Ranking and Roasting Board Game Boxes
Actualol
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I get very passionate ranking board game boxes.
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CREDITS:
Edited by Joaquín Reinoso
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Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:12 Tier Explanation
01:42 Ranking Boxes
==================================================
I get very passionate ranking board game boxes.
==================================================
CREDITS:
Edited by Joaquín Reinoso
==================================================
FOLLOW ME:
♟️Board Game Geek:
Facebook:
Twitter:
Instagram:
==================================================
Timestamps
00:00 Intro
00:12 Tier Explanation
01:42 Ranking Boxes
10.05.2024
I feel kind of weird now for always displaying the side that mentions the player count because it helps guests pick a game.
The problem with upside down text on the side of the box is not exclusive for games. Books from germany and france tend to have a different orientation compared to books from english speaking countries. Really annoying if you put them next to each other in a bookshelf. Maybe this design choice bleeds over into board games.
That was again a very entertaining video – I wouldn't mind a part two. 😁
Fantastic run down of game art. Old enough to remember when album art and movie poster art was meant to convey something about the media/story/music or to draw you in and give the music or movie a chance. Now movie posters are just pictures of the stars with the name on it and does anyone release an album or cd anymore with original art? Jon, listening to you lament the state of game art is terrific. Game box art could/should draw more people into the community and for dedicated collectors make our shelves look nicer. My biggest issue is size of boxes – either wasted space or too little. Do the publishers not "play test" unpacking and repacking the box? Can't they reduce publishing expenses by making the box the right size, especially when it needs to be smaller? If you put an insert into a game box to take up space then reduce the box size! Ahhh! If publishers were smart they would listen to your recommendation of putting name on every side of smaller games. Regarding TTR, I do like the addition of the game title in different languages around the sides. As an English speaker living in Germany, we display our TTR game collection with the German, Zug um Zug, facing out because we live in Germany and, well – why not?! It's fun to us. One of our favorite games is Concordia, but the boxes for the games are too thin and too tall; and additional maps from the publisher do not come with boxes at all so we try and cram them into the versions of the game which came with boxes. If they had made the maps fold like TTR and made it fit into a more traditional square gaming box the game would look better. …adding on to above comment. Sometimes why the board game name on the side runs opposite to the "norm" may be because it was printed by a German board game publisher. German book names run from bottom to top with the base of the letter to the right – the opposite of English books. English book titles run from top to bottom with the base of the letters to the left. This may be why Bohnanza looks the way it does; and possibly many other games published by German companies. It would be the normal type setting for a title on the side of a book and it most likely carried through to the type setting when designing a box from a German publisher. Does anyone know if this is true in France or the Czech Republic?
How very dare you, sir…..the RA box is amazing
Everdell is my game box that certainly wouldn't be out of place in the Louvre.
Great video 😉
I just watched an hour of a Brit complaining… and enjoyed it
The Pandemic box looks like the cover of every DVD at a car-boot sale.
Dominion looks like the box art from a 1990s PC point and click game.
When you mentioned Zoo Vadis I looked at my collection and actually all my board games are stored like that (text starts at the bottom, cover facing left) 🙂
I like the Catan box! There's something pleasing about its shape and colour scheme that I can't describe.
Who damn cares how the box looks like? I will 100% buy an awesome game in an ugly box!
There's a new version of Lords of Vegas coming out shortly. How do you fewl about the new cover art?
Mate I reckon the mind mgmt box is a work of art. The hidden messages using the time token 👌🏼
I think you enjoy reviewing the Actual boxes of the Games than playing the games themselves HA HA =)
52:19 it even sticks out in your tier list 🙂
@27:20 can't believe you don't have your tokens in a lil baggy GASP
Actualol when a box has numbers literally anywhere on it: 🙁
Actualol when Ticket to Ride's art looks like an ai generated stock image: 🙂
Can you do top 10 games that pack most fun in least amount of space?
It is surprisingly entertaining listening to you complain about things 😂
Hi Jon, I'd love to know what you think about the presentation of the Dark Cities games from Facade Games like Bristol 1350 and Salem 1692. The ones that are packaged to look like old books.
First of all – thank you for ruining my collection for me, now I notice every publisher logo, Spiel des Jahres and so on… Can't unsee it.
But otherwise, it is interesting to see the differences in boxes in different countries. What I saw:
– El Dorado does have sides without any logo and it looks great on the shelf.
– Love Letter came with a plastic bag for coins, so they do not fall off.
– Skull has a side with a logo and without a barcode, but I have the pink version.
