Games that take a step beyond Casual Games in their complexity, planning requirements, and duration. Play time typically runs from 45 minutes to 2 hours.
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2026
Winner – The Lord of the Rings: Fate of the Fellowship
Leverage the Pandemic system to guide the One Ring to its final destination while protecting its bearer. Will cooperation protect you from the Dark Lord Sauron, or will you lose Frodo to hopelessness?
Recommended
Moon Colony Bloodbath
There’s probably nothing to worry about in your fancy new home in this engine-building-and-destroying game of near-absolute catastrophes.
Knitting Circle
Make garments, collect buttons, and shoot for bonus scoring goals in this cozy puzzley sequel to Calico.
Nominated
Critter Kitchen
Kinfire Council
2025
Winner – Let’s Go! To Japan
Plan the perfect trip to Japan and then experience it in this pleasant and cozy game balancing travel dreams and action selection.
Recommended
River of Gold
Sail up and down the river while constructing buildings and creating your fortune in this pleasant and strategic competitive game.
Rebirth
Construct a new world from the ashes of the old one with nothing but your clan and the power of tile-laying.
Nominated
Creature Caravan
Slay the Spire: The Board Game
2024
Winner – Thunder Road: Vendetta
Return to a hazardous highway in this high-octane game of crews, cars, and on-the-road combustion.
Recommended
Daybreak
Work together to take on a changing climate in this cooperative engine-building game.
The Fox Experiment
Breed and domesticate foxes to better understand how these traits manifest in this strategic roll-and-write game.
Nominated
Forest Shuffle
Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall
2023
Winner – Planet Unknown
Develop a new planet all your own while avoiding meteors in this polyomino game of simultaneous play, engine building, and meteor strikes.
Recommended
Return to Dark Tower
Defeat monsters, cleanse buildings, and discover the secrets of the tower in this restoration of the 1981 title.
The Guild of Merchant Explorers
Discover an abandoned realm over a few ages in this game of ebb and flow exploration.
Nominated
Three Sisters
Paperback Adventures
2022
Winner – Cascadia
Explore the colorful and varied landscapes of the Pacific Northwest and try to build the perfect habitats in this tile- and token-drafting game.
Recommended
Furnace
Buy up companies and process resources to make as much money as possible in this strategic game of auctions and engine-building.
Genotype: A Mendelian Genetics Game
Draft dice and complete pea plants via Punnett Squares in this surprisingly biological worker placement game.
Nominated
Hadrian’s Wall
Brew
2021
Winner – Calico
Find a perfect place to get some pause by building a quilt fit for a cat to nap on in this puzzly tile-laying game.
Recommended
The Search for Planet X
Use your observation skills to discover a new planet in this astronomical deduction game.
My City
Take a new city from the preindustrial dawn through a busy era of industry in this legacy tile-laying game.
Nominated
Fort
Smartphone Inc.
2020
Winner – Wingspan
Build up a feathery engine by getting a variety of birds to visit your wildlife preserves in this beautifully illustrated and strategic title.
Recommended
Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated
Take on responsibility for a franchise and vie for Employee of the Month in this legacy adaptation of Clank!
Ecos: First Continent
Start the Earth over, but better this time, in a tile-laying, combo-building game of steadfast planning and nimble execution.
Nominated
SHŌBU
Hadara
2019
Winner – Chronicles of Crime
Players work together as London’s finest and solve a variety of violent crimes, scanning cards with their phones to question suspects, enter clues into evidence, and crack the case!
Recommended
Coimbra
Draft and roll dice to build up fortune and prestige in old Portugal.
Cryptid
Keep opponents away from your greatest discovery in this monstrous deduction game.
Nominated
Architects of the West Kingdom
Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea
