Best Board Games By Year: 2005 to 2021
Board games are not just fun to play among friends but are equally handy when it comes to family gathering and parties. They also create a sense of competition among friends and family members. I clearly remember how we wouldn’t talk for days after playing monopoly. It was fun but also equally intense. If you have been playing board games for a while then we have this list that will absolutely dazzle you. And, if you are someone trying to pick your first board game then you will definitely find something you will love.
We have compiled a list of the best board games for each year from 2004 to 2019. These awesome board games were awarded with prestigious ‘Game of the Year’ or ‘Spiel des Jahres’ title. You can also explore our post on best family board games or best board games for kids.
Contents
Our Top Picks of Best Board Games By Year
- Best of 2004: Days of Wonder Ticket to Ride
“Ticket to ride is a light strategy game where the aim is to connect routes with the chain of trains you have and get points. It is a nice game for kids and elders alike.” - Best of 2005: Rio Grande Games Niagara
“Niagara is a cool board game played on a hinged board designed to sit atop the game box and represent Niagara Falls as a flap hanging over the box edge.” - Best of 2006: Thurn and Taxis – All Roads Lead To Rome
“This classic game comes with a board which is a map of southern Germany and nearby parts of other countries” - Best of 2007: Zooloretto
“Zooloretto is a great family game. It is fun with two players, but better with 4 or 5. We had a great family game night and it created a lot of buzz” - Best of 2008: Keltis
” The game is explained very quickly and you can start immediately after a short setup..” - Best of 2009: Rio Grande Games Dominion Adventures Game
“Very good game, very versatile with the different cards and different combination of cards you can choose to have (if you go against the selections presented). Haven’t come across friends who haven’t yet enjoyed it.” - Best of 2010: Dixit
“It’s easy to teach, the artwork is gorgeous and it’s extremely fun to play.” - Best Of 2011: Qwirkle Board Game
” It dumps the polarizing themes that tend to put newcomers off and the rules are so straightforward that the game can be explained in just a few sentences.” - Best of 2012: Kingdom Builder
“An excellent strategy game, played it once with a friend and had to buy it as soon as I got home!” - Best of 2013: R & R Games Hanabi Card Game
“Hanabi is a fun, cooperative card game that requires a mix of memorization and deduction.” - Best of 2014: Eggertspiele Camel Up Board Game
“The game has stunning art-work. With Beautiful pop-up tree that stands out. The Egyptian theme comes out nicely by the pop-up palm trees, the great dice roll pyramid and of course the camels!” - Best of 2015: Colt Express
“It is a “programming” game, so good memory is an advantage but regardless it’s hard not to have fun.” - Best of 2016: Czech Games Codenames
“Codenames really is genius in it’s simplicity. It’s a fantastic party game because it can be taught in under 5 minutes and provides a ton of fun.” - Best of 2017: Blue Orange Games Kingdomino
“It is a great entryway to tabletop gaming in a small, teachable format. The components are of high quality – Blue Orange has done a marvelous job producing this game in a manner befitting such a high-caliber experience.” - Best of 2018: Plan B Games Azul Board Game Board Games
“The build quality of the game is pretty high. Each player gets their own game board that is nice and solid/stiff.” - Best of 2019: Repos Just One
“This is the best party game to be released in years. It is simple to learn and fun to play.” - Best of 2020: Pandemic Family Board Game
“This is one of the best board games I’ve ever played that features a team dynamic. Unlike Settlers of Catan, which will ruin any and every relationship you ever had, this co-op will reveal the true colors of anyone daring to pick up a colored pawn. Play this game with a stranger to get to know them.” - Best of 2021: Trekking the National Park
“We are really enjoying this game. At first the set-up seemed a little daunting, but after doing it once, it’s fairly simple. It was fun to learn about the parks as we played and it encouraged family conversation about traveling. A unique game!”
