Holiday Board Game Gift Guide 2025 – great board game gifts

Payback

Payback is the fast-paced card game of revenge and redemption, where every move can turn an old grudge into a game-winning play. Fast, fiery, and full of twists, Payback brings pocked-sized chaos to the table and is the perfect gift for anyone who loves games with attitude and a touch of sweet justice. With rules so simple they fit on the back of the box, Payback will worm its way into your collection like a popcorn shell stuck in your tooth.

Barbecubes

Barbecubes is a sizzling dexterity game where players stack, flip, and serve up pixelated goodies to create the perfect BBQ masterpiece. With its clever mix of luck, timing, and a dash of chaos, it’s as fun for families as it is for game-night grill masters. Compact, colorful, and endlessly replayable, Barbecubes makes a mouthwatering gift for anyone who loves games with flavor.

TRND

TRND is a fast-paced card game where style, strategy, and savvy collide in a race to collect and sell the hottest trends in modern furniture. TRND is sleek, clever, and perfect for parties. It’s the ultimate gift for anyone who loves staying one step ahead of the curve.

Combo

The competition is ripe! Play apples, bananas, cherries, and more to make a shared fruit feast. Low numbers are worth more but you score only if your card is part of the winning combo! Can you lure others to follow your juicy offer, or will they be tempted by the fruit of another? Win the most points and victory is yours for the picking!

Tacta

Tacta from The Op is a sleek, tactical “real space” card game where every move stacks on top of the ones before it, testing your timing and grasp of the card interplay. Players plan bold maneuvers, and strike at just the right moment to claim victory. Simple, intense, and endlessly replayable, Tacta is the perfect gift for gamers who love strategy with a sharp, modern edge.

The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game

The Fellowship of the Ring: Trick-Taking Game from Office Dog Games brings Middle-Earth to your tabletop in a clever blend of strategy, teamwork, and tension. Players work together to journey through perilous lands, using classic trick-taking mechanics infused with thematic twists and iconic characters. Beautifully illustrated and rich with adventure, it’s the perfect gift for fans of Tolkien and anyone who loves cooperative games with epic storytelling.

Skulls of Sedlec: Essential Collection

Skulls of Sedlec: Essential Collection from Button Shy Games is a set of pocket-sized puzzles where players stack skulls to honor the dead. Featuring multiple expansions and endless combinations, this collection turns a quick game into a rich strategic experience. Compact, clever, and gorgeously illustrated, it’s a great gift for gamers who love challenges in a wallet-sized package.

PARKS: Second Edition

Discover the beauty of America’s National Parks from the comfort of your living room with Parks: Second Edition. Gameplay is simple; select one of your hikers and move them down the trail and take the benefit on the space you choose. At the end of each season — or during if you can manage — visit Parks to score points and fulfill your personal objective. The first edition of Parks was already well-loved in my house, but it’s been improved and streamlined to be even more welcoming in the newest version. Happy trails!

Knitting Circle

Knitting Circle from Flatout Games is a cozy, colorful tile laying game where players craft patterns, share yarn, and stitch together the perfect project. With its warm artwork and clever set-collection mechanics, it weaves strategy and relaxation into a delightfully tactile experience. Wholesome, charming, and beautifully designed, Knitting Circle makes a heartwarming gift for crafty gamers and anyone who loves a touch of creativity at the table.

En Route: A Stroll and Write Game

En Route from CrowD Games is an innovative Flip&Write game where players chart scenic routes, collect memories, and race to reach their destinations first. With colorful art and easy-to-learn gameplay, it captures the joy of travel and the thrill of a well-planned adventure. Light, strategic, and replayable, En Route makes a perfect gift for wanderers, families, and anyone who loves games that celebrate the journey as much as the destination.

Australis

Australis from KOSMOS Games is a clever dice game that invites players on a breathtaking journey through the East Australian Current off the coast of Australia, where discovery and strategy go hand in hand. Your sea turtles swim amidst beautiful flora and fauna as they travel along with the current, using dice drafting and set collection to earn points. Australis makes a great gift for gamers how love the ocean, gorgeous artwork, and sea turtles.

Things in Rings

Things in Rings is a Dr. Seuss themed party game where players each try to get rid of all their cards. Players play as “Finders” and attempt to correctly place “Thing” Cards into a Venn Diagram. Each Ring of the Venn Diagram has special rules. The twist? Only one player, playing as “The Knower,” knows the secret rules. Can you figure out the Rings’ logic before your opponents?

