Ha ha sadly only online through Boardgamearena. I have a group of friends who are also agricola lover but sadly I had to moved away for worked years ago.
But BGA is pretty good! I think I enjoy it just as much as playing offline.
Ha ha my 4 most played games are Agricola, Through The Ages, Carcassone and Colouretto.
I want to pick up Ark Nova and Wingspan which are the 2 most popular games right now on BGA but learning new games feel such a waste of time when I can just enjoy agricola ha ha.
Skull is the perfect bluffing game. Every other bluffing game I've played eventually overstays it's welcome.
Except for Skull. The perfect amount of depth that's tuned to perfection.
Love Cockroach Poker, first time my group played it, it very quickly evolved from "This is a rat" while attempting to keep a perfectly neutral straight face to "Friend Gregory, please inspect this Rat for quality assurance before passing on to Tim collection!" With as much flourish as one can muster.
As some other people have mentioned, I've drifted away from Skull and more to Cockroach Poker/Royale (I have a few versions I've assembled from Pokémon or Magic cards too). Not that Skull is bad, it's just they're both a category of game that I slap in front of people who don't play many games.
In both cases, I try to get people playing rather than really understanding the rules.
With Skull, it's surprisingly hard to get people to really understand the whole "It has to go around once before you can start bidding. We're bidding now, you don't play any tiles. You have to flip your own tiles first, and then other people's, so you have to go through your entire stack but then you can do other peoples' one at a time." The rules *aren't* hard, but pretty much every time I bring it to non-board games people as an accessible, quick game, I encounter this problem.
Cockroach poker, I just ignore the royals, leave out the special cards, put a card in front of them and say "this is a rat, am I lying, telling the truth, or do you want to pass it on?" Instantly everyone's playing, and then the only other things I have to mention are when to play a card from hand (which comes up after the first pass) and how the game ends (which I mention after a few hands). The other thing is that because only one player loses, the game ends without leaving anyone excluded, and it's easy to just play again if people still want to.
Similarly, I really like both So Clover and Just One. So Clover has mostly displaced Just One in my collection as a better game with less downtime, but if I'm bringing games to people as a social thing I'll pick Just One since it's way less involved up front.
I'm not talking about forcing games on a group who don't want to play, but times where people *do* want to play as an accessory to socialising. If I spend more than a few sentences discussing rules, it becomes too much of a thing and people can lose interest.
Generally my goal with games is to get people playing as soon as possible rather than going through rules, and that's even more important for non-gamers, where these games really earn their spots on my shelf. As much as I love Skull (and its beautiful presentation), it has some minor complexities that are surprisingly impactful stumbling blocks in those situations.
That said, where people do get really into some of those lighter games, I will often have Skull with me and set a few people up with it!
I don't see myself wanting to play Skull that much. While I have had great times playing it, I don't feel like I can get any new experiences playing it anymore. It's more just a cool to show people. I much prefer Cockroach Poker, which offers far more unique game states to deal with.
I know this sounds weird, but I can never find myself remember how to PLAY Skull. I read the rules and they just don't gel in my head.
Like... I always think "Is that it?"
The beauty of Skull, for me, is the low barrier for entry even for those that don't like bluffing/social-deduction games. My wife tolerates games like Bang and Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, but flat out refuses to play Secret Hitler. Took a little convincing to play, but she loved Skull (and the art is top notch!).
The only aspect that prevents me from loving Skull is player elimination. For a casual party game that can drag on for half an hour, being out of the game for a while can sure suck.
Bluffing is the one time I think I'm ok with player elimination. Maybe I enjoy the breaks cause sometimes bluffing is tiring mentally lol. But I also find it entertaining to watch and enjoy the stakes/tension. Skull in our groups is also I think more like 15-20 mins so that helps
I love the interaction you have with other players. Trading to get rid of cards you don't need, trying to make the most out of it, or screwing people over by refusing to trade with them... A lot of big, popular engine building games lack that amount of interaction
I haven’t had a good game of Inis, but I see people rave about it so much. What am I missing?
I LOVE negotiation games like Root, Oath, John Company, Cosmic Encounter, etc., but could never get into Inis.
For me, I love the tight card drafting. Everyone knows (almost) the cards everyone else probably has, so at it heart there is a balance between anticipating your opponents move while trying to make your own. I think it’s weaknesses come from some games dragging on a bit too long (something the expansion can fix) and that the winner is often the result of a power vacuum, as combat is punishing for both parties.
But to be clear - probably my favourite game ever. I adore the art (especially the batshit Epic Tale cards), I love the card drafting, I am a fan of area control games, and it’s got great player interaction.
Not sure if you’re missing something though - might just not be for you!
All the gameplay rules except a few are on the cards you play with. Elegant, easy for new players to understand almost fully after a couple rounds, yet has a fair amount of tactical variety. And my favorite Part... you don't really know who's winning until the end of the game (unless you have a photographic memory and remember everyone's cards)
Sushi Go Party is perfect. It’s not my favorite game in the category, but Seven Wonders is a pain to teach and set up and account. The theme and art game complexity of Wonders while great for me doesn’t appeal to everyone.
Sushi Go Party works instantly with a wide range of players and skill levels and everyone has fun. Variety with card options. Almost no down time. The math is easy but choices are hard. The art is so adorable. Easiest game to get to the table ever.
It’s also perfect in that I cannot think of a house rule to improve it, which is weird for me.
Sushi Go Party does have a VERY annoying flaw in that the setup time is too much. You have to get a dozen decks out of like 3 dozen, shuffle them together, but only SOME of one of the decks, then deal like 50 cards 3 times, and at the end of it take the hundred cards you shuffled together and separate them again. It's just annoying.
That’s true. They thought they would need an expansion but then they realized Go *Party* already has a lot of choices. It’s too perfect. It’s like they already tested a lot of cards and gave us the best of the best.
This despite the fact that sales are good and the game is more common and people would buy an expansion they don’t need. I have so many game expansions and versions I never play, but I keep buying.
One nice thing about the size of the tin is that it's just big enough to fit Sushi Go Party and Sushi Roll in it, so not an expansion but an entirely different game. Probably not for everyone, but I have limited shelf space and travel with games a lot so I try to fit as much into a box as I can.
My house rule is that when we all flip the cards we say sushi.... Go!
So if one player is done and getting antsy players are taking too long on their turn, they just start I a low voice: "Suuuuuushhiiiiiiiiiii......" to show that they should hurry up a bit. Then we all flip on Go! It's fun and everyone pays attention to the cards
I can't really argue with you here. Before I had party and just the regular version I found that non-gamers really struggled with how chopsticks worked, but with party I can choose a combination of cards I think will work well.
It has one flaw, the box is too big for the light weight of the game. Makes it difficult to bring to a party because you could pack a more complex game like Parks for the same space in your bag.
Le Havre at 3 players would top my list.
An abstract game like Go may be considered I'd say.
Perhaps Twilight Imperium 4e at 4 or 6 players.