Best Board Game of 2004
- Explore — Ticket to Ride is a cross-country train adventure board game in which players collect and play matching train cards to claim railway routes connecting cities through North America! The original Ticket to Ride is perfect for an experienced tabletop enthusiast, families, and those new to the hobby. Simple rules and beautiful design make it easy for anyone to play and have fun! Further, these features also make it one of the best adventure family board games.
- How To Play — In this adventure board game players compete to connect iconic cities across the United States by claiming railway routes on the map board. The person with the highest number of total points wins! To earn points on their cross-country train adventure, players claim routes between two cities, complete Destination Tickets, and compete to claim the longest continuous path of routes across the map. A player will claim a route between two cities by playing matching train cards equal to the number of spaces in the route. Missing a specific color card? Try using the powerful Locomotive card that can be used as any color.
- Bonus — While connecting cities, keep an eye on your routes! If you manage to have the longest continuous path on the map board, you will earn bonus points at the end of the game. Earn additional points by completing Destination Tickets. These cards will ask you to connect specific cities through whatever route necessary. However, be careful because any Destination Ticket left uncompleted will result in negative points!
Best Board Game of 2005
Players: 3 - 5
- Game Play — This fun board game is played on a hinged board designed to sit atop the game box and represent Niagara Falls as a flap hanging over the box edge. The river is represented using clear plastic discs in a grooved surface, allowing board spaces to move downstream toward the waterfall.
- How To Play — Players collect gems along a river. Players move canoes to transport the gems, and can steal gems from other players’ canoes. They may also influence the speed with which the board spaces move downstream. The first player to acquire four gems of one colour, or one of each of the five colours, or seven gems of any colour, is the winner. Although the game box states that gems closer to the waterfall are of higher value, the game treats all colours equally.
Best Board Game of 2006
- Explore — This classic game comes with a board which is a map of southern Germany and nearby parts of other countries; it is marked into nine provinces, most of which are grouped into five regions. The map shows 22 cities and a network of roads connecting them. Each player has a supply of 20 markers (houses) to place on the cities. Each city may be marked once by each player and the markers remain in place.
- Objective — During the game, players seek to build postal networks and post offices in Bavaria and surrounding areas, as did the house of Thurn und Taxis in the 16th century.
Best Board Game of 2007
- Explore — The premise of this board game is that each player is the owner of a zoo, and must collect animals in order to attract visitors to their zoo. Having full, or nearly full, animal enclosures scores more points. However, if a player has too many animals as they must be stored in their barn, this causes them to lose points. Vending stalls also offer a means for players to score points with enclosures that are not full.
Best Board Game of 2008
- Pleasant and Fun Game— This multi-player board game, based on the same theme as Knizia’s two-player card game Lost Cities, is pleasant to play and is in no way hectic. Players put up matching cards or descending into their deck and move the stones on the board.
- Expansion Option — With the expansion, the board game also enriches without completely changing it.
- How To Play — Players can score points by playing cards, which must be played in ascending or descending order. Each turn, a card is played which advances the player’s token along a stone path. Playing only 1 to 3 cards in a color results in negative points for that color. Each card played improves a player’s score, and when at least 4 cards of one color have been played, positive points are scored for that path. Each player records progress using tokens. One token is taller, and points it collects are doubled. Players can get extra points by collecting stones or landing on bonus squares during the game.
Best Board Game of 2009
- Daring Adventure — You are rich with life experiences, but have had trouble trading them for goods and services. It’s time to seek your fortune, or anyone’s really — whoever’s is closest. To the west there’s a land of milk and honey, full of giant bees and monstrous cows; to the east, a land of eggs and licorice; to the north, treacherous swamps; to the south, loyal jungles. But all of them have been thoroughly pillaged.
