Best fantasy board games for 2020

David Priest / CNET

I love Gloomhaven so much that I tend to associate it with all the good things in life. Sunshine, dessert, a good night’s sleep, Gloomhaven – these are the basic needs of a happy life. And seriously, I can’t think of a better activity if you’re stuck at home and wanting a cooperative fantasy board game adventure. They take on the role of mercenaries in Gloomhaven, a dilapidated and dangerous city. In each game session, you and your friends cross a dungeon and fight dangerous monsters. You’ll make choices along the way that can help Gloomhaven thrive or go over the brink of destruction – yes, Gloomhaven is a legacy game, which means the world changes as you play. Your characters will also level up and become more powerful over time, and the scenarios will become more interesting as you venture further into history. I’ve literally invested hundreds of hours in this game and I’m still not fed up with it. The basic fight brings simple mechanics into harmony with deep strategy. The story is exciting without feeling like a playful novel. Gloomhaven is my favorite board game. If you’re stuck at home, I recommend trying this great game. – Andrew

Fantasy flying games

Before I heard about Gloomhaven, Legacy of Dragonholt helped fulfill my wish for a good, story-driven fantasy game. Although there is Gloomhaven, Legacy of Dragonholt deserves a place on your shelf, especially if you want more story and fewer components and combat mechanics. Dragonholt has optimized the previous gaming experience so that it is almost exclusively about the story. The game includes a stack of picture books, character sheets, cards and more so you can dive in better. You can play with up to six people and everyone is asked to make difficult decisions both in combat and when trying to solve the problems of this fantasy world. In the further course you activate certain check boxes on a tracker, with which further sections of the story are locked and unlocked depending on the selection. The game even takes into account the passage of time. You could miss your chance of a rescue mission if you don’t move fast enough. If you don’t want to deal with Gloomhaven’s setup, grab one of Legacy of Dragonholt’s picture books and embark on an adventure. – Andrew

Dan Ackerman / CNET

There are a lot of different versions of this series of popular board games. Whether in a prison, a hospital, or a ruined city, everyone has the same basic theme – an ever-growing group of zombies chases your crew around on a map as you run to the exit. This version is the universal favorite and takes the plot back to the Middle Ages. There is a handy app for iOS and Android that takes care of all the shuffling and inventorying of cards. This allows you to focus entirely on strategic thinking and fill the game board with plastic zombies. If you want more of one Living Dead Mood, there are also some excellent modern zombicide games like Prison Outbreak or Rue Morgue. There is a brand new standalone zombicide game for iOS and AndroidThis is also a fun game for subway rides, where putting up a huge game board would be frowned upon. – Dan

David Priest / CNET

Small World is one of my favorite games ever, simply because this tabletop game feels like a different kind of game every time you play it. Essentially, players are vying to take control of a high-risk board with too little space to accommodate everyone: hence the name. They bid for one of dozens of awesome creatures that happen to be paired with an extra special ability – which can lead to fun combinations like Were-Will-o-the-Wisps or peace-loving homunculi. Then spread your special skills, collect coins based on the area you control, and leave this race behind for a new one. It’s an addictive gameplay loop, often equally fun and competitive, and you can learn and play it in less than two hours. – Dave

CMON games

If you like detailed and inventive miniature games, Blood Rage may be for you. It’s a Nordic conquest game based on mythology, but unlike many other games where you just want to control the field, Blood Rage encourages players to try different game styles. You can win by, for example, conquering regions with the help of giant monsters or letting your warriors die with glory and advancing to Valhalla or by completing special quests to please the gods. The result is an experience that broadens the mind and pushes you out of the usual dichotomy between life and death that dominates conquest games. In addition, the fantasy game world is just bad. – Dave

Tierra del Fuego games

Civilization Building Games are, to say the least, an investment. One of the biggest fights in my marriage was just a few minutes after a five-hour game ended Clash of cultures – a game that I lost by one point. But Terra Mystica is surprisingly accessible once you’ve overcome the overwhelmingly complicated first impression of the gameboards. It is a game in which you spread across areas on a common game board, but also develop your own economy of gold, workers and magic on your personal game board. This leads to the ability to build structures, terraform the world and cast magic. The game is wonderfully balanced and indirectly competitive. You do not fight evil forces like in many conquest games. They block blueprints, explore occultism in temples and get the most victory points. If you’re looking for a great civ building game, Terra Mystica is the perfect place to start. – Dave

Sit down! Games

Many cooperative games can fall victim to “quarterbacking” – a person who knows the game can determine the actions of the group. They don’t really cooperate when one person makes all the decisions. Magic Maze takes this off the table with a simple rule: you must not speak while you are playing. While it sounds strange to be able to play a game with friends and not be able to speak to these friends, Magic Maze works wonderfully in practice. You are a magician in a mall trying to steal supplies. That’s pretty much all for the story. Apart from the basic requirement, the game works well with up to eight players. You control all four characters at once, but you may only be able to move the characters north while the person on your left can only move them south and another person can use escalators and move them east. The game forces rapid collaboration when time goes by. You can speak briefly when you enter certain fields, but most communication takes the form of a gentle (or aggressive) knock by a small communication pawn in front of other players. When the game is over, make up for your silence while talking breathlessly about your tight escape. – Andrew

Bigger than games

Spirit Island turns colonizing games upside down. You play the role of magical ghosts and your job is to work with the local people to ward off the colonizers who would inevitably destroy the country. Aside from a new interpretation of an old theme, Spirit Island builds tension as your strength grows and the colonizers move across the country. You have to work with other players because you only have enough energy to spend each round and you have to mitigate a lot of damage to keep the colonists in check and possibly scare them off the island. The board game escalates the danger well. You can’t be sure where the attackers will land next, but once they do land, they build in a predictable way, giving you time to prevent the worst damage and forcing you to make difficult decisions about what to save should when the problems increase. Spirit Island contains several different scenarios with different behavior from the enemy and increasing difficulty in keeping the game fresh. In addition, the different ghosts have different skills and playing styles, so you can always find a new way to play. The learning curve on Spirit Island is a bit steep, but once you get used to it, most of the rules are intuitive and you can concentrate on releasing the full power of your mind on these insidious intruders. – Andrew