Eight great games from 2024

These eight games showcase the way board games push boundaries to create new experiences.

2024 was an incredible year for games. I wrote in the last month about some of my favorite gaming experiences, took a broad look at 2024, and addressed some of the games I still haven’t played from 2024. Reflecting on the year is one of my favorite ways to think about games, which seems like it’s probably exceedingly obvious to you all.

This week, I’m taking a close look at eight games from 2024 that I’d call ‘great’. My list ranges from a simple card game or two to things with a bit more meat, but we won’t get too heavy here, at least right now. Perhaps when my not-quite-two-year-old son is a teenager, we’ll get deep into heavy games. We’ve got time, though.

I’ve tried to pare this list down into something focused on specific great games. I could write about 30 games here if I wanted, but I think it’s more meaningful right now to keep a tighter focus. If any of this spurs thoughts for you, I’d love to hear them — especially if you’re going to recommend some games for me.

Some notes:

• This list is alphabetical. It’s not in a ranked order because I didn’t really want to choose. And I don’t typically in this yearly list. I like the idea of having a ‘best game of the year,’ but I think I’d need to play a lot more games. Instead, I’m just here to talk about some great games released this year. OK, I think we’re on the same page now.

• You’ll note there are no trick-taking games here. That’s not because there weren’t any great ones released in 2024 — in fact, it’s really because there were so many great ones released. I’ll be writing about those before long.

Right! On to the list.

Cascadia: Rolling Hills and Rolling Rivers

Who knew that a roll-and-write sequel to a hit strategy game would make my list? Not me before having played Cascadia: Rolling, which comes in two varieties, Rolling Hills and Rolling Rivers. Both games contain the same three maps of increasing complexity, with a different fourth map for the two boxes. The fourth is certainly the most complex, though they’re all approachable. In fact, the fourth map in Rolling Rivers is roughly analogous to Cascadia itself, and I’ve got to say, it’s a real accomplishment, transforming the game effectively into a roll-and-write game.

Perhaps the best feature of Cascadia: Rolling is that each of the five maps are played in roughly the same way: You’re collecting animals from dice rolled, then using those animals to complete goal cards, which allow you to fill spaces on your map corresponding to terrains on those goal cards. You can progress through the complexity as you desire, but you won’t have to relearn the system. Cascadia: Rolling could have been several games in a series, but instead, you get a box absolutely packed with gameplay. Yes, the two iterations are three-quarters the same, but I don’t think you need both — if you want to play something like Cascadia, get Rolling Rivers, but if you want to play in Craters of the Moon, Rolling Hills might be your best bet.

Designed by Randy Flynn, illustrated by Beth Sobel, published by Flatout Games.

Three great new roll-and-write games

The Gang

You know, everyone describes this as cooperative poker (and I’m included in everyone), and they’re largely right about it. I thought for a bit that maybe that was incorrect, and this game wasn’t cooperative poker, but a cooperative game with the idea of poker atop. You know, like The Mind, but poker-themed. I’ve come back around, though. (And really, I came back around after thinking for just a little bit.) The Gang is cooperative poker insofar as it takes the conceit of poker and adapts it into another mechanical format.

Poker, to my mind, has three major things going for it. First, there is the simple mechanics of play. You’re constructing a hand of cards according to a tiered ranking of hands, of which the least difficult to make are the least valuable, and the most difficult to make are the most valuable. The game is fairly deterministic in this way — you don’t make decisions about the cards in your hand in any particularly meaningful way. Second, you are trying to determine if you have the most valuable set of cards around the table, such that you can win some point-like thing, like chips. This is largely a statistical exercise. Third, you are attempting to communicate information about your hand such that you can convince other players they are holding less valuable hands, and thus should fold to your superiority.

The Gang manages to tick all three boxes. The first is basically identical in implementation. The second is similar, but your task is expanded: You must figure out the relative strength of your hand around the table. The third shifts the game a bit. You are attempting to communicate the strength of your hand accurately, and your only mode of communication is by taking a single chip each round, which marks your relative ranking among the other players.

It’s quite a game, The Gang. It makes me think, but it’s not deeply strategic. It’s almost a reflection on how communication in poker functions by shifting it from a competitive game to a cooperative one.

Designed by John Cooper and Kory Heath, illustrated by design studio Fiore GmbH, published by KOSMOS.

The Gang shines in its simplicity

Panda Panda

This is not a game that will blow your mind. It’s not a game that’ll make you rethink board games. But it is a game that you can play with young people who don’t have a lot of patience for rules or gaming experience, and I think it’s important to include a game like that on this year’s list. Plus — importantly — it is a good bit of fun.

Panda Panda is a simple card game in which you’re trying to craft your hand into one of a handful of winning conditions. The deck’s comprised of just letters A through G, with more As than Bs, more Bs than Cs — you get the idea. On your turn, you’ll be drawing a card then discarding a card. If the letter A is discarded, and given it’s the most common and not used in all that many winning hands, it’ll happen a lot, each player passes a card from their hand around the table. If you start your turn with a winning hand, you’ll win.

Like I said, Panda Panda is a simple game. That’s not a slight, but I do want to make sure it’s clear here. This is a breezy little card game, and I love it for that.