- Explore — This adventure board game comes with limitless imaginations. You’ve heard legends, though, of a fifth direction as yet unspoiled, with its treasures conveniently gathered into troves. You have your sword and your trail mix, handed down from your father, and his father before him. You’ve recruited some recruits and hired some hirelings; you’ve shined your armor and distressed a damsel. You put up a sign saying “Gone Adventuring”. Then you put up another sign, saying “Beware of Dog”, in case people get any ideas. You’re ready. You saddle up your trusty steed, and head florist.
- Features — Dominion: Adventures, the ninth addition to the game of Dominion, contains 400 cards, 60 tokens and six mats. This expansion has 30 new Kingdom cards, including the return of Duration cards that do things on future turns, plus Reserve cards that can be saved for the right moment. There are also 20 Event cards that give you something to buy besides cards, including tokens that modify cards.
Best Board Game of 2010
- Classic Board Game — The classic, lighthearted game of storytelling and guesswork where your imagination unlocks the tale. The gorgeous, imaginative artwork on the cards inspires players to create brief stories.
- How To Play — Each round, one player selects a card from their hand, thinks up a sentence inspired by the card, then places the card face down. The other players all choose cards that they think match the sentence and place them face down. The cards are shuffled and then revealed. Players secretly vote for the card that best matches the narrator’s story, and the player whose card is chosen, scores points.
- Features — The cards feature original art that depicts fantastical, dreamlike situations, meant to inspire storytelling. Of course the real victory is not in gaining points but in sharing a creative experience with your family and friends! Every picture tells a story – but what story will your picture tell?
Best Board Game of 2011
- Explore — Qwirkle is a simple board game of matching colors and shapes that requires tactical maneuvers, quick-thinking and a well-planned strategy. Qwirkle combines the game play of Dominoes and Scrabble and is the perfect combination of skill and chance! This easy-to-learn, yet challenging game for children and adults will have all generations on the edge of their seat! It’s simplicity makes it one of the best family board games ever.
- Entertaining & Educational — This simple family board game lets families enjoy the competition and learn along the way. Qwirkle enhances many skills for young and old alike including color recognition, shape recognition, math strategy and problem solving.
- How To Play — A typical board game of Qwirkle lasts about 45 minutes–longer when you’re first learning how to play–and players will likely catch on to the rules in no time at all. The game can be set up anywhere, although a large tabletop is best to accommodate the generous number of tiles. The only other thing you’ll need is a pencil and paper to keep track of everyone’s point count. Each tile has an illustration on the back (circle, eight-point star, four-point star, square, clover, or diamond). Each of these symbols appears in six different colors (red, yellow, orange, green, blue, and purple). In total, the game has three tiles each of the 36 possible color-symbol combinations. To help make sure you don’t lose any tiles in between games, Qwirkle comes with a drawstring storage pouch which is also used during game play.
Best Board Game of 2012
- Strategy Board Game for Families — In Kingdom Builder the players create their own Kingdoms by skillfully building their settlements and aiming to earn the most gold at the end of the game. A highly variable game board and varying scoring conditions will ensure that you won’t be playing the same game ever, unless you want to.
- How To Play — Build your Kingdom and expand into five different terrains: grass, canyon, desert, flower field and forest. The composition of the game board varies with every game! Play a terrain card and place three settlement on unoccupied spaces of the corresponding terrain. Gain extra actions by placing settlements adjacent to locations. The Kingdom Builder cards determine the amount of gold the players gain at the end of the game. Each Kingdom Builder card is evaluated for each player.
Best Board Game of 2013
- Cooperative Game — In this challenging cooperative card game, players work together to launch a spectacular firework display. Trouble is, it’s dark out, so you can’t really see what you are working with. Each player holds their cards so that only the other players can see them. They must give each other vital information and remember all the information received. Then use the information to choose which cards to play. Helping each other play the right cards at the right time is the key to creating an unforgettable show and avoid being booed by the audience.
- Clever Destruction Card Game — Each player is dealt a hand of 5 cards, but the catch is that you can see everyone’s cards except your own. Working together, you must share (and remember!) vital information to play cards in the proper launch sequence. Light them all to create a dazzling display and avoid a fizzling fiasco!
