Sorted by rating. Summary of the rating system (full description here):

• 4: One of my favorite games
• 3: Good enough that I would suggest playing it (which is to say excellent)
• 2: I would play willingly but I don’t like enjoy it enough to suggest it over something else
• 1: I wouldn’t play willingly; bribery, threats, or the presence of an attractive single co-player would be necessary.
• 0: I would be unwilling to play, period.

Although I prefer this rating system to BGG’s 1-10 system, sooner or later I’m going to go convert my BGG ratings to the following scale:

• 4 = 10
• 3+++/++/+/- = 9.5/9/8.5/8
• 2+++/++/+/- = 6.5/6/5.5/5 (Yes, the 7-level is missing. The leap from 2+++ to 3 is big)
• 1+++/++/+/- = 3.5/3/2.5/2 (The 4-level is also missing)
• 0+++/++/+/- = 1.5/1.5/1/1

4

Coloretto: Fast. Lots of decisions. Easy rules. Deeper than it looks. Way, way more viscous than it looks. Subsequent games play out very, very differently depending on what players go for what colors. Engaging. Highly recommended.

Ra: It was pretty much love at first sight with me and this game. It hits the perfect sweet spot for light-middle weight and strong, exciting emphasis on risk management.

3+++

Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation: A home-run success with uneven sides that somehow feel very balanced, nail-biting bluffing, and a theme that works so well you’ll be able to recall specific games like they were stories. I have dreamed about this game.

Notre Dame: This is the game that Blue Moon City, Caylus Magna Carta, and Pillars of the Earth all want to be. Quick-playing but immersive. There’s not the super-intense feeling of not having enough actions to do what you want–but getting the timing straight and making the right move at the right time is important.

3++

Aton: This is a really neat two-player abstract. The cards are almost fair and the random draw provides just the right amount of spice.

Ingenious: Light and fast-playing, but with lots of decisions and not as random as it looks. A very different game with 2 vs. 3/4 players, but both games are very good.

Hey! That’s My Fish!: Don’t be fooled by the cute theme: It’s an abstract. Abstract filler? Yes, and so simple, so clean, so intuitively obvious that this should be a game that you’ll wonder how it wasn’t published until 2003.

Lost Cities: Despite the constant cries of “I hate this game!” whenever I draw the right card at the wrong time, it’s wonderfully enjoyable. Luck plays a big part over the course of a single round, and it’s difficult to dominate a weaker opponent, but the role of skill is not to be underestimated.

Puerto Rico: Yes, this game is all it’s cracked up to be. Its flaws are real (importance of seating order, only two real strategies) but the genius shines through. Play it, love it, paint the “colonists” blue if it assuages your guilt.

Race for the Galaxy: I actually downgraded Puerto Rico in light of this game, which is a little bit less interactive and has some confusing iconography but avoids many of its flaws and plays at a very pleasant clip.

Settlers of Catan: Well-deserving of its place as the #1 gateway game. Definitely doesn’t feel dated, and is one of the only SdJ winners that really shines. Has an incredible amount of non-conflict, pseudo-cooperative interaction. People complain about the dice–eh, stuff happens.

Taj Mahal: The insanity and fury are matched only by the excitement.

3+

Amun-Re: Fascinating and deep with a neat web of mechanics. Occasionally it feels like there is a lack of control, and there’s a lot of calculating involved.

Bohnanza: Definitely the best game about bean farming you’ll ever play. The unusual hand-queue mechanic and trading techniques it brings about make this game very unique. I’m surprised it’s not labeled “gateway” more often.

Caylus: Takes a little bit too long, but this is the best of the meaty games of its ilk I have played.

Evo: The flow of the game, the auction mechanic, and the variable end all work really well. I don’t think this game gets enough credit.

Goa: Many try, but there is only one Goa. A little on the heavy side, but it gets the resource management/auction engine going just perfectly.

Louis XIV: It looks like dry area-control but the execution is incredibly tight. As a result it’s exciting and plays briskly. Complaints about the size of the numbers on the cards aside, the components are interesting and are just what the game needs.

Princes of Florence: I confess: I was afraid to try this game because it sounded dry and boring. Oops. Turns out it’s tense and a lot of fun. Its younger sibling Colosseum pales in comparison.

Star Wars Epic Duels: Way, way more fun than it has any right to be.

Thebes: I’ve never seen the theme and mechanics of a game work so fantastically well together. It really feels like all the exciting parts of being a turn-of-the-century archaeologist have been distilled into this game. Luck is more of a factor than in most other games–it’s Settlers-level. I’m waiting for the sequel to feature Nazis.

Twilight Struggle: Fantastic, enthralling theme and very neat mechanics that fit right in. The domino effect has never been so much fun! Hampered by the long playtime and some balance issues.

