Top 10 Good Games That Have Fallen Flat 

One time I went to a local game night and people were like, “what should we play” and a guy said he brought Carcassonne, so we said that sounds like a good start. We started playing and then realized he was handing us tiles from a gigantic basket. It was basically every tile that had been printed in the history of the game all thrown into the same basket. The game took 2.5 hours.

Tom: "when I was a kid I was the board game King" Zee: "Tom, you're still the board game King" Tom: "No, it's not the same thing" Zee: "what do you want to be like some sort of emperor?" So good, Zee had me rolling in this one

I’ve always thought that Zee seemed like a really nice guy but after years of watching his videos this was my favorite one. It’s clear from the way he talks about these experiences that he has a very high emotional quotient and really wants the people he is playing with to enjoy themselves. Just great.

I remember teaching my Polish wife Cluedo. She went into her first room and it was the room in question and she guessed correctly the murderer and implement. She said it was a dumb gain and we never played again.

I played codenames pictures once and my teammate insisted on scrutinizing every single picture no matter how obvious the clue was. If the clue was water and there was a fish on the board he would look at every single bit of shadow and shading saying that it maybe looked like a wave. When I kept suggesting we pick the fish he would just say “ you can’t just guess. You have to think about it“

Mike's story about Scythe reminded me of wanting to just play the mini-games in Mario Party with friends so the friend who owned it went about unlocking them all, which was done by playing or beating the existing mini-games in certain ways or for a set amount of times. After he had unlocked all the mini-games we all got together to play them, he couldn't help but destroy us, and we never played it again.

This is my favorite type of top ten video. While I do enjoy the "Top 10 of a certain genre" lists, I really enjoy the lists that talk about experiences had while gaming. I love hearing all the different stories.

I tried to teach my in-laws Love Letter. These are people who play lots of classic card games, some are so complicated that I have no idea how they work. They refused to try love letter since it was "too complicated" and they didn't want to learn anything new. I hope I'm not like that at their age.

I really loved this episode. It shows a side of gaming you really don't see that much where sometimes you really just have a bad night. It can be hard when you're first starting out if you run into a couple of the situations talked about here (especially if you might be the person causing it) and then come away wondering how anyone can enjoy this hobby. Like you mentioned in the video this was kind of like therapy, nice to know that I'm not alone in having some really bad gaming experiences!

The bits about playing with parents struck home. My Dad has the attitude that boardgames are childish and silly. So he proceeds to act in a childish and silly way, thus proving himself right and destroying it for everyone else. So almost any game can fall flat. My Mum on the other hand (an experienced bridge player, so not dumb) was completely baffled by Carcassonne. I don't play games with them any more.

Great episode folks. Zee's arm-scoop "what's for dinner" throwing in of the towel had me in stitches.

The "go make dinner" line had me rolling XD My husband had the same experience teaching Ticket to Ride to his parents. It got so bad, they had to play with open cards, and it still took over 2 hours. And it wasn't even a full TtR, it was Ticket to Ride London!

They always make the weather dice in Takenoko so much more complicated than it is. My son was playing it at 8. You don’t have to teach them the dice. Have them roll it and then tell them what they got. To reenforce it, make sure you announce what you got and what you are going to do. Half way in, it’s a non-issue.

Tom did so bad at 40k he won an award for not flipping out.

I relate SO MUCH to the, "ANYONE can play x" philosophy. I play board games with my family a lot(parents and brother) and my brother is pretty into the hobby and I have no worries about him picking up and playing a game, but I need to be very selective with my parents. I can't tell you how many times I pick a game and my wife says, "you sure your parents can play that one?" And I think, "of course! ANYONE can play x," and then I find out that no, not EVERYONE can play x.

Loving all of the episodes... I'm always pumped for your top 10s. Thanks for the shout out at the end... much appreciated.

Once again this is a really fun list to listen too! We all have had similar experiences with gaming groups but at the level you all play games, it is very interesting to hear your takes!

This was probably the best top 10 list of the year. A variety of games that don't get talked about too much. Plus, similar to much older top 10s where they used to have this type back and forth banter and additional stories. It's great!

I absolutely loved this list. Hearing all of your stories was wonderful! Great job guys!

Loved the list, enjoy listening to gaming experiences and knowing other people share the same sort of events. My fallen flat game was actually a game of Dead of Winter, the person that was teaching us the game did a brief overview of the game. Then gave out secret objectives and realized he was the traitor so he stopped teaching the game. We thought he just didn't know the game that well and we had to figure out how to really play until we got that surprise.