Best Board Game of 2014
- Stunning Art-Work — The ancient board game has stunning art-work. With beautiful pop-up tree that stands out. The Egyptian theme comes out nicely by the pop-up palm trees, the great dice roll pyramid and ofcourse the camels! The component quality is good/premium. The camels stack nicely on top of each others. The pyramid dice roll is amazing.
- Features — Welcome to the craziest camel race you’ll ever see! The award winning game about the craziest camel race, just got even crazier! The race now includes new contestants – camels that are so confused that they start the race running in the wrong direction! That’s not all that’s new! The track has been significantly enhanced since your last visit – it now includes new art and components. So let the fun begin!
- Game Play — Game is very simple to teach. You have 5 colored dice to control which camels moves by how many steps. There is one dice to control two crazy camels which run backwards. If a camel lands on top of another crazy camel, it could move backwards along with crazy camels!
The game is highly luck-based and is supposed to be some fun time with friends and family, where you just sit back, sip on beers and watch those crazy camels run every which way! One could say that people with good maths and probability calculation would do well in the game by predicting what color die are left in the pyramid, and what outcomes are possible, but that’s just as far as it goes. The dice rolls are random, player actions could change that with +1, -1 tiles, the crazy camels could disrupt your planning and bunch of other factors! - Fun and Unique — Every game you play will be unique and full of laughs. The excitement of rolling a die as to what would fall out of the pyramid and then waiting to see what face would be at the top (1/2/3). It just adds to the excitement. There would be games where one camel would come out of the blocks running ahead of everybody else, just to end of on top of a crazy camel which takes it backwards!
Best Board Game of 2015
- Explore — On the 11th of July, 1899 the Union Pacific Express leaves Folsom, New Mexico with 47 passengers. You’re going to rob that train. Only problem, you’ve got competition. In Colt Express, you play a bandit robbing a train at the same time as other bandits. Your goal is to become the richest outlaw in the old west. Just look out for the Marshall! Rounds are broken into two parts, Schemin’ and Stealin’. During the Schemin’ phase you lay down action cards that you want to execute during the round to a common pile. In the Stealin’ phase the pile is flipped and the cards are resolved in order.
- How To Play — In this adventure board game players compete to connect iconic cities across the United States by claiming railway routes on the map board. The person with the highest number of total points wins! To earn points on their cross-country train adventure, players claim routes between two cities, complete Destination Tickets, and compete to claim the longest continuous path of routes across the map. A player will claim a route between two cities by playing matching train cards equal to the number of spaces in the route. Missing a specific color card? Try using the powerful Locomotive card that can be used as any color.
- Cool Features — All of the action takes place on the super cool 3D train. You’re able to move from car to car and even climb on to the top of the train to get the goods and avoid the law. Each of the different characters has a special ability that will give them an advantage other the competition.
- Splendid Board Game — This is an absolutely splendid game with just about the right amount of luck involved so that you feel like your planning is influencing the game, but if you lose you can just shrug and curse your misfortune. Fun and fast-paced, and even quite young kids can join in. A little bit cartoon-violent, I suppose, but I guess that’s just the wild west for you!
Best Board Game of 2016
- Explore — Codenames is a social word game with a simple premise and challenging game play. Two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their codenames. The teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the table. Their teammates try to guess words of their color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin. The game works very well with 4 players if you prefer to guess without help. Or you can add more players if you prefer lively discussion. There is also a cooperative variant where a single team tries to achieve the highest score they can by playing against the game itself.
- Fun Play — The two rival spymasters know the secret identities of 25 agents. Their teammates know the agents only by their Codenames. The teams compete to see who can make contact with all of their agents first. Spymasters give one-word clues that can point to multiple words on the board. Their teammates try to guess words of the right color while avoiding those that belong to the opposing team. And everyone wants to avoid the assassin. Codenames: win or lose, it’s fun to figure out the clues.
