The Board Games That Made My 2025

10. Codis Naturalis

Designer: Thomas Dupoint
Publisher: Pandasaurus Games

Codis Naturalis hit the same highs as some of my favourite engine builders. It’s simple, sleek, and looks fantastic on the table.

Gameplay-wise, you’re gaining and placing colourful cards that feature either blank corner slots, resources, or ways to score victory points. To play these cards, you overlay them on top of others, but only if the card underneath has those all-important blank corners.

After a couple of turns, you’ll have this gorgeous mosaic of cards in front of you while you chew over the decisions the game throws your way. Do you grab more cards with corners to open up your play area? Or do you chase more victory point cards that aren’t so friendly to you growing your card artwork?

That’s pretty much the whole game. It’s not a big box epic by any stretch, but what it does, it does very, very well.

I go into more detail about why this one works so well in my full Codis Naturalis review.

9. Rivages

Designer: Joachim Thôme
Publisher: Pandasaurus Games

I keep insisting I’m not a roll-and-write guy, and then games like Rivages come along and make me question my believes. This one’s an absolute blast and reminds me a lot of one of my all-time favourites, The Guild of Merchant Explorers.

In Rivages, your goal is to explore different islands one hexagon at a time. Each island throws objectives at you to complete whether it’s reaching a specific space, exploring a particular area of the map, or collecting sets of items. At any time, you can make your way to the next island and with it a whole new set of objectives.

What really makes it pop is the simple joy of crossing off hexes as you travel. You get this satisfying visual trail of where you’ve been and where you’re heading next. Add in the colourful, gorgeous player boards and the whole thing just looks and feels fantastic.

If you think exploring a vibrant wilderness is the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon you can read more about it in my full Rivages review.

8. Modern Art

Designer: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: CMON

Not a new game by any stretch, but this was the first year I finally got Modern Art to the table, and it absolutely lived up to its reputation.

You’re a connoisseur of art, buying and selling pieces each round. But the price of these paintings fluctuates based on each artist’s popularity. So a painting from the artist who sold the most works that round is worth a small fortune, while a painting from an artist who failed to make any sales isn’t worth the cardboard the art is printed on.

Because of this, prices constantly shift from round to round. You have to keep a close eye on which artists are hot and which ones are best avoided, making Modern Art less about the board game and more about reading the intentions of the people sitting around your table.

It’s an excellent auction game, and the use of real-life artists gives it an authenticity that’s rarely replicated in board gaming.

This blurb doesn’t do enough to express my love for Modern Art, so you can read more gushing about it in my full review.

7. Hot Streak

Designer: Jon Perry
Publisher: CMYK

CMYK released two excellent racing games this year, so this spot was really a toss-up between Hot Streak and Magical Athlete. While I thoroughly enjoyed both, Hot Streak got the nod for generating more laughs and cheers with it’s wildly absurd premise and gameplay.

You see, it’s not so much a racing game as it is a betting game. Where you’re betting on a mascot race, which you only have a smidge of control over. However, you’re mostly watching these oversized mascots fumble their way from start to finish feels like something straight out of the Three Stooges.

They’ll crash into each other, sprint off in the wrong direction, or just eat dirt for no apparent reason. Which already feels ridiculous, and it’s made even funnier with the wonderfully goofy art style, miniatures, and writing.

Feel like Hot Streak could be a bit too silly for your friends? Read my full review to find out if it will fit your table.

6. Spooktacular

Designer: D. Brad Talton, Jr.
Publisher: Level 99 Games

Spooktacular is your prototypical Level 99 Games board game: dripping with asymmetry, ridiculous player powers, and replayability out the wazoo. At the start, you pick one of what feels like a billion different monsters, then spend the next 60 to 90 minutes chasing down theatre-goers to scare or devour them for their tasty victory points.

What makes Spooktacular such a stand out is that every monster plays significantly differently. One game you might be a haunted sports mascot whose entire win condition revolves around murdering the local football team. Next game, you could be something even weirder (and yes, it gets weirder!).

While each monster has its own goals and tricks, they all dramatically reshape the board state. That means you need to stay sharp, think on your feet, and adapt constantly to what unfolds between your turns. It’s clever, it’s unpredictable, and it’s an absolutely fantastic pick for Halloween gaming.