However, the Polish edition of Coup has… Obama and Putin on the cover. And they’re caricatures, so they look even worse than normal. I cannot imagine it being worse.
For me, the best looking box gotta go to Spirit Island 🙂
This is so entertaining. Well done!
Notice some inconsistency in box storage as you Sherlock Holmes is not showing the smallest box side on the shelf. 😅 But if placing it so to show the smallest box side to save space, with the text in the "correct" direction, isn't the box drawer at the base and could fall out when one takes the game of the shelf? Maybe not perfect.
Really entertaining list! 🍻
The root boxes are atrocious for not matching
I love how passionate you feel about the game boxes. I can see myself when I go into a rant with my wife about certain games.
28:22 I checked my collection and I have my board game titles facing that way, but mostly because you enter the room from the right so the game titles would be upside-down otherwise
Good to see John getting into modern tier ranking with putting almost nothing into the middle.
Great or terrible. There is no other option! 😂
Gosh, aren't board gamers hard to please! Great video, was surprised by some of the rankings, I thought the Castle of Burgundy SE box looked great. I was hoping you might mention the box for Isle of Cats, it drives me crazy it's so oversized. I actually did a section in my last video where I tried to see what else I could fit inside the box alongside the game and it's honestly ridiculous.
I genuinely feel like he's lying to us about Sagrada and only saying that shit for comments
Command of Nature
I am having problems to understand the idea behind this video. Lack of clear rules what make a box good or bad and big focus on subjective opinion feels a bit bit like "moaning for the sake of moaning" (very little add value). I would understand comments about "bad" shape, especially when a box does not fit a kallax shelf or some environment aspects of boxes (why so much paper wasted to hold a deck of cards?!), perhaps something about difficult to read fonts (Dominion 🙂 but comments about Azul font is in Word? Majority of fonts used in all designs are existing fonts (if not "in Word", then you can find them on google for free or a small fee). This is definitely the "Collection Ruined" video on this Channel 🙂
Heat is gorgeous, and the insert’s organization is fantastic. It’s too thin though. Mine arrived with multiple cracks.
The audible gasp that left my mouth when you put Castles of Burgundy Special Edition on Shelf of Shame 😱
I have a copy of the old, ugly version and while I don't want to spend that kind of money on a replacement of a perfectly fine game I already own, I am so envious of the people who own a copy.
So if you're interested in downgrading your version and want to trade it for a very old, very beat up copy of the oldest edition, hit me up 😉
Love it, speaking of your background games, how about Paris: City of Lights and Mysterium? Also where do you stand on Kyle Ferrin artwork? Where would they go in the ranking?
Came here hoping for a roast of the 7 Wonders box – which is way bigger than it needs to be. Disappointed to miss that, but still a fun video.
I disagree with your issue of fat boxes. I wish all large games came in Ticket to ride size boxes with varying thickness, then they still would align perfectly on the shelves. I hate long and thin boxes like Concordia.
Big disagree on the horizontal storage.
I have my vertical games stored with the text like Zoo Vadis. To be fair, it’s like that because of the way I’ve had to store my games in a narrow room under my stairs and the shelf is on the right side of the room. So, that’s the best way to read them.
Original Resistance box was better.
Cascadia, Heat, Canvas, Wingspan base are my favorite.
I love how nitpicky you are about this 😂 You are going to hate my collection though. I cut up a lot off my boxes to make them smaller. 😂
This might be the saddest YouTube video ever uploaded… and I’m totally down for it! Thank you for being the voice for us board game shelf pedants worldwide.
Your ideas always brilliant
I’d have to say Terraforming Mars has one of the worst boxes, it’s made larger for no reason other than to hold the cardboard sheets that you pop stuff out of when you get the game, then it’s too big for even the board so everything slides around.
Did I just watch a grown man rant about board games boxes for nearly an hour?
Yup and I'll fu*kin do it again.
One of the reasons I consider Cascadia’s box to be absolutely gorgeous is how good it looks with Verdant and Calico as well. I store games horizontally, and they just pop. Fit to Print doesn’t pop quite as well, but it’s the same size and all four share a shelf together.
This is a completely bizarre request so feel free to disregard but I'm a DND DM and I often times look for inspiration for games that I can insert into my DND game to spice things up. I would love to have someone with your experience give a list of games that fit well into TTRPGs as "filler" if that makes sense? If nothing else, it's a fun thought experiment.
Literally reorganizing my board games shelves while watching this, and it's heavily impacting my choices.