Top 10 New To Me Board Games of 2025

10. Schadenfreude

One of the few games that I didn’t play first or only play on Board Game Arena (BGA). Schadenfreude is a trick taking game but one with some weird rules. You want to be second in the game. If you win the trick you aren’t getting the points. Instead whomever comes in second gets the trick and scores their card and any that don’t follow suit. Some cards are going to give you positive points and some are going to be worth negative points.

But what I really love beyond that with the game is that as you get points you are trying to get as close to 40 total points as you can. This is something that might take a few hands. But the game is over in the hand where someone goes over forty points. If you go over forty points, you lose the game, you can’t win anymore, instead it’s the person who is the closest without going over who is the winner of the game. It’s a neat little twist on trick taking.

9. Pirates of Maracaibo

The biggest of the board games on the list just in terms of what is going on, Pirates of Maracaibo is the first of three games that I just always have a game of going on BGA. That’s because I constantly play it with one other person and it’s just always going. I love it when I come across someone who wants to keep playing a game so I can really learn it.

Pirates of Maracaibo is all about being a pirate, getting treasure, hiring crew, upgrading your ship, and exploring lands. There is a lot going, but almost all of it is pretty simple to learn and play. There are a few things that I want to get better at with the game, and that one person, I still haven’t beaten them. But I have gotten close so I think I will one day. But the game, when you know it, is thinky but fast to play and I really enjoy the theme and different strategies in the game.

8. Space Base

I owned Space Base and then I sold Space Base, why because I wasn’t playing it. I like to try a game before I sell them, but I just wasn’t playing it. And I had played games like Machi Koro and Valeria and those were fine. Then I played it on BGA and now I love it. I love it so much that I got it back into my collection and I have played it already.

The game is roll dice, activate spots, get income, buy cards and upgrade those spots. But I really like how as you play, you improve what you do on your opponents turn. When you upgrade a spot, the old cards flip vertically and now they activate a different ability on your opponents turn. And it is a race to see who can get points the fastest.

There are some trickier cards to teach in the game. But I think you can teach them as they come up. And once you know the handful of basic cards, the game is easy to play. And I like it a bunch more than Machi Koro which is fun, but feels slightly limited. This one feels like it was created with more purpose.

7. Symbiose

The second of three games that I have a standing game on BGA. Symbiose reminds me of games like Silver or games that I grew up playing with a deck of cards. In those you start with face down cards and you want to get rid of them and get rid of points. In this case, you start with face down cards and you want to build out an optimized scoring set-up.

I love how scoring works in this game. It’s a two by four grid, so two high and four wide. And the middle four cards, the middle two in each row, they are the ones that score for you. So the scoring on the bottom half of the card is what matters. And they score your whole grid. But to the left and right, those score your opponents to your left and right. So you need to decide when you flip those cards over and swap them. It’s simple but such a fun game.

6. The Guild of Merchant Explorers

I thought at one point that The Guild of Merchant Explorers could end up as #1 on this list. It is the game that I have played the most thus far this year. And that is because I love it on BGA. I often set-up a number of two player games because they go really fast and you don’t feel like you lose anything. Plus I play with a group of two others where we just have a standing game. So when one game ends a new one begins.

Watch me play it below and see if it’s for you. But I love how simple it is once you know how the game works. I think it’s even a very simple teach.

5. Kingdom Legacy: Feudal Kingdom

You saw me play through this on Malts and Meeples. And you can catch-up on that and watch it down below. This is a solo legacy game where you want to build out the best kingdom possible. You flip out cards and then you spend those cards to upgrade other cards. It’s all about managing your deck and setting it up so that you gain stronger actions. Of course there is a lot that you want to manage and you decide what scoring and what paths you go down in the game. I already bought another copy to play it again.

4. The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

Do you love Lord of the Rings, this game is steeped in theme. Do you love trick-taking? Well this one is cooperative and pretty different in how it plays. Because you play through The Fellowship of the Ring with different characters depending on where you are in the book. And each character is going to want to win tricks in a different way, maybe a certain number of tricks, maybe a certain suit. So it is very tricky and changing and works really well. I want to dive into this more with a group of people.

The one thing I will say is that I think that The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game is not an introduction to trick taking. It is a very good game, but because there isn’t communication you need to have some idea of how trick taking works. It is too easy, otherwise to just repeat the same chapter over and over again. Because like a game like Euchre, you want to tell your teammate, in this case everyone that you have or don’t have.

3. Zenith

Zenith is a great two player game where you are battling for favor on planets. But there is more going on with it than just that. I really like how you battle for one of three different planet victory conditions. You can gain favor three times from one planet, once from four different planets, or five total favor tokens. But you do that by card play to gain favor, going up a technology track, and then spending cards to manage other things like gaining more income or more cards on your side of the board.

I really feel like every time that I play Zenith the game is different. And that is what I love about it so much. I don’t feel like I found a strategy that is going to work every time. I sometimes go for all favor from a single planet by playing cards. Or I might try and get a lot of technology/research done and manipulate the board that way. But the game is really good at making you adapt as you go and it is tense as you battle for favor with your opponent.