3

Arkadia: It’s building! It’s area control! It’s stock manipulation! It’s an intricate web of mechanics. No one of them is particularly compelling on its own, but like Dorn’s other games, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

Attribute: This is the game Apples to Apples wants to be. It’s so much better–it has a point. It’s rare to be caught with what feels like a useless card, there’s less sucking up to the judge, and there’s less frustration when your well-chosen card is ignored.

Blue Moon: Looks and plays like a CCG. The depth and “flow” of the game is palpable but evidently not easy to get into. I actually think it suffers for not coming with built-in customizability–I think that would be a major draw for CCG refugees.

Caylus Magna Carta: It suffers for greatly for being in a similar niche in terms of complexity and “feel” to Puerto Rico, while at the same time not being Puerto Rico. Still, solid in its own right and with an emphasis on timing that makes it feel unique (and satisfying when you get it right!).

Memoir ‘44: Tense and exciting, but feels unsatisfying to lose, which happens all too often for me. Maybe I’m missing something. Days of Wonder did their usual fantastic job with the components.

Modern Art: I love auctions! It’s a shame I can’t find players for this admittedly somewhat dry game. I would suggest it more if I thought it had a chance of flying.

Nexus Ops: The dice can be frustrating, but it feels like this is a good old-fashioned combat slugfest that just happens to have taken every important lesson of Euros to heart. It’s a lot of fun, quick to play, and admirably fills a niche that’s otherwise surprisingly vacant.

No Thanks!: Fun, light, hard to say no (thanks!) to. They can’t all be Coloretto. Passing a card that’s harmless to only you around, just to see it collect tokens, is fantastic.

Power Grid: Lots of tension and some very good, very well-thought-out mechanics. My biggest complaint is that not only does it lend itself to analysis paralysis, but it’s difficult to win without it.

Santiago: The tile-laying economic aspect is dry and overly calculating. The bribery aspect really makes the game, appropriately enough, “watering” it from a mathematical desert to ferocious competition.

2+++

Age of Empires III: Good, nothing wrong with it, but takes a while and I don’t think it quite stacks up to Caylus.

Amyitis: Another good game that suffers from having to fight with AoE3 and Caylus for attention. Has a lot of neat mechanics but the set of interactions doesn’t feel compelling enough that I would suggest this often.

Blue Moon City: A base hit for Dr. K. There is little to complain about but with Goa and Caylus Magna Carta sitting around filling similar niches, I’m not motivated to push for this one (or buy it).

Carcassone: Beautiful and definitely a good introductory game. The plays that matter are a little bit too few in number to appeal to my sense of action.

Cosmic Encounter: Listed in the dictionary under the phrase “Ahead of its time”, this 1977 game predates modern boardgames by two decades but feels like a fresh release.

Jungle Speed: Usually I would be ashamed of liking a game just because I’m good at it, but for this dexterity game I think an exception is warranted.

Liar’s Dice: When you want maximum bluffing, there’s nothing better. Leaves those who aren’t into the bluffing completely out in the cold. No need to buy anything; just play with the d6s I know you have around. One of relatively few games to manage 6 or more players reasonably well. Player elimination is softened by the short playtime. (Alternate name: Perudo)

San Juan: Fun and easy, but feels a little bit shallow, much like your mom.

Set: One of those games where the degree to which you like it directly correlates with how good you are at it. I like it a lot, but it’s hard to find an evenly matched game.

Thurn and Taxis: A very neat, very elegant game that suffers greatly from a lack of interaction throughout, well, pretty much all of the game. Even the interaction that exists feels mostly accidental, which is why it can’t get the pass that, say, Lost Cities does.

2++

Conquest of the Fallen Lands: Neat mechanics in a solid, elegant game. I see a big flaw in that it can be possible for a player to get “stuck” with little to do for many turns at a time. I would feel uneasy about demoing it to new players for this reason.

For Sale: It’s a cute bidding/bluffing biathalon whose light weight can’t quite disguise its dryness. If it took 15 minutes longer to play it would definitely be in the 1 category.

Hacienda: Ah, Mr. Kramer, you and your action points. There’s a lot going on in this area-control, but it feels hard to do anything exciting except when you happen to beat an opponent to certain critical squares. According to reports, this is even worse on the provided maps when not playing with the full 5 players. “You can provide your own maps” is no excuse; the job of the game designer is to make it work out of the box.

Hive: Suffers for stiff competition in the two-player perfect-information abstract category. There’s a lot going on and a lot to learn. The lack of luck makes it feel “heavier”; since nothing totally unexpected is going to happen, everything can be planned, and a failure to win is a failure of planning, right?

