Recommended By Us
A hand-picked selection of our favourite tabletop games and puzzles, as recommended by our booksellers and resident game experts.
Destinies Game
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Games & Puzzles
$62.00
Reader Reward Price: $55.80
Destinies is a competitive, story-driven, game of adventure and exploration, mixing an app and a board game. The first in a series of games using a brand-new system called Destinies. This game is set in a dark medieval-fantasy universe. The Destinies system offers a fully story-driven, app-supported, RPG-like board game experience, without the need for a game master. Each scenario depicts a part of a vivid world, full of dark stories, epic NPCs and mysteries to solve. Each player takes the role of a hero on a quest to fulfill their destiny. Each destiny is a final goal of the character and has at least two, completely different paths to victory, composed of branching series of quests. Players compete with each other to push the world towards their own destiny. The game uses an app and the Scan & Play technology to offer players a unique story-driven experience full of dynamic events, epic adventures, and an ever-changing game world. Each turn players discover new parts of the world presented on tiles, explore them and pick one point of interest to visit. There they learn more about the story and make crucial choices of how they want to interact with people, creatures or situations faced there. The consequences of each choice are meaningful and often change the state of the world forever. Ages: 14+ Number of players: 1 - 3 Playing Time: up to 120 minutes
Scythe Game
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Games & Puzzles
$128.00
Reader Reward Price: $115.20
Scythe (2016) 8.4 Board Game Geek 1-5 Players - 90-115 Min Playing Time - Age: 14+ It is a time of unrest in 1920s Europa. The ashes from the first great war still darken the snow. The capitalistic city-state known simply as "The Factory", which fueled the war with heavily armored mechs, has closed its doors, drawing the attention of several nearby countries. Scythe is a Worker Placement/Economic Engine board game set in an alternate-history 1920s period. It is a time of farming and war, broken hearts and rusted gears, innovation and valor. In Scythe, each player represents a character from one of five factions of Eastern Europa who are attempting to earn their fortune and claim their faction's stake in the land around the mysterious Factory. Players conquer territory, enlist new recruits, reap resources, gain villagers, build structures, and activate monstrous mechs. Each player begins the game with different resources (power, coins, combat acumen, and popularity), a different starting location, and a hidden goal. Starting positions are specially calibrated to contribute to each faction's uniqueness and the asymmetrical nature of the game (each faction always starts in the same place). Scythe gives players almost complete control over their fate. Other than each player's individual hidden objective card, the only elements of luck or variability are "encounter" cards that players will draw as they interact with the citizens of newly explored lands. Each encounter card provides the player with several options, allowing them to mitigate the luck of the draw through their selection. Combat is also driven by choices, not luck or randomness. Scythe uses a streamlined action-selection mechanism (no rounds or phases) to keep gameplay moving at a brisk pace and reduce downtime between turns. While there is plenty of direct conflict for players who seek it, there is no player elimination. Every part of Scythe has an aspect of engine-building to it. Players can upgrade actions to become more efficient, build structures that improve their position on the map, enlist new recruits to enhance character abilities, activate mechs to deter opponents from invading, and expand their borders to reap greater types and quantities of resources. These engine-building aspects create a sense of momentum and progress throughout the game. The order in which players improve their engine adds to the unique feel of each game, even when playing one faction multiple times.
Galaxy Trucker Game
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Games & Puzzles
$46.00
Reader Reward Price: $41.40
The ageless classic has relaunched! It's modernized, faster, more accessible, and just as fun as ever!Build a space ship and fly across the Galaxy. Transport goods. Fight pirates. Dodge meteors. Watch fellow players' ships explode as you fly on to victory!Load up for an intense, humor-filled haul with Galaxy Trucker. It's an absolute blast!In this fast and goofy family game, 2 to 4 players begin by simultaneously rummaging through the common warehouse, frantically trying to grab the most useful component tiles for building their space ship--all in real-time.Once the ships are launched, players will encounter dangerous situations, while vying for financial opportunities--each hoping to gain the most valuable cargo and finish with as much of their ship still intact as possible.Of course, that's easier said than done, since many hazards will comically send pieces of your ship, your cargo, and your crew hurling into the depths of space.The goal is to have the most credits at the end of the game. Players earn credits by delivering goods, defeating pirates, having the best looking ship, and reaching their destination before the others. Ages: 10+ Number of players: 2 - 4 Playing Time: up to 90 minutes
Fake Artist Goes To New York Game
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Games & Puzzles
$29.00
Reader Reward Price: $26.10
A Fake Artist Goes to New York is a party game for 5-10 players. Players take turns being the Question Master, whose role is to set a category, write a word within that category on dry erase cards, and hand those out to other players as artists. At the same time, one player will have only an "X" written on his card. He is the fake artist!
