Dwarpheus

Most of these are two-player games. They asked for games to play with a group.

We’re still playing Boonanza, after many years. Just doesn’t get old.

Uwe Rosenberg. His worker placement games are just so well designed and scratch an itch not many other games scratch.

RAI you definitely would not be able to target yourself. The spell description starts with: “The touch of your shadow-wreathed hand can siphon force from others to heal your wounds.” Technically this sentence is flavor only, but in this case it clearly reveals the intention of the designers.

RAW your meme still works, but I would restrict the spell to target only creatures other than yourself for the reason above. Only if the player has a really cool way to describe how to siphon your own life force and somehow convert it into more life force for yourself, I might allow it…

A level 1-10 adventure with a ‘bump to lvl 17’? What does that mean? Instantly levelling from 10 to 17, skipping an entire tier? That just sounds silly.

Terraforming Mars is probably also my no. 1 pick.

But Frosthaven is a close second. It just has it all: puzzly gameplay, tight mechanics, unlockable content, entertaining story elements, crafting and building, character progression. The thing is, I feel like for a game to fill the “perfect game” criteria for me, I have to be able to always play it with any group. Frosthaven just isn’t that kind of game, because it’s a campaign.

Terraforming Mars on the other hand, as long as your group is 5 people or smaller, you can always play it.