2. Clank! Catacombs

The last two are kind of “cheats” so to speak. Clank! Catacombs is just a new version of Clank a game that I already know I love. This push your luck deck building game is really now just modular. The game does change in a few other ways but it is mainly that it now adds in a modular board. And I like that element that the game is going to be different each time you play it. In base Clank you might find your optimized path and strategy. Here the game is going to be different each time. And you decide how it is going to be different based off of how you explore it.

1. Marvel Dice Throne: X-Men

It’s almost unfair to have this on the list. I know that I love Marvel. And I know that I love dice Throne. So of course I love the combination. But it’s still new to me this year and I still really enjoy it. Plus I get to play as Gambit which is always a win for me. I won’t spend much more time on it than that because you know what Dice Throne, battle Yahtzee with special powers and cards. But yes, the new X-Men stuff is good. And I’m excited for even more of it to be coming in.

The Whole List

Thoughts on the Board Games Outside of the Top 10

I like most of the board games that I’ve played new this year. I think that beyond maybe the bottom 11 of them I want to play most of them again. Karvi is an interesting one and it’s on that edge. I played it once and I need to play it more. But I’m not 100% sure that I understood everything and I messed up my first play. There is an interesting track where you go around and take your actions. But you can go as far forward as you want. I didn’t understand where the starting point . So I’m not sure if it is a game that I’ll love or not.

But just outside the Top 10 I want to highlight a few board games. I just wrote my review for Scratch & Catch, which is #17 and I think the game is a really fun filler game. I like the different strategies and plans that players can have in the game. Also Knister and #13 is such a simple roll and write game, but while it is very lucky, as a lot of roll and write games are, I think it’s a very good one to play.

And one final one because I’m not sure where it will and is Apiary. Right now it is sitting very much in the middle at #36. But I think it could rise. I also think it could drop. I just don’t know because I need to play it in person. And when I play it in person that means that I need to learn the rules better so I can teach it. And it feels like a game where nothing is too complex but there is a lot going on. So that is a bit intimidating for the teach.

Final Thoughts

My goal at the start of the year was to learn 50 new board games. I’m well past that at this point. And I plan now to shoot for 100 new board games. If I keep up a pace of 1 per week I won’t quite make it there. But already this week I learned three new board games, all of them on the list. So it isn’t like I’m running behind on that and running behind on learning new board games.

That is a new game that you really have loved this year? It doesn’t have to be from 2025, it just needs to be a new game for you. Let me know that down in the comment section below.

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Protagonists

These are the good guys, the main characters of your story — for that reason, they are generally more developed than most other characters. But it still takes some work to write a compelling protagonist. It comes down to a bunch of questions that you have to ask about your character.

Let’s take the example of the “nobody-to-hero” story; it’s a great one for asking these questions.

Why is this character going on their quest? Is saving their town enough of a reason? Are they avenging their family? Or is there some other reason? Why do they continue? Look at The Lord of the Rings — Frodo’s journey was to the Council of Elrond. He didn’t know that, and he didn’t have to continue after that point — so why did he? What inspired him to continue to Mordor? Anything that the protagonist does needs to have more reasoning behind it than just that they are the protagonist. Good guys are never just good guys for the sake of it. The reasoning doesn’t have to be perfect all the time, and you can hand-wave once in a while and say, that’s just the way it is. But if you develop a world where the characters have reasons behind what they do, we’ll be more forgiving as readers.

Also, along with why the protagonist is doing their good thing, you also have to ask, what are their flaws? For an example of how this is done poorly (not in fantasy), we’ll look at Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The main character in the book has no real flaws. The author offers him one part way through the book, saying that the protagonist is claustrophobic, but it is dealt with almost immediately, so that it isn’t an issue. While claustrophobia is a problem, it’s not a true character flaw, and the story needed to have more character development for and more issues with the main character than that. Another example of what not to do is in Divergent. The main characters flaws of the protagonist are generally that she’s small and clumsy. Those don’t have anything to do with her character, and they can hardly even be seen as flaws. So when you are writing a story, ask yourself, what are my character’s personality flaws?

If you have a character who has issues, and who has a reason for going on their quest, then you’ll start to have a story with real depth. But it can’t stop there. If Frodo had been the only character with depth in The Lord of the Rings, it would have been a really poor trilogy. But every character in the Fellowship goes through their own story and growth. Sam was loyal to a fault to Frodo. Pippin and Merry went from fun-loving Hobbits to making serious decisions and going into battle. As you write, think about your side character’s motivations and arcs as well.

Now, there is an issue that often arises with this. It is very possible and fairly easy to get too far into the weeds. These side characters, while important and in need of depth, are not the main character unless it is truly an ensemble cast of characters. There aren’t that many stories like that, and even in the world of comic books and comic book movies, we mainly see The Avengers as an example of this style. While that is an ensemble cast of characters, it tends to focus in on different characters at different points in time. In Age of Ultron, there was a very strong focus on the rift developing between Captain America and Tony Stark, but Hawkeye was there to bring them all back together. So even if you go with an ensemble of characters, stay fairly focused. Don’t get lost in the weeds making everyone have a massive amount of story. If they have a reason for doing the things they do, that is enough backstory.