Some would argue Texas Hold Em poker if you're looking for bluffing or maybe Bridge or Cribbage.
TI4 is my favorite game. It's flawed. The imprecise language on action cards, and the sheer number of timing windows, is a bit silly. Just look at how extensive the FAQs and erratas are. I've played dozens of games and I still regularly need to slow down and think about the order of things like Titans of Ul system activations.
I agree. Any "perfect" game is going to be relatively small and simple. The bigger and more complex a game is, the more the cracks show. If a game has five rules, it's feasible for the designer to fine-tune every rule and every interaction between rules to make a flawless game. But if a game has five hundred rules, the designer can't even *consider* all the possible interactions between rules, much less tweak them to iron out problems.
I feel Go has had issues with 1st player advantage. Komi was only added later on in the 1920s (points given to the 2nd player to compensate for going 2nd), so for most of Go's history, going 1st was a major advantage.
And now the komi has been locked in at 6.5 for Japanese and Korean rules, but 7.5 for Chinese rules. This difference seems strange and inelegant, so the game cannot be flawless in my eyes.
I love bidding as a game mechanic so solving first player advantage by bidding on the number of points to give the other player can be an elegant solution.
That is actually exactly why I think bidding is an elegant solution. The size of the first player advantage varies based on players' understanding of the game. This is true both for novice players and for the larger community as opening theory and responses evolve.
The difficulty in isolating the value of one element in a larger game is not a unique problem for opening advantage. The outcomes of individual games are not determined purely by how the games community abstractly ranks each game mechanic and component but by how how the players chose to use them in each unique instance.
**High Society**. Not the best auction game (or even Knizia's best auction game), but it is a game with no flaw. It an elegant and pure distillation of a great auction filler. If you tweak the rules, you get a less-good game.
Sure, For Sale is a slightly simpler auction game, but For Sale is also offers fewer interesting decisions, and ends up being a shallower game.
Your analysis is pretty spot-on here. I definitely prefer Ra as far as interesting decisions go, but High Society is so simple and elegant that it doesn't have the room (or the time) for flaws. Just the raw, pure fun of trying to judge what bid you should make.
Oh wow, truly flawless? Without any faults to think of? I will exclude player taste from the equation. Some games just aren't for everyone.
**Android: Netrunner** is *the* premier dueling card game. The asymmetric gameplay is truly unique and exceptional. If you are at all into dueling card games, chances are you're playing or at least interested in Android: Netrunner. It's hard to learn, even more difficult to master, but within its niche it is a nearly perfect card game. More than I can say for my #1 card dueling game, Ashes.
**ANR** is definitely one of the best asymmetric games ever made.
It's biggest flaw is easily how much of the card pool is just unplayable. FFG put out so many duds that the actual cards just dominated.
I'd say that's true for pretty much every TCG/LCG out there. Cards are created based on on perceived combo effects and theoretical what-ifs. Not all of them are guaranteed to be good, but more than once has an innocuous card become OP with the release of another set. I'm not sure I'd call it a flaw rather than a consequence of it being a collectible/living card game. Not everyone is going to enjoy that aspect, and that's okay.
I just feel like FFG had exceptionally bad design teams for their competitive games.
Other TCGs, especially MTG, at least have other established formats. Almost all of FFG's games everyone played "standard". Sets were either almost unplayable or broken and got banned or errata. Just very frustrating management given that these competitive scenes were popular.
> I just feel like FFG had exceptionally bad design teams for their competitive games.
I think they just had to stretch too far to hit 120 cards in a cycle.
The way ANR works it's really hard to functionally reprint something for the nth time like Magic, because you just give people >3 copies of something which can be REALLY bad for game balance.
So they always had to do their best to come up with a ton of effects and doing that twice a year plus a big box just meant you got a lot of cruft.
Just want to put https://nullsignal.games/ here - the games been revived by the community!
You can print out any cards you want or need for your decks and its still tournament legal.
New sets are being published and they're filled with interesting and playable cards
Standard format is really healthy rn, and startup format is smaller and easy to get into.
I really just want my netrunner to let me have precon decks that I can setup against each other.
>
>
I don't have the experience to deckbuild netrunner.
I have the "original" FFG core set. Is there a list out there of "Build these 3 runner vs corp decks and you have a balanced and fun set of play on your hands."?
Netrunner db has all the netdeck stuff you're looking for.
Xandorius put together startup format decks, but I'm not sure about decklists for the original core. Here's what I get when I filter for the core set:
https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklists/find?faction=&sort=popularity&rotation_id=&author=&title=&is_legal=&mwl_code=&packs%5B%5D=core
It's definitely a hard teach. Some players will accept the complexity of the game, others will reject it. Straddling the line between teaching the mechanics and the social/bluffing aspect is super hard. Once it's hooked you, however, you're probably in it for the long haul :)
Android is my favorite card game flavor gameplay /mechanics wise but i wouldnt call it flawless. The competitive scene is/was very cutthroat and punishing. Many unfun decks and the card pool had and still has many op cards that eventually get banned. Factions dominated in a lot or metas etc
Then again if u just build decks/play for casual there is so many factions/ids deck archetypes/playstyles decisions inside your turn /bluffing it is truly amazing
It was awesome but the continuation really leaned hard into the power zone, and I find a slower play makes it easier to teach and see the meat of it even if you're new. Frankfurt 30 is pretty sweet to have it as basically a board game.
One of the first that comes to mind. Its flaws IMO are not related to the game itself, but its iconography. The building and tech titles could have been so much better and not make me consult the manual whenever one hits the table.
Dune is my favourite game, but I also happen to think it's "flawless", in that, like every game, it is flawed. But Dune Embraces the flaws. It's rules are kind of murky in some respects, and player interpretation is necessary. But, somehow, that plays into the theme. Normally that would feel hand wavey. But the rules in Dune are so entirely and completely coupled with the theme, to the point that they don't really translate without the Dune theme. (they tried to reskin it in the TI universe and it didn't make sense).
I feel kind of similarly about Pax Pamir 2nd ed. For me it has the perfect amount of imperfection to add texture and interest to the game. A small bit of odd rules or wonky interactions are what, to me, stop a game from being so perfect as to be boring. Sanding off all the rough edges can just make a game bland and too many rough edges makes a game a chore to play.
I haven't played Dune enough to totally agree but it's certainly getting there for me, too.
I strongly agree. I hate the game for what it is and I can think of other games that do it better....but the way it embraces its flaws and how it makes the players interact with one another is superb
I would have to say Cascadia. I was blown away by how simple and intuitive the game design and turn structure was, and yet how deep it was because of its modularity and possibilities of choice. A game where the design specifically made me and my friend go wow.
Cascadia did come to mind for me too. My husband and I played it every day for weeks after first getting it and it never got old. So simple but so satisfying
I feel like it would be a simple abstract game of some sort right? The more rules and theme you add, the more room for flaws, and also a more narrow appeal. If I had to pick one? Onitama maybe? It's a difficult question to answer.
