The Gang

Designers: John Cooper, Kory Heath

Publisher: Thames & Kosmos

If there’s one thing that the board gaming and video gaming spaces have in common, it’s been a sharp uptick lately in “X, but with Y” as a style of design. No complaints here; we’ve all lost a chunk of our lives to Balatro’s “poker, but with roguelike”, and The Gang seems to have arrived at the perfect time to give us all a break from too much screen time but not enough poker with its “poker, but with cooperation” gameplay. Here, your goal is to execute several successful heists by teaming up with your friends to perfectly determine the order of the strengths of your poker hands. Unfortunately, you can’t talk, so you’ll have to figure out if you can do better than just going off vibes.

We’ve been fortunate to have several years of high-quality art for our Casual Games category, and The Gang is no exception. It goes for a flat-and-compelling kind of heist deco style, which really works. The elegance of the art nicely pairs with elegant gameplay, which is ideal for our category. Here, approachable games are king (or queen, or even jack), but the gameplay can’t suffer for it. And with The Gang, there’s no compromises made; just a lot of fun. As a result, we’re proud to name it our 2025 Casual Games Winner!

What Our Committee Is Saying

Any time I find a game that allows me to tap into non-board game knowledge is an opportunity to bring new gamers into the community. A vast array of people have a general understanding of either Poker or Yahtzee which makes this cooperative game much more approachable. While that knowledge provides the foundation for people to play The Gang, there are layers that make it worth playing over and over.

Nicole Brady

Photos courtesy of What’s Eric Playing?. All rights reserved.