The top 12 games as voted by members of the website BoardGameGeek.com.
Spotlight
23 most anticipated board games of GenCon 2019
GenCon is the premiere convention for board games in the country. Taking place this weekend in Indianapolis, many companies release their newest games at the event. What are the hottest games for 2019?
Games on the list are broken into two categories. First up, the writers picks. 11 games that were demoed or look entertaining by the author. Following that, the top 12 anticipated games as chosen by members of the website BoardGameGeek.com. These games received the most positive votes in their annual preview.
Sushi Roll
Rice and dice! Roll with your favorite Sushi Go! characters in Sushi Roll, a dice-based version of the best-selling card game!
Load up the conveyor belts with savory sushi dice — then pick one and pass the rest! Earn points for winning combos like two tempura or a set of sashimi. Grab a menu to re-roll your dice or use chopsticks to swap with an opponent. And be sure to save room for pudding at the end! Find it on Amazon.
Mechanica
Mechanica is a game of tile-laying and engine building. Each player buys puzzle piece-shaped machines and slots them together to form their factory. The different machines all improve the Tidybots your factory can make: building new Tidybots, upgrading them, copying them, and more. There are many strategies for putting your machines together, and everyone has fun trying to build the perfect factory! Find it on Amazon.
Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein
Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein is a competitive game of strategic monster building for 2-4 players, inspired by Mary Shelley's classic novel of gothic horror. In the game, the creature demands your help to accomplish what his own creator would not: to bring to life an abomination like itself, a companion to end its miserable solitude. Through worker placement and careful management of decomposing resources, you'll gather materials from the cemeteries and morgues around the city, conduct valuable research at the Academy of Science, hire less-than-reputable associates, and toil away in your lab — all in an effort to assemble a new form of life and infuse it with a "spark of being". Do well, and the creature may reward you during one of its surprise visits; do poorly, and you may come to regret not putting forth more effort. Narrative elements come into play throughout the game, guided by your decisions, leading to potentially unsavory outcomes. Find it on Amazon.
Time Chase
You've done it! You've cracked the code to unlock time travel! Your breakthrough invention has the potential to revolutionize the world as we know it, and undoubtedly your genius will be celebrated across the globe. However, it appears that some of your scientific colleagues within the laboratory are trying to use your invention to travel back in time and take the credit for themselves. You must stop them and claim your rightful place in history! Time Chase is a trick-taking Game with a twist — you are allowed to travel back in time to previous tricks, known as events, and change their outcome. The first player to control Three events in the timeline wins!
Ishtar: Gardens of Babylon
From the award-winning designer Bruno Cathala, Ishtar is a game in which you play the role of a gardener aiming to transform the dry desert into the Lost Hanging Gardens of Babylon. To accomplish your mission, you will have to plant flowers, which, if you place them well, can help you gather precious gems and activate actions. Whether to buy Trees (which will block the link between two Flower spots, as well as earning you points) or to purchase upgrades (such as getting two more points per Tree card at the end of the game), collecting gems will be a crucial part of the game. Get them before your opponents, recruit apprentices, send them to earn points in the copses of flowers you have created, block others and think carefully of the upgrades to purchase if you want to become the best gardener at the end of the game!
Court of the Dead: Mourners Call
Court of the Dead: Mourners Call is a 2-5 player, highly competitive board game that calls upon players to balance cooperative needs against their own ulterior motives. There are many paths to uniting the Underworld, but only one Mourner will realize his or her vision. The player who wields his or her power and faction influence the best will gain the most points to win.
You and your fellow mourners must work together to bring balance to the Underworld, but… only one of you can truly Rise, Conquer, Rule!
Imaginarium
Through the mist, you can just about see the gigantic form of the factory. This is where the essence of dreams is shaped! We will enter the factory through the grand entrance. Here are the famous machines! You can repair, combine or dismantle them. They will produce the resources needed to repair more powerful machines. I am sure that you will quickly make the best use of your resources and the space available in your workshop to carry out the projects of the design office and gain Victory points!
Letter Jam
Letter Jam is a 2-6 player cooperative word game, where players assist each other in composing meaningful words from letters around the table. The trick is holding the letter card so that it’s only visible to other players and not to yourself.
Dreams of Tomorrow
Dreams of Tomorrow is a set collection, shifting rondel game about building dreams. Players are dream engineers trying to save their present by sending dreams to past. Longer dream sequences that are better connected have a higher chance of getting through to the dreamer, but there's also certain dreams that are more impactful than others. Dreams can also allow the dream engineer certain abilities, so all these aspects must be weighed when choosing what kind of dream sequence to create. The last round is triggered when any one dream engineer has added five dreams to their dream sequence.
