My Top 10 Favorite Games With Pivotal Tipping Points

In today’s video I discuss games with pivotal tipping points. These include games where there is a distinct shift—chosen by each player—when they stop improving their engine or potential and start pushing towards the victory condition, and/or games where there are smaller buildups and payoffs during the game.

Ambassador and viewer picks: 7 Wonders, Architects of the West Kingdom, Ark Nova, Clank, Dominion, Earth, Food Chain Magnate, For Sale, Gizmos, Wingspan, Rajas of the Ganges, Scythe, Space Base, Tapestry, Terraforming Mars, Honey Buzz, Champions of Midgard, Darwin’s Journey

My Honorable Mentions: Honey Buzz, Splendor, For Sale, Lost Ruins of Arnak, 7 Wonders

My Top 10:

10. Wingspan, Scythe, Tapestry, Apiary, Wyrmspan
9. Dominion
8. Earth
7. Space Base
6. Century: Golem Edition
5. Architects of the West Kingdom
4. Forest Shuffle
3. Ticket to Ride
2. Fantastic Factories
1. First in Flight

00:00 - Introduction & Honorable Mentions
3:45 - Top 4-10
17:25 - Top 3

[brentjohnson]

Oldie but goodie… Puerto Rico. It actually has two tipping points. Early game you need to focus on a money making engine. Then spend money to build up a point engine. Then at the end just forget about engines and focus on points. Still one of my all-time favorite games due to these mechanisms.

[DJDan]

Just played Forrest Shufle on Saturday at our game day. The not knowing of when the winter cards come up is such a tension builder. Agreed with what you said.

[Tablenauts]

First in Flight is brand new to my collection, and I look forward to learning it! This "you choose where you completely change your game" moment is felt uniquely in Final Girl, where that tipping point typically occurs after both the bad guy has leveled up a bit, and you have gathered a weapon or two and saved some civilians to boost yourself, and it becomes time to exchange blows until one is KO'd.

[tbahr]

Dominion is so good at this and such a perfect example of the video idea that it actually made me disappointed by almost everything that followed on the list. That you can never quite tell when the right time is to start buying victory points really makes every game interesting

[JulioR]

Clank! There comes a point where you stop deck building and start running out the dungeon. Usually as soon as one player starts running out, the others follow.

[brennansmith]

This is such a clever list idea and was a great watch

A lot of my favorites are on your list and I want to add First Rat to the mix. Similarly to Ticket to ride with the end condition, you switch to thinking about points and getting your cubes out half way through the game

[Mimi-ca]

For me, Apiary is one of those games. We have played it 4 times in the last few days and every time I play it, I love it more! From getting the resources to then making sure I have enough end game points to win, it’s just a great game and I can’t wait for the expansion.

[Kufunninapuh]

My favourite tipping point is in Inis. The first few turns of the game people are joking and talking about their day or fun movie they saw. Then all of a sudden everyone around the table realize that everyone else is a good turn from winning the game and the table goes dead silent with absolute laser focus as everyone collects pretender tokens and oh it's just such a good feeling.

[linkypete]

For me, Dune: Imperium - Uprising is my favorite one that meets these criteria. Right around the last level 2 combat and first level 3 combat, players need to make a pivotal shift from deckbuilding and gaining influence, and instead start committing to combats. If someone with worms wins any of the last few combats, they're almost guaranteed a win. Anyone without sandworms has to make sure they have the troops or intrigue cards to stop that from happening, securing some victory points in the process.

[gravecac]

Concordia is one that comes to mind. When do you start using your Senate card to hoover up as many cards as possible to gather victory point multipliers.

[davidnicolau]

I think a simple filler game that exemplifies this concept very well is Knarr, surprised it didn't show up on any list, maybe it's too recent? it's all about building and tearing down your tableau (crew cards), and I think it's very good.
Another game I love that maybe fits the theme is Space Station Phoenix, where you have ship cards in the beginning that are your actions, but you must discard them to get the precious metal to build the space station which gets you the most points, so as the game progresses you must decide to let go of your powerful actions at the right time - do it too soon, and you'll be scrambling to do anything in the end-game, do it too late and the game will end before you can build enough to win.

[TheStevenPHill]

The City! When did you change your focus from paying for cards that increase your card draw to playing cards that generate points. With typically 9 turns in an average game, shifting too early or too late can make or break a victory. A classic tipping point to me.

[simonmcg]

Yep I love this in games. I have called it ‘cadence’ to myself. Two that I love that were not mentioned..
Orleans. That tipping point when you no longer need your scholars and start retiring them off with other characters to the beneficial deeds board. Such a great pivot
Luxor. That pivot when you sense someone is going to get to the tomb and every turn is suddenly just about getting your explorers as far along the tomb as possible.

[markespiridion]

I recently got First In Flight. After hearing your thoughts on the game, I got more excited to try it out the soonest possible. Hopefully, I can attend a game night soon.

[miistercrayon]

Without wanting to abstract the concept too far you can include something like Deception Murder in Hong Kong. You have one shot to J’accuse so you need to decide when the resource known as “vibe” is large enough to pull the trigger.


There is however this collective safety net in that game however knowing one or two people can get it wrong.

[stevegibbsonline]

I also love this element of First in Flight. But recently, as someone else mentioned, I have been enamored with Knarr and the ongoing decision whether to continue building your resource-gathering crew, or to lose all or some of them for the sake of some bigger points.

[andysiegel]

Valley of the Kings is one of the best examples I can think of. It’s a deckbuilding game in which the cards you add to the deck all help improve your abilities in the game, but to actually score points, you need to entomb those cards (losing them for rest of game). Therefore, there is a wonderful tension of building a great engine, then having to decide when to pivot and start making your powerful cards score points. Super fun!

[codymortensen]

I just kept thinking of suburbia deciding when to switch from focusing on income to focusing on population/ vp

[grantfraser]

I think one of my favorite games to bring out for a relaxing interactive game is Guildhall. I say relaxing but there's a fair amount of attacking that goes on.

You're collecting sets of characters to be turned in for most of the points you will earn in the race to 20. But if you're one short of a complete set, remove one instead because the actions you take are stronger with more of that character in play but you can only use that strong activation by adding to the set.

😅The weaver/farmer combo is a great example. How long do you keep something like that going? No worries, if you have a strong set going someone will be happy to attack it down to a mediocre size.

It's kind of s small tipping point but it's prominent throughout the game, not just the final stages.

[joshestes]

Well i think this list has the most matches with games in my collection as I have 9 of 10 (11/14). I guess i really like the games witha tipping point haha