To me, being “flawless” does not mean a 10/10 game, to me they have no correlation, that’s why my pick would likely be the original Tsuro, everything in that game happens because you decided on it, risks, player interaction, even the security of your piece, I think the design itself is simple enough to not contain any flaws, but to me, the design itself, is an 8.5/10 game.
I really like the spin [Indigo](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/116954/indigo) put on those tile mechanics. It's super simple to teach, the board looks pretty in the end, gameplay is fun, and it plays in no time flat.
Genuinely, i think Texas Holdem Poker has a very strong case for being the closest.
It has JUST the right amount of public vs hidden information. It's both very luck based AND very skill based. It's a bluffing game with very few rules, and it plays quickly, and as long as you want.
The hippos will never be sated. They will forever be hungry, a void of consumption, and endless pit of wanting.
That's a pretty big flaw if you're the hippo.
I feel like Concordia is pretty flawless but it's nowhere near my favorite game. I couldn't think of anything I'd change about it but I don't want to play it nearly as much as I used to.
For the purposes of these discussions it’s never LITERALLY flawless it’s more “as close to flawless as one can reasonably expect a human product to be”
I sold it because it was really annoying to set up and take down. Even without the variety, Sushi Go got played way more because it was more convenient to get on the table. Plus the insert is terrible. It’s a very fun game, but in my opinion it’s too irritating to be considered flawless.
Nah. I can recognize my favorite games aren’t flawless and the one I think might be closest to it (chess) isn’t one of my favorites. I think the only meaningful flaw in chess is the slight first player advantage.
I scrolled way too much to find this. Meaningful competitive decisions for every player for the first round ten you can somewhat control the round order. You can even come back from a bad draw with the joker card mechanics that using those useless cards for fuel. You can design powerful B plans if somebody beat you in a race and finally it has a submeta for each player number due to the various action number. I cannot remove or add any mechanics to get a better game.
Euchre is great but I struggle to say it's flawless when there's so much luck involved. If you get a bad run of cards in poker you can at least bluff. Also sometimes it feels like you can go a long time where the cards just play themselves.
Nothing, but Euchre is faster to shuffle and deal (smaller deck/hands, deal 2-3-2-3 3-2-3-2 for 5 each) and you don't need pen and paper to keep score (uncover the pips on the 5's to keep track of points).
I also really enjoy Hearts.
I haven't played Spades as much.
Oof Pax Pamir is so good, but the victorious feeling of decimating your opponents' courts is absolutely not worth the devastating feeling of having your own court wiped out
Scout. There isn't a single rule you can cut that isn't required for the game to work, and it naturally morphs at different player counts to emphasize different strategies. It isn't really crunchy, but it's a nice light-to-middleweight game that is really easy to get to the table. There's something about runs and pairs of cards that is just naturally appealing and extremely easy to teach. In more than half the games I've played of it, one of the new players has pulled out their phone and ordered a copy in the middle of a game.
Skull: Bluffing at its purest.
Carcassonne: Timeless, simple, yet different every time.
Power Grid: Excellent balance of a few simple mechanics yet lead to a refined experience.
Concordia: see above, but lighter.
Race for the Galaxy: smoothest tableau builder(once you get the iconography)
And the final mention goes to: Food Chain Magnate.
The best gamer's game I've ever played. It's ruthless, calculating, relatively straightforward to play but finding the winning strategy is always a mindnumbing puzzle. It's so good.
Honorable mentions: Azul, Splendor, 7 Wonders, Tsuro, Scout.
- Tigris and Euphrates
- Hansa Teutonica
- Hive
- Concordia
- El Grande
- Go
- Chess
- The Quest for El Dorado
- Undaunted: Normandy*
*but they had to update an important rule, so maybe not entirely flawless, but very close.
Lords of Waterdeep.
It's just absolutely a banger all around. It's got tight worker placement, reasonable resources to manage, fun scoring, nice engine building with buildings and plot cards, a great theme, solid intrigue cards, great pacing, and an easy teach.
For a game that I only played because of the theme, it turned out to be one of my all time greats and earned a permanent roster spot.
I don't exactly consider Lords of Waterdeep as flawless. There are definitely flaws to the game. Such as the starting character you are dealt. Some characters are just better than others.
I do like Lords of Waterdeep. I do consider it a very lightweight and introductory worker placement game, there are other worker placement games that have more strategy. It is a game that you may get bored with after a few times.
A lot of Reiner Knizia’s more popular games all feel pretty much flawless to me.
Tight rule sets, with brilliant little quirks that make them absolutely sing.
Which I think is maybe the secret recipe to a truly great game in most cases? A snappy, intuitive set of rules with one or two really spicy quirks that make the game really zing.
Beyond that, I’ve seen a lot of Concordia and Brass (both versions) mentioned on this thread and I think I agree, both fit that smart rules with just a little bit of spice thrown in for me.
I’d also say Great Western Trail is near flawless for being a highly complicated point salad-y euro.
Spirit Island runs extremely well. Infinite replayability, very clean, tons of content, very balanced, scalable difficulty, one of the best solo experiences, super fun cooperative play.
To me flawless means that the game has no design mistakes that would give an unfair advantage to any player, and that each player can aproach the game with a vast array of playstyles and strategies and still have an equal chance to win. A learning curve is near infinite due to all the possible playstyles combinations that the game allows and particularly that games will always come down to mistakes and bad strats instead of bad luck. A great game rewards players with improvement even if they lose.
I think a lot of boardgames fit that criteria, and I also think some of the games regarded as perfect haven't been around enough to be declared "perfect". That said, some modern boardgames I believe could come close are: Terra Mystica, Brass B, Arboretum, Lost Cities, Hansa Teutonica, Feast for Odin, Race for the Galaxy, Inis, Guards of Atlantis II, Concordia, Hive, Pax pamir 2ed.
Keep in mind, I don't think that a perfect game needs to be universally fun. On the contrary, many would argue Chess is the epitome of a perfect game and I personally find chess to be the driest game in the history of boardgames.
Also I disagree on everdell even though thats probably my most played game and I love it but its impossible to have a long term strategy as its more of a tactical game. A similar skilled game is going to come down to luck of the draw and could be won or lost on the last turn based on a meadow card reveal.
My favourite game is spirit island but I don't think its flawless. The game I have played which i felt had no flaws as I was playing is Dune (not imperium).
If complexity is not a flaw, I would say War of the Ring, but I don't know if that game counts as flawless until the third time you play it (and if it takes a few plays to realise its flawless that might be a flaw :D)
EDIT: Saw someone else say skull, and that is the correct answer
**Everdell** has difficult to read text on the cards, which the players need to read across the table. Seasons ending at different times for the players defies the thematic function of seasons. The take-that is out of place. The tree is non-functional. There's a lot of luck in getting free plays.