And one last piece of advice — don’t be afraid to kill off your good characters. Too often in shows and books, you know early on who is going to die and who isn’t. If it’s a side character who is friends with the main protagonist but you don’t write them as a believable character, we know that they are going to die early on, and the character has lost credibility. Every character, no matter who they are, needs to be a credible character in the world you’ve created. And depending on your world, sometimes you have to show that the world is dangerous. You don’t need to take it to George R. R. Martin levels where you are killing off every character, but making the reader worry about the characters can add depth and realism to your story.

So now that you’ve started telling the story and have an idea for your plot, sit down and think about the reasoning behind your main character’s actions, and why they would jump into the story you are going to tell. What is the important piece of backstory that is going to develop your protagonist into something more than a cardboard cutout?

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But what makes a good plot? What makes a plot that you want to build a story around? It isn’t too difficult — you get a story idea in your head, and you go for it. If you want to tell the epic story of the unsuspecting hero, do it. If you want to tell a story of how the king had to rise up against the evil forces that were without or within, write that story. There are plenty of big picture stories out there — the epic quest, something forgotten coming back, etc., and those are great stories to write.

Now, haven’t most of those stories been done before — and done to death? No, not really — and absolutely, all at the same time. I could write up my reasoning for it, but this quote sums it up well:

Every story has already been told. Once you’ve read Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time, you understand that there is really no reason to ever write another novel. Except that each writer brings to the table, if she will let herself, something that no one else in the history of time has ever had.

-Anna Quindlen [Commencement Speech; Mount Holyoke College, May 23, 1999]

While the big pictures, the big ideas, have really all been covered, how you tell your story, and the moments, characters, and places that you create, are all yours.

That is what helps separate some fantasy series from others. Books like The Inheritance Cycle series by Christopher Paolini or Sword of Shanarra by Terry Brooks really rip off other book and movie series like Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. But then there are series like A Song of Ice and Fire, in which George R. R. Martin creates an epic story that is purely its own, and breaks down the specifics of the politics, jealousy, and violence that fill it.

This is the hard part of writing a story — the line between borrowing a little, but not borrowing too much. By borrowing an epic story of the unsuspecting or unlikely hero but making the hero’s actions their own, you don’t end up with another Lord of the Rings. But if you decide to make a single spot where the bad guy who is thought to be dead is coming back, and you are spending time adventuring with your group of dwarves, elves, and a mystic of some sort, you might want to rethink how you are writing (p.s. we know it is still The Fellowship of the Ring if you gender swap characters, or make the elves seafaring, or whatever you try to do to hide it).

So, how do you set your story apart? How do you make it so that you aren’t ripping someone off and running with a story that has been told before? Build it around who you are. Now, that doesn’t mean I should go around naming all of my main characters “Peder” or something — what I’m saying is that I have life experiences that other people don’t. I’ve been through things in a different way than other people have. No two people have lived life exactly the same. So write loosely from your life experiences, and pick and choose carefully.

Another thing to do is borrow broadly. If you take from 30 different fantasy books and work the pieces together into your story, you probably won’t get accused of stealing. But when you do this, grab small things. If you like the idea of the main characters narrating his story, borrow that idea from Patrick Rothfuss, but don’t make him a kid whose parents died and who is on a revenge quest. If you want the main character to have a companion, don’t make it a whole fellowship or a gardener with a heart of gold, like in J.R.R. Tolkien’s stories.

So now you have a general idea and you are ready to start writing your story down. How do you keep track of all the details/movement of the plot? The most common answer, and the one that works for most people, is to create an outline. Now, I’ll say that I’m terrible at doing that, so I don’t, so not outlining your plot or blog posts is also a valid option. But some form of written outline is going to be helpful for keeping track of your writing. With an outline, you are going to have to get a feel for how much data you need. Maybe you need general terms about the big events that will shape your story. Maybe you write out what each chapter is going to be about. You’ll see lots of things about how to write a proper outline, but my advice is to go as detailed as you need to — you can always cut things later.

And with outlining and writing your plot, one thing to remember is that sometimes you have to kill your darlings, as they say. The scene that you loved the best and was a good fit at first may no longer work for you. Instead of trying to shoehorn it in, take those pages and set them aside. Literally pull them from the document if you are writing by hand, or cut them from your Google doc and put them in a separate one. However, don’t throw away these scenes; you never know what they might inspire in the future. Just because they aren’t right for one book, doesn’t mean that they won’t fit in somewhere else.

Hopefully these tips on plot creation will get you inspired to start devising a story of your own — and stay tuned for the next article in this series, which will be on characters. Creating characters will really help you flesh out your plot and make a basic plot into something that is uniquely you.

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