Players will then go around the table twice, drawing one contiguous stroke each on a paper to draw the word established by the Question Master, then guess who the fake artist is. If the fake artist is not caught, both the fake artist and the Question Master earn points; if the fake artist is caught and cannot guess what the word is, the artists earn points.
Number of Players: 5-10
Playing Time: 20 Minutes
Recommended Ages: 8+
Deep Sea Adventure Game
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Games & Puzzles
$29.00
Reader Reward Price: $26.10
A group of poor explorers hoping to get rich quickly heads out to recover treasures from some undersea ruins. They're all rivals, but their budgets force them all to share a single rented submarine. In the rented submarine, they all have to share a single tank of air, as well. If they don't get back to the sub before they run out of air, they'll drop all their treasure. Now it's time to see who can bring home the greatest riches.
Game Objective
The game takes place over 3 rounds, and the player to gain the most points over the 3 rounds is the winner. In order to gain points, you must bring the most ruins chips back to the submarine. You can only return to the submarine once per round, and you cannot progress more after returning. You cannot return to the submarine without bringing any ruins chips.
Turn Progression
On their turns, players conduct steps 1-4 listed below. Players take turns, going clockwise around the board, and the round ends when all players have returned to the submarine, or if the air runs out at the beginning of someone's turn.
1) Declare if you will turn back or not.
2) Reduce air.
3) Roll the dice and advance your game piece.
4) Search. (When you have stopped moving, select one of A-C below)
A) Do nothing.
B) Pick up ruins chip.
C) Place a ruins chip.
Number of Players: 2-6
Playing Time: 30 Minutes
Recommended Ages: 8+
Ganz Schon Clever That's Pretty Clever
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Games & Puzzles
$34.00
Reader Reward Price: $30.60
Ganz Schön Clever (That's Pretty Clever!) 1-4 Players 30 Min Ages 8+ Choose your dice well in Ganz schön clever to enter them into the matching colored area, put together tricky chain-scoring opportunities, and rack up the points. The dice you don't use are as important as what you do because every die that's smaller than the chosen one can be used by the other players, keeping everyone in the game at all times. AWARDS & HONORS 2018 Kennerspiel des Jahres Nominee
Fox In The Forest Game
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Games & Puzzles
$20.00
Reader Reward Price: $18.00
The Fox in the Forest (2017) In this trick-taking game for 2, you must win more than your rival--but not too much! 2 Players 30 Min Playing Time Age: 10+ The Fox in the Forest is a trick-taking game for two players. Aside from the normal ranked- and suited-cards used to win tricks, fairy characters such as the Fox and the Witch have special abilities that let you change the trump suit, lead even after you lose a trick, and more. You score points by winning more tricks than your opponent, but don't get greedy! Win too many tricks, and you will fall like the villain in so many fairy tales... Awards & Honors 2020 Spiel des Jahres Recommended 2018 Origins Awards Best Card Game Nominee 2018 International Gamers Award - General Strategy: Two-playersNominee 2017 Golden Geek Best Card Game Nominee 2017 Golden Geek Best 2-Player Board Game Nominee 2017 Board Game Quest Awards Best Two Player Game Winner 2017 Board Game Quest Awards Best Two Player Game Nominee2017 Board Game Quest Awards Best Card Game Nominee
Cartographers Game
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Games & Puzzles
$29.00
Reader Reward Price: $26.10
In Cartographers: A Roll Player Tale, players compete to get the highest reputation at the end of four seasons. Each season, players draw on their map sheet and score against unique conditions at the end of the season. But you are not alone in this wilderness. The Dragul contest your claims with their outposts, and so you must draw your lines carefully to reduce their influence. The player with the highest reputation at the end of the year is declared the winner.
Welcome To Your Perfect Home Game
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Games & Puzzles
$37.00
Reader Reward Price: $33.30
In Welcome To, players take on the role of 1950's American architects, building and planning suburban neighborhoods. Players compete to be named Best Suburb by giving the houses in their developments the best parks, pools, and curb appeal. The game supports 1 to 100 players out of the box and is perfect for any size playgroup, because everyone takes their turn at the same time! Ages: 10+ Number of players: 1 Playing Time: up to 45 minutes
Here To Slay
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Games & Puzzles
$30.00
Reader Reward Price: $27.00
Here to Slay is a competitive role-playing fantasy strategy card game that's all about assembling a party of Heroes and slaying monsters (and sometimes sabotaging your friends too) from the creators of Unstable Unicorns. In this game, you’ll assemble a full party of heroes to slay dangerous monsters while working to avoid the sabotage of your foes. The game also includes items you can equip to your heroes, 1V1 challenge cards, and roll modifiers to tip the odds in your favor. 2–6 Players. 15–90 Minutes Playing Time. Recommended age: 14+
Imperium Classics
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Games & Puzzles
$64.00
Reader Reward Price: $57.60
An asymmetric card-based civilization building game for 1-4 players, charting the rise and fall of some of the greatest civilizations from history and legend.