Best Board Game of 2017
- Explore — ‘Kingdomino’ lifts the time-honoured principle of dominoes to a new level – without losing any of the sleek elegance of its predecessor. On the contrary: the dual mechanics of planning the far-reaching lands surrounding the castle and the clever method of selecting tiles fit together extraordinarily well, they are expertly reduced to their essential components. The strong two-player variant with an XXL kingdom rounds off this quick and easy-to-learn gaming experience.
- An Instant Family Favorite — Players take on the role of Lords seeking new lands to expand their kingdom. As with ‘Dominoes’, these new lands must match the landscape tiles that have already been played. You need to create large areas of the same landscape type. But these will only score points if there is at least one crown on a tile. Points for each landscape type are calculated at the end of the game by multiplying these two together: so the number of squares times the number of crowns. Before this however, you’ll need to pay attention to your choice of tile, which decides the order of play for the following round. Taking a good tile now means you’ll play later next time. Each round presents the players with new important decisions as to which tile they should take.
- Unique Strategy Board Game — Kingdomino is a terrific adaptation of classic dominoes. It has a ton of replay value and a surprising amount of strategy.
Best Board Game of 2018
- Explore — This fun-filled family board game revolves around picking up tiles and placing them to score points, that is the most simplistic explanation. The game start off slowly without much tension, but as your board fills up the game becomes pretty cutthroat as you try to force your opponent to take tiles that will cause them to lose points while mitigating the point loss on your own board. It requires thinking ahead and critical thinking. It’s a fantastic board game that takes 1 round to teach, and many rounds to develop a strategy. No wonder, it was awarded with the best family board games of 2018.
- Best Board Game of 2018 — Azul was the proud winner of the 2018 Spiel des Jahres, the most prestigious prize in board gaming! The award recognises games that are great for players of all ages and levels of experience – and it’s an assurance of fun and quality.
- How To Play — Azul is a tile-placement family board game in which players compete for the highest score by claiming tiles and arranging them on their board to score points. Extra points are on offer for collecting sets of the same color of tile, or for creating particular patterns, while there are penalties for taking tiles that you’re unable to use. But every tile that you claim affects what your rivals can take next. You’ll have to make choices that help you without helping them too much!
Best Board Game of 2019
- Cooperative Board Game — Just One is a cooperative party game in which players discover as many mystery words as possible. One of the players draws a card without looking at it and randomly chooses a number from 1 to 5.
- Super Fun — Secretly write a clue on your easel, then compare your easels and cancel any identical clues. Show the remaining easels to the player so that they can guess the Mystery Word! Find the best clue to help your teammate, but be unique, as all identical clues will be cancelled!
- Guess — Includes 550 words to guess (and make others guess) and quality erasable markers to write clues. Can you guess The Mystery Word?
Best Board Game of 2020
- Cooperative Board Game — Only through teamwork will you keep the world safe from outbreaks and epidemics. Your team must work together and plan carefully to stem the tide of infection while working toward finding the cures.
- Strategy Game — Players must work together playing to their characters’ strengths as they plan their strategy of eradicating the diseases before they overwhelm the world with ever-increasing outbreaks. A truly cooperative fun board game where you win or lose together.
- Work Together and Save the Humanity — Four diseases threaten the world, and your elite team of specialists must find a cure for each of them before it’s too late. Everyone must work together applying their unique character skills to benefit the team—and the world.
Best Board Game of 2021
- Award Winning Board Game — This adventure family board game is winner of the Mensa And Parent’s Choice Award.
- Created by National Park Enthusiasts — This couple traveled to every single national park and then worked with their son to make the game.
- Fun and Educational — It’s the perfect recipe for a family game night! Appeals to a wide range of people: outdoor lovers, board game players, and gift givers. One of the best board games for kids 8-12 and up!
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