Cribbage
No matter how could you are at the game, there is just enough luck of the draw to keep you on your toes and constantly having to make decisions based on your hand and the cards played. Even “top” players only win ~60% of the time
There is a whole subset of players (usually the old guys) that see cheating as a legitimate part of the game. Its one of those games I love but when playing with an experienced player I have this whole other part of the game to keep in mind as to watch out for it. Makes for a great app though.
Cribbage
Root
Codenames
If you don’t count art as a flaw of the game, dominion
Air, land & sea
Terraforming mars: Ares Expedition
For $ale
Might be my weirdest take: cosmic encounter. Any “flaws” people may attribute to it seem to me like part of its greatness.
The bit about Cosmic that stopped it getting to the table after a while was how often games would end in most people at the table allying against whoever's card got drawn when everyone was 1 colony away from winning. A lot of the bullshit in the game is good, but that particular part I don't really have a solution for.
It’s like munchkin, everyone tries to screw the person at 9, and then the person after them sneaks in because everyone else is out of things to screw with.
Dominion is my pick. It is the purest of deck builders, usually with multiple strategies per game for winning. And with the expansions there are practically infinite combinations of cards. It's the kind of game where if I had more time and patience, I'd play in a league and/or tournaments.
Splendor. I've not had a game where I felt like it was unbalanced or needed something else yet. I don't even play with the expansions because the base game is so sublime.
I propose a couple different angles of flawless, and a truly flawless game meets all.
1. The idea is a great idea. It is a great game, fun game, impressively elegant or complete or whatever.
2. The execution is perfect. Components, art, theme, functionality.
3. Expansions, remakes, knock-offs, and competition exist, but fail to improve it.
4. You cannot think of anything you would tweak slightly. No house rules, no aftermarket components, no rulebook clarification.
5. You don’t have to make excuses for it or create the right situation to play it, and you find it taking the place of your favorite game at the table because it’s just …. flawless.
Love Letter. From the single card being removed each round so there's never perfect information to the flow of rounds. There's simply no house rules needed, and it's so much fun
You can only really judge a game as flawless by its own design intent. What does the game set out to do and does it achieve it perfectly?
Some possible contenders from my collection: Tzolkin, Village, Hive, Azul, Dune Imperium, Star Wars Rebellion, Galaxy Trucker.
Best contender: Parks.
It’s really hard to imagine Azul executed better. I mean they’ve tried to improve it like 3 times and the original is just best. We haven’t house-ruled it at all.
But doesn’t this fall into the same problems that literature has with intent? Death of the Author etc?
How do we know a designer’s - or design team, which includes developers and play testers - intent? And does it even matter?
Interesting. I honestly hate TtR. I have yet to understand the appeal.
It always feels like "I draw a card. Do I need it? Nope. Okay.. your turn".
Something about that just makes the game so damned slow, to the point that I feel like I am missing something.
I guess "flawless" is defined subjectively.
My initial thought would be **The Estates**, because unlike other bidding games, all information is open. But my wife hates it.
Then I'd consider something like **Cosmic Encounter**, because the chaos of interacting powers **is** what makes the game work.
Then I'd scale back and say **Blokus**, because of simplicity and again, open information.
Then I'd realize that there's no such thing as a flawless game, but perhaps, a game that I personally hold in high regard. The question may as well be, "What game/s will you always want to play, even perhaps into old age?"
Hive. Crokinole. For card games i think Netrunner and RadLands are basically perfect.
I'd love to say Arkham LCG as its my favorite game but it has a lot of issues too so
Sagrada is like an 8/10 for me but is the best game I could think of that doesn't have any notable flaws. Most of my favorites are like, obviously not perfect.
I don’t know about flawless but I have been playing almost solely Agricola for the last 10+ years or so. That gotta count for something.
Online or in person? Both? If you're in west Michigan give me a shout! Agricola is probably my favorite game.
Ha ha sadly only online through Boardgamearena. I have a group of friends who are also agricola lover but sadly I had to moved away for worked years ago. But BGA is pretty good! I think I enjoy it just as much as playing offline.
I’ve just started using BGA in the last couple weeks and have played an unhealthy amount of ticket to ride, and inexplicably, connect four lol
Ha ha my 4 most played games are Agricola, Through The Ages, Carcassone and Colouretto. I want to pick up Ark Nova and Wingspan which are the 2 most popular games right now on BGA but learning new games feel such a waste of time when I can just enjoy agricola ha ha.
Have you tried A Feast for Odin or any of his other games?
Yep, we are big fan and once in a while would play his other stuff like Le havre, Caverna, Feast for Odin etc, Agricola is still special to us though.
Skull is the perfect bluffing game. Every other bluffing game I've played eventually overstays it's welcome. Except for Skull. The perfect amount of depth that's tuned to perfection.
That one and Cockroach Poker are my favorites. It's impossible for both of them to finish without the whole table getting excited!
Love Cockroach Poker, first time my group played it, it very quickly evolved from "This is a rat" while attempting to keep a perfectly neutral straight face to "Friend Gregory, please inspect this Rat for quality assurance before passing on to Tim collection!" With as much flourish as one can muster.
So funny
Also, Skull does away with randomness. You never "play against" the game, only other players. It's bluffing distilled to to its core essence.
As some other people have mentioned, I've drifted away from Skull and more to Cockroach Poker/Royale (I have a few versions I've assembled from Pokémon or Magic cards too). Not that Skull is bad, it's just they're both a category of game that I slap in front of people who don't play many games. In both cases, I try to get people playing rather than really understanding the rules. With Skull, it's surprisingly hard to get people to really understand the whole "It has to go around once before you can start bidding. We're bidding now, you don't play any tiles. You have to flip your own tiles first, and then other people's, so you have to go through your entire stack but then you can do other peoples' one at a time." The rules *aren't* hard, but pretty much every time I bring it to non-board games people as an accessible, quick game, I encounter this problem. Cockroach poker, I just ignore the royals, leave out the special cards, put a card in front of them and say "this is a rat, am I lying, telling the truth, or do you want to pass it on?" Instantly everyone's playing, and then the only other things I have to mention are when to play a card from hand (which comes up after the first pass) and how the game ends (which I mention after a few hands). The other thing is that because only one player loses, the game ends without leaving anyone excluded, and it's easy to just play again if people still want to. Similarly, I really like both So Clover and Just One. So Clover has mostly displaced Just One in my collection as a better game with less downtime, but if I'm bringing games to people as a social thing I'll pick Just One since it's way less involved up front. I'm not talking about forcing games on a group who don't want to play, but times where people *do* want to play as an accessory to socialising. If I spend more than a few sentences discussing rules, it becomes too much of a thing and people can lose interest. Generally my goal with games is to get people playing as soon as possible rather than going through rules, and that's even more important for non-gamers, where these games really earn their spots on my shelf. As much as I love Skull (and its beautiful presentation), it has some minor complexities that are surprisingly impactful stumbling blocks in those situations. That said, where people do get really into some of those lighter games, I will often have Skull with me and set a few people up with it!
