20 great board games from 2014
There was a multitude of amazing designs in 2014.
One of my favorite traditions I’ve built for myself at Don’t Eat the Meeples is the retrospective look at previous years in board game releases. While I’ve typically looked back five years, this time around, I’m glancing back a full decade.
The reasons for that are twofold: First, I think there were a lot of very interesting games released in 2014. Second, I’ve played a lot of those games. I haven’t played every game released in 2014, but I played a fair amount of the games that have stuck around. that gives me a bit more interest in talking about the year, so here we are.
Without further ado, 20 great games from the year 2014.
KLASK is a wildly fun game that feels like nothing else on this list. Some might call it a dexterity game, and that might be right — still, would you call air hockey a dexterity game? This is that sort of game, but it comes in a box. Using a ‘striker’ (which consists of a magnetic piece on top of the board and a magnetic piece below the board), you’ll aim for a relatively simple goal: Knock the ball into a hole on the opponent’s side of the table. There’s a bit more than that, but I’ll let you discover it for yourself. There are great YouTube videos out there. Designed by Mikkel Bertelsen,.
Onitama is a two-player abstract game that takes the general feeling of Chess and distills it into a five-piece duel. Rather than pieces having unique moves, players rotate through five types of moves each game, passing them between each other as they’ve been used. Capture your opponent’s pieces to win — just be careful that you’re not putting yourself in a dangerous position, because your opponent might benefit from the move you give them. Designed by Shimpei Sato.
If breezy deck-building games are your thing, Star Realms is a great option. It’s got a simple set of ideas it’s toying with: Different alien species have different sorts of powers, and if you play alien species together, they tend to be more powerful. You’re not encumbered with the need to buy just one thing a round, and the market from which you buy is constantly shifting. It’s definitely not as strategic as plenty other deck builders, but it’s a fun, short option. Designed by Robert Dougherty and Darwin Kastle.
One of my favorite party games, Spyfall, landed in 2014, and it’s been a good go-to with large(ish) groups. The premise is simple: Everyone gets a card from a little stack. All but one of those cards shows a single location. The remaining card shows a spy. The spy’s role is to figure out where they are, and everyone else is trying to find the spy. Sure, the theme sort of disconnects from reality if you think too hard, but it’s fun, and I’ll happily overlook that sort of thing if a game is fun. Designed by Alexandr Ushan.
Sheriff of Nottingham has stayed one of my absolute favorite bluffing games, in part because it’s a game you can play without having to actually bluff. Players are goods traders attempting to smuggle goods past a nosy sheriff, with each player taking a turn as the sheriff, declaring each day what type of good they have in their bag, as well as the number of that good. You might declare you have five apples in your bag, but imagine if you lied about that. Well, that would be a travesty — if you get caught. Should the sheriff accusing you of lying and opening your bag of goods, you’ll have to pay a fee for the smuggled items, which are then confiscated. If you weren’t lying, then the sheriff pays you. But maybe the sheriff is willing to listen to reason, and maybe they’ll take a little bribe to not open your bag. If you ever play this game with me, expect lots of nervous laughter, whether I’m telling the truth or telling a lie. Designed by Sérgio Halaban and André Zatz.
Patchwork is a game that had an incredible trajectory in 2014, making recommendation lists for two-player games ever since. It’s a simple tile-laying game with a cool time track mechanic. You’re creating a quilt on your board by selecting and placing polyomino tiles while trying to keep the amount of space between your tiles at a minimum. Some tiles you select will advance you on the track further than others, and as it’s always the turn of the player trailing the other, you might end up with an opportunity to take multiple turns in a row. The game’s popularity was such that it’s been produced with alternate art over and over since — Americana patterns; Christmas, Halloween, and Valentine’s Day patterns; Greek, Polish, Scandinavian, Korean, Chinese and Taiwanese folk patterns — the list is fairly endless. (They’re all pretty neat, but I don’t think you need to own every one of them. The game plays the same no matter the pattern. Maybe if you love it that much, you’d enjoy that? I don’t know.) Designed by Uwe Rosenberg.
