I love Goosebumps Terror in Graveyard as a kid! I need to dig this out of my parents’ house

Thanks for giving Waggle Dance an honourable mention! 😊

Rumble nation seems super neat. You basically explained the whole game in less than a minute and feel I am ready to play already which highlight the amazingly concise and elegant rule set.

Great lists! So nostalgic to see the Goosebumps game. I wish I still had my childhood copy. A few of my own overlooked and forgotten games, all outside BGG top 1,000: 5. Mythotopia: The "fantasy" follow up to A Few Acres of Snow. Area control and deck building combine in such a fun way, each region produces a resource spent via cards. Deterministic combat, a marketplace of amazing ability cards, and several public objectives. 4. Little Town: A fantastic lightweight, almost introductory game for worker placement. Place your worker on the map, gather all resources around it. Use those resources to build buildings out on the map which creates new action spaces that both you and your opponent can use. The perfect length, doesn't overstay its welcome. 3. Castle Merchants: Set collection to build routes, moving your merchant in a pick up and deliver game. You can play rockslides to interrupt other player's routes to try to delay them, but they'll be able to do the same! 2. Master Builder: Bid on contracts, then hire/fire workers to create the perfect workforce to build up this medieval town. Two major things set this game apart; the workers each have 'quirks' (lazy, hot tempered, sickly, etc.) that can be affected by random events. A round's event might say a fight has broken out and all of your workers who are hot tempered can't build this turn. You're trying to balance workers with a wide variety of quirks so that big amounts of your workforce aren't taken out at any given time. Also, the buildings that you're contracted to build are actual 3D models that you put together piece by piece as you build them, so at the end of the game you literally have a 3D medieval town! 1. WarQuest: By far my favorite "dudes on a map" game, and one that plays exceedingly well with MORE players. Tax regions you own to generate income which you'll spend recruiting more forces. Two things set this game apart for me, first the forces you're recruiting are every fantasy race you can think of, located in their own home territories. Head to the goblin hills to recruit multiple different kinds of goblins, archers, swordsmen, etc. Dwarven territories to recruit Dwarven crossbowmen or grizzly bear riders. There are so many more from Elves, Minotaurs, wizards, Centaurs, Satyrs, etc. each having different troop types with their own abilities and stats, and all with their own miniatures! Second, the battles take place on a separate mat off the game board, where you place your troop minis in ranks, and then it is a back and forth battle, taking casualties, refilling from your reserves, etc. Every game has been an epic encounter, and I haven't even touched on going on quests!

Grew up with Stratego, Scotland Yard, (two of my favorites) and Scattergories. I have Hierarchy and like that a lot. I remember the Goosebumps game but never played it, I haven’t really heard of some of the others but I do like some of them and may go searching. 😊 So I think including the Honorable mentions I would be at 4 without the HM’s I am at 2.

Played Terra Nova and played Scattergories a lot. Scattergories is really great because there isn't really a player limit and you can make your own lists. My hidden game would be the Resident Evil Deckbuilding Game.

Rumble Nation has an English version coming out later this year (it's also deluxified!)

Thanks for having us on the show! I loved talking and learning about some of these lesser-known games!

My wife and I play Scattegories ever New Years Eve for our fun game-a-thon day. We play one card 6 times with 6 different letters. It’s a blast.

This was a super fun list. I love stratego Out of the whole list, I’ve only played scattergories

A few lesser known/overlooked games I've come across while perusing Amazon that I've purchased are Gold West, Citrus, Old West Empresario, and Murano.

Loved this topic. Here is my top five: 5. Funfair 4. Space Station Phoenix 3. Cryo 2. Corrosion 1. Sheepy Time

I would recommend 1. Skyline 3000 2. Clue the great museum caper 3. Disc duelers

Mr Jack in NY is a great 2p game with a ton of tactical possibilities. It's very tense and plays quickly. It is never talked about.