I really love this more story/experience oriented top 10. I love hearing the guys tell stories about game experiences.

I would have to give a shoutout to Eldritch Horror. A game that my wife and I absolutely love, but which I will never forget the time we tried to introduce it to friends. Do not, under any circumstances, play Eldritch Horror at 5-player.

This has to be one of the best videos on the channel, ever. So many funny stories, and moments. I loved every second of it.

I don't talk through all my options, but once I've decided what I'm doing I do say what it is ("I'm taking this action and gaining these resources" or something like that) so other people don't have that "what did you do and can you do that?" moment. I've played some games where people not only silently take their turns, but don't even announce when they're done, so if the rest of us are distracted at all then we just sit there for a minute until the next person realizes it's their turn. Silent players always frustrate me more than vocal players.

This video had me in tears. So funny and so heartwarming as well. One of your best

In formula Dé we have almost the same rule. You are allowed to count spaces, but when it’s your turn you just take the die and roll, then you move your car at a steady pace without interruption.

This was a fun video. They were all on the same side, not ragging on each other, being respectful. Yes the banter is fun, but it's also nice to see them being agreeable and understanding with each other!

Great episode.! Very funny. We have all had experiences like that and I really enjoyed hearing yours.

For the 'Factory Fun' problem, I would simply insist the player take a photo of their board with their phone before manipulating any tiles.

This is definitely my favorite Dice Tower video of all time. Just hilarious, loved hearing the nostalgic stories, even if they were not so good gaming experiences!

As I was wading in past Catan and MTG, my stepbrother invited to join a group and try Arkham Horror. 5 of us sat down to play, and it became laughable (to everyone else) just how badly I became stuck in a whirlpool of horrible luck. Nothing worked out during that game for 3 and a half hellish hours, and under no circumstance would it ever get a chance to change that first impression, no matter how many people love it.

Tom’s Ticket To Ride experience with his parents are my ever Sunday afternoon. 💀

What a great topic - we all have these moments, even with the best of games. A great reminder to be aware of the flags of when a game isn’t going well and to adjust for the sake of fun ❤

Great list! My number one that I still try and struggle to get back to the table is The Others. I am notoriously bad at rolling dice, so I was playing the baddies, but, for some reason or another, I could not miss. Combine my beating my friends' down with their conservative play and not rolling well and the whole experience was over pretty quickly. I still want to play it more often but they are all pretty reluctant.

This was just a fun episode! Your stories are amazing and hilarious! More of these please!

This was a great video. We all have these situations, was good to get it off our chest. Thanks guys

😂 man, this was a treat! I had this on while preparing for work, and it surprised me on how hilarious it was.

Great list! Love hearing stories because games are about people. Would love to hear a Top Gaming Experiences you’re thankful to have had!

I actually had something similar in my very first (and still only) game of Scythe. We were 3 guys that met over a "meet local boardgame groups"-Platform and the one guy pulled out Scythe as the 3rd game of the night. We other 2 had never played it, but I LOVE engine building, efficiency puzzly games so I thought this was awesome. Right until the more experienced player had a unit out that could move 3 spaces (or sth, I don't remember exactly), and was thusly able to attack my guys at EVERY possible tile I could have moved to. It was just obviously game over. I couldn't go anywhere because he would be able to just go there with his mech and kill me. I really thought that was a very stupid game state, very akin to being check-mated in chess, which is fine in a way when you know beforehand that this checkmate is something you, akin to chess, have to prepare against to avoid. But firstly not knowing there even existed such a checkmate in the game (like I said: first playthrough) and on top of that Scythe giving me the impression of not BEING a "chessy" game because of all the engine building and resource-management stuff going on and being seemingly in the forefront gamewise, I instantly thought "This game sucks." and haven't touched it since.

Tom getting mooned had me laughing the rest of the day.

Awesome video, great perspectives and entertaining. I’ve played a couple hundred games and only had a handful or memorable experience that were terrible. AP is a problem for sure. And playing with someone who thinks they are losing and makes everyone at the table have a horrible time. My biggest let downs are my fault though and that’s when I pick the wrong game for my family to play because I like it but haven’t considered what they like.

These are by far my favourite type of lists - some of the stories get a bit repetitive after a while but I love the comedy of these bad experiences!

Recommended Nemesis house rule: Queen token does not start inside the bag. It is added only when one of the three happens: nest tile is discovered or time track reaches blue space or any player dies.