Niagra: The cartoony appearance belies a surprisingly deep game, but it feels touchy and out of control for my tastes–to really understand what was going on, you’d have to put in more thought than the game is worth.

Patrician: A clever if overproduced area control game; I think it’s underrated.

Portobello Market: Looks simple but hides some surprisingly interesting strategies. Somehow, though, I find it uncompelling.

Quo Vadis?: Negotiation is the heart of the game, and for such a game, it plays very quickly. A good icebreaker but seems to be lacking meat.

Shadows over Camelot: Exciting and one of the few playably good cooperative games. Unfortunately, I think the traitor is poorly balanced–it swings the game from near-trivial to near-unwinnable in few-player situations.

Ticket to Ride: Inoffensive, but my least favorite of the “Big 3″ gateway games (with Carcassone and Settlers). The pacing of play feels unnatural–like there’s supposed to be a hand limit, but the only thing that keeps you playing is the need to beat other players to the routes you need.

Wizard/Oh Hell: This is a fun trick-taking game. Wizard has better scoring and I like the Jesters a lot; the Wizard cards are too strong and it’s frustrating to get hit with them.

2+

Blokus: For me, Ingenious fills this niche in a better way: the piece-laying element is more intuitive and more beautiful in that game. Blokus feels cramped and fighting for the resource of space is frustrating, as opposed to Ingenious’s fascinating cooperate/compete dance.

China/Web of Power: The design feels very clean and elegant, but I feel like I’m missing a fundamental interaction between cities and emissaries–I understand every piece of this game, but not how they all go in together. May jump drastically higher if I have an epiphany. It’s partially redeemed in what feels like the shortest playtime of any non-filler game. (These are essentially the same game.)

Doom: Surprisingly fun. I was especially impressed with the way the dice translated into varying powers for the weapons and monsters. Negatives: play/setup time, balance issues, and the fact that one player might as well play all the marines.

GemBlo: Essentially the same game as Blokus. Plays fairly with 6 or 3, which is nice; the unusual idea of “hexagon diagonal” takes some getting used to.

Last Night On Earth: Definitely the best zombie game I have played, for what that’s worth; it captures the zombie-movie atmosphere in a game that’s actually fun to play, if not with the elegance of the Euros I prefer.

Samurai: Sorry, Dr. K, I couldn’t get into this one. I never got the hang of using my resources at the right time.

2

Beowulf: The journey is neat; the system of rewards and punishments is neat. The risk-taking system, though, is frustrating and drowns the game with an upsetting amount of luck.

Buffy: the Vampire Slayer: Better than it has a right to be. The biggest problems are awkward balance and the fact that players beyond the second are pretty extraneous.

Chez Geek: No strategy to speak of, but fulfills its mission of beer-and-pretzels amusement.

Guillotine: Strictly beer & pretzels, but fast-playing and lighthearted.

Go: If I had to choose one superdeep, superheavy abstract to actually study and get good at, it would be Chess. Sorry, Go fans.

If Wishes Were Fishes: Inoffensive and playable, although I can’t imagine what would make anyone like this game enough to buy it. The cartoony exterior belies a surprisingly heavy Euro.

Lord of the Rings: In theory this is a multiplayer game. In practice it’s multiplayer cooperative solitaire. The theme, which is strong and engaging, saves it from disaster.

Medici: I’m unthrilled, especially when this game is kept in the same room as Ra. The decisions are harder and not as rewarding, and the relative value of items is frustrating to understand.

Mission: Red Planet: A totally forgettable combination of Citadels and an area control game.

Pillars of the Earth: The game is OK, although the master-builders drawing feels very unpolished. The much-vaunted board doesn’t seem all that great to me, and in particular the cathedral is not all that attractive and kind of silly. I would much rather play Caylus Magna Carta.

Rumis: I didn’t find the spatial puzzle to be very exciting. If you happen to really like the three-dimensional spatial reasoning aspect, you’ll like Rumis.

Starship Catan: An uninspired attempt to cash in on the Catan name.

Tigris and Euphrates: Undeniably very deep with lots of room for tactics and strategy. Unfortunately, what makes a good move good seems to be pretty obscure, even after several plays, and I’ve had a hard time getting into this highly-regarded classic.

Tsuro: Very, very pretty, and easy to play with lots of people. But there’s not a lot of game here.

Zooloretto: Takes so much longer than Coloretto while not adding anything that gives satisfaction. It speaks highly of Coloretto that it’s still playable even when the same game takes 30 minutes longer.

1+++

Elfenland: The cards are frustrating to deal with; the obstacles add exactly the wrong element of frustration to the game. There is little sense of development as the game goes on.