Sleeping Gods
In Sleeping Gods, you and a friend become Captain Sofi Odessa and her crew, lost in a strange world in 1929 on your steamship, the Manticore. You must work together to survive, exploring exotic islands, meeting new characters, and seeking out the totems of the gods so that you can return home.
Board Game Geek Top 12
12. Point Salad
Point Salad is a fast and fun card drafting game for the whole family! There are over 100 ways to score points! Players take turns building a salad of veggies and collecting point cards in order to score the most points for the ingredients in their salad! Players may use a variety of strategies and every game of Point Salad is unique!
11. Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale
Queen Gimnax has ordered the reclamation of the northern lands. As a cartographer in her service, you are sent to map this territory, claiming it for the Kingdom of Nalos. Through official edicts, the queen announces which lands she prizes most, and you will increase your reputation by meeting her demands. But you are not alone in this wilderness. The Dragul contest your claims with their outposts, so you must draw your lines carefully to reduce their influence. Reclaim the greatest share of the queen’s desired lands and you will be declared the greatest cartographer in the kingdom.
In Cartographers, players compete to earn the most reputation stars by the time four seasons have passed. Each season, players draw on their map sheets and earn reputation by carrying out the queen's edicts before the season is over. The player with the most reputation stars at the end of winter wins!
10. Era: Medieval Age
In Era, your dice represent different classes of medieval society as players attempt to build the most prosperous city. The "build" comes into play as players actually build their cities on their boards. You will use beautifully modeled three-dimensional components such as walls, keeps, farms, and other structures. By the end of the game, each player will have a unique city of their very own!
9. Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North
8. Terror Below
Terror Below is a game of government experiments gone wild in the Nevada desert. The faster you move, the more vibrations you make, attracting the attention of the vicious W.O.R.M.s underground. Navigate the difficult terrain to collect valuable W.O.R.M. Eggs and deliver them to Locations around town to claim bounties. If you’re feeling lucky, collect items and weapons to go hunt ‘em.
7. In the Hall of the Mountain King
Play as trolls rebuilding your abandoned kingdom under the mountain in In the Hall of the Mountain King. With muscle and magic, you'll unearth riches, dig out collapsed tunnels, and carve out great halls as you raise the toppled statues of your ancestors to their places of honor at the heart of the mountain. Gameplay is driven by the innovative cascading production system. Timing and tactics are key as you work to restore your home to its former glory and win the crown!
6. Bargain Quest
Bargain Quest is a game of adventure and capitalism for 2-6 players. You and your friends will take on the role of shopkeepers in an RPG town plagued by monsters. You must draft item cards to stock your shelves and arrange your displays to attract the wealthiest heroes to your shop.
After that, the heroes will face off against monstrous threats. If they succeed, fantastic! If they get eaten alive, well, at least nobody will ask for a refund. Do you have what it takes to be the best shop in town?
5. The Artemis Project
The Alien Frontiers killer! The Artemis Project is an interactive dice placement game where you fight the planet and other players to build the best colony on Europoa. Every die is valuable, as high dice will get lots of resources, but lower dice push them out of the way and risk 'Exposure', getting nothing.
4. Pipeline
Oil refinement has long been government controlled. Due to various complexities, they have felt pressure from the global demand and standards for refinement. Unable to keep up with these demands, they have one option: privatizing the oil industry. In Pipeline, you start a company in the oil business! Build an efficient network in your refinery, hire experts to provide benefits over your competitors, and manage the logistics of purchasing/selling refined oil to the Markets to earn the most money in the game!
3. Black Angel
Humanity, through its irresponsible behavior, has exhausted the natural resources of Earth, making it almost uninhabitable. In a burst of lucidity, pressed by the irreversible degradation of your planet, the great nations are forced to put aside their differences and share their knowledge in order to create the most vast spacecraft ever constructed. Thus, the BLACK ANGEL project is launched.
2. Oceans
The foundation of the oceanic food chain are billions of one-celled organisms that capture the sun's energy through photosynthesis. Every other oceanic species is a predator, each bigger than the next, all the way up to the dreaded apex predator. And even bigger than apex predators are enormous filter feeders that gently swim through the ocean scooping up everything in their path with their baleen.
1. The Isle of Cats
You are citizens of Squalls End on a rescue mission to The Isle of Cats and must rescue as many cats as possible before the evil Lord Vesh arrives. Each cat is represented by a unique tile and belongs to a family, you must find a way to make them all fit on your boat while keeping families together.
What are the best games, esports teams and gaming moments of 2019? Watch as announcements are made and winners crowned in a celebration of the video game industry.