Flip 7

Flip 7 is a seriously simple party game where players push their luck in an attempt to hit 200 points first. On your turn all you have to do is decide whether to flip a card or not, blackjack style. Flip 7 cards and you instantly end the round, but flip over a card you already have and you bust, losing everything you earned that round. Press your luck meets strategy in this addictive card game that’s sure to be the greatest card game you’ve ever played!

Spicy

If any smaller gathering you’ll be attending this holiday season has friends who like bluffing games, Spicy is the game you need to bring. It’s a card game of three suits (Red Chilis, Green Wasabi, Blue Pepper) and numbers 1-10. Think someone has bluffed about the card they’ve just laid face down? Challenge it. If you’re right, you claim the cards in the pile. If you’re wrong, they get the pile and you must take two extra cards. Have the most cards at the end of the game and you win.

Santorini: Second Edition

With their first edition of Santorini, Roxley Games elevated a niche abstract strategy game into a beloved smash by adding charming artwork and beautiful components. For Santorini: Second Edition, they’ve refined the components and rebalanced the powers. Thanks to its setting in Greek mythology and its short playtime, Santorini appeals to a wide audience, but don’t be fooled. This is a nasty strategic duel. Elegant, timeless, and breathtaking, Santorini: Second Edition makes a perfect gift for gamers who appreciate beauty, depth, and replayable strategy in equal measure.

Harmonies

Harmonies is a puzzly strategy game where players craft landscapes filled with forests, rivers, and wildlife, all in pursuit of perfect natural balance. With its soothing art and puzzle-like gameplay, Harmonies transforms the table into a tapestry of color and calm. Peaceful and thoughtful, with visually stunning artwork, Harmonies makes a wonderful gift for gamers who enjoy beauty and strategy in perfect harmony.

Bomb Busters

Bomb Busters from Pegasus Spiel is the explosive party game where quick thinking and bold moves determine who defuses the chaos—or gets blown out of the running. Players work together to solve the puzzle in a fast, funny, and unpredictable showdown. Packed with tension, laughter, and just the right amount of mayhem, Bomb Busters makes an electrifying gift for thrill-seekers and game-night daredevils alike.

Positano

Positano from Slug Fest Games whisks players away to Italy’s stunning Amalfi Coast, where clever planning and a touch of luck create the ultimate seaside getaway. Players act as real estate developers, bidding for properties, and competing to build the most beautiful views of the sea. Bright, breezy, and beautifully thematic, Positano makes a perfect gift for travelers, dreamers, and anyone who loves games that feel like a holiday in a box.

Pyramido: Forgotten Treasures

Deep within the heart of a lush and mysterious jungle lies proof of a vanished tribe’s existence: the emerald canopy of Pyramido. Tales speak of majestic pyramids concealed beneath dense vegetation, each cradling precious gems of unimaginable worth. You’ll embark on a daring quest to unveil these wonders, with one precise goal: collect the largest fortune possible!

The Crew: Family Adventure

The Crew: Family Adventure from KOSMOS Games brings the award-winning cooperative card game to a new generation with a fresh, family-friendly twist. It crosses the gameplay of The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine with the setting of The Swiss Family Robinson. Players find themselves stranded on a deserted island and have to find their way around together. Eating, sleeping, making decisions — how will the adventure end?

Ayar: Children of the Sun

In Ayar: Children of the Sun, players take control of one of the first clans, journeying with the Ayar across the Andes. Follow their teaching and improve your skills at farming, pottery, weaving, and reed bundling. As well as advancing your own clan, you must influence the progress of the Ayar, ensuring the survival of those who reward your most developed skills. Seek the approval of Mama Quilla through long-term strategy, and please Inti with tactical play. Be careful not to earn the ire of one of these jealous gods because at the end of the game, whichever one favors you least will determine your final score.

Above and Below: Haunted

Above and Below: Haunted is a standalone sequel to Above and Below, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the original game. As in the original game, players compete to build the best village by recruiting villagers, constructing buildings, and exploring the caves below ground. Above and Below: Haunted features new stories and explores a new setting in the world of Arzium.