Keythedral: Most critically, it lacks a sense of development as the game progresses. Also lacks a sense of multiple paths to victory, and the strategic elements of timing, village placement, etc. seem to be pretty much accidental.

Mall of Horror: I don’t like the vicious betrayal, and this game has nothing else. I guess I would rather get the satisfaction of hitting my opponent than throwing his girlfriend out for the zombies to eat.

Poison: Dry and painfully overproduced. This would have made a good puzzle for the brainteaser on the back page of Discover magazine.

Taluva: The strategy doesn’t make any sense. The weird volcano thing doesn’t help either. Are we supposed to want to get flooded by lava or not? I assume if I worked at it for long enough I could uncover the subtleties, but I don’t think there’s enough buried here to make it worth the digging.

Torres: Nowhere near as bad as Tikal, but feels very dry and calculating, like doing work.

1++

Alhambra: The “exact change gets you a free turn” mechanic seems to take a life of its own and make the rest of the game meaningless. Nothing you do really seems to matter.

Apples to Apples: Frustrating and never ends. Play Attribute or my own party game instead.

Colosseum: A pale imitation of Princes of Florence; don’t be fooled by the jazzy theme. The bidding and trading mechanics fall completely flat. For some reason, you keep score throughout the game, which makes no sense because only the last round matters in the slightest.

Game Of Thrones, A: I love reading the books because I love reading about horrible things happening. Unfortunately, the game is faithful to the books–and I don’t enjoy spending every moment fearing a knife in the back. Other complaints: analysis paralysis, uneven support/muster phases, and general long playtime.

Vikings: The mechanics are fascinating, in particular the auction wheel, but it’s impossible to do anything interesting or “big” at any point. There’s little sense of development. I wish the fascinating auction wheel had been added to a more interesting game.

1+

Himalaya: The programmed movement is frustrating, the opportunities are chaotic and unpredictable, and the game takes way too long. Ugh.

RoboRally: You say “chaotic fun”. I say “neverending frustration”. If I wanted to see my programs not do what I told them to, I’d go to work and get paid for it.

1

Fluxx: The poster child for games that take forever and with no control over them. You play a bunch of cards and then someone accidentally wins.

Tikal: The game is practically synonymous with analysis paralysis. I’d rather watch TV–boring TV.

0+++

Munchkin: The cards and the premise are hilarious and well-done. The game itself suffers from no force actually pushing it to completion–and when it starts to drag with no end in sight, it’s really rough.

0++

Bang!: I thought this game had so much promise, but I like it less each time I play it. Any game where a player can be eliminated before the first turn is unplayably broken in my book.

Diplomacy: Just not my thing on any level.

Zombietown: Terrible. Did they even playtest this?

Undecided/Provisional

Citadels: I remember playing this game and not liking it. Then I remember seeing its adorable little box and having something very much like lust aroused in my mind. I think it bears another play to figure it out.

El Grande: A high 2 in my mind, but I haven’t played it in quite some time. I recall it feeling solid but clunky, like a Suburban.

Shogun: Still waiting on a full game, but I’m afraid the long play time and brainburn required are going to add up to a mid-2.

Through the Desert: I remember enjoying this, but it’s been quite a while since I played it. I need to refresh my memory to give it a real rating.

Not Rated

Bridge: I love it, in part because I love examining the bidding system. A lot of people just hate the bidding–these people can’t be convinced otherwise. It’s difficult to play because you need exactly 4 players, all of whom have played before, and getting new players up to speed takes quite some time.

Can’t Stop: I have played only the computer adaptation, which is quite good. I can imagine the tabletop version is fraught with downtime.

Chess: Chess rocks, but the degree to which it rocks cannot be expressed on an ordinary scale.

Iron Dragon: Too emotionally tangled to make a good judgment.

Lunch Money: The underlying game is unplayably bad, but that doesn’t matter. It’s an excuse to trash talk, and at that it excels.

Scrabble: More dependent than most on who you’re playing it with. Potentially very fun; potentially an exercise in waiting around for other people to think or an exercise in getting embarrassed by your lack of memorization of two-letter words.

Titan: The computer adaptation of this game is excellent. It takes all the things that make this game a 6-hour nightmare and automates them, letting it be finished in under an hour. (And the time for explaining rules is slashed, since the confusing movement is handled for you.) Certainly 20 years ahead of its time–I have no idea how anyone played this without the computer.

Werewolf /Mafia: More of an event or “team-building” activity than a board game.

Winner’s Circle: Theoretically plays 3-6, but I’ve never seen a game swing so much in quality with the number of players. Great fun with 3 or 4 (rated 3). With 6, you make fewer decisions and the decisions you get to make matter much less. It’s like playing 15% of the game (rated 1++).