Games worth losing friends over.

Trade sheep for bricks, build roads, and learn exactly which relatives will refuse you wood out of spite. The game that got a generation hooked.

Collect coloured cards, claim train routes across a map, and quietly block the one line your partner needed. Gentle on the surface. Not underneath.

Draw a tile, place it, build a medieval countryside one road at a time. Then steal someone’s city with a cleverly parked meeple.

Draft beautiful tiles to decorate a palace wall. The real game is leaving your opponent with nothing but tiles that will smash on the floor.

Gem merchants, engine building, and the sweet panic of someone reserving the card you were saving for. Teaches in five minutes.

Dominoes, but you’re building a tiny kingdom. Fast, friendly and good with kids. The pick order adds just enough cruelty.

Pass the hands, pick a dish, hope the dumplings come back around. Cute enough for children, mean enough for adults.

Giant monsters roll dice and punch each other for control of Tokyo. Loud, silly and over before anyone sulks for long.

Dreamlike art cards and one clue: too obvious and you score nothing, too obscure and nobody gets it. Rewards knowing how your friends think.

Grow bamboo, irrigate gardens, and feed a panda who eats everything you worked for. A lovely-looking game about futility.

Two spymasters, one grid of words, and clues that make perfect sense to exactly one person. Party game royalty.

Is a hot dog closer to "sandwich" or "not a sandwich"? Guess where your friend’s brain lands on the dial. Arguments are a feature.

Everyone writes a one-word clue, and duplicate clues get cancelled. A cooperative party game where great minds thinking alike is the problem.

Draw, guess, draw the guess. By the end "birthday cake" has become "arson". Bad artists are an asset.

Russian roulette with cats. Draw cards, avoid the kitten that explodes, and shove the danger onto someone you love.

Coasters, bluffing, and one skull hidden somewhere in the pile. Almost no rules, maximum staring each other down.

Loyal knights and hidden traitors go on quests. Somebody is lying and everybody is accusing. Ends friendships, briefly.

Liberals and fascists pass laws in a parliament where nobody knows who’s who. Political deduction with a very pointed sense of humour.

Claim you’re the Duke. You’re not the Duke. Call someone’s bluff or get assassinated. Ten minutes of shameless lying.

A handful of cards, a royal court, and a race to get your letter to the princess. Fits in a pocket and fills any gap.

Work together to stop four diseases before they swallow the world. Everyone wins or everyone loses, usually to an outbreak in the worst possible city.

Grab the treasures and get off the island before it sinks. A friendly first co-op, and good with older kids.

A trick-taking game played as a team, where you can barely talk. Missions get harder and the silence gets louder.

Build a fireworks show while holding your cards backwards, so everyone can see your hand except you. Trust exercise with explosives.

Play the island’s spirits and drive out the colonising invaders. A cooperative heavyweight that flips the usual empire-building story.

Classic movie monsters terrorise a village and you work together to stop them. Spooky and accessible.

Two civilisations race for science, war or wonders, drafting from a shared pyramid of cards. A two-player classic.

Two people, one quilt each, and buttons as currency. Calm, clever and much more competitive than it looks.

Rival traders in a market, selling spice and silk and hoarding camels. Quick, tense and great for couples who like to win.

Fund expeditions with a deck of numbered cards. Push your luck or bail out. A two-player card game that has lasted for a reason.

Pilot and co-pilot land a plane with dice and no talking. The only co-op where your partner’s silence can crash you into the runway.

A space-combat deck builder in a small box. Buy ships, build combos and blow up your opponent’s authority.

Attract birds to your wildlife preserve and build an engine of eggs, food and cards. Gorgeous, and quietly competitive.

Corporations compete to make Mars liveable, mostly for profit. Big, card-driven and satisfying for people who love a plan.

Cute woodland animals fighting a war where every faction plays by different rules. Adorable art, ruthless asymmetric politics.

An alternate-history 1920s Europe of farms and giant mechs. More economic standoff than war, and stunning on the table.

Build a Pacific Northwest landscape and place wildlife in the patterns they like. Relaxing, quick and easy to teach.

Woodland critters build a city under a giant tree. Worker placement wrapped in some of the loveliest production around.

Industrial-revolution economics: canals, rail, coal and beer. Brutally clever and adored by people who own spreadsheets for fun.

Plan and run a modern zoo with conservation projects and a mountain of cards. Long, deep and very replayable.

Deck building and worker placement on Arrakis. Alliances, betrayals and the spice must flow.

The Cold War for two players: coups, space races and a nuclear clock. Political strategy for people who think Mayhem needs more paperwork.

Alien races with game-breaking powers make deals and break them across the galaxy. Chaos is the point.

Pre-WWI Europe, no dice, and pure negotiation. The original friendship-ending game. Every promise is a weapon.

Play numbered cards in order without speaking. It sounds impossible. Then it works, and it feels like telepathy.

Give a one-word clue for a colour among hundreds of shades. Discover that nobody agrees what "teal" means.

Old-school car racing with a hand of cards and an engine that overheats if you push too hard. Fast, tense and great at a crowd.

Draft cards to grow an ancient civilisation. Everyone plays at once, so it handles a big table without long waits.