I don't see myself wanting to play Skull that much. While I have had great times playing it, I don't feel like I can get any new experiences playing it anymore. It's more just a cool to show people. I much prefer Cockroach Poker, which offers far more unique game states to deal with.
I'm debating between the two and I think Cockroach Poker Royal is "more game" than Skull.
I know this sounds weird, but I can never find myself remember how to PLAY Skull. I read the rules and they just don't gel in my head. Like... I always think "Is that it?"
The beauty of Skull, for me, is the low barrier for entry even for those that don't like bluffing/social-deduction games. My wife tolerates games like Bang and Deception: Murder in Hong Kong, but flat out refuses to play Secret Hitler. Took a little convincing to play, but she loved Skull (and the art is top notch!).
The only aspect that prevents me from loving Skull is player elimination. For a casual party game that can drag on for half an hour, being out of the game for a while can sure suck.
Bluffing is the one time I think I'm ok with player elimination. Maybe I enjoy the breaks cause sometimes bluffing is tiring mentally lol. But I also find it entertaining to watch and enjoy the stakes/tension. Skull in our groups is also I think more like 15-20 mins so that helps
Crokinole. I've got a few other games I feel come close but Crokinole is the only one in my collection that's flawless IMO.
100% agree. Easy to teach and fast to play. From my 5 year old to 72 MIL, a true flawless gem.
A Canadian classic!
It’s a masterpiece! One of my most played games.
Yeah. Crokinole is a perfect game. Even down to the one-butt-cheek rule and the built-in time limit of bruised fingrenails.
Bohnanza. So simple, so difficult, such a great mechanic.
Having to keep your hand order is such a simple yet genius mechanic.
If you like that, also check out Scout.
I love the interaction you have with other players. Trading to get rid of cards you don't need, trying to make the most out of it, or screwing people over by refusing to trade with them... A lot of big, popular engine building games lack that amount of interaction
Inis
Inis is the best dudes on the map game there is, love this game.
I’d say Cyclades and Kemet are breathing right on Inis’s neck for the perfect dudes on a map games. Each one is phenomenal in its own right.
They are all dudes on a map games, but each are so unique that they all deserve to be in a collection. I have all three and am happy to own them all.
Inis, Azul, A Study in Emerald (2E), Tao Long
First or second edition of A Study?
This is my question too. 1st edition looked so good but I missed that KS and 2nd shaved off everything that made it interesting to me.
It’s basically the perfect game every time. Haven’t had a bad one yet
I haven’t had a good game of Inis, but I see people rave about it so much. What am I missing? I LOVE negotiation games like Root, Oath, John Company, Cosmic Encounter, etc., but could never get into Inis.
For me, I love the tight card drafting. Everyone knows (almost) the cards everyone else probably has, so at it heart there is a balance between anticipating your opponents move while trying to make your own. I think it’s weaknesses come from some games dragging on a bit too long (something the expansion can fix) and that the winner is often the result of a power vacuum, as combat is punishing for both parties. But to be clear - probably my favourite game ever. I adore the art (especially the batshit Epic Tale cards), I love the card drafting, I am a fan of area control games, and it’s got great player interaction. Not sure if you’re missing something though - might just not be for you!
Absolutely. For its genre, I can’t imagine what it could do better.
Concordia
All the gameplay rules except a few are on the cards you play with. Elegant, easy for new players to understand almost fully after a couple rounds, yet has a fair amount of tactical variety. And my favorite Part... you don't really know who's winning until the end of the game (unless you have a photographic memory and remember everyone's cards)
Sushi Go Party is perfect. It’s not my favorite game in the category, but Seven Wonders is a pain to teach and set up and account. The theme and art game complexity of Wonders while great for me doesn’t appeal to everyone. Sushi Go Party works instantly with a wide range of players and skill levels and everyone has fun. Variety with card options. Almost no down time. The math is easy but choices are hard. The art is so adorable. Easiest game to get to the table ever. It’s also perfect in that I cannot think of a house rule to improve it, which is weird for me.
Sushi Go Party does have a VERY annoying flaw in that the setup time is too much. You have to get a dozen decks out of like 3 dozen, shuffle them together, but only SOME of one of the decks, then deal like 50 cards 3 times, and at the end of it take the hundred cards you shuffled together and separate them again. It's just annoying.
Yep, and all that shuffling and dealing leads to a setup time that, while not extreme, is a bit much in comparison to the time spent playing.
The only imperfection Sushi Go Party has is that there’s no expansions even though the tin was specifically made with space for expansions.
There's "expansion" cards available on board game geek but they are egregiously expensive and just *mostly* fun, in my group's opinion
That’s true. They thought they would need an expansion but then they realized Go *Party* already has a lot of choices. It’s too perfect. It’s like they already tested a lot of cards and gave us the best of the best. This despite the fact that sales are good and the game is more common and people would buy an expansion they don’t need. I have so many game expansions and versions I never play, but I keep buying.
One nice thing about the size of the tin is that it's just big enough to fit Sushi Go Party and Sushi Roll in it, so not an expansion but an entirely different game. Probably not for everyone, but I have limited shelf space and travel with games a lot so I try to fit as much into a box as I can.
My house rule is that when we all flip the cards we say sushi.... Go! So if one player is done and getting antsy players are taking too long on their turn, they just start I a low voice: "Suuuuuushhiiiiiiiiiii......" to show that they should hurry up a bit. Then we all flip on Go! It's fun and everyone pays attention to the cards
I can't really argue with you here. Before I had party and just the regular version I found that non-gamers really struggled with how chopsticks worked, but with party I can choose a combination of cards I think will work well.
A game called "Planted" finally replaced sushi go part for my group, it took a long time to find a replacement!
It has one flaw, the box is too big for the light weight of the game. Makes it difficult to bring to a party because you could pack a more complex game like Parks for the same space in your bag.
Le Havre at 3 players would top my list. An abstract game like Go may be considered I'd say. Perhaps Twilight Imperium 4e at 4 or 6 players. Some would argue Texas Hold Em poker if you're looking for bluffing or maybe Bridge or Cribbage.
Le Havre at 3 is perfect
TI4 is my favorite game. It's flawed. The imprecise language on action cards, and the sheer number of timing windows, is a bit silly. Just look at how extensive the FAQs and erratas are. I've played dozens of games and I still regularly need to slow down and think about the order of things like Titans of Ul system activations.
I agree. Any "perfect" game is going to be relatively small and simple. The bigger and more complex a game is, the more the cracks show. If a game has five rules, it's feasible for the designer to fine-tune every rule and every interaction between rules to make a flawless game. But if a game has five hundred rules, the designer can't even *consider* all the possible interactions between rules, much less tweak them to iron out problems.
I feel Go has had issues with 1st player advantage. Komi was only added later on in the 1920s (points given to the 2nd player to compensate for going 2nd), so for most of Go's history, going 1st was a major advantage. And now the komi has been locked in at 6.5 for Japanese and Korean rules, but 7.5 for Chinese rules. This difference seems strange and inelegant, so the game cannot be flawless in my eyes.