Thank you! My fall flat game was as a teenager, playing Risk. For some reason we all started saving up armies until no one wanted to attack for fear of getting crushed by everyone else if they had any weakness. I don't think we ever finished after 4-5 hours. I didn't play Risk again for 30 years until my nephews wanted to play (a newer version)

Great video! Our first game of Twilight Imperium (3rd edition) fell completely flat. One player went full bore mixing and matching different expansion content and deciding what combination of strategy cards we should play with. We ended up with a pretty inert combination of strategy cards and objectives which basically led us down a path where we were doing all the fiddly things the game wanted, but no one was earning any victory points, no one felt they were able to execute their plans, and no one was having any fun. We gave in after 3-4 hours.

Great video, a lot of laugh!! Thanks for all your fantastic content.

Spot on Rhado impressions, that’s one of the reasons why I haven’t watched a video of his in 3 years.

Who remembers the live-play of Tom playing Xia with Zee and Sam? Oh man... that was so painful. I love Xia, and I know Tom was hoping the guys would like it, but they REALLY didn't. It got to the point where Zee and Sam complained non-stop and the chat begged for them to just bail on the game... and they abided. Oof! Great game... but not with that particular group. lol ;-)

As a fellow former educator, the talk of teachers in meetings reminded me of something that has always puzzled me - all throughout my education and training to become a teacher, we learned about how different students learn differently and how you need to meet each student where they are and to make sure we make our lessons engaging and exciting....and then I get to a school and we have dedicated days for "professional development" - which is great - there is always new stuff to learn. But after all of my schooling about how to teach effectively - how do teachers teacher each other?? Read this. Look at me while I stand in the front of the room and talk. Watch these slides while I stand up here and talk. Really???

Another good example is Blood On The Clocktower. Great game, but it requires an experienced Storyteller to select a balanced set of roles, and to manage all of the role interactions, while being creative and fun with your narrations. I've seen many sessions torn apart by critics who felt the set-up was unwise

Idea for a top10: best "first heavy games" - if you wanted to get someone to play a heavy game who havent done that yet.

That was fantastic...thanks guys!

I think all of my favorite games of Nemesis were when the Queen came out early. I’m in that game for the emergent storytelling, not to win it, and nothing mixes it up quite like the queen. I’ve had some epic horror experiences getting maimed by the Queen early on and scrambling to survive.

One of the most entertaining game vids I've seen, great stuff!

As na interesting addition to Mike's number 3, I have the same experience of it being over before it really began but not because of the enemy showing up immediately, but because all the pieces we needed to complete the game (in a 2 player game at the time) were in the first 3 rooms, so we were able to just beat it before a single enemy showed their face. It didn't feel earned whatsoever so we just set up and went again

Mikes #2 makes a good point. You don’t want to get way better than your friends at a particular game, otherwise it ruins the experience for everyone. You are bored because it’s not a challenge and your friends don’t enjoy getting stomped.

@10:47 regarding handicaps and deduction games, The Search for Planet X has a great way of building handicaps smoothly into the game setup with letting players choose how many starting clues everyone will get. The app helps a bunch with this, of course.

Had so much fun watching this list, thanx guys 🙌🏽

The bust on Radho was awesome!

The Nemesis thing literally happaned to me. It was my first time playing, and the game was over in like 20 minutes, the ship blew up and no one was to blame, it was just a bad luck streak

Hearing these experiences make me thankful I’m a solitaire player - great video guys - thanks

I eagerly await "Top 10 Games We Thought Zee Would Like"

Great list. Ostensibly a list of games, but actually a list of experiences. This felt less mechanical than other lists and more like friends hanging at a pub.

I definitely blame Zee's luscious beard... mere mortals cannot help but be blinded by such earth-shatteringly beautiful face foliage.

This was absolutely hilarious! I thought it would be so negative, but I had some great laughs! Especially as relates to teaching parents games.

I would watch an entire video series that is just Mike playing games as Rahdo.

Game of Thrones for me. Joined an experienced group of friends, and as soon as we started the game the two players closest to me left the table and basically discussed how they were going to take me out of the game. I actually like the game.

What an episode! Love it.

Great episode! I had a similar experience playing High Society with my partner and her parents recently (their first game). The game ended without anyone having purchased any point scoring cards (only the multipliers, negative cards), and my partner's Dad won with 0 points because he had the most money! He instantly dismissed the game as a result.