5. Wizards Cup

Designer: Seiji Kanai
Publisher: Pandasaurus Games

A controversial pick, because it won’t be for everyone, but Wizards Cup was absolutely my kind of game. One that had me begging people to play with me.

It’s a two-player auto-battler, so think Challengers, but slimmed down and with a heavier focus on strategy. Each player builds a deck of six cards from the same pool of 18. Every card has its own strengths, weaknesses, and special powers, so even small changes can have big consequences.

Discovering new card combinations was an absolute joy, but the real je ne sais quoi comes from the mind games. After each battle, you get a chance to tweak your deck, rearrange the order your cards come out, or slip in a new card that could completely dismantle your opponents deck.

But with them doing the same thing, you never know who’s going to come out on top. It’s a small box game, small as they come, but if you put a lot of thought into how you play.

I spent a lot more time with this and thinking about this game than I expected to when it first arrived. You can read my full thoughts in my review.

4. Agent Avenue

Designers: Christian Kudahl & Laura Kudahl
Publisher: Nerdlab

Agent Avenue is a tense game of board game tag. Where you and your opponent do laps around an oval track trying to overlap one another.

Each turn, you’ll play two cards, one face up and one face down, then let your opponent choose one. This becomes an absolute battle of wits, where you try to crawl into their head like a pair of wet skinny jeans. You’re constantly trying to bluff and trick them into taking the worse card, all while trying to decode their intentions when the roles reverse.

There’s plenty of little strategies, and game modes, that you can employ that make even more fun. Not to mention, it’s beautifully illustrated.

3. Cascadero

Designer: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: Bitewing Games

One of the safest Kickstarter backings in recent memory, Cascadero came with some serious pedigree. After Reiner Knizia and Bitewing Games knocked it out of the park last year with Zoo Vadis, it was hardly a surprise to see them do it again here.

This time around, you’re creating routes to connect cities, complete objectives, and racing to outmanoeuvre your opponents. It’s a constant foot race for board position, with everyone scrambling to be first to tick off those shared objectives.

For a strategy game, Cascadero feels fast and furious. You’re slamming pieces onto the board in quick succession, and it never bogs down. There’s also a generous amount of combo potential, letting you chain moves together and pull off some genuinely surprising plays.

It’s smart, punchy, and deeply satisfying. Another banger from Bitewing Games.

2. Endeavour: Deep Sea

Designers: Carl de Visser, Jarrate Gray
Publisher: Burnt Island Games

Endeavour: Age of Sail has one of the best depth-to-rulebook-length ratios out there, and Endeavour: Deep Sea keeps that formula while mixing things up in all the right ways. The sequel adds a fantastic new theme, a fresh exploration element, and a cooperative mode.

Now, I’m not usually a fan of co-op games where the goal is simply to hit some arbitrary point total. But here, all the other actions felt so thematic and enjoyable that I found myself completely absorbed in what I was doing, only worrying about the scoreboard at the very end.

Which probably explains why I lost… a lot.

Regardless, I loved this game. The sense of powering up as the game progresses is strong and intensely satisfying. But even more than that, it’s the feeling of exploration that won me over. The artwork on the ocean cards pulls you into this underwater world, and placing each new one is a genuine pleasure.

So if you’re looking for something a bit deeper (pun very much intended), definitely give this one look.

1. Fruit Fight

Designer: Reiner Knizia
Publisher: CMYK

Sure, there were heavier, brain-burning games this year, but none hit the table as often as Fruit Fight. This little gem from CMYK’s Magenta Collection completely dominated our game nights for a good six months and still gets regular play.

On your turn, you draw fruit cards from a shuffled deck. Draw a double and you bust, losing everything you’ve collected so far. Once you’re feeling brave (or scared) enough, you pass your turn to the next player.

That’s standard push-your-luck stuff. What elevates Fruit Fight is this evil little rule whereby if you draw a card someone else already has, you get to steal it.

To bank your fruit for good, you have to survive a full round where everyone gets a chance to nick your haul. So you spend the entire time sweating bullets while everyone else stares at your savings like a pack of wolves eyeing a Thanksgiving turkey.

It creates delicious tension and makes the table absolutely electric. Combined with the lightning-fast playtime, it’s an addictive card game we couldn’t put down even if we tried.

If you’re going to read only one review of a game on this list, then this is the one the one to read.