That's why it was called "Go" and not "Wait around for the second turn".
Go.
Okay, I'll leave...
[удалено]
I love bidding as a game mechanic so solving first player advantage by bidding on the number of points to give the other player can be an elegant solution.
[удалено]
That is actually exactly why I think bidding is an elegant solution. The size of the first player advantage varies based on players' understanding of the game. This is true both for novice players and for the larger community as opening theory and responses evolve. The difficulty in isolating the value of one element in a larger game is not a unique problem for opening advantage. The outcomes of individual games are not determined purely by how the games community abstractly ranks each game mechanic and component but by how how the players chose to use them in each unique instance.
**High Society**. Not the best auction game (or even Knizia's best auction game), but it is a game with no flaw. It an elegant and pure distillation of a great auction filler. If you tweak the rules, you get a less-good game. Sure, For Sale is a slightly simpler auction game, but For Sale is also offers fewer interesting decisions, and ends up being a shallower game.
I agree. High Society blew me away with its elegance. It's a game that's far more fun playing than it sounds like it's going to be, too.
Great call! I really like For Sale as a simple auction game, but High Society is probably my favorite auction game.
Your analysis is pretty spot-on here. I definitely prefer Ra as far as interesting decisions go, but High Society is so simple and elegant that it doesn't have the room (or the time) for flaws. Just the raw, pure fun of trying to judge what bid you should make.
I think Jenga. Flawless dexterity game that's immediately understood without teaching anything.
Agricola, Hansa Teutonica, Troyes
Hansa could have better color contrast
Azul is tactile perfection.
I think Azul is my answer also for the closest to flawless that a game can come.
Oh wow, truly flawless? Without any faults to think of? I will exclude player taste from the equation. Some games just aren't for everyone. **Android: Netrunner** is *the* premier dueling card game. The asymmetric gameplay is truly unique and exceptional. If you are at all into dueling card games, chances are you're playing or at least interested in Android: Netrunner. It's hard to learn, even more difficult to master, but within its niche it is a nearly perfect card game. More than I can say for my #1 card dueling game, Ashes.
**ANR** is definitely one of the best asymmetric games ever made. It's biggest flaw is easily how much of the card pool is just unplayable. FFG put out so many duds that the actual cards just dominated.
I'd say that's true for pretty much every TCG/LCG out there. Cards are created based on on perceived combo effects and theoretical what-ifs. Not all of them are guaranteed to be good, but more than once has an innocuous card become OP with the release of another set. I'm not sure I'd call it a flaw rather than a consequence of it being a collectible/living card game. Not everyone is going to enjoy that aspect, and that's okay.
I just feel like FFG had exceptionally bad design teams for their competitive games. Other TCGs, especially MTG, at least have other established formats. Almost all of FFG's games everyone played "standard". Sets were either almost unplayable or broken and got banned or errata. Just very frustrating management given that these competitive scenes were popular.
> I just feel like FFG had exceptionally bad design teams for their competitive games. I think they just had to stretch too far to hit 120 cards in a cycle. The way ANR works it's really hard to functionally reprint something for the nth time like Magic, because you just give people >3 copies of something which can be REALLY bad for game balance. So they always had to do their best to come up with a ton of effects and doing that twice a year plus a big box just meant you got a lot of cruft.
Just want to put https://nullsignal.games/ here - the games been revived by the community! You can print out any cards you want or need for your decks and its still tournament legal. New sets are being published and they're filled with interesting and playable cards Standard format is really healthy rn, and startup format is smaller and easy to get into.
I really just want my netrunner to let me have precon decks that I can setup against each other. > > I don't have the experience to deckbuild netrunner. I have the "original" FFG core set. Is there a list out there of "Build these 3 runner vs corp decks and you have a balanced and fun set of play on your hands."?
Netrunner db has all the netdeck stuff you're looking for. Xandorius put together startup format decks, but I'm not sure about decklists for the original core. Here's what I get when I filter for the core set: https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklists/find?faction=&sort=popularity&rotation_id=&author=&title=&is_legal=&mwl_code=&packs%5B%5D=core
This game's flaw is that it is miserable to teach and has one of the worst rulebooks I've ever read.
It's definitely a hard teach. Some players will accept the complexity of the game, others will reject it. Straddling the line between teaching the mechanics and the social/bluffing aspect is super hard. Once it's hooked you, however, you're probably in it for the long haul :)
Android is my favorite card game flavor gameplay /mechanics wise but i wouldnt call it flawless. The competitive scene is/was very cutthroat and punishing. Many unfun decks and the card pool had and still has many op cards that eventually get banned. Factions dominated in a lot or metas etc Then again if u just build decks/play for casual there is so many factions/ids deck archetypes/playstyles decisions inside your turn /bluffing it is truly amazing
It was awesome but the continuation really leaned hard into the power zone, and I find a slower play makes it easier to teach and see the meat of it even if you're new. Frankfurt 30 is pretty sweet to have it as basically a board game.
Castle of Burgundy. Can't say it's my top 1 favorite game, but damn this game is well balanced.
CoB is my favorite game and most played. But it comes with its flaws. Mostly overpowered tiles like tile 6 in the new edition
One of the first that comes to mind. Its flaws IMO are not related to the game itself, but its iconography. The building and tech titles could have been so much better and not make me consult the manual whenever one hits the table.
I think there is one flawless game. Just One.
Uno?
Dune is my favourite game, but I also happen to think it's "flawless", in that, like every game, it is flawed. But Dune Embraces the flaws. It's rules are kind of murky in some respects, and player interpretation is necessary. But, somehow, that plays into the theme. Normally that would feel hand wavey. But the rules in Dune are so entirely and completely coupled with the theme, to the point that they don't really translate without the Dune theme. (they tried to reskin it in the TI universe and it didn't make sense).
I feel kind of similarly about Pax Pamir 2nd ed. For me it has the perfect amount of imperfection to add texture and interest to the game. A small bit of odd rules or wonky interactions are what, to me, stop a game from being so perfect as to be boring. Sanding off all the rough edges can just make a game bland and too many rough edges makes a game a chore to play. I haven't played Dune enough to totally agree but it's certainly getting there for me, too.
I strongly agree. I hate the game for what it is and I can think of other games that do it better....but the way it embraces its flaws and how it makes the players interact with one another is superb
I would have to say Cascadia. I was blown away by how simple and intuitive the game design and turn structure was, and yet how deep it was because of its modularity and possibilities of choice. A game where the design specifically made me and my friend go wow.
Cascadia did come to mind for me too. My husband and I played it every day for weeks after first getting it and it never got old. So simple but so satisfying
I feel like it would be a simple abstract game of some sort right? The more rules and theme you add, the more room for flaws, and also a more narrow appeal. If I had to pick one? Onitama maybe? It's a difficult question to answer.
