Top 25 Games of All Time - 2026 Edition. Games 25-21
- Aaron Baillio
- Jul 15
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 23
Yesterday were the honorable mentions: Rock Hard: 1977, Star Wars: Outer Rim, Vantage, Sagrada and Crokinole. Today we look at games 25-21. All of these games can be played solo or multiplayer and are readily available for retail. So, without futrher ado, onto number 25!
Starting at the bottom of my list, coming in at number 25, is Pest. Pest is a resource management/area majority/worker placement game published by Archona Games and designed by Thomas Nielsen and Kai Starck. Your once great empire has been afflicted with the plague, devastating the city and it's surroundings. You take on the roll of a plague doctor, supported by a one of the ruling houses of the city, to help find cures, heal the sick and eradicate the plague. I got this game via Kickstarter and I just fell in love with it from day 1. I think the plague theme really comes through. Almost like in Pandemic, a new event card is flipped every round that shows where the plague will spread. Hopefully you've prepared what resources you have and positioned your workers adequately in order to combat the spread and save your villagers. What I love about this game is that is has the area majority feel without having to endure combat. It's more about spreading your cure and healing people than fighting for control of an area. The solo mode is great, it feels like there is plenty of tension and resource contention and that it's a true challenge. One caveat for this game, it's definitely a table hog. It didn't even all fit on the table I used, I had to have a side board for another component! But, there's plenty to like about this game, including the little city miniature at the center of the board that just helps add to the charm.
Coming in at number 24, it's a game most hobbyists know and love, it's Terraforming Mars, published by Stronghold Games and designed by Jacon Fryxelius. This game has been around since 2016 and has dominated the BGG Top 100 ever since. And there's very good reason...it's just that good. If you are not familiar with the game, here's a brief overview. You are a corporation competing with and working with other corporations to terraform Mars and get it ready for human habitation. Only one corporation can win, but you all have to work together to increase oxygen, heat and water on the planet to make it inhabitable. If those conditions aren't met, you all lose. Otherwise, whoever earns the most victory points is the winner. At it's core, it's an engine builder, meaning, you start with basic resource generation. As you lay out cards and manage your finances, you gradually build up what your resource generators can do. This is critical to generating more heat, money, oxygen, etc. The rules are really easy to teach and the symbology is also very straightforward. It's great at 1 and great at 5. Playing true solo is definitely a challenge because you have to be super efficient with your resources to move all the stats of the planet all by yourself in a limited amount of time. I frequently fail, but that just makes the savor of beating the game all the sweeter. This is a board game classic and should be in every collection.
Number 23 is another game you'll see often discussed in the solo community and has been in the BGG Hotness for years and years and currently sits at #11 on the BGG Top 100. This game is Spirit Island, published by Greater Than Games and designed by Eric Reuss. The premise of Spirit Island is basically reverse Catan...instead of colonizers spreading across an island, you take on the roll of the protective spirits of the island trying to ward away the evil conquistadors/invaders/explorers. As the invaders move across the island, they spread blight. Your job as the spirit is to arouse enough fear in the invaders and support the natives as best as possible to drive away the invaders. This is a really interesting game because each spirit has "slow" powers and "fast" powers and as you play you can buff them up or gain new powers. It's a cooperative game and so it really does help to work with your partners to devise strategies on where to direct which spirit abilities and when. Timing is everything in this game. They recently released a simplified version called Horizons of Spirit Island but still has most of the primary mechanics of the game. This version can be found out most big box stores (i.e., Target, Walmart). When playing solo, it is extremely difficult if only playing with 1 spirit. My recommendation, please "2 handed" or with 2 spirits. Your first time around will be much smoother. There are a ton of expansions for this game and the Branch and Claw I highly recommend. It adds a layer of flora and fauna that can attack or influence the invaders that's really interesting. Anyway, that's Spirit Island. Check it out.
Number 22 is a surprise to me, probably because I played it recently, but it's Roll Player Adventures. This game is published by Thunderworks Games is designed by Keith Matejka, James Ryan and Peter Ryan. Have you ever played D&D and built a character including name, species, and stats? If you made a game of that process, that would be Roll Player. In and of itself, Roll Player is also a pretty fun game. This takes that game a step further and actually drops your newly designed character into and RPG world. You can play solo or with a group of up to 4 players, and adventure across the land in a game guided D&D/RPG adventure. The Dungeon Master is replaced by the book and mechanisms but all the decision making is there, allowing you to interact with buildings, objects and NPC's. It's so tidy and easy to jump into and gives you that D&D feeling without all the pressure of acting a part or coming up with an interesting story. And that's what I love about it. I am not good at larping or imagining a world told to me by a dungeon master. But give me some guardrails, a good story and the freedom to make interesting choices...sign me up! The map is a spiral bound book which makes it self-contained. There's an easy save mode as well so you can put the adventure away and pick it up again when you're ready. All in all, it's just a fun, interesting and convenient package to run a D&D campaign but without all the fuss.
Last on today's list, number 21, is Clank! Catacombs. This could actually be any version of Clank!, but Clank! Catacombs is the latest and greatest and certainly adds some interesting dungeon crawling tactics. These games are published by Dire Wolf Games and designed by Paul Dennen. In any game of Clank!, you are a treasure hunter. Guess what you might be doing? Right...looking for treasure. As you descend under ground looking for treasure, you improve your abilities by buying new cards, fighting monsters and making as little noise as possible. That's right, it's a deckbuilding game, one of my favorite mechanisms. Clank! is when you make a noise. More noise eventually wakes up the dragon and you don't want to mess with the dragon. The objective is simple, get down there, grab the most valuable treasure, and get the heck out of there while making the least amount of noise. Don't be the last one out! Eventually the dragon will catch up to you, time runs out, and you're trapped in the dungeon forever. This is a classic deck builder. You improve your hand of cards buy collecting gold and purchasing cards from the market. These cards could include more movement, better weapons or tools to help you sneak around quieter. The real fun is the timing aspect. The pressure is on to get in and get out which makes your choices matter. The only unfortunate thing is that there really isn't a true solo mode, at least, not one in the rule book. Dire Wolf has created an app though that will run you through a solo scenario that is actually pretty fun. Play it with the app or with friends, this is always a great time.
That's it for today, in review: 25. Pest 24. Terraforming Mars 23. Spirit Island 22. Roll Player Adventures 21. Clank! Catacombs
What do you think? Are these too high? Too low? Let me know!
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