Maskmen is a climbing-shedding game with a great theme and a better twist: None of the cards have values, just suits, which are represented by different colors and lucha libre wrestlers. Each round, the relative ranking of suits is determined in an interesting way, and I’m going to struggle my way through explaining how it works. Players play between one and three cards, and like a standard climbing game, what you play must be stronger than the cards previously played. Because there are no values, and there’s no inherent ranking of the colors, to discover the relative rank of the suit, you’ll have to stage a bout — play more cards of a different suit than what’s previously been played, and you’ll know that suit is stronger. That’s really all there is to it. You can end up with multiple rank ladders as you try to assess the relative strength of each wrestler, and it can be a bit of a weird one to explain. I think Taylor of Taylor’s Trick Taking Table does a better job explaining this one, so maybe watch that if you read the rules and are still confused. It really isn’t that difficult to grasp, but there’s just enough weirdness going on that you’ll probably benefit from a trial run or a how-to-play video. Designed by Taiki Shinzawa, published by Oink Games.
If you’re a fan of Maskmen — or even if you’re not, but you recognize the interesting qualities of the design — give Taiki Shinzawa’s Charms a whirl. Originally published as Dois in Japanese and republished in 2024 by New Mill Industries, this is a trick-taker in which cards have either a suit or a rank, but never both. You’ll be playing in two separate stacks, one of which represents the suit of your played card in the trick, and one of which represents the rank. It’s also a must-follow game, so you might be obligated to play a suit card if you’re not already on-suit. A bit unusual? It’s clear this was a great year for Taiki Shinzawa experimentation. Designed by Taiki Shinzawa.
Mr. Shinzawa also published Luz in 2014, which is on my to-play list — it’s a trick-taking game in which you only know the suit of the cards in your hand, but everyone else knows the suit and the rank. I really need to get that one to the table. Designed by Taiki Shinzawa.
Paperback moves us away from trick-taking, but it keeps us firmly focused on card games. This is a word-building deck-builder, and it’s a great addition to the mechanic’s canon. You’ll draw five cards every round (until you get cards that give you opportunities to do more), and you’ve got to spell a word with those letters. You’ll earn money for doing so, which will allow you to buy more cards and spell more words to earn even more money. The cards you buy will have special abilities, and eventually, you’ll end up buying cards that provide you points. It’s a clever little game. Designed by Tim Fowers and published by Fowers Games.
Ten more great games from 2014
Diamonds — a must-follow trick-taking game where playing off-suit gives you special powers. It’s not the ultimate in trick-taking, but it’s nice!
Splendor — set collection, where the cards you collect grant you gems, which increase your buying power. This became a sensation of a game, and with good reason. These days, I mostly play the solo mode in the app. It’s great.
Scoville — a strategic chili-growing game with a grid of chili peppers and an interesting auction. You’ll crossbreed peppers by moving through a grid garden as you fulfill various recipes.
Dead of Winter — a semi-cooperative zombie survival game with a potential hidden traitor and plenty of accompanying tension. It’s perhaps a little long in the tooth, but this game created a bunch of really great memories, and I think it’s got a lot to still offer.
Deep Sea Adventure — collect treasures from an ocean dive, but can you do it without depleting the oxygen of everyone on the boat? It’s not cooperative, but if you don’t cooperate, everyone loses.
Castles of Mad King Ludwig — build a wildly inefficient castle with a tile auction. Each turn, a player acts as the ‘master builder’, setting the prices for all the other players. They get whatever’s left over. Can you fulfill the whims of the mad king?
Orleans — a medieval worker placement game with bag-building, which is a description straight out of 2014. It’s a nice take on the genre.
Colt Express — you’re robbing a train! Rude. This is a programmed movement game where you’ll decide your actions simultaneous to the other players, but they’ll be executed in turn order.
Camel Up — a game in which you’re betting on camels? Great! There’s not much more to say, except that you shouldn’t let anyone try to convince you this game is called Camel Cup. It’s Camel Up.
Deception: Murder in Hong Kong — 4 to 12 investigators solve a murder case, but there’s a hidden traitor in your midst. Was 2014 the year of the hidden traitor? Hmm. It’s also the year Ultimate Werewolf was released. Interesting…
As always, thank you for joining me this week! If you’re not subscribing, I hope you’ll consider doing so. If you do, why not drop me a DM — here or elsewhere — and I’ll send you a Don’t Eat the Meeples sticker. Next week: Trying to learn a game? I’ve got some tips.
Patchwork and Castles of Mad King Ludwig are two of my all-time favorite games!