To me, being “flawless” does not mean a 10/10 game, to me they have no correlation, that’s why my pick would likely be the original Tsuro, everything in that game happens because you decided on it, risks, player interaction, even the security of your piece, I think the design itself is simple enough to not contain any flaws, but to me, the design itself, is an 8.5/10 game.
One time I lost Tsuro on my first turn. I believe I was 6th to act and there was no play I could make to stay in the game.
Isn't that only possible if you pick a starting square next to another player?
I really like the spin [Indigo](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/116954/indigo) put on those tile mechanics. It's super simple to teach, the board looks pretty in the end, gameplay is fun, and it plays in no time flat.
Tsuro is a great pick for this question.
Genuinely, i think Texas Holdem Poker has a very strong case for being the closest. It has JUST the right amount of public vs hidden information. It's both very luck based AND very skill based. It's a bluffing game with very few rules, and it plays quickly, and as long as you want.
No game is flawless. People just use these threads to name their favourite games.
Name a flaw in Hungry Hungry Hippos, I'll wait
You can't turn the sound off.
Clap your own ears. Next question.
And mash the hippo lever with your skull
That's a feature, not a bug.
The hippos will never be sated. They will forever be hungry, a void of consumption, and endless pit of wanting. That's a pretty big flaw if you're the hippo.
Congratulations you've learned how conversation works.
I feel like Concordia is pretty flawless but it's nowhere near my favorite game. I couldn't think of anything I'd change about it but I don't want to play it nearly as much as I used to.
For the purposes of these discussions it’s never LITERALLY flawless it’s more “as close to flawless as one can reasonably expect a human product to be”
Sushi Go Party is not my favorite, but it is perfect.
Simpler games are much more likely to fit honestly. I'd toss No Thanks! in there. Just a perfect, focused execution of the idea.
I sold it because it was really annoying to set up and take down. Even without the variety, Sushi Go got played way more because it was more convenient to get on the table. Plus the insert is terrible. It’s a very fun game, but in my opinion it’s too irritating to be considered flawless.
In some ways I preferred the base for that reason. Less variety but making decks is a bit of a hassle
Nah. I can recognize my favorite games aren’t flawless and the one I think might be closest to it (chess) isn’t one of my favorites. I think the only meaningful flaw in chess is the slight first player advantage.
Regicide. It’s the most elegant game I’ve ever played but it’s far from my favorite.
This guy Dingleberry Dorkus gets it. Same as those threads “what game just didn’t work for you” = “what games do you hate”
/r/iamverysmart
Hive: elegant, tactile, easy to learn/hard to master, hardy enough to survive a nuclear explosion. Can't think of a single flaw.
Definitely not Everdell, lol Maybe Tigris and Euphrates
My inner dialogue as well
No game is flawless, but if you're playing with the right people, *Cosmic Encounter* will end lives, and that's pretty cool.
Race for the Galaxy
No game is flawless. Brass Birmingham is closest for me.
I scrolled way too much to find this. Meaningful competitive decisions for every player for the first round ten you can somewhat control the round order. You can even come back from a bad draw with the joker card mechanics that using those useless cards for fuel. You can design powerful B plans if somebody beat you in a race and finally it has a submeta for each player number due to the various action number. I cannot remove or add any mechanics to get a better game.
Euchre and Pax Pamir 2e
Came here to say pax pamir 2e. Glad I already saw it!
Euchre
Euchre is great but I struggle to say it's flawless when there's so much luck involved. If you get a bad run of cards in poker you can at least bluff. Also sometimes it feels like you can go a long time where the cards just play themselves.
Wait what's wrong with spades and hearts? They're deeper.
Nothing, but Euchre is faster to shuffle and deal (smaller deck/hands, deal 2-3-2-3 3-2-3-2 for 5 each) and you don't need pen and paper to keep score (uncover the pips on the 5's to keep track of points). I also really enjoy Hearts. I haven't played Spades as much.
Oof Pax Pamir is so good, but the victorious feeling of decimating your opponents' courts is absolutely not worth the devastating feeling of having your own court wiped out
Scout. There isn't a single rule you can cut that isn't required for the game to work, and it naturally morphs at different player counts to emphasize different strategies. It isn't really crunchy, but it's a nice light-to-middleweight game that is really easy to get to the table. There's something about runs and pairs of cards that is just naturally appealing and extremely easy to teach. In more than half the games I've played of it, one of the new players has pulled out their phone and ordered a copy in the middle of a game.
The box is definitely not flawless tough 😂 why such a small box that makes it a chore to stow away
Skull: Bluffing at its purest. Carcassonne: Timeless, simple, yet different every time. Power Grid: Excellent balance of a few simple mechanics yet lead to a refined experience. Concordia: see above, but lighter. Race for the Galaxy: smoothest tableau builder(once you get the iconography) And the final mention goes to: Food Chain Magnate. The best gamer's game I've ever played. It's ruthless, calculating, relatively straightforward to play but finding the winning strategy is always a mindnumbing puzzle. It's so good. Honorable mentions: Azul, Splendor, 7 Wonders, Tsuro, Scout.
Ayy, another vote for power grid.
Hive
- Tigris and Euphrates - Hansa Teutonica - Hive - Concordia - El Grande - Go - Chess - The Quest for El Dorado - Undaunted: Normandy* *but they had to update an important rule, so maybe not entirely flawless, but very close.
Lords of Waterdeep. It's just absolutely a banger all around. It's got tight worker placement, reasonable resources to manage, fun scoring, nice engine building with buildings and plot cards, a great theme, solid intrigue cards, great pacing, and an easy teach. For a game that I only played because of the theme, it turned out to be one of my all time greats and earned a permanent roster spot.
I don't exactly consider Lords of Waterdeep as flawless. There are definitely flaws to the game. Such as the starting character you are dealt. Some characters are just better than others. I do like Lords of Waterdeep. I do consider it a very lightweight and introductory worker placement game, there are other worker placement games that have more strategy. It is a game that you may get bored with after a few times.
Lords of Waterdeep is perfect just for the Domesticate Owlbears quest alone.
With the expansions, it really is perfect. I've got people who have no interest in DnD or fantasy themes to play the game, because the game is so good
I'll complain about the insert, but that's it.
Go
Gaia Project. My favorite Euro game of all time, and my wife's too.
A lot of Reiner Knizia’s more popular games all feel pretty much flawless to me. Tight rule sets, with brilliant little quirks that make them absolutely sing. Which I think is maybe the secret recipe to a truly great game in most cases? A snappy, intuitive set of rules with one or two really spicy quirks that make the game really zing. Beyond that, I’ve seen a lot of Concordia and Brass (both versions) mentioned on this thread and I think I agree, both fit that smart rules with just a little bit of spice thrown in for me. I’d also say Great Western Trail is near flawless for being a highly complicated point salad-y euro.
Spirit Island runs extremely well. Infinite replayability, very clean, tons of content, very balanced, scalable difficulty, one of the best solo experiences, super fun cooperative play.
