It’s that time of year when people start getting ready for Halloween and all things spooky.

I’ve never been that into it. For me as a kid growing up in the UK in the 70’s it was always penny for the guy, and bonfire night. Halloween was never a big thing back then.

I have fond memories as a kid of family gatherings, fireworks, baked potatoes, hot dogs, and dark cold autumn nights lit up the flickering glow of bonfires.

I don’t know when things changed. But it seemed all of a sudden trick or treat was a thing, shops were full of Halloween merchandise and branded sweets. The Americanisation and commercialism of this time of year was complete. Yes I’ve always seen this big celebration of Halloween as an American thing that sadly made its way over here.

Maybe it’s my age. But I just don’t see the attraction. However each to their own.

In the meantime I get to be a Halloween grinch.

At least it gives me some things to write about!

The idea for this post comes from that recent Dice Tower video about their top ten horror themed games as part of their Autumn Spooktacular.

While I was thinking about my own collection thinking I had only a handful of horror themed games.

However as I started to tag games I owned in the bgstat app that figure grew and grew.

The criteria I used to add the tag was that the game had to have something associated with the horror genre, have a dark theme, be spooky!, or associated with halloween.

So some of these games tagged are very light in tone, such as Broom Service that has you delivering potions around the map as a witch on their broomstick.

By the end of the exercise I had thirty five games tagged. Although the image below only shows thirty three. I had missed a couple when I generated the images to use. Laziness stopped me correcting the omissions.

Below are my top twenty played horror themed games that I own based on number of plays.

I might even enter into the spirit of this commercial holiday and try and play one or two of these nearer the “big” day.

The end of the year will mark 2 years of logging my game plays using the Boardgame stats app. I’ve been boring you on a monthly basis with a summary of the stats it produces ever since.

But what games have I played the most since records began?

Star Realms and Lost Cities would be 1 and 2 respectively if I logged the app plays as well by a long long margin. But I don’t.

So here are according to the stats program the top 10 games I have played the most since I started logging plays:

1. Star Wars: Destiny – 196 plays, my rank #3
2. Magic the Gathering – 149 plays, unranked!
3. Android: Netrunner – 58 plays, my rank #13
4. Santorini – 30 plays, my rank #8
5. Mint Works – 28 plays, my rank #31
6. Ashes: Rise of the Phoenixborn – 26 plays, my rank #3
7. Onitama – 25 plays, unranked!
8. Star Realms – 25 plays, my rank #4
9. Love Letter: Batman – 21 plays, my rank #58
10. 7 Wonders Duel – 20 plays, my rank #9

I’ve not done one of these for a loooong time, July in fact. I am going to keep this one short and brief I think.

Card drafting apparently is my fifth most popular game mechanic based on the games in my collection and the mechanics attributed to the games on bgg. I do enjoy the mechanic. Although when I saw this list I did a double take on one or two of the games, and thought “that has a drafting mechanic?” but after a little thought (and a recent play in one of the games) I had to agree that it had a drafting mechanic. So technically yes some of the games the drafting isn’t a major mechanic, but a mechanic. Anyway here is the list.

My Top Ten Card Drafting Games

1. (Top 100 position – 4) Star Realms
2. (Top 100 position – 6) Kemet
3. (Top 100 position – 9) 7 Wonders Duel
4. (Top 100 position – 12) Mechs vs. Minions
5. (Top 100 position – 15) The Manhattan Project
6. (Top 100 position – 18) Imperial Settlers
7. (Top 100 position – 19) Castles of Mad King Ludwig
8. (Top 100 position – 28) Hero Realms
9. (Top 100 position – 29) 51st State: Master Set
10. (Top 100 position – 40) King of Tokyo

After a short break I return with my fourth favourite game mechanic. 

I’m really struggling to think of anything to say about this mechanic. I think the most notable omissions from this list are 7 Wonders and Splendor. They just missed out and would have been 11th and 12th. 

So here are my Top 10 Set Collection games…

1. (Top 100 Position – 9) 7 Wonders Duel
2. (Top 100 Position – 11) Lords of Waterdeep
3. (Top 100 Position – 14) Glen More
4. (Top 100 Position – 17) Five Tribes
5. (Top 100 Position – 19) Castles of Mad King Ludwig
6. (Top 100 Position – 30) Imhotep 
7. (Top 100 Position – 34) Tokaido
8. (Top 100 Position – 37) Pandemic Iberia
9. (Top 100 Position – 39) Lost Cities
10. (Top 100 Position – 42) Pandemic Legacy: Season 1

We have now reached my third favourite game mechanic (by number of times it appears in games in my collection).

Variable player powers. I certainly do like this mechanic. For starters it adds much needed replay-ability to a game. Unless you are going out of your way to play the same character/faction with the same abilities each game (assuming that is an option) then each game is different and requires different tactics. I also think having different characters/factions with that have different abilities makes the game better, and reinforce the theme of the game. If you look at Nations the Dice Game, it’s a great game, but despite each player being a different civilization, you really don’t feel that you are that civilization there is nothing unique about them to make you think “oh I’m the Egyptians”. To some extent I also think that about Kemet which I love. You don’t really feel that you are follows of a particular god.