Formidable adversaries are arrayed against you. Your people stand ready. History beckons.
In your hands lies the destiny of one of history's great civilizations. Under constant threat of attack, you must conquer new lands, oversee dramatic scientific and cultural advances and lead your people into the era of empire. Expand too rapidly and unrest will bring your civilization to its knees; build up too slowly, however, and you might find yourself a mere footnote of history. As one of eight radically asymmetric civilizations you will compete to become the most dominant empire the world has ever seen.
Imperium: Classics is a standalone game that contains the Carthaginian, Celt, Greek, Macedonian, Persian, Roman, Scythian, and Viking civilisations and an individual solo opponent behaving as each nation. It is fully compatible with Imperium: Legends for players wanting to expand their pool of civilisations even further.
Canvas Game
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Games & Puzzles
$51.00
Reader Reward Price: $45.90
In Canvas, you play as a painter competing in an art competition. Players will collect art cards, layering 3 of them together to create their own unique Painting. Each card contains a piece of artwork as well as a set of icons used during scoring. Icons will be revealed or hidden based on the way players choose to layer the cards making for an exciting puzzle. Paintings are scored based on a set of Scoring cards which will change each game. Once players have created and scored 3 paintings the game ends. On your turn you may take an Art card or make a painting. Art cards are selected from a row of cards in the center of play. Each of these cards has a cost associated with their position. After selecting an Art card you must pay its cost by placing an Inspiration token on each of the cards to its left. If you do not have enough Inspiration tokens, you may not select that card. Any tokens on the card you have selected are kept for future turns. The far left card costs no Inspiration tokens to take. If you have three or more Art cards you may chose to make a painting. Select 3 of your art cards, arrange them in any order and then score them by comparing the visible icons on your painting to the Scoring conditions. Once all players have made 3 paintings the game ends. The player with the most points wins!
Cockroach Poker
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Games & Puzzles
$15.00
Reader Reward Price: $13.50
Cockroach Poker is a game for winners! Cockroach Poker is a reverse set collection game that all about bluffing.
Players will put a card in front of another player and declare what critter is on the card, the recipient can either call out the player, or peek at the card and pass it to someone else and re-affirm or change what the critter is.
The game ends when a player has no cards to pass on his turn or when a player has four cards of the same critter on the table in front of him. In either case, this player loses and everyone else wins!
Enjoyable for the whole family.
Easy to learn and play.
Small - put it in your pocket and take to play!
Parks Game
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Games & Puzzles
$63.00
Reader Reward Price: $56.70
PARKS is a celebration of the US National Parks featuring illustrious art from Fifty-Nine Parks. In PARKS, players will take on the role of two hikers as they trek through different trails across four seasons of the year. While on the trail, these hikers will take actions and collect memories of the places your hikers visit. These memories are represented by various resource tokens like mountains and forests. Collecting these memories in sets will allow players to trade them in to visit a National Park at the end of each hike. Each trail represents one season of the year, and each season, the trails will change and grow steadily longer. The trails, represented by tiles, get shuffled in between each season and laid out anew for the next round. Resources can be tough to come by especially when someone is at the place you’re trying to reach! Campfires allow you to share a space and time with other hikers. Canteens and Gear can also be used to improve your access to resources through the game. It’ll be tough to manage building up your engine versus spending resources on parks, but we bet you’re up to the challenge. Welcome to PARKS! 1–5 Players. 30–60 Minutes. Ages: 10+
Undaunted Normandy
- David Thompson 
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Games & Puzzles
$64.00
Reader Reward Price: $57.60
A two-player deck-building war game, pitting players against one another in the European theater of World War II.
June, 1944. Through the D-Day landings, the Allies have seized a foothold on the beaches of Normandy. Now you must lead your troops forward as you push deeper into France and drive the German forces back. You will face intense resistance, machine gun fire, and mortar bombardment, but a great commander can turn the situation to their advantage!
Undaunted: Normandy is a deck-building game that places you and your opponent in command of American or German forces, fighting through a series of missions critical to the outcome of World War II. Use your cards to seize the initiative, bolster your forces, or control your troops on the battlefield. Strong leadership can turn the tide of battle in your favour, but reckless decisions could prove catastrophic, as every casualty you take removes a card from your deck. Take charge amidst the chaos of battle, hold fast in the face of opposition, and remain undaunted.
Players: 2
Ages: 14+
Playing Time: 45-60 minutes
Contents: 108 cards, 18 large map tiles, dice, tokens, campaign booklet
A hand-picked selection of our favourite tabletop games and puzzles, as recommended by our booksellers and resident game experts.
