nice way to finish things off:  two games separated by just one point!  Zendo, the best known design of the late Kory Heath, holds off Zooloretto by the slimmest of margins, to the chagrin of panda fans around the world.  We also have back-to-back appearances of GIPF titles (first YINSH, then ZERTZ).

Zooloretto is one of four “zoo” titles to get votes (the others are Zoo Vadis, Zoo Sim, and Zoo Break, although if you wanted to also count Z3bra, I wouldn’t object too much).  The other big Z topic, zombies, also had four games on the list (Zombicide, Zombie Kids, Zombie Kids Evolution, and Zombie Dice).  Thankfully, there were no games with undead zoo animals!

Summing It Up

So that’s the list; all 27 categories, comprising 1004 games in total.  There’s all sorts of data which could be mined here, but I think I’ve written enough for now.  I’ll close with the answer to one final question:  which designer had the most winning games?  Just about every major designer had at least one game finish on top, including Bauza, Kramer, Luciani, Moon, Pfister, Schacht, Vaccarino, and Wallace.  But only two managed to have multiple titles in first place.  Uwe Rosenberg had two wins (for Agricola and Schnappchen Jagd, two very different games).  But our most loved designer, perhaps to no one’s surprise, was Reiner Knizia, with four winning games (Euphrat & Tigris, Lost Cities, Modern Art, and Ra).  From A to Z, Reiner is our personal man of letters.

Thanks for reading, everyone.  Happy New Year and I hope you get some good gaming in…maybe even a few titles on this list!