So here are my Top 10 Games with the Variable Player Powers…

1. (Top 100 position – 1) Scythe
2. (Top 100 position – 2 ) T.I.M.E Stories
3. (Top 100 position – 3 ) Star Wars: Destiny
4. (Top 100 position – 8 ) Santorini
5. (Top 100 position – 10) Neuroshima Hex!
6. (Top 100 position – 12) Mechs vs. Minions
7. (Top 100 position – 13) Android: Netrunner
8. (Top 100 position – 18) Imperial Settlers
9. (Top 100 position – 20) Zombicide
10. (Top 100 position – 21) Run, Fight, or Die!

I am such a weak willed person. It didn’t help that a game reviewer on Instagram that I respect said that he had been enjoying these lists on there. So blame him, not me. I was going to let it go for a while.

Who doesn’t like chucking dice? There is something really satisfying about rolling dice. The rattling around in your hand, and then the noise they make as they hit a hard surface.

Here are “My Top Ten Dice Rolling Games”…

1. (Top 100 position – 2) T.I.M.E Stories
2. (Top 100 position – 3) Star Wars: Destiny
3. (Top 100 position – 7) Istanbul
4. (Top 100 position – 12) Mechs vs. Minions
5. (Top 100 position – 14) Glen More
6. (Top 100 position – 16) Memoir ’44
7. (Top 100 position – 20) Zombicide
8. (Top 100 position – 21) Run, Fight, or Die!
9. (Top 100 position – 26) The Others
10. (Top 100 position – 27) Roll for the Galaxy

I had to go look at my copy of Glen More. Dice Rolling? Really? I think it really is stretching it. Ok you are using the special die to simulate an extra player in a two or three player game (I had to go back and check this out, my memory isn’t great). But still it’s not the first mechanic that would come to mind for this game.

I’d also nearly say the same for Istanbul. I wouldn’t describe it as a main mechanic for the game. But a ‘side’ mechanic which you could go through the whole game not using if you don’t visit the couple of tiles that use the dice.

There are some great dice rolling games in this list. I love the mechanic in The Others. You can be rolling an insane amount of dice in this game, especially as the sin. I love the Yahtzee push your luck element in Run,Fight, or Die!

It’s funny how four of the games use the dice as a mechanic to resolve combat but there is no roll mitigation. Your roll is what it is. Which is interesting.

Star Wars: Destiny is all about the dice rolling. It keeps that luck, random element of the dice, but you are able to mitigate the rolls to get a ‘favorable’ result. You can always discard a card to re-roll, and hope you get the side you want. There are also cards that allow you to do a similar thing with your or an opponents dice. But there are cards and abilities that allow you to set dice to a side of your choice, or of a specific symbol. However you have to make the decision to include these cards in your deck or not. Which I kind of like. You get to decide (faction allowing) how much mitigation you have.

I love how dice are used in Roll for the Galaxy. The action selection, as a resource, the mitigation so that you are able to take the action you want to do, but at a cost. They really did use the dice well in this game to stream line Race for the Galaxy.

These lists are addictive. I don’t think my stats program helps. I might just need an intervention.

But following on from yesterdays list that I generated I can now do my Top 10 games based on the mechanics listed in that list!

So here are My Top Ten Hand Management Games…

1. (Top 100 position – 3) Star Wars: Destiny
2. (Top 100 position – 5) Viticulture Essential Edition
3. (Top 100 position – 6) Kemet 
4. (Top 100 position – 10) Neuroshima Hex!
5. (Top 100 position – 13) Android: Netrunner 
6. (Top 100 position – 16) Memoir ’44
7. (Top 100 position – 18) Imperial Settlers 
8. (Top 100 position – 20) Zombicide 
9. (Top 100 position – 23) A Game of Thrones: The Board Game (Second Edition) 
10. (Top 100 position – 25) Cry Havoc 

I love the hand management in Star Wars: Destiny. It starts when you deal your starting hand of five cards. Do you mulligan to try and get the card you really need for that opening round? If so how many cards do you keep? If any? Then during the round you are having to decide whether to play a card (if you can afford to pay the cost to use it) or discard it to re-roll dice in your dice pool. At the end of the round you then have to decide from the cards you have left in your hand if you want to discard any before drawing back up to five. Tie in having to read the current “board state” as well to influence your decisions about which card to play, and when. There is some real tough decisions to make at times. You want to re-roll but then all the cards you have in hand are good, and can’t afford to through one away. That’s a really hard decision to make. But then this is what helps make Star Wars:Destiny so much fun. Much, if not all of this also applies to Android: Netrunner. Another game I also love.

Neuroshima Hex! is probably one you are thinking what? Hand management? It uses tiles. And I thought that. But then you are managing those. Draw three, chose one to discard, play or keep the remaining two. If you keep any from the previous turn you draw back up to three. And repeat. So you are managing a small hand of tiles.

Looking at the list. Yeah I do like games with hand management in them. Not one of the list is outside of the Top 25. That’s impressive.

I’ll try and stay off the list posts for a while but I can’t promise anything. They are addictive.