Designed by Kaya Miyano, illustrated by Sai Beppu, and published by Allplay.

River Valley Glassworks

I don’t routinely name a game of the year, but if I were to, I’d seriously consider putting River Valley Glassworks atop the heap. It’s a fairly lightweight abstract strategy game, and it’s one you could certainly teach to a broad set of players. This is not one of those ‘gamer’s games’ — as much as I love those. (Wyrmspan, which appears later by virtue of being alphabetically sorted after this one, fits that bill more. I digress.) This is a game you could take to play with your parents (although you should be the judge of that!), could teach your teenage children, or introduce to new friends.

River Valley Glassworks is a game with colorful, chunky pieces. You’re playing as anthropomorphic animals collecting glass tumbling down a river, which you’ll put into a collection. Your collection is laid out in a grid, with glass you collect placed in columns by color. As you collect a color you’ve not previously collected, you’ll start a new column. Columns further down the grid are worth more points, but you only earn points for your two highest columns and how full your rows are — so you’ll want to plan around when you’ll take more common pieces and when you take more rare pieces.

This is a smart, effective game. It plays quickly, but you’re always making little decisions. What you do early on will impact your chances of success, but because the game’s effective, it doesn’t feel punishing when you lose. Add in the rare expansion that actually extends the life of the game considerably, and I think you’ve got a strong contender for a new family favorite.

Designed by Adam Hill, Ben Pinchback and Matt Riddle; illustrated by Andrew Bosley; and published by Allplay.

Wyrmspan, River Valley Glassworks and Nocturne: Three great 2024 board games

Stamp Swap

I love games with slightly mundane themes, and Stamp Swap’s philately theme is one rarely explored in board games. A mundane theme alone does not a good game make, though, and it’s in other areas that Stamp Swap makes its mark. It’s a game that takes the idea of I Split, You Choose to a really great point. You’re grabbing stamps from a shared pool that shifts in construction each round then dividing them into two groups. Everyone at the table will get to pick one of the groups created by somebody else, with each player having only one group picked. At the end of each of the game’s three rounds, you’ll show the stamps you’ve collected to that point for points.

If the most important part of a stamp is the image, Stamp Swap follows accordingly. The art here feels like art you’d see on a vintage stamp. The production is clean, crisp and communicates the rules of the game effectively. I think I like looking at Stamp Swap as much as I like playing it.

Designed by Paul Salomon, illustrated by Conner Gillette, and published by Stonemaier Games.

Wilmot’s Warehouse

One of the most unusual games I played this year was spun out of a video game, which has been increasingly fertile ground for board game adaptations. Wilmot’s Warehouse — the video game — is a fast-paced, frenetic experience in which you’re organizing a warehouse. Wilmot’s Warehouse — the board game — isn’t fast, it’s cooperative, and you do still organize things a bit like a warehouse. The whole idea of the game is that you’ll be placing tiles on a grid face-down after looking at them, and at the end of the game, you’re tasked with remembering where each tile you placed ended up. The art’s a bit abstracted and simple, but each tile is distinctive. Wilmot’s Warehouse encourages you to tell stories to remember what’s placed where, and that activity becomes weird and wild. I love this game, and I love what it does on the table.

The weird stories of Wilmot's Warehouse

Wyrmspan

Wingspan, but a bit more. That’s how I’d describe Wyrmspan to an interested party. It effectively expands on the core mechanics of Wingspan, where you’re collecting cards (dragons, not birds this time around), adding them to a tableau, and trying to work your way toward building a more effective engine that allows you to do more each round than the round preceding it. Wyrmspan works for largely the same reasons Wingspan works, but it adds a bit of complexity in just the right places. It feels like you’re always building on what you’re doing, and there’s a stronger feeling of player agency.

Designed by Connie Vogelmann, developed by Elizabeth Hargrave, illustrated by Clémentine Campardou, and published by Stonemaier Games.

Things in Rings

Competitive Venn diagrams. Things in Rings is basically that, and it’s wild that a game with that pitch works. Each round, you have a Knower and some Guessers, plus between one and three rings. It’s the Guessers’ goal to uncover the subjects of each ring by placing an object card somewhere in the rings, and if it’s placed in the correct place in the diagram, the Guesser gets to place another card. If they got it wrong, they’ll draw another card. The first player to have no cards left in hand wins the game. Nice and simple, but the more rings you have — the game goes up to three, depending on the level of difficulty you want to play with — the harder it gets. You’ll find yourself racking your brain as you try to figure out why a chair fits in one circle but not in another. What a strange, innovative little game.

Designed by Peter Hayward, illustrated by Snow Conrad, and published by Allplay.

---

I hope you’ve had a great week, and I hope you have a great one coming up! Writing about my favorite games every year is a real treat, and I don’t think I’m done yet. Like I did last year, I’ll probably have a “more great games from 2024’ sort of list, because frankly, there’s still so much to be played. Two games nearly made this list to round it out to ten, but I’m just not quite there yet on Harmonies, which I haven’t yet played in-person but have played a ton online, and Let’s Go To Japan, which I just need a few more cycles on. My stack of games to play grows larger by the day, and I really do suspect that some of them are great. Here’s hoping, right?

Next week: Some great trick-taking campaign games, including one with a certain ring to it.