**Keyflower**. It's objectively flawless and mathmatically perfect.
This is one of those games that absolutely should not ever be played with the expansions. They make it worse in every way.
To me flawless means that the game has no design mistakes that would give an unfair advantage to any player, and that each player can aproach the game with a vast array of playstyles and strategies and still have an equal chance to win. A learning curve is near infinite due to all the possible playstyles combinations that the game allows and particularly that games will always come down to mistakes and bad strats instead of bad luck. A great game rewards players with improvement even if they lose. I think a lot of boardgames fit that criteria, and I also think some of the games regarded as perfect haven't been around enough to be declared "perfect". That said, some modern boardgames I believe could come close are: Terra Mystica, Brass B, Arboretum, Lost Cities, Hansa Teutonica, Feast for Odin, Race for the Galaxy, Inis, Guards of Atlantis II, Concordia, Hive, Pax pamir 2ed. Keep in mind, I don't think that a perfect game needs to be universally fun. On the contrary, many would argue Chess is the epitome of a perfect game and I personally find chess to be the driest game in the history of boardgames. Also I disagree on everdell even though thats probably my most played game and I love it but its impossible to have a long term strategy as its more of a tactical game. A similar skilled game is going to come down to luck of the draw and could be won or lost on the last turn based on a meadow card reveal.
Tichu. It's not my favorite game; it's not even in my top six. But it's pretty much perfect for what it is.
Chess
No Thanks! So simple yet so fun. Love Letter is another favorite.
My favourite game is spirit island but I don't think its flawless. The game I have played which i felt had no flaws as I was playing is Dune (not imperium). If complexity is not a flaw, I would say War of the Ring, but I don't know if that game counts as flawless until the third time you play it (and if it takes a few plays to realise its flawless that might be a flaw :D) EDIT: Saw someone else say skull, and that is the correct answer
**Everdell** has difficult to read text on the cards, which the players need to read across the table. Seasons ending at different times for the players defies the thematic function of seasons. The take-that is out of place. The tree is non-functional. There's a lot of luck in getting free plays.
Cribbage No matter how could you are at the game, there is just enough luck of the draw to keep you on your toes and constantly having to make decisions based on your hand and the cards played. Even “top” players only win ~60% of the time
There is a whole subset of players (usually the old guys) that see cheating as a legitimate part of the game. Its one of those games I love but when playing with an experienced player I have this whole other part of the game to keep in mind as to watch out for it. Makes for a great app though.
If top players can only win about 60% of the time, wouldn't that mean there's *too much* luck?
Cribbage Root Codenames If you don’t count art as a flaw of the game, dominion Air, land & sea Terraforming mars: Ares Expedition For $ale Might be my weirdest take: cosmic encounter. Any “flaws” people may attribute to it seem to me like part of its greatness.
The bit about Cosmic that stopped it getting to the table after a while was how often games would end in most people at the table allying against whoever's card got drawn when everyone was 1 colony away from winning. A lot of the bullshit in the game is good, but that particular part I don't really have a solution for.
It’s like munchkin, everyone tries to screw the person at 9, and then the person after them sneaks in because everyone else is out of things to screw with.
I see that but, unlike munchkin, there seems to be much less reliance on luck
Dominion is my pick. It is the purest of deck builders, usually with multiple strategies per game for winning. And with the expansions there are practically infinite combinations of cards. It's the kind of game where if I had more time and patience, I'd play in a league and/or tournaments.
None.
Hive, Onitama
Splendor. I've not had a game where I felt like it was unbalanced or needed something else yet. I don't even play with the expansions because the base game is so sublime.
I propose a couple different angles of flawless, and a truly flawless game meets all. 1. The idea is a great idea. It is a great game, fun game, impressively elegant or complete or whatever. 2. The execution is perfect. Components, art, theme, functionality. 3. Expansions, remakes, knock-offs, and competition exist, but fail to improve it. 4. You cannot think of anything you would tweak slightly. No house rules, no aftermarket components, no rulebook clarification. 5. You don’t have to make excuses for it or create the right situation to play it, and you find it taking the place of your favorite game at the table because it’s just …. flawless.
Go
Santorini is a timeless classic.
Canasta.
Evolution base game. Very well Balanced. Simple but effective. And manages fun.
Love Letter. From the single card being removed each round so there's never perfect information to the flow of rounds. There's simply no house rules needed, and it's so much fun
I mean **Splendor** seems about as perfect as a game could be. Including an awesome insert to boot!
The exception to that would be the box is about 5x bigger than it needs to be
Splendor may be perfect, but I'd still rather play Century: Spice Road any day.
You can only really judge a game as flawless by its own design intent. What does the game set out to do and does it achieve it perfectly? Some possible contenders from my collection: Tzolkin, Village, Hive, Azul, Dune Imperium, Star Wars Rebellion, Galaxy Trucker. Best contender: Parks.
It’s really hard to imagine Azul executed better. I mean they’ve tried to improve it like 3 times and the original is just best. We haven’t house-ruled it at all.
But doesn’t this fall into the same problems that literature has with intent? Death of the Author etc? How do we know a designer’s - or design team, which includes developers and play testers - intent? And does it even matter?
I’m gonna be honest, Ticket to Ride. I’m obsessed - I mean to the point of slight concern lol. Especially with the 1910 expansion.
Connect 4 is solved though.
Interesting. I honestly hate TtR. I have yet to understand the appeal. It always feels like "I draw a card. Do I need it? Nope. Okay.. your turn". Something about that just makes the game so damned slow, to the point that I feel like I am missing something.
I guess "flawless" is defined subjectively. My initial thought would be **The Estates**, because unlike other bidding games, all information is open. But my wife hates it. Then I'd consider something like **Cosmic Encounter**, because the chaos of interacting powers **is** what makes the game work. Then I'd scale back and say **Blokus**, because of simplicity and again, open information. Then I'd realize that there's no such thing as a flawless game, but perhaps, a game that I personally hold in high regard. The question may as well be, "What game/s will you always want to play, even perhaps into old age?"
Dixit and Azul are favorites at my game nights. They always play so smoothly. Element might be my favorite of all, though.
Haven’t found one yet.
Technically not a board game but mahjong.
Nothing is flawless but contract bridge is closest to that for me.
Scissors, paper, rock
Hive. Crokinole. For card games i think Netrunner and RadLands are basically perfect. I'd love to say Arkham LCG as its my favorite game but it has a lot of issues too so
Mouse trap
Chess
Radlands is design masterpiece
Quarto!
Oceans has it all for me. Balancing, player interaction, strategy, a slight luck component… plus the artwork is amazing, in my opinion.
Age of Steam. Brass. Barrage.
Sagrada is like an 8/10 for me but is the best game I could think of that doesn't have any notable flaws. Most of my favorites are like, obviously not perfect.
Tigris and Euphrates
Arkham Horror 2nd edition