"I enjoy playing it more than I enjoy winning it..." I feel that way about several games. Scythe, Agricola, and several others. I love the choices and building up my area so much. When final scoring comes around, it's just a technicality to see who got the most points/money/etc.

Mike's story and rationale for his #2 is exactly my experience for Everdell!

8:43 for me Mr Jack is broken. For a couple of dozens plays on both sides with different people I saw Jack won only one time (and it was me against 7yo kid). The balance is what moved that game for me to a "quick play with a kid so she can easily win".

Well done! Great video.

This topic is interesting, rating games in retrospect, good way to review before buying 😊 and it's hilarious, seeing 3 hosts comparing and teasing their lists 😊

What a wonderful episode!

Great video and so funny. Some of these stories are the reason I (new to this hobby) hesitate to go to game conventions. In my limited experience so far, I’ve found that games increase the jerk quotient exponentially in some people. I just want to learn and have fun. I honestly don’t care who wins.

My top 10 "Good Games That Have Fallen Flat" moments in no particular order: 1. Warhammer 40K. Started with Imperial Knights and got demolished by an army of flyers because knights barely had anti-air at launch. Borrowed an army of Daemons and consistently rolled terribly, so I got demolished again. 2. Mage the Ascension. An RPG instead of a board game, but I ran two terrible one-shots. In one a player really didn't want to play but they denied it, so they simply didn't engage with the story in any way which dragged down the rest of the group. The second one-shot had someone who made everything about sex, even a woman who hanged herself in the forest after she escaped from her traffickers (one last attempt at getting off via autoasphyxiation, har har). 3. Dungeons and Dragons. Another RPG instead of board game We started out with 5 players and a DM, two players left after the first session, two others joined for the second session and immediately left afterwards. One of the players kept picking fights with others while the DM ignored him. Several sessions in (and multiple of my characters later) I had enough and made a beast in combat, so when he picked a fight again I smashed him into the ground and he was livid. Afterwards I left and the group fell apart, since only two players were left and nobody else wanted to join. 4. Indines. Imagine Street Fighter with turns that play out simultaneously with three players, and one has analysis paralysis. What was supposed to be quite a fast-paced game turned into multiple hours of waiting, so the other player and I just played another game on the side. 5. Coup. Brought this during a game night, specified it was a filler game, and nobody brought another game. After playing Coup for two hours you're burned out on it forever. 6. Mascarade. A hidden role game. Played this with someone who didn't grasp the concept of bluffing. 7. Magic the Gathering. I started out playing only casually against friends. The first time I went to a store, I entered a tournament meant for newcomers and was matched non-stop with netdecks (copies of professional decks). Didn't play outside of my friend circle for a few years after this. 8. Eldritch Horror. I told someone about how fun it was and the stories I experienced. That was my mistake. When I invited them over, they expected a game with a really strong narrative, which Eldritch Horror is definitely not. 9. Ticket to Ride. Played this with a group of experienced players on a tight map, so I got trounced. In the end I only finished really short lines of 2-3 trains. 10. Neuroshima Hex. Never play this with four players is all I'll say. Did learn to put small dice on everything to make the initiative order clear.

33:56 I played a game of A Study in Emerald, where it turned out to be me against the other three players. Two players were convinced the other was on the other team and kept going after each other. I pretended to be on the opposing team and slowly increased my score. The look on the other opposing teams' faces when they realized the player they were dogpiling was on their team, losing each if them 5 points, and letting me win was hilarious.

Lols Overpower. I was playing this at Taco Bell and was playing against a buddy. In the middle of Taco Bell I combo’s some massive Optic Blast with Cyclops, stood up and went “BOOM!” in his face. He looked at me stunned, got up and quietly left. Thankfully we stayed friends 😅

Very entertaining list! I feel like Dead of Winter somehow ends up on every top 10 list I watch, but it makes sense. It's up there with a lot of well known games, but it does have a lot of flaws which bring it down.

A major fall flat experience I had was with a group of friends playing Werewolf, and they begged me to join. I wasn't hugely interested in joining at first, but I decided to give it a go and fully intended to participate as well as I could. On the first round of voting to kill someone, I was dead before getting to do *anything*. I absolutely hated the experience and will likely never look on Werewolf as a good game because of it. I think they were trying to let me go since they thought I didn't really want to be there (but then why have me?? They had enough people), but it just felt like being a bit badgered into wanting to join only to have that taken away too. Another game, which was more just it falling flat, was Tiny Epic Quest. There are *so* many rules that almost have no effect on the game. And it clogged up the learning time so much that by the time we made it to rolling dice, which is supposed to be the payoff, absolutely no one was interested. Especially since a player can simply be killed off because of another player's bad die rolls. I know a lot of people enjoy it, but I give it a 4/10.