Really liked this list. It has me wanting to find these games. I only have played one of these games, Terra Nova. My hidden pick that I feel has been overlooked is Mare Nostrum. A game like Mosaic, but much faster to set up and play with a great table presence and cool mythic theme.

My FLGS recently did a Learn and Play night for Dungeon Fighter.

I'll nominate The Artemis Project, Simurgh, Sagani, Almadi, and Space Station Phoenix.

Great video

amazing a game as popular as stratego was could be forgotten, but that's just the way it is...time allows all things...

Legacy of Dragonholt is at least #226 for thematic games on BGG, so hopefully not overlooked. Still looking for some game with a similar experience.

Rumble Nation sounds really interesting, I do hope someone will do a U.S. distribution. My top 3 underrated games are: 1. Brian Boru 2. Mykerinos 3. Blue Moon City

If you like the cascading in Rumble Nation, another game worth checking out (though heavier), and which I think would fit a list like this anyway, is Québec . Very good area majority game. Not sure about availability now, but looking now at the BGG page I see a notice from 2022 that Spielworxx planned a reprint for 2024...

Innovation ❤

Ryan? From Edmonton? I believe I sold my Mechs vs Minions to him when I moved to Oklahoma…

From those presented, I have played: Terra Nova, Summit, Scotland Yard, Time Stories, Honga, Legacy of Dragonholt, Stratego , Dungeon Fighter , Snake Oil, LotR Risk, Most Oatmeal games, Rick and Morty DBG (deck building game), Scattergories, Marrakesh, Mexica (which I believe is pronounced (Meh-HEE-kuh)). I really liked Scotland Yard and Rick and Morty, the rest were forgettable. To continue the cryptizoic dbg conversation, Chris from room and board loves the Attack on Titan version which is a pure coop (I like it okay, but I think terminator dark fate is vastly superior). I personally enjoy the DC Rivals series which are head to head duel matchups. The Naruto version also has some interesting mechanics. The one downside to the cryptizoic DBGs is that they tend to play very long. For my picks: Terminator Dark Fate - even I overlooked this gem of a coop/solo DBG when it first came out. It is fantastically tense, highly thematic, and challenging. Angkor - a very beautiful tile laying game about building temples in a rapidly growing jungle. A take that game that is mean, but not too mean. Cat and Chocolate- I can’t make a luat like this without mentioning Cat and Chocolate. C&C is an incredible story telling game which really fosters creativity and shared experiences close to what you get in TTRPGs. You get a scenario and 1-3 items that you need to create a MacGuyver-like solution to the scenario that the other players find plausible (or entertaining). This game gets the most replay requests of any game I bring to game nights. Disney Animated- uses the action selection mechanism from ark nova in a delightful coop about producing disney animated films. I really wish expansions would be made available for this. Unforgiven the Lincoln assassination trial - It has mechanics very similar to 7 wonders duel, but I find this theming much more engaging as you play either the prosecution or defense trying to use evidence to sway judges to your case. Card play is meaningful as you use “evidence” to help your case or try to bury evidence to prevent your opponent from using it. Familienbande - a tiny but mighty game about genetics and royal bloodlines. You play cards to a tableau in marriages or children to try and “breed” a genetic trait to dominance. This is a very subtle teaching game on how genetics propagate disguised as simple card laying. Honorable Mention: Stygian society- a dungeon crawl boss battler that features a cube tower. Unfortunately the rulebook on this one is not fully baked,outright neglecting to mention some critical gameplay mechanics! However, there is a diamond in this rough game which really deserves a second look from an accomplished developer. The game is fun to play but isn’t quite finished.

I have to admit I also don't like that people frown on other people's games of choice but I have to admit to being a hypocrite because there are some games that I have physical reaction to like when someone mentions that they play Monopoly or someone suggests that we play Scrabble and it's not really personal I'm having a reaction to the game but it's clear how I feel about it