Five of the best digital games to play on digital boards.
Five of the best digital games to play on digital boards.
Board games are some of the oldest games in the world. The most ancient known board game is the Royal Game of Ur, originating about 4,000 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia. And a lot of these games, Mancala, Mahjong, Chess, they’re still played today. And when you look at modern games today, there is a not-insignificant part of the video game market made up of digital board games. And it’s a bit silly, but at the same time a lot of these games aren’t just ‘board games,’ they use the base of board game mechanics and style with the power of modern machines to make these unique and powerful experiences.
As a note, ‘Tabletop Simulator’ isn’t being included on this list, because it’s technically every board game, and that’s not what this list is about. But without further ado we’re diving into some of the best board games available right now on Steam.
For what it’s worth, For The King isn’t really a board game. It is a game that is played on a board, and uses mechanics that are ostensibly board game-like, but it feels closer to a turn based rpg than a board game. But! It’s tagged as a board game on Steam. And so for our purposes, we’ll count it.
For The King puts you in the shoes of a default adventurer, along with 1-2 of your friends, to explore a fantasy kingdom and destroy the dark lord. The premise is simple enough, but the game draws you in with fun and dynamic combats, unique abilities, and an engaging open world.
While it’s not the most board-like board game, the open world acts as a very large board, in which the players move around spaces and interact with special events on some of them. It’s a very fun game to play with 2 other friends and it’s not too expensive, either!
Dokapon Kingdom Connect is a four player board game that is some odd mix of Catan, Monopoly, and JRPG mechanics, where all the players travel around a wide board of a fantastical kingdom saving towns from monsters and expanding their influence. The end goal of the game is to reach the last turn with the most money, which creates more interesting interactions with you’d expect.
One of the best parts of the game is how it is a race to win, but the player versus player mechanics don’t stop at just trying to win. It also involves how you can fight monsters, if you enter the same space as another player, you can fight them and kill them, effectively taking them out of the game for a turn or two.
There are a lot of ways to mess with other players and step on their heads on your path to victory, inciting emotions previously only thought possible through Monopoly.
The first single-player game on this list, 5d Chess with Multiverse Time Travel’s hilariously absurd name is actually pretty indicative of its game play. It at first presents itself as a relatively normal game of chess, but they very quickly introduce the multiverse and time travel mechanics. All pieces are locked into their normal movement patterns, with the exception that they can move to these spaces to past or future game boards (which the game keeps track of) to pull out moves that your opponent wouldn’t expect. Each move like this creates a new divergent timeline, and to “win,” you need to reach checkmate against your opponent in a way that also traps their king through space and time and alternate dimensions.
It is frankly very difficult to explain, and playing it doesn't exactly clear much up either. But if you’re a fan of highly difficult puzzles then give it a shot.
Much in line with previous games, Pummel Party is a 4-8 player game in which the players travel around a board, playing crazy minigames and winning against the other players by inflicting immense levels of cartoon violence on them. It’s awfully reminiscent of the well known Mario Party, or the more indie Move or Die, in which players run around a big board rolling dice in the former and players die spectacularly in the latter
The game is rendered in a fun low poly style that makes the cartoon violence and wild blood splatters much more charming. The game gives its players no mercy and truly doesn’t hold back, making it a fun and memorable experience for all players. Pummel your friends with a variety of ridiculous items and be the last one standing to claim glorious, bloody victory over everybody else. But in a cartoon way!
The Risk game on Steam is, at its core, probably very similar to the actual board game. You can play it just like the board game against AIs or other players online, and with automatic calculations and digital dice it’s much easier to play than it would be otherwise.
But the Steam version innovates, adding different options and abilities for players, and the developers are always adding new maps to the game of different regions and scenarios. It comes with a neat zombie mode that puts a brand new spin on the original Risk, among a couple of other unique add-ons.
If you like Risk then you’ll like this game because it is the same game at its core, and the game is well liked by all ages.
Thank you for reading up to this point! If you liked this article, then you’re sure to like this article about the best story games on Steam. Or, you might like the best city and settlement games on Steam.