I loved this top 10!!! So hilarious!!!

Played alot of Nemesis, but the game we talk about the most was the one where the queen came out first draw. We made it darn close, but it didn't matter. The thrills of running from that thing carried from start to finish.

Love the list!!!❤❤❤

Okay, so I'll tell my Werewolf story too (One Night Ultimate, actually). Same players as Citadels in the first attempt and this time the "Nicer" son decides he can't tell a lie, so he tanks the game quickly. Then we got him on board and tried to teach it to the older brother's girlfriend. After the night phase she immediately says, "I'm the werewolf," very proud that she "caught the werewolf". I KNOW we explained the game well enough, but I did not count on her level of lack of attention to our teaching. My older son and I decided we just can't play this game at our house and moved on. I could probably spend all day on other bad game stories, but I'll leave it at those two.

Shogun is one of my favourite games in my collection. One time the game completely fell flat because one player decided to do all his actions random. Which ruined the experience for the rest us who tried to actually play. Also I've not played a game with that person since.

Totally agree with Zee regarding Zendo. If it's your first time playing, I implore you, start out with the easier rules. Nothing will make a Zendo session crash faster than coming out of the gates with a super difficult rule. Ease the group in first.

Had the same experience playing Grand Austria Hotel as Mike with Root. I tried it online for the first time, warned some random guy who was looking for players that I am a total beginner, he wouldn't mind and in the end he scored over 150VP against mine 40VP. And I was not allowed to undo one of my actions on my turn (I forgot to take card from the market at the beginning of my turn and went for the main action first; I was not allowed to take card from market afterwards!). Awful experience and really bad boardgame etiquette. Never use other players to fill empty seats at a table and to satisfy your boardgame lust!

I have been THAT PERSON in Hanabi. I felt so bad after being told I was giving too much information. In my defence, it was only my second game. Fully unintentional but, hands up, I did it.

Regarding balancing a hidden movement game, I like the way Jaws handles it with the weaker team getting a boost on the second half.

I had a few experiences pop us as I was watching, oh man there are just some bad experiences when playing games sometimes. This makes me want to keep a journal of the stand up moments in games so I can reference the good times.

Ah, Citadels. I love Citadels and will still play it whenever, but one mean and lucky player can make it painful. I had taught it to my sons and the "Nicer" one (yes, I rank my children in various categories) grabs Assassin on 5 straight turns and names my character on all 5 turns, even when I started taking ones that really didn't help me just to try to play. If he's playing, I'm subbing in one of the expansion cards!

Wow 😅😅😅 - u guys are so fun - awesome and thank u!!

Hunt for the ring was a game that fell flat for me. Bought it for a buddy for the holidays, and even painted the figures. But we played it with to polar opposite friends. One who took the game too seriously, and another who wasn't getting it(they at least were trying to be a team player, so there was that). I really felt sorry for my friend(who I gifted the game to) because he had to constantly play 20-questions with the serious player. We never did the Gandalf scenario.

My fall flat game is Galaxy Trucker. It was a 3 player game and we was teaching a new player. The game was so brutal to the new player, tearing his ship apart, to shreds. That happened about a year ago have not wanted to play since, even though I know it probably would not happen again.

This is the funniest video you guys have ever made. So good. Thanks for the laughs.

Nice list!

Playing Brass was the last time I was genuinely angry (I'm not proud of it). My nephew blocked me getting a load of points I had been working up to over several turns but couldn't manage it. He was going to win by a massive margin and he got 1 point off his action. It was pre-lunch and my blood sugar was low. No defense but you get the picture. I had no chance of winning after a frustrating game and the final straw was being blocked for a 1 point gain for a player that was clearly going to win. We laughed about it afterwards at my expense (deservedly) but boy I was indignant at the time.

My ticket to ride experience with older parents: them thinking their train color some how correlated with the routes they were "allowed" to claim

The worst games of Root I have played were always 5-6 player games. I've set a ban of no more than 4 players. Last time it happened, it was after the ban, I knew it was a bad idea, but we had 5 players and they really wanted to play Root. Predictably, it was not very satisfying, and the hirelings do not work beyond 4 players.