Lightning Train

When the kids are off to bed and the hot cocoa comes out next to the fire, you know I’ll be breaking out a copy of Lightning Train for a holiday nightcap. Pretend it’s the Polar Express or something, roll with me on this one. Build up the transcontinental railroad and manage deliveries with this bag-building wonder by Paul Dennen. Your actions get better as the game goes on and there’s tons of potential for pulling off dream scenarios with high payoffs each turn. There might not be a visit from Tom Hanks, but you’re bound for a heaping helping of t.hanks if you gift this one to a gamer you love.

Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders

In Tidal Blades 2: Rise of the Unfolders, each player takes the role of a new Tidal Blade, sworn guardians of the realm of Naviri. In this cooperative, narratively rich board game, players work together through 18 scenarios. Each hero is equipped with a Nexus grid, allowing them to build up actions and create powerful combos. As the story progresses in unexpected directions, you will have the opportunity to customize your character however you see fit, creating a unique and memorable experience.

Slay the Spire: The Board Game

Slay the Spire: The Board Game is a co-operative deck-building, dungeon-crawling adventure. Craft a unique deck, encounter bizarre creatures, discover relics of immense power, and finally become strong enough to slay the Spire! Each player starts with a character with unique abilities and a simple deck of cards that they can improve by adding and removing cards during the game. Slay the Spire is a rogue-like, which means that when you die (and you will die!), start over from the beginning. Take the lessons you learned and try again!

Vantage

Vantage is an open-world, co-operative, non-campaign adventure game that features an entire planet to explore, with players communicating while scattered across the world. With nearly eight hundred interconnected locations on four hundred cards and over nine hundred other discoverable cards, the world is your sandbox.

Malediction

“3D-Printable Miniatures Card Game” may sound like a Mad Libs-style word salad, but it’s actually revolutionary. Malediction is the newest release from Loot Studios, bringing tabletop wargaming to your home for a fraction of the price. Each of the four starter boxes contains both the cards you need and standees to substitute for miniatures. A QR code will get you 3D printable files to print the miniatures yourself if you’re so inclined, but the game runs perfectly without plastic.

Speakeasy

Speakeasy transports you to the roaring 1920s during the era of Prohibition. Manhattan was under the firm control of Lucky Luciano, a prominent mobster. To strengthen his grip on the territory, he implemented a well-structured system. He divided Manhattan into different districts, each assigned to a specific mobster responsible for handling their “business” operations. Speakeasy is a heavy strategy worker placement game that puts you in control of a crime family.

Zenith

In the far-off future, the solar system is inhabited by 3 races: Humans, Robots, and Animods.

Civilization runs off of Zenithium, a clean and renewable energy source, but coexistence is a struggle. Your goal: unite the planets to gain control of the senate! Players play cards to gain Influence on the 5 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter.

Azul Duel

Decorate the magnificent ceilings of the palace. Will the vaults look more beautiful by day or by night? Azul Duel invites you to play with light and pit opposites against each other. This competitive strategic game for two players retains the purity and elegance of the original Azul while adding an extra tactical dimension in which you determine the pattern in which tiles will be placed, in addition to drafting tiles to complete that pattern.

Floristry

Floristry is a 2 player, tile-laying game in which players compete at the historic Aalsmeer Dutch Auction to win the best flowers and then use them to create the most charming window display. The game features a unique web app which runs a Dutch auction each round. So you have to think fast, bid carefully, and pay close attention to get what you want at the right price– but also keep an eye on what your rival needs. Players simultaneously place their new flowers into their storefront frame to earn Charm. At the end of the game, whoever has the most Charm wins.T

High Tide

High Tide is a beautiful game to look at, with its pastel wooden hexagons and screenprinted illustrations of ocean life, to say nothing of the box design. More remarkable still, it’s an even better game than it is an aesthetic object. Games of High Tide are short, lasting less than the 15 minutes advertised on the box, but they are full of rich decisions. Like all the best abstract games, you are constantly put in a position of evaluating tradeoffs, of surrendering a position here to develop elsewhere. The rules are light, the pieces are beautiful, and the game is one of this year’s best.

Toy Battle

The soldiers may be small, but the stakes are huge in Toy Battle, the Stratego-like game that pits two players against each other in a game of attacks and counter-attacks to control the gameboard. You’ll have to outwit, outthink, and outlast your opponent as you activate the abilities of various toys. Surround areas to earn victory stars or go all-in on an attempt to capture the enemy HQ. Rounds are quick enough to pick up and play multiple times in the row to see who is better at commanding the forces of joy and plastic.